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Ulysses S. Grant - "The Memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant, Part 6."

W.W. Jacobs - "Friends In Need"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917"

Various - "The Best American Humorous Short Stories"

Publishers Newswire Announced Today its Latest List of Books to Bookmark, for Q4/2008
REDONDO BEACH, Calif. -- Publishers Newswire, an online resource for small publishers, as well as lesser known and first-time book authors, has announced its latest quarterly 'Books to Bookmark' list, for Q4/2008. This list is a round-up of new and interesting books which are often missed due to not originating from big name authors, or major New York book publishing houses.

Book, 'Letters From Heroes', captures triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and II
GILROY, Calif. -- The hardships, struggles, hopes and triumphs of the men and women who served in World War I and World War II is wonderfully captured in 'Letters From Heroes' (ISBN: 978-1-58909-570-0), by Edward T. Cook, a new book just published by Bookstand Publishing. This poignant collection of real letters from real servicemen allow the reader to see things through the eyes of these soldiers and understand their thoughts about war, training, sickness, the enemy and even their food.

In New Book, Mystery of the 6,000 Year Old Science and Art of Astrology Has Been Solved
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Author of the new book, ASTROMASKS (ISBN: 978-0-615-23386-4), Vijay Rishii Ph.D., announced today that his book reveals the secret code behind the ancient and controversial science of astrology. The author decodes astrology using a new concept of complementary pairs, and gives new meanings to the zodiac signs and their real connection to humans on earth, which has never been done before in the entire history of astrology.

The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5) - Theodor Mommsen

T >> Theodor Mommsen >> The History of Rome (Volumes 1 5)


Enlargement of the City of Rome--Servian Wall


While the Latin stock was thus tending towards union under the
leadership of Rome and was at the same time extending its territory
on the east and south, Rome itself, by the favour of fortune and
the energy of its citizens, had been converted from a stirring
commercial and rural town into the powerful capital of a flourishing
country. The remodelling of the Roman military system and the
political reform of which it contained the germ, known to us by
the name of the Servian constitution, stand in intimate connection
with this internal change in the character of the Roman community.
But externally also the character of the city cannot but have changed
with the influx of ampler resources, with the rising requirements
of its position, and with the extension of its political horizon.
The amalgamation of the adjoining community on the Quirinal with
that on the Palatine must have been already accomplished when the
Servian reform, as it is called, took place; and after this reform
had united and consolidated the military strength of the community,
the burgesses could no longer rest content with entrenching the
several hills, as one after another they were filled with buildings,
and with possibly also keeping the island in the Tiber and the
height on the opposite bank occupied so that they might command
the course of the river. The capital of Latium required another
and more complete system of defence; they proceeded to construct
the Servian wall. The new continuous city-wall began at the river
below the Aventine, and included that hill, on which there have been
brought to light recently (1855) at two different places, the one
on the western slope towards the river, the other on the opposite
eastern slope, colossal remains of those primitive fortifications--portions
of wall as high as the walls of Alatri and Ferentino, built of large
square hewn blocks of tufo in courses of unequal height--emerging
as it were from the tomb to testify to the might of an epoch, whose
buildings subsist imperishably in these walls of rock, and whose
intellectual achievements will continue to exercise an influence
more lasting even than these. The ring-wall further embraced the
Caelian and the whole space of the Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal,
where a structure likewise but recently brought to light on a
great scale (1862)--on the outside composed of blocks of peperino
and protected by a moat in front, on the inside forming a huge
earthen rampart sloped towards the city and imposing even at the
present day--supplied the want of natural means of defence. From
thence it ran to the Capitoline, the steep declivity of which towards
the Campus Martius served as part of the city-wall, and it again
abutted on the river above the island in the Tiber. The Tiber
island with the bridge of piles and the Janiculum did not belong
strictly to the city, but the latter height was probably a fortified
outwork. Hitherto the Palatine had been the stronghold, but now
this hill was left open to be built upon by the growing city; and on
the other hand upon the Tarpeian Hill, standing free on every side,
and from its moderate extent easily defensible, there was constructed
the new "stronghold" (-arx-, -capitolium-(10)), containing the
stronghold-spring, the carefully enclosed "well-house" (-tullianum-),
the treasury (-aerarium-), the prison, and the most ancient place
of assemblage for the burgesses (-area Capitolina-), where still in
after times the regular announcements of the changes of the moon
continued to be made. Private dwellings of a permanent kind,
on the other hand, were not tolerated in earlier times on the
stronghold-hill;(11) and the space between the two summits of the
hill, the sanctuary of the evil god (-Ve-diovis-), or as it was
termed in the later Hellenizing epoch, the Asylum, was covered with
wood and presumably intended for the reception of the husbandmen
and their herds, when inundation or war drove them from the plain.
The Capitol was in reality as well as in name the Acropolis of Rome,
an independent castle capable of being defended even after the city
had fallen: its gate lay probably towards what was afterwards the
Forum.(12) The Aventine seems to have been fortified in a similar
style, although less strongly, and to have been preserved free from
permanent occupation. With this is connected the fact, that for
purposes strictly urban, such as the distribution of the introduced
water, the inhabitants of Rome were divided into the inhabitants
of the city proper (-montani-), and those of the districts situated
within the general ring-wall, but yet not reckoned as strictly
belonging to the city (-pagani Aventinensis-, -Ianiculenses-,
-collegia Capitolinorum et Mercurialium-).(13) The space enclosed
by the new city wall thus embraced, in addition to the former
Palatine and Quirinal cities, the two federal strongholds of the
Capitol and the Aventine, and also the Janiculum;(14) the Palatine,
as the oldest and proper city, was enclosed by the other heights
along which the wall was carried, as if encircled with a wreath,
and the two castles occupied the middle.

The work, however, was not complete so long as the ground, protected
by so laborious exertions from outward foes, was not also reclaimed
from the dominion of the water, which permanently occupied the
valley between the Palatine and the Capitol, so that there was
perhaps even a ferry there, and which converted the valleys between
the Capitol and the Velia and between the Palatine and the Aventine
into marshes. The subterranean drains still existing at the
present day, composed of magnificent square blocks, which excited
the astonishment of posterity as a marvellous work of regal Rome,
must rather be reckoned to belong to the following epoch, for
travertine is the material employed and we have many accounts of
new structures of the kind in the times of the republic; but the
scheme itself belongs beyond doubt to the regal period, although
presumably to a later epoch than the designing of the Servian wall
and the Capitoline stronghold. The spots thus drained or dried
supplied large open spaces such as were needed by the new enlarged
city. The assembling-place of the community, which had hitherto been
the Area Capitolina at the stronghold itself, was now transferred to
the flat space, where the ground fell from the stronghold towards
the city (-comitium-), and which stretched thence between the
Palatine and the Carinae, in the direction of the Velia. At that
side of the -comitium- which adjoined the stronghold, and upon the
stronghold-wall which arose above the -comitium- in the fashion
of a balcony, the members of the senate and the guests of the city
had the place of honour assigned to them on occasion of festivals
and assemblies of the people; and at the place of assembly itself
was erected the senate-house, which afterwards bore the name of the
Curia Hostilia. The platform for the judgment-seat (-tribunal-),
and the stage whence the burgesses were addressed (the later rostra),
were likewise erected on the -comitium- itself. Its prolongation in
the direction of the Velia became the new market (-forum Romanum-).
At the end of the latter, beneath the Palatine, rose the
community-house, which included the official dwelling of the king
(-regia-) and the common hearth of the city, the rotunda forming
the temple of Vesta; at no great distance, on the south side of the
Forum, there was erected a second round building connected with the
former, the store-room of the community or temple of the Penates,
which still stands at the present day as the porch of the church
Santi Cosma e Damiano. It is a feature significant of the new city
now united in a way very different from the settlement of the "seven
mounts," that, over and above the hearths of the thirty curies
which the Palatine Rome had been content with associating in one
building, the Servian Rome presented this general and single hearth
for the city at large.(15) Along the two longer sides of the Forum
butchers' shops and other traders' stalls were arranged. In the
valley between the Palatine and Aventine a "ring" was staked off
for races; this became the Circus. The cattle-market was laid out
immediately adjoining the river, and this soon became one of the
most densely peopled quarters of Rome. Temples and sanctuaries
arose on all the summits, above all the federal sanctuary of Diana on
the Aventine,(16) and on the summit of the stronghold the far-seen
temple of Father Diovis, who had given to his people all this glory,
and who now, when the Romans were triumphing over the surrounding
nations, triumphed along with them over the subject gods of the
vanquished.

