It was during the night following on the evening, which the guests of
Parthenius spent in dissipation, that the fearful catastrophe took
place of which the reader is already informed. Quintus Claudius and
the whole congregation of Nazarenes were discovered and seized in the
catacomb between the Via Appia and the Via Labicana.
We left our hero at the moment, when the procession of prisoners was
setting out Rome-wards. It was a long and melancholy march through the
solitude and gloom. No one spoke a word; only a suppressed sob or a
groan of anguish now and then broke the oppressive silence. With what
emotion did Quintus cross the bridge over the Almo, which he had walked
over once before, that night when he had rescued Eurymachus. He did his
best to banish all memories, all fears--nay, all hopes--and to fix his
mind unswervingly on one thought alone: that his life and fate were in
the hands of God.
But it was hard, very hard, to school his struggling soul to composure.
Again and again an image rose before him, which threatened to undermine
his self-control--an agonized face--the features of his beloved, oh!
so-devotedly loved father. And then again the voices, the shouts of
a vast multitude rang in his ears--he was in the arena--face to face
with ravening beasts--defenseless, alone, forsaken, delivered over to a
fearful death.
It was impossible!... He, a son of the ancient and noble house of
Claudia! No, never! That father could never give up his only son to
be torn limb from limb. Perhaps this would end in salvation for all,
perhaps his arrest meant liberty for all his companions. If he, Quintus
Claudius, could swear fidelity to the creed of the Nazarene, was it not
at once and forever purged of all suspicion of hostility to the State?
Could any one think of him--the richest and most envied youth of the
imperial city--as a foe to social order? Certainly his father could see
and understand how greatly the government had erred; the faith that
had been so blindly condemned, would be granted a hearing, and the law
which had but just been passed for its suppression, would be trampled
under foot.
And in spite of his will, these pictures chased each other through his
excited brain, terrors and hopes in rapid alternation, till, at last,
their destination was reached: the Mamertine prison[88] at the foot of
the Capitoline Hill. Then he had no thoughts but for the horrors of the
present.
Here, in the very heart of the splendid capital, in sight of gorgeous
temples and pillared halls--which, lighted at this hour by torches,
looked even more imposing than by day--in view of the imperial palace
he had so often entered as Caesar’s guest and friend--here he must be
swallowed up, as it were, as a malefactor in the horrible gulf of the
Tullianum![89] The thought was unendurable; he was on the point of
making a desperate resistance to the centurion’s word of command. But
his eye fell on the calm and happy face of the blind man--and in that
instant the picture, which the old disciple had set before his hearers
with such startling reality, rose before the young man’s soul.
“It must be endured to the end,” said he to himself. “To be sure, at
eighty a man’s heart does not throb with such keen pain as at twenty.”
The Christians wept and embraced each other; they were led away to
separate rooms in the prison. Quintus' turn came last, and to him the
governor had assigned a separate cell. He crossed its threshold with
calm deliberation; the gaoler set down some food and drink--not a
better sort of food, such as was usually granted to prisoners of rank,
but the ordinary criminal’s fare. Then he shut the heavy, iron-plated
door, and pushed the three outside bolts.
Quintus sank on the stone bench[90] that served as a bed-place, utterly
annihilated; the last drop of his self-command seemed to evaporate, as
the echoing steps of the gaoler died into silence. He covered his face
with his hands, and a wild groan broke from him; then for nearly an
hour he sat stunned and motionless.
Exhaustion and cold recalled him to his senses; a raw, damp atmosphere
pervaded the underground vault. He shuddered and drew his cloak, which
had fallen off, over his shoulders; then he looked round him.
The cell was rather longer than it was wide, rectangular, and just high
enough to allow of his standing upright. By day a niggardly ray of
light might be admitted through a round hole in the roof; at present a
smoky little oil-lamp was burning on one side of the room, opposite the
bed-place. Besides this couch the cell contained a rough wooden bench
and a short iron rivet, furnished with rings and chains, to which the
temporary resident in the cell could be secured, and he perceived a
second rivet of the same kind on the opposite side near the bed.
With a tremulous hand he lightly touched the rattling irons; it
made him shiver. He started to his feet, and began to pace the cell
in feverish excitement. He involuntarily remembered that Gaetulian
mountain lion which, at Ostia, had rushed so fiercely at the bars of
its cage.... He, a proud and noble Roman, was caged now, no better off
than a wild beast.--No better! His scornful laughter echoed uncannily
through the vaults. He compared the lion’s airy and open cage with
the hideous dungeon that held a man but just now free and happy--and
he envied the brute. That clumsy, dull, black door confronted him as
though it could never open again; he went close up to it, struck it
with his fists, and tried to shake it. It neither moved nor rattled.
It was as immovable in the masonry as the lid of some huge primeval
sarcophagus. He suddenly felt helplessly inconsolable, and pressing his
forehead against the cold iron plate, he cried like a child.
What was that written in Greek characters--carefully, elaborately
scratched by hands that had all-too-much time? He read through his
tears a message of promise.
“Jesus, my Saviour and Redeemer.--To Thee I live and die.”
Then some other follower of the Christian faith, some fellow-sufferer
in the cause, had here awaited his fate. Laboriously, and to comfort
his stricken heart, he had left a record in the dungeon, where he
lingered and pined, to greet and console a successor. And it was
no cowardly lament, no cry of despair, but a brave confession, a
word of heavenly confidence and beatific submission to the Master.
Quintus felt, what so many thousands have felt since: the overpowering
attractiveness of example; the bliss, the charm of martyrdom. This
creed, which made the most agonizing death so easy, and filled the
most wretched with peace, calmness, joy--must indeed be the creed of
redemption, high above all that the wisdom of men had yet devised--and
it would surely pour balm even into his aching wounds, and bear him up
on the wings of enthusiasm to triumph over the terrors of death.
Strangely comforted, he carefully examined the walls all round, and he
found numbers of inscriptions, some hardly legible in the rough stone,
but all telling the same tale of suffering and of supreme faith, of
death for the truth’s sake and the beatitude of a godly frame of mind.
In one place, in Latin, he read as follows: “I, Sericus, forty-three
years old, and I, Psyche, the daughter of Sericus, seventeen years old,
write this; imprisoned here by the city-prefect under Nero. We are
Christians; we die for the faith. We forgive our enemies and hope for
God’s mercy.” Close by, in Greek, was written:
"Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for
theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." And below this, another hand had
added in continuation: “Yea verily, that is my hope and comfort, which
shall strengthen me in the hour of death.”
The longer Quintus lingered over these tokens of past spiritual
victories, the more he felt as a wanderer might who, in the horrors of
the wilderness, traced the footprints of men and so learnt that others
had crossed the desert before him. He fancied himself surrounded and
overshadowed by the death-defying army of martyrs, and he swore to
himself that he would quail no more than Sericus and his maiden Psyche;
than Archilaos, a lad of twenty, spoken of in another inscription, or
than Chabrias, who left a lovely and adored bride in Rhodes, to be
burnt alive or crucified in Nero’s gardens.
And here the thought of Cornelia, which he had, so far, resolutely
held at bay, took possession of his soul. He shuddered and turned
cold at the recollection; but his resolution was not to be shaken.
Even the reflection that not one of the witnesses that had sojourned
here, not even Chabrias, had had this horror added to his sufferings;
that he was a victim to his own, dearly-loved father--even this worst
stroke of all could not make him flinch. Something within him had
frozen--petrified--something which had hitherto been alive to all the
impulses of hope, fear and despair. If he could bear something more
than all had suffered, who had gone before him, then it must be that
God, who had laid it on him, deemed him to be of more heroic mould. The
torment was greater? then the greater must the glory be! Fate had set
him in the high places of life, visible from afar, one of the leaders
of the people.--Then he must endure greater bitterness, suffer greater
torments, so that his death should be heard of among the nations like a
herald’s call from a mountain-top.
The solemn conviction that a special call from Heaven had ruled his
fate, became clearer and firmer in his mind as the hours went by. With
a curious mixture of pride and humility he regarded himself as an
instrument in the hand of Providence, and in proportion as this belief
grew and struck root another idea died out, which, during the last few
hours, had recurred as mysteriously seductive, that of killing himself
if all other hope failed. This, from an educated Roman’s point of view,
was in no respect sinful or wrong.
It was considered permissible, nay highly praiseworthy, to cut the
thread of existence, when every hope of an endurable future was lost.
Nor had Quintus been long enough familiar with the principles and views
of Christianity, to reject this desperate remedy at the first thought
of it. But now, as he began to believe that he saw in his fate the
designs of a higher power, he felt steeled against its seductions.
