CHAPTER XXVI.

INTERMEZZO.

The dramatic composer has this great advantage over the novelist, that

when he has to allow for a certain amount of time,—it may be for years—to

elapse between the parts of his play, he lowers the curtain, the first or

second act is concluded, ices, oranges are taken round in the stalls; the

orchestra strikes up an overture, the gentlemen retire to the promenade

gallery for a cigar, and the ladies discuss their acquaintances, and the

toilette of those in the boxes, after having explored the theatre with

their glasses.

At Munich and Bayreuth, at the performance of Wagner’s operas, the space

allowed between the acts is sufficient for a walk and for a meal. Thus the

lapse of time between the parts of a drama is given a real expression, and

the minds of those who have followed the first part of the story are

prepared to accept a change in the conditions of the performers, such as

could be brought about solely by the passage of time.

But a novelist has no such assistance, he is not able to produce such an

illusion; even when his story appears in a serial, he is without this

advantage, for the movement of his tale, when it is rapid, is artificially

delayed by the limitations laid down by the editors of the magazines, and

the space allotted to him, and when he does require a pause to allow for

the gliding away of a certain number of years, that pause consists of

precisely the same number of days as intervened in the serial publication,

between chapters in which the action should have been continuous.

The writer must, therefore, throw himself on the indulgence of the reader,

and plead to be allowed like a Greek chorus to stand forward and narrate

what has taken place, during a period of time concerning which he proposes

to pass over without detailed account, before he resumes the thread of his

narrative.

When Vespasian was hailed Emperor by the troops he was aged sixty-one, and

none supposed that his reign would be long. He associated his eldest son

Titus with him in government, but would not allow the younger, Domitian,

any power.

When the Emperor reached the capital, he learned the misuse Domitian had

made of that which he had arrogated to himself, or which had been granted

to him by the Senate, in his father’s absence. The old Emperor was vastly

displeased at the misconduct of his younger son, and would perhaps have

dealt severely with him, had he not been dissuaded from so doing by Titus,

who pointed out, that as he himself had no son, in all probability

Domitian would at some time succeed to the purple.

The young man, kept in the background, not even allowed the command in any

military expedition, carefully watched and restrained from giving vent to

his natural disposition, chafed at his enforced inactivity, and at the

marked manner in which he was set behind his elder brother, a man who, by

the capture of Jerusalem, had gained a name, and had attached the soldiery

to him. Domitian was known to the military only by his abortive attempt to

pluck the laurels in Germany from the brow of his kinsman Cerealis, for

the adornment of his own head.

Domitian was granted none of the titles that indicated association in the

Empire. He was not suffered to take part in public affairs. His insolence

in neglecting the duties of prætor of the city, as beneath his dignity,

was punished in this manner. When Titus celebrated his triumph after the

Jewish war, with unusual magnificence, he and his father rode in chariots

of state, but Domitian was made to follow on horseback. When Vespasian and

his eldest son showed themselves in public, they were carried on thrones,

whereas Domitian was made to attend in the rear in a litter.

The envious, ambitious young prince, under this treatment was driven to

wear a mask, and he affected a love of literature, and indifference to the

affairs of state. Titus, who knew less of him than his father, was

deceived, but Vespasian was too well aware of the radically evil heart of

his younger son to trust him in any way.

Domitia was unable to escape from compulsary association with this

imperial cub. Vespasian was unwilling to undo the past, and have the

scandal raked up again, and public attention called to it. The minds of

the volatile Romans had forgotten the circumstances and were occupied with

new matters of gossip. Domitian married Domitia Longina, and the old

Emperor after some consideration concluded that she should remain his

wife.

But the relations between her and the prince were strained. She hated him

for what he had done, and she made no attempt to affect a liking she did

not feel.

Lamia remained unmarried; he had cared for no other woman, and he felt

that there was not to be found one who could ever be to him what he had

hoped Domitia would have proved.

Once Titus asked him his reason for not marrying.

“Why do you inquire?” said Lamia, with a bitter smile, “do you also wish

to carry off my wife?”

On the death of the old Emperor, Titus succeeded without any difficulties

being raised. His father had already associated him in the Empire and had

gradually transferred the conduct of affairs to his hands.

Hitherto the brothers had lived on very good terms with each other, at all

events in appearance, and Domitian had been sufficiently prudent to veil

his jealousy of Titus, who had shown himself kindly disposed towards his

younger brother.

On the accession of Titus, Domitian hoped to be associated with him in

government in the same manner as Titus had been with his father. In this

he was disappointed, his disappointment got the better of his prudence,

and he declared that his brother had falsified the will of Vespasian, who

had divided the power equally between them.

On the first day of his reign, Titus designated Domitian as his successor,

but he allowed him no independent power; and the young prince at once

involved himself in intrigues and sought to rouse the troops to revolt,

and to proclaim him in place of Titus.

The condition of Domitia would have been more intolerable than it was, but

that Vespasian, up to his death, retained his younger son about his

person, in Rome, and it was but rarely that the prince was able to escape

to his villa, at Albanum, where Domitia remained in seclusion. And his

visits there were not only few and far between, but also brief.

He was in bad humor when there, at liberty to vent his irritation at the

manner in which he was treated by his father, and the behavior towards him

of Domitia was not calculated to dispel his vapors.

A considerable change had come over her face. The expression had altered;

it had been full of sweetness, and the muscles had been flexible. Now it

was hard-set and stern.

Domitian cursed her for the fascination she still exercised over him. It

was perhaps her unyielding temper, her openly expressed scorn, and her

biting sarcasms which stung him to maintain his grip on her, knowing that

this was to her torture. Yet her beauty exercised over him a hold from

which he could not escape. His feelings towards her were a mixture of

passionate admiration and savage resentment. From every one else he met

with adulation, or at least respect, from her neither. His will was a law

to a legion of sycophants, to her it was something she seemed to find a

pleasure in defying.

Domitia nursed her resentment, and this soured her nature and reflected

itself in her features.

In the long Chiaramonte Gallery of the Vatican Museum is an exquisite and

uninjured bust of Domitia Longina as a girl; the face is one that holds

the passer-by, it is so sweet, so beautiful, so full of a glorious soul.

In the Florence Gallery is one of the same woman after Domitian had

snatched her away from Lamia, and hidden her in his Alban villa. Lovely

the face is still, but the beautiful soul has lost its light, the softness

has gone out of the face, and the shadow of a darkened life broods over

it.

At Albanum the solitary Domitia had the satisfaction of being attended by

her servant Euphrosyne, and the faithful Eboracus was also allowed to be

there as her minister.

She occasionally visited her mother in Rome, but the chasm between them

widened. Duilia could not understand her daughter’s refusal to accept the

inevitable and failure to lay hold of her opportunities, and, as she

termed it, “eat her rat.” The older Duilia grew, the less inclined she was

to acknowledge her age, and the more frivolous and scheming she became.

She was never weary of weaving little webs of mystery and of contriving

plans; and the initiating of all these was a supper. She was well off,

liked ostentation, yet was withal of a frugal mind, and never ordered

costly dishes, or broached her best wine without calculation that they

would lead to valuable results.

It was possible that Vespasian might have interfered in favor of Domitia,

had he been made to understand how strongly she disliked the union, but

Domitia herself was never able to obtain an interview with the aged

Emperor, and Duilia took pains to assure him that the marriage had been

contracted entirely with her approval, that the union with Lamia had been

entered on without feeling on either side, in obedience to an expressed

wish of Corbulo before his death, and that her daughter was quite content

to be released.

The period was not one in which the personal feelings of a girl were

counted as deserving of much thought, certainly not of being considered by

an Emperor, and Vespasian took no steps to relieve Domitia. Titus was

better aware of the facts, and had some notion of the wrench it had been

to the young married people, but he was not desirous of having the matter

reopened. It would not conduce to the credit of the Flavian house, and

that was in his eyes a matter of paramount consideration—as the process of

deification of the Flavians had already begun.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

AN APPEAL.

“What can I do for thee, Domitia?” asked Titus, who was pacing the room;

he halted before the young wife of his brother, who was kneeling on the

mosaic floor.

She had taken advantage of her introduction into the Imperial palace to

make an appeal to Titus, now Emperor. She had not been allowed to appear

there during the reign of Vespasian.

Titus was a tall, solidly built man, with the neck of a bull; he had the

same vulgarity of aspect that characterized both his father and brother,

and which was also conspicuous in his daughter Julia. The whole Flavian

family looked, what it was, of ignoble origin,—there was none of the

splendid beauty that belonged to Augustus, and to the Claudian family that

succeeded. Their features were fleshy and coarse, their movements without

grace, their address without dignity.

If they attempted to be gracious, they spoiled the graciousness by

clumsiness in the act; if they did a generous thing, it carried its shadow

of meanness trailing behind it.

Titus had not borne a good character before his elevation to the purple.

He had indulged in coarse vices, had shown himself callous toward human

suffering. Yet there was in his muddy nature a spark of good feeling, a

desire to do what was right, a rough sense of justice and much family

affection.

It was a disappointment to him that he had but one child, a daughter, a

gaunt, stupid girl, big-boned, amiable and ugly.

He knew that Domitian, his younger brother, would in all probability

succeed him, but he also was childless. Next to him, the nearest of male

kin, were the sons of that Flavius Sabinus, who had been butchered by the

Vitellians, and their names were Sabinus and Clemens.

The former was much liked by the people, he was an upright grave man. The

second was regarded with distrust, as a Christian. It was not the fact of

his following a strange religion that gave offence. To that Romans were

supremely indifferent, but that which they could not understand and allow

was a man withdrawing himself from the public service, the noblest

avocation of a man, because he scrupled to worship the image of the

Emperor, and to swear by his genius. They regarded this as a mere excuse

to cover inertness of character, and ignobility of mind.

For the like reason, Christians could not attend public banquets or go to

private entertainments as the homage done to the gods, and the idolatrous

offerings associated with them, stood in their way. The profession of

Christianity, accordingly, not only debarred from the public service, but

interfered with social amenities. Such withdrawal from public social life

the Romans could not understand, and they attributed this conduct to a

morbid hatred entertained by the Christians for their fellow-men.

The public shows were either brutal or licentious. The Christians equally

refused to be present at the gladiatorial combats and at the coarse

theatrical representations of broad comedy and low buffoonery. This also

was considered as indicative of a gloomy and unamiable spirit.

There were indeed heathen men who loathed the frightful butchery in the

arena, such was the Emperor Tiberius,—and Pliny in his letters shows us

that to some men of his time they were disgusting, but nevertheless they

attended these exhibitions, as a public duty, and contented themselves

with expressing objection to them privately. The objection was founded on

taste, not principle, and therefore called for no public expression of

reprobation.

Clemens was quite out of the question as a successor. If he was too full

of scruple to take a prætorship, he was certainly unfit to be an emperor.

Not so Flavius Sabinus his elder brother. Him accordingly, Domitian looked

upon with jealousy.

“What can I do for thee?” again asked Titus, and his heavy face assumed a

kindly expression; “my child, I know that thou hast had trouble and art

mated to a fellow with a gloomy, uncertain humor; but what has been done

cannot be undone——”

“Pardon me,” interrupted Domitia, “it is that I desire; let me be

separated from him. I never, never desired to leave my true husband,

Lamia, I was snatched away by violence—let me go back.”

“What! to Lamia! That will hardly do. Would he have thee?”

“Tainted by union with Domitian, perhaps not!” exclaimed Domitia fiercely.

“Right indeed—he would not.”

“Nay, nay,” said Titus, his brow clouding, “such a word as that is

impious, and in another would be treason. Domitia, you have a bitter

tongue. I have heard my brother say as much. But I cannot think that Lamia

would dare to receive thee again after having been the wife of a Flavian

prince.”

Domitia’s lip curled, but she said nothing. These upstart Flavians made a

brag of their consequence.

“Then,” said she, “let me go to my old home at Gabii. I have lived in

seclusion enough at Albanum to find Gabii in the current of life—and my

mother and her many friends will come there anon. Let me go. Let there be

a divorce—and I will go home and paddle on the lake and pick flowers and

seek to be heard of no more.”

“It would not do for you and Lamia to be married again. It would be a

political error; it might be dangerous to us Flavians.”

“I should have supposed, in your brand-new divinity that a poor mouse like

myself could not have scratched away any of the newly-laid-on gold leaf.”

“Domitia,” said Titus, who had resumed his walk, “be careful how you let

that tongue act—it is a file, it has already removed some of the gilding.”

A smile broke out on his face at first inclined to darken.

“There! There!” said he, laughing; “I am not a fool. I know well enough

what we were, as I feel what we have become. Caligula threw mud, the mud

of Rome, into the lap of my grandfather, because he had not seen to the

efficient scouring of the streets. It was ominous—the soil of Rome has

been taken away from the divine race of Julius—and has been cast into the

lap of us money-lenders, pettyfogging attorneys of Reate. Well! the Gods

willed it, Domitia—it is necessary for us to make a display.”

“Push, as my mother would say.”

“Well—push—as you will it. But, understand, Domitia, though I am not

ignorant of all this, I don’t like to have it thrown in my teeth; and my

brother is more sensitive to this than myself. Domitia, I will do this for

you. I will send for him, and see if I can induce him to part from you. I

mistrust me,”—Titus smiled, looked at Domitia, with one finger stroked her

cheek, and said,—“By the Gods! I do not wonder at it. I would be torn by

wild horses myself rather than abandon you, had I been so fortunate——”

“Sire, so wicked——”

“Well, well! you must excuse Domitian. Love, they say, rules even the

Gods, and is stronger than wine to turn men’s heads.”

He clapped his hands. A slave appeared. “Send hither the Cæsar,” he

ordered. The slave bowed and withdrew.

Domitian entered next moment. He must have been waiting in an adjoining

apartment.

“Come hither, brother,” said Titus. “I have a suppliant at my feet, and

what suppose you has been her petition?”

Domitian looked down. He had a pouting disdainful lip, a dogged brow, and

eyes in which never did a sparkle flash; but his face flushed readily, not

with modesty, but shyness or anger.

“Brother,” said Domitian, “I know well enough at what she drives. From the

moment, the first moment I knew her, she has treated me to quip and jibe

and has sought to keep me at a distance. I know not whether she use a

love-philtre so as to hold me? I know not if it be her very treatment of

me which makes me love her the more. Love her! It is but the turning of a

hair whether I love or hate her most. I know what is her petition without

being told, and I say—I refuse consent.”

“Listen to what I have to propose,” said Titus, “and do not blurt out your

family quarrels before I speak about them. It is not I only, but all Rome,

that knows that your life together is not that of Venus’s doves. It is

unpleasant to me, it detracts from the dignity of the Flavian family”—he

glanced aside at his sister-in-law, and his lips quivered, “that this

cat-and-dog existence should become the gossip of every noble house, and a

matter of tittle-tattle in every wine-shop. Make an end to it and

repudiate her.”

Domitian kept his eyes on the floor. Domitia looked at him for his answer

with eagerness. He turned on her with a vulgar laugh and said:—

“Vixen! I see thee—naught would give thee greater joy than for me to

assent. I should see thee skip for gladness of heart, as I have never seen

thee move thy little feet since thou hast been with me! I should hear thee

laugh—and I have heard no sound save flout from thee as yet. I should see

a sun dance in thine eyes, that perpetually lower or are veiled in tears.

Is it not so?”—He paused and looked at her with truculence in his

face—“and therefore, for that alone, I will not consent.”

“Listen further to me, Domitian,” said Titus; “I have a proposition to

make. Separate from Domitia, send her back——”

“What, into the arms of Lamia?”

“No, to Gabii. She shall be guarded there, she shall not remarry Lamia.”

“I shall take good heed to that.”

“Hear me out, Domitian. I have but one child, Julia. The voice of the

people has proclaimed itself well pleased with our house. We have given to

Rome peace and prosperity at home, and victory abroad. I believe that

there are few who regard me unfavorably. But it is not so with thee. Thy

folly, thy disorders, thy violence, before our father came to Rome, have

not been forgotten or forgiven, and Senate and people look on thee with

mistrust. I will give thee Julia to wife. It is true she is thy niece—but

since Claudius took Agrippina——”

“Thanks, Titus, I have no appetite for mushrooms.”(8)

“Tut! you know Julia, a good-hearted jade.”

“I will not consent,” said Domitian surlily.

“Hear me out, brother, before making thy decision. If thou wilt not take

Julia, then I shall give her to another——”

“To whom?” asked Domitian looking up. He at once perceived that a danger

to himself lurked behind this proposal. The husband of Julia might contest

his claims to the throne, should the popularity of Titus grow with years,

and his own decline.

“I shall give her to our cousin, Flavius Sabinus.”

Domitian was silent, and moved his hands and feet uneasily.

Looking furtively out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a flash of hope

in those of Domitia.

He held up his head, and looking with leaden eyes at his brother, said:—

“Still I refuse.”

“The consequences—have you considered them?”

Domitian turned about, and made a tiger-like leap at Domitia and catching

her by her shoulders said:—

“I hate her. I will risk all, rather than let her go free.”

[Illustration: “I HATE HER!” _Page 221._]

CHAPTER II.

THE FISH.

Domitian had been accorded by his brother a portion of the palace of

Tiberius on the Palatine Hill, that was crowded with imperial residences;

and Domitia had been brought there from Albanum.

She was one day on the terrace. The hilltop was too much encumbered with

buildings to afford much space for gardens, but there were platforms on

which grew cypresses, and about the balustrades roses twined and poured

over in curtains of flower. Citrons and oleanders also stood in tubs, and

against the walls glistened the burnished leaves of the pomegranate; the

scarlet flowers bloomed in spring and the warm fruit ripened till it burst

in the hot autumn.

Domitia, seated beside the balustrade, looked over mighty Rome, the

teeming forum, roofs with gilded tiles of bronze, lay below her, flashing

in the sun, and beyond on the Capitol, white as snow, but glinting with

gold, was the newly completed temple of Jupiter, rebuilt in greater

splendor than before since the disastrous fire.

The hum of the city came up to her as the murmur of a sea, not a troubled

one, but a sea of a thousand wavelets trifling with the pebbles of a

beach, and dancing in and out among the teeth of a reef; a hum not unlike

that of the bees—but somewhat louder, and pitched on a lower note.

Domitia paid no attention to the scene, nor to the sounds, she was engaged

with her jewel-box, that she had brought forth into the sun, in order that

she might count over her treasures.

At a respectful distance sat Euphrosyne spinning.

Domitia had some Syrian filagree gold work in her hand—it formed a

decoration for the head, to be fastened by two pins; the heads were those

of owls with opals for eyes.

She laid it aside and looked at her rings and brooches. There was one of

the latter, a cameo given her by her mother, of coral of two hues, a

Medusa’s head, a beautiful work of art. Then she took up a necklace of

British pearls from the Severn, she twisted it about her arm and lovely

were the pure pearls against her delicate flesh,—like the dainty tints on

the rose and white coral of the brooch she had laid aside.

She replaced the chain, and took up a cornelian fish.

“Euphrosyne,” said Domitia, “come hither! observe this fish. Thy sister

gave it me the day I was married, but alack! it brought me no luck. Think

you it is an omen of ill? But Glyceria would not have given me one such.”

“Nay, lady, the fish brings the greatest happiness.”

“What is its meaning? It is a strange symbol. It must have some purport.”

The slave hesitated about answering.

Then, hearing steps on the pavement, and looking round, Domitia

called—“Thou! Elymas! who pretendest to know all things, answer me this, I

have an amulet—a fish—what doth it portend?”

“What?—the murex? That gives the imperial purple.”

“Bah! It is no murex, not a sea snail but a fish. What is the

signification?”

“Lady, to one so high, ever-increasing happiness.”

“Away! you are all wrong. Happiness is not where you deem it. False thou

art, false to thy creed. _Thou_ speak of a divine ray in every man and

woman! an emanation from the Father of Light, quivering, battling,

straining to escape out of its earthly envelope and soar to its

source!—thou speak of this, and in all thy doings and devisings seekest

what is sordid and dark!”

The gloomy man folded his cloak about him, and looking at her from under

his penthouse brows answered:—

“Thou launchest forth against me without reason. Knowest thou what is a

comet? It is a star that circles about the sun and from it drinks in all

the illumination it can absorb, like as the thirsty soil in summer sucks

in the falling rain, or the fields the outflow of the Alban Lake; then it

flies away into space, and as it flies it sheds its effulgence, becoming

ever more dim till it reaches infinite darkness and is there black in the

midst of absolute nigritude. Then it turns and comes back to replenish its

urn.”

“Nay,” said Domitia, “that can never be. When all light is gone, then all

desire for return goes likewise. I know that in myself—I—I am such a

comet. When I was a child I longed, I hungered for the light, and in my

days of adolescence it was the same, only stronger—it was as a famine. I

was the poor comet sweeping up towards my sun; but where my sun was,

that—in the vast abyss of infinity—I knew not. I sought and found not, I

sought and shed my glory, till there was but a faint glimmer left in me;

and now—now all light is extinguished, and with it desire to know, to

love, to be happy, to return.”

“Madam, you, as the comet, are reaching your apogee, your extreme limit;

you must shed all your light before you can return to the source of

light.”

“What! is that your philosophy? The Father of Light sends forth his ray to

expire in utter darkness, predestined this ray of light to extinction. If

so—then He is not good. And yet,” she sighed, “it is so. I am such. In

blackness of night. Look you, Elymas, when I was a child, I laughed and

danced; I cannot dance, I can but force a laugh now. I once loved the

flowers and the butterflies; I love them no more. My light is gone. The

faculty of enjoyment is gone with it. Do I want to return? To what? To the

source of light that launched me into this misery? No, not into that cold

and cruel fate. Let me go on my inky way, I have no more light to lose—I

look only to go out as a fallen star and leave nothing behind me.”

“What! when a great future is before you?”

“What future? you have none to offer me that I value. Away with your hints

concerning the purple—it is the sable of mourning to me.”

She panted. The tears came into her eyes.

“It is you who have wrecked my life—you—you. It was you who devised that

crime—when I was snatched away from the only man I loved—the only man with

whom I could have been happy—whom I—” she turned aside and hid her face.

Then recovering herself, but with a cheek glistening with tears, she said:

“I admit it, I love still, and ever shall love. And he loves me. He has

taken none to wife, for he thinks on me. There, could darkness be deeper

than my now condition? And you did it, you betrayed me into the hands—”

she had sufficient self-control not to say to whom, before this man and

her slave.

“Lady, it is not I, but Destiny.”

“And you, with your tortuous ways, work to ends that you desire, and

excuse it by saying, It is Destiny.”

“What, discussing the lore of emanations, little woman?” asked the

Emperor, coming suddenly up.

Elymas stood back and assumed a deferential attitude. Titus waved him to

withdraw, and was obeyed. Then he took Domitia by the hand.

“A philosopher, are you?”

“No, I ask questions, but get no answers that content me.”

“Ah! you asked a favor of me the other day and spiced it with a sneer—your

jibes hit me.”

“I meant not to give pain.”

“I have come to you touching this very matter. I am not sure, child, that

the scandal is not greater so long as you and Domitian remain linked

together, and pulling opposite ways, than if you were parted. Your

quarrels are now the talk of Rome, and many a cutting jest is put into

your pretty mouth at our expense; invented by others, attributed to you.”

