_THE INTERIOR OF A SLAVE-PRISON_
‘Magnam rem sine dubio fecerimus si servulum infelicem in
ergastulum miserimus.’--SENECA, _De Ira_, iii. 32.
We left Onesimus in a prison cell among the substructions of the
Palatine, his back sore with scourging, his soul torn with shame and
indignation. He cursed his folly, without repenting of his faults.
Once more he had thrown away every element of prosperity; and his
manner of looking on life was so entirely selfish that the source of
his self-reproach was rather the shipwreck of his chances than the
moral instability which had led to it. No news reached him in his
prison. It was not till his liberation that he learnt the fate of
Britannicus--a fate which, if he had continued steadfast in duty,
he might have averted or delayed.
He knew that he could not be restored to his trusted position as the
_servus a purpura_ of the Empress. He would lose that, and with it
lose all the flattery and gain which accrued so easily to the higher
slaves of Cæsar’s household. He doubted whether even Acte’s influence
could screen him from the consequences of an offense so deadly as
misconduct in the august presence of the imperial divinity. But he
felt a desperate pride and a morbid shame which made him determine
to conceal all traces of himself and his misdemeanour from Acte’s
knowledge.
His behaviour in prison was refractory, for the jailer had taken a
strong dislike to him, and delighted to humiliate this bird of finer
feather than those who usually came under his charge. He was quite
safe in doing so. There was little compassion in the breast of the
steward who managed the slaves, and rarely, if ever, did he take
the trouble to inquire how a prisoner was getting on, or whether
he was alive or dead. Amid blows and insults the heavy days dragged
on, and seemed interminable to the poor Phrygian youth. In the
desperation of idleness he tried to find some amusement from
scribbling with a nail on the plaster wall of his dungeon, and one
day, thinking of the drunken bout which had reduced him to this
level, he defiantly scrawled ‘When I am set free, I will drain every
wine-jar in the house.’[68]
‘Will you?’ said the jailer, who had entered unobserved as he
finished his scrawl. ‘You won’t have a chance just yet, my fine
friend.’
He gave Onesimus a blow with his whip, which made him writhe with
anguish, and said, ‘Thank Anubis, I shall be rid of you to-day. You
are sent to the slave-prison (_ergastulum_).’
‘Who sends me?’ asked Onesimus shuddering.
‘What’s that to you, _crucisalus_?’ said the slave, dealing him
another blow. ‘Oh you writhe, do you, my fine bird? What will you
do when the bulls’ hides rattle the _cottabus_ on your shoulders?’
What he said was true. That evening Onesimus was loaded with fetters
and taken into the country.
The sight of slaves in chains being hurried off to punishment was far
too familiar to excite much notice in the streets of Rome, but it was
torture to Onesimus to be thus exposed to the gaze and jeers of idle
passers-by. He felt a painful dread lest any of his friends--above
all, lest Acte, or Pudens, or Titus, or Junia--should see him in this
wretched and disgraceful guise. No one, however, saw him, and that
evening he was safely lodged in the slave-jail attached to Nero’s
villa at Antium.
The slave-jail was a perfect hell on earth. It presented the
spectacle of human beings in their worst aspect, entirely dehumanised
by despair and misery. The slaves who were imprisoned there were
treated like wild beasts, and became no better than wild beasts,
with less of rage but more of malice and foulness. They worked in
chains, and were driven to work with scourges. Torture and starvation
were the sole methods of government. They were a herd of wretches
clothed in rags, ill-fed, untended, unpitied, passing their days
and nights under filthy conditions and in pestilential air, hateful
and hating one another. Some of them were men half mad and wholly
untameable, who could not be depended upon except so far as they were
coerced by violence. Others were pure barbarians, only speaking a few
words of any intelligible language, and therefore useless in a town
_familia_. Others were criminals only exempted from death because of
the value of their labour. Some of them knew that there was little
chance of their being taken thence, unless it were to be crucified,
and that when death released them, their bodies would be carelessly
flung to rot amid the seething abominations of the corpse-pits
(_puticuli_) like that which Onesimus had once seen in Rome near
the Esquiline hill.
The only slaves who retained any vestige of decency and self-respect
in these seething masses of human misery and degradation, were those
who found themselves denizens of an _ergastulum_ for a short period,
at the caprice of a master or mistress. The experience was so
terrible that it cowed the most contumacious into trembling servility.
A few came there for no real fault, who were far less guilty of
any misdoing than the owners who subjected them to this dreaded
punishment. Sometimes a page or favourite who had been tempted to
speak pertly in consequence of too much petting, or a youth who had
been goaded into rebellion by the intolerable tyranny of a freedman,
or a slave whose blood had been turned into flame by some atrocious
wrong, learnt forever the hopelessness of his condition, and the
abjectness of his servitude, by being sent there for a week or even
for a month. Emerging from that den of despair, a human being felt
the conviction enter like iron into his soul, that slaves were not
men, and had none of the rights of men; and that, unless they wished
to throw away their lives altogether, no complaisance to an owner
could be too abject, and nothing must be considered criminal which
an owner required of his human chattel.
