DION AHDftlE5 A CLASSIC NOVEL CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PS 2164.K37D5 1898 Dion and the sibyls :a classic novel. 3 1924 022 063 659 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022063659 DION AND THE SIBYLS A CLASSIC NOVEL MILES GERALD KEON New York, Cincinnati, Chicago BENZIGKR BROTHERS PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGES'S MAGAZINE Entered, according to Act ot Congress, In tne year 1R71, by Lawrence Kehoe^ b the Office of the LibraiUin of Congress, Washii^;ton, D. C. Transferred to CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOOK CO. CanmgMtrsuisferted, 18961 « BENZIGER BROTHERS 3 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. IHon and the Sibyls comes into direct comparison with Ben-Hur. Both get their interest from the com- ing of the Saviour; in both, Rome and Jerusalem are the chief localities. General Wallace's hero is a Jew; Keon's a young Roman noble. Both plots are fascinating, and the descriptions of historical places and personages bril- liant and scholarly; but Dion is richer in sentiment and sounder in thought. Dion has passages unsurpassed in our literature. Of wonderful power are: The speech of the gladiator; the demons that served Piso's wife; the taming of the horse in the arena; the symposium before Augustus; the conveyance of the treasure to Germanicus Caesar; the rescue of Agatha from the power of Tiberius; the meeting with Christ and St. John; the dancing of the daughter of Herodias before Herod, Strangely enough there is a remarkable likeness in the careers of the two authors. Keon, bom in Ireland and educated at Stouyhurst, was a soldier with the French in Algiers, a lawyer, a writer, and in his last years a government official. Wallace was a soldier, afterwards a diplomat, and has become a litterateur. Ben-Hur lay long months untouched upon the pub- lishers' shelves before men awakened to its beauty and power; and who that has read Dion will say that it has yet received a tithe of its full measure of justice. DEDICATION. 1 DEDICATE the following work to Edward Bul- wer, Lord Lytton, not only in appreciation of one of the most searching, comprehensive, independ- ent, and indefatigable thinkers, and one of the truest and highest men of genius, of whom it has ever been the lot of his own country and of the English-speaking races to be proud, and the fate of contemporary nations to feel honorably jeal- ous; not only in admiration of a mind which nature made great, and which study has to the last degree cultivated, whose influence and authority have been steadily rising since he first began to labor in literary fields more varied than almost any into which ONE person had previously dared to carry the efforts of the intellect; but still more as an humble token of the grateful love which I feel in return for the faithful and consist- ent friendship and the innumerable services with which a great genius and a great man has hon- ored me during twenty years. Miles Gerald Keon. Paris, Jan. i8, 1870. Dion and the Sibyls. CHAPTER I. JT was a fair evening in autumn, toward the end of the year eleven of our Lord. Augustus Csesar was a white-haired, olive-complexioned, and somewhat frail-featured, though stately man of more than seventy-three. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the face of the first Napoleon recalled to the minds of antiquaries and students of numismatic re- mains the lineaments engraved upon the extant coins of Augustus. Indeed, at this moment there is in the Vatican a beautiful marble bust in excellent preserva- tion, representing one of these two emperors as he was while yet young ; and this bust almost invariably pro- duces a curious effect upon the stranger who contem- plates it for the first time. " That is certainly a beauti- ful, artistic work," he says, " but the likeness is hardly perfect." " Likeness of whom ? " replies some Italian friend. " Of the emperor," says the stranger. " Sicuro ! But which emperor ? " asks the Italian, smiling. " Of course, the first," says the visitor. "But that repre- 2 Dion and the Sibyls. sents Augustus Caisar, not Napoleon Bonaparte," is the answer. Whereupon the stranger, who, a moment before had very justly pronounced the resemblance to Bonaparte to be hardly perfect, exclaims, not less justly, "What an amazing likeness to Napoleon!" That sort of admiring surprise is intelligible. Had the bust been designed as an image of the great modem conqueror, there had been something to censure. But the work which, at one and the same time, delineates the second Caesar, and yet after 1800 years recalls to mind the first Napoleon, has become a curious monu- ment indeed. The second Roman emperor, however, had not a forehead so broad and commanding nor so marble- smooth as Napoleon's, and the whole countenance, at the time when our narrative begins, offered a more de- cisively aquiline curve, with more numerous and much thinner lines about the mouth. Still, even at the age which he had then reached — in the year eleven of our Lord — he showed traces of that amazing beauty which had enchanted the whole classic world in the days of his youth. Three years more, and his reign and life were to go down in a great, broad, calm, treacherous sunset together. After the senate had rewarded the histrionic and pure- ly make-believe moderation of its master — and in truth its destroyer — by giving to one who had named himself Princeps the greater name of Augustus, the former title, like a left-off robe, too good to be thrown away, was carefully picked up, brushed into all its gloss, and ap- propriated by a second performer. We allude, of course, to Drusus Tiberius Claudius Nero, the future emperor. Dion and the Sibyls. 3 best known by his second name of Tiberius. The first and third names had belonged to his brother also. Ti- berius was then " Prince and Caesar," as the new slang of flattery termed him ; he was stepson of Augustus and already adopted heir, solemnly designatus. He was verging upon the close of his fifty-third year of cautious profligacy, clandestine vindictiveness, and strictly-regu- lated vices. History has not accused him of murdering Agrippa Vespasianxis ; but had Agrippa survived, he would have held all Tiberius's present ofiices. ^lius Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guards, was occu- pied in watching the monthly, watching even the daily, decay of strength in the living emperor, and was pan- dering to the passions of his probable successor. Up to this time Sejanus had been, and still was, thus em- ployed. More dangerous hopes had not arisen in his bosom ; he had not yet indulged in the vision of becom- ing master of the known world — a dream which, some twenty years afterward, consigned him to cruel and sud- den destruction. No conspirator, perhaps, ever exer- cised more craft and patience in preparing, or betrayed more stupidity at last in executing, an attempt at trea- son on so great a scale. It was forty-six years since Sallust had expired amid the luxuries which cruelty and rapine accumulated, after profligacy had first brought him acquainted with want. Ovid had just been sent into exile at Temesvar in Tur- key — ^then called Tomos in Scythia. Cornelius Nepos was ending his days in the personal privacy and literary no- toriety in which he had lived. Virgil had been dead a whole generation; so had Tibullus; Catullus, half a century; Propertius, some twenty years; Horace and 4 Dion and the Sibyls. Maecenas, about as long. The grateful master of the curiosafelicitas verborum had followed in three weeks to — not the grave, indeed, but — the um, the patron whom he had immortalized in the first of his odes, the first of his epodes, the first of his satires, and the first of his. epistles; and the mighty sovereign upon whose youth- ful court those three characters — a wise, mild, clement, yet firm minister, a glorious epic poet, and an unsur- passed lyrist — have reflected so much and such endur- ing lustre, had faithfully and unceasingly lamented their irreparable loss. Lucius Varius was the fashionable poet, the laureate of the day ; and Maecenas being removed, Tiberius sought to govern indirectly, as minister, all those matters which he did not control directly and im ■ mediately, as one of the two Caesars whom Augustus had appointed. Velleius Paterculus, the cavalry colo- nel, or military tribune (chiUarch), a prosperous and accomplished patrician, was beginning to shine at once in letters and at the court. The grandson of Livia, grandson also of Augustus by his marriage with her, but really grandnephew of that emperor — we mean the son of Antonia, the celebrated Germanicus, second and more worthy bearer of that surname — a youth full of fire and genius, and tingling with noble blood — was pre- paring to atone for the disgraces and to repair the dis- asters which Quintilius Varus, one year before, amidst the uncleared forests of Germany, had brought upon the imperial arms and the Roman name. Germanicus, indeed, was about to fulfill the more important part of a celebrated classic injunction ; he was going to do things worthy to be written, "while the supple courtier of all Caesars, Paterculus, was endeavoring to write somethins Dion and the Sibyh. 5 worthy to be read." Strabo had not long before com- menced his system of geography, which, for about thirty years yet to come, was to engage his attention and dic- tate his travels. Livy, of the "pictured page," who doubdess may be called, next to Tacitus, the most elo- quent without being set down as quite the most cred- ulous of classic historians — I venture to say so, face Niebuhr — was over sixty-eight years of age, but scarcely looked sixty. He was even then thoroughly and uni- versally appreciated. No man living had received more genuine marks of honor — not even the emperor. His hundred and forty-two books of Roman history had filled the known world with his praises, a glory which length of days allowed him fully to enjoy. Modem readers appreciate and admire the thirty-five books which alone are left, and linger over the beauties, quasi steilis, with which they shine. Yet who knows but these may be among the poorest productions of Livy's genius ? A very simple sum in arithmetic would satisfy an actuary that we must have lost the most valuable emanations of the Paduan's great mind. Given a sal- vage of five-and-thirty out of a himdred and forty-two» and yet the whole of this wreck so marvellous in beau- ty ! surely that which is gone forever must have includ- ed much that is equal, probably something far superior to what time has spared. There is a curious fact recorded by Pliny the younger, which speaks for itself. A Spaniard of Cadiz had, only some five months before the date of our story, journeyed from the ends of the earth to, Rome merely to obtain a sight of Livy. There were imperial shows in the forum and hippodrome and circus at the time; there were 6 Dion and the Sibyls. races on foot, and on horseback, and in chariots ; fights there were of all kinds — men against wild animals, men against each other; with the sword, with the deadly cestus; wrestling matches, and the dreadful battles of gladiators, five hundred a side; in short, all the glitter and the glories and the horrors of the old classic arena in its culminating days. There was also a strange new Greek fence, since inherited by Naples, and preserved all through the middle ages down to this hour, with the straight, pliant, three-edged rapier, to witness which even ladies thronged with interest and partisanship. But the Spaniard from Gades (Cervantes might surely have had such an ancestor) asked only to be shown Titus Livius. • Which in yonder group is Livy ? The wayfarer cared for nothing else that Roman civilization or Roman vanity could show him. The great writer was pointed out, and then the traveller, having satisfied the motive which had brought him to Rome, went back to Ostia, where his lugger, if I may so call it, lay (I picture it a kind of " wing-and-wing " rigged vessel) ; and, refusing to profane his eyes with any meaner spec- tacle, set sail again for Spain, where his youth had been illumined with the visions presented to a sympathetic imagination by the most charming of classical histor- ians. The Spaniards from an immemorial age are deemed to have been heroes and appreciators of heroes; and no doubt this literary pilgrim, once more at home, recurred many a time, long pondering, to the glorious deeds of the Fabia Gens. How many other similar examples Livy may have re- corded for him we modems cannot say. Before his gaze arose the finished column from the fragments Dion and the Sihyh, 7 whereof we have gathered up some scattered bricks and marbles. Niebuhr had to deal with a ruin, and he who ought to have guessed at and reconstructed the plan of it, has contented himself with trying to demoUsh its form. Long previously to the date of our tale, Augustus, trembling under the despotism of his wife, Livia, had begun to repeat those lamentations (with which scholars are familiar) for the times when Maecenas had guided his active day, and Virgil and Horace had beguiled his lettered evenings. Virgil, as is well known, had been tormented with asthma, and ought possibly to have lived much longer but for some unrecorded imprudence. Horace, as is likewise well known, had been tormented with sore eyeUds — and with wine ; he was " blear- eyed" (lippus). Augustus, therefore, used to say wittily, as he placed them on each hand of him at the sym- posium, which had been recently borrowed in Italy from the Greeks, but had not yet degenerated into the de- bauchery and extravagance into which they afterward sank more and more deeply during successive reigns, " I sit between sighs and tears." * But he had long lost these so-called sighs and tears at either hand of him. The sighs and tears were now his own. * In siupiriis stdto et in lachrymis. CHAPTER II. )UR chronicle commences in Campania, with the i?^ Tyrrhenian Sea (now the southerly waters of the Gulf of Genoa) on a traveller's left hand if he looks north. It was a fair evening in autumn, as we have remarked, during that age and state of the world the broad outlines of which we have briefly given. Along the Appian, or, as it long afterward came to be also called, the Trajan Way, the queen of roads, a con- veyance drawn by two horses, a carriage of the common hackney description, not unlike one species of the vet- tura used by the modem Italians, was rolling swiftly northward between the stage of Minturnse and the next stage, which was a lonely post-house a few miles south of the interesting town of Formiae — ^not Forum Appii, or the TTiree Taverns, a place more than fifty miles away in the direction of Rome, and upon the same road. Inside the carriage were a lady in middle life, whope face, oj>ce lovely, was .still sweet and charming, and a very pale, beautiful female child, each dressed in a black ricinium,* or mourning robe, drawn over the top of the head. The girl was about twelve years old, or a little more, and seemed to be suffering much and griev- ously. She faced the horses, and on her side sat the lady fanning her and watching her with a look which always spoke love, and now and again anguish. Op- posite to them, with his back to the horses, wearing a sort of dark lacema, or thin, light great coat, of costly * Cicero, Legg. ii. 23. 8 Dion and the Sibyls. 9 material, but of a fashion which was deemed in Italy at that day either foreign or vulgar, as the case might be, sat a youth of about eighteen. The child was leaning back with her eyes closed. The youth, as he watched her, sighed now and then. At last he put both hands to his face, and, leaning ' his head for- ward, suffered tears to flow silently through his fingers. The lacema which he wore was fastened at the breast by two clasps of silver, and girt round his waist with a broad, brown, sheeny leather belt, stamped and traced after some Asiatic mode. In a loop of this belt, at his left side, was secured within its black scab- bard an unfamiliar, outlandish-looking, long, straight, three-edged sword, which he had pulled round so as to rest the point before his feet, bringing the blade be-^ tween his knees, and the hilt, which was gay with emeralds, in front of his chest. The Romans still very generally went bare-headed,* even out of doors, except that those who continued to wear the toga drew it over their heads as the weather needed, and those who wore the penula used the hood of it in the same way. But upon the hilt of the sword we have described the youth had flung a deep-rimmed hat, with a flat top, and one black feather at the side, not stuck perpendicularly into the band, but so trained half round it as to produce a reckless, rakish effect, of which the owner was unconscious. " Agatha," said the lady, in a low, tender voice, the delicate Greek ring of which was full of persuasion, "look up, beloved child! Your brother and I, at least, are left. Think no more of the past. The gods * Plutarch in FcHnpey. Seneca, Spis. 64. lo Dion and the Sibyls. have taken your father, after men had taken his and your inheritance. But our part in life is not yet over. Did not your parents too, in times past — did not we too, I say, lose ours? Did you not know you were probably to live longer than your poor father? Are you not to survive me also ? Perhaps soon." With a cry of dismay the young girl threw her arms round the lady's neck and sobbed. The other, while she shed tears, exclaimed : " I thank that unknown power, of whom Dionysius the Athenian, my young countryman, so sublimely speaks, that the child weeps at last! Weep, Agatha, weep; but mourn not mute in the cowardice of de- spair ! Mourn not for yoiu: father in a way unbecom- ing of his child and mine. Mourn not as though in- deed you were not ours. My husband is gone forever, but he went in honor. The courageless grief, that canker without voice or tears, which would slay his child, will not bring back to me the partner of my days, nor to you yoiu- father. We must not dishearten but cheer yoiu: brother Paulus tor the battle which is be- fore him." " I wish to do so, my mother," said Agatha. " When I recover my rights," broke in the youth at this point, " my father will come and sit among the lares, round the ever-burning fire in the atrium of our hereditary house, Agatha; and therefore courage ! You are ill; but Charicles, the great physician of Tiberius Caesar, is our countryman, and he will attend you. He can cure almost anything, they say. And if you feel fatigued, no wonder, so help me ! Minime mirum meher- cle ! Have we not travelled without intermission, by Dion and the Siiyls. 1 1 land and by sea, all the way from Thrace ? But now, one more change of horses brings us to Formise, and then we shall be at our journey's end. Meantime, dear child, look up; see yonder woods, and the garden-like shore." And having first tried in vain to brighten the horn window at the side of the vehicle (glass was used only in the private carriages of the rich), he stood up, and calling over the hide roof of the carriage, which was open in front — the horses being driven from behind — ^he ordered the coachman to open the panels. The man, evidently a former slave of the family, now their freed- man, quickly obeyed, and descending from his bench, pushed back into grooves contrived to receive them the coarsely-figured and gaudily colored sides of the travelling carruca. " Is the little one better?" he then cried, with the privi- leged freedom of an old and attached domestic, or of one who, in the far more endearing parlance of classic times, was a faithful familiaris — that is, a member of the family. " Is the little one better ? The dust is laid now, Uttle one; the evening comes ; the light slants ; the sun smiles not higher than yoiurself , instead of burn- ing overhead. See, the beautiful country! See, the sweet land! Let the breeze bring a bloom to your cheeks, as it brings the perfumes to your mouth. Ah ! the little one smiles. Fate is not always angry!" "Dear old Philip!" said the child; and then, turn- ing to her mother, she added, " Just now, mother, you waked me from a frightful dream. I thought that the man who has our father's estates was dead ; but he came from the dead, and was 1 2 Dion and the Sibyls. trying to kill Paulus, my brother there; and for that purpose was striving to wrest the sword from Paulus's hand; and that the man laughed in a hideous manner, and cried out, ' It is with his own sword we will slay him ! Nothing but his own sword !' " The old freedman turned pale, and muttered some- thing to himself, as he stood by the side of the vehicle; and while he kept the horses steady, with the long reins in his left hand, glanced awfully toward Paulus. " Brother," continued the child, " I forget that man's name. What is the name ?" " Never mind the name now," said Paulus ; " a dead person cannot kill a living one ; and that man is not in Italy who will kiU me with my own sword, if I be not asleep. Look at the beautiful land! See, as Philip tells you, the beautiful land where you are going to be so happy." The river Liris, now the Garigliano, flowed all gold in the western sun ; some dozens of meadows behind them, between rows of linden-trees, oleanders, and pome- granates, with laurel, bay and long bamboo-like reeds of the arundo donax, varying the rich beauty of its banks.* A thin and irregular forest of great contemplative trees ; flowerless and sad beech, cornel, alder, ash, hornbeam, and yew towered over savannahs of scented herbs and glades of many-tinted grasses. Some clumps of chest- nut-trees, hereafter to spread into forests, but then rare, and cultivated as we cultivate oranges and citrons, stood proudly apart. A vegetation which has partly vanished gave its own physical aspect to an Italy the social conditions of which have vanished altogether; * Daphnones, platanones, et aeria cyparissi- ZHon and the Sibyls. 13 and were even then passing, and about to pass, through their last appearances. But much also that we in our days have seen, both there and elsewhere, was there then. The flower or blossom of the pomegranate lifted its scarlet light amidst vines and olives; miles of olean- der-trees waved their masses of flame under the tender green filigree of almond groves, and seemed to laugh in scorn at the mourning groups of yew and the bowed head of the dark, widow-like, and inconsolable cypress. All over the lea\ 's of the woods autumn had strewn its innumerable hues. In the west, the sky was hung with those glories which no painter ever reproduced and no poet ever sang; it was one of the sunsets which make all persons of sensibility who contemplate them dumb, by making all that can be said of them worse than useless. A magnificent and enormous villa or country mansion — palace it seemed — showed parts of its walls, glass windows, and Ionic columns, through the woods on the banks of the Liris; and upon the roof of this palace a great company of gilt, tinted, and white statues, much larger than life, in various groups and attitudes, as they conversed, lifted their arms, knelt, prayed, stooped, stood up, threatened, and acted, were glittering above the tree-tops in the many-colored lights of the setting sun. " Ah ! let us stop ; let us rest a few moments," cried the child, smiling through her tears at the smiles of nature and the enchanting beauty of the scene; " only a few moments under the great trees, mother." It was a group of chestnuts, a few yards from the side of the road ; and beneath them came to join the highway through the meadows, and vineyards, and 14 Dion and the Sibyls. forest-land, a broad beaten track from the direction ot the splendid villa that stood on the Liris. Paulus instandy sprang from the carruca, and, hav- ing first helped his mother to alight, took his sister in his arms and placed her sitting mider the green shade. A Thracian woman, a slave, descended mean time from the box, and the driver drew his vehicle to the side of the highway. While they thus reposed, with no sound about them, as they thought, save the rustle of the leaves, the dis- tant ripple of the waters, and the vehement shrill call of the cicala hidden in the grass near, their destinies were coming. The freedman suddenly held up his hand, and drew their attention by that peculiar soimd through the teeth (si), which in all nations signifies listen / And, indeed, a distant, dull, vague noise was now heard southward, and seemed to increase and approach along the Appian road. Every eye in our little group of travellers was turned in the direction mentioned, and they could see a white cloud of dust coming swiftly northward. Soon they distinguished the tramp of many horses at the trot. Then, over the top of a hill which had intercepted the view, came the gleam of arms, fill- ing the whole width of the way, and advancing like a torrent of light. The ground trembled; and, headed by a troop or two of Numidian riders, and then a couple of troops of Batavian cavalry, a thousand horse, at least, of the Praetorian Guards, arrayed, as usual, magnificently, swept along in a column two hun- dred deep, with a rattle and ring of metal rising treble upon the ear over the continuous bass of the beating hoofs, as the foam floats above the roll of the waves. 'Dion and the Sibyls. 15 The young girl was at once startled from the sense of sickness and grief, and gazed with big eyes at the pageant. Six hundred yards further on a trumpet-note, clear and long, gave some sudden signal, and the whole body instantly halted. From a detached group in the rear an oflScer now rode toward the front; a loud word or two of command was heard, a sUght movement fol- lowed, and then, as if the column were some monstrous yellow-scaled serpent with an elastic neck and a black head, the swarthy troops which had led the advance wheeled slowly backward, two instead of five abreast, while the main column simultaneously stretched itself forward on a narrower face, and with a deeper file, occupying thus less than half the width of the road, which they had before nearly filled, and extending much further onward. Meantime the squadrons which had led it continued to defile to the rear; and when their last rank had passed the last of those fronting in the opposite direction, they suddenly faced to their own right, and, standing like statues, Uned the way on the side opposite to that where our travellers were reposing, but some forty or fifty yards higher up the road, or more north. In front of the Une of horsemen, who, after wheeling back, had been thus faced to their own right, or the proper left of the Une of march, was now collected a small group of mounted officers. One of them wore a steel corselet, a casque of the same metal, with a few short black feathers in its crest, and the chlamys, or a better sort of sagum, the scarlet mantle of a military tribune, over a black tunic, upon which two broad red stripes or ribbons were diagonally sewn. This costume 1 6 Dion and the Sibyls. denoted him one of the Latklavii, or broad-ribboned tribunes ; in other words — although, to judge by the massive gold ring which glittered on the forefinger of his bridle hand, he might have been originally and per- sonally only a knight — he had received either from the emperor, or from one of the two Caesars then govern- ing with and under Augustus, the senatorial rank. The chlamys was fastened across the top of his chest with a silver clasp, and the tunic a httle lower down with another, both being open below as far as the waist, and disclosing a tight-fitting chain-mail corselet, or shirt of steel rings. The chlamys was otherwise thrown loose over his shoulders, but the tunic was belted round the corselet at his waist by a buflE girdle, wherein hung the intricately-figured brass scabbard of a straight, flat, not very long cut-and-thrust sword, which he now held drawn in his right hand. In his belt were stuck a pair of gloves, which seemed to be made of the same material as the girdle j buffalo-skin greaves on his legs and half -boots completed his dress. He was a handsome man, about five-and-thirty years old, brown hair, an open but thoughtful face and an ob- servant eye. He it was who had ridden to the front and given those orders the execution of which we have noticed. He had now returned, and kept his horse a neck or so behind that of an officer far more splendidly atrired, who seemed to pay no attention whatever to the little operation that had occurred, but, shading his eyes with one hand from the rays of the setting sun, gazed over the fields toward the villa or mansion on the Liris. He was clad in the paludamentum, the long scarlet cloak of a legatus or general, the borders being deeply Dion and the Sibyls. 17 fringed with twice-dyed Tynan purple,* the long folds of which flowed over his charger's haunches. This mag- nificent mantle was buckled round the wearer's neck with a jewel. His corselet, unlike that of the colonel or tribune already mentioned, was of plate-steel (instead qA rings), and shone like a looking-glass, except where it was inlaid with broad lines of gold. He wore a chain of twisted gold around his neck, and his belt as well as the hilt of his sword, which remained undrawn by his side in a silver scabbard, glittered with sardonyx and jasper stones. He had no tunic. His gloves happen- ing, like those of his subordinate, to be thrust into the belt round his waist, left visible a pair of hands so white and delicate as to be almost effeminate. His helmet was thin steel, and the crest was surmounted by a pro- fuse plume of scarlet cock's feathers. But perhaps the most curious particular of his costume was a pair of shoes or half -boots of red leather, the points of the toes turned upward. These boots were encrusted with gems, which formed the patrician crescent, or letter C, on the top of each foot, and then wandered into a fanciful tracery of sparkles up the leg. The stirrups, in which his feet rested, were either of gold or gilt. The coimtenance of this evidently important per- sonage was remarkable. He had regular features, a handsome straight nose, eyes half closed with what seemed at first a languid look, but yet a look which, if observed more closely, was almost startling from the extreme attention it evinced, and from the contrast between such an exjK-ession and the indolent indiffer- ence or superciliousness upon the surface, if I may so * Tyrta bis fincta, or dibapha. — Pliny, 1 8 Dion and the Sibyls. say, of the physiognomy. There was something sinister and crael about the mouth. He wore no whiskers or beard, but a black, carefully trimmed mustache. After a steady gaze across the fields in the direction we have already more than once mentioned, he half turned his head toward the tribune, and at the same time, pointing to our travellers, said something. The tribune, in his turn, addressed the first centurion, an ofiicer whose sword, like that of the legatus, was undrawn, but who carried in his right hand a thin wand made of vine-wood. In an instant this oflScer turned his horse's head and trotted smartly toward our travellers, upon reaching whom he addressed Paulus thus: " Tell me, I pray you, have you been long here ? " " Not a quarter of an hour," answered Paulus, won- dering why such a question was asked. " And have any persons passed into the road by this pathway ? " the centurion then inquired. " Not since we came," said Paulus. The officer thanked him and trotted back. Meanwhile Paulus and his mother and the freedman PhiUp had not been so absorbed in watching the occur- rence and scene just described as to remove their eyes for more than a moment at a time from their dearly- loved charge, the interesting little mourner who had begged to be allowed to rest under the chestnut-trees. It was not so with Agatha herself. The child was at once astonished, bewildered, and enraptured. Had the spectacle and review before her been commanded by some monarch, or rather some magician, on piurpose to snatch her from the possibility of dwelhng longer amidst Dion and the Sibyls. 19 the gloom, the regrets, and the termors tinder which she had appeared to be sinking, neither the wonder of the spectacle, nor the amenity of the evening when it oc- curred, nor the loveUness of the landscape which formed its theatre, could have been more opportunely com- bined. She had not only never beheld anything so magnificent, but her curiosity was violently aroused. Paulus exchanged with his mother and the old freed- man a glance of intelUgence and of intense satisfaction, as they both noted the parted lips and dilated eyes with which the child, half an hour ago so alarmingly ill, con- templated t1}e drama at which she was accidentally as- sisting. " That's a rare doctor," whispered PhiUp, pointing to the general of the Praetorian Guards. " No doctor," repUed Paulus in the same low tones^ " could have prescribed for our darling better." ^' Paulus," said Agatha, " what are these mighty be- ings ? Are these the genii and the demons of the mis- tressland, the gods of Italy ? " "They are a handful of Italy's troops, dear," he said. She looked from her brother to the lady, and then to the freedman, and this last, with a heaUng instinct which would have done honor to Hippocrates, began to stimu- late her interest by the agency of suspense and mystery. " Master Paulus, and Lady Aglais, and my little one, too," he said, in a most impressive and solemn voice, "these are the genii and these the demons indeed; but I tell you that you have not yet seen all the secret. Something is going to happen. Attend to me well ! You behold a most singular thing ! Are you aware of what 20 Z>w« and the Sibyls. you behold ? Yonder, Master Paulus, is the allotted portion of horse for more than three legions : ih.^ Justus equitatus, I say, for a Roman army of twenty thousand men. Yes, I attest all the gods," continued Philip in a low voice, but with great earnestness, and glancing from the brother to the sister as if his prospects in life were contingent upon his being believed in this. " I was at the battle of Philippi, and I aver that yonder is more than the right allotment of horse for three legions. Ob- serve the squadrons ; they do not consist of the same arm; and instead of being distributed in bodies of three or four hundred each to a legion, they are all together before you without their legions. Why is that. Master Paulus ? " " I know not," said Paulus. " Ah ! " resumed the freedman, " you know not, but you will know presently. Mark that, little Mistress Agatha, and bear in mind that Philip the freedman has said to your brother that he will know all presently." The child gazed wonderingly at the troops as she heard these mysterious words. " Who are those ? " asked she, pointing to the squadrons of those still ia column. " Who are those in leather jerkins, covered with the iron scales, and riding the large, heavy horses ?" " Batavians from the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt," answered the freedman, with a mysterious shake of the head. " And those," pursued she, with increasing interest j " who are those whose faces shine like dusky copper, and whose eyes glitter like the eyes of the wild animals in the arena, when the proconsul of Greece gives the shows ? I mean those who ride the small, long-tailed IHon and the Sibyls. at horses without any saddle-cloths, and even without bridles — the soldiers in flowing dress, with rolls of linen round their heads? " "They are the Niunidians," replied Philip. "Ahl Rome dreaded those horsemen once, when Hannibal the Carthaginian and his motley hordes had their will in these fair plains." As he spoke a strange movement occurred. The general dismounted, and, giving the bridle of his horse to a soldier, began to walk slowly up and down the side of the road. No sooner had his foot touched the ground than the whole of the Numidian squadron seemed to rise like a covey out of a stubble-field ; with little clang of arms, but with one short, sharp cry, or whoop, it burst from the high road into the meadow land. There the evolutions which they performed seemed at first to be all confusion, only for the fact that, al- though the horsemen had the air of riding capriciously in every direction, crossing, intermingling, separating,, galloping upon opposite curves, and tracing every fig- ure which the whim and fancy of each might dictate^ yet no two of them ever came into collision. Indeed,, fantastic and wild as that rhapsody of manoeuvres into which they had broken appeared to be, some principle which was thoroughly understood by every one of them governed their mazy gallop. It was as acciurate and exact as some stately dance of slaves at the imperial court. It was, in short, itself a wild dance of the Nu- midian cavalry, in which their reinless horses, guided only by the flashing blades and the voices of their rid- ers, manifested the most vehement spirit and a sort of 23 Dion and the Sibyls. sympathetic frenzy. These steeds, which never knew the bridle, and went thus mouth-free even into battle — these horses, which their masters turned loose at night into the fields, and which came back bounding and neighing at the first call, were now madly plunging, wheeling, racing and charging, Uke gigantic dogs at sport. Presently they began to play a strange species of leapfrog. A Numidian boy, who carried a trumpet and rode a pony, or at least a horse smaller and lower than the rest of the barbs (" Berber horses"), suddenly halted on the outside of the mad cavalry whirlpool which had been formed, and flung himself flat at full length upon the back of the diminutive animal. Instantly the whirl, as it circled toward him, straightened itself into a column, and every horseman rode full upon the stationary pony, and cleared both steed and rider at a bound, a torrent of cavalry rushing over the obstruction with wild shouts. " That is Numidian sport. Master Paulus," said the freedman ; " but there is not a rider among them to be compared to yoiuself." " Certainly I can ride," said the youth, " but I pre- tend not to be superior to these Centaiu:s." " Are these, then, the Centaurs I have heard of ? " asked Agatha ; " are these the wild powers ? " The hubbub had prevented her, and all with her, from noticing something. Before an answer could be given, the Numidians had returned to the highway as suddenly as they had quitted it, and the noise of their dance was succeeded by a pause of attention. The gen- eral was again on horseback, and our travellers per- ceived that two litters, one of carved ivory and gold, Dion and the Siiyls. 23 the other of sculptured bronze, borne on the shoulders of slaves, were beside them. Two gentlemen on foot had arrived with the litters along the broad pathway already noticed, and a group of attendants at a little distance were following. This new party were now halting with our travellers be- neath the far-spreading shade of the same trees. In the ivory litter reclined a girl of about seventeen, dressed in a long/a//a of blue silk, a material then only just in- troduced from India, through Arabia and Egypt, and so expensive as to be beyond the reach of any but the richest class. Her hair, which was of a bright gold color, was dressed in the fashionable form of a hel- met, and was inclosed behind in a gauze net. She wore large earrings, of some jewel, a gold chain, in every ring of which was set a gem, and scarlet shoes embroidered with pearls. The lady in the bronze htter was attired in the stola of a matron, with a cyclas, or circular robe, thrown back from the neck, and a tunic of dark purple which descended to her feet. Her brown hair was restrained by bands, vitta, which had an hon- orable significance among the Roman ladies. She seemed somewhat past thirty years of age ; she had a very sweet, calm and matronly air ; her countenance was as beautiful in features and general effect as it was modest in its tone and character. Her companion,* in the litter of ivory and gold, was not more than half her age, was even more beautiful, with an immense wreath of golden hair, and with large blue eyes, darkening to the likeness of black as she * Mother of Caligula, andgrandmotherof Nero by her daughter Agrip- piaa Julia. 24 Dion and the Sibyls. gazed earnestly upon any object. But she had a less gentle expression. Frequently her look was penetrat- ing, brief, impatient, sarcastic, disdainful. She had a bewitching smile, however, and her numerous admirers made Italy echo with their ravings. Lucius Varius, said the fashionable world, was at that very time engaged upon a kind of Sapphic ode, of which she was to be the subject. Scarcely had these litters or palanquins arrived and halted, when the general officer dismounted once more, and walked quickly toward the spot with his helmet in his hand. At a few yards' distance he stopped, and first bowed low to the elder of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot, and then, almost entirely disregarding the other gentleman, made an obei- sance not quite so long or so deep to the ladies. The man whom so splendid a personage as the legatus, wear- ing his flaming paludamentum, and at the head of his troops, thus treated with so obsequious a veneration, did not return the salute except by a slight nod and a momentary, absent-minded smile. His gaze had been riveted upon our travellers, and chiefly upon the youth and his young, suffering sister, upon both of whom, after it had quickly taken in Philip the freedman, the Thracian woman, and the Athenian lady, it rested long — ^longest and last upon Agatha. " Sejanus," said he finally, "who are these?" " I never saw them until just now, my commander and Caesar; they were here when we halted, and while we waited for our master, the favorite of the gods, these travellers seemed to be resting where you behold them." Dion and the Sibyls. 25 " As those gods favor me," said the other, " this is a fine yoiith. Can we not edit* him ? And yonder girl — ^have you ever seen, my Sejanus, such eyes ? But she is deadly pale. Are you always thus pale, pretty one, or are you merely ill ? If but ill, as I guess, Charicles, my Greek physician, shall cure you." Before this man had even spoken, the moment, in- deed, when first his eyes fell upon her, Agatha had sidled close to her mother ; and while he was express- ing himself in that way to Sejanus, she returned his gaze with panic-stricken, dilated eyes, as the South American bird returns that of the reptile; but when he •directly questioned her, she, reaching out her hand to Faulus, clutched his aim with a woman's grasp, and said in an affrighted voice, " My brother, let us go." Faulus,, in a manner naturally easy, and marked by the elegance and grace which the athletic training of Athens had given to one so well endowed physically, first, merely saying to the stranger, " I crave your par- don," lifted Agatha with one arm, and placed her in the travelling carriage. Then, while the freedman and the Thracian slave mounted to their bench, he re- turned to where his mother stood, signed to her to follow Agatha, and, seeing her move calmly but quigkly toward the vehicle, he took the broad-rimmed hat from his head, and bowing slowly and lowly to the stranger, said, " Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my sister is too ill to converse. You rightly '' To produce a gladiator in the arena was to edit him. 26 Z>ion and the Sibyls. guessed this; pennit us to take her to her desti- nation." The man whom he had thus balked, and to whom he now thus spoke, merits a word of description. He ap- peared to be more than fifty years old. The mask of his face and the frame of his head were large, but not fat. His complexion was vivid brick-red all over the cheeks, with a deeper flush in one spot on each side, just below the outer comers of the eyes. The eyes were bloodshot, large, rather prominent, and were closely set together. The nose was large, long, bony, somewhat aquihne. The forehead was not high, not low; it was much developed above the eyes, and it was broad. A deep and perpetual dint just over the nose reached half-way up the forehead. His hair was grizzled and close cut. His lips were full and fleshy, and the mouth was wide; the jaws were large and massive. His face was shaven of all hair. The chin was very handsome and large, and the whole head was set upon a thick, strong throat, not stunted, however, of its proper length. In person this man was far from ungainly, nor yet was he handsome. In carriage and bearing, without much majesty, he had nevertheless something steadfast, weighty, unshrinking, and com- manding. His outer garment, not a toga, was all one color and material; it was a long, thick- wadded silk mantle, of that purple dye which is nearly black — the hue, indeed, of clotted gore under a strong light. He wore gloves, and instead of the usual short sword of the Romans, had a long steel stylus* for writing on wax thrust into a black leathern belt. This instrument * Plim^, ^pis. iii. 21, Dion and the Sibyls. 27 seemed to show that he lived much in Rome, where it was not the custom, when otherwise in civilian dress, to go armed. As the reader will have guessed, this man was to be the next emperor of the Roman world. " Permit you to take her to her destination ?" he re- peated slowly. " My Greek physician, I tell you, shall cure her. I will give directions about your destination." A slight pause ; then, "Are you a Roman citizen ? " " I am a Roman knight as well as citizen," an- swered Pauius proudly; "and my family is not only equestrian, but patrician." " What is your name ?" " Pauius ^milius Lepidus." The man in the black or gore-colored purple glanced at Sejanus, who, still unconcerned, stood with his splen- did helmet in the left hand, while he smoothed his mustache with the right; otherwise perfectly still, his handsome face, cruel mouth, and inteUigent eyes all alive with the keenest attention. " And the destination to which you allude is — ?" pursued the man in black purple. "Formiae," said Pauius. "What relation or kinship exists between you and Marcus uEmilius Lepidus, formerly the triumvir, who still enjoys the life which he owes to the clemency of Augustus ?" Pauius hesitated. When he had given his name, the younger of the two ladies had raised herself suddenly in the litter of ivory and gold, and fastened upon him a searching gaze, which she had not since removed. The other lady had also at that instant looked at him fixedly. a8 Dion and the Sibyls. We have already stated that, when Sejanus approached the group, he had not deigned in any very cordial manner to salute or notice the second of the two gentle- men who had accompanied the litters on foot. This gentleman was very sallow, had hollow eyes, and a habit of gnawing his under lip between his teeth. He had unbuckled his sword, and had given it, calling out, "Lygdus, carry this," to a man with an exceedingly sinister and repulsive countenance. The man in ques- tion had now taken a step or two forward, and was standing on the left of Paulus, fronting the Caesar, his shoulders stooping, his neck bent forward, his eyes without any motion of the head rolling incessantly from person to person, and face to face, but at once falling before and avoiding any glance which happened to meet his. He looked askant and furtively at every ob- ject with an eager, unhappy, and malign expression. Paulus did not need to turn his head to feel that this man was now intently peering at him. Behind the two courtly palanquins, and beyond the shade of the trees, was a third litter still more costly, being covered in parts with plate gold. Here sat a woman with a face as white as alabaster, and large, prominent black eyes, watching the scene, and apparently trying to catch every word that was said. Paulus, as we have observed, hesitated. The train- ing of youth in the days of classic antiquity soon ob- literated the inferiority of unreasoning, nervous shyness. But the strange catechism which Paulus was now undergoing, with all this gaze upon him from so many eyes, began to be a nuisance, and to tell upon a spirit singularly high Dion and the Sibyls, 29 " Have yoii heard my question ? " inqnired Tiberius. " I have heard it," replied Paulus ; " and have heard and answered several others, without knowing who he is that asks them. However, the former triumvir, n«w living at Circsei, about forty thousand paces from here, is my father's brother." (Circaei, as the reader knows, is now called Monte Circello, a promontory just oppo- site Gaeta.) When Paulus had given his last answer, the ladies glanced at each other, and the younger looked long and bard at Tiberius. Getting some momentary signal from him, she threw herself back in her palanquin and smiled meaningly at the stooping, sinister-faced man, who had stationed himself in the manner already mentioned near Paulus's left hand. " Your father," rejoined Tiberius, after a pause, "was a very distinguished soldier, and, as I always heard, when a boy, he contributed eminently to the victory of PhiUppi. But I knew not that he had children ; and, moreover, was he not slain, pray, at Philippi, toward the end of the battle, which he certainly helped to gain ? " " I hope," said Paulus, somewhat softened by the praise of his father, " I hope that Augustus supposed him to have died of his wounds, and that it was only under this delusion he gave our estates — which were situated some where in this very province of Campania, with a noble mansion like the castellum upon the river yonder — to that brave and able soldier Agrippa Vespasianus." At this name a deep red flush overspread the brow of Tiberius, and Paulus innocently proceeded. " Certainly, the noble Agrippa, who was to have been Csesar, had he lived, never would have accepted so un- 30 Dion and the Sibyls. fair a bounty had he known that my father really sur- vived his wounds, but that — despairing of the gene- rosity, or rather despairing of the equity of Augustus — he was living a melancholy, exheredated exile, near that very battlefield of Philippi, in Thrace, where he had fought so well and had been left for dead." " You dare to term the act of Augustus," slowly said the man in the gore-colored purple cloak, "so unfair a bounty, and Augustus himself ungenerous, or rather unjust ? " At this terrible rejoinder from such a man, the down- looking person whom we have mentioned passed his right hand stealthily to the hilt of the sword, which he was carrying for his master, and half drew it. Paulus, who for some time had had this person standing at his left, could observe the action without turning his head. He was perfectly aware, moreover, that, should the other draw his weapon upon him, the very act of draw- ing it would itself become a blow, on account of their respective places, whereas to escape it required more distance between them, and to parry it in a regular way would demand quite a different position, besides the needful moment or two for disengaging his own rather long blade. Yet the youth stood completely still; he never even turned his head. However, he just shifted the wide-rimmed hat from his left to his right hand (the hand for the sword) and thereby seemed to be only more encumbered, unprepared, and defenceless than before. His left hand, with the back inward, fell also meantime in an easy and natural way upon the emerald haft of the outlandish-looking three-edged rapier, which, as he played with it, became loose in the scabbard, and came and went some fraction of an inch. Dion and the Sibyls. 31 " I never tenned him so," said Paulus. " I said not this of Augustus. I am at this moment on my way to Augustus himself, who is, I am told, to be at Formiae with his court for a week or two. 1 must, therefore, again ask your leave, mighty office-bearer, to continue my journey. I know not so much as who you are." " I am Tiberius Caesar," said the other, bending upon him those closely-set, prominent bloodshot eyes with no very assuring expression. " I am Tiberius Caesar, and you will be pleased to wait one moment before you con- tinue the joimiey in question. The accusation against your father was this : that, after Phib'ppi, he labored for the interests first of Sextus, the son of Pompey, and afterward of Mark Antony, in their respective impious and parricidal struggles ; and the answer to this charge (a charge to which witnesses neither were nor are want- ing) has always been, that it was simply impossible, seeing that Paulus Lepidus, your father, perished at Phi- lippi before the alleged treasons had occurred. Where- fore, as your father had done good service, especially in the great battle where he was thus supposed to have fallen, not only was his intiocence declared certain, but, for his memory's sake, Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir, your uncle, was forgiven. Yet now we learn from you, the son of the accused, that the only defence ever made for him is positively false; that your father, were he still living, would probably merit to be put to death ; and that your uncle, at the same time, is stripped of the one protecting circumstance which has preserved his head. I must order your arrest, and that of all your party, in order that these things may be at least fully in»-BStigated." 32 Dion and the Sibyls. As this was said, the lady in the litter of ivory and gold contemplated Paulus with that bewitching smile which she was accustomed to bestow upon dying gladi- ators in the hippodrome ; while the other lady gazed at him with a compassionate, forecasting and muse-like look. " I mean no disrespect whatever to so great a man as you, sir; but I will," said Paulus, " appeal from Tiberius Csesar to Caesar Augustus ; to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way." No sooner had he uttered the words, " I appeal from Tiberius," than, before he could finish the sentence, the malign-faced man on his left with great suddenness drew the sword he was carrying for Cneius Piso, and, avail- ing himself of the first natural sweep of the weapon as it left the scabbard, sought to bring the edge of it back- ward across the face of Paulus, exclaiming, while he did so, " Speak you thus to Caesar ? " Had this man, who was the future assassin of Drusus, and slave to Cneius Piso, who was the future assassin of Germanicus, succeeded in delivering that well-meant stroke, the sentence which our hero was addressing to Tiberius could never have been said out ; but said out, as we see, it was, and said, too, with due propriety of empha- sis, although with a singular accompanying delivery. In fact, though not deigning to look round toward this man, Paulus had been vividly aware of his movements, and, swift as was the attack, the defence was truly electrical Paulus's rapier, the hilt of which, as we have remarked, had been for some time in his left hand, leapt from its sheath, and being first held almost perpendicu- larly for one moment, the point down and the hilt a Dion and the Sibyls. 33 Ktde higher than his forehead, met the murderous blow at right angles; after which the deUcate long blade flashed upward, with graceful ease but irresistible vio- lence, bearing the assassin's weapon backward upon a small semicircle, and remaining inside of it, or, in other words, nearer to Lygdus's body than Piso's sword, which Lygdus carried. It looked like a mere continuation of this dazzUng parry, but was, in truth, a vigorous deviation from it, which none but a very pliant and powerful wrist could have executed, when the emerald pommel fell like a hammer upon the forehead of Lygdus die slave, whom that disdainful blow stretched at his length upon the ground, motionless, and to all appear- ance dead. As Piso was standing close, the steel guard of the hilt, in passing, tore open his brow and cheek. The whole occurrence occupied only five or seven sec- onds, and meanwhile the youth finished his sentence with the words already recorded, " From Tiberius Caesar to Csesar Augustus, to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way." An exclamation of astonishment, and perhaps some other feeling, escaped from Tiberius. Sejanus smiled ; the woman with the pale face and black eyes, who sat in the unadorned plate-of-gold palanquin, screamed; and the other ladies laughed loudly. Among the Praetorian Guards, who from the road were watching with attention the group where they saw their general and the Caesar, a long, low murmur of approbation ran. At this, Tibe- rius turned and looked steadily and musingly toward them. Paulus, instantly sheathing his weapon, said : " I ask Caesar's pardon, but there was no time to ob- tain his permission for what I have just done. My head 34 Dion and the Sibyls. must have been in two pieces had I waited but one mo- ment." " Just half a moment for each piece," said Tiberius ; "but your left hand seems well able to keep your head. Are you left-handed ? " " No, great Caesar," said Paulus ; " I am what my Greek teacher of fence used to call two-handed, dima- chcerus ; he tried to make all his pupils so, but my right remains far better than my left." " Then I should like to see your right thoroughly ex- ercised," said Tiberius. Paulus heard a sweet voice here say, "As a favor to me, do not order the arrest of this brave youth ; " and, turning, he beheld the beautiful creature in the Utter of ivory and gold plead for him with Tiberius. The large blue eyes, darkening as she supplicated, smote the youth, and he could hardly take away his gaze. " Young man, go forward with your mother and sister to Formiae, under the charge of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune whom you see yonder upon the road. Remain in Formiae till I give you leave to quit it. Re- port your place of residence to the tribune. Go ! " The last word was pronounced harshly. Tiberius made a signal with his hand to Paterculus. Then pass- ing his arm through that of Sejanus, and speaking to him in a low tone, he led the general aside into the fields to a little distance; while — with the exception of two mounted troopers (each leading a horse), who remained behind, but considerably out of hearing — ^the Praetorian Guards, the three litters, and the travelling biga began to move toward Formiae, leaving the road to silence and the evening landscape to peace. CHAPTER III. JIBERIUS, when all had disappeared along the road, suddenly stopped in his walk. His companion, toward whom he had turned, did the same, and looked at him with an air of expecta- tion. " I leave all details to you," said the Csesar ; " but what has to be done is this — that youth, who calls him- self Paulus ^milius Lepidus, must be produced as a gladiator either in the Circus Maximus or the Statilian Amphitheatre,* as the number of victims may dictate. Men of noble birth have been seen ere now upon the sand. We will then make him show against the best swordsmen in the world — against Gauls, Britons, and Cappadocians — what that Greek fence is worth of which he seems a master. The girl, his sister, must be carried off, either beforehand or afterward, as your skill may dictate, and softly and safely lodged at Rome in that two-storied brick house of Cneius Piso and his precious wife, Plancina, which is not known to be mine (I believe and hope, and am given to understand, that it is not known to be theirs either)." Tiberius paused, and Sejanus, with an intent look, slightly inclined his head. He was a keen man, a subtle man, but not a very profound man. He observed : " I have heard something of this Greek widow and of her son and daughter. They have (it seems to me as if * Suetonius, Aag. 39. The forum, where gladiators had often bled, was becoming less and less used for that purpose. 35 36 Dion and the Sibyls. I had heard this) friends near the person of Augustus, or, at least, in the court. I can easily cause the girl to be so carried oflE that no rumor about the place of her residence will evermore sound among men. But the very mystery of it will sound, and that loudly ; and her mother and brother will never cease to pierce the ears of Augustus with their cries. But, before I say a word more, I wish to know two things — first, whether this youth Paulus is to be included in one of those great shows of gladiators which are rendering you, my Caesar, so beloved by the Roman people ? " " Am I beloved, think you ? " asked Tiberius. " The master-passion of the people is for the shows, and, above all, the fights of the amphitheatre," answered Sejanus. "Whoever has, for a hundred years and more, obtained the mastery of the world, has thus won the Romans; each succeeding dictator of the globe, from Caius Marius, and Sylla, and Pompey, and the invinci- ble Caius Julius and Mark Antony, to our present happy Emperor Augustus, has surpassed his predeces- sors in the magnificence of these entertainments given to people, populace, common legionaries, and Praeto- rians; and in exact proportion also, it is remarkable, has each surpassed his forerunners in permanent power, until that power has at last become nearly absolute, nearly unlimited." "You say true," replied Tiberius; "and I excel all former examples in the extent, splendor, and novelty of my shows. Augustus has abandoned that department; but even when he was courting the Romans he never edited like me. People would now smile at the old- fashioned meanness of the spectacles which he formerly Dion and the Sibyls. 37 made acceptable to them. He is breaking very fast in health, too, I fear, my Sejanus." " He is, I fear, drawing toward his end," replied the commander of the Prsetorians. "As to your question concerning this youth," resumed Tiberius, " my object is partly to add a novel and curi- ous feature to the fight — this strange sword-play. Yet, why should he not afterward be included in some great slaughter-match, three or four hundred a side, care be- ing taken that he should be finished ? We might first pit him fairly against six or a dozen single antagonists in succession. If he conquer them all, it will be unprece- dentedly amusing; the people will be in ecstasies, and then the victor can be made to disappear in the general conflict. I shall thus have the undisturbed management of his sister's education."