ITALIAN
YESTERDAYS
BY
MRS. HUGH FRASER
Author of “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Japan,”
“A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands,”
“Reminiscences of a Diplomatist’s
Wife,” etc.
VOL. I
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published November, 1913
CONTENTS OF VOL. I
CHAPTER I
PAGE
IMPRESSIONS OF EARLY ROME 1
Romance and Companionship of the Past—Rome the Supremely
Beloved—Pictures and Legends of Her Origin—Migration of
the Alban Shepherds—Romulus and Remus—Etruria’s
Civilisation—Whole World Contributes to Rome’s
Growth—Brilliant Scenes in the Roman World—Rome’s High
Destiny—Numa Pompilius, the Law-giver—Egeria’s
Grotto—Love Story of Herodes Atticus and Annia
Regilla—Early Christianity.
CHAPTER II
REMINISCENCES OF MODERN ROME 18
Rome’s Seasons—Childhood Memories of a Roman Spring—My
Birthday Festival—A Day in the Country—The Appian
Way—Rome’s Great Wall—An Adventure with the Campagna
Steers—Campagna Sheep-Dogs—Early Morning Street
Scenes—The Giardino Colonna—Secluded Italian
Gardens—Inroads of Commercialism—Discovery of a
Dream-Garden of the Renaissance—Song of the Nightingale
in the Lost Italian Garden.
CHAPTER III
LAST DAYS OF THE APOSTLES 34
St. Peter’s First Visit to Rome—Wide Scope of His
Work—Rome Destined to Become the Seat of Ecclesiastical
Government—St. Peter’s Early Converts—Persecution of
the Jews—Life in the Catacombs—Simon Magus and St.
Peter—Peter’s Return to Rome—Nero’s Slaughter of
Christians—Peter’s Vision—“Lord, Whither Goest
Thou?”—Preparation for Martyrdom—Last Epistle—St.
Peter’s Successor—Imprisonment of St. Peter and St.
Paul—Scenes of Final Tragedy—Crucifixion of Peter—Paul
Beheaded—Devotion of Their Followers.
CHAPTER IV
ROMAN YESTERDAYS 51
The Gods of the Roman World—Leaven of
Christianity—Measures of the Emperors Against the
Christians—Nine General Persecutions—Mad Extremes of
Heliogabalus—Rescue of the Bodies of the Apostles—Tragic
History of the Appian Way—The Joys of Solitude—How
Marion Crawford Became the Master of San Niccola—A
Solitude of Relaxation and Quiet—A Secluded Garden on
the River in Rome—The Contrasts of Life and the
Happiness in Hoping—An Artists’ Festival—How a Roman
Emperor Looked.
CHAPTER V
A FEUDAL VILLA 64
Ancient Beauty of Villa Borghese—A Sylvan Siesta—The
Woodland of the Borghese—The Heart of the Trees—The
Borghese Anemone—Vintage Time in the Grape
Countries—Tuscany, an Atmosphere of Purity and
Calm—Bunches of Grapes Two Feet Long—Muscatels of
Etruria—October Festivals at the Villa Borghese—Peasants
of the Coast Towns—Picturesque Costume of the
Albanese—Feast in the Private Garden—Fountains of
Wine—Classic Chariot Races—The Passing of the Feudal
System.
CHAPTER VI
A CHURCH PILGRIMAGE 79
Church’s Pilgrimage on the Feast of the Apostles—The
Seven Commemorative Churches—The Byzantine Basilica
of St. Paul—The Apostle’s Tomb—Ostian Way, the Saddest
of All Roads—The Tideless Sea—Call of the Unknown,
Gorgeous East—Santa Pudentiana, the Site of St. Paul’s
First Abiding Place in Rome—Christianity in Early
Rome—Priest Pastor’s Story of the Pudens Family—Holy
Relics—Story of the Crime of the Vico Scellerato—The
Last of the Roman Kings.
CHAPTER VII
THE LATER EMPERORS 94
People and Scenes of the Corso—The Collegio
Romano—Cardinal Merry del Val—Church of the Trinità
dei Monti—A Picture of the Emperor Theodosius and His
Son—The Other Boy Emperor, Gratian—The Usurper,
Maximus—Nobility of Gratian—Finally Overcome by
Treachery—Saint Ambrose—Fifth Day at St. Peter of the
Chains—Two Christian Empresses—The Miracle of the
Chains—High Mass at San Pietro—Latter Days of the
Pilgrimage—View from Janiculum Hill—Michelangelo and
Vasari—Michelangelo’s “Visiting Card.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE 118
Final Function of the Pilgrimage—St. John Lateran—A
Daring Climb—A Story of St. Francis of Assisi—Dante’s
Tribute—Rome’s Ghetto—Yellow Banksia Roses—Fair on the
Eve of the Feast of St. John the Baptist—Early Figs—St.