“You will have us divorced!” her breath came quick and short.

“Listen to what I propose. Domitia, I am not well. I have this accursed

Roman fever on me.”

“Sire, I mark suffering in your face.”

“It has been vexing me for some days, and it is my intent to leave Rome

and be free from business and take my cure at Cutiliæ—our old estate in

the Sabine country. Perhaps the air, the waters of the old home, the nest

of our divine family—” his mouth twitched, but there was a sad expression

in his face—“they may do me good. It is something, Domitia, to stand on

the soil that was turned by one’s forbears, when they bent as humble

farmers over the plough. They were honest men and happy; and when one is

down at heart, there is naught like home—the old home where are the bones

of one’s ancestors, though they may have been yeomen, and one a

commissioner, and another an usurer, and so on. They were honest men. Aye!

the rate-collector, he was an honest man. Here all is false, and unreal,

and—Domitia—I feel that I want to stand on the soil where my worthy,

humble, dear old people worked and worshipped, and laid them down to die.”

“You are downcast indeed,” said Domitia.

“And because downcast, I have been brooding over your troubles, little

sister-in-law. Come! I did something for your poor Lamia,—I made him

consul, and I will do more. Can you be patient and tarry till my strength

is restored? I shall return from my family farm in rude health, I trust,

and by the Gods! the first matter I will then take in hand will be yours.

I know what my brother is. By Jupiter Capitolinus! if Rome should ever

have him as its prince, it will weep tears of blood. I know his savage

humor and his sullen mind. No, Domitia, you cannot be happy with him. A

cruel wrong was done you, and when I return from Cutiliæ I will right it.

You shall be separated!”

She threw herself at his feet.

He smiled, and withdrawing from her clasp, said:—

“I will do more than that for your very good friend, in whom you still

take such a lively interest. I shall find means to advance him to some

foreign post—he knows Antioch, I will give him the proconsulship of Syria

and Cilicia, and so move him away from Rome. And then—” he took a turn,

looked smilingly at Domitia, and said,—“I do not see that you need mope at

Gabii. You know Antioch; you were there for some years. It is, I believe,

not well for a governor to take his wife with him; she has the credit of

being a very horse-leech to the province. But I can trust thee, little

woman! There, no thanks, I seek mine own interest, and to protect our

divine images and the new gilding from the rasp of that tongue. That is

the true motive of my making this offer. Do not thank me. On my return

from Cutiliæ you may reckon on me.”

Then hastily brushing away her thanks, and evading her arms, extended to

clasp him, he walked from the terrace.

“Euphrosyne!” cried Domitia, “did you hear! The comet has reached its

extreme limit, it is turning—it is drawing to the light—to hope. Happiness

is near—ah!”

In her excitement she had struck her jewel-case that stood on the marble

balustrade, and sent it, with all its costly contents, flying down the

precipice into the thronged lanes at the back of the forum in a glittering

rain.

“Ye Gods!” gasped Domitia, “the omen! O ye Gods! the bad omen.”

“Lady,” said Euphrosyne, “all is not lost”

“What remains? Ah! the Fish!”

“Yes, mistress dear, when all else is lost, remember the Fish.”

CHAPTER III.

IN THE “INSULA.”

“Now, for a while I am as one who has cast off a nightmare,” said Domitia

to herself. “He is away—why he has attended Titus to the Sabine land I

know not, unless the Emperor could not trust him in Rome—or may be, in his

goodness he has done it to relieve me of his presence. I will go see my

mother.”

Domitia ordered her litter and bearers. She had no trinkets to put on,

save the fish of cornelian. Her mother liked to see her tricked out, and

usually when Domitia paid her a visit she adorned herself to please the

old lady,—now she could not assume jewelry as she had lost all her

articles of precious stones and metal. So she hung the cornelian amulet

about her neck.

When a Roman lady went forth in palanquin, it was in some state. Before

her went two heralds in livery, to clear the way and announce her coming

at the houses where she purposed calling, then she had six bearers, and

attendants of her own sex, carrying her scent bottles, kerchiefs, fans,

and whatever she might think it possible she would require.

Domitia was impatient of display, but it had been imposed on her by the

Emperor. “The Flavians,” said he smiling, “must make a show in public.”

A Roman lady was at this period expected to wear yellow hair, if she would

be in the fashion. Under the Flavians, it was a compliment to the reigning

princes to affect this color. It was true that the word _flavus_ meant

anything in color, from mud upwards to what might be termed yellow by

courtesy. It was employed as descriptive of the Tiber, that was of the

dingiest of drabs, and of the Campagna when every particle of vegetation

was burnt up on it, and the tone was that of the dust-heaps. But now that

the parsnip-haired Flavians were divine and all-powerful, the adjective

was employed to describe the harvest field and gold. Ladies talked of

their hair as “flavan” when it had been dyed with saffron and dusted with

gold. Not to have yellow hair was expressive of disaffection to the

dynasty—so every lady who would be in the fashion, and every husband who

wanted office, first bleached and then dyed their hair, and as hair was

occasionally thin, they employed vast masses of padding and borrowed coils

from German “fraus” to make the utmost show of their loyalty to the august

house of the divine Flavii.

Domitia dared not be out of fashion, and she was constrained to submit to

having her chestnut hair dredged with gold-dust before she went forth on

her visit. For her, conspicuously to wear her hair in its natural color

would at once have provoked animadversion, and been interpreted as a

publication, in most defiant manner, of the domestic discord that was a

topic of gossip in the saloons of Rome.

When she had entered her palanquin, she gave her orders and was carried

lightly down the sloping road into the Forum. This was crossed, and then,

drawing back the curtains of her litter, she said:—

“Eboracus, tell the fellows not to go at once to the Carinæ. I have a

fancy to see the wife of Paris the actor, in the _Insula_ of Castor and

Pollux.”

She was playing with the fish suspended on her bosom, as she was being

conveyed down the hill, and the thought had come to her that she had not

seen Glyceria for a long time, and that now was a good occasion as her

husband—whom these visits annoyed, and who had in fact forbidden them—was

absent from Rome.

The porters at once entered the narrow, tortuous lanes, where the lofty

blocks of buildings cut off all sun and made twilight in midday.

As Domitia stepped out of her litter, she saw coming down the street, a

man much in the company of Domitian, for whom she entertained a particular

dislike. He was a very dark man, and blind; his face was pointed, and his

nose long; he ran with projecting head, turning his sharp nose from side

to side, like a dog after game. His name was Valerius Messalinus.

One of his slaves whispered something into his ear, and he twisted about

his head, and then came trotting in the direction of the litter of

Domitia.

“Quick,” said she, “I must go in; I will not speak with that man. If he

asks for me, say I am out—out of the litter.”

She at once entered the block of lodgings, and impatiently waved back her

heralds, who would have ascended the stairs before her and pompously

announced her arrival.

Taking Euphrosyne along with her, Domitia made her way towards the

apartments of the crippled woman. But already the news had spread that men

in the imperial livery had entered the building, and there was a rush to

the balustrade to see them.

When Domitia reached the first landing, she saw that the women and

children, and such men as were there, had ranged themselves on either

side, to give her passage, every face was smiling, and lit with pleasure,

the men raised their forefingers and thumbs to their mouths, and the women

and children strove to catch her hand, or kneeling to touch, raise and

kiss the hem of her dress.

If, at one time it had caused surprise that she a rich lady, should enter

a common haunt of the poor, it was now a matter of more than surprise, of

admiration and delight—to welcome the sister-in-law of the Emperor, one

who it was whispered would some day be herself Empress, Augusta, and an

object of religious worship.

This sort of welcome always went to the heart of Domitia, and gave her a

choke in the throat.

The great people never regarded the poor, save as nuisances. An emperor

had said of the populace that it was a wolf he held by the ears. And it

was wolf-like because brutally treated, pampered as to food given without

pay, supplied with scenes of bloodshed, also without cost, in the arena,

every encouragement to work taken from it, every demoralizing, barbarizing

influence employed to degrade it.

The great people were supremely indifferent to the sufferings of the

small, provided no hospitals for the poor who were sick, no orphanages for

the homeless children—let them die—and the faster the better,—that was one

wish of the great;—then shall we be alone on the earth with our slaves.

Had these poor people hopes, ambitions, cares, sorrows? Did they love

their wives, and hold to their hearts their cubs of children? Did they

have any desire that their children should grow up to be good men and

virtuous women? Oh, no! such rabble were not of one blood with the rich.

They had no fine feelings, they were like the beasts; they were without

human souls; and so, when the poor died their bodies were rammed down

wells contrived to contain a thousand corpses at a time, and then heaped

over with a little earth.

But Domitia had learned that it was not as supposed. Amidst the falsity,

barbarity of heart, and coarseness of mind of such as were of the noble

Roman order,—the cultured, the rich, the philosophic—there was no

sincerity, no truth. She felt happier and better after one of these visits

to the _Insula_ in the Suburra as though her lungs had inhaled a purer

atmosphere. To the smiles and kisses and blessings lavished on her, she

answered with kindly courtesy—and then stepped into the room of the

paralyzed woman. Glyceria was as much a cripple as when first visited. She

was more wasted—some time had passed—but she hardly seemed older, only

more beautiful in her purity, a diaphanous lamp of mother-of-pearl through

which shone a supernatural light.

Domitia drew a deep sigh.

“Glyceria,” she said, “when I come here, it is to me like seeing a glimpse

of blue sky after a day of rain, or—like the scent of violets that came on

me the first time I visited you.”

“And when you, lady, come to me, it is as though a sunbeam shone into my

dark chamber.”

“Nay, nay—no flattery from thee, or I shall hate thee. I get that till it

cloys. But tell me now, times have been better, and why has not Paris

moved into superior quarters? Surely he is in better employ and pay than

of old.”

“It is so, but only to a small degree,” answered the actor’s wife. “Paris

performs in the grand old dramas in Greek only; in those of Æschylus and

Eurypides and Sophocles, he is a tragic actor,—and—” the poor woman

smiled, “perhaps home troubles have taken the laughter out of him. He is a

sad bungler in comedy. Now the taste of Rome is not for the masterpieces

of the ancients. The people clamor to see an elephant dance on a

tight-rope, and a man crucified who pours forth blood enough to swamp the

stage—the Laureolus! that is the piece to bring down the house. Or some

bit of buffoonery and indecency. To that the people crowd. However, we

live; I hang as a log about my Paris’s neck, but thank God, he loves his

log and would not be rid of it, so I am content.”

“But if you will suffer me to assist you,” said Domitia.

Glyceria shook her head. “No, dear lady, do not take it ill if I refuse

your kind offer, made, not for the first time. I am very happy here,

very—with these dear kind people about me, running in and out all the day,

offering their gracious good wishes, lending their ready help. On my word,

lady! I do believe that they would all be in tears and feel it as a slight

if I were to go; and for myself, I could never be happy away from them.”

Domitia stood up and went to the door. Her heart swelled in her bosom.

“None but the poor know,” said the cripple, “how kind, how tender the poor

are to one another. Poverty is a brotherhood—we are all of one blood, and

one heart.”

“And I—” said the great lady, looking out on the balcony with its swarm of

people, some busy, some idle, most merry—“And I—” said she, dreamily—“I

love the poor.”

“Then,” said a low firm voice, “thou art not far from the Kingdom of

Heaven.”

She turned and started.

She recollected him, that stately man with deep, soft eyes. Luke, the

Physician.

“I am not surprised,” he added, “if you be His disciple,” and he touched

the cornelian fish.

It was not strange that in this splendid lady with golden hair he did not

recognize the timid, crushed girl with auburn locks, he had seen on the

Artemis.

