Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century by William Ware (best color ebook reader .txt) 📖

indeed, the people bustled about and shook their chains, as in the times of the institution of the tribune's office, and those of the Gracchi. But they gained nothing. The patricians were still the kings who ruled them. And among no people can there be liberty where slavery exists—liberty, I mean, properly so called. He who holds slaves cannot, in the nature of things, be a republican; but, in the nature of things, he is on the other hand a despot. I am one. And a nation of such individuals is an association of despots for despotic purposes, and nothing else nor[Pg 134] better. Liberty in their mouths is a profanation of the sacred name. It signifies nothing but their liberty to reign. I confess, it is to those who happen to be the kings a very agreeable state of things. I enjoy my power and state mightily. But I am not blind to the fact—my own experience teaches it—that it is a state of things corrupt and rotten to the heart—destructive everywhere of the highest form of the human character. It nurses and brings out the animal, represses and embrutes the god that is within us. It makes of man a being of violence, force, passion, and the narrowest selfishness; while reason and humanity, which should distinguish him, are degraded and oppressed. Such men are not the stuff that republics are made of. A republic may endure for a time in spite of them, owing to fortunate circumstances of another kind; but wherever they obtain a preponderance in the state, liberty will expire, or exist only in the insulting forms in which she waved her bloody sceptre during most of our early history. Slavery and despotism are natural allies.'

'I rejoice,' I said, 'to find a change in you, at least in the theory which you adopt.'

'I certainly am changed,' he replied; 'and such as the change may be, is it owing, sir Christian, to thy calm and yet fiery epistles from Palmyra. Small thanks do I owe thee for making me uncomfortable in a position from which I cannot escape. Once proud of my slaves and my power, I am already ashamed of both; but while my principles have altered, my habits and character, which slavery has created and nursed remain beyond any power of man, so far as I can see, to change them. What they are, you well know. So[Pg 135] that here, in my middle age, I suffer a retribution, that should have been reserved till I had been dismissed from the dread tribunal of Rhadamanthus.'

'I see not, Curtius, why you should not escape from the position you are in, if you sincerely desire it, which I suppose you do not.'

'That, to be honest—which at least I am—is I believe the case.'

'I do not doubt it, as it is with all who are situated like yourself. Most, however, defend the principle as well as cling to the form of slavery.'

'Nay, that I cannot do. That I never did, since my beard was grown. I fancy myself to have from the gods a good heart. He is essentially of a corrupt heart who will stand for slavery in its principle. He is without anything generous in his nature. Cold selfishness marks and makes him. But supposing I as sincerely desired to escape—as I sincerely do not—what, O most wise mentor, should be the manner?'

'First and at once, to treat them no longer as slaves, but as men.'

'That I am just beginning to do. What else?'

'If you are sincere, as I say, and moreover, if you possess the exalted and generous traits which we patricians ever claim for ourselves, show it them by giving their freedom one by one to those who are now slaves, even though it result in the loss of one half of your fortune. That will be a patrician act. What was begun in crime by others, cannot be perpetuated without equal crime in us. The enfranchised will soon mingle with the people, and, as we see every day, become one with it. This process is going on at this moment in all[Pg 136] my estates. Before my will is executed, I shall hope to have disposed in this manner of every slave in my possession.'

'One can hardly look to emulate such virtues as this new-found Christian philosophy seems to have engendered within thy noble bosom, Piso; but the subject must be weighed. There is nothing so agreeable in prospect as to do right; but, like some distant stretches of land and hill, water and wood, the beauty is all gone as it draws near. It is then absolutely a source of pain and disgust. I will write a treatise upon the great theme.'

'If you write, Curtius, I shall despair of any action, all your philanthropy will evaporate in a cloud of words.'

'But that will be the way, I think, to restore my equanimity. I believe I shall feel quite easy after a little declamation. Here, Lucius, regale thyself upon these grapes. These are from the isles of the Grecian Archipelago, and for sweetness are not equalled by any of our own. Gallus, Gallus, go not so near to the edge of the pond; it is deep, as I have warned you. I have lampreys there, Piso, bigger than any that Hortensius ever wept for. Gallus, you dog! away, I say.'

But Gallus heeded not the command of his father. He already was beginning to have a little will of his own. He continued playing upon the margin of the water, throwing in sticks for his dog to bring to him again. Perceiving his danger to be great, I went to him and forcibly drew him away, he and his dog setting up a frightful music of screams and yelping. Marcus was both entertained and amazed at the feat.[Pg 137]

'Piso,' he jocosely cried out, 'there is a good deal of the old republican in you. You even treat free men as slaves. That boy—a man in will—never had before such restraint upon his liberty.'

'Liberty with restraint,' I answered, 'operating upon all, and equally upon all, is the true account of a state of freedom. Gallus unrestrained is a slave—a slave of passion and the sport of chance. He is not truly free until he is bound.'

With such talk we amused ourselves as we wandered over the estate, through its more wild and more cultivated parts. Dinner was presently announced, and we hastened to the house.

