CHAPTER XIII.
Next morning at breakfast, Paulus announced that he had resolved to go to Formiæ and seek an audience of the emperor himself.
"How will you get one?" asked Aglais; "and if you get one, what good will it do you?"
"It will depend upon circumstances," he replied; "for, whether I fail to get speech of the emperor, or, succeeding in that, fail to get justice from him, process of law remains equally open, and so does process of interest. Both means are, I suppose, always doubtful, and generally dilatory. I spoil no chance by trying a sudden and direct method of recovering our family rights; while if I succeed, which is just possible, I shall save a world of trouble and suspense."
After some discussion, his mother yielded to her son's impetuous representations, more with the view of undeceiving him, and reconciling him to other proceedings, than with any hope of a good result.
Paulus had taken his broad-brimmed hat, saying that in three or four hours he expected to be back again at the inn; but that if he did not reappear, they were to conclude that he had found a lodging at Formiæ, and that he was remaining there for some good reason; when the door was flung open, and breathless, radiant, holding an unfolded letter in her hand, Benigna rushed into the room.
"Read, read," she cried, "and give me joy! I was unjust to the noble prince."
She handed the letter to Aglais, who read aloud what follows:
"Formiæ.
"Ælius Sejanus, the prætorian prefect greets Crispus, keeper of the inn at 100 Milestone. Our Cæsar is so pleased with the slave Claudius, that he has resolved to give him his freedom and the sum of fifty thousand sesterces, upon which to take a wife and to begin any calling he may prefer. And understanding that he is engaged, whenever he becomes a free man, to marry your daughter Benigna, and knowing not only that good news is doubly agreeable when it comes from the mouth of a person beloved, but that to the person who loves it is agreeable also to be the bearer of it, he desires that your daughter, whose qualities and disposition he admires, should be the first to tell her intended husband Claudius of his happy fortune. Let her, therefore, come to-morrow to Formiæ, where, at the Mamurran palace, Cæsar will give her a message which is to be at once communicated to the slave Claudius. Farewell."
"I want to go at once to Formiæ," cried Benigna.
"Well, I am even now going," said Paulus; "and if you intend to walk, I will guard you from any annoyance either on the way or at Formiæ, a town which you know is at present swarming with soldiers."
This offer was, of course, too valuable not to be cheerfully accepted.
A few moments after the foregoing conversation, Paulus and Benigna left the inn of Crispus together. The roads were full of groups of persons of all ranks, in carriages, on horseback, and on foot. Some of these were bound countryward, but not one for every score of those who were bound in their own direction. No adventure befell them, and in less than two hours they arrived at their destination. It was easy to find the Mamurran palace, to the principal door of which, guarded by a Prætorian sentry on either hand, Paulus forthwith escorted Benigna.
There was no footway on either side of the street, and as they approached the door they heard the clang of the metal knocker resound upon the inside. At the same moment the sentinel nearest to them shouted "linite," (by your leave.) Two or three persons at this warning shrank hurriedly into the middle of the road; a Numidian rider made his horse bound aside, and the large folding-doors were simultaneously flung open outward.
Immediately appeared the very man in the dark-dyed purple robe of whom the little damsel was in quest, and upon whose personal aspect, already minutely described in a former place, we need not here dwell. A handsome gentleman, in middle life, with an acute and thoughtful face, who wore the Greek mantle called χλαῖνα, (læna,) but differently shaped from an augur's, followed. Both these persons moved with that half-stoop which seems like a continued though very faint bow; and when in the street, they turned, stood still and waited. Then came forth, leaning on a knight's arm, and walking somewhat feebly, a white-haired, ancient, and majestic man, around whose person, in striking contrast with the many new fashions of dress lately become prevalent, a snowy woollen toga, with broad violet borders, flowed. Under this toga, indeed, was a tunic richly embroidered with gold, and having painted upon it the head of the idol called the Capitoline Jove, half hidden by a wide double stripe of scarlet silk.
When this personage had come into the street, all those who chanced to be there uncovered. Tiberius, the gentleman in the Greek mantle, and the knight himself upon whose arm the object of all this reverence continued to lean, did the same; and it was thus that Paulus, who had already guessed from frequent descriptions formerly received, knew for certain that he beheld for the first time Augustus Cæsar, sovereign of three hundred million human beings, and absolute master of the known world. In a moment those who formed the personal company of the emperor resumed their head-gear; some soldiers who happened to be passing did the same, and proceeded upon their respective errands; but the inhabitants remained gazing until the group began to move on foot up the street in the direction of the temporary circus which had been completed by the knight Mamurra in some fields north-west of the town.
Paulus turned to Benigna and said, "You perceive the red-faced—ehem! the great man. He does not know you, though you know him. Shall I tell him who you are? Indeed, I have not come hither merely to stare about me; so wait you here."
He thereupon left her, and quickly overtaking, and then passing before, the group in which was Augustus, turned round and stood directly in their way, hat in hand; but all his sensations were different from what he had expected. He grew very red and shamefaced, and felt a sudden confusion that was new to his experience. As it was impossible to walk over him, they, on their part, halted for a moment, and looked at him with an expression of surprise which was common to them all, though indeed not in the same degree. The person who seemed the least astonished was the emperor; and the person who seemed more so than any of the rest was Tiberius. Some displeasure, too, seemed to flash in the glance which he bent upon the youth.
But Paulus, though abashed, did not lose presence of mind to such an extent as to behave stupidly. He said,
"I ask our august emperor's pardon for interrupting his promenade, in order to report to Tiberius Cæsar the execution of an order. Yonder is Crispus's daughter, illustrious sir," he added, turning toward Tiberius; "she has come hither according to your own commands."
"True," said Tiberius; "let her at once seek the prefect Sejanus, who will give the necessary instructions."
Paulus's natural courage and enterprising temper had carried him thus far; but his design of accosting and directly addressing Augustus Cæsar now seemed, when he had more speedily found an opportunity of doing so than he could have dared to hope, a strange and difficult undertaking. How he should procure access to the emperor had been the problem with him and his family heretofore; but now, when the access was already achieved, and when he had only to speak—now when his voice was sure to reach the ears of the emperor himself—he knew not what to say or how to begin. He had thought of splendid topics, of deductions which he would draw, certain arguments which he would urge—a matter very plain and easy: in fine, a statement simple, brief, and conclusive; but all this had vanished from his mind. There before him, holding back the folds of his toga with one white hand, upon the back of which more than seventy years had brought out a tracery of blue varicose veins—a modern doctor would call them—with the other hand, which was gloved, and grasping the fellow glove, laid upon the arm of the knight already mentioned, stood the person who, under forms, the republican semblance of which he carefully preserved, exercised throughout the whole civilized and nearly the whole known world, over at least two if not three hundred million souls, a power as uncontrolled and as absolute for all practical purposes as any which, before him or after him, ever fell to man's lot; enthusiastically guarded and religiously obeyed by legions before whom mankind trembled, and whose superiors as soldiers had not been seen then and have not been seen since; the perpetual tribune of the people, the prince, senator, perpetual consul, the supreme judge, the arbiter of life and death, the umpire in the greatest concerns between foreign disputants travelling from the ends of the earth to plead before him; the dispenser of prefectures, provinces, proconsulates, tetrarchies, and kingdoms; treated by kings as those kings were themselves treated by the high functionaries whom they had appointed or confirmed, and could in an instant dismiss; the unprincipled, cruel, wicked, but moderate-tempered, cold-humored, cautious, graceful-mannered, elegant-minded, worldly-wise, and politic prince, who paid assiduous court to all the givers and destroyers of reputation—I mean, to the men of letters. There he stood, as we have described him, holding his toga with one hand and leaning upon Mamurra's arm with the other; and Paulus stood before him, and Paulus knew not what to say; hardly, indeed—so quickly the sense of bashfulness, confusion, depression had gained upon him—hardly how to look.
