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

This was my state, Fausta, when I was found by Christianity. Without faith, and yet with it; doubting, and yet believing; rejecting philosophy, but leaning upon nature; dissatisfied, but hoping. I cannot easily find words to tell you the change which Christian faith has wrought within me. All I can say is this, that I am now a new man; I am made over again; I am born as it were into another world. Where darkness once was, there is now light brighter than the sun. Where doubt was, there is now certainty. I have knowledge and truth, for error and perplexity. The inner world of my mind is resplendent with a day whose luminary will never set. And even the outer world of appearances and forms shines more gloriously, and has an air of reality which before it never had. It used to seem to me like the gorgeous fabric of a dream, and as if, at some unexpected moment, it might melt into air and nothingness, and I, and all men and things, with it; for there appeared to be no purpose in it; it came from nothing, it achieved nothing, and certainly seemed to conduct to nothing. Men, like insects, came and went; were born, and died, and that was all. Nothing was accomplished, nothing perfected. But now, nature seems[Pg 179] to me stable, and eternal as God himself. The world being the great birth-place and nursery of these myriads of creatures, made, as I ever conceived, in a divine likeness, after some godlike model,—for what spirit of other spheres can be more beautiful than a perfect man, or a perfect woman—each animated with the principle of immortality—there is a reason for its existence, and its perpetuity, from whose force the mind cannot escape. It is, and it ever will be; and mankind upon it, a continually happier, and more virtuous brotherhood.

Yes, Fausta, to me as a Christian, everything is new everything better; the inward world, the outward world, the present, and the future. Life is a worthier gift, and a richer possession. I am to myself an object of a thousand-fold greater interest; and every other human being, from a poor animal, that was scarce worthy its wretched existence, starts up into a god, for whom the whole earth may, one day, become too narrow a field either to till, or rule. I am, accordingly, ready to labor both for myself and others. I once held myself too cheap to do much even for myself; for others, I would do nothing, except to feed the hunger that directly appealed to me, or relieve the wretchedness that made me equally wretched. Not so now. I myself am a different being, and others are different. I am ready to toil for such beings; to suffer for them. They are too valuable to be neglected, abused, insulted, trodden into the dust. They must be defended and rescued, whenever their fellow-men—wholly ignorant of what they are, and what themselves are about—would oppress them. More than all, do they need truth, effectually to enlighten and redeem them, and truth they must have at whatever cost. Let them[Pg 180] only once know what they are, and the world is safe. Christianity tells them this, and Christianity they must have. The State must not stand between man and truth! or, if it do, it must be rebuked by those who have the knowledge and the courage, and made to assume its proper place and office. Knowing what has been done for me by Christian truth, I can never be content until to others the same good is at least offered; and I shall devote what power and means I possess to this task. The prospect now is of opposition and conflict. But it dismays not me, nor Julia, nor any of this faith who have truly adopted its principles. For, if the mere love of fame, the excitement of a contest, the prospect of pay or plunder, will carry innumerable legions to the battle-field to leave there their bones, how much more shall the belief of a Christian arm him for even worse encounters? It were pitiful indeed, if a possession, as valuable as this of truth, could not inspire a heroism, which the love of fame or of money can.

These things I have said, to put you fully in possession of our present position, plans, and purposes. The fate of Christianity is to us now as absorbing an interest, as once was the fate of Palmyra.

I had been in the city only long enough to give Julia a full account of my melancholy visit in the country, and to write a part of it to you, when I walked forth to observe for myself the signs which the city might offer, either to confirm, or allay, the apprehensions which were begun to be felt.

I took my way over the Palatine, desiring to see the excellent Tacitus, whose house is there. He was ab[Pg 181]sent, being suddenly called to Baiæ. I turned toward the Forum, wishing to perform a commission for Julia at the shop of Civilis—still alive, and still compounding his sweets—which is now about midway between the slope of the hill and the Forum, having been removed from its former place where you knew it, under the eaves of the Temple of Peace. The little man of 'smells' was at his post, more crooked than ever, but none the less exquisitely arrayed; his wig befitting a young Bacchus, rather than a dried shred of a man beyond his seventieth year. All the gems of the east glittered on his thin fingers, and diamonds, that might move the envy of Livia, hung from his ears. The gales of Arabia, burdened with the fragrance of every flower of that sunny clime, seemed concentrated into an atmosphere around him; and, in truth, I suppose a specimen of every pot and phial of his vast shop, might be found upon his person concealed in gold boxes, or hanging in the merest fragments of bottles upon chains of silver or gold, or deposited in folds of his ample robes. He was odor in substantial form. He saluted me with a grace, of which he only in Rome is master, and with a deference that could not have been exceeded had I been Aurelian. I told him that I wished to procure a perfume of Egyptian origin and name, called Cleopatra's tears, which was reputed to convey to the organs of smell, an odor more exquisite than that of the rarest Persian rose, or choicest gums of Arabia. The eyes of Civilis kindled with the fires of twenty—when love's anxious brow is suddenly cleared up by that little, but all comprehensive word, yes—as he answered,[Pg 182]

'Noble Piso, I honor you. I never doubted your taste. It is seen in your palace, in your dress, nay, in the very costume of your incomparable slave, who has done me the honor to call here in your service. But now have you given of it the last and highest proof. Never has the wit of man before compounded an essence like that which lies buried in this porphyry vase.'

