Arsinoe was up betimes on the following morning; much embarrassed by
all the splendor that surrounded her, she walked up and down her room
thinking of Pollux. Then she stopped to take pleasure in her own image
displayed in a large mirror which stood on a dressing-table, and between
whiles she compared the couch, on which she lay clown again at full
length, with those in Paulina’s house. Once more she felt herself a
prisoner, but this time she liked her prison, and presently, when she
heard slaves passing by her room, she flew to the door to listen, for
it was just possible that Titianus might have sent to fetch Pollux,
and would allow him to come to see her. At last a slave-woman came in,
brought her some breakfast, and desired her from Julia to go into the
garden and look at the flowers and aviaries till she should be sent for.
Early that morning the news had reached the prefect that Antinous had
sought his death in the Nile, and it had shocked him greatly, less on
account of the hapless youth than for Hadrian’s sake. When he had given
the proper officials orders to announce the melancholy news and to
desire the citizens to give some public expression of their sympathy
with the Emperor’s sorrow, he gave audience to the Patriarch Eumenes.
This venerable man, ever since the transactions which he had
conducted--with reference to the thanksgiving of the Christians for the
safety of the Emperor after the fire, had been one of the most esteemed
friends of Titianus and Julia. The prefect discussed with the Patriarch
the inauspicious effects that the death of the young fellow might be
expected to have on the Emperor, and as a result, on the government,
although the favorite had had no qualities of mind to distinguish him.
“Whenever Hadrian,” continued Titianus, “would give his unresting
brain an hour’s relaxation, and release himself from disappointment and
vexation and the severe toil and anxiety of which his life is overfull,
he would go out hunting with the bold youth or would have the handsome,
good-hearted boy into his own room. The sight of the Bithynian’s
beauty delighted his eye, and how well Antinous knew how to listen to
him--silent, modest and attentive! Hadrian loved him as a son, and
the poor fellow clung to his master in return with more than a son’s
fidelity; his death itself proved it. Caesar himself said to me once;
‘In the midst of the turmoil of waking life, when I see Antinous a
feeling comes over me as if a beautiful dream stood incorporate before
my eyes.’
“Caesar’s grief at losing him must indeed be great,” said the Patriarch.
“And the loss will add to the gloom of his grave and brooding nature,
render his restless scheming and wandering still more capricious, and
increase his suspiciousness and irritability.”
“And the circumstances under which Antinous perished,” added Eumenes,
“will afford new ground for his attachment to superstitions.”
“That is to be feared. We have not happy days before us; the revolt in
Judaea, too, will again cost thousands of lives.”
“If only it had been granted to you to assume the government of that
province.”
“But you know, my worthy friend, the condition I am in. On my bad days
I am incapable of commanding a thought or opening my lips. When my
breathlessness increases I feel as if I were being suffocated. I have
placed many decades of my life at the disposal of the state, and I now
feel justified in devoting the diminished strength which is left me to
other things. I and my wife think of retiring to my property by lake
Larius, and there to try whether we may succeed, she and I, in becoming
worthy of the salvation and capable of apprehending the truth that you
have offered us. You are there Julia? As the determination to retire
from the world has matured in us, we have, both of us, remembered more
than once the words of the Jewish sage, which you lately told us of.
When the angel of God drove the first man out of Paradise, he said:
‘Henceforth your heart must be your Paradise.’ We are turning our backs
on the pleasure of a city life--”
“And we do so without regret,” said Julia, interrupting her husband,
“for we bear in our minds the germ of a more indestructible, purer, and
more lasting happiness.”
“Amen!” said the Patriarch. “Where two such as you dwell together there
the Lord is third in the bond.” “Give us your disciple Marcianus to be
our travelling-companion,” said Titianus.
“Willingly,” said Eumenes. “Shall he come to visit you when I leave
you?”
“Not immediately,” replied Julia. “I have this morning an important and
at the same time pleasant business to attend to. You know Paulina, the
widow of Pudeus. She took into her keeping a pretty young creature--”
“And Arsinoe has run away from her.”
“We took her in here,” said Titianus. “Her protectress seems to have
failed in attracting her to her, or in working favorably on her nature.”
