TEMPLE OF JUNO MONETA.

95

of the people by pointing to the temple and citadel which he had saved. The tribunes, to deprive him of this appeal, transferred the assembly to the Lucus Poetelinus, just outside the Porta Flumentana; from which, as it lay close under the southern extremity of the hill, and as the view was obstructed by trees, the Capitoline temple was not visible.1 Manlius was now condemned and hurled from the Tarpeian rock. His punishment was followed by a decree that no patrician should thenceforth reside upon the Capitoline Hill. The house of Manlius appears also to have been razed, and thirty or forty years afterwards (B.c. 345) was erected upon its site the famous TEMPLE OF JUNO MONETA, in pursuance of a vow of the dictator L. Furius Camillus.3

Rome was not yet secure from the insults of her enemies. In B.C. 380 the Prænestines, relying on seditions which prevented the enrolling of a Roman army, appeared before the Colline gate and pitched their camp on the river Allia, where, however, they were defeated by the dictator T. Quinctius Cincinnatus.* The war ended with the capture of eight cities belonging to the Prænestines, and the surrender of Præneste itself; whence the triumphant dictator carried to Rome a statue of Jupiter Imperator, and dedicated it in the Capitol, between the cells of Jove and Minerva. The Gauls also reappeared in B.C. 367, and many battles with them ensued. In B.C. 361 they penetrated by the Salarian road to within three miles of Rome; and here it was that T. Manlius fought the single combat by which he earned the golden collar of his Gallic adversary, and the surname of Torquatus.

1 I have adverted in the article Roma, p. 751, to the use which may be made of this account to determine the situation of the temple. 2 Liv. vi. 20. 3 Ibid. vii. 28. 4 Ibid. vi. 28 sq.

96

THE ROSTRA-THE COLUMNA MENIA.

It seems not improbable that the celebrated statue of the dying Gaul in the Capitoline Museum may have been suggested by this event. Next year the Gauls again appeared before the Colline gate, and other struggles took place with them in the neighbourhood of Rome down to the year B.C. 349; after which, we hear no more of them for half a century. It was in the last-named year that M. Valerius obtained the surname of Corvus or Corvinus, from being assisted by a raven in a single combat with a Gaul.1

After the final subjugation of Latium in B.C. 338, several Latin cities received the right of Roman citizenship, while others were treated with severity. The people of Antium, though they were admitted to the privilege of citizenship, were deprived of their fleet; part of their ships of war were carried up the Tiber to the Roman arsenal, and part were burnt. A suggestum, or raised place in the Forum, having been adorned with the beaks of those destroyed, and inaugurated as a temple, received the name of ROSTRA, and became the usual place whence orators addressed the people. The Rostra stood before the Curia Hostilia on or near the Comitium.2 A victory of C. Mænius in this war was commemorated, according to Pliny, by the erection of a column on the Forum, called COLUMNA MÆNIA; the first example of such a monument at Rome.3

That love of the Romans for public life, who delighted

1 Liv. vii. 26.

2 Liv. viii. 14.

"Ante hanc (Curiam Host.) Rostra, cujus loci id vocabulum, quod ex hostibus capta fixa sunt rostra.”—Varr. L. L. "Erant enim tunc Rostra non eo loco quo nunc sunt, sed ad

v. 155.

Comitium prope juncta Curiæ."-Ascon. Cic. Mil. 5.

3 Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 11. But Livy, viii. 13, calls the monument an equestrian statue. See below, p. 109, note 2.

THE LECTISTERNIUM.

