Ancient Rome in the English novel: a study in English historical fiction

by Randolph Faries

The Rev. Ware’s Julian has just been mentioned as an illustration of the fact that no novel, whether written by a preacher or not, can successfully portray Roman life, while making the life of Christ its central theme. Aurelian was also spoken of, to illustrate the more general truth that in a portrayal of Roman life in a novel, the life of the Christians should not be given undue prominence. Mrs. Webb’s Naomi (1841),[20] is a story which begins immediately after the time of Christ, but much of the life of Christ is brought in by the words of the aged Mary of Bethany and others of His disciples who are still living. Moreover, the life of the Christians, as contrasted with that of the Romans, is given undue prominence. Naomi has, in fact, been mentioned in the first section of this study, and was excluded from consideration as a novel of Roman life, since it is rather a story of religious experience. It is now mentioned again to remind one that it is the first important one of a very great number of religious books that were written from this time on. In other words, the year 1841 marks, as nearly as possible, the exact point at which the story of religious instruction branches off and becomes an entirely different thing from the novel of Roman life. The Rev. Ware’s Julian and Aurelian are not in any sense stories of religious instruction, but they suggested to other preachers and people interested in religious work the possibility of writing such stories. Thus the story of religious instruction was a by-product of the early novel of Roman life; but it continued to exist as a distinct form, and to have an influence in turn on the development of the novel of Roman life. It is important to bear this influence in mind, even though the story of religious instruction showed not so much what the novel of Roman life should do, as what it should avoid.

In 1853[21] appeared Charles Kingsley’s Hypatia. This is a great novel, which in its presentation of universal truths far surpasses the stereotyped instruction of any religious tract. It is a powerful picture of the conflict between Christianity and Greek philosophy in the fifth century. Its author fairly presents the beauty of Greek philosophy, before showing that the true spirit of Christianity must triumph in the end. But Kingsley also showed the essential falsity of the teachings of the Greek schools of philosophy, which his heroine, Hypatia, represented; and he pointed out in an equally convincing way, that the Christian Church, while almost entirely shutting out spiritual Christianity, had become an organization, whose chief end was temporal power. By considering this last fact outside of its proper relation, Kingsley’s enemies were enabled to wilfully misunderstand him, although those who still read Hypatia for its own sake are always able to understand him perfectly. In fact, the reasons which led Kingsley to write Hypatia, have frequently been misstated. It will be well to consider what the facts were, especially since they have an important bearing on the development of the novel of Roman life.[22]

Hypatia is, in the words of William T. Brewster, Professor of English at Columbia University, “a very decided sermon in favor of spiritual Christianity.” This explains in part Kingsley’s purpose in his portrayal of life in the Roman empire of the fifth century. Let it be said right here, however, that while Hypatia contains more preaching than any other novel we have to consider, it is entirely free from hollow didacticism. As its alternative title, New Foes with an Old Face, implies, Kingsley was supporting the cause of spiritual Christianity against new elements, which were assailing Christianity in the same way in which it has always been assailed. One of the most powerful of these elements, at the time when Kingsley wrote, was deemed to be the false Hellenism which was then trying to supplant Christianity in England and on the continent. This form of paganism has no uncertain connection with the Byronism, of which we have already spoken, while its tendency to exalt Greek philosophy had been beautifully expressed in Schiller’s poem The Gods of Greece. Kingsley’s desire to combat this tendency may be the principal reason why he chose for his scene Alexandria; since in this city was best represented the crisis of the dramatic struggle between Christianity and Greek civilization in the fifth century. But another important element which Kingsley was fighting,—(and critics have made the mistake of supposing it to be the only one),—is represented in the tendency of the Church of England toward Rome. This movement was chiefly due to John Henry Newman, who went over to the Church of Rome, and whose Callista we shall have occasion to mention later. But it is interesting to us to note that the conspiracy to Romanize the Church of England, which Kingsley combatted, centred at Oxford; and, as has since been pointed out by literary criticism, the Oxford movement was an evidence of the Romantic spirit represented by Scott. For, long before Newman went over to Rome, Scott’s mediæval priest had gained the sympathy of countless English readers.[23] Thus Kingsley, who is a direct follower of Scott in the historical romance, was forced to combat the tendency of Scott’s readers to identify romance and mediæval Catholicism. G. P. R. James, an earlier follower of Scott, though anything but a propagandist, had spoken of Rome in Attila, (1837), as the “seat of the most autocratic government the world has ever seen, republican, imperial and clerical.” These words contain whole volumes of criticism, and show how another writer of the novel of Roman life had identified the city of Rome with the Church of Rome. This suggests another reason why Kingsley chose Alexandria, rather than Rome, for the scene of his portrayal of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism, in Hypatia. Had he merely wished to portray this struggle, he might well have laid his scene in Imperial Rome, as others have done, and have achieved tremendous effect. But his opponents would have insisted on identifying the early Church at Rome with the Church of Rome, and the situation at the time forbade his allowing them the satisfaction of claiming that the triumph of Christianity is to be found only in “the Eternal Church of Rome.” In Hypatia Kingsley in no way exceeds the limits of truth in his delineation of the faults and hypocrisy of the early Church, though his opponents could not stand the truth told of what they conceived to be an eternal and perfect thing, (the Catholic Church). His faithful presentation of life in the Roman empire, and of universal truths to be derived from a study of the past, make Hypatia continue to be read as a great novel which has to be considered as a thing far above sectarian controversy.