But the recollection of that night came back with a rush like a tidal

wave, over Domitia, and she threw forth the question, “Why did you cut the

thong?”

He did not comprehend her. She saw it, and added, “You do not recollect

me. Do you not recall when we nearly ran down the galley of that monster

Nero? On that night, we would have sent him to the bottom of the sea, but

for you,—you spoiled it all; you cut the thong of the rudder. Why did you

prevent us from doing it?”

“Because,” answered the physician, “It is written, Vengeance is mine, I

will repay, saith the Lord. It was not for you to do it. You were not

called to be the minister of His sentence.”

“I understand you not.”

“My daughter——”

“Hold!” said Domitia, rearing herself up. “Dost thou know to whom thou

addressest thyself? I—I thy daughter? I am Domitia Longina, daughter of

the great Corbulo, and—” but she would not add, “wife of the Cæsar

Domitian.”

“Well, lady,” said Luke, “forgive me. I thought, seeing that sign on thy

breast, and hearing thee say that thou didst love the poor, that thou wast

one whom, whatever thy rank and wealth and position I might so address,

not indeed as one of the Brethren, but as a hearer and a seeker—enough—I

was mistaken.”

“What means this fish?” asked Domitia, her wounded pride oozing away at

once. “I pray you forgive me. I spoke hastily.”

“The fish,” said he—

But before he could offer any explanation, Paris appeared, his face

expressive of alarm; he had seen the servants in the imperial white below,

and knew therefore whom to find in his wife’s lodgings.

He hastily saluted her and said:—

“Lady! I beseech thee to go at once. Something has occurred most grave.

Return immediately to the palace.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

“Madam, I dare not name it, lest it be untrue. To speak of it if untrue

were to be guilty of High Treason.”

“High Treason!” gasped Domitia. She knew what such a charge entailed.

“The Cæsar Domitian has passed at full gallop through the streets, his

attendants behind him.”

“Whither has he gone?”

“To the Prætorian barracks.”

“Ye Gods!” spoke Domitia, she could not raise her voice above a whisper.

“Then the worst has happened. My light is out once more.”

CHAPTER IV.

ANOTHER APPEAL.

On reaching the street, Domitia saw at once that the aspect of the

populace was changed. Instead of the busy hum of trade, the calls of

hucksters, the laugh of the mirthful, a stillness had come on every one;

no face smiled, no voice was raised, scarcely any person moved.

Those who had been bustling here and there stood motionless, trade had

ceased. A sudden frost had arrested the flow of life and reduced all its

manifestations to the lowest term. Such as had been running about

collected in clusters, and conversed in whispers. Blank faces looked at

Domitia as she entered her litter, with awed respect.

“Eboracus! What is the meaning of this?” asked the lady.

“Madam, I know not. None will confide what they seem to know or to

suspect.”

“Go forward,” said she, “I will visit my mother in the Carinæ. She will

know everything.”

In another moment her train was in movement, and as she passed along, all

bowed and saluted with their hands; they had done as much previously, but

without the earnestness that was now observable. In the heart of Domitia

was as it were a blade of ice transpiercing it. She was in deadly alarm

lest her surmise should prove true.

She would not draw the curtains of her litter, but looked at everything in

the streets, and saw that all were in the same condition of stupefaction.

On reaching the entrance to the palace occupied by her mother, Domitia

noticed another palanquin and attendants.

“The Vestal Abbess, Cornelia, is with the Lady Duilia,” said Eboracus.

“I will go in!—I know her well, and esteem her,” said Domitia.

She passed the vestibule, traversed the Atrium and entered the Tablinum.

But Longa Duilia was not there. A slave coming up, said that she had

entered with the Great Mother into a private apartment, where she might

not be disturbed.

“Well! I am no stranger. Lead the way.”

In another instant she was ushered into her mother’s presence, and at once

Duilia bowed to her with profound respect.

“Mother—what does this mean?”

“Here is the Lady Abbess, Cornelia, let me present her to your Highness.”

“Mother—I salute the Lady Cornelia—what is this that has cast a shadow

over Rome and frightened the people as with an eclipse?”

“My dear, of course you have heard. It may be only rumor and yet,—he was

suffering when he left Rome.”

“Ye Gods! do not say so! Mother, withdraw your words of bad omen. Naught

has befallen him! It was but a slight fever.”

“So we esteemed it, but——”

“But, mother——” Domitia panted.

“The news are weighty, and concern you vastly, my daughter.”

“It is too horrible for me to think. Surely, surely, mother, it is false.”

“Hearken, my dear,—Lady Cornelia, come also to the top of the house. It is

a fine situation for seeing and hearing, and out of all reach of

eavesdroppers. I hear shouts, I hear horns blowing. Come—speedily! let us

to the house-top.”

Laying hold of Domitia and the Vestal Superior by the wrists, she drew

them with her to the roof.

The silence that had fallen on Rome had passed away, the town was now

resonant with horns and trumpets pealing from the Prætorian camp, with the

shouting of many voices from the same quarter. In the streets, messengers

were running, armed with knotted sticks, and were hammering at the doors

of Senators to summon them to an extraordinary meeting. The clash of arms

resounded, so also the tramp of feet, as the city police marched in the

direction of the Palatine. Here and there rose loud cries, but what they

signified could not be judged.

In another moment Eboracus came out on the housetop, and hastening to his

mistress, said:—

“Madam, the Augustus—Titus, _has been_. The Cæsar Domitian is proclaimed

Emperor by the troops. The _vigiles_ are hastening in cohorts to swear

allegiance.”

“I congratulate you—I congratulate you with all my heart!” exclaimed Longa

Duilia, throwing her arms round her daughter. “I have reached the summit

of my ambition. I vow a kid to Febronia for her opportune—ahem!—but who

would have thought the Roman fever would have been so speedy in bringing

us luck. Run, Eboracus, summon the housekeeper; order the ancestral masks

to be exposed, all the boxes opened, dust the noses with the feather

brush; let the _lares_ be garlanded. Tell Paulina to bring out the best

incense, not the cheapest this time, and I vow I will throw a double pinch

on the altar of the household gods. Who would have thought it! I—I, mother

to an empress. I would dance on the house-top, but that my wig is not

properly pinned, and might come off. I must, I positively must embrace you

again, Domitia; and you too, Cornelia, I am so happy!—As the Gods love me!

Wig pinned or not, I must dance.”

“Let us go down,” said Domitia in a hard tone.

“Come down, by all means,” acquiesced her mother. “I must see that the

Gods be properly thanked. I stepped this morning out of bed left leg

foremost.(9) I knew some happiness would come to me to-day. As the Gods

love me! I’ll give a little supper. Domitia! whom shall I invite? None of

your second-class men now. There!—I thought as much; my wig has come off.

Never mind! no men can see me, and women don’t count.”

On reaching the private apartment of the lady, Domitia said:—

“Mother—a word.”

She was white, save that a flame was kindled on each cheek-bone and her

eyes scintillated like burning coals.

“Well, my dear, I am all ears—even to my toes.”

“Mother, he murdered him. I know it—I feared there was mischief meant,

when Domitian attended him to Cutiliæ and took Elymas with him. It was not

fever that——”

[Illustration: “MOTHER, HE MURDERED HIM.” _Page 240._]

“My dear, don’t bother your head about these matters. They all do it. We

women, I thank the Gods, are outside of politics. But—well—well, you must

not say such things, not even think them. It is all for the best in the

best of worlds. I never had the smallest wish to see behind the scenes.

Always eat your meat cooked and spiced, and don’t ask to see it as it

comes from the shambles. If you are quite positive, then I won’t throw

away the kid on Febronia. It is of no use wasting money on a goddess who

really has not helped.”

“Mother,” said Domitia, her whole frame quivering with excitement; “I am

sure of it. Did not the Augustus give his daughter Julia to Flavius

Sabinus? I know that Domitian was alarmed at that. I saw it in his looks,

I heard it in his voice; his movements of hand and foot proclaimed it. He

feared a rival. He feared what the will of Titus might be—whom he might

name as his successor. Mark me, my mother; the first to fall will be

Flavius Sabinus.”

“Hist! the word is of bad omen.”

“It was of bad omen to Sabinus and to Titus alike when Julia was given to

her cousin.”

“Well, my dear,” said Longa Duilia, “I do not see that we need concern

ourselves about politics. You see,—every night, stars drop out of the

heavens; the firmament is overcrowded, and those stars that are firmest

planted elbow out the weakest. It is their way in heaven, and what other

can you expect on earth? Of course, it were much to be desired—and all

that sort of thing; but we did not make the world, neither do we rule it.

All eggs in a nest do not hatch out, some addle.”

“Mother, I will not go back to him.”

“Folly! you cannot do other.”

“I will not. My condition was bad enough before, it will be worse now.”

“Domitia, set your mind at rest. I have no doubt that there have been

little unpleasantnesses. Man and wife do not always agree. Your poor

father would not be ruled by me. If he had—ah me!—Things would have been

very different in Rome. But he suffered for his obstinacy. You must be

content to take things as you find them. Most certainly it would be better

in every way if peacocks had eyes on both sides of their tails, but as

they have not, only very silly peacocks turn about and expose the eyeless

side. Make the best of matrimony. It is not many marriages are like young

walnuts, that you can peel off the bitter and eat only the sweet. In most,

the skin adheres so tightly that you have to take the sweet with the gall,

and be content that there is any sweet at all.”

“I shall go away. I will not return to the palace.”

“Go whither? the world belongs to Domitian. There is not a corner where

you can hide. There are officials, and when not officials—spies. I have no

doubt that the fish in that tank put up their heads and wish they were

butterflies to soar above the roof and get away and sport among the

flowers, instead of going interminably about the _impluvium_. But, my

dear, they can’t do it, so they acquiesce in tank existence. Yours is the

finest and best lot in the world,—and you would surrender it! From being a

lioness you would decline to be a house cat!”

Domitia turned abruptly away, tears of anger and disappointment were in

her eyes.

She said in a muffled voice:—

“Lady Cornelia, will you come with me?”

“I am at your service,” answered the Vestal.

The ladies departed together, and at the portal each entered her own

litter.

“To the Atrium Vestæ,” said Domitia.

Her retinue started, and a moment after followed that of the Vestal

Cornelia.

The streets were full of excited multitudes, currents running up one side,

down another, meeting, coming to a standstill, clotting, and choking the

thoroughfares, then breaking up and flowing again.

If it had not been for the liveries of the two heralds, the palanquin of

Domitia could not have got through, but when it was observed whose litter

and servants were endeavoring to make way, the crowd readily divided, and

every obstacle gave way immediately. But the Vestal Superior needed not

that the Cæsar’s wife should open the road for her. As much respect was

accorded to her as to Domitia.

Both trains, the one following immediately after the other, entered and

traversed the Forum, passed the Temple of Julius, and at the south

extremity reached the Atrium of the Vestal Virgins, a long building

without a window, communicating with the outer world by a single door.

At this door Domitia descended from her litter, and awaited the Abbess.

Cornelia also stepped from her litter. She was a tall and stately lady of

forty years, who had once been beautiful, but whose charms were faded. She

smiled—

“You will pay me a visit, as you go your way? that is a gracious favor.”

“A lengthy visit,” said Domitia.

“Time will never seem long in your sweet society,” answered the Vestal and

taking Domitia’s hand led her up the steps to the platform.

No sooner was Domitia there, than she ran to the altar of the Goddess on

which burned the perpetual fire, within a domed Temple, and clasped it.

Cornelia had followed her, and looked at her with surprise.

“I claim the protection of the Goddess,” said Domitia. “I will not return

to the palace! I will be free from _him_.”

Cornelia became grave.

