13. CAIUS GRACCHUS, CITED BEFORE THE CENSORS, APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE, — Original Adaptation from J. S. Knowles. It appears I am cited here because I have returned The laws which Caius Gracchus dares not break. "How have I served my time?" I'll answer that : I went forth poor enough, very rich. But have returned still poorer than I went. Ye citizens of Rome, behold what favor Your masters show your brethren! I have borne My time; returned in poverty, that might Have amassed treasures, and they thus reward me: Of feasibility as would suffice To feed suspicion's phantom! Why is this? How have I bought this hatred? When my brother, I called them not assassins! When his friends I did not style them butchers! - did not name them Ye men of Rome, there is no favor, now, Of virtue! - Romans, I would be your Tribune. I have no gust for blood, nor for oppression! The laws! the laws! Of common right the guard, - 14. GALGACUS TO THE CALEDONIANS. - Original Abridgment from Tacitus. REFLECTING on the origin of this war, and on the straits to which we are reduced, I am persuaded, O Caledonians, that to your strong hands and indomitable will is British liberty this day confided. There is no retreat for us, if vanquished. Not even the sea, covered as it is by the Roman fleet, offers a path for escape. And thus war and arms, ever welcomed by the brave, are now the only safety of the cowardly, if any such there be. No refuge is behind us; naught but the rocks, ad the waves, and the deadlier Romans: men whose pride you have vainly tried to conciliate by forbearance; whose cruelty you have vainly sought to deprecate by moderation. The robbers of the globe, when the land fails, they scour the sea. Is the enemy rich, they are avaricious; is he poor, they are ambitious. The East and the West are unable to satiate their desires. Wealth and poverty are alike coveted by their rapacity. To carry off, to massacre, to make seizures under false pretences, this they call empire; and when they make a desert, they call it peace! Do not suppose, however, that the prowess of these Romans is equal to their lust. They have thrived on our divisions. They know how to turn the vices of others to their own profit. Casting off all hope of pardon, let us exhibit the courage of men to whom salvation and glory are equally dear. Nursed in freedom as we have been, unconquered and unconquerable, let us, in the first onset, show these usurpers what manner of men they are that Old Caledonia shelters in her bosom! All the incitements to victory are on our side. Wives, parents, children, these we have to protect; and these the Romans have not. They have none to cry shame upon their flight; none to shed tears of exultation at their success. Few in numbers, fearful from ignorance, gazing on unknown forests and untried seas, the Gods have delivered them, hemmed in, bound and helpless, into our hands. Let not their showy aspect, their glitter of silver and gold, dismay you. Such adornments can neither harm nor protect from harm. In the very line of the enemy we shall find friends. The Britons, the Gauls, the Germans, will recognize their own cause in ours. Here is a leader; here an army! There are tributes, and levies, and badges of servitude, -impositions, which to assume, or to trample under foot forever, lies now in the power of your arms. Forth, then, Caledonians to the field! Think of your ancestors! Think of your descendants 15. ICILIUS ON VIRGINIA'S SEIZURE. - Now, by your children's cradles,—now, by your fathers' graves, Be men to-day, Quirités, or be forever slaves! For this did Servius give us laws? For this did Lucrece bleed? O for the tents which in old time whitened the Sacred Hi! ! wrong. Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath your will. Riches, and lands, and power, and state-ye have them: -keep them still. Still keep the holy fillets; still keep the purple gown, The axes and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown: Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords have won. The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife; Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame, That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame, Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair, And learn, by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare. 16. THE SPARTANS' MARCH.-Felicia Hemans. Born, 1794; died, 1835. The Spartans used not the trumpet in their march into battle, says Thucydides, because they ished not to excite the rage of their warriors. Their charging-step was made to the Derian mood of flutes and soft recorders. T was morn upon the Grecian hills, where peasants dressed the vines; 17. THE GREEKS' RETURN FROM BATTLE. — Ibid. Io! they come, they come! garlands for every shrine ! Swell, swell the Dorian flute, through the blue, triumphant sky! Let the Cittern's tone salute the sons of victory. With the offering of bright blood, they have ransomed hearth and tomb, Vineyard, and field, and flood; - Io! they come, they come! Sing it where olives wave, and by the glittering sea, And o'er each hero's grave, sing, sing, the land is free! Mark ye the flashing oars, and the spears that light the deep! Who murmured of the dead? Hush, boding voice! We know Breathe not those names to-day! They shall have their praise ere long But now shed flowers, pour wine, to hail the conquerors home. Bring wreaths for every shrine, - Io! they come, they come. 18. ODE. - William Collins. Born, 1720; died, 1756. 19. VIRGINIUS, AS TRIBUNE, REFUSES THE APPEAL OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS. - Original Paraphrase from Livy. I AFFIRM, O Romans, that Appius Claudius is the only man not entitled to a participation in the laws, nor to the common privileges of civil or human society. The tribunal over which, as perpetual Decemvir, he presided, was made the fortress of all villanies. A despiser of Gods and men, he vented his fury on the properties and persons of citizens, threatening all with his rods and axes. Executioners, not Lictors, were his attendants. His passions roaming from rapine to murder, from murder to lust, he tore a free-born maiden, as if she were a prisoner of war, from the embraces of me, her father, before the eyes of the Roman People, and gave her to his creature, the purveyor of his secret pleasures! Ye heard, my countrymen, the cruel decree, the infamous decision. Ye beheld the right hand of the father armed against his daughter. Armed against, do I say? No, by the Gods! armed in her behalf,- since it was to rescue her, by death, from dishonor, that I sheathed in her innocent bosom the knife! Ye heard the tyrant, when the uncle and the betrothed husband of Virginia raised her lifeless body, order them to be taken off to prison. Yes, Romans, even at that tragical moment, the miscreant Claudius was more moved by the disappointment of his gross sensual appetite than by the untimely death of the unoffending victim! And Appius Claudius now appeals! You hear his words: “1 appeal!" This man, who, so recently, as Decemvir, would have consigned a free-born maiden to bonds and to dishonor, utters that sacred expression, that safeguard of Roman liberty,-"I appeal!" Well may ye stand awe-struck and silent, O my countrymen! Ye see, at length, that there are Gods who overlook human affairs; that there is such a thing as RETRIBUTION! Ye see that punishment must sooner |