he condition of the
men might have been much worse. Still, it must not be imagined that
there was any pleasantness in their lives. Communication between
them was not allowed. Day after day they filled their places
without speech; in hours of labor they could not see each other's
faces; their short respites were given to sleep and the snatching
of food. They never laughed; no one ever heard one of them sing.
What is the use of tongues when a sigh or a groan will tell all
men feel while, perforce, they think in silence? Existence with
the poor wretches was like a stream under ground sweeping slowly,
laboriously on to its outlet, wherever that might chance to be.

O Son of Mary! The sword has now a heart--and thine the glory!
So now; but, in the days of which we are writing, for captivity
there was drudgery on walls, and in the streets and mines, and the
galleys both of war and commerce were insatiable. When Druilius won
the first sea-fight for his country, Romans plied the oars, and the
glory was to the rower not less than the marine. These benches which
now we are trying to see as they were testified to the change come
with conquest, and illustrated both the policy and the prowess of
Rome. Nearly all the nations had sons there, mostly prisoners of
war, chosen for their brawn and endurance. In one place a Briton;
before him a Libyan; behind him a Crimean. Elsewhere a Scythian,
a Gaul, and a Thebasite. Roman convicts cast down to consort with
Goths and Longobardi, Jews, Ethiopians, and barbarians from the
shores of Maeotis. Here an Athenian, there a red-haired savage
from Hibernia, yonder blue-eyed giants of the Cimbri.

In the labor of the rowers there was not enough art to give occupation
to their minds, rude and simple as they were. The reach forward,
the pull, the feathering the blade, the dip, were all there was of
it; motions most perfect when most automatic. Even the care forced
upon them by the sea outside grew in time to be a thing instinctive
rather than of thought. So, as the result of long service, the poor
wretches became imbruted--patient, spiritless, obedient--creatures of
vast muscle and exhausted intellects, who lived upon recollections
generally few but dear, and at last lowered into the semi-conscious
alchemic state wherein misery turns to habit, and the soul takes on
incredible endurance.

From right to left, hour after hour, the tribune, swaying in
his easy-chair, turned with thought of everything