CHAPTER XVIII.
“The dying Other from the gloom she drew,
Supported on his shorten’d arm he leans,
Prone agonizing; with incumbent fate,
Heavy declines his head; yet dark beneath
The suffering feature sullen vengeance lowers,
Shame, indignation, unaccomplish’d rage,
And still the cheated eye expects his fall.”
Thomson.
The fatal morning dawned refulgently over the metropolis of the world, but the eyes of the Hebrew captives shrank from before its beams, loathing the light, and vainly wishing for its decline. A hundred days of festivity had been decreed by the emperor to the Roman people, in which the children of Israel were to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, or compelled to slay each other,[[18]] to gratify the barbarous tastes of those who held them in chains. Adonijah and his opponent were included in the latter combats, as persons to whom no mercy would be shown. Both were still in the flower of youth, in the glory of their strength, who were thus brought forth to die.
The feelings of a warrior were not so entirely sunk in slavery as to permit Adonijah to assume the sword and buckler without experiencing a momentary elevation of soul. It was not till he found himself within the circle of the vast amphitheatre, and encountered the hostile glances of many thousand eyes, that he remembered that this was no battle-field, but the arena on which he was to be “butchered for a Roman spectacle.” Even in this bitter moment he confronted the spectators with unshrinking firmness, till among that living mass he distinguished the infant Lucius, and felt the tender emotions of his heart towards the child suffuse his eyes.
Titus sat in state to view the spectacle with the lovely Jewish queen by his side. She, endowed with Mariamne’s talents and fatal beauty, yet wanting her nobility of mind and virtue, was become the absolute ruler of him whose mighty arm had enslaved her people,—that people whose miseries were then exhibiting before her eyes. Julius Claudius was seated near the lovers, apparently enjoying familiar converse with them both. His little son, gaily attired as Cupid, listlessly reclined his fair young head against his father’s knee. Art had supplied to his pale cheek the roses that pining for Adonijah had banished, but the glaring hue ill accorded with the fair delicate cheek, whose pallid tints it could not overcome. All this was marked by the Hebrew with painful interest, even in the present awful hour, for the child was the only thing left upon earth that he could love. The craving feeling for sympathy that exists in every human bosom, however cold and unpromising its exterior may be, led him to salute the infant Lucius by name.
The boy raised his languid head and, recognising his unhappy friend, uttered a joyful cry, and, stretching forth his arms towards him, returned his greeting with delight, inviting him to join him by his lively and animated gestures.
Half-unmanned, the gladiator turned away his tearful eyes from the child to his opponent. The face of his countryman was averted from him, and for a moment he expected to behold the familiar features of a friend. They faced each other, and the hostile names of Adonijah and Ithamar were mutually uttered on one side in the tone of defiance, on the other with amazement.
Adonijah indeed, in recognising the war-wasted countenance of Ithamar, scarcely remembered that they had once been foes. Years of bondage and exile had nearly obliterated all traces of former hatred from his breast. No rival, but an old companion in arms appeared to stand before him—one who had fought for the same sacred cause, and was united with him in the same sad brotherhood of sorrow. He lowered the point of his weapon, saying as he did so, “Ithamar, in me you behold no hostile opponent; my hatred has perished with my country: I know no enemies but Romans.” He stretched forth his hand in token of amity, and anxiously awaited the answer of his foe.
Ithamar’s haggard features betrayed surprise, but expressed no generous feeling. Sullenly he repulsed the friendly pledge and assumed a posture of defence.
“Hear me, Ithamar, hear me, my countryman,” continued Adonijah; “I have sworn by the holy name of Jehovah not to raise a hostile weapon against the bosom of an Israelite. I only wait thy bidding to throw away these arms and tread them in the dust. Let an oath of peace be between us; let the unbelieving Gentiles cast us to beasts less savage than themselves, rather than force us to slay each other for their sport. Hearken, my brother, to my words, and hallow with me the commandments of the Lord in the sight of this heathen people.”
