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"UNTO CAESAR"
BARONESS ORCZY
By BARONESS ORCZY
"UNTO CAESAR"EL DORADOMEADOWSWEETTHE NOBLE ROGUETHE HEART OF A WOMANPETTICOAT RULE
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYNEW YORK
"LOOK INTO MY EYES NOW!... DO THEY LOOK AS IF THEY MEANTTO RELENT?"]
UNTO CAESAR
BY BARONESS ORCZY
AUTHOR OF 'THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL', 'ELDORADO'
Coin inscribed C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS PON M TR POT]
"RENDER THEREFORE UNTOCAESAR THE THINGS WHICHARE CAESAR'S; AND UNTOGOD THE THINGS THATARE GOD'S"
ST. MATTHEW XX. 21.
NEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1914,BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
TO ALL THOSE WHO BELIEVE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. 1CHAPTER II. 9CHAPTER III. 19CHAPTER IV. 30CHAPTER V. 39CHAPTER VI. 54CHAPTER VII. 72CHAPTER VIII. 83CHAPTER IX. 107CHAPTER X. 119CHAPTER XI. 128CHAPTER XII. 146CHAPTER XIII. 155CHAPTER XIV. 161CHAPTER XV. 183CHAPTER XVI. 193CHAPTER XVII. 199CHAPTER XVIII. 204CHAPTER XIX. 209CHAPTER XX. 212CHAPTER XXI. 220CHAPTER XXII. 226CHAPTER XXIII. 233CHAPTER XXIV. 239CHAPTER XXV. 247CHAPTER XXVI. 257CHAPTER XXVII. 267CHAPTER XXVIII. 277CHAPTER XXIX. 286CHAPTER XXX. 296CHAPTER XXXI. 321CHAPTER XXXII. 329CHAPTER XXXIII. 343CHAPTER XXXIV. 355CHAPTER XXXV. 370CHAPTER XXXVI. 376
"UNTO CAESAR"
CHAPTER I
"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is MountZion...."--PSALM XLVIII. 2.
And it came to pass in Rome after the kalends of September, and whenCaius Julius Caesar Caligula ruled over Imperial Rome.
Arminius Quirinius, the censor, was dead. He had died by his own hand,and thus was a life of extortion and of fraud brought to an ignominiousend through the force of public opinion, and by the decree of that sameCaesar who himself had largely benefited by the mal-practices of hisminion.
Arminius Quirinius had committed every crime, sunk to every kind ofdegradation which an inordinate love of luxury and the insatiabledesires of jaded senses had suggested as a means to satisfaction, untilthe treachery of his own accomplices had thrown the glaring light ofpublicity on a career of turpitude such as even these decadent times hadseldom witnessed ere this.
Enough that the end had come at last. A denunciation from the rostrum, adiscontented accomplice thirsting for revenge, an angry crowd eager tolisten, and within an hour the mighty, much-feared censor was forced toflee from Rome to escape the fury of a populace which would have tornhim to pieces, and was ready even to massacre his family and hiswomenfolk, his clients and his slaves.
He escaped to his villa at Ostia. But the Emperor Caligula, having dulyenjoyed the profits derived from his favourite's extortions, hurledanathema and the full weight of his displeasure on the man who had beennot only fool enough to be found out, but who had compromised thepopularity of the Caesar in the eyes of the people and of the army.Twenty-four hours later the imperial decree went forth that thedisgraced censor must end his days in any manner which he thoughtbest--seeing that a patrician and member of the Senate could not behanded over to common justice--and also that the goods of ArminiusQuirinius should be publicly sold for the benefit of the State and theprofit of those whom the extortioner had wronged.
The latter phrase, though somewhat vague, pleased the people and soothedpublic irritation, and the ephemeral popularity of a half-crazy tyrantwas momentarily restored. Be it said however, that less than a monthlater the Caesar decided that he himself had been the person most wrongedby Arminius, and that the bulk of the profits derived from the sale ofthe late censor's goods must therefore find its way into the imperialcoffers.
The furniture of Arminius' house within the city and that of his villaat Ostia had fetched vast sums at a public auction which had lastedthree days. Everything had been sold, from the bed with the gilt legs onwhich the body of the censor had been laid after his death, to the lastvase of murra that adorned his walls and the cups of crystal from whichhis guests had drunk. His pet monkeys were sold and his tame magpies,the pots of flowers out of the hothouses and the bunches of melons andwinter grapes ripening under glass.
After that it was the turn of the slaves. There were, so I understand,over seven thousand of these: scribes and carpenters, litter-bearers andsculptors, cooks and musicians; there were a quantity of young children,and some half-witted dolts and misshapen dwarfs, kept for the amusementof guests during the intervals of supper.