Oaths, and curses, and the lowest abysses of vileness in human
conduct, and that blackness of darkness which follows the extinction
of the last spark of humanity in the soul of man, and the clanking
of fetters all day long, and the shrieks of the tortured, and the
yelling of the scourged, and jests more horrible than weeping, and
the manifold leprosies of all moral and physical disease--all this
Onesimus had to witness, and had to endure, in the slave-jail at
Antium. We have read what prisons were before the days of Howard;
what penal settlements and convict ships were forty years ago; but
men trained in the most rudimentary principles of Christianity could
not, under the worst circumstances, sink quite so low, or be so
wholly beyond the sphere of pity, as the offscourings of pagan
slavery, the scum of the misery of all nations, huddled into these
abodes of death.
It was soon whispered among the wretches there that the handsome
Phrygian youth had been high in place among the attendants of
Octavia, and had been favoured and promoted by Acte. In their
baseness they exulted at his humiliation, and the extent to which
his soul revolted from their malice happily helped to preserve
him from the contamination which would have been involved in their
friendliness. He lived from day to day in the sullen silence of an
indomitable purpose. He did not know how long he would be kept there.
He waited a month, sustained by fierce resolve, and then determined
that, at the cost of life itself--even if it should end in feeding
the crows upon a cross--he would attempt his escape. He knew that he
had many foes among the struggling envies of Cæsar’s palace, and he
suspected that Nero’s _dispensator_ purposely intended to forget him,
and to leave him there to rot.
After a few days he was left comparatively unmolested by his
companions in misfortune, for there was no amusement to be got out
of his savage taciturnity. Once, when one of the ruder denizens had
tried to molest him, Onesimus struck him so furious a blow with his
fettered hands that he was looked upon as dangerous. As he glanced
round at the degraded ugliness of the majority of the prisoners,
whose faces only varied in degrees of villany, he had less than no
desire to join their society. He saw but one on whom he could look
with any pleasure, or from whom he could hope for any sympathy. This
was a young man of honest and pleasant countenance, whose name, he
learnt, was Hermas, and who bore himself under his misfortunes with
sweetness and dignity. Like Onesimus, he seemed to find his only
relief in the strenuous performance of the tasks allotted to him by
the _ergastularius_, and as Onesimus watched him he felt convinced
that he was there for no crime, and also that he was a Christian.
His conjecture was turned into a certainty by an accident. One day,
as Hermas was digging the stubborn soil, something dropped out of the
fold of his dress. He snatched it up hastily and in confusion, and
seemed relieved when he noticed that no one but Onesimus had seen
him. But the quick eyes of the Phrygian had observed that what he
dropped was a tiny fish rudely fashioned in glass, on which had
been painted the one word CΩCΙC, ‘May’st thou save!’ They were not
uncommon among Christians, and some of them have been found in the
catacombs.
The fettered slaves were taken out in gangs every morning under the
guardianship of armed drivers, whose whips enforced diligence, and
whose swords protected them from assault. The refractory were soon
reduced to discipline, but those who worked diligently were not often
tormented. In the various works of tillage, Onesimus, hampered though
he was by his intolerable manacles, found some outlet for his pent-up
anguish and hard remorse. But no one can live without some human
intercourse, and one day, when Hermas was working beside him, and
none of the rest were near, Onesimus glanced up at him and said the
one word Ἰχθὺς, ‘Fish.’
Quick as lightning came the whispered answer Ἰχθύδιον, ‘a little
fish,’ by which Hermas meant to imply that he was a weak and humble
Christian.
‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Are you one of us?’
Onesimus sadly shook his head. ‘Perhaps I was, or might have been, a
Christian once.’
‘Have you been illuminated and fallen away, unhappy one?’
‘Ask me no more,’ said Onesimus. ‘I am a lost wretch.’
‘The Good Shepherd,’ said Hermas, ‘came to seek and save the lost.’
‘It[*9] is vain to talk to me,’ said Onesimus. ‘Tell me of yourself.
You are not a criminal, or a madman, or a barbarian, like these.’
‘Talk not of them with scorn,’ said Hermas. ‘Are they worse than the
harlots and sinners whose friend Christ was?’
Onesimus would not talk of Christ. ‘I never saw you,’ he said, ‘in
Cæsar’s household.’
‘No,’ said Hermas; ‘I was the slave of Pedanius Secundus, the city
Præfect. He has no rustic prison, and, being a friend of Nero, he
asked his freedman to get leave to send me here.’
‘But why?’
‘He bade me do what I could not do. Seeing that I was strong
and vigorous, he wanted me to marry one of his slave-girls. The
worshippers of the gods know nothing of what marriage means. I
loved a Christian maiden; I refused the union with a girl of evil
character, who, being beautiful, had been the victim of Pedanius
already. He scourged me; he tortured me; he threatened to fling me
into his fish-ponds; and, when I still held out, he sent me here.’
‘Is there no escape from this horrible place?’
‘When you go in again, look round you, and see how hopeless is the
attempt. The ergastulum is half subterranean. Its windows are narrow,
and high above our heads. If we attempted to escape, the least noise
would wake the jailers, and some of these around us would be the
first to curry favour by helping to defeat our plan.’
