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FELICITAS
FELICITAS
_A TALE OF THE GERMAN MIGRATIONS_
A.D. 476
BY
FELIX DAHN
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY
M. A. C. E.
LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1883
[_All rights reserved_]
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
FELICITAS.
INTRODUCTION.
Some years ago I was at work in Salzburg: in the library among the old
records, and in the Museum of Roman antiquities.
My studies were principally concerned with the fifth century: the time
when the Germanic tribes invaded these regions, the Roman garrisons
retiring with or without resistance, while many settlers remained in
the land. Peasants, trades-people, mechanics, would not forsake their
homes, nor give up their lucrative occupations, would not quit their
valued, long-cherished plots of ground, but stayed under the rule of
the Barbarian; who, when the storm and battle of conquest were over,
and the division of the country completed, did not molest them.
The work of the day over, I wandered in the beautiful, long-familiar
country of the Salzach valley; the warm June evenings permitted long
wanderings up to a late hour. Thought and fancy were filled with the
pictures of the life and the changing fate of the latest Romans in
these lands. My imagination was excited by the inscriptions, coins, and
utensils, by the Roman monuments of every kind which are found in such
rich abundance in and around Salzburg; for this town, with its
prominent fortress, the "Capitolium," on the rocky hill dominating
stream and valley, was for centuries, under the name of "Claudium
Juvavum," a chief bulwark of the Roman rule and the seat of a
flourishing and brilliant development of the Roman culture. The
inscriptions testify to the official rank of many of the citizens, such
as Duumvirs, Decurions, AEdiles of the markets and games; to the
importance of the town as a place of trade, and to the encouragement
given to the arts and manufactures.
That which had occupied me during the labours of the day was pictured
by the play of fancy, when in the evening I wandered out through the
gate of the town: stream and road, hill and valley, were then peopled
for me with forms of the Roman life; and from the distant north-west,
like the driving clouds that often arose from the Bavarian plain,
approached menacingly the invading Germans.
Most frequently, I preferred to saunter along the banks of the stream
in the direction of the great Roman road, which passed the Chiemsee,
and crossing its effluent, the Alz, at Siebruck (Bedaium), and the Inn
(Oenus) at Pfuenz (Pons Oeni), led towards the province of Vindelicia
and its splendid capital, Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum). Many coins,
fragments of pottery, urns, gravestones, and household utensils of
every kind have been found in the level country which stretches on each
side of the old highroad, and is now for the most part covered with
forest and brushwood, and in some parts overgrown with thick ivy. It is
evident that farms, and also stately villas of the rich citizens, were
thickly scattered beyond the outer wall of the fortified town, thus
filling and adorning the whole valley. I often wandered in the
neighbourhood of this Roman road, the traces of which were still
distinctly visible, watching the setting sun, and wondering what were
the feelings of the inhabitants of these villas, when, instead of the
proud Legions marching by on their way to the Roman town on the Lech,
it was the first weak bands of the Germans from the conquered
Vindelicia who galloped in, carefully reconnoitring; and soon to
be followed by larger masses, more daring, or rather having the
well-grounded confidence that they would find the country only weakly
defended, and would be able to establish themselves as masters over the
defenceless Romans who still remained.
In such fancies, not without the silent wish that I might myself glean
some small memorial of Roman times from this land so rich in
remembrances, I penetrated one evening deeper into the brushwood on the
right of the Roman road, following upwards the course of a small
stream, through a hollow often strewn with broken stones and potsherds,
which moss and ivy had thickly overgrown, and which cracked not seldom,
under my footsteps. I picked up many tiles and bits of pottery. Were
they Roman? No certain evidence could be gathered from _these_.
I determined to-day to follow the rivulet till I should reach its
source, which I imagined to be under the gentle slope of a moderately
high hill; for I knew that the Romans liked to build their quiet villas
as well as their military stations by running water.
