Marcus was out on some remote part of the estate, overseeing his slaves.
In a few moments, by the assiduous Lucilia and her attendants, I was
brushed and washed and set down to a table--though it was so few hours
since I had left Rome--covered with bread, honey, butter and olives, a
cold capon with salads, and wine such as the cellars of Marcus alone can
furnish. As the only way in which to keep the good opinion of Lucilia
is to eat, I ate of all that was on the table, she assuring me that
everything was from their own grounds--the butter made by her own
hands--and that I might search Rome in vain for better. This I readily
admitted. Indeed no butter is like hers--so yellow and so hard--nor
bread so light, and so white. Even her honey is more delicious than what
I find elsewhere, the bees knowing by instinct who they are working for;
and the poultry is fatter and tenderer, the hens being careful never to
over-fatigue themselves, and the peacocks and the geese not to exhaust
themselves in screaming and cackling. All nature, alive and dead, takes
upon itself a trimmer and more perfect seeming within her influences.
I had sat thus gossipping with Lucilia, enjoying the balmy breezes of a
warm autumn day, as they drew through the great hall of the house, when,
preceded by the bounding Gallus, the master of the house entered in
field dress of broad sun-hat, open neck, close coat depending to the
knees, and boots that brought home with them the spoils of many a
well-ploughed field.
'Well, sir Christian,' he cried, 'I joy to see thee, although thus
recreant. But how is it that thou lookest as ever before? Are not these
vanities of silk, and gold, and fine clothes, renounced by those of the
new religion? Your appearance says nay, and, by Jupiter! wine has been
drunk already! Nay, nay, Lucilia, it was hardly a pagan act to tempt our
strict friend with that Falernian.'
'Falernian is it?'
'Yes, of the vintage of the fourth of Gallienus. Delicious, was it not?
But by and by thou shalt taste something better than that--as much
better as that is than anything of the same name thou didst ever raise
to thy lips at the table of Aurelian. Piso! never was a face more
welcome! Not a soul has looked in upon us for days and days. Not,
Lucilia, since the Kalends, when young Flaccus, with a boat-load of
roysterers, dropt down the river. But why comes not Julia too? She could
not leave the games and theatres, hah?'
'Marcus,' said Lucilia, 'you forget it was the princess who first
seduced Lucius. But for that eastern voyage for the Persian Calpurnius,
Piso would have been still, I dare say, what his parents made him. Let
us not yet however stir this topic; but first of all, Lucius, give us
the city news. How went the dedication? we have heard strange tales.'
'How went it by report?' I asked.
'O, it would be long telling,' said Lucilia. 'Only, for one thing, we
heard that there was a massacre of the Christians, in which some said
hundreds, and some, thousands fell. For a moment, I assure you, we
trembled for you. It was quickly contradicted, but the confirmation
afforded by your actual presence, of your welfare, is not unwelcome. You
must lay a part of the heartiness of our reception, especially the old
Falernian, to the account of our relieved fears. But let us hear.'
I then went over the last days in Rome, adding what I had been able to
gather from Milo, when it was such that I could trust to it. When I had
satisfied their curiosity, and had moreover described to Lucilia the
dresses of Livia on so great an occasion, and the fashions which were
raging, Marcus proposed that I should accompany him over his farm, and
observe his additions and improvements, and the condition of his slaves.
I accepted the proposal with pleasure, and we soon set forth on our
ramble, accompanied by Gallus, now riding his stick and now gambolling
about the lawns and fields with his dog.
I like this retreat of Curtius better almost than any other of the
suburban villas of our citizens. There is an air of calm senatorial
dignity about it which modern edifices want. It looks as if it had seen
more than one generation of patrician inhabitants. There is little unity
or order--as those words are commonly understood--observable in the
structure of the house, but it presents to the eye an irregular
assemblage of forms, the work of different ages, and built according to
the taste and skill of distant and changing times. Some portions are
new, some old and covered with lichens, mosses, and creeping plants.
