DELIBERATIONS.
The persecution had now been some time raging in the East under
Dioclesian and Galerius; and the decree for enkindling it throughout the
West, had reached Maximian. But it had been resolved to make this a
work, not of repression, but of extermination, of the Christian name. It
had been determined to spare no one; but cutting off the chiefs of the
religion first, to descend down to the wholesale butchery of the poorest
classes. It was necessary for this purpose to concert measures, that the
various engines of destruction might work in cruel harmony: that every
possible instrument should be employed to secure completeness to the
effort; and also that the majesty of imperial command should add its
grandeur and its terror to the crushing blow.
For this purpose the emperor, though impatient to begin his work of
blood, had yielded to the opinion of his counsellors, that the edict
should be kept concealed till it could be published simultaneously in
every province, and government, of the West. The thundercloud, fraught
with vengeance, would thus hang for a time, in painful mystery, over its
intended victims, and then burst suddenly upon them, discharging upon
their heads its mingled elements, and its “fire, hail, snow, ice, and
boisterous blast.”
It was in the month of November, that Maximian Herculeus convoked the
meeting in which his plans had finally to be adjusted. To it were
summoned the leading officers of his court, and of the state. The
principal one, the prefect of the city, had brought with him his son,
Corvinus, whom he had proposed to be captain of a body of armed
pursuivants, picked out for their savageness and hatred of Christians;
who should hunt them out, or down, with unrelenting assiduity. The chief
prefects or governors of Sicily, Italy, Spain, and Gaul, were present,
to receive their orders. In addition to these, several learned men,
philosophers, and orators, among whom was our old acquaintance
Calpurnius, had been invited; and many priests, who had come from
different parts, to petition for heavier persecution, were commanded to
attend.
[Illustration: Maximian Herculeus holding his horse by the bridle and
protected by a shield bearing a she-wolf. From a bronze medal in the
collection of France.]
The usual residence of the emperors, as we have seen, was the Palatine.
There was, however, another much esteemed by them, which Maximian
Herculeus in particular preferred. During the reign of Nero, the wealthy
senator, Plautius Lateranus, was charged with conspiracy, and of course
punished with death. His immense property was seized by the emperor, and
part of this was his house, described by Juvenal, and other writers, as
of unusual size and magnificence. It was beautifully situated on the
Cœlian hill, and on the southern verge of the city; so that from it was
a view unequalled even in the vicinity of Rome. Stretching across the
wavy campagna, here bestrided by colossal aqueducts, crossed by lines of
roads, with their fringes of marble tombs, and bespangled all over with
glittering villas, set like gems in the dark green enamel of laurel and
cypress, the eye reached, at evening, the purple slope of hills on
which, as on a couch, lay stretched luxuriously Alba and Tusculum, with
“their daughters,” according to oriental phrase,
[Illustration: The Claudian Aqueduct.]
basking brightly in the setting sun. The craggy range of Sabine
mountains on the left, and the golden expanse of the sea on the right of
the beholder, closed in this perfect landscape.
It would be attributing to Maximian a quality which he did not possess,
were we to give him credit for loving a residence so admirably situated,
through any taste for the beautiful. The splendor of the buildings,
which he had still further adorned, or possibly the facility of running
out of the city for the chase of boar and wolf, was the motive of this
preference. A native of Sirmium, in Sclavonia, a reputed barbarian
therefore of the lowest extraction, a mere soldier of fortune, without
any education, endowed with little more than a brute strength, which
made his surname of Herculeus most appropriate, he had been raised to
the purple by his brother-barbarian Diocles, known as the emperor
Dioclesian. Like him, covetous to meanness, and spendthrift to
recklessness, addicted to the same coarse vices and foul crimes, which a
Christian pen refuses to record, without restraint of any passion,
without sense of justice, or feeling of humanity, this monster had never
ceased to oppress, persecute, and slay whoever stood in his way. To him
the coming persecution looked like an approaching feast does to a
glutton, who requires the excitement of a surfeit to relieve the
monotony of daily excess. Gigantic in frame, with the well-known
features of his race, with the hair on his head and face more yellow
than red, shaggy and wild, like tufts of straw, with eyes restlessly
rolling in a compound expression of suspicion, profligacy, and ferocity,
this almost last of Rome’s tyrants struck terror into the heart of any
beholder, except a Christian. Is it wonderful that he hated the race and
its name?
