that land was inextinguishable. The walls of Jerusalem were still
standing; in the Temple the offices continued. Though Rome remained,
there was Israel too. Passing that way one afternoon, Hadrian mused.
The city affected him; the site was superb. And as he mused it occurred
to him that Jerusalem was less harmonious to the ear than
Hadrianopolis; that the Temple occupied a position on which a Capitol
would look far better; in brief, that Jehovah might be advantageously
replaced by Jove. The army of masons that were ever at his heels were
set to work at once. They had received similar orders and performed
similar tasks so often that they could not fancy anyone would object.
The Jews did. They fought as they had never fought before; they fought
for three years against a Nebuchadnezzar who created torrents of blood
so abundant that stones were carried for miles, and who left corpses
enough to fertilize the land for a decade. The survivors were sold.
Those for whom no purchasers could be found had their heads amputated.
Jerusalem was razed to the ground. The site of the Temple was furrowed
by the plow, sown with salt, and in place of the City of David rose
AElia Capitolina, a miniature Rome, whose gates, save on one day in the
year, Jews were forbidden under penalty of death to pass, were
forbidden to look at, and over which were images of swine, pigs with
scornful snouts, the feet turned inward, the tail twisted like a lie.
It was not honorable warfare, but it was effective; then, too, it was
Hadrianesque, the mad insult of a madman to a race as mad as he. The
purple had done its work. History has left the rise of this emperor
conjectural; his fall is written in blood. As he began he ended, a poet
and a beast.
Presently he was in Rome. It was not homesickness that took him there;
he was far too cosmopolitan to suffer from any such malady as that. It
was the accumulations of a fifteen-year excursion through the
metropoles of art which demanded a gallery of their own. Another with
similar tastes and similar power might have ordered everything which
pleasured his eye to be carted to Rome, but in his quality of artifex
omnipotens Hadrian embellished and never sacked. There were painters
and sculptors enough in that army at his heels, and whatever appealed
to him was copied on the spot. So much was copied that a park of ten
square miles was just large enough to form the open-air museum which he
had designed, one which centuries of excavation have not exhausted yet.
The museum became a mad-house. Hadrian was ill; tired in mind and body,
smitten with imperialia. It was then the young Verus died, leaving for
a wonder a child behind, and more wonderful still, Antonin was adopted.
Through Rome, meanwhile, terror stalked. Hadrian, in search of a remedy
against his increasing confusion of mind, his visible weakness of body,
turned from physicians to oracles; from them to magic, and then to
blood. He decimated the senate. Soldiers, freemen, citizens, anybody
and everybody were ordered off to death. He tried to kill himself and
failed; he tried again, wondering, no doubt, why he who commanded death
for others could not command it for himself. Presently he succeeded,
and Antonin--the pious Antonin, as the senate called him--marshalled
from cellars and crypts the senators and citizens whom Hadrian had
ordered to be destroyed.
VIII
FAUSTINE
Anyone who has loitered a moment among the statues in the Salle des
Antonins at the Louvre will recall the bust of the Empress Faustina. It
stands near the entrance, coercing the idler to remove his hat; to stop
a moment, to gaze and dream. The face differs from that which Mr.
Swinburne has described. In the poise of the head, in the expression of
the lips, particularly in the features which, save the low brow, are
not of the Roman type, there is a commingling of just that loveliness
and melancholy which must have come to Psyche when she lost her god. In
the corners of the mouth, in the droop of the eyelids, in the moulding
of the chin, you may see that rarity--beauty and intellect in one--and
with it the heightening shadow of an eternal regret. Before her Marcus
Aurelius, her husband, stands, decked with the purple, with all the
splendor of the imperator, his beard in overlapping curls, his
questioning eyes dilated. Beyond is her daughter, Lucille, less fair
than the mother, a healthy girl of the dairymaid type. Near by is the
son, Commodus. Across the hall is Lucius Verus, the husband of Lucille;
in a corner, Antonin, Faustine's father, and, more remotely, his wife.
Together they form quite a family group, and to the average tourist
they must seem a thoroughly respectable lot. Antonin certainly was
respectable. He was the first emperor who declined to be a brute.
