After half an hour’s fighting in terrible earnest, in which each

side had exchanged many a well-aimed blow, and had shown prodigies of

skill, valour, and swiftness, many of the gladiators had fallen, and

others dropped their arms in sign of defeat. Their vanquishers strode

over them awaiting the signal to be executioners of their brethren.

The fight was stopped till the signal had been given with ruthless

unanimity. The defeated men, like those who had been killed before

them, gazed without blenching on the hard and lolling multitude, as

though to show by their calm demeanour how easy a thing it was to die.

But to make sure that they had been really killed, once more a

slave entered, who, for variety’s sake, was dressed in the wings

and carried the serpent-rod of Mercury. He touched each corpse with

a red-hot iron wand. No limb shrank from his touch. Other attendants,

therefore, laid the dead on biers--which the admiring spectators

observed to be inlaid with amber--and they were carried out through

the gate of Libitina into the spoliarium, where they were carelessly

flung out in a heap.[82]

So far both the tiros had escaped. They had instinctively avoided

each other, and neither had butchered his opponent except in fair

fight. Of the eight who survived, four were Samnites and mirmillos,

four were net-throwers. They thought that the fight was over and that

they might severally be regarded as victors, and might look for the

gifts of crowns and money, or even of the foil which set them free

from the horrid trade. They stepped back beyond the lines which

the trainer had marked, resting on their arms, and expecting to be

ushered out of the triumphal gate.

The multitude had far other intentions. They were not yet sated with

slaughter; they had not yet gloated long enough on faces convulsed

with the death-agony; they wanted to see how the beautiful young

Phrygian would look when an opponent stood over him with a sword at

his throat.

But the soul of Glanydon was filled with disgust and disdain. He

loathed those fat, shouting, comfortable burghers, those hard-faced

women, those finical dandies, of whom he felt that he could have

driven a score before him like sheep. He strode to the barriers and

set his back against them, refusing to fight.

A yell of fury rose from the people. ‘Kill him!’ they shouted. ‘Kill

him! scourge him! burn him! Why is he so afraid of cold steel? Why

can’t he die like a man? Ho! scourgers, lash the youth into the

combat again, to make the sides equal.’

The Briton stood as in a dream, and as his thoughts reverted to his

home and the maiden whom he loved, the amphitheatre swam before his

eyes. Five or six mastigophori came running up to him, and he felt

the curling lash of one of them come stinging round his body. The

agony aroused him. With a cry as of a wounded lion he sprang on the

scourger, and with one buffet laid him senseless, while the others

fled in confusion before him. Then, with the boldness of despair, he

strode under the podium, and, raising his clenched fist, cursed the

Emperor aloud.

‘Murderer of thy mother!’ he cried; ‘thou infamy of manhood, I will

fight again. But think not that thou shalt escape. Speedily the

doom shall overtake thee, and thy death shall be more shameful and

horrible than mine.’

He had thundered forth so loudly his indignant words that they rang

through the whole amphitheatre, and the wildest tumult arose. The

Emperor cowered back in his seat, pale with superstitious terror,

yet almost suffocated with rage; and his favourite page, springing

up from the low stool at his feet, began to sprinkle his face with

perfume.

The Prætorians drew their swords, and in one moment would have slain

the criminal who thus dared to blaspheme their human god. That a

common gladiator--a thing to flesh men’s swords upon--should dare

to curse the Emperor! It was a portent! But there was no time

to interfere, for, with a shout, Glanydon sprang back among the

gladiators, and began so furious an affray that the other side gave

way and fled. He sprang on an opponent, and the crimson rush that

followed his sword-thrust again awoke the deep ‘Habet!’ of the

excited crowd. But as he pressed on, now blind with fury, he fell,

face forward, over the loose helmet of a slain mirmillo, and before

he could recover himself a netsman, seizing his opportunity, flung

his net, entangled the limbs of the Briton by a dexterous twist, and,

without waiting for any signal, drove his trident into his breast.

The Briton died without a groan. But the advantage of the light-armed

fighters was only momentary. Their courage had been daunted by

Glanydon, and, after a few moments of flight and fight, the Samnites

were victorious and the net-throwers were all wounded and dropped

their arms, except Onesimus. They knelt with their forefingers

uplifted, and, as they had fought with courage and had been hardly

used, handkerchiefs began to be waved in their favour and thumbs to

be turned downwards. Octavia and Acte had both recognised the face

of Onesimus as he retreated before one of the Samnites, and failed to

entangle him by the throw of his net. Filled with pity, they turned

their thumbs downward in sign that the combat should be stopped and

the lives of the defeated be spared.

But unhappily Onesimus was only a few feet distant from Nero, and

Nero had recognised him too. The curse of Glanydon had shaken the

Emperor’s nerves. He was in a peculiarly brutal mood, and, with

thumb turned towards his breast, he gave the fatal sign that the four

netsmen should be slain. Three of them were so deeply wounded already

that their limbs were bathed in blood, and without an instant’s

pause the Samnites thrust their swords through them to the hilt. But

the sight seemed to inspire Onesimus with some divine despair. He

seized his trident and dagger--he had already gathered the net round

his shoulder--and, springing towards one of the Samnites, flung,

entangled, tripped, and stabbed him. Plucking his trident from the

wound, but not waiting to recover his net, he flew on the second and

smote him down. The third, who was already staggering from a wound

received earlier in the fight dropped his arms and upheld his

forefinger, and, before the fourth could recover from his amazement,

Onesimus, leaving the defeated combatant, had again seized his net

and chased his opponent with it in act to throw. Being far superior

in speed, he swiftly overtook him, flung the net and, hurling his

opponent to the ground, brandished his dagger over him. The peopled

walls of the amphitheatre rang with shouts of delight and admiration.

Never had they seen a more astonishing and gallant feat. This

retiarius--and he a mere tiro--had, single-handed, defeated four

Samnites in succession. The thing was unheard of. Every thumb was

turned up for Onesimus to give the finishing stroke to his conquered

enemy, and thousands of voices clamoured that, as the sole surviving

victor of the combat, he should be rewarded with the palm and foil.

But the brief spasm of wrath was over. Onesimus could not and would

not butcher his comrades in cold blood. He recognised in the young

Samnite a gladiator named Kalendio, one of the least objectionable of

his fellows in the school--the only one who had never gone out of his

way to annoy or taunt him. At the same moment he caught sight of the

body of Glanydon. A rush of tears blinded him; he flung down net and

dagger and trident, and, retreating to the barrier, stood there with

folded arms. The acclamations which had greeted his prowess were

followed by a groan of astonishment and disappointment. Kalendio had

by this time torn and cut himself free from the net, and sprang upon

the unhappy Phrygian who had spared his life. Onesimus did not resist

him or appeal for mercy; the Samnite, who was an utter stranger to

the scruples and compunctions which had led Onesimus to spare him,

drove his sword into him; life and sense flowed from him, and he fell

heavily upon the bloody sand.

CHAPTER XL

_THE SPOLIARIUM_

‘Sanguinem quoque gladiatorum bibunt, ut viventibus poculis,

comitiales morbi ... At hercule illi ex homine ipso sorbere

efficacissimum putant calidum spirantemque, et una ipsam

animam ex osculo vulnerum.’--PLINY, _N. H._ xxviii. 2.

A few days before the scene described in the last chapter there had

been gladness in the bright but humble home of Pudens. He had risen

to the rank of a primipilar centurion, and was now in a position to

ask the British king Caradoc for the hand of his lovely Claudia. He

had only delayed his nuptials until he felt himself able to give his

bride a secure and fitting home. Everything was fresh and beautiful

in the adornments of the house. The atrium was full of flowers

and statues, the door was hung with garlands, the frescoes in the

tablinum and triclinium were all new. No mythological scene had been

admitted, but the walls of the triclinium were painted with festoons

of fruit and flowers and trellises of roses, among which little

winged genii held their sports; and the tablinum with scenes of

street life and the toils of agriculture, and purple vineyards, as

perfect as the pencil of Dorotheus could make them. One little corner

of the fresco was universally admired as a masterpiece. Pudens had

asked the painter to imitate one of the vases of iridescent glass

which were then in fashion, and, in honour of Claudia, to fill it

with lilies. Pudens had greatly admired a similar painting on the

wall of the house of Germanicus on the Palatine (where it may be seen

to this day), and in reproducing it Dorotheus had surpassed himself.

The betrothal had taken place some time before, and on that occasion

Pudens had given to his future bride a golden necklace of old

Etrurian workmanship, with pendants of amethyst. It gleamed round

her fair neck as she sat waiting for the bridal summons in her

father’s house, trying to dispel the gloom which fell on the old king

when he recalled that he was losing for a time the light of his home.

All the ordinary conventions of a Roman marriage were carried out,

except such as were purely pagan. Claudia was dressed in a long white

tunic with purple fringe, bound round the waist with an embroidered

girdle. Her bridal veil and her shoes were of bright yellow, as

custom required, and the long fair hair which fell over her shoulders

had been duly parted with the point of a spear. It was evening, and

the three youths who were to accompany her stood laughing in the

vestibule, and ready to start. One of them was Titus, who was to

carry before her a torch of white-thorn; the other two were Flavius

Clemens and young Aulus Plautius, who walked on either side to

support her arms. The fourth lad, who was called the camillus,

and who carried in a vase some of the bride’s jewels and childish

playthings, was Marcus, the bright little son of Seneca. She herself

bore in her hand a distaff and spindle full of wool, as a type of

domestic industry. Outside the door waited her friends, five of whom

carried wax candles and the others pine-wood torches. And so, with

songs and laughter and snatches of the old Thalassio, the happy

procession made its way through the streets till they reached the

door of Pudens. When she had wound wool round the doorposts and

touched them with wolf’s fat, his groomsmen--who were chiefly his

brother-officers--lifted Claudia across the threshold to prevent

any ill-omened stumble. Within the vestibule stood Pudens, with fire

and water. These she had to touch, as symbols of purification, which

might be regarded as Christian no less than pagan; and then she spoke

the marriage formula--‘Where thou art Gaius I am Gaia.’ After this

she was led to a seat upon an outspread sheepskin, and Pudens handed

to her the keys of the house. The bridal supper followed, and its

mirth was none the less sparkling from its perfect innocence.

By the wish of both Pudens and Claudia, the slaves of the household

were invited to have their share in the festivities, which lasted for

several days. But the newly wedded pair had in store for Nereus and

his daughter Junia a bliss which they had not dared to anticipate.

At the close of the week of rejoicing he bade them, with a smile, to

accompany him to the Prætor’s tribunal. The order could have but one

meaning--that he meant to set them free. The tears rushed into the

old slave’s eyes. Nereus and Junia had, indeed, learnt to be content

with any condition to which God called them, but now that liberty had

spontaneously been offered they felt an almost incommunicable joy.

Pudens sympathised with them in their emotion, and, with a few

cheering words, bade them walk behind him towards the Forum. The

ceremony of emancipation was very brief. The centurion stated to

the Prætor that he wished to manumit Nereus and Junia--of whom the

latter had been born in his house--for their great merits and long

faithfulness. The Prætor’s lictor laid a rod on each of their heads,

with a slight blow, and turned them each round; then the Prætor

declared them free in accordance with the right of citizens, and they

became _liberti_. On their return home, the rest of the _familia_,

formerly their fellow-slaves, received them with showers of

sweetmeats and clapping of hands and congratulations, and were

allowed to hold one more humble banquet in their honour.

Nereus still wished to serve Pudens and Claudia as their freedman;

but it was arranged that he should live in lodgings near the house.

He and Junia soon made the new home of their freedom look as pleasant

as their circumstances admitted, and one evening they were sitting

hand in hand thanking the Lord of their life for His mercy, when

a timid knock was heard. Opening the door, Junia saw a pretty

slave-girl, who asked to speak with her in private. Junia had known

her as one of the slaves of Pedanius Secundus, and felt the deepest

pity for her because she was afflicted with epilepsy--a disease which

among the ancients was so ill-omened as to be the cause of endless

trouble and distress.

