In the woods of Fiesole, a modern wanderer coming from Florence will find to the right of the high-road the ruins of an extensive villa-like edifice. Ivy, saxifrage and wild roses vie with each other in concealing the ruins. For centuries the peasants in the neighbouring villages have carried away stones from this place in order to dam up the earth of their vineyards on the slopes of the hills. But even yet the remains clearly show where once stood the colonnade before the house, where the central hall, and where the wall of the court.
Weeds grow luxuriantly in the meadows where once lay in shining order the beautiful gardens; nothing has been left of them except the wide marble basin of a long dried-up fountain, in whose pebble-filled runnels the lizards now sun themselves.
But in the days of our story the place looked very different. "The Villa of Mæcenas at Fæsulæ," as the building, probably with little or no reason, was called at that time, was inhabited by happy people; the house ordered by a woman's careful hand; the garden enlivened by childhood's bright laughter.
The climbing clematis was gracefully trained up the slender shafts of the Corinthian columns in front of the house, and the cheerful vine shaded the flat roof. The winding walks in the garden were strewed with white sand, and in the outhouses dedicated to domestic uses reigned an order and cleanliness which was never to be found in a household served by Roman slaves alone.
It was sunset.
The men and maid servants were returning from the fields. The heavily-laden hay-carts swung along, drawn by horses which were evidently not of Italian breed. The shepherds were driving goats and sheep home from the hills, accompanied by large dogs, which scampered on in front, barking joyously.
Close before the yard gate, a couple of Roman slaves, with shrill voices and mad gestures, were urging on the panting horses of a cruelly over-laden wagon, not with whips, but with sticks, the iron points of which they stuck again and again into the same sore place upon the poor animals' hides. In spite of this, no advance was made, for a large stone lay just in front of the left fore-wheel of the wagon, which the angry and impatient drivers did not notice.
"Forwards, beast! and son of a beast!" screamed one of them to the struggling horse; "forwards, thou Gothic sluggard!" Another stab with the iron point, a renewed and desperate pull; but the wheel did not go over the stone, and the tortured animal fell on its knees, threatening to upset the wagon by its struggles.
At this the rage of the driver was redoubled. "Wait, thou rascal!" he shouted, and struck at the eye of the panting animal.
But he only struck once; the next moment he himself fell under a heavy blow.
"Davus, thou wicked dog!" growled a powerful voice, and, twice as tall, and certainly twice as broad as the frightened tormentor, there stood over the fallen man a gigantic Goth, who rained down blows upon him with a thick cudgel. "Thou miserable coward," said he, giving him a final kick, "I will teach thee how to treat a creature which is ten times better than thyself. I verily believe, thou rascal, that thou treatest the beast ill, because he comes from the other side of the mountains! If I catch thee at it again, I will break every bone in thy body. Now get up, and unload--thou shalt carry every swath that is too much into the barn upon thine own back. Forwards!"
With a malicious glance at his punisher the beaten man rose, and, limping, prepared to obey.
The Goth had immediately helped the struggling horse to its feet, and now carefully washed its broken knees with his own evening drink of wine and water.
He had scarcely finished his task, when the clear voice of a boy called urgently from a neighbouring stable:
"Wachis, come here; Wachis!"
"I'm coming, Athalwin, my boy! What's the matter?" And he already stood in the open door of the stable near a handsome boy of about seven years of age, who angrily stroked his long yellow hair from his glowing face, and with great trouble repressed two large tears of rage thatwouldspring into his blue eyes. He held a pretty wooden sword in his right hand, and shook it threateningly at a black-browed slave who stood opposite to him, with his head insolently thrust forward and his fists clenched. "What is the matter here?" repeated Wachis, crossing the threshold.
"The chesnut has again nothing to drink; and only look! Two gadflies have sucked themselves fast upon his shoulder, where he cannot get at them with his tail, and I cannot reach with my hand; and that bad Cacus there won't do what I tell him; and I am sure he has been scolding at me in Latin, which I don't understand."
Wachis drew nearer with a threatening look.
"I only said," said Cacus, slowly receding, "that I must first eat my millet. The beast may wait. In our country men come before beasts."
"Indeed, thou dunce!" said Wachis, as he killed the gadflies; "in our country the horse eats before the rider! Make haste!"
But Cacus was strong and obstinate; he tossed his head and said:
"Here, we are inourcountry, andourcustoms must be followed."
"Oho, thou cursed blockhead! wilt thou obey?" asked Wachis, raising his hand.
"Obey? Not thee! Thou art only a slave like me. And my parents lived in this house when such as thou were stealing cows and sheep on the other side of the mountains."
Wachis let his cudgel fall and swung his arms to and fro.