Anthony and the Sucking Pig—Rome’s Studios—A Picture of
Hébert’s—Hamon’s Work.
CHAPTER IX
ST. CECILIA 136
Persecution Result of Covetousness—Steady Growth of
Christianity—Story of Saint Cecilia—Dress of a
Patrician Woman—A Roman Marriage—Cecilia’s
Consecration—Apparition of St. Paul—Cecilia’s Guardian
Angel—Conversion of Two Roman Nobles—Slaughter of
Christians—A Declaration of Faith—Condemnation of the
Nobles.
CHAPTER X
MARTYRDOM OF ST. CECILIA 154
A Glorious Martyrdom—A Vision of Heaven—The Bodies of
the Martyrs—Prefect Incensed Against St.
Cecilia—Preparation for Death—Her Trial—Her Victory
and Martyrdom—The Miracle of Her Three Days’
Ministering—Final Honours—Martyrdom of St. Urban and
His Companions—Cecilia’s Place Among Martyrs—Her Tomb
in the Catacombs—Pope Paschal’s Vision of St.
Cecilia—Cecilia’s Restoration to Her Own Church—History
of Her Church—The Second Finding of Her Body—Her
Statue.
CHAPTER XI
THE CHURCH UNDER CONSTANTINE 181
Constantine’s Edict—St. Sylvester, the Friend of
Constantine—Refuge at Soracte—The Emperor’s Vision—“In
Hoc Vinces”—Constantine’s Baptism—The Church Has
Peace—Helena’s Basilica—The Blessing of the Golden
Rose—Origin of St. Peter’s—The Obelisk from
Heliopolis—Testimony of the Dust of the Martyrs—The
Place of the Shock of Horses—The Beauty of St.
Peter’s—Pilgrims from Britain—Charlemagne, the Blessed.
CHAPTER XII
STORY OF ALARIC 199
Pursuit of the Ideal—Alaric, the Friend of
Theodosius—Theodosius’ Dream—The Victory at the
Birnbaumer Wald—Defection of Alaric—Pictures of the
Plundering of Rome—Marcella and Principia—St. Peter’s
Treasures—Plans Against Africa—Alaric’s Death and Last
Resting-place.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPHINX OF FRENCH HISTORY 212
The Battleground of Europe—The Riddle of “The Man in the
Iron Mask”—Its True Story—Louis XIV’s Ambition in
Italy—Plot to Secure Casale—Character of Charles, Duke
of Mantua—Count Mattioli, His Favourite—Terms of the
Transfer—Mission of the Count to Paris—Conclusion of the
Treaty—Mattioli’s Double Dealing—Ominous Delays—The
Storm Breaks.
CHAPTER XIV
TRUTH OF THE IRON MASK 226
Mattioli’s Betrayal of Louis XIV—Participation of Duke
Charles—Louis’ True Character Exhibited to
World—Abduction of Mattioli—Imprisoned for Fifteen
Years—Insanity—Story of the Mask—Mattioli’s
Disappearance No Mystery—Explanation of the
Riddle—Mattioli’s Hardships—His End.
CHAPTER XV
A “CAUSE CÉLÈBRE” 236
The Defrêne Case, a Drama of Crime and of Justice—The
Marquis Defrêne—Marie-Elizabeth du Tillay—Elopement—
Bogus Marriage—Flight to England—Marriage Made
Legal—The Marquis Tires of the Marriage State—Evil
Plans—Marie-Elizabeth Forewarned—Adventures of Her
Flight—The “Penitent” Defrêne—Compromising Letters—The
Vindication of Marie-Elizabeth—A Judicial Separation.
CHAPTER XVI
EUSTOCHIA 249
A Child of Sin—Born 1444—Her Early Peculiarities—
Physical Possession by Evil Spirits—Sent to a
Convent—A Life of Devotion—Eustochia a Novitiate—A
Supernatural Accident—Belief that She Was a
Hypocrite—Resignation—The Evil Spirit in Possession—
Frightful Torments—Evil Portents—A Sorceress?—
Imprisonment—Persecutions by Invisible Powers—Regaining
Good Esteem—A Nun—Her Sanctity and Constancy—Her Death
and Burial.
CHAPTER XVII
A SKETCH OF VERONA 270
Personality of Italian Towns—Verona—Its History—Early
Years—Ezzelino da Romano, Unique in Cruelty—Wholesale
Execution and Imprisonment—Pope Alexander IV Assails the
Monster—Ezzelino Wounded and Captured—Suicide—New Line
of Despots—Cangrande della Scala—Dante and
Petrarch—Further Lords of Verona—Later History—The
Drei Kaiser Bund.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE BRAVI OF VENICE 288
Fascination of Venice’s Criminal Administration—Lords
of the Night—Secret Detectives—Degeneration of
Republic—Hired Ruffians—Their Murderous Activities—An
Escapade of Pesaro, Paragon of Bravi—Gambara, Last of
the Despots—Open War Against Law and Order—Final Pardon.
