By an hour after sunset the sacrifice of a bull in the great court of the
Serapeum was consummated, and the Moscosphragist announced that the god
had graciously accepted it--the examination of the entrails showed more
favorable indications than it had the day before. The flesh of the
slaughtered beast went forthwith to the kitchen; and, if the savor of
roast beef that presently rose up was as grateful to Serapis as to his
worshippers, they might surely reckon on a happy issue from the struggle.
The besieged, indeed, were, ere long, in excellent spirits; for Olympius
had taken care to store the cellars of the sanctuary with plenty of good
wine, and the happy auguries drawn from the appearance of the god and the
state of the victim had filled them with fresh confidence. As there was
not sleeping accommodation for nearly all the men, they had to turn night
into day; and as, to most of them, life consisted wholly in the enjoyment
of the moment, and all was delightful that was new or strange, they soon
eat and drank themselves into a valiant frame of mind.
Couches, such as they were wont to be on at meals, there were not, so
each man snatched up the first thing he could lay his hands on to serve
as a seat. When cups were lacking the jugs and vessels from the
sanctuary were sent for, and passed from one to another. Many a youth
lounged with his head in some fair one's lap; many a girl leaned back to
back with some old man; and as flowers were not to be had, messengers
were sent to the town to buy them, with vine-wreaths and other greenery.
They were easily procured, and with them came the news that the races
were to be held next morning.
This information was regarded by many as being of the first importance;
Nicarchus, the son of the rich Hippocleides, and Zenodotus a weaver of
tapestry--whose quadriga had once proved victorious--hastily made their
way into the town to give the requisite orders in their stables, and they
were closely followed by Hippias, the handsome agitator, who was the
favorite driver in the arena for the horses belonging to wealthy owners.
In the train of these three every lover of horses vanished from the
scene, with a number of Hippias' friends, and of flower-sellers, door-
keepers, and ticket-holders-in short, of all who expected to derive
special pleasure or profit from the games. Each man reflected that one
could not be missed, and as the god was favorably disposed he might
surely contrive to defend his own temple till after the races were over;
they would then return to conquer or die with the rest.
Then some others began to think of wives and children in bed at home,
and they, too, departed; still, by far the larger proportion remained
behind--above three thousand in all, men and women. These at once
possessed themselves of the half-emptied wine-jars left by the deserters;
gay music was got up, and then, wreathed with garlands on their heads and
shoulders, and 'filled with the god' they drank, shouted and danced far
into the night. The merry feast soon became a wild orgy; loud cries of
Evoe, and tumultuous singing reached the ears of the Magians, who had
once more settled down to calculations and discussions over their rolls
and tablets.
The mother of the youth that had been killed still sat huddled at the
foot of the statue of justice, enduring the anguish of listening to these
drunken revels with dull resignation. Every shout of laughter, every
burst of mad mirth from the revellers above cut her to the heart--and
yet, how they would have gladdened her if only one other voice could have
mingled with those hundreds! When Olympius, still in his fullest dress,
and carrying his head loftily as became him, made his way through the
temple at the head of his subordinates, he noticed Berenice--whom he had
known as a proud and happy mother--and begged her to join the friends
whom he had bidden to his own table; but she dreaded any social contact
with men whom she knew, and preferred to remain where she was at the feet
of the goddess.
Wherever the high-priest went he was hailed with enthusiasm: "Rejoice,"
he would say to encourage the feasters, cheering them with wise and
fervid exhortations, reminding them of Pharaoh Mycerinus who, having been
told by an oracle that he had only six years to live, determined to prove
the prophecy false, and by carousing through every night made the six
years allotted to him a good dozen.
"Imitate him!" cried Olympius as he raised a cup to his lips, "crowd the
joys of a year into the few hours that still are left us, and pour a
libation to the god as I do, out of every cup ere you drink."
His appeal was answered by a rapturous shout; the flutes and cymbals
piped and clanged, metal cups rang sharply as the drinkers pledged each
other, and the girls thumped their tambourines, till the calf-skin droned
and the bells in the frames tinkled shrilly.