"If you have heard," observed Tiberius at length, "pray stand aside."
Paulus, who, while Tiberius was speaking, had looked at him, now glanced again toward the emperor, and still hesitated, made a shuffling bow, and stood partly aside.
"What is it you wish to say?" asked Augustus, in a somewhat feeble voice, not at all ungraciously.
"I wish," said Paulus, becoming very pale, "to say, my sovereign, that my father's property in this very neighborhood was taken away after the battle of Philippi and given to strangers, and to beg of your justice and clemency to give back that property or an equivalent to me, who am my dead father's only son."
"But," said Augustus smiling, "half the land in Italy changed hands about the time you mention. Your father fought for Brutus, I suppose?"
"My father fought for you, my lord," said Paulus.
"Singular!" exclaimed Augustus; "but this is not a court of justice—the courts are open to you."
At this moment Sejanus and one whom Paulus presumed to be in Rome, Cneius Piso, attended by a slave, appeared from a cross street. The slave approached quickly, holding a pigeon; and having caught the eye of Augustus, who beckoned to him, he handed the bird to the emperor.
Paulus withdrew a little, but lingered near the group. Augustus, disengaging a piece of thin paper from the pigeon's neck, said,
"From Illyricum, I suppose. We shall now learn what progress those Germans have made. O Varus, Varus!" added he, in words which he had of late often been heard to repeat, "give me back the legions, 'redde legiones! redde legiones!'"
A breathless silence lasted while Augustus perused the message taken from the neck of the carrier-pigeon. As he crushed the paper in his hands, he muttered something; and while he muttered, the scorbutic face of Tiberius (perhaps scrofulous would better render the epithet used by Tacitus) burned ominously. In what the emperor said Paulus caught the words, "danger to Italy, but Germanicus knows how."
"Varus lost the legions a thousand times, a thousand paces westward of this irruption," said Tiberius.
"A calamity like that," said Augustus, "is felt far and near. The whole empire suffers, nor will it recover in my time. Ah! the legions."
Paulus perceived that he himself was now forgotten; moreover, looking back, he saw the poor young damsel, left by him at the door of the Mamurran palace, still standing alone and unprotected; but some fascination riveted him.
In a moment a great noise was heard, which lasted a couple of minutes; a mighty roar, indistinct, blended, hoarse, as of tens of thousands of men uttering one immense shout. It was, had it lasted, like the sound of the sea breaking upon some cavernous coast.
Upon a look of inquiry and surprise from the emperor, Sejanus sent the slave who had brought the carrier-pigeon to ascertain the cause, and before the sound had ceased the messenger returned, and reported that it was only Germanicus Cæsar riding into camp. Augustus fixed his eyes on the ground, and Tiberius looked at Sejanus and at Cneius Piso.
The emperor, after a second or two of musing, resumed his way toward the rustic circus and the camp, attended by those around.
Paulus felt he had not gained much by his interview. He now touched the arm of Sejanus, who was about following the imperial group, and said, pointing toward the spot where Benigna still stood waiting,
"Yonder is Crispina's daughter, who is here in obedience to your letter."
Sejanus answered this reminder with a sour and peculiar smile.
"Good," said he; "she has come to announce the fine news to her betrothed. Let her tell him that he has only to break a horse for Tiberius Cæsar to obtain his freedom. I have no time to attend any more to slaves and their mates. She has now but to ask for Claudius at that palace. He has orders to expect her, and to receive from her mouth the pleasing information I have just given you."
Saying this, he walked away.
Our hero conceived some undefined misgiving from these words, or rather from the tone, perhaps, in which the prefect had uttered them. Unable to question the speaker, he slowly returned to poor little Benigna, and said, "Well, Benigna, I have ascertained what you have to do; and, first of all, Claudius expects you within."
As he spoke, he knocked at the door. This time only one leaf of it was opened, and a slave, standing in the aperture, and scanning Paulus and his companion, demanded their business; while the sentries on either hand at the sculptured pillars, or antæ of the porch, looked and listened superciliously.
"Is the secretary-slave Claudius here?" asked the youth.
Before the porter could reply, steps and voices resounded in the hall within, and the porter sprang out of the way, flinging almost into Paulus's face the other leaf of the door, and bowing low. Three gentlemen, two of whom apparently were half-drunk, their faces flushed, and their arms linked together, appeared staggering upon the threshold, where they stood awhile to steady themselves before emerging into the street.
"I tell you, my Pomponius Flaccus," said he who was in the middle—a portly man, with a good-natured, shrewd, tipsy look—"it is all a pretty contrivance, and there will be no slaughter, for the beast is to be muzzled."
"And I tell you, my Lucius Piso," returned he on the left, a wiry drinker, "my governor of Rome, my dedicatee of Horace—"
"I am not the dedicatee of Horace," interrupted the other; "poor Horace dedicated the art-poetical to my two sons."
"How could he do that?" broke in Pomponius. "You see double. Two sons, indeed! How many sons have you? tell me that. Again, how could one man dedicate a single work to a double person? answer me that. You know nothing whatever about poetry, except in so far as it is fiction; but we don't want fiction in these matters. We want facts; and it is a fact—a solemn fact—that the slave will be devoured."
"I hold it to be merely a pleasant fiction," retorted Piso fiercely.
"Then I appeal to Thrasyllus here," rejoined the other. "O thou Babylonian seer! will not Claudius the slave be devoured in the circus before the assembled people?"
At these words our hero looked at Benigna, and Benigna at him, and she was astounded.
He who was thus questioned—a man of ghastly face, with long, black hair hanging down to his shoulders, and sunken, wistful, melancholy eyes—wore an Asiatic dress. He was not intoxicated, and seemed to have fallen by chance into his present companionship, from which he appeared eager to disengage himself.
Gently shaking off the vague hand of Pomponius Flaccus, he acted as the oracles did.
"You are certainly right," he said; but he glanced at Lucius Piso while speaking, and then stepped quickly into the street, which he crossed.