* Grave as a statue, Sejanus rephed : "He is a proud youth, an equestrian, a patrician, son of an eminent warrior, nephew of one who once shared in the government of the whole globe. Well, not being a slave, if he found himself in the arena by virtue of having been violently seized and trepanned, I firmly be- lieve that, either before or after fighting, he would make a speech, appealing to the justice of the emperor and the S)rmpathy of the people, not to say anything about the soldiers. The plan you propose, my Caesar, seems like furnishing him with an immense audience and a gigantic tribunal before which to tell that pathetic story about his father and the battle of Philippi, and those family estates which are now in the possession of the * It is well known tliat Trajan exhibited shows in which ten thousand gladiators fought, but this monstrous development of cruelty came long after our date. 38 Dion and the Sibyls. two beautiful ladies whose litters have just preceded us on the road to Formias." Tiberius smiled, as, with his head bent down, he looked at the speaker, and thus he continued stooping, looking, and smiling for a moment or two, after which he said : " The Tuscans are subtle, and you are the subtlest of Tuscans ; what is best ? " Sejanus said : " Let the girl first be carried away; let the mother and brother break their hearts for her; then let the Lanista Thellus, who is not known to be one of your men, but is supposed to hire out his gladiators on his own account, invite the youth to join his familia* or company, and when Paulus refuses, as he will refuse, let Thellus say that he knows money would not bribe Paulus, but that he has seen Paulus's sister; that he can guide him to her, if Paulus consents to fight in the next great forthcoming shows. And, in short, in order to make all this more specious, let Thellus have formed the acquaintance of the half -Greek family, mother, sister, brother, before the girl is abducted, in order that Paulus may think he speaks the truth when afterward saying that he has seen the sister and knows her, and can guide Paulus to where she is detained. If this plan be adopted, Paulus will fight in the arena of his own accord, and will make no speeches, no disturb- ance, but will disappear for ever in a decorous and legiti- mate manner." " You are a man of immense merit, my Sejanus," re- plied the personage in gore-colored purple, "and I will some day reward you more than I can do while merely the Caesar of an Augustus — ^whom may the gods protect! • A school of gladiators. Suet. Jul. 26 ; Aug. 42 ; Tacit. Hist. ii. 88. IHon and the Siiyls. 39 The mother, perhaps, we can let alone, or she could be put on board a corsair as an offering to some god, to procure me good fortune in other things. We shall see. Meanwhile, execute all the rest with as little delay as the order and priority of the several matters, one be- fore the other, will allow, and report to me punctually at every step." Beckoning to one of the troopers, who approached with the spare horse, Tiberius now mounted. The sol- dier immediately withdrew again, and Tiberius said to the Praetorian commander, " Be upon your guard with Paterculus; he is doubtless devoted to me, but is a squeamish man; clever, indeed, too. Still, there are dever fools, my Sejanus." Then waving his hand, he rode slowly away, but came to a halt at a distance of twenty paces, and turned his horse's head round. Sejanus strode quickly toward his master. " You know, of course, that the Germans, encouraged by the slaughter of Varus and his legions, are swarming over the Julian Alps into the northeast of Italy from Illyricimi.* How many legions are there available to meet them ? " "We have within reach, at this moment, twelve," said Sejanus, " besides my Prastorians." " Half the present forces of the whole empire," replied the other. " Germanicus is to drive back the barbarians. He will become more popular than ever with the troops generally. But the Praetorians do not care for him, I suppose ? " *This German expedition took the same direction as tiiat of the Aus- trian armies which endeavored to dislodge Bonaparte from the siege of Mantua, and came pouring down both sides of Lake Garda. 40 Dion and the Sibyls. " Even the Praetorians revere him," answered Sejanus. " Why, how so ? They have so little to do with him." " They know a soldier " began Sejanus. " And am not I a soldier ? " interrupted his master. " They love you, too, my Caesar, and dearly." " Peace ! Tell me exactly. What think the Praeto- rians of Germanicus ? " " They foolishly think that, since the day when Caius Julius was murdered, no such soldier " " Enough ! Foolishly, say you ! Remember my in- structions. Vale / " And Tiberius galloped north, his face ablaze with a brick-red flush deeper than ordinary. CHAPTER IV, ^EJANUS, when left alone, motioned to the two troopers. He who had brought Tiberius his horse rode furiously after the Caesar; the other attended the general, who slowly mounted his own steed, and, pursuing the same direction, began to trot leisurely toward Formias. The sun had gone down; the short twilight had passed away; clouds had gathered, and the moon, not having yet risen, the night was very black. In a few minutes Sejanus slackened his horse's pace from a trot to a walk, and the orderly, as his military attend- ant would in modem times be called, nearly rode against him in the dark. The man made some natural excuse, and fell back again about thirty paces. Sejanus hardly noticed him. "At present," he muttered, when again alone, " Tibe- rius, though a Caesar, needs me; Germanicus is Caesar too, and may become emperor. If Germanicus wished it, right or wrong — ^if fer fas et nefas — he would win. He has much of the genius of Caius Julius and his de- fect of overtrustfulness ; but none of his many vices. I doubt if he will ever be emperor; he is too Athenian, and also too honorable, too disinterested. Somehow I feel, too, as if he were going to be assassinated ; he believes readily in men. Tiberius has smaller abilities, worse qualities, and better chances. He will rule the world, and ^lius Sejanus will rule him." As Sejanus said these things to himself in an indis- tinct murmur, of which none could have heard the pre- 42 Dion and the Sibyls. cise words, a voice at his elbow astonished him. Said the voice, " How far is it, illustrious general, to Fonniae ?" The Prastorian chief turned with a start, and saw that the speaker was a mounted traveller, attended by two servants, also on horseback ; but there was so little light that he could not distinguish the stranger's features, nor more of his dress and appointments than that they were not, as it seemed, Itahan. " About five thousand paces," he answered. " How- ever, there is no inn at Fonniae. Some eight hundred paces from here is a good wayside tavern. But you call me general, for I wear the dress. You do not, however, know me." " Not know the distinguished chief of the Praetorians? Not know the happy and unhappy, the fortunate and unfortunate Sejanus ?" " Happy and unhappy," reechoed the latter, " fortu- nate and unfortunate ! What means this jargon ? You could use that language of every mortal. What you say you unsay." While thus replying, he endeavored to discern the dim features of his new companion. "Think you so?" said the man. "Then, pray, would it be the same if I were to say, for example, un- happy and happy, unfortunate and fortunate ?" "Yes." "Alas! no." "What!" said Sejanus. "The happiness is pres- ent, the good fortune is present, but the misfortune and unhappiness are to come. Is this your mean- ing?" Dion and the Sibyls. 43' " As I always say what I mean," rejoined the other, *' so I never explain what I say." "Then at least," observed Sejanus, with great haugh- tiness of tone and manner, " you will be good enough to say who you are. As the Prcetor Peregrinus,* espe- cially charged to look after foreigners, I demand your name. Remember, friend, that six lictors, as well as twenty thousand soldiers, obey Sejanus." "I am the god Hermes," repUed the other, riding suddenly ahead, followed by both his attendants. The movement was so imexpected that the figiffe of the stranger had become almost indistinguishable in the obscurity, before Sejanus mrged his fleet Numidian steed forward at a bound in pursuit, "Take care," sjiid a voice 'in his front, "that your horse do not throw you, impious man !" At the same time, the Praetorian leader heard some- thing roll upon the paved road, and immediately a vivid flash blazed under his horse's eyes, and a sharp report followed. Nearly thrown, indeed, he was, as the voice had warned him. When he had recovered his balance and quieted the startled beast he was riding, he halted to listen ; but the only soimd he could now hear was that of the mounted trooper trotting after him along the Appian Way. He waited for this man to come up, and inquired what he had observed in the three stran- gers who had previously passed him on the road. " No stranger," said the man, "had passed him; he had seen no one." Then Sejanus remembered what he had not at the moment adverted to, that neither when first accosted by * Cic. Fam. xiii 59 ; Dion, iii 22. ^^ Dion and the Sibyls. the stranger, nor afterward, while this person with his two attendants rode by his side, nor finally when they all galloped forward and were lost in the darkness, had any clatter of hoofs been audible. He resumed his journey in silent thought, and soon arrived, without further adventure, at the large and famous post-house, standing in those days f«ur or five miles south of Formiae. CHAPTER V. [£ post-house, or mansit^ to which allasion has been made, situated about four or five miles south of Formiae, on the Appian road, was a large, rambling, two-storied brick house, capable of ac- commodating a vast number of travellers. It was not, therefore, merely one of the many relay-houses where the imperial couriers, as well as all who could produce a special warrant for the purpose, from a consul, or a praetor, or even a qusestor, were allowed to obtain a change of horses; still less was it one of the low canal- town taverns, whose keepers Horace abused; but it was a regular country inn, where man and beast found shelter for the small charge of one as, t and good cheer at pro- portionably moderate cost. It was well supplied from its own farmyards, oUve-groves, orchards, vineyards, pastures, and tilled fields, with vegetables, beef, mutton, poultry, geese, ducks, attagens, and other meats; eggs, wine, butter, cheese, milk, honey, bread and fruit; a deUcious plate of fish occasionally, an equally delicious array of quail, produced upon table in a state aromatic and frothy with their own fat juices. This excellent and celebrated house of entertainment for belated or wayworn travellers, as well as for all who desired a change from the monotony of their usual life, was kept by a remarkably worthy old couple, formerly * The maHgnant inn-keepers mentioned by Horace (Sat. lib. i., Sat. 5) kept a low class of houses in comparison with this notable hostelry, t Not quite one cent. 4.6 Dion and the Sibyls. slaves, a freedman and freedwoman of the illustrious yEmilian family. The reader will have noticed that our hero has been called Paulus .^milius Lepidus; that his father had borne the same style; and Uke- wise that his father's brother, the former sovereign magistrate or triumvir in the second and great trium- virate, was named Marcus yEmilius Lepidus. In all these names, that of ^milius occurs ; and jiEmilius was the noblest of the patronymics which once this great family boasted. Now, theirs had been the house in which Crispus and Crispina, the good innkeeper and his wife, at present free and prosperous, had been boy and girl slaves. The wife, indeed, had been nurse to a son of Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir. That son, some years before the date of our narra- tive, had been engaged in a conspiracy against Augus- tus; and the conspiracy having been discovered by Maecenas, the youth had been put to death. Marcus ^milius Lepidus, the father, was exculpated from all knowledge of this attempt on the part of his son, but had ever since hved in profound retirement at a lonely seashore castle some twenty or thirty miles from Cris- pus's inn, near Monte Circello ; a silent, brooding, timid man, no longer very wealthy, entirely without weight in the society which he had abandoned, and without any visible influence in the political world, from which he had fled in some terror and immense disgust. As Sejanus rode slowly up to the inn-door, a centur- ion came out of the porch with the air of one who had been waiting for him. Saluting the general, this oflSicer said that he had been left behind by Velleius Paterculuy to say that the sister of the youth whom Tiberius ha/' ^tHon and the Sibyls. 47 placed under the charge of Paterculus had fainted on the road; that being unable to proceed, she and her mother had taken a lodging in the inn ; that the youth had at once begged Paterculus ^o allow him to remain instead of proceeding to Fonniae, in order that he might attend to his poor sister, for whose life he was alarmed, giving his promise that he would faithfully report him- self, and not attempt to escape ; that Paterculus consid- ered himself justified, under the circumstances, in acced- ing to so natural a request; consequently, that the young man was now in the inn, along with his mother and sister ; and that he, the centurion, had been ordered to await Sejanus's arrival and inform him of what had occurred, so that he might either confirm his subordi- nate's decision, or repair the mistake, if it was one, and cause the youth to go forward at once to Formise accord- ing to the letter of Tiberius's original command. " It is well," said Sejanus, after a moment's reflection. " This is not the sort of lad who will break his word. Carthaginians, and rubbish like them, knew long ago how to believe a Roman knight and patrician, and this lad seems to be of the Regulus breed. Does the Caesar himself, however, know of this ? " " I had no orders to tell him," answered the centur- ion ; " and if I had had, it would have been diiScult ; he passed at full gallop a quarter of an hour ago, his head down, not so much as looking aside." Sejanus then put the following question with a sneer : " Has a god, or a stranger with two attendants on horseback, passed this way ?" " No god, unless he be a god, and he had no attend- ants," said the astonished centurion. 48 Dion and the Sibyls. " You have not seen three figures on horseback, nor a flash of bluish light ? " " I certainly thought I saw three figures on horseback, but I cpuld not be sure. It was on the farther side of the way, general, which is broad," continued the man apolo- getically, " and there was no sound of hoofs ; my im- pression, too, was gone in a moment. As to a flash of bluish light, there are several flashes of red and white light inside the inn kitchen, and they make the road outside all the darker ; but there has been no flash in the road." " Good ! now follow me." And Sejanus rode on in the direction of Formise, the centurion and the soldier behind him. CHAPTER VI. §HE inn, it is well ascertained, never became a conunon institution in classic antiquity. It was utterly unknown in emything like its mod- em shape among the Greeks ; one cause being that the literary Greeks gave less care to their roads and com- munications than the administrating, fighting, conquer- ing, and colonizing Romans always did. Even among the Romans the army trusted to its city-like encamp- ments from stage to stage. Centuries passed away, during which the private traveller found few indeed, and far between, any better public resting-houses along the magnificent and stupendous highways, whose remains we still behold indestructible, from England to Asia Minor, than the half-day relay-posts, or mutationes. At these the wayfarer, by producing* his diploma from the proper authorities, obtained a change of horses. Travelling, in short, was a thousand-fold less prac- ticed than it is among us ; and those who did travel, or who deemed it likely they ever should, trusted to that hospitality which necessity had made universal, and the poetry of daily life had raised by repute into one of the greatest virtues. Years before any member of your family, supposing you to belong to the age through' which the events of this nanative are carrying and to> carry us, years before any of yoiu- circle quitted your- roof, you knew to what house, to what smoky hearth in, ^^ch foreign land, to what threshold in Spain, Gaul,, * Fliny, Ep. z. 14, 121. 49 50 Dion and the Sibyls. Syria, Egypt, Greece, the wanderer would eventually resort. A certain family in each of these and other lands was your hospes, and you were theirs ; and very often you carried round your neck, attached to a gold or silver chain, a bit of elder or oak notched and marked by the natural breakage, the corresponding half of which hung day and night round the neck of some friend living thousands of miles away, beyond rivers, mountains, wild forests, and raging seas. These tokens were the cheap lodging-money of friendship. Very often they were interchanged and put on in boyhood, and not presented till advanced age. He who had thrown the sacred symbol round the curly head of his playmate on the banks of the Tiber, saw an old man with scanty white hair approach him, half a centiuy afterward, at Alexandria, or Numantia, or Athens, and offer him a little bit of wood, the fractures of which were found to fit into those of a similar piece worn upon his own bosom. Or the son brought the father's token ; or a son received what a father had given. And the stranger was forthwith joyfully made welcome, and took rank among dear friends. Forthwith the bath and the supper introduced him to his remote home amid foreign faces. To be once imfaithful to these pledges, was to become irreparably infamous. The caitiff who thus simdered the ties of traditionary and necessity-caused and world-wide kindness, became an object of scorn and reprobation to all. It was enough to mention of him,* tesseram confregit hospitakm (" that man has broken his token-word of hospitality "); with that all was said. Traces of this touching custom appear to survive •Cic. Qu. Fr. ii. 14 ; Plautus, Poen. v. i, 22, 2, 92, Cist. 2, i, 27. Dion and the Sibyls. 51 in some of the ceremonials of rustic love, amid many a population ignorant that the ancient Romans ever reigned over Europe, But if inns, in year eleven, were not what they have been in mediaeval and modem Europe, nevertheless a few existed even then ; and a more notable estab- lishment of this kind never flourished in any part of the Roman empire than that to which our stoiy has now brought us. It was the exception to manners then prevalent, and the presage of manners to come long afterward. It used to be commonly called the Post- House of the Hundredth Milestone, or, more briefly, Crispu^s Inn. The public-room of this place of entertainment was not unhke the coffee-room of a good modem inn, except that it was necessarily far more full of incident and in- terest, because the ancients were beyond comparison more addicted to living in pubUc than any modem na- tion has ever been. An Englishman who makes a similar remark of the French, in comparison with his own countrymen, has only to remember that the modem French as much ex- cel the ancient Romans in fondness for retirement and privacy and domestic life as the English believe them- selves to excel the French in the same particular. An inn did not trouble itself much with the triclinium, a chamber seldom used by its frequenters. Even the manners of the trklinium were out of vogue here. In Crispus's public-room, for instance, there was one and only one table arranged with couches around it, upon which some three or four customers, while eating and drinking, could recline according to the fashion 53 Dion and the Sibyls. adopted in the private houses of the rich and noble. All the other tables stood around the walls of the apartment, with benches and settees on each side, offering seats for the guests. The inner seats at these tables were gener- ally preferred, for two reasons : the occupants saw all that passed in the room, and, besides, had the wall, against which they could lean back. When Velleius Paterculus, having left Tiberius and Sejanus in the meadows near the Liris, took charge of the Praetorian squadrons and of Paulus, he directed a Batavian trooper, to dismount and give his horse to the prisoner. Paulus willingly sprung upon the big Flemish beast and rode by the side of the obliging offi- cer who had given him that conveyance. Thus they proceeded at an easy amble until they reached the post- house, to the porch of which the noise of four thousand hoofs, suddenly approaching along the paved road, had brought a group of curious gazers. Among these was the landlord, Crispus himself. A halt, as the reader must have inferred from a for- mer incident, was occasioned at the door by the intima- tion conveyed to Paterculus that Paulus's sister had fainted, that she and her mother intended to seek a lodg- ing at the inn, and that the mother and brother of the invalid would both feel grateful to the commanding offi- cer if he could permit Paulus, upon pledging his word not to make any attempt to escape, to remain there with them. " As to the ladies," said the urbane literary soldier, " I have neither the wish nor any orders to interfere with their movements. But you, young sir, what say you ? Will you give me your word to regard yourself Dion and the Sily/s. S3 as being in my custody till I expressly release you? Will you promise not to aiire, evadere, excedere, or erufnpere, as our friend Tully said ? " " Tully ! Who is that ? " asked our hero. "What, you a half- Greek and not know who Tully was ! Is this the manner in which Greek youths, or at least youths in Greece, are educated ! Is it thus they are taught in Greece, to which we go ourselves for edu- cation ! In that Greece which has forbidden gladiatorial shows, and diminished the training of the body to have more time for that of the intellect ! " Faulus blushed, seeing he must have betrayed some gross degree of rusticity, and answered : " I know I am ignorant : I have been so much occu- pied in athletic sports. But I will give you the promise you ask, and keep it most truly and faithfully." " I will trust you, then. Go a littie, my friend, into the athletic sports of the mind, which are precisely those Greece most cultivates. You are of a great family now fallen down. The muscles of the arm, the strength of the body, a blow from a cestus, never yet raised that kind of burden off the ground. You fence astonishingly well — I noted your parry just now; but the fence of the mind is everything, believe me. By the way, I see the excellent Piso, whom you hammered down after the parry, as one puts a full stop to a pretty sentence, is be- ing carried into this same post-house." " By your leave, illustrious sir," interposed the inn- keeper, rather nervously, " it is scarcely the custom, is it, to drop guests at Crispus's door, without first asking Crispus has he room for them ? The expected visit of the divine Augustus to the neighboring palace of the 54 Dion and the Sibyls. most excellent and valiant knight Mamurra, in Formias, has choked and strangled this poor house. There is no place where the multitude of guests can lodge in the town, so they come hither, as to a spot at a con- venient distance. Troops of players, troops of gladia- tors, troops of fort'ine-tellers, troops of geese, pigs, beeves, attagens, alive and dead, night and day, for the last week, with mighty personages from a distance, make the road noisy, I assure you, even after my house is full. I believe they would wish me to put up the very oxen intended for sacrifice." " Have you no chambers whatever vacant ? " asked Velleius. " I did not say that, most excellent sir ; vacant is one thing, disengaged is another. I have received an ex- press letter from Brundusium, to say that a certain queen out of the East, with her son and her train, are coming to pay their homage to the emperor ; and here we hav« already the servants of that Jew king, as they say, one King Alexander, who wants his cause to be heard and his title settled by Augustus himself, and I am obliged to listen to loud outcries that he, too, must have apart- ments." At this moment the travelling carriage carrying poor Agatha and her mother had been drawn nearly opposite to the porch, but a little in rear of the tribune, so as not to interrupt his conversation with the innkeeper. Pater- culus threw a quick glance at the beautiful pallid face of the girl, and the anxious and frightened look of her mother. " By what you tell me, worthy Crispus," he replied, " you are so far from having your justly celebrated house Dion and the Sibyls. 55 full, that you are keeping two sets of apartments still vacant, in expectation, first, of some queen from the East, with her son and train, and secondly, of this Jew- ish king, one Alexander. Worthy libertinus,* the fair damsel whom you see so pale, is very sick, and has just swooned away from sheer fatigue. Will you turn such a daughter in such health, with her noble mother, from your door ? A queen can take care of herself, it seems to me. But what will become of these excellent Roman ladies, your own countrywomen, if you now bid them be- gone from yom: threshold ? You have assured me that they can obtain no shelter at all in Formise. Look at the child ! She seems likely to faint again. Are you to let this daughter of a Roman knight die in the fields, in order that you may have room for a barbarian queen ? You have a daughter of/your own, I am told." "Die!" groaned the innkeeper: "all this did not come into my mind, most illustrious tribune and quaes- tor. Come, little lady, let me help you down. This lady and her daughter, sir, shall have the queen's own ^artments — ^may all the gods destroy me otherwise! Here, Crispina." Velleius Paterculus smiled, and having whispered some order to a centurion, who remained behind in watch for Sejanus, the tribune waved his hand, crying out vale to idiom it might concern, and rode forward with the Prae- torians at a much smarter pace than they had come. * Libtrtus, freedman of such or such a family ; libertinus, freedman in gownl, or son of one. CHAPTER VII. 5EANWHILE the innkeeper's wife, Crispina, had appeared, and had led Aglais and her daughter through the group in the porch into the house, and passing by a little zothecula^ behind the curtain of which they heard the sound of flutes, t as the carvers carved, and many voices, loud and low, denoting the apartment called diaeta or public room of the inn, they soon arrived at the compluvium, an open space or small court, in the middle of which was a cistern, and in the middle of the cistern a splashing foimtain. The cistern was railed by a circular wooden balustrade, against which some creeping plants grew. This cistern was sup- phed from the sky; for the whole space or court in which it lay was open and unroofed. Between the circular wooden balustrade and the walls of the house was, on every side, a large quadrangular walk, lightly graveled, and flashing back, under the lantern which Crispina car- ried, an almost metallic glint and sparkle. Of course this walk presented its quadrangular form on the outer edge, next the house only ; the inside, next the cistern, was rounded away. This quadrangular walk was at one spot diminished in width by a staircase in the open air (but under an awning), which led up to the second story of the large brick building. Around the whole complu- vium, or court, the four inner faces of the inn, which had * Zothecula, a small apartment,onesideof which was formed by a CUT* tain. Fliny, ]Spis. ii. 17 ; t. 6. Suetonius, Claud. 10. ^Flutes, etc. Juvenal, v. 121 ; xl. 137. 56 ZHoH and the Sibyls. 57 four covered lights in sconces against the walls, were marked at irregular intervals by windows, some of which were mere holes, with trapdoors (in every case open at present) ; others, lattice- work, like what, many centuries later, obtained the name of arabesque-work, having a curtain inside that could be drawn or undrawn. Others again with perforated slides ; others stretched with linen which oil had rendered diaphanous; others fitted with thin scraped horn ; one only, a tolerably large window, with some kind of mineral panes more translucent than transparent. At the back, or west of the inn, an irregular oblong wing extended, which, of course, could not open upon this court, but had its own means of light and ventila- tion north and south respectively* Crispus had followed the group of women, and our friend Paulus had followed Crispus. In the compluvium the innkeeper took the lantern from his wife, and begged Aglais and Agatha to follow him up the awning-covef ed staircase. As he began to ascend, it happened that Crispina, looking around, noticed Paulus, who had taken off his broad-rimmed hat, under one of the sconces. No sooner had her eyes rested on him than she started vio- lently and grasped the balustrade as if she would have fallen but for that support. "Who are you ? " said the woman. " The brother of that yoimg lady who is ill, and the son of the other lady." "And you, too, must want lodgings ?" " Certainly." The woman seized his arm with a vehement grip and gazed at him. jg Dion and the Sibyls. " Are you ill ? " said Paulus, " or— or— out of your mind ? Why do you clutch my arm and look at me in that fashion ? " " Too young," said she, rather to herself than to him; "besides, I saw the last act with these eyes. Truly this is wonderful." Then, like one waking from a dream, she added, " Well, if you want lodgings, you shall have them. You shall have the apartments of this king or pretender — the rooms prepared for the Jew Alexander. Come with me at once." And she unfastened the lamp in the nearest sconce and led Paulus up the staircase. Thus the wanderers, Aglais and her daughter, had the queen's room, with their Thracian slave Melana to wait upon them, while the prisoner Paulus had the king's, to which Crispina herself ordered old Philip, the freedman, to carry his luggage. A few moments later the innkeeper, who had returned to the more pubUc parts of the house to attend to his usual duties, met Philip laden with parcels in one of the passages, and asked him what he was doing. " Carrying young Master Paulus's things to his room." "You can carry," said the innkeeper, "whatever the ladies require to their room ; but your yoimg master has no room at all, my man, in this house. And why? For the same reason that will compel you to sleep in one of the lofts over the stables. There is no space for him in the inn. You must make him as comfortable as you can in the hay, just like yourself." " Humanity is something," muttered Crispusj " but to make a queen one's enemy on that score, without adding a king, where no humane consideration inter- Dion and the Sibyls. 59 venes at all, is enough for a poor innkeeper in a single night. These tetrarchs and rich barbarians can do a poor man an ugly turn. Who knows but he might com- plain of my house to the emperor, or to one of the con- suls, or the praetor, or even the quaestor, and presto! everything is seized, and I am banished to the Tauric Chersonese, or to Tomos in Scythia, to drink mare's milk with the poet Ovid.*" " Go on, freedman, with your luggage," here said a peremptory voice, " and take it whither you have taken the rest." " And in the name of all the gods, wife," cried Cris- pus, " whither may that be ? " " Go on, freedman," she repeated ; and then taking her husband aside, she spoke to him in a low tone. " Have you remarked this youth's face?" she asked; " and have you any idea who he is ? " " I know not who any of them are," replied Crispus. " Look at him then ; for here he comes." Crispus looked, and as he looked his eyes grew big- ger; and again he looked until Paidus noticed it, and smiled. " Do you know me ? " says he. " No, illustrious sir." " Alas ! I am not illustrious, good landlord, but him- gry I am. And 1 believe we all are, except my poor sister, who is not very strong, and for whom, by and by, I should like to procure the advice of a physician." " The poor young thing," said Crispina, "is only tired * Something in this language may seem out of keeping, I would therefore remind the reader that the most learned, accomplished, stu- dious, and highly-cultivated minds among the Romans were very fre- quently found in the class of slaves and freedmen. €o pion and the Sibyls. with her journey; it is nothing. She will be well to- morrow. Supper you shall have presently in the ante- chamber of your mother's apartments ; and your freed- man and female slave shall be cared for after they have waited upon you." "All this is easy and shall be seen to forthwith," -added Crispus ; " but the doctor for your dear sister, where shall we find him ? " " Understand," said Paulus, " my sister is not in im- mediate danger, such as would justify calling in any empiric at once rather than nobody. She has been ail- ing for some time, and it is of no use to send for the first common stupid practitioner that may be in the way. Is there not some famous doctor procurable in Italy ? " " The most famous in Italy is a Greek physician not five thousand paces from here at this moment," said the landlord. " But he would not come to everybody j he is Tibaius Csesar's own doctor." " You mean Charicles," replied Paulus. " I almost think he would come ; my mother is a Greek lady, and he will siurely be glad to oblige his countrywoman." "Then write you a note to him," said Crispina, "and I will send it instantly." Paulus thanked her, said he would, and withdrew. When he proposed to his mother to dispatch this mes- sage to Charicles, she hesitated much. Agatha was bet- ter; he found her in comparatively good spirits. It would do to send for the doctor next day. An lu'gent summons conveyed at night to the palace or residence of the Caesar, where Charicles would probably of neces- sity be, would cause Tiberius to inquire into the matter, and would again draw his attention, and draw it still Dion and the Sibyls. tx more persistently to them. He had already intimated that he would order his physician to attend Agatha. They did not desire to establish very close relations with the man in black purple. It is wonderful even how that very intimation from Tiberius had diminished both mother's and daughter's anxiety to consult the celebrated practitioner, to whose advice and assistance they had previously looked for- ward. There were parties in the court and cabals in the political world ; and among them, as it happened, was the Greek faction, at the head of which his ill-wishers alleged Germanicus to be. Graeculus, or Greek cox- comb, was one of the names flung at him as a reproach by his enemies. What the Scotch, and subsequently the Irish interest may have been at various times in modem England, that the Greek interest was then in Roman so- ciety. Of aU men, he who most needed to be cautious and discreet in such a case was an adventurer who. being himself a Greek, owed to his personal merit and abilities the position of emolument and credit which he enjoyed; who was tolerated for his individual qualities as a foreigner, but who, if suspected of using professional opportunities as a political partisan, would be of no service to others, and would merely lose his own advan- tages. " Let Tiberius send Charicles to us," continued Aglais, " and OTU- countryman and friend may be of service to us, even in the suit which we have to urge at court. But were we now to show the Caesar that we confide in Chaiicles, we should only injure our countryman and not benefit ourselves." " How injure him ? " 62 Dion and the Siiyls. " Thus," replied the Greek lady. " If your claim for the restitution of your father's estates be not granted for justice's sake, I must make interest in order that it may be granted for favor's sake. As a Greek I shall be likely to induce no powerful person to take our claims under his protection except Germanicus, the friend of Athenians. Now, it is a fact, which I have learned for certain, that Tiberius hates Germanicus, whom he re- gards as his rival ; and that whoever is patronized by Germanicus, him Tiberius would gladly destroy. Be- hold us in a short while the clients and retainers of this same Germanicus, and let Tiberius then remember that his own physician has been, and continues to be, inti- mate and confidential with this brood of the Germanicus faction. Would not Charicles be damaged, perhaps en- dangered ? But if we wait until the Caesar himself sends us the doctor, as he said he would, we may then gain by it, and our friend not lose." " Mother, you are indeed Greek," said Paulus, laugh- ing; "and as Agatha is in no actual danger, be it as you say. Do you know, sister, there is nothing the matter with you but fatigue and fright ? I am sure of it. You will recover rapidly now, with rest, peace, and safety." " Mother," says Agatha, smiling, "we have forgotten, amid all this consultation about my health, to tell brother the curious discovery I have just made." " True," said Aglais ; " yoiu: sister has explored a very odd fact indeed." "Why, brother," says Agatha, " we found you in this, large sitting-room when we entered, though we had left you below-stairs, near the cistern," Dion and the Sibyls. 63 " Found me ? " said Paulus. "Yes," added his mother; " found you concealed in this room by Tiberius." " Concealed by Tiberius ? " " I will not leave you in suspense any longer," said the young girl, laughing. " Look here." And she led him to a table, behind the bench on wliich she had been sitting, and directed his attention to a bust, or rather a head of Tiberius, modeled or moulded in some sort of pottery. " That" said she, "when I first sat down, stood upon yonder table opposite to us. I recognized the face of the man who had spoken to me under the chestnut-trees, just before you assisted me back to the carriage. I ab- hor the wicked countenance ; and not choosing to let it stare at me like a dream where it was, I rose and went to remove it to the stand where you now see it, behind my bench. Well, only think ! I took it, so, with my hands, one imder each ear, and lifted it; when, lo! it came away, and left your own dear face looking at us, thus ! " As she spoke, she again lifted the terra cotta face, and beneath it a much smaller and more elegant piece of sculpture in white marble was disclosed, presenting the lineaments and image of Paulus himself. He started, and then his sister replaced the mask of Tiberius with a laugh. " Was I not speaking true when I said that Tiberius had concealed you here ? " said his mother. " The Caesar, very true, has me in his head, and well secured," said Paulus. At that moment the door opened, and Crispina en- 64 Dion and the Sibyls. fered to ask whether the letter for the physician was ready. They told her they had changed their minds, and would not, at least that night, send any letter, Agatha felt and looked so much better. " Then I will at once order your supper to be brought," said Crispina; "and as you are evidently people of dis- tinction, would you like music while the meats are carved ? " " Certainly not," said the Greek lady. " Nor a carver either, mother," interposed Agatha; and, turning to the hostess, she begged that they might be treated as quietly and let alone as much as it was possible. " That is indeed our desire," said the Greek lady. " In that case," repUed the hostess, " my own daugh- ter, Benigna, shall attend to you. Nobody shall trouble you. You are in the rear or west wing of the hotise, far away from all the noise of our customers, who are sometimes, I confess, sufficiently uproarious. But Cris- pus is not afraid of them. When to-morrow's sun rises, you will be glad to find what a beautiful country extends beneath your windows, even to the waters of the Tyr- rhenian Sea. You will behold, first, a garden and bee- hive ; beyond these are orchards ; beyond them, fields of husbandry and pleasant pasture-lands, with not a human figure to h^ seen except knots and dots of work- people, a few shepherds, and perhaps an angler amusing himself on the banks of the Liris in the distance." " Oh ! " said Agatha, " I wish soon to go to sleep, that we may set out quickly toward that beautiful coun- try to-morrow morning." " Would you not like a little bit of something very Dion and the Sibyls. 65 nice for supper first, my precious litde lady ? " quoth the good hostess ; " and that will make you sleep all the better, and from the moment when you close your pretty eyes in rest and comfort under poor Crispina's roof, to the moment when you open them upon those lovely scenes, you won't be able to count one, two, three — but just only one — and presto ! there's to-morrow morning for you." Agatha declared that this was very nice; and that supper woidd be nice; and that everything was comfort-, able — ^the rooms particularly so. " Then a delicious little supper shall be got ready at once," said Crispina. " I'll call my brisk Benigna to help me." Before quitting the room, however, the landlady, whose glance had rested chiefly upon Paulus during the conversation, threw up her hands a little way. She then composed herself, and, addressing Aglais, asked : "What names, lady, shall I put down in my book ?" " I will tell you when you return," replied Aglais; and the landlady retired. CHAPTER VIII. ?ET us show her the marble likeness," suggested Paulus, in an eager whisper, with the air of a child devising mischief. While they were discussing this topic, a gentle knock was heard at the door, and then a very pretty girl of about fifteen, with an open, sweet countenance, and a remarkably modest, cheerful bearing, presented herself, with a sort of tray, with various articles for supper ar- ranged thereon. " May I come in ? I am Benigna," said the girl, courtesying. " Come in, Benigna," said the lady. "Come in," added Agatha, in Latin, but by no means with so good an accent as her mother's. " You seem like your name ; you seem to be Benigna." The girl looked. at the beautiful child with a sweet, grateful smile, and immediately proceeded to prepare a table and three covers for supper. " Do you know Greek ? "* asked Aglais. " No, lady," repUed the daughter of the house. " My father is quite a scholar. He was one of the secretary slaves in the great house before he got his freedom, and my mother has learnt much from him ; but I have been brought up to help mother in the inn, and never had time to learn high things." * Greek, we may observe, was to the Romans of tbat age about as familiar as, and far more necessary than, French is to us. It was the vehicle of all philosophy, and the condition of sU higher education. The fashionable Romans used Greek phrases in conversation through vanity. 66 Dion and the Sibyls. 67 Agatha clapped her hands, and exclaimed : " Then I'll talk my bad Latin to Benigna, and she shall make it good." The girl paused in her operations at the table, and said: " I thought Latin came naturally to one, like the rain, and that it was Greek which had to be worked out, and made, just as wine is." The landlady, carrying various articles, entered as her daughter uttered this valuable observation, and she joined heartily in the laugh with which it was greeted. Be- nigna gazed around a moment in amazement, and then resumed her work, laughing through sympathy, but very red from the forehead to the dimples round her pretty mouth. The supper-table was soon ready. Paulus, at whom the hostess had frequently looked wistfully, now remarked that they all felt much gratitude for the kindness they were receiving, and never could forget it, Crispina, who was going out at the moment, did not reply, but lingered with her hand upon the door ; the other hand she passed once across her eyes. Then the Greek lady observed : " Good hostess, these are the apartments you intended for some barbarian queen, I believe ? " " Yes, my lady ; for Queen Berenice, daughter-in-law of King Herod the Idumsean, called Herod the Great, with her son Herod Agrippa, a wild youth, I under- stand, about eighteen years old, and her daughter Herodias." " I heard the tribune quasstor, who commands the Praetorians, plead for us with your husband," continued 68 Dion and the Sibyls. Aglaisj "and I suppose that the quaestor's generous eloquence is the cause of our being received into your house at all. But this does not account for your extra- ordinary kindness to us. We expected to be barely tol- erated as inconvenient and unwelcome guests, who kept better customers away." " Inconvenient and unwelcome ! " said Crispina, who seemed ready to cry, as, looking around the little group, her glance rested again upon Paulus, "Whereas," resumed Aglais, "you treat my dear chil- dren as if you were their mother. Why are we so for- tunate as to find these feelings in a stranger ? " The hostess paused a moment. " Honored lady," said she, " the reason is that I once was the nurse of a youth whom I loved as if he were my own child ; and it seemed to me as if I saw my brave, beautiful, affec- tionate nursling again when I saw your son ; but so long a time had passed, I nearly fell with fright and astonish- ment." Agatha went to the bust of Tiberius, lifted it, and, pointing to the marble image, said in a low, tender voice, " You nursed him ? " A little cry of dismay escaped the lips of oiu: hostess. " No one ever thought of looking beneath," said she. " My daughter and I arrange and dust the room. I must remove my poor boy's image. He is indeed for- gotten by most people nowj but it might harm us, and alas ! alas ! could not help him, if this silent face, that never smiles at me, never talks to me any more, were to be discovered. Do not speak of this to anybody, I beg of you, good lady, and my pretty one. You will not?" added she, smiling, but with tears in her eyes, as she Dion and the Siiylt. £9. looked at Paulus. " I feel as though I had reared you." They said they would take care not to allude to the subject at all, except among themselves, and then Aglais remarked : " You speak in sorrow of the youth whom you nursed. Is he then dead ? " " £Aeu / lady, he is dead nearly twenty years ; but he was just about your son's age when they put him to death." " Put him to death ? Why was he put to death, and by whom ? " asked Aglais. " Hush ! Maecenas and the emperor ordered it to be done. Oh! do take care. The whole world swarms with spies, and you may be siu^e an inn is not free from them. Things have been more quiet of late years. When I was young, I felt as if my head was but glued to my shoulders, and would fall off every day. As for Crispus, did I not make him cautious how he spake ? " " But your foster-son ? " " Ah, poor boy ! Poor young knight I He was mad about the ancient Roman Uberdes; a great student, always reading Tully." " Was that his crime ? " demanded Aglais. The hostess wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her stola manicata, and said, in a tone little above a whisper, looking round timidly, and closing the door fast, " Why, Augustus came suddenly one day into a tri- elinium, where he caught a nephew of his trying to hide under a cushion some book he had been reading. Au- gustus took the book, and found that it was one of TuHy's. The nephew thought he was lost, remember- ing that it was Augustus who had given up Cicero to ^o Dion and the Sibyls. Mark Antony to be murdered. There the emperor stood, fastened to the page, and continued reading and reading till at last he heaved a great breath, and, rolling up the book on its roller, laid it softly down and said, * A great mind, a very great mind, my nephew ; ' and so he left the room." "Then it was not your foster-son's admiration of Cicero that caused his death ? " " My foster-son was not Augustus's nephew, you see ; but eheu / how different a case ! — the nephew of a for- mer rival of Augustus, Nor used the emperor's nephew to talk as my poor child would talk. My foster-son used to say that for Augustus to have given up Tully, hjs friend and benefactor, to be murdered by Mark Antony, in order that he, Augustus, might be allowed to murder somebody else, and then to discover that neither he nor the himian race could enjoy justice, nor see peace, nor have safety, till this very same Antony should be himself destroyed, was not a pretty tale. Cicero had sided against and had resisted Julius Caesar; yet Julius had given back his life to a man of whom Rome and the civilized world were proud. The same Tully had sided with, not against, Augustus, and had been the making of him ; yet the life which a noble enemy had spared and left shining like a star, a base friend stole, and suffered to be quenched; and this for the sake of a monster who, for the sake of mankind, had to be very soon himself destroyed. This was not a nica tale, my poor Paulus used to say." " Nor was it ; but your Paulus ? " cried Aglais. The travellers all held their brea^ in surprise and suspense. " Yes." Dion and the Sibyls. "jj "What! the youth whom that bust represents, aad whom Augustus put to death, was called Paulus ? " "Yes. They said he had engaged in some conspir- acy, the foolish dear! But now, lady, I have been led, bit by bit, into many disclosures, and I beseech you — " " Fear not," interrupted Aglais; " I cannot but cherish a fellow-feeling with you ; for, although I have something to ask of the emperor, it is justice only. 1, too, look back to experiences which are akin to yours. My son yonder, whom the marble image of your foster- son strikingly resembles, bears the same name, Paulus ; and the name of his father was that which headed the first list of those who, the Triumvirate agreed, should die." " Permit me, now, to ask once more who you are, lady ? " said Crispina. " I know well the names upon that list" " My husband," replied the Greek widow, " was brother of the triumvir Lepidus." " The tritunvir was our master," answered the land- lady; "and alas! it is too true that he, the triumvir, was timid and weak, and his son, about whose image you have asked me, knew not, poor youth, when he so bitterly blamed Augustus for sacrificing TuUy to Mark Antony, that his own father had given up a brother — that brother whom you married — ^in the same terrible days, and just in the same kind of way." " Whose bust, then, do you say is this which is so Uke my son ?" asked Aglais. " The bust of your son's first cousin, lady. My fos- ter-son's father was your husband's brother." "No wonder," cried Agatha, "that my brother should be like his own first cousin ! " •J 2 Dion and the Sibyls. " No," said Aglais ; " but it is as surprising as it is fortunate that we should have come to this house, and have fallen among kind persons disposed to be friends, like our hostess, her good husband, and little Benigna yonder." "There is nothing which my husband and I would not do," said Crispina, " for the welfare of all belong- ing to the great ^milian family, in whose service we both were born and spent our childhood; the family which gave us ova freedom in youth, and our launch in life as a married couple. As for me, you know now how I must feel when I look upon the face of your son." A pause ensued, and then Aglais said : " Your former master, the triumvir, wrote to my hus- band asking forgiveness for having consented to let his name appear in the list of the proscribed, and explain- ing how he got it erased. Therefore, let not that sub- ject trouble you." " I happen, on my side, to know for a fact," answered the hostess, " that the one circumstance to which you refer has been the great remorse of the triumvir's life. The old man still mumbles and maunders, complaining that he never received a reply to that letter. He would die happy if he could but see you, and learn that all had been forgiven." Before Aglais had time to make any answer, the land- lord appeared, carrying a small cadus, or cask, marked in large black letters — L. CARNIFICIO S. POMPEIO COS. Dion and the Sihyk. 73 Benigna had previously set upon a separate table, according to custom, fruits, and fictile or earthem cups. "I thought so!" cried good Crispus. "Women (excuse me, lady, I mean my wife and daughter) will jabber and cackle even when ladies may be tired, and, as I sincerely hope, hungry. Do, Crispina, let me see the ladies and this young knight enjoy their little sup- per. This Alban wine, my lady, is nearly fifty years old, I do assure you; look at the Consul's name on the cask. Benigna, young as she is, might drink ten cyathi of it without hurt. By the by, I have forgotten the measiure. Run, Benigna, and fetch a cyathus (a ladle-cup) to help out the wine." " Jabber and cackle ! " said the hostess. " Crispus, this lady is the widow, and these are the son and daughter of Paulus .^milius Lepidus." The landlord, in the full career of his own jabber, was stricken mute for a moment. He gazed at each of our three travellers in turn, looking very fixedly at Paulus. At last he said, "This, then, accounts for the wonderful likeness. My lady, I will never take one brass coin from you or yours ; not an as, so help me ! You must conunand in this house. Do not think otherwise." And, apparently to prevent Aglais from answering him, he drew his wife hastily out of the room, and closed the door. Benigna was left behind, and, with winning smiles and a flutter of attentions, the young girl now placed the chairs, and began to cackle, as Crispus would have expre^ed himself, and to entreat the wanderers to take that refreshment of which they stood so much in need. 74 Dion and the Sibyls, They all had the delicate and graceful tact to feel that compliance with the kindness which they had so prov- identially found was the only way to return it which they at present possessed. It is historical to add that appetite gave the same advice. Their hunger was as keen as their tact. Dur- ing supper the mother and son spoke little ; but Agatha, both during the repast and for some time afterward, kept up a brisk conversation with Benigna, for whom the child had taken an inexpressible liking, and from whom she drew, with unconscious adroitness, the fact that she was engaged to be married. That sudden affection of sympathy which knit the soul of David to that of Jonathan seemed to have bound these two together. The landlady's considerate daughter at length advised Agatha to defer further communications until she should have a good night's rest. Paulus seconded the recommendation, and left his mother and sister with their Greek slave Melena and with Benigna, and retired to his own bedroom. This chamber over- looked the inner court, whence the incessant plash of the fountain was heard soothingly through his lattice window, the horn slide of which he left open. The bedroom of the ladies, on the other hand, overlooked the garden and beehives, to which Crispina had alluded. The sitting apartments, opening into each other, in one of which they had supped, stood between; all these rooms being situated in the projecting west wing, which they entirely filled. Thus closed the day which had carried to their desti- nation the travellers from Thrace. CHAPTER IX. iEXT moming, when they met at breakfast {Jen- taculutn), there was a marvellous improve- ment in Agatha's looks. She had been the earliest out of bed ; had seen from her window, under a brilliant sundiine, the beautiful landscape unroll itself in the various forms which the landlady had truly though inadequately described j and she then had run down into the garden. In due time — that is, very soon afterward — she had been chased by the bees, had fled, screaming and laugh- ing, with the hood of her ricinium drawn completely over the head by way of helmet against the terrible darts of her indignant pursuers, and had been received in the arms of Benigna, who had heard the cry of distress and had flown to the rescue, brandishing a long, reedy brush,^ like the mosquito brushes of modem times. Rallying in a bower of trellis-work covered with ivy, whence a wooden staircase led up to the first floor of the house, by way of a landing or platform, over which rose another bower clad in die same ivy mantle — facing round, I say, upon her enemy at the foot of this stair- case, she had soon ventured once more into the garden with Benigna, and the two girls, jabbering and cackling much, had gathered a large nosegay of autumnal flow- ers. With this booty, which Benigna had made so big that Agatha could hardly hold it in her small and elegant hands, the latter damsel had returned to the bower, had seated herself upon a bench, and had begun to sort the 75 ^6 Dion and the Sihyti, flowers in the relative positions which best showed their tints. Here she rehed upon gradation, there upon con- trast Her delicate Greek taste in the performance of this task drew exclamations of delight from Benigna. •' There! " the innkeeper's daughter would cry ; " how pretty ! That is the way ! That so, and then that, and that ! They look quite different now 1 Exactly ! I never imagined it ! " When Agatha had finished the arrangement to her own satisfaction, an exploit which was nimbly achieved, " Now, Benigna," said she, with her pretty foreign accent, " sit down here ; just do, and tell me all about everything." Benigna stared, and Agatha proceeded : " So you are engaged to become the wife of a very good and handsome youth, who in himself is everything that can be admired, except that, poor young man ! he is not very courageous, I understood you to say. Now, that is not his fault, I suppose. How can he help feel- ing afraid if he does feel afraid ? " At this moment the voice of Crispina was heard call- ing her daughter to help in preparing the breakfast, and Benigna, whom Agatha's last words had thrown into some confusion, as the same topic had done the previous evening, made an excuse and ran away with the light of roses vivid in her cheeks. Agatha remained and looked out upon the garden, and beyond it upon the sweet country, with its varied beauty. She remained listening peacefully and dreamily to the hum of bees, the twittering of birds, tke voices and footsteps in the inn, and inhaling the perfumes of the nosegay which she had arranged, and the cool J}ion and the Sibyls. 77 freshness of that pleasant morning hour, when the sun behind her and behind the house was throwing ihe shadows of buildings, sheds, trees, and cattle in long lines towards the Tyrrhenian Sea. While thus calmly resting, admiring, and musing, a lady in a dark robe, with a very pallid face, and large black eyes, stood suddenly in the doorway of the bower, and blocked out the lovely prospect. The stranger smiled, and, holding out a bunch of flowers, said, " My pretty young lady, I see that the offering I have been culling for you has lost its value. You are rich already. May I sit down in this pleasant shady place a moment to rest ? " " Yes, you may, certainly," said Agatha. " I suppose," resumed the stranger, " that you belong to this house, my little friend ? I am a stranger, and merely lodging " "We are lodging, too, and strangers," answered Agatha. " From your accent," continued the other, " I judge you to be Greek." " Mother is," replied Agatha ; " but brother calls him- self a Roman knight, and even noble." " I knew it! " cried the lady; " you have it written in your countenance. I, too, am a noble lady; my name is Plancina. Have you ever seen Rome ? " " Never." " Ah ! how you will be enchanted. You must come to see me, I have a house in Rome; such a pretty house, full of such curious things ! Ah ! when you see Rome, you will hold your breath with wonder and delight. I will make you so happy when yoa come ta see me in my pretty house." •jB Dion and the Sibyls, " You are a very kind, good lady, I should think," quoth Agatha, looking up from her flowers, and gazing long at the pallid face and the large black eyes ; " and if we go to Rome, I and my mother will visit you, per- haps." " My house is among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said the lady. " Remember two things — Viminal Hill, with its beeches and its willows, and the Calpurnian House, where the Piso family have lived for generations. My husband, Piso, has had great losses at dice. I am rich enough to spend a fortune every year for half a century, and we have still at our house all the pleasures that can be thought of. What pains I will take to amuse you ! You cannot conceive the splendors, dresses, games, sports, shows, and beau- ties of Rome; the theatres, the circus, the combats, the great wild beasts of all sorts from all countries, the dances " As she pronounced the word " dances," a youthful male voice was heard at a little distance, sa5ring : "While they change horses here, we will stretch our limbs by a stroll in the garden behind the inn. Make haste, worthy innkeeper ; order your servants to be brisk." And almost at the same moment a brilliantl} beauti- ful, dark, eastern-looking girl, in a Syrian costume, appeared at the entrance of the bower. Behind her came sauntering the youth whose voice had been heard. He was of about Paulus's age, had an olive complexion, was sumptuously dressed, and exhibited a strong family likeness in face to the girl. Last followed a woman in middle life, appareled in costly robes suited to travel, haughty, languid, and scornful of mien. Dion and the Sibyls. 79 Flancina and Agatha looked up and surveyed the newcomers. The brilliant damsel remained at the entrance o£ the bower examining its occupants with a hardy, unabashed glance j whereupon Plancina, after a moment's pause, occasioned by the interruption, re- simied and concluded her sentence thus : "No, you can form no idea of the gayeties of Rome; the games, the shows, the theatres, the glories, the pleasures, the jests, the dances," " But all your good dances come from foreign land? — from the East, indeed," interrupted the damsel, nod- ding her head repeatedly and sneeringly; "you mus» admit that." " Not all our good aXone," answered Plancina sternly, noticing that the woman in middle life smiled approv- ingly at the girl who had obtruded the remark ; " not all our good alone, but all. The office of the outside world is to try to amuse Rome." " And what is Rome's office ? " asked the damsel. " To be amused by them, if she can," answered the Roman. " Come away, Herodias," said the haughty, languid, and scornful-looking woman; and the two strolled down the middle walk of the garden. The youth who had come with them lingered a moment or two behind, standing in the middle of the gravel-walk and gazing straight into the bower, while he flirted a sort of horse- whip around the heads of one or two tall flowers which were growing outside along the border of the walk. Plancina looked steadily at him, and he at her. The lad withdrew after a few moments, without a change of feature. So Dion and the Sibyls. " What starers ! " muttered Agatha. " They have a talent for it, indeed," said Plancina. " A hardy family, putting one thing with another. I think I know who they are. The mother, if she were the mother, called the daughter, if she were the daugh- ter, Herodias. My husband thinks of going to Syria, and, indeed, Tiberius has offered him the procuratorship of Judea; but he would not condescend to go in any smaller capacity than as prefect of Syria. An acquaint- ance of ours, young Pontius Pilate, wants to get the procuratorship. The minor office would be a great thing for him. But my husband, Piso of the Calpumi- ans, cannot stoop to that. I may meet yonder family again." "Those people are looking back," observed Agatha, who had paid very little attention to her companion's speech. Plancina rose, and, going to the entrance of the bower, honored the strangers with a steady glance. The scornful-looking foreign woman in sumptuous ap- parel met it for a moment, and then turned away. Her son and daughter turned away at the same time. " Ah ! they are gone," murmured Agatha ; " they do not like you to gaze so at them." " It is but a Roman," returned Plancina, " looking at barbarians. They always shrink in that curious manner. And why this Greek lunacy ? " muttered she ; " and why this Attic mania ? " " Attic what ? " asked the half-Greek girl. " Nothing, my dear," replied Plancina ; " only you are not Greek, you know; your father's race and the name you bear settle that question ; your very mother is Dion and the Sibyls. 