CHAPTER XIX
LEGENDARY VENICE 298
Venice, Bride of the Sea—Its Glorious Children—Pledge
of the Crown of Thorns—The Miracle of Saint Saba’s
Relics—Intellectual Humility and Faith—St. Mark, Patron
of the Venetians—Theft of the Saint’s Remains from
Alexandria—Reception in Venice—Early History—Tales of
Hardships—The Gate of the Damsels—Legends of the Saint.
CHAPTER XX
A DOGE’S LIFE 311
A Wicked Son—Becomes Doge—His Marriage—Ambitions—
Venice a Huge Conspiracy—The Palace Surrounded—His
Fate—Venetian Ideals—Story of a Feud of the Tenth
Century—Opened with an Assassination—Murderer Upheld
by the Emperor—Venice Attacked—A Civil War in
Venice—Uprising of the Citizens—Another Doge—Building
of St. Mark’s—The Doge and the French Abbot—The Doge
Become a Monk—A Story of Marion Crawford’s.
CHAPTER XXI
“THE WEDDING OF THE SEA” 324
Origin—Venice’s Growth—Treaties with the Emperor—Pietro
Orseolo Annihilates the Pirates—Welcome on His
Return—Story of Marco Polo—A Trader with the East—A
Strange Journey—Bokhara—Capital of Kublai
Khan—Impressed with Christian Ideals—Return Journey—At
Home in Venice—Failure of Plans to Convert the
Tartars—Again in the Far East—Lost for Twenty-five
Years—Return to Venice with Vast Wealth—A Gorgeous
Banquet—Marco’s Rehabilitation—Ruskin and the Church.
CHAPTER XXII
WAR WITH GENOA 335
Supernatural Recovery of the Apostle’s Body—Ruskin’s
Account—Origin of the War—Early Life of Carlo Zeno—His
Conquests—Governor of a Province in Greece—Return to
Venice—Adventures at Constantinople—Escape of
Zeno—Tenedos Becomes Venetian—Attack of the
Genoese—Their Repulse—Carlo’s Popularity in
Venice—Pisani’s Career—Carlo Routs the Genoese—Peace—
Carlo’s Fame—His Visit to Jerusalem—Last Scuffle
with the Genoese—Life in Venice.
INTRODUCTION
It has not been easy to find a title for the collection of memories,
personal and otherwise, which this book contains, but I hope that
the reader will feel that in calling it “Italian Yesterdays,” I have
honestly tried to describe its contents. Recollections of my own
experiences have found a place beside the stories and legends of
saints and sinners long passed away from the land where they played
their parts,—some virtuous, some infamous, but all notable and worth
remembering for the glory or the tragedy of their lives. I have
sometimes thought that we modern people scarcely know how rich we are,
how many and how choice the treasures that History has devised to us,
and which, for the most part, lie unclaimed in her storehouses. And I
have hoped, in opening some of them, to induce others to seek out for
themselves and make their own some of the wonderful tales of love and
valour which shine at us from the pages, not only of the old books,
but from those which the writers of our own day have so wisely and
lovingly compiled for us. In this connection I must acknowledge my own
indebtedness especially to Hodgkin, Dill, Montalembert, Dom Guéranger,
Hazlitt, and Coletta, historians who, each from his own point of view,
make the past really live before our eyes. For the incidents connected
with Pius IX., no better book can be found than “Rome, its Ruler and
its Institutions,” by J. Maguire. In regard to subjects outside the
range of the writers I have mentioned, it is almost impossible to
give my references, as they cover many scattered records not easily
accessible to the public; but the stories, strange as some of them
appear, are all real ones, very carefully collated and verified.
This seems the right place for the withdrawal of a statement printed in
my last book, “Reminiscences of a Diplomatist’s Wife”; and since the
recantation removes a stain from a memory which I have already been
forced to treat none too gently, I make it with great willingness. I
said that Mr. Nathan, the Mayor of Rome, was the son of Mazzini. The
statement has been sharply corrected, both by Mr. Nathan himself and by
a well-known English writer who was Mazzini’s intimate friend. Misled
by what I must call at least a widely accepted impression, I evidently
fell into a grave error, for which I now wish to tender my apologies to
the memory of the dead, and the expression of my sincere regret to the
living, whose susceptibilities I have wounded on this delicate point.
MARY CRAWFORD FRASER.
_October, 1913._
CHAPTER I
IMPRESSIONS OF EARLY ROME
Romance and Companionship of the Past—Rome the Supremely
Beloved—Pictures and Legends of Her Origin—Migration of the
Alban Shepherds—Romulus and Remus—Etruria’s Civilisation—Whole
World Contributes to Rome’s Growth—Brilliant Scenes in the Roman
World—Rome’s High Destiny—Numa Pompilius, the Law-giver—Egeria’s
Grotto—Love Story of Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla—Early
Christianity.
