 CHAPTER XII. THE MENTOR 1913.12.8. 43. THE REVOLUTION THE STORY OF AMERICA by Albert Buschnell Hart, professor of government, Harvard University. Words wear out after using them a thousand or a million times, liberty, the Constitution, the people's government. People take those terms into their minds nowadays as they take a chocolate cream without stopping to think of its contents, so with revolution. When we hear the word we feel a pleased sensation of a good, great, glorious time intended by Providence to prepare the way for our various patriotic organizations. The revolution? Why yes, that was when our forefathers tied the first hard knot in the British lion's tail. All the people were patriots and all the patriots were as wise as college professors, and as brave as Albanians, and as great as a president. All the statesmen wore silk stockings and red velvet suits and powdered wigs. All the ladies were lovely and spurned the offers of marriage made by British generals. THE MILITARY REVOLUTION What is a revolution but an overturning? A spinning of the wheel left her right and bottom come uppermost. Likewise, since the right believes itself right and the top is sure that the world exists in order that it may be the top, most revolutions mean force, arms, big guns booming, troops marching, bullets flying, heads cut off with axes or caught in a hangman's noose, also arms and legs cut off and the ground soaked with a crimson fluid. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and in a revolution there is bound to be breakage of heads and hearts and banks and constitutions. We know that the American Revolution was a military contest because the pictures in our first textbook of American history show General George Washington in buff and blue leading his Continentals up to within sixteen feet and eight inches of general Howe in a magnificent red coat laced with gold in vain trying to rally battalions of craven Hessians wearing highly inconvenient bearskin caps. Commanding officers of opposing armies are not really so intimate as that, but Americans are justified in immense pride over the military success of the revolution. The simple fact was that three million people of whom about a fourth were Negro slaves put up a fight against a mother country having four times their population. They began without a single professional officer except the traitor Charles Lee and with only a thousand or two men who had not seen military service except militia training day and desultory frontier war with French and Indians. They had not one ship of war, not a factory of arms, yet they attacked the great British Empire. Though it was flanked right and left by the lion and the unicorn, trained by two centuries of European wars, thousands of troops under arms, officers successful in other fields and they sailed into the greatest naval power on the sea. So far as power and prestige and experience decide wars in advance, the revolution was due to be snuffed out at the end of 1776. Benjamin Franklin was destined to be hanged, George Washington to be emured for life in a gloomy dungeon dressed in a ball and chain. Were not the English everywhere successful? They captured New York, they captured Newport, they captured Philadelphia, they captured Savannah. They were driven away from Charleston by the Palmetto forts but returned and captured Richmond. They beat the Americans at Long Island, at the Brandywine, at Germantown, at Camden. Their cruisers and privateers swept the seas until Nathaniel Tracy of Newburyport lost 90 of his 120 vessels. They drove the Little American Navy from the seas. Yet, in the end, they were beaten. It is easy now to criticize the strategy of Washington and Green and the rest and to show that by all the laws of war they laid themselves open to defeat. Nothing can alter the stubborn fact that the American militia at Bunker Hill for hours held off a British army and so damaged it that they never took the field again. Then the Americans captured Borgoyen's army at Saratoga in 1777, a humiliation seldom known in British annals. And this victory brought the French alliance and the aid of Von Stuben, the magnificent drillmaster of Destin and his fleet of Rashambeau and his army. With that aid, the Americans beat the Second Army at Yorktown and that ended the war. General Cornwallis had to surrender his sword to an officer whom a few months before the British had addressed as George Washington, Esquire, etc., etc. Extraordinary American Success In one way the Americans were too successful. Beginning with raw militia, ill-equipped, worse disciplined, the Americans made an army that beat the British. General Washington never ceased to implore Congress and the states to give him a better system for a real national army. Half the men and a fourth of the money expended would have done the job just as well if the advice of Washington and other experts had been followed. Cornwallis The British general, Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia on October 19th, 1781. The victory virtually decided the revolution in favor of the Americans. On the sea also the Americans began a great career of naval success, or rather they repeated the methods of earlier wars by sending out a hornet's nest of privateers, christened with such gallant and suggestive names as The Charming Peggy, The Fair Lady, The American Revenue, The Black Joke, The Fair America, The Scotch Irish, The Skunk, The Nimble Shilling, and The King Tamer. If they did not tame George III, they did tame the British merchant and his representatives in Parliament. The American privateers, in the course of the war, captured about 700 British merchantmen. And then there was the American Navy, or rather John Paul Jones, for in him the Navy was concentrated. It was a painful surprise to the British to have the royal frigate Serapis taken in 1779 by the Bonhomme Richard, a condemned merchant ship hastily fitted out in France. Jones is already a sort of mythical figure, partly because of Buell's imaginary so-called biography, but he is the naval father of Hall and Porter and the grandfather of Farragut and another Porter, and the great grandfather of Samson and Dewey. The Civil Revolution A revolutionary overturning came whenever the Union Jack was hauled down and the Stars and Stripes hauled up. But the revolutionary army was not the revolution, it was like the line in a football match, desperately holding back the other line while the backs get into play. The real revolution was an overturning of governments and charters and political power. The revolving wheel whirled the old colonies out of existence and cunningly framed and polished new state governments. The revolution turned the British Empire down and pushed the United States of America up. The revolution rolled to the bottom of the wheel Governor Gage of Massachusetts and Governor Tyron of North Carolina and Governor Dunmore of Virginia and up to the top revolved Patrick Henry and Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. The revolution was like a religious conversion. It set the American people out of their old ways and into a new upward path. All that seems natural to us, for we have been brought up on the tyranny of George III and the misgovernment and plunder of the colonies by the British government. We realize the bad state of things much better than did the Americans at the beginning of the revolution. In truth the colonies were freer from harsh and arbitrary government than England, Scotland and Wales to say nothing of what was then the separate Kingdom of Ireland. Every colony had its local assembly. Not a single English county had one. In every colony any freemen who had the necessary pluck and health could acquire land and become a voter. In England not a twentieth part of the adult men could vote. The colonists laid their own taxes and expended them for their own purposes. Englishmen paid taxes levied by a parliament over which only a few of them had control. Apparently the main cause of the revolution was that the colonists could do so much for themselves that there was no reason why they should not do substantially everything for themselves. They had a personal attachment for England the King and the English system of government very like that now felt by the Canadians and would have been quite satisfied with the degree of self-government that England has since freely given to Canada. John Adams says that there existed a general desire of independence of the crown and any part of America before the revolution is as far from the truth as a zenith is from the nader. Why revolt? Especially when a third of the thinking people in America were opposed to the