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

You may indeed enter it rudely and by violence, and the signs of submission shall be made: but all the elements of opposition are still there. Reason has not been convinced; errors and misconceptions have not been removed, by a wise and logical and humane dealing, and supplanted by truths well proved, and shown to be truths;—and the victory is one in appearance only. And, what is more, violence, on the part of the reformer and assailant, begets violence on the other side. The whole inward man, with all his feelings, prejudices, reason, is instantly put into a posture of defence; not only of defence, for that were right, but of angry defence, which is wrong. Passion is up,[Pg 236] which might otherwise have slept; and it is passion, never reason, which truth has to fear. The intellect in its pure form, the advocate of truth would always prefer to meet, for he can never feel sure of a single step made till this has been gained. But intellect, inflamed by passion, he may well dread, as what there is but small hope even of approaching, much less of convincing.

Often has Probus remonstrated with this order of men, but in vain. They heed him not, but in return charge him with coldness and indifference, worldliness, and all other associated faults. Especially has he labored to preserve Macer from the extremes to which he has run; for he has seen in him an able advocate of Christian truth, could he but be moderated and restrained. But Macer, though he has conceived the strongest affection for Probus, will not allow himself in this matter to be influenced by him. He holds himself answerable to conscience and God alone for the course he pursues. As for the consequences that may ensue, either to himself or his family, his mind cannot entertain them. It is for Christ he lives, and for Christ he is ready to die.

I had long wished to meet him and witness his manner both of acting and of preaching, and yesterday I was fortunate enough to encounter him. I shall give you, as exactly as I can, what took place; it will show you better than many letters could do what, in one direction, are our present position and prospects.

I was in the act of crossing the great avenue, which, on the south, leads to the Forum, when I was arrested by a disorderly crowd, such as we often see gathered suddenly in the street of a city about a thief who has been caught, or a person who has been trodden down[Pg 237] on the pavement. It moved quickly in the direction of the tribunal of Varus, and, what was my surprise, to behold Macer, in the midst, with head aloft, and inflamed countenance, holding in his grasp, and dragging onwards, one, who would willingly have escaped. The crowd seemed disposed, as I judged by the vituperations that were directed against Macer, to interfere, but were apparently deterred by both the gigantic form of Macer and their vicinity to the tribunal, whither he was going. Waiting till they were at some distance in advance of me, I then followed, determined to judge for myself of this singular man. I was with them in the common hall before the prefect had taken his seat. When seated at his tribunal, he inquired the cause of the tumult, and who it was that wished to appeal to him.

'I am the person,' said Macer; 'and I come to drag to justice this miscreant—'

'And who may you be?'

'I should think Varus might recognize Macer.'

'It is so long since I met thee last at the Emperor's table, that thy features have escaped me.'

At which, as was their duty, the attendant rabble laughed.

'Is there any one present,' continued the prefect, 'who knows this man?'

'Varus need apply to no other than myself,' said Macer. 'I am Macer, the son of that Macer who was neighbor of the gladiator Pollex,—'

'Hold, I say,' interrupted the prefect; 'a man witnesses not here of himself. Can any one here say that this man is not crazy or drunk?'

'Varus! prefect Varus—' cried Macer, his eyes[Pg 238] flashing lightning, and his voice not less than thunder; but he was again interrupted.

'Peace, slave! or rods shall teach thee where thou art.' And at the same moment, at a sign from Varus, he was laid hold of with violence by officials of the place armed with spears and rods, and held.

'What I wish to know then,' said Varus, turning to the crowd, 'is, whether this is not the street brawler, one of the impious Gallileans, a man who should long ago have been set in the stocks to find leisure for better thoughts?'

Several testified, as was desired, that this was he.

'This is all I wish to know,' said the prefect. 'The man is either without wits, or they are disordered, or else the pestilent faith he teaches has made the nuisance of him he is, as it does of all who meddle with it. It is scarcely right that he should be abroad. Yet has he committed no offence that condemns him either to scourging or the prison. Hearken therefore, fellow! I now dismiss thee without the scourging thou well deservest; but, if thou keep on thy wild and lawless way, racks and dungeons shall teach thee what there is in Roman justice. Away with him!'

'Romans! Roman citizens!' cried Macer; 'are these your laws and this your judge?—'

'Away with him, I say!' cried the prefect; and the officers of the palace hurried him out of the hall.

As he went, a voice from the crowd shouted,

'Roman citizens, Macer, are long since dead. 'Tis a vain appeal.'

'I believe you,' replied Macer; 'tyrant and slave stand now for all who once bore the proud name of Roman.'[Pg 239]

This violence and injustice on the part of Varus must be traced—for though capricious, and imperious, this is not his character—to the language of Macer in the shop of Publius, and to his apprehension lest the same references to his origin, which he would willingly have forgotten, should be made, and perhaps more offensively still, in the presence of the people. Probus, on the former occasion, lamented deeply that Macer should have been tempted to rehearse in the way he did some of the circumstances of the prefect's history, as its only end could be to needlessly irritate the man of power, and raise up a bitterer enemy than we might otherwise have found in him.

