CHAPTER XVII.
THE SATURNALIA OF 69.
Eboracus brushed aside some urchins and girls blocking the door, lookingin with eager, twinkling eyes at the strange lady and at the set out ofdolls on the table.
There passed whispers and nudges from one to another--but all ceased as theBritish slave put together his hands as a swimmer and plunged throughthem.
"Get away you sprats and gudgeons," said he, good-humoredly.
Then entering, he said to Domitia:
"Lady, your mother has reached home in safety. I chanced to run acrossAmphibolus, sent out in quest of you, and the good-for-naught had turnedsulky, because it is the Saturnalia, when, said he, the mistress should dothe slave's bidding. 'That can be,' said he, 'but at one time in the year,and should not be forgotten.' And the lanes are clear of rabble. If Parishere will walk on one side of you and I on the other, it will be well.That rascal Amphibolus I bade wait, but not he, said he, 'Io Saturne!'"
"I will attend with joy," announced the actor.
Domitia rose to leave, she tendered thanks to Glyceria and took two stepstowards the entrance, halted, turned back, and taking the thin hand of thesick woman in hers, somewhat shyly said:
"I may come again and see you?"
Before Glyceria could reply, so great was her surprise, Domitia was gone.
The streets were nearly empty, they were mere lanes between huge blocks ofwindowless buildings, towering into the sky, but from the forum could beheard a hubbub of voices, cries, the clash of arms, and anon a cheer.
Presently--"Stand aside!" said Paris, and there swept down the lane anumber of young fellows masked and tricked out in ribbons and scraps oftawdry finery.
"I am the king!" shouted one, "Praefect of the guard, arrest those people.Ha! a woman. She shall be my captive and grace my triumph."
Eboracus administered a blow with his fist, planted between the eyes ofthe youth in pasteboard armor who came towards his young mistress. Theblow sent him flying backwards against the king and upset him on thepavement.
A roar of laughter from his mates, and one shouted,
"Hey Tarquinius! thou must e'en fare like the rest, Nero, Galba, Otho--andhem! we know not who else--but down thou art with the others."
"Let us go on," said Paris, and without further attempt at molestationfrom the revellers they pursued their way.
On reaching the palace inhabited by Longa Duilia, a fresh difficultyarose. Eboracus knocked, but there was no porter at the door to answer. Heknocked again and continued to rattle against the panels, till at lengththe bolt was withdrawn, and Euphrosyne with timid face, and holding a lampappeared in the entrance.
"Why have you kept us so long waiting?" asked the Briton.
"Eboracus, I could not help myself. It is the Saturnalia, and the slaveswill do no menial work. They are carousing in the triclinium and, thoughthey heard the rap well enough, none would rise and respond. Then, forvery shame I came, for I thought it might be my dear mistress."
As Domitia crossed the atrium, she heard song and laughter and the clickof goblets issue from the dining-room. She hurried by and entered hermother's chamber.
Longa Duilia was in a condition of resentment and irritation.
"You have arrived at last!" said the lady. "I'll have that British slave'shide well basted when the Seven Days are over, for disregarding me andconsidering your safety alone. Body of Bacchus! This time of theSaturnalia is insufferable. Not a servant will do a stroke of work, norexecute a single order. They are all, forsooth, lords and ladies for sevendays, and we must wait on them. Well! if it were not an old custom, I'dget up a procession of all the matrons of Rome to entreat the Senate toabolish the usage."
"Oh, mother dear, how did you escape?"
"My child! it was as bad as that bit of storm we had getting out of theGulf of Corinth, tossed about in my palanquin I hardly knew whether I werethinking with my head or with my toes. But after a while they got methrough. Never, never again will I go gadding after the Gods to theirLectisternia. As the Gods love me! this is a topsy-turvy time indeed. Atthe Saturnalia no strife is permissible, not a lawsuit, all quarrels aresupposed to cease, not even a malefactor may be executed, and there arethose precious Immortals with their glass eyes, and extended handssnuffing up the fumes of their dinner, and they allow fighting to go onbefore them, under their immortal noses, and never interfere! But I don'twonder. There was Summanus, God of the night thunders--and will you believeit, his own head was struck off by the heavenly bolt. Ye Gods! if yecannot mind your own heads ye are not to be trusted with ours."
The lady was in a condition of towering indignation. She wasaffronted--she, highborn, with a drop of Julian blood in her,somewhere,--she had been tossed about among the heads and over theshoulders of a dirty, garlic-smelling asafoetida chewing rabble--had beenexposed to danger from the swords of the Vigiles on one side, of thePalatine guard on the other. And when finally, she reached home ruffled ingarments, her hair in disorder, and her heart beating fast, she found thehouse in disorder, the slaves in possession keeping high holiday, anddisregarding her shrilly uttered, imperiously expressed orders.
