CHAPTER V.
THE SHIP OF THE DEAD.
"It is of no use in the world, Plancus, your attempting to reason me outof a fixed resolve," said the lady Longa Duilia, peevishly. "My Corbuloshall not have a shabby funeral."
"Madam, I do not suggest that," said the steward humbly, rubbing hishands.
"Yes, you do. It is of no good your standing on one leg like a stork.Shabby it must be--no ancestors present. As the Gods love me, you would nothave me borrow ancestors of Asclepiades, our client, who has lent us thisvilla! He may have them or not, that is no concern of mine. Will you havedone preening yourself like an old cockroach. I say it would be anindignity to have a funeral for my Corbulo without ancestors. O Times! OMorals! What is the good of having ancestors if you do not use them?"
"But, Madam, they are in your palace at Rome in the Carinae--or at theGabian villa."
"And for that reason they are not here. Without the attendance of hisforbears, my Corbulo shall not be buried. Besides, who is there to impresshere with the solemnity? Only a lot of wretched sailors, ship sutlers, Jewpedlers and petty officials, not worth considering. I have said it."
"But, Lady, Lucius Lamia agrees with me----"
"Lucius AElius Lamia--it will not exhaust your lungs to give him his namemore fully--is not as yet one of the family."
"Madam, consider how Agrippina did with Germanicus--she had his pyre atAntioch, and conveyed his ashes to Rome."
"Agrippina was able to have the funeral conducted with solemn pomp atAntioch. There were the soldiers, the lictors, great officers and all thatsort of thing. Here--nothing at all. By the Immortals--consider theexpenses, and none to look on gaping but tarry sailors and Jewrag-and-bone men."
"Madam!"
"Silence. Without ancestors!--as impossible as without wood."
To understand the point made so much of by the widow, the Roman funeralcustom must be understood.
On the death of a noble or high official, his face was immediately mouldedin wax, into a mask, or rather, into two masks, that were colored andsupplied with glass eyes. One was placed over the dead face, when thecorpse lay in state, and when he was conveyed to his funeral pyre, and thefirst effect of the rising flames was to dissolve the mask and disclosethe dead features.
The ancient Greeks before they burned their dead laid gold-leaf masks ontheir faces, and in a still earlier time the face of the corpse was rougedwith oxide of iron, to give it a false appearance of life.
But the second mask was preserved for the family portrait gallery.
When a Roman gentleman or lady was carried forth to his funeral pyre, hewas preceded by a procession of actors dressed up in the togas andmilitary or municipal insignia of departed ancestors, each wearing the waxmask of him he personified. For these masks were preserved with great carein the _atrium_ of the house.
Now as Longa Duilia saw, to have her husband burned at Cenchraea, without aprocession of imitation ancestors, would be to deprive the funeral of itsmost impressive feature.
Plancus had advised the burning at the port, with shorn rites, and thatthe ashes should be placed in the family mausoleum at Gabii, and that theutmost dignity should be accorded to this latter ceremony sufficient tocontent the most punctilious widow.
But this did not please the lady. The notion of a funeral with maimed pompwas distasteful to her; moreover, as she argued, it was illegal to havetwo funerals for the same man.
"That," said Plancus, "hardly applies to one who has died out of Italy."
"It is against the law," replied Duilia. "I will give no occasion toobjection, offer no handle to informers. Besides, I won't have it. Therespect I owe to Corbulo forbids the entertainment of such an idea.Really, and on my word, Plancus, I am not a child to be amused with shadowpictures, and unless you are making a rabbit, a fish, or a pig eating outof a trough, I cannot conceive what you are about with your hands,fumbling one over the other."
"Madam, I had no thought----"
"I know you have none. Be pleased another time when addressing me to keepyour hands quiet, it is irritating. One never knows where they are or willbe, sometimes folding and unfolding them, then--they disappear up yoursleeves and project none can guess where--like snails' horns. Bepleased,--and now pawing your face like a cat washing itself. Please infuture hold them in front of you like a dog when sitting up, begging. Butas to the funeral--I will not have it cheap and nasty. Without ancestors afuneral is not worth having."
"Then," said the harassed freedman, "there is nothing for it but to engagean embalmer."
"Of course--one can be obtained at Corinth. Everything can be had formoney."
As Plancus was retiring, the lady recalled him.
"Here," said she, "do not act like a fool, and let the man charge a fancyprice. Say that I have an idea of pickling Corbulo in brine, and havebrought an _amphora_ large enough for the purpose. Don't close with histerms at once."
When the steward was gone, then Longa Duilia turned her head languidly andsummoned a slave-girl.
"Lucilla! The unfortunate feature of the situation is that I must not havemy hair combed till we reach Gabii. It is customary, and for a bracelet ofpearls I would not transgress custom. You can give my head a tousled look,without being dishevelled, I would wish to appear interesting, notuntidy."
"Lady! Nothing could make you other than fascinating. A widow intears--some stray locks--it would melt marble."
