Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 65

Suffice it to set down here that we were not driven on any rock or reef or shoal nor did we collide with any other s.h.i.+p. Laboring heavily in the open sea, straining on the crests and wallowing in the troughs of the stupendous billows, the yacht, even as carefully built a yacht as Libo's, began to leak appallingly, the inrush of the water surpa.s.sed the utmost capacity of the pumps and the most frantic efforts of the men at them; the vessel settled lower and lower, labored more and more heavily and was manifestly about to founder.

The officers were capable men, the small boats st.u.r.dy and their crews and steersmen skillful and confident. Clatenna was brave and Libo magnificent.

He kept his head, dominated his officers, and insisted that Rufius and I should embark in a different boat from that to which he and Clatenna trusted themselves. He personally saw to it that Clatenna and Rufius had, on their persons, each their copy of his will.

Both boats were successfully launched, and, as we drew away from the doomed s.h.i.+p, we saw a third and fourth put off with other valued members of his household. While a fifth and sixth were being swung overboard we saw, from the top of a huge swell, the yacht go under and vanish; saw, when we next rose on the chine of a billow, the water dotted with spars, wreckage and swimmers; saw, five or six times more, the three other boats: and then many times, high on a vast wave, beheld only the waste of lifeless waters, without boat or swimmer.

All night we floated and, not long after sunrise, we were seen and rescued by a trading s.h.i.+p from Carales in Sardinia, bound for Carthage.

At Carthage we were soon in the palace formerly Libo's and now the property of Rufius. He, on succeeding to his uncle's estate, at once rewarded with a huge donation the steersman of the boat in which we had been saved, saying that the other steersmen did their best, but that, if the others had been as dexterous as he, his aunt and uncle would not have perished by so deplorable and so untimely a death.

Within a few days he, now my owner by inheritance, sold me to Pomponius Falco, as Nonius had intended to do himself.

Falco liked me at first sight and I him. He was a man between thirty-five and forty years of age, a natural born bachelor and art connoisseur. He was of medium height, of stout build, with curly black hair and a curly black beard, a swarthy complexion, a bullet head, a bull neck, a huge chest and plump arms and legs. He was by no means unhandsome in appearance and very jovial, good-humored, and good-natured; manifestly fond of all the good things of life and able to discriminate and appreciate the best.

For several days after I came into his possession I was his dearest toy.

He spent most of his waking hours conversing with me about music and musicians, poetry and poets, literature and authors, paintings and painters, statuary and sculptors, architecture and architects, gems, ivories, embroideries, textiles, furniture, pottery and even autographs and autograph collecting. He seemed to appraise me an expert on all such lines and to be well pleased with his purchase.

Certainly I was as well clothed, fed, lodged and attended as if I had been his twin-brother.

Before he had owned me many days Falco said to me:

"Phorbas, I've been puzzling about you. You are a slave and you were sold to poor Libo and by Rufius to me as a Greek. Yet you have none of the appearance nor behavior of a Greek nor yet of a slave. You look and act and talk like a freeman born and a full-blooded Roman, and a n.o.ble at that. Please explain."

Now, of course, in imagining all the forms in which I might be a.s.saulted by the perils which beset me, I had foreseen just such a query as this utterance of Falco's involved and I had pondered and rehea.r.s.ed my answer.

I realized that I must be ready with a reply wholly plausible because entirely consonant with the facts of our social life, as they existed, so that no one could take any exception to it. I thought I had framed such a reply.

"You know how it is," I answered easily. "A Roman master buys a young and comely Greek handmaid. In due course she has a daughter, legally also a slave and nominally a Greek, yet half Roman. When she is grown, if she happens to be comely and the property of a master like most masters, she has a daughter, a slave and spoken of as a Greek, yet only a quarter Greek. If she has a similar daughter, that daughter, a slave and called a Greek, is only one-eighth Greek. I conceive, from all I know, that my great grandmother, grandmother and mother were such slave women. I, a slave and ostensibly a Greek, am fifteen-sixteenths Roman n.o.ble, by ancestry, according to my reckoning. No wonder my descent shows in my bearing, manner and conversation."

