‘I think He does, for all His true children. Lady, do you know that

Paulus of Tarsus--the Apostle whose letters to the churches I have

read to you--is in Rome?’

‘So Pomponia told me,’ said Octavia, ‘and she asked if I would not

see him. But how can I? Burrus is dead, and Paulus sits chained to a

Prætorian soldier in his own lodging.’

‘He has friends who would bring you his teachings,’ said Tryphæna.

‘One of them I have seen. His name is Lucas of Antioch, and he is

a physician. To comfort me after I had been tortured, he told me

how Paulus, before his conversion--when he was a blasphemer, and

persecutor, and injurious--had witnessed and even incited the stoning

of our first martyr, the young deacon Stephen; and how when Stephen

stood before the Council, and they were all gnashing their teeth at

him, his face was as an angel’s. And he says that Stephen saw the

heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.’

While Octavia stood talking with the young slave-girl, she was

told that Pomponia had come to see her, and humbly kissing the poor

sufferer on the brow, she went to the tablinum to receive her guest.

‘Wherever sorrow is, there Pomponia comes,’ she said, embracing her.

‘That is not my individual virtue,’ said Pomponia. ‘We Christians are

_all_ taught to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one

another, even as God in Christ forgives us.’

‘Your faith seems to make you all very happy.’

‘It does indeed. Oh, if you could see our Paulus, how would he

comfort you!’

‘What made him a Christian?’ asked Octavia. ‘Tryphæna has just been

telling me that he was once a persecutor.’

‘He saw a vision of Christ, as he went to extirpate the Christians

at Damascus. From that time he has preached the faith which he once

destroyed. While Burrus lived the guards were bidden to leave him

when his friends came, but since Tigellinus has been Præfect his

lot is harder. I know not how you can with safety visit him. But his

friend and companion is Lucas the physician. Why should you not have

him sent for to tend your poor wounded slaves?’

The hint was taken. Octavia’s household was now a very simple and

quiet one. The swarm of courtiers had deserted her. None of the fine

ladies of Rome who desired the approval of Nero, came near her gate.

The last of the great house of the Claudii, the wife and daughter and

descendant of emperors, was left to her seclusion, and she rejoiced

in it. She spun wool among her maidens; she was considerate of the

happiness of her slaves. She manumitted Pythias and Tryphæna, who

had suffered for her. Fair peace began to reign around her, and she

nursed the hope that she might be suffered to live out her life in

quietude until a fairer day should haply dawn. Lucas was summoned,

and to her, as to the Christians of her household, he proved himself

to be indeed also a physician of the soul.

He was an Asiatic in the prime of life, with a countenance singularly

radiant and refined. He spoke the purest Greek, and had been

accustomed to the society of Theophilus of Antioch and other persons

of rank, to whom he had been endeared by his medical skill. Already,

during the imprisonment of Paulus at Cæsarea, he had busied himself

in the collection of those facts which he was soon to enroll in

‘the most beautiful book in all the world.’ It was common for Roman

families to listen to readings from accomplished Greeks, and it was

not difficult for Octavia, with the aid of Pomponia and her Christian

slaves, to arrange that Lucas should read to them his yet unfinished

records of the Life of the Saviour. Those records, and the

conversations which she held with the Evangelist, and his answers

to her questions, at last convinced the heart of the Empress. She

saw that in the faith of the gospel there was a peace, a beauty, a

blessedness, such as she had never known, of which she had never

dreamed. Perilous as the decision was, she determined to be admitted

by baptism into the flock of Christ. One morning, at break of day,

in the presence of Lucas, Pomponia, and Tryphæna, but otherwise in

the deepest secrecy, she was baptised by Linus.

And thenceforth there reigned in her heart a peace which no further

waves of trouble could disturb. She began to understand why it was

that, in spite of her mourning garb, in spite of her many trials,

Pomponia, though her face was often sad, was far happier than any

of the Roman matrons. She began to experience that there is a bliss

in faith and hope and love which the world can neither give nor take

away.

And this boon of heaven only came just in time to save her from

sinking into utter despair under the horrible tempest of afflictions

which fell upon her.

For though Nero would have been content to dismiss her into obscurity

and oblivion, Poppæa was not content. She wearied the Emperor with

her insistence that he should take still further steps against his

repudiated wife. Nero ordered Octavia to leave Rome and live in

Campania.

As she was preparing to obey the insulting order, which was rendered

still more insulting by the addition that she was to be kept under

military surveillance, it struck Pomponia that it might add to the

comfort and safety of the Empress if she could once more command the

services of Onesimus. Octavia had been pleased with his assiduity

when he was her purple-keeper, and she knew that he had once rendered

a high service to her beloved Britannicus. In the solitudes of

Campania it would be well for her to have at hand a slave and

messenger whom she could implicitly trust. With the precaution

of a disguise he might remain unrecognised, and serve as a medium

of communication between the ex-Empress and her friends in Rome.

Onesimus was more than willing to undertake the charge. At Rome he

was never safe. After all that had occurred, he did not dare to enter

the secret assemblies of the Christians, though it was there alone

that he could hope to see Junia. After Octavia had started with

her despised and scanty retinue, he made his way to her villa with

letters from Pomponia, and was retained in her service as a Greek

reader, under a changed name.

But scarcely had his wife vanished from Rome when Nero became alarmed

by the temper of the people. They openly murmured at his conduct. In

the circus and the amphitheatre they received him with grim silence

or cold applause. He knew that the mob was his ultimate master, and,

being a coward, he hastily sent word that Octavia might return to

Rome and resume the style and title of his wife.

When this edict was published, the people went wild with joy. All

loved Octavia. No base, no cruel action, no rapacity or folly,

could be laid to her charge. If deadly crimes were committed,

they knew that Octavia disapproved of them no less entirely than

themselves. Every honest citizen who enjoyed but one gleam of

happiness on his own domestic hearth pitied the pale and neglected

daughter of Claudius, and felt inclined to protect her from further

wrongs. Their enthusiasm communicated itself to the crowd. When

Octavia re-entered Rome they surrounded her litter with tumults of

delight. Their affection cheered her heart, and, stirred by her words

of gratitude, they broke into dangerous excitement. Rushing through

the city, they flung down and trampled and spat upon the statues of

Poppæa. Those of Octavia they uplifted on their shoulders, showered

blossoms over them, and, carrying them to the Forum and the temples,

crowned them with garlands. They shouted their approval of Nero’s

tardy repentance, and, donning their holiday attire, organised

an immense procession to the Capitol, to thank Jupiter for the

restoration of their Empress. Returning from this procession

they crowded to the Palatine, and Nero in alarm appealed to the

Prætorians. Tigellinus let loose the soldiers upon the people. He had

armed them with batons, and they struck out without discrimination

among the swaying mob. When this was insufficient to disperse the

crowd, they drew their swords, and charged them in close array. It

was night before they had swept the streets clear of obstruction,

and replaced the statues of Poppæa upon their pedestals.

Poppæa was nearly wild with fear and hatred. After Nero had supped

she entered his room, and, flinging herself at his feet with

dishevelled hair, burst into passionate tears. She wailed that,

though to wed with him was dearer to her than life, she had now

come, not to plead for her marriage, but for mere safety. Who did

he suppose was the real author of that disgraceful riot? Octavia,

of course. He thought her simple. Her simplicity was but the veneer

of deeply-seated cunning. Was it the people who had broken into

sedition? Not at all. It was only the clientage and varletry of

Octavia who had dared to assume the people’s name. If they had but

found a leader, who could say whether Nero might not by this time

have been a fugitive or a mangled corpse?

‘The tumult has been aimed at you,’ she cried, ‘not at me. What

harm have I done to any one, that they should hate me? Do they hate

me because I shall give Cæsar a genuine heir? Do they prefer the

offspring of Octavia and some Egyptian flute-player? Be a man,

Nero! It only needs the smallest display of resolution to suppress

these disorders. But if you show yourself timid and incapable, the

rebellion may become formidable. If the people despair of making you

Octavia’s husband, they may make Octavia another’s wife.’

The daring and indomitable purpose of the woman succeeded. She goaded

his timidity; she fired his rage. He sent for Tigellinus, determined

at last to stop short at nothing.

With Tigellinus he needed no concealment.

‘Præfect,’ he said, ‘Octavia must at all costs be got rid of.’

‘Locusta is here,’ said Tigellinus, with alacrity.

‘No, no,’ said Nero, stamping on the ground; ‘I will not have the

scene of Britannicus acted over again. I am haunted by too many

ghosts already.’

‘Devise something,’ he said, impatiently, while Tigellinus mused.

‘Poppæa, suggest something to this fool.’

‘A charge must be made against her,’ said Poppæa, eager if possible

to shame as well as to kill.

‘The last charge broke down.’

‘Nonsense!’ answered Poppæa. ‘Say that you have positive evidence

that she has made away with her own unborn child.’

‘No one will believe it. And, besides, I have just divorced her on

the charge of barrenness.’

‘Say it all the same, Nero. Some person of importance must be induced

to confess.’

‘Who would be so infamous?’ said Nero. ‘After all, Poppæa, you know

she is innocent--ten times more innocent than you.’

‘Call me some infamous name at once,’ said Poppæa, bursting into

passion. ‘And is it for you to taunt me? Was it not for love of

you that I became faithless to my Otho? No,’ she cried, as Nero

approached her; ‘keep away from me! I will return to the wronged

Otho. He loved me. He will take me back.’ And she rushed towards

the door.

‘Poppæa,’ pleaded Nero, hasting to intercept her flight, ‘forgive me.

You see how miserable I am. I have no one to love me but you.’

‘And who could help loving you?’ she continued, weeping crocodile

tears in floods. ‘Who could resist those golden locks, that lovely

countenance, that divine voice?’

Her cajolery won the day. Nero played with her hand, and turned an

inquiring look on the Prætorian Præfect.

‘I have it,’ said Tigellinus. ‘Send for Anicetus.’

Nero winced at the name. Anicetus was still admiral of the fleet

at Misenum; but, since his share in the murder of Agrippina, Nero

could never see him without recalling the image of his mother’s

bloodstained corpse. He had practically banished Anicetus from Court,

and when the sunshine of court favour was withdrawn from him, the

wretch had sunk into contempt. But now his unscrupulosity was once

more needed for a crime which was, if possible, still blacker. He

had murdered Nero’s mother by violence; he was to murder Nero’s

wife by calumny. He was offered a vast reward, and a purely nominal

punishment, if he would confess and make it public that Octavia

had treasonably tampered with him, to seduce the allegiance of the

imperial sailors at Misenum, and that, in furtherance of her object,

she had not stopped short of offering him her hand.

The infamous tale was published; and since Nero proclaimed his

conviction of its truth, the world was compelled to profess belief

in it also, although every man and woman in Rome knew it to be a

lie. An edict was published proclaiming Octavia’s guilt, and she was

banished to the dreary islet of Pandataria.

CHAPTER XLVI

_THE DEATH OF OCTAVIA_

‘O gioia! O ineffabile allegrezza!

O vita intera d’amore e di pace!

O senza brama sicura ricchezza!’

DANTE, _Paradiso_, xxvii. 7-9.

In one sense all the people of Rome were the friends of Octavia; in

another she was nearly friendless. For the multitudes of every rank

were degraded by selfishness and cowed by terror. So long as they

were personally untouched by the orgies and crimes of the Emperor,

and so long as he was supported by the swords of the Prætorians, they

neither wished nor dared to interfere. Rome lay helpless under the

bonds of the tyranny which her own vices had riveted. Nero might

indeed be murdered, but in what respect would the Empire be better

off? There was no Cæsar left. If Nero died, there seemed to be

no prospect for Rome except the horrors of civil war with all its

attendant pillage, massacre, and crime. It seemed better to endure

Nero’s infamies than to see the Empire torn to pieces. After all,

were not many of the senators, of the generals, of the aristocracy,

capable of becoming as licentious and as cruel as he was, and would

not their elevation make their vices loom as monstrous as his?