It has always seemed to me that one of the most perfect experiences
within the grasp of mortals would be that of a child brought up in
seclusion by an adored parent, only known to its heart and mind as
such—and to find, on reaching maturity and coming out into the world,
that the beloved one was the ruler of a mighty empire, venerated and
feared by millions of men. How that knowledge would transfigure and
ennoble the memories of childhood, of the protecting companionship
bestowed, the being rocked to sleep in those strong arms, of the sunny
play-hours of childhood’s day watched by those wise and loving eyes!
All this was Rome to me, through many a long year before the doors were
opened and the glory of her was made known to my mind. Then the old
indulgent comradeship, accessible to every mood of youthful joy and
sorrow, became tinged with awe and yet was doubly cherished; it grew a
thousand times more precious, yet, like some holy relic that one wraps
in silk and gold, had to be enshrined with other sacrednesses in the
sanctuaries of memory. One was no longer Rome’s careless child, to whom
all her yesterdays were playthings of equal value with her wild flowers
of to-day. She called—and there was no disobeying the new command. The
nursery door was closed forever, and one took one’s place silently and
gladly in the last, lowest rank of her subjects and soldiers.
From that moment one began to learn, weakly and imperfectly, it is
true. At first the greatness of the new knowledge overwhelmed one.
I remember writing to the great French Prelate who received me into
the Church, that I felt like a beggar suddenly admitted into the
palace of his King, dazzled with the warmth and splendour, yet utterly
ignorant of which way to turn or how to comport himself in those august
surroundings. I fancy others have experienced the like bewilderment,
and happy they, if they fell into such wise and loving hands as
those which were held out to me and finally helped me to fix on a
study which, far from making the most serious of all subjects dry and
unattractive, enriched it with the warmest touches of human feeling—the
holy glory of the true romance.
Such study, such reading, is really within reach of all in these days
of almost universal translation and simplification; but so many know
nothing of how to obtain the right books—so many, indeed, are utterly
unconscious that there is anything to know beyond the few distorted
facts doled out in non-Catholic schools, that even the most unassuming
effort to share these riches with them may be useful and welcome.
Modern life is apt to be a dry, unflowery affair, but that is because
our own laziness of mind permits it to become so. If we choose to take
the past, it is ours; and I defy any one to claim his inheritance
therein and not find a heart-warming thought, a refreshment and a
fragrance for every moment of solitude, a chapter of high romance for
every day of the long, working year!
A romance must be a love story, and of all the love stories of time,
that of Rome is the most marvellous. Certain girl children, we are
told, were born so beautiful that, like Helen of Troy, Lucrezia
Borgia—and she whose soul was of equal loveliness with what the
chronicler calls “the supreme and royal beauty” of her body, Saint
Radegonde, Queen of France, they were passionately loved, passionately
defended, passionately sung, from the hour of their birth. And Rome,
from the hour when the first hut was built on the right bank of the yet
nameless river, when the stones of her first low wall wrote her name on
that predestined soil, has been loved with a personal passion that has
not its like in the world’s history. So, we know, she will be loved to
the end. The very hatreds that have attacked her, the cataclysms that
have exhausted themselves in attempts to annihilate her, the cupidity
and treachery that have bargained for her whom no price can buy, no
hand of man can hold, all testify to the desire of the nations to call
her theirs. Above and beyond the clamours of earth, she pursues her
immortal destiny, “mother of all earth’s orphans” as Byron called her,
the nurse of every noble and humble soul, the home and property of
the poorest, most ignorant Catholic—but no man’s henchwoman, no King’s
chattel; now as in the past, and till earth’s last sunrise, the true
mistress of the world.
Could she be less, marked at her birth for empire, first of nations and
then of souls? What has not been brought to her by tribute humanity
since nature bore her in flame and upheaval, cradled her in sunshine
and nurtured her with balm? Looking at her to-day and remembering her
past, what wonderful pictures are unrolled before our eyes! Let us go
back to the first of which history speaks, and call up the time when
the nameless river flowed past the yet nameless hills that were to
become the judgment seats of the world.
Standing on the outer rim of the Pincian terrace, watching the primrose
die to grey after a sunset in spring, I have gazed over towards St.
Peter’s and tried to see the land as it looked to Rome’s builders, the
shepherds who fled hither from their ruined homes in the Alban Hills
and halted on the southern side of the yellow river, unbridged and
unnamed as yet. For it was surely the river that stayed their panic
flight only eighteen miles from where the twin volcanoes had vomited
fire from the craters that are now the limpid lakes of Nemi and Albano.
