CHAPTER II.
Next morning, before the family were out of their beds, Phylis the slave had returned from Monte Circello with the following note:
"Marcus Lepidus Æmilius hails the widow of his brave and valiant brother. Come with your children. The last of mine has, alas! died under the clemency of one man, and the liberality of another. The clement man is Augustus, the liberal man was Mæcenas. All that I now retain is yours; and yours shall be all I may be able to leave. Farewell."
But despite of this note, Paulus could not persuade his mother to depart from that neighborhood till after the trifling display of horsemanship, as he called it, which he had to afford for the amusement of the Roman world on the evening of the third day ensuing. A little ruffled at his failure to persuade the Lady Aglais to go away, he summoned their freedman Philip, and with him for a companion started on foot for Formiæ before noon, along a road as thronged at that moment and as animated as the road to Epsom is the eve of what Lord Palmerston has rather affectedly, and, as applied to an annual event, very incorrectly, called the Isthmian games of England.
Scarcely had he and Philip entered the southern gate, when they noticed a little crowd around some nurses, one of whom, apparently a Nubian, held the hand of a magnificently-attired child of any age between five and eight. At his side was an eastern-looking youth of about eighteen, whom the reader has met before. Thellus the gladiator was standing with folded arms on the outskirts of the suddenly-collected concourse. The child had dropped some toy, which a dog had seized in his mouth, and had thereby defaced. The dog was now a prisoner, held fast by the throat in a slave's hands.
"The poor dog knew not what he was doing," said the nurse.
"I care nothing for that," cried the child, who was purple with passion. "Strangle him, Lygdus."
And accordingly Lygdus tightened his grasp of the dog's throat till the animal's tongue was thrust forth; the grasp was yet longer maintained, and the dog was throttled dead.
"Is it dead?" screamed the child.
"Quite; see," replied Lygdus, casting away upon the street the breathless carcass.
"Ah! beautiful!" cried the child; "now come away."
"Nice and neat as an execution," said a powerfully-built, dusky, middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard, streaked with gray, around whom were several slaves in Asiatic dress. This person also the reader has met before. "But," added he, "I am going up for my own trial, and I hope it will not be followed by another execution."
"I only hope it will" cried the interesting child. "What fun it would be to see a man strangled."
"Who is that infant monster, Thellus?" asked Paulus.[195]
"He is the son of Germanicus and Agrippina; his name is Caius. You see, young as he is, he already wears the caligæ of the common soldiers, among whom he continually lives. It is his delight. They nickname him Caligula. Do you know, there are good chances he yet wears the purple, and succeeds Augustus, or at least Augustus's next heir, as emperor of the world."
"Happy world will it be under his rule," said Paulus.
Suddenly there were cries of "Make way." Lictors moved, making large room among the crowd. Sejanus appeared in the robes of a prætor; and Paulus and his friend Thellus found themselves borne along, like leaves in a stream, toward the back of the Mamurran palace, in a large room on the ground floor of which they presently beheld the big, dusky-colored man of fifty or thereabouts, with the long, ruddy, gray-streaked beard, standing before a sort of bar. Behind the bar, on a chair of state, like the curule chair of the senators, Augustus was sitting. A crowd of famous persons, many of whom we have already had occasion to mention, stood behind him, and on either hand Livy, Lucius Varius, Haterius, Domitius Afer, Antistius Labio, Germanicus, and Tiberius Cæsar were there. In a row behind were Cneius Piso, Pontius Pilate, and the boy Herod Agrippa.
"And so," said Augustus, "you tell us you are the son of Herod the Great, as he is called; in other words, Herod the Idumæan; his son Alexander?"
"We have seen," said Paulus to Thellus, in a whisper, "the fate of a dog; we are now to learn that of a king, or a pretender to the dignity."
"Great and dread commander, such I am," answered the red-bearded, big, dark man.
"But," said Augustus, "the accredited rumor runs that Herod condemned his two sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, to death. Nay, I have the official report sent to me at the time by the prefect of Syria, and letters from Herod the Idumæan himself."
"Herod condemned them, but the executioner killed others instead," answered the Jew. "They escaped to Sidon."
"Them and they!" said Augustus; "you mean that others were executed instead of them?"
"Yes, my commander."
"Why do you not," pursued Augustus, "say INSTEAD OF US?"
"I do not understand," replied the Jew.
"Are you not," asked Augustus, "one of them?"
"I am the son of Herod."
"You speak as though you had gone out of that person. You speak rather like a historian than like a sufferer and an actor. You are talking of yourself and your brother, yet you say THEY, not WE!"
