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* * * * *
THE CHALDEAN MAGICIAN
_AN ADVENTURE IN ROME_
IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR DIOCLETIAN
BY
ERNST ECKSTEIN
Author of “Quintus Claudius,” etc.
FROM THE GERMAN BY MARY J. SAFFORD
NEW YORK
WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER
11 MURRAY STREET
1886
* * * * *
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886
BY WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington
_Press of
William S. Gottsberger
New York_
* * * * *
THE CHALDEAN MAGICIAN.
CHAPTER I.
A cloudless October day, A. D. 299, was drawing to a close; the western
sky behind the crest of Mt. Janiculum still glowed with crimson light,
but the population in the streets and squares of the world’s capital
were already moving in a bluish twilight and yellow-red lamps shone,
veiled by smoke, from the taverns of the many-gabled Subura.
A youth with a white toga thrown over his shoulders, coming from the
Querquetulanian Gate, turned into the Cyprian Way. His manner of
walking was somewhat peculiar. Sometimes he rushed hastily forward,
like a man impatiently striving to reach his destination; at others
he glanced hesitatingly around or stopped a few seconds as though
repenting his design. Passing the Baths of Titus he perceived, only a
few yards distant, another youth who had entered the Cyprian Way from
a side street on the left and with bowed head was pursuing the same
direction over the lava stones of the pavement. Looking more closely,
he recognized a friend’s countenance in the new-comer’s pallid features.
It was nearly six weeks since he had seen pleasant Lucius Rutilius;
for the two young men’s paths in life were entirely different. While
Rutilius, the son of a wealthy senator, was fond of moving in the
most select circles of the capital, visiting the theatres, the races
and combats in the arena, and during the summer spending his time
alternately at his country estate in Etruria, the waterfalls of Tibur,
the shore of the gulf of Baiae, or the strand of Antium, Caius
Bononius, the son of a knight, led a somewhat secluded existence in
the solitude of his study, allowing himself at the utmost a short
trip during the hottest months to the world-renowned Diana’s Mirror,
the lovely secluded lake in the neighboring Alban Hills, where he
owned a modest little garden. Spite of this diversity in external
circumstances, the two young men cherished a deeply-rooted friendship
for each other. Lucius Rutilius valued the comprehensive knowledge,
insatiable thirst for information, and proud independence possessed by
Caius Bononius; while the latter knew that Rutilius beheld the splendor
of life in the great capital, not with the eyes of the coarse man of
pleasure, but with those of the poet; that he revelled in the pomp of
color, the luxury of eternal Rome, as the creative artist rejoiced in
the effects of light and shade in a landscape; that amid this seething
whirlpool he had preserved a warm heart, a noble unselfishness of
nature.
At Caius’ call Lucius Rutilius raised his head, covered with black,
curling locks, as though startled from a deep reverie. A crimson flush,
visible even in the gathering twilight, mounted to his brow, as if the
other had caught him in forbidden paths.
“Is it you, Bononius?” he stammered. “Are you, too, to be met in the
crowd of pedestrians? True, it’s lonely enough here in the aristocratic
Cyprian Way to allow you to indulge your taste for seclusion even while
walking.”
“I have really avoided all society during the last few weeks,” replied
Caius Bononius, “strange problems have engrossed my attention. But
you--what brings you, without any companion, to this quarter of silence
at this hour of the day? You used at this time to be reclining at
table--with roses from Paestum in your hair and your glowing lips
pressed to an exquisitely-polished murrhine cup, if not on the neck of
some radiant young beauty.”
Lucius blushed again.
“Things are different now,” he replied with his eyes bent on the ground.
“How?” asked Caius Bononius in surprise. “Has my Lucius renounced the
delights of the revel and the lustre of flower-wreathed triclinia?”
“Not entirely--but your remark about a young beauty--you needn’t smile,
Caius! In perfect truth: during the last month a change has taken place
in this respect, which--how am I to say...?”
“How are you to speak? As you think! The confusion in your words
distinctly shows how hard you are trying to conceal rather than
disclose your thoughts. Come, Lucius! Have you so completely forgotten
that we did not vow faith and friendship to each other only over the
golden Falernian, that our relations have a deeper root? If things have
occurred that influence your character, your views of the world, let me
know what has affected you; for as a sincere, though half-superfluous
friend, I have a right to your implicit confidence. As I live, you give
me the impression that some important matter is in question. Speak, my
Lucius! Have you, in contradiction to your whole past, thrown yourself
into the study of philosophy? Have you come in contact with some
saint of the sect of the Nazarenes and thus acquired a taste for the
beautiful legends of the East?”
“Nothing of the sort,” sighed Lucius, taking his friend by the arm and
drawing him slowly along with him in the direction of the Subura. “You
will laugh at me when you learn how your invincible Epicurean has fared
at last.... Yes, you are right, Caius; it would be foolish if I wished
to conceal from you, my faithful friend, what your penetration would
nevertheless discover.... So know--but don’t accuse me of weakness--I
am desperately in love, not only with my eyes, as before, but body and
soul, a second Troilus, a Leander who would breast the surges of every
sea to at last clasp his Hero in his arms.”
“You have often talked so,” said Caius smiling.
“Talked, but never felt. The best proof of the genuineness of my
emotions--to myself--is the ardor with which I long to lead the beloved
maiden across my threshold as my wife. You know ‘marriage’ used to be
a terrible word to me, Caius: now, since I have seen Hero--her name is
really Hero, and she is the daughter of an aristocratic Sicilian--since
that time I have known nothing sweeter than Hymen’s torch, and
longingly await the moment which, spite of all difficulties and
disasters, must at last unite us.”
“Difficulties?” repeated Bononius, pausing. “Does Hero deny her Leander
the ardently-desired love? Has the handsome Rutilius for the first time
wooed in vain?”
Lucius Rutilius gazed at the western sky as if he were examining the
position of the stars.
“There is still time,” he murmured, then turning to Bononius, added:
“Wooed in vain? No--yet it is almost the same thing. Does this
contradiction seem to you an enigma? If you wish, you shall learn
all--only not here, where the passers-by are growing more numerous and
a listener might misuse my words. I have business on the northern slope
of the Quirinal in about an hour--until then let us stay in my uncle
Publius Calpurnius’ house, here on the right of the Patrician Way. He
is Caius Decius’ guest to-day: we can walk up and down the portico
undisturbed--and to be frank, I long to pour out my heart to you,
receive your counsel.”
Bononius hesitated. He seemed to be secretly making a hasty calculation.
“Well,” he said at last, “if it won’t occupy too much time....
You won’t take it amiss, if I tell you that I, too, in an hour at
latest....”
“Oh--I can explain everything in ten minutes.”
Turning to the right, he drew his friend along with him, and a short
time after they knocked at the door of a spacious mansion. The porter
drew back the bolt, bowed, and ushered the two youths through the
passage into the atrium.
The residence of Publius Calpurnius was one of the huge, luxurious
edifices, which seemed to vie in extent with the immense palaces
erected by the emperor Diocletian in Salona and Nicomedia. Of no
unusual external magnificence and with a moderate façade, it developed
directly behind the atrium the most surprising size, stretching on the
right and left over the ground naturally belonging to the neighboring
houses and spreading towards the slope of the hill. Caius Bononius,
who almost intentionally avoided the homes of Roman grandees, often as
Lucius--at least in former days--had endeavored to draw his friend into
the life and bustle of the capital, scanned with surprise and curiosity
the magnificently-decorated structure, the halls of the two court-yards
where a dozen gaily-clad slaves were just lighting the candelabra, the
brilliant-hued paintings on the walls, the portrait-statues--men in
somewhat un-Roman sleeved garments, and women with extremely realistic
styles of hair-dressing which looked as if the latest coiffure of a
fashionable visitor to the circus had served the sculptor for a model.
In fact, Lucius asserted that these styles of arranging the hair were
removable, and could be taken from the statues’ heads and exchanged for
modern ones as fashion required--a triumph of the plastic art, as he
ironically added.
So they walked through the second pillared court-yard to the garden.
The dusky avenues of trees, whose spreading boughs still permitted
enough of the fading daylight to enter to reveal the box-bordered
gravelled paths, invited thoughtful, pleasant strolls, and the watchman
at the back of the house afforded a sufficient guarantee that no
intruder would steal after the youths.