This answer was, actually, not so far from the facts, my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had, certainly, been Roman n.o.blewomen, daughters indeed, each of one of the oldest and longest-lineaged houses of our n.o.bility; and, like my father, grandfather and great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather had been a Roman n.o.bleman. But his father, my great-great-great-grandfather, had been a freed-man, manumitted in the days of Nero, acquiring great wealth, attaining equestrian rank during the last years of Nero's reign, and vastly enriched during the confusion of the civil wars, marrying a young and wealthy widow after Vespasian was firmly established at Rome by the crus.h.i.+ng of the insurrection of Claudius Civilis.

Probably the general consonance of my answer with the facts made my utterance of it more convincing. Certainly it appealed to Falco.

"Just about what I conjectured," he said, smiling. "And will you tell me in what part of Italy and on what estate you were born and how you came by your air of aristocratic culture and by your marvellous dilettantism?"

"I know what I know and am what I am," I replied, "because I was, from childhood, treated just as if a son instead of a slave; pampered, indulged and made much of. That lasted till I was more than full-grown.

"The misfortunes of the family to which I belonged came so suddenly that I was not manumitted, as I should have been had my master had so much as a day's warning of his downfall. I was sold to a fool and a brute, as you have probably inferred from my back. The marks of his barbarity which I bear, and my lasting grief for the calamity of the household in which I was born, make me unwilling to tell you anything of my past previous to my purchase from Olynthides by Nonius Libo."

"Well," he said, "your feeling is natural and I shall not urge my curiosity on you. I mean to indulge you and even pamper you; mean to endeavor to indulge you and pamper you so you will feel more indulged and pampered than ever in your life, I'll make a new will, at once, leaving you your freedom and a handsome property. I expect to live out a long life, all my kin have been healthy and long-lived. But one can never be certain of living and I mean to run no risks of your having any more troubles. You deserve ease and comfort. And you shall have them if I can arrange it. I love you like a born brother and mean to treat you as well as if you were my twin."

The year in which Commodus killed the two lions, each with one blow of his trifling-looking little palm-wood club, in which year I was sold out of the Choragium, and purchased by Nonius, in which I crossed the sea, was wrecked and saved and resold to Falco, was the nine hundred and forty- first year of the City [Footnote: 188 A.D.] and the ninth of the reign of Commodus, the year in which the consuls were Allius Fuscia.n.u.s and Duillius Sila.n.u.s, each for the second time. In Africa, with Falco, I spent that and the following year very comfortably and happily, for I was as well clothed, fed, lodged and tended as Falco himself. I liked him, even loved him, and I felt perfectly safe.

The climate of Africa agreed with me, and I liked the fare, especially the many kinds of fruit which we seldom see in Rome and then not in their best condition, and some of which we never see in Italy at all. I admired the scenery, and I delighted in the cities, not only Carthage and Utica, but both Hippo Regius and Hippo Diarrhytus, and also Hadrumetum, Tacape, Cirta and Theveste, and even such mere towns as Lambaesis and Thysdrus, which last has an amphitheater second only to the Colosseum itself. They all had fine amphitheaters, magnificent circuses, gorgeous theaters and sumptuous public hot baths. Not one but had a fine library, a creditable public picture-gallery, and many n.o.ble groups of statuary, with countless fine statues adorning the public buildings, streets and parks. The society of all these places was delightfully cultured, easy and unaffected. I revelled in it and could not have been happier except that I never heard from Vedia or Tanno, let alone had a letter from either. And I wrote to both and sent off letter after letter to one or the other. For it seemed to me that a letter in this form could not excite any suspicion.

"Phorbas gives greeting to Opsitius, and informs him that after he had been sold by Olynthides to Nonius Libo, he survived the sinking of his owner's yacht and was sold by Libo's heir to Pomponius Falco, in whose retinue he now is. Farewell."

I sent off, at least once a season, a letter like this to both Tanno and Vedia. No word from either ever reached me. I could but conjecture that all my letters had miscarried.