“Yes,” said the Patriarch. “There was but one key to her full, bright
heart--Love--but Paulina tried to force it open with coercion and
persistent driving. It remained closed--nay, the lock is spoiled.--But,
if I may ask, how came the girl into your house?”
“That I can tell you later, we did not make her acquaintance for the
first time yesterday.”
“And I am going to fetch her lover to her,” cried the prefect’s wife.
“Paulina will claim her of you,” said the Patriarch. “She is having
her sought for everywhere; but the child will never thrive under her
guidance.”
“Did the widow formally adopt Arsinoe?” asked Titianus.
“No; she proposed doing so as soon as her young pupil--”
“Intentions count for nothing in law, and I can protect our pretty
little guest against her claim.”
“I will fetch her,” said Julia. “The time must certainly have seemed
very long to her already. Will you come with me, Eumenes?”
“With pleasure,” replied the old man, “Arsinoe and I are excellent
friends; a conciliatory word from me will do her good, and my blessing
cannot harm even a heathen. Farewell, Titianus, my deacons are expecting
me.”
When Julia returned to the sitting-room with her protegee, the child’s
eyes were wet with tears, for the kind words of the venerable old
man had gone to her heart and she knew and acknowledged that she had
experienced good as well as evil from Paulina.
The matron found her husband no longer alone. Wealthy old Plutarch
with his two supporters was with him, and in black garments, which were
decorated with none but white flowers, instead of many colored garments;
he presented a singular appearance. The old man was discoursing eagerly
to the prefect; but as soon as he saw Arsinoe he broke off his harangue,
clapped his hands and was quite excited with the pleasure of seeing
once more the fair Roxana for whom he had once visited in vain all the
gold-workers’ shops in the city.
“But I am tired,” cried Plutarch, with quite youthful vivacity, “I am
quite tired of keeping the ornaments for you. There are quite enough
other useless things in my house. They belong to you, not to me, and
this very day I will send them to the noble Julia, that she may give
them to you. Give me your hand, dear child; you have grown paler but
more womanly. What do you think, Titianus, she would still do for
Roxana; only your wife must find a dress for her again. All in white,
and no ribband in your hair!--like a Christian.”
“I know some one who will find out the way to fitly crown these soft
tresses,” replied Julia. “Arsinoe is the bride of Pollux, the sculptor.”
“Pollux!” exclaimed Plutarch, in extreme excitement. “Move me forward,
Antaeus and Atlas, the sculptor Pollux is her lover? A great, a splendid
artist! The very same, noble Titianus, of whom I just now speaking to
you.”
“You know him?” asked the prefect’s wife.
“No, but I have just left the work-shop of Periander, the gem-cutter,
and there I saw the model of a statue of Antinous that is unique,
marvellous, incomparable! The Bithynian as Dionysus! The work would do
no discredit to a Phidias, to a Lysippus. Pollux was out of the way,
but I laid my hand at once on his work; the young master must execute it
immediately in marble. Hadrian will be enchanted with this portrait
of his beautiful and devoted favorite. You must admire it, every
connoisseur must! I will pay for it, the only question is whether I
or the city should present it to Caesar. This matter your husband must
decide.”
Arsinoe was radiant with joy at these words, but she stepped modestly
into the background as an official came in and handed Titianus a
dispatch that had just arrived.
The prefect read it; then turning to his friend and his wife, he said:
“Hadrian ascribes to Antinous the honors of a god.”
“Fortunate Pollux!” exclaimed Plutarch. “He has executed the first
statue of the new divinity. I will present it to the city, and they
shall place it in the temple to Antinous of which we must lay the first
stone before Caesar is back here again. Farewell, my noble friends!
Greet your bridegroom from me, my child. His work belongs to me. Pollux
will be the first among his fellow-artists, and it has been my privilege
to discover this new star--the eighth artist whose merit I have detected
while he was still unknown. Your future brother-in-law too, Teuker,
will turn out well. I am having a stone cut by him with a portrait of
Antinous. Once more farewell; I must go to the Council. We shall have to
discuss the subject of a temple to the new divinity. Move on you two!”
An hour after Plutarch had quitted the prefect’s house Julia’s chariot
was standing at the entrance of a lane, much too narrow to admit a
vehicle with horses, and which ended in a little plot on which stood
Euphorion’s humble house. Julia’s outrunners easily found out the
residence of the sculptor’s parents, led the matron and Arsinoe to the
spot, and showed them the door they should knock at.