Each of the disputants naturally deemed the point to have been decided in his own favor.
"You hear?" cried Flaccus; "the horse is to paw him to death, and then to devour him alive."
"How can he?" said Piso. "How can he, after d—d—death, devour him alive? Besides, Thrasyllus declared that I was right."
"Why," shouted Flaccus, "if we had not been drinking together all the morning, I should think you had lost your senses."
"Not by any means," said Piso; "and I will prove to you by logic that Claudius the slave," (again at this name our hero and poor little Benigna looked at each other—she starting and turning half-round, he merely directing a glance at her,) "that Claudius the slave will not and cannot be devoured by Sejanus—I mean that beast Sejanus."
Paulus, chancing to look toward the two prætorian sentries, whose general he supposed to be mentioned, observed them covertly smiling. More puzzled than ever, he gave all his attention to the tipsy dispute which was raging in the palace doorway.
"Well, prove it then," roared Flaccus, "with your logic!"
"Have I not a thumb?" resumed Lucius Piso; "and can I not turn it down in the nick of time, and so save the wretch?"
"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed out the other; "and what notice will a horse take of your thumb? Is this horse such an ass as to mind whether your thumb be up or down, though you are governor of Rome?"
"Perhaps you think," retorted Piso, in a tone of concentrated bitterness, "with your rules of logic, that the horse is not properly trained to his manners?"
"Have I not told you," said Flaccus, "in spite of your rules of thumb, that the horse is not an ass?"
The rudeness and coarseness of Pomponius Flaccus had succeeded in sobering Lucius Piso. He here remained a moment silent, drew himself up with dignity to the full height of his portly person, and at last said,
"Enough! When you have drunk a little more, you will be able to understand a plain demonstration. But whom have we here? Why, it is our glorious Apicius, whose table no other table rivals for either abundance or delicacy. Who is your venerable friend, Apicius?"
This was addressed to a dyspeptic-looking youth, magnificently attired, who, in company with a person in the extreme decline of life, approached the door. Paulus and Benigna stood aside, finding themselves still constrained to listen while waiting for room to enter the blocked-up door of the palace.
"Is it possible," replied Apicius, "that you forget Vedius Pollio, who, since you mention my poor table, has often kindly furnished it with such lampreys as no other mortal ever reared?"
The old man, whose age was not redolent of holiness, but reeking with the peculiar aroma of a life passed in boundless and systematic self-indulgence, leered with running, bloodshot eyes, and murmured that they paid him too much honor.
"Sir, you feed your lampreys well," said Pomponius Flaccus, "in your Vesuvian villa. They eat much living, and they eat well dead."
"I assure you," said Pollio, "that nothing but humorous exaggerations and witty stories have been circulated upon that subject. I can, with the strictest accuracy, establish the statement that no human being ever died merely and simply in order that my lampreys should grow fat and luscious. On the other hand, I do not deny that if some slave, guilty of great enormities, had in any event to forfeit life, the lampreys may in such cases, perhaps, have availed themselves of the circumstance. An opportunity might then arise which they had neither caused nor contrived."
"The flavor, in other words, never was the final cause of any slave's punishment," said Lucius Piso.
"You use words, sir," said Pollio, "which are correct as to the fact, and philosophical as to the style."
"Talking of philosophy," said Apicius, "do you hold with this young Greek, this Athenian Dion who has lately visited the court, that man eats in order to live? or with me, that he lives in order to eat?"
"Horror of horrors!" murmured Flaccus, "the Athenian boy is demented."
"Whenever there is any thing to eat with you, my Apicius," said Lucius Piso, "unless there be something to drink with my Pomponius here, may I be alive to do either the one or the other."
"Why not do both?" wheezed Vedius Pollio. "Whither are you even now going?"
"To the camp for an appetite," said Pomponius Flaccus, descending the steps out of the palace hall into the street, and reeling against Paulus, who held him from staggering next against Benigna.
"What do you two want here?" he suddenly asked steadying himself.
"I am accompanying," replied Paulus, "this damsel, who comes hither by Cæsar's order."
"What Cæsar?" asked Pomponius.
"Tiberius Claudius Nero," returned Paulus.
He naturally supposed that this formal-sounding answer would have struck some awe into the curious company among whom he had so unwittingly alighted with his rustic charge.
"What!" exclaimed Pomponius Flaccus, "Biberius Caldius Mero, say you?"
Paulus started in amazement.
"Ebrius, drunk," continued Piso, ex quo—How does it go on? ex quo—"
"Ex quo," resumed Pomponius solemnly, "semel factus est."[160]
The astonishment of Paulus and Benigna knew no bounds. Was it possible that in the very precincts of Cæsar's residence for the time, at the door of an imperial palace, within hearing of two prætorian sentries, in the public street and open daylight, persons should be found, not reckless outcasts maddened by desperation, but a whole company of patricians, who, correcting each other as they might do in reciting a popular proverb, or an admired song, should speak thus of the man to whom gladiators, having not an hour to live, cried, "As we die we salute thee?" The man at whose name even courageous innocence trembled?
"I said," repeated Paulus after a pause, "Tiberius Claudius Nero."
"And I said," replied Pomponius, "Biberius Caldius Mero."
"Drunk but once," added Lucius Piso, who had evidently quite recovered from his own inebriation.
"Since ever he was so first," concluded Pomponius Flaccus.
A general laugh, in which all present joined save Paulus and Benigna, greeted this sally, and, in the midst of their hilarity an elegant open chariot of richly-sculptured bronze, the work being far more costly than the material, drawn by two handsome horses, and driven by a vigorous and expert charioteer, came swiftly down the street in the contrary direction of the camp, and stopped opposite the door.
As the horses were pulled back upon their haunches, a youth, tall, well made, and eminently graceful, sprang to the ground. He had a countenance in the extraordinary beauty of which intellect, attempered by a sweet, grave, and musing expression, played masterful and luminous. He was neatly but gravely dressed, after the Athenian fashion. The four personages at the door, who were, by the by, far more floridly arrayed, and wore various ornaments, nevertheless looked like bats among which a bird of paradise had suddenly alighted. No gayety of attire could cover the unloveliness of their minds, lives, and natures, nor could the plainness of his costume cause the new-comer to be disregarded or mistaken anywhere. In the whole company Lucius Piso alone was a man of sense, solid attainments, and spirit, though he was a hard drinker. Even the others, drivelling jesters as they were, became sober now at once; they uncovered instinctively, and greeted the youth, as he passed, with an obeisance as low as that performed by the ostiarius, who stood ready to admit him. When, returning these salutes, he had entered the palace, Piso said, for the information of Vedius Pollio, who had come from Pompeii, "That is he."
"What! the young Athenian philosopher of whom we have heard so much?"
"Yes. Dionysius, young as he is, I am told that he is certain to fill the next vacancy in their famous Areopagus."
"He is high in Augustus's good graces, is he not?" asked Pollio.