Meanwhile, besides being reminded of it each time I wrote to Tanno or Vedia, I did not forget that I was a proscribed fugitive, my life forfeit if I were detected. I conceived that my best disguise was to dress, act and talk as much as possible in the character of dilettante art expert and music-lover, which I had a.s.sumed. Falco treated me, as he had prophesied, almost as a brother. I had a luxurious apartment in each of his town residences and country villas, and a retinue of servants: valet, bath- attendant, room-keeper, ma.s.seur, reader, messenger, runner and a litter with three s.h.i.+fts of powerful bearers. Everything Falco could think of in the way of clothing, furniture and art objects was showered on me and my slightest hint of a wish was quickly gratified. Also Falco supplied me a lavish allowance of cash. Therefore I could gratify any whim. Besides, my amulet-bag was intact and had in it all the gems which Agathemer had originally placed there, except only the emerald Bulla had sold for me.

I thought up everything I could do to make myself look completely a Greek virtuoso and as un-Roman-looking as possible. I patronized every complexion-specialist, friseur, perukier, manicurist and fas.h.i.+onable barber in that part of the world. I bought every hair tonic for sale in the colony. Between lotions and expert manipulation I succeeded in growing a thick curly beard, covering my chest as far as the lower end of my breast-bone and a thick head of hair so long that, even when elaborately frizzed and curled, my oiled and scented locks fell as far down my back as my beard spread on my bosom. Nothing could have made me look more Corinthian and less Roman.

I wore the gaudiest clothing I could find; tunics and cloaks of pure silk and of the brightest or most effeminate hues; crimson, emerald-green, peac.o.c.k-green, gra.s.s-green, apple-green, sea-green, sapphire-blue, sky- blue, turquoise-blue, saffron, orange, amethystine, violet and any and every unusual tint; boots of glazed kidskin or of dull finish soft skin, of hues like my silk garments, always with the edges of the soles heavily gilded. And, for my shoes as well as for my garments, I chose particolored materials with the most startling or languorous combinations of unusual dyes. All my boots and shoes were embroidered in silver thread or gold thread, all my outer garments embroidered in crimson, deep green, deep blue, gold or silver, in big, striking, conspicuous patterns. I had elephants, lions, antelopes, horses, cattle, sheep, stags, goats, storks, cranes, even fish embroidered on my outer garments amid trees, vines, and flowers; roses, lilies, violets, poppies and others uncountable. I spent on such gewgaws a considerable part of my allowance, yet never exhausted Falco's lavish provision for me.

I also went in for jewelry, loading my fingers with flashy rings, wearing bracelets on both wrists, two or three on each, always two necklaces and even earrings, for which I had my ears pierced, like a Lydian.

When I conned myself in my dressing-room mirror, arrayed in such a superfluity of decorations and fripperies, I felt sure that no one would take me for a Roman.

In these apparently natural vanities and vagaries Falco humored me, enquiring of his friends concerning friseurs of acclaimed reputation, buying me any gaudy fabrics he saw, also presenting me with caskets of necklaces, amulets, bracelets, finger-rings and earrings. He rallied me on my oriental tastes, but aided me to gratify them.

He even came to feel his interest in jewelry and gems enhanced by my fad for them. He took to purchasing antiques in jewelry and rare and unusual gems and his h.o.a.rd grew into a notable collection.

By the end of my second winter with Falco I had come to know intimately all his town and country palaces and all his dilettanti friends and had enjoyed to the full the many delights of the colony, not only its climate and fruits, its scenery and cities, its statuary and pictures, its libraries and public-baths, but its excellent performances of tragedies and comedies, and its spectacles creditable, not only as to chariot-racing but also as to beast-fights and exhibitions of gladiators. I found life in Africa extremely agreeable and looked forward to any length of it with contentment.

I may remark that during this time Cleander came to the end of his period of unlimited wealth, power and misrule. I was thus out of Rome at the time of his downfall and death and while the Praetorium had a score of Prefects in rapid succession.