They rejoiced, therefore, that the popular tumult had been so

speedily repressed, and they steeped their consciences in immoral

acquiescence. The bad plunged themselves yet more shamelessly into

vice, and manœuvred to make their vices known as a passport to

imperial favour. As for the better Romans, they tried to bury

themselves in such obscurity as would shelter them from notice;

or they sought solace in the refined egotism of the Epicureans; or

inured themselves to the chances of death and ruin by assuming the

haughty self-dependence of the later Stoics. Pætus Thrasea and his

friends took refuge in the belief that it would be an absurdity to

attempt the impossible. The heart of Seneca was torn with misgivings;

but was not he himself in peril? What could he do? He had never

spoken out against any one of Nero’s crimes, or lifted a finger to

prevent them. Lucan longed to overwhelm the Emperor with invective;

but he could only brood in silence over his wrongs, and gloomily

await the day of vengeance.

From none of these did Octavia receive any help. If they

compassionated her misery, no murmur of pity reached her ears. But

from those who were now her fellow-Christians she received both help

and consolation. Pomponia, whose gentle influence moved fearlessly

with halcyon wings over the turbid abyss of crime, exerted herself

to add comfort to the dreary retreat of the Empress in the volcanic

isle. With her strong good sense she made arrangements for Octavia’s

comfort. She obtained the leave of her husband, Aulus Plautius,

to despatch some of her slaves to Pandataria the very day that the

decree of Octavia’s banishment was published, with directions to

secure for her as fitting a home as was possible, and to take with

them such things as might conduce to her well-being. In this she was

secretly aided by Acte. The beautiful and generous girl sought an

interview with Octavia before she left Campania, fell at her knees,

and begged the daughter of Claudius to pardon the wrong which in

earlier days her beauty had inflicted. ‘I was but a slave once,’ she

said; ‘nor did I know the truths which have since been taught me. I

have forsaken the past. Empress, you will forgive me, and accept such

little services as I can render?’

‘Rise, Acte!’ said Octavia, with tender dignity. ‘I know that thy

heart was innocent, and that no wiles of thine were spread to catch

Nero’s love. I forgive thee. Who am I, in my misery, that I should

condemn thee?’

She raised the weeping girl from the ground, and gently kissed her.

‘Do not weep any more,’ she said. ‘Acte, it has been told me that

thou art a Christian. Nay, start not, and see how much I trust thee.

I am a Christian, too.’

Acte was almost speechless with surprise; but Octavia continued:

‘Yes; thou seest that I put my life in thy hands; but are we not

sisters now? I used to talk with my brother Britannicus about this

new faith, and often with Pomponia, and now I have seen Lucas of

Antioch, and from him I have heard of Jesus. Lucas has lent me the

letters of Paulus of Tarsus. He has written that “not many rich, not

many noble, not many mighty are called;” but though I am noble, I am

poor, and weak, and unhappy except for that consolation which He who

died for us sends to the sorrowful.’

‘God be praised,’ said Acte, ‘that thou hast found that peace.’

‘Yes,’ answered the Empress; ‘peace I can truly say in the midst of

shame, and slander, and tumult. My life will be short; but for us,

Acte, the islands of the blest, of which the poets sang, are neither

dreams nor fables. Farewell.’

‘Farewell, Empress,’ said Acte. ‘Day and night will our brethren lift

up holy hands for thee, and many a purer prayer than mine will rise

for thee like incense.’

As Acte left the villa she passed Onesimus. She had long been

ignorant of his fate, and shame prevented him from speaking to her.

He recognised her at a glance, but she did not penetrate the disguise

which changed him into a fair-haired slave, and he shrank back

from her presence. He regretted when it was too late that he had

not revealed himself to her, for even now she might possibly have

retarded the tragedies which were to ensue. Alas! when once men have

shown themselves unfaithful, how often do their best impulses come

too late!

But he devoted himself heart and soul to the service of the young

Empress. She had been permitted to take with her into exile one or

two only of her hundreds of slaves. She had chosen Tryphæna to be one

of these, though the poor girl, after her cruel torments, was still

barely able to stand. She had also chosen Onesimus, by the advice of

Pomponia, though she did not yet know that he had been brought under

Christian influence.

Nor was he the only disguised Christian in that small and saddened

household. The position of Hermas since his rescue from the house

of Pedanius had been very perilous. If he were recognised, the fact

of his having escaped might be fatal to others besides himself. The

Christians were mostly too poor to introduce a stranger into their

households. They would have been willing to share with each other

the last crust; but the crowded state of the _insulæ_,[88] in which

they mostly lived, rendered it difficult and dangerous to procure

extra accommodation. The only thing possible, therefore, had been

to conceal him in the house of Pudens; but as it was now necessary

to find a new home for him he had been enrolled among the out-door

slaves in the villa of the Empress, and was selected to accompany

her to the lonely island, until his history and face should have

been forgotten.

Anicetus, who had been made the vile instrument of Octavia’s

destruction, received the guerdon of his infamy, and was dismissed

into nominal exile in Sardinia. To such a man--a slave by birth and

a villain by nature--the exile was nothing. He had never regarded

life as anything but a feeding-trough, and as long as he had wealth

to spend on his own indulgences Sardinia served him as well as Rome.

It happened that the ship which was to carry him to Caralis, the

Sardinian capital, sailed from Ostia on the day that Octavia was to

be conveyed to Pandataria. Thousands of spectators, and among them

many Christians, had flocked to Ostia to see her embark. If they

dared not express their feelings, they longed at least silently to

show their sympathy. They recognised Anicetus. He embarked amid a

tempest of groans and hootings so full of execration that he trembled

lest he should be torn to pieces by the mob, and abjectly entreated

the protection of his guards. Thenceforth he vanishes from history.

He died in Sardinia, rich and impenitent; but even there he did not

escape the hatred which he felt more than the load of infamy with

which he had crushed down his worthless soul.

Later in the afternoon the multitudes caught sight of the litter

which was bearing Octavia to the shore. A trireme was waiting to take

her away forever from the home of the rulers of the world. Prætorian

guards marched on either side of her with drawn swords. Behind her,

in a humble _carruca_, came her few household slaves, and the scanty

possessions which alone she could take with her. A deep murmur of

pity arose, and as she approached the quay it swelled into a cheer,

in which the spectators gave vent to the indignation which they felt

against her oppressors. At one time it seemed as if they might break

out into violence; but the Prætorians menaced them with their swords,

and the angry murmurs died away.

The Christians--who recognised Tryphæna and others of their brethren

among Octavia’s slaves, and who, though they did not know the secret

of Octavia’s conversion, knew her innocence--showed their sympathy in

more quiet ways. They sighed forth prayers and blessings, and strewed

with flowers her pathway to the vessel. Onesimus, as he passed,

caught sight of Nereus and Junia. No one knew him, but he felt almost

certain that he had seen a flash of recognition in Junia’s eyes.

Beyond doubt she stood gazing intently on him as he leaned over

the vessel’s side. Ah, well! the day might come, he thought, when,

purified from shame by suffering, he might obliterate the memories of

his dishonoured past, and be worthy once more to stand by her side.

And one incident occurred which, not for him only, but for all that

little company, was fraught with blessed consequences. Linus stood

with Luke of Antioch in the undistinguished throng, but neither of

them had been forgetful of the sorrowful sighing of those who were

going into captivity. Linus had told to Paul the prisoner, in deep

secrecy, the story of Octavia’s baptism, and the heart of the Apostle

was sad at the thought of her sufferings. He had written her a brief

letter of comfort, which Linus slid into the hand of Hermas amid the

bustle of the embarkation. Nor was this all. Luke also had not been

forgetful of the anguish of the last of the Claudian house. Filled

with that deep sense of brotherhood which linked all ranks together

in the Christian community, he had written out for the exiles some

inestimably precious fragments of the materials which he had been

collecting for his Gospel. He found means unobserved to give them to

Tryphæna, when ceasing for a moment to lean on the arms of the two

slaves who were supporting her feeble footsteps, she turned to bid

farewell to her mother, Nympha.

The emotion of the spectators made it more easy for the watchful

Christians to communicate with each other. For there were few dry

eyes among them. Some of them were old enough to have seen Julia, the

lovely daughter of Augustus, sail to the same sad bourne. They had

seen her daughter, the younger Julia, banished by Claudius to the yet

more distant island of Tremerus. They had wept tears almost as bitter

when they saw the elder Agrippina driven to the same prison by the

insatiable malice of Tiberius. But the case of Octavia was far sadder

than that of her noble kinswomen. The elder Julia was steeped in

shame, and had well-nigh broken the heart of her father. The younger

Julia had also disgraced her high lineage. The wife of Germanicus

had been a Roman matron of the purest stamp, yet her passionate

haughtiness had diminished the sympathy which would otherwise have

been felt with her in her calamities. And, further, these others had

enjoyed their days of superb sunlight and prosperity. Ruin had not

overtaken them till the happiness and beauty of their youth were

past. Not so the pale and hapless girl who was now embarking. Octavia

had known no joy. Her childhood had been darkened by the three

murders of those whom she best loved. From the first her husband had

hated her. His youthful love had been given, not to her, but to her

freedwoman; and now, unprotected by her own white innocence, she had

been smitten to the earth by a horribly false condemnation. She was

still scarcely twenty years old![89] And she was being conducted

amid centurions and soldiers to a barren rock, which was haunted

by memories of death and anguish. She was as one dead, but without

the peace of death:--so thought her pagan sympathisers, and were

confirmed in their misgiving that either there are no gods or they

care not for the affairs of men.

And Octavia did not deceive herself. She well knew that those islets

of the Tyrrhene Sea were wet with the blood of noble exiles; and that

Caligula, on being told by one who had been recalled from banishment

that the exiles spent their time in praying for the death of the

reigning Emperor, had sent soldiers round the islands to put all

the prisoners to death. She knew her peril, but she clung to life

with the tenacity of youth. Nero had no child. She thought that his

excesses would precipitate his end, and that some virtuous man might

be chosen by the Senate to succeed. After the death of Narcissus she

had been told the anecdote of the physiognomist who had prophesied

that Titus would one day be Emperor, and she thought that under her

brother’s devoted friend there might be the dawn of brighter days.

She therefore wrote a letter to Nero, before the trireme started, in

which she said she would but live as his widow and his sister, with

no thought of returning to the Palace. She even ventured to remind

him that she had always experienced his mother’s protection, and

that, as long as Agrippina lived, her marriage dignity had not been

assailed.

All was now ready. The sailors drew up the anchor, and the assembled

crowd watched the white sails of the trireme till they became rosy in

the light of sunset, and the vessel dipped beneath the horizon.

Octavia awaited, in deep anxiety, the answer to her letter. There

were points in it which might perhaps have touched the heart of Nero

if Poppæa and Tigellinus had not been at his elbow as the evil genii

of his degradation. But, when the tablets of Octavia came, Nero

was sitting with the enchantress. Taking them out of his hands, she

turned the letter into such ridicule, and laughed over it so sweetly

and so immoderately, and mixed her silvery laughter with so many acts

of fascination, that the fear of her ridicule--to which, like all

vain persons, Nero was inordinately sensitive--quenched in his heart

all thoughts of mercy. She also played upon his fears. ‘As long as

Octavia lives,’ she said, ‘neither you nor I will be safe. You saw

how the people rose in her behalf. You do not know what assassins she

may have in her pay. All that the spirit of insurrection needs is a

leader, and, while Octavia lives, conspirators have only to provide

her with a husband, and she will bring him the Empire as her dower,

as she did to you. The tomb is the only safe prison. The dead excite

no tumult and tell no tales.’

So the messenger was sent back without an answer, and Octavia knew

that she had only to prepare for her fate. No day dawned that might

not be her last; no sail shone on the horizon which might not be

bringing her executioners from Rome--nay, the orders might even now

be in possession of her military guard, and the tramp of the changing

sentries each morning and evening might be to her the echoing

foot-fall of death. No situation in the world is more harrowing or

more terrific than this. We can confront death when we know that we

stand face to face with him; but to have his sword dangling over our

necks by a thread of gossamer, and not to know at what moment it will

fall; to know that somewhere near us he lies in wait, but not to know

where or how he will leap out upon us--this adds a nameless dread

to the king of terrors, and it has been sufficient to break down the

iron nerves even of trained soldiers who have ridden fearlessly to

many a bloody fight.