It was very hot on that summer day, I was tired in body and mind, and
it was only slowly, and with difficulty, that I could ascend the course
of the brook, forcing my way through the thick and often nearly
impassable bushes by the help of my alpenstock, which I carried with,
me, as I often climbed the mountains in my wanderings.
I could willingly have stretched myself drowsily on the soft inviting
moss; but I resisted the inclination, and determined to press through
and up to the goal I had set myself: the source of the stream.
In half an hour the slope was reached; the height is called by the
people, "the Pagan mound." Along the latter part of the way I had
noticed a striking increase in the number and size of the fragments of
stone; among them also were red and gray marble, like that which had
been quarried in the neighbourhood for unnumbered centuries; and it
was, as I had imagined, close under the crown of the hill the stream
trickled out of the ground.
It appeared to have been once surrounded by masonry; this was in part
still perceptible, carefully polished clear gray marble enclosed it
here and there in a handsome setting, and round about lay scattered
numerous tiles. My heart beat quickly, not only in consequence of the
arduous climb, but also, I confess it, in hopeful expectation, I was
yet very young. Suppose if to-day and here, Mercury, the Roman, or
Wotan, the German god of wishes and discovery, should give into my hand
the long-desired memorial of the Romans of Juvavum; the name "Pagan
mound" gave undoubted evidence of the Roman occupation--for the Roman
road is here called the "Pagan road"--added to this, the source of the
spring, the traces of the marble setting, the many tiles--then the
sun's rays, just before setting, fell across the brushwood and shone
directly on the tile-slab lying before me. Cement! I picked it up and
tested it; it was without doubt that Roman cement which, becoming hard
as stone during the lapse of centuries, so marks out the buildings of
eternal Rome, I turned the piece over; there, O joy! was burnt in the
undoubted motto of the Twenty-second Legion: _Primigenia pia fidelis!_
And as I bend down, highly pleased, to try the next brick, a yet
stronger sunbeam falls on a piece of peculiar light-gray stone. It is
marble, I see now, and on the surface there are three Roman letters
distinctly visible: "hic...." There the stone was broken; but close to
it, the broken edge of a similar piece of gray stone projected from the
moss and ivy. Does the continuation of the inscription lie here buried
under a covering of moss and turf?
I pulled at the stone, but it was too heavy, either from the load of
earth or from its own size.
After some useless efforts, I found that I must clear off the layers of
turf and moss before the marble would entrust me with its secret.
Had it one to narrate? Certainly! I held the commencement in my hand:
"Hic," "here"--_what_ had here taken place, or was here attested?
After I had with my pocket-knife cleared the first piece from earth and
root-fibres, I held its broken surface to that of the still covered
slab; they fitted very well together. Then I set to work; it was not
easy, not soon over; with hand, knife, and the point of my alpenstock,
I had to scrape and tear away fully two feet of turf, earth, moss, and,
toughest of all, the numerous little roots of the clasping ivy;
although the sun was setting and the breeze was cool, the labour made
me very hot; the perspiration fell from my brow on the old Roman stone,
which now showed itself as a tolerably long slab. After the first few
minutes my zeal was sharpened by perceiving more letters. It was at
last so far laid bare that I could take hold of the edges with both
hands, and with some little jerks bring it fully to view. I then held
the broken stone with the deciphered _hic_ against it; this gave me the
direction in which farther to search.
I hastily scraped away earth, stones, and moss from the cutting of the
letters, for it was quickly getting darker, and I wished to make out at
once the long-buried secret. I succeeded; without question, though
certainly with difficulty, I read the inscription, in two lines under
each other:
Hic habitat Felicit...
Nihil mali intret.
The two last letters of the third word alone were missing; the stone
was here broken away, and its companion piece was not to be found; but
it was self-evident that the missing letters were--as--the inscription
meant:
Here dwells happiness;
May nothing evil enter in.
Clearly the gray marble slab had formed the threshold of the entrance
to the garden or porch of the villa; and the adage expressed the wish
that all evil might be kept far from the door.
I sought in vain for yet farther traces, for remains of household
utensils.