Olympius thanked them, and bowed on all sides, as he walked from group to
group of his adherents. Seldom, indeed, had his heart beat so high! His
end perhaps was very near, but it should at least be worthy of his life.
He knew how the sunbeam had been reflected so as to kiss the statue's
lips. For centuries had this startling little scene and the sudden
illumination of the niche round the head of the god been worked in
precisely the same way at high festivals--[They are mentioned by
Rufinus.]--these were mere stimulants to the dull souls of the vulgar who
needed to be stirred up by the miraculous power of the god, which the
elect recognized throughout the universe, in the wondrous co-operation of
forces and results in nature, and in the lives of men. He, for his part,
firmly believed in Serapis and his might, and in the prophecies and
calculations which declared that his fall must involve the dissolution
of the organic world and its relapse into chaos.
Many winds were battling in the air, each one driving the ship of life
towards the whirlpool. To-day or to-morrow--what matter which? The
threatened cataclysm had no terrors for Olympius. One thing only was a
pang to his vanity: No succeeding generations would preserve the memory
of his heroic struggle and death for the cause of the gods. But all was
not yet lost, and his sunny nature read in the glow of the dying clay the
promise and dawn of a brilliant morrow. If the expected succor should
arrive--if the good cause should triumph here in Alexandria--if the
rising were to be general throughout Greek heathendom, then indeed had he
been rightly named Olympius by his parents--then he would not change
places with any god of Olympus--then the glory of his name, more lasting
than bronze or marble, would shine forth like the sun, so long as one
Greek heart honored the ancient gods and loved its native land.
This night--perhaps its last--should see a grand, a sumptuous feast; he
invited his friends and adherents--the leaders of spiritual life in
Alexandria--to a 'symposium', after the manner of the philosophers and
dilettanti of ancient Athens, to be held in the great concert-hall of the
Serapeum.
How different was its aspect from that of the Bishop's council-chamber!
The Christians sat within bare walls, on wooden benches, round a plain
table; the large room in which Olympius received his supporters was
magnificently decorated, and furnished with treasures of art in fine
inlaid work, beaten brass and purple stuffs-a hall for kings to meet in.
Thick cushions, covered with lion and panther-skins, tempted fatigue or
indolence; and when the hero of the hour joined his guests, after his
progress through the precincts, every couch was occupied. To his right
lay Helladius, the famous grammarian and high-priest of Zeus; Porphyrius,
the benefactor of the Serapeum, was on his left; even Karnis had been
allotted a place in his old friend's social circle, and greatly
appreciated the noble juice of the grape, that was passed round, as well
as the eager and intelligent friction of minds, from which he had long
been cut off.
Olympius himself was unanimously chosen Symposiarch, and he invited the
company to discuss, in the first instance, the time-honored question:
Which was the highest good?
One and all, he said, they were standing on a threshold, as it were;
and as travellers, quitting an old and beloved home to seek a new and
unknown one in a distant land, pause to consider what particular joy that
they have known under the shelter of the old Penates has been the
dearest, so it would beseem them to reflect, at this supreme moment, what
had been the highest good of their life in this world. They were on the
eve, perhaps, of a splendid victory; but, perchance, on the other hand,
their foot was already on the plank that led from the shore of life to
Charon's bark.
The subject was a familiar one and a warm discussion was immediately
started. The talk was more flowery and brilliant, no doubt, than in old
Athens, but it led to no deeper views and threw no clearer light on the
well-worn question. The wranglers could only quote what had been said
long since as to the highest Good, and when presently Helladius called
upon them to bring their minds to bear on the nature of humanity, a
vehement disputation arose as to whether man were the best or the worst
of created beings. This led to various utterances as to the mystical
connection of the spiritual and material worlds, and nothing could be
more amazing than the power of imagination which had enabled these
mystical thinkers to people with spirits and daemons every circle of the
ladder-like structure which connected the incomprehensible and self-
sufficing One with the divine manifestation known as Man. It became
quite intelligible that many Alexandrians should fear to fling a stone
lest it might hit one of the good daemons of which the air was full--
a spirit of light perhaps, or a protecting spirit. The more obscure
their theories, the more were they overloaded with image and metaphor;
all simplicity of statement was lost, and yet the disputants prided
themselves on the brilliancy of their language and the wealth of their
ideas. They believed that they had brought the transcendental within the
grasp of intelligent sense, and that their empty speculations had carried
them far beyond the narrow limits of the Ancients.