Referring to his wife he said that he would rather be with her in a
desert than without her in a palace; the speech, parenthetically, of a
man who, though he could have cited that little Greek princess,
Nausicaa, as a precedent, was too well-bred to permit so much as a
fringe of his household linen to flutter in public. Besides, at his
hours, he was a poet, and it is said that if a poet tell a lie twice he
will believe it. Antonin so often declared his wife to be a charming
person that in the end no doubt he thought so. She was not charming,
however, or if she were, her charm was not that of exclusiveness.
It was in full sight of this lady's inconsequences that Faustine was
educated. Wherever she looked, the candors of her girlhood were
violated. The phallus then was omnipresent. Iamblicus, not the
novelist, but the philosopher, has much to say on the subject; as has
Arnobius in the Adversus gentes, and Lactance in the De falsa
religione. If Juvenal, Martial, Petronius, are more reticent, it is
because they were not Fathers of the Church, nor yet antiquarians. No
one among us exacts a description of a spire. The phallus was as common
to them, commoner even. It was on the coins, on the doors, in the
gardens. As a preservative against Envy it hung from children's necks.
On sun-dials and water clocks it marked the flight of time. The vestals
worshipped it. At weddings it was used in a manner which need not be
described.
It was from such surroundings that Faustine stepped into the arms of
the severe and stately prince whom her father had chosen. That Marcus
Aurelius adored her is certain. His notebook shows it. A more
tender-hearted and perfect lover romance may show, but history cannot.
He must have been the quintessence of refinement, a thoroughbred to his
finger-tips; one for whom that purple mantle was too gaudy, and yet who
bore it, as he bore everything else, in that self-abnegatory spirit
which the higher reaches of philosophy bring.
He was of that rare type that never complains and always consoles.
After Antonin's death, his hours ceased to be his own. On the Euphrates
there was the wildest disorder. To the north new races were pushing
nations over the Danube and the Rhine. From the catacombs Christ was
emerging; from the Nile, Serapis. The empire was in disarray. Antonin
had provided his son-in-law with a coadjutor, Lucius Verus, the son of
Hadrian's mignon, a magnificent scoundrel; a tall, broad-shouldered
athlete, with a skin as fresh as a girl's and thick curly hair, which
he covered with a powder of gold; a viveur, whose suppers are famous
still; whose guests were given the slaves that served them, the plate
off which they had eaten, the cups from which they had drunk--cups of
gold, cups of silver, jewelled cups, cups from Alexandria, murrhine
vases filled with nard--cars and litters to go home with, mules with
silver trappings and negro muleteers. Capitolinus says that, while the
guests feasted, sometimes the magnificent Verus got drunk, and was
carried to bed in a coverlid, or else, the red feather aiding, turned
out and fought the watch.
It was this splendid individual to whom Marcus Aurelius entrusted the
Euphrates. They had been brought up together, sharing each others
tutors, writing themes for the same instructor, both meanwhile
adolescently enamored of the fair Faustine. It was to Marcus she was
given, the empire as a dower; and when that dower passed into his
hands, he could think of nothing more equitable than to ask Verus to
share it with him. Verus was not stupid enough to refuse, and at the
hour when the Parthians turned ugly, he needed little urging to set out
for the East, dreaming, as he did so, of creating there an empire that
should be wholly his.
At that time Faustine must have been at least twenty-eight, possibly
thirty. There were matrons who had not seen their fifteenth year, and
Faustine had been married young. Her daughter, Lucille, was nubile.
Presently Verus, or rather his lieutenants, succeeded, and the girl was
betrothed to him. There was a festival, of course, games in abundance,
and plenty of blood.
It would have been interesting to have seen her that day, the iron ring
of betrothal on her finger, her brother, Commodus, staring at the
arrangement of her hair, her mother prettily perplexed, her father
signing orders which messengers brought and despatched while the sand
took on a deeper red, and Rome shrieked its delight. Yes, it would have
been interesting and typical of the hour. Her hair in the ten tresses
which were symbolic of a fiancee's innocence, must have amused that
brute of a brother of hers, and the iron ring on the fourth finger of
her left hand must have given Faustine food for thought; the vestals,
in their immaculate robes, must have gazed at her in curious, sisterly
ways, and because of her fresh beauty surely there were undertones of
applause. Should her father disappear she would make a gracious
imperatrix indeed.