The names of the men, at whose bidding these great buildings of
the city arose, are almost as completely lost in oblivion as those
of the leaders in the earliest battles and victories of Rome.
Tradition indeed assigns the different works to different kings--the
senate-house to Tullus Hostilius, the Janiculum and the wooden
bridge to Ancus Marcius, the great Cloaca, the Circus, and the
temple of Jupiter to the elder Tarquinius, the temple of Diana and
the ring-wall to Servius Tullius. Some of these statements may
perhaps be correct; and it is apparently not the result of accident
that the building of the new ring-wall is associated both as to date
and author with the new organization of the army, which in fact bore
special reference to the regular defence of the city walls. But
upon the whole we must be content to learn from this tradition--what
is indeed evident of itself--that this second creation of Rome stood
in intimate connection with the commencement of her hegemony over
Latium and with the remodelling of her burgess-army, and that, while
it originated in one and the same great conception, its execution
was not the work either of a single man or of a single generation.
It is impossible to doubt that Hellenic influences exercised
a powerful effect on this remodelling of the Roman community, but
it is equally impossible to demonstrate the mode or the degree of
their operation. It has already been observed that the Servian
military constitution is essentially of an Hellenic type;(17)
and it will be afterwards shown that the games of the Circus were
organized on an Hellenic model. The new -regia-with the city hearth
was quite a Greek --prytaneion--, and the round temple of Vesta,
looking towards the east and not so much as consecrated by the
augurs, was constructed in no respect according to Italian, but
wholly in accordance with Hellenic, ritual. With these facts before
us, the statement of tradition appears not at all incredible that
the Ionian confederacy in Asia Minor to some extent served as a model
for the Romano-Latin league, and that the new federal sanctuary on
the Aventine was for that reason constructed in imitation of the
Artemision at Ephesus.




Notes for Book I Chapter VII


1. I. IV. Earliest Limits of the Roman Territory

2. The formulae of accursing for Gabii and Fidenae are quite
as characteristic (Macrob. Sat. iii. 9). It cannot, however, be
proved and is extremely improbable that, as respects these towns,
there was an actual historical accursing of the ground on which
they were built, such as really took place at Veii, Carthage, and
Fregellae. It may be conjectured that old accursing formularies
were applied to those two hated towns, and were considered by later
antiquaries as historical documents.

3. But there seems to be no good ground for the doubt recently
expressed in a quarter deserving of respect as to the destruction
of Alba having really been the act of Rome. It is true, indeed,
that the account of the destruction of Alba is in its details a
series of improbabilities and impossibilities; but that is true of
every historical fact inwoven into legend. To the question as to
the attitude of the rest of Latium towards the struggle between
Rome and Alba, we are unable to give an answer; but the question
itself rests on a false assumption, for it is not proved that the
constitution of the Latin league absolutely prohibited a separate
war between two Latin communities (I. III. The Latin League). Still
less is the fact that a number of Alban families were received
into the burgess-union of Rome inconsistent with the destruction
of Alba by the Romans. Why may there not have been a Roman party
in Alba just as there was in Capua? The circumstance, however,
of Rome claiming to be in a religious and political point of view
the heir-at-law of Alba may be regarded as decisive of the matter;
for such a claim could not be based on the migration of individual
clans to Rome, but could only be based, as it actually was, on the
conquest of the town.

4. I. VI. Amalgamation of the Palatine and Quirinal Cities

5. Hence was developed the conception, in political law, of the
maritime colony or colony of burgesses (-colonia civium Romanorum-),
that is, of a community separate in fact, but not independent or
possessing a will of its own in law; a community which merged in
the capital as the -peculium- of the son merged in the property
of the father, and which as a standing garrison was exempt from
serving in the legion.

