CHAPTER X.
Meanwhile, in the large room within, breakfast had been prepared for the wanderers on a table drawn opposite to and near the open folding-doors of the arbor where they were conversing; and the landlady now summoned them to partake of that repast.
After breakfast, at which Crispina herself waited on them, Agatha asked where Benigna was.
The landlady smiled, and stated that a friend of her daughter's had called, and was doubtless detaining her, but she would go at once and bring the girl.
"On no account," interposed Aglais; "Benigna, I dare say, will unfold to my daughter all about it by and by. Unless you have some pressing business to take you immediately away, will you kindly inform us of the news, if there be any, and let us sit in the arbor while you tell us?"
Accordingly they went into the bower on the landing overlooking the garden, and Crispina told them the news.
In the first place, she told them that the emperor's expected visit to Formiæ was delayed on account of the state of his health. It was now thought he would not arrive for two or three days more, whereas he was to have entered Formiæ that very morning. Crispina added, that it would not surprise her if he did not come for a week yet.
In the second place, Queen Berenice with her son, Herod Agrippa, and her daughter Herodias, who were to have occupied those very apartments, had arrived at the inn, but had now gone forward.
"Mother," said Agatha, "those must have been the persons who, an hour ago, looked into the arbor below this one, when that pale woman was talking to me. The elder called the younger Herodias."
"The same," continued the landlady. "Finding that they cannot be accommodated in my house, young Herod has proposed to proceed with all their train to Formiæ, where—royal though they be—they will be nobody's guests; and as there is not a place of public entertainment in that town, and the weather is delightful, he says they will pitch two or three tents, and one splendid pavilion of silk, on the verge of the green space outside of Formiæ, where the games are to be held."
"Only fancy!" cried Agatha, clapping her little hands.
Thirdly, Crispina told them, with fifty gossiping details, that the entertainments to be given in honor of the emperor and the opulent knight Mamurra, from whom the town took its name, would be stupendous. Formiæ, we may mention, was frequently called Mamurrarum, or urbs mamurrana, from the colonel or chiliarch Mamurra. This gentleman had devoted his boyhood and youth to the cause of Julius Cæsar, and afterward of Augustus in the civil wars; had gained considerable military reputation, and, above all, had amassed enormous wealth.
He had long since returned to his native Formiæ, where he had built a superb palace of marble, good enough for an emperor. In that palace the emperor was now to be his guest. He and Agrippa Vipsanius, the founder of the Pantheon, had long before been among those by whom, in compliance with the often-announced wish of Augustus, not peculiarly addressed to them, but generally to all his wealthy countrymen, Augustus had expended incalculable sums in adorning Rome with public edifices, for which costly materials, and the science and taste of the best architects, had alike been employed. As Augustus himself said, (for himself,) "They had found it of bricks, and were leaving it of marble."
"I have read verses by Catullus upon this knight Mamurra," said Aglais.
"So you have, my lady," replied Crispina. "Well, he has just knocked up a circus in the fields adjoining Formiæ, and is preparing to exhibit magnificent shows to his neighbors and to all comers, in honor of the emperor's visit to the town of the Mamurras and the Mamurran palace. Tiberius Cæsar, who is also to be the knight's guest, promises to use this same circus, and to give entertainments of his own there, and Germanicus Cæsar, before marching north to fight the Germans, and drive them out of north-eastern Italy, is to review at Formiæ the troops destined for that expedition, as well as the great bulk of the prætorian guards under Sejanus. The guards are uncertain what portion of them the Cæsar may take with him northward."
"Mother, we shall see the shows, we shall see the shows!" cried Agatha.
"Oh! and I am so slow. There is another ingredient yet in my wallet of tidings," exclaimed Crispina; "and only think of my almost forgetting to remember it."
"Remember not to forget it," said the Greek girl, holding up her finger with an admonishing and censorious look at the landlady. "What is this particular which you have, after all, not forgotten to remember?"
"My charming little lady, it is a particular which concerns the land of your mother, and the people of Greece; for seldom, say they, has that land or people sent to Rome any body like him."
"You accused yourself of being slow; but now you gallop. Like whom?"
"Like this noble young Athenian."
"Galloping still faster," rejoined Agatha.
"What noble young Athenian?"
"This Athenian, gifted as his countryman Alcibiades, eloquent as our own Tully, acute and profound as Aristotle, honorable as Fabricius, truthful as Regulus, and O ladies! with all these other excellencies, beautiful as a poem, a picture, a statue, or a dream!"
"There's a description," quoth Agatha, laughing.
"More eloquent than precise, I think," said Paulus.
"Yet sufficiently precise," added Aglais, "to leave us in no doubt at all who is meant by it. It must be young Dionysius; it must be Dion."
"That is the very name!" exclaimed the hostess.