"Listen, Cacus, I have another crow to pluck with thee besides; thou knowest wherefore. Now it can all be done with at the same time."
"Ha, ha!" cried Cacus with a mocking laugh, "about Liuta, the flaxen-haired wench? Bah! I like her no longer, the barbarian. She dances like a heifer!"
"Now it's all up with thee," said Wachis quietly, and caught hold of his adversary.
But Cacus twisted himself like an eel out of the grasp of the Goth, pulled a sharp knife from the folds of his woollen frock and threw it at him. As Wachis stooped the knife whistled only a hair's-breadth past his head, and penetrated deeply into the door-post behind him.
"Well, wait, thou murderous worm!" cried the German, and would have thrown himself upon Cacus, but he felt himself clasped from behind.
It was Davus, who had watched for this moment of revenge.
But now Wachis became exceedingly wroth.
He shook the man off, held him by the nape of the neck with his left hand, got hold of Cacus with his right, and, with the strength of a bear, knocked the heads of his adversaries together, accompanying every knock with an interjection, "There, my boys--that for the knife--and that for the back-spring--and that for the heifer!" And who knows how long this strange litany would have continued, if he had not been interrupted by a loud call.
"Wachis! Cacus! let loose, I tell you," cried the strong fall voice of a woman; and a stately matron, clad in a blue Gothic garment, appeared at the door.
She was not tall, and yet imposing. Her fine figure was more sturdy than slender. Her gold-brown hair was bound in simple but rich braids round her head; her features were regular; more firm than delicate.
An expression of sincerity, worth, and trustfulness lay in her large blue eyes. Her round bare arms showed that she was no stranger to work. At her broad girdle, over which puffed out her brown under-garment of home-spun cloth, rattled a bunch of keys; she rested her left hand quietly upon her hip, and stretched her right commandingly before her.
"Aye, aye, Rauthgundis, mistress mine," said Wachis, letting loose, "must you have your eyes everywhere?"
"Everywhere, when my servants are at mischief. When will you learn to agree? You Italians need a master in the house. But thou, Wachis, shouldst not vex the housewife too. Come, Athalwin, come with me."
And she led the boy away.
She went into a side-yard, filled her raised skirt with grain out of a trough, and fed the fowls and pigeons, which immediately flocked around her.
For a little while Athalwin watched her silently. At last he said:
"Mother, is it true? Is father a robber?"
Rauthgundis suspended her occupation, and looked at the child in surprise.
"Who said so?"
"Who? Eh, the nephew of Calpurnius! We were playing on the great heap of hay in his meadow, and I showed him how far the land belongs to us on the right of the hedge--far and wide--as far as our servants were mowing, and the brook shone in the distance. Then he got angry and said, 'Yes, and all that land once belonged to us, and thy father or thy grandfather stole it, the robbers!'"
"Indeed! And what didst thou reply?"
"Eh, nothing at all, mother. I only threw him over the hay-cock, with his heels in the air. But now I should like to know if it is true."
"No, child, it is not true. Your father did not steal it, but took it openly, because he was stronger and better than these Italians. And heroes have done the same in all ages. And when the Italians were strong and their neighbours weak, they did so most of all. But now come; we must look after the linen that is bleaching on the green."
As they turned their backs upon the stables, and were going towards the grassy hill on the left of the house, they heard the rapid hoof-beats of a horse, which was approaching on the old Roman high-road.
Athalwin climbed quickly to the top of the hill and looked towards the road.
A rider, mounted on an immense brown charger, galloped down the woody heights towards the villa. Brightly sparkled his helmet and the point of the lance, which he carried across his shoulder.
"It is father, mother; it is father!" cried the boy, and ran swift as an arrow down the hill to meet the rider.
Rauthgundis had just now reached the top of the hill. Her heart beat. She shaded her eyes with her hand, to look into the evening-red; then she said in a low happy voice:
"Yes, it is he! my husband."
Meanwhile Athalwin had already reached his father and climbed up his knee, clinging to his foot.
The rider lifted him up with a loving hand, set him before him in the saddle, and spurred his horse into a gallop. The noble animal, once the charger of Theodoric, neighed lustily as he recognised his home and his mistress, and shook his flowing mane.
The rider now reached the hill, and dismounted with the boy.
"My dear wife!" he exclaimed, embracing her tenderly.
"My Witichis!" she answered, blushing with pleasure, and clinging to him; "welcome home!"
"I promised that I would come before the new moon--it was difficult----"
"But thou hast kept thy word, as always."
"My heart drew me here," he said, putting his arm around her.
They went on slowly to the house.
"It seems, Athalwin, that Wallada is of more consequence to thee than thy father," said Witichis, smiling, to the boy, who was leading the horse carefully after them.
"No, father; but give me the lance too--I have not often such a pleasure in this country life;" and dragging the long, heavy shaft of the spear after him with difficulty, he cried out: "Eh! Wachis, Ansbrand! father has come! Fetch the skin of Falernian from the cellar. Father is thirsty after his rapid ride!"
With a smile Witichis stroked the golden curls of the boy, who now hurried past them to the house.
"Well, and how does all go on here?" asked Witichis, looking at Rauthgundis.
"Very well, Witichis. The harvest is all brought in, the grapes crushed, the sheaves housed."
"I do not ask about that," said he, pressing her tenderly to him--"how art thou?"
"As well as a poor woman can be," she answered, looking up at him, "who misses her well-loved husband. Work is the only thing that comforts me, my friend; plenty of occupation, which benumbs a sensitive heart. I often think how thou, far away amongst strange people, must trouble thyself in court and camp, where there is none to cherish thee. At least, I say to myself, he shall find his home well-kept and cheerful when he returns. And it is that, seest thou, which sanctifies and ennobles all the dull routine of work, and makes it dear to me."
"That's my brave wife! But dost thou not too much fatigue thyself?"
"Work is healthy. But vexation, and the men's wickedness,thathurts me!"
Witichis stood still.
"Who dares to grieve thee?"
"Ah! the Italian servants, and our Italian neighbours! They all hate us. Woe to us, if they did not fear us. Calpurnius, our neighbour, is so insolent when he knows thou art absent, and the Roman slaves are disobedient and false; our Gothic servants alone are good."
Witichis sighed. They had now arrived at the house, and sat down at a marble table under the colonnade.
"Thou must remember," said Witichis, "that our neighbour was forced to give up to us the third part of his estate and slaves."
"And has kept two-thirds, and his life into the bargain--he ought to thank God!" answered Rauthgundis contemptuously.
Just then Athalwin came running with a basketful of apples, which he had plucked from the tree. Presently Wachis and the other German servants came with wine, meat, and cheese, and greeted their master with a frank clasp of the hand.
"Well done, my children. The mistress praises you. But where are Davus, Cacus, and the others?"
"Pardon, sir," answered Wachis, grinning, "they have a bad conscience."
"Why? What about?"
"Eh!--I think--because I have beaten them little; they are ashamed."
The other men laughed.
"Well, it will do them no harm," said Witichis; "go now to your meal. To-morrow I will examine your work."
The men went.
"What is that about Calpurnius?" asked Witichis, pouring wine into his cup.
Rauthgundis blushed and hesitated.
"He has carried away the hay from the mountain meadow," she then replied, "which our men had mowed; and has put it into his barn by night, and will not return it."
"He will return it quickly enough, I think," said her husband quietly, as he took up his cup and drank.
"Yes," cried Athalwin eagerly, "I think so too! And if he will not, all the better for me! Then we will declare war, and I will go over with Wachis and all the great fellows, with weapons and pikes! He always looks at me so wickedly, the black spy!"
Rauthgundis told him to be silent, and sent him to bed.
"Very well, I will go," he said; "but, father, when thou comest again, thou wilt bring me a real weapon, instead of this stick, wilt thou not?" and he ran into the house.
"Contentions with these Italians never cease," said Witichis; "the very children inherit the feeling. But it causes thee far too much vexation here. So much the more willingly wilt thou do what I now propose: come with me to Ravenna, Rauthgundis, to court."
His wife looked at him with astonishment.
"Thou art joking!" she said incredulously. "Thou hast never before wished it! During the nine years of our married life, it has never entered thy head to take me to court! I believe no one in all the nation knows that a Rauthgundis exists. For a surety, thou hast kept our marriage secret," she added, smiling, "like a crime!"
"Like a treasure!" said Witichis, embracing her.
"I have never asked thee wherefore. I was and am happy; and I thought and think now: he has his reason."
"I had a good reason: it exists no longer. Now thou mayest know all. A few months after I had found thee amid the solitudes of thy mountains, and had conceived an affection for thee, King Theodoric hit upon the strange idea, to unite me in marriage with his sister Amalaberga, the widow of the King of the Thuringians, who needed the protection of a man against her wicked neighbours, the Franks."
"Thou wert to wear a crown?" asked Rauthgundis, with sparkling eyes.
"But Rauthgundis was dearer to me," continued Witichis, "than Queen or crown, and I said, No. It vexed the King exceedingly, and he only forgave me when I told him that probably I should never marry. At that time I could not hope ever to call thee mine; thou knowest how long thy father suspiciously and sternly refused to trust thee to me; but when, notwithstanding, thou wert become my wife, I considered that it would not be wise to show the King the woman for whose sake I had refused his sister."
"But why hast thou concealed all this from me for nine long years?"
"Because," he said, looking lovingly into her eyes, "because I know my Rauthgundis. Thou wouldst ever have imagined I had lost I know not what with that crown! But now the King is dead, and I am permanently bound to the court. Who knows when I shall again rest in the shadow of these columns, in the peace of this roof?"
And he related briefly the fall of the Prefect, and what position he now held near Amalaswintha.
Rauthgundis listened attentively; then she took his hand and pressed it.
"It is good, Witichis, that the Goths gradually find out thy worth, and thou art more cheerful, I think, than usual."
"Yes; I feel more contented since I can bear part of the burden of the time. It was much more difficult to stand idly by and see it pressing heavily upon my nation. I am only sorry for the Queen, she is like a prisoner."
"Bah! Why did the woman grasp at the office of a man? Such a thing would never enter my head."
"Thou art no Queen, Rauthgundis, and Amalaswintha is proud."
"I am ten times prouder than she! but not so vain. She can never have loved a man, nor understood his nature and worth, otherwise she could not wish to fill a man's place."
"At court that is looked upon in a different manner. But do come with me to Ravenna."
"No, Witichis," she quietly said, rising from her seat, "the court is not fit for me, nor I for the court. I am the child of a mountain farmer, and far too uncultured. Look at this brown neck," she laughed, "and these rough hands! I cannot tinkle on the lyre, or read verses. I should be ill suited for the fine Roman ladies, and thou wouldst have little honour with me."
"Surely thou dost not consider thyself too bad for the court?"
"No, Witichis, too good."
"Well, people must learn to bear with and appreciate each other."
"I could not do that. They could perhaps learn to bear with me, out of fear of thee. But I should daily tell them to their faces that they are hollow, false, and bad!"
"So, then, thou wilt rather do without thy husband for months?"
"Yes, rather do without him, than be near him in a false and unfitting position. Oh, my Witichis!" she added, encircling his neck with her arm, "consider who I am and how thou foundest me! where the last settlements of our people dot the edge of the Alps, high up upon the steep precipices of the Scaranzia; where the youthful Isara breaks foaming out of the ravines into the open plains, there stands my father's lonely farm; there I knew of nought but the hard work of summer upon the quiet alms, of winter in the smoke-blackened hall, spinning with the maids. My mother died early, and my brothers were killed by the Italians. So I grew up lonely, no one near me but my old father, who was as true, but also as hard and close, as his native rocks. There I saw nothing of the world which lay outside our mountains. Only sometimes, from a height, I watched with curiosity a pack-horse going along the road deep below in the valley, laden with salt or wine. I sat through many a shining summer evening upon the jagged peaks of the high Arn, and looked at the sun sinking splendidly over the far-away river Licus; and I wondered what it had seen the whole long summer day, since it had risen over the broad Œnus; and I thought how I should like to know what things looked like at the other side of the Karwändel, or away behind the Brennus, over which my brothers had gone and had never returned. And yet I felt how beautiful it was up there in the green solitude, where I heard the golden eagle screaming in its near eyrie, and where I plucked more lovely flowers than ever grow in the plains, and even, sometimes, heard by night the mountain-wolf howling outside the stable-door, and frightened it away with a torch. In early autumn, too, and in the long winter, I had time to sit and muse; when the white mist-veils spun themselves over the lofty pines; when the mountain wind tore the blocks of stone from our straw-roof, and the avalanches thundered from the precipices. So I grew up, strange to the world beyond the next forest, only at home in the quiet world of my thoughts, and in the narrow life of the peasant. Then thou earnest--I remember it as if it had happened yesterday----"
She ceased, lost in recollection.
"I remember it too, exactly," said Witichis. "I was leading a centumvirate from Juvavia to the Augusta-town on the Licus. I had lost my way and my people. For a long time I had wandered about in the sultry summer day, without finding a path, when I saw smoke rising above a fir-tree grove, and soon I found a hidden farm, and entered the yard-gate. There stood a splendid girl at the pump, lifting a bucket----"
"Look, even here in the valley, in this southern valley of the Alps, it is often too close for me; and I long for a breath of air from the pine-woods of my mountains. But at court, in the narrow gilded chambers! there I should languish and pine away. Leave me here; I shall manage Calpurnius well enough. And thou, I know well, wilt still think of home, wife, and child, when absent in the royal halls."
"Yes, God knows, with longing thoughts! Well then, remain here, and God keep thee, my good wife!"
The second day after this conversation Witichis again rode away up the wooded heights.
The parting hour had made him almost tender; but he had firmly checked the outbreak of feeling which it was so repugnant to his simple and manly nature to indulge in. How the brave man's heart clung to his trusty wife and darling boy!
Behind him trotted Wachis, who would not be prevented from accompanying his master for a short distance.
Suddenly he rode up to him.
"Sir," said he, "I know something."
"Indeed! Why didst not tell it?"
"Because no one asked me about it."
"Well, I ask thee about it."
"Yes; if one is asked, then of course he must answer! The mistress has told you that Calpurnius is such a bad neighbour?"
"Yes; what about that?"
"But she did not tell you since when?"
"No; dost thou know?"
"Well, it was about half a year ago. About that time Calpurnius once met the mistress in the wood, alone as they both thought; but they were not alone. Some one lay in a ditch, and was taking his mid-day nap."
"Thou wert that sluggard!"
"Rightly guessed. And Calpurnius said something to the mistress."
"What did he say?"
"That I did not understand. But the mistress was not idle; she lifted her hand and struck him in the face with such a smack, that it resounded. And since then our neighbour is a bad neighbour, and I wanted to tell you, because I thought the mistress would not wish to vex you about the rascal; but still it is better that you know it. And see! there stands Calpurnius at his house door; do you see? and now farewell, dear master."
And with this he turned his horse and galloped home. But the blood rushed to Witichis' face.
He rode up to his neighbour's door. Calpurnius was about to retreat into the house, but Witichis called to him in such a voice, that he was obliged to remain.
"What do you want with me, neighbour Witichis?" he asked, looking up at him askance.
Witichis drew rein, and stopped his horse close to him. Then he held his clenched iron-gloved fist close before his neighbour's eyes.
"Neighbour Calpurnius," he said quietly, "ifIever strike thee in the face, thou wilt never rise again."
Calpurnius started back in a fright.
But Witichis gave his horse the spur, and rode proudly and slowly upon his way.
In his study at Rome, comfortably stretched upon the soft cushions of a lectus, lay Cethegus the Prefect.
He was of good cheer.
His examination had ended with full acquittal. Only in case of an immediate search in his house--such as the young King had ordered, but which his death had frustrated--could discovery have been apprehended.
He had succeeded in gaining permission to complete the fortifications of Rome, supplying the funds out of his own exchequer, which circumstance still more increased his influence in that city.
The evening before he had held a meeting in the Catacombs. All the reports were favourable; the patriots were increasing in number and means.
The greater oppression which since the late occurrences at Ravenna weighed upon the Italians, could but serve to add to the ranks of the malcontents; and, which was the main thing, Cethegus now held all the threads of the conspiracy in his own hands. Even the most jealous Republicans implicitly acknowledged the necessity of committing the conduct of affairs, until the day of deliverance, to the most gifted of men.
The feeling against the barbarians had made such progress amongst all Italians, that Cethegus could entertain the project of striking a blow without the help of the Byzantines, as soon as ever Rome was sufficiently fortified.
"For," he repeatedly told himself, "all foreign liberators are easily summoned, but with difficulty discarded."
Musing thus, Cethegus reposed upon his lectus. He laid aside Cæsar's "Civil Wars," the leaves of which he had been turning over, and said to himself:
"The gods must have great things in store for me; whenever I fall, it is like a cat--upon my feet and unhurt. Ah! when things go well with us, we like to share our content with others. But it is too dangerous a pleasure to put trust in another, and Silence is the only faithful goddess. And yet one is human, and would like----"
Here a slave entered--the old Ostiarius Fidus--and silently handed to Cethegus a letter upon a flat golden salver.
"The bearer waits," he said, and left the room.
Cethegus took up the letter. But as soon as he recognised the design upon the wax seal which secured the string twisted round the tablets--the Dioscuri--he cried eagerly, "From Julius--at a happy hour!" hastily untied the string, opened the tablets, and read, his cold and pale countenance flushed with a warmth of pleasure usually wholly strange to him:
"'To Cethegus the Prefect, from Julius Montanus.
"'How long it is, my fatherly preceptor'--(by Jupiter! that sounds frosty)--'that I have delayed sending you the greeting which I owe you. The last time I wrote from the green banks of the Ilissos, where I sought for traces of Plato in the desolated groves of the Akademia, but found none. I know well that my letter was not cheerful. The sad philosophers, wandering in the lonely schools, surrounded by the oppressions of the Emperor, the suspicion of the priests, and the coldness of the multitude, could only arouse my compassion. My soul was gloomy; I knew not wherefore. I blamed my ingratitude to you, the most generous of all benefactors.'
"He has never given me such intolerable names before," observed Cethegus.
"'For two years I have travelled, accompanied by your slaves and freedmen, endowed like a King of the Syrians with your riches, through all Asia and Hellas; I have enjoyed all the beauty and wisdom of the ancients, and my heart is still unsatisfied, my life empty. Not the enthusiastic wisdom of Plato; not the gilded ivory of Phidias; not Homer and not Thucydides gave me what I wanted! At last, at last, here in Neapolis, in this blooming, God-endowed city; here I found what I had unconsciously missed and sought for everywhere. Not dead wisdom, but warm, living happiness.'--(He is in love! At last, thou coy Hippolyte! Thanks, Eros and Anteros!)--'Oh! my guardian, my father! do you know what happiness it is for the first time to call a heart that completely understands you, your own?'--(Ah, Julius!" sighed the Prefect, with a singular expression of softened sentiment, "as if I knew it not?)--'a heart to which one can freely open his whole soul? Oh! if you have ever proved it, rejoice with me! sacrifice to Jupiter, the fulfiller! For the first time I have found a friend!'
"What does he say?" cried Cethegus indignantly; and starting up with a look of jealous pain, "The ungrateful boy!"
"'For thou wilt understand it well, until now I had no bosom friend. You, my fatherly preceptor----'"
Cethegus threw the tablets upon the tortoise-shell table, and walked hastily up and down the room.
"Folly!" he then said quietly, took up the letter again, and read on:
"'You, so much older, wiser, better, greater than I--you had laid such a weight of gratitude and reverence upon my young soul, that it could never unfold itself to you without reserve. I have also often heard with discouragement the biting wit with which you mocked at all warmth and softness of feeling; and a sharp expression about your proud and closely-compressed mouth has always killed such feelings in me, as the night-frost kills the first violets.'--(Well, at all events, he is sincere!)--'But now I have found a friend--frank, warm, young, and enthusiastic--and I feel a delight hitherto unknown to me. We are one in heart and soul; we wander together on sunny days and moonlight nights through the Elysian fields, and are never at a loss for winged words. But I must soon close this letter. He is a Goth'--(that too!" cried Cethegus, angrily)--"'and is named Totila.'"
Cethegus let drop the hand which held the letter. He said nothing. He only shut his eyes for an instant, and then he quietly read on again:
"'And is named Totila. The day after my arrival in Neapolis, as I was lounging through the Forum of Neptune, and admiring some statues under the arches of a neighbouring house which had been exposed for sale by a sculptor, there suddenly rushed at me, out of the door of this house, a grey-haired man with a woollen apron, all over white with plaster, and holding in his hand a pointed tool. He grasped my shoulder and shouted, "Pollux, my Pollux! have I found thee at last!" I thought the old fellow was mad, and said, "You mistake, old man, I am called Julius, and come from Athens." "No," cried he; "thou art named Pollux, and come from Olympus!" And before I knew what had happened, he had pushed me into the house. There I gradually found out what was the matter. It was the sculptor who had exposed the statues. In the ante-chamber stood many half-finished works, and the sculptor explained to me that for years he had been thinking of a group of the Dioscuri. For the Castor he had found a charming model in a young Goth. "But in vain," he continued, "have I prayed to Heaven for an inspiration for my Pollux. He must resemble the Castor; like him, a brother of Helena and a son of Jupiter. Complete similarity of feature and form must be there, and yet the difference must be as apparent as the resemblance; they must each be completely individual. In vain I sought in all the baths and gymnasiums of Neapolis. I could not find the Leda-twin. And now a god--Jupiter himself--has led thee to my door! It struck me like lightning when I saw thee, 'There stands my Pollux, just as he ought to look!' And I will never let thee depart living from my house until thou hast promised me thy head and thy body." I willingly promised the strange old man to come again the next day; and I did so the more gladly when I afterwards learnt that my violent friend was Xenarchus, the greatest sculptor in marble and bronze that Italia has known for a long time. The next day I went again, and found my Castor. It was Totila; and I cannot deny that the great resemblance surprised me, although Totila is older, taller, stronger, and incomparably more handsome than I. Xenarchus says that we are like a pale and a gold-coloured citron--for Totila has fairer hair and beard--and just in this manner, the master swears, were the two Dioscuri alike and unlike. So we learnt to know and love each other amongst the statues of the gods and goddesses in the studio of Xenarchus; became, in truth, Castor and Pollux, inseparable and intimate as they; and already the merry populace of Neapolis calls us by these names when we wander arm in arm through the streets. But our new-made friendship was still more quickly ripened by a threatened danger, which might easily have nipped it in the bud. One evening, as usual, we had wandered out of the Porta Nolana to seek refreshment after the heat of the day in the Baths of Tiberius. After the bath--in a mood of sportive tenderness--you will blame it--I had thrown my friend's mantle over me, and set his helmet, decorated with the swan's wings, upon my head. He entered into the joke, and, with a smile, threw my chlamys4around him; and, chatting peacefully, we went back through the pine grove in the gloom of approaching night to the city. All at once a man sprang upon me from a taxus-bush behind me, and I felt cold steel at my throat. But the next moment the murderer lay at my feet, Totila's sword in his breast. Only slightly wounded, I bent over the dying man, and asked him what reason he had to hate and murder me. But he stared in my face, and breathed out, "Not thee--Totila, the Goth!" and he gave a convulsive shiver and was dead. By his costume and weapons, we saw that he was an Isaurian mercenary.'"
Again the hand which held the letter dropped, and Cethegus pressed the other to his forehead.
"Madness of chance!" he said; "to what mightest thou not have led!" And he read to the end. '"Totila said he had many enemies at Ravenna. We reported the incident to Uliaris, the Gothic Earl at Neapolis. He caused the corpse to be examined, and instituted an inquiry--without result. But this grave event has cemented our youthful friendship and consecrated it with blood for ever. It has united us in an earnest and holy bond. The seal-ring of the Dioscuri, which you gave me at parting, was a friendly omen, and it has been pleasantly fulfilled; and when I ask myself to whom is owing all my happiness, it is to you, to you alone, who sent me to this city, where I have found all that I wanted! So may the gods requite you for it! Ah, I see that my letter speaks only of myself and this friendship--write to me speedily, I beg, and let me know how things go with you.--Vale."
A bitter smile passed across the Prefect's expressive mouth, and he again measured the room with rapid strides. At last he stopped, supporting his chin in his hand:
"How can I be so--childish--as to vex myself? It is all very natural, if very foolish. You are sick, Julius. Wait; I will write you a prescription."
And with an expression of pleased malice on his face, he seated himself upon the writing-divan, took a Cnidian reed-pen, and wrote with the red ink from a cup of agate, in the shape of a lion's head, which was screwed into the lectus:
"To Julius Montanus: Cethegus, Prefect of Rome.
"Your touching epistle from Neapolis amused me much. It shows that you have not yet outlived the last childish ailments. When you have laid them aside you will be a man. In order to precipitate this crisis, I will prescribe the best means. You will at once seek for the trader in purple, Valerius Procillus, the oldest friend that I have in Neapolis. He is the richest merchant of the East, an inveterate enemy of the Emperor of Byzantium, and as good a republican as Cato; merely on that account he is my trusted friend. But his daughter, Valeria Procilla, is the most beautiful Roman girl of our time, and a true daughter of the ancient, the heathen world. She is only three years younger than you, and therefore ten times as wise. At the same time her father will not refuse you if you explain to him that Cethegus sues for you. But thou wilt fall deeply in love at first sight! Of this I am sure; although I tell it you beforehand, although you know that I wish it. In her arms you will forget all the friends in the world; when the sun rises, the moon pales. Besides, do you know that your Castor is one of the most dangerous enemies of the Romans? And I once knew a certain Julius who swore: 'Rome before all things!'--Vale."
Cethegus rolled the papyrus together, tied it with a string of red bast, fastened the knot with wax, and pressed his amethyst ring, engraved with a splendid head of Jupiter, upon it. Then he touched a silver eagle which protruded from the marble wainscoting of the room; outside, upon the wall of the vestibule, a bronze thunderbolt struck upon the silver shield of a fallen Titan with a clear bell-like tone. The slave re-entered the room.
"Let the messenger have a bath; give him food and wine, a gold solidus, and this letter. To-morrow at sunrise he will return to Neapolis."
Several weeks later we find the grave Prefect in a circle which seemed very ill-suited to his lofty character, or even to his age.
In the singular juxtaposition of heathenism and Christianity which, during the first century succeeding Constantine's conversion, filled the life and manners of the Roman world with such harsh contrasts, the peaceful mingling of the old and the new religious festivals played a striking part. Generally the merry feasts of the ancient gods still existed, together with the great holidays of the Christian Church, though usually robbed of their original significance, of their religious kernel. The people allowed themselves to be deprived of the belief in Jupiter and Juno, of sacrifices and ceremonies, but not of the games, the festivities, the dances and banquets, by which those ceremonies had been accompanied; and the Church was at all times wise and tolerant enough to suffer what she could not prevent. Thus, even the truly heathen Lupercalia, which were distinguished by gross superstition and all kinds of rude excess, were only, and with great difficulty, abolished in the year 496.
The days of the Floralia were come, which formerly were celebrated over the whole continent with noisy games and dances, as being specially a feast of happy youth; and which, in the days we speak of, were at least passed in banqueting and drinking.
And so the two Licinii, with their circle of young gallants and patricians, had made an appointment to meet together for a symposium upon the principal holiday of the Floralia, to which, as at our picnics, every one contributed his share of food and wine.
The guests assembled at the house of young Kallistratos, an amiable and rich Greek from Corinth, who had settled in Rome to enjoy an artistic leisure, and had built, near the gardens of Sallust, a tasteful house, which became the focus of luxury and polite society.
Besides the rich Roman aristocracy, this house was particularly frequented by artists and scholars; and also by that stratum of the Roman youth, which could spare little time and thought from its horses, chariots and dogs for the State, and which until now had therefore been inaccessible to the influence of the Prefect.
For this reason Cethegus was well-pleased when young Lucius Licinius, now his most devoted adherent, brought him an invitation from the Corinthian.
"I know," said Licinius modestly, "that we can offer you no appropriate entertainment; and if the Falernian and Cyprian, with which Kallistratos regales his guests, do not entice you, you can decline to come."
"No, my son; I will come," said Cethegus; "and it is not the old Cyprian which tempts me, but the young Romans."
Kallistratos, who loved to display his Grecian origin, had built his house in the midst of Rome in Grecian style; not in the style then prevalent, but in that of the free Greece of Pericles, which, by contrast with the tasteless overcharging usual in Rome in those days, made an impression of noble simplicity.
Through a narrow passage one entered the peristyle, or open court, surrounded by a colonnade, in the centre of which a splashing fountain fell into a coloured marble basin. The colonnade, open to the north, contained, besides other rooms, the banqueting hall, in which the company was now assembled.
Cethegus had stipulated that he should not be present at the cœna, or actual banquet, but only at the compotatio, the drinking-bout which followed.
So he found the friends in the elegant drinking-room, where the bronze lamps upon the tortoise-shell slabs on the walls were already lighted, and the guests, crowned with roses and ivy, lay upon the cushions of the horse-shoe-shaped triclinium.
A stupefying mixture of wine-odours and flower-scents, a glare of torches and glow of colour, met him upon the threshold.
"Salve, Cethegus!" cried the host, as he entered. "You find but a small party."
Cethegus ordered the slave who followed him, a beautiful and slender young Moor, whose finely-shaped limbs were rather revealed than hidden by the scarlet gauze of his light tunic, to unloose his sandals. Meanwhile he counted the guests.
"Not less than the Graces, nor more than the Muses," he said with a smile.
"Quick, choose a wreath," said Kallistratos, "and take your place up there, upon the seat of honour on the couch. We have chosen you beforehand for the king of the feast."
The Prefect was determined to charm these young people. He knew how well he could do so, and that day he wished to make a particular impression. He chose a crown of roses, and took the ivory sceptre, which a Syrian slave handed to him upon his knees.
Placing the rose-wreath on his head, he raised the sceptre with dignity.
"Thus I put an end to your freedom!"
"A born ruler!" cried Kallistratos, half in joke, half in earnest.
"But I will be a gentle tyrant! My first law: one-third water--two-thirds wine."
"Oho!" cried Lucius Licinius, and drank to him, "bene te!you govern luxuriously. Equal parts is usually our strongest mixture."
"Yes, friend," said Cethegus, smiling, and seating himself upon the corner seat of the central triclinium, the "Consul's seat," "but I took lessons in drinking amongst the Egyptians; they drink pure wine. Ho, cupbearer--what is he called?"
"Ganymede--he is from Phrygia. Fine fellow--eh?"
"So, Ganymede, obey thy Jupiter, and place near each guest; a patera of Mamertine wine--but near Balbus two, because he is a countryman."
The young people laughed.
Balbus was a rich Sicilian proprietor, still quite young, and already very stout.
"Bah!" said he, laughing, "ivy round my head, and an amethyst on my finger--I defy the power of Bacchus!"
"Well, at which wine have you arrived?" asked Cethegus, at the same time signing to the Moor who now stood behind him, and who at once brought a second wreath of roses, and, this time, wound it about his neck.
"Must of Setinum, with honey from Hymettus, was the last. There, try it!" said Piso, the roguish poet, whose epigrams and anacreontics could not be copied quickly enough by the booksellers; and whose finances, notwithstanding, were always in poetical disorder. He handed to the Prefect what we should call avexing-cup, a bronze serpent's-head, which, lifted carelessly to the lips, violently shot a stream of wine into the drinker's throat.
But Cethegus knew the trick, drank carefully, and returned the cup.
"I like yourdrywit better, Piso," he said, laughing; and snatched a wax tablet from a fold in the other's garment.
"Oh, give it me back," said Piso; "it is no verses--just the contrary--a list of my debts for wine and horses."
"Well," observed Cethegus, "I have taken it--so it and they are mine. To-morrow you may fetch the quittance at my house; but not for nothing--for one of your most spiteful epigrams upon my pious friend Silverius."
"Oh, Cethegus!" cried the poet, delighted and flattered, "how spiteful one can be for 40,000 solidi! Woe to the holy man of God!"