But, meanwhile, there was Faustine, and at sight of her legends of old
imperial days returned. She was not Messalina yet, but in the stables
there were jockeys whose sudden wealth surprised no one; in the arenas
there were gladiators that fought, not for liberty, nor for death, but
for the caresses of her eyes; in the side-scenes there were mimes who
spoke of her; there were senators who boasted in their cups, and in the
theatre Rome laughed colossally at the catchword of her amours.
Marcus Aurelius then was occupied with affairs of state. In similar
circumstances so was Claud--Messalina's husband--so, too, was Antonin.
But Claud was an imbecile, Antonin a man of the world, while Marcus
Aurelius was a philosopher. When fate links a woman to any one of these
varieties of the husband, she is blessed indeed. Faustine was
particularly favored.
The stately prince was not alone a philosopher--a calling, by the way,
which was common enough then, and has become commoner since--he was a
philosopher who believed in philosophy, a rarity then as now. The exact
trend of his thought is difficult to define. His note-book is filled
with hesitations; materialism had its allurements, so also had
pantheism; the advantages of the Pyrrhonic suspension of judgment were
clear to him too; according to the frame of mind in which he wrote, you
might fancy him an agnostic, again an akosmist, sometimes both, but
always the ethical result is the same.
"Revenge yourself on your enemy by not resembling him. Forgive; forgive
always; die forgiving. Be indulgent to the wrong-doer; be compassionate
to him; tell him how he should act; speak to him without anger, without
sarcasm; speak to him affectionately. Besides, what do you know of his
wrong-doing? Are all his thoughts familiar to you? May there not be
something that justifies him? And you, are you entirely free from
reproach? Have you never done wrong? And if not, was it fear that
restrained you? Was it pride, or what?"
In the synoptic gospels similar recommendations appear. Charity is the
New Testament told in a word. Christians read and forget it. But
Christians are not philosophers. The latter are charitable because they
regard evil as a part of the universal order of things, one which it is
idle to blame, yet permissible to rectify.
From whatever source such a tenet springs, whether from materialism,
stoicism, pyrrhonism, epicureanism, atheism even, is of small matter;
it is a tenet which is honorable to the holder. This sceptred
misanthrope possessed it, and it was in that his wife was blessed.
Years later he died, forgiving her in silence, praising her aloud.
Claud, referring to Messalina, shouted through the Forum that the fate
which destined him to marry impure women destined him to punish them.
Marcus Aurelius said nothing. He did not know what fate destined him to
do, but he did know that philosophy taught him to forgive.
It was this philosophy that first perplexed Faustine. She was restless,
frivolous, perhaps also a trifle depraved. Frivolous because all women
were, depraved because her mother was, and restless because of the
curiosity that inflammable imaginations share--in brief, a Roman
princess. Her husband differed from the Roman prince. His youth had not
been entirely circumspect; he, too, had his curiosities, but they were
satisfied, he had found that they stained. When he married he was
already the thinker; doubtless, he was tiresome; he could have had
little small-talk, and his hours of love-making must have been rare.
Presently the affairs of state engrossed him. Faustine was left to
herself; save a friend of her own sex, a woman can have no worse
companion. She, too, discovered she had curiosities. A gladiator passed
that way--then Rome; then Lesbos; then the Lampsacene. "You are my
husband's mistress," her daughter cried at her. "And you," the mother
answered, "are your brother's." Even in the aridity of a chronicle the
accusation and rejoinder are dramatic. Fancy what they must have been
when mother and daughter hissed them in each other's teeth. Whether the
argument continued is immaterial. Both could have claimed the sanction
of religion. In those days a sin was a prayer. Religion was then, as it
always had been, purely political. With the individual, with his
happiness or aspirations, it concerned itself not at all. It was the
prosperity of the empire, its peace and immortality, for which
sacrifices were made, and libations offered. The god of Rome was Rome,
and religion was patriotism. The antique virtues, courage in war,
moderation in peace, and honor at all times, were civic, not personal.