Here is a portico of the days of Trajan, and there a tower that seems as
if it were of the times of the republic. Yet is there a certain harmony
and congruity running through the whole, for the material used is
everywhere the same--a certain fawn-colored stone drawn from the
quarries in the neighborhood; and each successive owner and architect
has evidently paid some regard to preceding erections in the design and
proportions of the part he has added. In this unity of character, as
well as in the separate beauty or greatness of distinct parts, is it
made evident that persons of accomplishment and rank have alone
possessed it. Of its earlier history all that Curtius has with certainty
ascertained is, that it was once the seat of the great Hortensius,
before he had, in the growth of his fame and his riches, displayed his
luxurious tastes in the wonders of Tusculum, Bauli, or Laurentum. It was
the first indication given by him of that love of elegant and lavish
wastefulness, that gave him at last as wide a celebrity as his genius.
The part which he built is well known, and although of moderate
dimensions, yet displays the rudiments of that taste that afterward was
satisfied only with more than imperial magnificence. Marcus has
satisfied himself as to the very room which he occupied as his study and
library, and where he prepared himself for the morning courts; and in
the same apartment--hoping as he says to catch something from the genius
of the place--does he apply himself to the same professional labors. His
name and repute are now second to none in Rome. Yet, young as he is, he
begins to weary of the bar, and woo the more quiet pursuits of letters
and philosophy. Nay, at the present moment, agriculture claims all his
leisure, and steals time that can ill be spared from his clients. Varro
and Cato have more of his devotion than statutes and precedents.
In the disposition of the grounds, Marcus has shown that he inherits
something of the tastefulness of his remote predecessor; and in the
harvest that covers his extensive acres, gives equal evidence that he
has studied, not without profit, the labors of those who have written
upon husbandry and its connected arts. Varro especially is at his
tongue's end.
We soon came to the quarter of the slaves--a village almost of the
humble tenements occupied by this miserable class. None but the women,
children, sick and aged, were now at home--the young and able-bodied
being abroad at work. No new disturbances have broken out, he tells me;
the former severity, followed by a well-timed lenity, having subdued or
conciliated all. Curtius, although fond of power and of all its
ensigns, yet conceals not his hatred of this institution, which has so
long obtained in the Roman state, as in all states. He can devise no way
of escape from it; but he sees in it the most active and general cause
of the corruption of morals which is spread everywhere where it
prevails. He cannot suppress his contempt of the delusion or hypocrisy
of our ancestors in terming themselves republicans.
'What a monstrous solecism was it,' he broke out with energy, 'in the
times preceding the empire, to call that a free country which was built
upon the degradation and slavery of half of its population. Rome never
was a republic. It was simply a faction of land and slave holders, who
blinded and befooled the ignorant populace, by parading before them some
of the forms of liberty, but kept the power in their own hands. They
were a community of petty kings, which was better in their mind than
only one king, as in the time of the Tarquins. It was a republic of
kingdoms and of kings, if you will. Now and then, indeed, the people
bustled about and shook their chains, as in the times of the institution
of the tribune's office, and those of the Gracchi. But they gained
nothing. The patricians were still the kings who ruled them. And among
no people can there be liberty where slavery exists--liberty, I mean,
properly so called. He who holds slaves cannot, in the nature of things,
be a republican; but, in the nature of things, he is on the other hand a
despot. I am one. And a nation of such individuals is an association of
despots for despotic purposes, and nothing else nor better. Liberty in
their mouths is a profanation of the sacred name. It signifies nothing
but their liberty to reign. I confess, it is to those who happen to be
the kings a very agreeable state of things. I enjoy my power and state
mightily. But I am not blind to the fact--my own experience teaches
it--that it is a state of things corrupt and rotten to the
heart--destructive everywhere of the highest form of the human
character. It nurses and brings out the animal, represses and embrutes
the god that is within us. It makes of man a being of violence, force,
passion, and the narrowest selfishness; while reason and humanity, which
should distinguish him, are degraded and oppressed. Such men are not the
stuff that republics are made of. A republic may endure for a time in
spite of them, owing to fortunate circumstances of another kind; but
wherever they obtain a preponderance in the state, liberty will expire,
or exist only in the insulting forms in which she waved her bloody
sceptre during most of our early history. Slavery and despotism are
natural allies.'