"I shall go to bed," said the lady, "I'd lie in bed all these horribleseven days, but that I know no one will bring me my meals. Never mind--whenthe Saturnalia are over, I shall remember which were insolent anddisobliging, and they shall get whippings."
But in the house, on the morrow the condition of affairs was not quite sobad. The servants were alive to the fact that they had liberty for sevendays only, and that their mistress had a faculty of remembering andpunishing disobedience; not indeed during the holiday period, norostensibly because of faults then committed, but by administering doublechastisement for light offences committed later.
Some of the slaves, moreover, made no attempt to use their liberty so asto cause inconvenience to their mistress.
But if some sort of order was established within the palace, none reignedwithout. There civil war raged, at the same time that the citizensobserved the festival, and so long as they kept out of the way of thesoldiery, it did not much concern them whether the city force or thepalace garrison prevailed. Primus, at the head of the Illyrian legions wasrapidly advancing on Rome. News had arrived that Spain and Gaul haddeclared for Vespasian. Britain had renounced allegiance to Vitellius,only Africa still remained faithful.
Next tidings arrived that the army of Vitellius that was at Narnia hadsurrendered. Thereupon the gross, aged Emperor dressed in black,surrounded by his servants, and carrying his son, still a child, camehowling and sobbing from the Palatine through the Forum, to surrender theinsignia of Empire into the hands of the Consul, in the Temple of Concord.But the Consul refused to receive them, and then the German guard, havingwind of his intention, became clamorous, and cried out for the head ofFlavius Sabinus. Vitellius, unable to resign, and incapable of reigning,wandered from one residence to another, asking advice of all his friendsas to what he ought to do, but taking none.
Meanwhile the fighting in the streets of Rome had recommenced. TitusFlavius Sabinus, for security escaped into the Capitol, and took with himhis sons and daughter, and his nephew Domitian. There he was formallybesieged by the Imperial guard; and Sabinus, doubting his ability to holdout long, sent off a despatch to Primus to bid him hasten to hisassistance.
"Madam!" exclaimed Eboracus rushing in, "I pray you come on the roof ofthe house."
"What is the matter? Ye Gods! surely Rome is not on fire again!"
"Madam! The household guard are assaulting the Capitol and have indeed setfire to the houses below, I doubt if the Praefect can hold out till Primusarrives."
Duilia ascended to the flat top of the house. The palace of the family wasin the Carinae, on the slope of the Esquiline hill, hard by the gardens ofNero's Golden House. Being on high ground it commanded the Forum and theCapitol, and looked over the tops of the vulgar _insulae_ in the dip of theSuburra.
It was the evenin
g of the second day. Heavy clouds had lowered throughoutthe hours of daylight and the evening had prematurely closed. There hadbeen desultory fighting all day, but as the night approached a determinedset was made by the German guard to capture the Capitol, and the citadelof Rome that adjoined it, connected by only a small neck of hill. Theyknew that Primus was close at hand, and they were determined not to becaught between a foe before and another behind.
The Capitol is a rocky height rising precipitately above the Forum, andenormous substructures had strengthened it and formed a platform on whichrose the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus that stood to Rome almost in therelation that the Temple did to Jerusalem, as the centre of its religiousand civil institutions.
It was almost the paladium of the city, the fate of Rome was held to bebound up with its preservation.
And now Domitia and her mother looked on in the gathering darkness at thetemple looming out as of gold against the purple black clouds behind, litwith the glare of the flames of the houses below that had been fired bythe soldiery.
The roar of conflict came up in waves of sound.
"Really," said Duilia, "Revolutions are only tolerable when seen from ahouse-top; that is, to cultivated minds--the common rabble like them."
Shrill above the roar came the scream of a whistle, that a boy was blowingas he went down the street.
Suddenly the clamor boiled up into a mighty spout or geyser of noise, andthe reason became manifest in another moment. The whole sky was lit by asheet of flame of golden yellow. The conflagration had caught an oilmerchant's stores that were planted against the substructures supportingthe temple. Columns, shoots of dazzling light rushed up against the rocksand the walls, recoiled, swept against them again, overleaped them andcurled like tongues around the temple.
Instantly every sound ceased. The soldiers sheathed their swords. Thecitizens held their breath. Nothing for a few minutes was audible, savethe mutter of the fire.
"My lady," said Euphrosyne, coming to the roof, and addressing LongaDuilia, "A priest of Jupiter is below, and desires to speak with you."