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

by F. W. Farrar

Gambling, too, was the incessant diversion of these idle hordes. The familia of Pudens only consisted of the modest number of thirty, but the slave population of Rome was of colossal magnitude, and there was a terrible free-masonry among the members of this wretched and corrupted class. The companions of Onesimus were not chiefly to be found in the household to which he belonged, but among the lewd idlers whom he picked up as acquaintances in every street. With these he played at dice, and sauntered about, and jested, and drank, and squabbled, and betted, until he was on the high road towards being as low a specimen of the slave-world as any of them all—a beautiful human soul caught in the snare of the devil, lured by the glittering bait of vice, to be dragged forth soon to die lacerated and gasping upon the shore.

Hitherto a very little had sufficed him, but now he began to need money—money for gambling, money for the taverns, money to spend in the same sins and follies in which the slaves about him spent their days. He could indeed have gained it, had he sunk so low, in a thousand nefarious ways; and, gifted as he was with a quick and supple intelligence, as well as with no small share of the beauty of his race, he might have run away once more, or have secured his purchase into many a pagan household, where he might have become the pampered favourite of some luxurious master. Such, in such a city as Rome, would have been the certain fate of any youth like him, had it not been for the truths which he had heard from Epaphras in the house of Philemon. When he was most willing to forget those holy lessons they still hung about him and gave him checks. The grace of God still lived as a faint spark, not wholly quenched, under the whitening embers of his life. He could not forget that what were now his pleasures had once been pains, and sometimes amid the stifling atmosphere of a dissipation which rapidly tended to become pleasureless, his soul seemed to ‘gasp among the shallows,’ sore athirst for purer air.

But he resisted these retarding influences, and by fiercer draughts of excitement strove to dispel the pleadings of the still small voice.

It was not long before he felt hard pressed, for he had gambled away the little he had earned.

He had stolen before—he would steal again.

The slaves of Pudens were mostly of a simpler and more faithful class than those of the more luxurious houses. There was no need for Pudens to take great precautions about the safety of his money. Most of it was safe in the hands of his banker (mensarius), but sums which to a slave would seem considerable were locked up in a chest under the charge of Nereus. Nereus, as we have already mentioned, was a Christian, and Onesimus, until he had begun to degenerate, had felt warmly drawn towards his daughter Junia. He thought, too, that the simple maiden was not wholly indifferent to him. But Nereus had watched his career, and as it became too probable that the Phrygian would sink into worthlessness, he had taken care that Onesimus and his daughter should scarcely ever meet.

But when, as in every Roman house, a multitude live in a confined space, the whole ways of the house become known to all, and Onesimus knew the place where Nereus kept the ready money of his master. He watched his opportunity when all but a few members of the household were absent to witness a festival, from which he had purposely absented himself on a plea of sickness. The only persons left at home were Nereus and others who, being Christians, avoided giving the smallest sanction to pagan ceremonies. The house was still as the grave in the noontide, when the youth glided into the cell of the sleeping Nereus, and deftly abstracted from his tunic the key which he wanted. Armed with this, he slipped into the tablinum, or private room, of Pudens—whom he knew to be on duty at the Palace—and had already opened the casket in which he kept his money, when he was startled by a low voice and a gliding footstep.

He had not been unobserved. Nereus was too faithful, and too much aware of the dishonesty of the unhappy class to which he belonged, to leave his master’s interests unprotected. He had directed his daughter always to be watchful at the hour when he knew that a theft was most feasible. Junia, from the apartments of the female slaves, on the other side of the house, had heard some one moving stealthily along the passage. Hidden behind a statue, she had observed a slave stealing into her father’s cell, had followed lightly, and with a pang of shame had seen the youth of whom she had thought as a lover make his way noiselessly to the room of his master.

She followed him to the entrance; she saw him open the casket; and she grew almost sick with terror when she thought of the frightful punishment—possibly even crucifixion itself—which might follow the crime he was on the eve of committing. She would fain have stopped him, but did not dare to enter the chamber; and, meanwhile, for some reason the youth was lingering.

He was lingering because there rang in his ear a voiceless memory of words which Epaphras had quoted as a message of Paul of Tarsus. The still voice said to him: ‘Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands.’