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

from tradition, and the character of the deities of heaven, as they are set forth in the poets? And if this be so, I need not ask whether it be possible that the religion of Rome should be any other than a source of corruption to the people. So far as the gods should be their models, they can do no otherwise than help to sink their imitators lower and lower in all filth and vice. Happily for Rome and the world, lady, men instinctively revolt at such examples, and copy instead the pattern which their own souls supply. Had the Romans been all which the imitation of their gods would have made them, this empire had long ago sunk under the deep pollution. Fronto and Aurelian—the last at least sincere—aim at a restoration of religion. They would lift it up to the highest place, and make it the sovereign law of Rome. In this attempt, they are unconsciously digging away her very foundations; they are leveling her proud walls with the earth. Suppose Rome were made what Fronto would have her? Every Roman were then another Fronto—or another Aurelian. Were that a world to live in? or to endure? These, lady, are the enemies of Rome, Aurelian and Fronto. The only hope for Rome lies, in the reception of some such principles as these of the Christians. Whether true or false, as a revelation from Heaven, they are in accordance with the best part of our nature, and, once spread abroad and received, they would tend by a mighty influence to exalt it more and more. They would descend, as it is of the nature of absolute truth to do, and lay hold of the humblest and lowest and vilest, and in them erect their authority, and bring them into[Pg 388] the state, in which every man should be, for the reason that he is a man. Helenism cannot do this.'

'Notwithstanding what I have heard, Nicomachus, I think you must yourself be a Christian. But whether you are or not, I grant you to understand well what religion should be. And I must say that it has ever been such to me. I, from what I have read of our moralists and philosophers, and from what I have reflected, have arrived at principles not very different from such as you have now hinted at—'

'And are those of Fronto or Varus like yours, lady?'

'I fear not,' said Portia.

'Yours then, let me say, are the religion, which you have first found within your own breast, a gift from the gods, and then by meditation have confirmed and exalted; theirs, the common faith of Rome. Could your faith rejoice in or permit the horrors I have this day witnessed and but now described? Yet of theirs they are the legitimate fruit, the necessary product.'

'Out of the best,' replied Portia, 'I believe, Nicomachus, may often come the worst. There is naught so perfect and so wise, but human passions will mar and pervert it. I should not wonder if, in ages to come, this peace-loving faith of the Christians, should it survive so long, should itself come to preside over scenes as full of misery and guilt as those you have to-day seen in the streets of Rome.'

'It may be,' I rejoined. 'But it is nevertheless our duty, in the selection of our principles, to take those which are the purest, the most humane, the most accordant with what is best in us, and the least liable to perversion and abuse. And whether, if this be just, it[Pg 389] be better that mankind should have presented for their imitation and honor the character and actions of Jesus Christ, or those of Jupiter "Greatest and Best," may be left for the simplest to determine.'

Portia is so staunch a Roman, that one cannot doubt that as she was born and has lived, so she will die—a Roman. And truth to say, were all like her, there were little room for quarrel with the principles that could produce such results. But for one such, there are a thousand like Varus, Fronto, and Aurelian.

As after this interview, which was prolonged till the shades of evening began to fall, I held communion with myself on the way to the quiet retreats of Tibur, I could not but entertain apprehensions for the safety of the friends I had just left. I felt that where such men as Varus and Fronto were at the head of affairs, wielding, almost as they pleased, the omnipotence of Aurelian, no family nor individual of whatever name or rank could feel secure of either fortune or life. I had heard indeed such expressions of regard fall from the Emperor for Piso and his beautiful wife, that I was sure that if any in Rome might feel safe, it was they. Yet why should he, who had fallen with fatal violence upon one of his own household, and such a one as Aurelia, hesitate to strike the family of Piso, if thereby religion or the state were to be greatly benefited? I could see a better chance for them only in the Emperor's early love of Julia, which still seemed to exercise over him a singular power.

The Queen, I found, upon naming to her the subject of my thoughts, could entertain none of my apprehensions. It is so difficult for her nature to admit the[Pg 390] faintest purpose of the infliction of wanton suffering, that she cannot believe it of others. Notwithstanding her experience of the harsh and cruel spirit of Aurelian, notwithstanding the unnecessary destruction, for any national or political object, of the multitudes of Palmyra, still she inclines to confide in him. He has given so many proofs of regret for that wide ruin, he has suffered so much for it—especially for his murder of Longinus—in the opinion of all Rome, and of the highest and best in all nations, that she is persuaded he will be more cautious than ever whom he assails, and where he scatters ruin and death. Still, such is her devotion to Julia and her love of Piso—so entirely is her very life lodged in that of her daughter, that she resolved to seek the Emperor without delay, and if possible obtain an assurance of their safety, both from his own arm and that of popular violence. This I urged upon her with all the freedom I might use; and not in vain; for the next day, at the gardens of Sallust, she had repeated interviews with Aurelian—and afterward at her own palace, whither Aurelian came with Livia, and where, while Livia ranged among the flowers with Faustula, the Emperor and the Queen held earnest discourse—not only on the subject which chiefly agitated Zenobia, but on the general principles on which he was proceeding in this attempted annihilation of Christianity. Sure I am, that never in the Christian body itself was there one who pleaded their cause with a more winning and persuasive eloquence.[Pg 391]

LETTER X. FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.

