THE AMBITION OF BERENICE
More than two years and a half had now passed since the disastrous
retreat of Cestius, and during all that time no Roman legion had come
within sight of Jerusalem.
Vespasian, the successor of Cestius, had first directed his arms
against Galilee, almost every city of which was in a state of rebellion.
Thanks to the spirit and activity displayed by the warrior-historian
Josephus, as well as to the situation of the Galilean cities, most of
which were built upon hill-tops and almost inaccessible crags, the
campaign was prolonged for more than a year.
Then came a long interval of inactivity, due to a series of revolutions
taking place at Rome, the seat of the government. Within the space of a
single year the throne of the Cæsars was occupied in turn by a series
of ambitious generals, the self-murdered Nero having been succeeded by
Galba, by Otho, and by Vitellius.
During these political crises Vespasian was under the necessity of
having his position as commandant in Judæa successively recognized and
confirmed by each new Cæsar, and as this was a matter requiring much
time, it led to frequent pauses in the campaign, a state of affairs
very much to the advantage of the revolutionary factions in Jerusalem.
The Roman army destined to act against the holy city had formed a huge
camp upon the seashore at a point a few miles to the north of Cæsarea,
and here day by day with unfailing regularity the iron warriors of
Rome went through those evolutions and exercises that had made them the
masters of the world.
This similitude of war naturally attracted crowds from the neighboring
region. It became quite a custom with the fashionable Greeks of Cæsarea
to take their morning promenade along the seashore for the purpose of
witnessing a spectacle as thrilling almost as the contests at Olympia
or the combats of the amphitheater.
One fair, sunny morning in the month of June, just as the legions were
beginning their daily drill, under the personal inspection of Vespasian
and his son Titus, there drove up a magnificent chariot, which, by the
grace of the lictors, was given a place considerably nearer to the
exercising troops than was allowed to the ordinary spectator, for the
occupant of the chariot was none other than the fair princess Berenice,
who was paying her first visit to the Roman camp.
No sooner had Titus detected her presence upon the field than he at
once made his way to her side. His look and voice alike told how much
he was enamored of the fascinating princess, who at the age of forty
had, like Cleopatra, all the grace and beauty of youth.
“Princess, you seem sad to-day,” said he, after an interval of silence.
“Of what are you thinking?”
“Perhaps,” she replied, with a tantalizing little sigh, “perhaps of
Crispus.”
“Why do you torment me with the name of a rival who is dead?”
“_Is_ he dead?” said Berenice. “True, nothing has been heard of him
since he parted from Terentius Rufus at Antipatris.”
“And that is more than two years ago. The ban put upon him by Nero has
been revoked. If he be alive why does he not show himself, since he has
nothing now to fear?”
“Except the being claimed by a wife whom he does not like,” said
Berenice with a silvery laugh, and a glance at the house called
Beth-tamar, which, seated on a lofty crag, was plainly visible from the
camp.
“Princess,” said Titus, with a tender look, “if Crispus should ever
return it will mean to me----”
Berenice raised her finger with a witching smile.
“Ah me! Now you are going to make love again. We shall never be
friends, if you do that. Let me watch your Romans. They interest me.”
The air at that moment was all alive with the crisp, sharp commands of
tribune, and centurion, and decurion.
The exercises performed by the Romans comprehended feats in running,
leaping, wrestling, swimming, sword-play, hurling the pilum--everything
in short that could add strength to the body or tend to success in war.
Here, Cretan archers, having set up their targets, were demonstrating
the deadly accuracy of their aim. There, Balearic slingers were
discharging their leaden bullets, which not infrequently melted with
the heat engendered by the swift rush of the missile through the air;
here, a body of soldiers was busily engaged in bridging within a given
time a broad sheet of water; there, a group were vigorously occupied in
storming a wooden fortress, whose defense was as vigorously maintained
by a garrison of fellow-Romans.
“Why, it is like war itself,” said Berenice, fascinated by the
spectacle.
“So like, that it is the fashion of the soldiers to call the exercise a
bloodless battle, and the battle a bloody exercise.”
“Where are these men going?” she asked as a certain cohort tramped past
at full speed.
“They are marching to Dora and back.”
“That is not very hard work.”
“You think so, princess. But mark that each soldier is carrying the
full equipment customary in war time, consisting of various utensils,
as well as victuals for fifteen days, the whole amounting to sixty
pounds’ weight, not including arms, for the Roman soldier considers
these, not as a burden, but as a part of himself. Weighted thus, he is
to march in this burning sunlight to Dora and back, the double journey
being a distance of twenty miles, and he is to do it within five hours.
