Quintus Claudius, Volume 1

CHAPTER XIX

On the second day after the incidents just related dark clouds had risen over the Tyrrhenian sea and spread in long, heavy banks across the sky, which a short while since had been so deeply blue. A stiff south-westerly breeze blew up the stream of the Tiber, and tossed the little boats and flat-bottomed barges, which lay at anchor at the foot of the Aventine,340 till they jostled and bumped each other. Sudden squalls of rain swept down at short intervals, and obliged the people to throw on their leather cowls or their long-haired woollen cloaks.341 All the life of the streets took refuge in the arcades and pillared halls; the atria, with their slippery marble pavements, were deserted, and the water from the guttered roofs dripped dolefully into the overflowing impluvia.342 A strange atmosphere of discomfort and oppression lay over the whole city. Some great races, which were to have been run in the Circus Maximus, were postponed at the last moment. The flow and ebb through the palace gates was less persistent than usual. The Senate even, notwithstanding the importance of the matters awaiting their debate, came in fewer numbers than usual to the sitting. In short, the air was full of that dull uneasiness, which infallibly accompanies the first symptoms of the decay of the year.

The storm increased as evening fell. Quintus, who had dined with no other company than two of his clients, stood, as it grew dusk, at the door of the dining-room, looking out at the dreary prospect. The clouds chased each other wildly, and the wind groaned and howled through the colonnade like the wailing of suffering humanity.

“Good!” said Quintus, turning back into the room. “And very good! The wilder the night, the better for our undertaking.”

He signed to the shrewd slave, Blepyrus, who at this moment passed along the passage with a brazier full of burning charcoal.343

“Where are you going?” he asked doubtfully; and when the slave answered: “To your study, my lord,” he said:

“Very good, I am coming – but take care that we are alone.”

Blepyrus went on through the arcade, and when he had reached his master’s private room, he carefully set the brazier on the floor. Two lads, who were standing idle, he promptly dismissed as Quintus came into the room.

“Listen, Blepyrus,” he began. “Just fancy for a moment, that to-day is the feast of Saturn.344 Tell me your honest opinion, frankly and without reserve, just as if you were sitting at table after the old-fashioned custom, while I, your master, waited upon you?”

The slave looked up at him in bewilderment.

“You do not seem to understand me,” Quintus continued. “I want to hear from you, how far you are satisfied with your master. If I have been unjust, if I have hurt your feelings, or wronged you without cause – speak! I entreat you – nay, I command you.”

“My lord,” Blepyrus stammered out, “if I am to speak the truth, you have said many a hard word to your other slaves, but to me you have never been anything but a kind and just – indeed a considerate master. I could only say the same, even if the feast of Saturn really licensed me to complain.”

“I am glad to hear you say so, my good friend. I mean well by you all, and if I ever… Ah! I remember now what you have in your mind. You are thinking of the evening, when I struck Allobrogus in the face345 for breaking that precious vase. – You are right; the poor fellow’s teeth were more precious than the broken jar. It was my first angry impulse. Believe me, Blepyrus, I have never hurt or injured any one of you out of ill-will; and you, especially, have always been a friend rather than a slave. You shared my earliest sports – do you remember by the Pons Milvius346 how I sprang to your assistance, when your arm was suddenly cramped in swimming? And then again, on the wrestling-ground in the Field of Mars, where we enacted the fight of Varus against the Germans? You snatched me up and rescued me from my foes, like a young god of war, when the game suddenly became earnest…”

“I remember, my lord,” said the slave with a gratified smile.

“Well,” continued Quintus, “then tell me one thing. Are you still ready to stand in the breach for your master? Understand me, Blepyrus – this time it is not a question of fisticuffs or even thrashed ribs. It is for life and death, old fellow. To be sure, your reward now should not be, as it was then, a saucerfull of Pontian cherries, but the best of all you can ask…”

“My lord,” said the slave, trembling with agitation, “I will do whatever you desire.”

“Can you hold your tongue, Blepyrus? Be silent, not merely with your tongue, but with your eyes – your very breath? You have done me good service before now, I well remember, which required secrecy – but only in trifling matters. This time it is not a tender note to the fair Camilla, not even an assignation with Lesbia or Lycoris. Swear by the spirit of your father, by all you hold sacred and dear, to be silent to the very death.”

“I swear it.”

“Then be ready; at the second vigil we must set out on an expedition – out into the storm and darkness. You can tell your comrades, that I am going by stealth to Lycoris. The rest you shall hear later.”

