Timon of Athens, iv. 3.
More and more luxurious and irregular became the amusements of the Villa Pollux. Paganism is protected from complete exposure by the enormity of its own vices. To show the divine reformation wrought by Christianity it must suffice that, once for all, the Apostle of the Gentiles seized heathendom by the hair, and branded indelibly on her forehead the stigma of her shame.
Leaving altogether on one side the darker aspects of the life to which Nero and his boon companions now abandoned themselves, neither shall we dwell much upon
‘Their gorgeous gluttonies and sumptuous feasts
On citron table and Atlantic stone.’
If the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life could have brought to Nero and Otho any happiness, they might have been happy. They could lift to their lips the cup of pleasure crowned to the brim. They soon found it to be an envenomed goblet, sparkling with the wine of demons. The rage of luxury, the insanity of egotism, the abandonment to every form of self-indulgence, served only to plunge them into deeper lassitude, and, last of all, into more irretrievable disgust. For, though men have bodies, they still are spirits, and when their bodies have command over their spirits, they only become a lower kind of beast.
To Nero, while he was yet a boy, had been offered all that carnal minds think the highest boons. The ancient philosophers used to discuss the question, ‘Whether any one would still remain perfectly virtuous if he were endowed with the ring of Gyges, which had the power to make a man invisible.’ To Nero had been given alike the ring of Gyges and the lamp of Aladdin. While he was still young and beautiful, and not ungifted, all that was fell and foul in the seductions of the Palace and the Amphitheatre assailed his feeble nature. It was hardly strange that his whole being gave way and he became a prodigy of wickedness. At heart, perhaps, he was not essentially worse than thousands of youths have been, but his crimes, unchecked by any limitations of law or of resources, were enacted under the glare of publicity, on the world’s loftiest stage.
Nor must it be forgotten that he saw and enjoyed all the best, the loveliest, the most intoxicating that could be devised by an epoch which strove madly after pleasure. Thus, when Paris and Aliturus came to the villa, the guests saw in those two actors the most perfect grace set off by the highest advantages, and trained for years by the most artistic skill. They represented the finished result of all that the world could produce in seductive art. Such actors, originally selected for their beauty and genius, made it the effort of their lives to express by the poetry of movement every burning passion and soft desire which can agitate the breast. Their rhythmic action, their mute music, their inimitable grace of motion in the dance, brought home to the spectator each scene which they impersonated more powerfully than description, or painting, or sculpture. Carried away by the glamour of involuntary delusion, the gazers seemed to see before them every incident which they chose to represent. Nothing was neglected which seemed likely to add to the pleasure of the audience. The rewards of success were splendid—wealth, popularity, applause from numberless spectators, the passionate admiration of society, the partiality even of emperors and empresses, and all the power which such influence bestowed. A successful mimic actor, when he sprang on the stage in his glittering and close-fitting dress, knew that if he could once exercise on the multitude his potent spell he might easily become the favourite of the rulers of the world, as Bathyllus was of Mæcenas, and Mnester of Caligula, and another Paris was of the Empress Domitia.
Paris was a Greek, and his face was a perfect example of the fine Greek ideal, faultless in its lines and youthful contour. Aliturus was by birth a Jew, and was endowed with the splendid beauty which still makes some young Arabs the types of perfect manhood.Both of them danced after supper on the day which succeeded their arrival, and it was hard to say which of them excelled the other.[37]
First Paris danced, in his fleshings of the softest Canusian wool, dyed a light red. His dress revealed the perfect outline of a figure that united fineness with strength. He represented in pantomimic dance the scene of Achilles in the island of Scyros. He brought every incident and person before their eyes—the virgins as they spun in the palace of their father, Lycomedes; the fair youth concealed as a virgin in the midst of them, and called Pyrrha from his golden locks; the maiden Deidamia, whom he loved; the eager summons of Ulysses at his gate; the ear-shattering trumpet of Diomedes; the presents brought by the disguised ambassadors; the young warrior betraying himself by the eagerness with which he turns from jewels and ornaments to nodding helmet and bright cuirass; the doffing of his feminine apparel; the leaping forth in his gleaming panoply. Nothing could be more marvellous than the whole impersonation. So vivid was the illusion that the guests of Nero could hardly believe that they had seen but one young man before them, and not a company of varied characters.