"And I think I shall outdo Agrippina," said Duilia, "she carried herhusband's cinders in an urn at the head of her berth and on appropriateoccasions howled in the most tragic and charming manner. But I shallconvey the unconsumed body of my Corbulo in state exposed on his bier, inhis military accoutrements all the way to Rhegium, then up the coast toOstia and so to Gabii. There will be talk!"
"You will be cited in history as a widow the like of which the world hasnever seen. As for Agrippina, in your superior blaze she will be eclipsedforever."
"I should prefer doing what Agrippina did--make a land journey fromBrindisium, but--but--one must consider. It would be vastly expensive,and----"
But the lady did not finish the sentence. She considered that Nero mightresent such a demonstration, as exciting indignation against himself, inhaving obliged Corbulo to put an end to his life. But she did not dare tobreathe her thought even into the ear of a slave.
"No," she said; "it would come too expensive. I will do what I can tohonor my husband, but not ruin myself."
When Longa Duilia had resolved to have her own way, and that was always,then all the entire family of slaves and retainers, freedmen and clientsknew it must be done.
The vessel after a brief stay at Cenchraea had left for Diolcus where ithad been placed on rollers and conveyed across the isthmus, and waslaunched in the Corinthian Gulf.
Nero had been engaged for some days in excavating a canal between the twoseas. He had himself turned the first sod, but after getting some littleway, rock was encountered of so hard a quality that to cut through itwould cost time, toil and money.
He speedily tired of the scheme, wanted the money it would have cost forsome dramatic exhibition, and was urged by Helios, a freedman whom he hadleft in Rome, to return to Italy, to prevent an insurrection that wassimmering. Nero did not much believe in danger, but he had laden his fleetwith the plunder of Greece, he had strutted and twittered on every stage,carried off every prize in every contest, and was desirous of beingapplauded in Italy and at Rome for what he had achieved, and exhibit therethe chaplets he had won.
Accordingly he started, and hardly had he done so before the Artemis withspread sail swept down the Corinthian Gulf.
The ship, a Liburnian, of two banks of oars, was constructed verydifferently from a modern vessel. The prow was armed above water-mark withthree strong and sharp blades, called the _rostra_, the beaks, which whendriven into the side of an enemy would tear her open and sink her.
The quarter-deck was midships, and served a
double purpose, being raisedas high as the bulwarks it served as an elevated place where the captaincould stand and survey the horizon and watch the course of the vessel, andit also served to strengthen the mast.
On this quarter-deck, on a bed of state, lay the body of Cnaeus DomitiusCorbulo, with his sword at his side, and the wax mask over his face. Athis feet was a tripod with glowing coals on which occasionally incense andCilician crocus were sprinkled, and on each side of his head blazedtorches of pinewood dipped in pitch.
The poop had a covered place, called the _aplaustre_, in which sat thesteerer. The hinged rudder had not then been invented, it was a discoveryof the Middle Ages, and the head of the vessel was given its direction bythe helmsman, _gubernator_, who worked a pair of broad flat paddles, oneon each side.
The rowers, under the deck, were slaves, but the sailors were freemen. Therowers were kept in stroke by a piper, who played continually when thevessel was being propelled; and the rowers were under the direction andcommand of a _hortator_, so called because his voice was incessantlyheard, urging, reprimanding, praising, threatening.
The captain of a Roman vessel was not supreme in authority on board shipas with us, but if the vessel contained military, he was subject to thecontrol of the superior military officer.
The passage down the Corinthian Bay was effected without difficulty,before a favorable wind, but as the vessel was about to pass out of it,the wind suddenly changed and blew a squall from the west. And at thismoment an accident occurred that was seriously embarrassing. Whilst thecaptain was standing near the steersman giving him directions relative tothe passage of the straits, a wave rolling in caught the paddle, andcaused it by the blow to snap the bronze bolt of the eye in which itworked, and the handle flying up and forward, struck the captain on theforehead, threw him down, and he fell against the bulwark so as to cutopen his head. He had to be carried below insensible.
The Artemis lay under shelter till the gale abated, and then consultationarose as to what was to be done.
Lucius Lamia took the command, he was competent to manage the vessel, withthe advice, if needed, of the mate. He and all were reluctant to put backto Lechaeum, the port of Corinth, on the Gulf, and the broken eye in whichthe paddle worked was repaired with a stout thong, which, as the steersmansaid, would hold till Adria was crossed and Rhegium was reached.
The squall had passed, and the look of the sky was promising; moreover thewind was again favorable.
"Sir," said the mate, "my opinion is that we should make all speed acrossAdria. This is a bad season of the year. It is a month in which sailing isoverpassed. We must take advantage of our chances. While the wind blows,let us spread sail. The rowers can ship their oars; should the wind fail,or prove contrary, they will be required, and they may have a hard time ofit. Therefore let them husband their strength."
"So be it," answered Lucius Lamia.
And now the Artemis, with sail spread, leaning on one side, drave throughthe rippling water, passed the Straits into the Adriatic, with themountains of AEtolia to the north, and the island of Cephalonia in the bluewest before her; and as she flew, she left behind her a trail of foam inthe water, and a waft of smoke in the air from the torches that glowedabout the dead general on the quarter-deck.