Between a seemingly endless labyrinth of galleries lined with closed coffins and shelved skeletons the two passed until at last a great noise, like a far-off droning, broke the stillness. "The meeting hath begun," the guide said. As they neared the chamber they encountered guards to whom the guide gave a pass-word; and again before they entered, other guards demanded a sign which was given by a grip of the hand. Once inside, the Phoenician pushed gently through the circle assembled to a place near the front.
"Hourly do you pray," the speaker was saying. "Yea, hourly for relief. But the cycles of the years roll on in blood and pain while the heel of Rome grinds into brute servility all save a favored few. Even have women by the hand of Rome been stripped naked, their legs painted, their bodies shackled and thrown into caverns where, with pick in hand, they dug stones from the rock to build palaces for brutes. If the gods yet live why do they not hear the bitter crying of the helpless when the branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters?
"Oppression hath grown mighty until all the world is divided into two classes, the slave who toileth and the master who remaineth idle. Millions are there of the one—few of the other. Yea, for their very number are toilers counted as beasts. Since Caesar brought his fifty and three thousand slaves from far Gaul hath slaves come to be in numbers like the sands of the sea. On the market when their bones have become stiff are they not sold for food to fatten eels for Roman Senators? And those who escape being food for tigers and hyenas, or nailed to a cross, are they not lost in the fearful pit of pollution of the Esquiline Cemetery? And in the arena—were not eight thousand gladiators slaughtered in one year?
"A sweeper of the amphitheatre was I. Mine was the task of dragging from the arena dead gladiators, shoveling up the blood, sprinkling fresh sand over dark spots yet warm, sharpening swords and javelins for fresh encounters and cutting off heads when the death rattle was too slow sounding. Often have I lifted mine eyes from the sands dyed red to the glitter and pomp above, and have said, 'Who payeth for all this? Who payeth for the striped-backed and spotted-bellied beasts? Who payeth for the shining pythons and the wild bulls that toss bare bodies until from their bleeding wounds long entrails hang while bejeweled women and swine-snouted men cheer? Who payeth for the silver cages that house Numidian lions? Who payeth for the tanks of perfume in which naked women sport to please licentious eyes? Who payeth for the purple and the emerald—the palace and the villa? And who for the olive oil and the wine that Caesar doth give to the populace to win him favor?"
"In the slave pens of Via Sacra find I my answer. The arficulata implemente of Rome payeth for all these things whether this jointed implement be bound or free. And who would keep the slave and working man forever under the heel of the master? What meant the relentless war that Cicero did wage against the working class? Because of his Pagan belief in the divine rights of the gens families and a like strong belief that he who toileth hath no right to freedom, did he make war. And for like reason is war still upon us until, like rats, we burrow into the belly of the earth, and were it not for the Jus Coeundi that doth allow free organization for religious and death ceremonies, would we and our Brotherhood perish on a forest of crosses. Yet starved, we struggle! Beaten, we toil! Damned, we hope! Believing that out of Brotherhood will come the Liberty for which we die, we hold ourselves together. That which sitteth on the Seven Hills above us rotteth at the core. Signs are fast ripening of a change. Egyptian wisdom doth tell us the Phoenix is about to spring again to birth from her ashes. Somewhere is the savior and his coming shall be swift and terrible as lightning."
As the arena-cleaner made reference to the coming of a world savior, the Phoenician pushed himself before the kurios and when the last word had been uttered he said in a voice that filled the chamber vault, "Hear! Hear!" and he lifted his arm and pointed into the face of the orator. As he did so his sleeve fell back disclosing on his arm, a fish with a lion's head and a circle in its mouth.
All eyes were turned on the stranger as the kurios spoke, "Who art thou and whence hast thou come?"
"A kurios of Sidon I am. From afar have I journeyed to bring the glad news that one hath arisen mighty in power and wisdom to succor the oppressed. Hear ye what the spirit of the gods hath anointed him to do: Preach the gospel to the poor—heal the broken-hearted—give deliverance to the captives—sight to the blind and LIBERTY to the bruised and enslaved! Twice already hath a great and mighty following sought to crown him King, and he would not!"
"Whence cometh he?" a dozen eager voices asked.
"From the province of Galilee, in Palestine, and when cometh again the Passover of the Jews, when Jerusalem, that great city, is thronged with the population of the world, then shall he be made King—King of the People—the toiling people! And this King shall break every shackle on every human body and free from cave and dungeon, every human soul. But one thing there remaineth to determine. This is the added strength of Roman legions in Jerusalem at the Passover. Would that the gods could let us know the mind of Pilate!"