"Such is the style of the east, emperor."
"Pardon me," said Augustus; "I know the style of the east perfectly well. Solve me now another difficulty: I also well know Herod the Idumæan, many cases connected with whom were litigated before me, and decided by me. Now, I never knew a man who, having determined that any body was to die, took such methodical pains to carry that determination into effect. He dealt largely in executions; and if there was a person in the world, it was Herod, who saw with his own eyes that his intended executions should be realities."
"Mine was not," said the Jew, and a laugh arose in court. "All the Jews in Sidon know that I am Alexander, son of Herod; all those in Crete know it; all those in Melas know it; and when I landed at Dicearchia, all the Jews received me as their king; and you are not ignorant, great emperor, that thousands of my countrymen in Rome, the other day, carried me upon a royal litter through the streets, and clothed me in royal robes and ornaments, and received me, wherever I went, with shouts of welcome as Herod's son."
"And you have then," replied Augustus, after a pause, "been nurtured as a royal person is in the east?"
"Always," answered the Jew.
"I myself," returned Augustus, "have seen and known the son Alexander, as well as his father Herod; and though you are not unlike the son, yet you—show me your hands."
The Jew stretched forth his hands.
"Those hands have toiled from infancy. Uncover your neck and shoulders."
This was done.
Augustus immediately ordered the room to be cleared; and it was afterward known that he had extorted a confession of his imposture from this Alexander; and that, sparing his life, he condemned him to row one of the state galleys in chains for the rest of his days.
"Not much like dotage, all this," muttered Tiberius to Cneius Piso.
The eastern-looking youth, holding the hand of the child Caius Caligula, and followed by Pontius Pilate, waited for Augustus in a passage—through which Paulus and Thellus were now trying to make their way into the street.
When the emperor came out, observing that the youth desired to speak with him, he stopped, saying,
"What wish you, Herod Agrippa?"
"Emperor, I have told you that this man is not my uncle."
"And I," said Augustus "have now settled the question. He is not."
"This officer behind me (Pilate is his name) has been very obliging to us ever since our arrival. I wish, my sovereign, you would send him to Judea as procurator."
"He is too young," replied Augustus; "but I will put his name in my tablets. Perhaps, under my successor, he may obtain the office."
"I want a favor," cried the child Caius.
"What is it, orator?" asked Augustus. (Caligula displayed as a child a precocious volubility of speech, which procured him the epithet by which he was now addressed.)
"That man, that black Jew—who pretended to be my friend's uncle—won't you put him to death?"
"Externi sunt isti mores," replied Augustus, quoting Cicero; "that would be quite a foreign proceeding. The anger that sheds unnecessary blood belongs to the levity of the Asiatics, or the truculence of barbarians."
Meanwhile Paulus and Thellus, who had unavoidably overheard these scraps of conversation, emerged now once more into the street, and Thellus guided Paulus to the stables of Tiberius Cæsar, where they found Lygdus expecting the visit. He led them into a long range of buildings, and showed them, standing in a stall which had a door to itself, so contrived as to avoid the necessity of letting any other horses, when coming or going, pass him without some intervening protection, the famous Sejan steed. The walls were tapestried with leafy vine-boughs, and the stable seemed very cool, clean, and well kept.
The stature of the ominous horse, as we have had occasion already to mention, was unusually large; but the fineness of his form took away the idea of unwieldiness, and gave a guarantee of both power and speed. However, any person who had studied horses, and was learned in their points, (which to a great extent merely means learned in their anatomy,) would at a glance have condemned this one's head. It was, indeed, not lacking in physical elegance, although not lean enough; the forehead was very broad, but the eye was not sufficiently prominent nor mild in expression, and it shot forth a restless light; the muzzle and the ears, moreover, were coarse; the bones, from the eye down, were too concave, and the nostril appeared to be too thick. Something untrustworthy, and almost wicked, characterized the expression of the head altogether. The jaws were wide, and the neck was extraordinarily deep. The shoulders were not so flat or so thin as the Romans liked them to be; the girth round the heart was vast; the chest broad and full; the body barrel-shaped. The limbs were long, (which, says Captain Nolan, "is weakness, not power;") but then the bones were everywhere well covered with muscle, the hind-legs being remarkably straight in the drop; in short, they promised an immense stride, when the animal should be urged to his fastest gallop.