There was but one remedy for the disease which the ancients thought

perfectly efficacious, and it is conceivable that the desperate

nature of this remedy may have had some mysterious effect upon the

nerves, and have proved in some cases to be a real cure through its

influence on the mind of the sufferer. It was to drink blood from a

recent wound.

The consequences of a fit of epilepsy were disastrous. It was called

the comitial disease, because its occurrence put an end to the

most important business of the commonwealth by necessitating

the dissolution of any public assembly. Consequently, persons so

afflicted were condemned to a life of misery, and could never move

about with freedom. Their presence in a house was regarded as a

misfortune, and they were sometimes got rid of to save trouble. The

pretty face and winning ways of poor young Syra had saved her, but

since she heard of the supposed cure for her malady her one desire

had been to avail herself of it.

This had made her go frequently to the games of the amphitheatre, and

linger near the gate of Libitina, through which the confector, who

had, when necessary, to give the finishing stroke, dragged the dead

and wounded gladiators into the spoliarium. She had thus attracted

the notice of the young slave Phlegon, who held this horrible office.

That he did so was not his own fault. He too was a slave of Pedanius,

who had cruelly degraded him to this place in the amphitheatre

as a punishment for a trivial offence, followed by an outbreak

of resentment, when, in his younger days, he had been a favourite

cup-bearer of his master. It would be useless to aver that his

character had not been somewhat brutalised by the hideous duties

forced upon him; but he regarded himself as the victim of necessity,

and therefore as not responsible--a view not without a grim element

of truth in the case of a pagan slave. Seeing Syra as she lingered

about the amphitheatre, he had been struck by her helpless prettiness,

and she had learnt to admire a face which still retained its good

looks, if not its good expression. They fell in love with each other;

but when she was forced to tell him of her misfortune, he declared

all question of marriage to be impossible unless she were cured

of her comitial disease. He had himself persuaded her to come this

evening to the spoliarium after the games, and to try the remedy

which alone seemed to offer any chance of success.

But poor Syra dared not go alone through the darkening, crowded, and

vicious streets, and thought that Junia, as she was now a freedwoman,

could protect her. Junia was always actuated by the principle as well

as by the instinct of kindness. Not guessing the object of the girl’s

errand, but knowing her hapless love for Phlegon, she consented to

accompany her. It cost her a pang to leave her father on that happy

evening, but she knew that with him, no less than with herself, the

claims of charity were paramount, and all the more towards those who

seemed to need it most.

‘Could you find no better youth to love than one of so dire a trade,

Syra?’ she gently asked the girl, as, with their heads covered with

shawls, they went in the deepening dusk down the Via Sacra towards

the amphitheatre.

‘It is not his fault, Junia. He hates it. His heart is naturally

pitiful. He was brought up in the midst of luxury in the house of

Pedanius, where he was a favourite. But Pedanius is a wretch, and

once he treated Phlegon so cruelly that, in a fit of rage, the boy

struck him. He might have been crucified for it, or flung to the

lampreys; but, instead of that, Pedanius made him take to this work

in the amphitheatre. How else could he live?’

‘There are some lives worse than death,’ said Junia.

‘Well,’ answered Syra; ‘many a time he has longed to stab himself

with his own sword; but ... he loves me.’

‘I did not mean that he should have killed himself,’ said Junia;

‘none of us have a right to fling away the life which God gives us.

I meant that it would be worth while facing any risk to escape doing

wrong.’

‘Nothing can be wrong which our masters make us do,’ answered Syra

simply; and Junia could only sigh, for she knew that this was an

axiom with both slaves and their masters.

By this time they had reached the outer door of the spoliarium,

and, in answer to a whispered watchword, Phlegon admitted Syra, who

promised to return very speedily, while Junia waited for her outside.

A few moments only had elapsed when Syra sprang out of the door

agitated and breathless.

‘Oh, Junia!’ she cried; ‘I did it! I did it!’

‘Did what?’

‘I have drunk some blood from a fresh wound, and I am cured.’

‘Horrible!’ said Junia, with a shudder, now for the first time

understanding what Syra had come for.

‘Yes; it _was_ horrible,’ said the girl; ‘but how could I help it?

Every one who saw me in a fit, however slight, used to spit so as to

avert the omen. I tried everything first. I tried galbanum, garlic,

hellebore; I ate some young swallows; I tried to get a bit of the

liver of an elephant, or the brain of a camel, which they say is a

certain remedy.[83] But how could I? Never mind! I am cured now. But

oh, Junia!’ exclaimed the girl, ‘as he lay there’--

‘As _who_ lay there?’

‘The young gladiator who fought so bravely to-day, and was dragged

out by the hook as dead--well, he is not dead! His limbs were warm.

I put my hand on his heart; there was a faint pulse.’

‘But who is he?’

‘I thought you knew him, for he was once a slave in your house--that

young Phrygian.’

‘Onesimus!’ exclaimed Junia, with a startled cry.

‘Yes; that was his name. Did you not know that he fought as a

net-thrower to-day?’

‘No,’ she answered faintly. ‘We never go to the games. I had long

lost sight of him, and thought that he had left Rome, or was dead.

Syra, save him!’

‘Phlegon will be glad to save him, if it can be done undiscovered. He

loathes stabbing the poor gladiators when they have not quite been

killed. Yet, if it were discovered that he spared but one of them,

he would certainly be torn to pieces or crucified.’

Junia’s mind was instantly made up. At all costs, Onesimus should

have such chance of life secured to him as nature rendered possible.

She told Syra to let Phlegon speak with her. Entering the spoliarium,

and repressing the awful sense of repugnance which almost made her

faint as the dim light of his lamp glimmered over the heap of mangled

corpses, she recognised the features of Onesimus, and convinced

herself that the spark of life was not wholly quenched in him. Then,

putting into the hand of the confector a gold coin which had been the

gift of Claudia, she entreated him to let her come back and remove

the hapless youth. He consented, and touched by her anguish, he

himself took the body of the gladiator in his arms, laid him on his

own pallet of straw, and poured some common Sabine wine down his

throat. Junia, meanwhile, thankful now for the slave-girl’s company,

went to the house of Linus, which was near at hand, and implored his

aid. The good old pastor readily consented, and, when it was quite

dark, took a mule and went with the two girls to the door of the

spoliarium, where Phlegon awaited them.

He had not been idle. With such rough kindness as was possible to him

he had washed away in tepid water the stains of blood from the breast

and face of the poor gladiator, and had bandaged the deep wounds in

his breast.

With tender care they lifted the still unconscious Phrygian upon a

bundle of soft clothes which they had laid upon the mule. Linus,

though the task was not without peril, agreed to tend and give him

shelter for that night.

Then Junia fled back through the deserted streets. Nereus had begun

to be anxious at her long delay, and listened to her story with a

grave face. He had never liked Onesimus, and the youth’s many sins

and errors might well have shaken his confidence. But he and Junia

had read not long before the letter which Paul of Tarsus had written

to their brother-Christians in Corinth; and, if he wavered for a

moment, he was decided in the cause of mercy by Junia’s whispered

words, ‘Love suffereth long and is kind; love thinketh no evil;

beareth all things; believeth all things; endureth all things;

hopeth all things.’

It was agreed that after dark next evening Nereus should remove the

dreadfully wounded sufferer from the house of Linus. Pudens, to whom

he told the whole story, arranged, with Claudia’s full consent, that

Onesimus, as a former member of the household, should be concealed

and tended in the hut of one of their country slaves who had charge

of a little farm not far from Aricia. This peasant was a Christian,

and he carried out the injunctions of his master with faithful

kindness.

For many weeks Onesimus hung between life and death; at last, slowly,

very slowly, he began to recover. Youth and the natural strength of

his constitution, aided by the fresh air of the country, the pure

milk, the quiet, the simple wholesome food, and the fact that there

was nothing to thwart the recuperative forces of nature, won the day

in the battle, and once more Death released the victim whom he seemed

to hold securely in his grasp.

CHAPTER XLI

_THE KING OF THE GROVE_

‘Vallis Aricinæ sylva præcinctus opaca

Est lacus, antiqua religione sacer.’

OVID, _Fast._ iii. 263.

When Onesimus recovered full consciousness he did not recognise

his unfamiliar surroundings, and was too weak to piece together the

broken threads of his memory. Gradually he recalled the incidents

of the past. He remembered the gladiators’ school, the fight in the

amphitheatre, the death of Glanydon, the recoil of feeling which

prevented him from killing the Samnite Kalendio, even the sensation

which he felt when the sword-thrust pierced his ribs. All the

rest was darkness. Where was he? How had he been rescued from the

spoliarium? How had he escaped the finishing blow of the confector?

Old Dromo, the vineyard-keeper, was very reticent, for he did not

wish to endanger any of those who had taken part in the youth’s

deliverance. But the quick intelligence of Onesimus, working upon

broken hints conjectured that Nereus and Junia, as members of his

old _familia_, must have had some share in saving his life. Pudens,

when he visited his vineyard to receive his accounts, came and saw

him, and spoke a few kindly words; but the youth could see that the

centurion had lost his old regard for him. He saw no one else, except

occasionally one of the peasant neighbours. Junia, of course, came

not. Such a visit would have been impossible to her maiden modesty.

What could she do but silently combat a love which she felt to be

hopeless? How could she ever marry a gladiator with such a past, and

with so hopeless a probable future--a renegade, to all appearance,

from the faith of Christ? She could but pray for him, and then strive

to prevent her thoughts from turning to him any more. And Nereus came

not to see him. He distrusted him, as he thought of all the crimes

through which he must have fallen, from the position of a Christian

brother, into such a sink of degradation as a gladiators’ school.

Lonely, disgraced, abandoned, in deadly peril of his life from

a hundred sources if once he should be recognised, prostrated by

weakness, often suffering torments from the pain of wounds which

as yet were but half healed, Onesimus sank deeper and deeper into

despair. Repentance and the love of God may often grow in the midst

of adversity, like some Alpine gentian amid the snows; but sometimes

there is a deadliness in the chill of hopeless misfortune which kills

every green leaf of faith. The youth, smitten by so many calamities,

began to feel as though the river of his life, which might have been

so full and rejoicing, had lost itself in mud and sand. His sun had

gone down while it yet was day. What was he to do? How could he live?

Why had they saved him? If Nereus and Junia and Pudens had done it,

by what means he knew not, it was a cruel kindness. Why should they

have preserved him to a destiny so miserable? Junia must despise him

now: why should she have wished that his life should be spared?

He murmured against God in his heart. He cursed the day of his birth.

He had had many chances and recklessly flung away one after another.

Sometimes he thought of Christ and of all that he had heard from the

lips of Paul in Ephesus about the Friend of publicans and sinners.

But had he not denied the faith? Had he not lived like an apostate?

If Christ could still love him, why was he left in all this misery

and hopelessness? Why did no ray of light gleam through his darkened

sky?

And thus he made his heart like the clay which the fire does but

harden, not like the gold which it melts. But, notwithstanding his

despair, he grew stronger. In two or three months his wounds healed,

and he was free to leave his couch of hay and beechen leaves and to

wander about the exquisite scenery of his temporary home. Aricia was

built in a valley, the crater of an extinct volcano, at the foot of

the Alban Mount. Below it the Lacus Nemorensis, ‘the Mirror of Diana,’

lay gleaming like a transparent emerald, while the steep lava slopes

which descended to its level were rich with vineyards and groves and

flowers.

But he seldom ventured out in the broad daylight. Aricia lay on the

Appian road, only sixteen miles from Rome, and its hill was the haunt

of a throng of clamorous beggars, who assailed with their importunity

every vehicle that passed along that ‘queen of ways.’ Hundreds were

familiar with the features of Onesimus, and, though their beauty was

now impaired by pallor and emaciation, he might again be recognised,

with fatal consequences. He only went out after sunset, and by the

unfrequented paths which led him towards the grove of Diana and

the Nemorensian lake. The lower slopes of the Alban Mount were so

overshadowed with dense foliage that, among the woods, he could

easily escape observation and indulge without disturbance in his

melancholy thoughts.

