How Gabinius Met with a Rebuff
I
Publius Gabinius, the boon comrade of Lucius Ahenobarbus, differed
little from many another man of his age in mode of life, or variety of
aspirations. He had run through all the fashionable excitements of the
day; was tired of horse-racing, peacock dinners, Oriental sweethearts;
tired even of dice. And of late he had begun to grow morose, and his
friends commenced to think him rather dull company.
But for some days he had found a new object of interest. With Lucius
Ahenobarbus he had been at the Circus Flaminius, waiting for the races
to begin, when he startled his friend by a clutch on the arm.
"Look!" was Gabinius's exclamation. "Is she not beautiful?"
He pointed to where Fabia, the Vestal, was taking her seat upon a
cushion placed for her by a maid, and all the people around were
standing, very respectfully, until she was seated The priestess was
clothed in perfect white,--dress, ribbons, fillet--a notable contrast
to the brave show of purple, and scarlet, and blue mantles all about
her.
"Beautiful? Yes," repeated Lucius, rather carelessly. "But such birds
are not for our net."
"Are not?" repeated Gabinius, a little sharply. "What makes you so
sure of that?"
"I hardly think that you will find my dear friend Quintus Drusus's
aunt, for so I understand she is," said Ahenobarbus, "very likely to
reciprocate your devotion."
"And why not?" reiterated Gabinius, in a vexed tone.
"My dear fellow," answered Lucius, "I won't argue with you. There are
plenty of women in Rome quite as handsome as Fabia, and much younger,
who will smile on you. Don't meddle in a business that is too
dangerous to be profitable."
But Gabinius had been wrought up to a pitch of amorous excitement,
from which Ahenobarbus was the last one to move him. For days he had
haunted the footsteps of the Vestal; had contrived to thrust himself
as near to her in the theatre and circus as possible; had bribed one
of the Temple servants to steal for him a small panel painting of
Fabia; had, in fact, poured over his last romance all the ardour and
passion of an intense, violent, uncontrolled nature. Gabinius was not
the kind of a man either to analyze his motives, or express himself in
the sobbing lyrics of a Catullus. He was thrilled with a fierce
passion, and knew it, and it only. Therefore he merely replied to
Lucius Ahenobarbus:--
"I can't help myself. What does Terence say about a like case? 'This
indeed can, to some degree, be endured; night, passion, liquor, young
blood, urged him on; it's only human nature.'"[106]
[106] Terence, "Adelphoe," 467 and 471.
And all the afternoon, while the chariots ran, and wager on wager
marked the excitement of the cloud of spectators, Gabinius had only
eyes for one object, Fabia, who, perfectly unconscious of his state of
fascination, sat with flushed cheeks and bright, eager eyes, watching
the fortunes of the races, or turned now and then to speak a few words
to little Livia, who was at her side. When the games were over,
Gabinius struggled through the crowd after the Vestal, and kept near
to her until she had reached her litter and the eight red-liveried
Cappadocian porters bore her away. Gabinius continued to gaze after
her until Fabia drew the leather curtains of her conveyance and was
hid from sight.
"_Perpol!"_ reflected Gabinius. "How utterly enslaved I am!"
* * * * *
The following morning Fabia received a letter in a strange hand,
asking her to come to a villa outside the Porta Capena, and receive a
will from one Titus Denter, who lay dying. The receiving and
safe-keeping of wills was a regular duty of Vestals, and Fabia at once
summoned her litter, and started out of the city, along the Via Appia,
until, far out in the suburbs where the houses were wide apart, she
was set down before the country-house indicated. A stupid-appearing
slave-boy received her at the gateway. The villa was old, small, and
in very indifferent repair. The slave could not seem to explain
whether it had been occupied of late, but hastened to declare that his
master lay nigh to death. There was no porter in the outer
vestibule.[107] The heavy inner door turned slowly on its pivot, by
some inside force, and disclosed a small, darkened atrium, only
lighted by a clear sunbeam from the opening above, that passed through
and illumined a playing fountain. A single attendant stood in the
doorway. He was a tall, gaunt man in servile dress, with a rather
sickly smile on his sharp yellow face. Fabia alighted from her litter.
