In his study at Rome, comfortably stretched upon the soft cushions of a
lectus, lay Cethegus the Prefect.
He was of good cheer.
His examination had ended with full acquittal. Only in case of an
immediate search in his house--such as the young King had ordered, but
which his death had frustrated--could discovery have been apprehended.
He had succeeded in gaining permission to complete the fortifications
of Rome, supplying the funds out of his own exchequer, which
circumstance still more increased his influence in that city.
The evening before he had held a meeting in the Catacombs. All the
reports were favourable; the patriots were increasing in number and
means.
The greater oppression which since the late occurrences at Ravenna
weighed upon the Italians, could but serve to add to the ranks of the
malcontents; and, which was the main thing, Cethegus now held all the
threads of the conspiracy in his own hands. Even the most jealous
Republicans implicitly acknowledged the necessity of committing the
conduct of affairs, until the day of deliverance, to the most gifted of
men.
The feeling against the barbarians had made such progress amongst all
Italians, that Cethegus could entertain the project of striking a blow
without the help of the Byzantines, as soon as ever Rome was
sufficiently fortified.
"For," he repeatedly told himself, "all foreign liberators are easily
summoned, but with difficulty discarded."
Musing thus, Cethegus reposed upon his lectus. He laid aside Caesar's
"Civil Wars," the leaves of which he had been turning over, and said to
himself:
"The gods must have great things in store for me; whenever I fall, it
is like a cat--upon my feet and unhurt. Ah! when things go well with
us, we like to share our content with others. But it is too dangerous a
pleasure to put trust in another, and Silence is the only faithful
goddess. And yet one is human, and would like----"
Here a slave entered--the old Ostiarius Fidus--and silently handed to
Cethegus a letter upon a flat golden salver.
"The bearer waits," he said, and left the room.
Cethegus took up the letter. But as soon as he recognised the design
upon the wax seal which secured the string twisted round the
tablets--the Dioscuri--he cried eagerly, "From Julius--at a happy
hour!" hastily untied the string, opened the tablets, and read, his
cold and pale countenance flushed with a warmth of pleasure usually
wholly strange to him:
"'To Cethegus the Prefect, from Julius Montanus.
"'How long it is, my fatherly preceptor'--(by Jupiter! that sounds
frosty)--'that I have delayed sending you the greeting which I owe you.
The last time I wrote from the green banks of the Ilissos, where I
sought for traces of Plato in the desolated groves of the Akademia, but
found none. I know well that my letter was not cheerful. The sad
philosophers, wandering in the lonely schools, surrounded by the
oppressions of the Emperor, the suspicion of the priests, and the
coldness of the multitude, could only arouse my compassion. My soul was
gloomy; I knew not wherefore. I blamed my ingratitude to you, the most
generous of all benefactors.'
"He has never given me such intolerable names before," observed
Cethegus.
"'For two years I have travelled, accompanied by your slaves and
freedmen, endowed like a King of the Syrians with your riches, through
all Asia and Hellas; I have enjoyed all the beauty and wisdom of the
ancients, and my heart is still unsatisfied, my life empty. Not the
enthusiastic wisdom of Plato; not the gilded ivory of Phidias; not
Homer and not Thucydides gave me what I wanted! At last, at last, here
in Neapolis, in this blooming, God-endowed city; here I found what I
had unconsciously missed and sought for everywhere. Not dead wisdom,
but warm, living happiness.'--(He is in love! At last, thou coy
Hippolyte! Thanks, Eros and Anteros!)--'Oh! my guardian, my father! do
you know what happiness it is for the first time to call a heart that
completely understands you, your own?'--(Ah, Julius!" sighed the
Prefect, with a singular expression of softened sentiment, "as if I
knew it not?)--'a heart to which one can freely open his whole soul?
Oh! if you have ever proved it, rejoice with me! sacrifice to Jupiter,
the fulfiller! For the first time I have found a friend!'
"What does he say?" cried Cethegus indignantly; and starting up with a
look of jealous pain, "The ungrateful boy!"
"'For thou wilt understand it well, until now I had no bosom friend.
You, my fatherly preceptor----'"
Cethegus threw the tablets upon the tortoise-shell table, and walked
hastily up and down the room.
"Folly!" he then said quietly, took up the letter again, and read on:
"'You, so much older, wiser, better, greater than I--you had laid such
a weight of gratitude and reverence upon my young soul, that it could
never unfold itself to you without reserve. I have also often heard
with discouragement the biting wit with which you mocked at all warmth
and softness of feeling; and a sharp expression about your proud and
closely-compressed mouth has always killed such feelings in me, as the
night-frost kills the first violets.'--(Well, at all events, he is
sincere!)--'But now I have found a friend--frank, warm, young, and
enthusiastic--and I feel a delight hitherto unknown to me. We are one
in heart and soul; we wander together on sunny days and moonlight
nights through the Elysian fields, and are never at a loss for winged
words. But I must soon close this letter. He is a Goth'--(that too!"
cried Cethegus, angrily)--"'and is named Totila.'"
Cethegus let drop the hand which held the letter. He said nothing. He
only shut his eyes for an instant, and then he quietly read on again:
"'And is named Totila. The day after my arrival in Neapolis, as I was
lounging through the Forum of Neptune, and admiring some statues under
the arches of a neighbouring house which had been exposed for sale by a
sculptor, there suddenly rushed at me, out of the door of this house, a
grey-haired man with a woollen apron, all over white with plaster, and
holding in his hand a pointed tool. He grasped my shoulder and shouted,
"Pollux, my Pollux! have I found thee at last!" I thought the old
fellow was mad, and said, "You mistake, old man, I am called Julius,
and come from Athens." "No," cried he; "thou art named Pollux, and come
from Olympus!" And before I knew what had happened, he had pushed me
into the house. There I gradually found out what was the matter. It was
the sculptor who had exposed the statues. In the ante-chamber stood
many half-finished works, and the sculptor explained to me that for
years he had been thinking of a group of the Dioscuri. For the Castor
he had found a charming model in a young Goth. "But in vain," he
continued, "have I prayed to Heaven for an inspiration for my Pollux.