8r now, and has long since become, a Roman citizen; you must always prefer Rome to Greece ; never forget that rule, or you and yours will perish." Agatha opened wide the ingenuous young eyes, and seemed to be most seriously alarmed. Plancina smoothed her pale brows, which had beeit frowning ; and continued with a stem smile : " I am only giving you a friend's warning. Your mother and brother have a suit to urge at court. There exists a pestilent Greek faction which are all doomed to destruction ; tell your mother that you must all beware of being mixed up with them, and you will escape their perdition. A Greek, like your mother, with something to ask, is peculiarly liable to make the mistake of seek- ing Greek friends. If she do, she is utterly lost, however powerful may seem the prince who patronizes the accursed cabal." Agatha shrank and trembled, murmuring like an echo Plancina's last adjective — exitiabilis. " Do not stare at me so, my little dear," continued Plancina. "There is the Prince Germanicus. Only for him — everybody knows it, and everybody says it; the thing is no secret — Piso, my husband, would be now prefect of Syria; and like Crispus Sallus, when I was a little girl, would have recovered ten times the for- tune out of which he has been cheated at dice, I am called a rash, violent, and an imtamable woman. The moment, however, that anybody gives you any informa- tion about court parties and political factions, every thing I am saying will be mentioned. I do not hide my disgust. Foreign barbarians of all sorts swarm; they creep through postern doors; they privately influ- 82 Dion and the Sibyls. ence all the destinies of that world of which Romans have the name publicly of being masters. We are trodden under the feet of Greeks, Jews and Chaldeans; the first beat us by genius, by eloquence, and artistic skill; by general intellectual force and subtlety; the second by superstition-inspired obstinacy, by incredi- ble and imspeakable importunity, by steadfastness in sordid servility, by sorcery, divination, necromancy, and delusion; not all delusion, I grant you; for I my- self have seen the demons of Thrasyllus, the Babylonish Greek." "What!" cried Agatha, "seen demons? And what does a Babylonish Greek mean ? " "A Greek initiated in the Babylonish mysteries." " And who is Thrasyllus ? " "A magician." "What is that?" " A man who calls demons and spirits of the air, as you would call your pet birds, and they come to him." " May the unknown God love me ! " cried Agatha, shuddering. " What are the demons like? " " Not like our sculptures, believe me," answered Plan- cina. "I dare not tell you; I have seen what no words can say." She paused, shrugged her shoulders and then added : " Some forms were like the human, with red fire in the veins instead of blood, and white fire in the bones instead of marrow; eyes they possessed that had no comfort in them. They had the air of being utterly without interest in anything, only that their eyes were filled with fear; yet it seemed to me with knowledge, too; unspeakable fear, immense knowledge; wells and Dion and the Sibyls. 83 pools they appeared, full of fear and knowledge. When they glanced upon you, there were pale rays of hatred strangely combined with an expression of indifference, fear, knowledge, and hatred. If you looked at the eyes, when they looked not at you, you saw nothing but an expression of fear and knowledge ; but when they did look at you, you saw fear, knowledge, and hatred too. All these faces mocked without smiling and scoffed without enjoyment. Something, I thought, was drip- ping down the wan cheeks, and there was a look of fixed surprise long ago, of long-past astonishment — the trace left, and the feeling gone. The emotion of bound- less amazement had once been there; the signs of it were left all over the countenance, but, if I may so speak, petrified — an immedicable scar, an ineffaceable vestige. The character of the countenance was that of a dead astonishment — the astonishment was dead : it was no longer an active sentiment. It had been some boundless wonder; the greatest which that crea- ture had ever experienced; and the event which had caused it had apparently been the most serious which that being had ever known." " What a truly tremendous description 1 " exclaimed Agatha. The other made no reply; and before any further conversation could occiu: between them, a young man, in the dark-brown habiliments of a slave, entered the garden from the inn, and after a hasty glance in various directions, approached the bower. His features were very good ; he was well made, of a pleasing address, and had a look of uncommon intelligence. He possessed, in a small degree, and a humble way, that undefinable 84 Dion and the Sibyls. air of elegance which mental culture sheds over the countenance ; but with this advantage he betrayed cer- tain symptoms of awkwardness and timidity. Standing I at a little distance from the door of the arbor, he made 'a low bow to Plancina, and said he was the bearer of ^ome commands. " Commands from whom ? " she demanded. He answered, bowing low again, by merely stating that his name was Claudius. Plancina instantly rose and took leave of Agatha, en- joining her not to forget the warnings and counsels she had given. Agatha then saw her hastily reenter the hotel, followed by the handsome slave. Thereupon, buoyantly recovering her spirits, which the presence and the words of this woman had depressed, she ascended the staircase to the landing overhead, where she was joined by her mother from the room within. Agatha immediately told Aglais everything which had passed between her and Plancina. " I don't think, my dear child, we shall be likely to trouble her in her nice house among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said Aglais; and as Paulus now came out upon the landing, a second edition of the narrative was produced for his informa- tion. " Germanicus," said he, " is more like the last of the Romans than in any sense reprehensible or degenerate in his tastes. His love for Greece and his admiration for Athens are an honor to his understanding. They are nothing else. This has nothing to do with prefer- ring barbarians and barbarous influences. My educa- tion, edepol ! has to be completed ; but I am educated Dion and the Sibyh, 8$ enough to know that Rome goes for schooling to Greece as much as ever she did. Was not Julius Caesar himself what they call a Graculus ? I rather think he was even deeper than Germanicusin Greek lore; but, there- fore, all the more fitted for Roman command. The Romans continued to be barbarians long after the Greeks had become the teachers of the world ; and were it not for Greece, they would be barbarians still. As for warning us not to dare to make friends for ourselves of this person or that, or of any who appreciate intellect — for this means to appreciate Greeks — ^it is like warning us ta remain friendless, in order that we may the more easily be crushed. It is the wolf's advice to the sheep, to send away her dogs j but I am more dog than that myself^ This pale, beetle-browed lady ought to have enjoined those to be timid who know how. Dare do this ! Dare do that ! For my part, I am not afraid to do anything that I think right." His mother pressed Paulus's hand affectionately, and his sister's high spirit, which had cowered under the dreadful conversation of Flancina, shone in her eyes 35. she smiled at him. CHAPTER X. 5EANWHILE, in the large room within, break fast had been prepared for the wanderers on a table drawn opposite to and near the open folding-doors of the arbor where they were conversing ; and the landlady now summoned them to partake of that repast. After breakfast, at which Crispina herself waited on them, Agatha asked where Benigna was. The landlady smiled, and stated that a friend of her daughter's had called, and was doubtless detaining her, but she would go at once and bring the girl. "On no account," interposed Aglais; "Benigna, I dare say, will unfold to my daughter all about it by and by. Unless you have some pressing business to take you immediately away, will you kindly inform us of the news, if there be any, and let us sit in the arbor while you tell us ? " Accordingly they went into the bower on the landing overlooking the garden, and Crispina told them the news. In the first place, she told them that the emperor's expected visit to Formiae was delayed on account of the state of his health. It was now thought he would not arrive for two or three days more, whereas he was to have entered Formiae that very morning. Crispina added that it would not surprise her if he did not come for a week yet In the second place, Queen Berenice with her son, 86 Dion and the Sibyls. 87 Herod Agrippa, and her daughter Herodias, who were to have occupied those very apartments, had arrived at the inn, but had now gone forward, " Mother," said Agatha, " those must have been the persons who, an hour ago, looked into the arbor below this one, when that pale woman was talking to me. The elder called the younger Herodias." "The same," continued the landlady. " Finding that they cannot be accommodated in my house, young Herod has proposed to proceed with all their train to Formiae, where — royal though they be — they will be nobody's guests ; and as there is not a place of public entertainment in that town, and the weather is delight- ful, he says they will pitch two or three tents, and one splendid pavilion of silk, on the verge of the green space outside of Formiae, where the games are to be held." " Only fancy !" cried Agatha, clapping her little hands. Thirdly, Crispina told them, with fifty gossiping de- tails, that the entertainments to be given in honor of the emperor and the opulent knight Mamurra, from whom the town took its name, would be stupendous. Formiae, we may mention, was frequently called Mamurrarum, or, urbs Mamurrana, from the colonel or chiliarch Ma- murra. This gentleman had devoted his boyhood and youth to the cause of Julius Caesar, and afterward of Augustus in the civil wars; had gained considerable military reputation, and, above all, had amassed enor- mous wealth. He had long since returned to his native Formiae, where he had built a superb palace of marble, good enough for an emperor. In that palace the emperor was now to be his guest. He and Agrippa Vipsanius, 88 Dion and the Sibyls. the founder of the Pantheon, had long befwe been among those by whom, in comphance with the often- announced wish of Augustus, not pecuharly addressed to them, but generally to all his wealthy countrymen, Augustus had expended incalculable sums in adorning Rome with public edifices, for which costly materials, and the science and taste of the best architects, had alike been employed. As Augustus himself said (for himself), " They had found it of bricks, and were leav- ing it of marble." " I have read verses by Catullus upon this knight Mamurra," said Aglais. " So you have, my lady," replied Crispina. " Well, he has just knocked up a circus in the fields adjoining Formise, and is preparing to exhibit magnificent shows to his neighbors and to all comers, in honor of the em- peror's visit to the town of the Mamurras and the Ma- murran palace. Tiberius Caesar, who is also to be the knight's guest, promises to use this same circus, and to give entertainments of his own there, and Germanicus Caesar, before marching north to fight the Germans, and drive them out of north-eastern Italy) is to review at Formiae the troops destined for that expedition, as well asthe great bulk of the Praetorian Guards under Seja- nus. The guards are uncertain what portion of them the Caesar may take with him northward." " Mother, we shall see the shows, we shall see the shows ! " cried Agatha. " Oh! and I am so slow. There is another ingredi- ent yet in my wallet of tidings," exclaimed Crispina ; " and only think of my almost forgetting to remember it." " Remember not to forget it," said the Greek girl. Dion and the Siiyis. 89 holding up her finger with an admonishing and censo- rious look at the landlady. " What is this particular which you have, after all, not forgotten to remember ? '* " My charming little lady, it is a particular which concerns the land of your mother, and the people of Greece ; for seldom, say they, has that land or people sent to Rome anybody like him." " You accused yourself of being slow ; but now you gallop. Like whom?" " Like this noble young Athenian." " Galloping still faster," rejoined Agatha. " What noble young Athenian ? " " This Athenian, gifted as his countryman Alcibiades, eloquent as our own Tully, acute and profound as Aris- totle, honorable as Fabricius, truthful as Regulus,and O ladies ! with all these other excellencies, beautiful as a poem, a picture, a statue, or a dream ! " " There's a description !" quoth Agatha, laughing. " More eloquent than precise, I think," said Paulus. " Yet sufficiently precise," added Aglais, " to leave us in no doubt at all who is meant by it. It must be young Dionysius, it must be Dion." " That is the very name ! " exclaimed the hostess. " My mother knows him," said Paulus. " My sister and I have often heard of him; so have thousands ; but we have not seen him. It is he who carried away all the honors of the great Lyceum at Athens on the left bank of the Ilissus." "The right bank, brother," said Agatha; "don't you remember, the day we embarked at the Piraeus somebody showed it to us, just opposite Diana Aegrota, which is on the left bank ? " go Dion and the Sibyls. *' It is all the same," said Paulus, " Mother, just tell Paulus if left and right are all the same," said Agatha. " That is like Paulus. They are not the same; they never were the same." " All the ladies at the Mamurran palace," resiuned the hostess, " make toilets against him." " Toils, you mean," said Paulus. " Yes, toils," continued the hostess. " They are in- tended as toils for him; they are great toils and labors for the poor girls ; the ornatrius and they are toilets for the fair dames themselves." " It is all the same," again quoth Paulus. " And how do these toilets prosper against Dionysius the Athenian ? " " They tell me he is not aware of the admiration he excites — is totally indifferent to it." " Base, miserable youth ! " cried Paulus, laughing. " These Roman dames and damsels ought to pimish him." " You mean by letting him alone ? " asked the land- lady. " No; that would kill him," returned Paulus with a sneer, " being what he is." " Then how punish him ? " asked she. " By pursuing him with their blandishments," an- swered Paulus ; " that is, if they can muster sufficient ferocity. But I fear the women are too kind here in Italy, I am told that even in the midst of the most furious passions, and while the deadUest agonies are felt by others around them, their natural sweetness is so invincible that they smile and send soft glances to and fro ; they look more bewitching at misery (such is their Dion and the Sibyls, 91 goodness) than when they see no suffering at all. Yes, indeed ! and as the gladiators fight, they have a lovely smile for each gash ; and when the gladiator dies, their eyes glisten enchantingly. We have not these enter- tainments in Greece, and the Greek Dion must soon feel the superiority of the Roman to the Greek woman. Pity is a beautiful quality in a woman ; and the Greek ladies do not seek the same frequent opportunities of exercis- ing it as the Italian ladies possess, and, eheu / enjoy." " Is Paulus bitter ? " asked Aglais. " Is Paulus witty?" "Talking of wit, my lady," pursued the hostess, " none but our dear old Plautus could have matched this young Athenian, as Antistius Labio, the great author of five hundred volumes, has found to his cost." " Labio ! Why, that must be the son of one of those who murdered Caesar," exclaimed Paulus. " My father met his father foot to foot at the battle of Philippi ; but he escaped, and slew himself when Brutus did so." " That was, indeed, this man's father," said Crispina. " The son is a very clever man, and a most successful practitioner in the law courts. Wishing to mortify Dio- nysius, he said in his presence, at a review of the troops at Formise, yesterday, that he was grateful to the gods he had not been bom at Athens, and was no Greek — not he ! " ' The Athenians also entertain,' replied Dionysius, ' the idea which you have just expressed.' " ' What idea ? ' asked Antistius Labio. " 'That their gods watch over them,' replied Dionysius. " Ah, my lady ! you should have heard the laughter at Labio; the very centurions turned away to conceal their ^2 Dion and the Sibyls. grins. Some one high at court then took the Athe- nian's arm on one side, and Titus Livius's on the other, and walked off with them. Labio did not say a word." " Pray, can you tell us, good Crispina, whether Ger- manicus Caesar is to be a guest of the knight Mamurra ? " asked Paulus. The landlady said she believed he would be for a day or two, and that she thought it was even he who had taken Dion's and Livy's arm, and walked with them apart. " It is some time," said Aglais, " since Catxillus indited those epigrammatic verses against the hospitable and opulent knight. This Mamurra must be very old." " Yet, my lady,'' replied Crispina, " he has a ruddy face, a clear complexion, and downright black eye- brows." " There is a wash called lixirium," said Aglais with ■a meaning smile. "Ah! but," cried Crispina, laughing with no less knowing a look, " that makes the hair yellow ; and the brows of the knight are as black as the jet ornaments in your daughter's hair." "You can tell us, no doubt," said Paulus, "who those ladies must be that came with Tiberius Caesar yesterday from that splendid mansion on the Liris. They were in beautiful litters ; one of sculptured bronze, the other of ivory, embossed with gold reliefs." " I know who they are, of course," said the landlady; " they are half-sisters, the daughters of the late renowned warrior and statesman, the builder of the Pantheon, Agrippa Vipsanius, but by different mothers. One of them was the wife of Tiberius Caesar." Dion and the Sityls, 93 " Was! " exclaimed Paulus; " why, she's not a ghost ? " " She is, nevertheless ; her husband has another wife," laid the landlady ; adding, in a low voice, " a precious one, too ; the emperor has required him to marry the august Julia." "The august!" murmured Aglais contemptuously, with a shrug of the shoulders ; " getting old, too." " I am sure," resumed the landlady, " no one can describe the relationships of that family. Agrippa Vip- sanius, you must know, married three times. His sec- ond wife was Marcella, daughter of Augustus's sister, Octavia; and this Marcella became the mother of the elder of the two ladies whom you saw. Well, while this Marcella was still living, but after she had had a daughter called Vipsania, Augustus made Agrippa put her away to many, mind you, this very same august Julia, Augustus's own daughter, and therefore Marcella's first cousin. This Julia, who had just become a widow, having lost her first husband Marcellus, is the mother of the other lady whom you saw, who is called Julia Agrippina, and who thus came into the world the sec- ond cousin of her own half-sister. Well, Agrippa, the father of both girls, leaving the august Julia a widow for die second time, Tiberius Caesar marries Agrippa's eldest daughter Vipsania, and has a son by her, called Drusus ; and now, while Vipsania is still living, Augus- tus makes Tiberius put her away to marry the aforesaid august Julia, the mother of the younger daughter, Julia Agrippina, who is Tiberius's first and likewise second cousin." " I can hardly follow you in the labyrinth," said Aglais. " No one can, my lady, except those who make a Q4 Dion and the Sibyls. study of it," said the landlady, laughing; "but it's all true. JuUa, Augustus's daughter, is the wife of the father of both of these girls, first cousin to the eldest of them, mother and cousin-in-law of the younger, and has now also been made wife to the husband of the elder, her own first cousin, and become the sister-in-law of her own daughter and cousin-in-law to the younger." " Medius fidius .'" cried Paulus, staring stupidly, " what a tremendous twisted knot ! Julia's daughter, half-sister, and second cousin is put away, that the half- sister's husband may marry the half-sister's stepmother and second cousin, or something like that." " Or something like that," continued Crispina; " but there is no end to it. Tiberius Caesar is now father-in- law and brother-in-law to one woman, and the husband and stepfather-in-law to another, while the mother of the younger half-sister becomes the sister-in-law of her own daughter." At this moment Agatha, who was opposite the outer door of the embowered landing, leading down by a flight of stairs into the garden, through the other arbor before mentioned, suddenly exclaimed : " There's Be- nigna walking in the garden with a man ! " They all looked, and saw Benigna and a young man, wearing a brown txmic and sUppers, in a distant alley of fig-trees, talking earnestly as they strolled together. Crispina smiled and said : " I must reaUy tell you that my Benigna's betrothed lover came here unexpectedly at daybreak. He has obtained a week's hoUday, and will spend it, he vows, in the inn. We have had to use some skill, I promise you, in finding room for him. He is to sleep in a big trunk with the lid off, stowed away Dion and the Sibyls. 95 in the angle of a corridor behind a curtain. He is a very good and well-instructed youth, knows Greek, and is severely worked as one of the secretaries of Tiberius Caesar, whose slave he is, as I think Benigna has men- tioned to my little Lady Agatha yonder." "When is the maniage of dear Benigna to take place ? " asked Agatha. " Of course the poor young man," replied Crispina, " cannot marry until he gets his freedom. Whenever Tiberius Csesar allows him to shave his head, and put on the cap* of liberty, we shall have a merry wedding." "What sort of master is Tiberius Caesar?" asked Faulus. The landlady said she was thankful she did not per- sonally know him; but she had never heard any com- plaint of him made by Claudius, her future son-in-law, " Your future son-in-law, Claudius ! " exclaimed Agatha, in amazement. " Then it was your future son-in-law who had something to say to that Dame Plancina, with the pale face and black eyebrows ? " " Not that I know of, my little lady," returned the hostess. "Ah! but he had though," persisted Agatha. " He came to the arbor door, and distinctly stated, with a low bow, that he had commands for that lady; and then she said from whom; and he said, • my name is Claudius; ' that is what he said; and then she jumped up in a remarkable fluster and went into the house, and he followed her. But then why she should jump up in a fluster, because a slave said his name was Claudius, I can't imagine," concluded Agatha, pondering. ♦Pileus. 9 6 Dion and the Sibyls, The hostess looked surprised. " I think it could not be because a slave's name was Claudius," she said; "nor do I understand it." " Is that your demon-seeing dame, Agatha ? " asked Paulus, stretching himself; "for I have a notion that when I parried the fellow's blow who wanted to cut me doAvn in so cowardly a fashion, you know " " Yes." "There was a female scream; do you remember it ? " "Yes." " Well, I have been thinking the woman who screamed was a woman whom your description of that fierce dame in the arbor exactly fits. If so, she was in the train of Tiberius, and of those ladies of whom our good hostess has just given us such an interesting genealogical and matrimonial account." " Then perhaps the commands for Plancina were from Tiberius Caesar," quoth Agatha. Crispina shook her head, but appeared a little serious. A short silence followed. Paulus broke it by asking the landlady to get a letter forwarded for him to the mili- tary tribune, Velleius Paterculus, at Formiae. " I wish," he said, " to take advantage of the delay in the emperor's visit, and to see the country, to fish in the river, to move about far and near; provided Paterculus, to whom I have given a promise to report myself, has no objection." The hostess brought him some liviana, or second-class paj)er, the best she had, some cuttle-fish ink, and a reed pen, told him to write his letter, and undertook to trans- mit it at once by a runner belonging to the hostelry. She then left the room. CHAPTER XL JHE letter was sent, and in the course of the fore- noon the tabellarius, or letter-carrier of the inn, returned from Formise. Crispina brought him to Paulus, who was in an avenue of the garden watching some players as they contested a game of quoits or discus. This avenue connected the garden proper with the open country westward, terminating in a cross hedge of myrtle, through which a little wicket or trellis gate opened. " The man has brought no let- ter back," the hostler said, signing at the same time to the messenger to deliver the particulars of his errand. He had found the tribune, he said, and had given him the letter and asked for an answer. The tribune was at the moment inspecting a body of troops. He read the note, however, and immediately took out of his belt both his stylus sxiA pugillaria, or hand-tablets, when the Praetorian prefect Sejanus, happening to pass, entered into conversation with him, and the messenger then saw Velleius Paterculus hand to Sejanus Paulus's letter. After reading it, the general gave it back, said some- thing in Greek, and went away. The tribune thereupon told the bearer that he would send an answer during the day by a messenger of his own. Paulus thanked the man, who then withdrew. Our hero, who had prepared his fishing-tackle, a por- tion of which he had in his hand, remarked that it was vexatious to lose so fine and favorable a day. " More- over, why should I be a prisoner ? " he suddenly ex- 97 9 8 Dion and the Sibyls. claimed. " I have a triple right to my personal liberty, as Roman citizen, knight, and noble. And what have I done to forfeit it? What have I done except parry the blow of an assassin whom I neither injured nor pro- voked ? " " Hush ! " murmured Crispina; and just then Cneius Piso, having a bandage round his head, and leaning on the arm of Plancina, was seen passing into the inn be- fore them from another part of the garden. The landlady stood still a moment, till the two figures had disappeared, when she said, with a slight motion of the thumb in the direction of Piso, " He reports himself quite well now, except for a headache. He and his lady leave us in an hour for Rome, and I hope I may say both vale and salve. You ask what you have done. Have you not come to Italy to claim rights which are indisputable ? " " Is that reason ? " " It is a thousand reasons, and another thousand, too. Alas! do not deceive yourself, as your namesake and cousin did, about the character of the world." At the door of the inn they separated, she to attend to the multifarious business of her household and he to loiter purposelessly. After a little reflection, he went quite through the house by the inner court, and the central corridor beyond it, and looked into the pub- lic-room. At one table a couple of centurions sat playing dice with the tesserce, and shouting the names of half-a-dozen gods and goddesses as their luck fli^c- tuated. At another table a powerfully-built, dark, middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard streaked with gray, upon whom Asiatic slaves waited, was taking Dion and the Sibyls. 99 a traveller's repast, his slaves helping him to costly wine, which he drank with a grimace of dissatisfaction, but in formidable quantities. Other groups were dotted round the large apartment. In order not to draw need- less notice, for all eyes turned to him for a moment, ex- cept those of the two dice-throwing and bellowing cen- turions, Paulus seated himself behind an unoccupied table near the door. While idly watching the scenes around him, he thought he heard his name pronounced in the passage outside. He listened, but the noise in the room made him uncertain, and the voice outside was already less audible, as of one who had passed the door whUe speaking. Presently he heard, in a much louder tone, the words, " Why, it is not our carriage, after all. Let us return and wait where we can sit down." And the speaker again passed the public-room, coming back, apparently from the porch. Paulus happened to be sitting close to the door, which was open ; a curtain, as was common, hanging over the entrance. This time, in spite of the noise in the room, a word or two, and a name, though not his own, struck him. He fancied some one said, " No harm to her ; but still, not the brother — ^the sister, my trusty Claudius." Where had Paulus heard those tones before ? In it- self, what he had overheard was a suflSciently harmless fragment of a sentence. Nevertheless, Paulus rose, left his table, lifted aside the door-curtain, and went into the corridor, where he saw Cneius Piso and Plancina, with their backs to him, walking toward the end of the pas- sage opposite the porch, but he nearly stumbled against IQO Dion and the Sibyls. a young man going the other way. This person, who was good-looking, in both senses of the word, wore the sober-colored tunic,* the long hair, and the slip- pers of a slave. He had in his right hand a stylus; in his left, tablets of citron-wood, opened and covered with blue wax, on which he was reading, with his head bent, some note which he had made there. " It is my fault, noble sir," said he ; "I was stooping over these and did not observe you ; I beg you to par- don my awkwardness." And he bowed with an air of humility. " It is I, rather, who am to blame," said Paulvis, scan- ning steadily the features of the slave, who had made his apology with a look of alarm, and in exaggerated accents of deprecation. Shortly after this incident, while Paulus was leaning dreamily over the balustrade of the inn's central court, and watching the fountain there, he was struck heavily on the shoulder from, behind by an open hand. Turning round slowly, he beheld a man in the very prime of life, who was entirely a stranger to him. " I was told I should find you here, excellent sir," said the stranger. Paulus took in at a glance his dress and general ap- pearance. He had a thick brown beard, neatly trimmed, and open, daring, large blue eyes, in which there was nothing whatever sullen or morose ; yet a sort of wildness and fierceness, with a slight but constant gleam of vigilance, if not subtlety. On the whole, his face was handsome; it was conspicuously manful, and, perhaps, somewhat obdurate and pitiless. Dion and the Sibyls. loi His stature was good without being very lofty. He had broad shoulders, rather long, sinewy arms, a deep chest, and, altogether, a figure and person not lacking any token of agility, but more indicative of huge strength. He wore sandals, the laces of which crossed each other up his mighty legs, which were otherwise bare, and a white woollen tunic covered his shoulders, and was belted round his waist. " And who told you that you would find me here ? " asked Paulus ; " for a few minutes It was that paper. Some stranger must have been up- stairs while we were away." " Crispus or Crispina would not have said this to us by means of an anonymous writing. They have givea us the same warning without disguise, personally." " But they spoke only according to their own opinion," returned Paulus. " Coming from some one else, the same advice acquires yet greater importance. Some unknown person bears witness of the danger which our host and hostess merely suspect, and at which Thellus, the lanista, hinted, as perhaps impending, but which even he did not afiSrm to be a reaUty." " That is," added Paulus, " if this bit of paper has been intended for us — I mean for you and for Agatha, because I am not a groxmd-dove." " Well, I do not see," said the lady, musing, " what more we can do for the moment. Our trusty Philip is on the way with my letter to your uncle; he may be by this time on the way back. Till he returns, what can we do ? " " I know not," said Paulus. " Have you asked Cris- pina about this paper?" " We waited first to consult you," said Aglais; "and," added Agatha, "there is another singular thing — we have not seen Benigna all day, who was so regular in attending upon us. The hostess told us that Benigna was suffering with a bad headache ; and when I wanted to go and tend her, Crispina hindered me, sapng she had lain down and was trying to sleep." "What about the lover?" inquired Paulus — "the slave Claudius ? " Dion and the Sibyls. i3i " He has gone away all of a sudden, though his holi- ■day has not expired. I really suspect that Benigna and he must have had a quarrel, and that this is why he has left the place, and why Benigna is so ill." The clepsydra, or waterclock, on the floor in a comer, showed that it was now past the time when their even- ing repast was usually prepared. They were wondering at the delay; when Crispus, first knocking at the door which led from the passage, entered. He seemed alarmed. They put various questions to him which the circumstances rendered natural, showing him the paper that had been dropped on the landing. He said that he thought he could make a pretty good surmise about that matter; but inasmuch as Benigna, who had been crying out her httle heart, was much better, and had de- clared she would come herself when they had supped, and tell them everything, he would prefer to leave the recital to her, if they would permit him. Meantime, he confirmed the news that the emperor had arrived at the neighboring town, that the festivities had begun at the Mamurran palace, and that in a day or two the public part of the entertainments, the shows and battles of the circus, which woidd last for several successive mornings and evenings, would be opened. He said it was usual to publish a sort of promissory plan of these entertainments ; and he expected to re- ceive, through the kindness of a friend at court (a slave), some copies of the dociunent early next morning, when he would hasten to place it in their hands. While thus speaking to them with an air of affected cheerfulness, he laid the table for supper. Actuated by a curiosity in which a good deal of uneasiness was mingled, since 122 Dion and the Sibyls. he would not himself tell them all they desired to know, they requested him to go and send Benigna as soon as possible; and when at last he retired with this injunc- tion, they took their supper in unbroken silence. Benigna came. The secret was disclosed, and it turned slow-growing apprehension into present and serious alarm. " What ! Claudius a spy ! The spy of Tiberius set as a sort of secret sentry over us ! Who would have thought it?" Benigna, turning very red and very pale by turns, had related what she had learnt, and how she had acted. Little knowing either the secret ties between her mother and this half-Greek family, or the interest and affection she had herself conceived for them, her lover had told her that she might help most materially in a business of moment intrusted to him by his master ; adding that, if he gave the Caesar satisfaction in this, he should at once obtain his hberty, and then they might be married. She answered that he must know how ready she was to further his plans, and bade him explain himself, in order that she might learn how to afford him immedi- ately the service which he required. But no sooner had she understood what were his master's commands, than she was filled with consternation. She informed him that her father and mother would submit to death rather than betray the last scions of the ^mihan race, and that she herself would spurn all the orders of Tiberius before she would hurt a hair of their heads. She men- tioned, with a little sob, that she had further informed Claudius that she never would espouse a man capable of plotting mischief against them. Upon this announce- Dion and the Sibyls. 123 ment Claudius had behaved in a way " worthy of any thing." He there and then took an oath to renounce the mission he had undertaken. He had neither known its objects nor suspected its villainy. But Benigna, whose mind he thus relieved, he filled with a new anxiety by expressing his conviction that Tiberius Caesar would forthwith destroy him. However, of this he had now gone to take his chance. " Did Claudius," asked Paulus, " intend to tell the Ceesar that he disapproved of the service upon which he had been sent, and would not help to execute it ? " " No, sir," said Benigna. " We were a long time con- sulting what he should, what he could say. He is very timid ; it is his only fault. He is going to throw all the blame upon me, and thus he will mention that I, that he, that we were going to be married, and that, in order the more effectually to watch the movements of ladies to whom he personally could get no access under this roof, the bright notion had occurred to him to enlist my services, so as to render it impossible that these ladies should escape him, or that their movements should re- main unknown; when lo! unfortunately for his plan, he finds I love these ladies too well to play the spy upon them ; that I refused, and even threatened, if he did not retire from his sentry-box forthwith, not only to break off my nuptial engagement with him, but to divulge to the family that they were the objects of espial." " Which you have done," said Aglais, " even though he has compUed with your demands." Poor Benigna smiled. " Yes," said she, " I was bent upon that the instant I knew ; but what my dear, un- fortunate Claudius had to say to Tiberius Caesar was the 124 Dion and the Sibyls. point. The Caesar is not to be told everything. My head is bursting to think what will happen." Here she broke into a fit of crying. They all, except Paulus, tried to comfort her. He had started to his feet when he first understood the one fact, that this young girl had sacrificed not only her matrimonial hopes, but the very safety of her lover himself, to the claims of honor and the laws of friendship. He was now pacing the width of the room in long strides with an abstracted air, from which he awaked every now and then to contemplate with a thoughtfid look the anguish and terror depicted in the innocent face of the innkeeper's little daughter. At last he stopped and said to her: " Of what are you afraid ? " " The anger of that dreadful man." " What dreadful man ? " She answered, with a couple of sobs, " The august, red-faced, big, divine beast." " But neither you nor your lover have done anything unlawful, anything wrong." " That is no security," said poor Benigna, shaking hei head and wringing her hands. " That ought to be a seciuity," said Aglais ; adding in a mutter, " but often is a danger." " It is not even allowed by people that it ought to be a security," returned the girl. " Until it is so allowed, and so practised, too, the earth will resemble Tartarus rather than the Elysian Fields," said Aglais with energy. Benigna began to cry amid her sympathetic audience, £nd said : Dion and the Sibyls. 125 " It was so like the Elysian Fi-fields yesterday, and now it is like Tar- tartarus I They will kill him." " For supper, do you mean ? " asked Paulus, laying his powerful, white, long-fingered hand upon Benigna's head, while Agatha embraced her. " But then, how will they cook him? How ought a Claudius to be cooked ? " The young girl looked up wistfully through her tears, and said : " You do know that awful, divine man ! " " I think I half suspect him," answered Paulus. " But the red-faced, big, divine beast, as you call him, will reward Claudius, instead of being angry with him, and this I will show you clearly. Was it not a proof both of zeal and of prudence, on Claudius's part, in the ser* vice of his master, to endeavor to enlist your assistance ? And again, upon finding, contrary to all likelihood — as Tiberius himself will admit, and would be the first to contend — that you preferred virtue, and truth, and honor, and good faith, to your own manifest and im- mediate interests, and to success in love — upon finding this, extraprdinary and unlikely fact occurring, was it not clearly the duty of Claudius to his master to hasten away at once and tell him the precise turn which events had taken ? Now, what else has been his conduct, young damsel ? What, except exactly all this^ has Claudius done? Will he not, then, be rewarded by his master, instead of being eaten for supper? " " Ah, noble sir ! " cried Benigna with clasped hands. " what wisdom and what beautiful language the gods have given you ! This must be what people call Greek philosophy, expounded with Attic taste." CHAPTER XIII. I, EXT morning at breakfast, Paulus announced that he had resolved to go to Formise and seek an audience of the emperor himself. "How will you get one?" asked Aglais; "and if you get one, what good will it do you? " " It will depend upon circumstances," he replied? " for, whether I fail to get speech of the emperor, or, succeeding in that, fail to get justice from him, process of law remains equally open, and so does process of in- terest. Both means are, I suppose, always doubtful, and generally dilatory. I spoil no chance by trying a sudden and direct method of recovering our family rights; while if I succeed, which is just possible, I shall save a world of trouble and suspense." After some discussion, his mother yielded to her son's impetuous representations, more with the view of un- deceiving him, and reconciling him to other proceed- ings, than with any hope of a good result. Paulus had taken his broad-brimmed hat, saying that in three or fom- hours he expected to be back again at the inn ; but that if he did not reappear, they were to conclude that he had found a lodging at Formias, and that he was remaining there for some good reason; •when the door was flung open, and breathless, radiant, holding an unfolded letter in her hand, Benigna rushed into the room. " Read, read," she cried, " and give me joy 1 I was unjust to the noble prince." Dion and the Sibyls. 127 She handed the letter to Aglais, who read aloud what follows : " FORMIiE. " JEivis Sejanus, the Praetorian prefect greets Crispus, keeper of the inn at 100 Milestone. Our Caesar is so pleased with the slave Claudius, that he has resolved to give him his freedom and the sum of fifty thousand sester- ces, upon which to take a wife and to begin any calling he may prefer. And understanding that he is engaged, when- ever he becomes a free man, to marry your daughter Benigna, and knowing not only that good news is doubly agree- able when it comes from the mouth of a person beloved, but that to the person who loves it is agreeable also to be the bearer of it, he desires that your daughter, whose qualities and disposition he admires, should be the first to tell her intended husband Claudius of his happy fortune. Let her, therefore, come to-morrow to Formiae, where, at the Ma- murran palace, Caesar will give her a message which is to be at once communicated to the slave Claudius. FarewelL'" " I want to go at once to Formiae," cried Benigna. " Well, I am even now going," said Paulus ; " and if you intend to walk, I will guard you from any annoy- ance either on the way or at Formiae, a town which you know is at present swarming with soldiers." This offer was, of course, too valuable not to be cheerfully accepted. A few moments after the foregoing conversation, Paulus and Benigna left the inn of Crispus together. The roads were full of groups of persons of all ranks, in carriages, on horseback, and on foot. Some of these were bound countryward, but not one for every score of those who were bound in their own direction. No ad- venture befell them, and in less than two hours they 128 Dion and the Sibyls. arrived at their destination. It was easy to find the Ma- murran palace, to the principal door of which, guarded by a Praetorian sentry on either hand, Paulus forthwith escorted Benigna. There was no footway on either side of the street, and as they approached the door they heard the clang of the metal knocker resound upon the inside. At the same moment the sentinel nearest to them shouted " licite" (by your leave). Two or three persons at this warning shrank hurriedly into the middle of the road ; a Numid- ian rider made his horse bound aside, and the large folding-doors were simultaneously flung open outward. Immediately appeared the very man in the dark-dyed purple robe of whom the little damsel was in quest, and upon whose personal aspect, already minutely described, we need not here dwell. A handsome gentleman, in middle life, with an acute and thoughtful face, who wore the Greek mantle called ;i;A.az»'« (/«««), but differently shaped from an augur's, followed. Both these persons moved with that half -stoop which seems like a continued though very faint bow; and when in the street, they turned, stood still and waited. Then came forth, lean- ing on a knight's arm, and walking somewhat feebly, a white-haired, ancient, and majestic man, around whose person, in striking contrast with the many new fashions of dress lately become prevalent, a snowy wool- len toga, with broad violet borders, flowed. Under this toga, indeed, was a tunic richly embroidered with gold, and having painted upon it the head of the idol called the Capitoline Jove, half hidden by a wide double stripe of scarlet silk. When this personage had come into the street, aD Dion and the Sibyls, 129 those who chanced to be there uncovered. Tiberius, the gentleman in the Greek mantle, and the knigM himself, upon whose arm the object of aU this rever- ence continued to lean, did the same; and it was thus that Paulus, who had already guessed from frequent descriptions formerly received, knew for certain that he beheld for the first time Augustus Caesar, sovereign of three hundred million human beings, and absolute mas- ter of the known world. In a moment those who formed the personal company of the emperor resumed their head-gear j some soldiers who happened to be passing did the same, and proceeded upon their respec- tive errands ; but the inhabitants remained gazing until the group began to move on foot up the street in the direction of the temporary circus which had been com- pleted by the knight Mamurra in some fields northwest of the town. Paulus turned to Benigna and said : " You perceive the red-faced — ahem! the great man. He does not know you, though you know him. Shall I tell him who you are ? Indeed, I have not come hither merely to stare about me ; so wait you here." He thereupon left her, and quickly overtaking, and then passing before, the group in which was Augustus, turned round and stood directly in their way, hat in hand ; but all his sensations were different from what he expected. He grew very red and shamefaced, and felt a sudden confusion that was new to his experience. As it was impossible to walk over him, they, on their part, halted for a moment, and looked at him with an expression of surprise which was common to them all, though, indeed, not in the same degree. The person 130 JDion and the Sibyls. who seemed the least astonished was the emperor; and the person who seemed more so than any of the rest was Tiberius. Some displeasxire, too, seemed to flash in the glance which he bent upon the youth. But Paulus, though abashed, did not lose presence of mind to such an extent as to behave stupidly. He said: " I ask our august emperor's pardon for interrupting his promenade, in order to report to Tiberius Caesar the execution of an order. Yonder is Crispus's daughter, illustrious sir," he added, tiu-ning toward Tiberius ; " she has come hither according to your own commands." " True," said Tiberius ; " let her at once seek the prefect Sejanus, who will give the necessary instruc- tions.' Paulus's natural courage and enterprising temper had carried him thus far; but his design of accosting and directly addressing Augustus Caesar now seemed, when he had more speedily found an opportunity of doing so than he could have dared to hope, a strange and diffi- cult undertaking. How he should procure access to the emperor had been the problem with him and his family heretofore ; but now, when the access was already achieved, and when he had only to speak — now, when his voice was sure to reach the ears of the emperor himself — ^he knew not what to say or how to begin. He had thought of splendid topics, of deductions which he would draw, certain arguments which he would urge — a matter very plain and easy : in fine, a statement simple, brief, and conclusive; but all this had vanished from his mind. There before him, holding back the folds of his toga with one white hand, upon the back Dion and the Sibyls. 131 erf which more than seventy years had brought out a tracery of blue varicose veins — a modern doctor would call them — with the other hand, which was gloved, and grasping the fellow glove, laid upon the arm of the knight already mentioned, stood the person who, under forms, the republican semblance of which he carefully preserved, exercised throughout the whole civilized and nearly the whole known world; over at least two if not three hundred million souls, a power as uncontrolled and as absolute for all practical purposes as any which, before him or after him, ever fell to man's lot ; enthusiastically guarded and religiously obeyed by legions before whom mankind trembled, and whose superiors as soldiers had not been seen then and have not been seen since; the perpetual tribune of the people, the prince, senator, perpetual consul, the supreme judge, the arbiter of life and death, the umpire in the greatest concerns between foreign disputants travelling from the ends of the earth to plead before him; the dispenser of prefectures, provinces, proconsulates, tetrarchies, and kingdoms; treated by kings as those kings were them- selves treated by the high functionaries whom they had appointed or confirmed, and dould in an instant dismiss; the unprincipled, cruel, wicked, but moderate-tempered, cold-humored, cautious, graceful-mannered, elegant- minded, worldly-wise, and politic prince, who paid assiduous court to all the givers and destroyers of reputation — I mean to the men of letters. There he stood, as we have described him, holding his toga with one hand and leaning upon Mamurra's arm with the other; and Paulus stood before him, and Paulus knew not what to say; hardly, indeed — so quickly the sense 132 Dion and the Sibyls. of bashfulness, confusion, depression had gained upon him — hardly how to look, " If you have heard," observed Tiberius at length, " pray stand aside." Paulus, who, while Tiberius was speaking, had looked at him, now glanced again toward the emperor, and still hesitated, made a shuffling bow, and stood partly aside. " What is it you wish to say ? " asked Augustus, in a somewhat feeble voice, not at all ungraciously. " I wish," said Paulus, becoming very pale, " to say, my sovereign, that my father's property in this very neighborhood was taken away after the battle of Phi- lippi and given to strangers, and to beg of your justice and clemency to give back that property or an equiva- lent to me, who am my dead father's only son." " But," said Augustus, smiling, " half the land in Italy changed hands about the time you mention. Your father fought for Brutus, I suppose ? " " My father fought for you, my lord," said Paulus. " Singular ! " exclaimed Augustus. " But this is not a court of justice — the courts are open to you." At this moment Sejanus and one whom Paulus pre- sumed to be in Rome, Cneius Piso, attended by a slave, appeared from a cross street. The slave ap- proached quickly, holding a pigeon ; and having caught the eye of Augustus, who beckoned to him, he handed the bird to the emperor. Paulus withdrew a little, but lingered near the group. Augustus, disengaging a piece of thin paper from the pigeon's neck, said : " From lUyricum, I suppose. We shall now lean* Dion and the Sibyls. 133 what progress those Germans have made. O Varus, Varus ! " added he, in words which he had of late often been heard to repeat, " give me back the legions, redde legiones/ redde legiones .' " A breathless silence lasted while Augustus perused the message taken from the neck of the carrier-pigeon. As he crushed the paper in his hands, he muttered some- thing; and while he muttered, the scorbutic face of Tiberius (perhaps scrofulous would better render the epithet used by Tacitus) burned ominously. In what the emperor said Paulus caught the words " danger to Italy, but Germanicus knows how." " Varus lost the legions a thousand times a thousand paces westward of this irrUption," said Tiberius. "A calamity like that," said Augustus, " is felt far and near. The whole empire suffers, nor will it recover in my time. Ah ! the legions." Paulus perceived that he himself was now forgotten ; moreover, looking back, he saw the poor young damsel, left by him at the door of the Mamurran palace, still standing alone and unprotected ; but some fascination riveted him. In a moment a great noise was heard, which lasted a couple of minutes ; a mighty roar, indistinct, blended, hoarse, as ot tens of thousands of men uttering one immense shout. It was, had it lasted, like the sound of the sea breaking upon some cavernous coast. Upon a look of inquiry and surprise from the empe- ror, Sejanus sent the slave who had brought the carrier- pigeon to ascertain the cause, and before the sound had ceased the messenger returned, and reported that it was only Germanicus Caesar riding into camp. Augustus 134 Dion and the Sibyls. fixed his eyes on the ground, and Tiberius looked at Se- janus and at Cneius Piso. The emperor, after a second or two of musing, re- sumed his way toward the rustic circus and the camp, attended by those around. Paulus felt he had not gained much by his interview. He now touched the arm of Sejanus, who was about following the imperial group, and said, pointing toward the spot where Benigna still stood waiting: " Yonder is Crispina's daughter, who is here in obedi- ence to your letter." Sejanus answered this reminder with a sour and pe- culiar smile. " Good," said he; " she has come to announce the fine news to her betrothed. Let her tell him that he has only to break a horse for Tiberius Caesar to obtain his freedom. I have no time to attend any more to slaves and their mates. She has now but to ask for Claudius at that palace. He has orders to expect her, and to receive from her mouth the pleasing information I have just given you." Saying this, he walked away. Our hero conceived some undefined misgiving from these words, or rather from the tone, perhaps, in which the prefect had uttered them. Unable to question the speaker, he slowly returned to poor little Benigna, and said, " Well, Benigna, I have ascertained what you have to do ; and, first of all, Claudius expects you within." As he spoke, he knocked at the door. This time only one leaf of it was opened, and a slave, standing in the apertiu-e, and scanning Paulus and his companion, de- manded their business; while the sentries on either Dion and the Sibyls. 135 hand at the sculptured pillars, or ania of the porch, looked and listened superciliously. " Is the secretary-slave Claudius here ? " asked the youth. Before the porter could reply, steps and voices re- sounded in the hall within, and the porter sprang out of the way, flinging almost into Paulus's face the other leaf of the door and bowing low. Three gentlemen, two of whom apparently were half drunk, their faces flushed, and their arms linked together, appeared staggering upon the threshold, where they stood awhile to steady them- selves before emerging into the street. " I tell you, my Pomponius Flaccus," said he who was in the middle — a portly man, with a good-natured, shrewd, tipsy look — "it is all a pretty contrivance, and there will be no slaughter, for the beast is to be muzzled." " And I tell you, my Lucius Piso," returned he on the left, a wiry drinker, " my governor of Rome, my dedi- catee of Horace — " " I am not the dedicatee of Horace," interrupted the other ; " poor Horace dedicated the art-poetical to my two sons." " How could he do that ? " broke in Pomponius. " You see double. Two sons, indeed ! How many sons have you ? tell me that. Again, how could one man dedi- cate a single work to a double person ? answer me that. You know nothing whatever about poetry, except in so far as it is fiction ; but we don't want fiction in these matters. We want facts; and it is a fact — a solemn fact — that the slave will be devoiu-ed." " I hold it to be merely a pleasant fiction," retorted Piso fiercely. 136 Dion and the Sibyls. "Then I appeal to Thrasyllus here," rejoined the other. " O thou Babylonian seer ! will not Claudius the slave be devoured in the circus before the assembled people ?" At these words our hero looked at Benigna, and Benigna at him, and she was astounded. He who was thus questioned — a man of ghastly face, with long, black hair hanging down to his shoulders, and sunken, wistful, melancholy eyes — ^wore an Asiatic dress. He was not intoxicated, and seemed to have fallen by chance into his present companionship, from which he appeared eager to disengage himself. Gently shaking off the vague hand of Pomponius Flaccus, he acted as the oracles did. " You are certainly right," he said; but he glanced at Lucius Piso while speaking, and then stepped quickly into the street, which he crossed. Each of the disputants naturally deemed the point to have been decided in his own favor. " You hear ? " cried Flaccus ; " the horse is to paw him to death, and then to devour him alive." " How can he ? " said Piso. " How can he, after d — d — death, devour him alive ? Besides, Thrasyllus declared that I was right." " Why," shouted Flaccus, " if we had not been drink- ing together all the morning, I should think you had lost your senses." " Not by any means," said Piso ; " and I will prove to you by logic that Claudius the slave " (again at this name our hero and poor little Benigna looked at each other — she starting and turning half-round, he merely directing a glance at her) " that Claudius the slave will Dion and the Sibyls. 137 not and cannot be devoured by Sejanus — I mean that beast Sejanus." Paulus, chancing to look toward the two Praetorian sentries, whose general he supposed to be mentioned, observed them covertly smiling. More puzzled than ever, he gave all his attention to the tipsy dispute which was raging in the palace doorway. " Well, prove it then," roared Flaccus, " with your logic ! " " Have I not a thumb ? " resumed Lucius Piso ; " and can I not turn it down in the nick of time, and so save the wretch ? " " Ho ! ho ! ho ! " laughed out the other ; " and what notice will a horse take of yom- thumb ? Is this horse such an ass as to mind whether your thumb be up or down, though you are governor of Rome ? " " Perhaps you think," retorted Piso, in a tone of con- centrated bitterness, " with your rules of logic, that the horse is not properly trained to his manners ? " " Have I not told you," said Flaccus, " in spite o£ your rules of thumb, that the horse is not an ass ? " The rudeness and coarseness of Pomponius Flaccus had succeeded in sobering Lucius Piso. He here re- mained a moment silent, drew himself up with dignity to the full height of his portly person, and at last said : " Enough ! When you have drunk a little more you wiU be able to understand a plain demonstration. But whom have we here ? Why, it is our glorious Apicius, whose table no other table rivals for either abundance or delicacy. Who is your venerable friend, Apicius ? " This was addressed to a dyspeptic-looking youth, magnificently attired, who, in company with a person 138 Dion and the Sibyls. in the extreme decline of life, approached the dcj*,. Paulus and Benigna stood aside, finding themselves still constrained to listen while waiting for room to enter the blocked-up door of the palace. " Is it possible," rephed Apicius, " that you forget Vedius PoUio, who, since you mention my poor table, has often kindly furnished it with such lampreys as no other mortal ever reared ? " The old man, whose age was not redolent of holiness, but reeking with the peculiar aroma of a life passed in boundless and systematic self-indulgence, leered with running, bloodshot eyes, and murmured that they paid him too much honor. " Sir, you feed your lampreys well," said Pomponius Flaccus, " in yom- Vesuvian villa. They eat much liv- ing, and they eat well dead." " I assure you," said PoUio, " that nothing but humorous exaggerations and witty stories have been circulated upon that subject. I can, with the strictest accuracy, establish the statement that no human being ever died merely and simply in order that my lampreys should grow fat and luscious. On the other hand, I do not deny that if some slave, guilty of great enormi- ties, had in any event to forfeit life, the lampreys may in such cases, perhaps, have availed themselves of the circumstance. An opportunity might then arise which they had neither caused nor contrived." "The flavor, in other words, never was the final cause of any slave's punishment," said Lucius Piso. " You use words, sir," said Pollio, " which are correct as to the fact and philosophical as to the style." " Talking of philosophy," said Apicius, " do you hold with this' young Greek, this Athenian Dion who has Dion and the Sibyls. < 139 lately visited the court, that man eats in order to live ? or with me that he lives in order to eat? " " Horror of horrors!" murmured Flaccus, "the Athe- nian boy is demented." " Whenever there is anything to eat with you, my Apicius," said Lucius Piso, " unless there be something to drink with my Pomponius here, may I be alive to do either the one or the other." "Why not do both?" wheezed Vedius PoUio. " Whither are you even now going ? " "To the camp for an appetite," said Pomponius Flaccus, descending the steps out of the palace hall into the street, and reeling against Paulus, who held him from staggering next against Benigna. " What do you two want here? " he suddenly asked, steadying himself. " I am accompanying," replied Paulus, "this damsel, who comes hither by Caesar's order." " What Caesar ? " asked Pomponius. " Tiberius Claudius Nero," returned Paulus, He naturally supposed that this formal-sounding an- swer would have struck some awe into the curious com- pany among whom he had so unwittingly alighted with his rustic charge. " What ! " exclaimed Pomponius Flaccus, " Biberius Caldius Mero, say you ? " Paulus started in amazement. "Ebrius, drunk," continued Piso, "ex quo — How does it go on ? ex quo — " "Ex quo" resumed Pomponius, solemnly, "semel foetus est." * * Suetonius, Pliny and Seneca aU attest the currency of this and sint' i]ar jokes against Tiberius during his very lifetime. 