6. To this the enactment of the Twelve Tables undoubtedly has
reference: -Nex[i mancipiique] forti sanatique idem ius esto-,
that is, in dealings of private law the "sound" and the "recovered"
shall be on a footing of equality. The Latin allies cannot be here
referred to, because their legal position was defined by federal
treaties, and the law of the Twelve Tables treated only of the law
of Rome. The -sanates- were the -Latini prisci cives Romani-, or
in other words, the communities of Latium compelled by the Romans
to enter the plebeiate.

7. The community of Bovillae appears even to have been formed out
of part of the Alban domain, and to have been admitted in room of
Alba among the autonomous Latin towns. Its Alban origin is attested
by its having been the seat of worship for the Julian gens and by
the name -Albani Longani Bovillenses- (Orelli-Henzen, 119, 2252,
6019); its autonomy by Dionysius, v. 61, and Cicero, pro Plancio,
9, 23.

8. I. III. The Latin League

9. I. III. The Latin League

10. Both names, although afterwards employed as local names
(-capitolium- being applied to the summit of the stronghold-hill
that lay next to the river, -arx- to that next to the Quirinal),
were originally appellatives, corresponding exactly to the Greek
--akra-- and --koruphei-- every Latin town had its -capitolium-as
well as Rome. The local name of the Roman stronghold-hill was
-mons Tarpeius-.

11. The enactment -ne quis patricius in arce aut capitolio
habitaret-probably prohibited only the conversion of the ground into
private property, not the construction of dwelling-houses. Comp.
Becker, Top. p. 386.

12. For the chief thoroughfare, the -Via Sacra-, led from that
quarter to the stronghold; and the bending in towards the gate may
still be clearly recognized in the turn which this makes to the
left at the arch of Severus. The gate itself must have disappeared
under the huge structures which were raised in after ages on the
Clivus. The so-called gate at the steepest part of the Capitoline
Mount, which is known by the name of Janualis or Saturnia, or the
"open," and which had to stand always open in times of war, evidently
had merely a religious significance, and never was a real gate.

13. Four such guilds are mentioned (1) the -Capitolini- (Cicero,
ad Q. fr. ii. 5, 2), with -magistri- of their own (Henzen, 6010,
6011), and annual games (Liv. v. 50; comp. Corp. Inscr. Lat. i. n.
805); (2) the -Mercuriales- (Liv. ii. 27; Cicero, l. c.; Preller,
Myth. p. 597) likewise with -magistri- (Henzen, 6010), the guild
from the valley of the Circus, where the temple of Mercury stood;
(3) the -pagani Aventinenses- likewise with -magistri- (Henzen,
6010); and (4) the -pagani pagi Ianiculensis- likewise with -magistri-
(C. I. L. i. n. 801, 802). It is certainly not accidental that
these four guilds, the only ones of the sort that occur in Rome,
belong to the very two hills excluded from the four local tribes
but enclosed by the Servian wall, the Capitol and the Aventine, and
the Janiculum belonging to the same fortification; and connected
with this is the further fact that the expression -montani paganive-
is employed as a designation of the whole inhabitants in connection
with the city (comp. besides the well-known passage, Cic. de Domo,
28, 74, especially the law as to the city aqueducts in Festus, v.
sifus, p. 340; [-mon]tani paganive si[fis aquam dividunto-]). The
-montani-, properly the inhabitants of the three regions of the
Palatine town (iv. The Hill-Romans On the Quirinal), appear to be
here put -a potiori- for the whole population of the four regions
of the city proper. The -pagani- are, undoubtedly, the residents
of the Aventine and Janiculum not included in the tribes, and the
analogous -collegia- of the Capitol and the Circus valley.