Three hours after this the little gate creaked open, which led from the cavaedium to the street, and Quintus and the slave, both wrapped in thick cloaks, slowly mounted the Caelian Hill,347 and then took a side road into the valley. Here, on the southern slope, the storm attacked them with redoubled fury; the blast howled up the Clivus Martis and the Appian Way. The streets were almost deserted; only a solitary travelling-chariot now and then rolled thundering and clattering over the stones.

“We must mend our pace,” whispered Quintus, as the slave paused a moment, fairly brought to a standstill at the corner of the Via Latina348 by a sudden squall of rain. “We have still far to go, Blepyrus; and we shall have it worse still out there in the open.”

The road gradually trended off to the right; that dark mass, that now lay to the left, was the tomb of the Scipios,349 and there, in front of them, hardly visible in the darkness of night, rose the arch of Drusus,350 through which the road led them. They were now outside the limits of the city itself – the fourteen regions, as they were called, of Augustus Caesar. But Rome, the illimitable metropolis, flung out her arms far beyond these prescribed boundaries. That undulating plain, which we now know as the Campagna, was then dotted over with villas and pleasure-gardens. The main artery of this straggling suburb was the magnificent Via Appia – the noble work of a Claudius – leading to the south. The greater number of these villas were at this time abandoned, and the tombs that stood by the road-side351 on either hand were hardly more silent, than the dwelling places of the living, before whom these stone witnesses were set to remind them, that life is fleeting and must be enjoyed to the full while it lasts.

Quintus and his companion went onwards, still to the southwards. The country-houses became more and more scattered; they might now have walked about two Roman miles beyond the arch of Drusus. A heavily-laden wagon, with an escort of riders, had just driven past them, and the gleam of the lanterns was dwindling in the distance. Quintus stopped in front of a high-vaulted family tomb, of which the façade was decorated with a semicircular niche containing a marble seat.

“If I am not mistaken in this Cimmerian blackness,” he muttered, “this is the spot…”

And at the same moment they heard, approaching from the opposite tomb, the sound of cautious steps.

A broad beam of light fell on the young man’s face.

“God be praised!” cried a woman’s voice; and in an instant Euterpe, darkening her lantern again, stood by the side of the two men. The young woman was trembling with wet and cold; her clothes clung to her limbs, and her hair hung in dark locks over her forehead and cheeks.

“Are you alone?” asked Quintus.

“With Thrax Barbatus. Here he comes.”

“In such weather!”

“God bless you!” said the old man, coming up to Quintus. “Who is this with you?”

“Blepyrus, my trusted friend. He will not betray us.”

“My lord, what return can I ever make…”

“Go on, push on!” was the young man’s answer. “Only look how the black clouds are driving over the hills; it gets worse every minute. Have we far to go?”

“About three thousand paces,” said Barbatus.

“Then lead the way, my good Euterpe. Come, old friend, lean on me. Blepyrus, support him on the left.”

“You are too careful of me, my lord,” said the old man, flinging his wet cloak over his shoulder. “A merciful Providence still grants me strength, that my white hairs belie, and I am used to rougher roads than you suppose. It is you, the son of a noble house, accustomed to tread only on polished marble or soft carpets…”

“Nonsense – why, even this storm is nothing to speak of.”

They turned eastwards, and leaving the high-road, soon reached a wooden bridge across the waters of the Almo,352 a rivulet now swollen by the storm. From hence the path led them across the Via Latina and through a dense wood. The pine-tops sighed weirdly under the lashing wind that rocked and bowed them, while now and again, as one bough crashed against another, there was a sound as of distant axe-strokes. They first followed a foot-path, which crossed the wood in a south-easterly direction, but presently – about half way through the pine forest – their guide pushed aside the boughs of a sturdy laurel, that stood on the right side of the alley, and they plunged into the brushwood. Here another path was presently discernible, though overgrown by a seemingly impenetrable tangle of shrubs, and this presently brought them out close to a grass-grown mass of rocks. By walking round one of the huge boulders, they reached an opening into an old and long-disused stone-quarry. A low passage was visible, sloping down underground.

“Here we are,” said Euterpe. A gleam from her lantern revealed a high-piled mass of dèbris. “I will go in first.”

She placed her lantern, half open, on a shelf in the tufa rock, at such an angle as to light up the passage; then, stooping down, she disappeared in the doubtful shadow cast by a natural buttress on the rocky wall. Thrax, Quintus, and Blepyrus followed, the slave bringing the lantern in his hand. At the spot, where the flute-player had disappeared, the passage was cut in steps, which led abruptly downwards about thirty feet underground; then a broad and fairly lofty gallery ran about fifty paces on a level, opening into a cross gallery.

