_The Heart of Salome_
[Sidenote: Salathiel Again Travels Homeward]
No tidings sooner make themselves known than those of the heart. We
found our daughters waiting anxiously at the entrance of the cave, which
had been fitted up for our temporary shelter. Before a word could be
exchanged, a glance from Miriam told the success of her mission, and
anxiety was turned into delight. Esther danced round me and was eloquent
in her gratitude. Salome shed silent tears, and when I attempted to wipe
them away, fell fainting into my arms. We spent a part of the night in
the open air; the last wine and fruits of our store were brought out;
the Cypriot exiles came down from their rocks; the crew of the galley,
already on board, danced, sang, and drank to the success of the voyage;
and it was not till the moon, our only lamp, was about to be extinguished
in the waters, that we thought of closing our final night on the Syrian
shore.
[Sidenote: A Surprising Change]
We traveled along the coast as far as Berytus; then turning to the
eastward, crossed the Libanus and the mountain country that branches into
Upper Galilee. Our coming had been long announced, and we found Eleazar,
Jubal, and our chief kinsmen waiting at one of the passes to lead us
home in triumph. The joy of our tribe was honest if it was tumultuous,
and many a shout disturbed the solitude as we moved along. My impatience
increased when we reached the well-known hills that sheltered what
was once my home. Yet I remembered too keenly the shock of seeing its
desolation not to dread the first sight of the spot, and rode away from
the group at full speed that my nervousness might have time to subside
before their arrival. But at the foot of the last ascent I drew the rein.
Every tree, every bush, almost every stone, had been familiar to me in
my wanderings, and were now painful memorials of the long malady of my
mind.
Eleazar, who watched me during the latter part of the journey with
something of a consciousness of my thoughts, put spurs to his horse, and
found me standing, pale and palpitating.
“Come,” said he, “we must not alarm Miriam by thinking too much of
the past; let us try if the top of the hill will not give us a better
prospect than the bottom.”
I shrank from the attempt.
“No!” said I; “the horror that the prospect once gave me must not be
renewed. Let us change the route, no matter how far round; the sight of
that ruin would distract me to the last hour of my life.”
He only smiled in reply, and catching my bridle, galloped forward. A few
seconds placed us on the summit of the hill. Could I believe my eyes! All
below was as if rapine had never been there. The gardens, the cattle, the
dwellings, lay a living picture under the eye.
“This is miracle!” I exclaimed.
“No; or it is but the miracle of a little activity and a great deal of
good will,” was the answer of my companion. “Your kinsmen did this at
the time when you were slumbering with the wolf and bear in the Libanus;
Nature did her part in covering your fields and gardens; and those
sheep and cattle are a tribute of gratitude from your brother for the
preservation of his life.”
[Sidenote: The Policy of Rome]
Our troop now ascended the height. The land lay beneath them in the
luxuriance of summer. They were ardent in their expressions of surprise
and pleasure. We rushed down the defile, and I was once more master of a
home. Public events had rapidly ripened in my absence.[24] Popular wrath
was stimulated by increased exaction. Law was more palpably perverted
into insolence. Order was giving way on all sides. The Roman garrisons,
neglected and ill paid, were adopting the desperate habits of the
populace, and in the general scorn of religion and right, the country
was becoming a horde of robbers. The ultimate causes of this singular
degeneracy might be remote and set in action by a vengeance above man;
but the immediate causes were plain to every eye.
The general principles of Rome in the government of her conquests were
manly and wise. When the soldier had done his work—and it was done
vigorously, yet with but little violence beyond that which was essential
for complete subjugation—the sword slept as an instrument of evil, and
awoke only as an instrument of justice.
If neighboring kingdoms quarreled, a legion marched across the border
and brought the belligerents to sudden reason; dismissed their armies to
their hearths and altars, and sent the angry chiefs to reconcile their
claims in an Italian dungeon. If a disputed succession threatened to
embroil the general peace, the proconsul ordered the royal competitors to
embark for Rome, and there settle the right before the senate.
