Felicitas Part 1

Felicitas.

by Felix Dahn.

INTRODUCTION.

Some years ago I was at work in Salzburg: in the library among the old records, and in the Museum of Roman antiquities.

My studies were princ.i.p.ally concerned with the fifth century: the time when the Germanic tribes invaded these regions, the Roman garrisons retiring with or without resistance, while many settlers remained in the land. Peasants, trades-people, mechanics, would not forsake their homes, nor give up their lucrative occupations, would not quit their valued, long-cherished plots of ground, but stayed under the rule of the Barbarian; who, when the storm and battle of conquest were over, and the division of the country completed, did not molest them.

The work of the day over, I wandered in the beautiful, long-familiar country of the Salzach valley; the warm June evenings permitted long wanderings up to a late hour. Thought and fancy were filled with the pictures of the life and the changing fate of the latest Romans in these lands. My imagination was excited by the inscriptions, coins, and utensils, by the Roman monuments of every kind which are found in such rich abundance in and around Salzburg; for this town, with its prominent fortress, the "Capitolium," on the rocky hill dominating stream and valley, was for centuries, under the name of "Claudium Juvavum," a chief bulwark of the Roman rule and the seat of a flouris.h.i.+ng and brilliant development of the Roman culture. The inscriptions testify to the official rank of many of the citizens, such as Duumvirs, Decurions, aediles of the markets and games; to the importance of the town as a place of trade, and to the encouragement given to the arts and manufactures.

That which had occupied me during the labours of the day was pictured by the play of fancy, when in the evening I wandered out through the gate of the town: stream and road, hill and valley, were then peopled for me with forms of the Roman life; and from the distant north-west, like the driving clouds that often arose from the Bavarian plain, approached menacingly the invading Germans.

Most frequently, I preferred to saunter along the banks of the stream in the direction of the great Roman road, which pa.s.sed the Chiemsee, and crossing its effluent, the Alz, at Siebruck (Bedaium), and the Inn (Oenus) at Pfunz (Pons Oeni), led towards the province of Vindelicia and its splendid capital, Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum). Many coins, fragments of pottery, urns, gravestones, and household utensils of every kind have been found in the level country which stretches on each side of the old highroad, and is now for the most part covered with forest and brushwood, and in some parts overgrown with thick ivy. It is evident that farms, and also stately villas of the rich citizens, were thickly scattered beyond the outer wall of the fortified town, thus filling and adorning the whole valley. I often wandered in the neighbourhood of this Roman road, the traces of which were still distinctly visible, watching the setting sun, and wondering what were the feelings of the inhabitants of these villas, when, instead of the proud Legions marching by on their way to the Roman town on the Lech, it was the first weak bands of the Germans from the conquered Vindelicia who galloped in, carefully reconnoitring; and soon to be followed by larger ma.s.ses, more daring, or rather having the well-grounded confidence that they would find the country only weakly defended, and would be able to establish themselves as masters over the defenceless Romans who still remained.

In such fancies, not without the silent wish that I might myself glean some small memorial of Roman times from this land so rich in remembrances, I penetrated one evening deeper into the brushwood on the right of the Roman road, following upwards the course of a small stream, through a hollow often strewn with broken stones and potsherds, which moss and ivy had thickly overgrown, and which cracked not seldom, under my footsteps. I picked up many tiles and bits of pottery. Were they Roman? No certain evidence could be gathered from _these_.

I determined to-day to follow the rivulet till I should reach its source, which I imagined to be under the gentle slope of a moderately high hill; for I knew that the Romans liked to build their quiet villas as well as their military stations by running water.

It was very hot on that summer day, I was tired in body and mind, and it was only slowly, and with difficulty, that I could ascend the course of the brook, forcing my way through the thick and often nearly impa.s.sable bushes by the help of my alpenstock, which I carried with, me, as I often climbed the mountains in my wanderings.

I could willingly have stretched myself drowsily on the soft inviting moss; but I resisted the inclination, and determined to press through and up to the goal I had set myself: the source of the stream.

In half an hour the slope was reached; the height is called by the people, "the Pagan mound." Along the latter part of the way I had noticed a striking increase in the number and size of the fragments of stone; among them also were red and gray marble, like that which had been quarried in the neighbourhood for unnumbered centuries; and it was, as I had imagined, close under the crown of the hill the stream trickled out of the ground.

It appeared to have been once surrounded by masonry; this was in part still perceptible, carefully polished clear gray marble enclosed it here and there in a handsome setting, and round about lay scattered numerous tiles. My heart beat quickly, not only in consequence of the arduous climb, but also, I confess it, in hopeful expectation, I was yet very young. Suppose if to-day and here, Mercury, the Roman, or Wotan, the German G.o.d of wishes and discovery, should give into my hand the long-desired memorial of the Romans of Juvavum; the name "Pagan mound" gave undoubted evidence of the Roman occupation--for the Roman road is here called the "Pagan road"--added to this, the source of the spring, the traces of the marble setting, the many tiles--then the sun's rays, just before setting, fell across the brushwood and shone directly on the tile-slab lying before me. Cement! I picked it up and tested it; it was without doubt that Roman cement which, becoming hard as stone during the lapse of centuries, so marks out the buildings of eternal Rome, I turned the piece over; there, O joy! was burnt in the undoubted motto of the Twenty-second Legion: _Primigenia pia fidelis!_ And as I bend down, highly pleased, to try the next brick, a yet stronger sunbeam falls on a piece of peculiar light-gray stone. It is marble, I see now, and on the surface there are three Roman letters distinctly visible: "hic...." There the stone was broken; but close to it, the broken edge of a similar piece of gray stone projected from the moss and ivy. Does the continuation of the inscription lie here buried under a covering of moss and turf?

