Aurelian or Rome in the Third Century Part 29

'Macer,' continued aelia, 'only thought that Carinus then represented Rome, and that his life, whatever it was, and however worthless in itself, was needful for Rome, and he threw himself into the breach even as he would have done for Aurelian or his great captain Probus. Was not his virtue the greater for that? Was he to feed his own humor, and leave Carinus to perish, when his country by that might receive detriment?

Macer has never thought of himself. Had he been ambitious as some, he had now been where Mucapor is. But when in the army he always put by his own interests. The army, its generals and Rome were all in all with him, himself, nothing. How, citizens, can you wish to do him harm? or anything that is his? And, even as a Christian--for which you reproach him and now seek him--it is still the same. Believe me when I say, that it is because of his love of you and Rome that he would make you all as he is. He honestly thinks that it is the doctrine of Christ, which can alone save Rome from the destruction which her crimes are drawing down upon her. He has toiled from morning till night, all day and all night--harder than he ever did upon his marches either in Africa or in Asia--that you might be made to know what this religion of Christ is; what it means; what it will bestow upon you if you will receive it; and what it will save you from. And he would not scruple to lose his life, if by so doing he could give any greater efficacy to the truth in which he believes. I would he were here now, Romans, to plead his own cause with you. I know you would so esteem his honesty, and his warm Roman heart, that you would be more ready to serve than to injure him.'

Pity stood in some eyes, but impatience and anger in more.

'Be not so sure of that,' cried he who had spoken before. 'No true Roman can love a Christian. Christians are the worst enemies of the state. As for Macer, say no more of him; he is already done for. All you have to do is to set open the door.'

'What say you of Macer?' cried the miserable girl, wringing her hands.

'Has any evil befallen him?'

'What he will never recover from,' retorted the barbarian. 'Varus has just had him on one of his iron playthings, and his body we have but now left in the street yonder. So hasten.'

'O worse than demons to kill so good a man,' cried aelia, the tears rolling down her cheeks. 'But if he is dead, come and take us too. We wish not now to live; and ready as he was to die for Christ, so ready are we also. Cease your blows; and I will open the door.'

But her agency in that office was no longer needed. A huge timber had been brought in the meantime from the ruins, and, plied by an hundred hands with noisy uproar, the stone door soon gave way, just as aelia descended and the murderous crew rushed in.

The work of death was in part quickly done. The sons of Macer, who, on the uproar, had instantly joined their mother in spite of all the entreaties of Demetrius, were at once despatched, and dragged forth by ropes attached to their feet. The two youngest, transfixed by spears, were seen borne aloft as b.l.o.o.d.y standards of that murderous rout. The mother and the other children, placed in a group in the midst of the mult.i.tude, were made to march on, the savages themselves being divided as to what should be their fate. Some cried out, 'To the Tiber!'--some, 'Crucify them beyond the walls!--others, 'Give 'em the pavements!' But the voice of one more ingenious in cruelty than the rest prevailed.

'To the square by Hanno's with them!'

This proposition filled them with delight.

'To Hanno's! to Hanno's!' resounded on all sides. And away rushed the infuriated ma.s.s to their evil sport.

'And who is Hanno?' I asked of one near me.

'Hanno? know you not Hanno? He is brother of Sosia the gladiator, and breeds dogs for the theatres. You shall soon see what a brood he will turn out. There is no such breeder in Rome as he.'

Sick at heart as I was, I still pressed on, resolved to know all that Christian heroism could teach me. We were soon at the square, capable of holding on its borders not only thousands but tens of thousands, to which number it seemed as if the throng had now acc.u.mulated. Hanno's extensive buildings and grounds were upon one side of the square, to which the people now rushed, calling out for the great breeder to come forth with his pack.

He was not slow in obeying the summons. He himself appeared, accompanied, as on the day when Piso saw him on the Capitol Hill, by his two dogs Nero and Sylla. After first stipulating with the ringleaders for a sufficient remuneration, he proceeded to order the game. He was at first for separating the victims, but they implored to be permitted to suffer together, and so much mercy was shown them. They were then set together in the centre of the square, while the mult.i.tude disposed themselves in an immense circle around--the windows of the buildings and the roofs of all the neighboring dwellings being also thronged with those who both looked on and applauded. Before the hounds were let loose, Hanno approached this little band, standing there in the midst and clinging to one another, and asked them,

'If they had anything to say, or any message to deliver, for he would faithfully perform what they might enjoin.'