revolution and had to be driven out or silenced. To the original grievances of the revolution was added a stupid John Bull obscenity concentrated in George III but shared by a good part of the British nation. These mistakes made by England are a fine example of what comes to a country that falls into the hands of what are called the interests. For Parliament was really nothing but a combine of great titled families who took in some representatives of the cities and the merchant class. One of the best results of the revolution was that it shook up the British aristocracy and the best proof that the revolution was right is the admission of Lord North when the war was all over that it had been a great mistake but that the nation had made it not simply the prime minister. The revolution was worth all the blood and treasure that it cost because it lighted a new torch of popular government. There had been plenty of government of the people in ancient and medieval times but as the epic of the American Revolution the formerly democratic Swiss and Dutch and the free citizens of the German and French and Spanish cities had lost faith in themselves. It was fashionable to revere Demosthenes and Cato and Brutus and the populous Romanus but real republican government had about ceased on the earth when the new constellation of the United States appeared on the horizon. The colonies had very tidy little governments, schools of politics in which the speaker of the assembly was commonly the leader of a healthy opposition to the governor. And on that foundation they built tidy little state governments which showed the prevalent belief that governors were dangerous creatures who ought to have as little power as possible while the legislatures were a reflection of the people's will which could not air. The wheel of revolution was twirled backward in our day for we make governors and presidents great political leaders and set our legislators on a one-legged race against the initiative and referendum. In the midst of the confusion of the revolution when town after town was picked up by the British and nobody knew whether the revolution would win out it is wonderful how well the state governments worked and how successful they were in putting on record the great principle of the two kinds of law fundamental or constitutional law and statute law. The finest work of the revolution was the making of a national government for which the army and the navy were in part responsible because a central national power was all that could save the army from capture and the navy from destruction. The continental congress became a government before it knew it authorizing an army and navy borrowing money issuing many times more paper notes than it could ever redeem appointing George Washington commander in chief of the continental forces sending ambassadors to foreign countries. Were men greater on the average then than now? Would Speaker Clark and Senator Lodge of Massachusetts and Senator Beverage bulk as big as Patrick Henry and Sam Adams and John Dickinson if revolution broke out now? These are the times that try men's souls said Tom Payne and it was also a time that made men's souls. The one indispensable man in the revolution was George Washington for there was no other in the colonies who was so central so immovable of force but the revolution would also have failed but for Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and the other civilians who built up the new government the Declaration of Independence and they framed the Declaration of Independence they framed it but Thomas Jefferson wrote it. He was bent on proving that the revolution was right and having taken an unpaid brief for his country he found 27 good reasons for independence even at the cost of a bloody revolution. Those reasons are not the declaration the real pith of that splendidly written document is the brief statement of self-evident truths among them that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Some of these states made much longer and fuller statements of the same kind but this is the bedrock of popular government in America. Time cannot tarnish use cannot diminish age cannot weaken this splendid thought that God Almighty sends his children into the world with equal political rights that every human being has an interest in that mutual understanding with other human beings called society and government social and commercial revolution. When Rip Van Winkle came back home he found a new set of neighbors who scoffed at Good King George. The Americans lived in a changed world. In the South most of the political leaders who were not Englishmen took the Patriot side the Randolphs and the Patons and the Carols and the Rutledges and the Pinkneys and the Haines and when the war was over the wheel had revolved under them but left them still at the top. In the North there was a greater change Sam Adams the untitled leader of the Boston town meeting became leader of Massachusetts John Hancock the merchant accused of smuggling was governor John Adams the struggling lawyer was minister to England. Where were the rich and fashionable people who lived in the fine colonial mansions and drank too much Madeira hundreds of them gone exiled driven forth farming in the eastern townships of Canada waiting in the antechambers of the great in London effects of the war that was a revolution that reached the wives and daughters and the handsome sons who inherited their fathers silk and suits and had expected to inherit their dignities. It took the Americans 30 years to find out how great a revolution they had undergone in business for when the war was over they had an unpatriotic hankering for the broad cloths and kursimiers of old England. For their women folk dealers still bought Kalamancos and Padua soys and Osnabrig linens and India muslins through reliable English houses. One great Britain made the mistake of undervaluing the Americans and when they became independent told them to be independent and suffer for it. Now that the United States of America was a separate nation let it keep its vessels out of the trade with the former sister colonies. It took long years to open up other avenues of trade. Revolution in the West Within the military and civic revolution arose another territorial revolution. When in 1778 George Rogers Clark with his few score frontiersmen slipped down the Ohio River and picked up the little British towns of Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vansan. He was blazing the trail into the West and opening that vast country to millions of Americans still to be born or adopted till they would in the end rule the Republic. Because of Rogers Clark or rather of the westward vision of the great men of that time, great Britain gave up the Northwest and then yielded the Southwest. With all its boldness and courage the revolution did not make a complete nation. To become a world power it was necessary to cross the mountains and bind the Mississippi to the sea. And the man of that time who was at the same time Eastern and Western who fought the French and took up lands and planned roads and canals beyond the mountains was George Washington. The greatest soldier, best statesman and most clear-sided businessman of the revolution. The battle of Lexington and Concord won. It was a little after midnight on April 19th, 1775. In the little village of Lexington, Massachusetts, not far from Boston, all was quiet. The townspeople were sleeping soundly. Suddenly there was a clatter of galloping hooves and a horseman leaping from the saddle before the first house knocked on its door and shouted, The British are coming! That man was Paul Revere and having roused the village he rode quickly on his way toward Concord. Lexington, which had been so still a little while before, was now a scene of busy activity. Church bells were ringing and cannons were booming to warn all the surrounding country. The Minutemen were cleaning and loading their muskets while the women filled powder horns. Soon everything was ready and the little band of seventy Minutemen of Lexington under the command of Captain Jonas Parker gathered on the village common. There with grim determination they formed a line and waited, and there at daybreak the force of eight hundred British found them. Disperse! Disperse, you rebels! cried Major Pitcarn in command of the English. Down with your arms and disperse! No reply from the Minutemen. Fire, then! ordered Pitcarn. His command was obeyed and the Minutemen answered with the shot heard round the world. The revolution was begun. Eight Minutemen were killed, several others were wounded and the rest were scattered. Then the British advanced