One day, as he sat under a huge chestnut-tree, he heard the pipe of a

shepherd lad driving home his herd of goats from the upland pastures;

and, as the hut of the boy’s parents adjoined the lodge of Pudens’

vineyard, he recognised him as an acquaintance whose name was Ofellus.

But instead of coming up to talk with him, as usual, the boy gave a

low whistle and beckoned. Onesimus thought that Ofellus only wanted

to play a game at _mora_ after he had herded his goats, but the boy

laid a finger on his lip, and made signs to him to be on his guard

until they had got some distance from the place where he was sitting.

‘What is the matter?’ whispered the Phrygian, in alarm. ‘Is any one

pursuing me?’

‘No,’ answered Ofellus, ‘but if the king sees you he will think you

mean mischief.’

‘The king! What king?’

‘Don’t you know?’ said the boy. ‘Come and help me to drive in my

goats, and I will tell you.’

When they were well out of the grove, and the goats, with their

frisking kids, which gave Ofellus so much trouble, were safe in their

pen, the boy said: ‘We may speak aloud now; but don’t you really know

who the king is?’

‘I did not know that Romans had had a king since Tarquin the Proud,’

said Onesimus, laughing; ‘unless you mean some Jewish or Eastern

Alabarch, like Herod or Izates.’

‘No, no,’ said Ofellus, ‘but the priest of yon temple has been called

for ages “the King of the Grove.”’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know why, except that there are some sacrifices which only a

king can offer; so they have to call him king, just as they call one

of the priests at Rome “the King of the Sacred Rites.”’

‘Well, but why were you in such terror of this so-called king?’

Again the boy lifted up his hands in astonishment, with the question,

‘Don’t you know?’

Onesimus explained that he was an Asiatic, and did not know much

about the neighbourhood of Rome. Ofellus therefore garrulously poured

out the legend of the place. ‘There was once some Greek or other,’

he said, ‘named Hippolytus, who had vowed to live a virgin life for

Diana. He was killed by the jealousy of his father, who got Neptune

to frighten his chariot horses with a sea monster. So the poor

youth was flung out of his chariot, and dragged to death. Then

Diana brought him here, and raised him to life again, and called him

Virbius, and he was her priest. But, because he was raised to life,

every priest has to murder his predecessor before he can be priest

himself.’

‘And may any one kill the priest who can?’

‘Yes, but first they’ve to pluck the golden bough.’

‘The golden bough?’

‘Yes. It is not really golden, you know; it is that yellow-white

plant, which grows on an old oak in the wood.’

‘Mistletoe?’ said Onesimus.

‘Yes. If a man wants to be king he has to pluck it, and then fight

or murder the present king. If he fails he is killed; if he wins he

kills the king, and becomes king in his place.’

‘Is the king often killed?’

‘Very often. Some runaway slave is sure to kill him, and so escape

the cross or the branding-iron. Hardly a year passes that he is not

attacked. My father says that, before I was born, one king, who was

very strong and fierce, was priest for a good many years; and then

the Emperor Caligula, out of sheer mad malice, sent a strong young

slave on purpose to kill him.’

‘But what harm would the king have done to us?’

‘None to a boy like me, nor to one who is free-born; but--’

‘You take me for a runaway slave?’ asked Onesimus.

Ofellus nodded his head, and added, ‘I saw the king among the trees.’

And then he quoted an old Roman song about--

‘The dim lake that sleeps

Beneath Aricia’s trees;

The trees in whose dim shadow

The ghastly priest doth reign:

The priest who slew the slayer,

And shall himself be slain.’

Onesimus, too, had seen the Priest of Diana; but, as he was some

distance off, had not observed him closely. Now, however, the

goat-boy’s words seized his attention. Whoever succeeded in killing

the Nemorensian King was secure from the consequences of all past

misdeeds, and had ample maintenance and a fine spacious temple to

live in. Wandering down the rocky bed of the stream sacred to Egeria,

Onesimus had seen the shrine, and had wondered why the trees around

it were hung with so many gay woollen streamers, and so many votive

tablets; and why women came to it from Rome with garlands on their

heads and torches in their hands; and why they treated the priest

with so much reverence.

Surely the man’s life was a ghastly one, with a murder on his

conscience and a murderer on his track! Yet a terrible purpose

gradually fixed itself in the mind of Onesimus. He persuaded himself

that he was utterly God-forsaken; that such a deluge of calamities

could not otherwise have come upon him. Every hope of his life was

frustrated; for him there seemed no future possibility of honesty, or

happiness, or home, and his heart was burdened with the sore weight

of a hopeless love. Why should he not become the King of the Arician

Grove? ‘_The king is always a runaway slave._’ Those words of Ofellus

rang in his ear. He was regaining strength. He was swift of foot. His

gladiatorial training had taught him how to wield a sword. If Christ

had forsaken him, why should not he forsake Christ? What mattered it

that he would soon be murdered in his turn? For a few years, at any

rate, he might keep his life, and be in honour, and share in gay

festivals. He resolved to watch for his opportunity, and to try his

chance.

Full of his desperate purpose, he stole under the dark shadows of the

trees, with no guide but the straggling starlight, to find the great

oak which Ofellus had described to him. It grew deep in the green

hollow close beside the lake, and the hoary mistletoe tufted its

upper branches. He climbed the tree, plucked ‘the golden bough,’ and

waited for the rising of the moon to attack the Arician priest if he

came out of the temple, as he usually did, before he went to rest.

It was not long before the moon began to silver the dense foliage of

the grove, and then he heard a wicket open, and from the place where

he knelt crouched among the brushwood he saw the tall figure of the

priest, whose shadow fell across the sward and almost reached his

hiding-place. He was a gaunt-looking man, but of powerful frame. He

carried a large sword in his hand and looked round him suspiciously

on every side.[84] In his excitement Onesimus moved, and a fallen

branch snapped under his foot. The priest looked round with a

startled glance, and Onesimus could see his features working in the

moonlight. He had armed himself for his frightful purpose with the

only weapon he could find--a reaping-hook, which he took down from

Dromo’s wall. Listening intently, the priest walked along the grassy

path, but as no other sound followed he seemed to relax his vigilance

and turned back. Then, with a sudden shout, Onesimus sprang upon him.

But habitual terror had made the priest an adept at self-defence. It

was impossible to take him wholly off his guard. At the first sound

he turned, quick as lightning, and, dropping his sword, seized with

one arm the hand which grasped the reaping-hook--the gleam of which

he had caught in the moonlight--and with the other dealt Onesimus a

blow on the face which knocked him stunned upon the turf. To stoop

over his prostrate form and wrench from his grasp the reaping-hook,

was the work of a moment. With a scornful laugh he flung the weapon

over the wall which enclosed the sacred shrine, and then placed his

foot on the youth’s breast.

Onesimus came to his senses, felt the heavy foot on his breast, and

opened his eyes.

‘So,’ said the priest, with a grim laugh, ‘you wanted to be Rex

Nemorensis, did you? It’s none so enviable a post, let me tell you;

and it will take a stronger and craftier man than you to kill Croto

when his day comes.’

‘Kill me at once,’ said the Phrygian, with a groan.

Croto stooped to pick up his sword, and placed its point at the

throat of his assailant; but he paused. ‘By Hercules,’ he said--‘or

perhaps officially I ought to say by Virbius--I have seen this face

before!’

Onesimus looked up at him, and dimly recalled the slave-prison at

Antium.

‘Do you know me?’ asked the priest.

‘I once gave an _aureus_ to a man named Croto to let me escape from a

slave-prison. You are like him.’

‘I am Croto,’ said the priest, again laughing grimly. ‘Is that how

you repay your benefactor? Do you know that it is through you I am

here, and am never sure any day of not being murdered before evening?

Some sneaking slave betrayed that I had let you escape from Antium.

I was threatened with chains and torture. I had seen enough of that

sort of thing, so I fled. I thought of Aricia; plucked the golden

bough, as I see you have done; and killed Manius, my predecessor.’

‘I did not know,’ answered Onesimus. ‘Kill me. I ask nothing better.’

But Croto still did not drive home the sword. ‘Poor wretch!’ he said.

‘You are but a youth, and are you tired of life already?’

‘Utterly tired, or I should not have been the wicked fool I have

shown myself to-night.’

‘Why should I kill thee?’ said Croto. ‘Swear never again to attack

me, and thou shalt go unscathed.’

‘It would be kinder to kill a wretch whom God hates.’

‘Go,’ said Croto. ‘Diana has so many victims, she can spare this one.

Give me your “golden bough,” and let us part good friends.’

Onesimus rose, miserable and crestfallen. ‘I am penniless,’ he said,

‘or I would try to show myself grateful.’

‘Tush!’ answered Croto. ‘I am King of the Grove and priest of Diana

and of Virbius--whoever Virbius was,’ he added under his breath. ‘The

women give me so many offerings that, but for the never knowing where

or when the sword will smite, I should be as fat as a Salian, and I

feed nearly as well. Nay, poor lad, I can well do something for thee

and never feel the loss. I have more money than I know what to do

with, for I can never leave the grove. Take some. I dare say you will

need it.’

He forced into the youth’s hands a leather bag, full of silver coins,

and turned away. Onesimus stood abashed in the moonlight. Then he

burst into tears. He had found pity and magnanimity in the heart

of the doomed and murderous fugitive! Was there no hope for such a

man? Shall any germ of good in man’s soul perish unperfected? Shall

generosity and forgiveness pass without their reward? The unexpected

mercy extended to him by the grim priest of Virbius, in that dark

wood of Nemi, brought a blessing to Onesimus, and as he went back

to Dromo’s hut, the whole scene--the lake, the white mist, the

moonlit-silvered foliage, the twinkling of the stars, the song of the

nightingale, the silence of the hills--fell with a healing touch on

the anguish of his heart.

CHAPTER XLII

_A MASSACRE OF SLAVES_

‘Frigidus a rostris manat per compita rumor.’

HOR. _Sat._ II. vi. 50.

‘Servos in numero hominum esse non pateris?’--SEN. _Ep._

xlvii., ap. Macrob. _Sat._ i. 11.

Rome was in a state of wild excitement. The city had hardly been

more agitated when the news of Caligula’s murder had spread among

the citizens. The assassination of an emperor was always a possible

event. The little human divinity was certain to make so many enemies,

and was envied by so many powerful rivals, that the fate of Cæsar

after Cæsar made it no more than a nine days’ wonder if another fell.

But the victim this time was not a Cæsar. It was one of the chief

men in the city, a man of consular rank--no less a person than the

Præfect of the city, Pedanius Secundus.

And the dread news was whispered from mouth to mouth that he had been

murdered by one of his own slaves!

The people in the Forum and the Velabrum and the Subura and at Libo’s

Well, and the merchants at the Janus, and the patricians in their

palaces, and the priests in the temples, and the boys of Rome as they

played on the steps of the Julian Basilica, were all discussing this

sinister event.

Tigellinus and Petronius, and a group of courtiers, were standing

together under the porch of the Temple of Castor when the news

reached them. They eagerly questioned the messenger.

‘Is it certain that the murderer was a slave?’ asked Tigellinus in

tones of horror.

‘He was caught red-handed,’ said the messenger. ‘The dagger was

wrenched from him, dripping with blood. His name is Vibius and he

does not deny the crime.’

‘And what was his motive?’

‘Some say that the Præfect had promised him his liberty for a certain

sum of money. The slave pinched himself for years to raise it, and

when he brought the money Pedanius broke his bargain.’

The hearers only shrugged their shoulders.

‘That happens commonly enough,’ said Cæcina Tuscus, Nero’s

foster-brother, who had himself been born a slave.