In the large basilica, or hall, then, of the Ædes Lateranæ,[110]
Maximian met his motley council, in which secrecy was ensured by
penalty of death. In the semicircular apse at the upper end of the hall,
sat the emperor, on an ivory throne richly adorned, and before him were
arranged his obsequious and almost trembling advisers. A chosen body of
guards kept the entrance; and the officer in command, Sebastian, was
leaning negligently against it on the inside, but carefully noted every
word that was spoken.
Little did the emperor think, that the hall in which he sat, and which
he afterwards gave, with the contiguous palace, to Constantine, as part
of the dowry of his daughter, Fausta, would be transferred by him to the
head of the religion he was planning to extirpate, and become, retaining
its name of the Lateran Basilica, the cathedral of Rome, “of all the
churches of the city and of the world the mother and chief.”[111] Little
did he imagine, that on the spot whereon rested his throne, would be
raised a Chair, whence commands should issue, to reach worlds unknown to
Roman sway, from an immortal race of sovereigns, spiritual and temporal.
Precedence was granted, by religious courtesy, to the priests; each of
whom had his tale to tell. Here a river had overflowed its banks, and
done much mischief to the neighboring plains; there an earthquake had
thrown down part of a town; on the northern frontiers the barbarians
threatened invasion; at the south, the plague was ravaging the pious
population. In every instance, the oracles had declared, that it was all
owing to the Christians, whose toleration irritated the gods, and whose
evil charms brought calamity on the empire. Nay, some had afflicted
their votaries by openly proclaiming, that they would utter no more,
till the odious Nazarenes had been exterminated; and the great Delphic
oracle had not hesitated to declare, “that _the Just_ did not allow the
gods to speak.”
Next came the philosophers and orators, each of whom made his own
long-winded oration; during which Maximian gave unequivocal signs of
weariness. But as the Emperors in the East had held a similar meeting,
he considered it his duty to sit out the annoyance. The usual calumnies
were repeated, for the ten-thousandth time, to an applauding assembly;
the stories of murdering and eating infants, of committing foul crimes,
of worshipping martyrs’ bodies, of adoring an ass’s head, and
inconsistently enough of being unbelievers, and serving no God. These
tales were all most firmly believed: though probably their reciters knew
perfectly well, they were but good sound heathen lies, very useful in
keeping up a horror of Christianity.
But, at length, up rose the man, who was considered to have most deeply
studied the doctrines of the enemy, and best to know their dangerous
tactics. He was supposed to have read their own books, and to be drawing
up a confutation of their errors, which would fairly crush them. Indeed,
so great was his weight with his own side, that when he asserted that
Christians held any monstrous principle, had their supreme pontiff in
person contradicted it, every one would have laughed at the very idea of
taking his word for his own belief, against the assertion of Calpurnius.
He struck up a different strain, and his learning quite astonished his
fellow-sophists. He had read the original books, he said, not only of
the Christians themselves, but of their forefathers, the Jews; who,
having come into Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, to escape
from a famine in their own country, through the arts of their leader,
Josephus, bought up all the corn there, and sent it home. Upon which
Ptolemy imprisoned them, telling them, that as they had eaten up all the
corn, they should live on the straw, by making bricks with it for
building a great city. Then Demetrius Phalerius, hearing from them of a
great many curious histories of their ancestors, shut up Moses and
Aaron, their most learned men, in a tower, having shaved half their
beards, till they should write in Greek all their records. These rare
books Calpurnius had seen, and he would build his argument entirely on
them. This race made war upon every king and people, that came in their
way; and destroyed them all. It was their principle, if they took a
city, to put every one to the sword; and this was all because they were
under the government of their ambitious priests; so that when a certain
king, Saul, called also Paul, spared a poor captive monarch whose name
was Agag, the priests ordered him to be brought out and hewed in pieces.