“If your Goddess has any might, any grace, she will protect me. Do you

fear? Have you lost your rights? I claim them.”

“Be it so,” said the Abbess. “None have appealed to the Goddess in vain,

none taken sanctuary with her, who have been rejected. She will maintain

your cause.”

CHAPTER V.

ATRIUM VESTÆ.

When the Romans were a pastoral people at Alba, then it was the duty of

the young girls to attend to the common hearth and keep the fire ever

burning. To obtain fresh fire was not always possible, and at the best of

times not easy.

Fire was esteemed sacred, being so mysterious, and so indispensable, and

reverence was made to the domestic hearth (hestia) as the altar of the

Fire goddess.

When the Roman settlement was made on the banks of the Tiber, one hut of a

circular form was constituted the central hearth, and provision was made

that thence every household should obtain its fire. This hut became the

Temple of Hestia or Vesta, and certain girls were set apart to watch the

fire that it should never become extinguished.

This was the origin of the institution of the Vestal Virgins, an

institution which lasted from the founding of Rome in B. C. 753, to the

disestablishment of Paganism, and the expulsion of the last Vestal, in

A. D. 394, nearly eleven hundred and fifty years.

No girl under six or above ten years of age was admissible as priestess of

the sacred fire, and but six damsels were allowed,—their term of service

was thirty years, after which the Vestal was free to return home and to

marry. The eldest of the Vestals was termed Maxima, and she acted as

superior or abbess over the community.

They enjoyed great possessions and privileges and were shown the most

extraordinary respect. Seats of honor were accorded to the Vestals in the

theatres, the amphitheatre and the circus.

The Vestals had other duties to perform beside that of maintaining the

perpetual fire. They preserved the palladia of Rome, those mysterious

articles on which the prosperity, nay, the very existence of the city was

thought to depend. What these were was never known. The last Vestal

carried them away and concealed them. With her death the secret was lost.

Moreover, they took charge of the wills of great men, emperors and nobles,

and in times of civil war they mediated between the conflicting parties.

Cornelia gently detached the hands of Domitia from the altar of Vesta, and

led her within the college of the Vestals, the only door to which opened

on the platform on which stood the Temple.

On entering, she found herself in an oblong court surrounded on all four

sides by a cloister, the prototype of those to be in later days erected in

the several convents and abbeys, and collegiate buildings of Christendom.

In the open space in the midst was the circular treasury of the palladia,

at one end was the well whence the virgins drew their water. The cloister

was composed of marble columns, and sustained an upper gallery, also open

to the court but roofed over and the roof supported on columns of red

marble.

Between the columns below and above stood statues of the Superiors, who

had merited commemoration. There was no garden, the place for walking was

the cloister.

Cornelia conducted Domitia into the reception-chamber, and kissing her

said:—

“Under the protection of the Goddess you are safe.”

“I trust I in no way endanger your safety.”

“Mine!” Cornelia laughed. “There is none above me save the supreme

pontiff, and so long as I do no wrong, no one can molest me. But tell

me—what wilt thou do?”

“In the first place send out and bid my servants return home; and if they

ask when to come for me, answer, when I send for them.”

“That is easily done,” said the Abbess. She clapped her hands and a slave

girl answered and received this commission.

“Now,” said she, “now we come to the real difficulty. Here you are, but

here you cannot tarry for long. For six days we may accord sanctuary, but

for no more. After that we must deliver over the person who has taken

refuge with us if required.”

“I have for some time considered what might be done. I have been so

miserable, so degraded, so impatient, that I have racked my brain how to

escape, and I see but one course. When we were at Cenchræa, my mother and

I, we were in the house of a Greek client of our family, who was very kind

to us, and his wife loved me well. If I could escape thither in disguise,

then I think he would be able to secrete me, there are none so astute as

are the Greeks, and who so love to outwit their masters.”

“But how is this possible?”

“That I know not—only let me get away from Rome, then trust my craft to

enable me to evade pursuit. Let it be given out that I am here in

fulfilment of a vow, then no suspicion will be roused, and I can take my

measures.”

“It is not possible,” said Cornelia in some alarm. “Have you considered

what your mother said? the Augustus is all-seeing and all-powerful, and

has his hand everywhere.”

“Get me out of Italy, and I shall be safe. I will not return to the

Palatine. If my life was hateful to me before, what will it be made now?

Then _he_ had some fear of his father and of his brother, now he has none

to fear.”

The Vestal said, “Let me have time to think this over—and yet, it doth not

seem to me feasible.”

“Get me but a beggar’s suit, and walnut juice, that I may stain my face

and hands and arms. I will wash all this gold-dust from my hair—and I

warrant you none will know me, with a staff and a wallet, I will go forth,

right willingly. I will not return to _him_.”

“That is impossible. You—with your beauty—your nobility——”

“My nobility is of no account with me now.”

“You think so, and so it may be whilst untouched, but I am certain the

least ruffle would make your pride flash out.”

Domitia remembered her resentment at the physician’s apparent familiarity.

“Well—my beauty will be disguised.”

“That nothing can conceal.”

“Oh! do not speak thus, or I shall mistrust you, as I mistrust every one

else—except my slave Euphrosyne, and Eboracus, and Glyceria the actor’s

wife. These seem to me the only true persons in the world. I would cast

myself on them, but two are slaves and the other is paralyzed. Consider

now, Cornelia, do you not understand how that one may reach a condition of

mind or soul, call it which you will, when we become desperate. One must

make an effort to break away into a new and free and better life, or

succumb and become bad, and dead to all that is noble and true and good,

hard of heart, callous to right and wrong. I am at that point. I know, if

I were to return to _him_, and to be Empress of the Roman world, that I

should have but one thing to live for—the pride of my place and the

blazoning of my position; and to all that which lies deep within me,

bleeding, crying out, hungering, and with dry lips—dead.”

“My dear lady, you were never made for what you are forced to become.”

“Then, why do the Gods thrust me on to a throne that I hate, tie me to a

man that I loathe, surround me with a splendor that I despise. Tell me

why? O Vesta! immaculate Goddess! how I would that I had been as one of

thy consecrated virgins, to spend my days in this sweet house, and pure,

peaceful cloister! Do you see? I must away. I am lost to all good—if I

remain. I must away! it is my soul that speaks, that spreads its hands to

thee, Cornelia! save me!”

She threw herself on her knees and extended her arms to the Vestal Abbess,

caught her dress and kissed it.

Cornelia was deeply moved,

“I beseech you, rise,” she said, lifting the kneeling suppliant, clasping

her in her arms, and caressing her as a child.

“Hearken to me, Domitia, I can think but of one person that can assist us;

that is my cousin Celer. He is a good man, and whatever I desire, he will

strive to execute as a sacred duty. Yet the risk is great.”

“I pray you!—I pray you get him to assist me to escape.”

“He must furnish you with attendants. It will not be secure for you to be

accompanied by any of your own servants. They might be traced. Celer has

got a villa. Stay, I will go forth at once and see him. He can give

counsel. Do nothing till my return.”

The Vestal Great-Mother left, and Domitia was glad to be alone.

The habitation of the Vestals was wonderfully peaceful, in the midst of

busy, seething Rome, and in the centre of its greatest movement. As

already said, it had no windows, and but one door that opened on the outer

world. It drew all its air, all its light, from the patch of sky over the

central court. Figures of Vestals glided about like spirits, and the white

statues stood ghostlike on their pedestals.

But to be without flowers, without a peristyle commanding a landscape of

garden and lake and trees and mountains! That was terrible. It would have

been an unendurable life, but that the Vestal college was possessed of

country seats, to which some of the elder of the sisterhood were allowed

occasionally to go and take with them some one or two of the novices.

Although there were no flowers in the quadrangle, there was abundance of

birds. In and out among the variegated marbles, perching on balustrades,

fluttering among the statues, were numerous pigeons, as marbled in tint as

the sculptured stonework, and looking like animated pieces of the same;

and a tame flamingo in gorgeous plumage basked himself, then strutted, and

on seeing a Vestal approach hopped towards her. When, moreover, the same

maiden drew water from the well, the pigeons came down like a fall of snow

about her, clustering round the bucket to obtain a dip and a drink.

Several hours passed. At length the Abbess returned. She at once sought

Domitia, who rose on her entry. Cornelia took both her hands within her

own and said:—

“We women are fools, that is what Celer said, when I told him your plan.

As he at once pointed out, it is impossible for you to lie hid anywhere in

Italy—and impossible to escape from it, unknown to the Augustus. Any one

endeavoring to assist you to escape would lose his life, most assuredly.

‘I cannot sell smoke to a clown,’ said he bluntly—he is a plain man—‘I

will not put out a finger to assist in such an attempt, which would bring

ruin on us all. But,’ he said, ‘this may be done; let the Lady Domitia

retire to one of her own villas, in the country, and commit the matter to

the Vestals. Your entreaty is powerful, and if attended by two of the

sisters—or perhaps better alone, for this is not a matter to be made

public—go to the prince, and plead in the lady’s name, that thou feelest

unequal to the weight of duties that will now fall on the Augusta, and

that thy health is feeble and thou needest repose and country air—then he

may yield his consent, at least to a temporary retreat.’ But my kinsman

Celer advised nothing beyond this. In very truth, nothing else can be

done. Most men’s noses are crooked,—he said—and he is a blunt man—and

those who have straight ones do not like to follow them. But in your case,

Lady Domitia, there is practically no other way.”

“Then I will to Gabii,” said Domitia with a sigh. “If he will force me

back—there is the lake.”

Then, said Cornelia, “Dost thou know that blind-man Messalinus?”

“Full well—he hangs on to the Cæsar Domitian, like a leech.”

“Since thou didst enter the house of us Vestals, he hath been up and down

the Via Nova and the Sacred Way, never letting this place out of his

eye—blind though he be. Some say he scents as doth a dog, and that is why

he works his head about from side to side snuffing the wind. When I went

forth he detached two of his slaves to follow—and they went as far as

myself and stood watching outside the door of the knight Celer, and when I

came forth they were still there, and when I returned to the Atrium of

Vesta, I found Messalinus peering with his sightless eyes round the

corner. But, I trow, he sees through his servants’ eyes.”

“He is a bird of ill omen,” said Domitia, “a vulture scenting his prey.”

CHAPTER VI.

FOR THE PEOPLE.

Domitia was at Gabii. Cornelia, the Vestal Great Mother had sent her

thither in her own litter, and attended by her own servants, but with the

assistance of the knight Celer, who had gone before to Gabii to make

preparations.

Gabii had none of the natural beauties of Albanum, but Domitia cared

little for that. It was a seat that had belonged to her father and here

his ashes reposed. The villa was by no means splendid; but then—nor had

been that of Albanum when she was first carried thither. Domitian had

bought it immediately after the proclamation of his father, and it had

then been a modest, but very charming country residence. Since then, he

had lavished vast sums upon it, and had converted it into a palace,

without having really improved it thereby. To Albanum he had become

greatly attached; to it he retired in his moody fits, when resentful of

his treatment by his father, envious of his brother, and suspicious of his

first cousin Sabinus. There he had vented his spleen in harassing his

masons, bullying his slaves, and in sticking pins through flies.

But if Gabii was less beautiful and less sumptuous, it had the

immeasurable advantage of not being occupied by Domitian. There, for a

while, Domitia was free from his hateful society, his endearments and his

insults, alike odious to her.

And she enjoyed the rest; she found real soothing to her sore heart in

wandering about the garden, and by the lake, and visiting familiar nooks.

Only into the temple of Isis she did not penetrate, the recollection of

the vision there seen was too painful to be revived.

On the third day after she had been in the Gabian villa, Celer came out

from Rome. He was a plain middle-aged man with a bald head, and a short

brusque manner, but such a man as Domitia felt she could trust.