I pulled at the stone, but it was too heavy, either from the load of earth or from its own size.

After some useless efforts, I found that I must clear off the layers of turf and moss before the marble would entrust me with its secret.

Had it one to narrate? Certainly! I held the commencement in my hand: "Hic," "here"--_what_ had here taken place, or was here attested?

After I had with my pocket-knife cleared the first piece from earth and root-fibres, I held its broken surface to that of the still covered slab; they fitted very well together. Then I set to work; it was not easy, not soon over; with hand, knife, and the point of my alpenstock, I had to sc.r.a.pe and tear away fully two feet of turf, earth, moss, and, toughest of all, the numerous little roots of the clasping ivy; although the sun was setting and the breeze was cool, the labour made me very hot; the perspiration fell from my brow on the old Roman stone, which now showed itself as a tolerably long slab. After the first few minutes my zeal was sharpened by perceiving more letters. It was at last so far laid bare that I could take hold of the edges with both hands, and with some little jerks bring it fully to view. I then held the broken stone with the deciphered _hic_ against it; this gave me the direction in which farther to search.

I hastily sc.r.a.ped away earth, stones, and moss from the cutting of the letters, for it was quickly getting darker, and I wished to make out at once the long-buried secret. I succeeded; without question, though certainly with difficulty, I read the inscription, in two lines under each other:

Hic habitat Felicit...

Nihil mali intret.

The two last letters of the third word alone were missing; the stone was here broken away, and its companion piece was not to be found; but it was self-evident that the missing letters were--as--the inscription meant:

Here dwells happiness; May nothing evil enter in.

Clearly the gray marble slab had formed the threshold of the entrance to the garden or porch of the villa; and the adage expressed the wish that all evil might be kept far from the door.

I sought in vain for yet farther traces, for remains of household utensils.

Pleased and satisfied with the discovery of the pretty proverb, I then rested.

Wiping my heated brow, I sat down on the soft moss by my work, thinking again and again of the words; I supported my back against an old oak, which had grown up out of the rubbish of the house, or, perhaps, out of the good mould of the little garden.

A wondrous quiet reigned over the hill, which was quite separated from the world by trees and bushes.

Only very, very faintly one heard the trickling of the small, scanty vein of water which came out of the earth close by me, and only sometimes, when it found a quicker fall, rippled more strongly. Once, no doubt, when handsomely enclosed in the clear gray marble, it had spoken loader.

In the distance, on the summit of a high beech, the golden oriole sang its flute-like evening song, which told of still deeper forest loneliness, for the listener seldom hears the notes of the "Pirol,"

except in such a solitude. Bees hummed here and there over the mossy carpet, coming out of the dark thicket and seeking the warmer light, sleepy themselves and lulling to sleep with their humming.

I thought, whose "happiness" once dwelt here? And has the wish of the inscription been fulfilled? Was the proverb powerful enough to keep off all evil? The stone which bore it is broken--a bad sign. And what kind of happiness was this? But stay! At that time Felicitas occurs as a _woman's name_; perhaps the proverb, with a graceful double meaning, would say: "Here dwells happiness; that is to say, my Felicitas; may nothing evil come over her, over our threshold!"

But "Felicitas"--who was she? and who was he, whose happiness she had been, and what had become of them? And this villa, how----?

This was my last waking thought, for with the last question I fell asleep.

And long did I slumber; for when the song of the nightingale, loudly exultant, close to my ear, awoke me, it was dark night; a single star shone through the branches of the oak. I sprang up: "Felicitas!

Fulvius!" I cried, "Liuthari! Felicitas! where are they?"

"Felicitas!" softly repeated the echo from the hill. All else was still and dark.

So was it a dream?

Now, _this_ dream I will retain.

Felicitas, I hold thee!

Thou shalt not escape me.

Poetical fancy can immortalise thee.

And I hastened home, and the same night noted down the history which I had dreamt among the ruins of the old Roman villa.

CHAPTER I.

It was a beautiful evening in June, The sun threw its golden beams from the west, from Vindelicia, on the Mercurius Hill, and the modest villa which crowned it.

Here and there on the great street a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a yoke of Noric oxen, was returning home at the close of the market-day through the west gate of Juvavum, the _Porta Vindelica_. The colonists and peasants had been selling vegetables, fowls, and pigeons in the Forum of Hercules; but the bustle of the street reached the hill only as a murmur. Here it was still and quiet; one only heard outside the low stone wall which surrounded the garden the lively rippling of a little spring, which at its source was prettily enclosed in marble, and after it had fed the fountain in the middle, and had wandered through the garden in artificially winding rivulets, escaped through a gap in the wall and hurried down the hill in a stone channel. Close by was the gate entrance, surmounted by a statue of Mercury, but open, without door or lattice. In the direction of the town, towards the south-east, there lay at the foot of the hill carefully tended vegetable and fruit gardens, meadows with the most succulent verdure, and corn-fields with luxuriant grain, which products the Romans had brought into the land of the barbarians.

Behind the villa, towards the north, fine beech-woods towered and rustled, ascending the mountain slopes; and out of their depths sounded from afar the metallic note of the golden oriole.

It was so beautiful, so peaceful; but from the west--and no less from the south-east!--threatening storm-clouds were rising.