Ithamar broke into a laugh so wild and horrid that it sounded rather like the yell of a demon than the expression of mirth. He cast upon his adversary a withering look, and all the hoarded malice of vanished years of rivalry spake in that glance of hatred and disdain. Without waiting for the usual signal, he rushed upon Adonijah, who was wounded before he had time to put himself in a posture of defence.
Enraged at this perfidious conduct, Adonijah forgot his vow, and, animated at once by the desire of revenge and the instinctive feeling of self-preservation, gave blow for blow and wound for wound.
Never were two combatants better matched in size or strength or skill, and the gratified spectators cheered and applauded every stroke, betting largely upon the heads of both, as caprice or interest suggested.
Julius Claudius, aware of the incipient malady lurking in the frame of his slave, ventured great sums upon Ithamar, who he supposed possessed more judgment to direct his courage than Adonijah. In this he was mistaken, for the pressure of calamity, that had overwhelmed the sensitive nature of Adonijah for a time, was far less nearly allied to madness than the fanatic zeal of Ithamar.
Blind with rage, the Sadducee rushed upon his enemy, determined to crush him with one last decisive blow. Adonijah reeled beneath its deadly force, but collecting with a mighty effort his failing powers, plunged his sword into the bosom of Ithamar, who fell dead at his feet, yielding up his breath without a cry or struggle.
A long loud plaudit from sixty thousand spectators greeted the victor, who heeded it not, but bending sadly over his victim remembered his broken vow. A moment he contemplated the sullen features of Ithamar, another instant and the amphitheatre with its circling thousands swam before his sight; the next he slowly sank in that attitude immortalized by sculpture; then his dark locks swept the bloody floor of the arena and rested on the lifeless bosom of his fallen foe.
A second shout, more loud, more lengthened than that which lately hailed his victory, greeted now his fall. It thrilled through every nerve of Adonijah’s frame, and yet he seemed only to hear Julius Claudius’ single voice. He opened his heavy eyes, and turned upon his worthless master a look that told him that his soul was still unsubdued, for feebly raising his hand he appeared to defy him to the last. That indignant gesture exhausted the fallen gladiator’s remaining strength; but the latest sound he heard was the wailing cry of the infant Lucius, then sight and sense forsook him, and he lay unconscious, yet still breathing, before that vast and eager multitude.
The spectators were divided in their feelings; but Titus, who in the intrepid gladiator had recognised the captive of Jotapata, was inclined to grant him mercy. This clement feeling was opposed by Julius Claudius, who declared “that, having disturbed the triumph, he ought to die,” in which opinion he was seconded by all those who had ventured too much upon the vanquished Ithamar.
Berenice espoused the side of the fallen victor, and, incensed at the positive manner in which Julius Claudius dared to oppose her wishes, determined to make him feel her power. She pleaded warmly in behalf of Adonijah, and with Titus she could not plead in vain. He gave the signal of mercy, commanding the attendants of the circus to see the gladiator’s wounds looked to, and to let nothing be wanting to promote his cure.
Not content with having gained her point, the fair Jewess exerted her influence to lessen Julius Claudius in the eyes of her lover, of whose regard she was jealous; and the proud Roman patrician had the mortification of discovering that a word or hint from this fascinating foreigner could shake the affection of his early friend.
Like most other Romans of the period, Julius despised strangers, and this he had suffered Berenice to perceive, and the beautiful Jewess was not of a temper to look over an affront. Unfeminine as she was, this princess possessed the womanly failing at least of seeking to humble those who contemned her power. She exerted her brilliant wit to make the effeminate Roman appear ridiculous, and succeeded so well that Titus, who like the Persian king of old smiled when his fair enslaver smiled, and frowned when she frowned, laughed outright at her sallies. Stung to the quick by this contemptuous treatment, Julius, no longer in the humour to play the courtier, made an unguarded rejoinder which drew tears from the eyes of the royal beauty, and looks of angry displeasure from her princely lover. Julius, deeply wounded, took his little son by the hand, and withdrew from the amphitheatre full of the mortifying reflection that a tear or smile from this highly gifted though guilty foreigner was more to Titus than the intimate companionship of years.
