The Coming of the King

by Bernie Babcock

CHAPTER XIX

CATACOMBS COMRADES

With its hyena head pointed toward the Imperial Capitol, the brazen She-Wolf of the Roman Empire stood, its bristled hair and exposed fangs symbolic of the beast-nature that was its Babylonian inheritance. Enthroned on her Seven Hills, Rome had subjugated and pillaged the nations of the earth until she had grown drunk with power, and although life on the Palatine and the Quirinal was one outflowing exercise of brute force and one long feast and revel on the spoils thereof, yet was the Empire rushing as headlong to the destruction predestined at the hand of her own corruption, as was Tiberius Caesar rushing to his earthly end by debauchery unbridled. And although neither the Latin world nor its vassals had will or vision to foresee it, Time, in its inscrutable womb was fashioning that which was to bring about conflict ages-long, between Pagan autocracy and the spiritual essence of Liberty for all humankind.

On an evening when the purple and blue, the glistening white and golden glow and shining green of an Italian spring, speaking through sea and sky, through billowing clouds and the verdure of the earth, was rivaled by the purple and gold of Rome's pageantry and the gleaming whiteness of her pillared palaces, a sojourner in the Imperial City, who had but that day sailed up the River Tiber, stood waiting beneath the shadow of the She-Wolf. The stranger, a Phoenician who had at one time done stone cutting at Tyre and Sidon, had not long to wait. The man who met him wore the dull brown tunic of the working man. A scarlet cord bound his waist and he carried a covered bundle. Speaking in Latin, he addressed a few words to the Phoenician and then said, "Follow me."

For a time the working man, whose present occupation was that of torch-lighter, led the visitor through the streets of the city, the surrounding scenes changing until from the marble palaces of the Palatine their way led them past the slave pens at the lower end of Via Sacra, and shortly after they found themselves traveling a roadway on the Campagna. Here they often found it necessary to step aside to make passageway for carts loaded with Pozzolana sand. It was toward the pits from which this sand came the two were making their way and it was not until they had turned into deserted pitroad that they entered into free conversation.

"Shortly," said the guide, "we will enter into the way which leadeth to the burial place of slaves, some of which are thrown in dead, and some not yet dead but only worthless. From its corruption ariseth a stench that ceaseth not day nor night."

"Do we go that way?"

"Nay. Yet were it well for a kurios to see to what ignoble ends one of like desires with himself can come, and for no crime save the lack of freedom to be better than a slave. Another day thou mayest see. Now we must hasten where we go. The mouth of the subterranean passage opens just ahead. The way will be narrow when we reach the corridor leading into the tufa rock. I guide thee this back way, and longer, that thou mayest pass the prison where my fellow working man and thy brother, oft are thrown into."

As they made their way into the subterranean passage, the light of day faded into a small pale spot and then went out, leaving the gloom of midnight ahead. "The path beneath thy feet is smooth. The walls are so close thy hand on either side can feel the way. There is no water nor living beast to fear. When we reach the first chamber, we will find a torch burning with which to light other torches. Follow me."

A faint glow, like a star against the pitch black, told them they were near the chamber where the spark, as they entered, grew into the dim light of a torch which cast a yellow circle on the rock floor. Here the guide opened his bundle and took out two torches which he lit. Handing one to the Phoenician he said, "Watch well thy step and keep thou at my heels. We go down into a huge grotto quarried in the bowels of the earth. Its passages are cut through sharp cornered rocks between which thou must squeeze thy body, and yet other rocks stick out into the darkness like the bristles of a mad boar. Beware these bristles! If thou shouldst run against one, thy feet will stumble over the edge of the abyss. Once thou hast fallen into it, no more forever will thine eyes behold the light of day. Hold tight thy lamp. Watch well thy step."