Karnis was in raptures; Porphyrius only wished for Gorgo by his side,
for, like all fathers, he would rather that his child should have enjoyed
this supreme intellectual treat than himself.
........................
In Porphyrius' house, meanwhile, all was gloom and anxiety. In spite of
the terrific heat Damia would not be persuaded to come down from the
turret-room where she had collected all the instruments, manuals and
formulas used by astrologers and Magians. A certain priest of Saturn,
who had a great reputation as a master of such arts, and who, for many
years, had been her assistant whenever she sought to apply her science
to any important event, was in attendance--to give her the astrological
tables, to draw circles, ellipses or triangles at her bidding, to
interpret the mystical sense of numbers or letters, which now and then
escaped her aged memory; he made her calculations or tested those she
made herself, and read out the incantations which she thought efficacious
under the circumstances. Occasionally, too, he suggested some new method
or fresh formula by which she might verify her results.
She had fasted, according to rule, the whole forenoon, and was frequently
so far overcome by the heat as to drop asleep in the midst of her
studies; then, when she woke with a start, if her assistant had meanwhile
worked out his calculation to a result contrary to her anticipations, she
took him up sharply and made him begin again from the beginning. Gorge,
went up from time to time; but, though she offered the old woman
refreshment prepared by her own hand, she could not persuade her even to
moisten her lips with a little fruitsyrup, for to break the prescribed
fast might endanger 3the accuracy of her prognostications and the result
of all her labor. However, when she seemed to doze, her granddaughter
sprinkled strong waters about the room to freshen the air, poured a few
drops on the old lady's dress, wiped the dews from her brow, and fanned
her to cool her. Damia submitted to all this; and though she had only
closed her weary eyes, she pretended to be asleep in order to have the
pleasure of being cared for by her darling.
Towards noon she dismissed the Magian and allowed herself a short
interval of rest and sleep; but as soon as she woke she collected her
wits, and set to work again with fresh zeal and diligence. When, at
last, she had mastered all the signs and omens, she knew for certain that
nothing could avert the awful doom foretold by the oracles of old.
The fall of Serapis and the end of the world were at hand.
The Magian covered his head as he saw, plainly demonstrated, how she had
reached this conclusion, and he groaned in sincere terror; she, however,
dismissed him with perfect equanimity, handing him her purse, which she
had filled in the morning, and saying:
"To last till the end."
The sun was now long past the meridian and the old woman, quite worn out,
threw herself back in her chair and desired Gorgo to let no one disturb
her; nay, not to return herself till she was sent for. As soon as Damia
was alone she gazed at herself in a mirror for some little time,
murmuring the seven vocables incessantly while she did so; and then she
fixed her eyes intently on the sky. These strange proceedings were
directed to a particular end, she was endeavoring to close her senses to
the external world, to become blind, deaf, and impervious to everything
material--the polluting burthen which divided her divine and spiritual
part from the celestia fount whence it was derived; to set her soul free
from its earthly shroud--free to gaze on the god that was its father.
She had already more than once nearly attained to this state by long
fasting and resolute abstraction and once, in a moment she could never
forget, had enjoyed the dizzy ecstasy of feeling herself float, as it
were through infinite space, like a cloud, bathed in glorious radiance.