97

in shows and festivals, in games, triumphs, and processions, in political and judicial deliberations held in the open air, manifested itself also even in the calamities which sometimes desolated Rome. Hence the practice of propitiating the gods during a pestilence by a Lectisternium; a custom first introduced in the pestilence with which the city was afflicted in B.C. 399. The statues of Apollo, Latona, and Diana, to whom the origin of pestilences was attributed, were laid upon. couches during eight days; those of Hercules, Neptune, and Mercury, three.' The Romans, however, did not content themselves with this public ceremony. The doors were thrown open throughout the city; the use of all things was made common; everybody, whether an acquaintance or a stranger, was hospitably received; old enmities were reconciled, and quarrels and law-suits laid aside. A still more singular mode of propitiation was adopted in the pestilence of B.C. 365. A lectisternium was for the third time celebrated; but as it proved of no effect, theatrical spectacles were introduced by way of appeasing the wrath of the gods. The only probable reason for adopting so strange a method seems to be, that, by diverting the minds of the people from pondering upon their calamities, they might obtain a better chance of escaping or throwing off the malady. On such occasions moral causes are not altogether without effect, and perhaps even the lectisternium itself might have been suggested by this reflection. Hitherto the only public spectacle had been the games of the circus; the entertainment now introduced from Etruria seems

2

1 Hercules was regarded at Rome as the giver of health. Neptune, or the sea, was supposed to be connected with pestilence, and Mercury was probably propitiated as the conductor of the souls of men. 2 Liv. v. 13.

H

98

THE ETRUSCAN LUDIONES.

to have been merely a sort of dance. The players, who were Etruscans, uttered not a word, nor imitated 'any action or story with their gestures; they only executed some graceful movements to the sound of pipes. This novel entertainment was received with great favour. The Roman youth began in a rude way to imitate the dancers, adding, however, some jocular verses, to which they adapted their movements; in fact, the old Fescennine verse, only more rhythmical, set to music, and accompanied with appropriate action. The Roman who practised this art was called histrio, from hister, the Tuscan name for a player. More than a century was to elapse before Livius Andronicus introduced the regular drama, as we shall have to relate further on. In fact, it may be doubted whether Horace's complaint—

Jam migravit ab aure voluptas

Omnis ad incertos oculos et gaudia vana 1

is well founded. The Romans from the beginning preferred to be spectators rather than hearers, and among them the regular drama was never much more than an exotic entertainment. The introduction of the Etruscan ludiones did not, however, answer the purpose for which it was intended. The performance was interrupted by the Tiber inundating the circus; a sign of the divine displeasure which filled the Romans with consternation.2 |

Yet although this love for outdoor life and for magnificent spectacles would seem to indicate a cheerful disposition, many of the Roman customs show a gloomy and savage barbarity. Such were human sacrifices, and especially the mode of them by burying alive. This punishment was not restricted to unchaste Vestals,

1

Epp. ii. 1, 187.

2 Liv. vii. 2, 3.

THE CAMPUS SCELERATUS.

99

though even in such a case it seems barbarous enough. In B.C. 337, the Vestal Minucia was condemned by the Pontifices, on the evidence of a slave, to be buried alive just inside the Porta Collina; for guilty Vestals still retained the privilege of interment within the walls. This is the first execution of the kind recorded by Livy,1 but Dionysius mentions a former instance of Pinaria, in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus.2 The place where Minucia was buried, just under the northern extremity of the Servian agger, obtained the name of CAMPUS SCELERATUS. Such was the inquisition of those pagan days; luckily, however, unlike modern times, the victims were taken only from the priesthood. The younger Pliny has left us a touching picture of the dignified death of Cornelia, chief of the Vestals, condemned, though innocent, or at all events untried, by Domitian.3 Other instances of interment alive were either acts of self-devotion, or were adopted, in remarkably disastrous conjunctures, in lieu of regular sacrifices.

An anecdote belonging to this period (B.c. 311) is of a more genial nature, and affords a glimpse of Roman manners in those times. The pipers, a jovial crew, fond of good eating and drinking, having been deprived by the censors of their ancient customary feast in the Temple of Jupiter, struck to a man and departed in a body to Tibur. Next day, lo! there was nobody to pipe before the sacrifices! The senate was perplexed. The pipers knew their value, and had hit the right nail; it was a matter of religion, and at Rome religion was the soul of the state. As in a case of the weightiest political importance, ambassadors were despatched to the Tiburtines to procure the restitution of the vagabond musicians.

1 viii. 15.

2

ii. 67, iii. 67.

3

Epp. iv. 11.