Kingsley’s own idea of what he wished to do in Hypatia is admirably expressed in a letter to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, written from Eversley, January 16, 1851. (He writes of financial difficulties, which compel him to support himself with his pen,—how this recalls Scott!) He then says: “My present notion is to write a historical romance of the beginning of the fifth century which has been breeding in my head this two years.... If there is a storm brewing, of course I shall have to help to fight the Philistines.... My idea in the romance is to set forth Christianity as the only really democratic creed, and philosophy, above all spiritualism, as the most exclusively aristocratic creed. Such has been my opinion for a long time, and what I have been reading lately confirms it more and more. Even Synesius, ‘the philosophic’ bishop, is an aristocrat by the side of Cyril. It seems to me that such a book might do good just now, while the scribes and Pharisees, Christian and heathen, are saying, this people which knoweth not the law is accursed.” He wished to turn from English subjects “to some new field, in which there is richer and more picturesque life.... I have long wished to do something antique, and get out my thoughts about the connection of the old world and the new; Schiller’s Gods of Greece expresses, I think, a tone of feeling very common, and which finds its vent in modern Neo-Platonism—Anythingarianism.”[24] Kingsley wished to show “the connection of the old and new” in important phases of life and thought; and incidentally that in any portrayal of life, thought must be considered an essential part of life. He succeeded admirably in this, in writing Hypatia.

In his desire to “show the connection of old and new,” and to portray “a richer and more picturesque life,” Kingsley naturally turned to the times of the Roman Empire. Why he did not select the city of Rome for his scene, has already been suggested. Nevertheless, Hypatia may well be called a novel of Roman life. In the first place the scene practically does move to Rome, when we follow Raphael Aben-Ezra in his travels to the immediate vicinity of the eternal city. In the scenes leading up to the defeat of Count Heraclian at Ostia, Rome’s seaport, the presence of the capital of the world is felt in the background. Moreover, the scene of the rest of the story is not confined to Alexandria, but takes one to visit Saint Augustine and Synesius at Cyrene. The allusions to the powerful position which Constantinople had assumed in Church and government affairs completes the impression of the Roman empire as a loosely organized whole. A further consideration shows one that the important scenes which occur in Alexandria could, without difficulty, be transferred to Rome, and described as a part of Roman life. The brutal and licentious spectacles in the amphitheatre, the ostentatious display of the upper classes, the lawless rioting of the lower classes, who are sometimes curbed by Roman authority with unnecessary bloodshed, and much else, are portrayed with a realistic effect, which could hardly be surpassed in a portrayal of life anywhere else than in Rome itself. In the time which Hypatia describes, it is true, Rome was no longer mistress of the world, but there remains an all-pervading sense of her former greatness. Alexandria, though a city possessing its own distinctive characteristics, had not escaped the universal stamp of Roman influence. A few short years before Kingsley’s story opens, the Goths, under Alaric, had sacked Rome, (410 A. D.), and Alexandria furnishes in some ways a better example of the many-sided life of the declining Roman empire than does Rome itself. There is, in short, an abundance of “Roman life” in Alexandria.

