brutal a voluptuary could hardly issue from any but a Stoic school. It
is at once raw, crude, and narrow; it coarsens our natural appetites
instead of refining them. For Stoicism the human emotions, love and
pity, are but weaknesses, which it denies and attempts to stifle. It is
very far from the secret of human sympathy. Nero as a young man had many
excellent qualities, which an artistic and delicate training might have
developed into fine accomplishments: he might have learned the art of
life; and instead he has learned only rhetoric, the sort of rhetoric
that vitiates every action, and makes our emotions the subject for a
stage declamation, makes life a mere piece of acting. Yet I must not
forget, Rufus, that Seneca was your friend. Perhaps he was better than
his philosophy; but I have never been able to forgive him either for his
adulation of Claudius during his life, or his satire upon him after his
death."
"Seneca was un-Roman," said Marcus.
"Why do you say that?" enquired Serenus.
"All his ideals were un-Roman," answered Marcus. "His notions of the
brotherhood and natural equality of man, his unpractical nature and
sentimentalism, his absolute lack of a grasp upon realities and their
significance, his condemnation of war and of slavery. His life was
composed almost entirely of noble maxims, and of trivial actions."
"He died well," said Rufus tersely.
"A final gesture," said Marcus, rubbing his arm. "We Romans are superbly
self-conscious. We die in public, with appropriate speeches."
"What you think peculiar to Seneca, his sentimentalism and idealism, are
really parts of the present spirit, and common to all schools," answered
Serenus. "Rome has broken down the ancient national barriers, and given
to all peoples the notion of humanity as a whole. It is from this cause
that the idea of a world-state has its origin. But Rome governs by
force; other nations are tributary to her; she has enslaved them; they
are the base upon which she has raised her grandeur. They feel that they
are unjustly treated. We have created new conditions. We have shut them
off from their legitimate activities by refusing to allow them to govern
themselves, or to make war upon their neighbours; so that the whole life
of the Empire is centralised in Rome, and the provinces have become
stagnant. And from these new conditions has been born a new spirit. Life
seems too full of suffering; the poor and the oppressed are many, and
because they are so many they are becoming articulate. They would build
a new heaven and a new earth. I learnt of this first at Corinth."
"The whole corruption of the world comes from the Greeks and the Jews,"
said Rufus contemptuously. "What is the use of clamouring against life?
It is a problem that we must each solve for ourselves, and no theory
will help us. If society were wrong, if Rome were wrong, if force were
wrong, we should not be sitting here in comparative comfort. To talk of
the tyranny of the State is nonsense; individual liberty is what each
man wins for himself, and the State merely offers the most convenient
mechanism by which it may be gained. As an example we have the growth of
a large class of rich freedmen. The disease, from which we are suffering
at present, is simply a form of sentimentality. What is morality? What
is justice? What is good? The only answer is: 'That which law orders.'"
"Do you believe in the gods, Rufus?" enquired Marcus, with amusement.
"I follow the customs of my forefathers," answered Rufus bluntly.
"The gods are dead," said Marcus, still rubbing his arm.
"They are not dead," answered Serenus gently; "but they have changed
their names. The people will always worship the same Divinity, the Giver
of rain and good crops and victory in battle, and health in life, and
peace toward death."
"I never understood Seneca's philosophy; but I loved the man," said
Rufus. "The greater part of him was weakness, but he had strength. He
was a good man of business, Serenus."
"He was a clever man, with admirable opportunities," answered Serenus.
"I am an Epicurean, and Seneca's teaching is not mine. Yet, in some of
its details his teaching is also Epicurean. With him, philosophy was
less an affair of the mind than of the imagination, and of good taste;
it is always the artist, the orator, who is teaching, and his eloquence
is never quite persuasive, because the artist is never quite persuaded.