There was a certain secluded uncanniness about the house, which made
her dislike for an instant to enter. The slave in the door silently
beckoned for her to come in. The Vestal informed her bearers that she
was likely to be absent some little time, and they must wait quietly
without, and not annoy a dying man with unseemly laughter or loud
conversation. Then, without hesitancy, Fabia gathered her priestess's
cloak about her, and boldly entered the strange atrium. As she did so,
the attendant noiselessly closed the door, and what was further, shot
home a bolt.
[107] _Ostium_.
"There is no need for that," remarked the Vestal, who never before in
her life had experienced such an unaccountable sense of disquietude.
"It is my habit always to push the bolt," said the slave, bowing, and
leading the way toward the peristylium.
"You are Titus Denter's slave?" asked Fabia. The other nodded. "And
your master is a very sick man?"
"Your most noble ladyship shall judge for herself."
"Take me to him at once, if he can see me."
"He is waiting."
The two went through the narrow passageway which led from the outer
court of the atrium into the inner court of the peristylium. Fabia was
surprised to see that here all the marble work had been carefully
washed clean, the little enclosed garden was in beautiful order, and
in various corners and behind some of the pillars were bronze and
sculptured statues of really choice art. The slave stopped and pointed
to a couch upholstered in crimson, beside the fish tank, where tame
lampreys were rising for a bit of food.
"Take me to your master!" repeated Fabia, puzzled by the gesture. "I
am not weary. You say he waits me?"
"He will be here," replied the servant, with another bow.
"Here?" exclaimed the Vestal, now really alarmed. "Here? He, a man
sick unto death?"
"Certainly; here!" broke in a strange voice; and forth from behind a
pillar stepped Publius Gabinius, all pomaded and rouged, dressed only
in a gauzy, many-folded scarlet _synthesis_.[108]
[108] The "dinner coat" of the Romans.
Fabia gave a scream and sprang back in instinctive alarm. In the
twinkling of an eye it flashed over her that for some purpose or other
she had been trapped. Gabinius she knew barely by sight; but his
reputation had come to her ears, and fame spoke nothing good of him.
Yet even at the moment when she felt herself in the most imminent
personal peril, the inbred dignity and composed hauteur of the Vestal
did not desert her. At the selfsame instant that she said to herself,
"Can I escape through the atrium before they can stop me?" recovering
from her first surprise, and with never a quiver of eyelash or a
paling of cheek, she was saying aloud, in a tone cold as ice, "And
indeed, most excellent Gabinius, you must pardon me for being
startled; for all that I know of you tells me that you are likely to
find a sombre Vestal sorry enough company."
Gabinius had been counting coolly on a very noisy scene, one of a kind
he was fairly familiar with--an abundance of screaming, expostulation,
tearing of hair, and other manifestations of feminine agony--to be
followed, of course, by ultimate submission to the will of
all-dominant man. He was not accustomed to have a woman look him
fairly in the eye and speak in tones, not of bootless fury, but of
superior scorn. And his answer was painfully lacking in the ascendant
volubility which would have befitted the occasion.
"Forgive me; pardon; it was of course necessary to resort to some
subterfuge in order--in order to prevent your attendants from becoming
suspicious."
Fabia cast a glance behind her, and saw that before the two doors
leading to the atrium her conductor and another tall slave had placed
themselves; but she replied in a tone a little more lofty, if
possible, than before:--
"I cannot well, sir, understand you. Are you a friend of Titus Denter,
who is sick? I do not see that any subterfuge is necessary when I am
to receive the deposit of a will from a dying man. It is a recognized
duty of my office."
Gabinius was still more at a loss.