There was not a person on the little island who was not aware that

Octavia was thus standing on the edge of the awful precipice. Great,

therefore, was the astonishment of all, and especially of the Roman

soldiers, at the strange placidity, the sweet fortitude which she

displayed. None else could laugh during those sad days; but she

could laugh--laugh more gaily than she had ever done in the gorgeous

chambers of the Palatine. As escape was impossible, she was left

free, and she loved to sit on the rocks in the evening sunlight and

enjoy the cooler breeze. Unfamiliar with the sea-shore, it was a

pleasure to her to watch the black-headed sea-mews rising and falling

on the gentle swell of the tideless waters, or waving over it their

immaculate white wings, or suddenly dashing down on some fish, and

breaking the surface into concentric rings of rippled gold. She found

pleasure in the shells, and sea-weeds, and purple medusæ, and laughed

again and again as she noticed for the first time the curious motion

of the hippocampi as they gambolled in the shallow waves. It was

strange, too, to the few islanders to see her gathering garlands

of their wild flowers, and having them placed in her bare,

half-furnished rooms. She had never cared for splendour. It wearied

a soul which had never seen it dissociated from guilt. The simplicity

of her new life had a charm for her, and if Nero would but relent she

could gladly live here, reading and doing her little acts of kindness

and musing on the high thoughts which had recently become so radiant

to her--sustained by the hope that better days would come on earth,

or that, if not, there was a heaven beyond.

There were three of her household who knew the secret of the calm and

resignation which struck her Prætorian custodians with astonishment.

One of the officers, a rough youth named Vulfenius, had been heard

saying to his comrade that the Empress must have been getting private

lessons from the Stoics or Cynics;--‘only,’ he said, ‘a hundred of

those philosophers are not worth a cracked farthing--arrant humbugs

nearly all of them. But this girl--she smiles death in the face!--Or

is it that she does not know?’

Yes, she knew; but the source of her cheerful courage lay in those

scrolls which had been handed to her attendants by Linus and by Luke.

Ever since the lustral dews of baptism had touched her brow, she had

felt a change in her whole being, but her deep peace was confirmed by

what was now read to her daily by Onesimus, or Hermas, or Tryphæna.

It was with strange feelings that when she broke the silken thread

of the small waxen tablets of Linus, she had read the salutation

in which Paulus, the prisoner, wished grace, mercy, and peace to

Octavia, Empress, and now beloved in Christ. But as she eagerly read

the few lines which he had engraved with his trembling stylus--for

he had written this message in large letters with his own hand--she

felt his words thrill into her soul with strange power. He rejoiced

and thanked God that He had called her out of darkness into His

marvellous light, and told her that this was a boon more precious

than all the kingdoms of the world. He comforted her under all the

affliction with which she was afflicted, with the comfort wherewith

he too was comforted of God. He told her that she was a partaker of

the sufferings of Christ, and that the sufferings of this present

time were not worthy to be compared with that glory which shall be

revealed in us. He exhorted her to look, not at the things which are

seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are

seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Such words fall too often on our cold and careless ears with the

triteness of long familiarity; but to Octavia, as to all who first

learnt to feel their meaning in that despairing age, they seemed to

be written in sunbeams. The new wine of the Kingdom of Heaven filled

them as with divine intoxication; that which to the Pagans appeared

like a half-insane enthusiasm or a blank obstinacy[90] was, in

truth, but the exhilaration of conviction, in comparison with whose

preciousness the whole world and all the glory of it seemed but as

the light dust of the balances. Octavia had not been unaccustomed to

hear the paradoxes of the Stoics; and she regarded them as spurious

ornaments of life’s misery--spangles sewed upon its funeral pall.

But in the words of Paul the prisoner, and of the poor persecuted

Christians, there rang tones of perfect sincerity. Their doctrines

were not _learnt_, but _lived_. They came attested by the evidence

of characters not only innocent but holy; such as had been hitherto

unknown to the world, and had no antitype even in the fabled age

of gold. They came, morever, as the revelation of a law, not only

general, but individual. In those who had grace to accept them, the

Spirit Himself bore witness to their spirit that they were children

of God.

Knowing the doom which trembled over Octavia’s head, and the

impossibility of her escape, the soldiers who were in charge were

ordered to allow her such liberty as the little islet permitted, and

not to intrude upon the occupations of her household. Hence, during

the early evening hours, it was possible for her to call one or two

of her Christian handmaids around her, while Onesimus, as the Greek

reader, read to them the scrolls which Luke had sent as his parting

present. He had selected those which he thought would convey the

deepest consolation. As Onesimus read them to that little circle,

they were as the oracular gems on Aaron’s breast--Urim and Thummim

ardent with the light of heaven. One of them was the Parable of the

Prodigal Son. To Onesimus it was as the voice of God calling him

back from the far country and the rags and the swine. As he read its

concluding verses, again and again his voice was broken with sobs.

Even when he had read it aloud on several evenings he could never

come to the verse--

‘I will arise, and go unto my Father, and will say unto Him,

Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee--’

without stopping to recover from the emotion which stifled his

utterance, and the tears which blinded his sight.

Another little fragment contained the Evangelist’s record of the

Sermon on the Mount. As Octavia heard it she felt more and more that

her miseries had been blessings in disguise, and that if her life had

been spent in the blaze of luxury and prosperity she could never have

become an inheritor of that kingdom of which the commands were not

burdens but beatitudes.

But what came most deeply home to all of them was that scroll on

which Luke had written the story of the Crucifixion. They could never

hear it read without requiring Onesimus to read after it the record

of the last scroll, which contained the story of the two disciples

at Emmaus, of whom it was privately thought among the Christians

that Luke himself had been one. As Octavia listened to those inspired

records, if the dreadful act of dying had not lost its horror, yet

the grave had lost its victory, and death his sting.

* * * * *

Entranced by the rapture of these wondrous narratives, they had

been reading later than usual. It was the ninth of June. The dusk of

evening had fallen; the lamps had been lit. They had been too much

absorbed to notice the Liburnian galley whose red sail on the horizon

had attracted all the inhabitants of their rocky prison to the shore.

They had not seen the Prætorians from Rome, who landed at the little

jetty.

Ah! but they could not be deaf to the unwonted murmur which began to

swell about the villa, nor to the clank of legionaries, nor to the

gruff unfamiliar voices of command. They knew too well the meaning

of those sounds. With faces whitened by terror they heard the summons

at the gate, and the tramp of armed feet, and the cry, ‘A message

from the Emperor!’ Hardly knowing what they did, Onesimus and Hermas

barred the entrance to the chamber where they were sitting, while

Tryphæna and the two other maidens grouped themselves round their

mistress. There came a thundering challenge, followed by fierce

blows rained upon the door. A moment afterwards it gave way with a

crash. Hermas and Onesimus, as if by an instinctive motion, thrust

themselves in the path of the advancing soldiers. A legionary struck

down Hermas with the flat of his sword; Onesimus was dashed aside by

a blow of the centurion’s iron glaive. They tore away the slave-girls

who clung to their fainting mistress. Her they fettered, and opened

her veins in many places. But she had sunk into a swoon, and the

blood would not flow. Then they dragged her to the bath, heated it

to boiling heat, and suffocated her in the burning vapour.

Nor was this enough for Nero’s vengeance. The corpse of the daughter

of Claudius, the chaste wife of the Emperor, was not suffered to rest

in peace. Poppæa would not be satisfied with anything short of the

visible proof that her rival had been swept forever out of her path.

There lay the fair form, with its long dark hair and girlish beauty,

and more beautiful than in life, for a look as of rapturous surprise

had lit up her pale features. It availed not. The head was struck off

by the centurion, and he carried to Rome the ghastly relic, at once

to claim his reward, and to glut the eyes of Poppæa with the sight

of ‘death made proud by pure and princely beauty.’

And for this crime the slavish and degraded Senate vowed gifts to the

temples! In those days every unjust banishment, every judicial murder

inflicted by the Emperor, was the signal for a fresh outburst of

infamous adulation. The thanksgivings to the gods, which had once

been the signs of public prosperity, became the certain memorials

of private infamy and public disaster.

CHAPTER XLVII

_A FETTERED AMBASSADOR_

Ὥστε τοὺς δεσμοὺς μου φανεροὺς ἐν Χριστῷ γενέσθαι ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ

Πραιτωρίῳ καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς μᾶσι.--Ep. S. Paul ad Phil. i. 13.

There was one spot in Rome which was calm amid all tumults, happy

amid all calamities, though it was the last place where any of the

Roman world would have deemed it possible for happiness to dwell.

It was the narrow room which served as a prison to Paul of Tarsus.

As long as Burrus was Præfect of the Prætorians the prisoner’s lot

had been made as easy as the strictness of Roman discipline allowed.

He had been allowed to hire a lodging of his own, and no hindrance

was placed on the visits or kindly offices of his friends. He was,

indeed, compelled to submit to the one intolerable condition of being

fastened night and day by a coupling-chain to the wrist of a Roman

soldier; but Julius and others had spoken to Burrus about him in such

warm terms that, as in the case of Agrippa I., care was taken that he

should be consigned to the charge of a kind centurion, and that the

Prætorians to whom in turn he was chained should, as far as possible,

be good-tempered and reasonable men.

There was no service which the soldiers more hated than this of

guarding prisoners. Each soldier was for the time as much a prisoner

as the prisoner to whom he was chained. To be chained to a Jew was

regarded by most of the Prætorians as an intolerable humiliation.

If indeed the Jew happened to be a handsome and cosmopolitan young

prince like Agrippa, the duty had its alleviations; but at the

present time the soldiers had in charge some Jewish priests sent to

Rome by Festus, who shuddered to be brought into contact with them.

To be chained to these haughty hierarchs, who did not conceal their

disdain for their gentile guards, was a cause of incessant annoyance,

and there was not a Prætorian who did not groan when it was rumored

that Julius had consigned to them another Jew, of weak bodily

presence, and with health enfeebled by toil and hardship.

But the soldiers to whose lot it first fell to be coupled to the

new prisoner soon spread a favourable report of him. They told their

comrades that though he was not only a Jew, but a _Christian_, he was

yet so sweetly reasonable, so generously considerate, so anxious to

alleviate the necessary tedium of their duty, that it was a pleasure,

and not a misery, to take a turn in guarding him. Unlike the priests,

he seemed to take a human interest in everything human. He would talk

freely with them on gentile subjects. He listened earnestly to all

they had to tell him of Rome, its daily incidents and accidents, its

senatorial debates, its foreign campaigns, the edicts of the Emperor,

and the fortunes of the imperial family. It was whispered that

everything which he did and said was worthy and noble, and the

centurions observed a marked change for the better in some of the

men who had been brought into contact with him. The Jews, it was

noticed, looked on him with hatred as a renegade, and even of the

Jewish Christians there were few who visited him. But some Christian

was almost always with him, and these friends of his, particularly

the modest and engaging Timotheus, deepened the favourable impression

which the prisoner himself had made.

In truth, this was not the least happy period of Paul’s career. He

was freed from the fret of endless anxiety and embittered opposition;

he was no longer harassed by the multiform and terrible perils by

which for so many years his life had been assailed. To many the

forced cessation of the great work of their careers would have seemed

an intolerable trial, and faith would have been weakened by the

semblance of God’s desertion. It was not so with Paul. He knew

that he was where God meant him to be, and that he was still an

ambassador, though, as he playfully said to his friends, an

ambassador in a coupling-chain.

He ought in justice to have been brought to speedy trial, seeing that

he had already been imprisoned for two years at Cæsarea on a charge

wholly without foundation. But in his shipwreck the documents sent by

Felix and Festus had been lost, and when fresh documents came Nero’s

capricious idleness put off the trial from month to month. So Paul

continued in prison, and became a missionary to the Prætorium, and

to many Romans. His imprisonment was not lacking in elements of

interest. Linus and many of the Roman Christians sought his lodging,

and showed him every mark of affection. Luke was constantly with him,

consulted with him about every detail of his Gospel, and took charge

of his health. He was in frequent correspondence with his friends and

with the converts of the churches which he had founded. Timotheus,

who was the child of his heart, treated him with all the tenderness

of a son. Tychicus and Epaphras came from Asia, and brought him

news of the Church of Ephesus and of the valleys of the Lycus. Mark,

the cousin of his first companion, Barnabas, came to cheer him with

news of Peter and of Jerusalem, and of his travels in many lands.

Epaphroditus ministered to his necessities by bringing him a gift

from his beloved and generous Philippians. The soldiers heard the

letters which he dictated to his converts, and heard what Luke read

to him of his Gospel. Many of them were deeply influenced by the new

world of thought and holiness which was thus revealed to them. Some

were converted and baptised, and found that the lodging of the Jewish

prisoner was to them the vestibule of the house of God.