If this be not hard work, what is?”
“And supposing they should take more than five hours?”
“Terentius Rufus, who rides at their head, will see to that.”
“But if they should fail?”
“He will punish them.”
“And what will the punishment be?”
“It takes various shapes. Yon cohort, as is shown by the carrying of
the eagle, is the First Cohort of the legion. They may be degraded by
being compelled to resign the eagle, and to take the second place; or
their diet for the week may be barley bread instead of wheaten; or they
may be excluded from their tents, and made to sleep at a distance from
the camp.”
“How often do the troops practice these exercises?”
“Every day of the year.”
“But when a soldier has learned his work?”
“He goes on practicing just the same. Let a man have been forty years
in the army, that fact will not exempt him from the daily exercise. And
mark this: every weapon you see in use now, every helmet, breastplate,
and shield, is double the weight of those used in actual warfare.”
Berenice opened her eyes in wonder.
“Why, a battle must be an easier matter than the daily exercise!”
Titus laughed.
“The soldier would much prefer a battle,” said he.
Berenice spoke no more for a long time; so long that Titus began to see
from her rapt expression that some momentous thought was occupying her
mind.
“I am thinking,” said she, in reply to his questioning, “I am thinking
what _I_ would do with these troops, were they mine.”
“And what _would_ you do with them, princess?” asked Titus with a smile.
Instead of replying directly to this, Berenice put a question.
“Is not your father Vespasian a skillful general?”
“He hath no equal in the art of war; it is not I only who say this, but
others.”
“And he is liked by all the legions, near and far?”
“Liked is but a feeble word to express his hold over them.”
“But he is somewhat lacking in ambition?”
“Ambition is apt to die with the sixtieth year.”
“But his son Titus is ambitious, and being so, and having great
influence over his father, should act as a spur to his mind.”
“Princess,” said the puzzled Titus, “to what does all this tend?”
“I am thinking,” said Berenice, watching him keenly from beneath the
dark fringe of her half-closed eyelids, “I am thinking what a pity it
is that the great Vespasian should be serving Cæsar, when he might be
Cæsar himself. The present emperor Vitellius can show no hereditary
title to the imperial throne; an ambitious general, he gained the
purple by fighting for it. Why should Vespasian not do the like?”
It was a startling suggestion, so startling as almost to deprive Titus
of breath. He glanced at the charioteer, who stood by the horses’
heads--glanced in fear lest the man should have overhead Berenice’s
treasonable remarks, despite the low tone in which they were spoken.
“When Titus can call himself Cæsar’s son,” she whispered, “then will
Berenice listen to his love--not till then. Go,” she added, with a
little peremptory wave of her hand. “Ponder it well!”
Left to herself, the princess, sinking back upon the silken cushions of
her chariot, indulged in a pleasing reverie.
“The idea is new, and it frightens him,” she murmured with a somewhat
contemptuous smile. “But he will grow used to it. I have sown the seed
in his mind, and it will grow and bear fruit.”
Daringly original in all her ways, Berenice had often embarked upon
some political enterprise which, pronounced by her more sober-minded
brother Agrippa to be impracticable, had nevertheless met with
brilliant success. Would she succeed in this, a more daring venture
than any she had hitherto dreamed of? Why not? All things are possible
to the brave, and why should not the brave Vespasian, the idol of the
legions, prevail against the feeble-minded Vitellius, whose follies
were daily alienating the loyalty of the nations?
The chief obstacle in the way was honest old Vespasian himself; he
might refuse to listen to the voice of the charmers, Berenice and
Titus, charm they never so wisely. But, if otherwise, and if the
enterprise succeeded, what glory would be hers!
Even now it filled her with pride to think that she was, in a manner,
the mistress of all the troops she saw exercising before her. Recover
Jerusalem they might, and would; but destroy it--never! Thanks to her
influence over Titus, the holy city would be spared from dilapidation,
the temple preserved from the torch. She was the new Esther destined to
save the Hebrew nation from destruction--destined, too, if Titus would
but exercise his ambition, to be the empress of the world, the mother,
it might be, of a line of Cæsars, all adherents of the Jewish faith!
And if Cæsar were once the disciple of Moses, the conversion of the
world would follow.