toward Concord. Their object was to capture some arms and ammunition of the colonists which were stored near Concord. For this reason General Gage had sent them from Boston. Paul Revere had waited until a signal told him that they were crossing the Charles River and then had made his famous ride to alarm the Patriots. When the British reached Concord they found that the stores had been removed and hidden and a large force of Minutemen waiting for them. The Patriots were without uniforms and were armed with all kinds of weapons, even pitchforks and scythes, but they were determined to protect their homes and were willing to die if necessary. Against such brave resistance even the large force of English soldiers could do nothing and after a few volleys they began to retreat toward Boston. But now the whole country was aroused. The retreating soldiers were fired upon all along the road. Last came with deadly aim from behind fences, stone walls and trees. At last reinforcements came to the English. Their retreat became less of a route and they finally reached Charlestown and from there crossed over to Boston the next morning. They lost 273 men while the Americans lost 103. The colonists had won the first encounter of the Revolution. The Battle of Lexington and Concord stirred all 13 colonies to action. Everywhere there was unanimous determination to resist British opposition. There could be no going back now. Blood had been shed and the Revolution had begun. Bunker Hill 2 After the Battle of Lexington and Concord England saw that the resistance of the British was determined and sent reinforcements to General Gage in Boston. By the end of May 1775 he had 10,000 trained soldiers under his command. The American force besieging him amounted to about 16,000 men, undisciplined but brave. The British were virtually held prisoners in Boston. General Gage therefore decided to sally out on the night of June 18th and capture Bunker Hill near Charlestown, but first he proclaimed martial law and pardoned for all those who would lay down their arms and return home, except Samuel Adams and John Hancock. None of the courageous Patriots took advantage of his offer. The Americans discovered Gage's plans and decided to beat him to it, so on the evening of June 16th Colonel William Prescott, with a thousand men, was ordered to march to Bunker Hill and fortify it. But when they got there it was decided that Breeds Hill, much nearer Boston, would give a better command of the town and shipping. Under Prescott and General Israel Putnam the colonial soldiers worked all night building a redoubt about eight rods square. When the British sentinels looked up through the mist the next morning, June 17th, 1775, they rubbed their eyes in astonishment at sight of the fortifications. The guns from the vessels in the Charles River immediately opened fire, but the colonists kept steadily at work. At last the redoubt was finished and the tools were sent to Bunker Hill. But by this time General Gage had ordered an attack on Breeds Hill. Three thousand picked soldiers landed at the eastern base of the hill and a little after three o'clock in the afternoon began their advance. The tired Americans, who had been working all night in the entrenchments, expected to be relieved by others, but the reinforcements did not come. Nevertheless they did not falter for an instant. Slowly up the hill came the level ranks of the redcoats. "'Wait till you can see the whites of their eyes!' was the order. Nearer and nearer came the British, still not a movement from the redoubt. It was believed that the colonists had fled. But no, suddenly, at the word, FIRE! Fifteen hundred of the concealed patriots rose and poured such a deadly rain of bullets upon the English that whole companies were wiped out. Pelmel down the slope ran the terrified British, while a shout of triumph rose from the redoubt. But at the bottom their officers beat them back into line and the attack was begun once more. Charlestown was set afire by Gage's orders. This infuriated the Americans and again the English were driven back down the hill in disorder. Then came the third attack. The ammunition of the colonists was giving out. Only a few more shots remained, and after this the Americans retreated in good order across Charlestown neck. The British had won a technical victory, but at terrible cost. One thousand fifty-four killed and wounded out of twenty-five hundred engaged. The American loss was four hundred fifty. Among this number the brave general Warren. This battle, which took place on Breeds Hill, has always been known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. It lasted two hours. The cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument was laid on Breeds Hill on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, June 17, 1825. Daniel Webster's speech on this occasion is well known as a great piece of oratory. The monument is an obelisk, two hundred and twenty-one feet high and thirty feet square at the base. The Battle of Trenton, three. In December 1776 the hopes of the colonists were at the lowest ebb. The American cause was almost lost. It was one of the most critical situations in the whole revolution. The British occupied New York and all New Jersey and so confident were they of success that troops were being sent back to England. One false move would plunge the colonies into immediate defeat. It was George Washington who saved the day in this dark time. Colonel Raw was at Trenton, New Jersey with fifteen hundred Hessians, soldiers whom England had hired from Germany. The American army under Washington, beaten and discouraged but always ready and able to fight, was on the other side of the Delaware at a point a few miles above Trenton. Raw despised the colonials. He did not plant a single cannon. What need of entrenchments, he said. Let the rebels come. We will at them with the bayonet. Washington planned to attack Trenton secretly on Christmas night. He knew that according to their custom the Hessians would celebrate Christmas day with a long carousel and figure that they would be in no condition to put up a strong resistance in the cold gray dawn of December 26. So on the evening of December 25th Washington prepared to cross a Delaware above Trenton with about two thousand men. Colonel Gates was to lead ten thousand from below Trenton. But jealous of Washington he refused to obey and rode to Baltimore to intrigue in Congress for General Schuyler's place in the north. Washington proposed to cross the Delaware at McConkey's Ferry, now Taylor'sville. It was a terrible journey. The river was full of floating ice, the current was swift, and about midnight a fierce storm of snow and sleet set in. At last, at four a.m., all the men and guns stood on the Jersey shore. The army then moved on Trenton as fast as possible in two divisions. But it was broad daylight before it reached the town. There it was discovered by the enemy's pickets. These fired immediately and the sound woke Colonel Rawl and his officers who were sleeping off their debauch. Rawl roused his men and placing himself at their head gave battle to the Americans. The fight lasted only thirty-five minutes. The Hessians were defeated and sent flying toward Princeton. And Colonel Rawl was mortally wounded. It was a magnificent victory. One thousand prisoners, twelve hundred small arms, six brass field guns, and all the German flags were captured. It is evidence of Washington's genius that against overwhelming odds and in the face of every discouragement he was able to seize such an opportunity to turn the darkness of defeat into the glory of victory. By this bold stroke he so strengthened the cause of the colonies that they were finally able to win out. The spot where Washington crossed the Delaware is to be perpetuated as a public park, one hundred acres comprising the tract called Washington's Crossing have been purchased by act of a commission and the place will be a permanent memorial of the turning point of the revolution. The Declaration of Independence 4. The Declaration of Independence was a big step for the thirteen brave little colonies to make. Until then they had only been fighting for their rights as colonies of England. No taxation without representation. But after the Declaration of Independence they were battling as a separate country and if conquered would have had to suffer the fate of rebels and traitors. Congress knew that if America declared itself free from England the aid of France might be hoped for and this help might decide the whole outcome of the struggle. Besides they had come to a point where they could no longer fight as colonies but must unite as a separate and