And when the soldier on guard was a brother, the intercourse

which the prisoner could hold with any who came to visit him was

unconstrained. Most of all was this the case when the Prætorian

Celsus was chained to him, and the veteran soldier was so happy

in the charge that he was ready to relieve any Prætorian by taking

his turn in addition to his own. It was the armour of Celsus, as it

lay beside him on the floor, dinted with the blows of many a battle,

which suggested to Paul his beautiful description of the Christian

panoply.

One day there came to the Apostle a lady deeply veiled attended by a

Christian freedwoman. She was so agitated that, when she had sunk on

one of the humble seats, she could scarcely find words in which to

pour forth her anguish. When she grew a little calmer, she lifted her

veil, and Celsus rose and made her a respectful salutation, for he

recognised the mourning robes and sad but beautiful face of the wife

of Aulus Plautius.

‘The Lady Pomponia,’ he said, ‘may speak freely, and fear not. I will

unloose the coupling-chain, and go into the outer room,’

Pomponia thanked him, and told the Apostle that she had long been a

baptised sister, and had read his letters to Rome and other churches,

and had now come to him for consolation in unutterable distress of

heart. She had but one son--the young and beautiful Aulus, the heir

and the hope of their great house. But Nero had begun to hate her

husband and herself, and was jealous lest some day the army should

prefer the Conqueror of Britain to the tenth-rate actor and singer.

For Agrippina, in one of her fits of rage, had, before her death,

unwisely and unkindly mentioned the youthful Aulus as a virtuous

boy who might one day wear the purple more worthily than Nero, who

disgraced it; and Nero, wounded in his vanity, had determined on

revenge. With a wicked cruelty which would have been infamous even

in a Tiberius or a Caligula, he had invited the boy to the Palace,

had subjected him to the deadliest insults, and had then ordered him

to be slain, accompanying the order with a brutal jest against his

mother Agrippina. And the people knew of the crime, and hardly did

more than laugh and shrug their shoulders; and the Senate knew of the

crime, and did not cease for a single day from its adulation to the

tyrant; and the army knew of the crime, and not one sword flashed

from its scabbard; and the philosophers and the poets knew of the

crime, and not one denunciation scathed that deed of hell.

Pomponia’s heart was broken. Did God deal thus with His servants? Was

the Christ far away in His blue heaven, and heeded not these things?

And was it not lawful, was it not a duty, for Christians to help to

sweep away from the earth such a monster of iniquity? Might she not

rouse her husband, Aulus Plautius--not to avenge the individual wrong

which was breaking his heart, and bringing him down to the gates of

the grave--but to rid mankind from the incubus of an intolerable

curse?

The Apostle saw that his task was difficult. For a moment he bowed

his head, and clasped his hands in prayer. He needed threefold

wisdom--to console the mother’s anguish; to avert the thought of

vengeance; to strengthen the faith which had been assailed by sore

perplexity. And the grace came to him. He banished from Pomponia’s

heart the dread that because her Aulus had died unbaptised, he was

doomed to perish: he told her not to dream that the boy, who had thus

gone home, had departed unloved by his Heavenly Father. Fearful times

were coming on the earth, and her beloved son, in whom the signs of

virtue had not been wanting, might have been taken only to save him

from the furnace of moral temptation and the wrath to come. Then

taking from the hand of Luke the scroll in which he had been writing

the great discourse on the Mount of Olives, he read to her the words

of Jesus: ‘Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. And yet

a hair from your head shall not perish. In your endurance ye shall

acquire your souls.’

‘Alas!’ she cried, ‘how may I interpret this promise that a hair of

our heads shall not fall, when my very heart is cleft in twain?’

He answered that the Lord spake not of earthly things. He warned us

that in the world we should have tribulation; but He has overcome

the world. And he prayed her not to dream of hastening the tyrant’s

punishment. ‘Leave him in God’s hands. “Vengeance is mine; I will

repay, saith the Lord.”’

When his voice ceased, the passion of Pomponia’s grief had sunk to

rest. The tears which still coursed down her cheeks were but the

natural tears of a mother’s bereavement. Her beautiful soul was

prepared for consolation, and her faith had but bowed for a moment

like the upper foliage of a tree under the stress of some mighty

storm. To calm her yet further, the Beloved Physician began to read

aloud a passage here and there from the Evangel which occupied his

daily thoughts. He read of the love of Jesus for children; he read

the beatitudes; he read the story of the Cross. The music of the

words and thoughts, borne on the music of his sweet and solemn voice,

sank into Pomponia’s soul. She thanked the Evangelist, and, asking

for the blessing of the Apostle, dropped her veil and departed to her

desolate home.

The Heavenly Father who had suffered anguish to fall upon her had

also sent medicine and a physician of the soul to heal her sickness.

When she reached her palace on the Aventine, she was able to devote

her whole strength to save her husband from succumbing to a sorrow

which for him was beyond the reach of consolation. He had chosen for

the epitaph of his boy’s tomb the defiant words, ‘I Aulus, the son of

Aulus Plautius, uplift my hands against the gods, who took me hence

in my innocence, at the age of fifteen years.’[91] But she dissuaded

him. ‘Why complain,’ she said, ‘against the decree of Heaven? It may

be good, and even the best, did we but know it. Nay, my Aulus, carve

rather on his tomb a green leaf, and the two words, “In peace,” and

add, if thou wilt, the line of Euripides,

‘“Who knows if life be death, and death be life?”’

CHAPTER XLVIII

_ENSLAVED AND FREE_

‘These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base

As was my former servitude, ignoble

Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,

True slavery.’

_Samson Agonistes._

Pomponia Græcina was only one of many to whom Paul of Tarsus from

his prison-lodging brought joy and consolation. There was a twofold

element in the happiness which seems to rise to exultation in the

letter which he wrote from Rome to his Philippians. On the one hand

he felt that from his bonds there streamed illumination, so that the

grace of Christ became manifest even in Cæsar’s household, and among

his chosen soldiers; and, on the other, he was enabled to hear the

groanings of them who were in a captivity far sorer than his own--to

undo many a heavy burden, and let the oppressed go free.

Shortly after the visit he had received from Pomponia, he was told

that a young man was waiting outside who desired to speak with him.

His sympathy with the young in their trials and temptations was

always deep, and he asked Luke to admit the visitor. With hesitating

step and downcast mien he entered, and the Apostle bade him come and

sit by his side.

‘Dost thou recognise me?’ asked the visitor, in a low voice.

‘I have met many youths in many cities,’ answered the Apostle, ‘and

I have seen thy face before, but where I cannot remember. Art thou

Eutychus of Troas?’

‘No,’ he answered, glancing at the Prætorian; ‘but,’ he added in a

whisper, ‘I am, or rather I was, a Christian.’

‘Speak without fear,’ said Celsus; ‘I, too, am one of the brethren.’

‘Thou wilt soon remember me,’ said the youth to Paul, removing

the disguise which covered his dark locks and greatly altered his

appearance. ‘I saw thee in the school of Tyrannus at Ephesus, when

I came there with my master, Philemon of Colossæ.’

‘Onesimus!’ said the Apostle. ‘Welcome, my son--though I have heard

sad things of thee from many.’

‘It is true, it is all true, that thou hast heard of me, O my

father!’ said Onesimus, as he knelt before the Apostle, and kissed

the hand on which his tears were falling fast. ‘Yes; I stole money

from Philemon, my beloved master. I ran away from him; I am a

worthless fugitive, a thievish Phrygian slave, whom most masters

would crucify. And worse--I have denied the faith; I have done all

things vile. Can there be forgiveness, can there be hope, for such

as I am?’

‘My son,’ said the Apostle, ‘there is forgiveness, there is hope,

for all who seek it.’

‘But oh, thou knowest not, my father, to what depths I have sunk.

I have stolen a second time. I have been drunken with the drunken,

slothful with the slothful, unclean with the unclean. I have been

false to my trust. I have been in the slaves’ prison, and the

gladiators’ school. I have fought in the amphitheatre. I have served

the shameful wandering priests of the Syrian goddess. Twice over have

I been all but a murderer. Can all this be forgiven?’

‘My son,’ said Paul, deeply touched, ‘thou hast sinned deeply; but so

have many, who now are washed, cleansed, justified, sanctified in the

name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.’

‘Ah, but,’ cried the youth, ‘they have never been renegades.’

‘Onesimus,’ answered Paul, ‘hast thou not heard how the Lord Jesus

told us to forgive our brethren, not only seven times, but seventy

times seven? Will He be less merciful than He has bidden us to be? I

bid thee hope in His infinite forgiveness. The blind and the leper,

the publican and the harlot, the impotent man, and she out of whom he

cast seven devils, went to Him, and were forgiven. Go thou, if thou

canst not otherwise, as a leper, as a demoniac, as a paralytic, and

He will abundantly pardon. Hast thou, indeed, sought Him?’

‘Nay, father, I could not,’ said Onesimus. ‘Ever since that theft

from Philemon, ever since that flight, I have prayed but faintly; I

felt as if I could not pray, as if no prayer of mine could be heard.

A cloud of despair has hidden God’s face from me. Oh!’ he cried,

wringing his hands, ‘I am an outcast--I am a castaway. I have no

part in Him. My lot is now with this world, of which I have seen

the infamies and loathe the crimes. It was but two weeks ago that

any gleam of hope came back to me.’

‘What gave thee hope?’

‘Lucas of Antioch, whom I see with thee, gave some parts of his

records of Jesus to one of Octavia’s slaves. I, too, went with the

unhappy Empress to Pandataria, and there I read the Master’s parable

of the Prodigal Son, and I tried to say, “I will arise and go to my

father, and will say--”’

But here Onesimus stopped, and though he made an effort, he was

unable to proceed.

With all his heart the great Apostle pitied him; indeed he pitied him

so much that he found no words to speak. He could only lay his hand

gently on the suppliant’s head, and uplift his eyes to heaven in

prayer.

So Luke spoke and said, ‘I can tell thee, Onesimus, of other words

of the Master. He cried: “Come unto me, all that are weary and

heavy-laden, and I will refresh you;” and “him that cometh unto me,

I will in no wise cast out.”’

‘Did He say that? Did He say that?’ asked Onesimus, eagerly.

‘He did,’ said Luke, ‘and no word of His can pass away.’

The Prætorian Celsus had heard the conversation, and he too was

touched. ‘Those words,’ he said, ‘called me from Satan to God. I was

as deep a sinner as any man in the cohort, and no man can be much

worse than that. I used to shrink from no cruelty, and to abstain

from no sin. I was one of the soldiers employed in the massacre of

the innocent slaves of Pedanius Secundus. So deep was my misery that

one night I went in full armour to the Sublician Bridge, meaning

to end a life so shamed and empty. But as I climbed the parapet,

I was seized by the strong arm of a man in a slave’s dress. I drew my

dagger and asked him, with a savage oath, if he held his life cheap,

since he, a slave, thus dared to interfere with me, a Prætorian

soldier. He fixed his steady eyes on me, and said, “I am unarmed;

you can slay me if you will; but I will try to prevent you from

self-murder.” “My life is my own,” I answered sullenly. “It is not

your own,” he answered. “It is God’s, who gave it. He set you here,

and you have no right to desert your post.” The man was Nereus, now

the freedman of Pudens. He drew me away from the bridge, and I talked

long with him. He was the first to give me the hope that I might live

for better things. He taught me about Christ, and Christ’s promise

that He would cast out none who came to Him. That saved me. When I

was a Pagan I knew shame and guilt, but never knew that it could be

washed away.’

‘Thanks be to God for His great goodness,’ said the Apostle. ‘And

thou, my son, Onesimus, hear what Celsus has said. Thou hast had no

fruit in the things of which thou art now ashamed, for the end of

those things is death. But now, if thou wilt return to Christ, thy

fruit shall be to holiness, and the end shall be eternal life.’

That interview completed the change in the heart of the Phrygian

youth. He had returned from Pandataria a freedman, for on the night

before her murder Octavia had freed her Christian slaves. He had

also received gifts from his generous mistress which placed him

above present need. He had therefore hired himself a lodging, and

now, being readmitted, at Paul’s intercession, into the Christian

assemblies, he recovered life and happiness. He waited on the Apostle

with ceaseless assiduity, and anticipated all his wants. If ever Paul

needed one to serve him--which was often the case, for Timotheus had

been sent on a message to Ephesus--the Phrygian was at hand, and

the Apostle found in his society and cheerful vivacity a great

alleviation of a captive’s weariness. It was not long before he

confided to the Apostle his whole story, concealing nothing, and

he asked for his advice as to his future course.