He belongs to no school, he is an eclectic; and he seeks rather to
inculcate the practice of virtue than to show what virtue is. He neither
asks nor answers a question. The vices and weaknesses which he condemned
in others he had found in himself; his was a subjective, a poetic, a
romantic mind. And it was precisely for this reason that his disciples
loved him, because of that emotional and many coloured nature, which saw
virtue, the most austere virtue, ever as a god, and found it
unattainable."
"Yes, that is true," said Rufus.
"But did Seneca believe in the gods, and in the immortality of the
soul?" enquired Marcus.
Serenus smiled.
"Yes," he answered; "Seneca spent his whole life in seeking for the
truth, but the truth for which he sought was one which should be
agreeable to his own nature. A divinity was necessary to his well-being.
He speaks of a loving God, of a God who orders the world aright and
whose will we should obey without a murmur; and in consequence his
hatred for the Epicureans was great. He could not forgive us for showing
the gods serene and untroubled in their abode, into which penetrates no
whisper of mortal anguish; and for saying that no voice of prayer
troubles their endless pleasure, and that without tears or anger they
gaze at once upon our sorrow and our sin, and are heedless of the hands
uplifted in supplication from every corner of the earth. Yes; God is
necessary to a Stoic. But we Epicureans have called upon the gods and
they have not answered us; we have sought them throughout the world and
have not found them; neither are they in the seas nor in the skies; we
have not seen them destroy the wicked nor protect the innocent; we think
that they are not interested in our humble affairs; they are neither our
masters nor our creators, but belong to the same order of things as we
do, though of a finer and less perishable nature: if, indeed, they exist
at all."
"Stoicism is a hatred of humanity," said Marcus; "perhaps Epicureanism
is a love of it. Rufus, do you not think the Epicureans are clever? They
do not deny the existence of gods; but they make their gods of such a
divinely intangible substance that doubt becomes in itself almost an act
of worship. It is as if they feared to profane the sanctuary with human
feet soiled by the dust of travail."
"I have given you my opinion of philosophy and philosophers," said
Rufus. "Once a man begins to think of the difference between right and
wrong he is lost, morally and mentally. I studied philosophy in order to
learn how to write despatches; and in the short course I took, I
acquired enough knowledge of the subject to know that good and evil
belong to the category of reflex actions, they are spasmodic movements
over which we have no control. Do I praise my legionaries because they
are brave? I do, as a matter of fact. It makes an admirable prelude to
the imposition of another task. Seneca imagined that men could be
disciplined into virtue. It was a great mistake, because discipline is
not applicable to the individual, it is only applicable to a crowd. It
is easy to fill a regiment with courage; but it is impossible to make
one man brave."
"You do not think that it is possible to form individual habits?" said
Serenus.
"Yes, of course," answered Rufus; "it is possible to accustom a man to
sleep on a hard bed, to deny himself wine or flesh, even in some degree
to control his temper. But an action is good or bad, only in so far as
it is a reflex action."
"What you say is very curious," said Serenus quickly.
"In fact Rufus is a complete philosopher," said Marcus, laughing. "I
should like to drink a little wine."
Serenus struck a sounding-bowl of silver, and a Greek boy entered.
"Wine," said Serenus, and the boy left them. "Rufus, you have heard of a
sect of Jews called Christians; do you know their belief?"
"No," said Rufus contemptuously; "I only know that it is against the
Jewish religion to pay tribute. I believe that they have no religion;
they are contemptuous of all known gods; they will eat no flesh which
has been offered in the temples; and they loathe the whole human race: a
feeling which, I think, is reciprocated. The Christians seem to be one
of the numerous sects given over to the practice of a depraved and
fantastic superstition. The East is full of such monstrous cults."
The Greek boy set wine before them, threw a few grains of incense on a
brazier, and departed softly. Marcus drank a white Greek wine; Rufus
poured himself out a large bowl of Falernian.