In the midst of these brilliant dreams her ear caught the sound of a
quiet footfall; and, turning her head, she saw--Crispus!
She gave a start, as was natural in one who supposed him dead, or at
the least to be hundreds of miles away. Crispus, keenly attentive,
fancied he could detect on her face an expression akin to dismay; at
any rate it was an expression very different from her tender, lovable
look in the Prætorium when she had avowed her wish to stay and die with
him.
“I have startled you, princess.”
“You are as one returning from the dead,” she said with a faint smile.
“And the dead are not always welcome visitors.”
Then for a brief space there was a silence, during which both seemed to
be reflecting.
“What do you here?” she asked.
“Would it surprise you, princess, were I to say that I am seeking my
wife?”
“Your wife?” repeated Berenice, in her eyes an odd look as of fear, at
least that is how Crispus interpreted it. “Your wife?”
“You did not perhaps know that I had a wife?”
“If you keep the matter a secret from the world how is one to know it?
What is her name?”
“You do not know it?”
“How should I?” replied Berenice with a touch of impatience in her
voice.
“I cannot tell you her name, seeing that it is unknown to me.” This
answer seemed to afford some satisfaction to Berenice. “Nay, I have
never yet seen my wife’s face.”
“You are telling me strange things,” laughed Berenice. “I pray you, my
lord Crispus, mystify me no farther, but speak plainly.”
“Why, so I will.”
Leaning with folded arms upon the broad brim of the chariot, and
looking directly into the eyes of Berenice, who seemed helplessly
fascinated by his gaze, Crispus proceeded to relate the story of his
marriage.
“As,” concluded he, with a glance at the distant Beth-tamar, “as it was
in this neighborhood that I first met Athenaïs, I naturally turn to
this neighborhood in the hope of again meeting her here.”
“And you do not really know who this Athenaïs is?”
“I do not. As you doubtless know, King Polemo died suddenly, a year
ago; and, unfortunately for me, died without revealing the secret. But
the three years’ limit is now past, and it is therefore permissible for
Athenaïs to reveal herself by sending me the ring.”
“And if she chooses _not_ to reveal herself, you may never know whom
you wedded.”
“That is so.”
“I greatly fear,” said Berenice with a grave shake of her head, “that
your unknown bride will prefer to keep herself hidden from you.”
“Why should she so act? She was not coerced into the match. She
accepted me of her own free will.”
“True, but reflect that you are not the great Crispus of her
anticipation. She wedded you in the hope of sharing the crown of
Pontus, and that hope is now extinguished, Pontus having become annexed
to the empire.”
“Your opinion then is that a woman should take for her husband one
well endowed with material advantages, and that should he, through
misfortune, lose these advantages, the woman is justified in discarding
him?”
“Though woman may not profess that doctrine with her lips,” smiled
Berenice, “she’ll carry it out in practice. But answer me this: should
you, by happy chance, discover your wife, would you keep her against
her will? Would you not grant her a divorce, if such were her desire?”
Crispus gravely shook his head.
“She cannot part from me, nor I from her, for be it known to you, O
princess, that I am a Christian, and a Christian can be separated from
his wife by death only.”
Tidings so unexpected caused Berenice to draw a sharp breath. Her look
of horror could not have been greater if Crispus had suddenly announced
himself as a deadly leper.
“_You, a Christian!_” she gasped.
“The name is displeasing to you, I know; so it was once to me. If you
will hear me----”
She cut him short with an imperative gesture.
“I have had the chief exponent of Christianity, Paul of Tarsus,
lecturing in chains before me; where _he_ failed, _you_ can hardly hope
to succeed. Go!” she exclaimed, disdainfully waving him away with her
hand as though he were a slave or some other inferior creature. “Yet
stay! one question I will ask,” she continued with a certain uneasiness
of manner that did not escape Crispus’ notice. “In what light do you,
as a Christian, regard the holy temple?”
“As an obstacle to the progress of Christianity,” he replied
significantly, as he turned on his heel and walked quietly away. “Veni,
vidi, _non_ vici,” he murmured sorrowfully.
Berenice watched him with a strange fear at her heart.
“A Christian,” she murmured; “and one who hates the temple! Now, if he
should accompany the legions to Jerusalem how easy for him, when they
are camping against the holy house, to fulfill his dream by throwing a
lighted torch through its windows. If _that_ be his aim, I will foil
it. He shall not be permitted to take part in the siege. Titus shall
prevent him from joining the army. I have but to say the word and
Vespasian will banish him from Palestine.”
