is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose ruins is: THEY WERE, BUT THEY ARE NOT? Forbid it, my countrymen! Forbid it, Heaven! J. Story. XXXIX. SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS. It had been a day of triumph at Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre, to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dew-drop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre, a band of gladiators were crowded together, their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their brows, when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus addressed them:-- "Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief, who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If there, be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody sand, let them come on! "Yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of savage men. My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brought the rural deities his offerings of fruits ad flowers. He dwelt among the vine-clad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. My early life ran quiet as the brook by which I sported. I was taught to prune the vine, to tend the flock; and then, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute. I had a friend, the son of our neighbor; we led our flocks to the same pasture, and shared together our rustic meal.