Neæra. A Tale of Ancient Rome

CHAPTER VI

Whilst this conversation, which we have related, was passing between Afer and his client, a small coasting vessel was ascending the river Tiber, making slow headway against the current. In the little poop-house, along with the captain of the craft, was standing Masthlion, an interested observer of all that passed within view, as they wound up the famous stream.

To go back a little. We left the potter retiring to rest full of a determination to proceed to Rome. He arose next morning with a mind unchanged, and soon after dawn took his way to the cliffs. As he was about to set his foot to descend the steps which led down to the Marina, the head of an ascending individual showed up above the level. He was a short, thick-set man, with a mahogany complexion, shaggy beard and moustache. Each made an exclamation and then shook hands.

‘I was coming with no other reason than to seek tidings of you, Silo.’

‘Good! – here I am myself, Masthlion.’

‘I thought it about your time. Are you for the Tiber?’

‘Direct.’

‘When?’

‘At noon, or before. I don’t want to lose this wind,’ said the sailor, casting his eye to the eastward.

‘I have business in Rome – give me a passage.’

‘In Rome! You? What has bitten you? Come, and welcome.’

‘I will come about noon then.’

‘An hour before, Masthlion; and if I want thee before that I will send.’

The potter went home, and after gathering a few articles of clothing and food together in a wallet, he quietly resumed work until the time came for departure. During this period Neæra glided into the workshop. A new and radiant expression beamed on her face and sparkled in her beautiful gray eyes. The delicate colour of her cheek was deeper. An unconscious smile seemed to play on her lips, as though responding to the springs of joy and hope within. The loosely-girded tunic of coarse, poor fabric could not hide the graceful curves of her lithe figure, which promised a splendid maturity. Her household work had caused her to tuck up her sleeves, and her revealed arms and wrists gleamed white and round. Her loveliness seemed to the potter literally to bloom afresh as he glanced at her.

‘Father,’ said she, ‘you are going to Rome?’

‘I am, child, and Silo’s felucca sails by noon at the latest,’ he answered, without raising his head.

‘You are going because of me, father?’ she continued, drawing nearer.

He did not answer.

‘It is I who am sending you to Rome, father?’

‘You have said it, child. But I shall, at the same time, satisfy a lifelong desire to see the great city; and I may be able, likewise, to pick up a hint or two from the Roman shops.’

‘As far as I am concerned, father, you need not give yourself the trouble.’

‘Wherefore?’ asked the potter, in doubt as to her meaning.

‘Because I can save you the journey.’

Masthlion smiled.

‘You go to seek to know whether Lucius be a true man or false,’ she continued, with animation and a heightened colour; ‘you may stay at home, for I can tell you.’

‘And whence did you gain the knowledge I am truly in want of, child?’ he said.

‘Here!’ she answered proudly, as she laid her hand over her heart.

A smile of admiration, and yet compassionate, rested on her father’s lips, as he gazed into her kindling eyes, and watched the glowing hues spread over her exquisite face. New graces, fresh nobility and dignity, unknown before, seemed to blossom forth upon the maiden beneath his wondering eyes. His acute brain comprehended the change; it was no longer the child, but the woman.

‘The foolish heart is so often mistaken, Neæra,’ he said, touched by her simple faith; ‘it would not be wise to trust entirely thereto.’

But she only shook her head.

‘Facts are against you,’ he continued; ‘how many have acted from their impulse and have lived to use their eyes and minds soberly afterwards? But no, – no more of that! I had rather try and bale the bed of the sea dry than attempt to cure a lovesick girl of her folly. Meanwhile, I shall go to Rome, as I intended, and try to satisfy my own mind, after the fashion of cold, heartless men.’

‘You expect to come back with bad news of Lucius, and thus forbid me to think of him again.’

‘That I never said.’

‘No, but you think it. I warn you that you will be disappointed, and that your journey will go for nothing.’

As she said this, she wound her arms caressingly round his neck, and then slipped from the room.

Masthlion’s eyes dulled, as though a reflected gleam had vanished, and, heaving a sigh, he meditatively pursued his work. It was about an hour before noon when a young urchin made his appearance with a message from Silo, to hasten him on board, without delay. He went, accompanied by his wife and Neæra; and as soon as he set foot on board the coaster, his impatient friend cast off and hoisted sail.

The fair wind blew, and Silo, the sturdy skipper, was thoroughly amiable. A fair wind and a good cargo, homeward bound, would render even a nautical Caliban gracious.

Next morning they passed round the long mole, or breakwater, of the port of Ostia, which lay at the mouth of the Tiber, and, thereon, Masthlion’s eyes noticed a tall soldierly figure, standing and evidently watching them keenly. Beneath the closely wrapped cloak the surprised potter recognised the proportions and carriage of his daughter’s lover, and was even close enough to make out, or fancy he did, the young man’s features, beneath his polished crested helmet. Assuring himself on this point, the potter shrank farther within the cover of the poop-house, until all danger of recognition had passed.

Toward evening they arrived at their destination, which was the emporium of Rome, situated under the shadow of the Aventine Mount. Thus the Surrentine found himself, at once, in the midst of one of the busiest localities of the imperial city. Wharves lined the river, and warehouses extended along the banks. Here were the corn, the timber, the marble, the stone, the thousand species of merchandise from the ends of the earth landed and stored. And hither, to the markets, assembled the buyers and sellers thereof. The air was full of the noise and bustle on shore and ship. Waggons rumbled and clattered to and fro, and weather-beaten seamen abounded. Through the maze Silo guided Masthlion, whose provincial senses were oppressed and weighted by the unaccustomed roar and bustle into which he had been suddenly plunged, and the shipmaster, with amused glances at his wondering companion, hurried him along the river-side, nearly as far as the Trigeminan Gate. Here, not far from the spot where stood the altar of Evander, the oldest legendary monument of Rome, the sailor entered a tavern. It was an old building, with the unmistakable evidences of a substantial reputation; for it was well filled with customers, and was alive with all the bustle of a flourishing business. To the hard-faced, keen-eyed proprietor of this establishment, who greeted Silo with familiarity, the shipmaster presented his friend, in need of comfortable lodgings for a time, and having seen him comfortably bestowed, returned to the business of his coaster and cargo.