"Augustus would swear by him," said Flaccus. "It is lucky for all of us that the youth has no ambition, and is going away again soon."
"What does Biberius say of him?" inquired Apicius.
"Say? Why, what does he ever say of any one, at least of any distinguished man?"
"Simply not a word."
"Well, think then what does he think?"
"Not lovingly, I suspect. Their spirits, their geniuses, would not long agree. If he was emperor, Dionysius of Athens would not have so brilliant a reception at court."
"But is it then really brilliant? Does one so young sustain his own part?" asked Pollio.
"You never heard any person like him; I will answer for that," replied Lucius Piso. "He is admirable. I was amazed when I met him. Augustus, you know, is no dotard, and Augustus is enchanted with him. The men of letters, besides, are all raving about him, from old Titus Livy down to L. Varius, the twiddler of verses, the twiddle-de-dee successor of our immortal Horace and our irreplaceable Virgil. And then Quintus Haterius, who has scarcely less learning than Varro, (and much more worldly knowledge;) Haterius, who is himself what erudite persons rarely are, the most fascinating talker alive, and certainly the finest public speaker that has addressed an assembly since the death of poor Cicero, declares that Dionysius of Athens—"
"Ah! enough! enough!" cried Apicius, interrupting; "you make me sick with these praises of airy, intangible nothings. I shan't eat comfortably to-day. What are all his accomplishments, I should like to know, compared to one good dinner?"
"You will have long ceased to eat," retorted Piso, "when his name will yet continue to be pronounced."
"And what good will pronouncing do, if you are hungry?" said Apicius.
"What has he come to Italy for?" persisted old Pollio.
"You know," said Piso, "that all over the east, from immemorial time, some great, mysterious, and stupendous being has been expected to appear on earth about this very date."
"Not only in the east, good Piso," said Pollio; "my neighbor in Italy, you know, the Cumæan sibyl, is construed now never to have had any other theme."
"You are right," returned Piso; "I meant to say that the prevailing notion has always been that it is in the east this personage will appear, and then his sway is to extend gradually into every part of the world. Old sayings, various warning oracles, traditions among common peasants, who cannot speak each other's languages and don't even know of each other's existence, the obscure songs of the sibyls, the dream of all mankind, the mystical presentiments of the world concur, and have long concurred, upon that singular subject. Moreover, the increasing corruption of morals, to which Horace adverts," added Piso, "will and must end in dissolving society altogether, unless arrested by the advent of some such being. That is manifest. Haterius and others, who are learned in the Hebrew literature, tell me that prodigies and portents, so well authenticated that it is no more possible to doubt them than it is to doubt that Julius Cæsar was murdered in Rome, were performed by men who, ages ago, much more distinctly and minutely foretold the coming of this person at or near the very time in which we are living; and, accordingly, that the whole nation of the Jews (convinced that those who could perform such things must have enjoyed more than mortal knowledge and power) fully expect and firmly believe that the being predicted by these workers of portents is now immediately to appear. Thus, Haterius—"
"No," said Pomponius Flaccus, shaking his head, looking on the ground, and pressing the tip of his forefinger against his forehead, "that is not Haterius's argument, or rather, that is only the half of it."
"I now remember," resumed Lucius Piso; "you are correct in checking my version of it. These ancient seers and wonder-workers had also foretold several things that were to come to pass earlier than the advent of the great being, and these things having in their respective times all duly occurred, serve to convince the Jews, and indeed have also convinced many philosophic inquirers, of whom Dionysius is one, studying the prophetical books in question, and then exploring the history of the Hebrews, to see whether subsequent events really correspond with what had been foretold—that seers who could perform the portents which they performed in their day, and who besides possessed a knowledge of future events verified by the issue, were and must be genuinely and truly prophets, and that their predictions deserved belief concerning this great, mysterious, and much-needed personage, who is to appear in the present generation. And then there is the universal tradition, there is the universal expectation, to confirm such reasonings," added Piso.
The astounding character, as well as the intrinsic importance and interest of this conversation, its reference to his half-countryman Dionysius, of whom he had heard so much, and the glimpses of society, the hints about men and things which it afforded him, had prevented Paulus from asking these exalted gentlefolk to make room for him and Benigna to pass, and had held him, and indeed her also, spell-bound.
"But how all this accounts, most noble Piso, for the visit of the Athenian to the court of Augustus, you have forgotten to say," remarked Pollio.
"He obtained," replied Piso, "the emperor's permission to study the Sibylline books."
"What a pity," said Flaccus, "that the first old books were burnt in the great fire at Rome."
"Well," resumed Lucius Piso, "he brought this permission to me, as governor of Rome, and I went with him myself to the quindecemviri and the other proper authorities. Oh! as to the books, it is the opinion of those learned in such matters that there is little or nothing in the old books which has not been recovered in the collection obtained by the senate afterward from Cumæ, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and all places where either the sibyls still lived, or their oracles were preserved."
"But, after all," said Pollio, "are not these oracles the ravings of enthusiasm, if not insanity?"
"Cicero, although in general so sarcastic and disdainful, so incredulous and so hard to please," answered Piso, "has settled that question."
"He has, I allow it," added Pomponius Flaccus, "and settled it most completely. What a charming passage that is wherein the incomparable thinker, matchless writer, and fastidious critic expresses his reverential opinion of the Sibylline books, and demonstrates with triumphant logic their claims upon the attention of all rational, all clear-headed and philosophic inquirers!"
"I am not a rational, or clear-headed, or philosophic inquirer," broke in Apicius, "Come, do come to the camp; and do pray at last allow this foreign-looking young gentleman and rustic damsel to enter the doorway."
And so they all departed together.
The atriensis had meanwhile summoned the master of admissions, who beckoned to Paulus, and he, followed by Benigna, now entered the hall, which was flagged with lozenge-formed marbles of different hues, and supported by four pillars of porphyry. The adventurers passed the perpetual fire in the ancestral or image-room, and saw the images of the Mamurras, dark with the smoke of many generations; they crossed another chamber hung with pictures, and went half round the galleried and shady impluvium, inclosing a kind of internal garden, where, under the blaze of the sunlight, from which they were themselves sheltered, they beheld, like streams of shaken diamonds, the spray of the plashing fountains, the statues in many-tinted marble, and the glowing colors of a thousand exquisite flowers. Near the end of one wing of the colonnaded quadrangle they arrived at a door, which they were passing when their guide stopped them, and as the door flew open to his knock, he made them a bow and preceded them through the aperture.
They noticed, as they followed, that the slave who had opened this door was chained to a staple. Several slaves, who scarcely looked up, were writing in the room which they now entered.
The master of admissions, glancing round the chamber, said, addressing the slaves in general, "Claudius is not here, I perceive; let some one go for him, and say that the daughter of Crispus, of the One Hundredth Milestone, has been charged to communicate to him the pleasure of Tiberius Cæsar touching his immediate manumission; and that I, the master of admissions in the Mamurran palace, am to add a circumstance or two which will complete the information the damsel has to give. Let some one, therefore, fetch Claudius forthwith, and tell him that he keeps us waiting."
During this speech, which was rather pompously delivered, Paulus noticed that, close to a second door in the chamber at the end opposite to that where they had entered, a young slave was seated upon a low settle, with a hide belt round his waist, to which was padlocked a light but strong brass chain, soldered at the nether link to a staple in the floor. This slave now rose, and opening the door, held it ajar till one of the clerks, after a brief whisper among themselves, was detached to execute the errand which the steward had delivered. The slave closed the door again, the clerks continued their writing, the steward half-shut his eyes, and leaned against a pillar in an attitude of serene if not sublime expectation; and Paulus and Benigna waited in silence.
During the pause which ensued, Paulus beheld the steward suddenly jump out of his dignified posture, and felt a hand at the same time laid lightly on his own shoulder. Turning round, he saw the youth who had a few minutes before descended from the bronze chariot.
"Ought I not to be an acquaintance of yours?" asked the new-comer with an agreeable smile. "You are strikingly like one whom I have known. He was a valiant Roman knight, once resident in Greece; I mean Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, who helped, with Mark Antony, to win the great day of Philippi."
"I am, indeed, his only son," said Paulus.
"You and a sister, I think," returned the other, "had been left at home, in Thrace, with your nurse and the servants, when some business a little more than three years ago brought your father and his wife, the Lady Aglais, to Athens. There I met them. Alas! he is gone. I have heard it. But where are your mother and your sister?"
Paulus told him.
"Well, I request you to say to them that Dionysius of Athens—so people style me—remembers them with affection. I will visit them and you. Do I intrude if I ask who is this damsel?" (glancing kindly toward Benigna, who had listened with visible interest.)
Paulus told him, in a few rapid words, not only who she was, but with distinct details upon what errand she had come.
He had scarcely finished when Claudius, the slave, arrived breathless, in obedience to the summons of the magister.
"The orders of Tiberius Cæsar to me," observed this functionary in a slow, loud voice, but with rather a shamefaced glance at Dion, "are, that I should see that you, Claudius, learnt from this maiden the conditions upon which he is graciously pleased to grant you your liberty, and then that I should myself communicate something in addition."
"O Claudius!" began Benigna, blushing scarlet, "we, that is, not you, but I—I was not fair, I was not just to Tib—that is—just read this letter from the illustrious prefect Sejanus to my father."
Claudius, very pale and biting his lip, ran his eye in a moment through the document, and giving it back to Benigna awaited the communication.
"Well," said she, "only this moment have I learnt the easy, the trifling condition which the generous Cæsar, and tribune of the people, attaches to his bounty."
There was a meaning smile interchanged among the slaves, which escaped none present except Benigna; and Claudius became yet more pallid.
"The prefect Sejanus has just told Master Paulus," pursued the young maiden, "that you have only to break a horse for Tiberius Cæsar to obtain forthwith your freedom, and fifty thousand sesterces too," she added in a lower voice.
A dead silence ensued, and lasted for several instants.
Paulus Æmilius, naturally penetrating and of a vivid though imperfectly-educated mind, discerned this much, that some mystery, some not insignificant secret, was in the act of disclosure. The illustrious visitor from Athens had let the hand which lay on Paulus's shoulder fall negligently to his side, and with his head thrown a little back, and a somewhat downward-sweeping glance, was surveying the scene. He possessed a far higher order of intellect than the gallant and bright-witted youth who was standing beside him; and had received, in the largest measure that the erudite civilization of classic antiquity could afford, that finished mental training which was precisely what Paulus, however accomplished in all athletic exercises, rather lacked. Both the youths easily saw that something was to come; they both felt that a secret was on the leap.
"Break a horse!" exclaimed the slave Claudius, with parched, white lips; "I am a poor lad who have always been at the desk! What do I know of horses or of riding?"
There was an inclination to titter among the clerks, but it was checked by their good-nature—indeed, by their liking for Claudius; they all looked up, however.
"Your illustrious master," replied the magister or steward, or major-domo, "has thought of this, and, indeed, of every thing;" again the man directed the same shamefaced glance as before toward Dion. "Knowing, probably, your unexpertness in horses, which is no secret among your fellow-slaves, and in truth, among all your acquaintances, Tiberius Cæsar has, in the first place, selected for you the very animal, out of all his stables, which you are to ride at the games in the circus before the couple of hundred thousand people who will crowd the champaign."
"At the games!" interrupted Claudius, "and in the circus! Why, all who know me know that I an arrant coward."
Like a burst of bells, peal upon peal, irrepressible, joyous, defiant, and frank, as if ringing with astonishment and scorn at the thing, yet also full of friendliness and honest pitying love for the person, broke forth the laugh of Paulus. It was so genuine and so infectious, that even Dion smiled in a critical, musing way, while all the slaves chuckled audibly, and the slave chained to the staple near the door rattled his brass fastenings at his sides. Only three individuals preserved their gravity, the shamefaced steward, poor little frightened Benigna, and the astonished Claudius himself.
"In the second place," pursued the magister or steward, "besides choosing for you the very animal, the individual and particular horse, which you are to ride, the Cæsar has considerately determined and decided, in view of your deserved popularity among all your acquaintances, that, if any acquaintance of yours, any of your numerous friends, any other person, in fine, whoever, in your stead shall volunteer to break this horse for Tiberius Cæsar, you shall receive your freedom and the fifty thousand sesterces the very next morning, exactly the same."
A rather weak and vague murmur of applause from the slaves followed this official statement.
"And so the Cæsar," said Claudius, "has both selected me the steed, and has allowed me a substitute to break him, if I can find any substitute. Suppose, however, that I decline such conditions of liberty altogether—what then?"
"Then Tiberius Cæsar sells you to-morrow morning to Vedius Pollio of Pompeii, who has come hither on purpose to buy you, and carry you home to his Cumæan villa."
"To his tank, you mean," replied poor Claudius, "in order that I may fatten his lampreys. I am in a pretty species of predicament. But name the horse which I am to break at the games."
Dion turned his head slightly toward the steward, who was about to answer, and the steward remained silent. A sort of excitement shot through the apartment.
"Name the horse, if you please, honored magister," said Claudius. Even now the steward could not, or did not, speak.
Before the painful pause was broken, the attention of all present was arrested by a sudden uproar in the street. The noise of a furious trampling, combined with successive shrieks, whether of pain or terror, was borne into the palace.
Dionysius, followed by Paulus, by Claudius, by the steward, and Benigna, ran to the window, if such it can be termed, drew aside the silken curtain, and pushed open the gaudily-painted, perforated shutter, when a strange and alarming spectacle was presented in the open space formed by cross-streets before the left front of the mansion.