Carefully they made their way down, and down, and around the sharp rocks in silence. Once they stopped and the guide said, "Stand close against the wall. Just beyond thy feet lieth the hole of live tombs that is a prison. From it was quarried rich material to build palaces for masters. And the hole that was left of their labor hath often made good prison for the workmen who quarried, when found guilty of the crime of planning freedom."

Like parasital mites making their intestinal way the two men followed the windings of the narrow, black corridor until they came into another chamber where, from a grotto in the wall, oil was taken to replenish the torch cups.

"There is now a long journey before thee," the torch-bearer said. "Many and devious windings will take thee up and down, back and across the Campagna that doth lie, with its cart burdened roads, fifty feet above our heads. By the light of thy lamp thou wilt see the walls change. No longer are they sharp, nor are there bottomless pits, for soon we enter the sleeping place of those whose bodies toil no more nor their hearts hunger for the freedom that belongs to every man."

It was as the guide had spoken. By the flickering light of the smoking torch, the eyes of the Phoenician soon caught the white lines of skeletons lying in grottoes and niches cut tier above tier in the side walls of the narrow corridors. After walking several miles they arrived at a large chamber with massive stone arches, crudely cut, reaching to a dome-shaped ceiling. Here paintings decorated the walls, and images of popular gods and goddesses were set in niches, and models of sculpture on pedestals. One side wall of the large room was lined with slabs, some with inscriptions and others carved with the notes of music. Several torches burning on high standards gave the chamber a soft light. From it lead five passageways opening, like dark mouths, into unknown byways.

"Here we tarry, while I strengthen the lights," said the torch-bearer. "This is the headquarters of the union of all those who chant hymns, take part in the Olympic games, dance after the manner of satyrs and play the Greek trilogies. A league of fun-makers they are. Also these actors do lay claim to the greatest of all antiquity for their order, saying that no less a one than Homer himself did found it. Also they make claim to being the first of all baptists and their speech-makers will prove into your ears that Dion, the forerunner of their Dionysus, did first initiate with it, and how that all the Phrygian Brotherhoods were baptists."

"Do they baptize now?"

"Yea, yea. Every Brotherhood of them all whose torches I light doth initiate with the bath of purification. This is as necessary as the common table of communion around which they all sit. The Brotherhood of Actors and Fun-makers is one of the strongest, and least often disturbed with dissension."

"Doth dissension come even into a brotherhood?"

"Art thou a kurios and knowest not this?" the torch-bearer asked quickly.

"It hath been so in Syria and Phoenicia, yet I hoped in Rome to find this evil remedied."

"Human nature is the same in Rome as in Syria. Yet there is always a way in a brotherhood to keep peace. Did not the 'Medici' stir up strife when the 'Mulo Medici' would join the Brotherhood saying these latter would bring ridicule to their honorable order? And did not the kurios say to them that so long as their fellow beings were allowed to live no better than mules, there was the greater need of having them in the Brotherhood. And when the gold and silver workers stirred up strife because the rag-pickers would come into the union, did not the kurios point out that, under an autocracy of masters they themselves might be picking rags on the morrow? But the actors and fun-makers have not yet wrangled. To-night a man from Delphi maketh a speech when this tablet is erected," and he turned out the face of a marble slab which leaned against the wall. "With great pride do these actors and musicians and dancers claim Delphi which they say still nestles at the foot of Mount Parnassus; a place where gorgeous birds spread rainbow wings over fragrant flowers, and everlasting springs feed the stream that foams and tumbles past the ruins of Apollo's temple. But the torches are now made ready."

"And what is the tablet?"

The two men examined it. Delicately cut in the marble was the face of a young girl, with flutes beside her. Three rows of curls hung from her wreath-bound head, and her lips were parted in a merry smile. "A dancing girl and her pipes," the guide said. "She belonged to the union and getteth burial and a memorial. But let us be going. Take up thy torch."