140 Dion and the Sibyls. The astonishment of Paulus and Benigna knew no bounds. Was it possible that in the very precincts of Caesar's residence for the time, at the door of an im- perial palace, within hearing of two Praetorian sentries, in the public street and open daylight, persons should be found, not reckless outcasts maddened by despera- tion, but a whole company of patricians, who, correct- ing each other as they might do in reciting a popular proverb or an admired song, should speak thus of the man to whom gladiators, having not an hour to live, cried, "As we die we salute thee " ? The man at ^hose name even courageous innocence trembled ? "I said," repeated Paulus, after a pause, "Tiberius Claudius Nero." "And I said," replied Pomponius, " Biberius Caldius Mero." " Drunk but once," added Lucius Piso, who had evi- dently quite recovered from his own inebriation. " Since ever he was so first," concluded Pomponius Flaccus. A general laugh, in which all present joined save Paulus and Benigna, greeted this sally, and, in the midst of their hilarity, an elegant open chariot of lichly sculptured bronze, the work being far more costly than the material, drawn by two handsome horses and driven by a vigorous and expert charioteer, came swiftly down the street in the contrary direction of the camp, and stopped opposite the door. As the horses were pulled back upon their haunches, a youth, tall, well made and eminently graceful, sprang to the ground. He had a countenance in the extra- ordinary beauty of which intellect, attempered by a Dion and the Sibyls. 141 sweet, grave and musing expression, played masterful and liuninous. He was neatly but gravely dressed, after the Athenian fashion. The four personages at the door, who were, by the by, far more floridly ar- rayed, and wore various ornaments, nevertheless looked like bats among which a bird of paradise had suddenly alighted. No gayety of attire could cover the unlove- iiness of their minds, lives and natures, nor could the plainness of his costume cause the newcomer to be disregarded or mistaken anywhere. In the whole com- pany Lucius Piso alone was a man of sense, solid attain- ments and spirit, though he was a hard drinker. Even the others, driveling jesters as they were, became sober now at once ; they uncovered instinctively and greeted the youth as he passed with an obeisance as low as that performed by the ostiarius, who stood ready to admit him. When, returning these salutes, he had entered the palace, Piso said, for the information of Vedius Pollio, who had come from Pompeii, " That is he." " What ! the young Athenian philosopher of whom we have heard so much?" " Yes. Dionysius; young as he is, I am told that he is certain to fill the next vacancy in their famous Areopagus." " He is high in Augustus's good graces, is he not? " asked Pollio. "Augustus would swear by him," said Flaccus. "It is lucky for all of us that the youth has no ambition, and is going away again soon." " What does Biberius say of him ? " inquired Apicius. " Say ? Why, what does he ever say of any one, at least of any distinguished man ? " 142 Dion and the Sibyls. "Simply not a word." "Well, think, then; what does he think?" " Not lovingly, I suspect Their spirits, their gen- iuses, would not long agree. If he was emperor, Dionysius of Athens would not have so brilliant a re- ception at court." " But is it, then, really brilliant ? Does one so young sustain his own part ? " asked Pollio. " You never heard any person like him ; I will answer for that," replied Lucius Piso. " He is admirable. I was amazed when I met him. Augustus, you know, is no dotard, and Augustus is enchanted with him. The men of letters, besides, are all raving about him, from old Titus Livy down to L. Varius, the twiddler of verses, the twiddle-de-dee successor of our immortal Horace and our irreplaceable Virgil. And then Quintus Haterius, who has scarcely less learning than Varro (and much more worldly knowledge) — Haterius, who is himself what erudite persons rarely are, the most fas- cinating talker alive, and certainly the finest public speaker that has addressed an assembly since the death of poor Cicero, declares that Dionysius of Athens " "Ah ! enough ! enough ! " cried Apicius, interrupting ; " you make me sick with these praises of airy, intangible nothings. I shan't eat comfortably to-day. What are all his accomplishments, I should like to know, com- pared to one good dinner ? " " You will have long ceased to eat," retorted Piso, " when his name will yet continue to be pronounced." "And what good will pronouncing do, if you are hungry ? " said Apicius. " What has he come to Italy for ? " persisted old Pollio. jfiion and the Sibyh. 143 " You know," said Piso, " that all over the East from immemorial time, some great, mysterious and stupendous being has been expected to appear on earth about this very date." " Not only in the East, good Piso," said PoUio; "my neighbor in Italy, you know, the Cumaean Sibyl, is con- strued now never to have had any other theme." " You are right," returned Piso ; " I meant to say that the prevailing notion has always been that it is in the East this personage will appear, and then his sway is to extend gradually into every part of the world. Old sayings, various warning oracles, traditions among common peasants, who cannot speak each other's lan- guages and don't even know of each other's existence ; the obscure songs of the sibyls, the dream of all man- kind, the mystical presentiments of the world concur, and have long conctirred, upon that singular subject. Moreover, the increasing corruption of morals, to which Horace adverts," added Piso, " will and must end in dissolving society altogether, unless arrested by the ad- vent of some such being. That is manifest. Haterius and others who are learned in the Hebrew literature tell me that prodigies and portents, so well authenti- cated that it is no more possible to doubt them than it is to doubt that Julixis Caesar was murdered in Rome, were performed by men who, ages ago, much more dis- tinctly and minutely foretold the coming of this person at or near the very time in which we are living ; and, accordingly, that the whole nation of the Jews (con- vinced that those who could perform such things must have enjoyed more than mortal knowledge and power) fully expect and firmly believe that the being predicted 144 Dion and the Sibyls. by these workers of portents is now immediately to ap- pear. Thus, Haterius— " " No," said Pomponius Flaccus, shaking his head, looking on the ground, and pressing the tip of his fore- finger against his forehead, " that is not Haterius' s argu- ment, or, rather, that is only the half of it." " I now remember," resumed Lucius Piso; " you are correct in checking my version of it. These ancient seers and wonder-workers had also foretold several things that were to come to pass earlier than the advent of the great being, and these things, having in their respective times all duly occurred, serve to convince the Jews, and, indeed, have also convinced many philosophic inquirers, of whom Dionysius is one, studying the prophetical books in question, and then exploring the history of the Hebrews, to see whether subsequent events really cor- respond with what had been foretold — that seers who could perform the portents which they performed in their day, and who besides possessed a knowledge of future events verified by the issue, were and must be genuinely and truly prophets, and that their predictions deserved belief concerning this great, mysterious, and much- needed personage, who is to appear in the present generation. And then there is the universal tradition, there is the universal expectation, to coniirm such rea- sonings," added Piso. The astounding character, as well as the intrinsic importance and interest, of this conversation, its refer- ence to his half-countryman Dionysius, of whom he had heard so much, and the glimpses of society, the hints about men and things which it afforded him, had prevented Paulus from asking these exalted gentlefolk to Dion and the Sibyls. 145 make room for him and Benigna to pass, and had held him and, indeed, her also, spellbound. " But how all this accounts, most noble Piso, for the visit of the Athenian to the court of Augustus, you have forgotten to say," remarked PoUio. " He obtained,'' replied Piso, " the emperor's permis- sion to study the Sibylline books." " What a pity," said Flaccus, " that the first old books were burnt in the great fire at Rome!" "Well," resumed Lucius Piso, "he brought this per- mission to me, as governor of Rome, and I went with him myself to the quindecemviri and the other proper authorities. Oh ! as to the books, it is the opinion of those learned in such matters that there is little or noth- ing in the old books which has not been recovered in the collection obtained by the senate afterward from Cumee, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and all places where either the sibyls still Uved or their oracles were pre- served." " But after all," said Pollio, " are not these oracles the ravings of enthusiasm, if not insanity ? " " Cicero, although in general so sarcastic and dis- dainful, so incredulous and so hard to please," answered Piso, " has settled that question." " He has, I allow it," added Pomponius Flaccus, "and settled it most completely. What a charming passage that is wherein the incomparable thinker, matchless writer, and fastidious critic expresses his reverential opinion of the Sibylline books, and demon- strates with triumphant logic their claims upon the attention of all rational, all clear-headed and philo- sophic inquirers 1" 146 Dion and the Sibyls. " I am not a rational, or clear-headed, or philosophic inquirer," broke in Apicius. " Come, do come to the camp; and do pray at last allow this foreign-looking young gentleman and rustic damsel to enter the door- way." And so they all departed together. The atriensis had meanwhile summoned the master of admissions, who beckoned to Paulus, and he, fol- lowed by Benigna, now entered the hall, which was flagged with lozenge-formed marbles of different hues, and supported by four pillars of porphyry. The adven- turers passed the perpetual fire in the ancestral or image- room, and saw the images of the Mamurras, dark with the smoke of many generations ; they crossed another chamber hung with pictures, and went half round the galleried and shady impluvium, inclosing a kind of in- ternal garden, where, under the blaze of the sunlight, from which they were themselves sheltered, they beheld, Uke streams of shaken diamonds, the spray of the plash- ing fountains, the statues in many-tinted marble, and the glowing colors of a thousand exquisite flowers. Near the end of one wing of the colonnaded quadrangle they arrived at a door, which they were passing when their guide stopped them, and as the door flew open to his knock, he made them a bow and preceded them through the aperture. They noticed, as they followed, that the slave who had opened this door was chained to a staple. Several slaves, who scarcdy looked up, were writing in the room which they now entered. The master of admissions, glancing round the cham- ber, said, addressing the slaves in general, " Claudius is Dion and the Sibyls. 147 not here, I perceive ; let some one go for him, and say- that the daughter of Crispus, of the One Hundredth Milestone, has been charged to communicate to him the pleasure of Tiberius Caesar touching his immediate manumission; and that I, the master of admissions in the Mamurran palace, am to add a circumstance or two which will complete the information the damsel has to give. Let some one, therefore, fetch Claudius forth- with, and tell him that he keeps us waiting." During this speech, which was rather pompously delivered, Paulus noticed that, close to a second door in the chamber at the end opposite to that where they had entered, a young slave was seated upon a low settle, with a hide belt round his waist, to which was padlocked a light but strong brass chain, soldered at the nether link to a staple in the floor. This slave now rose, and opening the door, held it ajar till one of the clerks, after a brief whisper among themselves, was detached to ex- ecute the errand which the steward had delivered. The slave closed the door again, the clerks continued their writing, the steward half shut his eyes, and leaned against a pillar in an attitude of serene if not sub- lime expectation; and Paulus and Benigna waited in silence. During the pause which ensued, Paulus beheld the steward suddenly jump out of his dignified posture, and felt a hand at the same time laid lightly on his own shotilder. Tiuning round, he saw the youth who had a few minutes before descended from the bronze chariot. " Ought I not to be an aquaintance of yoius? " asked the newcomer with an agreeable smile. "You are strikingly like one whom I have known. He was a 148 Dion and the Sibyls, valiant Roman knight, once resident in Greece; I mean Paulus Lepidus ^milius, who helped, with Mark An- tony, to win the great day of Philippi." " I am, indeed, his only son," said Paulus, " You and a sister, I think," returned the other, " had been left at home, in Thrace, with your nurse and the servants, when some business, a little more than three years ago, brought your father and his. wife, the Lady Aglais, to Athens. There I met them. Alas! he is gone. I have heard it. But where are your mother and your sister?" Paulus told him. " Well, I request you to say to them that Dionysius of Athens — so people style me — ^remembers them with aifection. I will visit them and you. Do I intrude if I ask who is this damsel ? " (glancing kindly toward Benigna, who had listened with visible interest.) Paulus told him, in a few rapid words, not only who she was, but, with distinct details, upon what errand sh& had come. He had scarcely finished when Claudius, the slave,, arrived, breathless, in obedience to the summons of the magister. " The orders of Tiberius Caesar to me," observed tiiis functionary in a slow, loud voice, but with rather a shamefaced glanee at Dion, " are, that I should see that you, Claudius, learnt from this maiden the conditions upon which he is graciously pleased to grant you your liberty, and then that I should myself communicate something in addition." " O, Claudius ! " began Benigna, blushing scarlet, " we^ that is, not you, but I — I was not fair, 1 was not Dion and the Sibyls. 14^ just to Tib — that is — ^just read this letter from the illus- trious prefect Sejanus to my father." Claudius, very pale and biting his lip, ran his eye in a moment through the document, and giving it back to Benigna awaited the communication. " Well," said she, " only this moment have I learnt the easy, the trifling condition which the generous Caesar, and tribune of the people, attaches to his bounty." There was a meaning smile interchanged among the slaves, which escaped none present except Benigna; and Claudius became yet more pallid. " The prefect Sejanus has just told Master Paulus," pursued the young maiden, " that you have only to break a horse for Tiberius Caesar to obtain forthwith your freedom, and fifty thousand sesterces, too," she added in a lower voice. A dead silence ensued, and lasted for several instants. Paulus .iEmilius, naturally penetrating and of a vivid though imperfectly-educated mind, discerned this much, that some mystery, some not insignificant secret, was in the act of disclosiffe. The illustrious visitor from Athens had let the hand which lay on Paulus's shoulder fall negligently to his side, and with his head thrown a little back, and a somewhat downward-sweeping glance, was surve}ring the scese. He possessed a far higher order of intellect than the gallant and bright-witted youth who was standing beside him; and had received, in the largest measure that the erudite civilization of classic antiquity could afford, that finished mental train- ing which was precisely what Paulus, however accom- plished in all athletic exercises, rather lacked. Both the 150 Dion and the Sibyls. youths easily saw that something was to come; they both felt that a secret was on the leap. " Break a horse! " exclaimed the slave Claudius, with paiched, white lips ; " I am a poor lad who have always been at the desk! What do I know of horses or of riding ? " There was an inclination to titter among the clerks, but it was checked by their good-nature — indeed, by their liking for Claudius; they all looked up, however. " Your illustrious master," replied the magister, or steward, or major-domo, " has thought of this, and, in- deed, of everything; " again the man directed the same shamefaced glance as before toward Dion. "Know- ing, probably, your unexpertness in horses, which is no secret among your fellow-slaves, and, in truth, among all your acquaintances, Tiberius Caesar has, in the first place, selected for you the very animal, out of all his stables, which you are to ride at the games in the circus before the couple of hundred thousand people who will crowd the champaign." " At the games ! " interrupted Claudius, " and in the circus ! Why, all who know me know that I am an arrant coward." Like a burst of bells, peal upon peal, irrepressible, joyotis, defiant, and frank, as if ringing with astonish- ment and scorn at the thing, yet also full of friendliness and honest, pitying love for the person, broke forth the laugh of Paulus. It was so genuine and so infectious, that even Dion smiled in a critical, musing way, while all the slaves chuckled audibly, and the slave chained to the staple near the door rattled his brass fastenings at his sides. Only three individuals preserved their gravity: Dion and the Sibyls. 151 the shamefaced steward, poor little frightened Benigna, and the astonished Claudius himself. " In the second place," pursued the magister or steward, " besides choosing for you the very animal, the individual and particular horse, which you are to ride, the Caesar has considerately determined and decided, in view of yomr deserved popularity among all your acquaintances, that, if any acquaintance of yours, any of your numerous friends, any other person, in fine, who- ever, in your stead shall volunteer to break this horse for Tiberius Cxsar, you shall receive your freedom and the fifty thotisand sesterces the very next morning, ex- actly the same." A rather weak and vague murmur of applause from the slaves followed this official statement. " And so the Caesar," said Claudius, " has both selected me the steed, and has allowed me a substitute to break him, if I can find any substitute. Suppose, however, that I decline such conditions of liberty alto- gether — ^what then ? " " Then Tiberius Caesar sells you to-morrow morning to Vedius Pollio of Pompeii, who has come hither on purpose to buy you, and carry you home to his Cumaean villa." " To his tank, you mean," repUed poor Claudius, " in order that I may fatten his lampreys. I am in a pretty species of predicament. But name the horse which I am to break at the games." Dion turned his head slightly toward the steward, who was about to answer, and the steward remained silent. A sort of excitement shot through the apartment. "Name the horse, if you please, honored magister," 152 Dion and the Sibyls. said Claudius. Even now the steward could not, or did not, speak. Before the painful pause was broken, the attention of all present was arrested by a sudden uproar in the street. The noise of a furious trampling, combined with successive shrieks, whether of pain or terror, was borne into the palace. Dionysius, followed by Paulus, by Claudius, by the steward, and Benigna, ran to the window, if such it can be termed, drew aside the silken curtain, and pushed open the gaudily-painted, perforated shutter, when a strange and alarming spectacle was presented in the open space formed by cross-streets before the left front of the mansion. A magnificent horse, of bigger statiure, yet of more elegant proportions, than the horses which were then used for the Roman cavalry, was in the act of rearing ; and within stroke of his fore-feet, on coming down, lay a man, face under, motionless, a woollen tunic ripped open behind at the shoulder, and disclosing some sort of wound, from which blood was flowing. The horse, which was of a bright roan color, was neither ridden nor saddled, but girt with a cloth round the belly, and led, or rather held back, by two long cavassons, which a couple of powerfully-built, swarthy men, dressed like slaves, held at the further ends on opposite sides of the beast, considerably apart, and perhaps thirty feet behind him. One of these lines or reins — that nearest the palace — was taut, the other was slack; and the slave who held the former had rolled it twice or thrice round his bare arm, and was leaning back, and hauling, hand over hand. Dion and the Sibyls. 153 The animal had apparently stricken on the back, un- awares, with a fore-foot play and a pawing blow, the man who was lying so still and motionless on the pave- ment, and the beast, having reared, was now trying to come down upon his victim. But no sooner were his fore-legs in the air than he, of course, thereby yielded a sudden purchase to the groom who was pulling him with the taut cavasson, and this man was thus at last en- abled to drag him fairly off his hind-legs, and to bring him with a hollow thump to the ground upon his side. Be- fore the brute could again struggle to his feet, four or five soldiers, who happened to be nigh, running to the rescue, had lifted, and carried out of harm's way, the prostrate and wounded man. " That is the very horse ! " exclaimed the magister, stretching his neck between the shoulders of Dion and Paulus, at the small window of the palace. " I observe," said Paulus, "that the cavasson is ringed to a muzzle — the beast is indisputably muzzled." " Why is he muzzled? " " Because," replied the magister, "he eats people!" " Eats people! "echoed Paulus, in surprise. "Ogods!" cried Benigna. " Yes," quoth the steward ; " the horse is priceless ; he comes of an inestimable breed ; that is the present representative of the Sejan race of steeds. Your Tauric horses are cats in comparison ; your cavalry horses but goats. That animal is directly descended from the real horse Sejanus, and excels, they even say, his sire, and indeed he also in his turn goes now by the old name. He is the horse Sejanus." At these words Paulus could not, though he tried t54 Dion and the Sibyls. hard, help casting one glance toward Benigna, who had been with him only so short a time before at the top of the palace, listening to the conversation of the tipsy patricians. The poor little girl had become very white and very scare-faced. "Tell us more," said Dionysius, "of this matter, worthy magister. We have all heard that phrase of ill- omen — 'such and such a person has the horse Sejanus ' — ^meaning that he is unlucky, that he is doomed to de- struction. Now, what is the origin and what is the true value of this popular proverb ? " " Like all popular proverbs," replied the steward, with a bow of the deepest reverence to the young Athenian philosopher, " it has some value, my lord, and a real foundation, although Tiberius has determined to confute it by practical proof. You must know, most illustrious senator of Athens, that during the civil wars which preceded the summer-day stillness of this glorious reign of Augustus, no one ever appeared in battlefield or fes- tive show so splendidly mounted as the knight Cneius Sejus, whose name has attached itself to the race. " His horse, which was of enormous proportions, like the beast you have just beheld, would try to throw you first and would try to eat you afterward. Few could ride him: and then his plan was simple. Those whom he threw he would beat to death with his paws, and then tear them to pieces with his teeth. Moreover, if he could not dislodge his rider by honest plung- ing and fair play, he would writhe his neck round like a serpent — ^indeed, the square front, large eyes, and supple neck remind one of a serpent ; he would twist Ais head back, I say, all white and dazzUng, with the Dion and the Sibyls. 155 ears laid close, the lips drawn away, and the glitter of his teeth displayed, and, seizing the knee-cap or the shinbone, would tear it off, and bring down the best horseman that ever bestrode a Bucephalus. What usually followed was frightful to behold; for, once a rider was dismounted, the shoulder has been seen to come away between the brute's teeth, with knots and tresses of tendons dripping blood like tendrils, and the ferocious horse has been known with his great flat grind- ers to crush the skull of the fallen person, and lap up the brains — as you would crack a nut — after which, he paws the prostrate figure till it no longer resembles the form of man. But the present horse Sejanus, which you have just beheld, excels all in strength, beauty, and ferocity; he belongs to my master Tiberius." " Ah gods ! " exclaimed poor Benigna ; " this is the description of a demon rather than of a beast." Dionysius and Paulus exchanged one significant glance, and the former said: " What became of the first possessor, who yields his name to so unexampled a breed of horses? what became of the knight Sejus ? " " A whisper had transpired, illustrious sir," replied the steward, " that this unhappy man had fed the brute upon human flesh. Mark Antony, who coveted possession of the horse, brought some accusation, but not this, against the knight, who was eventually put to death ; but Dolabella, the former lieutenant of Julius Caesar, had just before given a hundred thousand sesterces ($4,000) to Sejus for the animal; therefore Antony killed the knight for nothing, and failed to get Sejanus ; at least he failed that time. Dolabella, however, did not 156 Dion and the Sibyls. prosper; he almost immediately afterward murdered him- self. Cassius thereupon became the next master of the Sejan horse, and Cassius rode him at the fatal battle of Philippi, losing which, Cassius, in his turn, after that re- solute fashion of which we all have heard, put an end to his own existence." " To one form of it," observed Dionysius. " This time," continued the magister, bowing, " Mark Antony had his way — he became at last the lord of the Sejan horse, but likewise he, in his turn, was doomed to exemplify the brute's ominous reputation ; for Antony, as you know, killed himself a little subsequently at Alex- andria. The horse had four proprietors in a very short period, and in immediate succession, the first of whom was cruelly slain, and the three others slew themselves. Hence, noble sir, the proverb." By this time, the magister had told his tale, the street outside had become empty and silent, and the parties within the chamber had thoroughly mastered and under- stood the horrible truth which underlay the case of the slave Claudius, and this new instance of Tiberius's wrath and vengeance. The magister, Claudius, and Benigna had returned to the other end of the room, where the slaves were writ- ing, and had left Paulus and Dion still standing thought- fully near the window. Claudius exclaimed, " My ttum it is at present ; it will be some one else's soon ! " He and Benigna were now whispering together. The magister stood a little apart, looking on the ground in a deep reverie, his chin buried in the hollow of his right hand, the arm of which was folded across Dion and the Sibyls. 157 his chest. The slaves were bending over their work in silence. Says Paulus in a low voice to Dion : " You have high credit with the emperor, illustrious Athenian; and sure- ly if you were to tell him the whole case, he would in- terfere to check the cruelty of this man, this Tiberius." " What, Augustus do this for a slave ? " replied Dion mournfully. "The emperor would not, and by the laws could not, interfere with Vedius PoUio, or any private knight, in the treatment or government of his slaves, who are deemed to be the absolute property of their re- spective lords; what chance, then, that he should meddle, or, if he meddled, that he should successfully meddle, with Tiberius Caesar on behalf of an offending slave ? And this, too, for the sake, remember, of a low-bom girl ? Women are accounted void of death- less souls, my friend, even by some who suspect that men may be immortal. By astuteness, by beauty, not beauteously employed, and, above all, by the effect of habit, imperceptible as a plant in its growth, stealthy as the prehensile ivy, some few individual women, like Livia, Tiberius's mother, and Julia, Augustus's daugh- ter, have acquired great accidental power. But to lay down the principle that the slightest trouble should be taken for these slaves, would in this Roman world raise a symphony of derision as musical as the cry of the Thessalian hounds when their game is afoot." Paulus, buried in thought, stole a look full of pity toward the further end of the apartment. " Slaves, women, laws, gladiators," he muttered, "and brute power prevalent as a god. Every day, noble Athenian, I learn something which fills me with hatred and scorn X58 Dion and the Sibyls. for the system amid which we are living." He then told Dion the story of Thellus and Alba; he next laid before him the exact circumstances of Benigna and Claudius ; relating what had occurred that very morn- ing, and by no means omitting the strange and wonder- fraught conversation at the door of the palace, after which he added: " I declare to you solemnly — but then I am no more than an uninstructed youth, having neither your natural gifts nor your acquired knowledge — I never heard any- thing more enchanting, more exalted, more consoling, and, to my poor mind, more reasonable, or more prob- able, than that some god is quickly to come down from heaven and reform and control this abominable world. Why do I say probable ? Because it would be godlike to do it. I would ask nothing better, therefore, than to be allowed to join you and go with you all over the world ; searching and well weighing whatever evidences and signs may be accessible to man's righteously discon- tented and justly wrathful industry in such a task; and I would be in your company when you explored and decided whether this sublime dream, this noble, gener- ous, compensating hope, this grand and surely divine tradition, be a truth, or, ah me! ah me! nothing but a vain poem of the future — a beautiful promise never to be realized, the specious mockery of some cruel muse." Dion's blue eyes kindled and burned, but he re- mained silent. "In the meantime, listen further," added Paulus. " What would the divine being who is thus expected, were he in this room, deem of this transaction before our eyes? You have heard the steward's account of Dion and the Sibyls. /59 the horse Sejanus ; you have heard Claudius's allusion to Vedius Pollio's lampreys. Now, you are a wise, witty, and eloquent person, and you can correct me if I say wrong — in what is the man whom the horse Se- janus, for instance, throws and tears to pieces better than the horse ? In what is the man whom the lam- preys devour better than the lampreys? I say the horse and the lampreys are better than the man, if mere power be a thing more to be esteemed and hon- ored than what is right, and just, and honorable, and estimable; for the lampreys and the horse possess the greater might, most indubitably, in the cases mentioned. The elephant is stronger than we, the hound is swifter, the raven Uves much longer. Either the mere power to do a thing deserves my esteem more than any other object or consideration, and therefore, whoever can trample down his fellow-men, and gratify all his brutal instincts at the expense of their lives, their safety, their happiness, their reasonable free-will, is more estimable than he who is just, truthful, kind, generous, and noble — either, I say, the man who is strong against his fel- lows is more good than he who is good — and the words justice, right, gentleness, humanity, honor, keeping faith in promises, pity for poor little women who are oppressed and brutally used, virtue, and such noises made by my tongue against my palate, express nothing which can be understood, nothing in which any mind can find any meaning — either, I again say, the lampreys and the Sejan horse are more to be esteemed, and valued, and loved than my sister or my mother, or it is not true that the mere power of Tiberius, combined with the brutish incUnation to do a thing, terminates the question whether i6o Dion and the Siiyls. it is right to do it. The moment I like to do anything, if I can do it, is it necessarily right that I should do it ? The moment two persons have a difference, is it right for either of them, and equally right for each of them, to murder the other ? But if it was the intention of this great being, this god who is expected to appear immediately among us, that we should be dependent upon each other, each doing for the other what the other cannot do for himself — and I am sure of it — then it will please him, Dion, if I consider what is helpful and just and generous. Or am I wrong? Is virtue a dream ? Are contrary things in the same cases equally good ? Are contrary things in the same cases equally beautiful ? "Are my brutish instincts or inclinations, which vary as things vary round me, my only law ? Is each of us intended by this great being to be at war with all the rest ? to regard the positive power each of us may have as our sole restriction ? to destroy and injure all the others by whom we could be served, if we would for our parts also serve and help ? And must women, for instance, being the weaker, be brutally used ? Tell me, Dion, will it please this great being if I try to render service to my fellow-men, who must have the same natural claims to his consideration as I have ? or does he wish me to hurt them and them to hurt me, accord- ing as we may each have the power ? Is there nothing higher in a man than his external power of action? Answer — you are a philosopher." The countenance of Dion blazed for one instant, as if the light of a passing torch had been shed upon a mirror, and then resumed the less vivid effulgence of Dion and the Sibyls. i6i that permanent intellectual beauty which was its ordi- nary characteristic. He replied : "All the philosophy that ever was taught or thought could not lead you to truer conclusions." " Then," returned Paulus, " come back with me to the other end of the room." " Benigna," said Paulus, " yoiu- kindness to my sister and mother, and your natural probity, had something, I think, to do with beginning this trouble in which you and your intended find yourselves. As you were not unmindful of us, it is but right that we should not be unmindful of you. Tiberius pennits any friend of Claudius the slave to be a substitute in breaking the horse Sejanus; and Claudius is to have his freedom and fifty thousand sesterces, and to many you, whom I see to be a good, honorable-hearted girl, all the same as if he had complied with the terms in person. This was thoughtful, and, I suppose, generous of Tiberius Csesar." " Would any of these youths who hear me," added he, turning round, "Uke to break the fine-looking steed at the games, before all the people, instead of Claudius? " , No one rephed. " It will be a distinguished act," persisted he. Dead silence still. "Then I will do it myself," he said. "Magister, make a formal note of the matter in your tablets; and be so good as to inform the Caesar of it, in order that I, on my side, may learn place and time." The magister, with a low bow and a face expressing the most generous and boundless astonishment, grasped bis prettily-mounted stylus, and, taking the pugillares 1 62 Dion and the Sibyls. from his girdle, drew a long breath, and requested Paulus to favor him with his name and address. " I am," replied he, "the Klnight Paulus Lepidus .^milius, son of one of the victors at PhiUppi, nephew of the ex-triimivir. I reside at Crispus's inn, and am at present a promised prisoner of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune." While the steward wrote in his tablet, Benigna uttered one or two little gasps and fairly fainted away. The slave Claudius saved her from falling, and he now placed her on a bench against the wall. Paulus, intimating that he would like to return to Crispus's hostelry before dark, and having learnt, in reply to a question, that Claudius could procure from Thellus, the gladiator, a vehicle for Benigna, and that he would request Thellus himself to convey her home, turned to take leave of Dion. The Athenian, however, said he would show him the way out of the palace. They went silent and thought- ful. In the impluvium they found a little crowd smr- rounding Augustus, who had returned from his prome- nade to the camp, and who was throwing crumbs c& bread among some pigeons near the central fountain. Two ladies were of the company, one of whom, in advanced age, was evidently the Empress Livia, but for whose influence and management Germanicus — cer- tainly not her ungrateful son Tiberius — would have been the next master of the world. The other lady, who was past her prime, had still abundant vestiges of a beauty which must once have been very remark- able. She was painted red and plastered white, with im- JJion and the Sibyls, 163 mense care, to look some fifteen years younger than she truly was. Her coimtenance betrayed to a good physiognomist, at first glance, the horrible life she had led. Paulus, whose experience was little, and although she fastened upon him a flaming glance, which she intended to be full both of condescension and fascination, thought that he had seldom seen a woman either more repul- sive or more insanely haughty. It was Julia, the new and abhorred wife of Tiberius. Not long before, at the request of Augustus, who was always planning to dispose of Julia, Tiberius had given up for her the only woman he ever loved, Agrippina Marcella. Tiberius so loved her, if it deserves to be termed love, that when, being thus deserted, she took another hus- band (Asinius Gailus), he, mad with jealousy, threw him into a dungeon and kept him there till he died, as Suetonius and Tacitus record. " Ah, my Athenian ! " said the emperor to Dionysius, placing a hand afEectionately on the youth's shoulder, •' could you satisfy me that those splendid theories of yours are more than dreams and fancies ; that really there is one eternal, all-wise, and omnipotent spirit, who made this universal frame of things, and governs it as an absolute monarch; that he made us ; that in us he made a spirit, a soul, a ghost, a thinking principle, which will never die ; and that I, who am going down to the tomb, am only to change my mode of existence; that I shall not wholly descend thither ; that an urn will not contain everything which will remain of me ; and all this in a very different sense from that which 164 Dion and the Sibyls. poor Horace meant. But why speak of it ? Has not Plato failed?" " Plato," replied Dionysius, " neither quite failed nor is quite understood, illustrious emperor. But you were saying, if I could satisfy you. Be pleased to finish. Grant I could satisfy you ; what then ? " " Satisfy me that one eternal sovereign of the universe Kves, and that what now thinks in me," returned the emperor, while the courtly group made a circle, " will never cease to think ; that what is now conscious within me will be conscious for ever ; that now, in more than a mere poetical allusion to my fame — and on the word of Augustus Caesar, there is no reasonable request within the entire reach and compass of my power which I will refuse you.'' "And what sort of a hearing, emperor," inquired Dion, " and imder what circumstances, and upon what conditions, will you be pleased to give me ? and when ? and where ? " " In this palace, before the games end," replied Augustus. " The hearing shall form an evening's enter- tainment for our whole circle and attendance. You shall sustain your doctrines, while our celebrated ad- vocates and orators, Antistius Labio and Domitius Afer, who disagree with them, I know, shall oppose you. Let me see. The Caesars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with their ladies, and our host Mamurra and his family, and all our circle, shall be present Titus Livy, Lucius Varius, Velleius Paterculus, and the greatest orator Rome ever produced, except Cicero" (the old man mentioned with watery eyes the incomparable genius to whose murder he had consented in his youth) — "I Dion and the Sibyls. 165 mean Quintus Haterius — shall form a judicial jury. Haterius shall pronounce the sentence. Dare you face such an ordeal?" " I will accept it," repUed the Athenian, blushing ; " I will accept the ordeal with fear. Daring is con- trasted with trembling; but, although my daring trem- bles, yet my trepidation dares." " Oh ! how enchanting ! " cried the august Julia ; " we shall hear the eloquent Athenian." And she clasped her hands and sent an unutterable glance toward Dion, who saw it not. " It will be very interesting indeed," added the aged empress. " Better for once than even the mighty comedy of the palace," said Lucius Yaiius. " Better than the gladiators," added Velleius Pater- culns. "An idea worthy of the time of Virgil and Maecenas," said Titus Livy. "Worthy of Augustus's time," subjoined Tiberius, who was leaning against one of the pillars which sup- ported the gallery of the impluvium. "Worthy of his dotage," muttered Cneius Piso to Tiberius, with a scowl. " Worthy," said a handsome man, with wavy, crisp, brown locks, in the early prime of Ufe, whose military tunic was crossed with the broad purple stripe, " worthy of Athens in the days of Plato ; and as Demosthenes addressed the people after hstening to the reporter of Socrates, so Haterius shall tell this company what he thinks, after listening to Dion." " Haterius is getting old," said Haterius. 1 66 Dion and the Sibyls. " You may live," said Augustus, " to be a hundred, but you will never be old ; just as our Cneius Kso here never was young." There was a laugh. The Haterius in questron was he to whom Ben Jonson compared Shakespeare as a talker, and of whom, then past eighty, Augustus used, Seneca tells us, to say that his careering thoughts re- sembled a chariot whose rapidity threatened to set its own wheels on fire, and that he required to be held by a drag — " sufflaminandus.^' Dion now bowed and was moving away, followed modestly by Paulus, who desired to draw no attention to himself, when the steward, or magister, glided quickly up the colonnade of the impluvium to the pillar against which Tiberius was leaning, whispered something, handed his tablets to the Caesar, and, in answer to a glance of surprised inquiry, looked toward and indicated Paulus. Tiberius immediately passed Pavdus and Dion, saying in an undertone, " Follow me," and led the way into a small empty chamber, of which, when the two youths had entered it, he closed the door. " You aie going to break the horse called Sejanus ?" said he, turning round and standing. Paulus assented. " Then you must do so on the fourth day from this, in the review-ground of the camp, an hour before sunset." Paulus bowed. "Have you anything to inquire, to request, or to ob- serve ? " pursued Tiberius. " Am I to ride the horse muzzled, sir ? " asked the youth. Dion and the Sibyls. 167 " The muzzle will be snatched off by a contrivance of the cavasson, after you mount him," replied Tiberius, looking steadfastly at the other. " Then, instead of a whip, may I carry any instru- ment I please in my hands ? " demanded Paulus ; " my sword, for example ? " " Yes," answered Tiberius; " but you must not injure the horse; he is of matchless price." "But," persisted Paulus, "your justice, illustrious Caesar, will make a distinction between any injury which the steed may do to himself and any which I may do to him. For instance, he might dash himself against some obstruction, or into the river Liris, and in trying to clamber out again might be harmed. Such injuries would be inflicted by himself, not by me. The hurt I shall do him either by spear, or by sword, or by any other instrument, will not be intended to touch his life or his health, nor likely to do so. If I do make any scars, I think the hair will grow again." " He will not be so scrupulous on his side," said Tibe- rius ; " however, your distinction is reasonable. Have you an]rthing else to ask?" " Certainly I have," said Paulus; " it is that no one shall give him any food or drink, except what I my- self shall bring, for twentj'-four hours before I ride him." Tiberius uttered a disagreeable laugh. " Am I to let you starve Sejanus ? " he asked. "That is not my meaning, sir," answered Paulus quietly. " I will give him as much com and water as he will take. I wish to prevent him from having any other kind of provender. There are articles which will make a horse drunk or mad." i68 Dion and the Sifyls. " I agree," replied Tiberius, " that he shall have only com and water, provided he have as much of both as my own servant wishes ; nor have I any objection that the servant should receive these articles from you alone, or from yovu: groom." Paulus inclined his head and kept silence. " Nothing more to stipulate, I perceive," observed Tiberius. The youth admitted that he had not ; and, seeing the Caesar move, he opened the door, held it open while the great man passed through, and then, taking a friend- ly leave of Dion, hastily quitted the palace. Tiberius, meeting Sejanus, took him aside and said: " We have got rid of the brother ! You must have everything ready to convey her to Rome the fifth day firom this. And now, enough of private matters. I am sick of them. The affairs of the empire await me ! " Part ii. CHAPTER I. She die was cast, and Paulus went away plighted to an undertaking which appeared sufficiently arduous, and some of the chances of which were even ftdl of horror. The news of the arrangement spread through the palace of the Mamurras before he had well quitted Formiae. From the palace it circulated through the town, from the town it reached the camp the same even- ing; the next day the surrounding country knew it. Carrier-pigeons* had borne to Rome a hint of the gaye- ties, the interest, and the splendor which the simultaneous occurrence of the emperor's visit, and the collection of an army for real fighting purposes (in fact, to repel the German invasion), were likely to call forth in the old Latian town; and now the same aerial messengers apprised many a sated circus-goer in the capital that a very pretty novelty indeed would be added to the con- tests of gladiators and the battles of wild beasts. * It was some fiftjr years before, at the siege of Modena, that the first recorded instance, so far as I am aware, occurred of making the pigeon a letter-carrier. 169 170 Dion and the Sibyls. The concourse pouring into and converging from all parts toward Formiae, which had already been so exten- sive, increased, therefore, into an enormous concentric movement. Nothing can better show what a prodigious multitude was thus accidentally collected than the fact that, even at Rome (which then contained four millions of inhabitants), a diminution of pressure was percep- tible, for the time, to those who remained. This change resembled what Londoners experience on the Derby day. Paulus, that evening, having passed a considerable time with his mother and sister (to whom he communi- cated the fact of his engagement without alarming them by explaining its peculiar horrors), felt little inclined to sleep. When, therefore, the lanista Thellus, who had, as Claudius said he would invite him to do, brought back Benigna to Crispus's inn, was taking his leave of the Lady Aglais and of Agatha, Paulus said to him : "Do not go soon; but come down into the garden and let us take a stroll. We may not often be able to converse with each other hereafter." " Gladly, my valiant youth," said Thellus ; and they descended together. A beautiful starry and moonlit night looked down over Italy, as they sauntered in the fragrant garden, conversing a little and then relapsing into thoughtful silence. Presently Thellus said: " This adventure of yoiu-s makes me unhappy." " Well," returned Paulus, " my mother and sister have such need of my protection that I feel no levity about, it myself. I confess that it is a jrave business." IHon and the Sibyls. 171 They now walked up and down the laurel alley a few turns, absorbed in thought. Suddenly two men approached them along two dif- ferent gravel-walks in the garden, one dressed as a slave, the other in the uniform of a decurion, a legionary oflScer, slightly more important than a modem sergeant of the line in the English army. The slave had one of the worst countenances, and the decurion one of the most honest, that Faulus in his very limited or TheUus in his immense experience had ever beheld. Paulus recognized the slave at once ; it was that Lygdus who had endeavored to bring him to the ground by a side-sweep of Cneius Piso's sword, which this man, as the reader will remember, was carrying at the time. The decurion gave Paulus a letter, directed in the same handwriting, folded in the same style, and its silk thread sealed with the same device of a frog, as a cer- tain communication which he had once before received. The moon shone high, and so calm was the night that it proved easy to read the bold characters. They ran thus: " Velleius Paterculus, military tribune, salutes Paulus Lepidus ^milius. Renounce this absurd engagement, which cannot concern you. It is yet possible, but will be too late to-morrow, to plead ignorance of what you were undertaking. Leave wretched slaves to their fate ! —Vale." Paulus, after reading this note, begged the decurion to wait, and, turning to Lygdus, asked his business. The slave stated his name, and said he was appointed to receive, dating from the day after next, the proven- 172 Dion and the Silyli. der which he understood Paulus to be desirous of furnishing for the use of the Sejan horse. " Has Tiberius Caesar appointed you ? " " Sir, yes." " Of course, then, you are used to horses ? " " Sir, I have always belonged to the stable," said Lygdus. " But," pursued Paulus, " am I then forbidden to enter the stable myself, and make acquaintance with the horse I have to break ? " " Sir, I have orders," answered this Lygdus — who, as I think I have already mentioned, was destined, as the instrument of Cneius Piso and Plancina, some few years later, to be the cruel assassin of Germanicus — " I have orders always to admit you, and always to watch you." " You to watch a Roman knight ! " " For that matter, most honored sir," answered Lyg- dus, " the rank of the person watched does not alter the eyes of the watcher. I could watch a Roman senator, or even a Roman Caesar, if necessary." " I will be security you could," said Thellus, whose great and almost diaphanous nostrils quivered as he spoke. Lygdus, by way of answer, withdrew a pace. The decurion, meanwhile, had taken off his helmet, and the starry heavens were not more clear than his in- dignant, simple countenance. " It is well," said Paulus. " I will ask for you at Formiee. Go now." Lygdus therefore went away. " Decurion," said Paulus, " say to the esteemed Vel- Dion and the Sibyls. 173 leius Paterculus that I am very grateful to him; but what must be, must be." "And what is that, noble sir ? " answered the decu- rion, " in case my commanding officer should ask me for an explanation ? " " That I have given my word advertently, and will keep it faithfully," replied Paulus. " Is this, noble sir," said the decurion, " what you mean by that which must be ? " "Have I, then," answered Paulus, "said anything obscure or confused ? " " Only something unusual, excellent sir,'' said the decurion; "but not anything confused or obscure. Per- mit me to add, that the whole camp knows the circum- stances of this miserable undertaking, and wishes you Well ; and I feel in my single bosom the good w'shes of the whole camp for your success." " What is your name, brave decurion ? " " Longinus." " Well," replied Paulus, "if I siu-vive the struggle with this creature, I mean to join the expedition of Germani- cus Caesar, and I will have my eye upon you. I should like to be your informant that you were promoted to a higher rank, and to call you the Centturion Longinus." Tears were standing in the Roman decurion's eyes as he bowed to take leave. Thellus and Paulus, being now left again alone, re- sumed their walk up and down the laurel alley. " I am not so conversant with horses," observed Thellus, " as I could for your sake at present wish to be. But all animals, I notice, are more quiet when bhnded." 174 Dion and the Sibyls. At this moment the branches of a cross-walk rustled, and a stately figure in the Greek mantle (xkaiva\ approached them. "Are you not JEmilius, the nephew of the triumvir? " asked the stranger. " Yes," replied Paulus. " Who is this," continued the newcomer, looking at Thellus. " I have something to say which may concern your safety." " You may trust this brave man," said Paulus, "it is my friend Thellus." " Well," pursued the other, in a very low tone, "take this little pot of ointment ; and two hours before you have to ride the Sejan horse, go into his stable, make friends with him, and rub his nostrils with the contents. He will be then muzzled, you know. You will find him afterward docile." " Whom have I to thank for so much interest in me ? " demanded Paulus. " My name is Charicles," replied the stranger hesi- tatingly, and still speaking almost in a whisper ; " and I have the honor of numbering Dionysius of Athens among the best of my friends." " My mother," returned Paulus, " would, I think, be glad to see you some day soon." " I shall feel it an honor ; but pray excuse me to her to-night," said Charicles. " Tiberius Caesar knows nothing of my absence, and I had better return at once to Formise. I will visit you again." " But would this ointment injure the horse ? " in- quired Paulus. " Not by any means," said Charicles ; " it comes Dion and the Sibyls, 175 from a distant eastern land. It will merely make him sleepy. I have been more than an hour and a half handling the ingredients, and I can hardly keep awake myself. Forgive my huny — farewelL" And the stately Greek made an obeisance as he disappeared. Paulus remained, holding the pot, which consisted of some kind of porcelain, in his hand, and looking at it, when Thellus exclaimed, " Why, this laurel hedge is alive ! " In a moment he had sprung through it and returned, dragging in his mighty grasp Lygdus the slave. " Not yet departed ? " said Thellus. " Sir, I was asleep," replied the slave, with a look of terror. " I have but to tighten my fingers," cried Thellus, "and you will sleep so as not to wake in a hurry." " TheUusv" observed Paulus, " I am not depending either on this man's knowledge or on this man's igno- rance. I have quite other hopes and other grounds of confidence. Let him go." "Ah ! " said Thellus, " I would like to have the chastising of you. But go, as this noble gentleman desires; go, then, as the young Roman knight bids you ! " He shook the reptile-headed, down-looking, and side- looking slave away, and the latter disappeared. " O friend and noble sir ! " said Thellus, " it nearly breaks my heart to see you thus bound hand and foot, and doomed to destruction." " Have a good heart, dear Thellus," said Paulus. So they parted, the gladiator returning to his vehicle, and Paulas retiring to his room, where, as he lay on his 176 Dion and the Sibyls. bed and listened to the plash of the fountain in the im pluvium, he silently and calmly offered back to the great unknown God whom Dionysius worshiped, the life which he, that unknown Deity, could alone have given. CHAPTER II. ^EXT morning, before the family were out of their beds, Phylis the slave had returned from Monte Circello with the following note: " Marcus Lepidus iEmilius hails the widow of his brave and valiant brother. Come with your children. The last of mine has, alas ! died under the clemency of one man, and the liberality of another. The clement man is Augustus, the liberal man was Maecenas. All that I now retain is yours; and yours shall be all I may be able to leave. Farewell." But despite of this note, Paulus could not persuade his mother to depart from that neighborhood till after the trifling display of horsemanship, as he called it„ which he had to afiFord for the amusement of the Romans world on the evening of the third day ensuing. A little ruffled at his failure to persuade the Lady Aglais to go< away, he summoned their freedman Philip, and withs him for a companion started on foot for Formiae before noon, along a road as thronged at that moment and as; animated as the road to Epsom is the eve of what Lord Falmerston has rather affectedly, and, as applied ta an annual event, very incorrectly, called the Isthmian games of England. Scarcely had he and Philip entered the southern gate when they noticed a little crowd around some nurses^ one of whom, apparently a Nubian, held the hand of a magnificently attired child of any age between five and eight. At his side was an eastern-looking youth o£; 177 1^8 Dion and the Sibyls. about eighteen, whom the reader has met before. Thellus, the gladiator, was standing with folded arms on the outskirts of the suddenly collected concourse. The child had dropped some toy, which a dog had seized in his mouth, and had thereby defaced! The dog was now a prisoner, held fast by the throat in a slave's hands. " The poor dog knew not what he was doing," said the nurse. " I care nothing for that," cried the child, who was purple with passion. " Strangle him, Lygdus." And accordingly Lygdus tightened his grasp of the dog's throat till the animal's tongue was thrust forth ; the grasp was yet longer maintained, and the dog was throttled dead. " Is it dead ? " screamed the child. "Quite; see," replied Lygdus, casting away upon the street the breathless carcass. "Ah! beautiful! " cried the child; "now come away." ♦* Nice and neat as an execution," said a powerfully built, dusky, middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard, streaked with gray, around whom were several slaves in Asiatic dress. This person, also, the reader has met before. "But," added he, "I am going up for my own trial, and I hope it will not be followed by another execution." " I only hope it will," cried the interesting child. "What fun it would be to see a man strangled." "Who is that infant monster, Thellus?" asked Paulus. " He is the son of Germanicus and Agrippina; his name is Caius. You see, young as he is, he already Dion and the Sibyls. 179 wears the eoHgce of the common soldiers, among whom he continually lives. It is his deUght They nick- name him Caligula.* Do you know, there are good chances he yet wears the purple and succeeds Augus-1 tus, or at least Augustus's next heir, as emperor of the I world." •' Happy world will it be under his rule," said Faulus. Suddenly there were cries of " Make way." Lictors moved, making large room among the crowd. Sejanus appeared in the robes of a praetor; and Paulus and his friend Thellus foimd themselves borne along, like leaves in a stream, toward the back of the Mamurran palace, fa a large room on the ground-floor of which they pres- ently beheld the big, dusky-colored man of fifty or thereabouts, with the long, ruddy, gray-streaked beard, standing before a sort of bar. Behind the bar, on a chair of state, like the ctuule chair of the senators, Augustus was sitting. A crowd of famous persons, many of whom we have already had occasion to men- tion, stood behind him, and on either hand Livy, Lucius Varius, Haterius, Domitius Afer, Antistius Labio, Ger- manicus and Tiberius Cssar were there. In a row be- hind were Cneius Fiso, Pontius Pilate, and the boy Herod Agrippa. "And so," said Augustus, " you tell us you are the son of Herod the Great, as he is called; in other words, Herod the Idumsean; his son Alexander ? " " We have seen," said Paulus to Thellus, in a whis- per, " the fate of a dog; we are now to learu that of a king, or a pretender to the dignity." * I am aware of an apparent anachronism bere of some four or five years, according to Dio, Tadtus, Suetonioa. and others ; but Caligula was, I think, a few years older than these authors represent; for loaephns famishes a somewhat different calendar from theirs. i8o Dion and the Sibyls. " Great and dread commander, such I am," answered the red-bearded, big, dark man. " But," said Augustus, " the accredited rumor runs that Herod condemned his two sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, to death. Nay, I have the official report sent to me at the time by the prefect of Syria, and let- ters from Herod the Idumaean himself." " Herod condemned them, but the executioner killed others instead," answered the Jew. "They escaped to Sidon." " Them and they .' " said Augustus ; " you mean that others were executed instead of them ? " " Yes, my commander.'' " Why do you not," pursued Augustus, " say instead of us ? " " I do not understand," replied the Jew. " Are you not," asked Augustus, " one of them ? " " I am the son of Herod." "You speak as though you had gone out of that person. You speak rather like a historian than like a sufferer and an actor. You are talking of yourself and your brother, yet you say they, not we/" " Such is the style of the east, emperor." " Pardon me," said Augustus ; " I know the style of the east perfectly well. Solve me now another diffi- culty: I also well know Herod the Idumaean, many cases connected with whom were litigated before me and decided by me. Now, I never knew a man who, having determined that anybody was to die, took such methodical pains to carry that determination into eflEect. He dealt largely in executions ; and if there was a person in the world, it was Herod, who saw with Dion and the Sibyls. i8i his own eyes that his intended executions should be realities." " Mine was not," said the Jew, and a laugh arose in court. "All the Jews in Sidon know that I am Alexan- der, son of Herod; all those in Crete know it; all those in Melas know it; and when I landed at Dicearchia all the Jews received me as their king; and you are not ignorant, great emperor, that thousands of my country- men in Rome, the other day, carried me upon a royal litter through the streets, and clothed me in royal robes and ornaments, and received me, wherever I went, with shouts of welcome as Herod's son." "And you have, then," replied Augustus, after a pause, " been nurtured as a royal person in the east? " "Always," answered the Jew. "I, myself," returned Augustus, "have seen and known the son Alexander, as well as his father Herod ; and though you are not tmlike the son, yet you — show me your hands" The Jew stretched forth his hands. " Those hands have toiled from infancy. Uncover your neck and shoulders." This was done. Augustus immediately ordered the room to be cleared; and it was afterward known that he had extorted a confession of his imposture from this Alexander; and that, sparing his Ufe, he condemned him to row one of the state galleys in chains for the rest of his days. " Not much like dotage, all this," muttered Tiberius to Cneius Piso. The eastern-looking youth, holding the hand of the child Caius Caligula, and followed by Pontius Pilate, 1 82 I>ion and the Sibyls. waited for Augustus in a passage — through which Paulus and Theilus were now trying to make their way into the street. When the emperor came out, observing that the youth desired to speak with him, he stopped, saying: "What wish you, Herod Agrippa? " " Emperor, I have told you that this man is not my uncle." "And I," said Augustus, " have now settled the ques- tion. He is not." " This officer behind me (Pilate is his name) has been very obliging to us ever since our arrival. I wish, my sovereign, you would send him to Judea as procurator." " He is too young," replied Augustus ; " but I will put his name in my tablets. Perhaps, under my suc- cessor, he may obtain the oflSce." " I want a favor," cried the child Caius. " What is it, orator ? " asked Augustus. (Caligula displayed as a child a precocious volubility of speech, which procured him the epithet by which he was now addressed.) " That man, that black Jew — who pretended to be my friend's uncle — won't you put him to death?" " Extemi sunt isti mores," replied Augustus, quoting Cicero; "that would be quite a foreign proceeding. The anger that sheds imnecessary blood belongs to the levity of the Asiatics, or the" truculence of barba- rians." Meanwhile Paulus and Theilus, who had unavoidably overheard these scraps of conversation, emerged now once more into the street, and Theilus guided Paulus to toe staoles of Tiberius Caesar, where they found Lygdus Dion and the Sibyh. 