"Now," said Paulus, after attentively examining these and a great many other points, which it would be too technical for us to detail, "I see he is not muzzled, but tied by the head, and I perceive a curious arrangement—that platform behind his manger, and raised somewhat higher than it. The object is to feed him thence, and approach him there, I suppose? Moreover, I observe you have pulleys in the roof and broad bands depending from them; do you then lift him off his legs when you groom him?"
Lygdus assented. Paulus, after looking attentively at the animal's hoofs, and forming an idea of the state of his feet, inquired,
"Is he savage to all alike, or can you, for instance, approach him?"
"Sir, I always take my precautions," answered the slave.
Paulus went round, and stood some ten minutes in front of the horse on the raised platform behind the manger, then shook a double handful of corn down before him and watched him eat it. Satisfied at length with this scrutiny, he now made arrangements for Philip to remain constantly in the stable, even sleeping there at night, and quitting it only to accompany the horse when taken out for exercise; and he made it clearly understood that Philip should superintend the feeding and grooming of the animal till he should be led forth for Paulus to ride him at the appointed time. We have said nothing to explain why the youth did not ride him muzzled, as often and as long as possible, during the two days which were still left for preparation; the fact being that he proposed even now to do so; but found that, not having thought of stipulating for this as one of the conditions, when he had his interview with Tiberius, orders had been given to Lygdus that no person whatever was to mount the horse till the hour when Paulus was to attempt his subjugation, in presence of the court, camp, and people. Very much disappointed, and blaming his own want of foresight in not having extorted so important a right, Paulus now left the freedman "on duty" in the stables, Thellus volunteering to revisit him, and to bring plenty of provisions of all sorts, and thus to save the necessity of purveying for him from the distance of Crispus's inn. When our hero and the gladiator had retired, Philip began to make a couch of fresh and fragrant hay for himself on the platform behind the manger, muttering,
"But, if I sleep, it shall be with one eye open and the other not quite closed. If I find that scoundrel, for he looks a scoundrel, playing any tricks, I'll strangle him so surely as I have five fingers on each hand."
As Philip thus muttered, Lygdus drew nigh and addressed him.
"Your young master, I fear," he said, "has not long to live; no one can ride this horse."
"Three circumstances," replied Philip, seating himself deliberately on a roll of hay, "are unknown to you. I will tell you them. The first is, that this is not at all a case for mere horsemanship, although it is not to be denied that horsemanship is necessary. Courage and wit are more needful than any bodily adroitness in reminding brutes that their master is man. That is the first circumstance. The second is, that my young master learnt his riding among the Ætolians, who are not matched in the world."
"Take a sip of wine," said Lygdus, handing him a flask of hide.
"After you," said the wary old freedman.
Lygdus drank a little, wiped the mouth of the flask with a vine-leaf, and tendered it once more to Philip, saying,
"The first and second of your remarks seem to me to be appropriate, although I think the Gaulish riders equal to the Ætolians. I should like to hear the third circumstance."
Philip sipped some of the wine, gave back the vessel to the slave, and proceeded,
"The third has relation to your phrase, 'I fear.' My master, Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, has been born and reared to fear death not over-much."
"Edepol!" cried Lygdus; "what is to be feared more?"
"Well," said Philip, "various things he fancies, and I fancy so too. Considering that all men must die, and can die only once, and that it has become somehow, I suppose, by practice and decree, as natural as to be born, and that we have been doing nothing for thousands of years but making way for each other in that manner, it would be an error to look upon death as the greatest evil. Why, man, I should go mad if that which none can avoid was the greatest evil that any can incur."
"Edepol!" exclaimed the slave again; "you are apparently right. Yet what can be conceived worse than death? You mean immense pain, long continuing; in which case a wise man would put an end to himself."
"Wise!" returned Philip; "but it would be useless to reason with such as you. You should have heard, as I have heard him, Dionysius the Athenian upon this topic. When you make such reflections, is it your big toe, for example, or your belly, or your elbow, or any part of your body, that makes them? You may put an end to your body, and we know what becomes of it. When it is no longer fit, as the young Athenian says, to be the house of that which thinks and reflects within it, this last departs; for the body, once dead, ceases to think or reflect, and as soon as the thinker does thus depart, the body rots.
"But that other thing which kept the body from rotting, that other thing which thinks and reflects, and which is conscious that it is always the same, that it always has been itself—that other thing which knows its own unalterable identity through all the changes of the body, from squalling childhood to stiff-kneed age—how can that other thing, which may easily depart out of the body and leave it to perish, depart out of itself? A thing may leave another thing; but how can any thing be left by itself? When this thing, says Dionysius, goes away from the body, the body always dies. It was, therefore, the body's life. But out of its own self this life cannot go (can any thing go out of itself?) and if it goes out of the body unbidden, what will it say to him who had put it therein when he asks, Sentinel, why have you quitted your post? Servant, why have you left your charge? What brings you hither? I am angry with you! What will this always conscious, always identical thing, then reply?"