'I rejoice,' I said, 'to find a change in you, at least in the theory
which you adopt.'
'I certainly am changed,' he replied; 'and such as the change may be, is
it owing, sir Christian, to thy calm and yet fiery epistles from
Palmyra. Small thanks do I owe thee for making me uncomfortable in a
position from which I cannot escape. Once proud of my slaves and my
power, I am already ashamed of both; but while my principles have
altered, my habits and character, which slavery has created and nursed
remain beyond any power of man, so far as I can see, to change them.
What they are, you well know. So that here, in my middle age, I suffer
a retribution, that should have been reserved till I had been dismissed
from the dread tribunal of Rhadamanthus.'
'I see not, Curtius, why you should not escape from the position you are
in, if you sincerely desire it, which I suppose you do not.'
'That, to be honest--which at least I am--is I believe the case.'
'I do not doubt it, as it is with all who are situated like yourself.
Most, however, defend the principle as well as cling to the form of
slavery.'
'Nay, that I cannot do. That I never did, since my beard was grown. I
fancy myself to have from the gods a good heart. He is essentially of a
corrupt heart who will stand for slavery in its principle. He is without
anything generous in his nature. Cold selfishness marks and makes him.
But supposing I as sincerely desired to escape--as I sincerely do
not--what, O most wise mentor, should be the manner?'
'First and at once, to treat them no longer as slaves, but as men.'
'That I am just beginning to do. What else?'
'If you are sincere, as I say, and moreover, if you possess the exalted
and generous traits which we patricians ever claim for ourselves, show
it them by giving their freedom one by one to those who are now slaves,
even though it result in the loss of one half of your fortune. That will
be a patrician act. What was begun in crime by others, cannot be
perpetuated without equal crime in us. The enfranchised will soon mingle
with the people, and, as we see every day, become one with it. This
process is going on at this moment in all my estates. Before my will is
executed, I shall hope to have disposed in this manner of every slave in
my possession.'
'One can hardly look to emulate such virtues as this new-found Christian
philosophy seems to have engendered within thy noble bosom, Piso; but
the subject must be weighed. There is nothing so agreeable in prospect
as to do right; but, like some distant stretches of land and hill, water
and wood, the beauty is all gone as it draws near. It is then absolutely
a source of pain and disgust. I will write a treatise upon the great
theme.'
'If you write, Curtius, I shall despair of any action, all your
philanthropy will evaporate in a cloud of words.'
'But that will be the way, I think, to restore my equanimity. I believe
I shall feel quite easy after a little declamation. Here, Lucius, regale
thyself upon these grapes. These are from the isles of the Grecian
Archipelago, and for sweetness are not equalled by any of our own.
Gallus, Gallus, go not so near to the edge of the pond; it is deep, as I
have warned you. I have lampreys there, Piso, bigger than any that
Hortensius ever wept for. Gallus, you dog! away, I say.'
But Gallus heeded not the command of his father. He already was
beginning to have a little will of his own. He continued playing upon
the margin of the water, throwing in sticks for his dog to bring to him
again. Perceiving his danger to be great, I went to him and forcibly
drew him away, he and his dog setting up a frightful music of screams
and yelping. Marcus was both entertained and amazed at the feat.
'Piso,' he jocosely cried out, 'there is a good deal of the old
republican in you. You even treat free men as slaves. That boy--a man in
will--never had before such restraint upon his liberty.'
'Liberty with restraint,' I answered, 'operating upon all, and equally
upon all, is the true account of a state of freedom. Gallus unrestrained
is a slave--a slave of passion and the sport of chance. He is not truly
free until he is bound.'
With such talk we amused ourselves as we wandered over the estate,
through its more wild and more cultivated parts. Dinner was presently
announced, and we hastened to the house.