Lucilia awaited us in a small six-sided cabinet, fitted up purposely for a dining-room for six or eight persons. It was wholly cased with a rich marble of a pale yellow hue, beautifully panelled, having three windows opening upon a long portico with a southern aspect, set out with exotics in fancifully arranged groups. The marble panels of the room were so contrived that, at a touch, they slipped aside and disclosed in rich array, here the choicest wines, there sauces and spices of a thousand sorts, and there again the rarest confections brought from China and the East. Apicius himself could have fancied nothing more perfect—for the least dissatisfaction with the flavor of a dish, or the kind of wine, could be removed by merely reaching out the hand and drawing, from an inexhaustible treasure-house, both wines and condiments, such as scarce Rome itself could equal. This was an apartment contrived and built by Hortensius himself.[Pg 138]

The dinner was worthy the room and its builder, the marbles, the prospect, the guest, the host, and the hostess. The aforementioned Apicius would have never once thought of the panelled cupboards. No dish would have admitted of addition or alteration.

When the feasting was over, and with it the lighter conversation, and more disjointed and various, which usually accompanies it, Marcus arose, and withdrawing one of the sliding panels, with much gravity and state, drew forth a glass pitcher of exquisite form filled with wine, saying, as he did so,

'All, Piso, that you have as yet tasted is but as water of the Tiber to this. This is more than nectar. The gods have never been so happy as to have seen the like. I am their envy. It is Falernian, that once saw the wine vaults of Heliogabalus! Not a drop of Chian has ever touched it. It is pure, unadulterate. Taste, and be translated.'

I acknowledged, as I well might, its unequalled flavor.

'This nectarean draught,' he continued, 'I even consider to possess purifying and exalting qualities. He who drinks it is for the time of a higher nature. It is better for the temper than a chapter of Seneca or Epictetus. It brings upon the soul a certain divine calm, favorable beyond any other state to the growth of the virtues. Could it become of universal use, mankind were soon a race of gods. Even Christianity were then made unnecessary—admitting it to be that unrivalled moral engine which you Christians affirm it to be. It is favorable also to dispassionate discussion, Piso, a little of which I would now invite. Know you not, I have scarce seen you since your assumption of your new[Pg 139] name and faith? What bad demon possessed you, in evil hour, to throw Rome and your friends into such a ferment?'

'Had you become, Lucius,' said Lucilia, 'a declaiming advocate of Epicurus, or a street-lecturer upon Plato, or turned priest of Apollo's new temple, it would have all been quite tolerable, though amazing—but Christian!'—

'Yes, Lucius, it is too bad,' added Marcus. 'If you were in want of moral strength, you would have done better to have begged some of my Falernian. You should not have been denied.'

'Or,' said Lucilia,'some of my Smyrna cordial.'

'At least,' continued Marcus, 'you might have come to me for some of my wisdom, which I keep ready, at a moment's warning, in quantities to suit all applicants.'

'Or to me,' said Lucilia, 'for some of my every day good-sense, which, you know, I possess in such abundance, though I have not sat at the feet of philosophers.'

'But seriously, Lucius,' began Marcus in altered mood, 'this is a most extraordinary movement of yours. I should like to be able to interpret it. If you must needs have what you call religion, of which I, for my part, can see no earthly occasion, here were plenty of forms in which to receive it, more ancient and more respectable than this of the Christians.'

'I am almost unwilling to converse on this topic with you, Marcus,' I rejoined, 'for there is nothing in your nature, or rather in your educated nature, to which to appeal with the least hope of any profitable result, either to me, or you. The gods have, as you say, given you[Pg 140] a good heart—I may add too, a most noble head; but, yourself and education together, have made you so thoroughly a man of the world, that the interests of any other part of your nature, save those of the intellect and the senses, are to you precisely as if they did not exist.'

'Right, Lucius; therein do I claim honor and distinction. The intangible, the invisible, the vague, the shadowy, I leave to women and priests—concerning myself only with the substantial realities of life. Great Jupiter! what would become of mankind were we all women, and priests? How could the courts go on—senates sit, and deliberate—armies conquer? I think the world would stand still. However, I object not to a popular faith, such as that which now obtains throughout, the Roman world. If mankind, as history seems to prove, must and will have something of the kind, this perhaps is as good as anything else; and, seeing it has once become established and fixed in the way it has, I think it ought no more to be disturbed than men's faith in their political institutions. Our concern should be, merely to regulate it, that it grow not too large, and so overlay and crush the state. Fanatics and bigots must be hewn away. There must be an occasional infusion of doubt and indifference into the mass, to keep it from fermenting. You cannot be offended, Lucius, at the way in which I speak of your new-adopted faith. I think no better of any other. Epicureans, Stoics, Platonists, Jews, Christians, they are all alike to me. I hold them all at arms length. I have listened to them all; and more idle, indigested fancies never did I hear—no, not[Pg 141] from the new-fledged advocate playing the rhetorician at his first appearance.'

'I do not wonder, Curtius, that you have turned away dissatisfied with the philosophers. I do not wonder that you reject the popular superstitions. But I do wonder, that you will prejudge any question, or infer the intrinsic incredibility of whatever may take the form of religion, from