"I take mine with a great deal of water," said Serenus; "because my
stomach is weak. Alas! sometimes I think it is my stomach which has
taught me the virtue of moderation. I have heard a man, who was a
Christian, speak in almost the identical words of Seneca. The cardinal
point of his doctrine was not the Stoic apathy, but the recommendation
of sympathy, that is the difference between them. Here and there he uses
the same phrases and illustrations as Seneca. It shows how widespread
the new spirit is."
"Seneca's teaching did not interest me," answered Rufus. "It was the man
I loved. Though it is long since saw him, I cannot believe that he was
contaminated by Judaism."
Serenus felt a curious desire to disburden himself.
"I went a great deal among the Christians once," he said softly.
The two men looked at him for a moment, with that curious expression of
distrust which men adopt when another confesses to some social
indiscretion.
"It was nearly nine years ago, and perhaps my nature resembled Seneca's
then; my philosophy was an affair of the heart. I was seeking for a
beauty that is not of this world. It was at Corinth. I met a man named
Paul."
"All things are possible at Corinth," said Rufus. "Tell us your story,
Serenus."
"And then we shall stay to dinner," said Marcus, as he finished his
wine.
"It is a long story," said Serenus, smiling. "I have written it on a
roll, and shall read it to you. Let us go out into the garden; it is
cool and pleasant there now. Lysis will bring you what you want. Do you
remember telling me, Rufus, that Seneca drew you to him by his weakness?
Paul drew me to him by his strength."
* * * * *
Passing out of the library through the atrium the friends crossed a
small courtyard enclosed on three sides, and turning sharp to the left
began to climb the slope which sheltered the house. The walk was shaded
by a thick hedge of ilex, and there were tall, slim cypresses at
irregular intervals. Leaving the path, they crossed a plot of grass,
starry with little flowers, and, passing through a thicket of myrtles,
came presently to a semicircular stone seat shaded by beeches which
stood, eastward, a little way behind it. Falling water tinkled like
little silver bells somewhere close to them; and the leaves made a
pleasant whispering noise. Lysis covered the seat with rugs, and left
them. The seat faced westward, overlooking the olive-yards which the
winds flushed to silver; and the friends had a magnificent view of the
Atlantic. In the declining light the distant promontories, blue and
lemon, seemed to jut out into a bath of liquid colours, as if suspended
in the vague; and the horizon was indeterminate. A fleet of
fishing-boats, some miles from the shore, seemed like small, brown moths
with motionless wings that had settled upon a flat screen of transparent
blue gauze, and about them the light gleamed and flickered upon
innumerable little dancing waves. It was all blue and green, but so pale
and silent as to seem a mirage. Marcus, lounging easily upon the wide
seat, looked over the prospect with unconscious enjoyment. Rufus sat
with his chin in his hands.
"I love to sit here on tranquil evenings," said Serenus; "and listen for
the cry of the halcyon, or the heavy plunge of a dolphin, drifting up
through the delicious air from the bay."
He unrolled his manuscript, and presently began to read, in a smooth,
low voice:--
* * * * *
"When Venus rose out of the foam and froth of Ocean it was upon the prow
of a Phœnician trader, that carried her into every part of the known
world; and when her worship fell away and her votaries became few, the
cult of Venus Pandemos still flourished at Corinth, and her temples
there were served by a thousand priestesses. There she loves to have her
abiding place, where she can look out upon two seas, and watch the
sail-winged ships bringing her tribute from distant lands; she is the
lure, beckoning them over the pathless sea. The port Cenchrea is
surrounded by green hills and pine forests, and through the stone-pines
at dawn the sun sends his first level rays, so that their trunks show
black against the gold. The streets are infested with traders of all
nations; Jews and Syrians swarm there; child courtesans with delicate
and innocent faces pluck strangers by the sleeve and smile; the quays
and streets are crowded with the booths of merchants and moneychangers,
whose gay awnings striped red or yellow glare vividly in the sunlight;
and doves are everywhere, fluttering about the streets, fanning the air
with a soft pulse of wings, alighting upon awnings and architraves to
preen their feathers, running swiftly among the passengers on their pink
feet and cooing, cooing softly like the young girls who touch men on the
sleeve, the very gentle, insinuating whisper of Aphrodite.
