"You may thank your bound hands that I do not instantly return you the
answer you seem to expect of me."
Then turning to his courtiers, he asked if any of them could give him
information as to the name and history of the assassin; but no one
appeared to know him. Even Timotheus, the priest of Serapis, who as head
of the Museum had so often delighted in the piercing intellect of this
youth, and had prophesied a great future for him, was silent, and looked
at him with troubled gaze.
It was the prisoner himself who satisfied Caesar's curiosity.
Glancing round the circle of courtiers, and casting a grateful look
at his priestly patron, he said:
"It would be asking too much of your Roman table-companions that they
should know a philosopher. You may spare yourself the question, Caesar.
I came here that you might make my acquaintance. My name is Philippus,
and I am son to Heron, the gem-cutter."
"Her brother!" screamed Caracalla, as he rushed at him, and thrusting
his hand into the neck of the sick youth's chiton--who already could
scarcely stand upon his feet--he shook him violently, crying, with a
scoffing look at the high-priest:
"And is this the ornament of the Museum, the free-thinker, the profound
skeptic Philippus?"
He stopped suddenly, and his eyes flashed as if a new light had burst
upon him; he dropped his hand from the prisoner's robe, and bending his
head close to the other, he whispered in his ear, "You have come from
Melissa?"
"Not from her," the other answered quickly, the flush deepening on his
face, "but in the name of that most unhappy, most pitiable maiden, and as
the representative of her noble Macedonian house, which you would defile
with shame and infamy; in the name of the inhabitants of this city, whom
you despoil and tread under foot; in the interests of the whole world,
which you disgrace!"
Trembling with fury Caracalla broke in:
"Who would choose you for their ambassador, miserable wretch?"
To which the philosopher replied with haughty calm:
"Think not so lightly of one who looks forward with longing to that of
which you have an abject fear."
"Of death, do you mean?" asked Caracalla, sneering, for his wrath had
given place to astonishment.
And Philip answered: "Yes, Death--with whom I have sworn friendship, and
who should be ten times blessed to me if he would but atone for my
clumsiness and rid the world of such a monster!"
The emperor, still spell-bound by the unheard-of audacity of the youth
before him, now felt moved to keep step with the philosopher, whom few
could equal in sharpness of wit; and, controlling the raging fury of his
blood, he cried, in a tone of superiority:
"So that is the boasted logic of the Museum? Death is your dearest
desire, and yet you would give it to your enemy?"
"Quite right," replied Philip, his lip curling with scorn. "For there
is something which to the philosopher stands higher than logic. It is a
stranger to you, but you know it perhaps by name--it is called justice."
These words, and the contemptuous tone in which they were spoken, burst
the flood-gates of Caracalla's painfully restrained passion; his voice
rose harsh and loud, till the lion growled angrily and dragged at his
chain, while his master flung hasty words of fury in the face of his
enemy:
"We shall soon see, my cunning fencer with words, whether I know how to
follow your advice, and how sternly I can exercise that virtue denied to
me by an assassin. Will any one accuse me now of injustice if I punish
the accursed brood that has grown up in this den of iniquity with all the
rigor that it deserves? Yes, glare at me with those great,
burning eyes! Alexandrian eyes, promising all and granting nothing--
persuading him who trusts in them to believe in innocence and chastity,
truth and affection. But let him look closer, and he finds nothing but
deep corruption, foul cunning, despicable self-seeking, and atrocious
faithlessness!
"And everything else in this city is like those eyes! Where are there so
many gods and priests, where do they sacrifice so often, where do they
fast and apply themselves so assiduously to repentance and the cleansing
of the soul? And yet, where does vice display itself so freely and so
unchecked? This Alexandria--in her youth as dissolute as she was fair
--what is she now but an old hag? Now that she is toothless, now that
wrinkles disfigure her face, she has turned pious, that, like the wolf in
sheep's clothing, she may revenge herself by malice for the loss of joy
and of the admiration of her lovers! I can find no more striking
comparison than this; for, even as hags find a hideous pleasure in empty
chatter and spiteful slanderings, so she, once so beautiful and renowned,
has sunk deeper and deeper in the mire, and can not endure to see
anything that has achieved greatness or glory without maliciously
bespattering it with poison.
"Justice!--yes, I will exercise justice, oh, sublime and virtuous hero,
going forth to murder--a dagger hidden in your bosom! I thank you for
that lesson!