The barbaric invasions which had periodically ravaged the Eastern empires
even in their day of power were repelled with a terrible vigor. The
legions left the desert covered with the tribe for the feast of the
vulture, and showed to Europe the haughty leaders of the Tatar, Gothic,
and Arab myriads in fetters, dragging wains, digging in mines, or
sweeping the highways.
If peace could be an equivalent for freedom, the equivalent was never
so amply secured. The world within this iron boundary nourished; the
activity and talent of man were urged to the highest pitch; the conquered
countries were turned from wastes and forests into fertility; ports
were dug upon naked shores; cities swelled from villages; population
spread over the soil once pestilential and breeding only the weed and
the serpent. The sea was covered with trade; the pirate and the marauder
were unheard of or hunted down. Commercial enterprise shot its lines and
communications over the map of the earth, and regions were then familiar
which even the activity of the revived ages of Europe has scarcely made
known.
[Sidenote: The Absence of Genius]
Those were the wonders of great power steadily directed to a great
purpose. General coercion was the simple principle, and the only
talisman of a Roman Emperor was the chain, except where it was casually
commuted for the sword; the universality of the compression atoned for
half its evil. The natural impulse of man is to improvement; he requires
only security from rapine. The Roman supremacy raised round him an
impregnable wall. It was the true government for an era when the habits
of reason had not penetrated the general human mind. Its chief evil was
in its restraint of those nobler and loftier aspirations of genius and
the heart which from time to time raise the general scale of mankind.
Nothing is more observable than the decay of original literature, of the
finer architecture and of philosophical invention, under the empire.
Even military genius, the natural product of a system that lived but on
military fame, disappeared; the brilliant diversity of warlike talent
that shone on the very verge of the succession of the Cæsars sank like
falling stars, to rise no more. No captain was again to display the
splendid conception of Pompey’s boundless campaigns; the lavish heroism
and inexhaustible resource of Antony; or the mixture of undaunted
personal enterprise and profound tactic, the statesmanlike thought,
generous ambition, and high-minded pride that made Cæsar the very emblem
of Rome. But the imperial power had the operation of one of those great
laws of nature which through partial evil sustain the earth—a gravitating
principle which, if it checked the ascent of some gifted beings beyond
the dull level of life, yet kept the infinite multitude of men and things
from flying loose beyond all utility and all control.
[Sidenote: Roman Avarice]
Yet it was only for a time. The empire was but the superstructure of the
republic, a richer, more luxuriant, and more transitory object for the
eye of the world, and the storm was already gathering that was to shake
it to the ground. The corruptions of the palace first opened the imperial
ruin. They soon extended through every department of the state. If the
habitual fears of the tyrant in the midst of a headlong populace could
scarcely restrain him in Rome, what must be the excesses of his minions
where no fear was felt, where complaint was stifled by the dagger, and
where the government was bought with bribes, to be replaced only by
licensed rapine!
The East was the chief victim. The vast northern and western provinces
of the empire pressed too closely on Rome, were too poor and too warlike
to be the favorite objects of Italian rapacity. There a new tax raised
an insurrection; the proconsular demand of a loan was answered by a
flight which stripped the land, or by the march of some unheard-of tribe,
pouring down from the desert to avenge their countrymen. The character,
too, of the people, influenced the choice of their governors. Brave and
experienced soldiers, not empty and vicious courtiers, must command
the armies that were thus liable to be hourly in battle, and on whose
discipline depended the slumbers of every pillow in Italy. Stern as is
the life of camps, it has its virtues, and men are taught consideration
for the feelings, rights, and resentments of man by a teacher that makes
its voice heard through the tumult of battle and the pride of victory.
But all was reversed in Asia, remote, rich, habituated to despotism,
divided in language, religion, and blood; with nothing of that fierce,
yet generous clanship, which made the Gaul of the Belgian marshes listen
to the trumpet of the Gaul of Narbonne, and the German of the Vistula
burn with the wrongs of the German of the Rhine.
