Part 10

To do this they invented a kind of big hook which they called a “crow.” The idea was for a ship to run close alongside a Carthaginian ship and, instead of trying to sink her, to throw out this big hook or “crow,” catch hold of the other ship, and pull both boats dose together. The Roman soldiers would then scramble over the sides into the enemy’s boat and fight them the same way they would on land.

The scheme worked.

This new kind of fighting took the Carthaginians by surprise, and they were no match for the Romans at first.

But Rome did not have things all her own way by any means. The Carthaginians soon learned how to fight in this fashion, too. So Rome lost, as well as won, battles both on land and on sea. But at last she did win, and the Carthaginians were beaten. Thus ended the first Punic War.

31

The Boot Kicks and Stamps

But the Carthaginians were not beaten for good. They were only waiting for another chance to get even. As, however, they had been unsuccessful in attacking Italy from in front as they had been doing, they made up their minds to attack her from the back. Their scheme was to go the long way round through Spain and down into Italy from the north.

In order to do this, they had first of all to conquer Spain so that they could get through. They did this, however, rather easily, for the Carthaginians had a very great general named Hannibal. But then came the great difficulty, to get into Italy by this back way.

Across the top of the “boot,” at the north of Italy, there are the great mountains called the Alps. They are miles high and covered even in summer with ice and snow. There are crags and steep cliffs along which any one passing who made a single misstep would be dashed to death thousands of feet below.

It was the Alps, therefore, that formed a bigger and better wall than any city or country could possibly build. Of course the Romans thought it impossible for any army to climb over such a terribly high and dangerous wall.

Time and again there have been things that people call impossible to do, and then some one has come along and done them.

People said it was impossible to fly.

Then some one did it.

People said it was impossible to cross the Alps with an army.

Then Hannibal came along, and before the Romans knew what had happened he had done it. He had crossed the Alps with his army and was in at the back door!

The Romans were unable to keep him from marching on toward their city, winning battle after battle as he came along. They were unable to prevent him marching up and down Italy, conquering other towns in Italy and doing pretty much as he pleased. It seemed as if Rome were beaten and she were to lose all of Italy.

Now, in some games, if you can’t defend your own goal, it may be a good plan to try attacking your opponent’s goal.

Rome thought she would try this plan. While Hannibal was attacking her, she herself would attack Carthage while its general was away and there was no strong goal-keeper to defend that city.

So the Romans sent a young man named Scipio with an army to do this.

First, however, Scipio went to Spain to cut Hannibal off from the way he had come, and this country Scipio reconquered.

Then he went over to Africa to attack Carthage itself.

The Carthaginians, frightened at being attacked with their general and his army far off in Italy, sent as fast as they could for Hannibal to come home. When at last he arrived, it was too late. Scipio fought a famous battle at Zama near Carthage, and the Carthaginians were beaten, beaten a second time by the Romans. Thus ended the second Punic War in 202 B.C. This is another easy name and easy date--just like a telephone number:

Zama--two-O-two.

The Romans had won two wars against Carthage; you would think that they would now have been satisfied. But they weren’t. They thought they had not beaten Carthage badly enough. They were afraid she was not quite dead or that she might come to life. They thought there might be a little spark left that might start a fire if it weren’t trampled out.

Now, it is bad sport to pummel your opponent after he is beaten, and Carthage was beaten--beaten, black and blue--there was no hope of her “coming back.” And yet a few years later the Romans attacked her again for the third and last time.

Carthage was unable to defend herself, and the Romans viciously burned the city to the ground. It is said they even plowed over the land so that no trace of the city should remain, and sowed it with salt which prevented anything growing there. After that Carthage was never rebuilt, and now it is hard to tell even where the old city once was.

[Illustration]

32

The New Champion of the World

You can well imagine how proud all the Romans now were that they _were_ Romans, for Rome was the champion fighter of the world. If a man could toss his head and say, “I am a Roman citizen,” people were always ready to do something for him, afraid to do him any harm, afraid what might happen to them if they did. Rome was ruler not only of Italy but of Spain and Africa. Like other nations before her, once she had started conquering, she kept on conquering, until by 100 B.C. she in her turn was ruler of almost all the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea--all except Egypt.

The New Champion of the World, who was to be champion for a great many years, was very businesslike and practical.