‘It only meant,’ said Senecio, ‘that the Præfect had changed his

mind.’

‘Others say,’ continued the man, ‘that Pedanius had a favourite, who

had been also a favourite of Vibius, who was driven wildly jealous.’

‘The notion of a slave presuming to have a favourite!’ lisped the

effeminate Quintianus. ‘What next?’

‘How many slaves had Pedanius?’ asked Petronius.

‘Four hundred.’

‘Is that all?’ said Tigellinus. ‘It is lucky that he had no more.

They will be executed, every one of them--that’s one comfort. Let us

thank the gods for the Silanian law.’

They saw Seneca approaching them; and it was evident that he had

heard the news, for his face wore a look of sorrow and alarm.

‘How say you, Seneca?’ asked Lucan; ‘is the Silanian law to be

carried out, and are all Pedanius’s four hundred slaves to die?’

‘I should hope not,’ said the philosopher, indignantly. ‘What! are we

to butcher this multitude, of whom three hundred and ninety-nine are

probably innocent? The Silanian law is fit for barbarians. Every good

feeling within us abhors the cruel wrong of murdering young and old,

innocent and guilty, in one promiscuous massacre.’

‘But that the Præfect of Rome should be murdered by one of his own

slaves!’ murmured his hearers.

‘By one of his own slaves--but maddened, report says, by an

intolerable wrong.’

‘Wrong?’ answered Vestinus, in surprise. ‘Are not, then, our slaves

our chattels? Has a slave rights?’

‘He has the rights of a human being,’ answered Seneca. ‘Are not our

slaves of the same flesh and blood as we? Has not a slave feelings?

Has not a slave passions?’

‘Yes; very bad passions,’ said young Vedius Pollio.

‘Do they stand alone in that respect?’ asked Seneca, fixing a keen

look on him. ‘Do masters never show bad passions?’

Every one understood the allusion, for in the days of Augustus the

young man’s ancestor, Vedius Pollio, had ordered a slave to be flung

into the fish-pond to feed the lampreys, merely because he fell and

broke a crystal vase. Augustus, who was dining with Pollio that day,

was so indignant that he ordered the slave to be set free, and every

crystal vase in the house to be broken.

‘Seneca will begin to think himself mistaken if I say that _I_ agree

with him,’ said Petronius. ‘Nevertheless, I do. I cannot bear to

enter a friend’s house and hear it clanking with chains and ringing

with yells, like an ergastulum.’

‘Petronius is the soul of good nature,’ said Cassius Longinus; ‘but I

pity Rome if those maudlin views prevail.’

‘Yes,’ echoed the fierce Cingonius Varro; ‘so many slaves so many

foes. We nobles live all our lives in a sort of beleaguered garrison.

If the Senate does not do its duty, I shall emigrate.’

‘Who makes our slaves our foes?’ answered Seneca. ‘Mine are not. Most

of them are faithful to me. They are my humble friends. I believe

they love me. I know that many of them would die for me. We become

slaves ourselves because we have so many.’

‘Tush!’ said Scævinus. ‘These sentimentalities will ruin us. Why,

some of us have a thousand slaves, and some of us have more. We don’t

know their names, and have to keep a nomenclator to tell us. Galba is

the only person I know who keeps up the ridiculous old fashion of all

the slaves and freedmen coming in twice daily, to say “Good morning”

and “Good evening.” Are we to waste our time in trying to curry

favour with them? I _rule_ mine by the lash and the chain and the

torture. Ha! Pudens, my grave newly-wedded primipilar; here will be

some work for you.’

‘Never!’ said Pudens. ‘I would rather resign my commission than carry

out the Silanian law and superintend the slaughter of the innocent.’

‘And you, my young Titus?’ asked Petronius. ‘I hear you are going

soon to see some military service. Do you think that your step-mother

Cænis and the boy Domitian will be able to keep your slaves in order?’

‘We have but few, Petronius,’ said Titus; ‘but they love us. When I

was ill, all the _familia_ were as tender in their attentions as if

they had been brothers.’

‘Like to like,’ whispered Tigellinus. ‘He is half of slave-origin

himself.’

‘And what may _your_ origin be?’ asked Vestinus, to whom the remark

had been made, and who loathed Tigellinus.

The rumour had spread that all the slaves of Pedanius were to be

executed, and the attitude of the people grew very threatening.

Many of them had been slaves themselves, and many of them lived

in intimacy with the slave population, which immensely outnumbered

the freedmen. Familiar with the insolence and the exactions of the

wealthy, they assembled in throngs and demanded that there should

be a trial, and that the innocent should be spared. Their language

became so menacing that the Senate was hastily convened. It was hoped

by all the more just and kind of the senators that mild counsels

would prevail, and the Silanian decree be repealed or modified.

They pointed out that the extreme rarity of the crime showed that

the peril was not great; that, in this particular instance, Pedanius,

besides being a merciless master, had provoked his own fate; that

there was not a tittle of evidence to prove the complicity of the

_familia_ in this deed of isolated vengeance; that it would be

monstrous to kill innocent boys and girls, and faithful men and

women, for one madman’s crime. But the Senate was carried away

partly by the selfish fears of many of its members, and partly by

the impassioned speech of Cassius Longinus. An eminent jurist, a

conservative who considered the traditions of the past incomparably

superior to the wisdom of the present, a man of great wealth, high

rank, and a certain Roman integrity, he rose in his place, and threw

the weight of his influence into the scale of the old pagan

ruthlessness.

‘Often have I been present, Conscript Fathers,’ he said, ‘at meetings

of the Senate in which I have only protested by my silence against

the innovations which are almost invariably for the worse. I did not

wish you to think that I was unduly biassed by my personal studies,

nor did I wish to weaken such weight as I may possess by too frequent

and fruitless interpositions. But to-day the commonwealth demands my

undivided efforts. A consular of Rome has been murdered in his own

house by a slave’s treachery, and an unrepealed decree of the Senate

threatens punishment to the whole family of slaves who neither

prevented nor revealed the plot. Decree impunity for them, that when

the chief magistracy of the city has been no protection we may each

of us, forsooth, be defended by our own dignity! Who can be protected

by any number of slaves, if four hundred were not enough to protect

Pedanius Secundus? If fear did not suffice to make his slaves

vigilant, which of us will be safe? There are some who do not blush

to pretend,’ he continued, darting an angry glance at Seneca, ‘that

the murderer did but avenge his own wrongs! Let us, then, pronounce

at once that Pedanius was justly murdered! Are we to argue a case

which our wiser ancestors have already decided? Why, even if the

decision had now to be made for the first time, do you imagine that

a slave would have had the daring to murder his master without one

threat, without one rash murmur about his design? He concealed his

plan, forsooth; he prepared his dagger, and no one knew of it! Could

he, then, with equal facility pass through the slaves who were on

night-watch, unfasten the doors of the bedchamber, carry in a light,

perpetrate the bloody deed, without one person being aware of it?

Guilt betrays itself beforehand in many ways. If slaves reveal to us

our peril, we can live, though we be single among multitudes, safe

among those who tremble for themselves--at the worst not unavenged

among the guilty. Our ancestors looked with suspicion on the

character of slaves, even when the slaves, born on their estates or

in their houses, had learnt from infancy to love their master. But in

these days we count _nations_ among our households. Their rites are

different; their religions are foreign or _nil_. We cannot keep in

order this sink and scum of humanity except by fear. But, you say,

“some of the innocent will perish among them.” Be it so! Are no brave

soldiers beaten to death with rods when a routed army is punished by

decimation? No great example can be inflicted without some unfairness,

but the public advantage outweighs the individual injustice; and in

any case, if four hundred slaves do perish, it will be a cheap loss.’

There was more than one senator who burned to refute the glittering

sophisms and cruel hardness of the jurist’s speech; but Pætus Thrasea

was absent, as he often was, and Seneca was cowed by his habitual

timidity. He felt how easily he could have torn the speech of

Longinus into shreds, and with what genuine lightnings of indignant

conviction he could have shattered its pedantries and its inhumanity.

But he had not the nerve to confront the impulses of a selfish panic.

He longed to plead the cause of mercy and of justice, as he was

so well capable of doing, and had the murmurs of dissent which the

speech of Cassius evoked been but a little louder he might have

plucked up courage and have saved the Senate from a deed of blood.

But it was whispered on all sides that Nero leaned to severity,

and Seneca’s heart failed him once more. The murmurs died away; and

Cingonius Varro, emboldened by the devilish plea of necessity, rose

to propose further that not only the slaves of Pedanius should be

killed, but all the freedmen who lived under his roof be banished.

Nero, however, made known that, while he did not wish the ancient

severity to be mitigated, neither did he wish it to be increased,

and the proposal dropped without a seconder.

But let us notice in passing that retribution followed cruelty. The

merciless met with no mercy themselves. Cassius, who meanwhile had

become blind, was not long afterwards banished by Nero to unwholesome

Sardinia. Varro, a little later, was put to death by Galba just after

he had become Consul elect. Many who thus voted for the murder of the

innocent were murdered though innocent themselves.

The Senate might decree, but the people were indignant even to fury.

Those who knew one or other of these poor slaves, and knew their

innocence of what had been an act of sudden fury on the part of

Vibius, did their utmost to raise a tumult. Hermas, the slave of

Pedanius, whom Onesimus had seen in the Antian ergastulum, was known

to all the Christians as one of their brethren; and though their

principles forbade them to resist the decree of the state by violence,

their lamentations and appeals that some pity should be extended to

the victims stirred the hearts of the multitude. And they knew that

many senators and Prætorians were in their favour. At one time an

attempt at rescue seemed probable. A crowd armed with stones and

torches gathered in front of the house of Pedanius, where the four

hundred slaves were now in chains under a guard of soldiers. But they

were terrified by the blind deification of the imperial authority,

and a mixed and cowardly mob found no leader to inspirit them to

attack the house.

Titus was deeply moved and excited, and he went to his old friend

Pudens to see if anything could be done. Pudens was dreading lest he

should be appointed to see the execution carried out. When Claudia,

hanging on his shoulder and looking into his manly face with her

innocent blue eyes, entreated him to fear God rather than man, he

assured her with a kiss and a smile, that at all costs, even at the

cost of martyrdom, he would refuse. But Nereus had told him about

poor Hermas, and the sweet and engaging character of that young man

was so well known in the Christian community, that Pudens would have

been ready if possible to provide for his escape.

‘I wish,’ said Titus, ‘that Onesimus had not been killed as he

is said to have been at the last gladiatorial show. There is a

rumour that, after all, he escaped with his life, but if so he has

disappeared, poor fellow, no one knows where. He helped us when

Britannicus was in danger. He might help us now.’

The centurion shook his head. He knew nothing of the attack on the

King of the Grove, and supposed that Onesimus was still with Dromo

at Aricia, but he thought it safest to say nothing about him even to

Titus.

They could think of no step to take; but Nereus, who, as a

confidential freedman, had been present, heard the hint, and he

determined to act upon it on his own responsibility. He knew that

Onesimus was not available, but he knew a young Christian slave-boy

named Protasius in the house of Pudens who had been acquainted with

some of the home-born slaves of Pedanius, and was thus familiar[*12]

with the slaves’ cells in his house. There was no time to lose. The

massacre was to be carried out the next day. Nereus went to the boy,

who said that he knew of a little neglected window half hidden by

thick bushes in the peristyle, and if he could only get there he

could make his way to the cell of Hermas. The night would be dark and

moonless, yet the risk would be terrific, the chance almost hopeless.

But the Christians were taught not to hold their lives dear unto

themselves, and they considered that martyrdom in the cause of duty

was the most glorious of crowns. Further than this, they always

acted together, as a faithful, secret, well-organized body. With

the connivance of the Prætorian Vitalis, who was a Christian, Nereus

found means to get the boy introduced into the house, and, creeping

along in the darkness, he found Hermas tied with cords in his cell.