The rest weeping, aelia answered, 'that she wished to say a few words to the people who stood around.'

'Speak then,' replied Hanno, 'and you shall not be disturbed.'

She then turned toward the people, and said. 'I can wish you, Romans, before I die, no greater good than that, like me and those who are with me, you may one day become Christians. For you will then be incapable of inflicting such sufferings and wrongs upon any human being. The religion of Jesus will not suffer you to do otherwise than love others as you do yourselves; that is the great Christian rule. Be a.s.sured that we now die, as Christians, in full faith in Christ and in joyful hope of living with him, so soon as these mortal bodies shall have perished; and that, though a single word of denial would save us, we would not speak it. Ye have cruelly slaughtered the good Macer; do so now by us, if such is your will, and we shall then be with him where he is.'

With these words she again turned, and throwing her arms around her mother and younger sisters, awaited the onset of the furious dogs, whose yellings and strugglings could all the while be heard. She and they waited but a moment, when the blood-hounds, fiercer than the fiercest beasts of the forest, flew from their leashes, and, in less time than would be believed, naught but a heap of bones marked where the Christian family had stood.

The crowds, then fully sated as it seemed with the rare sport of the morning, dispersed, each having something to say to another of the firmness and patriotism of Varus and Fronto,--and of the training and behavior of the dogs.

From the earliest period of reflection have I detested the Roman character; and all that I have witnessed with my own eyes has served but to confirm those early impressions. They are a people wholly dest.i.tute of humanity. They are the lineal descendants of robbers, murderers, and warriors--which last are but murderers under another name--and they show their parentage in every line of their hard-featured visages, and still more in all the qualities of the soul. They are stern,--unyielding, unforgiving--cruel. A Roman heart dissected would be found all stone.

Any present purpose of pa.s.sion, or ambition, or party zeal, will extinguish in the Roman all that separates him from the brute. Bear witness to the truth of this, ye ma.s.sacres of Marius and Sylla! and others, more than can be named, both before and since--when the blood of neighbors, friends, and fellow-citizens, was poured out as freely as if it had been the filthy stream that leaks its way through the public sewers! And, in good sooth, was it not as filthy? For those very ones so slain, had the turn of the wheel--as in very deed has often happened--set them uppermost, would have done the same deed upon the others. Happy is it for the peace of the earth and the great cause of humanity, that this faith of Christ, whether it be true or false, is at length beginning to bear sway, and doing somewhat to soften, what more than twelve centuries have pa.s.sed over and left in its original vileness.

When, like the rest of that Roman mob, I had been filled with the sights and sounds of the morning, I turned and sought the palace of Piso.

Arriving there I found Portia, Julia, and Piso sitting together at the hour of dinner. I sat with them. Piso had not left the palace, since I had parted from him. They had remained at peace within, and as ignorant of what had happened in the distant parts of the huge capital, as we all were of what was then doing in another planet. When, as the meal drew to a close, I had related to them the occurrences of which I had just been the witness, they could scarce believe what they heard, though it was but what they and all had every reason to look for, from the language which Aurelian had used, and the known hostility of the Prefect. Portia, the mother, was moved more, if it could be so, than even Piso or Julia.

When I had ended, she said,

'Think not, Nicomachus, that although, as thou knowest, I am of Aurelian's side in religion, I defend these inhuman wrongs. To inflict them can make no part of the duty of any wors.h.i.+pper of the G.o.ds, however zealous he may be. I do not believe that the G.o.ds are propitiated by any acts which occasion suffering to their creatures. I have seen no justification under any circ.u.mstances of human sacrifices--much less can I see any of sacrifices like those you have this morning witnessed.

Aurelian, in authorizing or conniving at such horrors, has cut himself loose from the honor and the affections of all those in Rome whose esteem is worth possessing. He has given himself up to the priesthood, and to the vulgar rabble over whom it exercises a sway more strict than an Eastern despot. He is by these acts turning the current of the best Roman sympathy toward the Christians, and putting off by a long remove the hour when he might hope to see the ancient religion of the state delivered from its formidable rival.'

