“I was riding out in his attendance one day a few miles from Rome when we saw a fellow beating his mule cruelly, and on being called to, insisted on his right to torture the animal. I was indignant and would have fought the mule’s quarrel. But the Emperor laughed at my zeal, and after some jesting with the brutal owner, bought the mule, only annexing the condition that the fellow should lead it to the stable; he actually sent him with the mule two hundred and fifty miles on foot, to one of his palaces in Gaul, and with a lictor after him to see that the contract was fairly performed.
“One of his chamberlains had been soliciting a place about court, for, as he said, his brother. The Emperor found out the fact that it was for a stranger, who was to lay down a large sum. He sent for the stranger, ratified the bargain, gave him the place, and put the money in his own pocket. The chamberlain was in great alarm on meeting the Emperor some days after. ‘Your dejection is natural enough,’ said Vespasian, ‘as you have so lately lost your brother; but, then, you should wish me joy, for he has become mine!’
“By the altar of Momus and the brass beard of the god Ridiculous, I could tell you a hundred things of the same kind,” continued the jovial and inexhaustible secretary; “take but one more.
Betraying Court Secrets
“One of our great patricians, an Æmilian, and as vain and insolent a beast as lives, had ordered a quantity of a particular striped cloth, which it cost the merchant infinite pains to procure. But the great man’s taste had altered in the mean time, and he returned the cloth without ceremony, threatening, besides, that if the merchant made any clamors on the subject, his payment should be six months’ work in the slave-mill. The man, on the verge of ruin, came, tearing his hair and bursting with rage, to lay his complaint before the Emperor, who, however, plainly told him that there was no remedy, but desired him to send a dress of the same cloth to the palace. Within the week the patrician was honored with a message that the Emperor would dine with him, and the message was accompanied with the dress and an intimation that Vespasian wished to make it popular. Rome was instantly ransacked for the cloth, but not a yard of it was to be found but in the merchant’s hands. The patrician’s household must be equipped in it, cost what it would. The dealer, in pleasant revenge, charged ten times the value, and his fortune was made in a day.
“Now Titus, with many a noble quality, is altogether another man. He abhors the Emperor’s rough-hewn jocularity; he speaks Greek better than the Emperor does his own tongue; is a poet, and a clever one besides, in both languages; extemporizes verse with elegance; is no mean performer on the lyre; sings; is a picture-lover, and so forth. I believe from my soul that, with all his talents for war and government, he would rather spend his day over books and his evenings among poets and philosophers, or telling Italian tales to the ears of some of your brilliant orientals, than ride over the world at the head of legions. And now,” said my open-hearted guide, “having betrayed court secrets enough for one day, I must leave you and return to the camp. Here you will spend your time as you please until some decision is come to. The household is at your service, and the officer in command will attend your orders. Farewell!”
Captivity is wretchedness, even if the captive trod on cloth of gold. My treatment was imperial; a banquet that might have feasted a Roman epicure was laid before me; a crowd of attendants, sumptuously habited, waited round the table; music played, perfumes burned, and the whole ceremonial of princely luxury was gone through, as if Titus were present instead of his heart-broken prisoner. But to that prisoner bread and water with freedom would have been the truer luxury.
I wandered through the spacious apartments, dazzled by their splendor and often ready to ask: “Can man be unhappy in the midst of these things?” yet answering the question in the pang of heart which they were so powerless to soothe. I took down the richly blazoned volumes of the Western poets, and while at every line that I unrolled, I felt how much richer were their contents than the gold and gems that encased them, still I felt the inadequacy of even their beauty and vigor to console the spirit stricken by real calamity. I strayed to the crystal casements, through which the sunset had begun to pour in a tide of glory. The landscape was beautiful—a peaceful valley, shut in with lofty eminences, on whose marble foreheads the sunbeams wrought coronets as colored and glittering as ever were set with chrysolite and ruby. The snow was gone as rapidly as it had come, and the green earth, in the freshness of the bright hour, might almost be said “to laugh and sing.” The air came, laden with the fragrance of flowers. There was a light and joyous beauty in even the waving of the shrubs as they shook off the moisture in sparkles at every wave; birds innumerable broke out into song, and fluttered their little wet wings with delight in the sunshine; and the rivulet, still swelled with the snows, ran dimpling and gurgling along with a music of its own.
Salathiel Alone
But the true sadness of the soul is not to be scattered even by the loveliness of external things. I turned from the sun and nature to fling myself on my couch and feel that where a man’s treasure is, there his heart is also.