He had taken a knife with him, the rope was quickly severed, and

both he and Hermas, knowing every intricacy of the house and grounds,

got away in safety with an ease which they attributed to the special

interposition of Heaven in their behalf. What were those glimmering

lights which seemed to flash and fade in the dim silence as they

stole through the peristyle? Was not some white angel of God helping

to deliver them, as angels had stood by the three youths in the

furnace, and had liberated Peter and John from prison? The belief

aided them, for it gave them a confidence which was ready for any

emergency, and contributed in no small measure to the unheard-of

facility of their escape.

Nereus had confided to Junia his secret attempt to save Hermas, and

she pleaded that something should be done at the same time to save

the hapless Syra, who in the mean time had been married to Phlegon.

But this proved to be impossible. All the women slaves were shut up

in the triclinium together, and the door was carefully guarded. Syra

remained among the doomed. Phlegon was still technically the slave of

Pedanius, but as he was not in the household he had been passed over.

This was poor Syra’s only comfort, and it was taken from her. Phlegon

left his duties at the spoliarium, and behaved so menacingly in the

mob that he was seized and, on the evidence of a freedman, included

in those set apart for execution.

Meanwhile, after the humiliating adventure in the grove of Diana,

Onesimus was unwilling to linger at Aricia. With no plan, but in the

restlessness of despair, he disguised himself as well as he could,

and by unfrequented paths slunk back to Rome, not knowing and not

caring what might befall him there. He slept under the vestibule of

the Temple of Mars, and next morning, mingling with the crowd that

surged through the streets, he heard that the dreadful sentence

against the slaves of Pedanius was to be carried into immediate

execution. All thoughts of a rescue had been abandoned, for Nero had

published a notice that any interference with the sentence would be

treated with the extremest penalty. The clang of soldiers’ armour was

heard on every side, and Prætorians lined the entire distance between

the house of Pedanius and the remote part of the Esquiline, where the

slaves were to be killed. The poor victims, tied together by fours,

were led out of the house. Eagerly Onesimus scanned their faces, and

was glad that he did not see the face of Hermas among them.

A little delay occurred when the soldiers on guard discovered that

Hermas had escaped, but as they themselves ran serious peril of being

punished for carelessness in the matter, they prudently held their

tongues.

When the procession began to move, the wail which rose from the

doomed victims was taken up by the multitude, and they abandoned

themselves to their emotions with all the passion of a Southern

people. They wept and wrung their hands, and raised their arms

to heaven, as though to appeal for vengeance. But the Prætorians

surrounded the slaves with drawn swords, and armed gladiators, who

lined the streets, sternly thrust back the surging mob. A ghastly

sense of fascination drew Onesimus to the scene of execution. There

was no time to be particular as to the mode of death. The soldiers,

dreading a riot, were chiefly anxious to get through their odious

task as quickly as possible. One after another, amid groans and

shrieks, and pools of blood, old grey-haired men and women, and young

boys and little children and fair girls, had the sword driven into

their throats or through their hearts. The agony of the boys was

pitiable to witness. Some of them had belonged to the order of slaves

who were chosen for their beauty, were dressed in rich robes, and

pampered with every form of luxury and indulgence. Their mode of life

had left no courage in them, and death meant to them the end of all

things, or some tormenting Tartarus. But in vain they wept, in vain

they pleaded for mercy.

On the other hand, the high bearing of some of the slaves moved a

deeper pity than the fate of these victims of luxury and cruelty.

For some of the Christians in the household of Pedanius, who had not

been so fortunate as Hermas, knew that their brethren were looking on

with prayer and sympathy, and went to their fate, not only with Stoic

dignity, but with beautiful humility and simple peace. They felt

something of the glory of martyrdom. A light shone in their upturned

faces, and there was an accent as of music in their murmured prayers.

There were a few of their heathen fellow-sufferers who bared their

breasts to the sword with stolid indifference, and even with unseemly

levity; but the Christians went to death as to a coronation. One poor

boy--his name was Verus--moved many to tears. When first he heard the

groans of those who fell as the sword smote them, he shrank back and

trembled, for he was little more than a child. His father had become

a convert of Linus, and he had caused his children to be baptised

in infancy, and this was his favourite son. Even in that evil

slave-household the boy had grown up unstained, like some white lily

whose roots are in the mud. When Verus saw the sword driven into

his father’s heart, he sprang back with a cry, and in his excitement

grasped the hand of one of the legionaries. The brutal executioner

flung him back so violently that he fell. Instantly regaining his

composure, he rose to his knees, clasped his hands, and turning his

eyes heavenwards, began to pray--‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’

At that moment the sun shone forth out of dark clouds, and as the

light streamed over him, and made a natural aureole round his bright

hair, they saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Even the

soldier who had raised his hand to strike stood amazed, and delayed

his blow. But with a jeer the ruffian who had flung him back, brought

down his sword on the boy’s head. He fell without a word, and the

blood streamed over the bright face, and bedabbled the fair hair. As

for Syra and Phlegon, they stood hand in hand in mute despair, and

perished together, having known no consolation in life but their pure

love for each other, and appalled by the mystery which crowned lives

so miserable as theirs had been with a death so cruel and undeserved.

In vain the agonised spectators cursed the soldiers, cursed the

dead Pedanius, cursed the Senate, and in their madness did not even

refrain from cursing Nero. Before an hour was over the deed was

done. The yet warm bodies, the yet palpitating limbs, of these three

hundred and ninety-eight victims, were flung into one of the deep

pits of the Esquiline, and a cartload of sawdust soaked up the bloody

traces of that slaughter of the innocent.

Sickened, dazed, horrified, Onesimus left the dreadful scene, and

went back to the Forum, where he sat half-stunned, on the steps of

the great Julian Basilica. The life of Rome was going on as though

nothing had happened. Peasants were selling chestnuts and olives

and macerated chickpeas to the crowd. Idlers were sauntering up and

down, occasionally stopping to listen to the lampoons of a bawling

poetaster, or to watch the tame vipers of a snake-charmer. Others,

who could not stand poets reciting in the dog-days, were devoting

their attention to the performances of a learned pig.[85] The vestal

Rubria passed by in all the pride of her stola, and tasselled pallium,

and jewelled necklace, amid the deep reverence of the people, and

unconscious of the coming doom which Nero’s vileness had soon in

store for her. Boys were playing at draughts on the circles which

they had cut in the marble pavement, where they may still be seen.

The swallows twittered and chased each other about under the blue

sky; but nothing could charm away the gloom of the Phrygian’s heart,

and with his head bent over both palms he sat, the picture of despair.

A touch on the shoulder, the whisper of his name, made him spring to

his feet in alarm; but looking round he saw the bright, honest face

of Titus smiling down on him.

‘How did you recognise me?’ he asked.

‘A disguise does not often deceive me,’ said Titus; ‘but I recognised

you by your figure and attitude. I won’t betray you. Come here,

behind the shrine of Vesta, and tell me about yourself.’

‘How wretched and ill you look!’ he said, as they stood alone under

the shadow of the little circular temple and the House of the Vestals.

‘Where have you been this long time? What has happened to you? Why

are you here? I was mentioning you to Pudens only this morning, and

if we had known that you were in Rome you might have been of use.’

‘You once helped to save my life,’ said Onesimus, ‘when I did not

deserve it. I will tell you all.’

He gave an outline of what had befallen him, concealing only the

shameful attack on the Rex at Aricia.

‘And what will you do now?’ asked Titus.

‘Starve--beg--die!’ he answered, in deep dejection.

‘Listen,’ said Titus. ‘I have just heard from Pudens that he is

likely to be sent to a command in Britain, and I shall go with him.

Claudia will accompany him, and the old British king, Caractacus. I

think that when you left Aricia you might have come to Pudens and

shown yourself more grateful for his kindness. But the centurion is

very good and forgiving, and, if I ask him, I am sure that he will

let you go with us to Britain.’

Onesimus longed to accept the offer, but he thought of Junia. He was

near her now.

‘Is Nereus to go?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Titus. ‘Nereus is a freedman now, and he is too old for so

distant a voyage and so hard a service.’

Then Onesimus confessed his love for Junia, and the wild hope which

he still entertained that he might some day be accepted by her.

Humbly he took the hand of Titus and kissed it, and said--

‘Forgive me; I will struggle on as best I may.’

‘Nay,’ said Titus; ‘I have not forgotten what you once did for me and

Britannicus, though in that matter, too, you fell short afterwards.

I never forget Britannicus,’ he added, sadly, and stood for a moment

silent. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I know two people in Rome, besides Pudens,

who are good and kind. One is my uncle, Flavius Sabinus; the other

is Pomponia Græcina. I am sure that one of them would find some place

for you. Acte has asked about you more than once, and was, I know,

fond of you. But it would not be safe for you to enter Nero’s Palace

again.’

‘Then let me serve the lady Pomponia, if I may.’

‘Follow me,’ said Titus; ‘I will see what I can do for you.’

Their way led towards the Capenian Gate, where the Appian Road enters

the city. They had not proceeded far when they met a procession of

humble people thronging round a band of soldiers, who were entering

Rome in charge of several prisoners.

CHAPTER XLIII

_A NOTABLE PRISONER_

‘He that hath light within his own clear breast,

May sit i’ the centre, and enjoy bright day;

But he that hath a dark soul, and foul thoughts,

Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Himself is his own dungeon.’

MILTON, _Comus_.

A Roman centurion, whose armour gleamed in the sun, was walking at

the head of the decuria of soldiers, several of whom were attached

by a loose coupling chain to the arms of various prisoners. The

spectacle was common enough, and in the varied turmoil of the

principal thoroughfare, with the stream of travellers which swept to

and fro about the capital of the world, there was nothing in it to

attract notice. But the interest felt in one of the prisoners had

induced a throng of people--mostly foreigners, slaves, and artisans--

to go and meet him.

Titus recognised in the centurion an old friend. ‘Ha, Julius!’ he

cried; ‘so you have returned from Cæsarea. You will have long stories

to tell us about those curious and turbulent Jews. Will you sup with

my father to-night? You will be welcome.’

‘Yes!’ said Julius, ‘gladly, for I am tired with a long day’s march.’

‘You know our frugal ways. You will have to recline on couches made

only by Archias, and sup mainly on vegetables off earthenware plates,’

said Titus laughing, and quoting Horace.

‘It will be a supper of the gods after our fare in the nights and

days of storm on the Adramyttian ship off Clauda and Malta,’ said

Julius. ‘But I must hurry on now to hand over my prisoners to the

Prætorian Præfect.’

‘Who are your prisoners?’

‘They are of the ordinary sort except one. He is the strangest,

bravest, wisest man I ever met; and yet he is a fanatical Jew--one

of this new sect which the mob calls Christians.’

‘Which is he?’

Julius pointed to a prisoner chained to the foremost soldier, on

either side of whom nearly all the visitors were grouped, listening

eagerly to every word he uttered, and showing him every sign of love

and reverence. He was a man with the aquiline nose and features of

his race, somewhat bent, somewhat short of stature, evidently from

his gestures a man of nervous and emotional temperament. His hair

had grown grey in long years of hardship. Many a care and peril and

anxiety had driven its ploughshare across his brow. His cheeks were

sunken, and the eyes, though bright, were disfigured by ophthalmia.

He was evidently short-sighted, but as he turned his fixed and

earnest look now on one, now on another of his companions, the

expression of his deeply-marked face was so translucent with some

divine light within, that those who once saw him felt compelled to

look long on a countenance of no ordinary type of nobleness.

Titus gazed at him. Nothing could be more unlike the worn and weary

Jew who had been buffeted by so many storms and escaped from so many

terrific perils, than was the athletic young Roman, with his short

fair hair which curled round a face ruddy in its prime of youth and

health. In the prisoner’s aspect there was none of the Roman dignity

which marked the look and bearing of Pætus Thrasea; none of the manly

independence which looked the whole world in the face from the eyes

of Cornutus or Musonius Rufus; none certainly of the rich Eastern

beauty which marked Aliturus or the Herodian princes. Yet Titus as

he watched him was, for a moment, too much astonished to speak.