That advice fell like a death-blow on all his hopes. With the

impetuosity of youth he had entirely lost sight of the fact that he

was still Philemon’s slave, and that the manumission conferred on

him by Octavia, in her ignorance that he was the personal chattel

of another, was legally invalid. He was, therefore, stricken with

amazement when the Apostle told him that he was not a freedman, but

still a slave. At those words the fabric of his life seemed once

more to be smitten into ruins. He had exulted with passionate joy at

the thought that he was no longer at the beck and call of a master,

no longer liable to the horrors of the cross and the branding-iron,

of the scourge or the furca. To be told that he was still a Phrygian

slave, that duty required him to go back to the _familia_ of Philemon,

to restore what he had stolen, to face any punishment which the

law of Colossæ might inflict on him, to place his future life

unreservedly in the hands of his owner, and to face the humiliation

of returning to the company of his old companions as a thief and a

runaway--this was like a sentence of hopeless condemnation. And there

was yet another circumstance which made the pang more deadly. He

still cherished for the gentle daughter of Nereus a love which might

not have seemed hopeless. If he stayed at Rome, if as a freedman he

could strike out for himself an honourable career--which his Greek

education rendered possible--he felt sure that he could yet win the

hand of the Christian girl. But to return to Colossæ as a slave, and

a guilty slave, and to be perhaps compelled to grow old in servitude

on the banks of the Lycus--it seemed too terrible a sacrifice!

Yet his sincerity stood the test. After a great struggle with himself

he bowed his head, and answered: ‘If it is my duty, my father, I will

do it.’

‘It is thy duty, my son Onesimus, and doubt not that the path of

thy duty will also be the path of thy happiness. Thou wilt gain by

losing. I know and I love Philemon, and his wife Apphia, and their

son Archippus; and I will write to Philemon for thee, and I do not

doubt that now he will set thee free--for indeed I need thee. Thou

art as a son to me; I have begotten thee in my bonds, and thou art

true to thy name in all thy help to me. But even if Philemon does

not set thee free, he is now thy fellow-Christian, and therefore thy

brother beloved, and no slavery can make thee other than the Lord’s

freedman.’

The letter to Philemon was written--the Magna Charta of ultimate

emancipation--and Onesimus was sent with it to his former master.

He was accompanied by Tychicus of Ephesus, who was charged with the

circular letter to that and other cities, as well as with the letter

to the Colossians. They had an affecting parting with the Apostle,

for though he was full of hope, yet the issue of his approaching

trial was uncertain, and they knew not whether they should ever see

his face again. He shed tears as he embraced Onesimus, to whom he

had grown deeply attached, but they left him in the kind care of

Aristarchus, and of the two Evangelists Mark and Luke. Above all,

Timotheus had again come from Ephesus to stay with him, and Timotheus

was to him as the son of his old age.

His case excited little attention. When it was heard in Nero’s

presence the Emperor was amusing himself with composing a loose

satire, paragraphs of which he handed from time to time to some

delighted favourite. He polished his wicked verses again and again,

till his note-book was almost illegible with erasures, and he paid

little heed to the Apostle’s accusers. The evidence, scanty as it

was, broke down completely, and testimony in favour of the innocence

and the services of the prisoner was given gladly by gentile

witnesses.

The impeachment might have been more formidable but for the shipwreck

of the vessel which, as Julius had told Vespasian, was conveying to

Rome a commission of his accusers among whom were two persons no less

important than Josephus, the young and learned Rabbi of Jerusalem,

and Ishmael ben Phabi,[92] the High Priest. But their ship foundered

in a terrible storm. Its entire cargo was lost, including the

documents on which the Sadducean hierarchs of Jerusalem had relied

to procure the Apostle’s condemnation. Of the two hundred souls on

board only eighty had been picked up, by a ship of Cyrene, after

they had swum or floated all night in the tempestuous waves. Ishmael

and Josephus had indeed been saved, but several of their witnesses

had perished. On the other hand, when men so different as Felix

the brother of Pallas, and the honourable Festus, and the centurion

Julius, and Publius the Protos of Melite, and Lysias the chief

captain at Jerusalem, all wrote in Paul’s favour, and when the

good-natured King Agrippa II. and Berenice had taken the trouble to

subscribe to this favourable testimony with their own hands, there

could be no reason for detaining him. Not even Tigellinus had any

object in keeping his clutch upon a prisoner who was too poor for

purposes of extortion. The Apostle was acquitted. Accompanied by

rejoicing friends, he went to Ostia, and thence set sail for Ephesus.

After a brief sojourn in the city of Artemis, he paid his promised

visit to Philemon at Colossæ. The first to greet him with happy

smiles in the house of the Colossian gentleman was Onesimus, and

as the Apostle pressed him to his heart, he learnt that all his

hopes had been fulfilled. Philemon, on receiving Paul’s letter,

had summoned the fugitive to his presence, and frankly forgiven

him. Orders were given to all the slaves of the household that no

reference was to be made to the past. Apphia and Archippus treated

the runaway with marked kindness, and he himself restored the full

sum which he had stolen and strove in every way to repair the old

wrong. Philemon had not thought it advisable, under the circumstances,

at once to set Onesimus free, but now in honour of Paul’s visit he

manumitted him and others of his Christian slaves, and allowed him

henceforth to devote his grateful services to the comfort of the

Apostle, with whom he set forth for Crete.

CHAPTER XLIX

_THE DEPTHS OF SATAN_

‘He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,

And crowned his hair with flowers--

No easier nor no quicker passed

The impracticable hours.’

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

It became daily more difficult for Nero to stimulate the jaded pulse

of appetites at once sated and insatiable; but in the year A.D. 64 a

new and immense sensation broke the tedious monotony of a life cursed

with the gratification of every desire. The influence of Poppæa grew

irresistible when it became evident that she was about to make Nero a

father. In due time she gave birth to a daughter, who seemed destined

to continue the imperial line. Nero went wild with joy. The child

was born in the villa at Antium, where he himself had first seen the

light. The highest of all titles, that of Augusta, was immediately

conferred not only upon Poppæa, but even on the unconscious infant.

Public vows, which had already been undertaken for her safety, were

paid and multiplied. Thanksgivings on the most superb scale were

given to the gods. A temple was reared to the goddess Fecundity.

Golden statues of the Antian goddesses of Fortune were placed on the

throne of the Capitoline Jupiter. Coins were struck on which the baby

was glorified under the names of Claudia Augusta. The entire Senate

set forth in long procession from Rome to congratulate the Emperor

and Empress. Nero seized the opportunity to indulge his hatred

against Pætus Thrasea. When the other senators were received into his

presence, he sent an order that Thrasea was not to be admitted. Every

one understood the significance of the message. It was a presage of

certain doom. But Thrasea received it with unmoved countenance, and

set out on his return to Rome with undiminished cheerfulness. To a

noble and virtuous Roman all life was at that time the valley of the

shadow of death.

The birth of Nero’s child greatly strengthened his position as

Emperor. While he remained childless there was the possibility that

when he died, or was swept away, the Senate might be able to summon

to the purple some worthier successor. That hope was now cut off.

Seneca withdrew himself to the utmost from public notice. The fate of

Pallas was an additional warning to him. The boundless extravagances

of Nero were rapidly exhausting a treasure which would have sufficed

for anything except a superhuman rapacity. The wealth of Pallas

proved too strong a temptation for Nero. He had the freedman

poisoned, and seized his ill-gotten gains. To avoid a similar fate,

Seneca entreated the Emperor to accept all his possessions and to

suffer him to retire. Nero received the request with hypocritical

assurances. How, he asked, could Seneca possibly suspect a prince

who was so deeply indebted to his care? But, though Nero refused to

accept either his resignation or his property, the philosopher did

not deceive himself. He shut himself up in a seclusion into which

he suffered none but his most intimate friends to intrude. He found

his sole relief in writing to his friend Lucilius letters which were

meant to console those who were living like himself under the daily

pressure of agonising anticipations.

But the extravagant joy of Nero was rudely quenched. Before four

months had ended the infant Claudia Augusta died, and Nero was

plunged in a grief as extravagant as had been his delight. The

birth of his child was to him a proof that the gods had averted

their wrath, by omens of which he was frequently terrified. To train

youths for the Neronian games, he had built a gymnasium, in which

was placed a bronze statue of himself. The gymnasium had been struck

by lightning, and the statue had been fused and disfigured into a

mass of shapeless metal. The omen was horrific, and was followed by

the news that the bright and wanton little cities of Pompeii and

Herculaneum had been shaken almost into ruins by an earthquake

of unusual severity. The safe birth of a child had alleviated the

haunting fears which these events had excited in his mind; but they

returned when the little Claudia died, nor were they greatly eased by

making her a goddess, by striking coins with the inscription ‘_Diva

Claudia Neronis_,’ and by appointing in her honour a pulvinar, a

temple, and a priest!

Those who understood his needs and his character saw that life could

only be made tolerable for him by excitements still more intense,

and crimes still more colossal, than those to which he had grown

accustomed. It had become his constant boast that the Emperor could

do anything he chose, and that he had been the first Emperor to find

out the fact. He therefore never hesitated to secure the death of

any one whom he disliked. If they were insignificant persons, he had

them poisoned and seized their goods. As no instinct of gratitude

prevented him from thus murdering Pallas, who had been the chief

agent in procuring his adoption and his succession to the Empire,

he had the less hesitation in sacrificing others of less fame.

Since Torquatus Silanus was the great-great-grandson of Augustus, he

determined to get rid of him on charges of ostentation and seditious

practices. When he had driven him to suicide he proclaimed that he

had intended to forgive him. Against the Senate he cherished so deep

a grudge that with his intimates he discussed the plan of putting

all the members of the order to death and distributing its functions

among the knights and freedmen. Cruelty had not been among his

natural vices, but he now became athirst for blood.

But hatred could only be gratified by spasms of brief indulgence,

and the animal passions also required something ever new to galvanise

their decrepitude. No one understood this better than Tigellinus.

Himself a voluptuary, who had exhausted the resources of every

base pleasure, he sought to supply by effrontery the lack of new

sensations. With this view he organised continuous revelries which

should be unparalleled either for costly extravagance or for

outrageous infamy.

Ruinous to the well-being of the State as were these portents of

materialism, they were innocent in comparison with the deliberate

corruption of public morals. Things are at their worst when vice

is so hardened that, instead of seeking concealment, it courts

notoriety. All Rome, even her ordinarily vicious population, recalled

with shame the orgies, at once monstrous and vulgar, which were

planned and paid for by Tigellinus to please his patron. Happily the

world has never seen or heard of an entertainment more abominable. In

the centre of the Campus Martius, near the Pantheon, was the Lake of

Agrippa, surrounded by a park full of groves, gardens, and shrines.

On the lake Tigellinus had constructed a raft for the guests. The

gondolas moored by the margin to convey the banqueters to the raft

were decorated with gilding, and vermilion, and silken streamers, and

rowed by boy-slaves from Britain, Greece, and Asia, with long curled

hair and bracelets of gold on their bare arms and ankles. On the

raft were erected pavilions, filled with delicacies, and furnished

as luxuriously as the tents of Eastern kings. When the actual

feasting was over the whole of the gardens were filled with choirs

of musicians, and all the varletry of either sex that could be

assembled from the confines of Rome. Not one honest or honourable

person was invited. It was to be a banquet of reprobates. Slaves, and

gladiators, and nobles, and women of consular families, and soldiers,

and men who had held high offices, and the gilded youth of Roman

effeminacy, and Greeklings skilled in all refinements of evil, roamed

promiscuously under the light of numberless cressets, their heads

crowned with roses, their hearts inflamed with wine. It was a chaos

of abomination, such as would not have been possible in any other

age than the first century after Christ, or in any other place than

imperial Rome. No Christian pen can paint that revelry of Antichrist,

or do more than distantly allude to the scenes which followed, when

Nero, disguised in the skin of a bear, crawled on all fours among the

vilest of those wretches, and gave to him ‘who saw the Apocalypse’

the image of the wild beast who sprang from the foul scum of the

world’s most turbid sea.