After no long walk the corridor ran into another chamber. "This is a place of initiation into some mystery," the torch-bearer said. "Wouldst see?" and he pointed across the room to an opening in the wall near the floor, scarce large enough for the body of a man to worm its way through. "Look thou beyond it," and the guide held his torch toward the opening.

The Phoenician hesitated. Then he dropped on his knees and thrust his shoulders into the hole. By the dim light he saw something on the floor which at first seemed to be the body of a man lying with feet close together and arms straight extended. A second look showed this man-like object to be a heavy cross of wood. At its side an open grave.

"What meaneth it?" the Phoenician asked, backing out of the hole.

"I know not save that those who enter there come wearing white and carrying green sprigs, and with them one not wearing white. And when they go, all but one who wears white and he who wore not white go out. Three days later these two go also both wearing white. Nothing more know I save that I be given orders at times to make the light. But let us hasten on to the big chamber."

Between a seemingly endless labyrinth of galleries lined with closed coffins and shelved skeletons the two passed until at last a great noise, like a far-off droning, broke the stillness. "The meeting hath begun," the guide said. As they neared the chamber they encountered guards to whom the guide gave a pass-word; and again before they entered, other guards demanded a sign which was given by a grip of the hand. Once inside, the Phoenician pushed gently through the circle assembled to a place near the front.

"Hourly do you pray," the speaker was saying. "Yea, hourly for relief. But the cycles of the years roll on in blood and pain while the heel of Rome grinds into brute servility all save a favored few. Even have women by the hand of Rome been stripped naked, their legs painted, their bodies shackled and thrown into caverns where, with pick in hand, they dug stones from the rock to build palaces for brutes. If the gods yet live why do they not hear the bitter crying of the helpless when the branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters?

"Oppression hath grown mighty until all the world is divided into two classes, the slave who toileth and the master who remaineth idle. Millions are there of the one—few of the other. Yea, for their very number are toilers counted as beasts. Since Caesar brought his fifty and three thousand slaves from far Gaul hath slaves come to be in numbers like the sands of the sea. On the market when their bones have become stiff are they not sold for food to fatten eels for Roman Senators? And those who escape being food for tigers and hyenas, or nailed to a cross, are they not lost in the fearful pit of pollution of the Esquiline Cemetery? And in the arena—were not eight thousand gladiators slaughtered in one year?

"A sweeper of the amphitheatre was I. Mine was the task of dragging from the arena dead gladiators, shoveling up the blood, sprinkling fresh sand over dark spots yet warm, sharpening swords and javelins for fresh encounters and cutting off heads when the death rattle was too slow sounding. Often have I lifted mine eyes from the sands dyed red to the glitter and pomp above, and have said, 'Who payeth for all this? Who payeth for the striped-backed and spotted-bellied beasts? Who payeth for the shining pythons and the wild bulls that toss bare bodies until from their bleeding wounds long entrails hang while bejeweled women and swine-snouted men cheer? Who payeth for the silver cages that house Numidian lions? Who payeth for the tanks of perfume in which naked women sport to please licentious eyes? Who payeth for the purple and the emerald—the palace and the villa? And who for the olive oil and the wine that Caesar doth give to the populace to win him favor?"

"In the slave pens of Via Sacra find I my answer. The arficulata implemente of Rome payeth for all these things whether this jointed implement be bound or free. And who would keep the slave and working man forever under the heel of the master? What meant the relentless war that Cicero did wage against the working class? Because of his Pagan belief in the divine rights of the gens families and a like strong belief that he who toileth hath no right to freedom, did he make war. And for like reason is war still upon us until, like rats, we burrow into the belly of the earth, and were it not for the Jus Coeundi that doth allow free organization for religious and death ceremonies, would we and our Brotherhood perish on a forest of crosses. Yet starved, we struggle! Beaten, we toil! Damned, we hope! Believing that out of Brotherhood will come the Liberty for which we die, we hold ourselves together. That which sitteth on the Seven Hills above us rotteth at the core. Signs are fast ripening of a change. Egyptian wisdom doth tell us the Phoenix is about to spring again to birth from her ashes. Somewhere is the savior and his coming shall be swift and terrible as lightning."