He informed her that Cornelia had been before the Augustus and had

entreated him to allow his wife to absent herself from the palace, and

from his company. She had made the plea that Domitia Longina was out of

health, overstrained by the hurry of exciting events, and that she needed

complete rest.

“But I demand more than that,” said she.

“Madam, more than that, my cousin, the Great Mother, dared not ask. The

prince was in a rough mood, he was highly incensed at your having

withdrawn without his leave, and he saw behind Cornelia’s words the real

signification. He behaved to her with great ill-humor, and would give no

answer one way or the other—and that means that here you are to remain,

till it is his pleasure to recall you.”

“And may that never be,” sighed Domitia.

“The Augustus is moreover much engaged at present.”

“What has he been doing? But stay—tell me now—is there news concerning

Sabinus?”

“Ah lady! he has been.”

“I knew it would be so. On what charge?”

“The Augustus was incensed against him, because under the god Vespasian he

had put his servant in the white livery, when Flavius Sabinus was elected

to serve as consul for the ensuing year. Unhappily, the herald in

announcing his election gave him the title of Emperor in place of consul,

through a mere slip of the tongue. But it was made an occasion of

delation. Messalinus snapped at the opportunity, and at once the noble

Sabinus was found guilty of High Treason, and sentenced to death.”

“And what has become of Julia, daughter of the god Titus, the wife of

Sabinus?”

“She has been brought by the Augustus to the Palatine.”

Next day, the slave Euphrosyne arrived. She had been sent for by Domitia,

and was allowed to go to her mistress. She also brought news.

The town was in agitation. It was rumored that the Emperor was about to

divorce Domitia, and to marry his niece.

“It would be welcome to me were this to take place,” said Domitia. “Come,

now, Euphrosyne, bring me spindle and distaff, I will be as a spinster of

old.”

So days passed, occasionally tidings came from Rome, but these were

uncertain rumors. Domitia was enjoying absolute peace and freedom from

annoyance in the country. And she had in Euphrosyne one with whom she

talked with pleasure, for the girl had much to say that showed novelty,

springing out of a mind very different in texture from that usual among

slaves.

“It is a delight to me to be still. Child!—I can well think it, after a

toilsome and discouraging life, it is pleasant to fold the hands, lay the

head on the sod, and go to sleep, without a wish to further keep awake.”

“Yes, when there is a prospect of waking again.”

“But even without that, is life so pleasant that one would incline to

renew it? Not I for one.”

Domitia looked up at the fresco of the Quest of Pleasure, and said—“Once I

wondered at that picture yonder, and that all pleasure attained should

resolve itself into a sense of disappointment. It is quite true that we

pursue the butterfly, after we have ceased to value it, but that is

because we must pursue something, not that we value that which is attained

or to be attained.”

“Ah, lady, we must pursue something. That is in our nature—it is a

necessity.”

“It is so; and what else is there to follow after except pleasure?”

“There is knowledge.”

“Knowledge! the froth-whipping of philosophers, the smoke clouds raised by

the magicians, the dreams and fancies of astronomers—pshaw! I have no

stomach for such knowledge. No! I want nothing but to be left alone, to

dream away my remainder of life.”

“No, lady, that would not content you. You must seek. We are made to be

seekers, as the bird is made to fly, and the fish to swim.”

“If we do not seek one thing, we seek another, and in every one, find—what

the pinched butterfly is—dust.”

“No, mistress, not if we seek the truth. The knowledge of the truth, the

_Summum Bonum_.”

“But where, how are we to seek it?”

“In God,” answered the slave.

“The Gods! of them we know only idle tales, and in place of the tales,

when taken away, there remains but guesswork. There again—the pinch of

dust.”

“Lady, if we are created to seek, as the fish to swim, there must be an

element in which to pursue our quest, an end to attain. That is

inevitable, unless we be made by a freakish malevolent power that plants

in us desire that can feed only on dust, ever, ever dust. No, that cannot

be, the soul runs because it sees its goal—”

“And that?—”

A bustle, and in a moment, in sailed Longa Duilia, very much painted, very

yellow in hair, and with saffron eyelashes and brows.

“Little fool!” said the mother. “Come, let me embrace thee, yet gently

lest you crumple me, and be cautious of thy kisses, lest thou take off the

bloom of my cheek. Thou art ever boisterous in thy demonstrations. There,

give me a seat, I must put up my feet. As the Gods love me! what a hole

this Gabii is! How dingy, how dirty, how shabby it all looks! As the

Gods—but how art thou? some say ill, some say sulky, some say turned

adrift. As the Gods love me! that last is a lie, and I can swear it. The

Augustus distills with love, like a dripping honeycomb. You must

positively come back with me. I have come—not alone. Messalinus is with

me—a charming man—but blind, blind as a beetle.”

“What, that fourfolder!”(10)

“Now, now, no slang! I detest it, it is vulgar. Besides, they all do it,

and what all do can’t be wrong. One must live, and the world is so

contrived that one lives upon another; consequently, it must be right.”

“Well have the Egyptians represented the God who made men as a

beetle—blind, and this world as a pellet of dung rolled about blindly by

him.”

“My dear, I am not a philosopher and never wish to be one. Come, we have

brought the Imperial retinue for taking you back.”

“Whither? To your house in the Carinæ?”

“Oh, my Domitia! How ridiculous! Of course you go to the Palatine, to your

proper place. My dear, you will be proclaimed Augusta, and receive worship

as a divinity. The Senate are only pausing to adjudge you a goddess, to

know whether the Emperor intends to repudiate you or no. It is absolutely

necessary that you come back with me.”

“My godhead is determined by the question whether I be divorced or not!”

exclaimed Domitia contemptuously. “I cannot go with you, mother.”

“Then,” said Duilia, looking carefully about, “that jade, big-boned and

ugly as a mule—you know to whom I refer, will get the upper hand, and your

nose will be broken.”

“Mother, I ask but to be left alone.”

“I will not suffer it. By my maternal authority——”

“Alas, mother! I have passed out of that—I did so at my marriage.”

“Well then, in your own interest.”

“If I consider that I remain here.”

“Avaunt nonsense! Your position, your opportunities! Just think! There is

cousin Cnæus must be given a help up. He is a fool—but that don’t matter,

you must get him a proconsulship. Then there is Fulvia, you must exert

yourself to find her a wealthy husband. As the Gods love me! you can push

up all your father’s family, and mine to boot. Come, get the girls to

dress you becomingly and make haste.”

“I cannot go.”

“You must. The Augustus wills it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You cannot refuse.”

“I do so now.”

“My dear, by the Good Event! you shall come. You can no more refuse him

than you can Destiny.”

“Let him send his lictors and lead me to death.”

“Lead you to—how can you talk such rubbish? You must come. This is how the

matter stands. There has been a good deal of disturbance in Rome. As the

Gods love me! I do not know why it is, but the people like thee vastly,

and the rumor has got about that thou wast about to be repudiated, and

that raw-boned filly taken in your place. First there were murmurings,

then pasquinades affixed to the statues of the august Domitian. Then bands

of rioters passed under his windows howling out mocking songs and

blasphemies against his majesty, and next they clustered in knots, and

that Insula of Castor and Pollux is a nest of insubordination. In fact,

return you must to quiet men’s minds. You know what a disturbance in Rome

is, we have gone through several. By Jupiter! I shall never forget the

rocking I went through that night of the Lectisternium. These sort of

things are only unobjectionable when seen from a distance. But they leave

a taste of blood behind them. When the riot is over, then come

proscription; the delators have a fine time of it, and the rich and noble

are made to suffer.”

“But, mother, let Julia do what she will, I care not.”

“Rome does. The Roman rabble will not have it so. You have been familiar

with the base and vile multitude. Can’t think how you could do it!

However, it has succeeded this time and turned out a good move, for the

people are clamorous for your return. The Augustus is but recently

proclaimed and allegiance is still fresh—and I believe his cousin Ursus

has been at him to have you back so as to humor the public.”

“Yet, if I refuse to gratify him.”

“Then, my dear, of course, it will be a pity, and all that sort of thing;

but they all do it, and it must be right. The Augustus would prefer not to

use severity—but if severe he must be, he will put down this disturbance

with a hand of iron. He bears no actor’s sword, the blade of which is

innocuous. I will call in Messalinus. He will tell you more.”

She clapped her hands; in obedience to her order a slave went outside the

villa, and presently returned with the blind man.

He entered, working his sharp nose about, and then made a cringing bow

towards the wall—not knowing where stood Domitia.

“Catullus Messalinus,” said Duilia, “have the goodness to inform my

daughter of the intentions of the Augustus relative to the rabble in the

Insula of Castor and Pollux, whence all the agitation proceeds.”

“Madam,” said the blind informer, “my god-like prince has already given

command to clear the streets by means of the prætorian swords. As to that

herd in the block of Castor and Pollux, they are reserved for condign

punishment, unless my dear lady return at once. They will all—men, women

and children, be driven into the circus. There are a pair of British war

chariots, with scythes affixed to the axles, and the green drivers will be

commanded to hustle round the ring at full speed among this rebellious

rabble, to trample them down, and mow them as barley with the scythes—till

not one remains alive as a seed of disaffection. What I say is—if a thing

has to be done, do it thoroughly. It is true kindness in the end. Of

course some must suffer, and one may praise the Gods that in this case it

is only the common people.”

“The common people,” gasped Domitia.

Her eyes were glazed with horror. She saw the _Insula_, its crowds of

busy, kindly, happy people, so good to one another, so affectionate to

Glyceria, so grateful to her for visiting among them. And it was _she_,

she by winning their love who was bringing this punishment upon them. In

their blind, foolish way, they had misconceived her flight, and in their

blind and stupid way, had resented an imaginary wrong offered to her, and

because of their generous championship—they must suffer.

With bursting heart, and with a scalding rush of tears over her cheeks,

Domitia extended her hand to her mother:—

“I go back,” she said, “My people! my poor people, my dear people! It must

be so.—For their sake—_pro populo_.”

CHAPTER VII.

“THE BLUES HAVE IT!”

On her return to Rome and the palace, Domitia did not see the Emperor, but

he sent her notice to be prepared to appear with him in public at the

opening of the Circensian Games that he gave to the people in honor of his

accession to the principate. This was to take place on the morrow. The

games began at an early hour and lasted all day, with an interruption for

the _cena_ or supper at two o’clock.

The Circus was close under the Palatine Hill and occupied the valley

between it and the Aventine. The site has now been taken possession of for

gas-works.

It was a long structure, with one end like a horseshoe, the other was

straight, or rather diagonal, a contrivance to enable horses and chariots

when starting abreast to have equal lengths to run, which would not have

been the case had the end been drawn straight across the circus.

This end was dignified with two towers, with a central gate between them

and four arched doors on each side closed with ornamental wooden gates.

The seats of the spectators rose in tiers on all sides, except that of the

straight side, where above the great entrance was the seat of the director

of the sports. On one side of the Circus near the winning post was the

imperial box.

Down the middle of the course ran a wall with statues planted on it, but

at each end was a peculiar structure; that near the winning post

sustaining seven white balls like eggs, that at the other extremity

supporting as many bronze dolphins.

Each race consisted of seven circuits of the course, and a servant of the

management at each end attended to the number of rounds made, and as each

concluded, an egg was removed at one end, and a dolphin turned round at

the other.

There was a separate entrance, with waiting-room for the prince and his

party. Domitia with her train arrived first, and remained in the

waiting-room till his arrival.

She was dressed in blue, with gold woven into the garment, and her hair

was tied up with blue. She looked very lovely, slender and delicate in

color, with large earnest indigo eyes, the darkest blue points about her.

