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

young yet, Livia, for much wisdom to have come; and you must not wonder if it come slowly, for you are unfortunately placed to gain it. An idol on its pedestal can rarely have but two thoughts—that it is an idol, and that it is to be worshipped. The entrance of all other wisdom is quite shut out.'

'How pleasant a thing it is, Piso, to have an elder sister as wise as Julia! But come, will you to Tibur? I must have Faustula, now I have lost Aurelia.'

'O no, Livia,' said Julia; 'take her not away from Zenobia. She can ill spare her.'

'But there is Vabalathus.'

'Yes, but he is now little there. He is moreover preparing for his voyage. Faustula is her all.'

'Ah, then it cannot be! Yes, it were very wrong. But, this being so, I see not then but I must go to her,[Pg 257] or come live with you. Only think of one's trying to escape from the crown of Rome? I can hardly believe I am Livia; once never to be satisfied with power and greatness—now tired of them! No, not that exactly—'

'You are tired, only, Livia, of some little attendant troubles; you like not that overhanging cloud you just spoke of; but for the empire itself, you love that none the less. To believe that, it is enough to see you.'

'I suppose you are right. Julia is always right, Piso.'

So our talk ran on; sometimes into graver and then into lighter themes—often stopping and lingering long over you, and Calpurnius, and Gracchus. You wished to know more of Livia and her thoughts, and I have given her to you in just the mood in which she happened to be.

The wife of Macer has just been here, seeking from Julia both assistance and comfort. She implores us to do what we may to calm and sober her husband.

'As the prospect of danger increases,' she said to Julia, 'he grows but the more impetuous and ungovernable. He is abroad all the day and every day, preaching all over Rome, and brings home nothing for the support of the family; and if it were not for the Emperor's bounty, we should starve.'

'And does that support you?'

'O no, lady! it hardly gives us food enough to subsist upon. Then we have besides to pay for our lodging and our clothes. But I should mind not at all our labor nor our poverty, did I not hear from so many that my husband is so wild and violent in his preaching, and when he disputes with the gentiles, as he will call them.[Pg 258] I am sure it is a good cause to suffer in, if one must suffer; but if our dear Macer would only work half the time, there would be no occasion to suffer, which we should now were it not for Demetrius the jeweler—who lives hard by, and who I am sure has been very kind to us—and our good Ælia.'

'You do not then,' I asked, 'blame your religion nor weary of it?'

'O, sir, surely not. It is our greatest comfort. We all look out with expectation of our greatest pleasure, when Macer returns home, after his day's labors,—and labors they surely are, and will destroy him, unless he is persuaded to leave them off. For when he is at home the children all come round him, and he teaches them in his way what religion is. Sometimes it is a long story he gives them of his life, when he was a little boy and knew nothing about Christ, and what wicked things he did, and sometimes about his serving as a soldier under the Emperor. But he never ends without showing them what Christ's religion tells them to think of such ways of life. And then, sir, before we go to bed he reads to us from the gospels—which he bought when he was in the army, and was richer than he is now—and prays for us all, for the city, and the Emperor, and the gentiles. So that we want almost nothing, as I may say, to make us quite contented and happy.'

'Have you ever been disturbed in your dwelling on Macer's account?'

'O yes, sir, and we are always fearing it. This is our great trouble. Once the house was attacked by the people of the street, and almost torn down—and we escaped, I and the children, through a back way into the[Pg 259] shop of the good Demetrius. There we were safe; and while we were gone our little cabin was entered, and everything in it broken in pieces. Macer was not at home, or I think he would have been killed.

'Did you apply to the prefect?'

'No, sir, I do not believe there would be much use in that: they say he hates the Christians so.'

'But he is bound to preserve order in the city.'

'Yes, sir; but for a great man like him it's easy to see only one way, and to move so slowly that it does no good. That is what our people say of him. When the Christians are in trouble he never comes, if he comes at all, till it is too late to do them any service. The best way for us is, I think, to live quietly, and not needlessly provoke the gentiles, nor believe that we can make Christians of them all in a day. That is my husband's dream. He thinks that he must deliver his message to people, whether they will or not, and it almost seems as if the more hostile they were, the more he made it his duty to preach to them, which certainly was not the way in which Christ did, as he reads his history to us. It was just the other way. It almost makes me believe that some demon has entered into him, he is so different from what he was, and abroad from what he is at home. Do you think that likely, sir? I have been at times inclined to apply to Felix to see if he could not exorcise him.'

