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 the 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.