‘Is bribery useless?’
‘Even if I could get the money, I do not think it right to bribe.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think that Christ means us to endure all He sends. I
trust in Him. If He sends me hunger, I bear it. If He casts me down,
I believe that in due time He will lift me up. If He suffers me to be
sent to prison, I try to turn the prison into His Temple. But I feel
sure that He will deliver me--and that soon.’
Hermas was not wrong. His incarceration was short, because he was
one of the few slaves in the family of Pedanius whom the Præfect
could trust. Pedanius was a man whose cruel indifference and
imperious temper made him more than usually obnoxious to his slaves.
He lived in terror of them, and tried to avert danger by inspiring
terror into them. He could not do without Hermas. He did not know
that he was a Christian; but he knew that in other houses besides
his own there had recently sprung up a class of slaves honest and
faithful, and that Hermas was one of them. He married his slave-girl
to another youth, and Hermas was set free.
And then Onesimus, seeing that every other method of escape was
impossible, tried the effects of bribery. He had managed, though
with infinite difficulty, to conceal the gold piece which Octavia
had given him, and he had noted that one of the underlings of the
prison-keeper seemed to be not unkindly disposed to him. He was a man
named Croto, chosen for the office because his stalwart proportions
and herculean strength would make him formidable to any unruly slave;
but there was a certain rough honesty and kindliness in his face
which made Onesimus think that he might move his compassion.
Seizing his opportunity one day, as Croto passed him in the field, he
boldly whispered,
‘Croto, if I gave you an _aureus_, would you swear to let me have a
chance to escape?’
Croto looked long and hard at his beautiful face, and walked on
without a word. But as he returned from his rounds he touched him,
and said,
‘Yes; I pity you. You are not like the rest of this herd of swine.
Such things as an escape have happened ere now, and no one is the
wiser. Masters don’t care to ask many questions.’
‘I will trust you,’ said Onesimus; and tearing the _aureus_ from the
hem of his dark serge dress, he slipped it into Croto’s hand.
‘Keep awake to-night. The two who guard the door shall be drunk.
Get up a disturbance after midnight; be near the door, and when it
opens-- The plan may fail, but it is the only chance I can give you.’
Onesimus pointed in despair to the fetters on his feet.
‘When a slave has shown himself quiet and reasonable, they are
sometimes removed; and yours shall be. But the manacles on your
wrists must remain; they are never removed at night.’
Onesimus made his plans. At the dead of night, when the prison
was plunged in darkness--for oil was much too dear to be wasted
on chained slaves--he raised a great outcry, as though he had been
suddenly attacked. The slaves sprang up from their pallets, heavy
and confused with sleep. But Onesimus had all his senses on the alert,
and by violently pushing one, jostling against another, and striking
a third, he soon had the whole place in a tumultuous uproar of rage
and panic, during which he quietly crouched down beside the door. It
was opened by the sleepy and drunken guardians, to find the cause of
the disturbance, and, before they could be reinforced by their more
sober colleagues, Onesimus dashed the lamp out of the hand of one
of them, tripped up the other, and ran to hide himself in the dark
corner of an adjacent street, behind the Temple of Fortune. He
succeeded, though with great pain, in forcing one hand free from
the chain; and hiding the other, with the manacle which dangled from
it, under his sleeve, he determined, at the first gleam of light, to
try and find some assembly of Christians. He knew that it was their
custom to meet at earliest dawn in secret places--generally, if
possible, the secluded entrance to some sand-pit--to sing hymns to
Christ as God, before the slumbering pagan population began to stir.
He was fortunate, for soon, with senses preternaturally quickened
by peril, he heard at no great distance the faint sound of a hymn.
He made his way towards the spot, and concealed himself till the
congregation should break up. He knew that the last to leave was
generally the Presbyter; and, waiting for him, he called him as he
passed.
The Presbyter started, and said, ‘Who goes there?’
Onesimus stepped out of his hiding-place, and said, ‘Oh, for the love
of Christ, help me to get free from this chain!’
‘Thou usest the language of a Christian,’ said the Presbyter, ‘but
thy chain would prove thee a fugitive or a criminal.’
‘I have erred,’ said Onesimus; ‘but I am not a criminal.’
The Presbyter fixed on him a long and troubled look.
‘Thou hast adjured me,’ he said, ‘in the name of Christ: I dare not
refuse. But neither must I, for thy sake, imperil the brethren. Hide
thyself again. I will send my son, Stephanus, to file thy chain, and
then thou must depart. If thou hast erred, may Christ forgive thee!’
It was not many minutes before the young man came, and, without a
word, filed the thinnest part of the manacle till Onesimus was free.
‘Peace be with thee, brother!’ said Stephanus. ‘Men begin to stir.
Thou wilt be in danger. We dare not shelter thee. It were best to
hide here till nightfall. Food shall be brought thee.’
Onesimus saw that the advice was good. Search might be made for
him; but Antium was a large place, and the sand-pit might escape
observation. It was so; bread and water were left near his
hiding-place, and at night he made his way to Gaieta, which was
twenty miles away from Antium.