If Alexandrian scenes in Hypatia could be transferred to Rome, a similar thing might be said of certain characters in the book. The most truly Roman characters are Victoria and her father, who had been a Roman officer in the force of Heraclian; these enter the story when its scene is nearest to Rome. The armed forces of the weak Roman government at Alexandria are also typical of Rome, whether performing as gladiators in the amphitheatre, or employed in quelling a riot in the streets with brutal carelessness of life and feeling. Orestes, the Roman governor of Alexandria, is a typical Roman official, capable of thinking for himself when not intoxicated, and bright enough to admit that he is forced to be a puppet; “a poor, miserable slave of a governor,” who appears to feel that his very treachery is forced on him by circumstance. Old Miriam is a sorceress of a type which suggests the sibyls and later soothsayers at Rome, by whose arts the Romans were so ready to be deceived, and whose prophecies exerted so profound an influence on the imaginations of the Romans. One of her victims is Hypatia, whose character stands out with such strong individuality as the last support of Greek philosophy in Alexandria, that it would be impossible to make her play her part in a novel whose scene was laid principally in Rome. But many of the other characters, major and minor, could be placed in such a novel without disadvantage; indeed some of them have spent a good part of their lives in Rome, when the story opens. Figures such as Arsenius and St. Augustine represent men who had seen the world of Rome, and were seeking refuge from its emptiness. The tyrannical bishop Cyril embodies a character which could have displayed the autocratic power of the Church at Rome or at any other important city of the Empire. Philammon, the real hero of the story, is the kind of character who would fit in readily in any environment and could easily be made a Roman. He is the best illustration of a fact we have mentioned before, viz., that the historical novel should contain characters who are, above all, human beings. Philammon’s essentially human qualities gain the reader’s sympathy at once; and as he is tempted by one doubt after another, one is reminded that the men of the past were merely human beings like ourselves. Among the Gothic invaders of the Roman Empire, old Wulf best represents those qualities which Englishmen have regarded with pride as being typical of the English race. Pelagia is a type which existed at Rome as at Alexandria. The same thing can be said of the little porter, and of all the minor characters. With characters such as these playing their parts in scenes of varying significance, Kingsley has presented a vivid panorama of the life of the time, which could only have been equalled by a portrayal of the life of Rome itself. Without an excess of detail or an undue use of the sensational, he has succeeded in emphasizing the important points in the picture, and in implying those of less importance, so well, that the life of the past is made to stand out in the clear light of present-day experience.

By portraying the life of the past in the light of universal truth. Kingsley was able to show, without stereotyped preaching, the triumph of Christianity over paganism. Greek philosophy had been appropriated by and identified with the so-called “national” religion of Rome, and had found its greatest stronghold in the Hellenistic city of Alexandria. Hypatia herself deserves to have her name made the title of Kingsley’s novel. She is rightly presented as typifying the last adherent of paganism against Christianity. The strength of her character lies in the truth of her words, as compared with the inconsistencies of the monks. And it is to be regarded as an essential point in the story, that the savage monks, who represent sham Christianity, merely destroy the body of Hypatia, and have not even attempted to win over her soul. At the time when Philammon first meets Hypatia, her faith in herself and her message is supreme and unshaken. Kingsley’s own words, describing the first impression she makes upon the young monk, show the germs of real truth and beauty, which that message contains, in spite of any inconsistencies:

So beautiful! So calm and merciful to him! So enthusiastic towards all which was noble! Had not she too spoken of the unseen world, of the hope of immortality, of the conquest of the spirit over the flesh, just as a Christian might have done? Was the gulf between them so infinite? If so, why had her aspirations awakened echoes in his own heart,—echoes, too, just such as the prayers and lessons of the Laura used to awaken? If the fruit was so like, must not the root be like also?—Could that be a counterfeit? That a minister of Satan in the robes of an angel of light? Light at least it was: purity, simplicity, courage, earnestness, tenderness, flashed out from eye, lip, gesture....

The essence of sham Christianity, which pervaded all parts of the later Empire, and was not confined to the great cities of Rome and Alexandria, is shown by contrast in the description of the impression the monks had made upon the young Philammon:

The men were coarse, fierce, noisy, so different from her! Their talk seemed mere gossip,—scandalous too, and hard judging most of it; about that man’s private ambition, and that woman’s proud looks; and who had stayed for the Eucharist the Sunday before, and who had gone out after the sermon; and how the majority who did not stay, could possibly dare to go, and how the minority who did not go could possibly dare to stay.... Endless suspicions, sneers, complaints ... what did they care for the eternal glories and the beatific vision? Their one test for all men and things, from the patriarch to the prefect, seemed to be,—did he or it advance the cause of the Church?—which Philammon soon discovered to mean their own cause, their influence, their self-glorification.