XVII
At Athens, in one of the most frequented cross-roads, a statuemodelled by Arsinoe--_The victorious Octavius holding up the head ofBrutus_--was exhibited to the people, and the Athenians welcomed inthe daughter of the senator Helvidius Priscus a renewer of the art oftheir golden age. But the special dignitaries whose business was tokeep watch on the public temper, officers strangely but rightlynicknamed "Inquisitors," reported to the proper quarters that thestatue might arouse liberal sentiments in the people. A resemblance toJulian was discovered in the face of Brutus, and in the work as awhole a criminal allusion to the recent punishment of Gallus. Attemptswere made to discover in Octavius some analogy to the EmperorConstantius. The affair took the proportions of an act of treason, andalmost fell into the hands of Paul Catena. Luckily the Imperialchanceries sent direct a severe order to the local magistrate, thatnot only should the statue disappear from the cross-roads, but that itshould be broken to pieces under the eyes of government officials.
Arsinoe wished to hide the statue, but Hortensius was in such mortalaffright that he threatened to give up his ward herself to theinformers.
In deep disgust at the degradation of the public, Arsinoe allowed themto do with her work everything that Hortensius desired, and masonsbroke up the figure.
Arsinoe hastily left Athens, her guardian having persuaded her tofollow him to Rome, where friends had long promised him the office ofImperial quaestor. They installed themselves in a house not far fromthe Palatine Hill.
Days flowed by in inactivity, Arsinoe realising that there was nolonger scope for the greatness and freedom of antique art. She bore inmind her conversation with Julian at Athens; and it was the only linkwhich restrained her from suicide. The long suspense of inactionseemed to her intolerable. In moments of discouragement she longed tohave done with it all, to leave all, to set out for the Gallicbattlefield and at the side of the young Caesar attain power, orperish.
But she fell seriously ill. In the long and calm days of convalescenceshe found a devoted consoler in her most faithful adorer, Anatolius, acenturion of the Imperial cavalry, son of a rich merchant of Rhodes.
He was a Roman centurion, as he used to say himself, merely as theresult of a mistake, having only taken to the military career tosatisfy the empty-headed ambition of his father, who desired as thesummit of earthly honour to see his son clothed in gilt armour.
Evading discipline by generous gifts, Anatolius passed his life inluxurious idleness, amidst works of art and books, in feastings andindolent and costly travel. The profound lucidity of soul which hadcharacterised ancient Epicureans was not possessed by this modern. Hecomplained to his friends--
"I suffer from a mortal malady...."
They would ask him dubiously--
"What malady?"
And he would say--
"What you call my spirit of irony and what seems to me melancholymadness."
His finely cut delicate features expressed extreme fatigue. Sometimeshe would awake as from a sleep, undertake a wild excursion withfishermen in a hurricane in the open sea, or set off to hunt wild boarand bear, or contemplate hatching a plot against the life of Caesar, orseek initiation into the terrible mysteries of Mithra and Adonis. Onsuch occasions he was capable of astonishing by his rashness andaudacity even those persons who were ignorant of his ordinary way ofliving.
But the excitement once evaporated he would return to listlessness andlassitude, still more sleepy, still more cynical and sad.
"Nothing can be done with you, Anatolius," Arsinoe used to say to him;"you are so soft that people might think you had no bones."
But she felt a kind of Hellenic grace in this last of the Epicureans;liked to read in his weary eyes their melancholy mockery of himselfand everything else. He would say--
"The sage can extract enjoyment from the blackest melancholy, as beesof Hymettus make their best honey with the juice of bitterest plants!"and his gossip soothed Arsinoe, who smilingly used to call Anatoliusher physician.
In reality she became stronger, but never returned to her studio. Thesight of chips of marble filled her with painful memories.
Meanwhile, at the time of which we are speaking Hortensius waspreparing wonderful public games in the Flavian Theatre, in honour ofhis arrival in Rome. He was continually travelling, and busy receivinghorses, lions, bears, Scots wolf-dogs, crocodiles from the tropics,and with these, flocks of intrepid hunters, skilled riders, comedians,and gladiators.
The date of the performance was approaching, and the lions had notarrived from Tarentum, where they had disembarked. The bears had grownthin, famished, timid as lambs.
Hortensius became sleepless with anxiety.
Two days before the festival, the gladiators, Saxon prisoners, proudand fearless men for whom he had paid a colossal sum, considering it adisgrace to serve as a sport for the Roman populace, committed suicideby cutting their own throats at night in their prison.
Hortensius, at that unexpected news, nearly went out of his mind. Nowall hope concentrated itself on the crocodiles, which excited thespecial curiosity of the mob.