Julius Claudius had displayed the utmost political adroitness during the fearful contests that had made Italy a war-field and a grave. He had shown an acute judgment in abandoning the prince whom fortune was about to desert. He forsook Galba’s adopted son Piso at a critical point of time. With Otho he remained till that emperor left Rome, for he had foreseen that the Prætorian army would not be able to compete with the German legions. The splendid but erratic course of one of his dissipated friends, Antonius Primus, a young Roman knight, whose participation in forging a will had caused his banishment, but to whom Galba gave a legion, had made Julius forsake the failing cause of Vitellius, though he had been one of his chief favourites. He had declared for Vespasian in time to save himself from confiscation, and when Licinius Mucianus, the friend of Titus, took upon himself the direction of public affairs, and Antonius Primus fell into disgrace, he abandoned him, and attached himself to the man who had reaped the blood-stained laurels of the general whose arm had placed Vespasian on the throne of Rome.
From Vespasian himself Julius Claudius had expected no marks of favour, but Titus had received his old friend with open arms; yet his star had declined before that of a woman whose years nearly doubled those of her youthful lover. But the charms of Berenice, like those of Cleopatra, defied the power of time, for her intellectual powers enabled her to retain her beauty beyond the usual period assigned for the possession of a gift so precious, rare, and fleeting. Her fascinating manners veiled her disposition, which once, and once only, had betrayed the softness of the woman and the feelings of a patriot. She had formerly stood a barefooted suppliant for her own people before the tribunal of a merciless Roman procurator,[[19]] and had pleaded for the Jews, and vainly pleaded, for the man was avaricious, and the tears and abasement of a beautiful woman had offered no counter-charm to the greater influence of gold and the gratification of a barbarous revenge. History has recorded to her honour this solitary instance of compassion shown by the guilty sister of Agrippa.
She had persecuted her sister Drusilla, who was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world; but, though that unfortunate princess had been forgetful of the obligation of her first marriage vow, her fidelity to Felix, and the self-devotion that induced her to die with him, proved at least that she possessed a depth of tenderness of which Berenice was incapable.
Julius Claudius saw that he had exposed himself to the malice of an artful and revengeful woman, when the irritation of gambling and drunkenness had passed away, and he returned to his house, mortified, disappointed, and miserably anxious. But a heavier trial awaited Julius Claudius than the mere loss of Titus’ favour;—an arrow keener than ridicule or mere worldly disappointment struck him to the very heart. All his affections that were not centered upon self, rested upon his child. The beauty, the talents, the lovely disposition of Lucius had endeared him to the heart of the dissipated parent, who was proud that such a scion should be destined to carry the name of the Claudii down to posterity. Destined to prolong thy name and lineage, Julius Claudius? Oh no! a fairer inheritance is given to the young heir of thy honours, even one “that fadeth not away.” That very night his hopeful young son was smitten with sore disease; in vain art was exhausted to stay its direful progress, in vain Julius promised half his wealth to save his child; now invoking deities whom he had despised, now seeking from the Chaldean sorcerer for some charm to cure a malady that defied the skill of the physician. The child, burning with fever and raving in delirium, turned away from his unhappy father as if he had forgotten him, while he called continually upon the name of Adonijah till his accents grew faint. Fainter and fainter, and yet more laboured, the suffering infant drew his fleeting breath, and Julius had no other child, and he loved the boy so much. He could not stay to see the end; but rushing from the chamber of death went forth he knew not whither—longing to die, but shrinking back in terror from plunging into an unknown futurity.
While the frantic father fled forth into the night, an aged freedwoman, an ancient servant of the house, entered the forsaken chamber, knelt by the couch of the dying boy, and holding his hand in hers, prayed fervently for him.
It was Fulvia the deaconess, who, perceiving that the soul was in the act of departing, took water and administered the rite of baptism to the expiring scion of her patron’s lofty stem. He opened his eyes, seemed to recognise her familiar features, and smiled as he expired.
| [18] | See Appendix, [Note XI.] |
| [19] | Gessius Florus. |