Pleased and satisfied with the discovery of the pretty proverb, I then
rested.
Wiping my heated brow, I sat down on the soft moss by my work, thinking
again and again of the words; I supported my back against an old oak,
which had grown up out of the rubbish of the house, or, perhaps, out of
the good mould of the little garden.
A wondrous quiet reigned over the hill, which was quite separated from
the world by trees and bushes.
Only very, very faintly one heard the trickling of the small, scanty
vein of water which came out of the earth close by me, and only
sometimes, when it found a quicker fall, rippled more strongly. Once,
no doubt, when handsomely enclosed in the clear gray marble, it had
spoken loader.
In the distance, on the summit of a high beech, the golden oriole sang
its flute-like evening song, which told of still deeper forest
loneliness, for the listener seldom hears the notes of the "Pirol,"
except in such a solitude. Bees hummed here and there over the mossy
carpet, coming out of the dark thicket and seeking the warmer light,
sleepy themselves and lulling to sleep with their humming.
I thought, whose "happiness" once dwelt here? And has the wish of the
inscription been fulfilled? Was the proverb powerful enough to keep off
all evil? The stone which bore it is broken--a bad sign. And what kind
of happiness was this? But stay! At that time Felicitas occurs as a
_woman's name_; perhaps the proverb, with a graceful double meaning,
would say: "Here dwells happiness; that is to say, my Felicitas; may
nothing evil come over her, over our threshold!"
But "Felicitas"--who was she? and who was he, whose happiness she had
been, and what had become of them? And this villa, how----?
This was my last waking thought, for with the last question I fell
asleep.
And long did I slumber; for when the song of the nightingale, loudly
exultant, close to my ear, awoke me, it was dark night; a single star
shone through the branches of the oak. I sprang up: "Felicitas!
Fulvius!" I cried, "Liuthari! Felicitas! where are they?"
"Felicitas!" softly repeated the echo from the hill. All else was still
and dark.
So was it a dream?
Now, _this_ dream I will retain.
Felicitas, I hold thee!
Thou shalt not escape me.
Poetical fancy can immortalise thee.
And I hastened home, and the same night noted down the history which I
had dreamt among the ruins of the old Roman villa.
CHAPTER I.
It was a beautiful evening in June, The sun threw its golden beams from
the west, from Vindelicia, on the Mercurius Hill, and the modest villa
which crowned it.
Here and there on the great street a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a yoke
of Noric oxen, was returning home at the close of the market-day
through the west gate of Juvavum, the _Porta Vindelica_. The colonists
and peasants had been selling vegetables, fowls, and pigeons in the
Forum of Hercules; but the bustle of the street reached the hill only
as a murmur. Here it was still and quiet; one only heard outside the
low stone wall which surrounded the garden the lively rippling of a
little spring, which at its source was prettily enclosed in marble, and
after it had fed the fountain in the middle, and had wandered through
the garden in artificially winding rivulets, escaped through a gap in
the wall and hurried down the hill in a stone channel. Close by was the
gate entrance, surmounted by a statue of Mercury, but open, without
door or lattice. In the direction of the town, towards the south-east,
there lay at the foot of the hill carefully tended vegetable and fruit
gardens, meadows with the most succulent verdure, and corn-fields with
luxuriant grain, which products the Romans had brought into the land of
the barbarians.
Behind the villa, towards the north, fine beech-woods towered and
rustled, ascending the mountain slopes; and out of their depths sounded
from afar the metallic note of the golden oriole.
It was so beautiful, so peaceful; but from the west--and no less from
the south-east!--threatening storm-clouds were rising.
From the entrance a straight path, strewn with white sand, led through
the wide-spreading garden, between tall ilices and yews, which
according to the long ruling fashion had been cut into all kinds of
geometrical figures--a taste, or rather want of taste, which the Rococo
did not invent, but only newly borrowed from the gardens of the
Imperators.