independent country. So on June 7, 1776 a committee was appointed to draw up a Declaration of Independence which should be prefaced by a clear explanation of the causes that made the colonies adopted. This committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. After a long discussion the committee decided to have Jefferson make out a copy of the Declaration. His draft was amended slightly and then reported to Congress as a whole. Here the debate was very… warm. Some of the representatives did not want to vote for independence at all. They considered it a too violent move. But at that time the voting was done by colonies and it soon appeared that the Declaration, much amended, would finally be passed by most of them. At last on the 4th of July, 1776 the Declaration was put up to be voted upon. Pennsylvania voted for independence. A majority of her representatives being favorable and other colonies soon followed. Delaware had three delegates but one of them, Caesar Rodney, was absent over 80 miles from Philadelphia. McKean, one of the two others, burning with a desire to have the vote of his colony recorded in the affirmative, sent a man on a fast horse to bring him back. Ten minutes after receiving McKean's message Rodney was in the saddle and riding all night he reached Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4th just in time to secure the vote of Delaware in favor of independence. Although it was on July 4th, 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was adopted by Congress, it was not signed by all the delegates present at that time. But they all signed before the end of the year. John Paul Jones. Five. I have not yet begun to fight! These words of the famous sea fighter John Paul Jones, commander of the first American Navy, have rung down through the years as typical of the man that spoke them. Pleasant mannered and affable in peace, he was a brave and able fighter when there was a time for it. John Paul Jones was born on July 6th, 1747 in Scotland. His father was John Paul, a gardener, and the future admiral took the name Jones about 1773 out of regard for Willie Jones, a wealthy planter and political leader of North Carolina who had befriended him in his days of poverty. John Paul went to sea at the age of twelve, but before he was nineteen became first made of a vessel in the slave trade. But he did not like this kind of work, and after two voyages gave up his position and sailed for England. Both captain and mate of the ship on which he was a passenger died of fever on the way home, and he brought the vessel safely into port. For this he received part of the cargo and a captaincy from the owners. But after making several voyages he suddenly resigned for some unknown reason and went to America to live in poverty until 1775. Then when the revolution began John Paul Jones was made a first lieutenant in the Navy by the Continental Congress on December 22nd, 1775. He soon became a captain and did much damage to British shipping. For his good work he was promoted to the rank of Commodore and put in command of five ships. He called his flagship the Bonhomme Richard in honour of Benjamin Franklin, whose poor Richard's almanac was very popular at that time. On August 14, 1779 Jones sailed from France with his squadron of five accompanied by two French privateers. All but two of his ships soon deserted him, but he kept on his course and at seven o'clock in the evening of September 23rd he sighted the British men of war, the Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough. One of his ships fled immediately, but the fearless American commander attacked the huge Serapis with his little Bonhomme Richard. The palace, Jones's other remaining ship, forced to the Countess of Scarborough to surrender, but it seemed at first as if the Richard was doomed. The English commander asked Jones if he wanted to strike his colours, but the courageous American shouted back, I have not yet begun to fight! But he proved this by finally compelling the Serapis to surrender after a fierce battle of three hours and a half. It was a glorious victory against overwhelming odds. The Bonhomme Richard was almost a total wreck. However, Jones moved his men and supplies to the Serapis. Two days later his little flagship sank. Upon his return to France Jones was hailed as a great hero. Louis XVI gave him a gold-hilted sword and made him a chevalier of France, and in 1787 Congress awarded him a gold medal in recognition of his services. In 1788 he entered the Russian Navy as a rear admiral, but he was disappointed in his hope of advancement. Going to the jealousy of Russian officers he was relieved of his command and in 1790 returned to Paris where he died on July 18, 1792. Jones was buried in the St. Louis Cemetery for foreign protestants, where his body was finally discovered over a hundred years later. In July 1905 a fleet of American warships carried the body to Annapolis, where it now rests in one of the buildings of the Naval Academy. The Birth of the Flag, 6. The men of the colonies were the ones who did the actual fighting that won American independence. But the brave women of those times also played their part. It was the courageous confidence and fortitude of their wives and sisters that spurred the men on to final victory. Some of the women had even a more active share than this in the Revolution. Betsy Ross, who made the first flag of the United States, was one of these. When the colonies first rebelled against the tyrannical rule of Great Britain, each was a separate unit in itself. Each had its own system of government and each its own flag. In no way except by a common feeling against the injustice of the mother country where they bound together. Besides the thirteen different banners of the colonies, there were various regimental ensigns and all sorts of other flags, with pine trees on them or the words liberty or death, and don't tread on me, but there was no American national flag. So after the Declaration of Independence had stated that the colonies would no longer be bound to England, Congress passed this resolution on June 14, 1777. Resolved that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation. About a month previous, Congress had appointed General Washington, Robert Morris and Colonel Ross a committee to get a flag designed and made. These three men went to Betsy Ross and her little upholstery shop on Arch Street, Philadelphia, and asked her to make a flag after the design they showed her. She agreed to do it and suggested that the stars, which Washington had drawn with six points, be made with five. Her suggestion was carried out. For several years she and her assistants made flags for our government. Her house on Arch Street is still standing. The United States flag was first blown over a military post at Fort Schuyler, on the present site of Rome, New York. The fort was besieged early in August 1777. The garrison was without a flag, so it made one according to the design of Congress by cutting up sheets to form the white stripes and bits of scarlet cloth for the red stripes. The blue ground for the stars was made of pieces of a cloth cloak belonging to Captain Abraham Swartwout. John Paul Jones is supposed to have been the first to fly the stars and stripes over a naval vessel. This ship was the Ranger, to which he was appointed in 1777. On December 5, 1782, the day when George III acknowledged the independence of the United States, J. S. Copely, the great American artist, painted the flag in the background of a portrait he was doing of Elkhana Watson. The flag was not changed until 1795, when two stripes and two stars were added for Vermont and Kentucky. But it was realized that there must be a limit to the stripes, and on April 4, 1818 a recommendation was adopted that the flag be permanently 13 stripes, representing the 13 original states, and that a new star be added for each state admitted. End of Chapter 12, Recording by Finn Handyside, College Station, Texas. George Willis Botsford, Professor of History, Columbia University, author of The Story of Rome, A History of Rome. Shortly after sunset, the express train, speeding north from Naples, emerges from the mountains and begins winding its way down-grade. The expectant visitor to the eternal city sees below him through the car window a broad expanse of plain, sloping imperceptibly on the left to the sea, in front to the Tiber River. It is an ocean of green here, quietly level, there, billowed in ridges or headed up in round hillocks. Emperor Claudius This is the Campania. The broad flat belt which borders the Tiber on the left, at first sight it reveals to us its solitude. In early Roman times it had