"You frighten me," said Lygdus. "What, then, can be more feared by a reasonable man than death?"
"My young master, for example," replied Philip, "so long, be it always understood, as he is not his own murderer, would prefer to die in honor than to live in shame. His father, the brave Roman tribune, used to say to him as a boy, that a disgraced life was worse than a useless life, and a useless life worse than a noble death. But who comes hither?"
The interesting little child Caius Caligula, and the boy Herod Agrippa, entered the stable as Philip spoke.
"Oh! there is the big wild horse," cried the sweet infant, who had only just arrived at the use of his reason; "but where is the young man that is to be eaten? I want to tell him what will become of him, and then to watch his face."
"He is, I see, even, now coming back," said Philip sternly. He stood up as he spoke, and an instant afterward Paulus, who was attended by the slave Claudius, bearing a basket of provisions for old Philip, crossed the threshold.
"Ah!" said Caligula, "you are the person, are you not, who are to be first thrown off that horse, next to be danced upon by him, and finally to have your head crunched between his grinders, and that fine wavy hair of yours will not protect your head?"
"That is a graphic description," said Paulus; "but I trust it will not be realized."
"Are you not very frightened? Do not you feel very unhappy?"
Paulus seemed to experience some repugnance to converse with this child; but guessing him to belong to the imperial family, he answered with a calm smile,
"Well, I do not feel the grinders yet."
"I will fix my eyes fast upon you," returned the child, "from the moment you mount."
"May they be blinded before they witness what they wish to behold!" muttered Philip.
During this short conversation, Lygdus noticed something white gleaming in a fold of Paulus's tunic at the side, and picked it, unperceived by any one, out of the species of pocket where it lay. Caligula, after scrutinizing Paulus's face, turned away, and ran rapidly up the stable, passing behind the horse.
He skipped and danced a few moments on the other side, gazing at the animal, and exclaiming, "Good horse! fine horse! beautiful horse!"
Lygdus immediately called out to him not to come back till he had closed the door of the box, the leaf of which was on the hither side, and could be flung to, and the slave proceeded to do this. But Caligula, with a sort of skipping run, still uttering his exclamations and looking sideways into the stall as he passed, had already begun to return, giving Sejanus's heels as wide an offing as the place allowed. A short, ferocious whinny, more like the cry of some wild beast than the neigh of a horse, was heard, and Sejanus lashed out his hind-legs.
Caligula would probably have crossed, beyond range of harm, the line of this acknowledgment which the brute was making to him, in return for his ejaculatory compliments, only for the very precaution which Lygdus had taken, and which actually furnished the animal with a projectile, and transmitted to a further distance, by means of the door-leaf, nearly the full force of the blow. As the door was swinging home, the powerful hoofs met it, and, shivering it from top to bottom, dashed it open again, and sent the outer edge of it and a large detached splinter against the middle of Caligula's forehead and face, from the hair down along the whole line of the nose; for, as we have remarked, his face happened to be turned sideways to receive the blow just when it was delivered. He fell insensible; but having been already in motion, the united effect of the two forces was to cast him beyond the reach of any further usage on the part of the Sejan steed. Lygdus immediately lifted him up, and he, with Herod Agrippa, carried Caligula into the open air. Paulus and Philip followed; but ascertaining that the injury was superficial, they returned to the stable, where they were now left alone.
"I heard him tell you, my master," said Philip to Paulus, "that he would fasten his eyes upon you, when you mounted yonder brute; now, he will not open those eyes for a week, and whatever happens to you, he is not going to see it. He is not seriously hurt; he'll be as well as ever in ten days; but for the present his beauty is spoilt, and he's as blind as the dead."
Paulus now in a low tone related to the freedman, whose services would be necessary in the matter, the visit of Charicles, and the gift to him by that learned man of an unguent which, if rubbed into the horse's nostrils, would render him sleepy, and, therefore, quiet. The old servant expressed great wonder and admiration at such a device, and Paulus felt with his hand for the little porcelain pot where he remembered to have placed it. Needless to say, it was gone.
"Well," said the youth, after a few questions and answers had been exchanged, "I must even take my chance without it. Charicles, I hear, has just been summoned to Rome, so that I cannot get any more of the compound. Farewell; I must now return to Crispus's inn."