Quintus signed to his slave to remain where these cross-roads met, while he followed Thrax Barbatus to the right, where a dim light was visible at some considerable distance. Approaching nearer, he perceived that the source of this light lay somewhat on one side, where a large hall opened out, strangely decorated and lighted up by a few tapers. At the farther side, opposite the entrance, stood an altar hung with black, and over it was a wooden image of the crucified Christ. To the left was a brick-walled hearth, where a bright fire was blazing. The smoke rose in a tall column to a square opening in the roof. On the floor, in a niche on one side, Eurymachus – the slave who had escaped from Stephanus – lay on a straw mat, his pale face resting on his hand. Glauce, his betrothed, was occupied in mixing the juice of some fruit with water, to make a drink for the fevered sufferer, while Diphilus, kneeling in front of a rough-hewn wooden stool, was folding a broad strip of stuff to make a bandage. He rose as the new-comers entered.

“The Lord is merciful!” said Thrax to Eurymachus. “Greet our deliverer. All will be well. The night is stormy and dark; we can rest for a short while and dry our cloaks by the fire; then, by God’s help, we will set forth with a good courage. – By mid-day you will be in safety.”

The sick man’s features brightened; joyful surprise and eager gratitude sparkled in the dark eyes, which as suddenly closed again, as though dimmed by weakness. Euterpe had meanwhile taken the soaked and dripping cloaks from the shoulders of the two men, and had hung them over two seats in front of the fire. Then she fetched a little table and spread it with bread, fruit, and wine, while Glauce brought platters and cups from a cave in the wall.

“Do us the favor of accepting a little refreshment,” she said, pulling forward a bench.

Quintus, whose walk through the stormy night, and still more his anxious excitement, had made very thirsty, emptied his cup at a draught, and then turned sympathetically to Eurymachus.

“Do you know me again?” he asked smiling.

The slave drew a deep breath, and said in a weak voice:

“Yes, my lord, I know you. In such a moment of torture a man’s memory is sharpened. It was you, who on that awful day poured balm into my wounds, you and the fair youth with a grave, kind face…”

“My word for it, but you put me to shame! It was not I, but my companion, who first made his way through the hedge – it was not I, but my companion, who gave you that human consolation.”

“Not so,” replied Eurymachus solemnly. “Proud and haughty as you looked, in your heart there was some stirring of the sense of common humanity, which is our inheritance from our Heavenly Father. It was but a small matter, that betrayed this impulse, but – I know not why – it sank deeper into my soul, than even the brave words of your companion. In truth, noble Quintus, the touch of your hand, as you tried to drive away my greedy tormentors, fell like balm upon my heart; it fanned the dying spark of courage in my soul – aye, and I remembered it when, in Lycoris’ garden, they were preparing to nail me to the cross. You smile, my lord, and think me a raving enthusiast – but so it is. When you came towards me through the gap in the hedge, you appeared to me as the type of the illustrious Roman – handsome, haughty, absorbed in the natural desire for enjoyment, and with no heart to pity the sufferings of the baser millions. But when you turned to go, you left me with a revived belief, that the gulf, which severs the classes of men, may be bridged over. Often have I discussed it with Thrax Barbatus. – He declares, that the doctrine of Nazareth is destined to be the belief of all mankind; I, on the contrary, maintain that it will never be the creed of any but the wretched and oppressed. For the noble and wealthy – so I argue – will naturally cling to their luxury-loving idols, to whom they attribute their power, dominion, and riches. But since that hour, when Quintus Claudius came up to me filled with pity, a divine revelation lives and shines in my soul. And has not the current of my own fate justified this presentiment? The wealthiest and haughtiest youth of the City of the Seven Hills, the son of the all-powerful Flamen, is the deliverer of the wretched slave! Verily, Quintus, I say unto thee: Thou art, though thou knowest it not, a follower of the crucified Jesus.”

“I?” said Quintus startled and bewildered.

“Yea, my lord. ‘Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, is my disciple,’ saith Jesus of Nazareth, ‘but he that doeth the will of my Father in Heaven.’”

“I do not altogether understand what you mean; the mysteries of your religion are as yet unknown to me.”

“The doctrine of Jesus is simple and clear. The Master himself has summed it up in two laws: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God above all things,’ and the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’”

Quintus looked down in silence.

“You speak of God,” he said at last. “Which God do you mean, Eurymachus? Jupiter, whom our forefathers worshipped, is to you a mere idol. What name then do you give to the Divinity, who commands your love? And what proof have you, that he too is not a false God?”