"You should certainly understand, lady," he began, cursing himself for
having to resort to circumlocutions, "that this is my own villa, and I
have not the pleasure of knowing Titus Denter. I sent the letter
because--"
"Because, my worthy sir," interrupted Fabia, not however raising her
voice in the least, "you are weary of Greek flute-players for
sweethearts or such Roman young ladies as admire either the ointments
or the pimples of your face, and consequently seek a little diversion
by laying snares for a sacred Vestal."
Gabinius at last found free use for his tongue.
"Oh, lady; Lady Fabia," he cried, stretching out his arms and taking a
step nearer, "don't misjudge me so cruelly! I will forsake anything,
everything, for you! I have nothing to dream of day or night but your
face. You have served your thirty years in the Temple, and can quit
its service. Why entertain any superstitious scruple against doing
what the law allows? Come with me to Egypt; to Spain; to Parthia;
anywhere! Only do not reject me and my entreaties! I will do anything
for your sake!"
Critical as was her situation, Fabia could not refrain from a sense of
humour, when she saw and heard this creature--the last intimate she
would select in the world--pressing his suit with such genuine
passion. When she answered, an exasperating smile was on her lips.
"By Castor!" she replied, "the noble Gabinius is not a bad tragedian.
If he has nothing further to inform me than that I am favoured by his
good graces, I can only decline his proposals with humble firmness,
and depart."
"By the immortal gods!" cried Gabinius, feeling that he and not his
would-be victim were like to go into a frenzy, "you shan't go! I have
you here. And here you shall remain until I have your word that you
will quit the Temple service and fly with me to Egypt. If you won't
have me as your slave, I'll have you as your master!" And again he
advanced.
"What restrains me here?" queried Fabia, sternly, the blood sinking
from her cheeks, but by step or by glance quailing not in the least.
"Who dare restrain or offer harm to a Vestal of the Roman Republic?"
"I!" shouted Gabinius in mad defiance, with a menacing gesture.
Fabia took a step toward him, and instinctively he fell back.
"You?" she repeated, her black eyes, ablaze with the fire of a holy
indignation, searching Gabinius's impure heart through and through.
"You, little man? Are you fond of death, and yet lack courage to drink
the poison yourself?"
"I dare anything!" cried Gabinius, getting more and more uncontrolled.
"This is my house. These are my slaves. The high walls will cut off
any screams you may utter in this court. I have you in my power. You
have placed yourself in my hands by coming here. Refuse to do as I
say, and a charge will be laid against you before the _pontifices_,[109]
that you have broken the vow which binds every Vestal. All the
appearances will be against you, and you know what will follow then!"
[109] College of chief priests.
Fabia grew a shade paler, if it were possible, than before.
"I know," she replied, still very gently, "that an unfaithful Vestal
is buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus; but I know, too, that her
seducer is beaten to death with rods. Accuse me, or attack me, and
whatever be _my_ fate, I can say that which will send your black soul
down to Tartarus with guilt enough for Minos to punish. Your
delicately anointed skin would be sadly bruised by the stripes falling
upon it. And now, if these creatures will stand one side, I will leave
you."
And Fabia drew her mantle about her, and walked straight past the
awestruck slaves into the atrium, where she unbolted the door and
passed out. Gabinius stood gazing after her, half-fascinated,
half-dazed. Only when the door closed did he burst out to one of the
slaves:--
"Timid dog, why did you let her escape?"
"Dominus," whimpered the menial, "why did _you_ let her escape?"
"Insolence!" cried Gabinius, seizing a staff, and beating first one,
then the other, of his servants indiscriminately; and so he continued
to vent his vexation, until Fabia's litter was well inside the Porta
Capena.