“Now,” continued he, “these Christians are still under the domination of
the same priesthood, and are quite as ready to-day, under their
direction, to overthrow the great Roman empire, burn us all in the
Forum, and even sacrilegiously assail the sacred and venerable heads of
our divine emperors.”
A thrill of horror ran through the assembly, at this recital. It was
soon hushed, as the emperor opened his mouth to speak.
“For my part,” he said, “I have another and a stronger reason for my
abhorrence of these Christians. They have dared to establish in the
heart of the empire, and in this very city, a supreme religious
authority, unknown here before, independent of the government of the
State, and equally powerful over their minds as this. Formerly, all
acknowledged the emperor as supreme in religious, as in civil, rule.
Hence he bears still the title of Pontifex Maximus. But these men have
raised up a divided power, and consequently bear but a divided loyalty.
I hate, therefore, as a usurpation in my dominions, this sacerdotal sway
over my subjects. For I declare, that I would rather hear of a new rival
starting up to my throne, than of the election of one of these priests
in Rome.”[112]
This speech, delivered in a harsh grating voice, and with a vulgar
foreign accent, was received with immense applause; and plans were
formed for the simultaneous publication of the Edict through the West,
and for its complete and exterminating execution.
Then turning sharp upon Tertullus, the emperor said: “Prefect, you said
you had some one to propose, for superintending these arrangements, and
for merciless dealings with these traitors.”
“He is here, sire, my son Corvinus.” And Tertullus handed the youthful
candidate to the grim tyrant’s footstool, where he knelt. Maximian eyed
him keenly, burst into a hideous laugh, and said: “Upon my word, I think
he’ll do. Why, prefect, I had no idea you had such an ugly son. I should
think he is just the thing; every quality of a thoroughpaced,
unconscientious scape-grace is stamped upon his features.”
Then turning to Corvinus, who was scarlet with rage, terror, and shame,
he said to him: “Mind you, sirrah, I must have clean work of it; no
hacking and hewing, no blundering. I pay up well if I am well served;
but I pay off well, too, if badly served. So now go; and remember, that
if your back can answer for a small fault, your head will for a greater.
The lictors’ _fasces_ contain an axe as well as rods.”
The emperor rose to depart, when his eye caught Fulvius, who had been
summoned as a paid court-spy, but who kept as much in the back-ground as
possible. “Ho, there, my eastern worthy,” he called out to him; “draw
nearer.”
Fulvius obeyed with apparent cheerfulness, but with real reluctance;
much the same as if he had been invited to go very near a tiger, the
strength of whose chain he was not quite sure about. He had seen, from
the beginning, that his coming to Rome had not been acceptable to
Maximian, though he knew not fully the cause. It was not merely that the
tyrant had plenty of favorites of his own to enrich, and spies to pay,
without Dioclesian’s sending him more from Asia, though this had its
weight; but it was more. He believed in his heart that Fulvius had been
sent principally to act the spy upon himself, and to report to Nicomedia
the sayings and doings of his court. While, therefore, he was obliged to
tolerate him, and employ him, he mistrusted and disliked him, which in
him was equivalent to hating him. It was some compensation, therefore,
to Corvinus, when he heard his more polished confederate publicly
addressed, as rudely as himself, in the following terms:
“None of your smooth, put-on looks for me, fellow. I want deeds, not
smirks. You came here as a famous plothunter, a sort of stoat, to pull
conspirators out of their nests, or suck their eggs for me. I have seen
nothing of this so far; and yet you have had plenty of money to set you
up in business. These Christians will afford you plenty of game; so make
yourself ready, and let us see what you can do. You know my ways; you
had better look sharp about you, therefore, or you may have to look at
something very sharp before you. The property of the convicted will be
divided between the accusers and the treasury; unless I see particular
reasons for taking the whole to myself. Now you may go.”
[Illustration: Monogram of Christ, found in the Catacombs.]
Most thought that these particular reasons would turn out to be very
general.