'It is the purpose of Aurelian,' I said, 'not so much to persecute and annoy the Christians, as to exterminate them. He is persuaded that by using the same extreme and summary measures with the Christians, which he has been accustomed to employ in the army, he can root out this huge evil from the state, as easily as those lesser ones from the camp;--without reflecting that it must be impossible to discover all, or any very large proportion of those who profess Christianity, and that therefore his slaughter of a half or a quarter of the whole number, will be to no purpose. It will have been but killing so many--there will be no other effect; unless, indeed, it have the effect to convince new thousands of the power, and worth, and divinity of that faith, for which men are so willing to die.'

'I mourn,' said Portia, 'that the great head of the state, and the great high priest of our religion should have taken the part he has. Measures of moderation and true wisdom, though they might not have obtained for him so great a name for zeal and love of the G.o.ds, nor made so sudden and deep an impression upon the common mind and heart, would have secured with greater probability the end at which he has aimed.'

'It is hard.' said I, 'to resist nature, especially so when superst.i.tion comes in to its aid. Aurelian, by nature a savage, is doubly one through the influence of his religion and the priesthood. Moderation and humanity are so contrary to every principle of the man and his faith, that they are not with more reason to be looked for from him than gentleness in a famished wolf.'

Portia looked as if I had a.s.sailed the walls and capitol of Rome.

'I know not, Greek,' she quickly said, 'on what foundation it is you build so heavy a charge against the time-honored faith of Rome. It has served Rome well these thousand years, and reared men whose greatness will dwell in the memory of the world while the world lasts.'

'Great men have been reared in Rome,' I replied; 'it can by none be denied. But it has been by resisting the influences of their religion, not by courting them. They have left themselves in this to the safer tutelage of nature, as have you, lady; and they have escaped the evils, which the common superst.i.tion would have entailed upon them, had they admitted it to their bosoms. Who can deny that the religion of Rome, so far as it is a religion for the common people, is based up on the characters of the G.o.ds, as they through history and tradition are held up to them--especially as they are painted by the poets? Say if there be any other books of authority on this great theme than the poets? What book of religious instruction and precept have you, or have you ever had, corresponding to the volume of the Christians, called their gospels?'

'We have none,' said Portia, as I paused compelling a rejoinder. 'It is true, we have but our historians and our poets, with what we find in the philosophers.'

'And the philosophers,' I replied, 'it will be seen at once can never be in the hands of the common people. Whence then do they receive their religious ideas, but from tradition, and the character of the deities of heaven, as they are set forth in the poets? And if this be so, I need not ask whether it be possible that the religion of Rome should be any other than a source of corruption to the people. So far as the G.o.ds should be their models, they can do no otherwise than help to sink their imitators lower and lower in all filth and vice. Happily for Rome and the world, lady, men instinctively revolt at such examples, and copy instead the pattern which their own souls supply. Had the Romans been all which the imitation of their G.o.ds would have made them, this empire had long ago sunk under the deep pollution. Fronto and Aurelian--the last at least sincere--aim at a restoration of religion. They would lift it up to the highest place, and make it the sovereign law of Rome. In this attempt, they are unconsciously digging away her very foundations; they are leveling her proud walls with the earth. Suppose Rome were made what Fronto would have her? Every Roman were then another Fronto--or another Aurelian. Were that a world to live in? or to endure? These, lady, are the enemies of Rome, Aurelian and Fronto. The only hope for Rome lies, in the reception of some such principles as these of the Christians. Whether true or false, as a revelation from Heaven, they are in accordance with the best part of our nature, and, once spread abroad and received, they would tend by a mighty influence to exalt it more and more. They would descend, as it is of the nature of absolute truth to do, and lay hold of the humblest and lowest and vilest, and in them erect their authority, and bring them into the state, in which every man should be, for the reason that he is a man. Helenism cannot do this.'