‘He looks all you say of him,’ he murmured. ‘Who is he?’

‘His name is Paulus of Tarsus. He is evidently a great leader among

these Christians.’

Hitherto Onesimus, absorbed in his own sad reflections, had neither

heeded the throng, nor attended to the conversation between Titus and

Julius. But suddenly he caught the name, and looked up with a hasty

glance.

He saw before him not a few of the Christian community of Rome. Many

of them were known to him. Nereus was there and Junia; and from the

household of Cæsar he recognised Tryphæna and Tryphosa and Herodion;

and there were Linus, and Cletus, and the soldiers Urban and

Celsus, and Claudia Dicæosyne, wife of a freedman of Narcissus,

and Andronicus, and Alexander, and Rufus, sons of Simon of Cyrene

who had borne Christ’s cross, and many more.

In a single glance he took in the presence of these, and a sense

of danger flashed across him, lest any one of them, perhaps a false

brother, should penetrate his disguise as Titus had done. But it

was not at them that he looked. His whole being was absorbed in the

gaze which he fixed on him whom he had always heard spoken of as the

Apostle Paulus.

Yes, there he stood; his face thinner and more worn than of old, his

hair now almost white with an age which was reckoned less by years

than by labours and sorrows; but otherwise just as he was when

Philemon had gone from Colossæ and taken with him his boy-slave to

listen to the words of impassioned reasoning and burning inspiration

which Paul poured forth at Ephesus in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

What a flood of memories surged over the young Phrygian’s soul as

he saw him! As though his life, since then, had been written in

lightning, he thought in one instant of that long tale of shame and

sorrow--from the theft at Colossæ to the wanderings with the priests

of the Syrian goddess, the gladiators’ school, the attempted murder

at Aricia. It all flashed upon his recollection, and he felt as if

he could sink to the earth for shame. His first impulse was to spring

forward and cast himself at the Apostle’s feet. But he heard Julius

say that they had halted too long, and that he must press forward

with his charge. The word ‘Forward, soldiers!’ was given, and

Onesimus hid himself behind a tomb, only rejoining Titus when the

Christians had passed by. Titus seemed lost in thought, but as they

were near Pomponia’s house, he said:

‘Onesimus, did you see that prisoner?’

‘Yes. And I saw him when I was a boy in Ephesus.’

‘I know _men_ when I see them,’ said Titus. ‘He is a man,’ and then

he repeated the Greek line--

‘How gracious a thing is a man, if he be but a man.’[86]

‘He is a Jew; he is small and bent; he is ugly; yet somehow his

ugliness is more beautiful tenfold than the beauty of Paris or

Tigellinus.’

‘You should hear him speak!’ said Onesimus.

Titus shrugged his shoulders. ‘A Christian!’ he said; ‘a worshipper

of a Jew whom they tell me Pilatus crucified! And yet,’ he added,

‘there is something more in these Christians than I can fathom.

Britannicus was very much struck by them, and I believe Pomponia is

a Christian. She told me once that “no weapon forged against these

Christians prospers.” Pilatus, they say, came to a bad end.’

‘What happened to him?’ asked Onesimus.

‘They say he became a haunted man. His wife Claudia Procula turned

Christian. He was banished to Helvetia and there committed suicide;

and his ghost haunts a bare mountain, and is forever wringing and

washing its hands. But I believe it is all nonsense,’ said Titus;

‘and here we are at Pomponia’s house.’

They found the gracious noble lady with her boy by her side in the

peristyle tending her flowers among her doves, which were so tame

that they would perch on her head and shoulder, and coo softly, as

they suffered both her and the young Aulus to smooth their plumage.

‘Bathed in such hues as when the peacock’s neck

Assumes its brightest tint of amethyst

Embathed in emerald glory.’

The heart of Pomponia was open to every kind impulse, and as there

was little difficulty in finding room for another slave in the ample

palace of a Roman noble like Aulus Plautius, Onesimus, saved once

more from ruin and destitution, slept that night in the cell of a

new master.

Meanwhile Julius and his prisoner had proceeded on their way. Leaving

the Circus Maximus on their left, and going along the Vicus Tuscus,

amid temples and statues and arches of triumph, they passed the

Prætorian Camp, built by Sejanus, near the Nomentan Road, and reached

the Excubitorium and the barracks of that section of the Prætorians

whose turn it was to keep guard over the person of the Emperor.

Here the centurion found Burrus, and in consigning to his charge the

prisoner who had appealed unto Cæsar, handed to him at the same time

some letters respecting him from Felix Festus, and King Agrippa.

Burrus read them with interest.

‘This is a remarkable prisoner,’ he said. ‘The Jews accuse him of

sedition and profanity; but they have sent neither evidence nor

witnesses.’

‘We passed through a fearful storm off Crete,’ said Julius, ‘and were

shipwrecked at Malta. I hear rumours that another large vessel, which

sailed soon after us from Cæsarea, with many Jews on board, foundered

at sea. I expect that some of the accusers of Paulus perished with

her.’

‘Well, if so, his case will be delayed. He is innocent, I suppose?’

‘Perfectly innocent, I am certain. Christian as he is, it is such men

whom the gods love. We all of us should have perished at sea but for

his wisdom and good sense, and if we had listened to his advice we

should not have been wrecked at all.’

‘Ha!’ said Burrus; ‘he shall be well treated.’ He called to a

Prætorian and said: ‘The prisoner in the outer room may hire a

lodging for himself. He will, of course, be in custody. The men

must take their turns to be chained to him; but mark--choose out the

kindest and most honest men for the work, and let them understand

that I order him to be as gently dealt with as can be, consistently

with his security.’

That night the dream of the life of Paul of Tarsus was accomplished;

he was sleeping in Rome. He was an ambassador, though an ambassador

in bonds.

CHAPTER XLIV

_A SUPPER AT VESPASIAN’S_

‘You’ll have no scandal while you dine,

But honest talk and wholesome wine.’

TENNYSON.

‘Arma quidem ultra

Littora Juvernæ promovimus, et modo captas

Orcadas et minima contentos nocte Britannos.

Sed quæ nunc populi fiunt victoris in urbe

Non faciunt illi quos vicimus.’

JUV. _Sat._ ii. 159-163.

The centurion Julius was genuinely pleased with the invitation of

Titus, and duly presented himself at the modest house of Vespasian.

The other guests were Aulus Plautius and Pomponia, King Caradoc,

Pudens and Claudia, and Seneca, together with several members of

the family, and among them Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus, who

had just been appointed Præfect of the City, in the place of Pedanius

Secundus. The fortunes of the Flavian house were rising rapidly; but

Sabinus, an eminent soldier, with his blushing honours fresh upon

him, was regarded as the head of the family.

Vespasian was poor, and was also fond of money. That he had not

amassed a fortune in his various commands was much to his credit.

His house, afterwards occupied by Josephus, was so unpretending as

to excite the wonder of those who saw it after he had become Emperor,

and his entertainments were usually marked by a more than Sabine

simplicity.

On this occasion, however, since a king, a prime minister, and a

consular--his old commander--who had enjoyed the honour of sharing an

Emperor’s triumphs, were among his guests, Vespasian had donned the

unwonted splendour of his ‘triumphal ornaments,’ a flowered tunic,

over which flowed a purple robe, embroidered with palm branches in

gold and silver thread. He was not half at ease in this splendid

apparel, and told his wife Cænis that he was an old fool for his

pains. The entertainment was sufficient, though Otho would have

thought it hardly good enough for his freedmen. The board was graced

with old Sabine and Etruscan ware of great antiquity and curious

workmanship, as well as with objects of interest which Vespasian

had bought when he was an officer in Thrace, Crete, and Cyrene.

But Vespasian himself, who was sturdily indifferent to fashion, and

took pleasure in showing how little he regarded the criticisms of

Roman dandyism, drank out of a little silver cup which had belonged

to his grandmother, and which he would not have exchanged for the

loveliest crystal on the table of Petronius. And Caradoc, as he sat

there in his simple dress and golden torque, was far more happy at

that modest entertainment than he would have been at the house of any

other of the Roman nobles.

The party was, so to speak, a British party, for most of them were

familiar with the storm-swept Northern island, which was regarded

as the Ultima Thule of civilisation. That day Pudens had received

an appointment to go to Britain and support as well as he could the

wavering fortunes of Suetonius Paulinus. Caradoc was permitted to

return with him and take up his abode at Noviomagus, the town of the

Regni. They were to sail as early as possible from Ostia. More than

this, Aulus Plautius, to whose powerful influence these appointments

had been due, had secured for his young friend Titus the excellent

position of a tribune of the soldiers to the army in Britain. It was

a graceful recognition of the services which Vespasian had rendered

to him twenty years before, when, as his legate of the legion, he had

fought thirty battles, captured more than twenty towns, and reduced

the Isle of Wight to subjection. It was in Britain, as Tacitus says,

that Vespasian had first been ‘_shown to the Fates_.’ The whole party

were in the highest spirits. The old king rejoiced to think that he

should rest at last in the land of his fathers. Claudia longed to

escape from the suffocating atmosphere of Roman luxury. Pudens knew

that in Rome his Christian convictions might speedily bring him

into peril, and that in far-off Britain he could breathe a freer and

purer air. Vespasian had much to tell of the glories of the country.

Lastly, Titus felt all the ardour of a young soldier entering on high

command in new and deeply interesting fields of adventure, and in the

company of the officer whom he most respected and loved.

It was natural, therefore, that the conversation should turn on

Britain, and the tremendous events of which it had recently been the

scene. Aulus Plautius had heard from Suetonius Paulinus himself the

story how he had carried his soldiers on flat-bottomed boats across

the Straits of Mona, while the horses swam behind; how the British

women, with dishevelled hair, stood thick upon the shore in dark

robes, and, with torches in their hands, ran to and fro among

the soldiers like Furies; above all, how the Druids stood there

conspicuous, their long white beards streaming to the winds, and,

with hands uplifted to heaven, cursed the Romans; and how at last,

‘falling on the barbarous and lunatic rout, he had beaten them

down, scorched and rolling in their own fires.’ But darker news had

followed. Roman emissaries--‘and those bad young Romans are the curse

of Rome,’ said the old commander, looking up from the tablets of

Suetonius--had behaved with infamous cruelty to Boadicea, the heroic

Queen of the Iceni, and she was burning to revenge her wrongs.

Paulinus described her as ‘a woman big and tall, of visage grim and

stern, harsh of voice, her hair of bright colour flowing down to

her hips, who wore a plighted garment of divers colours, and a great

golden chain under a large flowing mantle.’

‘He has sent me some fierce British verses, King,’ said Aulus,

turning to Caradoc, ‘which one of his literary officers--Laureatus,

of the island of Vectis--has translated from British into Latin

galliambics, the metre which, he says, most resembles their

tumultuous lilt. The translator must be a true poet, for not even

the “Atys” of Catullus is more impassioned. I shall be half afraid to

read them to you, for they will stir your blood like the sound of a

trumpet, and you will fancy yourself charging us again at the head of

your Silures.’

‘Ah!’ said the old warrior, sadly; ‘my fires have long sunk into

white embers. A king who has been led in fetters through the

capital of his enemies can fight no more for a free nation, however

intolerably it may have been wronged.’

Claudia pressed her father’s hand, and tears shone in her blue eyes.

‘Nay, Claudia,’ said the king; ‘I did not wish to sadden thee. Thou

and I have other and brighter hopes than once we had, and it will

be like new life to us to tread once more by the broad rivers of

Britain, and on her heathy hills. I am an exile and poor. My jewels

and trappings were carried before me at the triumph of Claudius and

Aulus;--though Cartismandua, who betrayed me, still has her golden

corslet and her enamelled chariot. These things are, I know, as the

gods decide, and sometimes they suffer wickedness to triumph. But let

Aulus Plautius read us the verses.’