The sadness of her expression could not be dissipated by forced smiles.

In the waiting-chamber she could hear the mutter of voices in the circus;

all Rome would be there. As she had descended from the Palatine she had

seen scarce a soul in the forum or the streets, save watchmen and beggars.

Now pealed the trumpets, and next moment the prince, attended by his

lictors, and with his niece Julia at his side, entered. He scowled at

Domitia, and beckoned her to approach, then, without another word he went

out of the door into the Imperial box. Hitherto it had been customary for

the Empress to sit with the Vestal Virgins. But Nero had broken this rule

and Domitian, the more to emphasize his reconciliation with Domitia, so as

to please the people, followed the example of Nero.

Domitia entered and moved to the seat on his right; Julia, that on his

left. Behind them poured a glittering retinue of lictors and soldiers,

officers of the guard, and officials of the city and chamberlains. At once

the whole concourse stood, and thundering cheers with clapping of hands

rose from the circus. The Emperor made a hasty, ungracious sign of

acknowledgment and took his seat.

The applause, however, did not die away, it broke out afresh, in spurts of

enthusiasm, and the name of the Empress was audible—whereupon the cheers

were prolonged with immense vehemence.

Domitian heard it. His brow darkened and his face flushed blood-red. He

made a signal with his hand, at once three priests attended by men bearing

pick and shovel entered the course, and directed their way to the end of

the dividing wall or spine; there they threw up the soil, till a buried

altar was reached, on which at once burning coals were placed, and all the

concourse rose whilst incense and a libation and prayers were offered to

the God Consus.

That ended, the fire was extinguished by the earth being thrown over it.

Again the altar was buried, and the soil stamped above it.

This ceremony was hardly complete before the great central gates were

thrown open, to a peal of trumpets, and heralds entered to proclaim the

opening of the sports given by the Emperor, the Cæsar Domitian, the

Augustus, son of the God Vespasian, high priest, holder of the tribunician

power, consul, perpetual Censor, and father of his country; sports given

for the pleasure of his well-beloved, the citizens of Rome, senators,

knights, and people generally, and of such strangers as might at the time

be in Rome, the centre of the world.

Again rose a roar of approbation, men stood up, stamped, jumped on their

seats, and clapped their hands.

Then through the Triumphal Gate came the Circensian procession. This was

properly a ceremonial of the 13th September; but in honor of the

proclamation of the accession of Domitian to the throne, and to his giving

the shows at his own charge, it was now again produced.

First came boys on horseback and on foot, gayly clothed, and immediately

behind them the jockeys and runners who were to take part in the games.

The racers were divided into four classes, each wearing the color of one

season of the year. Green stood for spring, red for summer, blue for

autumn, and white for winter. The riders and drivers were dressed

according to the class to which they belonged. The chariots were drawn by

four horses abreast, and each furnished with an outrider in the same

colors, armed with a whip. At once cries rose from all sides, for every

jockey and every horse was known by name, some cheered the drivers, some

shouted the names of the horses, some proposed bets and others booked such

as they had made.

Then came huntsmen with hounds, armed with lances, and behind them dancing

soldiers, who clashed shields and swords in rhythm, accompanying their

dance with choric song.

Next entered a set of men dressed in sheep’s and goats’ skins, and with

fluttering ribbons, and lastly images of the gods on biers. The “pomp,”

though a quaint and pretty sight, was looked on with some impatience, as

wanting in novelty, and as but a prelude to the more exciting races.

The procession having made the circuit of the arena, retired, and with

great rapidity the first four racing chariots were got into their _caveæ_,

the vaults on the right side of the entrance with four doors opening on to

the circus.

And now a chalked line was rapidly stretched across the course in front of

the gates. A trumpet sounded, the gates were thrown open and the four

chariots issued forth and were drawn up abreast behind the line, and lots

cast to determine their positions.

Then Domitian stretching forth his hand, threw a white napkin into the

arena, the white cord fell, and instantly the chariots started.

The spectators swayed and quivered, shouted and roared, women waved their

veils, men clashed potsherds; some yelled out bets, and one or two from

behind stumbled forward and fell among the occupants of the benches in

front.

At the further end, where the circus described a horseshoe, a gallery of

wood projected over the heads of those on the lower stages, to accommodate

still more spectators; and these hammering on the boards with feet and

fists greatly increased the din.

The roar of voices rolled like a wave along the right side of the circus,

then broke into a billow at the curved end, and then surged down to the

further extremity, again to swell and run and revolve, as an egg was

dismounted, and a dolphin turned.

At each end of the spine, detached from it, were three obelisks, or

conical masses of stone, sculptured like clipped yew trees. These were the

_Metæ_.

Attending every charioteer was, as already said, an outrider in his

colors, to lash the horses, and to assist in case of accident. Moreover,

boys stood about with pitchers of water, to dash over the axles of the

wheels when they became heated, or to wash away blood stains, should there

be an accident.

Domitia sat watching the race, at first with inattention. Yet the general

excitement was irresistible, it caught and carried her out of herself, and

the color mounted into her ivory cheek.

The Emperor paid no attention to her, he studiously avoided speaking to

her, and addressed his conversation to Julia alone—who was constrained to

be present notwithstanding that the execution of her husband had taken

place but a few days previously. But her heavy face gave no indication of

acute sorrow. It was due to her position and relationship to the prince to

be there, and when he commanded her attendance, it did not occur to her to

show opposition.

The keenest rivalry existed between the parties of the circus, at a time

when political partisanship was dangerous except to the sycophants of the

regnant prince, all faction feeling was concentrated on the colors of the

race-course. Caligula had championed the green, so had Nero, who had even

strewn the course with green sand when he himself, in a green suit, had

driven on it. And now Domitian accepted the green as the color that it

comported with the dignity of his _parvenu_ dynasty to favor. It was also

generally preferred to the other, at any rate in the betting, because it

was known that the Imperial favorites were allowed to win the majority of

the races.

Yet the jockeys and horses and chariots belonged to different and rival

companies, and were hired by the givers of games. It was not in the

interest of the other colors to be beaten too frequently. They therefore

arranged among themselves how many and which races were, as a matter of

course, to be won by the green, and the rest of the races were open to be

fairly contested. But the public generally were not let into the secret;

though indeed the secret was usually sold to a few book-makers.

Hah! down went the red. In turning the _metæ_ at the further end, the

wheel had caught in that of the white, throwing the latter out, but not

upsetting the chariot, whereas the car of the red jockey overturned, one

horse went down, sprang up again, and would have dragged the driver along,

had he not dextrously whipped a curved knife out of his girdle and cut the

reins. This was necessary, as the reins of all four horses were thrown

over the shoulder and wrapped round the body. Consequently a fall was

certain to be fatal unless the driver had time and presence of mind at

once to shear through the leathers.

“He is out! the red is out!” roared the mob. Then, “The white! the white

is lagging—he cannot catch up!—the red did for him? Out of the way! Out ye

two! ye cumber the course.”

The white struggled on, driver and outrider lashed the steeds, they

strained every muscle, but there was no recovering from the loss of time

caused by the lock of wheels, and on reaching the doors on the right,

which were at once swung open, both chariots retreated into the _caveæ_,

amidst the groans of such as had bets on their favor.

“It lies now between green and blue!” was the general shout. “On with the

Panfaracus!” “Nay! hit the off horse, he sulks, Euprepes!” “Well done,

Nereus! Pull well, Auster! Brave horses! brave greens! greens for ever!

The Gods befriend the greens!”

Then some one looking in the direction of the imperial box noticed Domitia

in her blue habit, with her blue eyes wide distended, and the blue ribbons

in her hair. Suddenly in a clear voice he cried,—

“The blue! the blue! It is the color of the Augusta! The blue! Sabaste! I

swear by her divinity! I invoke her aid! The blue will win.”

Like an electric shock there went a throb through the vast concourse—there

were nearly three hundred thousand persons present. At once there rose a

roar, it was loud, thrilling, imperious:—

“The blue! It shall win! The color of the Augusta! of the divine Augusta,

the friend of the Roman people! The blue! the blue! we will have the

blue!”

The drivers lashed furiously, the outriders swung themselves in their

saddles to beat the horses. But the gallant steeds needed no scourging,

they were as keen in their rivalry as were their drivers and their

supporters.

“The last egg! the last dolphin! Again! the green is ahead!” a groan

broken by only a few cheers. Wonderful! In the sudden contagion even those

who had betted on the green, cheered the rival color.

“Who was that cried out for the blue?” asked Domitian, turning sharply

about. “Find him, cast him to the dogs to be torn.”(11)

His kinsman Ursus whispered in his ear,—

“It is the actor Paris. Yet do nothing now. It would be inauspicious.”

The command was grudgingly withdrawn.

A gasp—stillness, the extreme _meta_ had been turned; then a restless,

quivering sound, men, women, too agitated to shout, held their breath, but

muttered and moved their feet—the blue! the blue gains; nay! the green is

forging ahead—Ha! Ha! at the last moment in swung the blue, across the

white line, one stride ahead of the green.

Then there rolled up a thunder of applause.

“The blue! the dear blue! the blue of the Augusta has it! Ye Gods be

praised! I vow a pig to Eppona! The blue has it. All hail to the Augusta!

to heaven’s blue!”

Domitian turned with a look of hate at his wife, and whispered:—

Nevertheless she shall come in second.

[Illustration: “NEVERTHELESS SHE SHALL COME IN SECOND.” _Page 270._]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LOWER STOOL.

“Come now!” said the Emperor, rising from his seat; “it is time that we

should eat. My lady Longina, may it please you to sup with us?”

There was a malevolent glance in his pale watery eye. But Domitia did not

see it, she looked at him as little as might be.

She rose at once. So also did Julia, the daughter of Titus, and the

Emperor and his train left the circus; but as they withdrew there rose

ringing cheers, the people standing on their benches and applauding—not

the Cæsar, the Augustus, the Imperator—but her, Domitia, the blue. The

people’s own true blue. He heard it, and ground his teeth—his face waxed

red as blood. Domitia heard it, and her heart filled and her eyes brimmed

with tears.

Then Domitian turned and looked at her savagely, as a dog might look at

another against which it was meditating an onslaught, and said:—

“Remove that blue—I hate it, and come to the banquet.” Then with an ugly

leer—“I have sent for the actor to amuse you.”

“What actor?”

“Paris, madam, the inimitable, the admired Paris, that he may recite from

Greek plays to our pleasure. These Greek tragedians are at a discount. Our

people do not care for the dismals. But they are wrong, do not estimate

true art. You do that really! You like tragedy! and tragedy you shall

have, I warrant you.”

The blood mounted to the brow of Domitia at the sneers and covert

insinuations. Paris! what was Paris to her? what but the struggling

husband of Glyceria? Was it impossible for her to do a kind act, to give

expansion to her heart, without misinterpretation, without the certainty

of incurring outrage?

She withdrew to her apartments and changed her dress, from the blue to

white with purple stripe and fringes. Then she entered the _triclinium_

where the meal was spread.

Domitian was already there, together with Julia, Messalinus, Ursus, and

some other friends. The Emperor, standing apart from the latter, said with

a sneer to Domitia,—

“So you have shed your blue—a cloud has passed over the azure! That is

well. And now, madam, I granted you the first place at the games, in the

circus, to humor the people; but in my palace it shall be as I will, not

as they. Julia shall take the precedence, and she shall occupy the first

position at table, and everywhere. She is the daughter of the God Titus,

granddaughter of the God Vespasian-”

“And great grand-daughter of the Commissioner of Nuisances.”

“Silence,” roared Domitian, “she has the sacred Flavian blood, she is of

Divine race, and shall sit by me, recline by me, in the position of honor,

and you occupy a stool at my feet. Julia and I will have a lectisternium

of the Gods! Am not I divine?—and she divine?”

