But Damasippus had not breath to reply. Hurrying onward, he was chiefly anxious to dispose of his prize in the chariot without interruption; and when he reached it he mounted by her side, and bidding Oarses and the slaves follow as near as was practicable, he drove off at great speed in the direction of the tribune’s house.
But this was an eventful night in Rome, and although for that reason well adapted to a deed of violence, its tumult and confusion exacted great caution from those who wished to proceed without interruption along the streets. The shouts that had disturbed the two freedmen in their garret whilst preparing the enterprise they had since so successfully carried out, gave no false warning of the coming storm. That storm had burst, and was now raging in its fury throughout a wide portion of the city. Like all such outbreaks it gathered [pg 225]force and violence in many quarters at once, and from many sources unconnected with its original cause.
Rome was the theatre that night of a furious civil war, consequent on the intrigues of various parties which had now grown to a head. The old Prætorian guard had been broken up by Vitellius, and dismissed without any of the honours and gratuities to which they considered themselves entitled, in order to make way for another body of troops on whose fidelity the Emperor believed he could rely, and who were now called, in contradistinction to their predecessors, the New Prætorians. Two such conflicting interests carried in them the elements of the direst hatred and strife. The original body-guard hoping to be restored by Vespasian, should he attain the purple, had everything to gain by a change of dynasty, and were easily won over by the partisans of that successful general to any enterprise, however desperate, which would place him on the throne. Trusting to this powerful aid, these partisans, of whom Julius Placidus, the tribune, though he had wormed himself into the confidence of Vitellius, was one of the most active and unscrupulous, were ready enough to raise the standard of revolt and had no fear for the result. The train was laid, and to-night it had been decided that the match should be applied. In regular order of battle, in three ranks with spears advanced and eagles in the centre, the Old Prætorians marched at sundown to attack the camp of their successors. It was a bloody and obstinate contest. The new body-guard, proud of their promotion, and loyal to the hand that had bought them, defended themselves to the death. Again and again was the camp almost carried. Again and again were the assailants obstinately repulsed. It was only when slain, man by man, falling in their ranks as they stood, with all their wounds in front, that a victory was obtained—a victory which so crippled the conquerors as to render them but inefficient auxiliaries in the other conflicts of that eventful night. But this was only one of the many pitched battles, so to speak, of which Rome was the unhappy theatre. The Capitol after an obstinate defence had been taken by the partisans of the present Emperor and burned to the ground.
This stronghold having been previously seized and occupied by Sabinus, who declared himself Governor of Rome in the name of Vespasian, and who even received in state several of the principal nobility and a deputation from the harassed and vacillating senate, had been alternately the object of attack and defence to either party. Its possession [pg 226]seemed to confer a spurious sovereignty over the whole city, and it was held as obstinately as it was vigorously and desperately attacked.
An hour or two before sunset, an undisciplined body of soldiers, armed only with their swords, and formidable chiefly from the wild fury with which they seemed inspired, marched through the Forum and ascended the Capitoline Hill. The assailants having no engines of war either for protection or offence, suffered severely from the missiles showered upon them by the besieged, till the thought struck them of throwing flaming torches into the place from the roofs of the houses which surrounded it, and which, erected in time of peace, had been suffered to overtop the Roman citadel. In vain, after the flames had consumed the gate, did they endeavour to force an entrance; for Sabinus, with the unscrupulous resource of a Roman soldier, had blocked the way by a hundred prostrate statues of gods and men, pulled down from the sacred pedestals on which they had stood for ages; but the contiguous houses catching fire, and all the woodwork of the Capitol being old and dry, the flames soon spread, and in a few hours the stronghold of Roman pride and Roman history was levelled with the ground. Callous to the memories around him, forgetful of the Tarquins, and the Scipios, and the many hallowed names that shed their lustre on this monument of his country’s greatness, Sabinus lost his presence of mind in proportion as the necessity for preserving it became more urgent. He was no longer able to control his troops, and the latter, panic-stricken with the entrance of their enemies, disbanded, and betook themselves to flight. The majority, including one woman of noble birth, were put ruthlessly to the sword, but a few, resembling their assailants, as they did, in arms, appearance, and language, were fortunate enough to catch the password by which they recognised each other, and so escaped.