"Have you tried giving them newly-killed hogs' flesh?" demanded thesenator of the slave entrusted with the supervision of these preciousbeasts.
"Yes; but they won't eat it."
"Have you tried veal?"
"They won't touch that, either."
"And wheaten bread soaked in cream?"
"They turn away from it and go to sleep."
"They must be ill or too fatigued."
"We've even opened their jaws and shoved the food down their throats.They cough it up again."
"Ah! by Jupiter, those foul beasts will be the death of me! We mustrelease them after the first day in the arena or else they will die ofhunger," groaned Hortensius falling into a chair.
Arsinoe contemplated him with envy. He at least was not tired of life.
She passed into an isolated chamber whence the windows looked down onthe garden. There in the calm moonlight her young sister Myrrha, whowas now about sixteen years old, was softly touching the strings of aharp, and the notes were falling like tears. Arsinoe kissed Myrrha,who answered her by a smile without ceasing to play. A loud whistlesounded behind the garden wall:
"It is he," said Myrrha, rising. "Come quickly!"
She grasped Arsinoe's hand tightly. The two young girls threw blackcloaks over their shoulders and went out. The wind was chasing theclouds along, and the moon, sometimes hidden, sometimes shone outbrightly. Arsinoe opened a door in the outer wall of the house. Ayoung man wrapped in a monk's hooded mantle was awaiting them.
"We are not late, Juventinus?" asked Myrrha.
"I was afraid that you were not coming!"
They walked long and rapidly down narrow lanes, then out among thevineyards, issuing at length into the Roman plain. In the distance thebrick-built aqueduct of Servius Tullius was outlined against the sky.Juventinus turned round and said--
"Somebody is following us!"
The two young girls turned round also. A flood of moonlight fell uponthem, and the individual following them exclaimed cheerfully--
"Arsinoe! Myrrha!... And so I have found you again! Where are yougoing?"
"We're going among the Christians," answered Arsinoe. "Come with us,Anatolius; you will see some curious things."
"What do I hear? Among the Christians?--You have always been theirenemy!" wondered the centurion.
"With age, my friend, one grows better and more tolerant, orindifferent, if you like to call it so. This is a superstitionneither better nor worse than other superstitions. And then one iscapable of a good deal when bored. I am going among them for Myrrha'ssake; it pleases her...."
"Where is the church? We're out in the plain," murmured Anatolius.
"The churches are destroyed or profaned by their fellow-Christians,the Arians, who believe in Christ otherwise than they do. You musthave heard the debates about it at Court. So now the adversaries ofthe Arians are wont to pray in secret in subterra
nean vaults, as inthe time of the first persecutions."
Myrrha and Juventinus had lingered a little behind the others; Arsinoeand Anatolius could talk freely.
"Who is he?" asked the centurion with a nod towards Juventinus.
"The last scion of the ancient patrician family of the Furii,"answered Arsinoe. "The mother wishes to make a consul of him. His onlydream is to flee into some Thebaid, or monkish community in thedesert, to spend his days in prayer. He loves his mother and hideshimself from her as from an enemy."
"The descendants of the Furii, monks?... 'T is a queer age," sighedthe Epicurean.
They approached the _arenarium_, old excavations in crumbling tufa,and went down narrow steps to the bottom of the quarry. The volcanicblocks of red earth looked strange-hued in the moonlight. Juventinustook a little clay lamp from a dark niche, and lighted it; the longflame flickered feebly in its narrow gullet.
They entered the darkness of the side galleries of the _arenarium_.Hollowed by the ancient Romans, the quarry was large and spacious anddescended in steep slopes. It was therefore pierced by numerousgalleries, for the use of workmen in transporting the tufa. Juventinusled his companions through the labyrinth and halted at last in frontof a shaft from which he lifted the coverlid of wood; the party wentcautiously down the damp and slippery steps; at the bottom was anarrow door; Juventinus knocked; the door opened, and a grey-headedmonk introduced them into a passage hollowed in harder tufa. The wallson both sides from floor to vaulting were covered with slabs ofmarble, the seals of tombs in which coffins (_loculi_) were ranged.
At every step folk carrying lamps came to meet them. By the flickeringlight Anatolius read with curiosity on one of these stone flags:"Dorotheus, son of Felix, in this place of coolness, light, and peace,reposes" ("_requiescit in loco refrigii, luminis, pacis_"). Onanother: "Brethren, disturb not my deep slumber."
