No More Learning

" He was at first victorious; for his own talents
were superior to those of the captains who were opposed to him;
and the Romans were not prepared for the onset of the elephants
of the East, which were then for the first time seen in
Italy--moving mountains, with long snakes for hands. But the
victories of the Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly
purchased, and altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius Curius
Dentatus, who had in his first Consulship won two triumphs, was
again placed at the head of the Roman Commonwealth, and sent to
conquer the invaders. A great battle was fought near Beneventum.
Pyrrhus was completely defeated. He repassed the sea; and the
world learned, with amazement, that a people had been discovered
who, in fair fighting, were superior to the best troops that had
been drilled on the system of Parmenio and Antigonus.

The conquerors had a good right to exult in their success; for
their glory was all their own. They had not learned from their
enemy how to conquer him. It was with their own national arms,
and in their own national battle array, that they had overcome
weapons and tactics long believed to be invincible. The pilum and
the broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion
had broken the Macedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, when the
surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could cause
no disorder in the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome.
It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, that the
triumph far surpassed in magnificence any that Rome had
previously seen. The only spoils which Papirius Cursor and Fabius
Maximus could exhibit were flocks and herds, wagons of rude
structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But now, for the
first time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned a
Roman pageant.
Plate, fine stuffs, costly furniture, rare
animals, exquisite paintings and sculptures, formed part of the
procession. At the banquet would be assembled a crowd of warriors
and statesmen, among whom Manius Curius Dentatus would take the
highest room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, after two
Consulships and two triumphs, Censor of the Commonwealth, would
doubtless occupy a place of honor at the board. In situations
less conspicuous probably lay some of those who were, a few years
later, the terror of Carthage: Caius Duilius, the founder of the
maritime greatness of his country; Marcus Atilius Regulus, who
owed to defeat a renown far higher than that which he had derived
from his victories; and Caius Lutatius Catalus, who, while
suffering from a grievous wound, fought the great battle of the
AEates, and brought the First Punic War to a triumphant close. It
is impossible to recount the names of these eminent citizens,
without reflecting that they were, without exception, Plebeians,
and would, but for the ever memorable struggle maintained by
Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, have been doomed to hide in
obscurity, or to waste in civil broils, the capacity and energy
which prevailed against Pyrrhus and Hamilcar.

On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic enthusiasm of a
Latin poet would vent itself in reiterated shouts of "Io
triumphe," such as were uttered by Horace on a far less exciting
occasion, and in boasts resembling those which Virgil put into
the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of some foreign nations,
and especially of the Greeks, in the lazy arts of peace, would be
admitted with disdainful candor; but preeminence in all the
qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern mankind would
be claimed for the Romans.

The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin
ballad-poetry. Naevis and Livius Andronicus were probably among
the children whose mothers held them up to see the chariot of
Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on that day might possibly
have lived to read the first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the
first comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be expected, shows
a much wider acquaintance with the geography, manners, and
productions of remote nations, than would have been found in
compositions of the age of Camillus. But he troubles himself
little about dates, and having heard travellers talk with
admiration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the structures and
gardens with which the Macedonian king of Syria had embellished
their residence on the banks of the Orontes, he has never thought
of inquiring whether these things existed in the age of Romulus.



The Prophecy of Capys



A Lay Sung at the Banquet in the Capitol, on the Day Whereon
Manius Curius Dentatus, a Second Time Consul, Triumphed Over King
Pyrrhus and the Tarentines, in the Year of the City CCCCLXXIX.

I

Now slain is King Amulius,
Of the great Sylvian line,
Who reigned in Alba Longa,
On the throne of Aventine.
Slain is the Ponfiff Camers,
Who spake the words of doom:
"The children to the Tiber,
The mother to the tomb. "

II

In Alba's lake no fisher
His net to-day is flinging;
On the dark rind of Alba's oaks
To-day no axe is ringing;
The yoke hangs o'er the manger;
The scythe lies in the hay:
Through all the Alban villages
No work is done to-day.