I write to you, Fausta, by the hands of Vabalathus, who visits Palmyra on his way to his new kingdom. I trust you will see him. The adversities of his family and the misfortunes of his country have had most useful effects upon his character. Though the time has been so short, he has done much to redeem himself. Always was he, indeed, vastly superior to his brothers; but now, he is not only that, but very much more. Qualities have unfolded themselves, and affections and tastes warmed into life, which we none of us, I believe, so much as suspected the existence of. Zenobia has come to be devotedly attached to him, and to repose the same sort of confidence in him as formerly in Julia. All this makes her the more reluctant to part with him; but, as it is for a throne, she acquiesces. He carries away from Rome with him one of its most beautiful and estimable women—the youngest daughter of the venerable Tacitus—to whom he has just been married. In her you will see an almost too favorable specimen of Roman women.

Several days have elapsed since I wrote to you, giving an account of the sufferings and death of the Christian Macer—as I learned them from those who were present—for a breach of the late edicts, and for sacrile[Pg 392]giously, as the laws term it, tearing down the parchment containing them from one of the columns of the capitol. During this period other horrors of the same kind have been enacted in different parts of the city. Macer is not the only one who has already paid for his faith with his life. All the restraints of the law seem to be withdrawn, not confessedly but virtually, and the Christians in humble condition—and such for the most part we are—are no longer safe from violence in the streets of Rome. Although, Fausta, you believe not with us, you must, scarcely the less for that, pity us in our present straits. Can the mind picture to itself, in some aspects of the case, a more miserable lot! Were the times, even at the worst, so full of horror in Palmyra as now here in Rome? There, if the city were given up to pillage, the citizen had at least the satisfaction of dying in the excitement of a contest, and in the defence of himself and his children. Here the prospect is—the actual scene is almost arrived and present—that all the Christians of Rome will be given over to the butchery, first, of the Prefect's court, and others of the same character, established throughout the city for the express purpose of trying the Christians—and next, of the mob commissioned with full powers to search out, find, and slay, all who bear the hated name. The Christians, it is true, die for a great cause. In that cause they would rather die than live, if to live, they must sacrifice any of the interests of truth. But still death is not preferred; much less is death, in the revolting and agonizing form, which, chiefly, these voluntary executioners choose, to be viewed in any other light than an evil too great almost to be endured.[Pg 393]

It would astonish you, I think, and give you conceptions of the power of this religion such as you have never had as yet, could you with me look into the bosoms of these thousand Christian families, and behold the calmness and the fortitude with which they await the approaching calamities. There is now, as they believe, little else before them but death—and death, such as a foretaste has been given of, in the sufferings of Macer. Yet are they, with wonderfully few exceptions, here in their houses prepared for whatever may betide, and resolved that they will die for him unto whom they have lived. This unshrinking courage, this spirit of self-sacrifice, is the more wonderful, as it is now the received belief that they would not forfeit their Christian name or hope by withdrawing, before the storm bursts, from the scene of danger.

There have been those in the church, and some there are now, who would have all, who in time of persecution seek safety in flight, or by any form of compromise, visited with the severest censures the church can inflict, and forever after refused readmission to the privileges which they once enjoyed. Paying no regard to the peculiar temperament and character of the individual, they would compel all to remain fixed at their post, inviting by a needless ostentation of their name and faith, the search and assault of the enemy. Macer was of this number. Happily they are now few: and the Christians are left free—free from the constraint of any tyrant opinion, to act according to the real feeling of the heart. But does this freedom carry them away from Rome? Does it show them to the world hurrying in crowds by day, or secretly flying by night, from the[Pg 394] threatened woes? No so. All who were here when these troubles first began, are here now, or with few and inconsiderable exceptions—fewer than I could wish. All who have resorted to me under these circumstances for counsel or aid have I advised, if flight be a possible thing to them, that they should retreat with their children to some remote and secluded spot, and wait till the tempest should have passed by. Especially have I so advised and urged all whom I have known to be of a sensitive and timid nature, or bound by ties of more than common interest and necessity to large circles of relatives and dependents. I have aimed to make them believe, that little gain would accrue to the cause of Christ from the addition of them and