183 expecting the visit He led thxm into a long range of buildings, and showed them, standing in a stall which had a door to itself, so contrived as to avoid the neces- sity of letting any other horses, when coming or going, pass him without some intervening protection, the fa- mous Sejan steed. The walls were tapestried with leafy vine-boughs, and the stable seemed very cool, clean, and well kept The stature of the ominous horse, as we have had occasion already to mention, was imusually large ; but the fineness of his form took away the idea of unwieldi- ness, and gave a guarantee of both power and speed. However, any person who had studied horses, and was learned in their points (which to a great extent merely means learned in their anatomy), would at a glance have condemned this one's head. It was, indeed, not lack- ing in physical elegance, although not lean enough; the forehead was very broad, but the eye was not sufficiently prominent nor mild in expression, and it shot forth a restless Ught ; the muzzle and the ears, moreover, were coarse; the bones, from the eye down, were too con- cave, and the nostril appeared to be too thick. Some- thing untrustworthy, and almost wicked, characterized the expression of the head altogether. The jaws were wide, and the neck was extraordinarily deep. The shoulders were not so flat or so thin as the Romans liked them to be; the girth round the heart was vast; the chest broad and full; the body barrel-shaped. The limbs were long (which, says Captain Nolan, " is weak- ness, not power"); but then the bones were everywhere well covered with muscle, the hind-legs being remark- ably straight in the drop; in short, they promised an 184 Dion and the Sibyls. immense stride when the animal should be urged to his fastest gallop. " Now," said Paulus, after attentively examining these and a great many other points, which it would be too technical for us to detail, " I see he is not muzzled, but tied by the head, and I perceive a curious arrangement — that platform behind his manger, and raised some- what higher than it. The object is to feed him thence, and approach him there, I suppose ? Moreover, I ob- serve you have pulleys in the roof and broad bands depending from them; do you, then, lift him off his legs when you groom him?" Lygdus assented. Paulus, after looking attentively at the animal's hoofs, and forming an idea of the state of his feet, inquired: " Is he savage to all alike, or can you, for instance, approach him?" " Sir, I always take my precautions," answered the slave. Paulus went round, and stood some ten minutes in front of the horse on the raised platform behind the manger, then shook a double handful of com down be- fore him and watched him eat it. Satisfied at length with this scrutiny, he now made arrangements for Philip to remain constantly in the stable, even sleeping there at night, and quitting it only to accompany the horse when taken out for exercise; and he made it clearly understood that Philip should superintend the feeding and grooming of the animal till he should be led forth for Paulus to ride him at the appointed time. We have said nothing to explain why the youth did not ride him muzzled, as often and as long as possible, during the Dion and the Sibyls. 185 two days which were still left for preparation ; the fact being that he proposed even now to do so, but found that, not having thought of stipulating for this as one of the conditions when he had his interview with Ti- berius, orders had been given to Lygdus that no person whatever was to mount the horse till the hour when Paulus was to attempt his subjugation, in presence of the court, camp and people. Very much disappointed, and blaming his own want of foresight in not having extorted so important a right, Paulus now left the freedman " on duty " in the stables, Thellus volunteering to revisit him, and to bring plenty of provisions of all sorts, and thus to save the necessity of purveying for him from the dis- tance of Crispus's inn. When our hero and the gladi- ator had retired, Philip began to make a couch of fresh and fragrant hay for himself on the platform behind the manger, muttering: " But if I sleep it shall be with one eye open and the other not quite closed. If I find that scoundrel, for he looks a scoundrel, plajring any tricks, I'll strangle him so surely as I have five fingers on each hand." As Philip thus muttered, Lygdus drew nigh and ad- dressed him. " Your young master, I fear," he said, " has not long to live; no one can ride this horse." " Three circumstances," replied Philip, seating him- self deUberately on a roll of hay, " are unknown to yoti. I will tell you them. The first is, that this is not at all a case for mere horsemanship, although it is not to be denied that horsemanship is necessary. Courage and wit are more needful than any bodily adroitness in re- minding brutes that their master is man. That is the 1 86 Dion and the Sibyls. first circumstance. The second is, that my young mas- ter learned his riding among the ^tolians, who are not matched in the world." " Take a sip of wine," said Lygdus, handing him a flask of hide. "After you," said the wary old freedman. Lygdus drank a little, wiped the mouth of the flask with a vine-leaf, and tendered it once more to Philip, saying : " The first and second of your remarks seem to me lo be appropriate, although I think the Gaulish riders equal to the ^tolians. I should like to hear the third cir- cumstance." Philip sipped some of the wine, gave back the vesse. to the slave, and proceeded: " The third has relation to your phrase, ' I fear.' My master, Paulus Lepidus vEmilius, has been bom and reared to fear death not over-much." "Edepol!^' cryed Lygdus; "what is to be feared more ? " " Well," said Philip, " various things he fancies, and /fancy so too. Considering that all men must die, and can die only once, and that it has become somehow, I suppose, by practice and decree, as natural as to be bom, and that we have been doing nothing for thou- sands of years but making way for each other in that manner, it would be an error to look upon death as the greatest evil. Why, man, I should go mad if that which none can avoid was the greatest evil that any can incur." "Edepol/" exclaimed the slave again; "you are apparently right. Yet what can be conceived worse Dion and the Sibyls. 187 than death ? You mean immense pain, long continu- ing; in which case a wise man would put an end to himseW." " Wise.' " returned Philip ; "but it would be useless to reason with such as you. Yon should have heard, as I have heard him, Dionysius the Athenian upon this topic. When you make such reflections, is it your big toe, for example, or your belly, or your elbow, or any part of your body, that makes them? You may put an end to your body, and we know what becomes of it. When it is no longer fit, as the young Athenian says, to be the house of that which thinks and reflects within it, this last departs ; for the body, once dead, ceases to think or reflect, and as soon as the thinker does thus depart, the body rots. " But that other thing which kept the body from rot- ting, that other thing which thinks and reflects, and which is conscious that it is always the same, that it always has been itself — that other thing which knows its own unalterable identity through all the changes of the body, from squalling childhood to stiff -kneed age — ^how can that other thing, which may easily depart out of the body and leave it to perish, depart out of itself t A thing may leave another thing ; but how can anything be left by itself? When this thing, says Dionysius, goes away from the body, the body always dies. It was, therefore, the body's- life. But out of its own self this life cannot go (can anything go out of itself?); and if it goes out of the body unbidden, what will it say to him who had put it therein when he asks. Sentinel, why have you quitted your post ? Servant, why have you left your charge ? What brings you hither ? I am i88 Dion and the Sibyls. angry with you ! What will this always conscious, always identical thing then reply ? " " You frighten me," said Lygdus. "What, then, can be more feared by a reasonable man than death ? " " My young master, for example," replied Philip, " so lang, be it always understood, as he is not his own mur- derer, would prefer to die in honor than to live In shame. His father, the brave Roman tribune, used to say to him as a boy, that a disgraced life was worse than a useless life, and a useless life worse than a noble death. But who comes hither ? " The interesting little child Caius Caligula, and the boy Herod Agrippa, entered the stable as Philip spoke. " Oh ! there is the big wild horse," cried the sweet in- fant, who had only just arrived at the use of his reason ; "but where is the young man that is to be eaten? I want to tell him what will become of him, and then to watch his face," " He is, I see, even now coming back," said Philip sternly. He stood up as he spoke, and an instant after ward Paulus, who was attended by the slave Claudius, bearing a basket of provisions for old Philip, crossed the threshold. " Ah ! " said Cahgula, " you are the person, are you not, who are to be first thrown off that horse, next to be danced upon by him, and finally to have your head crunched between his grinders, and that fine wavy hair of yours will not protect your head ? " " That is a graphic description," said Paulus; " but I trust it will not be reahzed." " Are you not very frightened ? Do you not feel very unhappy?" Dion and the Sidy Is. 189 Faulus seemed to experience some repugnance to con- verse with this child; but knowing him to belong to the imperial family, he answered with a calm smile : " Well, I do not feel the grinders yet." " I will fix my eyes fast upon you," returned the child, " from the moment you mount." " May they be blinded before they witness what tney wish to behold ! " muttered Philip. During this short conversation, Lygdus noticed some- thing white gleaming in a fold of Paulus's tunic at the side, and picked it, tmperceived by any one, out of the species of pocket where it lay. Caligula, after scruti- nizing Paulus's face, turned away, and ran rapidly up the stable, passing behind the horse. He skipped =ind danced a few moments on the other side, gazing at the animal, and exclaiming, " Good horse! fine horse ! beautiful horse ! " Lygdus immediately called out to him not to come back till he had closed the door of the box, the leaf of which was on the hither side, and could be flung to, and the slave proceeded to do this. But Caligiila, with a sort of skipping run, still uttering his exclamations and looking sideways into the stall as he passed, had already begun to return, giving Sejanus's heels as wide an ofiing as the place allowed. A short, ferocious whinny, more like the cry of some wild beast than the neigh of a horse, was heard, and Sejanus lashed out his hind legs. Caligula would probably have crossed, beyond range of harm, the line of this acknowledgment which the brute was making to him, in return for his ejaculatory compliments, only for the very precaution which Lygdus had taken, and which actually furnished the animal 1 9© Dion and' the Sibyli, with a projectile, and transmitted to a further distancu by means of the door-leaf, nearly the full force of th«s blow. As the door was swinging home, the powerful hoofs met it, and, shivering it from top to bottom, dashed it open again, and sent the outer edge of it and a large detached splinter against the middle of Caligula's forehead and face, from the hair down along the whole line of the nose ; for, as we have remarked, his face happened to be turned sideways to receive the blow just when it was deUvered. He fell insensible ; but having been afready in motion, the united effect of the two forces was to cast him beyond the reach of any further usage on the part of the Sejan steed. Lygdus im- mediately lifted him up, and he, with Herod Agrippa, carried Caligula into the open air. Paulus and Philip followed; but ascertaining that the injury was super- ficial, they returned to the stable, where they now were left alone, " I heard him tell you, my master," said Philip to Paulus, " that he would fasten his eyes upon you, when you mounted yonder brute ; now, he will not open those eyes for a week, and whatever happens to you, he is not going to see it. He is not seriously hurt ; he'll be as well as ever in ten days ; but for the present his beauty is spoilt, and he's as blind as the dead." Paulus now in a low tone related to the freedman, whose services would be necessary in the matter, the visit of Charicles, and the gift to him by that learned man of an unguent which, if rubbed into the horse's nostrils, would render him sleepy, and, therefore, quiet. The old servant expressed great wonder and admiration at such a device, and Paulus felt with his hand for the Dion and the Sibyls. 191 little porcelain pot where he remembered to have placed it Needless to say, it was gone. " Well," said the youth, after a few questions and answers had been exchanged, " I must even take my chance without it. Chaiicles, I hear, has just been summoned to Rome, so that I cannot get any more of the compoimd. Farewell; I must now return to Ciispus's inn." CHAPTER III. JHE day when the singular struggle was to occur, the expectation of which had excited such curi- osity, arose bright, breezeless, and sultry, and so continued till long past noon ; but the sirn was now sinking toward the Tyrrhenian Sea, and a cool, soft air had begun to blow as the hour approached when the nephew of the triumvir was to mount the horse Sejanus, in the presence of such a multitude as the fields of Formise had never before beheld, whether in times of peace or times of war. At the distance of a few miles on every side, the fair vales and slopes of Italy presented the appearance of a deserted land, over which no sound was heard save the drowsy hum of insects, the occasional sough of the rising breeze in the tops of the woods, and, predominant over all, far and near, the piercing ring of the cicala, with its musical rise and fall and its measured intervals. The fire of the wayside forge lay under its ashes; all its anger taking rest, its hoarse roar asleep, till the breath of the bellows should once more awaken it to resistance and torment it into fury. All the labors of tillage were suspended ; the plough wearied no team of oxen; little girls were watching the flocks and herds. Their fathers and mothers and brothers had all gone away since early morning, and would not return till nightfall. A lonely traveller from the south,i whose horse had cast a shoe and fallen lame, had no alterna- tive but to take off bridle and housings, leave them 192 Dion Mid the Sibyls. 19 j under a tree in charge of a little damsel five or six years old, turn his steed loose in a soft field of clover, and continue his own journey on foot along the silent highway, amid the silent land. The seats of the temporary amphitheatre were all filled; while within and beneath them, standing, but standing on three several elevations, contrived by means of planks (the rearmost being the highest), were six ranks of soldiers from the camp ; the two inner ranks consisting exclusively of ^lius Sejanus's Praetorians. Immediately behind the centre of the amphitheatre, where Augustus with his court sat upon a strongly-built, lofty, and somewhat projecting wooden platform, can- opied from the glare, a grove of tall and shady trees offered in their branches an accommodation of which the fullest advantage had been taken by a vast miscel- laneous multitude, chiefly youths and boys ; but among them soldiers who had received a hoUday, and had found no room for themselves in the amphitheatre, were also numerous, their costumes rendering them easily distinguishable. On each side of the large canopied platform of the emperor and the Caesars, with their court, were several seats of honor lined with purple and scarlet cloths, and connected with the platform by con- tinuous pavilion roofs, but having their own benches. Here many ladies and some boys and girls sat. It is in one of these we are ourselves going to take post, in- visible but watchful, unheard but hearing. On the seat immediately in front of ours, and, of course, a little below it, is a group of three persons, at- tended by a slave. With these persons, and even with their slave, we have made more or less acquaint- 194 Dion and the Sibyls. ance. One of them the doctors had forbidden to go forth; but he had come. He is a mere child; his pretty face is shockingly disfigured ; both his eyes are closed and blacked ; all the flesh round them is a discolored and contused mass, his head is bandaged, and every nerve in his countenance is twitching with the furious eagerness and curiosity of one whose organs of sight, if he could only see with them, would ravenously de- vour the spectacle which all the rest of that mighty multitude were to enjoy, and from which he alone was to be debarred. Amid the immense murmur of so many human voices, we have to listen with attention, in order to catch distinctly what the child says in his shrill treble tones. " Now mark you, good Cneius Piso, and you, Herod Agrippa, I am as blind as a stone ; and I have brought you here in no other character than as my eyes, my left and my right eye. If a single iota of what passes es- capes me, may all the gods destroy you both, worse than any Roman or Jew was ever destroyed before ! Has that beast of s, horse (if it was mine, I'd tether it by all four legs to the ground, and make a squadron of cavalry back their horses against it, and kick it into shreds and little bits) — has that beast of a horse come forth yet?" " Not yet, orator," answered Piso. " I see that your father, the illustrious Germanicus, has not taken his place in the emperor's pavilion; he is riding about yonder in the arena, and so is Tiberius Caesar. I dare say they will prefer to remain on horseback ; for they can thus see quite as well, while the scene continues to be enacted in this place, and if the Sejan horse should Dion and the Sibyls. 195 break away through the opening in the amphitheatre opposite to us, they could follow and still assist at the issue, whereas we could not." " But I want to see; I must see ; I'll get on my pony too! Ah, my sight! I could not ridebUnd! O that accursed horse ! " " Then," said Piso, " do you wish the youth to con- quer the horse, or the horse his rider ? " The child yelled, and struck his forehead furiously with his fists. "Oh! If I could only see ! I ought not to have come ! It is worse to be here, knowing what is to hap- pen, and having it all close under my eyes, and not to see it, than if I was far away and without the tempta- tions around me. It is the hell of Tantalus ; I cannot, cannot bear it." After a pause of impotent rage, he asked Piso was the crowd of spectators very large ? " It is the largest I ever beheld," answered Piso ; " it would be impossible to count it, or to guess the num- ber." " I wish every one present was stone blind at this very moment," said the dear child. "Thanks, orator, on the part of all here present," answered Piso. " Understand me — only for the moment," hastily re- turned Caligula ; "I would give them their sight again when I recovered my own." A pause. " Or even when to-day's show was over, perhaps." While yet he spoke, the hum and murmur, which had been incessant, died rapidly away. "What is it?" asked Caligula. 196 IHon and the Sibyls, " The Sejan horse is being led into the arena ; two men, as usual, hold two cavassons on opposite sides. He is muzzled; two other grooms are now slackening the muzzle, in order to get the bit well back between hia teeth by pulling up the reins which are under the muzzle, as the horse opens his mouth. " They have the bit properly placed now, and have quitted his head. Oh! what a spring! It has jerked the further cavasson-holder clean off his feet. O gods ! he has lost the cavasson, and the other man must be destroyed. No, bravo ! the fellow has regained the loop of his rein or thong, and hauls the beast handsomely back." " How can one man on either side," asked Caligula^ " hold him ? I have seen two on each side." " I understand," replied Piso ; but before he could finish his explanation or remark, or whatever it was de- signed to be, a sudden and impressive silence fell upon that vast assembly, and Piso stopped short. " What has happened now ? " whispered the child. " The rider has come forth," answered Piso, " and is walking toward the horse from the direction of the open space in front of us. By Jupiter ! a splendid youth ; it is not to be denied." " How is he dressed ? Has he his whip and stimuli (spurs) ? He will not need such helps, I surmise." " He has no spurs, and he carries nothing in his hands. He wears that foreign-looking head-gear, the broad- rimmed petasus, as a shade, no doubt, against the level rays of the sunset ; for I see he is giving directions ta the grooms, and they are contriving to bring the horse round with his head toward the west. Ah ! he thus faces Dion and the Sibyls. 197 the opening; I dare say he will try to push the animal into the excitement of a grand rush, and thus weary him at the outset. In that case, we shall not see much of the business ; he will be miles away over the country in a few minutes." " You will find that such an injustice will not be al- lowed," answered the child. " We must not be cheated out of our rights." " His tunic," continued Piso, " is belted tight, and I perceive that he wears some kind of greaves, which reach higher than the knee, that will protect him from the brute's teeth. Moreover, I noticed a contrivance in the horse's housings to rest the feet — ^you might call them stapeda; they seem to be made of plaited hide." " I don't care for his greaves," returned the child ; "the teeth may not wound him, but they will pull him off or make him lose his balance all the same. It is agreed, is it not, that, as soon as he is mounted, the muzzle is to be slipped oflE the horse? " " Certainly," said Piso. " Then the rest is certain," said the other. " How is it contrived, do you know ? " added he. " The muzzle consists of a mere roll of hide," replied Piso; "and it is those long reins alone which keep it folded, being passed in opposite directions roimd the animal's nose ; while therefore both the reins are pulled, or held tight, they bind the muzzle; but when one of them only is pulled, it opens the muzzle. Each groom has the same kind of double rein ; and each, acting in concert, will set the beast free as soon as they receive the signal." " Who gives the signal ? " 1^8 Dion and the Sibyls. "The rider himself, when he is fairly seated; but Tiberius will tell him when to mount." " Go on with your description of his dress and his looks. Does he seem to be afraid ? " " He still wears that queer sword; I should have fan- cied it cumbersome to him. Afraid ! I should say not No sign of it." "Per omnes/" At first, this dialogue was sustained in a whisper ; bui as the lull of all noise was again gradually replaced by that hoarse hum, which is blent out of a hundred thou- sand low-toned murmured words, Piso and tlie child Caligula raised their own voices, and the last exclama tion of Fiso was as loud as it was sudden. " Has anything further taken place ? " " Why, yes," said Cneius Piso; " and something which I do not understand. That old freedman of the youth, together with Thellus the gladiator, have approached him, and Thellus holds in each hand a sort of truncheon about a yard or more long ; the top of which for more than a foot is black ; the rest is sheathed or plated in bronze; the black top of the truncheon is thick; the rest, which is sheathed in the metal, is much thinner. The freedman who is by Thellus's side holds a small horn lantern in one hand, and tenders with the other a pair of large woollen gloves to his young master, who is even now putting them on. As he puts on his gloves he looks round the benches; he is look- ing our way now. What can he mean ? He has the audacity to wave his hand, and smile, and nod in this direction ! " The slave whom we have mentioned as forming the Dion and the Sibyls, 199 fourth in this group was no other than Claudius, whose part Paul us was now performing. " By your leave, most honored lords," said Claudius, " I think I am the person whom that vaUant youth is saluting." " True," said Piso, " he has taken your destined oflSce to-day, has he not?" "Yes, my lord," returned Claudius; "and having caught sight of me, he beckoned to me, doubtless, to bid me have good courage." " Well ! " ejaculated Piso, " that is a good joke. I think it is you who ought to beckon to him to have good courage. He needs it more than you." A moment after this remark, Cneius Piso suddenly turned to the child Caligula, and informed him that Tiberius was signing to him (Piso) to go down into the arena, and mount one of the spare horses ; and, although unwillingly, he must go. "And how shall I know what occurs ? " cried the passionate, voluble boy. "It is like plucking out one of my eyes. Herod Agrippa here speaks Latin with such a dreadful, greasy accent, and so slowly; he is but learning the language." Piso rose and said, " I have no choice but to obey ; you have the slave Claudius with you; he not only speaks fluently, but I'll answer for it he will watch all the stages of the struggle with at least as much attention as any person in all this crowd will ! His liberty, his wed- ding, and fifty thousand sesterces are at stake." Saying this, he descended the steps of the narrow gangway which was (with scores of similar stairs) the means contrived for reaching and quitting the higher 200 iHon and the Sibyls. seats in the temporary circus. A few moments after- ward, he was seen in the arena riding by the side of Tiberius to and fro. " Now, slave, remember your duty," cried the child Caligula; "let nothing escape your eyes or my ears. What next?" "Those queer-looking staves, my lord, which the illustrious Cneius Piso has mentioned as being in the hands of Thellus, have passed into those of the young knight, who is to conquer the terrible brute." " What ? the two truncheons with black, thick ends, and the rest of their length sheathed in metal ? do you say that the knight Paulus has taken them into his hands? What good can they do him ? " "Yes, my lord; he has now passed both of them into his left hand, and holds them by the thin ends. Thellus has withdrawn a few paces; the old freedman, Philip, remains still near the youth. Ha ! " "What?" "Tiberius Caesar has signalled the arena to be cleared. O gods! we shall soon see the issue now. I care not for my freedom; I care for the safety of that brave young knight." " Does he, then, seem to shrink ? " asked the child. " I do not," replied Claudius, " observe any shrinking, my lord. It is I who shrink. He has drawn slowly near the horse in front, and stands about half a yard from his left shoulder. He is following Tiberius Caesar with his eyes." "Go on!" " The arena is now clear of all save on the one hand the two Caesars and their retinues, who have taken their I^n and the Sibyls. 201 stand very near to us, just opposite to and beueath this platfonn, my lordj and on the other hand, the group around that horrible animal. Ah ! me miserable ! Ti- berius Caesar lifts his hand, and you hear the trumpet! That is the signal." "I hear it! I hear it!" cried the child, in a sort of ecstasy. "What follows now? Has the knight Faulus mounted ? " " No, my lord j he has " "He shrinks, does he not ?" interrupted the other, with a taunting giggle. " The horse trembles in every limb," said the slave ; "his nostrils dilate and quiver, and show scarlet, as if on fire; and his eyes shoot forth a blood-red gleam, and he has stooped his head, and " "But the man, the man ?" screamed Caius; "what of him ? Has he not failed, I say — lost heart ? " The most profound stillness had succeeded to the hubbub of- blended sounds which a moment previously filled the air. A trumpet blew a shrill prolonged minor note, and the child, laying his hand on Claudius's shoulder, and shaking him violently, cried to him to proceed with his descriptions ; addressing to him again the query, " Has that young man mounted ? And if so, in what style, with what success?" Notwithstanding the despotic impatience with which the inquiries were urged, the slave Claudius did not at first reply J and the infant heard rapid, eager mur- murs on all sides follow the trumpet blast, then a general burst of exclamations, which were instantly hushed. 20Z Dion and the Sibyls. " Why do you not speak ? " said Caius, in a species of whispered scream. " Pardon a momentary abstraction," replied Claudius. " While the trumpet was yet sounding, the young knight Paulus took o£E his hat quickly and bowed toward Tiberius Caesar and the emperor; and replacing his hat, he beckoned to the freedman Philip. This last has approached him, and they are even now speaking together." " Ha ! ha ! " interrupted the child; " then he has not mounted. He neither dares nor can he." " Philip," pursued Claudius, "has opened the lantern; his young master is thrusting the staves toward the light; the ends have caught fire, in a duU degree, with some smoke accompanying the flame. He turns quickly away from the freedman, and holding the staves still in his left hand, and a little away, he approaches the horse; now he stands with his feet close together. Oh ! he has sprung clean from the ground; he is in his seat. He has seized the bridle in his right hand and carried it to his mouth ; he takes it between his teeth. He is now relieving his left hand of one of those torches; he holds one in each hand, somewhat away from the body, nearly horizontal. The cavasson-holders at a distance are removing the muzzle, and the rider sends his feet firmly, yet I think not very far, through those rests which the illustrious Cneius Piso mentioned, those stapedcR of hide, the like of which I never saw before. I wonder they are not always used." " What of the horse ? Is he motionless ? " " Not less so than a statue," replied the slave ; " ex- -epting the eyes and nostrils, which last exhibit a ZHon and the Sibyls. 203 tremalous movement, and show scarlet, like hollow leaves or thin shells on fire. The brute's concave head, from the scarlet nostril to the lurid eye, looks wicked and dire." " How looks the rider ? " " Calm and heedful ; the slight occasional breath of air from the east carries away to the front the slow flame, blent with a Kttle smoke of those torches which he holds one in each hand." "What can they be for?" "I know not," replied Claudius. " I suppose they are intended," said the child, " to compel the Sejan horse to keep his head straight. Thus your vohmteer-substitute need not fear the beast's teeth. The issue seems, then, to be reduced to a trial of sheer horsemanship." "And in such a trial, most honored sir," rephed the slave, " I begin to have hopes. You should see the youth. The leading-reins are now loose. The muzzle is snatched away, and the contest has begun. Surely it seems one between a wild beast and a demigod." "Is he thrown?" "No; yes; so help me! he is oflE, but is off stand- ing." "Explain; proceed — I tell you, proceed!" "The horse, after a series of violent plunges, suddenly reared till he had nearly gained a perpendicular position upon his hind legs, the fore-feet pawinsr the air. Tlw rider, who seemed to be as little hable to lau as though he had been a part of the animal, then quickly passed his right foot out of the far stapeda, and dropping the bridle from his teeth, shpped down on the hither side. 204 Dion and the Sibyls. Hark! did you hear the crash with which the fore- feet have come down? The steed seemed to be very near falling backward, but after a struggle of two or three seconds recovered himself; the centre of his weight had not been carried rearward of the vertical line; and, O ye gods! just as you heard that ponderous thud with which he descended upon his fore-feet, the youth darted from the ground with a spring like his first, and he is now on the brute's back as before. He Stoops to the horse's neck; he has caught the bridle in his teeth, and lifts that brave, clear face again. Listen to the multitude! Oh! how the euge, euge, thunders from a hundred thousand sympathetic voices." " Ah, my sight ! " cried the child Caligula. "Ha! ha!" continued Claudius, transported out of himself. "I shall get my liberty to-day! Nor will my benefactor be injured. Ha ! ha ! The fell beast of a horse seems astonished. How he writhes his back, curving it hke some monstrous catamount. And lo! now he leaps from the ground with all four feet at the same time. I hever saw the like, except in animals of the cervine tribe. Ha! ha! leap away! Yes, stoop that ferocious-looking head, and shake it; and lash out with your death-deaUng hoofs. Your master is upon you, in his chair of power, and you'll shake your head off before you dislodge him from it. It is not with the poor literary slave Claudius that you have to deal! Oh ! what a paroxysm of plunges. I was frightened for you, then, brave young knight; but there you sit yet, calm and clear-faced. If I was frightened fcM- you, you are not frightened for yourself." "Oh! for a few minutes' sight!" said the child. Dion and the Sibyls. 205 " Has not the horse tried to twist his head round, and so to bring his teeth into play?" "Even now he tries," repUed Claudius; "but he is met on either side by the torch. The fiercest beast of the desert shrinks from fire. Prudent and fortunate device! Lo! the horse seems at last to have ascer- tained that he who has this day mounted him is worthy ■of his services; do you hear the tread of his hoofs, as he traces the circle of the arena, guided by those steady hands from which flames appear to flow. Faster and faster rushes the steed, always restrained and turned by the outer torch, which is brought near his head, while the inner is held further to the rear. His sides are flecked with foam. The pace grows too rapid for a short curve, and the steed is now guided straight for the western opening in the arena opposite to where we sit, while the light breeze from the east counteracts the cur- rent of au: made by the animal's own career, and keeps the flare of those torches almost even. They are gone; and again hark! Is not that shout like the roar of waters on a storm-beaten shore, as a hundred thousand men proclaim the success of a generous and brave youth, who could face the chance of being torn limb from limb in order to give to a poor slave like me, con- demned to a frightful death, his life and his liberty, a home and a future ? " " But surely," said the imperial child, " it is not over so soon. It is like a dream." " I have tried to make you see what I saw," returned Claudius. "It was a wonderful struggle — the youth looked beautiful; and in the swirt whirl, as you beheld the graceful and perfect rider, his hands apparently 2o6 Dion and the Sibyls. streaming with flames, and his face so calm and clear, you would have imagined that it was one of those beings whom the poets have feigned and sung, as hav- ing gifts superior to the gifts of ordinary mortals, who was delivering some terror-stricken land from a demon, from a cruel monster, and compelling ferocity, craft, uproar, and violence to bend to far higher forces, to man's cool courage and man's keen wit." Augustus, in his later years, showed a decreasing relish for the bloodier sports of the arena; and, in deference to his taste, the next spectacles were, first a mere wrestling match, and then a combat at the cestus, in which the effort was to display skill rather than inflict injury. This contest was just over, and the sun, as if in wide- flowing garments of red and golden clouds, had sunk level with the broad western opening of the amphi- theatre, when the hum of voices was hushed once more, and Claudius was commanded in a whisper to resume his task of rendering the scene upon which the child's bodily eyes were temporarily closed, visible to his mind. " I cannot with certainty discern," said the slave, "what occurs; there is such a vast heavenly shield of red light hanging opposite to us in the western sky. Against it, approaching at a walking pace toward the gap in the arena, along that avenue of chestnut trees in the country, I see a horseman. All eyes are turned in that direction. It is he/ it is Paulus Lepidus Emilias, returning on the Sejan steed ; the animal is enveloped in sweat, and dust, and foam, and rather stoops the head which looked so fierce two hours ago ; the rider has thrown away those torches, and now holds the reins Dion and the Sibyls. 207 low down on either side, a little in front of the beast's shoulder. His hat is gone, and his brown locks, as you see them against the sun, are so touched with the hght that he seems to wear a head-gear of golden flames. Hark ! again, as before, the people and the army shout to him. He is bowing to them on each side; and now, as he advances, what do I see ? " The slave paused, and the child impatiently cried: " How can I teU what you see, you dog ? You are here for no other purpose than to tell me that." " He has streaks of blood upon his forehead," resumed Claudius. "Oh! oh!" cried the other; "the branches of the trees have no doubt struck him. Is he pale? Does he look faint ? Is he going to fall off ? " "No," said Claudius; "he has reined in the horse, which stands like a horse of stone in the middle of the arena. Tiberius and Germanicus have both ridden toward him, with their retinues of mounted ofiicers be- hind them. They have halted some six yards from him. They are speaking to him. As they speak, he bows his head and smiles. A crowd of people on foot have broken into the arena. The grooms have drawn near, at a sign from Tiberius; they are cautiously approach- ing the Sejan beast ; but this last shows no restiveness. They have sUpped the muzzle round his nose, imder the reins. The youth dismounts. I do not see him now ; he has become mixed with the crowd, I think; yes, i^ must be so, for I miss him altogether." Augustus now rose, and his rising was taken by the multitude as a signal that the entertainments of tha amphitheatre for that evening had closed. 2o8 Dion and the Sibyls. Half an hour more and the scene was left to its solitude ; and where the cries and shouts of that mighty assemblage had mounted to the very heavens, there was no sound left except the humming of the insects and the rusthng of the trees. That night, in the large veranda or bower, which hung its arch of leaves and flowers over the landing of the Lady Aglais's apartments, at the Inn of the Hun- dredth Milestone, were assembled an exceedingly heterogeneous but mutually attached company, with every member of which the reader has made acquain- tance. Paulus's mother, his young sister Agatha, Claudius (no longer a slave, and now wearing the pileus), Crispina, with her daughter Benigna, the be- trothed of this slave Claudius, Thellus the gladiator, and Dionysius the Athenian, were there, and they all heard Paulus relate a very strange occurrence, with which he made them acquainted in the following terms: " Mother," said he, "the most extraordinary incident connected with this happy day remains to be told. I am sure that the great and mysterious Being who is ex- pected by Dionysius here soon to descend upon earth, and to whom I offered my hfe, has protected me this day. He has surely protected me, and has received with favor my endeavor to rescue from brutal power an op- pressed and innocent young couple. The most extraor- dinary incident connected with my undertaking, I say, is not yet known to you. Last night I could not sleep soundly. At last, long before daybreak, I rose, dressed myself, and, kneehng down, besought that Being who is to appear among us to remember that I was trying to Dion and the Sibyls. 209 please him by this enterprise, and that I was acting just as Dionysius and I had concluded it would be agreeable to this beneficent being. An inexpressible feeling of calmness and confidence arose in my heart as I rose from my knees. I then took my hat and went out of doors. I first strolled yonder, up and down that laurel walk in the garden, and afterward sauntered into the fields and wandered pretty far, but I observed not whither. Presently I began to feel that inclination to sleep which had deserted me in my bedroom; and, knowing the sun would soon rise, I chose a shady spot under a clump of trees, and, Ijring down, fell fast asleep immediately. . T had no dream, but was waked by feel- ing a hand upon my forehead. Opening my eyes, I beheld a woman, very aged and venerable, but with a most beautiful countenance, despite her years, bending over me. Her countenance was solemn as the stars, and, I know not how, impressed me Uke the face of the heavens at midnight, when the air is clear and calm. Her hair was not gray, but white — white as milk. She wore a long, black mantle, the hood of which, like that of Agatha's ricinium, was brought over the head, but not further than the middle of the head, so that I could see, when I rose to my feet (as I instantly did), that her long, flowing, • white locks were parted evenly and fell below the shoulder on each side. She held in her left hand a long staff, and her right was extended to- ward me as if bespeaking attention. She said to me in Greek these words : ' By means of fire you can sub- due THE FEROCIOUS BEAST.' She then laid the hand which was stretched forth upon my head for a second, drew the hood further over her head, and departed with 210 Dion and the Sibyls. swift steps, leaving me to gaze after her in amazement— an amazement which increased when I perceived that her words could be applied to the Sejan horse. It was those words, mother, and nothing else, which gave me the idea of employing the torches, which my good Thellus here afterward prepared for me out of some gladiatorial exercise-weapons which he possessed ; and I may for certain say that, without the torches, I must have been destroyed by that horrible brute." " You truly describe this incident as extraordinary, my son," said the Lady Aglais, after a pause. " Paulus," said Dionysius, "you have seen the Sybil. You must accompany me in a few days to Cumse, where we will seek an interview with her upon the subject con- cerning which all the Sibyls sing and prophesy — the general reparation of this disorder-tortured world." CHAPTER IV. JWO days afterward, Dionysius the Athenian, called at the inn, and informed Aglais, Paulus, and Agatha that after the banquet in the Ma- murran palace at Formiae that evening, there was to be a great gathering of the witty, the noble, the fashion- able, and the wise, and that he was charged to invite Aglais and her two children as friends of his. Aglais declined the honor for herself and her daugh- ter, but said she wished Paulus to go with Dionysius. Paulus, therefore, laid aside the outlandish costume in which he had travelled from Thessaly, and dressed him- self with care in the fashion suitable to a young Roman of equestrian rank, Dionysius remained to join the family in their repast, which was virtually what we should in modem times call the early dinner, after which the two friends mounted Dion's chariot, and proceeded to- ward Formiae at an easy pace, along the smooth pave- ment of the "queen of roads." During the drive they had a conversation which was, for good reasons, very interesting to Paulus. "A most capricious course," said Dionysius, "is your stiit or claim running. In seeking to remver your fam- ily estates, you prudently avoid at first bringing the holder into a court of law ; for the judges might shrink from voiding a title which not only arises out of an express gift of Augustus, but is identical with the title under which half the land of Italy has been held since the battle of Philippi. Instead of an immediate lawsuit, 212 Dion and the Sibyls. therefore, you try a direct appeal to Augustus, offering to show him that at the very time when your father's estate was taken away, he had just rendered the same services for which, had he been willing to accept it, he would, like so many others, have had a right to be en- dowed with a new estate, taken from some member of the defeated party. But Augustus refers you back to the courts, where, for the two reasons mentioned, you fear the result. But two other reasons might be added for fearing it still more; first, the present holder is. dreaded on account of his political power and his station; Tiberius is the man who, by marrying the daughter of Agrippa Vipsanius, has come into possession of your property ; secondly, wealth is necessary for the success of such a suit ; wealth he has, and wealth you have not. The courts present, consequently, but small hopes; yet you fail to get Augustus to decide your case himself. Have I correctly stated the position of your affairs ? " " To a nicety," replied Paulus. " Had I interest at court, I should find justice there." "In your case," said Dionysius, "interest at court would be equivalent to justice in the courts. As I took precisely this view of the business, and as Augustus has paid me such honor, and shown me such partiality as few have found with him for many years, it occurred to me that if I threw my unclaimed and unexpected interest into the same scale wherein yotu" just demands already lay " " Ah ! kind and generous friend," interrupted Paulus, "I understand." " Not so kind, nor so generous," replied Dionysius, " to my friend Paulus as I saw Paulus show himself to Dion and the Sibyls. 213 be the day before yesterday to a stranger and a slave. But hear me out. No sooner did I tell Augustus that I had a favor to ask of him, than he placed his hand on my mouth and said : ' I like to hear you talk ; but mine has been too busy a life to permit me to draw forth by properly opposing you the full force of your own opinions — or the truth. The truth in these matters' (not your affair, Paulus, but philosophy) ' is the only truth which can interest a man about to die. You must state these views in the presence of young, vigor- ous, and not preoccupied intellects. If you hold your own as well against what they can allege as against my objections, submit to me afterward your petition. One thing at a time.' This and the like, with the indomi- table whim and obstinate waywardness of age, he has continued to fling at me whenever I have renewed the attempt to state your case ; and I have done so five or six times. Titus Livy and Qiiintus Haterius, whom I have consulted, advise me to take literally and in the spirit of downright business this curious caprice. Now, do you know to-night is appointed for a sort of arena- fight ? All the gladiatorial intellects of the west are to be arrayed to crush the fantastic theories and pretty delusions of a Greek, an Athenian. All motives chain me, all pledges prevent me; moreover, honor and truth, to say nothing, my friend, of your own personal future^ interdict me from flight." « Flight ! " cried Paulus j "you fly ? " " Ah ! " said Dionysius ; " you know not all that I mean. You and I have been differently reared, yet in the same spirit. However, as you said, when at the risk of your own life you stood between oppression and 214 Dion and the Sibyls. an innocent young couple, the great Being whom we both expect will be pleased with a wilhng effort after what is right. " But here we are at the gates of Formiae. How the palace of the Mamurras glitters ! How these narrow streets flare with torches! We must go at a walk. Charioteer, let the litters pass first. Yes, my friend, in the painful position in which I shall be forced to stand to-night (and I blush beforehand, knowing my incom- petence, my ignorance, and the intrinsic difficulty ot what I am expected to do), your future fortunes and the rights of your family are by a strange caprice made dependent upon the success with which I may be able to defend ideas of general and imchangeable value, beauty, and truth; ideas which it debases a man not to have, and exalts him to entertain ; ideas which were always dear to the greatest minds that have preceded us, and which are reflected in every calm and pure soul, as the stars in fair, sweet lakSs, although the putrid, slimy pool, and the waters tossed with storms, and an atmosphere darkened with clouds, may forbid the image, by intercepting the heavenly light or defacing the earthly mirror." While Dionysius thus informed Paulus of the singular and close connection which had arisen between the future prospects of his mother, his sister and himself, as well as the establishment of their rights, and the success with which Dionysius might this night be able to make good his philosophical doctrines against the wits, the orators, and the sophists of the Augustan court, at the same moment Tiberius was conversing upon the same subject Dion and the Sibyls. 215 with Domitius Afer and Antistius Labio in a room of the Mamuitan palace. " Just," said he, in continuation of a conversation pre- viously commenced, " as if a person's claim to an estate could be rendered either better or worse by the style of his horsemanship ! " Here Domitius Afer laughed heartily, and showed his admiration of Caesar's wit. Labio, a saturnine, labori- ous man, son of one of the assassins of Julius Caesar, and author of numberless works, preserved a grim, imsmiling air as he observed : " A man may ride over an estate and over all its hedges and ditches; but he must be no bad rider if he can jump his horse into a title to become its proprietor." " Nevertheless, the infatuation of Augustus for the Greek friend of the claimant is such that if the Athenian acquits himself successfully to-night in the Maecenas-like criticisms and Plato-like discussions which are, I suspect, to vary our entertainments, he will next suffer the golden- tongued youth to state the case of Paulus Lepidus ^mil- ius. The effect at which you must aim is to make a fool of the Athenian; and you are the men to do it. Refute everything he says, ridicule him, cover him with confusion; make him the gibe of the whole court, the derision of the brilliant circle assembling here to-night Put an end to his influence. We want no more mind- battles in Italy. I set dogs upon a dog. Arouse all your attention. Bend all your energies. Let the stranger retire from among us in disgrace." That night, the most brilliant company which could then be culled out of the human race was assembled in the central impluvium of the Mamurran palace and its 2i6 Dion and the Sibyls, arcades. Lamps, hanging from the festoons of creeping plants which adorned and connected the porphyry pillars of the colonnades, mingled their gleam with the light of the moon and stars. The variety of rays, of shadows, and of coloring which were thus sprinkled over the flowers, the leaves, the walls and pillars, the faces, figures, and dresses, produced a scene which a painter could better render than words can. The central fountain was smitten into a sorcery of tints, as it shed into a large basin of green marble the drooping sheaf of waters, of which the materials were perpetually changing, and the form and outlines perfectly maintained, or instantly and perpetually renewed. The Emperor and the Caesars, Tiberius and Ger- manicus, with the famous authors we have already more than once mentioned, Livy and Lucius Varius and Vel- leius Paterculus, were present. ^Hus Sejanus, the pre- fect of the Praetorians ; CneiusPiso, the gambler; Plan- cina, his rich wife ; Lucius Piso, his brother, governor of Rome ; with many persons who then sparkled in the court orbits, but whose names have perished out of human memory ; and Julia, the emperor's daughter, Tiberius's new wife ; and Agrippina Vipsania, lately his wife, and Agrippina Julia, daughter of the former, sister of the latter, wife of Germanicus, and mother of Caligula ; and Livia, the aged wife of Augustus himself, all appeared among the guests. Chairs and couches had been placed here and there. Augustus and the ladies we have men- tioned were seated, some just within, others just without one of the arcades, between two of its columns, so that the moonlight fell upon some heads, the lamplight upon ochersj and a wayward, dubious mixture of both upon the Dion and the Siiy/s. 217 golden tresses of Agrippina Julia, and of abeautiful young girl near her, on whom Domitius Afer, the celebrated orator, was gazing with admiration. But she, when she at last observed his glance, fixed upon him such a look of combined scorn and amazement that the advocate winced and became livid. She was destined, one day, to be the subject of his fatal eloquence, and to appease by nothing less than her execution the vindictive vanity of the orator, because she had spumed the ambitious love of the man. Tacitus alludes to the poor Claudia Pulchra's brief tale. Quintus Haterius, whose Shakespeare-like variety of mind and bewitching eloquence had, as Ben Jonson implies in a comparison already cited by us, few rivals, was seated not far from Augustus. Next sat Livy. Antistius Labio and his rival Domitius Afer, who now occupied the place and fame in the forum from which Haterius, on account of his age, had withdrawn, stood leaning against a pillar, each with his arms folded. Both these persons, as well as Livy and Haterius, wore the toga; Sejanus, the scarlet paludamentum. The other male guests — except Tiberius, whose dark purple robe was conspicuous, and Germanicus, who was dressed in the costume of a commander-in-chief — wore a species of large tunic, called lacerna, which (contrary to the tastes of the emperor, and despite of his fre- quently expressed disapproval) had become fashionable. The story mentioned by Suetonius is well known. One day Augustus, seeing numbers of the people wearing the lacerna, asked indignantly, in a line of Virgil's, could these be Romans, " Romanos rerum dominos, GENTEMQUE TOGATAM," and Ordered the sediles to admit none but toga-wearers into either the forum or the circus. 2i8 Dion and the Sibyls. But this was many years before the evening with which we are now engaged. | Among the groups collected in the Mamurran palace were representatives of the three great arts, in mastering which the highest education of classic antiquity was exhausted; we mean the arts of politics, of public speaking, and of strategy — government, eloquence and war. They were all represented ; each of them had its proper image in the groups we have described. As those pursuits constituted the favorite intellectual sphere, and comprehended all the fields of ambition, to be emi- nent in any one of them was to succeed in b'fe, and to be adopted into that class of society of which so many distinguished members were entertained in the Formian palace on the night at which our tale has arrived. If a man excelled, like Julius Caesar, in all the three arts named, he could revolutionize the world. The mechanic arts, the fine arts, philosophy, physical science, mathematics, attracted individual votaries indeed; but were neglected by the ambition of a few, as well as by the indolence of many. The mention of physical studies recalls Strabo, the geographer, who was among the guests this evening at the palace. Many others who were there we need not enumerate; but some will claim a word and a glance. When Dion- ysius arrived, and introduced Paulus to the aged knight, Mamurra, the company was already numerous. Ma- murra patted Paulus on the shoulder, and said, although the other day in the road he had not at once recalled old times, he remembered Paulus's brave father very well at the battle of Philippi ; and that he, Mamurra, Dion and the Siiyls. 219 had seen him and Agrippa Vipsanius together, rallying the wing which Mark Antony had broken, and that he himself had charged with the cavalry to help him. This speech was very gracious, and our hero, who well knew it to be true, blushed with pride and pleasure. While the glow of his natural and honorable emotion was still coloring his young face, as he bowed to Ma- murra, the latter took him by the arm, and said in a low voice: " Come, let an old soldier present the son of a former comrade, whose life was honorable, and whose memory is glorious, to the master for whom they both fought with equal zeal, although unequal fortune." Augustus returned Paulus's low salutation with a faint yet not unkindly smile, and then looked with a sort of sleepy steadiness at Tiberius, who heard Mamurra's words, and whose face was apparently flaming with a dark red rage. Near Tiberius, who now threw himself upon the cushions of a couch plated with gold, just opposite the chair which Augustus had selected, stood a tall, regular-featured Brahmin-like man, in Asiatic dress, and next to this individual. Sejanus, with his usual air of supercilious composure, yet intent watch- fulness. The couch we have mentioned was long and large, and two ladies, one old, the other young, were already sitting at the further end of it. The first was Antonia, the mother of Germanicus, the second was Agrippina Juha, his wife. Just in front of them, upon a low stool, sat the son of the latter, Caius Caligula, with his eyes yet bandaged, as the reader will not be surprised to hear; while at his side, fidgeting with large red, lub- 220 Dion and the Sibyls. berly hands, stood a big, loutish, heavy-looking boy, who was considerably the senior of that dear child. This was no other than Claudius, the fourth of the C«esarian dynasty (or the fifth, if Julius Caesar be accounted the first), reserved against his will, to mount the throne of the world amid panic and horror, that day when Caligula shall be hacked to pieces by Cassius Chaerias, in the theatre of the palace at Rome. Thus, three future rulers of mankind, destined to bear dire sceptres in dark and evil days, were around the white hairs of Augustus Caesar to-night. As Paulus stepped backward after Augustus's languid but not unkindly reception of him, Dionysius, who was just behind, moved quickly and gracefully out of his way, and Claudius, the big, loutish lad, being impelled thereto by the nature of him, shuffled forward so as to come in collision with Paulus. " Monster ! " exclaimed Antonia, ashamed of her son's awkwardness ; " if I wanted to prove any one void of all mind, I would call him more stupid than you ! " * Paulus glided into the background, saying with a bow and a smile, " My fault ! " He now found himseK in the immediate neighbor- hood of that eastern group which his young sister had described as presenting themselves one morning at the entrance of the bower in the inn garden, when she was there listening to the strange conversation of Plancina ; we mean Queen Berenice and her daughter Herodias, and her son Herod Agrippa. * '■ Mater Antonia portentum eum honiinis dictabat ; nee absolutum a natura, sed tantum inchoatum ; ac si quern socordiae argueret, stul- tiorem alebat filio suo Claudio," Suetoa. Claud. 3. JMoH and the Silyls. 221 They all three fixed their gaze upon him with that unabashed, hardy manner peculiar to the family, and PauluB was beginning to feel uncomfortable in their vicinity and under their scrutiny, when Germanicus Caesar approached, and complimenting him upon his brilliant exploit two evenings before, asked him whether he would like to join the expedition which was to start next day to drive the Germans from the northeast of Italy? If he would, Germanicus ofiEered to mount him splen- didly, and keep him near his own pefson, and make him the bearer of orders to the generals; in modern phrase, give him a place on the staff. Paulus thanked the com- mander-in-chief briefly and respectfully, and asked to be allowed to wait till noon next day before giving a more definite answer than that he should rejoice to ac- cept the gracious offer; his mother and sister had no protector except himself, and he should not like to leave them, without first hearing what they said. Germanicus assented. During the short conversation of which this was the substance, Germanicus had moved slowly up the gravel- walk; and Paulus, of course, attended him, listening and answering, not sorry, besides, to put some space be- tween himself and the unpleasant Jewish group. By the time they had finished speaking, they had arrived opposite the couch where Tiberius, Antonia, and Agrippina were seated, with Germanicus's child, Caligula, as we have described, occupying a low stool in front of his mother Agrippina. Close by, leaning against a pillar, stood a youth in the uniform of a centurion who had a most determined, thoughtful countenance. 