Yet though there was no truce to such scenes of darkness, except

such as was imposed by the premature paralysis of excess, they were

insufficient to occupy Nero’s tedium, or fill to the brim the cup of

his desires. To be an actor, to be a public singer--that seemed to

him to be the culmination of earthly bliss. Nothing would satisfy

his burning caprice but to appear before the multitude as Paris and

Aliturus did. But he dared not as yet insult the majesty of Rome with

the spectacle of a stage Augustus, and therefore determined to sing

first before an enchanted provincial audience, and thence to proceed

to Greece, not displaying himself in the theatre of the capital

till he could return as a victor in the Olympic and Pythian games.

But when he had got as far as Beneventum he changed his mind, and

determined to visit Egypt and the Eastern provinces instead of

Greece. In Egypt he meant to re-enact with unheard-of splendour the

old revelries of Antony and Cleopatra, and thought that in the hot,

luxurious valley of the Nile he might hear of new forms of pleasure

and luxury. Magnificent preparations were set on foot for his

reception, and his foster-brother, Cæcina Tuscus, was sent to

superintend them. Tuscus ventured to bathe in a sumptuous bath

constructed for Nero’s use, and for this harmless act Nero sentenced

him to exile. But the visit to Egypt was never paid. On his return

to the Palace, he entered the Temple of Vesta, beside the Forum.

Whether he was suddenly smitten with superstitious dread from the

recollection of his crimes or from some other cause, he was there

seized with a violent fit of shivering. His conscience smote him,

not for other enormities, but for a crime which, in mere wanton

wickedness, he had committed against the majesty of Vesta and the

most sacred beliefs of Rome. In defiance of every law, human and

divine, he had recently seized Rubria, one of the vestal virgins. It

had become one of the horrible characteristics of his mind that half

the fascination of wickedness consisted for him in the scandal which

it caused. His rank elevated him above human vengeance, but in that

circular shrine, and in presence of the ever-burning fire, he felt

as if he were in the power of the goddess, and swooned away. The omen

frightened him. Pretending that he could not endure to see his people

saddened by the thought of his absence, he abandoned his journey, and

announced that he would not leave them.

What new thing could be devised to dispel his weariness? He

passionately longed for some tremendous sensation to dissipate his

lassitude. If the hours had passed with leaden pace when he first

tasted the sweets of autocracy, how unutterably weary had they now

become!

‘Tigellinus, cannot you invent for me some new excitement?’ he asked.

‘I shall commit suicide from sheer fatigue. Tiberius went to Capri,

but a rock like that would not suit me. I cannot live in the vulgar

respectability of an Augustus or a Claudius.’

‘Shall I give you another feast like that at the Lake of Agrippa?’

‘That was all very well,’ said Nero, ‘but things grow tedious by

repetition. Petronius used to be suggestive, but even he has long

ago exhausted his inventiveness.’

‘I never knew why you gave up going to Greece,’ said the Præfect.

‘I thought it better to put it off till my voice was still more

perfect. But what am I to do now? I am dying for a new experience.

Of what use is life except to concentrate its essence into thrilling

sensations?’

‘Was it not a new sensation, Cæsar, when the elephant walked on the

tight rope with the knight Julius Drusus on his back?’

‘It amused me for once,’ said Nero. ‘It would be stale a second time.’

‘Well, then, when you had the “Conflagration” of Afranius put on the

stage, and let the actors pillage the burning house?’

‘Aye,’ said Nero, ‘that was worth seeing. It gave me a hint or two

for my poem on the “Taking of Troy.” What might not art gain, and how

might not my poem be enriched, if I had an actual scene to draw from!’

‘You would hardly like to see Rome in flames, Cæsar?’

‘Indeed I should. It would be worth living for. Happy Priam, who

_saw_ the Burning of Troy, about which I can only _write_.’

‘But Rome is something different from Troy,’ said Tigellinus.

‘Rome!’ answered the Emperor. ‘I am sick of it. Look at these close,

narrow, crowded streets. I should like to see a city of broad streets,

and palaces, and gardens, like Thebes, or Memphis, or Babylon. Ninus

and Sardanapalus had cities worth living in.’

Their conversation was held in a spacious room of the _Domus

Transitoria_, with which Nero had filled up the whole space from

the Palatine to the Esquiline.

‘Does not this Palace suffice you?’ asked the Præfect.

‘Not at all,’ replied Nero. ‘Many of the neighbouring[*13] houses and

temples are in my way, and I should like to clear them off, and give

myself air to breathe.’

‘Are you serious, Cæsar?’

‘Of course I am,’ he answered, petulantly.

Tigellinus shrugged his shoulders, and quoted a line from the

Bellerophon of Euripides:--

‘When I am dead, let earth be rolled in flame.’

‘Nay, while I _live_ let earth be rolled in flame,’ answered the

Emperor, altering the iambic. ‘Anything would be better than to

smoulder to death for want of something to amuse me.’

Nero was _not_ altogether in earnest. His conversation was habitually

grandiose, because he fed a perverse imagination with phantasmagorias

and monstrosities. He was suffering from that blood-poisoning of

unchecked vice which has so often maddened Eastern despots.

The fixed idea of watching a conflagration, and getting illustrations

for his Trojan epic, often returned to this Emperor of melodrama.

Without resolutely entertaining the purpose of wrapping Rome in

flames, he allowed himself to hint at it and to play with it. But

he had made Tigellinus much more in earnest than himself. That evil

genius of the Emperor thought that from such a calamity he at least

would have nothing to lose, and might have everything to gain. He had

inexhaustible riches at his disposal, and numberless wretches in his

pay. He meant to see what could be done. Not long after the above

conversation Nero went for a few days of literary leisure and musical

practice to his villa at Antium, and Tigellinus gave him hints that

at Antium he might expect startling news, and that a first-rate

sensation was in store for him. For the magnitude and horror of that

sensation even Nero was not prepared.

* * * * *

To us it all seems incredible. It did not seem incredible to Tacitus,

and it is positively affirmed by Suetonius, Dion Cassius, and even by

the grave and learned Pliny the Elder, who, as a contemporary, must

have known infinitely better than we can do ‘the depths to which

despotism in delirium can descend.’

CHAPTER L

_A CITY IN FLAMES_

‘Hoc incendium e turri Mæcenatiana prospectans, lætusque

_flammæ_, ut aiebat, _pulchritudine_, ἅλωσιν Ilii in illo

suo scenico habitu decantavit.’--SUET. _Nero_, 38.

Ἔκραζον ὁρῶντες τὸν καπὸν τῆς πυρώσεως αὐτῆς--Apoc. xviii. 9.

Nero set out for Antium on July 17. Two days afterwards Rome was in a

sea of surging flame. Men noticed that it was the anniversary of the

day on which, four and a half centuries earlier, the city had been

burnt by the Gauls. The fire had burst forth in the neighbourhood

of the Circus Maximus. The shops and storehouses which surrounded

that huge structure were full of combustible materials, including

the machinery and properties used in the public spectacles. Here the

flames seized a secure hold, and, raging about the Cœlian, rolled

toward the eastern front of the Palatine. Checked by the steep sides

of the hill and its cyclopean architecture, the fire swept down the

valleys on either side--to the right, along the Via Nova; to the

left, along the Triumphal Way. It ravaged the Velabrum and the Forum;

it consumed the temple and altar reared to Hercules by the Arcadian

Evander, the palace of Numa, and the circular Temple of Vesta, which

enshrined the ever-burning hearth and Penates of the Roman people.

Sweeping into the Carinæ, which was crowded by consular palaces, it

devoured those stately structures, and the many trophies of ancient

victories with which they were enriched. On the Aventine it destroyed

the temple which Servius Tullius had erected to the Moon, and in it

the priceless relics of Greek art which L. Mummius had brought from

Corinth. Rolling back to the Palatine with more victorious violence,

it reduced to a blackened ruin the venerable temple which Romulus

had vowed to Jupiter Stator. Then, licking up everything which lay in

its path, it rioted with voluptuous fury in the more densely crowded

regions of the city, raging and crackling among the old, tortuous

purlieus and crazy habitations of the Subura. With its hot breath

it purged the slums and rookeries, foul with a pauper population of

Oriental immigrants, who were massed round the ill-famed shrines of

Isis and Serapis. When it had acquired irresistible volume in these

lower regions, it again rushed up the hills as with the rage of

a demon, to sweep down once more in tumultuous billows over the

helpless levels. For six days and seven nights it maintained its

horrible and splendid triumph--now bounding from street to street

with prodigious rapidity, now seeming to linger luxuriously in some

crowded district, flinging up to heaven great sheets of flame, and

turning the nightly sky into a vault of suffocating crimson.

No words can paint the horror of a scene which transformed into

a Gehenna of destruction a city enriched with the magnificence of

nearly eight centuries of victory. There were districts in which

the heat was so intense that they were unapproachable, and the

rarefaction of the atmosphere, joined to a strong breeze which seemed

in league with the destroying element, filled the air with a roar as

of ten thousand wild beasts. Here stores of resinous material made

the consuming flames white with intensity; and there the burning and

smouldering _débris_, which for a time half choked the conflagration,

poured forth black volumes of smoke, which hid its progress under a

pall of midnight. Here an _insula_, many stories high, collapsed with

a crash which was heard for miles; and there whole streets, falling

simultaneously on both sides, caused continuous bursts of sound like

the long roll of incessant thunder.

But the physical horrors of the scene, as it was witnessed by a

million or more spectators who thronged from every town of Latium

and Campania to behold it, were nothing compared with the prodigies

of human agony and the multiform images of death and crime. At

first there had been wild efforts on the part of many to save their

homes. But their efforts were rendered futile by many causes. The

conflagration seemed to break forth, not in one spot, but from

various quarters, which rolled together their concurrent seas of

flame. No means were adequate to resist a foe which seemed to be

ubiquitous. The scorching heat drove back the boldest firemen. The

buckets, from which the police derived their nickname of _sparteoli_,

were ludicrously inadequate for an emergency so tremendous. The

supplies of water were not available in the wild confusion. It

was rumoured on every side that slaves and agents of the imperial

household were seen with tow and torches in their hands, which they

flung into the houses of the nobles; and, if any attempted to check

them, they menacingly declared that they had authority for their

doings. If a senator tried to organise his slaves to quench the

flames or impede their advance, he was bidden to take care what

he was about. Burglary and rapine were let loose. The criminal

population of the city seized the opportunity to plunder every

burning palace into which they could force their way. Nor was it

long before self-preservation became the one absorbing passion of

the multitude, surprised by the ever-swelling dimensions of the

catastrophe. Here a group of women, as they stood shrieking and

tearing their hair, unwilling to leave their homes or unable to save

their little ones, were trampled down under the hurrying rush of

some group of fugitives. Here the father of a family, hindered in

his flight by the helplessness of age or childhood, found himself

swept along by reckless pillagers, and with unutterable anguish was

compelled to abandon some little child or decrepit grandsire who

had been flung down on the pavement with bruised or broken limbs. As

the inhabitants of regions which the fire had freshly invaded rushed

to escape, they plunged into winding alleys overarched by meeting

flames, or their flight was impeded by smouldering ruins, or they

were overwhelmed by the thunderous fall of some huge building, many,

losing their heads altogether, stood stupefied with despair, and

the smoke stifled them, or the fire scorched them, until the streets

were filled with charred corpses. Others in raging defiance, seeing

themselves reduced to penury by the loss of all they possessed, or

with hearts lacerated by the death of their beloved, leapt madly into

the flames. Rome during all that week was a pandemonium of horror, in

which, amid shrieks and yells and every sound of ruin, were witnessed

the wrath of the elements, the passions of devils, and tragedies of

despair, and anguish which no heart can conceive, no tongue describe.

At the first news that Rome was in flames, and that they were already

approaching his Domus Transitoria, Nero hurried back from Antium.

Now indeed he had a sensation to his heart’s content. At first he

was shocked by the magnitude of a catastrophe more overwhelming than

had ever before happened to Rome or any other city. He mounted the

tower of Mæcenas, and gazed for hours upon the scene--thrilling

with excitement which was not without its delicious elements.