14. The "Seven-hill-city" in the proper and religious sense was
and continued to be the narrower Old-Rome of the Palatine (iv. The
Palatine City). Certainly the Servian Rome also regarded itself,
at least as early as the time of Cicero (comp. e. g. Cic. ad Att.
vi. 5, 2; Plutarch, Q. Rom. 69), as "Seven-hill-city," probably
because the festival of the Septimontium, which was celebrated
with great zeal even under the Empire, began to be regarded as a
festival for the city generally; but there was hardly any definite
agreement reached as to which of the heights embraced by the
Servian ring-wall belonged to the "seven." The enumeration of the
Seven Mounts familiar to us, viz. Palatine, Aventine, Caelian,
Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, Capitoline, is not given by any
ancient author. It is put together from the traditional narrative
of the gradual rise of the city (Jordan, Topographie, ii. 206 seq.),
and the Janiculum is passed over in it, simply because otherwise
the number would come out as eight. The earliest authority that
enumerates the Seven Mounts (-montes-) of Rome is the description
of the city from the age of Constantine the Great. It names as
such the Palatine, Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Tarpeian, Vatican,
and Janiculum,--where the Quirinal and Viminal are, evidently as
-colles-, omitted, and in their stead two "-montes-" are introduced
from the right bank of the Tiber, including even the Vatican which
lay outside of the Servian wall. Other still later lists are
given by Servius (ad Aen. vi. 783), the Berne Scholia to Virgil's
Georgics (ii. 535), and Lydus (de Mens. p. 118, Bekker).

15. Both the situation of the two temples, and the express testimony
of Dionysius, ii. 65, that the temple of Vesta lay outside of the
Roma quadrata, prove that these structures were connected with the
foundation not of the Palatine, but of the second (Servian) city.
Posterity reckoned this -regia- with the temple of Vesta as a scheme
of Numa; but the cause which gave rise to that hypothesis is too
manifest to allow of our attaching any weight to it.

16. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium

17. I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform




CHAPTER VIII

The Umbro-Sabellian Stocks--Beginnings of the Samnites



Umbro-Sabellian Migration


The migration of the Umbrian stocks appears to have begun at
a period later than that of the Latins. Like the Latin, it moved
in a southerly direction, but it kept more in the centre of the
peninsula and towards the east coast. It is painful to speak of
it; for our information regarding it comes to us like the sound
of bells from a town that has been sunk in the sea. The Umbrian
people extended according to Herodotus as far as the Alps, and
it is not improbable that in very ancient times they occupied the
whole of Northern Italy, to the point where the settlements of the
Illyrian stocks began on the east, and those of the Ligurians on
the west. As to the latter, there are traditions of their conflicts
with the Umbrians, and we may perhaps draw an inference regarding
their extension in very early times towards the south from isolated
names, such as that of the island of Ilva (Elba) compared with the
Ligurian Ilvates. To this period of Umbrian greatness the evidently
Italian names of the most ancient settlements in the valley of the
Po, Atria (black-town), and Spina (thorn-town), probably owe their
origin, as well as the numerous traces of Umbrians in southern
Etruria (such as the river Umbro, Camars the old name of Clusium,
Castrum Amerinum). Such indications of an Italian population
having preceded the Etruscan especially occur in the most southern
portion of Etruria, the district between the Ciminian Forest (below
Viterbo) and the Tiber. In Falerii, the town of Etruria nearest
to the frontier of Umbria and the Sabine country, according to
the testimony of Strabo a language was spoken different from the
Etruscan, and inscriptions bearing out that statement have recently
been brought to light there, the alphabet and language of which,
while presenting points of contact with the Etruscan, exhibit
a general resemblance to the Latin.(1) The local worship also
presents traces of a Sabellian character; and a similar inference
is suggested by the primitive relations subsisting in sacred as
well as other matters between Caere and Rome. It is probable that
the Etruscans wrested those southern districts from the Umbrians
at a period considerably subsequent to their occupation of the
country on the north of the Ciminian Forest, and that an Umbrian
population maintained itself there even after the Tuscan conquest.
In this fact we may presumably find the ultimate explanation of
the surprising rapidity with which the southern portion of Etruria
became Latinized, as compared with the tenacious retention of the
Etruscan language and manners in northern Etruria, after the Roman
conquest. That the Umbrians were after obstinate struggles driven
back from the north and west into the narrow mountainous country
between the two arms of the Apennines which they subsequently
held, is clearly indicated by the very fact of their geographical
position, just as the position of the inhabitants of the Grisons
and that of the Basques at the present day indicates the similar
fate that has befallen them. Tradition also has to report that the
Tuscans wrested from the Umbrians three hundred towns; and, what
is of more importance as evidence, in the national prayers of the
Umbrian Iguvini, which we still possess, along with other stocks
the Tuscans especially are cursed as public foes.