"My mother knows him," said Paulus. "My sister and I have often heard of him; so have thousands; but we have not seen him. It is he who carried away all the honors of the great Lyceum at Athens on the left bank of the Ilissus."
"The right bank, brother," said Agatha; "don't you remember, the day we embarked at the Piræus somebody showed it to us, just opposite Diana Agrotera, which is on the left bank?"
"It is all the same," said Paulus.
"Mother, just tell Paulus if left and right are all the same," said Agatha. "That is like Paulus. They are not the same; they never were the same."
"All the ladies at the Mamurran palace," resumed the hostess, "make toilets against him."
"Toils, you mean," said Paulus.
"Yes, toils," continued the hostess. "They are intended as toils for him; they are great toils and labors for the poor girls; the ornatrius and they are toilers for the fair dames themselves."
"It is all the same," again quoth Paulus.
"And how do these toilets prosper against Dionysius the Athenian?"
"They tell me he is not aware of the admiration he excites—is totally indifferent to it."
"Base, miserable youth!" cried Paulus, laughing. "These Roman dames and damsels ought to punish him."
"You mean by letting him alone?" asked the landlady.
"No; that would kill him," returned Paulus with a sneer, "being what he is."
"Then how punish him?" asked she.
"By pursuing him with their blandishments," answered Paulus; "that is, if they can muster sufficient ferocity. But I fear the women are too kind here in Italy. I am told that even in the midst of the most furious passions, and while the deadliest agonies are felt by others around them, their natural sweetness is so invincible that they smile and send soft glances to and fro; they look more bewitching at misery (such is their goodness) than when they see no suffering at all. Yes, indeed! and as the gladiators fight, they have a lovely smile for each gash; and when the gladiator dies, their eyes glisten enchantingly. We have not these entertainments in Greece, and the Greek Dion must soon feel the superiority of the Roman to the Greek woman. Pity is a beautiful quality in a woman; and the Greek ladies do not seek the same frequent opportunities of exercising it as the Italian ladies possess, and, eheu! enjoy."
"Is Paulus bitter?" asked Aglais. "Is Paulus witty?"
"Talking of wit, my lady," pursued the hostess, "none but our dear old Plautus could have matched this young Athenian, as Antistius Labio, the great author of five hundred volumes, has found to his cost."
"Labio! Why, that must be the son of one of those who murdered Cæsar," exclaimed Paulus. "My father met his father foot to foot at the battle of Philippi; but he escaped, and slew himself when Brutus did so."
"That was indeed this man's father," said Crispina. "The son is a very clever man, and a most successful practitioner in the law courts. Wishing to mortify Dionysius, he said in his presence, at a review of the troops at Formiæ yesterday, that he was grateful to the gods he had not been born at Athens, and was no Greek—not he!
"'The Athenians also entertain,' replied Dionysius, 'the idea which you have just expressed.'
"'What idea?' asked Antistius Labio.
"'That their gods watch over them,' replied Dionysius. Ah my lady! you should have heard the laughter at Labio; the very centurions turned away to conceal their grins. Some one high at court then took the Athenian's arm on one side, and Titus Livius's on the other, and walked off with them. Labio did not say a word."
"Pray can you tell us, good Crispina, whether Germanicus Cæsar is to be a guest of the knight Mamurra?" asked Paulus.
The landlady said she believed he would be for a day or two, and that she thought it was even he who had taken Dion's and Livy's arm, and walked with them apart.
"It is some time," said Aglais, "since Catullus indited those epigrammatic verses against the hospitable and opulent knight. This Mamurra must be very old."
"Yet, my lady," replied Crispina, "he has a ruddy face, a clear complexion, and downright black eyebrows."
"There is a wash called lixirium," said Aglais with a meaning smile.
"Ah! but," cried Crispina, laughing with no less knowing a look, "that makes the hair yellow; and the brows of the knight are as black as the jet ornaments in your daughter's hair."
"You can tell us, no doubt," said Paulus, "who those ladies must be that came with Tiberius Cæsar yesterday from that splendid mansion on the Liris. They were in beautiful litters; one of sculptured bronze, the other of ivory, embossed with gold reliefs."
"I know who they are, of course," said the landlady; "they are half-sisters, the daughters of the late renowned warrior and statesman, the builder of the Pantheon, Agrippa Vipsanius, but by different mothers. One of them was the wife of Tiberius Cæsar."
"Was!" exclaimed Paulus; "why, she's not a ghost?"
"She is, nevertheless; her husband has another wife," said the landlady; adding, in a low voice, "a precious one, too; the emperor has required him to marry the august Julia."
"The august!" murmured Aglais contemptuously, with a shrug of the shoulders; "getting old, too."