Aulus read the galliambics into which the poet of Vectis had

translated the British war-song,[87]

‘They that scorn the tribes, and call us Britain’s barbarous

populaces,

Shall I heed them in their anguish? Shall I brook to be

supplicated?

Hear, Icenian, Catieuchlanian; hear, Coritanian, Trinobant!

Must their ever-ravening eagle’s beak and talon annihilate us?

Bark an answer, Britain’s raven! bark and blacken innumerable!

Hear it, gods! The gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian!

Doubt not ye the gods have answered, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant!

Lo! their precious Roman bantling, lo! the colony Camulodune,

Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful?

Shout, Icenian, Catieuchlanian; shout, Coritanian, Trinobant!

Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable!

Take the hoary Roman head, and shatter it, hold it abominable,

Cut the Roman boy in pieces in his lust and voluptuousness.

Fall the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune!’

‘Ye gods! What cannot a poet do?’ exclaimed Seneca, with enthusiasm.

‘Those lines would have made me die in battle, if I had been a

Briton.’

‘They have caused eighty thousand to die in battle,’ said Aulus.

‘A later letter of Paulinus tells us that, after a fearful massacre

of the Romans at the three colonies of Londinium, Verulamium, and

Camulodunum, the Britons assembled two hundred and thirty thousand

warriors, with whom he fought a tremendous battle near Verulamium.

But how could those woad-painted fighters withstand the skill, the

discipline, the heavy armour of our legionaries? We lost but four

hundred, Paulinus says; and Boadicea, who, in a chariot with her two

daughters, had raged through the battle like an angry lioness, has

taken poison in despair.’

The wild passionate verses had produced strangely different effects

on the little audience. The old king started up from his couch, his

breast panting, his eyes full of fire, and then sank back again and

hid his face in his mantle. For the lines recalled to him his own

heroic struggles, and his great father, Cunobalin, and his noble

brothers. Claudia mused in silence, thinking of the day when the

Prince of Peace should come again--a thought which Pomponia divined

as she laid her hand on the fair head of her friend. Vespasian looked

grave, and thought it rather treasonous of a Roman poet to turn such

verses into Latin. Pudens and Titus felt a pang of regret that, in

combat with a free people, the name of Rome should be stained with

the infamies of scamps and weaklings who had provoked that terrible

revolt.

Seneca little knew that Aulus, in reading extracts from the letter

of Suetonius, had suppressed a passage in which the general had

indignantly stated as one cause of the insurrection, not only the

wrongs of Boadicea, but the fact that Seneca himself had suddenly

called in large sums of money which he had lent to the British at

usurious interest, and that the demand for repayment had reduced the

poor Iceni to bankruptcy and despair.

‘We have been talking about Britain all this time,’ said Titus; ‘but

here is our friend Julius straight from Palestine, and he must have

plenty of news to tell us about those odd fanatics, the Jews.’

‘How goes the world in Jerusalem?’ asked Vespasian. ‘The question

is very interesting to an old soldier like me. We constantly hear of

risings there. I am told that affairs are getting desperate, and who

knows but what the Emperor may some day despatch me thither at the

head of a legion?’

‘Nothing is more likely,’ said Julius.

‘Unless you snore while the Emperor is singing, father, as you did at

Subiaco,’ said Titus, laughing, as did all the guests.

‘Impudent boy!’ said Vespasian, joining in the laugh. ‘Let Julius go

on.’

Julius told them that ever since the days when Pontius Pilatus had

half maddened the Jews by bringing the Roman ensigns into Jerusalem,

and Caligula had reduced them to stupefaction by proposing to set up

his own image in their Temple, they had been on the verge of sedition.

‘Felix,’ he added, ‘only got off their impeachment by the influence

of his brother, Pallas. Festus had hard work with their bandits. At

present they are raging in a first-rate quarrel with young King

Agrippa.’

He proceeded to tell them how Agrippa, for the delectation of his

friends, had built a dining-room at the top of his Palace, so that

his guests as they lay at the banquet could enjoy the highly curious

spectacle of all that was going on in the Temple precincts. Indignant

at this encroachment, the Jews built up a blank wall of such a height

as not only to exclude the view from the Asmonæan Palace of Agrippa,

but also to shut out the surveillance of the Roman soldiers in

the tower Antonia. Agrippa was furious, and Festus ordered them to

demolish the wall. But they said that they would die rather than

consent to do this. They appealed to Nero, and Festus allowed them to

send their High Priest, Ishmael ben Phabi, with nine others, to plead

their cause with the Emperor.

‘I suspect that this deputation was on board the vessel whose

shipwreck I mentioned,’ said Julius.

‘Will this appeal be successful?’ asked Vespasian.

‘I believe it will,’ answered the centurion; ‘for Poppæa is very

favourable to the Jews.’

‘Shall we really see a Jewish High Priest in Rome?’ asked Pomponia.

‘Yes, lady,’ answered Julius; ‘but a very unworthy one. He rules by

terror. He robs and defrauds the inferior priests to such an extent

that they die of starvation, and his blows have become proverbial.

To the disgust of the Jews he wears silk gloves when he is offering

sacrifice, in order to keep his hands clean. And yet, so scrupulous

are these oddest of people, that they would not let his father

perform the very greatest sacrifice in their whole year because

of the most insignificant accident.’

‘What was it?’ asked Pomponia.

‘You will really hardly believe it. On the eve of the great festival

which they call the _Kippurim_--a sort of day of expiation--the

father of this High Priest was talking to Aretas, king of Arabia,

and by an accident a speck of the Emir’s saliva fell on Ishmael’s

beard. This made him “unclean,” in their opinion; and a deputy, whom

they call the Sagan, had to perform its principal function!’

The guests laughed.

‘But tell us now,’ said Vespasian, ‘about these new Christians. I

suppose they, and their Christus, are more turbulent even than the

Jews?’

‘So we Romans are led to believe,’ said Julius. ‘It is exactly

the reverse. The Christians are the most peaceful of men, and they

reverence the Roman power.’

‘Have you seen much of them?’ asked Aulus.

‘I witnessed a remarkable scene,’ said Julius, ‘just before I left

Jerusalem. Festus, as you are aware, died the other day, worn out

with cares and worries. Pending the appointment of his successor,

Agrippa appointed a new High Priest--Annas, son of the priest before

whom Christus was tried. This Annas took upon himself unwonted

authority. He summoned the head of the Christians--James, a brother

of their Christus--before their Sanhedrin, and ordered him to be

stoned to death. But this James was almost worshipped by the people,

who called him “the Just.” To give him a chance of life, they asked

him what he thought of Christus, and he called him a God. On hearing

this answer they flung him down from the roof of the Temple. The fall

did not kill him; he was able to rise to his knees and pray for them.

It was a wonderful sight--that man of noble presence, with the long

locks streaming over his shoulders, and his white robe stained with

blood, kneeling in the Temple court among his furious enemies! One of

the bystanders pleaded for him; but a fuller came up and dashed out

his brains with a club.’

‘The cup of that nation’s iniquity is full,’ said Pomponia, who had

listened with a shudder to this tale of martyrdom.

‘It is,’ said Julius. ‘Immediately after I had witnessed this sad

scene, I was talking to a brilliant young priest in Jerusalem named

Josephus, of whose abilities they think highly, and who evidently has

a great future before him. He made the same remark.’

‘But tell us something about that wonderful prisoner whom you brought

to Rome,’ said Titus.

Julius detailed to them his voyage, the storm when they drifted so

long up and down Adria in the starless nights and sunless days; the

strong influence of the Jewish prisoner over the whole crew; the

spirit which he breathed into their despair; the practical wisdom

of all his counsels; the intense gratitude which he had kindled in

the Protos of Malta and in the barbarous inhabitants, by what they

believed to be a miraculous healing. ‘His teaching,’ he added, ‘is

the most wonderful thing I ever heard.’

‘What can a Jew really teach?’ asked Seneca, with some disdain.

‘He preaches that their Prophet whom Pilatus crucified, was God

Himself,’ said Julius; ‘and no sane man can believe that. But there

is a sort of supernatural spell about the goodness of this Paulus;

and when I hear him speak to “the brethren,” as he calls the

Christians, I am always reminded of Homer’s lines--

‘In thought profound

His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground;

But when he speaks, what elocution flows,

Soft as the fleeces of descending snows!

The copious accents fall with easy art,

Melting they fall, and sink into the heart.’

‘He may have the gift of speech,’ said Seneca; ‘many Orientals have.

But it is monstrous to suppose that a fanatical Jew, with a senseless

creed, should have anything to teach us.’

‘Has he written anything?’ asked Flavius Sabinus.

‘Yes; he has written some wonderful letters--a strange mixture (as

friends in Palestine told me) of fantastic doctrine and perfect

ethics.’

‘Has he taught a single moral truth which has not been taught for

four centuries, since Aristotle and Plato and Chrysippus?’ asked

Seneca.

‘I have not read his letters,’ said Julius. ‘They were difficult to

get hold of, for the Christians are very shy about their writings.

But he _lives_ the truth he teaches.’

‘Ah!’ said Seneca; ‘if he has the secret of that--! As for us, too

many of us are open to the reproach that we are only philosophers by

wearing beards.’

‘Well,’ said Titus, ‘I have been to hear the lectures of Musonius

Rufus, and I defy any mortal man to teach better truths than he and

Cornutus do; for I must not speak of the illustrious Seneca in his

presence. We have no need to consult barbarian Jews with insane new

mythologies.’

Pomponia and Claudia and Pudens were of necessity silent in that

mixed company; but they thought that the good soil of the Christian

faith was the one thing lacking to Seneca, which might have made

the roses of his moral teaching produce something better than mere

perfume.

And if Titus had but laid aside the ignorant disdain which marked

him in common with the mass of philosophic Pagans, his manly virtues

might have shone forth with yet more beautiful lustre, and he might

have been saved from the sins and errors wherewith he afterwards

defiled a noble name.

CHAPTER XLV

_POPPÆA VICTRIX_

‘On that hard pagan world disgust

And secret loathing fell;

Deep weariness and sated lust

Made human life a hell.’

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Not long after the arrival of Paul at Rome, Burrus died. He was

seized with inflammation of the throat, and Nero, under the pretence

of solicitude, betrayed an ill-concealed satisfaction. He had not

dared to get rid of Burrus, whom the Prætorians loved; but he fretted

under the restraint of the soldier’s presence, and resented an

influence which endeavoured to exert itself for good. Nero could not

mistake the innuendos of Tigellinus, that this was a good opportunity

to set himself free. He promised to send Burrus a remedy recommended

by his own physician. The remedy was a poison. Burrus perceived the

fact too late. When Nero came to visit his sick bed, he turned away

from him, with undisguised aversion.

‘How are you, Præfect?’ asked the Emperor, taking his hand as it lay

on the coverlet.

Burrus hastily withdrew his hand. The question recalled to him the

scene of the death of Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompey, who,

seeing his ship in the possession of the enemy, stabbed himself,

and on hearing the question, ‘Where is the general?’ answered, ‘The

general is well.’ Burrus remained silent, but when the Emperor once

more asked how he was, answered, ‘I am well.’ They were the last

words he spoke, and every good man in Rome mourned the loss of one

of the few virtuous men of whom the state could yet boast.

Nero might have bestowed the vacant command on the best soldier of

his time, the brave and honest Corbulo, who had supported the fame

of Roman courage on so many a hard-fought field.

He thought of no such man. In spite of Corbulo’s utter loyalty Nero

feared to trust him. He divided the office between Fenius Rufus and

Sophonius Tigellinus. The former was popular from his generosity

as corn commissioner in a time of famine, and it was hoped that the

appointment would cover the deadly unpopularity of his colleague.