II
Fabia had thus escaped from the clutches of Gabinius, and the latter
was sullen and foiled. But none the less the Vestal was in a tremor of
fear for the consequences of her meeting with the libertine. She knew
that Gabinius was determined, dexterous, and indefatigable; that he
was baffled, but not necessarily driven to throw over his illicit
quest. And Fabia realized keenly that going as she had unattended into
a strange house, and remaining there some time with no friendly eye to
bear witness to her actions, would count terribly against her, if
Gabinius was driven to bay. She dared not, as she would gladly have
done, appear before the pontifices and demand of them that they mete
out due punishment on Gabinius for grossly insulting the sanctity of a
Vestal. Her hope was that Gabinius would realize that he could not
incriminate her without ruining himself, and that he had been so
thoroughly terrified on reflection as to what might be the
consequences to himself, if he tried to follow the intrigue, that he
would prudently drop it. These considerations hardly served to lighten
the gloom which had fallen across Fabia's life. It was not so much the
personal peril that saddened her. All her life she had heard the ugly
din of the world's wickedness pass harmlessly over her head, like a
storm dashing at the doors of some secluded dwelling that shielded its
inhabitants from the tempest. But now she had come personally face to
face with the demon of impurity; she had felt the fetid touch almost
upon herself; and it hurt, it sickened her. Therefore it was that the
other Vestals marvelled, asking what change had come over their
companion, to quench the mild sunshine of her life; and Fabia held
little Livia very long and very closely in her arms, as if it were a
solace to feel near her an innocent little thing "unspotted of the
world."
All this had happened a very few days before the breathless Agias came
to inform Fabia of the plot against her nephew. Perhaps, as with
Cornelia, the fact that one near and dear was in peril aided to make
the consciousness of her own unhappiness less keen. None could
question Fabia's resolute energy. She sent Agias on his way, then
hurried off in her litter in quest of Caius Marcellus, the consul.
AEmilius Paulus, the other consul, was a nonentity, not worth appealing
to, since he had virtually abdicated office upon selling his
neutrality to Caesar. But Marcellus gave her little comfort. She broke
in upon the noble lord, while he was participating in a drunken
garden-party in the Gardens of Lucullus. The consul--hardly sober
enough to talk coherently--had declared that it was impossible to
start any troops that day to Praeneste. "To-morrow, when he had time,
he would consider the matter." And Fabia realized that the engine of
government would be very slow to set in motion in favour of a marked
Caesarian.
But she had another recourse, and hastened her litter down one of the
quieter streets of the Subura, where was the modest house occupied by
Julius Caesar before he became Pontifex Maximus. This building was now
used by the Caesarian leaders as a sort of party headquarters. Fabia
boldly ordered the porter to summon before her Curio--whom she was
sure was in the house. Much marvelling at the visit of a Vestal, the
slave obeyed, and in a few moments that tribune was in her presence.
Caius Scribonius Curio was probably a very typical man of his age. He
was personally of voluptuous habits, fearfully extravagant, endowed
with very few scruples and a very weak sense of right and wrong. But
he was clear-headed, energetic, a good orator, a clever reasoner, an
astute handler of men, courageous, versatile, full of recourse, and on
the whole above the commission of any really glaring moral infraction.
He was now in his early prime, and he came before Fabia as a man tall,
athletic, deep-chested, deep-voiced, with a regular profile, a clear,
dark complexion, curly hair carefully dressed, freshly shaven, and in
perfect toilet. It was a pleasure, in short, to come in contact with
such a vigorous, aggressive personality, be the dark corners of his
life what they might.
Curio yielded to no man in his love of Lucrine oysters and good
Caecuban wine. But he had been spending little time on the dining couch
that evening. In fact he had at that moment in his hand a set of
tablets on which he had been writing.
"_Salve! Domina!_" was his greeting, "what unusual honour is this
which brings the most noble Vestal to the trysting spot of us poor
Populares."
And, with the courtesy of a gentleman of the world, he offered Fabia
an armchair.
"Caius Curio," said the Vestal, wasting very few words, "do you know
my nephew, Quintus Drusus of Praeneste?"
"It is an honour to acknowledge friendship with such an excellent
young man," said Curio, bowing.
"I am glad to hear so. I understand that he has already suffered no
slight calamity for adhering to your party."
"_Vah!_" and the tribune shrugged his shoulders. "Doubtless he has had
a disagreeable time with the consul-elect, but from all that I can
hear, the girl he lost was hardly one to make his life a happy one.