Safe himself, he was looking down on a storm of tempestuous[*14]

agony, which he could regard in the light of a spectacle. He was

accustomed to gaze unmoved on human pangs in the bloody realism of

the amphitheatre, and to see slave after slave flung to the lions,

with their arms bound in chains concealed with flowers. But what

scene of the circus, when the gilded chariots were reduced to a

crashing wreck of collisions, in which the horses kicked one another

and their charioteers to death--what gladiatorial massacre, filling

the air with the reek of blood, was for a moment comparable to the

sight of Rome in flames? The sublime horror of the moment stimulated

in him all the genius of melodrama and artificial epic. Surrounded by

his parasites, he compared Rome, now to a virgin whom the tigers of

flame devoured, now to a gladiator wrestling with troops of lions in

the arena. He was lost in admiration of the _beauty_ of the fire. Now

he called it a splendid rose, with petals of crimson; now a diadem

of flaming and radiating gold; now again an enormous hydra with

smoky pinions and tongue of flickering gleam. He wrote many a quaint

and fantastic phrase in the notebooks which were crowded with his

much-lined commonplaces of poetic imagery! Here were the materials

for many future poems before him. He could, for instance, write

an Ode on Tartarus--its horrible spaces of silent anguish, its

black vapours, its brazen gates, and iron pillars, its ghosts and

demons gibbering and shrieking in the shade, its torments and its

Pyriphlegethon with cataracts of blood and fire. He felt sure that

after these incitements of emotion and infusions of realism, his poem

on the Burning of Troy would be immortal, since it could not fail to

catch from such a scene a tinge of voluptuous sublimity!

And as he gazed for hours together of the day and of the night,

he endeavoured to realise the aspect of the spectacle, and did not

allow himself to be disturbed by the multitudinous agonies which it

implied. He did, indeed, accept some suggestions of Seneca, who,

abandoning his seclusion from generous impulse, hurried to him

as soon as it became evident that the fire meant wide-spread

destitution. Nero felt a spasm of terror when the philosopher

expressed a doubt whether sullen misery might not flash up into rage,

and cause a formidable rebellion. For want of houses, the people

were huddling into tombs and catacombs. Nero, therefore, took the

hint that he should offer the Campus Martius and the monuments of

Agrippa--his porticoes, baths, gardens, and the Temple of Neptune--as

a refuge for the shivering throngs whom the flames had driven from

their homes. But, this done, he flattered himself that the public

disaster would redound to his popularity; and as it never occurred

to him that any one would suspect his complicity, he gave himself

up once more to æsthetic enjoyment. He ordered masses of roses to be

strewn around him on the summit of the tower; he twanged his harp as

he thought of refrains and songs which he intended to write on the

subject; and he meant that Troy should stand as a transparent symbol

of Rome. When he was for a time tired of watching, he induced his

minions to ask him for an opportunity of hearing once more his

celestial voice; and putting on his tragic _syrmos_, appeared on

a private stage, harp in hand, and affectedly chanted to them his

insipid strophes and emasculate conceits.

But even these first-rate sensations became in time monotonous.

He had seen as much as he wanted, and to his great delight the

conflagration had destroyed the buildings near the Palace on which

he had cast covetous eyes. When after a pause the fire, which had

been checked on the seventh night, broke out a second time from the

Æmilian estate of Tigellinus, and raged fitfully for three days more,

he was tired of it. There was no object in suffering the whole of

Rome to be destroyed. He assented to a proposition that masses of

buildings should be pulled down on the Esquiline, in order that

the progress of the flames might be checked. The expedient was

successful. There was now time to note the extent of the devastation.

Rome was divided into fourteen districts. Three of these were reduced

to utter wreck and destruction. Seven more were in a condition

of desperate ruin; four alone remained untouched. The loss of

antiquities, of venerable buildings rich in historic associations,

of precious manuscripts, of priceless relics of the past, above all,

of works of art,

‘the hand of famed artificers

In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold,’

was such as none could estimate. The rumour arose that Nero was

about to rebuild the city with unparalleled magnificence and call

it Neronia; but whatever gain might accrue to another generation

from endless straight lines, ‘vast monumental perspectives, and

sumptuosities of parade,’ those who regarded cities as something

more than official masses of architectural monotony were wounded to

the heart. No new Rome could ever make up to them for the loss of

the old beloved city which sat dreaming on her seven hills among the

glorious memories of the past.[93]

The name of Nero was on every lip, and it was blended with curses not

loud but deep. As he wandered over the blackened areas, his lictors

accompanying him, his head crowned with garlands and his thoughts

full of magnificent schemes of reconstruction, he became aware

that the blank walls of the ruins were already scribbled over with

infamies with which his name was connected, and that scowling brows

were bent upon him and looks of hatred mingled with terror. His

proclamation that none were to approach the ruins of their own

houses, since he would charge himself with the burial of the human

remains and the clearance of the _débris_, was interpreted into a

design to enrich himself with any objects of value, or uninjured

works of art, which might be disencumbered[*15] from the general

destruction. He found it necessary to take measures to prevent the

indignation of the multitude from finding vent in furious outbreak.

Inviting aid from the senators, he started a sort of patriotic fund,

which did not differ greatly from a forced loan. He threw open his

gardens to the desolate paupers, who had no distant villas such

as those in which the rich took refuge; he ordered the erection of

multitudes of temporary huts; he decreed that the necessaries of

subsistence should be imported with all haste from Ostia and the

neighbouring municipalities, and he reduced the fixed price of corn

to the lowest possible limit. Under ordinary circumstances such

measures would have been welcomed with gratitude, as they were some

years later in the reign of Titus. As it was, they were insufficient

to remove the odium with which rumour surrounded his name. The public

voice accused him of being the author of a misery which it was beyond

his power to alleviate. It was all very well for him to lavish a

liberality which cost him nothing, and came from national resources;

but while he was still steeped to the lips in superhuman luxury,

who could restore to that nation of ruined men their lost children

and relatives, their lost homes and cherished possessions, their lost

materials and opportunities for gaining an honourable livelihood?

The story that he had harped and sung and poetised while the city

was crashing into ruins had first been whispered as a secret, but was

now familiar to every lip; and it filled all hearts with execration

and contempt. The ruthless egotism of the Emperor seemed likely to

cost him dear.

All that was left of religious feeling in the old Paganism was

overwhelmed with a sense that the gods were wroth. There rose a

clamour that expiations and purifications were necessary. But

litanies, and vigils, and sacred banquets were in vain, and Rome

presented the piteous scene of a starving and homeless populace who

regarded the past with horror and the future with despair, having no

hope, and without God in the world.

CHAPTER LI

_AN INFERNAL SUGGESTION_

‘I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,

And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,

Baited with reasons not unplausible,

Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

And hug him into snares.’

MILTON, _Comus_.

Nero was harassed night and day by a new terror. The grand spectacle

of Rome in flames, and the touches of local colouring, æsthetic and

realistic, which it had enabled him to add to his poem on the Taking

of Troy, would have been dearly purchased if they were to involve

the forfeiture of his throne and life. Yet the sinister attitude of

the people could not be mistaken, nor their menacing murmurs hushed.

Tigellinus began to doubt whether the allegiance of the Prætorians,

Germans and other foreign mercenaries as many of them were, would

remain unshaken. They showed inclination to sympathise with the

proletariat in their dangerous disaffection.

Except Tigellinus and Poppæa there was no one to whom the Emperor

dared open his secrets. Both of them were closeted with him, but

could suggest nothing to awaken him from the abject alarm into

which he was sinking. It was evident that alike the people and the

Senate held him responsible for the late conflagration, and it was

impossible to detect the author of the rumours which had made his

actions the common theme of Roman gossip. The only way to save

himself from the hatred which threatened to destroy him, would be to

divert the suspicion of the masses into some other channel. But whom

could Nero accuse with any semblance of probability? Tigellinus was

unscrupulous and Poppæa shrewd, but they knew not what to advise.

While they were thus consulting, a slave announced that Aliturus, the

Jewish pantomimist, accompanied by the High Priest of Jerusalem and a

distinguished Rabbi, desired an audience.

‘Aliturus is welcome,’ said Nero; ‘but I do not want to be troubled

by his countrymen.’

‘Give them an audience, Cæsar,’ said Poppæa, who was secretly

addicted to Judaism, and had even been admitted as a proselyte of

the gate. ‘Aliturus presented them to me at Puteoli. They are worth

conciliating. This High Priest is so rich that his mother (I am told)

once presented him with a tunic worth a hundred minæ, and he only

deigned to wear it once. You know the prophecy of the astrologer,

that you are to have an Oriental Empire, and perhaps to reign at

Jerusalem.’

Nero consented, and Aliturus, who was always among his favourites,

was ushered into his presence. The actor wore the ordinary dress of

a wealthy Roman youth, but the two friends who accompanied him were

in the costume of the East, with rich robes and silken turbans. The

elder of the two was an old man, whose white beard flowed in waves

over his breast, and whose sumptuous dress and haughty bearing

accorded with the dignity, if not with the humility, of the

High-Priesthood. The younger was a man not yet thirty years old,

splendidly handsome and full of the genius of his race.

‘Welcome, Aliturus,’ said the Empress. ‘Cæsar, this is the venerable

Ishmael ben Phabi, High Priest of the Jews, on whose ephod has hung

the twelve-gemmed oracle, and who has worn the golden robes; and this

is Josephus of Jerusalem, son of the Priest Matthias, a Priest, a

Rabbi, and a soldier.’

The High Priest and the Rabbi bowed almost to the ground, and

kissed the hand which Nero extended to them as he asked them on what

business they had come to consult him.

‘Half of our task in Rome has failed,’ said the High Priest. ‘We

came, commissioned by our nation to impeach Paulus of Tarsus, a

ringleader of the Galileans, for a sedition which he stirred up in

Jerusalem; but while our shipwreck detained us your clemency has

acquitted the criminal. We came also to entreat the liberation of

some of our priests who are here in prison, sent hither on frivolous

charges by the Procurator Festus.’

‘I will intercede for them,’ said Poppæa. ‘Those Procurators of Judæa

constantly maltreat an innocent and venerable people.’

‘The last Procurator is of your appointment, Poppæa,’ said the

Emperor. ‘I only nominated Gessius Florus, because you are a friend

of his wife Cleopatra.’

‘And he is the worst of them all,’ whispered Josephus to Aliturus.

‘He takes bribes from the bandits. He impales Jews who are knights

and Roman citizens, and he would not desist, though Berenice went

before his tribunal barefooted and with dishevelled hair.’

‘I have no doubt that Florus will be kinder than his predecessors,’

said Poppæa. ‘The others have stirred up against Rome the anger of

the Jewish God.’

‘Who is that?’ asked Nero. ‘Is it Moses?’

‘Moses,’ said Ishmael, ‘was a great law-giver, to whom was granted

more than human wisdom; but we worship not a mortal man. Our God is

He who made heaven and earth.’

‘Anchialus?’ asked Nero.[94]

‘Anchialus is some gentile scoff which I understand not,’ said the

High Priest, with dignity.

Nero whispered to Poppæa a line of Lucan’s:--

‘Judæa, votaress of a dubious God.’

‘Suffer _me_ to answer,’ said Josephus; ‘and as the Emperor is

learned in Greek I will answer in the line of an oracle given by the

Clarian Apollo himself:--

‘“Deem that the God Supreme, the Lord of Lords, is IAO”’[95]

‘And do you mean to say that this God of yours--Iaô, as you call

him--can injure Rome?’

‘He punishes all who insult His majesty,’ answered the young Rabbi,

‘and He blesses those that honour Him. Cæsar, in his wisdom, knows

how Pompeius burst into our Holy of Holies, and found that we did

not worship, as men lyingly said, the image of an ass, but that the

shrine was dark and empty. But from that time forth, Pompeius was

overwhelmed in that sea of ruin which flung him, a headless corpse,

on the shore of Alexandria. Heliodorus, the treasurer of Seleucus

Philopator, was scourged out of our Holiest by a vision of angels.

But Alexander the Great bowed before our High Priest Iaddua, and God

gave him unexampled victories. And Julius, your mighty ancestor, was

dear to our race, and he prospered through our prayers.’

‘Yea,’ said the High Priest, ‘and when the Cæsar Gaius would have

profaned our Temple with a statue of himself, our God smote him with

madness, and ere a year was over the dagger reached his heart.’

Nero had fits of superstition, and he listened with greedy ears.

‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that you Jews hated all mankind except

yourselves.’

‘We hate them not,’ answered Ishmael. ‘On the contrary, we pray for

all the seventy nations of mankind, and we offer daily sacrifices for

their welfare. If those sacrifices ceased, the world would perish.’