Though near, the spot seemed safe for the first night. Doubtless they
told each other that the next day they would find a ford and travel
twice as far again to the low, dark line of the Cimmerian Hills to the
northward. But here, at any rate, was herbage and water for the sheep
and kine they had saved, and unbroken solitude, where, under the rough
skin canopy spread from bough to bough, the women—the few who had found
strength to travel—could nurse their babies and sleep for one night
unmolested by hostile tribes.
So they rested, the younger men keeping watch by the two or three
campfires built to scare away the wolves and foxes. And the morning
came, a morning of March, with a leap of the sun from behind the Sabine
ramparts, and the dew pearled on oak and wild olive branch overhead, on
moss and fern beneath, with the little wild almond trees on the slopes
across the river snowy with newly burst blossoms, while the first lark
soared up towards the sun-shot blue in an ecstasy of song, and the
swallows, just back from the shores of Africa, wheeled lower and lower
and darted upward again, with angry cries, when they found their last
year’s home invaded by men and beasts. They made friends with men’s
dwellings later, and, forgetting the crannies of the woodlands, have
built in the eaves of palaces for many a century now, but I take it
that in swallow sagas those first traditions have been winged down
and are still twittered about, with due respect, when the patriarchs
hold their sky conclaves in the autumn and the spring, and drill the
fledglings for three weeks before the great semestral migration.
From where the tired shepherds had halted on the high land to the
southeast of the river, the empty cradle of unborn Rome would look
very fair in the clear spring morning, and but short debate must have
decided, for those men of few words, that here the gods meant them to
stay. So here, as we can still trace, Romulus, the wolf’s nursling,
marked (after enquiring of the wise men of Etruria as to the commands
of the gods concerning the foundation of a city) the lines for his
wall, ploughing, as the legend says, with white Campagna steers, on
his chosen hill the Palatine, where the new altar, raised over a pit
in which the first-fruits of the year and a handful of soil from each
man’s former home had been buried, already sent up clouds of incense
into the sweet spring air on that memorable 21st of April, 754 B.C.
And Remus, his twin, wolf-nursed like him, was angry that his own hill,
the Aventine, had not been awarded the honours, mocked at his brother’s
commands, and sprang across the mystic furrow, to be instantly slain by
Celer, Romulus’ faithful henchman, thus conferring the baptism of human
blood which almost till our own times was prescribed by necromancers as
the only means of rendering great strongholds stable and impregnable.
It is strange to find that from the very birthday of Rome she knew
how to levy tribute of the higher kind from other nations. When the
frightened Alban shepherds, mostly men little regarded heretofore in
the rich city of Alba Longa, spread their skin tents and then threw
up their windowless cane huts on the banks of the Tiber, Etruria,
a few score of miles to the north, possessed a written language,
learned hierophants, bold and scientific architects, full-grown arts
of surpassing beauty, marble amphitheatres, great cities supplied
with indefectible streams of pure water, and a costly and complicated
system of drainage. Rome sends humble enquiries to Etruria, beseeching
to be taught how to address and propitiate the great gods. Etruria
gladly condescends to reply, and in a given time, though not without
much strife and bloodshed, Etruria becomes first a tributary and
then a vassal of the adolescent Empress of the world, who, through
all the centuries of her after history, repeats that requisition.
Rough, practical, hard-handed, and strong, yet avid of beauty, she
will have all that is fairest and most precious. Her Art consisted in
appreciation; she resolved to possess; the world had to be conquered
to give her what she desired, but the world gave—Greece her sculpture
and painting and poetry, the Orient its silks and jewels and spices,
the South its gold and grain, its wild beasts and hordes of slaves, the
North its furs and warriors, the West its granite and lead; the seas
swarmed with her laden fleets, and the whole known world became a vast
diagram of white converging roads choked with spoils for Rome.
What strange sights those roads must have seen when the long camel
trains came plodding through from Persia with their escort of
black-bearded, ringletted merchants, raising whirlwinds of dust and
eliciting strings of curses from the fair-haired drivers of ox-teams
from Gaul, drawing huge loads of fruit and wine to Roman markets! There
the vendors of jewels, keen-eyed Jews and Syrians, armed to the teeth,
had to draw aside angrily for the passage of bulky wares which one gem
from the tiny silk-wrapped packet in their bosoms would have paid for
ten times over; here comes a richly draped litter with armed horsemen
in attendance—a great noble’s wife? No, only a beautiful woman being
carried to the slave market where she will fetch the highest price.
Suddenly a solitary horseman dashes through the throng at break-neck
pace, heedless of the death his steed’s hoofs may deal. Shall the
Cæsar’s despatches wait for the safety of the common herd? With perhaps
eight or nine hundred miles of road to cover in a given time, the
Imperial messenger sees nothing, knows nothing, but his goal and the
shortest way to it. How they rode—those express messengers! There are
many wild rides on record, but for swiftness and perseverance I think
that of the benevolent Roman official Cæsarius, hastening from Antioch
to Constantinople to intercede for the guilty Antiocheans, is the most
wonderful. I believe it is Theodoret who attests to the fact that he
covered the distance of nearly eight hundred miles through two ranges
of mountains and over much broken country, in six days!
