Adonijah: A Tale of the Jewish Dispersion.

by Jane Margaret Strickland

Bowdler.

The return of the emperor did not allay the discontent of the public. His frivolous pursuits, his ridiculous triumphal entry, disgusted all; and, far from curbing by his own authority the rapacity of his favourites, his presence gave the signal for renewing those crimes which had been perpetrated under his name during his absence. Cruelty seemed born of luxury; whatever could enervate the soul or corrupt the heart being united with the most unfeeling barbarity. Avarice and prodigality, forgetting their ancient opposition, appeared to sway the conduct of Nero and his satellites, whose rapacious gains were dissipated in voluptuous feasts and sumptuous shows. Till the death of his revered patron, Adonijah had never been present at any public spectacle or private entertainment; for Lucius, plain and simple in his manners, charged all the degeneracy of Rome upon the innovations of luxury: but Julius was fond of grandeur, and chose to be attended in public by the Hebrew, whose commanding stature and majestic features greatly added to the splendour of his retinue. In these scenes of riot and intemperance, Adonijah again beheld the master of the world. The laurelled brow, the sceptered hand, the smile, nay, even his wild participation in the unhallowed revelries in which he delighted, could not disguise Nero Cæsar from the eye of the slave who had witnessed his agonies of remorse at Corinth. To him the smile appeared mockery, and the mirth unreal; for in its very tones he seemed to hear the frantic cry with which he had fled from the spectral train his conscience had called up. He marked the guilty glare that shrank affrighted from every shadowy nook, as if he feared to see his mother rise armed with the scorpion-whip with which his agonized remorse had armed her hand; and in the gloomy, joyless eye, the lurking fear that saw the dagger in every hand, the poison lurking in every bowl, he recognised the imperial wretch who envied even laborious slavery its slumbers.

Within the circles of the great and gay, Adonijah sometimes saw the vestal priestesses, whose order Nero had invested with new privileges. Among them the ardent lover marked the object of his secret passion, and perceived by her pale cheek and languid eye how heavily her brother’s death pressed upon her heart. According to the strict rules of her profession, she wore no mourning, nor was allowed the seclusion to which other Roman ladies were confined for many months after such bereavement. Her abstracted manner and downcast look were out of keeping with the scenes of festivity in which she mingled. Sometimes indeed a light word or bold look from those around her flushed her fair face with the crimson glow of wounded modesty, and her eyes sparkled till tears of shame dimmed them, and again she looked like a sculptured personification of purity and sorrow. The deep sympathy of Adonijah, although unexpressed by words or manner, was conveyed by looks whose language needed no other eloquence. She felt that one being among the heartless throng regarded her with interest, with compassion, and with love. From the undisguised admiration of Nymphidius she shrank back with unrestrained aversion, which only served to inflame his passion. He had hoped to corrupt her mind by the tainted atmosphere in which his influence with the emperor compelled her to move, but Lucia remained unchanged in manner, as pure as within the secluded temple of her goddess, and he prized her virtue beyond her beauty.

Much as she abhorred the mandates that compelled her attendance on those public occasions, even the service of the temple had become distasteful to the young priestess. Strange doubts had arisen in her mind, and those words of Adonijah often recurred to her remembrance, which affirmed her worshipped goddess to be a wild chimera, an empty name. Then came those yearnings after immortality, those conjectures respecting a future state, which those who lose their dearest kindred ties feel when bereaved of them, if they never felt them before. Nature, with fond fidelity clinging to the ashes of the dead, forbade her to think her Lucius lost to her for ever; but reason, quenched in the night of pagan darkness, presented no hope to the mourner’s view. She wept in despair, and, turning wearied and dispirited from the cheerless gloom with which polytheism invested the grave, recollected that her beloved Lucius had affirmed himself to be a worshipper of the God of Adonijah with his latest breath. To him she resolved to apply for information, and, suddenly overstepping the bounds of prudence, appointed a meeting with him at the house of her nurse.

Cornelia, the person who stood in this endeared relation to the priestess, was a freedwoman of Grecian descent and some learning, and the doubts of her foster-child had been frequently discussed with her before she agreed to become her assistant in this difficult affair. It was a question in which her inquiring mind became anxiously interested, while her prudent foresight took every necessary precaution to preserve the reputation of her beloved charge from suspicion, and her life from danger.

Adonijah came; his auditors were attentive and willing; the evidence he brought appeared to their unsophisticated minds conclusive. The creation of man, his fall, the calling of Abraham, the patriarchal history, the law, the divine voice of prophecy, were received with wonder, adoration, and faith. To these sublime truths the heathen mythology did indeed appear “idle tales.” He spake of a future state of existence, and Lucia seized the idea with all the enthusiasm that formed so striking a part of her character. She wept still for Lucius, but holy hope, like the rainbow, glistened through her tears.

While thus employed in the daily instruction of his proselyte, Adonijah forgot the sorrows of captivity, of exile, of loss of kindred, as he listened to her sweet voice, or gazed upon her fair face now glowing with the brilliant tints of health, happiness, and love. Together they prayed—together discoursed on the chosen people of God; while his disciple hung entranced over the wondrous record of Israel’s triumphs and Israel’s woes, now weeping with the captivity of Judah, now exulting with the return of the exiles to the promised land, till the scholar and preceptor seemed to have one heart, one faith, one soul.

As soon as the light of revelation dawned upon the vestal’s mind, she felt she dared not continue her daily ministrations at the altar of a pagan deity. To avow her faith was to doom her beloved preceptor and herself to a cruel death, but even death she preferred to taking her sacerdotal part in the approaching festival of Vesta.

The struggle of her soul between her duty to God and regard to her reputation, by affecting her health, allowed her an opportunity of returning to her brother’s house till her recovery. An old law in such cases gave the sick vestal a change of abode, and the privilege of choosing three of the noblest matrons in Rome for her nurses. Lucia Claudia named her sister-in-law, and thus gained the asylum she required. Some weeks had elapsed since she had watched the sacred fire, upon the preservation of which the Roman people believed that of their state to depend. The vestal priestesses might quit their profession after thirty years’ attendance in the temple, and marry; but as Lucia Claudia was still in the flower of her youth, many years must elapse before she could be free to leave the altar.

She had been dedicated at seven years to Vesta by her eldest brother, at an age when she was an irresponsible agent, and had no means of opposing his will. Her father was dead, but Lucius Claudius as his representative could legally exercise his absolute rights over his child. She determined to consult Julius upon the possibility of her leaving her profession, since to remain in the Vestal College was incompatible with the faith she had embraced.