Meanwhile, Crispus, suspecting something of Berenice’s intentions
towards him, and resolving to forestall her, walked along the shore
intent upon finding Vespasian, with whom he had always been a great
favorite.
He found that general joining in the exercises like a common soldier,
one of the ways by which he maintained his popularity with the troops.
A burly, bluff, red-faced man he looked less like a warrior than some
honest old farmer who had just for sport’s sake put on the scarlet
paludamentum of a general.
He greeted Crispus right heartily, and wanted to know where he had been
hiding himself so long, a question which by the way Berenice had not
thought of asking. So Crispus related how upon his proscription he had
taken refuge with the Christians first at Pella and then at Antioch,
and how, whenever he was in danger of being detected by the minions of
Nero, the brethren would convey him by devious routes to some other
Christian community; and how, in the end, convinced by infallible
argument that theirs was the true and only religion, he himself had
joined the sect.
“A good soldier marred!” growled Vespasian, on hearing this last.
“My cousin Flavius Clemens is a Christian. An excellent character
once, but now look at him! Takes no interest in state affairs or
military matters. This world is nothing to him. A woman and no man!
mild-mannered, lacking in spirit and backbone.”
“There is no reason, sire, why a Christian should not be a good
soldier. As a matter of fact, I have come hither to ask for a place in
the army that is to be sent against Jerusalem; I care not how humble
the post so long as it puts me in the forefront of the battle.”
“Now, that’s the way to talk,” cried Vespasian delightedly. “A place in
the army? You shall have it. There’s a post waiting for you. The First
Cohort of the Twelfth Legion hath lost its tribune.”
“Dead?” asked Crispus.
“Dead! No! Degraded! ’Twas but a few days ago he received his baton.
Yesterday he came to me, reeking with perfumes. Ye gods! is it a
soldier’s business to be perfuming himself. ‘I would rather you had
smelled of garlic,’ I cried. ‘Return to the ranks.’--You shall captain
that cohort. You have heard of the Twelfth Legion before, eh? ’Twas one
of those that fled at Beth-horon. They are longing to redeem their lost
character. You shall show them how. You accept the post? Good! Come
with me and let me show the First Cohort its new tribune.”
As they made their way along the shore two figures came walking
slowly towards them. One was a legionary, wearing an armlet to which
was attached a chain, two cubits in length, its other end being
fastened to a similar armlet clasped round the wrist of a somewhat
distinguished-looking personage.
It was a Jewish captive and his Roman guard.
The prisoner saluted Vespasian; and, as if well acquainted with
Crispus, gave him a friendly smile.
Crispus gazed, and then suddenly recognizing the captive he there and
then tendered him a warm thanksgiving; for the captive was none other
than Josephus, the man who had been instrumental in saving his life by
begging his supposed corpse from Eleazar.
When Josephus had resumed his walking, Vespasian remarked:
“Of all the rebels who fought against us in Galilee that man was the
most valiant. When he was taken prisoner I had much ado at first to
keep our soldiers from killing him.”
“I deemed him to be more of a scholar than a warrior.”
“He can handle both pen and sword, and he hath also prophetical gifts.”
Crispus was naturally somewhat surprised at this last observation.
“What prophecy hath he made?”
“Why, this. Though he so bravely defended Jotapata against us, he
nevertheless told its inhabitants that the city was destined to be
taken on the forty-seventh day of the siege, and so it came to pass.
Oh!” he continued in answer to Crispus’ look of skepticism, “I know
it to be true, for I made careful inquiry among the captives, and all
testified that from the very beginning Josephus had foretold that
Jotapata would fall on the forty-seventh day.”
What was very wonderful to Vespasian seemed simple enough to Crispus.
If Josephus, as was very likely, had formed the secret purpose of going
over to the Roman side, it would not be difficult for him to prolong
the defense of such a rock-fortress as Jotapata till the forty-seventh
day. The character gained as prophet on this occasion might stand him
in good stead with the Roman general; in point of fact it had already
so served him. Crispus could not help thinking that the man to whom
he had so much reason to be grateful, was, nevertheless, a somewhat
ambiguous character.
Glancing along the shore, Crispus saw that the “prophet” had halted in
his walk by the chariot of Berenice, and was now conversing both with
that princess and with Titus. As the three were holding their heads
close together it may be inferred that the conversation was a very
important one.
Its purport became apparent to Crispus ere many hours were past.