It's notorious the way she has displayed her passion for young Lucius
Ahenobarbus, and we all know what kind of a man _he_ is. But I may
presume to remark that your ladyship would hardly come here simply to
remind me of this."
"No," replied Fabia, directly, "I have come here to appeal to you to
do something for me which Marcellus the consul was too drunk to try to
accomplish if he would."
Fabia had struck the right note. Only a few days before Appius
Claudius, the censor, had tried to strike Curio's name from the rolls
of the Senate. Piso, the other censor, had resisted. There had been an
angry debate in the Senate, and Marcellus had inveighed against the
Caesarian tribune, and had joined in a furious war of words. The Senate
had voted to allow Curio to keep his seat; and the anti-Caesarians had
paraded in mourning as if the vote were a great calamity.
Curio's eyes lit up with an angry fire.
"Lump of filth! Who was he, to disoblige you!"
"You will understand," said Fabia, still quietly; and then briefly she
told of the conspiracy against the life of Drusus, so far as she had
gathered it.
"Where did you learn all this," queried Curio, "if I may venture to
ask?"
"From Agias, the slave of Cornelia, niece of Lentulus."
"But what is Drusus to her?" demanded the marvelling tribune.
"He is everything to her. She has been trying to win her way into
Ahenobarbus's confidence, and learn all of the plot."
A sudden light seemed to break over the face of the politician. He
actually smiled with relieved pleasure, and cried, "_Papae!_ Wonderful!
I may be the farthest of all the world from Diogenes the Cynic; but a
man cannot go through life, unless he has his eyes shut, and not know
that there are different kinds of women. I was sorry enough to have to
feel that a girl like Cornelia was becoming one of Clodia's coterie.
After all, the world isn't so bad as we make it out to be, if it is
Curio the profligate who says it."
"But Drusus, my nephew?" exclaimed Fabia. "He is in frightful danger.
You know Dumnorix will have a great band of gladiators, and there is
no force in Praeneste that can be counted on to restrain him."
"My dear lady," said Curio, laughing, "I am praising the happy Genius
that brought you here. We Caesarians are taught by our leaders never to
desert a friend in need; and Drusus has been a very good friend to us,
especially by using all his influence, very successfully, for our
cause among the Praenestians and the people of those parts. When did
you say that Dumnorix would pass through the town?"
"Early to-morrow, possibly," replied the Vestal.
"_Phui!_ Dismiss all care. I'll find out at once how many gladiators
he took with him to Anagnia. Some of his gang will be killed in the
games there, and more will be wounded and weak or disabled. I am
tribune, and I imagine I ought not to be out of the city over
night,[110] but before daybreak to-morrow I will take Antonius and
Sallustius and Quintus Cassius; and perhaps I can get Balbus and our
other associates to go. We will arm a few slaves and freedmen; and it
will be strange indeed if we cannot scatter to the four winds
Dumnorix's gladiators, before they have accomplished any mischief."
[110] This was the law, that the tribunes might always be ready to
render help (_auxilium_) to the distressed.
"The gods reward you!" said Fabia, simply. "I will go back to the
Temple, and pray that my nephew be kept from harm; and you also, and
your friends who will defend him."
Curio stood in the atrium a long time after the Vestal had left.
"The gods reward you!" he repeated. "So _she_ believes in the gods,
that there are gods, and that they care for us struggling men. Ah!
Caius, Caius Curio; if the mob had murdered you that day you protected
Caesar after he spoke in the Senate in favour of the Catilinarians,
where would you be to-day? Whence have you come? Whither do you go?
What assurance have you that you can depend on anything, but your own
hand and keen wits? What is to become of you, if you are knocked on
the head in that adventure to-morrow? And yet that woman believes
there are gods! What educated man is there that does? Perhaps we
would, if we led the simple lives our fathers did, and that woman
lives. Enough of this! I must be over letters to Caesar at Ravenna till
midnight: and then at morn off to gallop till our horses are
foundered."