“What a color you have, my little girl!” said Julia. “Well, I will not
intrude on your meeting, but I should like to deliver you with my own
hand into those of your future mother. Go to that little house, Arctus,
and beg dame Doris to step out here. Only say that some one wishes to
speak with her, but do not mention my name.”
Arsinoe’s heart beat so violently that she was incapable of saying a
word of thanks to her kind protectress. “Step behind this palm-tree,”
said the lady. Arsinoe obeyed; but she felt as though it was some
outside volition, and not her own, that guided her to her hiding-place.
She heard nothing of the first words spoken by the Roman lady and Doris.
She only saw the dear old face of her Pollux’s mother, and in spite of
her reddened eyes and the wrinkles which trouble had furrowed in her
face, she could not tire of looking at it. It reminded her of the
happiest days of her childhood, and she longed to rush forward and throw
her arms round the neck of the kindly, good-hearted woman. Then she
heard Julia say: “I have brought her to you. She is just as sweet and
as maidenly and lovely as she was the first time we saw her in the
theatre.”
“Where is she? Where is she?” asked Doris in a trembling voice.
Julia pointed to the palm, and was about to call Arsinoe, but the girl
could no longer restrain her longing to fall on the neck of some one
dear to her, for Pollux had come out of the door to see who had asked
for his mother, and to see him and to fly to his breast with a cry of
joy had been one and the same act to Arsinoe.
Julia gazed at the couple with moistened eyes, and when, after many kind
words for old and young alike, she took leave of the happy group, she
said:
“I will provide for your outfit my child, and this time I think you will
wear it, not merely for one transient hour but through a long and happy
life.”
Joyful singing sounded out that evening from Euphorion’s little home.
Doris and her husband, and Pollux and Arsinoe, Diotima and Teuker,
decked with garlands, reclined round the amphora which was wreathed with
roses, drinking to pleasure and joy, to art and love, and to all the
gifts of the present. The sweet bride’s long hair was once more plaited
with handsome blue ribbons.
Three weeks after these events Hadrian was again in Alexandria. He
kept aloof from all the festivals instituted in honor of the new god
Antinous, and smiled incredulously when he was told that a new star had
appeared in the sky, and that an oracle had declared it to be the soul
of his lost favorite.
When Plutarch conducted the Emperor and his friends to see the Bacchus
Antinous, which Pollux had completed in the clay, Hadrian was deeply
struck and wished to know the name of the master who had executed this
noble work of art. Not one of his companion’s had the courage to speak
the name of Pollux in his presence; only Pontius ventured to come
forward for his young friend. He related to Hadrian the hapless artist’s
history and begged him to forgive him. The Emperor nodded his approval,
and said:
“For the sake of this lost one he shall be forgiven.”
Pollux was brought into his presence, and Hadrian, holding out his hand
said as he pressed the sculptor’s:
“The Immortals have bereft me of his love and faithfulness, but your art
has preserved his beauty for me and for the world--”
Every city in the Empire vied in building temples and erecting statues
to the new god, and Pollux, Arsinoe’s happy husband, was commissioned
to execute statues and busts of Antinous for a hundred towns; but he
refused most of the orders, and would send out no work as his own that
he had not executed himself on a new conception. His master, Papias,
returned to Alexandria, but he was received there by his fellow-artists
with such insulting contempt, that in an evil hour he destroyed himself.
Teuker lived to be the most famous gem-engraver of his time.
Soon after Selene’s martyrdom dame Hannah quitted Besa; the office of
Superior of the Deaconesses at Alexandria was intrusted to her, and she
exercised it with much blessing till an advanced age. Mary, the deformed
girl, remained behind in the Nile-port, which under Hadrian was extended
into the magnificent city of Antmoe. There were there two graves from
which she could not bear to part.