swarmed with peasants who owned the lands they tell'd. As the city grew wealthy, the district fell into the hands of lords who covered it with their luxurious villas, peopled by multitudes of slaves. Still later, when Rome was declining, these villas fell to ruins, the slaves disappeared, and malaria stalked lonely and terrible over the beautiful country she had made her own. Even now she rules it, scarcely weakened by modern progress. The dwellings of her few wretched tenants are miles apart, herds of sheep and of fierce long-horned cattle, pasture on the abundant grass, and along the well-made roads that span the plain an occasional ox-team where it drags an awkward cart. The Temple of Custer and Pollux The ruins of this famous temple stand in the Forum, but the Campania has its attractions. It fascinates imaginative tourists and draws them to its heart. Three or four together, their knapsacks filled with food and drink, often take long trips through this wild region, whose eternal quiet speaks peace to the weary mind, whose delicate, ever-changing tincts of sky and field appeal to the taste, for natural beauty, whose ruined villas and towns awaken historical memories of the rise of Rome from a little settlement on the Tiber to a worldwide power and a fame that cannot die. The Appian Way The most impressive features of the Campania as we view it from the car window or in a stroll along either the old Appian Way or the modern Appian Way are the ruins of aqueducts. The one here illustrated is the Claudia, named after Emperor Claudius who completed it. Its sources were more than forty miles distant, while crossing the Campania the water flowed in a channel supported by a series of gigantic archers. It provided Rome not only with her best water, but her most abundant supply, amounting to more than 400,000 cubic meters daily. All the aqueducts together poured into the city each day more fresh water than the Tiber now empties into the sea. As we view this work of great utility, we naturally wonder what sort of man was the builder. At the time of his accession, he was fifty years old and had devoted his earlier life zealously to study and writing. Grotesque in manner and eccentric in his habits, he was generally considered a learned fool, and yet he made an admirable ruler. When acting as judge he often slept during the pleas of the lawyers, waking at the close of the trial to give his decision in an equitable and humane spirit. It was unfortunate for the case, however, if he chanced to smell anything good cooking in a neighboring restaurant, for he would adjourn court to refresh himself. He was far more liberal than his predecessors in bestowing Roman citizenship on subject peoples. To keep the city population supplied with cheap food, he subsidized and insured grain ships at the cost of the government, and his activity in erecting public works is illustrated by the completion of this magnificent aqueduct. It is a fact of great importance that the early emperors, whatever their private characters, almost uniformly devoted themselves to the public good. Personal service to the empire was their chief title to office and the basis on which successive rulers built up their power. The Forum The city of Rome itself abounds in places and objects of interest more easily reached than the company. It requires at least a teaspoon full of information to appreciate the features of Rome, and to those who are mentally equipped, no spot furnishes keener enjoyment than the Forum. An impressive view can be had looking eastward from the capital, one of the seven hills on which the early city sat. It can be seen that the Forum lies in a valley nearly surrounded by hills. In the 10th and 9th centuries BC, these hilltops were occupied by villages, and the valleys between them were marshes. In the 8th century, the villages united to form one city, Rome, and the marshes were gradually drained by means of sewers. The low area became at that time the Forum, marketplace of the new city. It is an approximate oblong, on the north side of which one of the kings marked off a space, the Commitium, assembly place in which all the citizens met to vote on questions of public importance. Adjoining the Commitium was the Senate House. King, afterward two consuls, Senate, and Popular Assembly constituted the government. The Forum was therefore the political center of Rome, and from this circumstance it derives all its interest. When one reflects that for nearly five centuries after the downfall of the kings, 509 to 27 BC, Rome was a republic, that during that time she conquered and organized in her empire practically the whole Mediterranean basin, we begin to understand that this spot must have been the scene of stupendous political conflicts, the birthplace of far-reaching legislative and administrative measures. Here worked the brain of the best organized and most enduring empire the world has known. Cloaca Maxima. An essential feature of the Roman government was religion, which the Senate and magistrates well knew how to operate for practical ends. It is not surprising, therefore, to find about the Forum the ruins of many temples. There is the Temple of Saturn, now only a group of columns. It rests on an unusually high foundation. Within this basement were chambers which contained the treasury of the state. It was largely by the control of the treasury that the Senate long maintained its political supremacy. A few steps from the temple is the pavement of a great oblong building of whose superstructure there are but scant remains. This was the Basilica Giulia erected by Julius Caesar and rebuilt after a destructive fire by Augustus. A basilica was used for law courts and for business purposes. The style of building was borrowed from Greece, but the architect at Rome wrought in the spirit of her people. He left the exterior plain and unattractive to devote his whole attention to the interior. It is essentially a vast hall with aisles separated from nave by a row of arch piers in this case, in other basilicas by colonnades. The designer molded, as it were, the interior space so as to express in the language of art the grandeur of the empire and in the severe harmony of the lines, the orderliness and symmetry of Roman law. No other architectural type so well embodied the imperial idea. Of the other buildings connected with the forum the most conspicuous is the temple of Castor and Pollux, just beyond the basilica Giulia. The ruins consist of three slender columns standing on a high foundation and supporting a fragment of the entablature. These remains belong to the reconstruction of the temple under Augustus, the worship of the twin gods Castor and Pollux, patrons of cavalry, had been introduced from Greece into Rome in the early republic. The front porch of the temple often served as a platform for party leaders while addressing the crowd in the forum. On such occasions it sometimes became the center of violent political conflicts out of keeping with the beauty of the surroundings. This temple and nearly all others at Rome are of the Corinthian order of architecture, distinguished by the capital of clustered accountus leaves surmounting the graceful fluted column. It is one of the best of its class and the three columns with their entablature form the most beautiful architectural fragment still preserved from classical Rome. The present level of the forum is many feet lower than that of its immediate surroundings. During the three thousand years that separate us from the beginnings of the city, the valleys have been gradually filling through the accumulation of debris of ruined buildings, the washings of earth from the surrounding hills, and various other means. Recently scholars have excavated nearly the whole forum down to the earliest level, laying bare the lower parts of buildings, the earlier pavements, altars, a primeval cemetery, and many other objects. Nearly everything found has been identified and clothed in the historical imagination with the associations of the time when it had a purpose and a meaning. But the spot once the abode of intense life is now still. It seems the burial place of a dead society and government. State officials keep drowsy guard over the remains. Tourists and scholar walk undisturbed through the sepulchre of a mighty empire, their senses awaken to the ancient life only by the rush of waters through the subterranean cloaca maxima, and to the life of our day by the roses, geraniums, and wild Italian flowers that grow luxuriously wherever a bit of soil is left. The Arch of Titus Beyond the forum and on the summit of the ridge known as the Velia is the Arch of Titus. We can read the inscription. The