"Pride of the Museum!--you lead me to the source whence all your
corruption flows. It is that famous nursery of learning where you, too,
were bred up. There, yes, there they cherish the heresy that makes the
gods into puppets of straw, and the majesty of the throne into an owl for
pert and insignificant birds to peck at. Thence comes the doctrine that
teaches men and women to laugh at virtue and to break their word. There,
where in other days noble minds, protected by the overshadowing favor of
princes, followed out great ideas, they now teach nothing but words--
empty, useless words. I saw and said that yesterday, and now I know it
for certain--every poison shaft that your malice has aimed at me was
forged in the Museum."
He paused for breath, and then continued, with a contemptuous laugh:
"If the justice which you rate higher than logic were to take its course,
nothing would be juster than to make an end this day of this hot-bed of
corruption. But your unlearned fellow-citizens shall taste of my
justice, too. You yourself will be prevented by the beasts in the Circus
from looking on at the effect your warning words have produced. But as
yet you are alive, and you shall hear what the experiences are which make
the severest measures the highest justice.
"What did I hope to find, and what have I really found? I heard the
Alexandrians praised for their hospitality--for the ardor with which they
pursue learning--for the great proficiency of their astronomers--for the
piety which has raised so many altars and invented so many doctrines;
and, lastly, for the beauty and fine wit of their women.
"And this hospitality! All that I have known of it is a flood of
malicious abuse and knavish scoffing, which penetrated even to the gates
of this temple, my dwelling. I came here as emperor, and treason pursued
me wherever I went--even into my own apartments; for there you stand,
whom a barbarian had to hinder from stabbing me with the knife of the
assassin. And your learning? You have heard my opinion of the Museum.
And the astrologers of this renowned observatory? The very opposite of
all they promised me has come to pass.
"Religion? The people, of whom you know as little from the musty
volumes of the Museum as of 'Ultima Thule'--the people indeed practice
it. The old gods are necessary to them. They are the bread of life to
them. But instead of those you have offered them sour, unripe fruit,
with a glittering rind-from your own garden, of your own growing. The
fruit of trees is a gift from Nature, and all that she brings forth has
some good in it; but what you offer to the world is hollow and poisonous.
Your rhetoric gives it an attractive exterior, and that, too, comes from
the Museum. There they are shrewd enough to create new gods, which start
up out of the earth like mushrooms. If it should only occur to them,
they would raise murder to the dignity of god of gods, and you to be his
high-priest."
"That would be your office," interposed the philosopher.
"You shall see," returned the emperor, laughing shrilly, "and the witlings
of the Museum with you! You use the knife; but hear the words of the
master: The teeth of wild beasts and their claws are weapons not to be
despised. Your father and brother, and she who taught me what to think
of the virtue and faith of Alexandrian women, shall tell you this in
Hades. Soon shall every one of those follow you thither who forgot,
even by a glance of the eye, that I was Caesar and a guest of this city!
After the next performance in the Circus the offenders shall tell you in
the other world how I administer justice. No later than the day after
to-morrow, I imagine, you may meet there with several companions from
the Museum. There will be enough to clap applause at the disputations!"
Caracalla ended his vehement speech with a jeering laugh, and looked
round eagerly for applause from the "friends" for whose benefit his last
words had been spoken; and it was offered so energetically as to drown
the philosopher's reply.
But Caracalla heard it, and when the noise subsided he asked his
condemned victim:
"What did you mean by your exclamation, 'And yet I would that death
might spare me'?"
"In order, if that should come true," returned the philosopher quickly,
his voice trembling with indignation, "that I might be a witness of the
grim mockery with which the all-requiting gods will destroy you, their
defender."
"The gods!" laughed the emperor. "My respect for your logic grows less
and less. You, the skeptic, expect the deeds of a mortal man from the
gods whose existence you deny!"
Then cried Philip, and his great eyes burning with hatred and indignation
sought the emperor's: "Till this hour I was sure of nothing, and
therefore uncertain of the existence of a god; but now I believe firmly
that Nature, by whom everything is carried out according to everlasting,
immutable laws, and who casts out and destroys anything that threatens to
bring discord into the harmonious workings of all her parts, would of her
own accord bring forth a god, if there be not one already, who should
crush you, the destroyer of life and peace, in his all-powerful hand!"
Here his wild outburst of indignation was brought to an abrupt close, for
a furious blow from Caracalla's fist sent his enfeebled enemy staggering
back against the wall near the window.