The bulk of them had been sent to the markets of Delos and Phaselis, butthe imperator had had the most valuable items amongst the human goodsset aside for himself, and not a few choice pieces had found their wayinto the households of the aediles in charge of the sales: the State toohad appropriated some hundreds of useful scribes, sculptors andmechanics, but there were still a thousand or so who--in compliance withthe original imperial edict--would have to be sold by public auction inRome for the benefit of the late censor's defrauded victims.
And thus, on this ninth day of September, a human load panting under theheat of this late summer's sun, huddled one against the other, pushedand jostled by the crowd, was exposed to the public gaze in the Forumover against the rostrum Augustini, so that all who had a mind, and apurse withal, might suit their fancy and buy.
A bundle of humanity--not over-wretched, for the condition of the slavesin the household of Arminius Quirinius had not been an unhappy one--theyall seemed astonished, some even highly pleased, at thus findingthemselves the centre of attraction in the Forum, they who had spenttheir lives in getting humbly out of other people's way.
Fair and dark, ivory skin and ebony, male and female, or almost sexlessin the excess of deformity, there were some to suit all tastes. Eachwore a tablet hung round the neck by a green cord: on this were writ thechief merits of the wearer, and also a list of his or her defects, sothat intending purchasers might know what to expect.
There were the Phrygians with fair curly hair and delicate hands skilledin the limner's art; the Numidians with skins of ebony and keen blackeyes that shone like dusky rubies; they were agile at the chase, couldcapture a lion or trap the wild beasts that are so useful ingladiatorial games. There were Greeks here, pale of face and gentle ofmanner who could strike the chords of a lyre and sing to itsaccompaniment, and there were swarthy Spaniards who fashionedbreast-plates of steel and fine chain mail to resist the assassin'sdagger: there were Gauls with long lithe limbs and brown hair tied in aknot high above the forehead, and Allemanni from the Rhine withtwo-coloured hair heavy and crisp like a lion's mane. There was amusician from Memphis whose touch upon the sistrum would call a dyingspirit back to the land of the living, and a cook from Judaea who couldstew a peacock's tongue so that it melted like nectar in the mouth:there was a white-skinned Iceni from Britain, versed in the art ofhealing, and a negress from Numidia who had killed a raging lion by onehit on the jaw from her powerful fist.
Then there were those freshly brought to Rome from overseas, whosemerits or demerits had not yet been appraised--they wore no tablet roundthe neck, but their feet were whitened all over with chalk; and therewere those whose heads were surmounted by an ugly felt hat in token thatthe State treasury tendered no guarantee for them. Their period ofservitude had been so short that nothing was known about them, abouttheir health, their skill, or their condition.
Above them towered the gigantic rostrum with tier upon tier of massiveblocks of marble, and in the centre, up a
loft, the bronze figure of thewolf--the foster-mother of the great city--with metal jaws distended andpolished teeth that gleamed like emeralds in the sun.
And all around the stately temples of the Forum, with their richcarvings and colonnades and walls in tones of delicate creamy white,scarce less brilliant than the clouds which a gentle morning breeze waschasing westwards to the sea. And under the arcades of the temples coolshadows, dense and blue, trenchant against the white marble like anirregular mosaic of lapis lazuli, with figures gliding along between thetall columns, priests in white robes, furtive of gait, slaves of thepontificate, shoeless and silent and as if detached from the noise andbustle of the Forum, like ghosts that haunt the precincts of graves.
Throughout all this the gorgeous colouring that a summer's mid-morningthrows over imperial Rome. Above, that canopy of translucent blue,iridescent and scintillating with a thousand colours, flicks of emeraldand crimson, of rose and of mauve that merge and dance together, divideand reunite before the retina, until the gaze loses consciousness of allcolour save one all-pervading sense of gold.
In the distance the Capitol, temple-crowned, rearing its deified summitupwards to the dome of heaven above, holding on its triple shoulders athrong of metal gods, with Jupiter Victor right in the centre, athunderbolt in his hand which throws back ten thousand reflections ofdazzling light--another sun engendered by the sun. And to the west theAventine wrapped in its mantle of dull brown, its smooth incline barrenand scorched, and with tiny mud-huts dotted about like sleepy eyes thatclose beneath the glare.
And far away beyond the Aventine, beyond the temples and palaces, theblue ribbon of the Tiber flowing lazily to the sea: there where arose-coloured haze hung in mid-air, hiding with filmy, transparent veilthe vast Campania beyond, its fever-haunted marshes and its reed-coveredfastnesses.