The lamp had burned lower and lower and at last went out; Quintus sat
staring into the darkness for some little time. Then he felt his way
round the wall to the bed, lay down on the mildewed worsted blanket and
covered himself with his lacerna. After once more dedicating himself to
God and his conscience, even unto death, he repeated the short prayer
that the congregation had used on the occasion of his reception under
the covenant. He had heard the words but once, but they were graven on
his soul--those simple child-like words: "Our Father"--and then he fell
asleep, as soundly and quietly as if he were lying on the soft cushions
of his own cubiculum.
When he awoke, some hours later, a dull foggy twilight pervaded the
room. The rattle of the bolts had roused him. It was his gaoler, who
came in and set a freshly-filled amphora[91] down by his side; then he
tilted the bowl of porridge, which Quintus had not touched, to see if
the mess were yet too stiff to be eaten. After a moment’s hesitation he
put it down and was leaving the room, when Quintus spoke to him.
“What time is it?” he asked, sitting up.
“Two hours past sunrise.”
“I am very hungry; give me something to eat.”
The gaoler pointed to the clay bowl without speaking.
“You do not indulge in luxuries here!” said Quintus bitterly. “That is
too vile food for the meanest of my slaves, nay for my dogs.”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“You must get used to it. We are under the strictest orders to treat
every one alike by the rules of the place, with no distinction of
birth.”
“Indeed--and what is the rule of the place?”
“Porridge and water, with rye-bread for supper. I cannot help it, if
you fine gentlemen do not relish it. We often have folks here, who
are only too thankful for such food, poor wretches who have not had a
morsel for days if the gifts of corn have been stopped.”
“Do you know who I am?” Quintus interrupted his voluble informant.
“No, I rarely get out into the world. It is a year last Feast of
Saturn, since I was in the Field of Mars. But I can see by your manner
that you are of some noble family.”
“I am Quintus Claudius, the son of the Flamen.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said the gaoler. “Why, you were caught in a
quarry with the Nazarenes.”
“Quite true.”
“Then you cannot be Quintus, the son of the Flamen Dialis.”
“You doubt it? Did not the centurion, who took us, tell you?”
“Not me--he spoke to the governor.”
“To be sure. Well, you will know it too before the day is out. Now
listen to what I ask. The news of my arrest can hardly yet have got to
my father’s ears. And if the report reaches him, if a stranger tells
him the worst, point-blank, it will kill him. No one but myself knows
how to mitigate the blow to him. Will you carry him a note, only two
short lines--on these wax-tablets?”
“Impossible!” said the man, drawing back.
“Look here--I will give you this stylus--it is of pure gold....”
“If you offered, me ten times its value, I dare not. It is as much as
my life is worth.”
“Then take me to your superior officer.”
“I cannot without leave.”
“Try to get leave.” The gaoler looked doubtful; the young man’s calm,
urgent manner, and his evident high breeding, impressed him greatly.
“I will see what can be done,” he said, hesitatingly. “Take patience
till this evening.”
“Till this evening!” cried Quintus, in despair. “Miserable man, do you
not understand that you are killing him. Every instant is precious, and
you say: till this evening.”
He had hardly ceased speaking, when they heard steps outside the
dungeon door. The gaoler rushed out, and Quintus heard the murmur of
voices coming nearer and nearer. Suddenly his heart stood still.
“Many thanks,” he heard just outside. “Leave me alone now, worthy
Haemon; you know me well enough to feel sure that you run no risk, in
admitting me without a witness.”
Quintus gazed anxiously at the door. It was his father’s voice. In an
instant the door opened, and Titus Claudius stood before him.
For a long time neither could utter a word; they stood looking at
each other as pale and silent as the dead. Their lips quivered, but
this was the only outward sign of their cruel suffering. But they
understood each other; each was struggling for such composure as might
enable him to speak. It was the father, who first succeeded; but it
was in a hollow, forced voice that he said, as he clenched his hands
convulsively: “It is here--here--that we meet!”
The words conveyed such deep and unspeakable anguish, that Quintus
shuddered from head to foot.
“Father ...” he began, and then he broke into sobs. He turned his face
to the wall in despair, and pressed his cheek against the cold stone as
though entreating its pity.
“Quintus,” the priest went on--and his voice was as gentle and mild as
a child's, “is it true, that you spent the night in the catacomb with
the Nazarenes?”