After Masthlion was satisfied with a good meal, a young lad, the son of the landlord, was commissioned to guide him, on a stroll through the adjacent parts of the city, as far as the decreasing light of day would allow. On returning, he found his friend Silo released from his engagements, and together they passed the evening.

‘Know you anything of the Pretorians?’ asked Masthlion of the innkeeper, ere he retired to his bed.

‘I know they are camped on the far side of the city, beyond the Viminal,’ replied the lusty-tongued publican, ‘I know that Caesar brought them there some years ago, and that Sejanus is their Prefect – who is, between ourselves, you know, a greater man in Rome than Caesar himself. All this I know, and what is left is, that they are a set of overpaid, underworked, overdressed, conceited, stuck-up, strutting puppies. That’s about as much as I can tell you of them.’

‘Ah!’ said Masthlion, somewhat disheartened by these bluff, energetic words, which were delivered with a readiness and confidence, as if expressing a generally received opinion; ‘then have you in Rome a poet by name Balbus?’

‘A poet named Balbus!’ repeated the host, with a comical look; ‘faith, but poetry is a trade I never meddled with, and I am on the wrong side of the Aventine, where sailors and traders swarm, and not poets. I doubt not, worthy Masthlion, that poets abound in Rome, for Rome is a very large place, I warrant you. But you must go and seek them elsewhere. What, gentlemen! does any one know of a poet named Balbus in Rome?’ cried he abruptly, putting his head inside of a room tolerably well filled with drinkers.

A laugh arose at the question. ‘North, south, east, or west?’ cried one.

‘Scarce as gladiators,’ shouted another; ‘the times have starved them.’

‘Nothing can starve them – the poets, I mean,’ answered a thin dry voice, which seemed to quell the merriment for a space, ‘they are as thick as bees in the porticoes and baths of Agrippa. Your Balbus, not being there, landlord, enter the bookshops and you will find as many more, reading their own books, since nobody else will. You will find plenty of Balbi, be assured, but no poets – Horace was the last – ’

Laughter drowned the remainder of his speech, and the landlord withdrew his head into the passage, where Masthlion was awaiting.

‘Balbus the poet does not seem to be very well known,’ he said to the potter. ‘But what do these rough swinkers know of these things any more than myself? Nevertheless, he says true, and you might do worse than inquire at the bookshops, the baths and porticoes, where the men of the calamus and inkpot love to air the wit they have scraped together by lamplight in their garrets at home.’

The potter, thereupon, retired with an uneasy feeling of helplessness and hopelessness filling his mind, at least as far as regarded Balbus.

Next morning he sallied forth soon after dawn, determined to make the utmost use of his time. He made an arrangement, by which he was again to have the services of his young guide of the previous evening, feeling that he would thus save himself much time and labour. In about three hours’ time he had walked a long distance. He had passed along the principal streets in the centre of the city. He had gazed at the shops and buildings. He had mounted the Palatine and Capitoline Hills; had viewed many temples, porticoes and mansions, and from a lofty point had surveyed the city, spread below, with delight and admiration. Then, deeming it time to be about his business, he gave the order to proceed to the Pretorian camp.

CHAPTER VII

In a luxuriously fitted room, Aelius Sejanus, the Prefect, was alone, busily engaged with his thoughts and pen.

He had inherited his father’s command; but, unlike his father, his absorbing lust of power scorned to be bounded by his office. His were the persuasions, by which the Emperor had been led to gather the cohorts of the Guards together into one united body. Scattered about in isolated garrisons, his subtle, aspiring spirit saw a great power broken and nerveless. Here he held them under his hand, while he showered largesses, rewards, promotions, and fair words upon them liberally. Popularity with these picked troops was the life and strength of his ambition. They were, at once, the ground-work and leverage of his onward steps, if ever in need of a bold stroke.

Far around lay the streets and barracks of his great camp, swarming with thousands, and, in the midst, this dark-thoughted, plotting mind was silently hewing its path toward the goal of its hopes. On the table lay a long sheet of paper, and on the paper a list of names was being laboriously compiled. His brows were closely knit, and he paced the apartment incessantly. As his reflections became matured he sat down to write, and then, springing up again, he resumed the monotony of his walk. Thus, at slow intervals, name after name was added to the list on the paper; and, every now and then, he would stop at the end of his walk, and peer through a chink of the curtain across the entrance to the ante-chamber, where a Pretorian was on guard, in full panoply of helmet, cuirass, and buckler. There was that in the person and manner of the Prefect which had succeeded, at least to all outward appearance, in winning over such a profound, suspicious mind even as that of Tiberius, his master. Nature had endowed him with a very formidable combination of qualities to be fired with a burning ambition. With a handsome and imposing exterior, energy of mind, activity of body, a plausible tongue, and insinuating manners, this man was dangerous enough. But when the cold subtlety of his brain and the devouring fire of his heart were unhampered by scruple or remorse he became terrible. No tiger more murderous when stealth and craft had failed; for he hesitated not to strike at the life of the man in his path through the honour of the wife. He could glide to the crime of murder through the guilty excitement and pleasure of female conquest and debauchery, and there he bottomed the depths of infamy and horror.