‘Listen, Cæsar, to the High Priest’s words,’ said Poppæa, ‘and set

these priests free.’

‘What Poppæa asks is done,’ said Nero. ‘But,’ he continued, turning

to the Jews, ‘is not your nation seditious and turbulent?’

‘It is not,’ answered Ishmael. ‘We never stir unless we are wronged.

We would fain sit in peace, each under his own vine and his own

fig-tree. We offer sacrifices in our Temple for the Emperor’s safety.’

‘Nero must not confuse us with the Christians,’ said Josephus,

quietly. ‘The Romans and Greeks have not yet learnt the difference

between us; and all _their_ crimes are set down to us.’

‘The Christians?’ said Nero. ‘Who are they? I have heard of them as

malefactors, the scum of the earth, but always thought they were a

sect of Jews.’

‘Forbid it Heaven!’ said the High Priest, vehemently. ‘They worship a

crucified _mesîth_, who deceived the people. Some of them, I confess

with anguish, are of our race, but far more are Gentiles.’

‘But did not Claudius drive the Jews from Rome, because they were

always rioting at the instigation of one Chrestus? Indeed, I thought

they were called Chr_e_stians.’

‘They like to be called Chrestians,’ said Josephus, ‘as though

they were _chrestoi_, or excellent. But Christos is the Greek for

“anointed,” and they use it for our Hebrew Messiah. It was not the

Jews who rioted in the days of Claudius, Emperor, but the sect of

Christians. Their Christus was crucified, thirty years ago, by

Pontius Pilatus. This Paulus of Tarsus is their chief man now.’

‘Paulus?’ said Nero. ‘I vaguely remember his being tried and

acquitted a month ago. He seemed to me a harmless sort of man. He

spoke, as I remember, very eloquently. Agrippa, and Berenice, and

Festus, and even Felix, spoke well of him.’

‘They are the enemies of our race,’ said the High Priest, ‘and they

deceive thee, O Emperor. It is this very Paulus who turns the world

upside down, and not only preaches against our holy law, but forbids

to pay tribute to Cæsar, and teaches men to worship Jesus as their

king.’

‘Do they dare to set up another king than Cæsar?’ exclaimed Nero,

hotly. ‘This must be seen to.’

‘I have heard of them,’ said Poppæa. ‘It is they, and not the Jews,

who hate the whole human race.’

‘I am sorry I let that Paulus go,’ said Nero. ‘Tigellinus, have you

any complaints against these imprisoned priests?’

‘None,’ said Tigellinus; ‘they cost nothing, for they live chiefly on

olives and figs.’

‘Then set them free this evening.’

‘We thank Cæsar for his goodness,’ said the High Priest, once more

making a low obeisance; ‘and we hope that he will deign to accept our

present.’

The present was a golden box, in which were many vials of rose-tinted

alabaster, full of the most precious balsam of Jericho, which filled

the chamber with perfume as Josephus took it from an attendant slave

and laid it at Nero’s feet.

‘This shall be for Poppæa,’ said the Emperor, ‘and on her behalf I

will send you a purple hanging for your Temple. I hope you will ask

Iaô to be propitious to me.’

They were ushered out, and no sooner had they left the room than

Tigellinus rose, and impetuously exclaimed--‘I have it! Those Jews

have taught me the secret. Strange that it never occurred to me

before.’

‘What is the secret, Præfect?’ asked Poppæa.

‘The Christians! we must accuse _them_ of being the incendiaries of

Rome. Cæsar, dismiss your fears. The propitiated gods have found a

victim, and the people will be satisfied.’

Nero’s spirits instantly rose. ‘Excellent!’ he exclaimed; ‘and thanks

to that handsome Rabbi for the hint; but who will tell us something

more about them?’

‘Aliturus will,’ said Poppæa. ‘As an actor he moves constantly among

the people.’

Aliturus had hardly left the Palace when he was summoned back to

the imperial conclave, and asked to tell what he knew about the

Christians. He retailed all the vile calumnies which were current in

antiquity about the ass-worship, the drinking of the blood of slain

children, the promiscuous orgies of darkness, the deadly hatred to

all mankind, the Thyestean banquets and Œdipodean unions. He told all

these things because he had heard them from common report, and had

never taken the trouble to ascertain the truth.

‘Have they any friends among the populace?’ asked the Præfect.

‘None,’ replied the actor. ‘The people hate them. They are foes to

all pleasure: they will not enter a theatre. They spit when they pass

a temple; they turn away with horror from sacrifices. They hate wine,

and will never wear a garland. They are morose misanthropes, devoutly

brutal, and capable of any crime.’

‘It would be a good thing to get rid of such enemies of gods and men,’

said Tigellinus. ‘Do you think they could have been the authors of

the late conflagration?’

‘It is more than possible,’ answered Aliturus. ‘I hear that they

often talk about the burning up of the world.’

‘Yes,’ said Poppæa; ‘and the part of the city which has most

completely escaped being burned is the region across the Tiber where

most of them live.’

Nero clapped his hands with delight. ‘Suspicion all points in that

direction,’ he said; ‘but how could we get evidence against them?’

‘It would not be easy, Cæsar. They meet in the most secret places,

and have their watchwords.’

‘That looks bad,’ said Nero. ‘I do not like secret meetings.’

‘Could you not get into one of their assemblies and bribe some of

them?’ asked Tigellinus.

‘I will try,’ said Aliturus, ‘if Cæsar wishes it. I can at any time

disguise myself and alter my face so that no one can recognise me;

and I dare say some slave will find out their watchword for me.’

‘Manage this for us, Aliturus, and your reward shall be gold enough

to make you a rich man for life. I gave a senator’s property to

Menecrates, the harpist, and a Consul’s patrimony to Spicillus, the

mirmillo, and a town-house and a villa to Paneros, the usurer. Cæsar

knows how to reward with a princely hand those that serve him.’

‘Cæsar is a god,’ said the supple actor; ‘and Aliturus will not fail

him.’

CHAPTER LII

_ALITURUS AMONG THE CHRISTIANS_

Ἐὰν δὲ πάντες προφητεύωσιν, εἰσέλθῃ δὲ τις ἄπιστος,

ἐλέγχεται ὑπὸ πάντων, ἀνακρίνεται ὑπὸ πάντων.--S. Pauli

I. ad Cor. xiv. 24.

Aliturus did not find it easy to fulfil his promise. Ishmael Ben

Phabi, stimulated by Sadducean hatred, made every inquiry among the

Jews of Rome, and learnt much that was useful to him. Josephus, who

had no special hatred against the Christians, but wished to know

more about them, because, as a Pharisee, he was interested in their

doctrine of the Resurrection, was able to give him some useful hints.

Esther, a Jewish freedwoman of Nero, wife of Arescusus, was still

more serviceable. At one time she had been drawn to the Christians by

their sanctity of life, but she was an intense enthusiast of Mosaism,

and, shocked by the views of gentile converts respecting the nullity

of the Law, she had felt the reaction of antipathy against them.[96]

But Primitivus, who had succeeded Phlegon (the lover of the epileptic

girl Syra), as keeper of the Spoliarium, gave him the key he needed.

Primitivus, in his work at the amphitheatre, had more than once come

in contact with Christians, and Phlegon had told him what he had

heard about them from Syra. He revealed to Aliturus the mystic

watchword of the Fish.

Armed with this watchword, the actor managed to establish relations

with Philetus, a slave of dubious character, who had nominally joined

the Christians because he found among them a sympathy and a kindness

which he had forfeited in his gentile surroundings. This thankless

traitor conducted him one evening, in the disguise of an Ephesian

merchant, into the remote sand-pit where the Christians held their

largest gatherings.

He found himself in an assembly of at least a thousand persons, who

had come by various roundabout obscure paths. A narrow opening led

to the half-subterranean place of rendezvous, and this was strongly

guarded by a body of Christian youths, who challenged and scrutinised

every comer. As they entered, the worshippers extinguished their

lamps and torches, and the vast space was in complete darkness,

except that a few lights glimmered in its deepest recesses. Aliturus

was accustomed to scenes of hardened wickedness, but he shuddered in

expectation of the nameless horrors which pagan slander led him to

suppose he would witness. How deep was his astonishment at the order,

the decorum, the innocent fervour, the holy devotion, the almost

childlike simplicity of the entire ceremony! Truly these men and

women were no orgiastic rioters! Linus was in the chair of the chief

pastor, and he was assisted by Cletus and other presbyters. Sometimes

he offered up prayers for all, sometimes the whole assembly joined in

common prayer, and the deep ‘Amen’ swelled like the sound of a mighty

wave. They joined in hymns addressed to God and to Christ, and then

the assembly was swept by the indescribable emotion of Spiritual

Presence which found vent in speaking in the Tongue. But there was

nothing disorderly or tumultuous in the manifestations, for the

worshippers had taken to heart the warnings which Paul had given

to the Church of Corinth. The pantomimist was struck with the

awful depth and penetrative force of those strange sounds, which no

skill of his--trained as he had been for years--would enable him to

reproduce. When some rose to interpret the mysterious utterances, he

heard many allusions to Babylon--which his Jewish origin made him

recognise as a cryptogram for Rome--and references to the recent

fire. But it was only spoken of as an awful judgment of God, a sign

of Christ’s second Advent, a prelude to the conflagration of the

world. He heard nothing wicked, nothing seditious. On the contrary,

every exhortation inculcated innocence and purity of life; and

prayers were offered for the Emperor, and all in authority. In Roman

society he had heard many a bitter jest, many a mordant innuendo

aimed at the Emperor, by men who were too vain to conceal their

sarcasms, even when they were perilous.[97] But here he heard no

such objurgations. When the interpretation of tongues was over,

Linus rose to address his flock.

He spoke first of the conflagration, and of all the disasters which

they had recently witnessed. He alluded with many tears to the

brethren who had perished in the burning streets, or lay buried under

the ruins of fallen houses, and he bade them not to sorrow as men

without hope, since the dead who die in the Lord were blessed. How

far more awful was the fate of those worshippers of false gods, who

had lived in defiant wickedness, and who, instead of passing from

life to life, had passed from death unto death, and a fiery looking

for of judgment! One practical duty he pressed upon them. Most of

them were poor; but God had given them the true riches. And now that

so many of their brethren were left destitute, it was their duty to

show that they believed the words of the Lord Jesus, that it is more

blessed to give than to receive. The heathen said, ‘See how these

Christians love one another.’ Yes, they loved one another, and all

who were of the household of faith; but let them also be kind and

gentle to those who treated them despitefully, remembering Him who

had said, ‘I say unto you, “Love your enemies.”’

From this topic he passed to the duty of watchfulness. All around

them lay the kingdom of Satan and of darkness. They knew its

grossness, its misery. Their beloved Apostle Paul had painted it

for them to the life in his letter to their Church. ‘Be sober, then,’

he said, ‘be vigilant! Already there are wars and rumours of wars,

and earthquakes, and famines, the sea and the waves roaring, and

men’s hearts failing them for fear of the things coming on the

earth. Is not the mighty calamity which we have witnessed one of the

birth-throes of the Messiah? Love not the world, therefore, brethren,

nor the things of the world. Count the things that are, as though

they are not. For, speaking in the Spirit, I tell you that very soon

will the great tribulation begin, which must be before the end. But

ye know the words of the Master, “He that shall endure to the end,

the same shall be saved.”’

A deep murmur rose from the multitude, and many wept at the thought

of coming woes. But they did not shrink from the peril of that

baptism of blood which they knew would be to them the portal of

salvation, and the murmur swelled into an Hosanna and a Hallelujah

which rang with steadfastness and exultation.

Then Cletus, the second presbyter, rose and said: ‘Our father Linus

has spoken. He has warned us that evil days are at hand. Already it

is whispered, we cannot tell by whom, that _our_ hands kindled this

great conflagration. You know, brethren, that we would rather die

than be guilty of such a monstrous crime. But at the bar of the

Gentiles innocence will not avail us; nor will pity touch the hearts

of our enemies in Babylon, where Satan’s throne is. But though a host

should encamp against us, yet will we not be afraid. He who set His

angel to stand by the three children in the furnace; He who saved

Daniel from the lions, and Jonah in the belly of the whale, will not

forsake us. We thank God in this great crisis that Paul, the Apostle

to us Gentiles, has been set free. He knew not what was coming, or he

would have stayed with us; but John the beloved is on his way to us,

and he will comfort us in all our afflictions.’