Adonijah: A Tale of the Jewish Dispersion.

by Jane Margaret Strickland

Julius Claudius found himself opposite the sepulchral monument that contained the ashes of his ancient house before he lost the wild impetus that had driven him from his home. He opened the gate which soon was to unclose again to receive the last and dearest of his race. A light gleamed within, but, lost in bitter communion with himself, its presence created no surprise. His pride, his ambition, his glory, must all descend into this abode of death. The deep stillness of the midnight hour calmed for a few brief moments the feelings that urged him to fall upon his sword, and end at once his base career by suicide.

The sight of this last home of the Claudii made him pause in the midst of his dark thoughts to muse upon the nothingness of human things. The dead around him had tasted joy and sorrow, had been legislators, orators, and warriors, though now unconscious dust. The fame of their mighty deeds, and the inscriptions on the funeral urns that contained their ashes, alone revealed that they had once existed. Such as they were must he also become.

These reflections, so new to the man of pleasure, the votary of the world, gave birth to stranger still. As in a glass he saw himself as others saw him, and loathed the faithful picture. His whole life passed in review before him. His early excesses, his companionship with Nero, the murder of his brother, the forced marriage of his sister, the snare he had laid for Adonijah, for the man who had preserved him from the dagger of Tigranes, the death of his own child, of which he considered himself the cause,—all crowded upon his soul with the dreadful force of truth. Tears streamed from his eyes, tears the bitterest that ever wrung the heart of guilt. Suddenly the cries of wild revelry smote upon the ear of the conscience-stricken wretch, who hastily entered the mausoleum to screen himself from the observation of the midnight brawlers.

The sepulchral lamp burned dimly in the abode of death. The feeble ray glimmered upon urns surmounted by the effigies of those whose ashes were mouldering within the narrow receptacle of human passions and human pride, each effigy showing the gradual advance of art, from the rude moulded clay to the chiselled marble that wore the semblance of life.

The only surviving Claudius stood surrounded by the illustrious dead, feeling himself unworthy to be the last of such a mighty line. His crimes seemed to forbid him to approach a spot wherein reposed the relics of the great, the valiant, and the wise.

A strange fascination attracted him to look upon the effigy of his murdered brother, from which he could not withdraw his eyes The skilful graver’s hand had given to the marble the animated expression of life. The martial form of Lucius Claudius rose before the fratricide in the severe beauty of other years, and the guilty one half expected to hear from the half-closed lips of the statue the impetuous oratory that had characterized the noble Roman in life.

The affectation of piety that had led Julius to adorn the tomb of his brother with this master-piece of art, did not compel him to view it when completed. The mortified sculptor received his gold, but not his commendations. In this hour, however, he gained in the thrill of agony that vibrated from the brain of Julius to every nerve and rigid muscle the reward due to the admirable fidelity of genius.

As he gazed upon the image of his brother, guilty years of retrospect rushed upon his memory, till far and vista-like they blended with the happier ones of boyhood, when he was not this blot upon the face of nature, this loathsome compound of luxury and crime. Then he smote upon his breast, and called upon the stately roof to fall and crush him into the atom he wished to be, yet feared he was not. Upon his agony a voice intruded, a voice whose well-remembered tones increased his mental misery almost to madness. He turned round and saw his sister Lucia at his side. From the mild majestic shade he fled affrighted forth, rushing from street to street, still haunted by her voice, her look, her wrongs.

In midnight silence and darkness Julius Claudius pursued his way; he would have given wealth untold at that moment to hear human converse, to see human faces. Suddenly, to his great relief, he encountered on the Julian Way a number of persons, to whom, without being aware of the object for which they were gathering together, he joined himself, reckless of everything but the relief of finding himself among his fellow-men once more. He followed them to the cemetery of Ostorius, entering with them the house of death; whereupon a veiled female, rising from a tripod, admitted him with the rest into a spacious cavity, illuminated by many lamps. Then Julius Claudius comprehended that he was among a midnight assembly of Christians.

The females, closely veiled, ranged themselves on one side of the subterranean temple, the men on the other; but the bewildered intruder shrank behind what appeared to be a tomb, and concealing his features in his mantle remained a silent spectator of the worship of the primitive times.