Statues were placed at regular intervals in the space between the
garden gate and the entrance to the dwelling-house: nymphs, a Flora, a
satyr, a Mercury--bad work in plaster; the stout Crispus made them by
the dozen in his workshop on the Vulcan market-place in Juvavum; and he
sold them cheap: for the times were not good for _men_, and were bad
for gods and demi-gods; but these were all gifts, for Crispus was the
father's brother of the young householder.
From the entrance of the garden, echoing from the stone wall of the
enclosure, there sounded several strokes of a hammer, only lightly, for
they were given carefully by an artist-hand; they seemed to be the last
improving, finishing efforts of a master.
Now the hammerer sprang up; he had been kneeling just within the
entrance, near to which, standing upright against each other, were some
dozen yet unworked marble slabs, which pointed out the dwelling of a
stone-mason. He stuck the little hammer into the leather belt which
fastened the skin apron over his blue tunic, shook from a little
oil-flask a few drops on a woollen cloth, rubbed therewith the marble
till it was smooth as a mirror, turned his head aside, as a bird will
that wishes to look closely at anything, and then, nodding well
pleased, read from the slab at the entrance:
"Yes, yes! here dwells happiness; _my_ happiness, _our_ happiness: so
long as my Felicitas dwells here--happy and making happy. May
misfortune never step over this threshold: banished by the adage, may
every bad spirit Halt! Now is the house beautifully finished by this
inscription. But where is she, then? She must see it and praise me.
Felicitas," cried he, turning towards the house, "come then!"
He wiped the sweat from his brow, and stood upright--a supple, youthful
form, slender, not above the middle height, not unlike the Mercury of
the garden, whose proportions Crispus had formed according to old
tradition; dark-brown hair, in short curls, covered almost like a cap
his round head; under large eyebrows, two dark eyes laughed pleasantly
on the world; the naked feet and arms showed a fine shape, but little
strength; only in the right arm powerful muscles raised themselves; the
brown skin apron was sprinkled white with marble dust, he shook it off,
and cried again louder, "Felicitas!"
Then appeared on the threshold of the house a white figure, who,
drawing back the dark-yellow curtain, which was fastened to rings
running on a bronze rod, was framed like a picture in the two pilasters
of the entrance--a quite young girl--or was it a young wife? Yes, she
must be already a wife, this child of hardly seventeen years, for she
is without doubt the mother of the infant which, with her left arm, she
nestles to her bosom: only the mother holds a child with such
expression in the movements and countenance. Two fingers of the right
hand, the inner surface turned outwards, the young mother laid on her
lips: "Be quiet!" said she, "our child sleeps." And now the hardly
full-ripe form glided down the four stone steps which led from the
house into the garden, with the left arm carefully raising the child
higher and pressing it closer, with the right gently lifting the hem of
her plaited robe as high as her well-formed ankles. It was a spectacle
of perfect grace: young and childlike, like Raphael's Madonna, but not
humble and at the same time mystically glorious, as the mother of the
Christ-child; there was nothing incomprehensible, nothing miraculous,
only a noble simplicity and yet royal loftiness in her unconscious
dignity and innocence. There floated, as it were, a sweet-sounding
music round the figure of this Hebe, every movement being in perfect
harmony; wife and yet maiden; entirely human, perfectly at rest and
contented in the love of her young husband and of the child at her
breast. Lovely, touching, and dignified at the same time, in all the
perfect beauty of her figure, her face and her complexion so modest,
that in her presence, as before a beautiful statue, every wish was
silent.
She wore no ornament; her light-brown hair, shining with a golden
lustre when the sun kissed it, flowed back in natural waves from the
open, well-formed temples, leaving the rather low forehead free, and
was fastened at her neck in a loose knot. A milk-white robe of the
finest wool, fastened on the left shoulder with a beautifully shaped,
but simple silver brooch, hung in folds down to her ankles, showing the
pretty red leather sandals; leaving bare the neck and arms, which were
still childlike, but rather too long. The robe was fastened at the
waist with a wide bronze girdle.