Upon leaving the tribunal, I was curious to watch still further the movements of the Christian. The crowd about him increased rather than diminished, as he left the building and passed into the street. At but a little distance from the hall of the prefect, stands the Temple of Peace, with its broad and lofty flights of steps. When Macer had reached it he paused, and looked round upon the motley crowd that had gathered about him.

'Go up! go up!' cried several voices. 'We will hear thee.'

'There is no prefect here,' cried another.

Macer needed no urging, but quickly strode up the steps, till he stood between the central columns of the temple and his audience had disposed themselves below him in every direction, when he turned and gazed upon the assembled people, who had now—by the addition of such as passed along, and who had no more urgent business than to attend to that of any others whom they might chance to meet,—grown to a multitude. Af[Pg 240]ter looking upon them for a space, as if studying their characters, and how he could best adapt his discourse to their occasions, he suddenly and abruptly broke out—

'You have asked me to come up here; and I am here; glad for once to be in such a place by invitation. And now I am here, and am about to speak, you will expect me to say something of the Christians.'

'Yes yes.'

'But I shall not—not yet. Perhaps by and by. In the meantime my theme shall be the prefect! the prefect Varus!'

'A subject full of matter,' cried one near Macer.

'Better send for him,' said another. 'Twere a pity he lost it.'

'Yes,' continued Macer, 'it is a subject full of matter, and I wish myself he were here to see himself in the mirror I would hold before him; he could not but grow pale with affright. You have just had a sample of Roman justice! How do you like it, Romans? I had gone there to seek justice; not for a Christian, but against a Christian. A Christian master had abused his slave with cruelty, I standing by; and when to my remonstrance—myself feeling the bitter stripes he laid on—he did but ply his thongs the more, I seized the hardened monster by the neck, and wrenching from his grasp the lash, I first plied it upon his own back, and then dragged him to the judgment-seat of Varus,—'

'O fool!'

'You say well—fool that I was, crying for justice! How I was dealt with, some of you have seen. There, I say, was a sample of Roman justice for you! So in these times does power sport itself with poverty. It[Pg 241] was not so once in Rome. Were Cincinnatus or Regulus at the tribunal of Varus, they would fare like the soldier Macer. And who, Romans, is this Varus? and why is he here in the seat of authority? At the tribunal, Varus did not know me. But what if I were to tell you there was but a thin wall between the rooms where we were born, and that when we were boys we were ever at the same school!—not such schools as you are thinking of, where the young go for letters and for Greek, but the school where many of you have been and are now at, I dare say, the school of Roman vice, which you may find always open all along the streets, but especially where I and Varus were, in one of the sinks near the Flavian. Pollex, the gladiator, was father of Varus!—not worse, but just as bad, as savage, as beastly in his vices, as are all of that butcher tribe. My father—Macer too—I will not say more of him than that he was keeper of the Vivaria of the amphitheatre, and passed his days in caging and uncaging the wild beasts of Asia and Africa; in feeding them when there were no games on foot, and starving them when there were. Varus, the prefect, Romans, and I, were at this school till I joined the legions under Valerian, and he, by a luckier fortune, as it would be deemed, found favor in the eyes of Gallienus, to whom, with his fair sister Fannia, he was sold by those demons Pollex and Cæicina. I say nothing of how it fared with him in that keeping. Fannia has long since found the grave. Is Varus one who should sit at the head of Rome? He is a man of blood, of crime, of vice, such as you would not bear to be told of! I say not this as if he were answer[Pg 242]able for his birth and early vice, but that, being such, this is not his place. He could not help it, nor I, that we were born and nurtured where we were; that the sight of blood and the smell of it, either of men or beasts, was never out of our eyes and nostrils, during all our boyhood and youth; that to him, and me, the sweetest pleasure of our young life was, when the games came on, and the beasts were let loose upon one another, and,—O the hardening of that life!—when, specially, there were prisoners or captives, on which to glut their raging hunger! Those were the days and hours marked whitest in our calendar. And, whitest of all, were the days of the Decian persecution, when the blood of thrice cursed Christians, as I was taught to name them, flowed like water. Every day then Varus and I had our sport; working up the beasts, by our torments, to an unnatural height of madness ere they were let loose, and then rushing to the gratings, as the doors were thrown open, to see the fury with which they would spring upon their defenceless victims too, and tear them piecemeal. The Romans required such servants—and we were they. They require them now, and you may find any number of such about the theatres. But if there must be such there, why should they be taken thence and put upon the judgment-seat? save, for the reason, that they may have been thoroughly purged, as it were, by fire—which Varus has not been. What