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- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.”
Chapter LXXI
ROME had gone mad for a long time, so that the world-conquering city seemed ready at last to tear itself to pieces for want of leadership. Even before the last hour of the Apostles had struck, Piso’s conspiracy appeared; and then such merciless reaping of Rome’s highest heads, that even to those who saw divinity in Nero, he seemed at last a divinity of death. Mourning fell on the city, terror took its lodgment in houses and in hearts, but porticos were crowned with ivy and flowers, for it was not permitted to show sorrow for the dead. People waking in the morning asked themselves whose turn would come next. The retinue of ghosts following Cæsar increased every day.
Piso paid for the conspiracy with his head; after him followed Seneca, and Lucan, Fenius Rufus, and Plautius Lateranus, and Flavius Scevinus, and Afranius Quinetianus, and the dissolute companion of Cæsar’s madnesses, Tullius Senecio, and Proculus, and Araricus, and Tugurinus, and Gratus, and Silanus, and Proximus,—once devoted with his whole soul to Nero,—and Sulpicius Asper. Some were destroyed by their own insignificance, some by fear, some by wealth, others by bravery. Cæsar, astonished at the very number of the conspirators, covered the walls with soldiery and held the city as if by siege, sending out daily centurions with sentences of death to suspected houses. The condemned humiliated themselves in letters filled with flattery, thanking Cæsar for his sentences, and leaving him a part of their property, so as to save the rest for their children. It seemed, at last, that Nero was exceeding every measure on purpose to convince himself of the degree in which men had grown abject, and how long they would endure bloody rule. After the conspirators, their relatives were executed; then their friends, and even simple acquaintances. Dwellers in lordly mansions built after the fire, when they went out on the street, felt sure of seeing a whole row of funerals. Pompeius, Cornelius, Martialis, Flavius Nepos, and Statius Domitius died because accused of lack of love for Cæsar; Novius Priscus, as a friend of Seneca. Rufius Crispus was deprived of the right of fire and water because on a time he had been the husband of Poppæa. The great Thrasea was ruined by his virtue; many paid with their lives for noble origin; even Poppæa fell a victim to the momentary rage of Nero.
The Senate crouched before the dreadful ruler; it raised a temple in his honor, made an offering in favor of his voice, crowned his statues, appointed priests to him as to a divinity. Senators, trembling in their souls, went to the Palatine to magnify the song of the “Periodonices,” and go wild with him amid orgies of naked bodies, wine, and flowers.
But meanwhile from below, in the field soaked in blood and tears, rose the sowing of Peter, stronger and stronger every moment.
Chapter LXXII VINICIUS to PETRONIUS:
“We know, carissime, most of what is happening in Rome, and what we do not know is told us in thy letters. When one casts a stone in the water, the wave goes farther and farther in a circle; so the wave of madness and malice has come from the Palatine to us. On the road to Greece, Carinas was sent hither by Cæsar, who plundered cities and temples to fill the empty treasury. At the price of the sweat and tears of people, he is building the ‘golden house’ in Rome. It is possible that the world has not seen such a house, but it has not seen such injustice. Thou knowest Carinas. Chilo was like him till he redeemed his life with death. But to the towns lying nearer us his men have not come yet, perhaps because there are no temples or treasures in them. Thou askest if we are out of danger. I answer that we are out of mind, and let that suffice for an answer. At this moment, from the portico under which I write, I see our calm bay, and on it Ursus in a boat, letting down a net in the clear water. My wife is spinning red wool near me, and in the gardens, under the shade of almond-trees, our slaves are singing. Oh, what calm carissime, and what a forgetfulness of former fear and suffering! But it is not the Parcæ as thou writest, who spin out our lives so agreeably; it is Christ who is blessing us, our beloved God and Saviour. We know tears and sorrow, for our religion teaches us to weep over the misfortunes of others; but in these tears is a consolation unknown to thee; for whenever the time of our life is ended, we shall find all those dear ones who perished and who are perishing yet for God’s truth. For us Peter and Paul are not dead; they are merely born into glory. Our souls see them, and when our eyes weep our hearts are glad with their joy. Oh, yes, my dear friend, we are happy with a happiness which nothing can destroy, since death, which for thee is the end of everything, is for us only a passage into superior rest.
“And so days and months pass here in calmness of heart. Our servants and slaves believe, as we do, in Christ, and that He enjoins love; hence we love one another. Frequently, when the sun has gone down, or when the moon is shining in the water, Lygia and I talk of past times, which seem a dream to us; but when I think how that dear head was near torture and death, I magnify my Lord with my whole soul, for out of those hands He alone could wrest her, save her from the arena, and return her to me forever. O Petronius, thou hast seen what endurance and comfort that religion gives in misfortune, how much patience and courage before death; so come and see how much happiness it gives in ordinary, common days of life. People thus far did not know a God whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love. Neither lawgivers nor philosophers taught this truth, and it did not exist in Greece or Rome; and when I say, not in Rome, that means the whole world. The dry and cold teaching of the Stoics, to which virtuous people rally, tempers the heart as a sword is tempered, but it makes it indifferent rather than better. Though why do I write this to thee, who hast learned more, and hast more understanding than I have? Thou wert acquainted with Paul of Tarsus, and more than once didst converse long with him; hence thou knowest better if in comparison with the truth which he taught all the teachings of philosophers and rhetors are not a vain and empty jingle of words without meaning. Thou rememberest the question which he put thee: ‘But if Cæsar were a Christian, would ye not all feel safer, surer of possessing that which ye possess, free of alarm, and sure of to-morrow?’ Thou didst say to me that our teaching was an enemy of life; and I answer thee now, that, if from the beginning of this letter I had been repeating only the three words, ‘I am happy!’ I could not have expressed my happiness to thee. To this thou wilt answer, that my happiness is Lygia. True, my friend. Because I love her immortal soul, and because we both
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