Four years after Arsinoe’s marriage with Pollux, Hadrian called the
young sculptor to Rome; he was there to execute the statue of the
Emperor in a quadriga. This work was intended to crown and finish
his mausoleum constructed by Pontius, and Pollux carried it out in so
admirable a manner, that when it was ended, Hadrian said to him with a
smile:
“Now you have earned the right to pronounce sentence of death on the
works of other masters.” Euphorion’s son lived in honor and prosperity
to see his children, the children of his faithful wife Arsinoe--who
was greatly admired by the Tiber-grow up to be worthy citizens. They
remained heathen; but the Christian love which Eumenes had taught
Paulina’s foster-daughter was never forgotten, and she kept a kindly
place for it in her heart and in her household. A few months before
the young couple left Alexandria, Doris had peacefully gone to her last
rest, and her husband died soon after her; the want of his faithful
companion was the complaint he succumbed to.
On the shores of the Tiber, Pontius was still the sculptor’s friend.
Balbilla and her husband gave their corrupt fellow-citizens the example
of a worthy, faithful marriage on the old Roman pattern. The poetess’s
bust had been completed by Pollux in Alexandria, and with all its
tresses and little curls, it found favor in Balbilla’s eyes.
Verus was to have enjoyed the title of Caesar even during Hadrian’s
lifetime, but after a long illness he died the first. Lucilla nursed
him with unfailing devotion and enjoyed the longed-for monopoly of his
attentions through a period of much suffering. It was on their son that
in later years the purple devolved.
The predictions of the prefect Titianus were fulfilled, for the
Emperor’s faults increased with years and the meaner side of his mind
and nature came into sharper relief. Titianus and his wife led a retired
life by lake Larius, far from the world, and both were baptized before
they died. They never pined for the turmoil of a pleasure-seeking world
or its dazzling show, for they had learnt to cherish in their own hearts
all that is fairest in life.
It was the slave Mastor who brought to Titianus the news of the
sovereign’s death. Hadrian had given him his freedom before he died and
had left him a handsome legacy.
The prefect gave him a piece of land to farm and continued in friendly
relations with his Christian neighbor and his pretty daughter, who grew
up among her father’s co-religionists.
When Titianus had told his wife the melancholy news he added solemnly:
“A great sovereign is dead. The pettinesses which disfigured the man
Hadrian will be forgotten by posterity, for the ruler Hadrian was one of
those men whom Fate sets in the places they belong to, and who, true to
their duty, struggle indefatigably to the end. With wise moderation he
was so far master of himself as to bridle his ambition and to defy the
blame and prejudice of all the Romans. The hardest, and perhaps the
wisest, resolution of his life was to abandon the provinces which it
would have exhausted the power of the Empire to retain. He travelled
over every portion of his dominion within the limits he himself had
set to it, shrinking from neither frost nor heat, and he tried to be as
thoroughly acquainted with every portion of it as if the Empire were a
small estate he had inherited. His duties as a sovereign forced him to
travel, and his love of travel lightened the duty. He was possessed by
a real passion to understand and learn everything. Even the
Incomprehensible set no limits to his thirst for knowledge, but ever
striving to see farther and to dig deeper than is possible to the mind
of man, he wasted a great part of his mighty powers in trying to snatch
aside the curtain which hides the destinies of the future. No one ever
worked at so many secondary occupations as he, and yet no former Emperor
ever kept his eye so unerringly fixed on the main task of his life,
the consolidation and maintenance of the strength of the state and the
improvement and prosperity of its citizens.”
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A well-to-do man always gets a higher price than a poor one
Avoid all useless anxiety
Dried merry-thought bone of a fowl
Enjoy the present day
Facts are differently reflected in different minds
Happiness is only the threshold to misery
Have not yet learned not to be astonished
Have lived to feel such profound contempt for the world
I must either rest or begin upon something new
Idleness had long since grown to be the occupation of his life
If one only knew who it is all for
Ill-judgment to pronounce a thing impossible
In order to find himself for once in good company--(Solitude)
It was such a comfort once more to obey an order
Love laughs at locksmiths
More to the purpose to think of the future than of the past
Never speaks a word too much or too little
Philosophers who wrote of the vanity of writers
So long as we do not think ourselves wretched, we are not so
Temples would be empty if mortals had nothing left to wish for
They keep an account in their heart and not in their head
To know half is less endurable than to know nothing
When a friend refuses to share in joys
Who do all they are able and enjoy as much as they can get
Wide world between the purpose and the deed
Years are the foe of beauty