But it was with Tigellinus that the real power rested. In his hands

was the sword of Nero, and the secret of his influence lay in the

similarity of his vices to those of the Emperor. The career of the

man from boyhood upwards had been a career of infamy. He had been a

lover of Agrippina, and of her sister, and he had paraded his crime

with cynical coolness. With him Nero could always throw off the mask,

and display the depths of his own turpitude. He was a tenth-rate

Sejanus, only more deeply dyed in infamies. If he pandered to Nero’s

vices with sumptuous profligacy, this was part of a deep-laid design

to drag the imperial purple through the foulest mire. But the scum of

many nations which called itself the populace of Rome applauded each

vileness, in proportion to its monstrosity, and was glad to see its

Emperor the slave of passions as abject as its own. The degeneracy

caused by such scenes was incredible. The ultimate result was that--

‘Rome now might nowhere rid herself of Rome:

The heavens were all distempered with the breath

Of her old age. She, very nigh to death,

Paced through her perishing world in search of air

Unpoisoned by herself.’

Though Britannicus had been done to death, there were still two men

who might stand seriously in the way of the new favourite’s schemes.

One was Faustus Cornelius Sulla, the last of that famous name. He was

poor and slothful, but he had for a time been the husband of Antonia,

the daughter of Claudius, and the freedman Graptus had already

persuaded Nero to banish him to Marseilles, on a trumpery charge

of complicity in a plot. Tigellinus persuaded Nero that Sulla only

simulated indolence, and that he was tampering with the legions in

Gaul. Executioners were sent to Marseilles, and Sulla was murdered

as he lay at supper. Rubellius Plautus was the next victim. He had

imperial blood in his veins, and many had fixed their eyes upon him

with hope, for he was a man of Stoic dignity and domestic virtue.

In A.D. 60, a comet had been interpreted to indicate a change in the

Empire, and Nero recommended Plautus, though he was only living the

quiet life of an ordinary citizen, to retire to his estates in Asia.

He obeyed without a murmur, living in simple duties with his wife

Antistia, and devoting his thoughts to philosophy. Soldiers were now

despatched to murder him. A faithful freedman, at imminent risk of

his life, made his way to Asia, arrived before Nero’s centurion,

and warned Rubellius of his impending doom. He was the bearer of a

letter from his father-in-law, Antistius Vetus, urging Rubellius not

tamely to submit. Only sixty soldiers were coming to carry out the

iniquitous mandate of Nero; let him repulse them, throw himself under

the protection of Corbulo, and all would be well. But Rubellius was

sickened by the thought of doubtful hopes. He wished, if possible,

to avert, by submission, the future ruin of the wife and children

whom he loved. Further than this, his philosophic teacher, Cœranus,

persuaded him that a firm death was preferable to troubled and

uncertain life. He therefore took no step in self-defence. The

centurion found him at mid-day, stripped of his clothes, taking

athletic exercise in his gymnasium, and butchered him on the spot,

in the sight of the worthless eunuch, Pelago, whom Nero, as though

he were some Asiatic despot, had sent to keep watch over the officer

and soldiers. According to the ghastly fashion of the times his head

was carried back to Nero. ‘Why did you want to be a Nero?’ said the

brutal jester. ‘Gods! what a nose the man had!’

Thus it was reserved for a Domitius Ahenobarbus to put to death

Rubellius Plautus, the last descendant of Tiberius, as he afterwards

put to death L. Junius Silanus, the last descendant of Augustus.

But there was an influence over Nero which was more powerful than

that of all the other wretches of his Court. It was the influence of

Poppæa. His infatuation for this beautiful, evil, astute woman had

taken complete possession of him. She had led him on step by step,

now alluring, now repelling him, keeping him ever in a maddening

fever of passion, on which she played as on an instrument. Already

she had sufficiently established her empire over him to permit of his

sending Otho to Lusitania. Nor had she hesitated to leave her home

and to become an inmate of Nero’s Palace. But it was far from her

intention to sink into the humble position which had been enough for

Acte, who, in her ignorance, had felt for Nero a love ten times more

genuine than that which she had inspired. Poppæa, whose infantine and

cherubic loveliness could easily have secured for her the hand of the

noblest of the patricians, intended to be Empress and nothing less.

She knew the evanescent character of such love as she had kindled,

and she bent the powers of her mind to rule Nero by playing with

his hopes. There was but one obstacle in the path of her ambition.

Octavia still lived, and Octavia must be got rid of.

It is true that the hapless Empress had long been reduced to a

cipher by the mutual repulsion of herself and her husband. She could

scarcely help shrinking from his touch. To look in his face made

her shudder. While still in the charm of youth he had been odious

to her. Now that his face was unhealthy with excess, his cruel frown

and lowering countenance wore in her eyes the look of a demon. His

faithlessness did not wound her, for the gleams of happiness which

rarely illumined the tragedy of her life came to her only when he

neglected her utterly. Nevertheless, she was Empress. She had the

undeniable rights of her position, and in public it was necessary for

Nero to treat with decency the daughter of the divine Claudius and

the granddaughter of the beloved Germanicus.

Yet Poppæa had determined that, on one pretext or other, she should

be set aside, and never doubted that sooner rather than later she

would goad the timid Emperor to repudiate his wife, that he might be

free for another marriage.

One day when Poppæa knew that Nero intended to visit her she

prepared all her wiles. He came in after the mid-day prandium, and

he found her reclining on her couch of ivory and silver in the cool,

well-shaded, voluptuously-furnished room. She had let loose over her

shoulders the splendid ripples of her golden tresses. An odour as

of blown roses clung to her person and her robes. Every jewel that

she wore, whether ruby, or sapphire, or emerald, or diamond, was so

arranged as to set off her soft and glowing complexion, and there was

exquisite grace in her way of handling the fan of peacock’s feathers

which swept in iridescent glory over her dress from the golden handle

which drooped from her right hand. Nero, as he took his seat beside

her, felt like a clumsy and awkward boy.

‘Why do you pretend to love me, Nero?’ she asked.

‘Love you!’ he said. ‘It is not love, it is passion, it is adoration!’

‘Words are all very well, Nero,’ she said, in a voice which seemed

to tremble with tears; ‘but see how you treat me! When I came to the

Palace you were not Emperor, but the slave of Agrippina. I helped you

to free yourself from that bondage. You have taken me from Otho, my

dear and noble husband--’

Nero frowned angrily, but Poppæa took no notice.

‘You have,’ she continued, ‘banished him to Lusitania, and have

brought me to this dull Court, under pretence that you would make

me Empress. Yet I am no nearer becoming your wife. Go to your pale,

sad Octavia: doubtless you think her common features fairer than

mine. Her dreary talk and drearier silence cannot fail to be more

fascinating.’

‘I loathe her,’ said Nero.

‘And she loathes you, whereas I worship the ground you tread upon.

No, no!’ she said, as he attempted to seize her hand; ‘I will not

live here to be your mere plaything. I will rejoin Otho in Lusitania.

He loves me, and knows how to treat me properly.’

Nero rose in a passion. Fearful lest she should goad him too far,

Poppæa called him to her side and changed her tone.

‘Your home is empty, Nero,’ she said. ‘No child will succeed you. I

have a little son. Octavia must be dismissed, if you would have an

heir to be Emperor of Rome.’

‘How can I dismiss her?’ said Nero gloomily. ‘Even my freedmen

espouse her cause. Doryphorus is for her, and Pallas.’

‘Doryphorus! Pallas!’ she repeated, with a laugh of ringing scorn.

‘An effeminate slave-minion; a miserly dotard! Tush, Cæsar! be a

man. Sweep aside these flies. Poison them both; no one will miss

Doryphorus, and Pallas has riches which will prove very convenient

to you.’

‘That shall be done,’ said Nero. ‘I am sick of Doryphorus, and Pallas

has lived long enough. But to repudiate Octavia is different. She is

strong in the name of her father, and stronger still in the favour of

the people and the Prætorians.’

‘Is Cæsar truly Cæsar?’ she asked, with contempt.

‘Cæsar can do what he likes in his own private life,’ he answered;

‘but woe to Cæsar if he degrade the majesty of Empire by any public

deed.’

He said truly, and she knew it; but she knew also that he had not yet

fathomed, as she had done, the abysses of Roman servility. Had they

not applauded him after the murder of Agrippina? Had they not passed

in silence the murder of Britannicus? Had they not suffered the doom

of Sulla and of Plautus to pass by without creating so much as a

ripple on the surface of the general tranquillity?

By her urgency, by her wiles, by her taunts, by the supreme

ascendency which she had now acquired over the Emperor, she prevailed

on him at length to divorce Octavia on the plea of her barrenness,

and to make Poppæa his wife. This, however, did not content her,

while her unhappy rival remained an inmate of the Palace. Poppæa

therefore endeavoured to blacken her character. She put into play

every poisonous art of slander. In most cases nothing was easier than

to trump up a false charge against any one whom the Emperor desired

to ruin. The white innocence of Octavia, her stainless purity in that

age of infamy, were no protection to her. The faithful love of her

few attendants was a partial safeguard. Most of them were tampered

with in vain. At last, however, a worthless Alexandrian flute-player,

who had sometimes played before her to while away a heavy hour, was

induced by a great bribe to swear that he had been her lover. The

charge was too monstrous to deceive a single person, but on this

pretext Octavia’s handmaids were seized and tortured. The majority,

however, stood firm even against the torture-chamber, and one of

them, named Pythias, cried out to Tigellinus, as he heightened the

torture and pressed her with questions, that Octavia’s worst offence

was white as snow beside the blackness of his best virtues. It was

impossible to pretend a conviction on evidence which would have been

invalid against the humblest slave.

It was, nevertheless, decided that Octavia should be removed from

the Palatine, and she was sent from the home of her father with the

ill-omened gifts of the estate of Plautus as her dower, and the house

of Burrus as her residence.

The unhappy girl--she was but nineteen--obeyed without a murmur. She

had wept floods of tears when her husband, instigated by his cruel

paramour, had attempted to stain her name. She shed no tear when

she laid aside the purple of the Empress, and, clad in the simplest

garb of a Roman matron, was conveyed to her new home. Thither,

too, were sent her unhappy maidens. Those who had most enjoyed her

confidence--and among these the poor Christian girl, Tryphæna--were

still disabled by the dislocations of the torture. With tenderest

solicitude Octavia herself visited their cells, and ministered to

their infirmities. She flung her arms, weeping, round Tryphæna’s

neck, and thanked her and Pythias for the heroic constancy with which

they had held out and, when stretched on the rack, had unflinchingly

asseverated the stainless honour of their mistress.

‘How could you endure it, Tryphæna?’ she asked. ‘The blood of the

Claudii and of deified emperors flows in my veins, yet if my frame

had been wrenched with such pangs, I know not what my lips might not

have said.’

‘Lady,’ said the slave-girl, ‘I hardly felt it. The spirit sustained

the body. I thought of--’

‘Go on,’ said Octavia.

‘I thought of Him of whom I have read to you in the letter of Peter

of Bethsaida; and how He had endured the contradiction of sinners

against Himself; and I was not weary, and did not faint in my mind.’

‘How could the Crucified One help you?’

‘He is not the Crucified One now,’ answered Tryphæna. ‘He is the

Risen, the Ascended: and He sits on the right hand of the Father.’

‘Oh that I could believe all this!’ said Octavia. ‘I have scarcely

had a happy hour in all my life. I have been more miserable than any

slave-girl. If He whom you called the Risen One were all that you

say, why does He not help the innocent?’

‘He does help them,’ she said. ‘Not by delivering them out of all

their troubles, but by enabling them to bear, and by making them feel

that their brief troubles, which are but for a moment, are nothing to

the eternal weight of glory.’

‘Did He help you?’

‘He did. As I lay outstretched on the rack I saw Him for a moment,

His hand upraised to bless.’

‘Does He do so for all Christians when they suffer?’