The fatigue that had been gradually over powering her now seconded her
efforts; she soon felt slight tremor; a cold sweat broke out all over
her; she lost all consciousness of her limbs, and all sense of sighs and
hearing; a fresher and cooler air seemed to revive not her lungs only,
but every part of her body, while undulating rays of red and violet light
danced before her eyes. Was not their strange radiance an emanation
from the eternal glory that she sought? Was not some mysterious power
uplifting her, bearing her towards the highest goal? Was her soul
already free from the bondage of the flesh? Had she indeed become
one with God and had her earnest seeking for the Divinity ended in
glorification? No; her arms which she had thrown up as if to fly,
fell by her side it was all in vain. A pain--a trifling pain in her
foot, had brought her down again to the base world of sense which she
so ardently strove to soar away from.
Several times she took up the mirror, looked in it fixedly as before,
and then gazed upwards; but each time that she lost consciousness of the
material world and that her liberated soul began to move its unfettered
pinions, some little noise, the twitch of a muscle, a fly settling on her
hand, a drop of perspiration falling from her brow on to her cheek,
roused her senses to reassert themselves.
Why--why was it so difficult to shake off this burthen of mortal clay?
She thought of herself as of a sculptor who chisels away all superfluous
material froth his block of marble, to reveal the image of the god
within; but it was easier to remove the enclosing stone than to release
the soul from the body to which it was so closely knit. Still, she did
not give up the struggle to attain the object which others had achieved
before her; but she got no nearer to it--indeed, less and less near, for,
between her and that hoped-for climax, rose up a series of memories and
strange faces which she could not get rid of. The chisel slipped aside,
went wrong or lost its edge before the image could be extracted from the
block.
One illusion after another floated before her eyes first it was Gorgo,
the idol of her old heart, lying pale and fair on a sea of surf that
rocked her on its watery waste--up high on the crest of a wave and then
deep down in the abyss that yawned behind it. She, too--so young, a
hardly-opened blossom--must perish in the universal ruin, and be crushed
by the same omnipotent hand that could overthrow the greatest of the
gods; and a glow of passionate hatred snatched her away from the aim of
her hopes. Then the dream changed she saw a scattered flock of ravens
flying in wide circles, at an unattainable height, against the clouds;
suddenly they vanished and she saw, in a grey mist, the monument to
Porphyrius' wife, Gorgo's long-departed mother. She had often visited
the mausoleum with tender emotion, but she did not want to see it now--
not now, and she shook it off; but in its place rose up the image of her
daughter-in-law herself, the dweller in that tomb, and no effort of will
or energy availed to banish that face. She saw the dead woman as she had
seen her on the last fateful occasion in her short life. A solemn and
festal procession was passing out through the door of their house, headed
by flute-players and singing-girls; then came a white bull; a garland of
the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate--[This tree was regarded as the
symbol of fertility, on account of its many-seeded fruit.]--hung round
its massive neck, and its horns were gilt. By its side walked slaves,
carrying white baskets full of bread and cakes and heaps of flowers, and
these were followed by others, bearing light-blue cages containing geese
and doves. The bull, the calves, the flowers and the birds were all to
be deposited in the temple of Eileithyia, as a sacrifice to the
protecting goddess of women in child-birth. Close behind the bull came
Gorgo's mother, dressed with wreaths, walking slowly and timidly, with
shy, downcast eyes-thinking perhaps of the anguish to come, and putting
up a silent prayer.
Damia followed with the female friends of the house, the clients and
their wives and some personal attendants, all carrying pomegranates in
the right hand, and holding in the left a long wreath of flowers which
thus connected the whole procession.
In this order they reached the ship-yard; but at that spot they were met
by a band of crazy monks from the desert monasteries, who, seeing the
beast for sacrifice, abused them loudly, cursing the heathen. The slaves
indignantly drove them off, but then the starveling anchorites fell upon
the innocent beast which was the chief abomination in their eyes. The
bull tossed his huge head, snuffing and snorting to right and left, stuck
out his tail and rushed away from the boy whose guidance he had till now
meekly followed, flung a monk high in the air with his huge horns, and
then turned in his fury on the women who were behind.
They fled like a flock of doves on which a hawk comes swooping down; some
were driven quite into the lake and others up against the paling of the
shipyard, while Damia herself--who was going through it all again in the
midst of her efforts to rise to the divinity--and the young wife whom she
had vainly tried to shelter and support, were both knocked down. To that
hour of terror Gorgo owed her birth, while to her mother it was death.