senate and people of Rome dedicated this arch to the deified Titus Vespasianus Augustus, son of the deified Vespasianus. Consider this inscription. Both the Greeks and the Romans propitiated the spirit of the dead with sacrifice and prayer. The founder of a city or any specially great benefactor of the community, they venerated after death as a hero, a being intermediate in dignity and power between man and the gods. The Colosseum from the North It was with this idea that the senate by decree deified, most strictly heroized, a deceased emperor who seemed to that body to have been a specially worthy ruler. Thus they had deified Vespasianus and after him his son and successor Titus. This arch therefore was dedicated by the senate and people to the memory of emperor Titus after his death. A monument of the kind commemorated a victory so great as to entitle the general to a triumph, a procession of the victorious commander and his army along the sacred way past the forum and up the capital to the temple of Jupiter on the summit. The spoils of war were carried in the procession while games and other festivities rejoiced the hearts of the populace. This arch is a memorial of the war waged by Titus against the Jews in which he besieged and destroyed Jerusalem, their holy city. During the conflict the Jews resisted with superhuman energy and when everything was lost they killed one another and their wives and children as the lord determined in order not to be slaves. The fame of their heroism is as imperishable as the military renown of the conqueror. The triumphal arch accordingly represents the slaughter of innocent people, the crushing of national liberty, the brutal sacking of cities, the merciless sale of captives into slavery. While casting this gloomy shadow it reflects on the sunlit side the glory of victory and the extension and solidification of Roman power. The Colosseum This immense amphitheatre was built by Vespasian and dedicated by Titus. It is a gigantic oval four stories in height. From the north side which is still nearly intact the first three stories present simply a series of arcades. The fourth story is a closed wall. Four entrances lead into the arena, 76 others into vaulted corridors whence the spectators passed up various stairways to their seats which extended in tiers from near the floor to the top of the highest story. The seats have disappeared but careful measurement places the capacity at 45,000 with standing room for perhaps 5,000 more. Hidden from view were the cages of wild beasts and the cells for gladiators and beneath the arena were machines for elevating animals to the surface. Interior of the Colosseum on a Feet Day The dedication in 80 AD was accompanied with games lasting through a hundred days. A Roman game involved a contest and those offered by Titus at the dedication included the baiting and slaughter of savage beasts, fights of gladiators and a sham naval battle the arena being flooded for the purpose. It is difficult to understand how a ruler such as Titus who abhorred bloodshed and would condemn no man to death during his administration provided the city populace with this bloody brutalizing sport. But love of popularity has always been a powerful motive among men and some emperors and patriotic citizens tried to excuse the sport on the foolish opposition that had fostered the military spirit. As a matter of fact the populace who attended these shows grew more and more unwilling and unfit to defend their country and homes against invading barbarians. The Basilica Julia A drawing showing the reconstructed interior of this building which formally stood in the forum. It was not till some years after Titus that the spectators began to experience a new kind of pleasure in seeing Christians thrown living to the wild beasts of the arena. Many thus perished as witnesses of a better faith and a higher morality. When however Christianity triumphed and became the religion of the empire an effort was instituted first by Constantine to stop the degrading shows. But the people were so frantically addicted to them that they were scarcely abated by government edicts till Emperor Honorius succeeded in abolishing lateratorial fights in 404. Long afterward the hunting of wild beasts continued. The massive structure remained scarcely impaired by time till about the middle of the 14th century when the greater part of the southern half collapsed probably through an earthquake. The ruin piled up a mountain of stone which for the next five centuries served the Roman nobles as a quarry, the grandeur of the Colosseum. Some of the most imposing palaces which lend dignity to the modern city have been built with this material. Although fully half the stone has been thus removed, the part of the structure which still remains is the most impressive of all the ruins of the city, a monument of the grandeur and of the moral degradation of Rome. It is an especially rich experience to visit the Colosseum by moonlight where seated on a stone at the edge of the arena we may in imagination with the aid of the tranquil light reconstruct the vast interior and repeal it with a Roman multitude breathlessly awaiting the opening of the games or exalting over the triumph of a popular favorite. On certain nights the municipal authorities illuminate the interior with colored lights whose weird spell awakens the imagination to sights of bloody conflict amid a yelling savage mob. The Tomb of Hadrian The most versatile and perhaps the ablest of all the emperors, an artist, poet, philosopher, general and statesman was Hadrian. Two-thirds of his reign of 21 years, 117 through 138 AD, he devoted to travel throughout his vast empire. The object of these journeys was not, like that of our presidents, to explain policies and secure votes for reelection to a second term. For the emperor's lease of power was lifelong. His purpose was rather to discover and meet the needs of his people. We find him accordingly improving the organization, equipments and discipline of the army, fortifying exposed points of the frontier, negotiating treaties of alliance with border states, building roads, providing the cities he visited with temples, theaters and aqueducts, carefully overseeing the complex system of administrative officers or finding relaxation in conversation with architects, authors and philosophers. Emperor Hadrian In the period of the decline, the tomb was converted into a fortress and this character it has retained to the present day. During the Middle Ages and early modern times, a period of 1500 years, it was the center of nearly all the factional strife and of the civil and foreign wars that raged in and about the city. During this time, it experienced the greatest changes in appearance by the removal of decorations and facings and the substitution of ramparts, turrets and other elements of military defense. Its present name, Castle of St. Angelo, was given it in the time of Pope Gregory the Great. The story is told that in 590, when leading a procession to St. Peter's in an attempt to check by prayer a dreadful pestilence, quote, as he was crossing the bridge, even while the people were falling dead around him, he looked up at the mausoleum and saw an angel on its summit, sheathing a bloody sword, while a choir of angels around, chanted with celestial voices, the anthem since adopted by the church in her Vesperservice, end quote. In commemoration of the miracle, a statue of the holy angel Michael stands on the summit with wings outspread. This castle unites the memories of nearly 2000 past years with the living present, having stood as a fitting tomb of a noble emperor and again as the storm center of divisional strife, let it bide henceforth as a durable monument of Italian unity and freedom. The Ruins of Rome. The Campania. One. The Roman Campania was the cradle of a mighty race. How did the little handful of men who founded Rome and their descendants become masters of the world? Livy, the great Roman historian, believes it was due to the location of the city of Rome. Not without reason, he says, did gods and men choose this site for Rome, healthy hills, a river equally adapted for inland and maritime trade, the sea not too far distant, a site in the middle of the peninsula made as it were on purpose to allow Rome to become the greatest city in the world. However healthy the climate of the Campania may have been in those times, today it is about the most unhealthy in the world. It is a district containing a great many closed valleys and depressions in the soil without outlet for the waters that accumulate. Natural water courses are impeded. Under the top soil are marl and stiff clay which hold the water