The style of the inscriptions was radiant and happy: "Sophronia,beloved, thou art alive for ever in God" ("_Sophronia, dulcis, sempervivis Deo_"). And a little farther on: "_Sophronia vivis!_"("Sophronia, thou livest!") as if he who had written these words hadat length realised that there was no more death.
Nowhere was it written "He is buried here," but only "Here is laid fora certain time" (_depositus_). It seemed as if millions of people,generation upon generation, were lying in this place, not dead, butfallen asleep, all full of mysterious expectation. In the niches lampswere placed. They burned in the close atmosphere with a long steadyflame and graceful vases exhaled penetrating odours. Nothing but thefaint smell of putrefying bones, which escaped by fissures in thecoffins, gave any hint of death.
The passages went down lower and lower, curved as round anamphitheatre; and here and there in the ceiling a large aperture gavelight from _luminaria_ opening on the country without.
Sometimes a weak moon-ray passing down the _luminaria_ would strike atthe bottom on a slab of marble covered with inscriptions.
At the end of one of these passages they saw a sexton who, chantinggaily, was hollowing the ground with heavy blows of his pick. SeveralChristians were standing near the principal inspector of the tombs,the _fossor_. He was very well dressed and had a fat cunning face. The_fossor_ had inherited a right freely to dispose of a gallery ofcatacombs, and to sell unoccupied sites in his gallery, which was allthe more appreciated because in it were buried the relics of St.Laurence. Although rich, the _fossor_ was keenly bargaining, as theycame up, with a wealthy and miserly leather-merchant. Arsinoe stoppeda moment to hear the discussion.
"And my tomb will be far away from the relics?" the leather-dresserwas asking mistrustfully, thinking of the big sum exacted by the_fossor_.
"No, just six cubits away."
"Above or beneath?"
"On the right-hand side, sloping down a little. It's an excellentposition; I don't ask a penny too much. Though you be as sinful as youplease, everything will be forgiven. You will go straight into theheavenly kingdom."
With an expert hand the gravedigger took the measurements for the tombas a tailor measures for a coat, the leather-dresser insisting that heshould have as much room as possible in order to lie in comfort.
An old woman approached the sexton.
"What do you want, mother?"
"Here's the money--the extra payment!"
"What extra payment?"
"For the right-hand tomb."
"Ah, I see; you don't want the crooked one?"
"No; my old bones crack at the very idea of the crooked one."
In the catacombs, and especially near the relics, so much value wasset upon grave-sites that it was necessary to contrive slanting tombswhich were leased to the poor.
"God knows how long one will have to wait for the resurrection," theold woman was explaining; "and if I took a tomb on the slant it wouldbe all very well to begin with, but when I got tired it wouldn't do atall."
Anatolius listened in astonishment.
"It is much more curious than the mysteries of Mithra," he observed toArsinoe with a languid smile. "Pity that I didn't know it sooner. I'venever seen such an amusing cemetery."
They went on into a rather large chamber called the _cubicula ofconsolation_. A multitude of small lamps were burning on the walls.The priest was at the evening office, the stone lid of a martyr's tombplaced under an arched vault (_arcosolium_) serving as altar. Therewere many of the faithful in long white robes, every face serenelyhappy. Myrrha, kneeling with eyes full of love, was gazing at the GoodShepherd pictured on the ceiling of the chamber. In the catacombsearly Christian customs had been revived, so that after the liturgyall present, looking on themselves as brothers and sisters, gave eachother the kiss of peace. Arsinoe following the general example with asmile kissed Anatolius.
Then all four climbed again toward the upper storeys, whence theycould take their way to the secret retreat of Juventinus, an old pagantomb, a _columbarium_, lying at some distance from the Appian Way.There, while waiting for the ship which was to take him to Egypt, theland of holy anchorites, he was living hidden from the searches of hismother and of government officials. He lodged with Didimus, a good oldman from the Lower Thebaid, to whom Juventinus gave blind andunquestioning obedience.
Here they found Didimus squatting on his heels, weaving basket-work.The moon-rays, filtering through a narrow opening, glinted on hiswhite hair and long beard. From top to bottom of the walls of the_columbarium_ were little niches like pigeons' nests, and each ofthese contained a mortuary urn.
Myrrha, of whom the old man was very fond, kissed his withered handrespectfully, and prayed him to tell her some story about the hermitfathers of the desert. Nothing pleased her better than these wonderfuland terrible tales by Didimus.
The company grouped themselves round the white-headed old man, Myrrhawatching him with feverish eyes and feeble hands clasped to herheaving breast. Nothing was heard save his voice and the distant humof Rome, when suddenly, at the inner door communicating with thecatacomb, a knock was heard.