“Certainly,” answered Domitia, “she is the daughter of a victor who has

triumphed, I the wife of a man who will filch laurels from his generals,

and himself has never seen a battle.”

Domitian clenched his teeth and hands, and glared at her.

“I wish to the Gods I could find it in my heart to have thee strangled,

thou demon cat.”

“I can understand that, having let out the divine blood of the Flavii from

the throat of your cousin Sabinus, you would stoop to me.”

“What—what—what is this?” exclaimed Messalinus, thrusting his pointed face

in the direction of the prince and Domitia; he scented an altercation.

As for her—she wondered at herself, having the courage to defy the Lord of

the World. She could not keep down the disgust, the hatred she felt for

the man who had wrecked her life, it must out, and she valued not her life

sufficiently to deny herself the gratification of throwing off her mind

the taunts that rose in it, and lodged on her tongue.

Domitian signed to table—Julia, with a flutter of clumsy timidity, shrank

from the place of honor, and looked hesitatingly at her sister-in-law, who

without a word seated herself on the stool indicated by the Emperor. There

was no vulgar pride, no ambition in the daughter of Titus.

The guests looked at each other, as Julia was forced by the command of her

uncle to recline on the couch properly belonging to his wife, and

whispered to each other.

“What, what? Who is where?” asked the ferret-faced Messalinus. “What has

been done? Here, Lycus,” to a slave, who always attended him, “Tell me,

what has been done. In my ear, quick, I burn to know.”

Something was communicated in an undertone, and Messalinus broke into a

cackle, that he quickly smothered—

“That is admirable, great and god-like is our prince! As a Jew physician

said to me, he sets down one and setteth up another, at his pleasure. That

is divine caprice. The Gods alone can act without having to account for

what they do. I like it—vastly.”

And now at once the sycophant herd began to pay their addresses to Julia,

and to neglect Domitia. The former was overloaded with flattery, her every

word was repeated, passed on from one to another, as though oracular.

Domitian, conspicuously and purposely ignored his wife made to sit at his

feet; and raising himself on the left elbow upon his _pulvinar_, or

cushion of gold brocade, talked with his niece, who also reclined instead

of sitting.

Domitia remained silent with lowered eyes, carnations flowered in her

cheeks. She made no attempt to speak; eat she could not. She felt the

slight. Her pride was cut to the quick. The humiliation, before such as

Messalinus was numbing. She would have endured being ordered to execution,

she would have arranged her hair with alacrity, for the bowstring that

would have finished her troubles, but this outrage before members of the

court, before the imperial slaves,—and the knowledge that it would be the

talk on the morrow of Roman society, covered her with confusion, and

filled her soul with wrath, for she had pride—not a little.

Ursus, a kinsman of the Emperor, an elderly man, of good character and

upright walk, was near her. He alone seemed to feel the indignity put upon

the Empress. His eyes, full of pity, rested on her, and he waited an

opportunity to speak to her unheard by others. Then he said, turning his

head towards Domitia,—

“Lady, recall the fable of the oak and the bulrush. Humor the prince and

you can do with him what you will. Believe me, and I speak sincerely,—he

loves you still, loves you madly—but you repel him and that offends his

pride. All things are his, in earth,—I may almost say in heaven—and he

cannot endure that one frail woman’s heart should alone be denied him.”

“There are certain waters,” answered Domitia, “that turn to stone whatever

is exposed to them—even a bird’s feather. It is as though I had been

subjected to this treatment. My heart is petrified.”

“Not so, dear lady, it beats at the present moment with anger. It can also

beat with love.”

“Never towards him who has maltreated me.”

“By the Gods! forbear. I am endangered by listening to such words.”

“What—what—what is Ursus saying?” asked Messalinus, who caught a word or

two. “He is beside the Augusta—what did he say—and in a low tone also. No

treason hatching at the table of our Divine Lord, I trust.”(12)

“Here come the jesters and the mimes,” said Ursus, “and may the god of

Laughter provide such matter for mirth as will satisfy Catullus

Messalinus.”

“Then it must be a tragedy,” said another guest, “for to our blind friend

here, naught is jocose unless to some other it be painful.”

“We have all our gifts,” said Messalinus, smirking.

Then entered some acrobats who went through evolutions, casting knives and

catching them, forming human pyramids, ladders, wheels, balancing poles on

their chins whilst a boy went through contortions at the top.

But there was no novelty in the exhibition. The Emperor wearied of it, and

ordered the performers to withdraw.

Next appeared mimes, who performed low buffoonery in gesture and dialogue,

interspersed with snatches of song, that were so offensive to decency that

Domitia, who had never seen and heard anything of the kind at her mother’s

house, sprang to her feet with flaming cheeks, brow and bosom, and made a

motion to leave. She knew it—this disgusting performance had been

commanded by the prince, for the purpose of humiliating her. She would go.

But Domitian, whose malignant glance was on her, saw her purpose and

called out,—

“It is my will, Domitia, that you remain in your seat. The cream of the

entertainment has yet to come.”

Ursus put his hand to her garment and gently drew her down on her seat.

“Endure it,” he whispered, “it will soon be over.”

“It is the worst outrage of all,” said she with heaving breast, and the

blood so surged into her eyes and ears that she could see and hear no

more.

Indeed, she was hardly conscious when the buffoons withdrew, her eyes

rested on the marble floor, strewn with the remains of the feast.(13) But

suddenly she started from the dream, or the stupefaction into which she

had fallen, by hearing the voice of Paris, the tragic actor.

She looked up sharply, and saw him, a tall, handsome man, of Greek

profile, and with curly dark hair. He was clad in a long mantle, and wore

the buskins. Behind him were minor performers, to take a part in dialogue,

or to chant a chorus.

“Lord and Augustus, what is it your pleasure that we represent in your

presence?” asked the actor.

“Repeat the speech of Œdipus Coloneus to Theseus towards the close of the

drama. That, I mean, which begins, ‘O son of Ægeus, I will teach the

things that are in store.’”

Paris bowed, and drawing himself up, closing his eyes to represent the

blindness of the old king he personated, and with hands extended began:

“O son of Ægeus, I will teach the things that are in store.

Myself unguided, straightway go, ye follow, I before.

The spot where I am doomed to die—That spot will I reveal.

But on your lips, I pray you set, to that a holy seal.”

[Illustration: “I WILL TEACH THE THINGS THAT ARE IN STORE.” _Page 277._]

“Do you mark, Domitia?” called the Emperor with bantering tone.

“I have looked under the table, sire, to see whether, like your kinsman

Calvisius, you keep there a prompter who has read Eurypides.”(14)

Some of the guests hardly controlled their laughter. The deficiency in the

education of Domitian was well known.

“Go on, fellow,” ordered he surlily. “Skip some lines—it is tedious, draw

to the end.”

Paris resumed:—

“Now let me to that place repair; an impulse from on high,

A sacred impulse carries me to where I’m doomed to die.

O daughter! I must show the way—aye, I, myself, the guide,

To you who hitherto did lead, or clave unto my side.

Nay! touch me not, but suffer me, myself to find the road

That leadeth to the silent tomb, and to the dark abode.

O Hermes! guardian of the soul that fleeteth from this breast!

O Goddess of the darkest night—Give to thy weary rest!

O light! beloved, glorious light! that once did fill these eyes.

Now I embrace thy sacred beams, then turn where shadow lies.

O dearest friends, when well with you, and with this land, recall

Me, as about my bowed head Death’s purple shadows fall.”

Then the chorus, in rhythmic dance sang:—

“If it be meet—O Goddess thou, unseen whom all men dread,

If it be meet—O awful King who rulest o’er the dead,

Be pitiful unto this man, a stranger in the land,

And gently, without pain acute, conduct him by the hand

From out the world of light into the Stygian deeps below,

Remember how that ever here, he suffered want and woe!

Ye polished iron gates unclose, and as ye backward roll,

Let not the rav’nous monster leap and lacerate the soul.

And then on son of Tartarus advance with pity sweet,

The fluttering, frightened, parted soul, approaching gently greet!”

“Enough,” said Domitian, and waved his hand. “How likest thou that,

Domitia?”

“Methinks, sire, the words are ominous. Suffer me I pray thee to

retire—for I am not well.”

As she rose, she looked at Paris. Their eyes met, and at once a horror—a

premonition of evil fell on her, and turned her blood to ice.

He raised his hand to his lips and said in a low tone as she passed him:—

“Morituri te salutant.”

“I’ faith it is an excellent jest!” said Messalinus—“I relish it vastly.”

CHAPTER IX.

GLYCERIA.

Domitia returned to her apartments, quivering like an aspen in a light

air; but no sooner was she there, than she summoned Eboracus, and said to

him:—

“Be speedy. Follow Paris, and protect him. There is evil planned against

him. Fly—lest you be too late.”

The slave departed at once.

Domitia paced the room, in an agony of mind, now shivering with cold, then

with face burning. But it was not the humiliations to which she had been

subjected that so affected her,—it was fear of what she suspected was

meditated against the actor, and through him against Glyceria.

A cold sweat broke out on her brow, and icy tears formed on her long

eyelashes. It seemed to her that for her to show favor to any one, was to

bring destruction on that person. And hatred towards the Emperor became in

her heart more intense and bitter.

She could think of nothing else but the danger that menaced Paris. She

went out on the terrace, and the wind blowing over her moist brow chilled

her; she drew her mantle more closely around her, and re-entered the

palace. Already night was falling, for the days were becoming short.

Her heart cried out for something to which to cling, for some one to whom

to appeal against the overwhelming evil and tyranny that prevailed.

Was there no power in earth above the Cæsar? There was none. No power in

heaven? She could not tell; all there was dark and doubtful. There was a

Nemesis—but slow of step, and only overtaking the evil-doer when too late

to prevent the misery he wrought, sometimes so lagging as not to catch him

at all, and so blind as often to strike the innocent in place of the

guilty. No cry of the sufferer could reach this torpid Nemesis and rouse

her to quicker action. She was a deity bungling, deaf and blind.

Again she tramped up and down the room. She could endure to have no one

with her. She sent all her servants away.

But the air within was stifling. She could not breathe, the ceiling came

down on her head, and again she went forth.

Now she could hear voices below in the Sacred Way. She could see lights,

coming from several quarters, and drawing together to one point where they

formed a cluster, and from this point rose a wail—the wail of the dead.

She wiped her brow. She was sick at heart, and again went within, and

found Eboracus there, cast down and silent.

“Speak,” she said hoarsely.

“It was too late. He had been stabbed in the back, whilst leaving the

palace, and a pupil was assassinated at the same time, because somewhat

resembling him.”

Domitia stood cold as marble. She covered her mouth for a moment with her

right hand, and then in a hard voice said:—

“Inform Euphrosyne. I cannot.”

Then she turned away, went to her bed-chamber, and was seen of none again

that night. Several of her female slaves sought admission to undress her,

but were somewhat roughly dismissed.

In that long night, Domitia felt as one drowning in a dark sea. She

stretched out her hands to lay hold of something—to stay her up, and found

nothing. She had nothing to look forward to, no shore to which she might

attain by swimming, nothing to care for, nothing to cling to. There was no

light above, only the unsympathetic stars that looked down on the evil

there was, the wrong that was done, and cared not. The pulsation of their

light was not quickened by sense of injustice, they did not veil their

rays so as to hide from them the horrors committed on earth. There was no

light below, save the reflection of the same passionless eyes of heaven.

She felt as though she were still capable of the sense of pain, but not of

being sensible to pleasure.

The faculty of being happy was gone from her forever, and life presented

to her a prospect of nothing better than gray tracts of monotonous

existence, seamed with earthquake chasms of suffering.