The young man looked round.
“Yes, Father,” he said.
“Did you not know the law?”
“I knew it, Father.”
“And what were you doing among the rebels?”
“Who calls them rebels?” retorted Quintus, recovering his
self-possession.
“All who respect the government, for the law has branded them so.
Answer me, Quintus; What were you seeking in the society of these
reprobates?”
“What I never found in the society of their persecutors, what all my
life-long I have vainly longed and hoped for: peace and salvation for
my soul.”
“Then it is true--it is true...?”
“What, Father?”
“That you are not merely their protector, but, in fact, one of them.”
“As you say.”
Titus Claudius turned paler and more ghastly than before.
“Wretched boy!” he said; “then you are a lost man! The crime of being a
Nazarene is punished with death.”
“I know it.”
“You know it? And you tread the law under foot?”
“In my soul I carry a higher law.”
“There is no higher law than that of duty. You are a Roman. You are my
son. Madman! As a Roman, you are breaking the laws of the country--as
a son, you are breaking your father’s heart! What demon possesses you?
What disease is this that has turned your brain? Does it charm your
hopes more to bleed to death under the fangs of Libyan beasts, than to
be clasped in the arms of your Cornelia? Does the air of the Tullianum
please you better, than the perfumed atmosphere of your own rooms? You
have everything, every single thing your heart can desire, and you
must plunge into dark gulfs of crime, soil your soul with the foul mire
of superstition--nay, call yourself the brother of vile slaves, of
panders and corpse-carriers!”
“I follow the light of truth,” replied Quintus. “You are wrong, father,
in regarding the Nazarenes as mere vile rabble. It is not rank that
makes the man, but character. Before the God of the Nazarenes there is
no respect of persons, and it is just that which makes the doctrine of
Christ so noble.”
“Noble! Quintus--by all the gods, return to your right mind! A
man of senatorial rank, a son of the house of Claudia, thinks the
doctrine noble, which grants him equal rights with street-porters
and executioners.[92] Such madness puts me beside myself. And what
has all this to do with the salvation of your soul? Have you gone
through the senseless farces, of which I have heard so much? Kissed
the gallows,[93] and offered sacrifice before the miserable image of a
crucified man? Have you lent ear to the fables, which superstition has
woven round that execution on Golgotha? Alas! your silence is only too
eloquent. These tricksters have entangled you with their wiles, till
you have lost the power to free yourself from the net. Oh! I can quite
understand, that it was well worth their while to entrap a Claudius.
Your name outweighs a thousand lesser ones, and held aloft on their
banner at the right moment, it might bring victory to the traitors! And
do you not perceive all this? Does your keen eye fail to see through
their treacherous game?”
“Father, we can never understand each other. By all that is sacred....”
“I will not hear you!” interrupted the priest. “What can you say? Who
it is that has entrapped you, and how far the ramifications of the plot
extend, we shall learn in the course of enquiry. I came not as your
judge, nor commissioned by the Senate. I came to save you. Confess
you were led astray, abjure this superstition, which can never really
have taken possession of your soul, offer a sacrifice of atonement to
Jupiter Capitolinus--and all will be well. A year of exile--to Hellas
perhaps, where I have crowds of friends--would be the worst that could
befall you, and even this short banishment Caesar would no doubt remit
at my entreaty. All is ready, and to-morrow morning early the ceremony
can take place. Till then you will be a prisoner, but in my house,[94]
and treated with the honor due to your name. Norbanus himself will
escort you thither; he is waiting at the door of the prison. His
highest officers will keep guard over you. Forwards then; let us leave
this scene of disgrace--and may your bitter experience have taught you
wisdom.”
But Quintus did not stir. His eyes were spellbound to the wall
which, in the gloomy watches of the night, had revealed such strange
histories. Each inscription, each name seemed to raise the image of
some pale and suffering face. He felt at the bottom of his soul that
now, here, the moment had come for giving expression in deeds to the
reflection and resolve of those dark hours. Side by side, too, with the
ecstatic enthusiasm of the convert, there surged up in his soul the
unbending pride and iron will of his race. Should he be more cowardly,
baser, weaker than the lowborn and wretched? His heart beat high at the
thought, and the blood mounted to his brow.
“I cannot, Father,” he said, turning away.
“What? You cannot walk in the path, in which your father is ready to
lead you? Or do you think it mean to confess the error of your ways?