"I am sure," resumed the landlady, "no one can describe the relationships of that family. Agrippa Vipsanius, you must know, married three times. His second wife was Marcella, daughter of Augustus's sister, Octavia; and this Marcella became the mother of the elder of the two ladies whom you saw. Well, while this Marcella was still living, but after she had had a daughter called Vipsania, Augustus made Agrippa put her away to marry, mind you, this very same august Julia, Augustus's own daughter, and therefore Marcella's first cousin. This Julia, who had just become a widow, having lost her first husband Marcellus, is the mother of the other lady whom you saw, who is called Julia Agrippina, and who thus came into the world the second cousin of her own half-sister. Well, Agrippa, the father of both girls, leaving the august Julia a widow for the second time, Tiberius Cæsar marries Agrippa's eldest daughter Vipsania, and has a son by her, called Drusus; and now, while Vipsania is still living, Augustus makes Tiberius put her away to marry the aforesaid august Julia, the mother of the younger daughter, Julia Agrippina, who is Tiberius's first and likewise second cousin."
"I can hardly follow you in the labyrinth," said Aglais.
"No one can, my lady, except those who make a study of it," said the landlady, laughing; "but it's all true. Julia, Augustus's daughter, is the wife of the father of both these girls, first cousin to the eldest of them, mother and cousin-in-law of the younger, and has now also been made wife to the husband of the elder, her own first cousin, and become the sister-in-law of her own daughter and cousin-in-law to the younger."
"Medius fidius!" cried Paulus, staring stupidly, "what a tremendous twisted knot! Julia's daughter, half-sister, and second cousin is put away, that the half-sister's husband may marry the half-sister's stepmother and second cousin, or something like that."
"Or something like that," continued Crispina; "but there is no end to it. Tiberius Cæsar is now father-in-law and brother-in-law to one woman, and the husband and stepfather-in-law to another, while the mother of the younger half-sister becomes the sister-in-law of her own daughter."
At this moment Agatha, who was opposite the outer door of the embowered landing, leading down by a flight of stairs into the garden, through the other arbor before mentioned, suddenly exclaimed, "There's Benigna walking in the garden with a man!"
They all looked, and saw Benigna and a young man, wearing a brown tunic and slippers, in a distant alley of fig-trees, talking earnestly as they strolled together. Crispina smiled and said, "I must really tell you that my Benigna's betrothed lover came here unexpectedly at daybreak. He has obtained a week's holiday, and will spend it, he vows, in the inn. We have had to use some skill, I promise you, in finding room for him. He is to sleep in a big trunk with the lid off, stowed away in the angle of a corridor behind a curtain. He is a very good and well-instructed youth, knows Greek, and is severely worked as one of the secretaries of Tiberius Cæsar, whose slave he is, as I think Benigna has mentioned to my little Lady Agatha yonder."
"When is the marriage of dear Benigna to take place?" asked Agatha.
"Of course the poor young man," replied Crispina, "cannot marry until he gets his freedom. Whenever Tiberius Cæsar allows him to shave his head, and put on the pileus, (cap of liberty,) we shall have a merry wedding."
"What sort of master is Tiberius Cæsar?" asked Paulus.
The landlady said she was thankful she did not personally know him; but she had never heard any complaint of him made by Claudius, her future son-in-law.
"Your future son-in-law, Claudius!" exclaimed Agatha in amazement. "Then it was your future son-in-law who had something to say to that Dame Plancina, with the pale face and black eyebrows?"
"Not that I know of, my little lady," returned the hostess.
"Ah! but he had, though," persisted Agatha. "He came to the arbor door, and distinctly stated, with a low bow, that he had commands for that lady; and then she said from whom; and he said, my name is Claudius; that is what he said; and then she jumped up in a remarkable fluster and went into the house, and he followed her. But then why she should jump up in a fluster, because a slave said his name was Claudius, I can't imagine," concluded Agatha, pondering.
The hostess looked surprised.
"I think it could not be because a slave's name was Claudius," she said; "nor do I understand it."
"Is that your demon-seeing dame, Agatha?" asked Paulus, stretching himself; "for I have a notion that when I parried the fellow's blow who wanted to cut me down in so cowardly a fashion, you know—"
"Yes."
"There was a female scream; do you remember it?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have been thinking the woman who screamed was a woman whom your description of that fierce dame in the arbor exactly fits. If so, she was in the train of Tiberius, and of those ladies of whom our good hostess has just given us such an interesting genealogical and matrimonial account."
"Then perhaps the commands for Plancina were from Tiberius Cæsar," quoth Agatha.
Crispina shook her head, but appeared a little serious. A short silence followed. Paulus broke it by asking the landlady to get a letter forwarded for him to the military tribune, Velleius Paterculus, at Formiæ. "I wish," he said, "to take advantage of the delay in the emperor's visit, and to see the country, to fish in the river, to move about far and near; provided Paterculus, to whom I have given a promise to report myself, has no objection."
The hostess brought him some liviana, or second-class paper, the best she had, some cuttle-fish ink, and a reed pen, told him to write his letter, and undertook to transmit it at once by a runner belonging to the hostelry. She then left the room.