Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

A young priest who lately returned from studying for three years at the American College in Rome, was telling me the other day what delightful recollections he had brought away with him, of the cheery home-like atmosphere of the college—of the wisdom and kindness of the Superior and his aides, and of all the merry larks that the American boys indulged in when study hours were over. A frequent visitor there was Cardinal Merry del Val, the most boyish-hearted of ecclesiastics; he took the greatest interest in their baseball contests, which he used to watch closely to learn the rules of the game.

The Cardinal’s father was the Spanish ambassador to the Pope for many years, and the Countess was a friend of my own dear mother, who admired her enthusiastically. She was a highly cultivated and most holy woman, combining all the dignity of the old-time great lady with the gentle urbanity of a Religious; indeed, when she and her young daughters entered a room they seemed to bring with them that ineffable convent fragrance, sweet as the message of hidden violets, which one scarcely looks to meet in the outside world. Their home was in the Spanish palace, from which the Piazza di Spagna takes its name, standing just opposite the splendid sweep of the “Spanish Steps,” which mount in broad gradations to their crown, the towering Church of the Trinità dei Monti.

But I was talking of a warm spring morning, and that ascent should be made in the cooler hours. It is pleasanter just now to linger under some awning near the end of the Corso, and, looking down across the sun-smitten expanse of the Piazza del Popolo to the gate of that name, to muse on the processions which have passed through that northern portal of the city. There is one picture that returns oftener than others to my mind when I look at it, the picture of Theodosius, the great Emperor, entering the city in state, with his little son, Honorius, on his knee, and his co-emperor, the younger Valentinian, by his side. Rome, like some aged and neglected parent, was seldom visited by her Emperors in those days; their headquarters were fixed where great events were stirring—in Constantinople, in Ravenna, in Milan, or Treves. So the 13th of June, 309 A.D., marked an event long remembered by the Romans, the hour when they looked upon their rulers’ faces for the first time. There was but one real ruler just then, however; his younger colleague and his little son were merely being trained to take their places when he should be no more. The cheering crowds were carried away by the sight of the princely child, as crowds always are, but some of the more thoughtful must have gazed—not too confidently—on the face of Theodosius, the strong, dark, capable Spaniard, so just and merciful in his calm moments, so violent in his angry ones that only his beloved adopted daughter, Serena, dared approach him then. And, whether calm or angry, there was one memory that seems never to have left him, the memory of his brave, loyal soldier father, ignominiously put to death by the Roman Emperor whom he had faithfully served—on a charge so futile that it was not even mentioned in the order for his execution.

Yet, remembering, he forgave, and did all in his power to protect and help the Romans. His son grew up, alas! a mere shadow of a man, too weak and indolent even to be wicked, his short life a strange contrast to another, cut off in the flush of youth the year before he was born. Even with a son of his own to follow him, we know Theodosius never ceased to mourn the untimely death of Gratian, “the graceful,” “the gracious,” “the gratitude inspiring,” as the orator Themistius calls him.

We have indeed one beautiful picture of Honorius, when still but a youth he entered Rome again, and again heard the Roman shouts as he passed on to the Palatine, standing in his gilded chariot, the sun resting on his dark head and playing radiantly on the great necklaces of emeralds that rose and fell in response to the joyful beatings of a heart still very young, still responsive at times to noble impulses, the people cheering him madly, and the women weeping for joy at the sight of his beauty. After that, all is darkness; his intellect, such as it was, was devoted to the most futile of pursuits—the raising of prize poultry! It was but a few years later that, on being told that “Rome had perished,” he cried out in dismay, “What, my beautiful fowl?” And on being told that it was the Mother of cities, the Heart of the Empire, which had succumbed to Alaric, the Goth invader, he gave a sigh of relief, exclaiming, “I thought you meant my bird was dead!”

Far different was the character of the other boy-Emperor, Gratian, the son of Valentinian.

There is something wonderfully appealing as well as pathetic in the story of this pure and high-hearted youth into whose twenty-five years of life there entered every element of the fierce mental and material conflicts that convulsed the world in the fourth century of our era, the century when Imperial children were used as shields and standards for the conflicting parties and were called upon to exercise the powers of government almost before they had learnt to read. Valentinian, bent, like those before and after him, on converting an elective sovereignty into an hereditary one, resolved on taking his son into partnership on the throne while Gratian was, by most accounts, only eight years old. As usual, the question would be decided by the army, or that portion of it nearest at hand, and Valentinian, having insinuated the idea into his soldiers’ minds, found that they were not averse to it. Any such proceeding was sure to be welcome to them, since it was certain to be accompanied by the large donatives of money for the sake of which the Purple was so constantly changing wearers in those times.

Valentinian was at Amiens, and the troops, having been called together in the plain before the city, he presented the boy to them in a harangue full of spirit, reminding them that Gratian, from his birth, had played with their children, grown up with their own sons, and promising that he should be a worthy leader of such noble company. The bright, fearless child stood up beside his father on the tribunal, and the soldiers, forgetting ulterior motives, hailed him with real enthusiasm, shouting, “Gratiane Auguste! Gratiane Auguste!” with all their heart. There was a great burst of trumpets and clash of arms, and then Valentinian spoke to the boy, so that all could hear him. It is a fine speech, the speech of a soldier, and short, as soldiers’ speeches should be: “Thou hast now, my Gratian, by my decision and that of my brave comrades, been invested with the Imperial robes. Begin to strengthen thy soul to bear their weight. Prepare to cross the Danube and the Rhine, to stand firm in battle with these thy warrior friends, to shed thy blood and give up thy life itself for the defence of thy subjects, to think nothing too great or too little by which thou canst preserve the safety of the Empire. This is all I will say to thee now, but the rest shall be told thee when thou art mature enough to comprehend it.” Then, turning to the troops, he ended by saying: “To you, my brave soldiers, I commit the boy—with the prayer that your love may guard him, your arms defend him, all his life!”

Valentinian’s next care was to provide Gratian with wise tutors, and surely few youths were ever more favoured in that respect. The tie between him and St. Ambrose was as strong and tender a one as history has ever presented to our admiration. Gratian, in every circumstance of his short and stormy life, turns to the great Bishop for support and counsel. Ambrose never seems to have the young ruler out of his thoughts; the Saint’s outburst of sorrow at his death is the cry of a broken heart. It all forms a chapter of most unusual beauty in the story of mankind.

Hardly less attractive is Gratian’s affection for his other tutor, Ausonius, whom, even in the urgency of affairs and the stress of war, he never forgets, taking time to send him a letter or a gift, remembering even the poet’s harmless weaknesses, and making a long journey so as to assist in person at the investiture with the Consulship, which Gratian had bestowed upon him, thus crowning the highest ambition of the good man’s heart. Yet, what a contrast the two teachers present! Ambrose, the “golden-mouthed” indeed, but inflexible, the unconquerable fighter for the independence of the Church, the judge of his Emperor Theodosius, whom he punishes—during eight long months—for the Thessalonian massacre, by forbidding him to enter the sanctuary till he has repented of his cruelty publicly in dust and ashes before its threshold—and Ausonius, the “tranquil and indulgent man, mild of voice and eye,” rejoicing in the beauties of his lovely home by the Moselle, bringing the exquisite freshness of a summer morning before us as few others have done, his sincere Christianity all warmed and illumined by his born kinship with Nature and his gratitude to the Creator; yet so human in his fluttering delight at Gratian’s favours, his innocent triumph when the young Emperor not only associates him with himself in the Consulship, but sends him the very purple robe embroidered with palm branches which the great Constantine had worn on the same occasion.