The Greeks loved beautiful things, beautiful buildings, beautiful sculpture, beautiful poems. The Romans copied the Greeks and learned from them how to make many beautiful things, but the Romans were most interested in practical and useful things.

For example, now that Rome ruled the world, she had to be able to send messengers and armies easily and quickly in every direction to the end of her empire and back again. So it was necessary for her to have roads, for of course there were no railroads then. Now, an ordinary road made by simply clearing away the ground gets full of deep ruts and in rainy weather becomes so muddy that it can hardly be used at all.

So Rome set to work and built roads. These roads were like paved streets. Large rocks were placed at the bottom for a foundation, smaller stones placed on top, and large, flat paving-stones laid over all. Thousands of miles of such roads she built to all parts of her empire. One could go from almost anywhere all the way to Rome on paved roads. We still have an expression, “All roads lead to Rome.” So well were these roads made that many of them still exist to-day, two thousand years after they were built.

The Romans also showed their practical minds by making two very important city improvements. If you live in a city, you turn on a spigot and you get plenty of pure water whenever you want it. The people in cities at that time, however, usually had to get their water both for drinking and for washing from wells or springs near-by. These springs and wells often became dirty and made the people very sick. And so every once in a while because of such dirty water there were those terrible plagues, those terribly contagious diseases like the one I told you about in Athens when people died faster than they could be buried.

[Illustration: Roman Aqueduct.]

The Romans wanted pure water, and so they set to work to find lakes from which they could get pure water. As oftentimes these lakes were many miles away from the city, they then built big pipes to carry the water all the way to the city. Such a pipe was not made of iron or terra-cotta as nowadays, but of stone and concrete, and was called an “aqueduct,” which in Latin means “water-carrier.” If this aqueduct had to cross a river or a valley, they built a bridge to hold it up. Many of these Roman aqueducts are still standing and in use to-day.

Now, up to this time waste water, after it had been used, and also every other kind of dirt and refuse, was simply dumped into the street. This naturally made the city or town filthy and unhealthy and was another cause of plagues. But the Romans built great underground sewers to carry off this dirt and waste water and empty it into the river or into some other place where it would do no harm and cause no sickness. Nowadays, every large city has aqueducts and sewers as a matter of course, but the Romans were the first to build them on a large scale.

One of the most important things that Rome did was to make rules that every one had to obey; laws, we call them. Many of these laws were so fair and just that some of our own laws to-day are copied from them.

All the cities and towns of the Roman Empire had to pay money or taxes to Rome. So Rome became the richest city in the world. Millions of this money, which was brought to her, was spent in putting up beautiful buildings in the city, temples to the gods, splendid palaces for the rulers, public baths and huge open-air places called amphitheaters where the people could be amused.

The amphitheaters were something like our football and baseball fields or stadiums. They did not have football or baseball, however. They had chariot-races, and deadly fights between men, or between men and animals. Chariots were small carts with large wheels drawn by two or by four horses and driven by a man standing up. Perhaps you have seen chariot-races in the circus.

But the sport that the Romans enjoyed most of all was a Fight of Gladiators. Gladiators were very strong and powerful men who had been captured in battle by the Romans. They were made to fight with one another or with wild animals for the amusement of the crowd. These gladiatorial fights were very cruel, but the Romans enjoyed seeing blood shed. They liked to see one man kill another or a wild animal. It was so amusing. The movies would not have interested them half so much. Usually the gladiators fought until one or the other was killed, for the people were not, as a rule, satisfied until this was done.

Sometimes, however, if a gladiator, who had been knocked out, had shown himself particularly brave and a good fighter or a good sport, the people seated all around the amphitheater would turn their thumbs _up_ as a sign that his life was to be spared by the other gladiator. So the winning gladiator, before killing his opponent whom he had down, would wait to see what the people wished. If they turned their thumbs _down_, it meant he was to finish the fight by killing his man.

But although Rome had become such a fine and beautiful and healthy city in which to live, the rich people were getting most of the money that came there from all over the empire. They were getting richer and richer all the time, while the poor people, who got nothing, were getting poorer and poorer all the time. The Romans brought the people whom they conquered in battle to Rome and made them work for them without pay. These were slaves and they did all the work. It is said that there were more than twice as many slaves as Romans--two slaves for every Roman citizen.