2 22 Dion and the Sibyls. On the approach of Germanicus, he briskly quitted his lounging attitude to salute his commander. " Young knight," said Germanicus to Paulus, " let me make you acquainted with as brave a youth, I think, as can be found in all the Roman legions ; this is Cassius Chaerias." " Who, father," asked the shrill voice of the child Caligula, " is the brave youth, do you say ? " "Cassius Chaerias." " Are you so brave ? " persisted the impudent child, shoving up his bandage impatiently, and disclosing a truly disfigured and malicious little face. " I can't see you, or what you are like. But I think I could make you afraid if I was emperor." The man destined hereafter to deliver mankind from the boundless profligacy, the wicked oppression, and the insane, raging, incredible cruelties of which it was daily the miserable victim by killing Caligula the em- peror, looked steadily at Caligula the child, and said not a word. " I should like to feel your sword, whether it is heavy," pursued the child. " Give it me." And he started to his feet. " Silence ! pert baby," said Germanicus, pushing him back into his place. " It seems to me," said Augustus, looking round, and there was an instantaneous hush of general conversa- tion as he did so, " that we have represented around us Europe, Asia, and Africa. Young Herod and hi& fciends may count for Asia." "You." added Augustus, addressing the tall, Brah- Dion and the Sibyls. 223 min-like man who stood near Tiberius, "come from Egypt, do you not ? " " Mighty emperor," returned the other, in measured and sepulchral tones, " I come from the land where great Babylon once was the seat of empire." No sooner had this man opened his mouth than the observant Sejanus started. Approaching his mouth to the other's ear, he whis- pered, . " I have heard your voice before ; you are ? " " I am," repUed the other, composedly eying his questioner, "Thrasyllus Magus — ^Thrasyllus, the stu- dent of the stars." Sejanus smiled, twisted his mustache in his white fingers, and asked, "Are you sure that you are not the god Hermes? and that you do not sometimes ride of nights, with yoiu' horse's hoofs wrapped in cloth ? " It was now the other's turn to start, " Do you suppose," piu^ued Sejanus, still in a whis- per, " that I had not every stable in Fonnise searched the night you played that trick on the road ? I know my master Tiberius's taste for divination and the vari- ous deep things you practice. You, then, are the ora- cle who reveals to him the decrees of fate?" The exchange of fmther remarks between these wor- thy men was here suspended; for Augustus again spoke amid general attention. " I think," said he, " that we should all now be glad to hear Dionysius the Athenian." An eager hum of assent and approval arose from the jaded and sated, but inquisitive and critical society aroimd. 224 Dion and the Sibyls. " There are in your philosophy," continued Augustus, "two leading principles, my Athenian, in support of which I am both curious and anxious to hear you ad- vance some solid and convincing reasons. You despise, as Cicero despised it, the notion of a plurality .of gods. You affirm there is only one. You say that a god who could begin to be a god, or begin at all, can be no god; and that the true King of all kings, is the giver of what- ever exists, and the recipient of nothing. That he ia without a body, a pure and holy intelligence. That, as everything else is his work, there never were, and nevei will be, and never could be, any limits either of his power or of his knowledge. At the same time, you re- ject the notion, adopted in some Greek systems, that he is the soul of the visible universe, and this universe his body ; affirming him to be antecedent to and indepen- dent of all things, and all other things to be absolutely dependent upon him. " Is it not so ? " "Yes," answered Dionysius; "such is my assured conviction." " This, then," said Augustus, " is the first question upon which I wish to hear you; and the second is, whether that force or principle within each of us which thinks, reflects, reasons, and is conscious of itself, will perish at our death, or will live beyond it, and is of such a nature that it will never perish, as Plato, Xeno- phon, Cicero, and many other illustrious men and very great thinkers have so ardently contended." " Ah ! " said Dionysius, in a voice indescribably sweet and thrilling, while all turned their eyes toward him; "unless that God himself assist me, I shall be quite im- Dwn and the Sibyls. 225 equal to the task you impose upon me, Augustus. I am not worthy to treat the subject upon which you desire me to speak. You are aware that many learned per- sons in our Europe expect, and for a long time have expected, some divine being to appear one day among men. I see the able governor of Rome, Lucius Piso. None will accuse Piso of credulity, none suppose him a weaver of idle fancies, or a dreamer of gratuitous rev- eries. An able administrator, an accomplished man of the world, and, if he will pardon me, more inclined to be too sarcastic than too indulgent, he, nevertheless, de- spises not this expectation. Our learned friend Strabo, whom I see near me, will tell you, moreover, how it pre- vails, and has from immemorial times prevailed, in vari- ous and often perverted forms, yet with an underljdng essence of permanent identity, among the innumerable nations which make some thirty languages resound through the immense expanses of Asia. But Domitiuit Afer desires to interrupt me." Afer said: " I do not discern how this ancient and mysterious expectation which floats vaguely through the traditions of all mankind, and in a nkore definite shape forms the groundwork for the whole religion of the Jewish nation, can be at all connected either with the immortality of the thinking principle inside of us, or with the question whether there is one supreme, absolute, and eternal God who made this universe." " All I would have added," replied Dionysius, " in regard to that expectation was, that after the appear- ance of this universal benefactor, many subUme ideas which hitherto only the strongest intellects have enter- 226 Dion and the Sibyls. tained, will probably become familiar to the meanest — common to all. " I pass to the two questions which Augustus desires to hear argued; and, first, let me collect the opinions of this brilliant company; I will then compare them with mine. What does Antistius Labio think?" "I should have to invent a term to express my no- tion," said Labio. " I think all things are but emana- tions from, and return to, the same being. What might be called pantheism, if we coined a word from the language of your country, best explains, I fancy, the phenomena of the universe. Everything is growth and decay ; but as decay furnishes larger growth, ever3rthing is growth at last and in the total sum." " Is this growth of all things under any general con- trol ? " asked Dionysius. " Each thing," replied Labio, " is under the control of its own nature, which evidently it cannot change, and every inferior thing besides is under the control of any superior thing with which it may come into relations. Thus what is active is superior as such to what is pas- sive j it is more excellent and a higher force to act upon, or sway, or change, or move, or form, than to be acted upon, moved or modified. The mind of an architect, for instance, is a higher force than the dead weight of the inert stones from which he builds a palace." " Then you hold that some things have force, and that there are greater and smaller forces ? " asked Dionysius. " Undoubtedly," said Labio. " Which is more excellent," asked Dionysius, " a Dion and the Sibyls. 227 ftwce which can move itself, or a force which, in order to exist, must be set in motion by another ? " " This last," said Labio, " is only the first prolonged; it is but a continuation, an effect." " And an effect," pursued the Greek, " is inferior, as such, to what controls it; and inferior also in its very nature to that which requires no cause ? " " Certainly," returned Labio ; " I am not so dull as to gainsay that." " Now favor me with your attention," returned the Athenian ; " I want you to extricate me from a dilemma. Either everything which possesses force has received its force from something else; or there is something which possesses force, and which never received this force from anything else, and which, therefore, has possessed it from all eternity. Which of these two alternatives do you select ? " Labio paused, and by this time the whole of that strangely mixed society was listening with the keenest relish and the most genuine interest to the conversa- tion. " I see whither you tend," replied Labio, " but I do not beheve in that universal ruler and original mind, or first force, which you think to demonstrate. All things go in circles, and serially. Every force which exists has been derived from some other; and each in its turn continues the movement, or communicates the impact." " Prettily expressed," remarked Velleius Paterculus. " I beg Augustus," said the Athenian, " to mark and remember Labio's words : ' Everjrthing which has force has received its force from something else.' Do you say everything, Labio, without exception ? " 228 Z>um and the Sibyls. " Yes, everything," said Labio. " I conceive the chain to be endless." " But itot having, good Labio," replied the Athenian, " goes before receiving. I cannot, and you cannot, re- ceive that which we have already. In order to say that we receive anjrthing, we must first be without it — must we not ? The state of not having, I repeat, pre- cedes the act of receiving. Does any person deny this ? Does Labio?" No one here spoke. "Then," said the Athenian, "in maintaining that everything which possesses force has received that force from something else, Labio necessarily maintains that everything which possesses force was first without it. I therefore perceive there must have been a time when nothing possessed any force whatever. The very first thing which possessed any, received it; but whence? For, at that time, there was nothing to give it. What says Labio ? Is pantheism silent ? " " I wish to hear more," said Labio ; " I will answer you afterward." A momentary smile, Uke a passing gleam, Ut up the faces of those around, as the Athenian, looking toward Domitius Afer, requested him the next to favor the company with his opinion upon the two momentous questions propounded by Augustus. " I need not, hke Labio, coin a term from the Greek," said Afer, " to describe my system. I am a materialist. I believe nothing save what my senses attest. They show me neither God nor soul ; and I am determined never to accept any other criterion." " Are you quite sure," asked Dionysius, " that you are Dion and the Sibyls. 329 thus determined ? I should like to shake such a deter- mination." " You'll fail," replied Afer, smiling. " Which of your senses, then, has attested to you that very determination ? Can you see, taste, smell, hear, or touch it ? And yet you tell us you are sure of it. If so, you can believe in, and be sure of, something which has never been submitted to the criterion which alone you admit." " A determination is not a thing," said Afer hastily, and with a little confusion. " Was Julias Caesar a thing ? " persisted Dionysius ; " because, if you believe that Julius Caesar existed, hav- ing heard of him and read of him, your senses of hear- ing and seeing do not attest to you in this case the exist- ence of Julius Caesar, but simply the aflSrmations of others that he has existed. My hearing attests to me that Strabo says he has been in Spain ; and this, if there were no other reason, would satisfy me that Spain exists ; yet it is Strabo whom I hear. I do not hear Spain." Augustus clapped his hands gently and laughed. Domitius Afer, with visible anger, exclaimed : " I mean that I will take nothing but upon proof. Prove that the soul is immortal ; prove that one supreme God exists. Everything which a reasonable man be- lieves ought to be demonstrated." " I hope," said Dionysius> " to prove those two truths to your satisfaction. But as you say that all we believe ought to be demonstrated, I wDl first oiler you a demonstration that it is impossible to demonstrate everything. To prove any proposi1;ion, you require a second; and to prove the second, in its turn, you 230 Dion and the Sibyls. require a third; and it is upon this third, if you admit it, that the demonstration of the first depends. But if you had fifty propositions, or any number, in the chain, what proves the last of them ? " " Another yet," said Afer. " But," said the Greek, " either you come to a last, or you never come to a last. If you never come to a last proposition, you never finish your proof; you leave it tmcompleted; it remains still no proof at all; you have not performed what you undertook. And if you do come to a final proposition, which is supported by no other, what supports it ? " There was a little start of pleasure in the company at the sudden and clear closes to which the Athenian was, each and every time, bringing what seemed likely to have grown into intricate and long disquisitions. " My object, Augustus," pursued Dion, " was to show that we are all so made that we feel compelled to believe much more than we can prove. Otherwise, our knowl- edge would be confined within narrow limits indeed. He who knows no more than he can demonstrate, knows but little. May I now ask the distinguished orators, Montanus and Capito, for their theories re- specting the questions which interest us so much to- night ? " Quintus Haterius prevented any answer to this ap- peal. " The eloquent and learned thinker," said he — " who will yet, I have no doubt, be the ornament of the Athenian Areopagus — has placed me, and, I think, many others near me, completely on his side, in what has hitherto passed. Young as he is, he has made us feel the masterful facility with which he is able to throw Dion and the Sibyls. 231 light upon errors placed where truth ought to stand. The operation is highly amusing; we could pass a long evening in watching it repeated against any number of antagonists. But come, Dionysius, reverse the process; take your own ground; maintain it ; raise there your system like your castle ; and let those assail it, if they please, whom your aggressive genius on the contrary turns to assail." " Haterius is right," said Augustus. " I could assist at any number of these coUisions; but they take a form which presents yotu: mind to us, my Athenian, as a hunter and conqueror rather than a founder." " But I am no foimder," replied the youth earnestly and modestly ; " and I aspire to nothing of the kind. The fact is merely and simply this : After much study I have arrived at the conviction, first, that there is one absolutely perfect and eternal Being who governs the universe; and, next, that what thinks within each of us never will die. Since you desire to hear the reasons which have brought me to these conclusions, I cannot decline to state one or two of them at least — though this place, this occasion, and this dazzling company befit the subject far less, I fear, than if a few studious friends discussed it, sitting under the starry sky, on some quiet, unfrequented shore." " Now we shall hear Plato," said Tiberius, with some- thing almost like a sneer. " Pardon me," said Dionysius, " Plato may speak for himself. You have him to read; why should I repeat him? Those who miss Plato's meaning in his own pages, would miss it in my commentary." Julia uttered a taunting laugh, as she glanced at her 332 Dion and the Sibyls. new husband Tiberius, whom she always treated with scorn. " You remember, Augustus," Dionysius continued, " that a few minutes ago, Antistius Labio, in answering one of my questions, stated that a force which could move itself was more excellent, as such, than one which required to be set in motion by another, as the mind of the architect, said he, is superior to the stones from which he builds a palace. Labio then very justly added, in reply to another question, that what was moved only by the force of something else possessed no proper force of its own, its force being but a continuation of the first, an effect of the impact. He finally assented, when I showed that it is impossible that everything without exception which possesses force should have received it, because not having goes before receiving, and be- cause this is only another mode of saying that every thing without exception was once devoid of force. If a particular being has received the force it possesses, that particular being must once have been without it j and if all beings without exception who possess force have received it, they likewise without exception must all, in the same manner, have been first without it, » supposed state during which no force at all existed any- where. That any being should ever acquire force,, when there was nowhere any force for it to acquire, would be an unsatisfactory philosophy." "There has, perhaps, been," said Tiberius, "an eternal chain of these forces transmitting themselves onward." " If," said the Athenian, " you admit the existence of any one being who possesses a force which he never Dion and the Sibyls. 233 received from another, that being is evidently eternal. But to say that a being has received its force, is to say that its force has had a beginning; and to say that any thing begins, is to say that once it was not A chain of forces jJl received is, therefore, a chain of forces all begun — ^is it not ? Now, if they have all begun, they have all had something prior to them. But nothing can be prior to what is eternal; such a chain or series, therefore, cannot itself be eternal." " No link is eternal," said Tiberius j " but all the links of the chain together may surely be so." The Athenian looked round with a smile at Tiberius, and said: " If all the forces which exist now, and alL those which ever existed in the universe, without excep- tion, have been received from something else, what is that something else beyond all the forces of the universe f They would all, without exception, have begun. To say this of them is merely to say that they were all non- existent once, and this without exception. In other words, the whole chain, even with all its links taken together, is short of eternal. If so, it has been pre* ceded either by blank nothing, or by some being who has a force not Haws received, a force which is his own inherently and absolutely, as I maintain. Tell me of a chain, the top of which recedes beyond our ken, that the lowest link depends on the next to it, and this on the third, I tmderstand you ; but if I ask what suspends the whole chain, with all its links taken together, it is no answer to say that the links are so numerous and the chain is so long that it requires nothing but itself to keep it in suspension. The longer it is, the greater must be the necessity of the ultimate grasp, and the stronger 234 Dion and the Sibyls, must that grasp be ; and observe, it must be truly ulti- mate, otherwise you have not solved the difficulty; nay, the suspending force must be distinct from and beyond the chain itself, or you do not account for the suspen- sion. But I will put all this past a cavil. What I said respecting proofs to Domitius Afer, I say respecting causes to Tiberius Caesar. No one denies that various forces are operating in the universe. Now, of two things, one : Either there is a first force, acting and moving by its own freedom, which, being antecedent to all other forces, not only must be independent of them all, but can alone have produced them all ; or else there is in the universe no force which has not some other antecedent to it. This last proposition is easily shown to be an absurdity; for to say that every force has a force antecedent to it, is the same as to say that all forces have another force antecedent to them; in other words, that, over and above all things of a given class, there is another thing of that class. Can there be more than the whole ? Can there be another thing of a certain kind, beyond all things of that kind ? Besides every force, is tha-e yet another force ? If any one is here who would say so, I wait to hear him." No one said a word, " Then remark the conclusion," pursued Dionysius. " It is a self-contradiction to contend that there can be one thing more of a class than all things of that class ; therefore there is not, and cannot be, a force antecedent to every force in the universe ; therefore there is, and must be, in the universe, a force which is the first force, a force which has not and could not have any other antecedent to it. Now this force, being the first, could Dion and the Sibyls. 235 be controlled by no other ; by its action every other must have been produced, and under its control every other must lie." " Do not you contradict yourself ? " inquired Afer ; " you show there cannot be a force antecedent to all forces, and still you conclude that there is." " There cannot," said Dionysius, " be a force ante- cedent to all forces, because this would be one more of a class beyond all of a class. But there may be the first of the class, before which no other was; and this is what I have demonstrated to exist. That first force is antecedent, not to all, but to all others; there you stop ; there is none antecedent to Him. As he is the first force, all things must have come from him. He made and built this universe ; it is his imperial palace. You have asked me to prove that one eternal and omnipotent God lives, I have now given you an argument which I am by no means afraid, in this, or any other assembly, to call a demonstration. And it is but one out of a great many." A low murmur of spontaneous plaudits and frank assent ran round that luxurious, but highly cultivated, appreciative, and brilliant company; and one voice a httle too loud was heard exclaiming: " It is as clear as the light of day, dear Dion ! " All eyes turned in one direction, and Paulus, whose feelings of admiration and sympathy had thus betrayed him, blushed scarlet as he withdrew behind the stately form of Germanicus, who looked round at him smiling, half in amusement, half in kindness. " I do think it a demonstration indeed," said Augus- tus, musing gravely. 236 Dion and the Sibyls. " How strangely must that stupendous Being," said Strabo, the geographer, " deem of a world which has come so completely to forget and ignore him ! " " Your reasoning," resumed Augustus, " differs much, as you said it would, from Plato's. Plato is too subtle for our Roman taste." " So is he," said Dionysius, " too subtle, and, I think, too hesitating, for the taste of most men everywhere. I admire his genius, but I disclaim many of his theories, and am not a disciple of his school." " Of what school are you ? " "I am dissatisfied with every school," replied the future convert of St. Paul, blushing. " But I am quite certain that there is only one God, and that he is eter- nal and all-perfect. " What I have said, I have said because I believe it; not in order to play at mental swords with these elo- quent and gifted men, whom I honor. There is, if we would look for it, a reflection of this great Being in our minds like that of a star in water; but the water must be undisturbed, or the light wavers and is broken. We see many beings, greater and smaller. Now, who can doubt that, where there are greater and smaller, there must be a greatest ? Each one of us is conscious and certain of three things : iirst, that he himself has not existed from all eternity ; secondly, each of us feels that he did not make his own mind ; and thirdly, that he could not make another mind. Now, the mind who made ours must be superior to any thing contained in what he thus made; therefore, although we can con- ceive a being of whose power, knowledge, and perfection Wt discern no possible limit, this very conception must Dion and the Sibyls. 237 be inferior to its object. There must exist outside of our mind some being greater still than the greatest of which we can form any intellectual idea, however boimdless. The lead fused in a mould cannot be greater in its outlines than the mould which presents the form. Again, no person will contend that the sublime and the absurd are one and the same thing — ^that the terms are convertible. But yet, if an absolutely perfect and sover- eign being did not exist, the conception which we form of such a being, instead of constituting the highest heaven of sublimity to which our thoughts can soar, would constitute the lowest depth of absurdity into which they could sink." A little pause followed. " Do you, then," said Afer, with a subtle smile, " in- troduce to us the novel doctrine, that whatever is sub- lime must therefore be true ? " " If I said yes," replied Dionysius, " and I am not a little tempted, you would succeed in drawing me aside into a very long and darkling road. But I have ad- vanced nothing to that effect. My inference depended not on assuming that everything which is sublime must be true, but on the supposition that nothing which is absurd could be sublime." " Quite so," remarked Haterius ; " and was there not yet another inference dormant in what you said ? " "There was," said Dionysius; "but it looks like sub- tilizing to wake it and give it wings ; and as I am a Greek, I fear — I — in short, I have tried to confine my- self to the plainest and broadest reasonings." " Fear not," said Germanicus; " learned Greece, you know, has conquered her fierce vanquishers." 238 Dion and the Sibyls. Tiberius gnawed his under-lip ; and the Lady Plancina, glancing at him and then at her husband, Cneius Piso, who was listening attentive but ill at ease, exclaimed : " Enervated them, you mean ! " Germanicus threw back his head, smiled, and re- marked : " To-morrow the legions are going forth to try against the Germans whether the Roman heart beats as of old; what was the further inference, Athenian ? " " Since there must," said Dion, " where greater and smaller beings exist, be a greatest, we can all try to form some conception of him. Now, this conception must fall short of his real greatness. Why ? Because, as I have demonstrated that this being is the first force, from which all others in the universe, including our minds, must have come, no idea contained in our minds can be greater than the very power which made those minds themselves. But, apart from this demonstration, every one of us can say, a being may exist so great as to be incapable of non-existence. Such a being is conceiv- able; it is his non-existence which then, by the, very suppositisn, is inconceivable. Now, if there be some- thing the non-existence of which would be inconceivable, while of the being himself you possess a notion, thinking of him as, for example, and terming him, the first force, eternal, boundless — giver of all, recipient of naught — the certainty of his existence is established already for the hearts for that faculty which precedes demonstration in accepting truth — for remember I have shown, and I have proved, that we are so made as to be compelled to believe far more than any of us can ever demonstrate." " This, then," said Augustus, " is the dim image of which you spoke ; the reflection of the star in water ? " Dion and the Sibylt. 239 " Yes, emperor," replied Dionysius ; " but not always dim J the deepest and the purest of all the lights which that water reflects. Often it reflects no image, how- ever ; and often it reflects but clouds and storms. To say you truly conceive a thing, is to say you are certain of it in the way you conceive it. If you conceive any thing to be certain, you possess the certainty of it You may be certain that a thing is ««certain ; in other words, you have arrived at a clear notion of its uncertainty. To conceive the contingency of an object, is to possess the positive idea that it is contingent. To conceive a necessary being, is to have the clear idea not simply that he is, but that he must be. He could not be con- ceived at all, he could not even be an object of thought, as both necessary and non-existent. All conceivable objects, except one, are conceived as either possible or actual. But that one alone is conceived as necessary, and, therefore, necessarily actual. Either a necessary being is not conceivable — and which of us, I should like to know, cannot sit down and indulge in the con- ception ? — or, if he be so much as conceivable, then his reign is recognized, because far more than his existence is involved — I mean the impossibility of his non-exist- ence." "Are all the dreams," said Domitius Afer, "of a poet's imagination truths because they are concep- tions ? " A few moments of silence followed, and Paulus /Emilius looked at his friend with an expression of terror, which he had not exhibited in his own contest with the Sejan horse. ''When the poet," replied Dionysius, "imagines 240 Dion and the Sibyls, what might have been, he believes it might have been, and asks you to believe no more; but he would be shocked if you believed less; would be shocked if you told him he was depicting not that which had not been, for this he cheerfully professes, but that which could not ever be supposed. What I say here," added the Athenian, " belongs to a different and some- what higher plane of thought. The impossibility to suppose non-existent an infinitely perfect being, who, on the other hand, is himself found not impossible to sup- pose, ought to bring home to the heart the fact that he lives. To be able, in the first place, to conceive him existing, and straightway thereafter to feel an utter inability to form even the conception of his non-ex- istence, because it is only as the necessary being and first force that we can think of him at all, are a hand- writing upon the porch of every human soul. He lives, I say it rejoicing, an eternal, necessary, and personal reahty ; the very conception of him would be an impos- sibility if his existence were not a fact; yes, and far more than a fact, a primeval truth and primordial necessity." / As the Athenian thus spoke in a clear and firm voice, which seemed to grow more musical the more it was raised and exerted, Augustus stood up and paced to and fro a few steps on the gravel walk of the implu- vium, with his hands behind him and his eyes cast down. All who had been sitting rose at the same time, except Livia, Julia, Antonia, and the two Agrippinas. " This," whispered Tiberius in Afer's ear, " is not much like failure, or derision, or disgrace for the Greek." Dion and the Sibyls. 241 " My predecessor, Julius Caesar," said Augustus at length, looking round as he stood still, " was the best astronomer and mathematician of his age — we have his calendar now to record it; the best engineer of his age — ^look at his bridge over the Rhine ; the best orator, except one, to whom Rome perhaps ever listened ; a most charming talker and companion on any subject; a very great and simple writer; as great a general prob- ably as ever lived ; a consummate politician ; a keen, wary, swift, yet profound thinker at all times ; a man whose intellect was one vast sphere of light ; and yet I remember well in what anxiety and curiosity he lived respecting the power which governs the universe, and with what minute and even frivolous precautions he was forever trying to propitiate a good award for his various undertakings ; how he muttered charms, whether he was ascending his chariot or descending, or mounting his horse or dismounting — in short, at every tmn. Evi- dently it is not the brightest intellects, or the most per^ fectly educated, which are the most disposed to scout and scorn such ideas as we have just heard from Dion-. ysius ; it is precisely they who are prepared to ponder them the most." " Julius Caesar," said Tiberius, " thought, I suspect^ pretty much as a great many others do, that this is a very dark, difficult subject; and that we cannot ex- pect to come to any certain conclusions." " Not to many conclusions," said Dionysius.; " that much I fully grant. But two or three broad and gen- eral truths are attainable by means of reasonings as close, secure, and irresistible as any in geometry. One such proof — and pray do not forget that I said it was 242 Dion and the Silryls. only one out of many — making clear the fact that a single eternal God reigns over all things, I have laid before Augustus and this company already. My last remarks,, however, were not disputations, but were only intended to show how those conceptions — to tear which from the mind would be to tear the heat from fire and the rays from hght — tend exactly to that conclusion which I had first established by a rigorous demon- stration." " Would not some call your inference from those conceptions themselves a demonstration also ? " asked Germanicus. " I think," replied the Athenian, " that all would so call it if we had but time to examine it thoroughly. There are three other complete lines of argument, how- ever, each of them as interesting as a poem ; but so abstruse that I will not travel along them. I will merely show the gates which open into these ascents of the glorious mountain. It could, then, be demonstrated, first, that all things are objects of mind or of knowledge, somewhere J- secondly, that all things undergo some action, or are objects of power, somewhere/ thirdly, that all things are loved and cared for somewhere ; and this as forming one whole work or production, that is, in their relations with each other. Now, the knowledge, the power, and the love (or care) in question can belong only to that first force of whom I speak ; and I dis- tinctly affirm, Augustus, that I believe I should be quite able, not to prove by probable reasons merely, but to demonstrate positively and absolutely, the existence of one omnipotent God, by three distinct arguments, start- ing from the three points I have mentioned. Yet I pass Dion and the Sibyls. 243 by those golden gates with a vristful glance at them, and no more." " It is the horn gates, you know," said Labio, smiling, "which open to the trae dreams." "Ah! poor Virgil!" said Augustus, first with a smile, and then with a long, heart-felt sigh. " I wish he could have heard you, my Athenian." " The natures of things," said the Athenian, " and the number of individuals are known and counted some- where / the attraction of physical things is weighed in a balance somewhere, and all things are maintained in their order by limits, and protected in their relations by a measured mark, somewhere. But as I have forbidden myself this vast and difficult field, I will turn elsewhere." " Before you turn elsewhere," exclaimed Antistius Labio, " I would fain test by a single question the sound- ness of the principle from which you will draw no deduc- tions ; you say all things undergo some action. Does not this imply the actual presence of some force in or upon all things?" " It is not to be denied," answered the Athenian. " What force," asked Labio, " is actually present in or upon inert matter ? " "The force of cohesion," replied the Athenian; "and, moreover, the force of weight, which I take to be only the same force with wider intervals ordained for its operation." A dead pause of an instant or two followed, and was broken by Herod Agrippa, who was a person bad indeed and odious, but of great acuteness and natiu'al abilities, exclaiming, "The Athenian reminds me of the number, weight, and measure of our holy books." 244 Dion and the Sibyls. " It is there, indeed, I found them," said Dionysius. " You mentioned," observed Augustus, after musing a few seconds, "that the demonstration you gave us a while ago was only one out of many. I do not want any more, nor several more ; but one more, might glut- tony ask of hospitality ? We roam the halls of a great intellectual fortress and mental palace to-night, superior to the palace of the Mamurras." " Has it such an impluvium, Augustus ? " chuckled the old knight, caressing his white mustache. "The impluvium," said Dionysius, "is that part of the palace where the light of heaven falls ? But the palace, Augustus, I take to be the sublime theme; my poor mind is only its beggarly porter and ostiarius. Suppose, then, there were only two beings in all the universe, one more excellent than the other, which of them would have preceded the other ? " No one replied. " If the inferior be the senior," pursued the Greek, "by so much as the superior afterward came to excel him, by so much that superior must have obtained his perfections from nothing whatever, from blank nonentity; because the inferior, by the very supposition (ex hy- pothesi), had them not to bestow." " The superior being," answered Augustus, " must therefore be the elder." " You speak justly, Augustus," said the Athenian. " Therefore the less perfect could never exist, if the more perfect had not first existed. The existence, then, of im- perfect beings proves the prioj: existence of one all-per- fect being, self-dependent, from whom the endowments of the others must unquestionably have been derived." Dion and the Sibyls. 345 " Cannot things grow ? " asked Labio. " Growth is feeding," answered Dion ; " growth is accretion, assimilation, condensation in one form of many scattered elements. Growth is possible, first, if we have a seed — that is, an organism capable, when fed, of filling out proportions defined beforehand j and, secondly, if we have the food by which it is sustained. But who de- fines the proportions? Who ordained the form? Wha formed the seed? Who supplies the air, the light> the food ? Would a seed grow of its own energy if not sown in fostering earth, or placed in fostering air and light — ^in short, if not fed by the proper natural juices ? Would it grow if starved of air, earth, light — thrown back upon its sole self ? Is not growth necessa- rily stimulated from without ? " " Growth is a complicated and manifold operation," said Augustus, "implying evidently a whole world pre- viously set systematically in motion." "Whence, Labio," asked the Athenian, "comes your seed that will grow ? " " From a plant," replied Labio. " Whence the plant ? " pursued the Greek. "From a seed." "Which was first ? " asked Dion. " The plant." " Then that plant, at least, never came from a seed,'* said Dionysius. " Whence came it ? " " The seed was first," said Labio. " Then that seed," said Dionysius, " never came from a plant. Whence came it ? " There was a laugh in which not only Labio, but even Tibmus joined. 246 Dion and the Silyls, " No," said Dionysius, " whatever the power which traced out beforehand the hmits and proportions which the seed, by growing or feeding, is to fill ; whatever the power which surrounds that seed, or other organism, with the manifold conditions for its development, that power must be something more perfect and excellent than the elements which it thus dispenses and controls ; and the existence of these less perfect things would have been impossible had not the other existed first. Thus, ascending the scale of beings, from the less to the more excellent, the simple fact that each exists proves that a being superior to it must somewhere else be found, and that the superior was in existence first. Until we reach that self-existent, all-perfect, eternal being whose life accoimts for a universe which his power governs, and which without him would have been an impossibility. " Without him imperfect things could never have ob- tained existence, and could not keep it for an instant ; and without recognizing him they cannot be explained. This, Augustus, is the second demonstration for which you have asked me. I have just touched, in passing, the porches which led to three others. A sixth could be derived from the nature of free force. No force is real which is not free. The force of a ball flung through the air is really the force of something else, not of the ball. A hand imparted it ; that hand was moved by the mind. In the mind at last, and there alone, the force becomes real, because there alone it is free. All the forces of nature could be shown to be thus communi- cated or derivative; and the question, where do they originate ? would ultimately bring us to some mind- some intelligence. That intelligence is God." Dion and the Sibyls. 247 " Could not all the forces of the universe be blind and mechanical ? " said Afer. " If so, they would none of them be free," said the Athenian. " Well, be it so," said Afer. " If not free," persisted the Greek, " they are com- pulsory; if compulsory, who compels them ? I say, God. You would have to say, nothings which is very like having nothing to say." A clamor of merriment followed this, and Dionysiu? had to wait until it subsided. " I am only showing," he resumed, " where and how the proof could be found. A seventh demonstration can be derived from the moral law. To deny God, or to misdescribe him, would necessitate the denial of any difference between good and evil, between virtue and vice. It would be a little long, but very easy to estab- lish this ; far easier than it was to make intelligible the two proofs which I have already submitted to you. I have said enough, however. This brilliant assemblage perceives that the beUef in one sovereign and omnipo- tent mind is not a vain reverie for which nothing sub- stantial can be advanced; but a truth demonstrable, which neither human wit nor human wisdom can shake from its everlasting foundations." " I wonder," said Strabo, " whether this being, of Vrhose knowledge and power there are no limits, is also mild and compassionate." Dionysius was buried in thought for a short time, and then said, " Pray favor me with your attention for a few mo- ments. Love draws nigh to its object; hatred draws 248 Dion and the Sibyls. away from its object, which it never approaches except in order to destroy it. But the non-existent cannot be- destroyed ; therefore the non-existent never could draw hatred toward it. Hatred would say, those things are non-existent which I should hate, and which I would destroy if they existed ; therefore let them continue non- existent. But this sovereign being is antecedent to all things ; in his mind alone could they have had any ex- istence before he created them. If, then, he drew near them, so to speak, approached them, called them out of nothing into his own palace, the palace of being, love alone could have led him. Therefore, by the most rigorous reasoning, it is evident that creation is inexpli- cable except as an act of love. It is more an act of love than even preservation and protection. This om- nipotent being, then, must be love in perpetual action; love in universal action, boundless and everlasting love." " Certainly yours is a grand philosophy," said Augus- tus. " This subUme being," pursued Dionysius, " is, and cannot but be an infinite mind; he is boimdless know- ledge, boundless power, and boundless goodness. The mere continuance from day to day of this universe — " Here the Athenian suddenly stopped and looked round. " Why, were the most beneficent human being that ever lived," exclaimed he, " able by a word to cast the universe into destruction ; were it in his power to say, at any moment of wrath or disappointment, that the sun should not rise on the morrow, mankind would fall inta a chronic frenzy of terror." " If," cried a shrill voice — that of the child Caligula — Dion and the Sibyls. 249 **' if the sun shines and one cannot see, it is no use ! I know what I would do with the sun to-morrow morning, unless I recover the use of my eyes." « What ? " asked Dionysius. " I'd blow it out ! " cried the dear boy, tearing off his bandage, stamping his feet, and turning toward his in- terrogator a face neither beautiful in feature nor mild in expression. " The sun is in good keeping," said the Athenian. Augustus turned, after a short, brooding look at Ca- ligula, to Haterius, and said, " What think you, my Quintus ? Has our Athenian made good his theories ? " " He has presented them like rocks of adamant," re- sponded Haterius. " Dionysius has convinced me per- fectly that the imiverse has been produced and is gov- erned by the great being of whom he has so earnestly and so luminously spoken." " Yet one word with you, young philosopher," said Antistius Labio, sending a glance all round the circle, and finally contemplating intently the broad, cauidid brow and kindly blue eyes of the Athenian; " one word ! You remarked that you could prove all things to be cared for and loved somewhere. You afterward men- tioned that the care or love in question could be exer- cised by none save the stupendous king-spirit whose ex- istence, I confess, you almost persuade me to believe. But now solve me a difficulty. You have alluded to the moral law. You maintain, although this has not been a subject of our debate to-night, the immortality of our souls. Finally, — ^none can forget it, — you hinted that there could be no morality, no difference between 250 Dion and the Sibyls. right and wrong, virtue and vice, were there not one sovereign God. Does this mean, or does it not, that moraUty is that which pleases his eternal and therefore unchanging views ? " " Ah ! " said Dionysius, " I perceive your drift. You land me amid real enigmas. But go on; I answer honestly — Yes." " Then," pursued Labio, " if the ghost within us be immortal, it wiU be happy after death, provided it shall have pleased this being, and miserable should it have offended him." " Yes." " Now, Augustus," persisted Labio, " what would you think of the justice of a monarch who proclaimed re- wards for conforming with his will, and pimishments for thwarting it, but at the same time would not make it known what his will was, nor afford any protection to those who might be desirous of giving it effect? " Can Dionysius of Athens or anybody else tell us what are the special desires of this great being in our regard ? Does he imagine that unlettered, mechanical, toiling men have either understandings or the leisure to arrive at the conclusions which his own splendid- intel- lect has attained ? Then why is there not some authori- tative teacher sent down among men from heaven ? " Dionysius answered not. Labio continued : " I speak roughly and plainly. I transfix him with his own principles. He is too honest not to feel the force of what I say. He cannot reply. Mark next : we live but a short while in this world; and if we be immortal, our state here is downright contemptible in imporunce compared with that which has to come; and Dion and the Sibyls. 251 yet he tells us that this contemptible point of time, this mere dot of existence, is to determine our lot for ever- lasting ages, and he that says this proclaims the being whose existence he certainly has demonstrated to be the very principle of love itself. Yet this being who will establish our destinies according as we please him, tells us not how to do it." Again the Athenian refrained from breaking the ex- pectant silence which ensued. " Would not one imagine," said Strabo, " that the most particular instructions would be given to us how to regulate a conduct upon which so much depends ? " " Yes," observed Labio, " and not instructions alone, but instructors, to whom occasional reference would be always possible." All eyes turned toward Dionysius. He blushed, hesi- tated, and at last said : " You only echo thoughts long familiar to my mind. I cannot answer. I am not capable of solving these diificulties. Time is not completed. I think, like the Sibyls, that some special light is yet to come down from heaven." Here the conversation ended. Half an hour afterward, Dionysius, who had begged to be excused for that night from entering upon the second of the two doctrines which he had been chaU lenged to sustain, was walking part of the way with Paulus toward the Inn of the Hundredth Milestone, along the fretwork of light which was shed upon the Appian Road by the moon and stars through the leaves of the chestnut-trees. " I feel confident, Paulus," said he, " that Augustus 252 Dien and the Sibyls. will restore your family estates ; and should you accept the liberal offer of Germanicus Caesar, and depart upon this German expedition to-morrow morning, I will watch your interests while you are absent." " I know it well, generous friend," replied the other youth ; " and I do hope my mother will not object to my going. Only think, I may come back a military tribune ! Only think ! " "Yes," said Dion, "and enter that great castle which glitters yonder in the moonlight as proprietor." " If so, will you not," said Paulus, " come and stay with us ? " " That is an engagement," said the Athenian, " pro- vided some day you will all pay me a return visit at Athens." "We'll exchange the tessera hospitalis on it," ex- claimed Paulus. Thus they parted on the moonlit road, Dionysius re- turning to Formiae, and Paulus walking onward with long, rapid strides. Part III. CHAPTER I. lEXT morning, before the gray of the dawn be- gan to kindle into sunrise, Paulus had com- pleted with swinging strides the distance be- tween Crispus's inn and the camp outside of Fonnise, and he stood before the Prsetorium of Germanicus Caesar, exactly as the commander-in-chief lifted its cur- tain door, and stepped forth. " To come with us, or not ? " asked Germanicus, smiling. " To go with you, general," answered Paulus ; " but my mother and sister grudge me this one day, and as Tiberius Caesar has made me a present of the horse which I broke the other evening, and as an army travels far more slowly than a well-mounted individual, will you permit me to follow you to-morrow ? Before your van- guard reaches Faventia (Faenza now), nay, before you are out of Latium, I hope to report myself." Germanicus mused. " Nay," said he, after a moment or two, " wait you at that Hundredth Milestone Post-house till you receive further orders. You shall have them this nigjht." 253 254 Dion and the Sibyls. The commander-in-chief then slightly raised his right hand, over which Paulus, taking it, bowed low. That evening, in the bower of the veranda overlooking the garden of Crispus's inn, our hero was seated, not smoking, as so many generations of modem heroes have smoked, and not whittUng, as American heroes when at leisure think ^'t necessary to whittle, but sedate and at his ease, listening to the occasional wise and keen obser- vations of the Lady Aglais, and the less sparing con- versation, the volatile, empty prattle, of his sister Agatha. While they were thus occupied, a well-known step came up the staircase from the garden. "Dionysius!" cried Paulus. The visitor brought them news for which they had not hoped. Augustus, who had first resolved not to listen to the suit of Paulus, had suddenly appointed a day for its hearing j and, moreover, it was agreed, by a sort of comity and indulgence, that Dionysius, although not a Roman lawyer, should be allowed to plead the case of his friend. Finally, the emperor himself, who, since the death of Maecenas, many years before the date of our tale, had desisted from this practice, was to preside in court for the day (to use modem parlance) as a judge in equity. The wanderers were exchanging remarks of congratu- lation upon these important and unexpected tidings, when Crispus himself ran up the stairs, holding out a leirge letter fastened with the usual silken tie, and ad- dressed to Paulus. The handwriting was very delicate, and yet a little careless and easy, the handwriting of a man who, while accustomed to write more than the Romans of high station (except, indeed, the professed Dion and the Sibyls. 255 men of letters) usually did, could unite the dispatch of much business with a certain fastidious neatness even in trifles. Paulus went to the dining-table, and opening the paper, out of which tumbled a gold ring, read as follows by the light of the scallop-shaped lamp at the top of the tapering pole which flanked one of the corners of the board: " Germanicus Caesar to Paulus Lepidus ^milius, the centurion, greeting." "He makes me a centurion already" said Paulus. The letter continued: " Do not follow the army directly. Go to Rome. Seek the house of Eleazax the Hebrew, near the lower end of the Suburra. Show him the enclosed ring, which he well knows as my signet, and demand of him the already stipulated sum of twelve millions of sestertii (twelve thousand sesterda), which is the pay of forty thousand of my common legionaries for one month. I mean to issue a fortnight's pay as a bounty, extending it to all (centurions and horse as well as legionaries). Ibst nummos virtus. It would be far more convenient if you could bring this money to me in bronze or cop per coin, the as j but this will be utterly impossible; you could not find horses to carry the load, nor a suf- ficient guard to convoy it. You must therefore make Eleazar pay you as much as possible in gold : for in- stance, in the gold scrupulum, each coin equal to five silver denarii. After receiving and reckoning the treas- ure, give him a written voucher signed with your name, and sealed with my signet. Pack the gold in strong ron chests or boxes; collect as a guard all the men you 2 56 Dion and the Sibyls. can of the fourth centuria, to which you are appointed, and hasten, night and day, to join me at Forum Alieni (now Ferrara), on the Adriatic Sea. Farewell." Paulus determined to start at daybreak upon this im- portant and confidential mission, and, in order not to multiply leave-takings, he said adieu to his family and to Dionysius that night. CHAPTER 11. yT was about sunset in Rome when four persona of splendid stature, a trained martial bearing, and eminently gallant appearance, sauntered along one of the principal streets. They loitered here and there at a portico, or paused under a covered colon- nade, to swell the momentary groups who were watch- ing some Sardinian jester, or who listened with wonder to a sophist from the Greek islands as he declaimed. Two of these four men — for whom, as they strode along, the rabble made obsequious room — were still in the physical prime of life, and two in the flower of early youth. They were all plainly but neatly and carefully attired, not in the toga, but in the sagum; for there was war in Italy ; * and the Germans, everybody knew, were even now to be expelled beyond the sacred frontiers, with carnage, and shame, and a great overthrow. An- other impressive lesson was to be taught to all barba- rians. The four men who wore the sagum were also armed, and some who noted them wondered why such men were there and not with Germanicus in Venetia. (News had been whispered, indeed, that the irruption had come much nearer than lUyricum, and that the barbarians, swarming round the top of the Adriatic, had defeated and dispersed the stationary guards, and were well within Italy proper.) It soon grew dusk, and one of the four, who, al- * whenever there was war in Italy itself, the Romans donned the 257 258 Dion and the Sibyls. though the youngest, seemed to exercise a species of authority over the rest, said: " Now let us take a look at our stable, then at our men, after which the Suburra." They went into an alley, threaded their way through a dense, motley, seething multitude of roistering idlers, the ebullition of which had once fermented clear into a Julius Caesar, and presently they passed under an arch- way into a courtyard strewn with sawdust, where all was comparatively quiet — a creek, so to say, running out of a high sea into sheltering cliffs on either hand. As they peered under a low porch into a stable lighted by lanterns, o^xc old acquaintance, Philip the freedman, came out with a dust-covered and grim face, and saluted respectfully the youngest of the company. " Twelve fine, strong Tauric horses, master Paulus," he said, pointing to twelve clean, well-littered stalls, "besides the Sejanus," added he, turning toward the Stan immediately opposite the door. "Are these all we can obtain?" inquired Paulus. " Ah ! and lucky too, master Paulus, to obtain these," answered the freedman; "they wanted forty nummt aurei a pair, but I chaffered them down a bit. ^ This Rome is a nasty place, I can tell you, and, between ourselves, a dangerous place, too." " But," said Paulus, with a serious look, " if we can- not mount the soldiers, we must travel at an infantry pace; the vehicles cannot leave the guard behind. However, where are the men, Philip?" " Hard by, master. I will conduct you to their ther- mopoUum." * * Wine-shop : tavern, curiously enough, meant book-shop or stationer'^ Dion and the Sibyls. 259 Philip hereupon led the way, and the four followed till just within the lower end of the Suburra ; pushing aside a curtain, he introduced them from the street into what appeared to be a den of raging maniacs. Ten stalwart men, dressed and armed as soldiers, were seated opposite to one another on benches at each side of a long table, five a side. Earthenware vessels, called cupcB, full of common draught wine (vinum do- liare), loaded the coarse pine table, and each pair of soldiers appeared to be engaged in a deadly strife across the board. It was who should best " micare digitos," or " flash his fingers." The men were seriously gam- bling in that ancient traditionary way which still sur- vives in Italy under the name of "morra" a wonderful instance of the tenacious capacity which popular cus- toms possess to outlive political changes, the overthrows of dynasties, the revolutions of states and constitutions. The men thus gambling in the reign of Augustus Caesar roared, grimaced, and gesticulated, as they exhibited on the one side, and guessed on the other, the number of fingers closed or straightened in the hands which they darted alternately against each other's faces; and near- ly two thousand years later men still roar, grimace, ges- ticulate, and rave after the same manner over the same curious game in Italy, from Rome to the Boot of Mag- na Grsecia. The only principle of skill in the game is that which gives its interest to the " Odd and Even " of our modem schoolboys. It seemed as if the soldiers were on the point of mas- sacring each other. The sudden apparition of Paulus and his companions at the door of their bower produced an amusing change of scene. Every gambler was petri- a6o Dion and the Sibyls, fied and crystallized in his particular attitude and his own proper and peculiar grimace; but the yelling at once gave place to dead silence, as if by enchantment, and ten pairs of eyes gazed askance with a troubled expression upon the unexpected intruders. A word ex- plained all to the foreign-reared Roman. Not a man of the howling company was in the slightest degree intoxi- cated. "All is well, my men," said Paulus, with a smile; "be ready for orders night or day.'' "Ay, ay! centurion," was the reply sung out in chorus; and as he left them the roaring recommenced — " Duo / Quinque ! Tres !" "Now for our man" said Paulus; and they ascended the famous, or rather infamous, Suburra about thirty- yards. They stopped on the left side of the street going upward, at a door which a man with a pinched, withered, yellow face, a long, hooked nose, thick lips, and thick, overhanging red eyebrows, was in the act of closing. Paulus placed his hand against the door to keep it ajar, the man within set his shoulder against it, and shoved with all his might to close it home ; the door quivered slightly, and remained as it was. " Why, Cassius Chaerias," observed Paulus, laughing, and turning to one of the two eldest of the not elderly- group, " you could cut your way through this door, even if it were closed, more easily than through eight thousand infuriated mutineers." In a recent mutiny of the legions under Germanicus in Gaul, the future slayer of Caligula had actually per- formed this astounding exploit, as Tacitus particularly recounts. Dion and the Sidy Is. 261 Cassius Chaerias blushed, and slightly bowing, replied with a smile : " Our friend Thellus, here, who has left his tragic and thankless, although valiant, calling of the arena, to join us army-folk, even in the low rank of a decurion, could, I think, do more than cut his way through it. Give him a cestus for his right hand, and with one blow he would shiver it from top to bottom." Thellus said, addressing the frightened face within, " Dear old man, open your door ; our leader here must speak with you, and we mean no harm." " Go away, brawlers ! " answered a quavering but vig- orous voice, " this is no wine-shop, nor anything of the sort." " Look at this," replied Paulus. The person within held up a lantern, and examined the object extended toward him. " Oh ! " exclaimed he, uttering some Hebrew invoca- tion, unintelligible to his visitors ; " the signet-ring of Caesar! Enter, illustrious sirs." And he held the door wjde, while his visitors entered. Having had occasion more than once already to de- scribe minutely the architecture, form, appearance, f ur- nitiu-e, and all the arrangements of people's houses in that age, I need not now either weary the reader or de- lay the story by dwelling any more upon antiquarian particulars. But in the present instance there was some- thing unusual, which shall not, however, lead us into description. It must be left to display itself as our tale runs on. Paulus noticed with surprise that the species of hall in which they stood seemed to lead nowhere. Eleazaj:, 262 Dion and the Sibyls. meantime, shut and bolted the house-door, took up hia lantern from the ground, pushed back a sliding panel in the right-hand sidewall, and then led his visitors in a direction parallel to the Suburra outside, along an inter- nal passage lighted by a solitary sconce. At the end of the passage was a staircase, and at the top of this a door, half open. They passed through it ; and Eleazar bolted and locked the door. Another but shorter passage in the same direction was terminated by a similar staircase and similar door, after passing which they found them- selves in the real vestibule of the house — ^large, hand- some, well lighted by a hanging lamp, paved with tessel- lated marble, and rising overhead into a concentric vault. Evidently, at some former time, the entrance of the house had been straight from the Suburra into this ves- tibule. While, indeed, they waited here for the Jew, who was fastening the last as he had fastened the first door, they could hear distinctly the roaring torrent of disorder and debauchery in the infamous street outside. "A curiously constructed house, sir," remarked to Paulus the decurion Longinus, with a bewildered look in his handsome face. The Jew, who had come back as this was said, chuckled and observed, as he again led the way: " If you lived in the Suburra, you would like to make your house diificult to enter." Presently they arrived in a fine, spacious apartment, and beheld in the middle of it a table, on which were lights arranged so as to illumine a long lambskin scroll in characters new and strange to them, and a venerable, aged man seated at the table bending over the scroll, and standing at his side a young girl, who held in her Dion and the Sibyls. 