"I arrived at Corinth in the beginning of December, and remember well
the gaiety, animation, and bustle of the scene as I watched it from the
steps of the temple; for a long time I fed my sight upon that busy,
amorous, wholly pleasure-loving crowd, until, at last, the red and
yellow awnings so hot and vivid even in the winter sunlight, the
perpetual passing to and fro of men and women, the continual change and
motion of colours, and the humming noise, all combined in a curious
hypnotic effect upon my nerves. What had seemed the very epitome of life
became a mere stage-scene, and then again nothing but the dance of motes
in a sunbeam.
"It irritated me and then tired me. I turned from the Temple of Venus
and sought that of Apollo, where I rested a little time in peace. Then I
went to the house of my agent, with whom I was to lodge until I had
taken a house for my own use. The man was kindly, but tactless; his
tedious anxiety to please distracted and irritated me, he was so much at
my service that I could find no possible use for him. I said I wished to
bathe, and my host insisted on coming with me. It was amusing to watch
his air of importance as he conducted me through the crowded ways, for
he was a notable person in the city, and every other man we met greeted
us; as we paused a moment before a funeral procession I heard a voice
saying: 'That is Serenus, a cousin of Acte's Serenus,' and once again I
felt the intolerable stare of curious eyes, that dropped obsequiously
when I met them. After my bath, my host led me to the Prefect's palace,
for I had letters to Gallio, and then at last he left me. Gallio
received me charmingly; his manners are those of a man who has known and
forgotten everything. He begged me to dine, and to stay with him until I
had found a house; but I excused myself on the score of business and
fatigue. He smiled, answered that he would always be glad of my company,
and I left him.
"Once again in the streets, that vivid and passionate life appealed to
me with a new sympathy; I read beneath the superficial gaiety and
glitter, the human tragedy, the flight of pleasures and the irrevocable
advance of death; women passed me in soft murmuring draperies, smiled at
me languorously and passed on leaving the air tainted with Eastern
perfumes. I noticed that even as they smiled their eyes were wistful.
The delicate winter sunset began. I called a boy to me and asked him to
guide me to the house of Caius, whom I wished to see personally on some
business connected with the outfit of my ship. He led me to a house in
the Jews' quarter and I tapped at the door. A freedwoman admitted me,
looked at me with surprise, and was just going to speak but changed her
mind and led me toward the doorway of a room whence came a sound of some
one reading. Light fell through the doorway as she drew back the
curtain; and she motioned me to enter; but I drew back in astonishment,
for a voice was reading aloud these words: 'Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have prophecy, and understand
all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I
could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And if I give
away in food all my goods, and though I give my body to be burned, and
have not love, it profiteth me nothing.'
"The grave voice ceased, for the servant had beckoned the reader, and
presently Caius came toward me. I gave him my orders with reference to
the sails and tackling of my ship, and spoke of other ships of mine
which he had refitted for me; and then asked him what author he had been
reading. For a moment he hesitated, and then answered that he had been
reading to some friends a letter by Paul, an apostle of Christ. I
enquired if I might look a little more closely at it as I had been
interested in what I heard; and after hesitating again for a moment he
brought it me. The scroll half opened in my hands and I read:--
"For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God chose the
foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are
wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to
shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and
the things that are despised, did God choose, yea, and the things that
are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are.' Mine eyes
followed the words as the roll opened: 'Howbeit we speak wisdom among
the perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this
world, which are coming to nought; but we speak God's wisdom in a
mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained
before the worlds unto our glory; which none of the rulers of this world
knoweth; for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory.' My sight ran heedlessly over the next few lines until they came
to these words: 'For I think, God hath set forth us the apostles last of
all, as men doomed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world,
and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are
wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye have glory but we
have dishonour. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst,
and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and
we toil, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being
persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are made as the
filth of the world, the off-scouring of things, even until now.... What
will ye, shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and a spirit of
meekness?'
