Where were they when another frightful pestilence visited the city--Imean the poisonings imputed to an incredible number of noble Roman matrons, whose characters were infected with a disease more fatal than any plague? Or when both consuls at the head of the army were beset by the Samnites in the Caudine Forks, and forced to strike a shameful treaty, 600 Roman knights being kept as hostages; while the troops, having laid down their arms, and being stripped of everything, were made to pass under the yoke with one garment each? Or when, in the midst of a serious pestilence, lightning struck the Roman camp and killed many? Or when Rome was driven, by the violence of another intolerable plague, to send to Epidaurus for AEsculapius as a god of medicine; since the frequent adulteries of Jupiter in his youth had not perhaps left this king of all who so long reigned in the Capitol, any leisure for the study of medicine? Or when, at one time, the Lucanians, Brutians, Samnites, Tuscans, and Senonian Gauls conspired against Rome, and first slew her ambassadors, then overthrew an army under the praetor, putting to the sword 13,000 men, besides the commander and seven tribunes? Or when the people, after the serious and long-continued disturbances at Rome, at last plundered the city and withdrew to Janiculus;a danger so grave, that Hortensius was created dictator,--an office which they had recourse to only in extreme emergencies;and he, having brought back the people, died while yet he retained his office,--an event without precedent in the case of any dictator, and which was a shame to those gods who had now AEsculapius among them?
At that time, indeed, so many wars were everywhere engaged in, that through scarcity of soldiers they enrolled for military service the proletarii, who received this name, because, being too poor to equip for military service, they had leisure to beget offspring.(2) Pyrrhus, king of Greece, and at that time of widespread renown, was invited by the Tarentines to enlist himself against Rome.It was to him that Apollo, when consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered with some pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that whichever alternative happened, the god himself should be counted divine.For he so worded the oracle(3) that whether Pyrrhus was conquered by the Romans, or the Romans by Pyrrhus,the soothsaying god would securely await the issue.And then what frightful massacres of both armies ensued!
Yet Pyrrhus remained conqueror, and would have been able now to proclaim Apollo a true diviner, as he understood the oracle, had not the Romans been the conquerors in the next engagement.And while such disastrous wars were being waged, a terrible disease broke out among the women.For the pregnant women died before delivery.And AEsculapius, I fancy, excused himself in this matter on the ground that he professed to be arch-physician, not midwife.Cattle, too, similarly perished;so that it was believed that the whole race of animals was destined to become extinct.Then what shall I say of that memorable winter in which the weather was so incredibly severe, that in the Forum frightfully deep snow lay for forty days together, and the Tiber was frozen? Had such things happened in our time, what accusations we should have heard from our enemies ! And that other great pestilence, which raged so long and carried off so many; what shall I say of it? Spite of all the drugs of AEsculapius, it only grew worse in its second year, till at last recourse was had to the Sibylline books,--a kind of oracle which, as Cicero says in his De Divinatione, owes significance to its interpreters, who make doubtful conjectures as they can or as they wish.In this instance, the cause of the plague was said to be that so many temples had been used as private residences.And thus AEsculapius for the present escaped the charge of either ignominious negligence or want of skill.But why were so many allowed to occupy sacred tenements without interference, unless because supplication had long been addressed in vain to such a crowd of gods, and so by degrees the sacred places were deserted of worshippers, and being thus vacant, could without offence be put at least to some human uses? And the temples, which were at that time laboriously recognized and restored that the plague might be stayed, fell afterwards into disuse, and were again devoted to the same human uses.Had they not thus lapsed into obscurity, it could not have been pointed to as proof of Varro's great erudition, that in his work on sacred places he cites so many that were unknown.
Meanwhile, the restoration of the temples procured no cure of the plague, but only a fine excuse for the gods.
CHAP.18.--THE DISASTERS SUFFERED BY THE ROMANS IN THE PUNIC WARS, WHICHWERE NOT
MITIGATED BY THE PROTECTION OF THE GODS.