263 hands some kind of oriental embroidery, an end of which trailed along a pile of cushions from which she had apparently risen, leaving her work for a moment in order to look at a passage in the book at the call of the aged reader. The latter was so absorbed in his occu- pation that he was not at first aware of thef presence of strangers ; but the child, who stood on the side of the table opposite the door, looked up and gazed with sur- prise at the four martial-looking figures who strode be- hind Eleazar into the room. Whatever the amazement, nevertheless, of the young maiden might have been, Paulus was more astounded still ; for, truth to say, he thought he could never have beheld anything beautiful until that moment. The newcomers having nearly reached the table, had halted, Paulus and Eleazar in front; and yet, even now, the old man, reading the scroU with his back to them, was unaware of their arrival, for, pointing with his finger to the page, he exclaimed in a tone eloquent with emotion : "And this warrior, this patriot, this glorious hero, this matchless servant of the Most High, and champion of the people of God, this very same Judas Maccabeus, my grandchild, was my ancestor and yours — he belongs to our own line ! " "Your line; your own line," said Eleazar, in a harsh voice, and sneering, "is to mind your business, or rather my business ; it is for that I give you your bread, and not for dreaming over the Scriptures. Who, think you, is going to pay the smallest consideration to you or your grandchild because you are descended collaterally from the Maccabees ? " At this bitter speech, bitterly spoken, the old man, 264 Dion and the Sibyls. who, on the first sound of the voice, had turned round and risen, bent his head meekly, but yet with a certain dignity, and replied : " I had finished the accounts you gave me. My grandchild and I are not asking for any consideration from you beyond what I earn. You need not remind us that a noble old race has fallen into poverty. Come, Esther." With this he was retiring, but the young girl burst into tears, and running to her grandfather, taking his hand with one of hers, and brushing her tears away with the other, she looked at Eleazar, and made the following speech : "You rude, cruel man! you are always saying shame- ful, cruel words to my grandfather because he bears everything. But I will not allow you to speak so to my grandfather; I will not bear it any more." Here she heaved a little sob, and added rather il- logically : " You ask who will pay grandfather any consideration because he is descended from a glorious warrior and a noble hero ? T will." Paulus, deeply interested in the unexpected interior drama which had thus suddenly been presented and played out before him, glanced at his martial comrades, and then said in a serious and kindly tone : "Without intrusiveness, be it spoken, /will too. To be descended from a glorious warrior and noble hero is no small title to respect." The little damsel's countenance cleared at once into sunlight. " Well, well," said Eleazar, " I meant you no offence. Dion and the Sibyls. 265 Josiah Maccabeus. But go, now, and see to half the treasure" emphasizing the last words. With a look of astonishment, which was not lost upon the observant Paulus, Josiah Maccabeus left the room, whereupon the young girl resumed her embroidery and her former place on the pile of cushions, and said, with a sly glance at Paulus : " You have come, sir, I suppose, for the treasure which om: master here, the Rabbi Eleazar, has got ready for the army, because the ^rarium Sanctum (public treas- ury) won't have enough money for some months ? " " Child, child! " exclaimed Eleazar, "who said I had the treasure ready?" " You did, yesterday. Rabbi — don't you remember? — when our countryman, Azareel, came." "You mistook, Esther. You can run, now, my dear, and see that some refreshments be prepared for these honored visitors." During this short dialogue Paulus and his companions had their first good view of the person to whom they had brought Germanicus Csesar's signet. None of them liked his looks." " Surely," said Paulus, "you have the money ready? " " It is, and it is not, honored sir. The greater portion I must receive from various persons who will not part with it except on better terms than those which the Caesar offered to me. My share, however, I will cheerfully advance, as agreed." "We will," said Paulus firmly, "either take the treas- ure with us this night, or we will take you, in order to prove to the commander-in-chief that we have executed Ihs orders, so far as we are concerned." 266 Dion and the Sibyls. " But you will leave me my profits," answered the Jew, " and give me, all the same, a voucher in full." We will spare the reader the sort of argument which ensued. It has, in cases analogous, been repeated millions of times, all over the world, for thousands of years. When all was settled, servants brought in wines and dainty refreshments, and Uttle Esther, with extraordinary gracefulness of mien and language, pressed the visitors to partake of the various dehcacies before them. Elea- zar forthwith prepared to produce the treasure. Attended by Josiah Maccabeus (who had now returned) as his scrivener, and by many servants, he first directed a large and massive empty chest of wrought iron to be brought into the room. The chest ran upon rollers, or little wheels of hard wood, which were deeper than the thick- ness of a couple of stout poles, braced horizontally be- neath the chest, and projecting beyond it at each end. The poles were thus kept from touching the ground. These poles, hke those of a htter or " palkee," could be hfted and borne upon the shoulders of four or of eight men. The next operation was to count the twelve thousand sestertii, or twelve milUons of sesterces (nearly five hundred thousand dollars). And here it will be worth while to note the fact that the money was delivered in such proportions respectively of gold and silver coin — the aureus nummus, or gold denarius, worth, I beheve, five dollars; the small gold scruple, worth about ninety cents; and, finally, the silver denarius, equal to about eighteen cents — that the whole treasiu'e rose to a very considerable and unwieldy weight Dion and the Sibyls. 267 The operation of counting and packing the rouleaux in the chest occupied the party almost all the night, although they employed great diligence and a proper division of labor. Long before the task was over, little Esther had said farewell to the company, but ere doing this, she stole toward Paulus, stood on tiptoe, and reach- ing her hand to his shoulder, signified that she wished to whisper something in his ear. With a kindly smile the tall youth stooped, and with an important and seri- ous face the child whispered. Chaerias was the only one present who observed this little operation. The two other comraJes of Paulus were bending over the chest and packing it ; the Jew, Eleazar, was handing the rouleaux to Longinus and Thellus; while Josiah, Esther's grandfather, was busy with the stylus and a large slate-like tablet. Chaerias perceived, when the whisper was finished, that Paulus looked for a moment fully as grave as the young girl. Paulus patted the girl's head and thanked her, upon which she bounded away to the door. Arrived there, she turned round, and, still directing her conversation to Paulus, whose appear- ance and manners had evidently much interested hei; said aloud: " Are you going to the war, sir ? " "Yes," said he. " I thought," pursued Esther, " that you might have come back soon ; " and she heaved a slight, fluttering sigh. " You are very good, my little lady," replied our youth j "but sometimes people do return even from wars, do they not?" " Oh ! yes J my own ancestors often did. But I thought a68 Dion and the Sibyls. you might return sooner still ; because Rabbi Eleazar said that the persons who took the money from this house were not the persons who would take it home — that is, to where it was bound, and that is to the war. But it seems you are to take it all the way. My grand- father does not know what I have just whispered you," added she, returning, and speaking in a lower voice ; " shall I tell him before all these persons ? " " On no account," answered Paulus, in a whisper ; " it might lead to an immediate struggle. I have formed my own plan. Fear nothing, my good and kind little lady. I am safe, I believe, and I shall never for- get you" At this assurance, and the emphasis with which it was spoken, a sort of crimson fell like a light over Esther's face. She stood musing for a moment, and said : " Then I will wait up for grandfather, whose room is next to mine, and tell him, as he passes, that I have mentioned the facts to you. Farewell ! " She now withdrew altogether, and Cassius Chaerias, who had, in spite of himself, overheard a part of the sin- gular and mysterious conference, gazed hard at Paulus. But the latter stood, with his eyes bent abstractedly on the floor, calm, impassive, and impenetrable. Chaerias could gather nothing to solve the enigma. By hard work the reckoning and the packing of the treasiue were finished considerably before daybreak; whereupon Paulus received the key of the chest, and gave in exchange to Eleazar a receipt in full, signed with his own name, witnessed by Thellus, Chaerias, and Longinus, and sealed with the signet of Germanicus Caesar. Jhon and the Sibyls. 269 A sneering and malignant expression in the Jew's face struck Paulus, and the Jew saw that he saw it. " You can't remove this now," said the Jew, compos- ing his features with nervous rapidity. " No," said Paulus; "and we have had fatigue enough for one night. There are couches and cushions in this room ; we must trouble you to turn it into a sleeping apartment for the next foiu: hours, and to leave us the. tey." In ten minutes the numerous attendants had made all the arrangements requisite for this purpose, and Eleazar, taking up a lamp to retire, said, in a tone of sentimentality, intended for sentiment : " This is a memorable chamber, honored sirs. Here Julius Caesar, time and again, held wild orgies in his boyhood. Here Catiline and he, and a numerous con- vivial band, of whom Caesar was much the youngest, played many a strange prank," "What!" cried Paulus, in amazement; " Csesar frequent this quarter of Rome, Caesar Uve in the Su- burra!" " Certainly," quoth Thellus, yawning. "When a boy, yes," observed Chaerias. " This was his very house in those days," pursued the Jew. " My father, who was one of the many thousands of my nation brought hither as hostages from Jerusalem by Pompey the Great, often told me that he had seen Julius Caesar more than once in the room we are now standing in. Pompey, of course, had selected the wealthiest families to carry away, and my father lent money over and over again to Julius Caesar." "Was your father," asked Chaerias, with a sneer. 270 Dion and the Sibyls, " ever paid ? Was he paid, I pray you, by the chora- gus of that convivial crew?" "Not till after the battle of Pharsalia," answered Eleazar, " when indeed he had long ceased to look for the money. It was, however, then paid, valiant sir, and the interest of it was paid also." "Ah!" returned Chaerias, "the hem of the garment was wider than the garment, I wager." The Jew here moved toward the door. " Before you go, good Eleazar," said Faulus, " give us another interesting piece of information. I am taking this treasure from your house, am I not?" "Yes, most honored sir; it looks very like it." " Why did you say I should never take it to its des- tination?" "I say that? Never!" " Your scrivener's grandchild has told me that she heard you say that it was not those who took the money from here who would take it to its destina- tion." Eleazar's active mind was not quite quick enough for this abrupt emergency; and he certainly looked more than usually ugly before he replied. But recovering himself, he said: " My scrivener's little grandchild is so bright that she catches broken lights upon the numberless points of a whimsical, myriad-faced, and diamond-Uke intelligence. What I stated was, that those who took the money from this house would be only the messengers of those who were to take it to its destination." And with this pretty bit of semi-oriental rhetoric, he bowed and left them. Uion ante The Sibyls. 271 A curious quarter of an hour ensued, when the four emissaries found themselves at last alone. Said Paulus, " I want some sleep ; let us take our several couches, and prepare for to-morrow." "This Jew has provided us," observed Chaerias, "with really good wine; none of your vinum doliare. Before we sleep, one cyathus round I " While Cassius Chaerias poured out four portions of the wine, Paulus shrugged his eyebrows, Thellus his shoulders, and Longinus the decurion looked upon the operation with an impassive countenance. When they had each drunk their respective measures, Cassius Chae- rias turned up his sagum, and bared his right arm. "That is the arm," said he, "which, last year,* cleared a road for me, with the short Roman sword, through thousands of opposing mutineers. Come, Lon- ginus TRY ARMS ! ! " And he planted his elbow on the table, and seized in his right hand the readily-offered hand of the decu- rion. Severe was the struggle. The central vein in each man's forehead came out into view; their lips were compressed; their feet were steadied strongly upon the floor; their shoulders quivered, and — after a doubtful period of nearly three minutes — down with a crash went the knuckles of Longinus upon the elm Uble. " Now for the next," said Chaerias. " Do you mean to challenge me ? " quoth Paulus. "Even so," said Chaerias, with an amicable smile. The ensuing struggle was much more severe than the * An anachronism of two or three years, with which the historian can reproach the novelist. 272 Dion and the Sibyls. last. Cassius Chserias was considerably older than Paulus; but Paulus had been trained in the Athenian Pancratia, and it was impossible for the energy and muscular power of Chserias to break down the scientific resistance of his youthful opponent, nor cotdd Paulus pretend to bend back by main force the mighty arm of the famous centurion. Indeed, Paulus had, throughout, a downward but yet an imconquered arm. Again and again Chaerias threw his whole vigor into the effort, panting and gasping ; and each time Paulus, who had never opened his lips during the struggle, smiled at the end of it. " You cannot do it, can you, Chaerias ? " cried Thel- lus, who also was smiling. " Well, scarcely," said Chserias ; " in fact, I cannot. But you would be just as powerless." A laugh met this, that was not unlike the laugh with which Paulus, a few days before, had greeted Clau- dius's panic-stricken deprecation of being selected to break the Sejan horse. " As powerless ! " cried the ex-gladiator; "why, you have had the best of it against our chick here ; who, when he comes to his plenary powers, will have the best of it against us all. But you are speaking now to Thel- lus — I may have gone into a wrong calling, or, if it be allowable, I may yet have rashly chosen it ; but, once upon the sands, I have walked them a king — give us your hand, and hold it up if you can." Cassius Chserias — ^brave, handsome, youthful, and vigorous — seized the mighty hand proffered to him, and found his own arm instantly bent powerless back upon the table. Dion and the Sibyls. 273 "I would not do that," said Thellus, "to young mas- ter Paulus, our present leader, for a hundred thousand sesterces. He must meet — he has to meet, alas ! the mortifications of life ; but I do not want to be, in his case, the early vehicle even of the least of them." Paulus bowed to Thellus, and said, smiling: " I have known a few already; and it would be no shame to be beaten by you in vigor, valor, or skill." Chaerias rose, stared, frowned, and laughed. He marched up and down the room once or twice, and then exclaimed : "Why, Thellus, what an infernal establishment the arena must be! Such men as you ought not to be sucked into that kind of vortex." Thellus, though smiling, heaved a sigh. " Come, friends," cried Paulus, moving to the centre of the large chamber, " enough of pastime. We have work to do. Sit round me here, in the middle of this room, while I tell you something. Walls, you know, have ears." Forthwith his three companions brought cushions and placed them near the settle which he had set down in the middle of the apartment, and, sitting before him, waited for his communication. "Yonder beautiful grandchild of the uncanny-look- ing Jew's poor clerk or scrivener," said Paulus in a low tone, almost a whisper, after a moment or two of reflec- tion, " not only made one or two singular disclosures in the remarks you all heard, but whispered to me a very serious fact" Here Cassius Chaerias, whose curiosity had been already much spurred, appeared the very embodiment 274 Dion and the Sibyls. of attention. But all were keenly attentive. Faulus pursued : " Learn, then, that in this queerly built or queerly ar- ranged house there is, at this moment, a crowd of men of dangerous and debauched appearance, and doubt- less of desperate disposition; some of them, friend Thellus, men who have been in the arena. Nor is this all. They have comrades outside, watching our ten soldiers." Longinus uttered that low-whispered whistle by which some men express the cool appreciation of a sudden calamity. " Twelve milUons of sesterces, my friends," continued Paulus, " are to many men hereabouts an object of great interest. I am certain that we are to be attacked on the road, and yonder chest is to be taken from us. While here, or in Rome; first the Jew's own safety is our host- age, and next, Lucius Piso's government of the city will be our safety. But once we are on the road, the Jew calculates on a part of the booty as a reward for be- traying us, to be got out of the robbers themselves — while he looks to recover the whole money and interest for it, all the same, from the JErarium Saruium, in the end." "We have twelve good horses," said Longinus, "and might outstrip the villains." " So will they have horses," answered Paulus, "and no iron chest or wagon to clog their paca The speed of a colutnn is the speed of its slowest part ; and tnen what can fourteen men do against seventy? You are aware that the army, except stationary Praetorians and an Ur- ban Guard, of which Lucius Piso would not lend us a Dion and the Sibyls. 275 man beyond the walls, has gone north; and there is not another soldier to be found at our disposal in all Rome. What advice do you give ? " The conjuncture was obviously serious. They had " tried arms " in play. They were now to try wits in earnest. Paulus's counsellors advised one course and another. I. To wait: — ^but the difficulty would wait also. 2. To send to Germanicus for a larger escort: — but time pressed, and the treasure was wanted by Germanicus at once. 3. To announce that they were to be met, twenty miles from Rome, by more soldiers — or, that they would start the day after the next at dawn, whereas they should start early the night before. Neither of these plans would avail, for they would be too closely watched. These were the devices of ready and well-exercised, but ordinary, soldiers. Paulus shook his head, smiling, and then gave his orders. " After an hour or two of sleep," said he, " we will, roll and carry this wheel-chest straight down to our sta- bles. There we must lock ourselves in with old Philip. We will then and there vmpack and empty the chest : the gold we must next repack, as best we can, in some corn-bags, to be placed under several of the many bun- dles and trusses of hay which we must carry for the use of our horses on the road, cording the bags roughly, but strongly and securely. We must, when this is done, unpave a portion of the stable, and mixing the stones with rubbish, to prevent them from rattling when shaken, we must repack the chest with that sort of treasure. To get stones from anywhere else outside the stable, and convey them thither, would excite, first, attention, then 376 Dion and the Sibyls. curiosity, and finally a suspicion, if not a sure inference, of our whole design. After these measures we will set out, leaving Philip to keep possession of the stable, and to prevent any person whatever (who might notice the displacement of the paving-stones) from entering it for a couple of days; which time past, he can follow us. The chest is one, you perceive, which, without the key, would take iron crowbars many hours to break open, and steel saws as many to bite through — the lock being both cunning as a lock and the strongest part of the whole fabric. Our pursuers will not think of crowbars or of steel saws ; and the key I will Hing into the first water or wood we meet after starting. When we are overtaken — or if we be — ^you must at first make a show of fighting, and leave the rest to me." His three companions highly applauded this plan, and they and he lay down on cushions round the chest, one on each of its four sides, to take a short and very neces- sary slumber. They soon awoke, and began to execute, point by point, the scheme of young Paulus Lepidus w£milius. CHAPTER III. ► E have made more than fifty miles. And the pursuers do not appear," said Paulus. Longinus was holding for his superior the bridle of the famous horse of which Tiberius Cxsar had made a present to the breaker of him. Chaerias and Thellus were standing on each side of our youth, who had dismounted ; and all three, shading their eyes with their hands from a dazzling ItaUan moon at full, were looking along the straight backward road. Two wagons» were in front, or behind them, as they now stood watch- ing; the soldiers had unharnessed the six horses of one of them — ^that in the rear — upon which the heavy iron chest was borne, and were letting them drink from a roadside spring; the other wagon, drawn also by six horses, and laden with corn-bags, and hay at the bottom, and various packages and soldiers' cumber above, was moving forward at a walk, conducted by two soldiers, who rode the two horses in the mid> die. High banks on each hand lined at that point the Roman road, which led to the northeast of Italy, and these banks were densely clothed with copse-wood, which in certain places thickened into an impenetrable jungle. " Do any of you see anything ? " inquired Paulus^ when he found no one disposed to answer his remark. A few moments of silent watching followed, whee Longinus, the decurion, said : " I see, nothing, centu< 277 278 Dion and the Sibyls. rion; but I Afar something — the distant beat of hoofs upon this hard and echoing road." Paulus at once cried to the men conducting the hay- wagon in front (that is, behind them, as they then were facing round) to drive forward steadily, but to take care not to blow the horses until followed by the rearward wagon, when they were to rush forward at the top of their speed, and to continue at that pace. He next ordered the two soldiers who were giving water to the horses of the other wagon in the rear, in which was the chest, to rehamess them quickly, and as soon as a body of mounted men should appear on the road behind, and should have them plainly in sight — ^but not sooner — to push their horses into a gallop, yet to make sure of not gaining upon the wagon in front, but, beginning as late as possible, to continue their gallop only about a thou- sand paces, and then to walk. Lastly, he turned to the six remaining soldiers, and bade them draw their short swords, loosen their shields, and prepare for action. Upon which he clapped his hand upon the emerald hilt of his own very differently-shaped weapon, whipped it out of the scabbard, and, springing upon the back of Sejanus (or, more properly, of the Sejan steed), he said: " Thellus, stand upon my right hand, a little further, so as to give me room ; my weapon is made for cutting as well as thrusting. Chaerias and Longinus, stay on my left hand. Let us see whether we can keep this narrow road awhile against all who may come." Ay this time the clatter from the southwest of gallop- ing hoofs upon the hard road had become audible to all. IHon and the Sibyls. 379 ** Legionaries of the fourth centuria ! " cried Faulus, turning round, "away from the road into the brush- wood on either hand, three each side. Get before us, as we face now, a few yards." The Roman legionaries vanished silently to execute this order, and crept through the copse on either hand of the highway. Meantime the tay-wagon trotted steadily forward, and the other remained stationary, ready for an apparently panic-sticken gallop. Presently came forward, with rattle of hoofs and clang of metal, and with the play of the moonlight upon armor, a column of mounted men, every one of whom had on his face a linen mask — not the mask used in comedies. The column filled the width of the road. Fronting them like a statue, in the middle of the way, stood the colossal chestnut horse, and like a statue sat yoimg Faulus on his back. The riders pulled hard and stopped a few yards from him, when their leader called out : " Young centurion, no affectation or hypocrisy is re- quired. Eleazar has — ^perish my tongue ! I was going to say that I know you to be a youth of precocious pru- dence. It is best to speak out what we mean and what we want. You are conveying a large treasure to the army in Venetia ; we must have every sesterce of it." Faulus looked, and saw that the wagon laden with the iron chest had just departed in well-acted terror at a gallop. " Take it, then," said he. " We have been carefid and sparing of the horses, and it is only now we have pushed them into a gallop; and I entertain a hope that we shall hold you at bay so long upon this road that 28o Dion and the S.byh. the chest will have reached Germanicus Caesar before you — I am wrong; I mean to leave you here upon the ground — ^before your followers, I say, can accomplish two-thirds of the distance." " Demented youth ! " replied the other, " why resist without the hope of success ? We are ten to one. We can, besides, send men into the copse on each side of ftie road, and in a moment they will be in your rear." "You fifty men on the right," cried Paulus, "and you fifty on the left, select three of your best javehn throwers each side, and, after I have ridden back from the midst of yonder gang, give them a sample of what you can do." He made his horse bound as he faced the column between Thellus, on the one hand, and Chsrias and Longinus, on the other. " Now," said he, shaking his long rapier aloft, " I have a great mind to ride through the whole of you and back again for the mere sport of it. Your horses are like cats compared to mine; you are only fourteen deep, and the beast that bears me, even if mortally wounded, would trample down fifty of you in file before he dropped." The leader of the pursuing band was a shrewd man. After a moment's consultation with the persons on either side of him, he said : " It is a bold idea, young centurion. If it deceived us, you could march away unattacked. But we counted you leaving Rome ; we know for certain that you were only fourteen men, all told; we have a post of two men more than forty miles ahead of you, who would have returned and ioined us if any reinforcement had met or Dion and the Sibyls. 281 was coming to meet you. We seriously mean to have yonder treasure, therefore listen to good sense. You might kill and wound a few of us, but not a man of your own party would survive, and we should get the chest afterward all the same. You will lose your life, yet not save the treasure. That will not be disinterestedness, but madness.'' " In answer to that," said Paulus, who had no objec- tion to prolong the parley, " I must remind you of your own singular disinterestedness. You will lose your own life in order that those behind you may enjoy the money* You must love them more than you love yourself ; for I swear to you that, if it comes to violence, not a ses- terce in the chest will you, at least, receive. The dead divide no booty. If you have authority, then, over yom: followers, order them back, and begone yourself." At these words a cry arose from the crew of desperate men behind. " No orders for us; we are all equals here! " And once voice added : " It will be no bad thing if some of us do get killed; those who survive will each have more of the money." And a loud laugh greeted this sally. Paulus hesitated. A downright wish to fight, and a strong repugnance to obey, even in appearance, man- dates such as theirs, yielded, however, to prudence, and to the conviction that the proper moment for a struggle would come only when the robbers should attempt, if they should attempt this at all, to take the wagon con- taining the hay (wherein the treasure was concealed) as well as that which carried the iron chest filled with stones, to which they were welcome. Having, therefore, played out his little comedy, he now said : 282 Dion ariar the Sibyls, " Had I not a message of vital importance to give to Gennanicus Caesar, which forbids me to throw away my life till I have fulfilled the errand, I would rather be slain where we stand than comply. But I call upon you, Thellus, and you, Longinus and Chaerias, to bear witness that we yield only to overwhelming and irresist- ible odds. Ten men cannot withstand seventy. Be pleased to move aside, and let these riders come for- ward. I will gallop on with them and overtake the chest. Bring with you the legionaries in the copse after us, and follow at a fast run. We may need you after all, should these new friends prove too unreasonable." "We shan't prove unreasonable. You pay us too well for that," retorted the leader of the robbers. Meanwhile Thellus, Chaerias, and Longinus had stepped to the side of the noad, and Paulus had turned his horse around. He forthwith rode off at a furious gallop, which soon left far behind him the cloud of straining pursuers. "Was not that neatly done ? " said Thellus, in a low voice, to Chserias. " I did not think our chick-chick was such a play-actor." " He is a splendid lad," said the centurion. " But come, no time is to be lost. These villains may want to take both the wagons, and we must all die on the road, rather. I am in command, I think. Legionaries, come down from the copse, and follow us at a run." And the three friends, with the six legionaries behind them, started at a sort of sling-trot, which every Roman soldier was obliged to practice in the various gymna- siums attached to the Roman camps. Considerably more than a thousand paces forward, Dion and the Sihyb. 283 they heard an uproar of voices, and saw the freebooters ia the act of turning the wagon which contained the iron chest. The other wagon was far in front, nearly out of sight, indeed; and, as they afterwards learnt, would by this time have been so altogether, only for the restiveness of one of the horses, which had cost the drivers several minutes. Paulus had a design in galloping so furiously, and obtaining so great a lead of the freebooters. The mo- ment he overtook the drivers of the rearward van, who, according to orders, were now going at a walk, he di- rected them to cut the traces, to set free two of the horses, and then to ride forward on two of the remain- ing horses, and join the escort of the other vehicle. This measure had several effects : first, there would be a fresh delay occasioned, and each delay increased the distance which was now growing between the pursuers and the treasure ; secondly, the escort, and, if requisite, the locomotive power immediately attached to the gold, would be increased ; thirdly, the vehicle containing the chest needed six, or at the least four, of those small horses, to be drawn with anything like the speed indis- pensable to the safety of the plunderers, none of whom, until they had deliberated, would be likely to part with their own steeds, considering the chance of pursuit, or the chance that their accomplices might leave them be- hind, and divide the treasure without them. But a far more important effect than any of these was contem- plated by Paulus in the whole operation of separating his two vehicles, and this effect soon appeared. When Chserias, Longinus, and Thellus, with the six legion- aries, came up, they foimd the robbers in great disorder 384 Dkm cmd the Sibyls. and uproar, endeavoring to turn the wagon, nearly half of them having dismotinted, and working with their own hands. Paulus, on his tall steed, was conspicuous a little beyond the further verge of the crowd, and was holding an angry dispute with the chief who had first addressed him. " You looked so formidable," said he, in a low voice and with a haughty smile, " as you came thundering after me along the road, that I do not at all wonder the two soldiers should have sought their safety in flight, and, in order that they might fly effectually, should have taken the two horses with them." " That one, at all events," Said the other, " which you are riding, must be instantly harnessed." "We must mend these traces as best we can." " Here's another set of traces in the cart itself ! " shouted one of the robbers. " Good ! " said the leader. " Some two or three of us must harness our own horses to the vehicle, besides yonder chestnut steed. We can ride them all the same. No man need walk, for that. Now, my master," add- ed he, turning once more to Paulus, " dismount, and give me the key of this chest." "The key is not in my possession," replied Paulus; "but I can tell you where it is." "Where, then? and quickly!" " Please to remember," said Paulus, "that you have obtained possession of that chest by convention, by agreement. We might have made you pay a dear price for it. Therefore, before I tell you where the key is, let my men pass. It was to spare them that I gave up the chest." Dion and the Sibyls. 285 ** By all the gods ! " cried the leader furiously, "they shall never pass till we know where the key is. It would take many strong men hours of hard work to break open this box with crowbars, or cut it with steel saws." Faulus perceived that Chserias and the two decurions, followed by the six soldiers, had quietly and swiftly sprung into the copse which still lined the road, and were working their way round to where he rode. He said, "A good locksmith in Rome would soon make you a key." " Are you courting a needless death ? " roared the other. " I am very likely to let a Roman locksmith see this ! Once and for all, where is the key ? " By this time some of the freebooters, who had ridden after and caught the two stray horses, had harnessed these and two of their own to the wagon, and the two men who had parted with their own had now mounted the leaders. One of theni here called out, " Cut him down if he don't tell us where to find the key. We may have troops upon us before we can take this money to a safe place and divide it." Paulus made his horse bound a few paces away. Chaerias and his companions sprang into the road, and passing Paulus, who had faced round again toward the robbers, resumed at his command their vigorous sling- ing run along the highroad in the original direction of the march. " Listen to me," cried Paulus to the robbers, " Time is more precious to you than you are aware. My men are now safe, and I'll tell you where the key is. But, first, let me advise those of you who drive the wagon to 286 Dion and the Sibyls. move on with it fast ; and, if they can leave some of their comrades behind, they will evidently have more of what is in the box to divide among themselves. On the other hand, any of you who may wish to abandon his share in the box has only to come out here after me, and so lose the brief time of security. If no more than three of you come out at once, some of them will doubt- less lose something else besides time; if any greater num- ber come, let them each catch me." Cries of " The key ! the key ! " interrupted him. " The key of that chest," he resumed, "is lying as far as I could fling it in the forest on the roadside, either to the right or to the left, not fifty miles from Rome. Farewell ! " As he said this in a loud voice, he slowly turned Se- janus, and trotted him in pvirsuit of his running com- panions. Some of the robbers believed they could find the key upon his person. A shower of javelins followed him, all of which, except three, missed. One glanced against the back of his helmet ; two others stuck in the small rings of a steel shirt. At the same time the rattle of hoofs behind him warned him that he was pursued. He turned half-round on his saddle-cloths, exclaiming, as he increased his pace, " Right ! Lose your part in yonder box, which is even now trotting off. Come with me, ray masters, and let the others have the chest. Come along ! " They did not mean to take this advice, however much they would have desired to punish him for his trick re- specting the key, as well as for his defiant and jeering tone. In spite of momentary anger, the great majority of the freebooters were in excellent humor and the wild- Dion and the Sibyls. 287 est spirits. Their work had been short; their success, as they supposed, perfect; and there was money enough now in their possession to give them. more than the value of six thousand dollars each. The great majority of them, in fact, felt literally unable to tear them- selves away from the iron box containing twelve mil- lions of sesterces; and this division of their number, and consequent diminution of their combatant power, were the very objects which Paulus had had in view when separating by so wide an interval his two vehicles. Had it become necessary to defend the one in advance, he felt sanguine and even certain that he should have had only a part of the enemy to resist, and even this part would not long continue an attack which might give their accomplices time to divide the spoil in their absence. Five men, however, among whom was their leader, had dashed forth from the mass of riders to wreak the anger of the moment upon the scoffer. Paulus, going at an easy canter, his face turned back, saw that they were not coming on abreast, their chief being the best mounted, and the' four others straggling after him as if in a race. He pressed Sejanus for about a hundred and fifty yards, and, finding now that there was a sufficient interval between the leading pursuer and his followers, pulled up abruptly, and wheeled round. " I have no need and no wish," he cried, as his long rapier flashed above his charger's head in a wide lateral sweep from left to right, "to take your life, but you shall carry a marked face to your grave ! " It was not a very violent cut, but measured with great 288 Dion and the Sibyls. exactness, and delivered with half-force. There was blood on the three-edged sword as it came away. The man yelled. The next pursuer pulled up in haste to let the third join him ; and in the mean time Paulus, who had passed the leading robber on that gentleman's right- hand, now made a curve across the whole road in return- ing, and flew by him at full speed on the opposite side, where the poor caitiff would have had to strike or thrust across his own bridle. He made an awkward attempt to do the former, but was, of course, short of his chas- tiser, who continued his course until he overtook Cassius Chaerias and the others, still running steadily along the road. Here, looking back, he perceived that his pursuers had given up the chase, and were using their best speed to rejoin the main body, who (some before and some behind the precious van) could be seen travelling away in the distance at a \'igorous trot. " Stop a moment," cried Paulus, dismounting; "take breath now." And Chaerias, the two decurions, and the soldiers all stopped, and gathered round the young centurion. The four officers burst simultaneously into a hearty laugh, and their mirth rather surprised the grim legionaries, who conceived that to have just lost twelve million sesterces of military pay was no laughing matter. While Thellus picked out of our hero's shoulders the two javelins still sticking in the steel shirt, he said in a low voice : « Young master and friend, had you not better ride forward fast? It is not well to leave those weighty corn- bags too long in the charge of common soldiers." Uion and the Sibyls. 289 "You are right, my friend. I will do so. Chaerias, I must overtake the other vehicle. Bring all our friends here quickly after me. Fellow-soldiers, you must sus- tain your severe pace for a few hours or so longer. At every milestone you must change the run to a quick walk imtil quite in breath again." And remounting, he galloped forward. It was in a part of the road perfectly level with the land around, under bright starlight, the moon having set, that he came up with the foiu: soldiers who were escorting the baggage-cart. They were halting. The Unchpin of one of the front wheels had given way, the wheel had wobbled off the axletree, and the legionaries were even then busy in endeavoring to manufacture a temporary fastening. In other respects all was not well. Two of the horses had fallen lame. To maintain a forced pace was no longer possible. When the wheel had been replaced in a rude fashion, Paulus directed his men to move fcHTWard gently, at a walk, until they should be rejoined by the nine others belonging to their little expedition ; and while riding quietly in their rear, and affecting to hum an air of music which was then popu- lar in Greece, and used to be played by ladies upon the seven-stringed lyre, he considered with no little anxiety and carefulness, was it possible that the freebooters shotdd find out the contents of the strong-box and return in pursuit? First, it was certain that they would not go all the way back to Rome j they would not dare to take their cumbrous and conspicuous prize into the city at all. They must already have halted; and it was likely that, making their way off the highroad into the forest, they 290 Dion and the Sibyls. would have deposited the chest in some safe dell or dingle. Secondly, however, it was not probable they could open the chest by any forcible means for many hours. This thought was a relief. But suddenly an alarming idea occurred to him. Eleazar had betrayed him; would not Eleazar be sufficiently cunning to anticipate — not perhaps the removal of the money out of the chest, but the easy and obvious artifice of con- cealing the key? The delay which could be caused by the want of a key might enable a well-mounted rider to fetch from the rear guard of Germanicus's army a strong escort, and to lead it back in time to recover the booty; and might not Eleazar possess a duplicate key ? Might he not have followed his accomplices, and meet- ing them on their return, have produced the means which they desired but lacked of opening the box? Then would a discovery be made which would con- vince the band that Paulus retained the treasure still ; they would remember there was a second wagon; they would follow him again; he had not yet made a hun- dred miles, and now, with these lame horses, he could no longer fly fast. His difficulties, risks, and respon- sibilities became so acutely painful to the young man, that he clinched his hands involuntarily and groaned aloud. After a time, looking back along the road, he saw Chaerias and the others in the distance following swiftly. He turned his horse around, and awaited them. There were some wines and other provisions in the cart, and he determined to call a halt, afford his men the refresh- ments which their severe exertions had rendered sp needful, amd consult with his three friends. Dion and the Siiyls. 291 Distributing to the legionaries bread, meat, and wine, he ordered them to give the horses a feed of com in nosebags, and then to go back along the road, beyond hearing; to keep attentive watch for any sign of pur- suit; to take a repast, and to rest until further orders. When these things had been done, and when the soldiers were out of hearing, oiu' youth and his three companions took their seats upon the corn-bags in the wagon; and while eating some bread and meat and grapes, and passing round a horn of wine, Faulus laid the subject of his aniciety before the others. They agreed with him as to the gravity of the disastrous pos- sibility impending over them; and Longinus, who was very modest, seeing that neither Chaerias nor Thelitis profiEered a word, said : ' " Centurions, we left Rome, you know, by the Via Nomentana ; we have made about a hundred thousand paces ; we are now not far from the Lake Thrasymene, of evil fame. I know this country well. Not six hun- dred paces from the road, on the right-hand, there is ai} ancient bosky dingle or hollow. It was, I think, formerly a quarry, from which many thousand paces of this very road were paved. It is now lined all round with copse and brushwood. I recommend that we take the wagon through the fields into that dell, where it will remain concealed completely, as it will be much below the level of the surrounding country. At the brink of the dell we can unharness the horses, which some of the men can moimt and ride off upon. There are provisions enough for three or four days for three of us. We will let the wagon roll down to a ledge in the concave of the dingle. The centurion Chaerias, 292 Dion and the SihyU. Thellus and myself will remain on guard, and lead the forester's life for a day or two or three. You, who are so Tfrell mounted, can ride as fast as possible to the camp of Germanicus, near Forum Alieni, and bring back a sufficient escort, say fifty men, and we will await your return." " You have touched it with the point of a needle," cried Paulus. " It is good advice," added Chserias, "in substance. But we had better not leave wheel-marks through the fields. Let us ourselves carry the corn-bags, as well as the provisions, into the dell. Let the wagon, the weight of which will be enormously lightened after the coin is removed, proceed forward. The horses can then bear it swiftly; and all the ten soldiers can have a conveyance, two on horseback, eight in the wagon ; the two lame horses can be led by the mounted men; all six beasts will thus be preserved for future use. I don't like, when in war, losing an ass, or even the ear of an ass, that I can save." " Nevertheless," returned Paulus, " we must not sep- arate the conveyance too far from what it has to con- vey. Yours be the task of obliterating the wheel- marks, not all the way to the dell, but near the road. I may be able to bring back soldiers, yet not to bring another wagon. Therefore we will forthwith carry Longinus's plan into effect. It is impossible to say how soon it might be too late." Without calling to the soldiers, who were a hundred yards off in their rear, and were enjo)ang their supper Paulus tied his horse's head to a tree, and, with the vig- orous help of his three companions, soon saw removed IHon and the Sibyb. 293 into the dingle, to which Longinus led the way, the wagon and the whole of the treasure concealed in the tightly-strapped corn-bags. At the brink of the hollow, Paulus had unharnessed the horses, and led them back to the road. He now summoned the ten legionaries, told them to ride in turn, four at a time, for some miles, leading the lame horses. They were then to tether the animals where there was good grass, some fifty yards from the roadside, and con- tinue their own march on foot to Cortona, and there they were to wait until they heard from him again. They set forth obediently at a good round pace. But Paulus, on his mighty steed, which was now fed and re- freshed, was to follow and to pass them, and was to be the first messenger of the emergency. Nevertheless, he could not yet move nor tear himself away. He looked in the direction of the dell, where all was quiet and nothing visible. He looked forward, where he saw his men fast disappearing in the uncertain starlight. He looked back, where he could hear and see nothing but the dim landscape, nothing but physical nature. At last, with a deep breath, he poised himself well upon the back of Sejanus, shook the reins over the brute's powerful neck, and departed. The horse, as if he understood the long and heavy strain that was to be put upon his resoiurces, seemed to exercise a sort of economy, and, without bounding into the full fury of his speed, settled down into a long and steady stride which soon carried him abreast of the legionaries. Paulus here drew reins, and said: " You can tether the, horses hereabouts, and leave them to graze. Then come on at a good pace, my men ; 294 Dion and the Sibyls. ^here may be pursuers behind. I ride forward on pur- pose to bring help back. Halt at Cortona ; apply at the Quaestor for your lodgings and subsistence, and on my retiuii from Ferrara, I will pick you up." And he went forward at an easy canter, with the dark waters of Thrasymene upon his left-hand. Cortona was considerably to the left of the straight line as the crow flies ; but, taking this direction, he calculated upon strik- ing the Apennine chain, where there was an easy pass, familiar to him since early boyhood from the military lectures of his father, who used to point out to the child upon a diagram the exact spot, beyond Fiesole and near Pistoja, where Hannibal had led his army across those mountains. He therefore held on, within Etruria, passed through Florence, where but few persons were yet out of bed ; left Fiesole on his right, and reached Pistoja a little after noon. He had spared his charger ; and he performed the eighty miles from a point somewhat below Lake Thrasymene in about seven hours. Here he halted to give both himself and his beast refreshments and some two hours of rest. He then passed the mountains, and rode off to the northeast, by Clatema and Bologna, along the road to Feirara. CHAPTER IV. J O sooner was the protection of her son Paulus's presence removed than the Lady Aglais de- tennined to avail herself of the cordial hospi- tality and opportune retreat which had been proffered to her and to Agatha by their aged kinsman, Marcus Le- pidus ^milius, who was now Uving in such systematic obscurity, although his energy had once stridden abreast of gigantic enterprises, and had shared, with two rivals only, the dominion of the world. Aglais, with the aid of Crispus and Crispina, took her plans to escape notice, and to leave no trace of her des- tination when she should have departed from the inn. Yet, in spite of the astuteness of the Greek lady and the prudence of her allies, events proved that both an enemy and a friend respectively had been playing a far deeper game against her and in defence of her. The distinguished soldier and still extant author, who, as the reader will remember, secured the wanderers a reception in Crispus's inn the night of their arrival, had once afterward called upon them. During that visit Aglais could not fail to be struck by something unusually ardent (for so self-possessed and courtly a person as Velleius Paterculus) in the tone of his inquiries after Agatha's health and spirits. Now, the evening before the intended departure of the ladies to Marcus's castle, Crispina entered their sitting- room, and brought a request from the military tribune in question that they would favor him with a short in- 296 Dion and the Sibyls. terview. Crispina was ordered to show him the way to their apartments; and in a few minutes he entered, holding his military casque in his left hand, and bowing low. The door being closed, Velleius having taken a seat, and a few courteous inquiries of the usual sort having been interchanged, he said : " So you would leave us to morrow ? " They were very much surprised. He smiled, and continued : " You have good cause to change your residence ; and if you could reach the ex-triumvir's castle at Monte Circello, without the positive certainty existing that you had taken refuge there, the place has hiding resources which would, I think, frustrate any direct search after you or after your lovely daughter. Once, during the civil wars, your brother-in-law, Marcus Lepidus, success- fully eluded pursuit in the same immense edifice. It is the work of a Greek architect, and is a masterpiece of structiu-al ingenuity. The whole building, at the time to which I allude, was methodically searched ; an ac- count was rendered of every cubic foot within it, under it, and around it, but the triumvir was not discovered, and when times had mended, he negotiated for his own permanent immunity and security. If you were once within those walls, while any doubt remained whither you had fled, I should feel no further anxiety for you, lady, or for this fair damsel." And he bowed gravely to Agatha. After musing a little, Aglais said : " You fill me with astonishment, and make me acquainted with new alarms. Why should we not reach Circello ? And why should not that home shelter us? What, too, have we done?" Dion and the Sibyls. 297 " You cannot," replied Paterculus slowly, " mistake the only end I have in view, if I am forced to alarm you. I am ready to do much, and, believe me, to hazard not a little, for your safety. You would not have arrived at Monte Circello at all, had I left you to execute your plans. You would have been waylaid." " Waylaid ! " she said, white with terror. " We will not stir. I will send for my son." " Alas ! " said Paterculus, " it will not be safe for you to stay in this inn two days longer. I have come to submit to you the only plan which I have been able to devise. You must not reject it." She tried in vain to utter something, and could only gaze in speechless dismay at her visitor. The gentle- ness of his words and the consummate quietude of his bearing, as he immediately endeavored to reassure her, produced the desired effect, and at the same time drew the hearts of both the mother and daughter with an irre- sistible and natural feeling of gratitude and even ten- derness toward one whom they regarded as their sole present champion amid vague dangers and nameless enemies and undefined horrors. Instinctively the two poor women rose together, and, approaching Velleius, sat down near him. " My time," said he, with a scarcely audible sigh, " runs fast away. Listen to such a letter as your kins- man at Circello might write to you." And he drew forth from a fold in his tunic the draft of a letter, and read as follows: "M. Lap. ^milius to his sister Aglais, greeting: I rejoice that you see the force of my reasoning, and that you will adopt the advice conveyed to you in my last 298 Dion and the &byls. communication. The vessel which I have hired to take you to Spain, where you can live in tranquillity, will hover oflf the coast near Caietje, in about a fortnight. I will, on the seventh day from this, send you a person who shall conduct you by Fondi to Caietae, and take you to the ship in a small boat, when all shall be ready to receive you on board. Farewell." Having read this, Paterculus paused. The ladies remained silent in sheer astonishment. " But," said Aglais, at last, "there is no time left, if we are not safe here, to get my kinsman to write this letter." " He need not write any letter," said Paterculus. " You observe in what I have just read an allusion to a supposed previous letter, which, nevertheless, he has not written. If you will merely consent to be guided by me, I will cause such a letter as the one of which you have now heard the draft to be intercepted on the way from the former triumvir to you. It will straight- way be laid before a certain personage. That person- age will see, or imagine he sees, that the triumvir is not only reluctant to receive you, but has succeeded in per- suading you to change for an early flight to Spain your plan of a retreat or refuge in his castle. The personage to whom the letter will be carried will moreover notice that your change of measures has been produced by a former letter of Lepidus's, not intercepted, and therefore that the present seizure of communications has been made too late to prevent the relinquishment of your original design. He will, therefore, neither lay any am- bush for you on the way to Circello, nor suspect that you have gone thither. If at the same time you disap- pear hence, he will await you at Caietae, watching the Dion and the Sibyls. 299 coast and the vessel, while you will be safe in the tri- umvir's castle." " But the person of whom you speak will find that there is no vessel hovering on the coast," replied the lady, " and will again question whither we have gone." " Pardon me for contradicting you," said Velleius. " He will find a vessel has been hovering on the coast, and, after receiving a skiff and its passengers on board (two women and one oarsman), that the vessel has van- ished seaward. I have myself hired the Vessel, distrib- uted the parts, rehearsed the performers, and arranged all the scenes of the little comedy. But you must not go to-morrow, as you had intended, for on the way you would be seized. Give me to-morrow to have the letter intercepted, give me the next day to combine means for your journey. To-night, meanwhile, Crispus, and none other, must carry your luggage himself, parcel by parcel, into a thicket in the wood which skirts the western or seaward road. On the night of the day after to-morrow, you must leave the inn on foot, after people have retired to bed, and you must walk for a mile or more to the large sycamore-tree near the place where Cicero was murdered ; Crispina will go with you to the spot through the garden, and then through the fields. Under the tree you will find a biga with two swift horses and a trusty driver; on the roof of the biga your luggage shall have been already strapped." It would be needless to describe the gratitude of the mother and daughter. The former alluded depreca- tingly to the expense which must have been incurred, especially in hiring such a vessel as would appear quali- fied to traverse the sea; but Paterculus checked all fur- ther referenr/» to that matter with a peremptory gesture, 3O0 Dion and the Sibyls. and, rising, added, in the same low voice in which the converEadon had all along been carried on : " I have alluded to the hiding resources of the Cir- cello Castle. I will not describe the wonderful contriv- ances of the architect. He was your countryman — an Athenian even, I think. When once with Lepidus, you will see ; and as you remember — ' Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.' " " Well, but," said Aglais, " if you know so much of these lurking-places {latebra), others doubtless know them, too." " Not, so," answered Velleius, with a smile. " I am preparing the history of these times. I note and remem- ber much which every one else dismisses from his mind, if remarked at all. There is one point very important to you: supposing you could have evaded any ambush laid for you to-morrow, and have reached Circello, yet 60 reached it that it would remain certain you had taken rtfuge there, then you would not be safe, because, al- though physically and materially all search of the place fcHT a fugitive would be vain, a moral pressure upon Marcus Lepidus might, I apprehend, compel the stu:- render of his refugees by his own act." " I understand," said Aglais, and simultaneously Agatha exclaimed " Oh ! " " Fair damsel," said Velleius, " he is not like his nephew, your brother, your dauntless Paulus." " But," concluded the handsome tribune, " with the measures taken you can banish anxiety, and set your- selves at rest. Think sometimes of me. FarewelL" Before they could answer a word, he had gone. CHAPTER V. ^T was a stormy night in early winter, a few weeks afterward, that Marcus ^milius Lepidus (still in conversation styled the triumvir where not wholly forgotten) had returned with Aglais and Agatha to his favorite sitting-room in the third story, after show- ing the wonders of his solitary castle to the widow of his warlike brother and to her child. It would require a book to itself to describe this mysterious masterpiece of architectural ingenuity, and another book to depict the almost Eastern luxury with which it had been fur- nished, when its proprietor determined to exchange the dangers of political ambition in a very dangerous age for the comforts of opulent obscurity. " Are you tired ? " asked the old man. The ladies, both flushed with exercise, declared that their excursion had been delightful, the surprises of it astounding, and, if more was to be seen, they were ready and eager to see more. " More ! " said the triumvir, smiling. " If we spent every night for a month in similar explorations, you would still be Uable to lose yovuselves without great caution." The room was lighted by eight lamps, and a brazier diffused a comfortable warmth. " Agatha," said the old man, throwing himself upon a couch, " before I ask you to accompany yourself upon the six-stringed lyre in a Greek song, pray go to the cmrtains against the western wall, draw them back, open 301 30* Dion and the Sibyls. the lattice behind, and tell me how the night looks upon the Tyrrhenian Sea." " It looks stormy over the sea, imcle, and the waves are beating upon the rocks far down; the foam shines very white under faint stars ; the vfind is roaring among your towers; and a world of waters thunders below at Ihe foundations of the castle, which trem — " The voice of the young girl ceased, and Aglais, who stood warming her hands near the brazier, looked rotmd and saw her nowhere. " Why, brother," she cried, in utter bewilderment, " where is — where is Agatha ? " The triumvir arose, and approaching his sister-in-law, so as to stand between her and the window, pointed in the opposite direction significantly. She turned, and endeavored to discover to what he wished to draw her attention, and while still gazing heard Agatha say, as if concluding her sentence : " And do you not feel the floors vibrate to the shock of the unseen armies of the air?" " Where have you been, Agatha ? " " Here, gazing at the wondrous tempest," said she, closing the horn shutter of the lattice, drawing the cur- tain, and coming back toward the fireplace, with her beautiful countenance one glow of poetry. After the song which Lepidus had requested, supper was brought. Some tale of the civil wars and his ad- venturous youth was recalled accidentally to mind by Lepidus, and when he had finished it he begged Agatha once more to go to the window, and inform them again how the night looked over the sea. She rose, ran to the curtains, and, drawing thehi IHon and the Sifyls. 