Thus she moved silently down the steps, and approached her husband. The
long narrow face had that wonderful, almost bluish-white, complexion
only possessed by the daughters of Ionia, and which no noon-tide sun of
the south can embrown; the eye-brows, in a half-circle, regular as if
drawn with compasses, might have given to the countenance a lifeless,
statuesque appearance, but under the long, slightly curved, black
eye-lashes, the dark-brown gazelle-like eyes, now directed towards her
beloved, shone with a life full of feeling.
He flew towards her with an elastic step, lifted carefully, tenderly,
the sleeping child from her arm, and taking the flat straw lid from his
tool-basket, he placed the child on it, under the shade of a rose-bush.
The evening breeze threw the scented leaves of a full-blown rose on the
little one: he smiled in his sleep.
Then the master, winding his arm round the waist of his young wife, led
her to the just completed entrance-slab, and said:
"Now is the proverb ready, which I have kept hidden from thee till I
could finish it; now read, and know, and feel"--and he kissed her
tenderly on the mouth: "Thou--thou thyself art the happiness; _Thou_
dwellest here."
The young wife held her hand before her eyes to protect them from the
sun, which now shone in almost horizontal beams through the open
gateway; she read and blushed, the colour rose perceptibly in her
delicate white cheeks, her bosom heaved, her heart beat quickly: "O
Fulvius! thou art good. How thou dost love me! How happy we are!" And
she laid her two hands and arms on his right shoulder, on the other her
beautiful head.
He heartily pressed her to himself. "Yes, overflowing, without shadow
is our happiness--without measure or end."
Quickly, with a slight trembling, as if shivering, she raised herself,
and looked him anxiously in the face: "O, do not provoke the holy ones.
It is whispered," said she, herself whispering, "they are envious." And
she held her hand before his mouth.
But he pressed a loud kiss upon the small fingers, and cried: "I am not
jealous, I, a _man_--why should the holy ones be envious? I do not
believe that. I do not believe it of the holy ones--nor of the heathen
gods, if indeed they still have life and power."
"Speak not of them! They certainly live!--but they are bad spirits, and
he who names them, he calls them near; thus warns the Presbyter of the
Basilica."
"I fear them not. They have protected our ancestors for many
generations."
"Yes, but we have turned away from them! They defend us no longer. Only
the saints are our defenders against the barbarians. Alas! if they came
here, trampled down the flowers in the garden, and carried away our
child."
And she knelt down and kissed the little sleeper.
But the young father laughed. "The Germans, dost thou mean? they steal
no children! They have more than they can feed. But it is true----they
may perhaps one day sound out their war-cry before the gates of
Juvavum."
"Yes, that they may, very soon!" broke in an anxious voice, and the fat
Crispus, breathing heavily after his hot walk, entered the garden.
"Ave, Phidias in plaster," cried Fulvius to him.
"Welcome, uncle," said Felicitas, giving him her hand.
The broad-brimmed felt hat which he had drawn over his brow to protect
his red, fat, shining, good-humoured face, and his stump nose, from the
sun, Crispus threw on his neck, so that it hung by the leather strap on
his broad back. "May Hygeia never leave thee, my daughter; the Graces
never forsake thee, their fourth sister. Yes, the Germans! A horseman
came last night with secret information for the Tribune. But two hours
after we knew it all, we, early guests at the Baths of Amphitrite. The
rider is a Wascon; no Wascon keeps his mouth closed if you pour wine
therein. A battle has been fought at the ford of the Isar: our troops
have fled, the watch-tower of Vada is burnt. The barbarians have
crossed the river."
"Bah!" laughed Fulvius, "that is yet far away. Go, darling, prepare a
cooling drink for our uncle--thou knowest what he likes: not too much
water! And _if_ they come, they will not eat us. They are fierce giants
in battle--children after the victory. Have I not lived months among
them as their prisoner? I fear nothing from them."
"Nothing for thyself--but for this sweet wife?"