after it has filtered through the soil and let it ooze out to the lower part of the country where it is mixed with rotting vegetable matter. Barriers of hills prevent movement of the air. Malaria runs rampant. But this could not have been so formally. In the early history of the Campania, towns were scattered over its surface. Later these towns disappeared and the great estates worked by crowds of slaves occupied the land. Then the great villas whose ruins now strew the ground everywhere in the neighborhood of Rome were built. The ancient Roman nobility lived in great numbers in the very places now found so deadly. Their summer homes were placed but all through the country. Huge aqueducts supplied Rome with water and irrigated the farms on the Campania. These are the most conspicuous ruins on the Campania today. The Gothic army at the siege of Rome in 536 destroyed nearly all the aqueducts and later on the great country seats were demolished. Six miles from Rome on the Flaminian road at the spot now called the Prima Porta, Empress Livia had a country house which has been excavated. It was well decorated and comfortable. They were found in the house as statue of Emperor Augustus and the busts of several members of the royal family. The ruins of many tombs are found on the Campania. Roman family vaults contained a funeral banquet hall on a level with the road and the crypt below where the ashes were kept in urns or the bodies laid to rest in sarcophagi. The sites of the cities of Veii, Fidene and Gaby, once the rivals and equals of Rome, are now almost deserted. In sea coast towns of Ardia, Laurentum, Livinium and Ostia at one time well populated are practically empty. The inhabitants are haggard and fever-stricken. The children are gaunt, hollow cheeked and sallow in complexion. Men who work there in the fields fear to pass the night in the country because of the fever. They return to Rome every evening. Forsaken towers and buildings which stand rotting everywhere about the Campania tell the same story of a pestilence-stricken district. Now for the most part only foxes, bears and other wild animals tenant the ragged pastures and wild jungles of the Campania. The capitaline hill, too. When Rome was founded by Romulus and his handful of comrades, they soon saw that if the city was to grow and prosper, they would need wives. How to get them was the question. Near Rome was a nation called the Sabines. So the Romans enticed the women of this nation to the new city and kept them there. It is recorded that these early Romans were pretty fine-looking men and that the efforts of the Sabine women to escape were not very strenuous. But naturally the Sabine men were not pleased to be thus deprived of their wives. They started the war with Rome and besieged this city. The capitaline hill was the most important of the seven hills in which Rome was built. So Romulus fortified it strongly and gave it into the care of one of his bravest generals, Tarpeius. But Romulus reckoned without Tarpeia the daughter of Tarpeius. The Sabine men had a custom of wearing heavy gold and silver bracelets on their left arms. Tarpeia saw these and was dazzled by them. She planned to get possession of them all. One night she crept down to the gate and promised the leader of the Sabines that she would open it and give up the hill to them if they would give her what they wore on their left arms. The Sabines agreed to this and Tarpeia opened the gate. The Sabines seemed to have been brave, honorable men, and although they believed all was fair in war, yet they hated a traitor. Besides the bracelets, they carried their shields on their left arms, so they kept their promise to Tarpeia by throwing these shields on the girl and crushing her to death. The hill was afterwards spoken of as Mons Tarpeius, meaning the hill of Tarpeia. It was after this traitorous girl also that the rock from which the traitors were hurled was named the Tarpeian Rock. The Sabines held Capitoline Hill for a time, but finally decided to unite with the Romans, and the women were divided between the two nations by lot. The capital was, in reality, that part of Capitoline Hill occupied by the Temple of Jupiter, but included the Piazza del Campidolio with the palaces that face it on three sides. In this depression was situated the Asylum of Romulus. In the early days of Rome, the founders wished to attract people to settle there, and they issued invitations to all neighboring cities, but not many accepted. So Romulus conceived the brilliant idea of receiving all fugitives from other towns as citizens of Rome and guaranteeing them protection. For this purpose, he converted the depression in Capitoline Hill into a place of refuge or asylum. In this way the new city was peopled. Capitoline Hill has been the scene of many historical events in 1251 during the Senatorship of Brancaleone, who destroyed 140 private castles in Rome, the capital was besieged and taken by the partisans of the pope and the nobility. Petrarch was crowned poet laureate there in 1341. The entire Capitoline Hill is undemined with large and excessive artificial caverns. These caverns are apparently ancient and mostly the work of medieval quarrymen. The Roman Forum Three So many statues crowded the streets of the Forum at one time that Rome was said to have two equal populations, one in flesh and blood, the other in bronze and marble. This was almost literally true. The Forum was the center of Rome, it was the political and business meeting ground of the citizens. Situated in the valley between the seven hills of the city, it was the common property of the people of all the hills. So, when anyone wanted to erect a statue or a gallows, a temple or a shop, he put it in the Forum. Naturally, the Forum became overcrowded. The Forum Romanum was in the shape of an oblong, 690 feet long and 240 feet wide. It does not seem to be this large, however, since the space is so taken up by monuments. In the beginning the Forum was the marshy battlefield of the early inhabitants of the Capitoline and Palatine Hills. When the ground was drained by great ditches, it became under a united rule the most convenient place for political meetings, for business affairs, for the pudgens of rich men's funerals, for plays and for gladiatorial games. For these purposes, a central space, though but a small one, was kept clear of buildings. Gradually even this space became filled with the ever-growing crowd of statues and other honorary monuments. Ornings were probably spread over this central space of the Forum, since square holes are found in the pavement which held masts, on which the ornings could be suspended. Beneath the pavement also a network of passages was discovered. These passages were three feet below the surface and eight feet high and five wide. They were probably used for scenic purposes when games and plays were given in the Forum. The Rostra stood in the Forum. This was a platform from which speakers addressed the people. It was decorated with the prowess of captured ships. Thus the platform was called the Rostra or Beaks. There is a story that one night in 362 AD a monstrous chasm opened in the Forum. The Romans were dumbfounded. The chasm must be closed before business could go on. The oracles said that the gulf would never close until Rome's most valuable possession had been thrown into it. What was the most valuable possession of Rome? Some said one thing, some another. Then Marcus Curtis, a young man of noble family announcing that nothing was more precious to Rome than her sons, leaped fully armed and on horseback into the chasm. The gulf closed immediately. Later the spot was covered by a marsh called Lake Curtis, and later still when the marsh had been drained an enclosed space containing an altar marked the place. Once the center of the civilized world, the heart of the Roman Empire, the Forum, is now but a mass of crumbling ruins, and the walls that long ago looked down upon streets crowded with the rulers of the world now see only the occasional tourist. The Colosseum fall, quote, while stands the Colosseum Rome shall stand. When falls the Colosseum Rome shall fall, end quote. Thus ran the ancient prophecy made by two English pilgrims to Rome in the eighth century, and although only about one third of the original Colosseum is left, Rome still stands, not in its former power and majesty, however. The Colosseum is the amphitheater where the Romans held gladiatorial fights. Later they added to the program the slaughter of Christians by wild beasts. A lion or tiger was starved for a week or so and then turned loose on a crowd of naked Christians in the arena. These spectacles were a source of great