Many a century had to pass before all roads could lead to Rome, but,
while the city was still a mere fortified hamlet, one spot took on the
character which it has kept through the ages and will keep till the
last day. Looking over to the further bank of the river, the builders
on the Palatine could see, as we see to-day, when the sun has sunk in
the west, a long dark ridge rising like a wall to shut out the lower
crimson of the sky. It was wooded then, with oak and pine, though
now there is but one tree left, the “Doria pine,” to mark where the
forest grew. The ridge sunk at its northern extremity, in irregular
undulations, heavily wooded and mysteriously dark, and these connected
it with a chain of low hills which stretched away along the river’s
bank till they were lost in the mist of the Campagna.
The higher ridge very early took on the name of Mons Janiculum; the
further hills were more or less nameless till the Renaissance: but
the bosky stretch between the two was regarded from the first as
sacred ground. Why, one can scarcely say, except for its solitude and
its cloistered verdure. Looking towards it now, one asks oneself if
there was indeed a time when those who gazed westward from the city’s
ramparts at evening, did not behold, across the sea of mist that lays
twilight on the streets while the heights are still bathed in gold,
that immortal outline of a dome, dark, delicate, and definite, between
them and the setting sun? A time when the soil that bears it held only
the oaks and ilexes of the grove where the “Vates,” the unapproachable
hierophants of high, half-known gods, prayed and prophesied according
to their lights? Where the common people came, not too close, and
paused, hushed and trembling, under the great trees, to learn the
wills and ways of the gods? How gladly they must have sped back, ere
night fell, across the one bridge, to their safe, crowded homes within
the walls, to lean together across the olive-wood fire and speak in
whispers of the oracles they had heard, while the baby rolled naked
on the soft goatskin, and the brown-legged youngsters sat on their
haunches, sniffing at the goat’s meat bubbling in the caldron on the
hook, and the good wife brought out the fern basket of snowy cheese
and washed the crisp fennel roots on the doorstep! Were they merely
men of their hands, those first Romans, thinking more of comfort and
safety than of anything else? A writer who could surely speak with
authority tells us that from the first the people of Rome itself have
been innately religious, always conscious or subconscious of their
city’s destiny. Surely to one, here and there, in some portentous dawn
or brooding twilight, the figure of things to be was cast up against
the sky! Did not the slowly-moving clouds sometimes pause over that low
ridge in the west, to mass themselves in the likeness of a dome, the
stars sink down from their courses to foreshadow the gold of a cross?
The Mons Vaticanus, low, and excluded from the city limits, was never
reckoned one of the seven hills; of all the Roman district it was
considered the least healthy part, the land being swampy and subject,
on its lowest levels, to the periodical incursions of the river. The
“Vates,” versed as they were in all wisdoms, doubtless discovered means
by which to preserve themselves from malaria, for this continued to
be their sanctuary, if not their home, for many generations. After
the Romans had, at the prayer of their stolen Sabine wives, become
reconciled with the men of Sabina—and, in true Roman fashion, first
given them part in the land and invited them to assist in government,
and then taken them on as masters—the great Sabine Judge-King, Numa
Pompilius, established himself among the Vatican groves to compile his
books of laws. There he wrote, there he died, and there was buried,
commanding that his precious volumes should have a separate tomb near
his own. “A man’s works live after him;” the site of Numa’s tomb
was mere guess-work, his very existence was scoffed at as a myth,
by progressive historians, till accident revealed the still intact
sepulchre of his cherished writings, precisely on the spot marked by
tradition for some twenty-five centuries. The good law-giver was one
of the revered realities of my childhood; with sorrow I saw his memory
cast away, when I grew up, on the ever-growing scrap-heap of condemned
myths, where the iconoclasts of history throw everything that does not
fit in to their small neat conceptions; he has come back to me in these
later years, and how welcome the towering luminous figure that hovered
so protectingly over my early mind pictures of infant Rome!
One point in his history always puzzled me, the great distance between
his home across the Tiber and the grotto where Egeria, the heavenly
nymph, instructed him in wisdom. That lay in a fold of the Cælian Hill,
and the entire length of the city has to be traversed to reach it from
the Vatican. I used to weave many fairy tales for myself about Egeria
when, as children, we were taken to spend the day in the lovely spot
then known as her “Grotto,” and so exquisitely described by Byron in
“Childe Harold” that there seems nothing left for ordinary mortals to
tell about it. But—I will take the risk of appearing presumptuous and
say that one factor was wanting to Byron for the task—he was not born
a Roman, and his sad childhood, unlike my own, held no memories of
paradisial hours of play and dreaming round the hallowed fountain, and
in the sacred grove.