Now, Scipio, who had conquered Hannibal in the Punic War, had a daughter named Cornelia Graccha, and she had two sons. They were very fine boys, and Cornelia was naturally very proud of them.

One day a very rich Roman woman was visiting Cornelia and showing off all her rings and necklaces and other ornaments, of which she had a great many and was very proud.

When she had shown off all she had, she asked to see Cornelia’s jewels.

Cornelia called to her two boys, who were playing outside, and when they came in to their mother she put her arms around them and said:

“_These_ are _my_ jewels.”

But boys who are jewels when they are young do not always turn out to be jewels when they grow up. So you may wonder how Cornelia’s jewels tinned out.

When they grew up, the Gracchi, as they were called, saw such great extravagance among the rich and such great misery among the poor that they wanted to do something about it. They saw that the poor had hardly anything to eat and no place to live. This did not seem fair. So they tried to lower the price of food, so that the poor might be able to buy enough to eat. Then they tried to find some way to give the poor at least a small piece of land where they might raise a few vegetables. They were partly successful in bringing this about. But the rich people didn’t like giving up anything to the poor, and they killed one of the Gracchus brothers, and later they killed the other one, also. These were Cornelia’s jewels.

33

The Noblest Roman of Them All

Here’s a puzzle for you:

A man once found a very old piece of money that had on it the date “100 B. C.”

That couldn’t be so. Why not? See if you can tell without looking at the answer at the bottom of the page.[1]

[1] People living 100 years before Christ was born could not have known when he was to be born and so could not put such a date on the coins they made.

In the year 100 B. C. was born in Rome a boy who was named Julius Cæsar.

If you had asked him when he was born, he would have said in the Year 653.

Why do you suppose?

Because Roman boys counted time from the founding of Rome in 753 B. C., and Cæsar was born 653 years after the city was founded. That makes it 100 years before Christ, doesn’t it?

_Pirates_ seemed to be everywhere in the Mediterranean Sea at that time--_Pirates_. Now that Rome was ruler of the world, there were many ships carrying gold from different parts of the empire to Rome. So the pirates sailed up and down, lying in wait to capture and rob these ships laden with gold.

When Cæsar grew to be a young man, he was sent off to sea to fight these pirates, and he was captured by them. The pirates kept Cæsar a prisoner and sent to Rome saying they would not let him go unless Rome sent them a great deal of money. Cæsar knew that he would be killed if the money was not sent. He knew, too, that he might be killed, anyway. But he was not only not afraid but he told the pirates that if he lived to get back home he would return with a fleet and punish every one of them. When at last the money came they let him go, nevertheless. They thought Cæsar would not dare to do what he said. They thought he was just “talking big.” At any rate, they did not believe he would be able to catch them. Cæsar, however, kept his word, came back after them as he said he would do, and took them prisoners. Then he had them all put to death on the cross, which was the Roman way of punishing thieves.

The far-off places of the Roman Empire were always fighting against Rome trying to get rid of her rule, and had to be kept in order by a general with an army. As Cæsar had shown such bravery in fighting the pirates he was given an army and sent to fight two of these far-off places--Spain and a country north of Spain then known as Gaul, which is now France.

Cæsar conquered these countries, and then he wrote a history of his battles in Latin, which of course was his own language. Nowadays this book, called “Cæsar’s Commentaries,” is usually the first book which those who study Latin read.

In 55 B. C. Cæsar crossed over in ships to the island of Britain, which is now England, conquered it, and went back again next year in 54 B. C.

Cæsar was becoming famous for the way he conquered and ruled over the western part of the Roman Empire. Besides this, he was very popular with his soldiers.

Now there was in Rome at this time another general named Pompey. Pompey had been successfully fighting in the eastern part of the Roman Empire while Cæsar had been fighting in the west. Pompey had been a great friend of Cæsar, but when he saw how much land Cæsar had conquered and how popular he was with his soldiers, he became very jealous of him. Notice how many quarrels and wars are caused simply by jealousy. You have heard of at least two already.

So while Cæsar was away with his army Pompey went to the Roman Senate and persuaded the senators to order Cæsar to give up the command of his army and return to Rome.