In the spring of the nine hundred and forty-third year of the city, [Footnote: A.D. 190.] and the eleventh of the reign of Commodus, the year in which he was nominally consul for the sixth time, along with Petronius Septimia.n.u.s, Falco startled me, while we were dining alone together, as Agathemer and I had used to dine together, by saying:

"Phorbas, you talk of Rome differently from any other man I ever heard talk of it. I have meditated over the quality of what you say of Rome, but I cannot a.n.a.lyze it or describe it accurately. Yet I may say that others talk of Rome as holy ground, but you alone make me feel that the soil inside the Pomoerium is holy ground: others talk of the grandeur of Rome; you make me realize its grandeur: others prate of their love for Rome: you, saying little, make me tingle with a subtly communicated sense of how you love Rome: others babble of how life away from Rome is not life, but merely existence; of how any dwelling out of Rome is exile, of how they long for Rome; you, by some sorcery, make me not only feel how you long for Rome, but have awakened in me a longing for Rome. I have never been out of this colony of Africa, not even into Mauretania. A man as rich as I and of equestrian rank can afford to travel, to visit all the interesting parts of the Empire, to live where he likes, anywhere in Italy or even in Rome.

"I have never wanted to leave this colony: I love every bit of it and especially my residences and estates. I have been satisfied here. When my friends argued with me and tried to persuade me to travel and especially to visit Rome, I never was convinced by their arguments. I have a dread of sea-voyaging, a dread accentuated by the death of poor Libo. who was an enthusiastic voyager and had a yacht as staunch and a crew as capable as skill could produce, money buy and judgment collect. Yet he perished. I did not need the warning of his fate to keep me ash.o.r.e. Then again, I prefer to be a big frog in a small pond to being a small frog in a big pond, I am one of the most important men in this colony and, here in Africa, I am always somebody. In Rome I should be n.o.body.

"Yet, without my realizing it and later against my will, your conversation, in some subtle way, has so infected me with the desire to see Rome that I am going to brave the terrors of the seas, am going to sink myself into insignificance among the scores of richer and more influential men who cl.u.s.ter about Caesar. I am even going to put at the mercy of the sea my precious collection of gems, which I now value more than you and myself together and twice over.

"I have made all my arrangements. I have put my affairs in order, made sure that my estates will be properly managed in my absence, bought the best yacht to be had in the harbor of Carthage, and that is saying a great deal for its excellence, and I have ordered coffers in which to pack my beloved gems.

"Prepare to accompany me; within ten days we set off for Rome."

I knew Falco. Easy-going as he was, when he had taken a notion to buy and indulge a connoisseur-slave, collect gems or visit Rome, opposition, arguments, artfulness or stratagems were alike useless. I resigned myself to my fate.

I meditated over this fifth fulfillment of the prophecy of the Aemilian Sibyl.

Since I had been with Falco and practically a free and rich man, I had made handsome sacrifices at Mercury's Temples in all the cities we visited which had temples to Mercury. The morning after Falco announced his intentions to go to Rome I went out alone and unattended; myself, in the market place of Carthage, bought two white hens; myself carried them to the Temple of Mercury and myself had them offered to the G.o.d.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

IMPOSTURE

We had no bad weather on our voyage to Rome nor any adventure. The day before we sailed I had conned my image in the mirror in my dressing-room and had comforted myself with the decision that no human creature could conceivably suspect of being a Roman this full-bearded, longhaired, long- nailed, frizzed, curled, oiled, perfumed, gaudy, tawdry, bedizened, bejeweled, powdered, rouged, painted popinjay.

I laid in an extra supply of nail-polish, nail-tint, rouge, face-paint, blackening for painting eyebrows and eyelashes, and of perfumery, cosmetics, unguents and such like. If I were sufficiently whitened, reddened, rouged, and painted I hoped I should be well enough disguised to face Gratillus or even Flavius Clemens without a qualm. Actually my bizarre and fantastic appearance was an almost complete protection to me.

And I needed protection. For Falco was related to many prominent families and men in Rome; for instance, he was a cousin of Senator Sosius Falco, who was consul two years later. He was introduced widely and at once and invited everywhere. I was constantly in attendance on him.