In another quarter of the mighty city, a large body of troops who had hoisted the standard of Vespasian, and had already suffered one repulse which rather excited their animosity than quelled their ardour, were advancing in good order, and, according to sound warlike tactics, in three divisions. The gardens of Sallust, laid out by that elegant and intellectual sensualist, with a view to pursuits far removed from strife and bloodshed, were the scene of an obstinate combat, in which, however, one of these columns succeeded in establishing itself within the walls; and now the struggle that had heretofore been carried on in its outskirts, penetrated [pg 227]to the heart of the Roman capital. The citizens beheld war brought into their very homes and hearths—the familiar street slippery with blood—the wounded soldier reeling on the doorsill, where the children were wont to play—the dead man’s limbs strewed helpless by the fountain, where the girls assembled with shrill laughing voices on the calm summer evenings,—and worse than all, instead of the kindly grasp of friends and fellow-countrymen, the brother’s hand clutching at the brother’s throat.
Such horrors, however, did but more demoralise a population already steeped to the very lips in cruelty, vice, and foul iniquity. Trained to bloodshed by the ghastly entertainments of the amphitheatre, the Roman citizen gloated on no spectacle with so keen a pleasure as on the throes of a fellow-creature in the agony of violent death. The populace seemed now to consider the contest waged at their doors as a goodly show got up for their especial amusement. Loud shouts encouraged the combatants as either party swayed and wavered in the mortal press, and Euge!—Bene! were cried as loudly for their encouragement, as if they had been paid gladiators, earning their awful livelihood on the sand. Nay, worse, when some wounded soldier dragged himself into a house for safety, instead of succour, he was received with yells of reprobation, and thrust out into the street that he might be despatched by his conquerors according to the merciless regulations of the amphitheatre.
Nor was man the only demon on the scene. Unsexed women with bare bosoms, wild eyes, streaming hair, and white feet stained with blood, flew to and fro amongst the soldiers, stimulating them to fresh atrocities with wine and caresses and odious ribald mirth. It was a festival of Death and Sin. She had wreathed her fair arms around the spectral king, and crowned his fleshless brows with her gaudy garlands, and wrapped him in her mantle of flame, and pressed the blood-red goblet to his lips, maddening him with her shrieks of wild, mocking laughter, the while their mutual feet trampled out the lives and souls of their victims on the stones of Rome.
Through a town in such a state of turmoil and confusion, Damasippus took upon himself to conduct in safety the prize he had succeeded in capturing, not, it must be confessed, without many hearty regrets that he had ever embarked in the undertaking. Devoutly did he now wish that he could shift the whole business on to the shoulders of Oarses; but of late he had been concerned to observe in the patron’s manner a certain sense of his own inutility as compared with [pg 228]the astute Egyptian; and if the latter were now permitted to conclude, as he had undoubtedly inaugurated, the adventure, Placidus might be satisfied that there was little use in entertaining two rogues to do the work of one. He knew his patron well enough to be aware of the effect such a conviction would have on his own prospects. The tribune would no more scruple to bid him go starve or hang, than he would to pull out a superfluous hair from his beard. Therefore, at all risks, thought Damasippus, he must be the man to bring Mariamne into his lord’s house. It was a difficult and a dangerous task. There was only room for himself and one stout slave besides the charioteer and the prisoner. The latter had struggled violently, and required to be held down by main force, nor in muffling her screams was it easy to observe the happy medium between silence and suffocation. Also, it was indispensable, in the present lawless state of affairs, to avoid observation; and the spectacle of a handsomely gilded chariot with a female figure in it, held down and closely veiled, the whole drawn by four beautiful white horses, was not calculated to traverse the streets of a crowded city without remark. Oarses, indeed, had suggested a litter, but this had been overruled by his comrade on the score of speed, and now the state of the streets made speed impossible. To be sure this enabled the escort to keep up with him, and Damasippus, who was no fighter at heart, derived some comfort from their presence. The darkness, however, which should have favoured him, was dispelled by the numerous conflagrations in various parts of the city; and when the chariot was stopped and forced to turn into a by-street to avoid a crowd rushing towards the blazing Capitol, Damasippus felt his heart sink within him in an access of terror, such as even he had never felt before.