A magnificent horse of bigger stature, yet of more elegant proportions, than the horses which were then used for the Roman cavalry, was in the act of rearing; and within stroke of his fore-feet, on coming down, lay a man, face under, motionless, a woollen tunic ripped open behind at the shoulder, and disclosing some sort of wound, from which blood was flowing. The horse, which was of a bright roan color, was neither ridden nor saddled, but girt with a cloth round the belly, and led, or rather held back, by two long cavassons, which a couple of powerfully-built, swarthy men, dressed like slaves, held at the further ends on opposite sides of the beast, considerably apart, and perhaps thirty feet behind him. One of these lines or reins—that nearest the palace—was taut, the other was slack; and the slave who held the former had rolled it twice or thrice round his bare arm, and was leaning back, and hauling, hand over hand.
The animal had apparently stricken on the back, unawares, with a fore-foot play and a pawing blow, the man who was lying so still and motionless on the pavement, and the beast, having reared, was now trying to come down upon his victim. But no sooner were his fore-legs in the air than he, of course, thereby yielded a sudden purchase to the groom who was pulling him with the taut cavasson, and this man was thus at last enabled to drag him fairly off his hind-legs, and to bring him with a hollow thump to the ground upon his side. Before the brute could again struggle to his feet, four or five soldiers who happened to be nigh, running to the rescue, had lifted, and carried out of harm's way, the prostrate and wounded man.
"That is the very horse!" exclaimed the magister, stretching his neck between the shoulders of Dion and Paulus, at the small window of the palace.
"I observe," said Paulus, "that the cavasson is ringed to a muzzle—the beast is indisputably muzzled."
"Why is he muzzled?"
"Because," replied the magister, "he eats people!"
"Eats people!" echoed Paulus, in surprise.
"O gods!" cried Benigna.
"Yes," quoth the steward; "the horse is priceless; he comes of an inestimable breed; that is the present representative of the Sejan race of steeds. Your Tauric horses are cats in comparison; your cavalry horses but goats. That animal is directly descended from the real horse Sejanus, and excels, they even say, his sire, and indeed he also in his turn goes now by the old name. He is the horse Sejanus."
At these words Paulus could not, though he tried hard, help casting one glance toward Benigna, who had been with him only so short a time before at the top of the palace, listening to the conversation of the tipsy patricians. The poor little girl had become very white and very scare-faced.
"Tell us more," said Dionysius, "of this matter, worthy magister. We have all heard that phrase of ill omen—'such and such a person has the horse Sejanus'—meaning that he is unlucky, that he is doomed to destruction. Now, what is the origin and what is the true value of this popular proverb?"
"Like all popular proverbs," replied the steward, with a bow of the deepest reverence to the young Athenian philosopher, "it has some value, my lord, and a real foundation, although Tiberius has determined to confute it by practical proof. You must know, most illustrious senator of Athens, that during the civil wars which preceded the summer-day stillness of this glorious reign of Augustus, no one ever appeared in battle-field or festive show so splendidly mounted as the knight Cneius Sejus, whose name has attached itself to the race.
"His horse, which was of enormous proportions, like the beast you have just beheld, would try to throw you first and would try to eat you afterward. Few could ride him: and then his plan was simple. Those whom he threw he would beat to death with his paws, and then tear them to pieces with his teeth. Moreover, if he could not dislodge his rider from the ephippia by honest plunging and fair play, he would writhe his neck round like a serpent—indeed, the square front, large eyes, and supple neck remind one of a serpent; he would twist his head back, I say, all white and dazzling, with the ears laid close, the lips drawn away, and the glitter of his teeth displayed, and, seizing the knee-cap or the shinbone, would tear it off, and bring down the best horseman that ever bestrode a Bucephalus. What usually followed was frightful to behold; for, once a rider was dismounted, the shoulder has been seen to come away between the brute's teeth, with knots and tresses of tendons dripping blood like tendrils, and the ferocious horse has been known with his great fat grinders to crush the skull of the fallen person, and lap up the brains—as you would crack a nut—after which, he paws the prostrate figure till it no longer resembles the form of man. But the present horse Sejanus, which you have just beheld, excels all in strength, beauty, and ferocity; he belongs to my master Tiberius."
"Ah gods!" exclaimed poor Benigna; "this is the description of a demon rather than of a beast."
Dionysius and Paulus exchanged one significant glance, and the former said:
"What became of the first possessor, who yields his name to so unexampled a breed of horses? what became of the knight Sejus?"
"A whisper had transpired, illustrious sir," replied the steward, "that this unhappy man had fed the brute upon human flesh. Mark Antony, who coveted possession of the horse, brought some accusation, but not this, against the knight, who was eventually put to death; but Dolabella, the former lieutenant of Julius Cæsar, had just before given a hundred thousand sesterces (£800) to Sejus for the animal; therefore Antony killed the knight for nothing, and failed to get Sejanus; at least he failed that time. Dolabella, however, did not prosper; he almost immediately afterward murdered himself. Cassius thereupon became the next master of the Sejan horse, and Cassius rode him at the fatal battle of Philippi, losing which, Cassius in his turn, after that resolute fashion of which we all have heard, put an end to his own existence."
"To one form of it," observed Dionysius.
"This time," continued the magister, bowing, "Mark Antony had his way—he became at last the lord of the Sejan horse, but likewise he, in his turn, was doomed to exemplify the brute's ominous reputation; for Antony, as you know, killed himself a little subsequently at Alexandria. The horse had four proprietors in a very short period, and in immediate succession, the first of whom was cruelly slain, and the three others slew themselves. Hence, noble sir, the proverb."
By this time, the magister had told his tale, the street outside had become empty and silent, and the parties within the chamber had thoroughly mastered and understood the horrible truth which underlay the case of the slave Claudius, and this new instance of Tiberius's wrath and vengeance.
The magister, Claudius, and Benigna had returned to the other end of the room, where the slaves were writing, and had left Paulus and Dion still standing thoughtfully near the window.
Claudius exclaimed, "My turn it is at present; it will be some one else's soon!"
He and Benigna were now whispering together. The magister stood a little apart, looking on the ground in a deep reverie, his chin buried in the hollow of his right hand, the arm of which was folded across his chest. The slaves were bending over their work in silence.
Says Paulus in a low voice to Dion, "You have high credit with the emperor, illustrious Athenian; and surely if you were to tell him the whole case, he would interfere to check the cruelty of this man, this Tiberius."
"What, Augustus do this for a slave?" replied Dion mournfully. "The emperor would not, and by the laws could not, interfere with Vedius Pollio, or any private knight, in the treatment or government of his slaves, who are deemed to be the absolute property of their respective lords; what chance, then, that he should meddle, or, if he meddled, that he should successfully meddle, with Tiberius Cæsar on behalf of an offending mance? And this too for the sake, remember, of a low-born girl? Women are accounted void of deathless souls, my friend, even by some who suspect that men may be immortal. By astuteness, by beauty, not beauteously employed, and, above all, by the effect of habit, imperceptible as a plant in its growth, stealthy as the prehensile ivy, some few individual women, like Livia, Tiberius's mother, and Julia, Augustus's daughter, have acquired great accidental power. But to lay down the principle that the slightest trouble should be taken for these slaves, would in this Roman world raise a symphony of derision as musical as the cry of the Thessalian hounds when their game is afoot."
