Callista : a Tale of the Third Century

by John Henry Newman

“That’s just what I don’t want to be,” said Agellius. “I mean to say,” he continued, “that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista—”

“Of course, of course,” interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius’s human respect; “but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I’ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they [pg 101]had seen you do it again and again. Don’t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over.”

Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. “My dear uncle,” said the youth, “you are reproaching me.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Jucundus, confidently, “not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can’t be wise all at once; I had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It’s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are,—things as they are, you know,—as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You’ve been a little headstrong, I can’t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but ‘nuces pueris,’ as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there.”

It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He was somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended.

Jucundus proceeded—“First, there is matrimonium confarreationis. You have nothing to do with that: [pg 102]strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say ‘strictly speaking’; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don’t recommend this ceremonial to you. You’d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there’s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage ex coemptione, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other’s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don’t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, for ever, to a girl you know so little of? Don’t look surprised: it’s common sense. It’s very well to buy her; but to be bought, that’s quite another matter. And I don’t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You’d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and [pg 103]then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where’s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you’re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can’t do impossibilities—you can’t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don’t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I’m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It’s the matrimonium ex usu, or consuetudine; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife præscriptione. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not,”—and he shrugged his shoulders—“no harm’s done; you are both free.”

Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation.

“Listen, listen, my dear boy!” cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of [pg 104]his sudden annoyance; “listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What is the matter? I’m not treating her ill, I’m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she’s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none.”

“O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus!” cried Agellius, “is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do?” and he burst into tears. “Is it conceivable,” he said, with energy, “that you are in earnest in recommending me—I say in recommending me—a marriage which really would be no marriage at all?”

“Here is some very great mistake,” said Jucundus, angrily; “it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere contubernium, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don’t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting [pg 105]to smooth your way. You must act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What will you have? I thought you didn’t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he’ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without.”