'You do not mean that I am to take away a vase of that size? I do not purchase essences by the pound!'

Civilis seemed as if he would have fainted, so oppressed was he by this display of ignorance. My character, I found, was annihilated in a moment. When his presence of mind was recovered, he said,

'This vase? Great Jupiter! The price of your palace upon the Cœlian would scarce purchase it! Were its contents suddenly let loose, and spilled upon the air, not Rome only, but Italy, would be bathed in the transporting, life-giving fragrance! Now I shall remove the cover, first giving you to know, that within this larger vase there is a number of smallest bottles, some of glass, others of gold, in each of which are contained a few of the tears, and which are warranted to retain their potency, and lend their celestial peculiarity to your clothes or your apartments, without loss or diminution in the least appreciable degree, during the life of the purchaser. Now, if it please you, bend this way, and receive the air which I shall presently set free. How think you, noble Piso? Art not a new man?

'I am new in my knowledge such as it is Civilis. It is certainly agreeable, most agreeable.'

'Agreeable! So is mount Etna a pretty hill! So is Aurelian a fair soldier! so is the sun a good sized[Pg 183] brazier! I beseech thee, find another word. Let it not go forth to all Rome, that the most noble Piso deems the tears of Cleopatra agreeable!'

'I can think no otherwise,' I replied. 'It is really agreeable, and reminds me, more than anything else, of the oldest Falernian, just rubbed between the palms of the hand, which you will allow is to compliment it in no moderate measure. But confess now, Civilis, that you have an hundred perfumes more delicious than this.'

'Piso, I may say this,—they have been so.'

'Ah, I understand you; you admit then, that it is the force of fashion that lends this extraordinary odor to the porphyry vase.'

'Truly, noble Piso, it has somewhat to do with it, it must be acknowledged.'

'It would be curious, Civilis, to know what name this bore, and in what case it was bestowed, and at what price sold, before the Empress Livia fancied it. I think it should have been named, 'Livia's smiles.' It would, at any rate, be a good name for it at thy shop in Alexandria.'

'You are facetious, noble Piso. But that last hint is too good to be thrown away. Truly, you are a man of the world, whose distinction I suppose is, that he has eyes in the hind part of his head, as well as before. But what blame can be mine for such dealing? I am driven; I am a slave. It is fashion, that works these wonders, not I. And there is no goddess, Piso, like her. She is the true creator. Upon that which is worthless, can she bestow, in a moment, inestimable value. What is despised to-day, she can exalt to-morrow to the very pinnacle of honor. She is my maker.[Pg 184] One day I was poor, the goddess took me by the hand, and smiled upon me, and the next day I was rich. It was the favorite mistress of Maximin, who, one day—her chariot, Piso, so chance would have it, broke down at my door, when she took refuge in my little shop, then at the corner of the street Castor as you turn towards the Tiber—purchasing a particular perfume, of which I had large store, and boasted much to her, gave me such currency among the rich and noble, that, from that hour, my fortune was secure. No one bought a perfume afterwards but of Civilis. Civilis was soon the next person to the Emperor. And, to this hour, has this same goddess befriended me. And many an old jar, packed away in the midst of rubbish in dark recesses now valueless, do I look upon as nevertheless so much gold—its now despised contents one day to disperse themselves upon kings and nobles, in the senate and the theatres. I need not tell you what this diminutive bottle might have been had for, before the Kalends. Yet, by Hercules, should I have sold it even then for less? for should I not have divined its fortune? The wheel is ever turning, turning. But, most excellent Piso, men of the world are ever generous—'

'Fear nothing, Civilis, I will not betray you. I believe you have spoken real truths. Besides, with Livia on your side, and what could all Rome do to hurt you?'

'Most true, most true. But, may I ask—for one thing has made me astonished—how is it that you, being now, as report goes, a Christian, should come to me to purchase essences? When I heard you had so named yourself, I looked to lose your custom forever after.'[Pg 185]

'Why should not a Christian man smell of that which is agreeable, as well as another?'

'Ah, that I cannot say. I have heard—I know nothing, Piso, beyond essences and perfumes—but, I have heard, that the Christians forbear such things, calling them vanities; just as they withdraw too, 'tis said, from the theatres and the circuses.'

'They do, indeed, withdraw from the theatres and circuses, Civilis, because the entertainments witnessed there do, as they judge, serve but to make beasts of men; they minister to vice. But in a sweet smell they see no harm, any more than in a silk dress, in well-proportioned buildings, or magnificent porticoes.