He must resemble the Castor; like him, a brother of Helena and a son of
Jupiter. Complete similarity of feature and form must be there, and yet
the difference must be as apparent as the resemblance; they must each
be completely individual. In vain I sought in all the baths and
gymnasiums of Neapolis. I could not find the Leda-twin. And now a
god--Jupiter himself--has led thee to my door! It struck me like
lightning when I saw thee, 'There stands my Pollux, just as he ought to
look!' And I will never let thee depart living from my house until thou
hast promised me thy head and thy body." I willingly promised the
strange old man to come again the next day; and I did so the more
gladly when I afterwards learnt that my violent friend was Xenarchus,
the greatest sculptor in marble and bronze that Italia has known for a
long time. The next day I went again, and found my Castor. It was
Totila; and I cannot deny that the great resemblance surprised me,
although Totila is older, taller, stronger, and incomparably more
handsome than I. Xenarchus says that we are like a pale and a
gold-coloured citron--for Totila has fairer hair and beard--and just in
this manner, the master swears, were the two Dioscuri alike and unlike.
So we learnt to know and love each other amongst the statues of the
gods and goddesses in the studio of Xenarchus; became, in truth, Castor
and Pollux, inseparable and intimate as they; and already the merry
populace of Neapolis calls us by these names when we wander arm in arm
through the streets. But our new-made friendship was still more quickly
ripened by a threatened danger, which might easily have nipped it in
the bud. One evening, as usual, we had wandered out of the Porta Nolana
to seek refreshment after the heat of the day in the Baths of Tiberius.
After the bath--in a mood of sportive tenderness--you will blame it--I
had thrown my friend's mantle over me, and set his helmet, decorated
with the swan's wings, upon my head. He entered into the joke, and,
with a smile, threw my chlamys[4] around him; and, chatting peacefully,
we went back through the pine grove in the gloom of approaching night
to the city. All at once a man sprang upon me from a taxus-bush behind
me, and I felt cold steel at my throat. But the next moment the
murderer lay at my feet, Totila's sword in his breast. Only slightly
wounded, I bent over the dying man, and asked him what reason he had to
hate and murder me. But he stared in my face, and breathed out, "Not
thee--Totila, the Goth!" and he gave a convulsive shiver and was dead.
By his costume and weapons, we saw that he was an Isaurian mercenary.'"
Again the hand which held the letter dropped, and Cethegus pressed the
other to his forehead.
"Madness of chance!" he said; "to what mightest thou not have led!" And
he read to the end. '"Totila said he had many enemies at Ravenna. We
reported the incident to Uliaris, the Gothic Earl at Neapolis. He
caused the corpse to be examined, and instituted an inquiry--without
result. But this grave event has cemented our youthful friendship and
consecrated it with blood for ever. It has united us in an earnest and
holy bond. The seal-ring of the Dioscuri, which you gave me at parting,
was a friendly omen, and it has been pleasantly fulfilled; and when I
ask myself to whom is owing all my happiness, it is to you, to you
alone, who sent me to this city, where I have found all that I wanted!
So may the gods requite you for it! Ah, I see that my letter speaks
only of myself and this friendship--write to me speedily, I beg, and
let me know how things go with you.--_Vale_."
A bitter smile passed across the Prefect's expressive mouth, and he
again measured the room with rapid strides. At last he stopped,
supporting his chin in his hand:
"How can I be so--childish--as to vex myself? It is all very natural,
if very foolish. You are sick, Julius. Wait; I will write you a
prescription."
And with an expression of pleased malice on his face, he seated himself
upon the writing-divan, took a Cnidian reed-pen, and wrote with the red
ink from a cup of agate, in the shape of a lion's head, which was
screwed into the lectus:
"To Julius Montanus: Cethegus, Prefect of Rome.
"Your touching epistle from Neapolis amused me much. It shows that you
have not yet outlived the last childish ailments. When you have laid
them aside you will be a man. In order to precipitate this crisis, I
will prescribe the best means. You will at once seek for the trader in
purple, Valerius Procillus, the oldest friend that I have in Neapolis.
He is the richest merchant of the East, an inveterate enemy of the
Emperor of Byzantium, and as good a republican as Cato; merely on that
account he is my trusted friend. But his daughter, Valeria Procilla, is
the most beautiful Roman girl of our time, and a true daughter of the
ancient, the heathen world. She is only three years younger than you,
and therefore ten times as wise. At the same time her father will not
refuse you if you explain to him that Cethegus sues for you. But thou
wilt fall deeply in love at first sight! Of this I am sure; although I
tell it you beforehand, although you know that I wish it. In her arms
you will forget all the friends in the world; when the sun rises, the
moon pales. Besides, do you know that your Castor is one of the most
dangerous enemies of the Romans? And I once knew a certain Julius who
swore: 'Rome before all things!'--_Vale_."
Cethegus rolled the papyrus together, tied it with a string of red
bast, fastened the knot with wax, and pressed his amethyst ring,
engraved with a splendid head of Jupiter, upon it. Then he touched a
silver eagle which protruded from the marble wainscoting of the room;
outside, upon the wall of the vestibule, a bronze thunderbolt struck
upon the silver shield of a fallen Titan with a clear bell-like tone.
The slave re-entered the room.
"Let the messenger have a bath; give him food and wine, a gold solidus,
and this letter. To-morrow at sunrise he will return to Neapolis."