It was the state that had a soul, not the individual. Man was
ephemeral; it was the nation that endured. It was the permanence of its
grandeur that was important, nothing else.
To ensure that permanence each citizen labored. As for the citizen,
death was near, and he hastened to live; before the roses could fade he
wreathed himself with them. Immortality to him was in his descendants,
the continuation of his name, respect to his ashes. Any other form of
future life was a speculation, infrequent at that. In anterior epochs
Fright had peopled Tartarus, but Fright had gone. The Elysian Fields
were vague, wearisome to contemplate; even metempsychosis had no
adherents. "After death," said Caesar, "there is nothing," and all the
world agreed with him. The hour, too, in which three thousand gods had
not a single atheist, had gone, never to return. Old faiths had
crumbled. None the less was Rome the abridgment of every superstition.
The gods of the conquered had always been part of her spoils. The
Pantheon had become a lupanar of divinities that presided over birth,
and whose rites were obscene; an abattoir of gods that presided over
death, and whose worship was gore. To please them was easy. Blood and
debauchery was all that was required. That the upper classes had no
faith in them at all goes without the need of telling; the atmosphere
of their atriums dripped with metaphysics. But of the atheism of the
upper classes the people knew nothing; they clung piously to a faith
which held a theological justification of every sin, and in the temples
fervent prayers were murmured, not for future happiness, for that was
unobtainable, nor yet for wisdom or virtue, for those things the gods
neither granted nor possessed; the prayers were that the gods would
favor the suppliant in his hatreds and in his lusts.
Such was Rome when Verus returned to wed Lucille. Before his car the
phallus swung; behind it was the pest. A little before, the Tiber
overflowed. Presently, in addition to the pest, famine came. It was
patent to everyone that the gods were vexed. There was blasphemy
somewhere, and the Christians were tossed to the beasts. Faustine
watched them die. At first they were to her as other criminals, but
immediately a difference was discerned. They met death, not with grace,
perhaps, but with exaltation. They entered the arena as though it were
an enchanted garden, the color of the emerald, where dreams came true.
Faustine questioned. They were enemies of state, she was told. The
reply left her perplexed, and she questioned again. It was then her
eyes became inhabited by regret. The past she tried to put from her,
but remorse is physical; it declines to be dismissed. She would have
killed herself, but she no longer dared. Besides, in the future there
was light. In some ray of it she must have walked, for when at the foot
of Mount Taurus, in a little Cappadocian village, years later, she
died, it was at the sign of the cross.
IX
THE AGONY
The high virtues are not complaisant, it is the cad the canaille adore.
In spite of everything, Nero had been beloved by the masses. For years
there were roses on his tomb. Under Vespasian there was an impostor
whom Greece and Asia acclaimed in his name. The memory of his festivals
was unforgetable; regret for him refused to be stilled. He was more
than a god; he was a tradition. His second advent was confidently
expected; the Jews believed in his resurrection; to the Christian he
had never died, and suddenly he reappeared.
Rome had declined to accept the old world tenet that the soul has its
avatars, yet, when Commodus sauntered from that distant sepulchre, into
which, poison aiding, he had placed his putative father, Rome felt that
the Egyptians were wiser than they looked; that the soul did migrate,
and that in the blue eyes of the young emperor Nero's spirit shone.
Herodian, who has written very agreeably on the subject, describes him
as another Prince Charming. His hair, which was very fair, glistened
like gold in the sun; he was slender, not at all effeminate,
exceedingly graceful, exceedingly gracious; endowed with the promptest
blush, with the best intentions; studious of the interests of his
people; glad of advice, seeking it even; courteous and deferential to
the senate and his father's friends--in short, an adolescent Nero--a
trifle more guileful, however; already a parricide, a comedian as well;
one who in a moment would toss the mask aside and disclose the mongrel;
the offspring, not of an empress and an emperor, but the tiger-cub that
Faustine had got by a gladiator.