The whole, a magnificent medley of cream and gold and azure, and deepimpenetrable shadows trenchant as a thunder cloud upon an horizon ofgold, and the moving crowd below, ivory and bronze and black, with hereand there the brilliant note of a snow-white robe or of crimsonhead-band gleaming through dark locks.
Up and around the rostrum, noise that was almost deafening had prevailedfrom an early hour. On one of the gradients some ten or a dozen scribeswere squatting on mats of twisted straw, making notes of the sales andentries of the proceeds on rolls of parchment which they had for thepurpose, whilst a swarthy slave, belonging to the treasury, acted asauctioneer under direct orders from the praefect of Rome. He was perchedhigh up aloft, immediately beneath the shadow of the yawning bronzewolf; he stood bare-headed under the glare of the sun, but a linen tuniccovered his shoulders, and his black hair was held close to his head bya vivid crimson band.
He shouted almost incessantly in fluent Latin, but with the lisppeculiar to the African races.
A sun-tanned giant whose massive frame and fair hair, that gleamed ruddyin the sun, proclaimed some foreign ancestry was the praefectus incommand of this tangled bundle of humanity.
He had arrived quite early in the day and his litter stood not far fromthe rostrum; its curtains of crimson silk, like vivid stains of bloodupon the walls of cream and gold, fluttered restlessly in the breeze.Around the litter a crowd of his own slaves and attendants remainedcongregated, but he himself stood isolated on the lowest gradient of thecentral rostrum, leaning his powerful frame against the marble, witharms folded across his mighty chest; his deep-set eyes were overshadowedby heavy brows and his square forehead cut across by the furrow of aperpetual frown which gave the whole face a strange expression ofuntamed will and of savage pride, in no way softened by the firm linesof the tightly closed lips or the contour of the massive jaws.
His lictors, at some little distance from him, kept his person wellguarded, but it was he who, with word or nod, directed the progress ofthe sale, giving occasional directions to the lictors who--wieldingheavy flails--had much ado to keep the herd of human cattle within thebounds of its pens. His voice was harsh and peremptory and he pronouncedthe Latin words with but the faintest semblance of foreign intonation.
Now and then at a word from a likely purchaser he would with a signorder a lictor to pick out one of his wares, to drag him forward out ofa compact group and set him up on the catasta. A small crowd would thencollect round the slave thus exposed, the tablet on his neck would becarefully perused and the chattel made to turn round and round, to walkbackwards and forwards, to show his teeth and his muscle, whilst theAfrican up on the rostrum would with loud voice and profuse gesturepoint out every line of beauty on a lithe body and expatiate on the fullplay of every powerful muscle.
The slave thus singled out for show seemed neither resentful nordistressed, ready enough most times to exhibit his merits, anxious onlyfor the chance of a good master and the momentary avoidance of thelictor's flail. At the praefect's bidding he cracked his knuckles orshowed his teeth, strained the muscles of his arm to make them stand uplike cords, turned a somersault, jumped, danced or stood on his head ifordered so to do.
The women were more timid and very frightened of blows, especially theolder ones; the younger shoulders escaped a chastisement which wouldhave marred their beauty, and the pretty maids from Corinth orCarthage, conscious of their own charms, displayed them withgood-natured _naivete_, deeming obedience the surest way to comfort.
Nor did the praefect perform his duty with any show of inhumanity orconscious cruelty. Himself a wealthy member of the patriciate, secondonly to the Caesar, with a seat in the Senate and a household full ofslaves, he had neither horror nor contempt for the state of slavery--anecessary one in the administration of the mightiest Empire in theworld.
Many there were who averred that the praefect of Rome was himself thedescendant of a freedman--a prisoner of war brought over by Caesar fromthe North--who had amassed wealth and purchased his own freedom. Indeedhis name proclaimed his foreign origin, for he was called Taurus AntinorAnglicanus, and surnamed Niger because of his dark eyes and sun-tannedskin. Certain it is that when the sale of Arminius' goods was ordered byimperial edict for the benefit of the State, no one complained that thepraefect decided to preside over the sale himself.
He had discharged such duties before and none had occasion to complainof the manner in which he did it. In these days of unbridled excessesand merciless outbursts of rage, he remained throughout--on theseoccasions--temperate and even impassive.
He only ordered his lictor to use the flail when necessary, when thebundle of human goods was so huddled up that it ceased to lookattractive, and likely purchasers seemed to fall away. Then, at hiscommand, the heavy thongs would descend indiscriminately on the bronzeshoulder of an Ethiopian or the fair skin of a barbarian from the North;but he gave the order without any show of cruelty or passion, just as heheard the responsive cry of pain without any outward sign of pity.