Paulus, buried in thought, stole a look full of pity toward the further end of the apartment. "Slaves, women, laws, gladiators," he muttered, "and brute power prevalent as a god. Every day, noble Athenian, I learn something which fills me with hatred and scorn for the system amid which we are living." He then told Dion the story of Thellus and Alba; he next laid before him the exact circumstances of Benigna and Claudius; relating what had occurred that very morning, and by no means omitting the strange and wonder-fraught conversation at the door of the palace, after which he added,
"I declare to you solemnly—but then I am no more than an uninstructed youth, having neither your natural gifts nor your acquired knowledge—I never heard any thing more enchanting, more exalted, more consoling, and to my poor mind more reasonable, or more probable, than that some god is quickly to come down from heaven and reform and control this abominable world. Why do I say probable? Because it would be god-like to do it. I would ask nothing better, therefore, than to be allowed to join you and go with you all over the world; searching and well weighing whatever evidences and signs may be accessible to man's righteously discontented and justly wrathful industry in such a task; and I would be in your company when you explored and decided whether this sublime dream, this noble, generous, compensating hope, this grand and surely divine tradition, be a truth, or, ah me! ah me! nothing but a vain poem of the future—a beautiful promise never to be realized, the specious mockery of some cruel muse."
Dion's blue eyes kindled and burned, but he remained silent.
"In the mean time, listen further," added Paulus. "What would the divine being who is thus expected, were he in this room, deem of this transaction before our eyes? You have heard the steward's account of the horse Sejanus; you have heard Claudius's allusion to Vedius Pollio's lampreys. Now, you are a wise, witty, and eloquent person, and you can correct me if I say wrong—in what is the man whom the horse Sejanus, for instance, throws and tears to pieces better than the horse? In what is the man whom the lampreys devour better than the lampreys? I say the horse and the lampreys are better than the man, if mere power be a thing more to be esteemed and honored than what is right, and just, and honorable, and estimable; for the lampreys and the horse possess the greater might, most indubitably, in the cases mentioned. The elephant is stronger than we, the hound is swifter, the raven lives much longer. Either the mere power to do a thing deserves my esteem more than any other object or consideration, and therefore whoever can trample down his fellow-men, and gratify all his brutal instincts at the expense of their lives, their safety, their happiness, their reasonable free-will, is more estimable than he who is just, truthful, kind, generous, and noble—either, I say, the man who is strong against his fellows is more good than he who is good—and the words justice, right, gentleness, humanity, honor, keeping faith in promises, pity for poor little women who are oppressed and brutally used, virtue, and such noises made by my tongue against my palate, express nothing which can be understood, nothing in which any mind can find any meaning—either, I again say, the lampreys and the Sejan horse are more to be esteemed, and valued, and loved than my sister and my mother, or it is not true that the mere power of Tiberius, combined with the brutish inclination to do a thing, terminates the question whether it is right to do it. The moment I like to do any thing, if I can do it, is it necessarily right that I should do it? The moment two persons have a difference, is it right for either of them, and equally right for each of them, to murder the other? But if it was the intention of this great being, this god who is expected to appear immediately among us, that we should be dependent upon each other, each doing for the other what the other cannot do for himself—and I am sure of it—then it will please him, Dion, if I consider what is helpful and just and generous. Or am I wrong? Is virtue a dream? Are contrary things in the same cases equally good? Are contrary things in the same cases equally beautiful?
"Are my brutish instincts or inclinations, which vary as things vary round me, my only law? Is each of us intended by this great being to be at war with all the rest? to regard the positive power each of us may have as our sole restriction? to destroy and injure all the others by whom we could be served, if we would for our parts also serve and help? And must women, for instance, being the weaker, be brutally used? Tell me, Dion, will it please this great being if I try to render service to my fellow-men, who must have the same natural claims to his consideration as I have? or does he wish me to hurt them and them to hurt me, according as we may each have the power? Is there nothing higher in a man than his external power of action? Answer—you are a philosopher."
The countenance of Dion blazed for one instant, as if the light of a passing torch had been shed upon a mirror, and then resumed the less vivid effulgence of that permanent intellectual beauty which was its ordinary characteristic. He replied,
"All the philosophy that ever was taught or thought could not lead you to truer conclusions."
"Then," returned Paulus, "come back with me to the other end of the room."
"Benigna," said Paulus, "your kindness to my sister and mother, and your natural probity, had something, I think, to do with beginning this trouble in which you and your intended find yourselves. As you were not unmindful of us, it is but right that we should not be unmindful of you. Tiberius permits any friend of Claudius the slave to be a substitute in breaking the horse Sejanus; and Claudius is to have his freedom and fifty thousand sesterces, and to marry you, whom I see to be a good, honorable-hearted girl, all the same as if he had complied with the terms in person. This was thoughtful and, I suppose, generous of Tiberius Cæsar."
"Would any of these youths who hear me," added he turning round, "like to break the fine-looking steed at the games, before all the people, instead of Claudius?"
No one replied.
"It will be a distinguished act," persisted he.
Dead silence still.
"Then I will do it myself," he said. "Magister, make a formal note of the matter in your tablets; and be so good as to inform the Cæsar of it, in order that I, on my side, may learn place and time."
The magister, with a low bow and a face expressing the most generous and boundless astonishment, grasped his prettily-mounted stylus, and taking the pengillarin from his girdle drew a long breath, and requested Paulus to favor him with his name and address.
"I am," replied he, "the knight Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, son of one of the victors at Philippi, nephew of the ex-triumvir. I reside at Crispus's inn, and am at present a promised prisoner of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune."
While the steward wrote in his tablets, Benigna uttered one or two little gasps and fairly fainted away. The slave Claudius saved her from falling, and he now placed her on a bench against the wall.
Paulus, intimating that he would like to return to Crispus's hostelry before dark, and having learnt, in reply to a question, that Claudius could procure from Thellus, the gladiator, a vehicle for Benigna, and that he would request Thellus himself to convey her home, turned to take leave of Dion.
The Athenian, however, said he would show him the way out of the palace. They went silent and thoughtful. In the impluvium they found a little crowd surrounding Augustus, who had returned from his promenade to the camp, and who was throwing crumbs of bread among some pigeons near the central fountain.
Two ladies were of the company, one of whom, in advanced age, was evidently the Empress Livia, but for whose influence and management Germanicus—certainly not her ungrateful son Tiberius—would have been the next master of the world. The other lady, who was past her prime, had still abundant vestiges of a beauty which must once have been very remarkable.
She was painted red and plastered white, with immense care, to look some fifteen years younger than she truly was.
Her countenance betrayed to a good physiognomist, at first glance, the horrible life she had led. Paulus, whose experience was little, and, although she fastened upon him a flaming glance, which she intended to be full both of condescension and fascination, thought that he had seldom seen a woman either more repulsive or more insanely haughty.