amusement to the Romans. Fifty thousand people could be seated in the Colosseum. The lowest seats were the most honorable, the upper galleries being occupied by the lower classes where the seats were often free. An awning was stretched over the seats and to provide further for the comfort of the audience jets of water cooled the air and fragrant perfumes centered it. The Colosseum was oval in shape and had four tiers of seats surrounding the arena. Arena means sand in Latin, and as the place where the contests took place was covered with sand to keep the gladiators from slipping in the blood, so it received this name. The arena is about 94 yards long by 54 yards wide. The podium, which was long ago removed, was a raised platform 12 feet high at the base of the seats on which sat the emperor, the senators, and the Vestal Virgins. Each person on the platform had a throne-like seat. The emperor's was raised above the others and had a canopy over it. When the Colosseum was dedicated in 80 A.D. by Emperor Titus, there was a celebration that lasted almost 100 days. 5,000 wild animals were slaughtered in the arena. Before the Colosseum was built, the gladiatorial contests were held in the forum. This pasion began the construction of the amphitheater in 72 A.D. The Flavian amphitheater was the name first given to the building, from the family name Flavium, of the emperors who built it. Earthquakes destroyed the arena and podium in 442 and 580, but it was not until the reign of Justinian in the 6th century that the shedding of human blood ended. A bullfight was held in the building as late as 1332. The Roman popes and princes used the Colosseum as a place from which to get building material. These barbarous nobles of the Middle Ages treated this historic building shamefully. Passion plays were given in the Colosseum in the 17th century. It was used as a manufacturing place for saltpeter in 1700. Half a century later, Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the building to the memory of the Christian martyrs who had died there. The chief characteristics of the Colosseum are strength and solidity. The historic memories that cluster round its walls of mighty emperors and bloodthirsty mobs, of screams of death or triumph, of gorgeous pardons and heroic martyrdom, combine to render the Colosseum the most imposing ruin in the whole world. The Arch of Titus, 5. Through tears of crowded seats that flanked their line of march, Titus and Vespasian rode in their triumphal procession in 70 AD. Jerusalem had been conquered and the temple burned and destroyed. This celebration was called the Triumph, which was given by Rome to all her successful generals on their return from campaigns. It had been a hard task for Titus to conquer rebellious Jerusalem. Oppression and extortion by the Roman rulers had risen to such a height that the Jews were driven at last into desperate resistance to the overwhelming power of Rome. Vespasian was sent by Emperor Nero to subdue them. All Galilee was soon subjugated and only Jerusalem remained unconquered. When Vespasian returned to Rome and became emperor, he sent his son Titus to subdue Jerusalem. Titus arrived upon the heights near Jerusalem and began to besiege the city. He captured the first and the second walls, then he built a wall around the city and soon headed in a state of famine. At length all the city was captured but the temple. Here the Jews made their last stand. Titus wished to save the temple but his soldiers set fire to it and plundered it. A terrible massacre of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem followed. Then the prisoners and spoils were born to Rome. The next year Titus and Vespasian had their triumph. The Senate and other chief men led the procession. Then came the spoils with persons bearing title boards or placards from which the spectators might find out the history of all the objects that passed before them. There were silver, gold and ivory in all kinds of forms, gems set and unset, tapestries of the rare as Babylonian embroidery. There were various foreign animals dressed in gorgeous trappings. But what interested the spectators the most was the large high platforms on which were exhibited parts of the campaign. Models of cities, temples, fortresses assaulted, captured in ruins or in flames, representations of the hostile armies in all the different forms of war. Then came the models of captured ships. Priests with bulls for sacrifice followed. 700 Hebrew youths as prisoners marched next. Then came the spoils from the temple of Jerusalem, the golden table, the golden candlestick and last of all the book of the law. Emperor Vespasian followed by Titus, each in a separate chariot, rode next in the procession with Demetian, who was the younger son of Vespasian and Consul on horseback. After them came the soldiers who had been in the war crowned with laurel leaves and shouting songs of victory. Thus the triumphal procession went along the sacred way. When they came to the temple, Simon, the general of the Hebrews, was put to death according to custom. The leader of the conquered army was always killed at the triumph of the conquering general. The other prisoners were made either gladiators or slaves. After Simon had been put to death, sacrifices were offered to the gods and all departed to the waiting banquets. The arch of Titus was built on the sacred way to commemorate the triumph. It was one of the earliest of those 21 archers with which Rome was once adorned. The exact date of erection is not known, but it must have been after the death of Titus, for on the ceiling of the vault of the arch Titus is represented as sitting astride an eagle. At the funeral of a Roman emperor an eagle was released, on whose back the soul of the emperor was supposed to mount to heaven, there to dwell among the gods forever. Emperor Hadrian was a great traveler. He spent the eight years from 119 to 127 AD in journeying around the Roman Empire just to get acquainted with the state of the provinces. When he was in England he built the famous wall that extends from the Solway to the Thine. He fully deserved the title Father of his Country, which was given him on his return to Rome. Hadrian was also a famous builder. In addition to the great Roman wall in England he erected many beautiful and expensive structures in Athens and a villa at Tivoli, which was noted for its beauty. But his most famous building is Hadrian's tomb, now called Castle Sant'Angelo, which was constructed in 130 AD. The last vacant niche in the tomb of Augustus was occupied and so Hadrian determined to build one for himself and his successors, which should have no rival in the world. Hadrian died before it was finished, but Antoninus Pius, his successor, completed it and buried Hadrian there. Hadrian's tomb is a large circular tower, 230 feet in diameter. It was originally built of Parian marble. Sometime in the fifth century, however, it was converted into a fort and when the Goths under Vitigas besieged it in 537, the defenders tore the statues from their pedestals and hurled them down upon the attackers. Two of these were found during the 17th century in the moat surrounding the tomb. In 590 there was a great plague in Rome. Pope Gregory the Great was leading a procession to St. Peter's Cathedral to pray for deliverance from the pestilence when it is said the destroying angel appeared on the summit of the tomb of Hadrian. The angel was sheeding his sword to signify that the plague was stopped. Since that time the building has been known as the Castle St. Angelo. In 610 Pope Boniface IV erected on the summit of the tomb the Chapel of St. Angelo interneubis in commemoration of this event. Several statues of the archangel succeeded this. The present one was put there in 1743. Marozia, daughter of Theodora, held the tomb as a fort in the 10th century and had Pope John X suffocated in a dungeon. A few years later Pope Benedict VI met a similar fate at the hands of Crescenzio, son of Theodora. In the latter part of the 10th century Crescentius the consul had a quarrel with the pope and seized the fort. He held it bravely against Emperor Otto III who had marched into Rome in defense of the pope. Emperor Hadrian was an able military leader and a just and wise civil ruler. His full name was Publius Aelius Hadrianus and he was born at Rome on January the 24th 76 AD. He was such an ardent student of Greek that he was nicknamed Greculus the Greek. He served in the campaign against the Dachians under his uncle Emperor Trajan. At the latter's death he became emperor. Hadrian died at Baye on July 10th 138. His remains were carried to Putioli from which place they were afterward taken to Rome.