Juventinus rose, went to the door and asked, without opening it--
"Who is there?"
No answer came, but a still gentler knock as of entreaty.
With great precaution Juventinus held the door ajar, shuddered andrecoiled. A woman of tall stature came into the _columbarium_. Longwhite vestments enveloped her and a veil hid her face. Her gait wasthat of one recovering from an illness or of a very old woman. With asudden movement she raised the veil and Juventinus cried--
"My mother!"
Didimus rose, a severe expression on his countenance.
The woman threw herself at the feet of her son and kissed them, greytresses falling dishevelled over her lean and haggard face, which boretraces of high patrician beauty. Juventinus took the head of hismother between his hands and kissed it.
"Juventinus!" the old man called.
The young man made no response.
His mother, as if they had been completely alone, murmured hastily andjoyously--
"O my son, I thought
I should never see you again; I would have setout for Alexandria--O I would have found you even in the desert! Butnow all is over, is it not? Tell me that you will not go! Wait until Idie! Afterwards do what you will...."
The old man resumed--
"Do you hear me, Juventinus?"
"Old man," answered the patrician mother, "you will not carry off ason from her that bore him!... Listen, if it must be so, I will denythe faith of my fathers; I will believe in the Crucified!... I willbecome a nun!"
"Ah, pagan! thou canst not understand the law of Christ. A mothercannot be a nun, nor can a nun be still a mother."
"I have borne him in anguish; he is mine!"
"It is not the soul, but the body, that you love."
The patrician woman cast at Didimus a look full of hatred.
"Be then accursed for your lying speeches," she exclaimed; "accursed,you stealers of children--tempters of the guileless! ye black-robedfearers of the celestial light--slaves of the Crucified! destroyers ofall beauty and joy!"
Her face changed; she drew her son yet closer, and said chokingly--
"I know thee, my son! thou wilt not go ... thou canst not...."
Old Didimus, cross in hand, stood at the open door leading to thecatacombs. He said solemnly--
"For the last time, and in the name of God, I order you, my son, tofollow me and to leave her."
Then the patrician relaxed her hold of Juventinus, and faltered--
"Then go! Let it be so.... Leave me, if thou canst!"
Tears flowed no longer down her furrowed cheeks; her arms fell rigid,with a heart-broken gesture, to her sides. She waited. All weresilent.
"O Lord, help me ... inspire me!" Juventinus prayed in terribledistress.
"He who will follow Me, and will not hate father and mother, wife andchildren, brother and sister, and even his own life, can never be Mydisciple!"
These words were recited by Didimus, turning for the last time towardsJuventinus--
"Remain in the world! Thou hast rejected Christ! Be accursed in thisage and in the age to come!"
"No, no! Cast me not out, father! I am on your side. Lord, here amI," exclaimed Juventinus following his master.
His mother made no arresting movement; not a muscle of her facestirred; but when the noise of his footsteps died away a hoarse sobheaved her breast and she fell into a swoon.
"Open--in the name of the most holy Emperor Constantius!"
It was the summons of soldiery sent by the prefect to hunt the Sabaeanrebels, on the denunciation of the patrician mother of Juventinus.
With a powerful lever the soldiers attempted to prise open the door ofthe _columbarium_, shaking the edifice on its foundations. The littlesilver urns vibrated plaintively under the blows. Half of the doorgave way.
Anatolius, Myrrha, and Arsinoe rushed into the inner gallery. TheChristians hurried along the narrow passages like ants disturbed intheir mound, making for all the secret outlets communicating with thequarry. But Arsinoe and Myrrha, unfamiliar with the exact situation ofthe galleries, lost their way in the labyrinth and at last reached thelowest floor of all at a depth of fifty cubits under ground. It becamedifficult to breathe; muddy water lay under foot. The flame of thelamps became dim and almost blew out. Putrid miasmas filled the air.Myrrha felt her head swim and gradually lost consciousness.
Anatolius took her in his arms. At every step they feared to encounterthe legionaries; all the outlets might be blocked and sealed up; theywere running the risk of being buried alive.
At last they heard the voice of Juventinus calling--
"Here! here!"
Bent double, he was carrying the old Didimus on his back.
At the end of a few minutes they reached a secret door opening on theCampagna.
On returning to the house, Arsinoe quickly undressed Myrrha and puther to bed, still in a dead faint. Kneeling by her side the eldersister long kissed and chafed the thin, yellow, and inert hands. Apang of agonising presentiment shot through her heart.
The face of the sleeper bore a strange expression. Never had itreflected so bodiless a charm. All the little body seemed transparentand frail as the sides of an alabaster jar illumined by an inner fire.