Give place to reason, Quintus! It is to no mortal, but to the gods
alone that you have to confess your crime. Humility before the gods is
no dishonor....”
“Your gods are not mine,” cried Quintus vehemently. “A confessor of the
true God can never sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus.”
“Who is the true God, but he whose care and rule we see, wherever we
turn our eyes, and feel in our souls? Are you so utterly degenerate,
that you have learnt to confound the great universal spirit--whom our
fathers worshipped as Jupiter, the Father of Light--with a mortal--with
a Jewish revolutionary, whom the imperial governor silenced by death?”
“Nay Father, you misunderstand. We do not revere the crucified Saviour
as God himself, only as our Master, who revealed the true God to us.
Between the God of Christ and your idols there is a great gulf fixed.
Your own noble nature associates with those idols of a false faith,
aspirations and feelings, which have always been foreign to the spirit
of that faith. If only you knew how the faith in the light I walk in
glows through my whole being, you would expect the skies to fall,
sooner than that I should pronounce the base denial you ask of me.”
“Mad fool!” cried the priest in great wrath. “You hold a tissue of lies
as more precious than life and happiness, as higher than the honor of
your family? Have done with this reckless mockery! Follow me, I command
you!”
“Father!” groaned Quintus with growing anguish, “God is my witness,
that I would shed every drop of blood in my body for you and for your
happiness: only this one thing--I cannot--I cannot....”
“You must. By all the gods, but you must! What? My son a traitor--to
be the sport and gazing-stock of a cackling crowd, scorned and mocked
at as a fool, and condemned to an ignominious death--? You are raving,
boy! Come, away from this fetid cell. I command you!”
Titus Claudius gazed with agonized enquiry at his son’s pale face,
which looked more and more petrified to marble.
“I cannot, Father!” That was all the bloodless lips could utter.
Then the despairing father fell on his knees and raised his hands in
entreaty, like a criminal suing for mercy. Tears streamed down his
distorted face, which looked ten years older for that hour’s anguish.
He rent his robe, he tore his hair, he struck his forehead against
the pavement. In heart-rending accents he implored his son--his
only, beloved son, the star and joy of his life, not to make him so
miserable--more miserable than ever man had been before in all this
grief-stricken and strife-plagued world. He reminded him of the days
of his infancy, when he had nursed him in his arms, lived, cared, and
toiled only for his boy. And would this child, his Quintus, his all in
all, doom him to this hideous fate?
The miserable man presented a pitiable sight.
“Oh Father,” cried Quintus, gasping for breath. “What have you done?
Woe is me, I am a monster! That sacred head in the dust--compose
yourself--you are driving me mad! O God, not yet! Father, I will obey
you, I am yours henceforth. My soul’s salvation?--I give it up. You
shall not suffer for my sake.”
Titus Claudius rose. The strong man was trembling like a child. With
one passionate cry the father and son were clasped in each other’s arms.
FOOTNOTES:
[88] THE MAMERTINE PRISON. The state-prison in Rome was the Carcer
Mamertinus at the foot of the Capitol--still in existence at
the present time.
[89] TULLIANUM. A part of the Mamertine Prison, so called after
King Servius Tullius, who is said to have built it. The
Catilinarians had been executed in the Tullianum.
[90] THE STONE BENCH. Bedsteads built of stone were not unusual
even in private dwellings, as appears from numerous specimens
in Pompeian houses.
[91] AMPHORA. A jar, usually made of clay, but sometimes of glass,
running to a point at the bottom and supplied with a handle
on each side. By this point the amphora was fastened into the
soft earth, or the holes in the tap-room counters specially
intended for them. Here allusion is made to a hole in the
stone floor designed to secure the amphora.
[92] STREET-PORTERS AND EXECUTIONERS. The profession of
executioners (_carnifices_), to whom the execution of slaves
and foreigners was committed (condemned citizens were put to
death by the lictors), was held in greater obloquy than any
other.
[93] KISSED THE GALLOWS. Titus Claudius means the cross, which
to cultivated Romans was held in no higher esteem than the
guillotine is regarded by us.
[94] TILL THEN YOU WILL BE A PRISONER, BUT IN MY HOUSE. For accused
persons of high rank, an arrangement existed called the
_libera custodia_, which consisted of setting a guard over
them, but permitting them to remain at large in the house of
an aristocratic citizen.