Felicitas did not hear this question; she had taken up the child and
gone with it into the house.
Fulvius shook his curly locks. "No! They would do nothing to her, that
is not their custom. Certainly, did I fall, she would not be long left
a widow. But there are people not in the bearskins of the barbarians,
who would willingly tear her from the arms of her husband."
And he seized angrily the hammer in his belt.
"She must not suspect anything of it, the pure heart!" continued he.
"Certainly not. But thou must be on the watch. I met the Tribune lately
in the office of the old money-lender."
"The usurer! the blood-sucker!"
"I was able, fortunately, to pay him my little debt. The slave
announced me. I waited behind the curtain: I then heard a deep voice
mention thy name--and Felicitas. I entered. The Tribune stood with the
money-dealer. They were quickly silent when they perceived me. And just
now, on the way here, whom should I overtake on the highway? Leo the
Tribune, and Zeno the money-dealer! The latter pointed with his staff
to thy house, the flat roof of which, with its little statues,
projected above the trees. I guessed their conversation, and the object
of their journey. Unseen I sprang from the road into the ditch, and
hastened by the shorter way, the steep meadow path, to warn thee. Take
care--they will soon be here."
"Let him only come, the miser! I have earned and carefully put away the
sum that I owe him for marble supplied from Aquileia, and for the town
taxes. My other creditors I have asked to wait, or rather promised them
higher interest, and have put all the money together for this
destroyer. But what does the Tribune want with me? I owe him nothing,
except a knife-thrust for the look with which he devoured my precious
one."
"Be careful! _His_ knife is more powerful: it is the sword; and behind
him stand the wild Mauritanian cavalry, and the Isaurian hirelings,
whom we must pay with precious gold to protect us from the barbarians."
"But who defends us from the defenders? The Emperor in distant Ravenna?
He rejoices if the Germans do not cross the Alps; he troubles himself
no more about this land, which has been so long Roman."
"Except in extortionate taxes, to squeeze out our last blood-drops."
"Bah! The State taxes! It is many years since they were collected. No
Imperial functionary ventures now over the mountains. I stand indeed
here on Imperial soil. But what is the name of the man who is now
Emperor, and to whom this bit of land belongs, of which he has never
heard? Every two years another Emperor is made known to us--but only
through the coinage."
"And that becomes ever worse."
"It _cannot_ get worse; that is a comfort."
"A friend tells me that the taxes get more and more intolerable in
Mediolanum, where there are still bailiffs and soldiers to levy them by
force."
"And it may be the same with us," laughed the young man. "Who knows how
much I am already in debt for these two acres of land?"
"And the roads of the Legions are overgrown with grass and brushwood."
"And the troops receive no wages."
"But they pay themselves by plundering the burghers, whom they should
defend."
"And the walls of Juvavum are falling, the moats are dry, the sluices
destroyed; the rich people go away, there only remain poor wretches
like ourselves, who cannot leave."
"I wonder that the money-lender has not long ago moved with his great
gold-bag over the Alps."
"I would not go, uncle, if I could; and why, indeed, could I not? My
art, my trade will be honoured everywhere, so long as the Romans dwell
in stone, not wooden houses, like the Germans. But I am firmly fixed to
this soil. Many, many generations have my fathers dwelt here; they say
since the founding of the colony by the Emperor Hadrian. They have
cleared the forests, drained the marshes, made roads, raised fords,
laid out house and garden, grafted the rich fruits on the wild apple
and pear-trees; the climate itself has become milder. I know Italy, I
have bought marble in Venetia, but I would rather live here on the old
inheritance of my fathers."
"But if the barbarians come, wilt thou then also?"----
"Stay! I have my own thoughts about that. For us unimportant people it
is better under the barbarians than"----
"Say not, than under the Emperor. Thou art a Roman!"
The stout Crispus said this very gravely, but the other laughed; the
good uncle but little resembled a Roman hero. His neighbours declared
that he modelled his statues of Bacchus from his own figure.