[Sidenote: The Discovery of Danger]
Under Nero, Judea was devoured by Roman avarice. She had not even the sad
consolation of owing her evils to the ravage of those nobler beasts of
prey in human shape that were to be found in the other provinces—she was
devoured by locusts. The polluted palace supplied her governors; a slave
lifted into office by a fellow slave; a pampered profligate, exhausted by
the expenses of the capital; a condemned and notorious extortioner, with
no other spot to hide his head, were the gifts of Nero to my country.
Pilate, Felix, Festus, Albinus, Florus, a race more profligate and cruel
as our catastrophe approached, tore the very bowels of the land. Of the
last two it was said that Albinus should have been grateful to Florus
for proving that he was not the basest of mankind, by the evidence that
a baser existed; that he had a respect for virtue by his condescending
to commit those robberies in private which his successor committed in
public; and that he had human feeling by his abstaining from blood where
he could gain nothing by murder; while Florus disdained alike concealment
and cause, and slaughtered for the public pleasure of the sword!
A number of partial insurrections, easily suppressed, displayed the wrath
of the people and indulged the cruelty of the procurator. They indulged
also his avarice. Defeat was followed by confiscation; and Florus even
boasted that he desired nothing more prosperous than insurrection in
every village of Judea. He was about to be gratified before he had
prepared himself for this luxury!
A menial in my house was detected with letters from an agent of the
Roman governor. They required details of my habits and resources, which
satisfied me that I had become an object of vengeance. From the time of
my return I had seen with bitterness of soul the insults to my country.
I had summoned my friends to ascertain what might be our means of
resistance, and found them as willing and devoted as became men; but our
resources for more than the first burst of popular wrath, the seizure
of some petty Roman garrison, or the capture of a convoy, were nothing.
The jealousies of the chief men of the tribes, the terrors of Rome, the
positions of the Roman troops, cutting off military communication between
the north and south of Judea, made the attempt hopeless, and it was
abandoned for the time. Even those letters which marked me for a victim
made no change in my determination that if I could not escape danger by
individual means, no public blood should be laid to my charge. For a few
months all was tranquil; the habits of rural life are calculated to keep
depressing thoughts at a distance. My wife and daughters returned to
their graceful pursuits, with the added pleasure of novelty after so long
a cessation. I hunted through the hills with Constantius, or, traversing
the country which might yet be the scene of events, availed myself of the
knowledge of a master of the whole science of Roman war.
[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Love for History]
At home the works of the great poets of the West, with whom our guest had
made us familiar, varied the hours; but I found a still more stirring
and congenial interest in the histories of Greek valor, and in the study
of the mighty minds that made and unmade empires.
With the touching and picturesque narrative of Herodotus in my hand, I
pantingly followed the adventures of the most brilliant of nations. I
fought the battle with them against the Persian; I saw them gathered in
little startled groups on the hills, or flying in their little galleys
from island to island, the land deserted, the sea covered with fugitives;
the Persian fleets loaded with Asiatic pomp, darkening the waters like a
thunder-cloud—and in a moment all changed! The millions of Asia scattered
like dust before the wind—Greece lifted to the height of martial glory,
and commencing a career of triumph still more illustrious, that triumph
of the mind in which, through the remotest vicissitudes of earth, she was
to have no conqueror.
I especially and passionately pursued the campaigns of that extraordinary
man Arrian, whose valor, vanity, and fortune make him one of the
landmarks of human nature. In Alexander I delighted in tracing the native
form of the Greek through the embroidered robes of royalty and triumph.
In his romantic intrepidity and deliberate science, his alternations of
profound thought and fantastic folly, the passion for praise and the
contempt for its offerers, the rash temper and the noble magnanimity,
the love for the arts and the thirst for that perpetual war before which
they fly, the philosophic scorn of privation and the feeble lapses into
self-indulgence; the generous forecast, which peopled deserts and founded
cities, and the giddy and fatal neglect which left his diadem to be
fought for and his family to be the prey of rival rebellions,—I saw the
true man of the republic; not the lord of the rugged hills of Macedon,
but the Athenian of the day of popular splendor and folly, with only the
difference of the scepter.