It was Julia, the new and abhorred wife of Tiberius. Not long before, at the request of Augustus, who was always planning to dispose of Julia, Tiberius had given up for her the only woman he ever loved, Agrippina Marcella.
Tiberius so loved her, if it deserves to be termed love, that when, being thus deserted, she took another husband, (Asinius Gallus,) he, mad with jealousy, threw him into a dungeon and kept him there till he died, as Suetonius and Tacitus record.
"Ah my Athenian!" said the emperor to Dionysius, placing a hand affectionately on the youth's shoulder, "could you satisfy me that those splendid theories of yours are more than dreams and fancies; that really there is one eternal, all-wise, and omnipotent spirit, who made this universal frame of things, and governs it as an absolute monarch; that he made us; that in us he made a spirit, a soul, a ghost, a thinking principle, which will never die; and that I, who am going down to the tomb, am only to change my mode of existence; that I shall not wholly descend thither; that an urn will not contain every thing which will remain of me; and all this in a very different sense from that which poor Horace meant. But why speak of it? Has not Plato failed?"
"Plato," replied Dionysius, "neither quite failed nor is quite understood, illustrious emperor. But you were saying, if I could satisfy you. Be pleased to finish. Grant I could satisfy you; what then?"
"Satisfy me that one eternal sovereign of the universe lives, and that what now thinks in me," returned the emperor, while the courtly group made a circle, "will never cease to think; that what is now conscious within me will be conscious for ever; that now, in more than a mere poetical allusion to my fame—and on the word of Augustus Cæsar, there is no reasonable request within the entire reach and compass of my power which I will refuse you."
"And what sort of a hearing, emperor," inquired Dion, "and under what circumstances, and upon what conditions, will you be pleased to give me? and when? and where?"
"In this palace, before the games end," replied Augustus. "The hearing shall form an evening's entertainment for our whole circle and attendance. You shall sustain your doctrines, while our celebrated advocates and orators, Antistius Labio and Domitius Afer, who disagree with them, I know, shall oppose you. Let me see. The Cæsars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with their ladies, and our host Mamurra and his family, and all our circle, shall be present. Titus Livy, Lucius Varius, Velleius Paterculus, and the greatest orator Rome ever produced, except Cicero" (the old man 'mentioned with watery eyes the incomparable genius to whose murder he had consented in his youth)—"I mean Quintus Haterius—shall form a judicial jury. Haterius shall pronounce the sentence. Dare you face such an ordeal?"
"I will accept it," replied the Athenian, blushing; "I will accept the ordeal with fear. Daring is contrasted with trembling; but, although my daring trembles, yet my trepidation dares."
"Oh! how enchanting!" cried the august Julia; "we shall hear the eloquent Athenian." And she clasped her hands and sent an unutterable glance toward Dion, who saw it not.
"It will be very interesting indeed," added the aged empress.
"Better for once than even the mighty comedy of the palace," said Lucius Varius.
"Better than the gladiators," added Velleius Paterculus.
"An idea worthy of the time of Virgil and Mæcenas," said Titus Livy.
"Worthy of Augustus's time," subjoined Tiberius, who was leaning against one of the pillars which supported the gallery of the impluvium.
"Worthy of his dotage," muttered Cneius Piso to Tiberius, with a scowl.
"Worthy," said a handsome man, with wavy, crisp, brown locks, in the early prime of life, whose military tunic was crossed with the broad purple stripe, "worthy of Athens in the days of Plato; and as Demosthenes addressed the people after listening to the reporter of Socrates, so Haterius shall tell this company what he thinks, after listening to Dion."
"Haterius is getting old," said Haterius.
"You may live," said Augustus, "to be a hundred, but you will never be old; just as our Cneius Piso here never was young."
There was a laugh. The Haterius in question was he to whom Ben Jonson compared Shakespeare as a talker, and of whom, then past eighty, Augustus used, Seneca tells us, to say that his careering thoughts resembled a chariot whose rapidity threatened to set its own wheels on fire, and that he required to be held by a drag—"sufflaminandus."
Dion now bowed and was moving away, followed modestly by Paulus, who desired to draw no attention to himself, when the steward, or magister, glided quickly up the colonnade of the impluvium to the pillar against which Tiberius was leaning, whispered something, handed his tablets to the Cæsar, and, in answer to a glance of surprised inquiry, looked toward and indicated Paulus.
Tiberius immediately passed Paulus and Dion, saying in an under tone, "Follow me," and led the way into a small empty chamber, of which, when the two youths had entered it, he closed the door.
"You are going to break the horse called Sejanus?" said he, turning round and standing.
Paulus assented.
"Then you must do so on the fourth day from this, in the review-ground of the camp, an hour before sunset."
Paulus bowed.
"Have you any thing to inquire, to request, or to observe?" pursued Tiberius.
"Am I to ride the horse muzzled, sir?" asked the youth.
"The muzzle will be snatched off by a contrivance of the cavasson, after you mount him," replied Tiberius, looking steadfastly at the other.
"Then, instead of a whip, may I carry any instrument I please in my hands?" demanded Paulus; "my sword, for example?"
"Yes," answered Tiberius; "but you must not injure the horse; he is of matchless price."
"But" persisted Paulus, "your justice, illustrious Cæsar, will make a distinction between any injury which the steed may do to himself and any which I may do to him. For instance, he might dash himself against some obstruction, or into the river Liris, and in trying to clamber out again might be harmed. Such injuries would be inflicted by himself, not by me. The hurt I shall do him either by spear, or by sword, or by any other instrument, will not be intended to touch his life or his health, nor likely to do so. If I do make any scars, I think the hair will grow again."
"He will not be so scrupulous on his side," said Tiberius; "however, your distinction is reasonable. Have you any thing else to ask?"
"Certainly I have," said Paulus; "it is that no one shall give him any food or drink, except what I myself shall bring, for twenty-four hours before I ride him."
Tiberius uttered a disagreeable laugh.
"Am I to let you starve Sejanus?" he asked.
"That is not my meaning, sir," answered Paulus quietly. "I will give him as much corn and water as he will take. I wish to prevent him from having any other kind of provender. There are articles which will make a horse drunk or mad."
"I agree," replied Tiberius, "that he shall have only corn and water, provided he have as much of both as my own servant wishes; nor have I any objection that the servant should receive these articles from you alone, or from your groom."
Paulus inclined his head and kept silence.
"Nothing more to stipulate, I perceive," observed Tiberius.
The youth admitted that he had not; and, seeing the Cæsar move, he opened the door, held it open while the great man passed through, and then taking a friendly leave of Dion, hastily quitted the palace.
Tiberius, meeting Sejanus, took him aside and said,
"We have got rid of the brother! You must have every thing ready to convey her to Rome the fifth day from this. And now, enough of private matters. I am sick of them. The affairs of the empire await me!"