'Notwithstanding what I have heard, Nicomachus, I think you must yourself be a Christian. But whether you are or not, I grant you to understand well what religion should be. And I must say that it has ever been such to me. I, from what I have read of our moralists and philosophers, and from what I have reflected, have arrived at principles not very different from such as you have now hinted at--'

'And are those of Fronto or Varus like yours, lady?'

'I fear not,' said Portia.

'Yours then, let me say, are the religion, which you have first found within your own breast, a gift from the G.o.ds, and then by meditation have confirmed and exalted; theirs, the common faith of Rome. Could your faith rejoice in or permit the horrors I have this day witnessed and but now described? Yet of theirs they are the legitimate fruit, the necessary product.'

'Out of the best,' replied Portia, 'I believe, Nicomachus, may often come the worst. There is naught so perfect and so wise, but human pa.s.sions will mar and pervert it. I should not wonder if, in ages to come, this peace-loving faith of the Christians, should it survive so long, should itself come to preside over scenes as full of misery and guilt as those you have to-day seen in the streets of Rome.'

'It may be,' I rejoined. 'But it is nevertheless our duty, in the selection of our principles, to take those which are the purest, the most humane, the most accordant with what is best in us, and the least liable to perversion and abuse. And whether, if this be just, it be better that mankind should have presented for their imitation and honor the character and actions of Jesus Christ, or those of Jupiter "Greatest and Best," may be left for the simplest to determine.'

Portia is so staunch a Roman, that one cannot doubt that as she was born and has lived, so she will die--a Roman. And truth to say, were all like her, there were little room for quarrel with the principles that could produce such results. But for one such, there are a thousand like Varus, Fronto, and Aurelian.

As after this interview, which was prolonged till the shades of evening began to fall, I held communion with myself on the way to the quiet retreats of Tibur, I could not but entertain apprehensions for the safety of the friends I had just left. I felt that where such men as Varus and Fronto were at the head of affairs, wielding, almost as they pleased, the omnipotence of Aurelian, no family nor individual of whatever name or rank could feel secure of either fortune or life. I had heard indeed such expressions of regard fall from the Emperor for Piso and his beautiful wife, that I was sure that if any in Rome might feel safe, it was they. Yet why should he, who had fallen with fatal violence upon one of his own household, and such a one as Aurelia, hesitate to strike the family of Piso, if thereby religion or the state were to be greatly benefited? I could see a better chance for them only in the Emperor's early love of Julia, which still seemed to exercise over him a singular power.

The Queen, I found, upon naming to her the subject of my thoughts, could entertain none of my apprehensions. It is so difficult for her nature to admit the faintest purpose of the infliction of wanton suffering, that she cannot believe it of others. Notwithstanding her experience of the harsh and cruel spirit of Aurelian, notwithstanding the unnecessary destruction, for any national or political object, of the mult.i.tudes of Palmyra, still she inclines to confide in him. He has given so many proofs of regret for that wide ruin, he has suffered so much for it--especially for his murder of Longinus--in the opinion of all Rome, and of the highest and best in all nations, that she is persuaded he will be more cautious than ever whom he a.s.sails, and where he scatters ruin and death. Still, such is her devotion to Julia and her love of Piso--so entirely is her very life lodged in that of her daughter, that she resolved to seek the Emperor without delay, and if possible obtain an a.s.surance of their safety, both from his own arm and that of popular violence. This I urged upon her with all the freedom I might use; and not in vain; for the next day, at the gardens of Sall.u.s.t, she had repeated interviews with Aurelian--and afterward at her own palace, whither Aurelian came with Livia, and where, while Livia ranged among the flowers with Faustula, the Emperor and the Queen held earnest discourse--not only on the subject which chiefly agitated Zen.o.bia, but on the general principles on which he was proceeding in this attempted annihilation of Christianity. Sure I am, that never in the Christian body itself was there one who pleaded their cause with a more winning and persuasive eloquence.

LETTER X.

FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.

I write to you, Fausta, by the hands of Vabalathus, who visits Palmyra on his way to his new kingdom. I trust you will see him. The adversities of his family and the misfortunes of his country have had most useful effects upon his character. Though the time has been so short, he has done much to redeem himself. Always was he, indeed, vastly superior to his brothers; but now, he is not only that, but very much more.