For sacred the spot remains, although we know now that it was not, as
men thought for many centuries, Egeria’s grotto and Egeria’s grove, but
the shrine and monument of a merely human love, very strong and pure,
the love of a husband mourning a good wife and vowing to perpetuate her
memory in beauty and charity. Since this book is not for the learned,
but for those who, treading the busy walks of modern life, have no time
to pore over history and its romances, I will venture to tell again the
story of this true lover.
During the short reign of Nerva (96-98 A.D.), an Athenian gentleman,
named Hipparchus, fell into disgrace with the still very Greek
government of his native city. I do not know the origin of the trouble,
but Athens always dealt rather capriciously with her great ones, and
we may infer that the great wealth of Hipparchus had aroused envy in
his less fortunate fellow-citizens. His entire fortune was confiscated,
nothing being left to him but an apparently worthless plot of ground
near the Acropolis. This ground his son, Atticus, undertook with
philosophical patience to cultivate, so as to provide some food for the
impoverished family. To his amazement the furrow intended to produce
leeks and cabbages revealed a hidden treasure of gold, buried there in
some forgotten stress of past ages, and so abundant that the young man,
after his first joy of surprise, was filled with terror.
The discovery was portentous and the revulsion of feeling almost too
much for a mortal to bear. However, he had presence of mind enough to
keep the thing secret from all but his own family. One can fancy how,
in the blue Athenian morning, he hastily threw the earth and stones
back over the precious find, and, abandoning spade and ploughshare,
went home to take counsel as to his conduct in regard to it. Did the
old man, Hipparchus, die of joy on hearing of his good fortune? It
may have been so, for at this point he disappears from the story and
returns no more. Atticus remains in possession, but such hazardous
possession! If his fellow-citizens heard of the treasure, they would
wrest it from him; if the Emperor learnt of it, he, as lord of all soil
of the Empire, had the right to claim it for himself. To enjoy it on
the spot or to remove it in secret was equally impossible, and Atticus
wisely decided to throw himself on the well-known generosity of the
Emperor. So he sent him word that he had discovered a fortune on his
land, and humbly asked to be directed as to the disposal of it. The
Emperor, too busy to give the subject much thought, or else pleased
with the man’s honesty, replied that he could use it as he liked. But
this casual authorisation was not enough to calm the fears of Atticus.
Once more he wrote to Nerva, saying that the treasure was too great for
the use of a private person and that he entreated the Emperor to make
known his will in regard to it. This time he received a most explicit
answer, to the effect that his own good fortune had bestowed the gift
upon him and that he was to “use what he could, and abuse the rest.”
Thus fortified in his rights, Atticus did use his wealth royally, and
bequeathed it to his own son, Herodes Atticus, who, forgetting past
injuries, lavished it in ornamenting with splendid buildings the city
of his birth, in all-embracing charities, in providing public games of
the greatest splendour, and in the encouragement of art and literature.
Then, desiring to see the seat of Empire and enjoy the intellectual
atmosphere of the Augustan age, he removed to Rome, and on account
of his great learning and attainments, was appointed tutor to Marcus
Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the adopted sons of the then reigning
Emperor, Antoninus Pius. He left no literary monument of his own for
us to admire, but the clear beauty of the style of Marcus Aurelius is
doubtless due in great part to the early training received from his
Greek tutor.
Standing thus high in imperial favour, Herodes Atticus was enabled
to make a splendid alliance. He obtained the hand of Annia Regilla, a
daughter of the great Julian House, and thus crowned the long romance
of his life by a real love marriage. Annia Regilla was marvellously
beautiful, as good as she was fair, and returned her husband’s
affection by a love as whole-hearted as his own. In an age when
universal selfishness and luxury made it necessary to legislate against
race suicide, she bore Herodes child after child, each more welcome to
its parents than the last. Was ever a man’s cup of earthly happiness so
royally full?
Then it was dashed from him and emptied at a blow. Annia Regilla died
very suddenly when the birth of her fifth child was hourly expected,
and for a time her broken-hearted husband seemed likely to succumb to
despair; but the very magnitude of his grief saved him—in more ways
than one. The Greek desire for concrete expression, the impulse to
embody in visible form the worshipped ideals of the mind, drove him at
first to violent manifestations of mourning which appeared extravagant
and unreal to the easy-going superficial Romans of his day. They took
life pretty much as it came, even as the Romans do now, and the sight
of Herodes Atticus in his black robes, in his house hung completely
with black—where he even removed the flowery-tinted marbles of walls
and pavements to replace them with sombre grey—all this afforded
intense amusement to his fashionable friends.