"Half-blood! My mother was a Noric Celt. Induciomara! That does not
sound much of the Quirinal."
"And we do not stand under the Emperor, but under his hangman servants,
Exchequer officials, and under the murderous fist of the Moorish and
Isaurian troops. If I must serve barbarians, I prefer the Germans."
"But they are heathen."
"In part. A hundred and fifty years ago so were we all. My grandfather
sacrificed secretly to Jupiter. And there are also Christians among
them."
"Arians! heretics! worse than heathen, says the Holy Church."
"A few decades past our emperors were also heretics. And the Germans
ask no one what he believes; but how heavily did our fathers suffer, if
their faith did not exactly agree with that of the ruling emperor!"
"You take too lenient a view of the coming of the barbarians. They have
set fire to many towns."
"Yes; but stone does not burn. The Romans quickly fit new timbers in
the undestroyed walls. Then no German settles in a town. They pasture
their herds on the land; it is the peasant in his farm who suffers from
them. They take from him a third of his fields and pasturage. But the
land profits thereby. It is now sadly dispeopled; nowhere is there a
free peasant on a free soil. For the masters, whom they never see, who
carouse in Naples or Byzantium, _slaves_ cultivate the ground, or
rather they do _not_ cultivate it, they only work enough to keep them
from starving. If they gained more the slave-master would take it from
them. But it is different with plough and sickle, when hundreds of
Germans press into the country, each with innumerable white-headed
children. For so many children as _these_ people have, I could not have
imagined over the whole earth!--And in a few years the grown-up son
builds his own wooden house in the cleared forest or the drained swamp.
They swarm over the furrows like ants, and they soon throw away their
old wooden plough-shares and copy the iron shares of the colonists, and
in a few years the land bears so much more than formerly, that it
richly feeds both conquerors and conquered."
"Yes, yes," nodded Crispus, "we have seen all that in the frontier
lands, where they have settled. If the sons become too numerous they
cast lots, and the third part, that draws the lot to migrate, wanders
on wherever hawk or wolf directs; but never back, never towards the
north!" sighed Crispus, "so they press ever nearer to us."----
"But they leave us our laws, our language, our God, our Basilica, and
demand much, much less in tribute than the slave-master of the landlord
or the tax-gatherer of the Emperor."
"It is well that Severus does not hear you, the old _armaturarum
magister_ in Juvavum; he would"----
"Yes, he thinks we have yet the old times, and there are still living
the old Romans as in the days of that tamer of the Germans, the Emperor
Probus, of whose race he counts himself. But by the saints he is
mistaken. Why should I be over zealous for the Emperor? He, this
Emperor, certainly shows no zeal for me; in strong Ravenna he sits and
invents new taxes, and new punishments for those who pay no taxes,
because they have nothing."
"The old Severus has long been drilling volunteers to lead against the
barbarians, in case they should roam this way. I have been there a few
days, painfully carrying spear and shield in this heat. I have never
seen thee, so much younger and stronger, on our '_Campus Martius_,' as
they call it."
Fulvius laughed. "I have no need, uncle; I have learnt to use arms long
enough while a prisoner with the Germans, and if the town and one's own
hearth must be defended I shall not be wanting--for honour's sake! not
that I think we shall do much; for, believe me, if they seriously
intend to come, that is, if they _must_ because they _need_ our acres,
then Severus will not keep them back with his old-fashioned generalship
and his new-fashioned 'Legions of the Capitol of Juvavum,' under the
golden eagle which he has presented to them. Nor the Tribune either
with his cavalry from Africa and his mercenaries from Isauria. But
look! Philemon, the slave, is beckoning; I see the drinking-cup shining
on the seat in the little porch--the table is ready. Now drink of our
rough Raeter-wine; Augustus long ago knew how to value it, and it has
been already a year in the cellar since the pack-mule brought it here
from the Tyrol. Let us look at Felicitas and the child at her breast,
and forget emperors and barbarians."