Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📖

nearly killed me yesterday. That would indeed have been a triumph of the laws over Christianity. He and the wild beasts might have given the people ten minutes’ amusement. But wrath conquered prudence; and the fellow has been crucified these two hours. Suppose, then, we had a little exhibition of gladiators. They are forbidden by law, certainly.’

‘Thank Heaven, they are!’

‘But do you not see that is the very reason why we, to assert our own independence, should employ them?’

‘No! they are gone. Let them never reappear to disgrace the earth.’

‘My dear lady, you must not in your present character say that in public; lest Cyril should be impertinent enough to remind you that Christian emperors and bishops put them down.’

Hypatia bit her lip, and was silent.

‘Well, I do not wish to urge anything unpleasant to you.... If we could but contrive a few martyrdoms—but I really fear we must wait a year or two longer, in the present state of public opinion, before we can attempt that.’

‘Wait? wait for ever! Did not Julian—and he must be our model—forbid the persecution of the Galilaeans, considering them sufficiently punished by their own atheism and self-tormenting superstition?’

‘Another small error of that great man.—He should have recollected that for three hundred years nothing, not even the gladiators themselves, had been found to put the mob in such good humour as to see a few Christians, especially young and handsome women, burned alive, or thrown to the lions.’

Hypatia bit her lip once more. ‘I can hear no more of this, sir. You forget that you are speaking to a woman.’

‘Most supreme wisdom,’ answered Orestes, in his blandest tone, ‘you cannot suppose that I wish to pain your ears. But allow me to observe, as a general theorem, that if one wishes to effect any purpose, it is necessary to use the means; and on the whole, those which have been tested by four hundred years’ experience will be the safest. I speak as a plain practical statesman—but surely your philosophy will not dissent?’

Hypatia looked down in painful thought. What could she answer? Was it not too true? and had not Orestes fact and experience on his side?

‘Well, if you must—but I cannot have gladiators. Why not a—one of those battles with wild beasts? They are disgusting enough but still they are less inhuman than the others; and you might surely take precautions to prevent the men being hurt.’

‘Ah! that would indeed be a scentless rose! If there is neither danger nor bloodshed, the charm is gone. But really wild beasts are too expensive just now; and if I kill down my present menagerie, I can afford no more. Why not have something which costs no money, like prisoners?’

‘What! do you rank human beings below brutes?’

‘Heaven forbid! But they are practically less expensive. Remember, that without money we are powerless; we must husband our resources for the cause of the gods.’

Hypatia was silent.

‘Now, there are fifty or sixty Libyan prisoners just brought in from the desert. Why not let them fight an equal number of soldiers? They are rebels to the empire, taken in war.’

‘Ah, then,’ said Hypatia, catching at any thread of self-justification, ‘their lives are forfeit in any case.’

‘Of course. So the Christians could not complain of us for that. Did not the most Christian Emperor Constantine set some three hundred German prisoners to butcher each other in the amphitheatre of Treves?’

‘But they refused, and died like heroes, each falling on his own sword.’

‘Ah—those Germans are always unmanageable. My guards, now, are just as stiff-necked. To tell you the truth, I have asked them already to exhibit their prowess on these Libyans, and what do you suppose they answered?’

‘They refused, I hope.’

‘They told me in the most insolent tone that they were men, and not stage-players; and hired to fight, and not to butcher. I expected a Socratic dialogue after such a display of dialectic, and bowed myself out.’

‘They were right.’

‘Not a doubt of it, from a philosophic point of view; from a practical one they were great pedants, and I an ill-used master. However, I can find unfortunate and misunderstood heroes enough in the prisons, who, for the chance of their liberty, will acquit themselves valiantly enough; and I know of a few old gladiators still lingering about the wine-shops, who will be proud enough to give them a week’s training. So that may pass. Now for some lighter species of representation to follow—something more or less dramatic.’

‘You forget that you speak to one who trusts to be, as soon as she has the power, the high-priestess of Athene, and who in the meanwhile is bound to obey her tutor Julian’s commands to the priests of his day, and imitate the Galilaeans as much in their abhorrence for the theatre as she hopes hereafter to do in their care for the widow and the stranger.’

‘Far be it from me to impugn that great man’s wisdom. But allow me to remark, that to judge by the present state of the empire, one has a right to say that he failed.’

‘The Sun-God whom he loved took him to himself, too early, by a hero’s death.’

‘And the moment he was removed, the wave of Christian barbarism rolled back again into its old channel.’

‘Ah! had he but lived twenty years longer!’

‘The Sun-God, perhaps, was not so solicitous as we are for the success of his high-priest’s project.’

Hypatia reddened—was Orestes, after all laughing in his sleeve at her and her hopes?

‘Do not blaspheme!’ she said solemnly.

‘Heaven forbid! I only offer one possible explanation of a plain fact. The other is, that as Julian was not going quite the right way to work to restore the worship of the Olympians, the Sun-God found it expedient to withdraw him from his post, and now sends in his place Hypatia the philosopher, who will be wise enough to avoid Julian’s error, and not copy the Galilaeans too closely, by imitating a severity of morals at which they are the only true and natural adepts.’

‘So Julian’s error was that of being too virtuous? If it be so, let me copy him, and fail like him. The fault will then not be mine, but fate’s.’

‘Not in being too virtuous himself, most stainless likeness of Athene, but in trying to make others so. He forgot one half of Juvenal’s great dictum about “Panem and Circenses,” as the absolute and overruling necessities of rulers. He tried to give the people the bread without the games.... And what thanks he received for his enormous munificence, let himself and the good folks of Antioch tell—you just quoted his Misopogon—’