When Cæsar received the order from the Senate to give up his command and return to Rome, he thought over the matter for some time. Then at last he made up his mind that he would return to Rome, but he would _not_ give up his command. Instead, he decided that he and his army would take command of Rome itself.

Now, there was a little stream called the Rubicon which separated the part of the country over which Cæsar was given charge from that of Rome. The Roman law forbade any general to cross this stream with an army ready to fight--this was the line beyond which he must not pass, for the Romans were afraid that if a general with an army got too close to Rome he might make himself king.

When Cæsar decided not to obey the Senate, he crossed this stream--the Rubicon--with his army and marched on to Rome.

People now speak of any dividing line from danger as “the Rubicon” and say that a person “crosses the Rubicon” when he takes a step from which there is no turning back, when he starts something difficult or dangerous which he must finish.

When Pompey heard that Cæsar was coming he took to his heels and fled to Greece. In a few days Cæsar had made himself head not only of Rome but of all Italy. Cæsar then went after Pompey in Greece and in a battle with his army beat him badly.

Now that Pompey was out of the way, Cæsar was the chief ruler of the whole of the Roman Empire.

Egypt did not yet belong to Rome. So Cæsar next went there and conquered that country. Now, in Egypt there was ruling a beautiful queen named Cleopatra. Cleopatra was so charming that she seemed able to make every one fall in love with her. Cleopatra flirted with Cæsar and so fascinated him that he almost forgot everything else except making love to her. So although he had won Egypt he made Cleopatra queen over that country.

Just at this time some people in the far eastern part of the empire started a war to get rid of the rule of Rome. Cæsar left Egypt, traveled rapidly to the place where the enemy were, made quick work of conquering them, then sent back the news of his victory to Rome in the most laconic (do you remember what that means?) description ever given of a battle. There were only three words in the message. Although the messenger could have carried three thousand as easily as three words, Cæsar sent a message that would have been short even for a telegram. He wrote, “Veni, vidi, vici,” which means, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

When Cæsar at last got back to Rome, the people wanted to make him king, or said they did. Cæsar was already more than king, for he was head of the whole Roman Empire. But he wasn’t called king, for there had been no kings since 509 B. C., when Tarquin was driven out. The Romans had been afraid of kings and hated them, or were supposed to hate them.

A few of the people thought that Cæsar was getting too much power and believed it would be a terrible thing to make him a king. They, therefore, decided on a plot to prevent such a thing happening. One of these plotters was a man named Brutus who had been Cæsar’s very best friend.

One day when Cæsar was expected to visit the Roman Senate they lay in wait for him until he should appear--in the same way I have seen boys hide around the corner for some schoolmate, against whom they had a grudge, until he should come out of school.

Cæsar came along, and just as he was about to enter the Senate the plotters crowded around him, and one after another they stabbed him.

Cæsar, taken by surprise, tried to defend himself; but all he had was his stylus, which was a kind of pen he used for writing, and he could not do much with that, in spite of a famous saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

When at last Cæsar saw Brutus--his best friend--strike at him, his heart seemed broken and he gave up. Then, exclaiming in Latin, “Et tu, Brute!” which means, “And thou, O Brutus!” he fell down dead. This was in 44 B.C.

Antony, one of Cæsar’s true friends, made a speech over Cæsar’s dead body, and his words so stirred the crowd of people that gathered round that they would have torn the murderers to pieces if they could have caught them.

Shakspere has written a play called “Julius Cæsar,” and the month of July is named after him.

Now whom do you suppose Antony called “The Noblest Roman of Them All”?

“Julius Cæsar”?

No, you’re wrong. Brutus, the friend who stabbed Cæsar, was called, “The Noblest Roman of Them All.”

Why, do you suppose?

You’ll have to read Antony’s speech at the end of the play to find out.

Cæsar was pronounced in Latin “Kaiser”; and in later years the rulers of Germany were called this, and those of another country by the shortened form, “Czar.”

34

An Emperor Who Was Made a God

A man is famous who has a town or a street named after him.

Will you ever do anything great enough to have even an alley named after you?

But just suppose a month, one of the twelve months of the year, was given your name!

Millions upon millions of people would then write and speak your name forever!

But I’m going to tell you about a man who not only had a month named after him but who was made a god!