As the arena-cleaner made reference to the coming of a world savior, the Phoenician pushed himself before the kurios and when the last word had been uttered he said in a voice that filled the chamber vault, "Hear! Hear!" and he lifted his arm and pointed into the face of the orator. As he did so his sleeve fell back disclosing on his arm, a fish with a lion's head and a circle in its mouth.

All eyes were turned on the stranger as the kurios spoke, "Who art thou and whence hast thou come?"

"A kurios of Sidon I am. From afar have I journeyed to bring the glad news that one hath arisen mighty in power and wisdom to succor the oppressed. Hear ye what the spirit of the gods hath anointed him to do: Preach the gospel to the poor—heal the broken-hearted—give deliverance to the captives—sight to the blind and LIBERTY to the bruised and enslaved! Twice already hath a great and mighty following sought to crown him King, and he would not!"

"Whence cometh he?" a dozen eager voices asked.

"From the province of Galilee, in Palestine, and when cometh again the Passover of the Jews, when Jerusalem, that great city, is thronged with the population of the world, then shall he be made King—King of the People—the toiling people! And this King shall break every shackle on every human body and free from cave and dungeon, every human soul. But one thing there remaineth to determine. This is the added strength of Roman legions in Jerusalem at the Passover. Would that the gods could let us know the mind of Pilate!"

As he spoke these words, one who had eagerly listened moved from the rear toward him. The man stood head and shoulders above any other of the number and his face was disfigured with a deep and desperate scar across one cheek. He listened intently as a speech-maker said to the Phoenician:

"And is this Galilean wiser and braver than Sparticus? Did not this noble lover of human liberty slay Roman legions as a fierce wind strikes down forest leaves? And yet was he not at last hacked to bits and his loyal followers hung on crosses to fatten birds of prey?"

"Aye, but Sparticus was betrayed by one of his own," a voice called.

"So will the Galilean be betrayed," came the reply.

"The Galilean hath a great following of men strong and zealous who would go with him to the death."

"Were not the Lusitanians strong and brave? Was not Lusitania ravished and stripped? And who remained after the massacre of Galba? Success cometh not by uprising but by forming one great brotherhood which, when formed, will command all power."

The discussion following these different opinions had scarce begun when the torch-bearer touched the Phoenician on the arm saying, "Thou hast opened the gates of controversy, yet we can not tarry to the end. Follow thy guide."

As they turned to go, the visitor felt his hand caught in a mighty grip and turned to see a scarred face gazing intently upon him. "Thou hast looked upon his face—the face of Jesus?" he asked the Phoenician in a whisper.

"Yea. In the home of his brethren have I been with him. But what dost thou know of this Jesus?"

"That which my heart knoweth, my lips can not express save that I love him. And in your ear would I whisper the knowledge you much desire."

"Let us move into the dark," the torch-bearer said, and they left the chamber. Under a sealed shelf of bones they stopped. The scarred man of great size and the bearded Phoenician stood in the dim light of the torch held at a little distance, by the bearer.

"This thou couldst know," said the man of the scar. "The strength of the Roman legions will not be in Jerusalem at the time of Passover. Weak will be the forces of the Tower of Antonio."

"How knowest thou this?" and there was eagerness in the question.

"My lips are sealed further. Yet as I love the Galilean, my words come to thee from the mouth of official Rome."

"Wilt thou be at the Passover?"

"That is my hope."

"And wilt thou lend aid in making the Galilean a king?"

"He is already a king—and more."

The Phoenician looked inquiringly into the calm eyes of the unknown.

"King of my heart he is." The words were offered as an explanation. "Whether there is wisdom in acclaiming him a king over mankind, I know not. From his own lips would I get my 'Yea' or 'Nay.'"