Lucilia awaited us in a small six-sided cabinet, fitted up purposely for
a dining-room for six or eight persons. It was wholly cased with a rich
marble of a pale yellow hue, beautifully panelled, having three windows
opening upon a long portico with a southern aspect, set out with exotics
in fancifully arranged groups. The marble panels of the room were so
contrived that, at a touch, they slipped aside and disclosed in rich
array, here the choicest wines, there sauces and spices of a thousand
sorts, and there again the rarest confections brought from China and the
East. Apicius himself could have fancied nothing more perfect--for the
least dissatisfaction with the flavor of a dish, or the kind of wine,
could be removed by merely reaching out the hand and drawing, from an
inexhaustible treasure-house, both wines and condiments, such as scarce
Rome itself could equal. This was an apartment contrived and built by
Hortensius himself.
The dinner was worthy the room and its builder, the marbles, the
prospect, the guest, the host, and the hostess. The aforementioned
Apicius would have never once thought of the panelled cupboards. No dish
would have admitted of addition or alteration.
When the feasting was over, and with it the lighter conversation, and
more disjointed and various, which usually accompanies it, Marcus arose,
and withdrawing one of the sliding panels, with much gravity and state,
drew forth a glass pitcher of exquisite form filled with wine, saying,
as he did so,
'All, Piso, that you have as yet tasted is but as water of the Tiber to
this. This is more than nectar. The gods have never been so happy as to
have seen the like. I am their envy. It is Falernian, that once saw the
wine vaults of Heliogabalus! Not a drop of Chian has ever touched it. It
is pure, unadulterate. Taste, and be translated.'
I acknowledged, as I well might, its unequalled flavor.
'This nectarean draught,' he continued, 'I even consider to possess
purifying and exalting qualities. He who drinks it is for the time of a
higher nature. It is better for the temper than a chapter of Seneca or
Epictetus. It brings upon the soul a certain divine calm, favorable
beyond any other state to the growth of the virtues. Could it become of
universal use, mankind were soon a race of gods. Even Christianity were
then made unnecessary--admitting it to be that unrivalled moral engine
which you Christians affirm it to be. It is favorable also to
dispassionate discussion, Piso, a little of which I would now invite.
Know you not, I have scarce seen you since your assumption of your new
name and faith? What bad demon possessed you, in evil hour, to throw
Rome and your friends into such a ferment?'
'Had you become, Lucius,' said Lucilia, 'a declaiming advocate of
Epicurus, or a street-lecturer upon Plato, or turned priest of Apollo's
new temple, it would have all been quite tolerable, though amazing--but
Christian!'--
'Yes, Lucius, it is too bad,' added Marcus. 'If you were in want of
moral strength, you would have done better to have begged some of my
Falernian. You should not have been denied.'
'Or,' said Lucilia,'some of my Smyrna cordial.'
'At least,' continued Marcus, 'you might have come to me for some of my
wisdom, which I keep ready, at a moment's warning, in quantities to suit
all applicants.'
'Or to me,' said Lucilia, 'for some of my every day good-sense, which,
you know, I possess in such abundance, though I have not sat at the feet
of philosophers.'
'But seriously, Lucius,' began Marcus in altered mood, 'this is a most
extraordinary movement of yours. I should like to be able to interpret
it. If you must needs have what you call religion, of which I, for my
part, can see no earthly occasion, here were plenty of forms in which to
receive it, more ancient and more respectable than this of the
Christians.'
'I am almost unwilling to converse on this topic with you, Marcus,' I
rejoined, 'for there is nothing in your nature, or rather in your
educated nature, to which to appeal with the least hope of any
profitable result, either to me, or you. The gods have, as you say,
given you a good heart--I may add too, a most noble head; but, yourself
and education together, have made you so thoroughly a man of the world,
that the interests of any other part of your nature, save those of the
intellect and the senses, are to you precisely as if they did not
exist.'
'Right, Lucius; therein do I claim honor and distinction. The
intangible, the invisible, the vague, the shadowy, I leave to women and
priests--concerning myself only with the substantial realities of life.