"I rolled up the scroll, and gave it back to Caius, saying that I should
like to read it all, but that at the moment I had not the time; and I
suggested that he should lend it to me. He shook his head, murmuring
that it was not his property, that it was only deposited in his house
for safe keeping, the convenience of those who wished to consult it; but
he offered to let me see it, in his house, at any time that I might
wish. I said that perhaps I might come again, and went out into the
street. I do not think that I had any intention of coming again; but as
the women passed me in the moonlit streets, and the beggar children held
out their supplicating hands, I seemed to hear the words: 'If I give
away in food all my goods, and though I give my body to be burned and
have not love, it profiteth me nothing.'
"Yes; I felt it in those streets, where little girls, still children and
innocent, aped with a diabolic mimicry the manners and allurements of
the women who followed me, followed me with a soft, rippling noise of
draperies and odour of cosmetics, like shadows, like ghosts. In the city
of the goddess of pleasure, I seemed to learn, for the first time, the
secret of pain. But beyond and above that sympathy with this drifting
helpless mass that is humanity, I felt a curious desire to learn more of
the personality of the writer who could write: 'If any man considereth
himself wise among you, let him become a fool that he may be wise, and
threaten to come among his disputing disciples with a rod.' His humility
seemed to overpass the bounds of pride, his words were whips, his
contempt for argument and disputation burned with a superhuman energy.
He seemed to say: 'These are but words, empty sounds. I teach you the
truth, accept it humbly; have I not suffered for it, and will you, who
have but enjoyed it in peace and plenty, attempt to alter it?'
"I came back to my lodgings, and the woman who had followed me turned
away with a sigh.
"The next ten days I spent on business; and I went a great deal to the
Prefect's palace where the conversation of Gallio and his friends
charmed and delighted me. Gallio saw the world and the Empire drifting
toward a complete breakdown. Civilisation, according to him, filled man
with desires which he can never gratify; it tended to accentuate the
difference between the poor and the rich, and the whole question
resolved itself for him into a question of politics. The Roman stock was
perishing, and its place was being taken by a horde of servile races.
The people were only being kept in check by a system of doles, and
amused with pageants. The burden of taxation was becoming insufferable.
"It may last our time," he said with a smile; "but the disease is
ineradicable. A revolution, or a series of great wars, might carry us
forward for a time. We are suffering from a mortal sickness, growth,
which inevitably brings decay."
* * * * *
It had been arranged that one of my ships should follow three weeks
after my departure from Gades; and on my arrival at lazy Naples, I had
intended to wait for it, consequently I had remained there for three
weeks and a few days, and the other ship not coming by that time I
continued my voyage to Brundusium. There again I waited, anxious for
news, and at last reluctantly put out to sea without it. It arrived at
Corinth fourteen days after I did, and brought me a letter from my
nephew, but none from my wife. In an agony of doubt I opened it, and
read that my wife and child had died of a fever which had afflicted them
a few days after my departure. First my son had died, a boy little more
than three years old; and my wife, after lingering some time, followed
him. I had moved into my own house, and was alone. Sending a messenger
to my agent I bade him see to all things; and told him that I wished to
be left undisturbed. The words of the Master came to me:
"Nam iam non domus accipiet te læta neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent."
It seemed to me that the peace and tranquillity of my home, the sole aim
of my life, having been shrivelled up like unsubstantial things,
vanished like dreams, life had thrown me, too, aside and left me
stranded, a piece of wreckage, upon this alien shore. For many days I
sat alone in my sumptuous house, and the statues of the gods, blithe
Greek things, which I had bought to furnish it, and for transhipment to
the new home which I had meant to make at Rome, smiled at my unavailing
tears. Then one morning my slaves admitted a young boy to my presence.
"Caius bids me tell you that Paul is in Corinth," he said.
"I shall go," I answered.