In consequence, as may be presumed, of this pressure exerted upon
them from the north, the Umbrians advanced towards the south,
keeping in general upon the heights, because they found the plains
already occupied by Latin stocks, but beyond doubt frequently
making inroads and encroachments on the territory of the kindred
race, and intermingling with them the more readily, that the
distinction in language and habits could not have been at all so
marked then as we find it afterwards. To the class of such inroads
belongs the tradition of the irruption of the Reatini and Sabines
into Latium and their conflicts with the Romans; similar phenomena
were probably repeated all along the west coast. Upon the whole
the Sabines maintained their footing in the mountains, as in the
district bordering on Latium which has since been called by their
name, and so too in the Volscian land, presumably because the Latin
population did not extend thither or was there less dense; while
on the other hand the well-peopled plains were better able to offer
resistance to the invaders, although they were not in all cases
able or desirous to prevent isolated bands from gaining a footing,
such as the Tities and afterwards the Claudii in Rome.(2) In this
way the stocks here became variously mingled, a state of things
which serves to explain the numerous relations that subsisted
between the Volscians and Latins, and how it happened that their
district, as well as Sabina, afterwards became so early and speedily
Latinized.


Samnites


The chief branch, however, of the Umbrian stock threw itself eastward
from Sabina into the mountains of the Abruzzi, and the adjacent
hill-country to the south of them. Here, as on the west coast,
they occupied the mountainous districts, whose thinly scattered
population gave way before the immigrants or submitted to their
yoke; while in the plain along the Apulian coast the ancient native
population, the Iapygians, upon the whole maintained their ground,
although involved in constant feuds, especially on the northern
frontier about Luceria and Arpi. When these migrations took place,
cannot of course be determined; but it was presumably about the
time when kings ruled in Rome. Tradition reports that the Sabines,
pressed by the Umbrians, vowed a -ver sacrum-, that is, swore
that they would give up and send beyond their bounds the sons and
daughters born in the year of war, so soon as these should reach
maturity, that the gods might at their pleasure destroy them
or bestow upon them new abodes in other lands. One band was led
by the ox of Mars; these were the Safini or Samnites, who in the
first instance established themselves on the mountains adjoining
the river Sagrus, and at a later period proceeded to occupy the
beautiful plain on the east of the Matese chain, near the sources
of the Tifernus. Both in their old and in their new territory
they named their place of public assembly--which in the one case
was situated near Agnone, in the other near Bojano--from the ox
which led them Bovianum. A second band was led by the woodpecker
of Mars; these were the Picentes, "the woodpecker-people," who
took possession of what is now the March of Ancona. A third band
was led by the wolf (-hirpus-) into the region of Beneventum;
these were the Hirpini. In a similar manner the other small tribes
branched off from the common stock--the Praetuttii near Teramo; the
Vestini on the Gran Sasso; the Marrucini near Chieti; the Frentani
on the frontier of Apulia; the Paeligni on the Majella mountains;
and lastly the Marsi on the Fucine lake, coming in contact with
the Volscians and Latins. All of these tribes retained, as these
legends clearly show, a vivid sense of their relationship and of
their having come forth from the Sabine land. While the Umbrians
succumbed in the unequal struggle and the western offshoots of the
same stock became amalgamated with the Latin or Hellenic population,
the Sabellian tribes prospered in the seclusion of their distant
mountain land, equally remote from collision with the Etruscans,
the Latins, and the Greeks. There was little or no development
of an urban life amongst them; their geographical position almost
wholly precluded them from engaging in commercial intercourse, and
the mountain-tops and strongholds sufficed for the necessities of
defence, while the husbandmen continued to dwell in open hamlets
or wherever each found the well-spring and the forest or pasture
that he desired. In such circumstances their constitution remained
stationary; like the similarly situated Arcadians in Greece, their
communities never became incorporated into a single state; at the
utmost they only formed confederacies more or less loosely connected.
In the Abruzzi especially, the strict seclusion of the mountain
valleys seems to have debarred the several cantons from intercourse
either with each other or with the outer world. They maintained but
little connection with each other and continued to live in complete
isolation from the rest of Italy; and in consequence, notwithstanding
the bravery of their inhabitants, they exercised less influence
than any other portion of the Italian nation on the development of
the history of the peninsula.