'No, I do not think so certainly; but many may. I believe he errs in his notion of the way in which to do good; but under some circumstances it is so hard to tell which the best way is, that we must judge charitably of one another. Some would say that Macer is right; others that the course of Probus is wisest; and[Pg 260] others, that of Felix. We must do as we think right, and leave the issue to God.'

'But you will come and see us? We dwell near the ruins, and behind the shop of Demetrius. Every body knows Demetrius.'

I assured her I would go.

I almost wish, Fausta, that Julia was with you. All classes seem alike exposed to danger. But I suppose it would be in vain to propose such a step to her, especially after what she said to Isaac. You now, after your storm, live at length in calm: not exactly in sunshine; for you would say the sun never can seem to shine that falls upon the ruins of Palmyra. But calm and peace you certainly have, and they are much. I wish Julia could enjoy them with you. For here, every hour, so it now seems to me, the prospect darkens, and it will be enough for one of us to remain to encounter the evil, whatever it may be, and defend the faith we have espoused. This is an office more appropriate to man than to woman; though emergencies may arise, as they have, when woman herself must forget her tenderness and put on soldiers' panoply; and when it has come, never has she been found wanting. Her promptness to believe that which is good and pure, has been equalled by her fortitude and patience in suffering for it.

You will soon see Vabalathus. He will visit you before he enters upon his great office. By him I shall write to you soon again. Farewell.[Pg 261]

AURELIAN; ROME IN THE THIRD CENTURY

[Pg 263][Pg 262]

LETTER VIII. FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.

Marcus and Lucilia are inconsolable. Their grief, I fear, will be lasting as it is violent. They have no resource but to plunge into affairs and drive away memory by some active and engrossing occupation. Yet they cannot always live abroad; they must at times return to themselves and join the company of their own thoughts. And then, memory is not to be put off; at such moments this faculty seems to constitute the mind more than any other. It becomes the mind itself. The past rises up in spite of ourselves, and overshadows the present. Whether its scenes have been prosperous or afflictive, but especially if they have been shameful, do they present themselves with all the vividness of the objects before us and the passing hour, and infinitely increase our pains. We in vain attempt to escape. We are prisoners in the hands of a giant. To forget is not in our power. The will is impotent. The[Pg 264] effort to forget is often but an effort to remember. Fast as we fly, so fast the enemy of our peace pursues. Memory is a companion who never leaves us—or never leaves us long. It is the true Nemesis. Tartarean regions have no worse woes, nor the Hell of Christians, than memory inflicts upon those who have done evil. My friends struggle in vain. They have not done evil indeed, but they have suffered it. The sorest calamity that afflicts mortals has overtaken them; their choicest jewel has been torn from them; and they can no more drown the memory of their loss than they can take that faculty itself and tear it from their souls. Comfort cannot come from that quarter. It can come only from being re-possessed of that which has been lost hereafter, and from enjoying the hope of that felicity now. See how Marcus writes. After much else, he says,

'I miss you, Piso, and the conversations which we had together. I know not how it is, but your presence acted as a restraint upon my hot and impatient temper. Since your departure I have been little less than mad, and so far from being of service to Lucilia, she has been compelled to moderate her own grief in the hope to assuage mine. I have done nothing but rave, and curse my evil fortune. And can anything else be looked for? How should a man be otherwise than exasperated when the very thing he loves best in the wide universe is, without a moment's warning, snatched away from him? A man falls into a passion if his seal is stolen, or his rings, or his jewels, if his dwelling burns down, or his slaves run away or die by some pestilence. And why should he not much more when the providence of the gods, or the same power whatever it may be that gave[Pg 265] as a child, tears it from us again; and just then when we have so grown into it that it is like hewing us in two? I can believe in nothing but capricious chance. We live by chance, and so we die. Such events are otherwise inexplicable. For what reason can by the most ingenious be assigned for giving life for a few years to a being like Gallus, and who then, before he is more than just past the threshold of life, before a single power of his nature has put itself forth, but at the moment when he is bound to his parents by ties of love which never afterwards would be stronger—is struck dead? We can give no account of it. It is irreconcilable with the hypothesis of an intelligent and good Providence. It has all the features of chance upon it. A god could not have done it unless he had been the god of Tartarus. Dark Pluto might, or the avenging Furies, were they supreme. But away with all such dreams! The slaves who were his proper attendants, have been scourged and crucified. That at first gave me some relief; but already I repent it. So it is with me; I rush suddenly upon what at the moment I think right, and then as suddenly think and feel that I have done wrong, and so suffer. I see and experience nothing but suffering, whichever way I turn. Truly we are riddles. Piso, you cannot conceive of my loss. It was our only child—and the only one we shall ever know. I wish