Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale

by F. W. Farrar

The youth paused. Could he, once a Christian, accept this degrading servitude to the vilest of mankind? Yet, after all, what was servitude? What was degradation? Could he be more miserable than he was? To be a servant of the Galli was better than the suicide and the dimly imagined horrors of that unknown world which he had just been about to brave.

‘I will come,’ he said.

The old man brought him a tunic in place of his soaked and torn dress, gave him more wine and food, and taking him to the rest congratulated them on their new and handsome servant.

Then began a mode of life which Onesimus could never recall in after years without a blush of shame and indignation—a life of squalor, mendacity,[T10] and imposture, made more vile by the sanction of abject superstition. In the morning, when the priests drew near to any place where a few spectators could be gathered together, they set out in motley array, dressed in many-coloured robes, and with yellow caps of linen or woollen on their heads. They smeared their faces with a dye, and painted their eyes with henna. Some of them put on white tunics, embroidered with stripes of purple, and fastened with a girdle, and on their feet they wore shoes dyed of a saffron colour. They placed on the back of the ass the image of their goddess in its silken covering, and then, with wild cries, began a dervish-like dance to the tones of the flute played by their youthful attendant. During this dance they bared their arms to the shoulder, and flourished aloft swords and axes. In this way they wandered through various hamlets till they reached the villa of a wealthy landowner. Here they determined to exhibit the full extent of their mercenary fanaticism. Looking on the ground, turning from side to side with various contortions, whirling themselves round and round till their long curls streamed from their heads, they bit their arms, and at length cut some of their veins with the weapons which they carried. Then Philebus simulated a sort of epileptic fit. Falling to the ground, with long sobs, which seemed to shake his whole body, he rolled about, accusing himself of the deadliest crimes, like one possessed. After this he seized a scourge, of which the long leathern thongs were studded with bones, and scourged himself with all the endurance of a fakir, till the soil was wet with the blood which streamed from his own wounds and the gashes of his comrades. The crowd looked on with a sort of stupor at the hideous spectacle, and when it ended it was the part of Onesimus, on the attraction of whose personal appearance the wretches relied, to go round with a bag for the offerings of copper and silver coins which were abundantly bestowed on them by the distorted religionism of the spectators. The Galli were further rewarded with gifts in kind. One peasant brought them milk, another bread, and corn, and cheeses, and barley; and a farmer gave them a cask of wine. All these were placed in sacks, side by side with the image of the goddess, upon the ass, which, as the flute-player wittily remarked to Onesimus, ‘was now both a barn and a temple.’ In this way they made spoil of all the country side.

Occasionally they were even more successful. If they found a farmer specially credulous, they would tell him that their goddess was thirsty, and needed the blood of a ram, promising him a prophecy of the future if he would provide one for sacrifice. The sacrificial victim afforded them an excellent banquet, to which they would invite the lowest scoundrels, and fearlessly reveal themselves in their true colours. Once one of the country landowners, named Britinnus, awe-struck by their supposed sanctity, invited the whole company to the hospitality of his farm. Their stay might have been prolonged but for two accidents. The cook had been ordered to prepare a side of venison for a feast, but this was stolen; and, while he was in despair at the punishment which would be inflicted on him for the loss, his wife suggested that they should secretly kill the ass of the priests, and cook part of it instead of the lost venison. But when the cook came to the stable, the ass took fright, and rushed straight through the house into the dining-room of the farmer, upsetting the table with a huge crash. The next day a boy burst in, with his face as white as a sheet, and told the terrified Britinnus that a dog had gone mad, had sprung among the hounds, and had bitten not only some of them and some of the farm-cattle, but also Myrtilus, the muleteer, and Hephæstion, the cook, and Hypatius, the footman. On this Britinnus assumed that the Galli had brought him ill luck, and sent the whole troupe about their business.

In the neighbourhood of one town they took to fortune-telling. Binding each person who consulted them to absolute secrecy, they showed their lack of invention by returning the same oracle to all. It was simplicity itself, consisting of the two lines—

‘The oxen plough the furrowed soil,

And harvests rich repay their toil.’

Whether they were asked about plans for a matrimonial alliance, or the heirdom to an estate, or anything else, this oracle admitted of any interpretation they chose to put upon it.

Altogether sickened with his companions and with their way of living, Onesimus was further troubled by the insight into every hidden wound and portent of pagan wickedness which came to his ears, or which he witnessed in these country wanderings. Long afterwards, when he was an old man in Ephesus, he used to tell these stories to his friends, to urge them to yet more zealous effort for the healing of that heathen wickedness of which the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint.