A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by - (best ereader for manga TXT) 📖

visible in the darkness. Out from the orchards drifted the fragrant scent of apple, pear, plum, and quince. Still more sweet was the breeze, as it swept over the wide-stretching rose-beds. Overhead Orion and Arcturus were glittering in that hazy splendour which belongs to the heavens on a summer's night.

Drusus kept on, only half noting the beauty of the darkness. When he entered the groves of the Lentulan villa, almost all light failed him, and but for his intimate knowledge—from boyhood—of the whole locality, he could never have kept the path. Then the moonlight began to stream up in the east, and between the trees and thickets lay the long, yellow bars of brightness, while all else was still in gloom. Drusus pushed on with confidence, and soon the gurgle of the tiny cataract told him that he was near the old cypress. A few steps more, and a figure rose from out the fern thicket. It was Cornelia. Her hair was tumbling loosely over her shoulders; she wore a soft, light-blue dress that covered her arms and her feet. In the moonlight her face and hands appeared as bloodless as white marble.

"I knew you would come, Quintus," she cried. "I couldn't say farewell to you, in the presence of my uncle!"

"My beautiful!" cried Drusus; and he caught her in his arms.

The moments that followed were as bitter-sweet as may be conceivable. Each knew that they had small hope of an honourable realization of their love one for another; that the moment of parting would soon come. But for the instant they were in Elysium, caught out of mortal care and mortal sorrow, and knowing nothing but the pure delight of the other's presence. Then, at last, their talk became less enraptured; the vision of Olympus faded little by little; the stern reality confronted them in all its seriousness.

"Cornelia," said Quintus, at length, "you are still a very young woman. This day's heart-breakings may, perhaps, be long painful to you; but the pangs will grow faint in time. You and I may still cherish fondness in our hearts for each other, but how dare we reasonably hope for more? Evil times are at hand. If your uncle's party prevail in the struggle, my ruin is assured. But not yours. There are many worthy men who would be proud to take in marriage the niece of the next consul; and with one of these you can live happily. Do not try to forget me. I don't ask that. But do not let my misfortune cast a shadow over your dear life. Marry some honourable man. Only think kindly of me sometimes."

They had been sitting beside the brooklet, on the soft green-sward. Cornelia had been resting both her hands in Drusus's, but now she drew them back, and sprang to her feet, as if swept away by a gust of anger.

"How dare you!" she cried, "how dare you bid me throw away all that my heart has turned on, and my hopes depended on, and my imagination dreamed of, since our fathers were slain side by side; and more especially since you came back from Athens? Why might not I bid you renounce your adherence to Cæsar's cause, and say, 'There is no need of blasting your career by such a sacrifice; remember Cæsar and his party kindly, wish them well, but do not dwell too much thereon; submit cheerfully to what is inevitable'? Shall I argue thus? Have I argued thus? If you will, abandon me, and wed some other maiden, and many there are, fair, wealthy, noble, who will be glad to be given in marriage to a Livius Drusus. But till you thus repudiate your father's will, no power of gods or of men shall drive me to violate that of mine."

"Cornelia," said Drusus, in a husky voice, "do you know what you are saying? What resistance to threats and unkind treatment your resolve will mean?"

"I both know the future and accept it," answered the maiden firmly, looking fairly into his face.

"Then by all the powers of earth, sky, and Hades!" cried the young man, lifting one arm toward heaven, and throwing the other about his sweetheart, "I will defy Lentulus, defy Pompeius, defy Senate, army, mob, or any other human might. Hitherto I have thought to play the patriot in espousing Cæsar's cause. Now let love and fury fire my ardour. When the party of violence and tyranny falls, then too will fall the power of Lentulus to outrage your right and mine! Ours shall be a triumph of Venus as well as of Mars, and until that time, may you and I endure faithful unto our fathers, ourselves, and one another!"

Hardly had he spoken ere loud voices were heard calling through the grove. Torches were glaring among the trees, and the harsh tones of Lentulus burst out:—

"Take the wretched girl into the house when you find her; but as for her lover, let him not escape!"

"My uncle!" groaned Cornelia, quivering with terror; "one of my maids has betrayed me! Flee! run! He has called out all his slaves; they will kill you!"

"Kill me?" gasped Drusus, incredulously; "commit deliberate murder?"

"Yes," moaned Cornelia; "he dares anything. He is all fury and violence. Escape! Do not throw yourself away in vain!"

The lights flashed nearer; the slaves were shouting and blundering through the bushes.

"Two philippi to the man who strikes Drusus down!" bawled Lentulus.

It was no time for delay and affectionate leave-taking. The young man threw his arms around Cornelia, kissed her once, twice, and then bounded into the thicket. A moment later several of the servants came splashing over the little stream, and found Cornelia alone beside the great cypress, pale and trembling and sobbing. Drusus caught one last sight of her, surrounded by the torches of the pursuers. Then he struck off into the grove, and thanks to his perfect local knowledge easily avoided meeting Lentulus or his slaves. Lentulus he would gladly have confronted alone. What would have followed, the athletic young man could only surmise grimly; but he was unarmed, and for Cornelia's sake he must take no risks.

Close to the confines of his own land he met the Mamerci, father and son, and several slaves and freedmen, all armed and anxious to know whether the din that had been raised over at the Lentulan villa betokened any danger to their young master.

Drusus satisfied them that he had suffered no injury. The personal peril through which he had passed brought a reaction of excitement which raised his spirits, and he went to bed in a mood at least tolerably cheerful. If he could not enjoy his love, he had at least something else to live for—vengeance; and he told himself that he had a whole mature lifetime left in which to make Lentulus repent of his folly and tyrannical cruelty. He awoke late the next morn in a calm frame of mind, and was able to receive with outward equanimity the news that early in the morning Lentulus had taken his sister-in-law and niece, and a large part of his household, back to Rome. This was only to have been expected, and Drusus listened to the information without useless comment.

CHAPTER VI POMPEIUS MAGNUS

If we had been painting an ideal heroine, gifted with all the virtues which Christian traditions of female perfection throw around such characters, Cornelia would have resigned herself quietly to the inevitable, and exhibited a seraphic serenity amid tribulation. But she was only a grieved, embittered, disappointed, sorely wronged, Pagan maiden, who had received few enough lessons in forbearance and meekness. And now that her natural sweetness of character had received so severe a shock, she vented too often the rage she felt against her uncle upon her helpless servants. Her maid Cassandra—who was the one that had told Lentulus of her mistress's nocturnal meeting with Drusus—soon felt the weight of Cornelia's wrath. The young lady, as soon as Lentulus was out of the way, caused the tell-tale to receive a cruel whipping, which kept the poor slave-girl groaning in her cell for ten days, and did not relieve Cornelia's own distress in the slightest degree. As a matter of fact, Cornelia was perpetually goaded into fresh outbursts of desperation by the tyrannical attitude of her uncle. Lentulus boasted in her presence that he would accomplish Drusus's undoing. "I'll imitate Sulla," he would announce, in mean pleasure at giving his niece pain; "I'll see how many heads I can have set up as he did at the Lacus Servilius. You can go there, if you wish to kiss your lover."

But Cornelia's life at Rome was rendered unhappy by many other things besides these occasional brutal stabs from her uncle. Her mother, as has been hinted, was a woman of the world, and had an intense desire to draw her daughter into her own circle of society. Claudia cared for Cornelia in a manner, and believed it was a real kindness to tear the poor girl away from her solitary broodings and plunge her into the whirl of the world of Roman fashion. Claudia had become an intimate of Clodia, the widow of Quintus Metellus, a woman of remarkable gifts and a notoriously profligate character. "The Medea of the Palatine Hill," Cicero had bitingly styled her. Nearly all the youth of parts and social distinction enjoyed the wild pleasures of Clodia's garden by the Tiber. Catullus the poet, Cælius the brilliant young politician, and many another had figured as lovers of this soulless and enchanting woman. And into Clodia's gilded circle Claudia tried desperately to drag her daughter. The Lentuli had a handsome palace on the Carinæ, one of the most fashionable quarters of the capital; and here there were many gay gatherings and dinner parties. Cornelia was well born enough, by reputation wealthy enough, and in feature handsome enough, to have a goodly proportion of the young men of this coterie her devoted admirers and slaves. Claudia observed her daughter's social triumphs with glee, and did all she could to give Cornelia plenty of this kind of company. Cornelia would not have been a mortal woman if she had not taken a certain amount of pleasure in noticing and exercising her power. The first occasion when she appeared at a formal banquet in the splendid Apollo dinner hall of the Luculli, where the outlay on the feast was fixed by a regular scale at two hundred thousand sesterces, she gathered no little satisfaction by the consciousness that all the young men were admiring her, and all the women were fuming with jealousy. But this life was unspeakably wearisome, after the first novelty had worn away. Cornelia lived in an age when many of the common proprieties and decencies of our present society would have been counted prudish, but she could not close her eyes to the looseness and license that pervaded her mother's world. Woman had become almost entirely independent of man in social and economic matters, though the law still kept its fictions of tutelage. Honourable marriages were growing fewer and fewer. Divorces were multiplying. The morality of the time can be judged from the fact that the "immaculate" Marcus Cato separated from his wife that a friend might marry her; and when the friend died, married her himself again. Scandals and love intrigues were common in the highest circles; noble ladies, and not ballet-dancers[86] merely, thought it of little account to have their names besmirched. Everything in society was splendid, polished, decorous, cultivated without; but within, hollow and rotten.

Cornelia grew weary and sick of the excitement, the fashionable chatter, the mongering of low gossips. She loathed the sight of the effeminate young fops who tried to win her smiles by presenting themselves for a polite call each morning, polished and furbelowed, and rubbed sleek and smooth with Catanian pumice. Her mother disgusted her so utterly that she began to entertain the most unfilial feeling toward the worthy woman. Cornelia would not or could not understand that in such hot weather it was proper to wear lighter rings than in winter, and that each ring must be set carefully on a different finger joint to prevent touching. Cornelia watched her servants, and reached the astonishing conclusion that these humble creatures were really extracting more pleasure out of life than herself. Cassandra had recovered from her whipping, and was bustling about her tasks as if nothing had happened. Agias seemed to have a never failing fund of good spirits. He was always ready to tell the funniest stories or retail the latest news. Once or twice he brought his mistress unspeakable delight, by smuggling into the house letters from Drusus, which contained words of love and hope, if no really substantial promises for the future. But this was poor enough comfort. Drusus wrote that he could not for the time see that any good end would be served by coming to Rome, and he would remain for the present in Præneste. He and she must try to wait in patience, until politics took such a turn as would drive Lentulus into a more tractable attitude. Cornelia found the days monotonous and dreary. Her uncle's freedman kept her