The tender-hearted philosopher, who in a campaign against some fretful
Teutons, had taken Commodus with him, knew that he was not his son;
knew, too, when the agony seized him, from whose hand the agony came;
but in earlier life he had jotted in his notebook, "Forgive, forgive
always; die forgiving"; and, as he forgave the mother, so he forgave
the child, recommending him with his last breath to the army and to
Rome.
As the people had loved Nero, so did the aristocracy love Marcus
Aurelius; his foster-father Antonin excepted, he was the only gentleman
that had sat on the throne. No wonder they loved him; and seeing this
early edition of the prince in the fairy tale emerge from the bogs of
Germany, his fair face haloed by the glisten and gold of his hair,
hearts went out to him; the wish of his putative father was ratified,
and the son of a gladiator was emperor of Rome.
Lampridus--or Spartian was it? The title-page bears Lampridus' name,
but there is some doubt as to the authorship. However, whoever made the
abridgment of the life of Commodus which appears among the chronicles
of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, says that before his birth
Faustine dreamed she had engendered a serpent. It is not impossible
that Faustine had been reading Ctzias, and had stumbled over his
account of the Martichoras, a serpent with a woman's face and the
talons of a bird of prey. For it was that she conceived.
It would have been interesting to have seen that young man, the mask
removed, frightening the senate into calling Rome Commodia, and then in
a linen robe promenading in the attributes of a priest of Anubis
through a seraglio of six hundred girls and mignons embracing as he
passed. There was a spectacle, which Nero had not imagined. But Nero
was vieux jeu. Commodus outdid him, first in debauchery, then in the
arena. Nero had died while in training to kill a lion; Commodus did not
take the trouble to train. It was the lions that were trained, not he.
A skin on his shoulders, a club in his hand, he descended naked into
the ring, and there felled beasts and men. Then, acclaimed as Hercules,
he returned to the pulvina, and a mignon on one side, a mistress on the
other, ordered the guard to massacre the spectators and set fire to
Rome. After entering the arena six or seven hundred times, and there
vanquishing men whose eyes had been put out and whose legs were tied,
the colossal statue which Nero had made after his own image was
altered; to the top came the bust of Commodus, to the base this legend:
THE VICTOR OF TEN THOUSAND GLADIATORS, COMMODUS-HERCULES, IMPERATOR.
Meanwhile conspirators were at work. Like Nero, Commodus could have
sought in vain for a friend. His life was attempted again and again; he
escaped, but never the plotters; only when they had gone there were
more. He knew he was doomed. There was the usual comet; the statue of
Hercules had perspired visibly; an owl had been caught above his
bedroom, and once he had wiped in his hair the hand which he had
plunged in the warm wound of a gladiator, dead at his feet. These omens
could mean but one thing. None the less, if he were doomed, so were
others. One day one of those miserable children that the emperors kept
about them found a tablet. It was as good as anything else to play
with; and, as the child tossed it through the hall, the one woman that
had loved Commodus caught it and read on it that she and all the
household were to die. Within an hour Commodus was killed.
There is a page in Lampridus, which he quotes as coming from the lost
chronicles of Marius Maximus, and which contains the joy of the senate
at the news. It is too long for transcription, but as a bit of realism
it is unique. There is a shiver in every line. You hear the voices of
hundreds, drunk with fury, frenzied with delight; the fierce welcome
that greeted Pertinax--a slave's grandson, who was emperor for a
minute--the joy of hate assuaged.
The delight of the senate was not shared by the pretorians. Pertinax
was promptly massacred; the throne was put up at auction; there were
two or three emperors at once, and presently the purple was seized by
Septimus Severus, a rigid, white-haired disciplinarian, who, in his
admiration for Marcus Aurelius, founded that second dynasty of the
Antonins with which antiquity may be said to end.
When he had gone, his elder son, Bastian, renamed Aurelius Antonin, and
because of a cloak he had invented nicknamed Caracalla, bounded like a
panther on the throne. In a moment he was gnawing at his brother's
throat, and immediately there occurred a massacre such as Rome had
never seen. Xiphilin says the nights were not long enough to kill all
of the condemned. Twenty thousand people were slaughtered in twenty
hours. The streets were emptied, the theatres closed.