Great Jupiter! what would become of mankind were we all women, and
priests? How could the courts go on--senates sit, and deliberate--armies
conquer? I think the world would stand still. However, I object not to a
popular faith, such as that which now obtains throughout, the Roman
world. If mankind, as history seems to prove, must and will have
something of the kind, this perhaps is as good as anything else; and,
seeing it has once become established and fixed in the way it has, I
think it ought no more to be disturbed than men's faith in their
political institutions. Our concern should be, merely to regulate it,
that it grow not too large, and so overlay and crush the state. Fanatics
and bigots must be hewn away. There must be an occasional infusion of
doubt and indifference into the mass, to keep it from fermenting. You
cannot be offended, Lucius, at the way in which I speak of your
new-adopted faith. I think no better of any other. Epicureans, Stoics,
Platonists, Jews, Christians, they are all alike to me. I hold them all
at arms length. I have listened to them all; and more idle, indigested
fancies never did I hear--no, not from the new-fledged advocate playing
the rhetorician at his first appearance.'
'I do not wonder, Curtius, that you have turned away dissatisfied with
the philosophers. I do not wonder that you reject the popular
superstitions. But I do wonder, that you will prejudge any question, or
infer the intrinsic incredibility of whatever may take the form of
religion, from the intrinsic incredibility of what the world has
heretofore possessed. It surely is not a philosophical method.'
'Not in other things, I grant,' replied Marcus; 'but concerning this
question of popular superstition, or religion, the only philosophical
thing is, to discard the whole subject, as one deserving severe
investigation. The follies which the populace have, in all nations, and
in all time, adopted, let them be retained, and even defended and
supported by the State. They perform a not unimportant office in
regulating the conduct, and manners of men--in preserving a certain
order in the world. But beyond this, it seems to me, the subject is
unworthy the regard of a reflecting person. One world and one life is
enough to manage at a time. If there be others, and if there be a God
who governs them, it will be time enough to know these things when they
are made plain to the senses, as these trees and hills now are, and your
well-shaped form. This peering into futurity, in the expectation to
arrive at certainty, seems to me much as if one should hope to make out
the forms of cities, palaces, and groves, by gazing into the empty air,
or on the clouds. Besides, of what use?'
'Of what use indeed?' added Lucilia. 'I want no director or monitor,
concerning any duty or act, which it falls to me to perform, other than
I find within me. I have no need of a divine messenger, to stand ever at
my side, to tell me what I must do, and what I must forbear. I have
within me instincts and impulses, which I find amply sufficient. The
care and duty of every day is very much alike, and a little experience
and observation, added to the inward instinct, makes me quite superior
to most difficulties and evils as they arise. The gods, or whatever
power gave us our nature, have not left us dependent for these things,
either on what is called religion or philosophy.'
'What you say,' I rejoined, 'is partly true. The gods have not left us
dependent exclusively, upon either religion, or philosophy. There is a
natural religion of the heart and the conscience, which is born with us,
grows up with us, and never forsakes us. But then, after all, how
defective and incomplete a principle it is. It has chiefly to do, only
with our daily conduct; it cannot answer our doubts, or satisfy our most
real wants. It differs too with the constitution of the individual. In
some, it is a principle of much greater value and efficacy, than in
others. Your instincts are clear, and powerful, and direct you aright.
But, in another, they are obscure, and weak, and leave the mind in the
greatest perplexity. It is by no means all that they want. Then, are not
the prevalent superstitions most injurious in their influences upon the
common mind? Can you doubt, whether more of good or evil, is derived to
the soul, from the ideas it entertains of the character, and providence
of the gods? Can you be insensible to the horrible enormities, and
nameless vices, which make a part, even of what is called religion? And
is there no need--if men will have religion in some form--that they
should receive it in a better one? Can you not conceive of such views of
God and his worship, of duty, virtue, and immortality being presented,
that they shall strike the mind as reasonable in themselves, and of
beneficial instead of hurtful power, upon being adopted? Can you not
imagine your own mind, and the minds of people generally, to be so
devoted to a high and sublime conception of the Divinity, and of
futurity, as to be absolutely incapable of an act, that should displease
him, or forfeit the hope of immortality?'
'Hardly,' said Marcus and Lucilia.