To me those studies were like a new door opened into the boundless palace
of human nature. I felt that sense of novelty, vigor, and fresh life
that the frame feels in breathing the morning air over the landscape of
a new country. It was a voyage on an unknown sea, where every headland
administers to the delight of curiosity. In this there was nothing of the
common pedantry of the schools. My knowledge of life had hitherto been
limited by my original destination. A Jew and a priest, there was but one
solemn avenue through which I was to see the glimpses of the external
world. The vista was now opened beyond all limit; visions of conquest,
of honor among nations, of praise to the last posterity, clustered round
my head. There were times when in this exultation even my doom was
forgotten. The momentary oblivion may have been permitted merely to blunt
the edge of incurable misfortune. I was permitted at intervals to recruit
the strength that was to be tried till the end of time.
[Sidenote: Eleazar’s Disclosure]
I was one day immersed in Polybius, with my master in soldiership at my
side, guiding me by his living comment through the wonders of the Punic
campaigns, when Eleazar entered, with a look that implied his coming on a
matter of importance. Constantius rose to withdraw.
“No,” said my brother, “the subject of my mission is one that should
not be concealed from the preserver of our kindred. It may be one of
happiness to us all. Salome has arrived at the age when the daughters of
Israel marry. She must give way to our general wish and play the matron
at last.”
He turned with a smile to Constantius, and asked his assent to the
opinion; he received no answer. The young Greek had plunged more deeply
than ever into the passage of the Alps.
“And who is the suitor?” I inquired.
“One worthy of her and you. A generous, bold, warm-hearted kinsman, in
the spring of life, sufficiently opulent, for he will probably be my
heir, prepared to honor you, and, I believe, long and deeply attached to
her.”
“Jubal! There is not a man in our tribe to whom I would more gladly
give her. Let my friend Jubal come. Congratulate me, Constantius; you
shall now at last see festivity in our land in scorn of the Roman. You
have seen us in flight and captivity; you shall now witness some of the
happiness that was in Judah before we knew the flapping of an Italian
banner, and which shall be, if fortune smile, when Rome is like Babylon.”
[Sidenote: Jubal’s Cause]
Constantius suddenly rose from his volume, and thrusting it within the
folds of his tunic, was leaving the apartment.
“No,” said I, “you must remain; Miriam and Salome shall be sent for, and
in your presence the contract signed.”
For the first time I perceived the excessive pallidness of his
countenance, and asked whether I had not trespassed too much on his
patience with my studies.
His only reply was: “Is there no liberty of choice in the marriages of
Israel? Will you decide without consulting her, whom this contract is to
render happy or miserable while she lives?” He rushed from the room.
Miriam came—but alone. Her daughter had wandered out into one of our many
gardens. She received Eleazar with sisterly fondness, but her features
wore the air of constraint. She heard the mission, but “she had no
opinion to give in the absence of Salome. She knew too well the happiness
of having chosen for herself to wish to force the consent of her child.
Let Salome be consulted.”
The flourish of music and the trampling of horses broke up our reluctant
conference. Jubal had already come with a crowd of his friends. We
hastened to receive him at the porch, and he bounded into the court on
his richly caparisoned barb, at the head of a troop in festal habiliments.
The men of Israel loved pomp of dress and handsome steeds. The group
before me might have made a body-guard for a Persian king. Jubal had long
looked on my daughter with the admiration due to her singular beauty; it
was the custom to wed within our tribe; he was the favorite and the heir
of her uncle; she had never absolutely banished him from her presence,
and in the buoyancy of natural spirits, the boldness of a temperament
born for a soldier, and perhaps in the allowable consciousness of a showy
form, he had admitted none of the perplexities of a trembling lover.
Salome was at length announced, and the proposed husband was left to
plead his own cause.