But he had one enemy. His wife’s brother had deeply resented the
marriage of Annia Regilla to a man whom he considered a low-born
outsider, quite unfit to mate with a maid of his own patrician house;
and, she being dead, the haughty aristocrat gave free rein to his
animosity and accused Herodes of having poisoned his spouse. The
absurdity of the indictment was potent to all, but the outraged widower
insisted upon being publicly tried for the crime. The outcome, as he
intended it should, crushed the calumny forever, the Judges declaring
that his devotion to his wife during her lifetime and the unmistakable
sincerity of his grief at her death were all-sufficient proofs of his
innocence.
The fury of anger roused in him by the attack seems to have recalled
his energies and restored his balance of mind. He quit mere repining,
and swore to erect to his dead such a monument as woman never had
before. The beautiful villa where their happy years had been passed
stood in a shallow valley of the Campagna, some little distance to
the right of the Appian Way, not far from the already ancient tomb of
Cecilia Metella. At that time the land along the Appian Way, nearly as
far as the Alban Hills, was covered with palaces and villas, costly
monuments and beautiful gardens. The home of the wealthy Greek was
remarkable enough to be famous even among these, although he had
chosen for its site a piece of land belonging to his wife, indeed, but
held till then in rather scornful repute. In spite of the fact that
a small temple of Jupiter had stood there from very early times, this
charming valley had been used as a spot to which the “Jews,” otherwise
the Christians, had more than once been banished under very hard
conditions, to punish their contumacy in refusing to sacrifice to the
statues of the gods. Here, says a learned Catholic historian, St. Peter
himself came with many of his flock, during his first visit to Rome,
to take refuge in the subterranean crypts which, hastily dug in those
early years, were afterwards enlarged and extended till they formed an
underground city for the living and a safe resting-place for the dead.
Of Christianity, whether above or below ground, Herodes Atticus knew
little and doubtless cared less. The despised sect aroused but faint
interest in the upper classes, and the most scathing reproaches on
their voluntary degradation were addressed to any of the latter who
joined it or manifested pity for its sufferers. But Atticus had a warm
and generous heart in his bereavement; it is said that he gave away
great sums in charity, and one can scarcely doubt that some of these
gifts relieved the wants of the poor Christians who begged for alms
along the Appian Way, and, as we shall presently see, served the Church
so notably in times of persecution, both before and after the days of
Herodes Atticus. The estate of the latter covered all the ground on the
right from the third to the fourth milestone of the famous road, and
he had vowed during Annia Regilla’s lifetime that he would make it the
most beautiful as well as hospitable of all the suburban villages. Now,
he laid out what was afterwards known as the “Pagus Triopius” in lovely
gardens, baths, and temples, where all his friends, rich and poor, were
invited to enjoy their share of his wealth by an inscription over one
of the gates, which ran, “This is the abode of hospitality.”
After his acquittal from the abominable accusation brought against him
by his brother-in-law, he offered all his wife’s jewels to the Temple
of Ceres and Proserpine, asking Heaven to smite him if he had been
guilty of the imagined crime; then he built her a magnificent tomb in
a garden laid out for that purpose—a garden which he called “The Field
of Sepulchre” and in which only her direct descendants were to be laid
forever.
In reading all the story of this true lover (translated—for Greek is
still Greek to me—from the very full inscriptions found at the Pagus,
and from the writings of Philostrates and Pausanias) I could not help
reflecting how few direct ways true love has of manifesting itself—for
one and the same was the thought of Abraham, insisting on buying and
holding for his very own the field of Mamre, to bury Sara in—and the
preoccupation of the highly cultured Greek to enshrine the remains
of his beloved Annia, where, by all human prevision, they could never
be disturbed. Also, the beloved Annia’s tomb has crumbled into dust.
All that is left of Herodes Atticus’ garden is the ilex grove and the
ruined nymphæum with the broken statue and the clear fountain, which,
as a little girl, I knew as the grotto of Egeria.
But that which, all unknown to Atticus, was even then burrowing and
spreading beneath his beautiful gardens and palaces, the underground
city of Christianity, where the faith lay like rich seed in the dark,
warm earth, _that_ survives, and its ways have been worn smooth by the
feet of thousands of pilgrims for nearly twenty centuries. The rent
bodies and few poor ashes of the “Christian Beggars” of the Appian
Way were never approached save with love and veneration, and, whereas
the slab of exquisite Pentelic marble on which Annia’s epitaph—in
thirty-nine Greek verses—was inscribed, has become part of a public
collection, the name and date, and the rude attempt at a palm branch to
indicate the martyr’s death, stand out as clear to-day on the walls of
the Catacombs as they did when they were hastily scratched in the soft
clay, at some midnight burial under Nero or Diocletian, the envious
though mourning brethren praying “that the Church might have peace,”
but, yet more fervently, that they also might be found worthy if their
own hour must come first.