On the following day Alexandria beheld a funeral ceremony as solemn,
as magnificent, and as crowded as though a conquering hero were being
entombed; it was that of the monk whom the bull had gored; the Bishop had
proclaimed that by this attack on the abomination of desolation--the
blood-sacrifice of idolatry--he had won an eternal crown in Paradise.
But now the black ravens crossed Damia's vision once more, till presently
a handsome young Greek gaily drove them off with his thyrsus. His
powerful and supple limbs shone with oil, applied in the gymnasium of
Timagetes, the scene of his frequent triumphs in all the sports and
exercises of the youthful Greeks. His features and waving hair were
those of her son Apelles; but suddenly his aspect changed: he was an
emaciated penitent, his knees bent under the weight of a heavy cross; his
widow, Mary, had declared him a martyr to the cause of the crucified Jew
and defamed his memory in the eyes of his own son and of all men. Damia
clenched her trembling hands. Again those ravens came swirling round,
flapping their wings wildly over the prostrate penitent.
Then her husband appeared to her, calmly indifferent to the birds of ill-
omen. He looked just as she remembered him many--so many years ago, when
he had come in smiling and said: "The best stroke of business I ever did!
For a sprinkling of water I have secured the corn trade with Thessalonica
and Constantinople; that is a hundred gold solidi for each drop."
Yes, he had made a good bargain. The profits of that day's work were
multiplied by tens, and water, nothing in the world but Nile water--
Baptismal water the priest had called it--had filled her son's money-
bags, too, and had turned their plot of land into broad estates; but it
had been tacitly understood that this sprinkling of water established a
claim for a return, and this both father and son had solemnly promised.
Its magic turned everything they touched to gold, but it brought a blight
on the peace of the household. One branch, which had grown up in the
traditions of the old Macedonian stock, had separated from the other; and
her husband's great lie lay between them and the family still living in
the Canopic way, like a wide ocean embittered with the salt of hatred.
That he had infused poison into his son's life and compelled him, proud
as he was, to forfeit the dignity of a free and high-minded man. Though
devoted in his heart to the old gods he had humbled himself, year after
year, to bow the knee with the hated votaries of the Christian faith, and
in their church, to their crucified Lord, and had publicly confessed
Christ. The water--the terrible thaumaturgic stream--clung to him more
inseparably than the brand-mark on a slave's arm. It could neither be
dried up nor wiped away; for if the false Christian, who was really a
zealous heathen, had boldly confessed the Olympian gods and abjured the
odious new faith, the gifts of the all-powerful water and all the
possessions of their old family would be confiscated to the State and
Church, and the children of Porphyrius, the grandchildren of the wealthy
Damia, would be beggars. And this--all this--for the sake of a crucified
Jew.
The gods be praised the end of all this wretchedness was at hand! A
thrill of ecstasy ran through her as she reflected that with herself and
her children, every soul, everything that bore the name of Christian
would be crushed, shattered and annihilated. She could have laughed
aloud but that her throat was so dry, her tongue so parched; but her
scornful triumph was expressed in every feature, as her fancy showed her
Marcus riding along the Canopic street with that little heathen hussy
Dada, the singing girl, while her much-hated daughter-in-law looked
after them, beating her forehead in grief and rage.
Quite beside herself with delight the old woman rocked backwards and
forwards in her chair; not for long, however, for the black birds seemed
to fill the whole room, describing swift, interminable spirals round her
head. She could not hear them, but she could see them, and the whirling
vortex fascinated her; she could not help turning her head to follow
their flight; she grew giddy and she was forced to try to recover her
balance.
The old woman sat huddled in her chair, her hands convulsively clutching
the arms, like a horseman whose steed has run away with him round and
round the arena; till at length, worn out by excitement and exhaustion,
she became unconscious, and sank in a heap on the ground, rigid and
apparently lifeless.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Christianity had ceased to be the creed of the poor
He spoke with pompous exaggeration
Whether man were the best or the worst of created beings