303 aside, uttered an exclamation, which drew her mother to the place. The sea was gone, and the woods of Latium waved wanly and dimly in the gale tmder the uncertain stars. The triumvir joined them. " As you have so obligingly accompanied yourself, my child," said he, " upon the lyre, come new, you and your mother, and accompany me." While he spoke, the lights, the brazier, and the whole apartment disappeared behind them. A monstrous shut- ter, running in grooves from ceiling to floor, had silently slipped along the space. The whole of that story of the house seemed to have pivoted NE morning, about a week later, when Faulus showed his mother and sister the signet-ring remitted to him by Sejanus, adding that it was wonderful it had not been reclaimed by Augustus, and that he now would ask Dionysius, or some one, to give it back to the emperor, the ladies laughed, and told him the history of the ring presented by the triumvir Lepidus to Agatha. But this could not quite explain what had occurred. Agatha mentioned that Esther Maccabeus was to have shown the locket to Velleius Paterculus. Ultimately, by carefully piecing together various circumstances, they understood that Velleius Paterculus himself must have contrived the rescue; and that Augustus never wrote a certain remarkable letter to Sejanus at all. But as Dionysius, and, indeed, Ger- manicus Caesar, were known to have appealed to the Emperor, both Tiberius and Sejanus would naturally be- lieve that the Emperor had really intervened. Hence the impunity of Thellus and of the gladiators ; hence the absolute abstention not only from all further molestation of the family, but from all inquiry into the circmnstances of Agatha's romantic deliverance. The family were not only at peace for the reasons just stated, but they were now wealthy. We have already mentioned that Augustus had given them the estate of Pausilypum (which Vedius PoUio, the eater oF slave-fed lampreys, had bequeathed to the emperor), instead of the ^milian property on the Liris. But sur- 4IO Dion and the Sibyls. piise followed surprise. Some relatives of Tiberius and of Germanicus, as the reader knows, were in possession of the Liris estate; and (finding Germanicus willing) Tiberius sent word to Paulus that, as he might naturally prefer the inheritance of his forefathers to a strange prop- erty, and as the value of each was nearly the same, he would exchange with Paulus if he wished. The offer was eagerly accepted ; the lawyers drew the necessary reciprocal conveyances ; and the wanderers, as soon as they could complete their preparations and purchases, went to settle in that great castle upon the Liris, which had attracted their admiration the very first evening of their arrival in Latium, and within sight of which (as the reader remembers, at the opening of this narrative) they had been all arrested by order of no other than the man who now, liberally and considerately, put them in possession of the mansion where the ever-burning brazier had cast its glimmer upon the Lares of so many generations of their own ancient and famous ^milian Une. The beautiful ladies, Agrippina Julia and Agrip- pina Marcella, had left in the castle some elegant fixtures and even movables (including certain pictures and the statues on the roof), which they gave, at a nominal price, to Germanicus's favorite staff-oificer. Claudius (in whose stead Paulus had ridden Tiberius's untamable horse) had by this time been wedded to little Benigna ; and the incoming proprietors of the neigh- boring property easily prevailed on the newly-married couple to hve with them; the husband as a sort of steward, who should oversee all the out-door slaves, and could, when Paulus wished, act ably as his secretary, Dion and the Sibyls. 411 too; and the wife as the housekeeper, with supreme authority over all the indoor servants. Crispus and Ciispina often found time (and made it) to stroll over the fields for a visit to the castle ; and for a loving talk with the lord and the ladies whom they deemed without their parallels upon earth. Moreover, Agatha had persuaded Josiah Maccabeus and Esther not to leave them just when their far wanderings, wild adventures, and dreadful trials had come to so happy a term. Esther had conceived a tender affection for the beautiful damsel whom she had been largely instru- mental in saving from so dire a fate, and delivering out of so appalling a captivity, while Agatha returned this feeling with enthusiasm. She spared no eloquence, then, to persuade Maccabeus and his lovely daughter to postpone their return to Syria — till when ? Here it was that Paulus appeared in a new character, that of a more consummate orator than Dionysius himself. He stated that he had formed so sublime an estimate of Josiah's ancestors that he could not be happy till he was able to read the Book of Maccabees in Hebrew ; and he urged arguments so touching that Josiah (who really had far more urgent reasons for quitting Eleazar than for immediately returning to Jerusalem) consented to stay until he had instructed Paulus in the language of the Patriarchs and the Prophets, In this course of study, Paulus gradually discovered that Esther taught him more effectually than her father knew how. But what learnt he from the sweet mouth and wondrous Eastern eyes of the noble maiden who had saved his sister ? He really learnt Hebrew ; and as it was the exploits of her own glorious ancestors which she was 412 Dion and the Sibyls. expounding to one who could well appreciate them, the sympathy and enthusiasm which they shared together knit their hearts into a fond, a natural, and a complete unison. The Lady Aglais, as she contemplated a youth and a maiden whose spirits were not unworthy of each other thus occupied, saw far beyond, as she imagined, what either of those students dreamt of anticipating ; and saw it with satisfaction. Philip, the old freedman of the family, was installed at Liridium, as it was called, in a capacity not unlike that of the seneschal of subsequent ages. Melena, the slave, received her freedom, but would not practically take it ; and she remained the special personal servant of the Lady Aglais. Paulus pressed Thellus to give up the army (for which Paulus would get him permission) and settle near them, with his daughter Prudentia, in a little cottage which stood about two miles down the river, smrounded by rhododendrons, oleanders and myrtles, and which, being part of Paulus's new prop- erty, he earnestly begged Thellus to accept from him as a gift. " But,'' said Thellus, after thanking him, " you have not quitted the army yet yourself ; and why should I ? Germanicus vows, I am told, that he will never rest till he has found the bones of Varus and his legions, and given them solemn burial. I mean to be at the funeral, and so must you." " Well, if we come back safe," persisted Paulus, "you will settle near us in that cottage with your daughter, and eat fresh fish of yom: own catching for break- fast." And so it was agreed. But for a while there were Dion and the Sibyls. 413 no more wars, and during the lull many visitors came to Liridium. Among them, poor Longinus never came ; he had been foolish enough to fall in love with Agatha, and, deeming his love hopeless, avoided the family altogether. Dionysius had been persuaded to give up his pretty miniature mansion in Rome, and pass alto- gether under the roof of his beloved friends (who, indeed, owed the place to him) the remainder of his sojourn in Italy; for to Athens he had resolved to return, and — nescius fuiuri — ^in Athens to Uve and to die. Another person who, during the lull between German wars, frequently came now to Liridium, was the accomplished Velleius Paterculus. Esther assured Agatha that she knew why Paterculus appeared so fre- quently and made himself so agreeable — although so handsome a man, of so fine a position, with manner so distinguished, and a reputation so considerable, and who, besides, talked so well, could hardly be otherwise. But in telling Agatha that she knew why he came so often, Esther adopted a certain demureness, a certain significance, which was meant, in an innocent and lov- ing sense, to tease as well as please — ^and did. Agatha's repudiation of even the possibility of what was thus law- lessly hinted was one day overwhelmingly refuted by Velleius Paterculus himself, who, truth to tell, had been making love to the young lady assiduously, and who, on the day in question, after being roundl r accused by her of having contrived her deliverance from Tiberius and from the Calpumian House, asked her to be his wife with her mother's and brother's consent. As it hap- pened that the invitation thus proffered was the first that Agatha ^miliana ever received, and as die was very 414 Dion and the Sibyls. young and inexperienced, she behaved most absurdly in her own estimation, but charmingly in his. She burst into tears; and when he timidly and gently inquired whether he had hurt her feelings or offended her, ■ declared that he had never done anything of the sort. The witty suitor then remarked, gravely smihng, that she had addressed an inquiry to him which only a hus- band could answer, but the answer to which he would be most happy to give to his wife. But Aglais objected that, as her son would frequently be away from her with the army, if her daughter were taken away at the same time she would be on a sudden left desolate ; and, while consenting to the marriage, begged that it might be postponed for a time. To this Paterculus submitted, and Agatha joyfully agreed. Meanwhile, Paulus made such progress in Hebrew that Josiah Maccabeus and Esther began again to talk of their voyage to Jerusalem; and now occurred an im- portant event, indeed, in the young tribune's life. He told Aglais, his mother, that he had fallen in love with Esther; reminded her of Esther's noble and suc- cessful efforts to save their darling Agatha ; expatiated on her grand and wondrous old lineage; and asked his mother, finally, whether she could wish for her son a lovelier, more graceful, more gentle, or more high- hearted wife ? Not one of the many propositions ad- vanced by Paulus was denied by his mother. Paulus then confessed that, from that night of strange adventure, so singularly spent by him and Thellus and the rest of his comrades at Eleazar's queer house (once Julius Caesar's) in the Suburra, when Esther's timely warnings had not only preserved the public treasure, but had saved Dion and the Sifyls. 415 the lives of all the gallant men engaged in a most critical service — from that night he confessed he had felt such admiration for the Hebrew damsel that not only he thought of her continually in moments of tranquillity, but her image had even gone into the din of battle by his side. " Then she may well walk with you through life, my son," said the Greek lady; " and truly I consider her a virtuous, gifted, and noble maiden, whom I shall be glad to call daughter," Paulus kissed his mother, and said he merely wished for a betrothal of a year or two, like Agatha's with Vel- leius Paterculus, as there were rumors of impending Ger- man expeditions, and he would neither like to miss them, on the one hand, nor to leave his wife for them, on the other. " But will she accept me, mother ? " he suddenly asked, with a look of alarm. "We have accepted Paterculus for Agatha," returned his mother; " and certainly, for that simple and excellent old Hebrew and his daughter, your offer is a much more flattering distinction than that of Paterculus is for us. And, on the other hand, I am certain that Esther enter- tains a very tender feeling toward you. She is happy when you are here, and when you are absent so is she — in another sense." Thus encouraged, Paulus Lepidus ^milius, the bril- hant young hero, whose name was in all men's mouths, and who was fashioned by nature to be adopted into the kinship of such a race as that of Esther's glorious collateral ancestor, asked her to be his wife, and to share his large and rising fortunes. 4-1 6 Dion and the Sibyls. Esther turned pale, raised both hands, with the fingers interlaced, to her chin, and cast her eyes upon the ground for a few seconds without speaking. She then said: "Ah! it cannot be. And now, indeed, my grandfather and I must go away. But it is not through unkindness; it is not for want. Your sister is truly a sister to me already, as you would fain make her ; and your mother is to me even like my own. Nor am I bhnd to this great honor. But the laws of my people and our holy books forbid me to wed a Gentile. Yet this believe, that you and yours will always be dear to Esther; and Esther will never kneel to that great God, who made you as well as her, and who cares for all the creatures of his hands, without praying to him for Aglais, for Agatha, and especially for you, valiant and gentle Faulus. I trust we may meet in a better world." Almost while uttering the last word, which she pro- nounced in a tremulous voice and with indescribable pathos, she turned and slowly left him. He forebore pursuit, because the whole manner and tone of the Jewish maiden carried to his mind an over- whelming conviction that her answer was truly final, and that she spoke irrevocable words. In the midst of his natural youthful anguish, two things in what she had said struck him much. She had re- ferred to the one great God, of whom Dionysius always maintained the certain, present, personal, and sovereign sway; and her language, when deeply moved, was as unlike to that of the polytheists around him as the speech of men to the chattering of monkeys. There was the same conviction as that in Dionysius's philoso- Dion and the Sibyls. 417 phy ; only with more trust, more familiarity, more de- votedness, more feeling, more light, more love, and more distinctness and tenderness. With this great belief, she clearly held, also, that we should live hereafter. In the next place, what could the " holy books of her people " mean by "Gentile"? Through the storm of his thoughts these iqueries came and went. The very next day Esther and her grand- father left the castle on the Liris; and sunshine left the world. A character less selfish than Paulus it would be hard to imagine ; yet neither mother nor sister, nor the arrangements for Agatha's future, nor the roll of great events Which soon caught him in its eddies, nor time itself, could restore to him the buoyancy which he lost in a conversation of a few minutes with a noble and gentle girl, and never quite regained. Brilliant matches for Paulus were planned by Aglais and Agatha, in concert with Paterculus, who induced the family to live part of every year in Rome, for the better accomplishment of their designs. It was not with contempt, so much as utter indifference, that Paulus turned invariably away at the bare hint of an alliance with any lady, or of his marriage at all. The pleasures of society, the attractions of the circus, the gossip of the court, seemed equally tasteless to him. There was nc zest for him in the command of money — none in tht consideration paid to him by great personages — none in the popularity he enjoyed among the soldiers — none even in the glory of fame. He always metThellus with pleas, ure and cordiality ; and he enjoyed the conversation olf Dionysius, who (still living with the family) had accom- Danied them to town. With Charicles, also, he showed 41 8 Dion and the Sibyls. an interest in conferring ; and he used, whenever they were at leisure, to engage both these Greeks to discuss before him the immortality of the soul from different points of view. Though a physician, and a pagan phy- sician, Charicles was too able a man not to see that there was something in each human being which shared in nowise in the mutations of the flesh ; and that the con- sciousness of personal identity either was an illusion^ or the existence of this immutable essence in each of us was a fact. He called it his chemical proof of the deathless thing which thinks; and he developed it in the most beautiful and convincing as well as humorous manner. This, and Dionysius's demonstrations of the same fact, on both metaphysical and moral grounds, were now Paulus's only real delight. To his mother and sister he was as gentle, as tender, as devoted as ever; but there was a languor, a melan- choly, in his whole bearing which smote them to the heart. One night, returning on foot, with Charicles and Di- onysius, from a party at Germanicus Caesar's, where the commander-in-chief had unexpectedly warned Paulus to hold himself hi readiness for new wars, they met four soldiers caiT3dng a corpse on a trestle to a neighboring dead-house. Paulus happened to know one of the sol- diers by sight, and asked, mechanically, whose was the corpse. At this the bearers stopped, and a fifth soldier, who bore a torch, uncovered the face and held the light over it, saying, " The unhappy young knight was acci- dentally killed half an hour ago, in a drunken brawl at a wine-shop." Charicles hurried Paulus away, and said, " I know Dion and tne Sibyls. 419 the face. It is that of your cousin Marcus. He has led a mad and a bad life with young Caligula and Herod Agrippa. Now that he is dead, there is no harm in telling you what your mother and sister and your uncle all knew, but kept from your knowledge — that he was partly the cause of Agatha's abduction from Monte Circello. Ah, well ! he has paid for it." Paiilus shuddered a little, saying, " I wonder is he still living anywhere ? " " Still upon that theme ? " replied Charicles. " Is there nothing, then, in this whole world that can interest you? Here is my street. Vale." As Dionysius and Paulus pursued their walk, Paulus said, " The Jews also believe, like you and the Sibyls, that we shall meet those for whom we care in another world. I wonder whether the Great New Teacher who is to come in this our own generation will teach the same." " Really, my friend," replied the Greek, " I am glad you will have something to turn your attention in this new German war. Est modus in rebus. Forget yonder Hebrew lady; think of her as if dead." " It is just what I do," said Paulus, with a melan- dioly smile. CHAPTER XXII. She war came ; Gennanicus, with a fine army, in which Faulus served as tribune, penetrated the heart of Germany, won several battles, turned westward, found the place where Varus lost the legions, and where the earth was yet white with their unburied bones, and raised a plain monument over them to com- memorate the avenging victories of Rome, Returning from these exploits, in which Paulus had largely in- creased his aheady high reputation and had acquired the rank of legatus, or full general, Germanicus was dis- patched to the East, with the local power and dignity of emperor assigned to him, and with Cneius Piso (who was attended by his wife Plancina and by Lygdus) attached to his person under some indefinite commission from Tiberius. Time was fast rolling forward, not only with the characters, sweet and bitter, sordid or noble, execrable or lovely, of this distant echo — this personal story — but with the Roman Empire itself, as then it stood in its pride and its darkness (torchUght, as it were, illmnining the face of the giant statue from below, and clouds resting on its head) ; time was fast running its race. Augustus Caesar had died at Nola, asking those around his bed to give him the applause customary at theatres when a performer is finishing his part; and Tiberius had begun his awful sway with moderation, wisdom, and amenity. When Paulus returned, he assisted in his new rank Dion and the Sidy Is. 421 and honors at his sister Agatha's marriage with Velleius Faterculus, which entailed but little separation from her mother and brother, Faterculus having bought, some miles more to the south on the Appian Road, for his future residence, a villa, once Cicero's (one of the six^ teen or eighteen he possessed along that line), and settled there with his wife. Between the castle and the villa communication was easy to maintain; and mother and daughter often visited each other. Thellus, who had attained the grade of first centurion, now quitted the army, and went with his little Prudentia to live in the riverside cottage which Paulus had persuaded them to accept. Marcus Lepidus the triumvir was dead, and had bequeathed his Thessalian dogs to Paulus, and the bewitched castle, as it was not unnaturally deemed, with the estate of Monte Circello, to the Lady Aglais. Dionysius had gone back to his Athenian home. Of Josiah Maccabeus and Esther no tidings had ever been heard, save one grateful and loving letter from Esther to Agatha, received while Paulus was at the wars. Ger- manicus Csesar had been poisoned at Daphne; and Cneius Piso (suspected of the deed by Germanicus's troops) had returned to Rome, where Tiberius, to show that Piso could not have been his agent in such a trans, action, threw him into prison. There Hso, being as- tonished at the requital his master gave to his devoted services, closed a year of despair in suicide. His wife, the Lady Plancina, braved the plain opinion of men for thirteen years longer, when she was at last arrested upon the same charge, and inflicted upon herself the same death in similar despair. And now T;berius had begun to rage ; in other words. 422 Dion and the Sibyls. to be natural ; in other words, to be unpleasant to man- kind. The ladies of Rome admired no man's appear- ance more than Paulus's when business, or courtesy, or the policy which was very needful in the reign of Tiberius, obliged him to show himself publicly in the capital, wearing the long scarlet paludamentum in the tiain of the plainly dressed, unsmiling, suspicious, in- scrutable, and murderous tyrant. It was a stunmer night when Faulus had returned from one of these journeys to Rome, and he was walk- ing with his mother among the beautiful statues, which were described by us at the beginning of this tale as grouped like a perpetual company on the flat roof of his great ancestral mansion. The night was magnificent, the air full of the perfumes of flowers, and the land- scape lay in all its beauty below, stretching north and south to the horizon, eastward to the Apennines, and on the western side to the Tyrrhenian Sea, which seemed to-night to take down all the starry heavens into its heart. " See, mother," said Paulus, " all that has been restored to us, and all beyond ; this fair Italy of my father's fathers, where we have again built up the old name in honor ! How inexplicable life is ! We use fierce exertions to attain things, of which, when we possess them, we know no better use to make than to abandon them. But really it becomes necessary to get beyond the ken of Tiberius. You do not repent, mother, this resolution of ours to sell everything, retire from public life, and steal off to the Greece from which you brought me in my youth?" Dion and the Sibyls. 423 " I repent of nothing which can render you happy," she replied. " Alas! " said he, " I could have wished to keep all this wealth and dignity if Esther — ^but I will not go back. As for you, mother, you are Greek, and it is only for my sake you have ever preferred Italy. We shall depart wealthy at least." And thus the estates, both of Monte Circello and Liridium, were sold, the former to Lucius Varius, the patrician poet, the latter to Agatha's husband, Pater- culus, to whom Agatha had borne a son. Paterculus called the child Paulus -(Emilius; so that, after all, Liridiimi would still remain bound up with the ancient patronymic, and in possession of the ancient race. The only pang inciured was the separation from Agatha ; but better so, Agatha herself agreed, than that her brother (like so many other noble and innocent daily and almost hourly victims) should fall under the caprice 'of the pitiless»man who then held a whole world in terror. Paulus and his mother flitted away then, and were welcomed in Athens by Dionysius, whom they found encompassed by such fame and reverence as no man had gathered round him in that metropolis of genius and wit since the days of Socrates. He taught in the Areopagus (then consisting of forty assistant, and about twenty honorary, chiefly Roman, members) a philosophy of which the reader knows already the principal tenets. With this he mingled a certain strange and poetical- looking element, derived from a study of the Sibylline OTacles. It would be in discord, we fear, with the laws of a narrative Kke this, to expect (while the reader awaits the remaining events which we have to chronicle) his 424 Dion and the Sibyls. attention to the full exposition of that most curious of all the episodical accompaniments of ancient heathen history. We will not, therefore, break our tale to unfold this topic in the manner it would intrinsically deserve ; hoping in some future edition to speak of it in a pref- ace or appendix, succinctly, yet sufficiently. It is enough here to say, in a short space, that whether from the fact that our blessed Lord was then actually living, or (as Dionysius in good faith told Paulus) from a well-known Sibylline prophecy, certain it is that his incommunicable earthly name had transpired beyond the confines of Judea. No reader, indeed, of competent acquirements would fail to find his trouble and curiosity rewarded were he to look at the private Basle edition of the Sibylline Oracles, published in 1544, by John Oparinus in that town, and edited by Xystus Bethuleius. It contains that most wonderful acrostic which became a subject of critical disquisition with a host of great-thinkers and celebrated a,uthors during four successive centuries after the generation wherein Dionysius is represented by us as telUng Paulus his opinions. We allude to the acros- tic beginning: 'Idpes&t Sk xScav kpidioii drjutiov or' i'drai. This acrostic Lactantius* unhesitatingly identifies with the same concerning which Cicero (who rendered its meaning so far as he understood an enigma to be solved by the event alone) defended the Sibyls from the charge of uttering senseless or random oracles. Saint Augus- tine of Hippo translated it (and his version survives) ; ''^heophilus (seventh bishop of Antioch, dating from St. - Fourth took, Z7tf Vera Sapientia,ciiap xv. Dion and the Sibyls. 425 Peter); St. Justin, philosopher and martyr; Origen (seventh book, ag. Celsus, p. 516); Eusebius (chap, 18), and other weighty authorities, all treat this acrostic as identical with the one discussed by Cicero and by Varro before the birth of our Redeemer. Natalis Alex- ander accepts the same position.* That all this was a " pious fraud," invented three hundred years afterward, is an explanation which our readers would not thank us here for discussing; but which, were this the proper place, and were we siure of carrying with us the atten- tion of those for whose satisfaction we are writing, we believe we could demonstrate to be historically and critically untenable. Be that as it may, the initial letters of the acrostic spell our blessed Lord's two namest all down the lines, like a golden fringe, and relate his life and death in the" text,. darkly and briefly. We will quit the subject by merely asking, if it is a pious fraud that the Sibyls predicted a Redeemer of mankind, bom of a Virgin, just about to appear, what mean the well-known lines in the 4th, eclogue of Virgil — " Ultima Cumaei venit jam carminis aetas ; » » * « , » Jam redit et Virgo," ? If Virgil was a flatterer of his patrons, were the Sibyls so? Was their meaning the same as that of Virgil's politeness ? This brief digression was essential to the issue of our present narrative, to which we now return. * The passag^e to which we allude in Cicero will be found in De Divi' natione, lib. ii. numbers xii and zi2. See also the 4tii eclogue of Virgil, tnzsors XPEI2T0S -rEor 1102, suthf. 426 Dion and the Sibyls. Paulus and his mother were entertained hospitably, as was usual among the Athenians, and " tasted salt " in every house which they would care to enter. They took a little villa near Athens, where Dionysius, and a lady called Damarais, who had known Aglais when both were girls, passed most of their evenings in witty and wise conversation during many peaceful years. Paulus was now past thirty-eight, and had never either felt tempted to marry or forgotten the Syrian girl who had refused to share his fortunes when they began to dawn so splendidly. He had studied the " holy books " which Esther had stated to be the cause of her refusal, and there he found not only a religion and a code of morals worthy of the name, but, above all, the long series of predictions concerning him who was to embrace all nations in one flock, and abolish such barriers as had sundered him so cruelly from the love of his youth. At last some change of scene and occupation became necessary to him, and his yearning remembrance deter- mined the direction in which it should be made. The mother and son said adieu to Dionysius, to Damarais, and to Athens, and embarked in a Cretan vessel for Syria. CHAPTER XXIII. JT was early morning, in the thirty-second year of the Christian era, when a handsome, soldier- like, and majestic man, wearing the costume of a Roman legatus, or general, stood on Mount Olivet, southeast-by-east of Jerusalem. He was looking west. The Syrian sun had climbed out of the Arabian sands behind him, and it flung his tall shadow level and far over the scanty herbage among the numerous sad-col- ored twigs of the olive-shrub. Opposite, just below him, across the deep ravine of the Kedron brook, better known by the awful name attached to that with which it blends, " The Jehoshaphat Vale," shone the fiery splendor of God's temple. Its glorious eastern front, here milk-white with marble, there breast-plated with gold, its pinnacles of gold, its half-Greek, half-Roman architecture capriciously and fancifully varied by the ornate genius of the Asiatic builders whom Herod the Idumaean had employed, were of a character to arrest the least curious eye, and to fill the most stupid and indifiFerent spectator with astonishment and admiration. And yet this was but the second temple — ^how inferior to, how different from, the first ! "... Underneath him, fair Jerusalem, The Holy City, lifted high her towers ; And higher yet the glorious temple reared Her pile, far-oflE appearing like a mount Of alabaster, tipt with golden spires." This was Moimt Moria, the hill of God. On the left, as the Roman general gazed, facing westward, was 427 428 Dion and the Sibyls. Mount Zion, the city of David, now the palace of Herod the tetrarch, encompassed by the mansions of Hebrew nobles. " Here I stand at last," thought Paulus, " after so many checkered fortunes, looking down upon the most beautiful, the most dazzling, and the most mysterious of cities ! To see Rome thus may be the lot of an eagle as it soars over it, but has never been granted to human eyes. And even could Rome be viewed in this way, it would want the unity, the whiteness. Ah ! strange city! Wondrous Mount of Zion! wondrous Hill of Moria! wonderful temple ! Not temple of Jupiter, or of Venus, or of Janus, or of this or that monster or hero, but Temple, say they, of God ! The Temple of God! What a sound the words have ! What a sound ! Homer's Iliad, from beginning to end, is not so sublime as this one phrase, this tremendous and dread appellation. And there it stands, flaming against the morning sun, in green marble below, in white marble above, in breast'- plates and pinnacles of gold; too proud to receive even light without repayment, and flinging floods of it back. And this is the land of the prophets whom I have at last read; yonder, beyond the wall, north, is Jeremias' grotto ! This, too, is the age, the time, the day, the hour, to which they all point, when the God of whom they speak, and of whom the Sibyls also sang, is to come down into a visibly ruined and corrupted world, and to perform that which to do is in itself surely Godlike. " But one thing is dark even in the glooms of mys- tery. How can a God suffer ? — be thwarted, be over- come, at least apparently so, by his own creatur°?, and Dion and the Sibyls. 439 these the very worst of them ? What can these cries of grief and horror, which the prophets utter, mean ? " As Paulus thus mused, half-pronouncing now and then in words the thoughts we have sketched, and hun- dreds upon hundreds of similar thoughts, which we spare to record, some one passed him, going down the Mount of Olives, and in passing looked at him ; and imtil Paulus died he never ceased to see that glance, and in dying he saw it yet, and with a smile thanked his Milker that he saw it then also — especially then. The person who thus passed our hero was more than six feet in height. He was fair in complexion. His hair was light aubtu-n, and large locks of it fell with a natural wave and return upon his neck. His head was bare. His dress was the long, flowing robe of the Jews, girdled at the waist, and, as Paulus afterward fancied, the color of it was red. He was in the bloom of life. Our hero could see, as this person passed, that he was the very perfection of health, beauty, vigor, elegance, and of all the faculties of physical humanity ; and even the odd, and strange, and wild, and somewhat mysteri- ous thought flashed through Paulus's mind: " My God," thought he, " if there were a new Adam to be created, to be the natural, or rather the super- natural, king of the human race, would not his appear- ance siurely be as the appearance and the bearing of this person ? " And the person who passed was moreover thin, and a little emaciated. And he would have seemed wan, only that the most delicate, faint blood-color mantled in his cheeks. And he looked at the hero Paulus with the look of him out of whose hand none hath power to take 430 ZHoH and the Sibyls. those whom he picks from a vast concourse and elects. And Paulus felt glad, and calm, and without anxiety for the future, and free from all bitterness for the past, and firm, yet grave; and, when his mind went actually forth to look upon the things that were around it, he saw nothing but the face and the glance. And now I come to the strangest particular of all. Paulus felt that this beautiful and vigorous new Adam, fit to be the natural and even supernatural king of the world, was one who never could have laughed, and probably had never smiled. But no smile was so sweet as his gravity. And Paulus remembered another extraordinary and un- paralleled circumstance. It was this: those beautiful and benignant eyes were so full of terror that it seemed they could scarcely hold in an equal degree any other expression in them except that which shone therein with what seemed to Paulus a celestial and divine lustre ; I mean, first, love, and, next, unconquerable and evep- lasting and victorious courage. As though there was a work to do which none but he (from the creation to the day of doom) could ever accomplish — a dreadful work, a work unspeakable in shame, and in pain, and in hor- ror, and yet a work entirely indispensable, and the most important and real and momentous that had ever been performed. And the subject or hero of this tale, Paulus, wondered how in the same look and eyes, and in a single glance of them, two things so opposite as ineffable terror and yet Godlike, adorable courage could be combined. But, nevertheless, they were both there; and with this mighty and mysterious mental combination Paulus also saw a sweetness so inexpressibly awful that, at once Dion and the Sibyls. 431 (and as if he had heard words formed within his own heart), the reflection arose within him : " How much more terrible would be the wrath of the lamb than the rage of the lion ! " And the figure of this person passed onward and was hidden from poor Paulus beyond the olive groves. Our hero sat down on a jutting stone, half-covered with herbage, and fell into a vague and somewhat sor- rowful meditation. " Poor Longinus ! " said he to him- self ; " it is really the queerest and the most provoking thing in the world that perhaps the honestest, bravest, simplest, best fellow I ever knew should have fallen in love so much above his own rank. But can't I look at home? I am worse; I have let myself fall in love with a damsel who is prevented by the holy books of her people from marrying a Gentile. What a puzzle this world is ! I should like to see poor Longinus once more. How broken-hearted he seemed when we all took wing from the castle on the banks of the Liris ! * Ah ! * says he, when I met him in Rome afterward, 'perhaps we shall never meet again.' " The best thing that could have occurred for him was that marriage of Agatha with Paterculus. But these thoughts are useless; I must fulfill Dionysius's commission, and write to him to say whether I have been able to discover in this mysterious land the pres- ence, the memory, or so much as the expectation of any person whose name corresponds with that spelt out in the acrostic of Erythraea the Sibyl." A rustle of the olives near him caused him to turn his head, and who, of all men in the world, should be at his side but Loinginus, the centurion! 43* Dion and the Sibyls, " Why," cried Paulus, " I thought you were at Borne!" " I have just arrived, my general," returned the brave man, " with orders to report myself to Pontius Pilate, the Procurator of Judea, or Governor of Jerusalem. Cornelius, of the Italian band, also a centurion, as you know, my general, has been ordered to Caesarea, and is there stationed." " Well," said Paulus, " I am delighted to meet you again. How is Thellus ? " " Curiously enough," returned Longinus, " he, too, is here, stationed in Jerusalem. He was tired of too much quiet." " Good ! " exclaimed Paulus. " We must all often see each other, and talk of old days." After a few more words interchanged, they began to descend Mount Olivet together. " Did you meet any one," says Paulus to Longinus, " as you came up the hill ? " " I did," said Longinus very gravely ; " but I know not who he is." They proceeded silently in company till, in the^ valley of Jehoshaphat, at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, not far from the Golden Gate of the Temple, a most beautiful youth, with rich, fair locks, worn un- covered (like him whom Paulus had just seen), met them. « Friends," quoth the stranger, ' have you seen the Master coming down from the Hill of Olives.?" " I think," said Paulus, after a little reflection, " that I must have seen him whom you mean." And he described the person who had looked at him. Dion and the Sibyls. 43J " That is he," said the beautiful youth. " Pray, which way was he going ? " Faulus told him, and the other, after thanking him, was moving swiftly away when Faulus cried after him: " Stay one moment," said he. " What is the name of him you call the Master f " " Know you not ? " rephed the youth with a smile " Why, you are, I now observe your dress, a Roman. His name is lesous." " What ! " cried Paulus. " Then it is a reality. There is some one of that name who has appeared among men, and appeared at this time, and appeared in this land. I will, this very day, send off a letter to Dionysius at Athens. And pray, fair youth, what is your own name?" " Ah ! " returned the other, " I am nobody ; but they call me John. Yet," added he, " I ought not lightly to name such a name, for the greatest and holiest of mere men, now a prisoner of Herod's, is Ukewise called John ; I mean John the Baptist, John the Prophet; yea, more than a prophet: 'John the Angel of God.'" " I am," returned Paulus, " invited to a great enter- tainment at Herod's palace, this evening. Tell me^ why is John the Prophet a prisoner at Herod's ? " " Because he went on God's errand to Herod, to re- buke him for his incestuous marriage." With this the youth went his way, and Paulus and Longinus went theirs. CHAPTER XXIV. JT the golden gate of the Temple courtyard, a ^^ Roman legionary soldier (detailed as body- servant to the General Paulus) met him. The soldier was leading a small, wiry Tauric (or really Tar- tar) horse. Paulus, twisting a lock of the animal's mane in his left hand, and taking up with the little finger thereof the loop of the bridle, sprang on its back. The soldier smiled, as the still handsome and youthful- looking legatus settled himself on the back of his steed. " Why are you smiling, my man ? " quoth Paulus good-humoredly. " It was Uke the spring I saw you take years ago at Fonniee, when I was a boy, upon the back of the horse Sejanus, which no man, my general, ever rode save you," replied the soldier. " Ah ! " said Paulus, smiling sadly; " were you there ? I fear I am not so agile now. We are all passing away." " Just as agile still, my general," returned the legion- ary, in a cordial tone; "but about twice as strong." "Away I begone!" cried Paulus, laughing; "I am growing old." And shaking the reins, he waved a salute to Longinxis, turned his pony round, and rode away again into the valley westward, while the centurion entered the city by the golden gate, and repaired under the walls of the Temple to Fort Antonio, where he was detailed as oflScer of Pilate's guard that night. Dion and the Siiyls. 435 Paulus, meanwhile, rode slowly on his way, between Ae Kedron Brook and the walls of Jerusalem, till he came to the Pool of Siloam. There he turned south, galloped to a fort which was near, turned back again to his right, or northward, followed the valley of Hinnom at a walking pace, looking up at the white and dazzling buildings on Mount Zion. As he slowly passed them, he speculated which could have been David's palace. He saw Herod's plainly enough. On his right he noticed the aqueduct from Solomon's Pool, and followed its course as far as the Tower of Hippicns northward. There he entered the city by the Gate of Gennath, and followed the valley of the Cheesemongers (or Tyropoeon hollow) until he came to Ophel. In the middle of a very narrow street in this low and crowded quarter, where the Romans afterward under Titus were repulsed, he met a file of people, some mounted, some on foot, led by a richly-dressed, haughty- looking, burly man, riding a mule. So narrow was the street that either Paulus would have had to go back as far as the Tower of Mariamne, or the richly-dressed and haughty-looking man about one- quarter of the distance, to the bridge between the street of the Cheesemongers and the court of the Gentiles. Paulus, always full of courtesy, amenity, and sweetness, was in the very act of turning his small Taiuic horse, when the burly man in rich dress, who led the opposing file, called out, " Back, low people ! Back, and let Caiphas go by ! " " And who is Caiphas ? " demanded Paulus, in- stantly facing round again and barring the way. 436 I>ion and the Sibyls. "The high-priest of Jerusalem," was the answer, thundered forth in rude and minatory tones. " I respect," said Faulus, " and even revere that holy appellation; but he who uses it at this moment, for some present purpose, has flung against me, who am a Roman general, the mandate of £ack, lew people. Where are the low people? I do not believe that I am a low person. Where, then, are the low people?" " Come on," cried the imperious voice of Caiphas. He himself, being the file-leader, began then to move forward, till he came immediately in front of the travel- ler who had so courteously spoken to him. " If you want," said Paulus, " to pass me at once, I must get into the ditch, or throw you into it ; which do you prefer ? " " I prefer," quoth Caiphas, " that you should throw me into the ditch, if you either dare or can." " Sir," said Paulus, " I am sorry for the sentiment you express, or at least imply. But I will stand up against your challenge of throwing you into the ditch, because I both could do it, and dare do it, as a Roman soldier, only that there is One among you who has come to settle all our disputes, and who has a divine right to do so. For his sake I would rather be thrown into that drain by you — soldier, pfScer, general, and Roman as I am — than throw you into it." " Let me pass," cried Caiphas, pu^le with rage, Paulus, whose behavior at Lake Benacus against the Germans, and previously at Formiae, and afterward in the terrible Calpumian House on the Viminal Hill, the reader remembers, made no answer, but, riding back to the Tower of Mariamne, allowed the high-priest and his Dion and the Sibyls. 437 followers there to pass him, which they did with every token of scorn and act of contumely that the brief and sudden circumstances allowed. Caiphas thus passed on to his country-house at the south-west-by-south of Jerusalem, where he Usually spent the night. Paulus then put his pony into a gallop, and soon reached the bridge across the Tyropoeon, into the court- yard of the Temple, commonly called the courtyard of the Gentiles. Such was the nervous excitement caused by his recent act of purely voluntary, gratuitous, and deliberate self-humiliation, that he laughed aloud as he rode through the Temple yard, coasting the western "cloisters," and so reaching Fort Antonio. There his servant, the Roman legionary, who had before met him at the golden gate, and whose name was Marcus, was awaiting him. CHAPTER XXV. 8HAT night the palace of Herod the tetrarch 1^^ resounded with music, and all the persons of rank or distinction in Jerusalem were among the guests. The entertainment would have been remembered for years on account of its brilliancy j it was destined to be remembered for all ages, even till the day of doom, on account of its catastrophe, chronicled in the books of God, and graven in the horror of men. Faulus, unusually grave, because experiencing un- wonted sensations, and anxious calmly to analyze them, was assailed for the first time in his life by a feeling of nervous irritability, which originated (though he knew it not) in his having suppressed the natural desire to chas- tise the insolence of Caiphas that morning. He sat abstracted and silent, not far from the semi-royal chait of Herod the tetrarch. His magnificent dress, well- earned military fame, and manly and grave beauty (never seen to greater advantage than at that period of life, though the gloss of youth was past) had drawn toward him during the evening an imusual amoimt of attention, of which he was unconscious, and to which he would have been indifferent. The " beauty of the evening," as she was called (for in those days they used terms like those which we modems use, to express our infatuation for the gleams of prettiness which are quenched almost as soon as they are seen), had repeatedly endeavored to attract his at- tention. She was royal ; she was an unrivalled dancer. Dion and the Sibyls, 439 Herod, who began to feel dull, begged her to favor the company with a dance, sola. Thereupon the daughter of Herodias looked at Paulus, to whom her previous blandishments had been addressed in vain (he was well Imown to be unmarried), and heaved a fiery sigh. The mere noise of it ought to have awakened his notice, and yet failed to accompHsh even that small result. Had it succeeded, he was exactly the person to have regarded this woman with a feeling akin to that which, some two- aad-twenty years before, she herself (or was it Herodias ? they age fast in the East) had waked in the bosom of his sister under the veranda in the bower of Crispus's inn, leading out of the fine old Latian garden near the banks of the Liris. She proceeded to execute her ballet, her J)as seul, her dance of immortal shame and fatal infamy. Cries of delight arose. The creature grew frantic. The court of Herod fell into two parties. One party proclaimed the performance a perfection of elegance and spirit. The other party said not a word, but glances of painful feeling passed among them. The clamorous eulogists formed the large majority. In the silent minority was numbered Paulus, who never in his life felt such grave disgust or such settled indignation. He thought of his pure and innocent Esther — alas, not his ! He thought that, had it been his sister Agatha who thus outraged every rudimentary principle of the tacit social compact, he could almost find it in his heart to relieve the earth of her. Thus pondering, his glance fell upon Herod the te- Irarch. The tetrarch seemed to have become delirious. He was laughing, and crying, and slobbering, and clap* 440 IHon and the Sibyls, ping his hands, and rolling his head, and rocking his body on the great state cushion under the canopy, where he "sat at table." While Paulus was contemplating him in wonder and shame, the wretched dancer came to an end of her bounds. Indecency, scientifically acci- dental, had been the one simple principle of the exhibi- tion. Herod called the practised female before him, and, in the hearing of several, bade her demand from him any reward she pleased, and declared upon oath that he would grant her demand, Paulus heard the answer. After consulting apart with her mother, she said she desired the head of a prisoner upon a dish. " What prisoner ? " " John," said she. Paulus gazed at the miserable tetrarch, " the quarter of a king," not from the height of his rank as a Roman general, but from the still greater height which God had given him as one of the first, one jof the earliest of European gentlemen. He knew not then who John was. But that any fellow-creature in prison, not other- wise to be put to death, should have his head hewn off and placed upon a dish, because a woman had tossed her limbs to and fro in a style which pleased a tetrarch while it disgraced human society, appeared to Paulus to be less than reasonable. What he had said, the tetrarch had said upon oath. A little confusion, a slight murmuring and whisper- ing ensued, but the courtly music soon recommenced. Paulus could not afterward tell how long it was before the most awful scene he had ever witnessed occurred. A menial entered, bearing, on a large dish, fa. freshly-severed human head, bleeding at the neck- Dion and the Sibyls. 441 " It was not a jest, then," said Paulus, in a low voice to his next neighbor, a very old man, whose face he remembered, but whose name he had all the evening been trying in vain to recall — " it was not a base jest, dictated by the hideous taste of worse than barbarians! " " Truly," replied the aged man, " these Jews are w(M:se than any barbarians I ever saw, and I have seen most of them." Paulus recognized at these words the geographer Strabo. At a sign from Herod, the menial carrying the dish now approached the daughter of Herodias, and pre- sented to her the bleeding head. She, in turn, took the dish and offered it to Herodias, who herself bore it from the room with a kind of snorting laugh. Paulus rose slowly and deliberately from his place near the tetrarch, at whom he steadily looked. "This, then," said he, "is the entertainment to which you have invited a Roman legatus. You are vexed, people say, that Pilate, the Roman governor of this city, could not honor your birthday by his presence in your palace. Pilate's local authority is, of course, greater than mine, for I have none at all j but his real, per- manent rank, and your own real, permanent importance, are contemptible by the side of those which a Roman soldier of such a family as the ^milian has gained on the field of battle ; and it was a high honor to yourself to succeed in bringing me hither. And now, while disgracing your own house, you have insulted your guests. What is the name of the man you have mur- dered because a woman dances like a goat ? What is his name ? " 442 Dion and the Sibyls. The tetrarch, astonished and overawed, replied with a bewildered look : " What authority to rebuke me, because I took my brother's wife, had John ? " " John who ? " asked Paulus, who from the outs^ had been struck by the name. " He who was styled John the Baptist," said the tetrarch. The words of another John rang in Paulus's memoryj and he exclaimed : " What ! John the Baptist ? John the Baptist, yea, and more than a prophet — ^John the Angel of God ! Is this he whom you have slain ? " " What had he to say to my marriage ? " answered Herod, through whose purple face a livid under-color was penetrating to the surface. " Why," exclaimed Paulus, " the holy books of your own nation forbade such a marriage, and John could not hear of it without rebuking you. I, although a Grentile, honor those books. Out upon you, impious assassin ! I ask not, where was your mercy, or where your justice; but where has been your sense of common decency, this evening ? I shall never cease to lament that I once stood under your roof. My presence was meant as an honor to you; but it has proved a disgrace to myself." Taking his scarlet cloak, he flung it over his shoul- ders, and left the hall amid profound silence — a silence which continued after he had quitted the courtyard and begvm to descend from Mount Zion to the labyrinth of streets branching downward to the Tyropoeon Valley. In one of these, under a bright moonlight, he met Dion and the Sibyls. 443 that same beautiful youth whom he had seen in the morning at the foot of the Mount of Olives. " Stay ! " cried Paulus, suddenly stopping in his own rapid walk. " Said you not, this morning, that he who was called 'John the Baptist' was more than a prophet? Herod has this moment slain him, to please a vile woman. The tyrant has sent the holy prophet out of life." " Nay; into life," replied the other John; "but, brave and noble Roman — for I see you are both — the Master, who knows all things, and rejoices that John has begun to live, grieves as well." " Why grieves ? " inquired Paulus, musing. " Because," replied the other John, " the Master is verily man, no less than He is Who is." " What, then, is he ? " asked Paulus, with a look of awe. " He is the Christ, whom John the Prophet, now a witness unto death, had announced." Hereupon the two went their several ways, Paulus muttering: " The second name in the acrostic." But, really, he had ceased to care for minor coinci- dences in a huge mass of convergent proofs all gaining possession of his soul, and taking alike his will and his understanding captive — captive to the irresistible truth and the equally irresistible beauty of the message which had come. The immortality of which he was an heir, the reader has seen him long since believing, and long »nce also rejecting both the pantheism of the philoso- phers and the polytheism of the vulgar. And here was a great new doctrine authoritatively establishing all that the genius of Dionysius had guessed, and infinitely 444 Dion and the Sibyls. more, truths awful and mysterious, which offered im- mediate peace to that stupendous imiverse that is within a man, while assuring him of power, joy, and honor to begin some day, and nevermore to end. He had not been in Jerusalem long before he learnt much of the new teaching. He had secured for his mother, close to the Fortress Antonio, where he himsfilf lodged, a small house belonging to a widow who, since faer husband's death, had fallen into comparative pov- erty. The Lady Aglais, attended still by her old freed- woman, Melena, was allowed the best and coolest part of this house entirely to herself, with a staircase of their own leading to the flat roof. There they passed much of their evenings after the sun had set, looking at the thickly-built opposite hills, the mansions on Zion, or down into the Tyropceon from which the hum of a great multitude came, mellowed by the distance, and disposing the mind to contemplation. Many wonderful things, from time to time, they heard of him who was now teaching — things some of which, nay, the greater part of which, as one of the sacred writers expressly declares, never were recorded, and the whole of which could not be contained in the libraries of the world. It may well, then, be imagined in what a situation Paulus and his mother were — having no interest in disbelieving, no chair of Moses to abdicate, no doctorial authority or Pharisaic prestige inciting them to impugn the known truth — ^in what a situation they were, for accepting or declining what was then offered. After twenty years of separation, a trace of Esther had been recovered by Paulus. One evening, his mother was on the flat roof of her residence awaiting his cus- Dion and the Sibyls. 445 tomary visit, when her son appeared and alarmed her by his pallor. He had seen Esther on foot in a group of women at the Gate of Gennath, going forth into the country, as he was entering the city on horseback. Aglais smiled sadly, saying : " Alas ! dear son, is that all ? I long since knew that she still lived; but I would not disturb your mind with the useless intelligence." "Scarcely altered," murmmred Paulus abstractedly, " while I am quite old. Yes, she must now be past thirty; yes, near thirty-five." " As to that," said the mother, " you are thirty-eight, imd scarcely seem twenty-nine. Old Rebecca, the mis- tress of this house, who lives stiU in the ground-story as you are aware, has told me mucn about Esther." " She is married, I suppose," said Paulus, with a look of anxiety. " No," replied Aglais. " She has had innumerable offers (spite of her comparative poverty), and has de- clined them all." " But what boots it ? " exclaimed Pauhis. " Old Josiah Maccabeus is dead," said Aglais. And here they dropped the subject by mutual consent. The dreadful days, closed by the most awful day the world has known — closed by the ever memorable and tremendous Friday — came and went. On the Satur- day, Paulus met Longinus, who said he had been on Mount Calvary that afternoon, and th"! he, Longinus, was now and ever henceforth a disciple of him who had been crucified. The Sunday came, and brought with i* a prodigious rumor, which, instead of dying out, found additional beUevers every day. The disciples, most of whom had shown themselves as timid as they 446 Dion and the Sibyls. were known to be ignorant, now seemed transformed into new characters, who loudly afiirmed that their Master had risen from the dead by his own power; and they were ready to face every torment and all terrors calmly in the maintenance of this fact, which they pre- dicted would be received and acknowledged by the whole world. And, indeed, it was no longer a romor, but a truth, attested by the only witnesses who could by possibility know anything about it, either for or against; and whose earthly interests it would have been to deny it, even while they knew it to be true— witnesses who, if they knew it to be false — and they certainly knew whether it were true or false (this much was granted, and is still granted, by all their opponents) — could have had no motive, either earthly or unearthly, for feigning that they believed it. So pregnant is this simple reasoning, that a man might ponder it and study it for a whole month, and yet find fresh strength and an ever-increasing weight in the considerations which it suggests ; not even find a flaw if he made the one month twelve, Paulus's mind was determined, and so was his mother's. The son sought that same beautiful youth whom he had seen twice before; told him the new desire, the new belief, which had made his mother's and his own heart glad ; and by him they were baptized as Christians, disciples of him that had been crucified — ^by that fair youth, I say, who was to be known for ever among men as Saint John the EvangeUst. " After all, mother," said Paulus, when they were re- turning together to her dweUing, " it is not so very mys- terious; I mean that difficulty about the lowliness of Dion and the Sibyls. 447 our divine Teacher's chosen place among men. Be- cause, see you, if the builder of those glorious stars and that subUme firmament was to come at all amongst us, he would be certain to take the lowest and smallest lot, lest we should deem there was any difference as before him. We are all low and small together — the earth itself, I am told, being but a sort of Bethlehem among the stars; but, anyhow, we are but mites on a blade of grass in his sight,' and had he taken a great rela- tive place amidst us, it might countenance the lie and the delusion of our silly pride. That part of it is to me not so mysterious, although I don't wonder at the Jewish notion that their Messiah was to have been a great conquering prince — that is probably what the Antichrist will be. It would suit the blindness of vanity better." As he spoke the words, they heard a quick footstep behind, and were overtaken by Longinus, who, saying he had just heard of their reception, greeted them with every demonstration of rapturous affection, " Now," pursued he, walking by their side, " good for evil to Master Paulus's family. Forgive the appar- ent intrusion, dear general, if I mention that I happen to know the story of your youthful love, as all the world have witnessed your fidelity to an unavailing attach- ment. But leam from poor Longinus that Esther Mac- cabeus is now a disciple; and the Christian maiden can wed, under a still holier law, the brave Gentile whom the Jewess was bound to refuse." . With this he turned into an alley under the court of the Gentiles, and disappeared. CHAPTER XXVI. JNE still and sultry evening, the decline of a brooding day in spring, two persons were sit- ting on the flat roof of a house in Jerusalem. They were the Athenian Lady Aglais and her son, the comparatively youthful Roman general — he who has so largely figured, even from his gallant boyhood, in the events and affairs we have been recording. It was the 30th of March, and a Wednesday — the first of all Easter- Wednesdays — the first in that new and perpetual calendar by which throughout the fairest re- gions of earth, among all enhghtened nations and civi- lized races, till the crash of doom, time was for ever- more to be measured. A servant, carrying a skin-cask slung over his shoul- ders, was watering the flowers, faint with thirst j and these, arranged in fanciful vases, which made an arti- ficial garden of the housetop, shook their drooping heads under the fresh and grateful shower, and seemed to answer it with smiles of a thousand blooms and rays. As the man stole softly to and fro about the roof, now approaching the lady and her son, now receding, he seemed, in spite of the forei§-n language in which they spoke, and in spite of the low and hushed tone they observed, to follow, with intense and breathless though stealthy excitement, the tenor of their conversation; while his figure, in the last evening rays, cast a long, shifting shadow that streaked with black the yellow flood to its farthest limit, cHmbed the parapet, broke upon its 44S Dion and the Siiyls. 449 grail-work of balusters, and then was beheaded, for it flung off its head out of sight into empty space, leaving the calm, bright air unblotted above the stone guard- wall. An occurrence took place of which (that Wednesday evening) Paulus and his mother were witnesses — an oc- currence in dumb show, the significance of which they were destined, only after several>years, to learn ; yet the incident was so sii3gular, so strange, so impressive — it was such a picture in such a quarter — ^that when, long subsequently, the explanation came, they seemed to be still actually assisting in person at the scene which, while they beheld it, they had no means of understanding. We are going, in one moment, to relate that occurrence ; and we must here request the reader to grant us his full belief and his confidence when we remark that, in com- parison of his amusement, his profit, and that mental gallery of pictures to be his henceforth (which we try to give to all who honor these pages with a perusal), we feel the sincerest contempt for any mere display of scholarship or learning. For this reason, and this rea- son alone, and certainly from no scantiness, and still less from any lack of authorities, we shall almost disen- cumber our narrative of references to the ancient writers and recondite documents (such as the Astronomic Form- ula of Philip Aridaus) which establish as positive his- torical facts the more striking of the occurrences still to be mentioned. In one instance the intelligent reader will discern that the most sacred of all evidence supports what we have to record. But if we were to show with what nicety of precision much profane, yet respectable and even venerable, testimony accords with the passage 450 Dion and the Sibyls. here meant in the Acts of the Apostles, and how abun- dantly such testimony corroborates and supplements the inspired account, this book would cease to be what it aims at being, and would become a historical treatise of the German criticism school.* Satisfied, therefore, with the foot-notes below (at which the reader will oblige us by just glancing, and which are appended, in perfect good faith and simple honesty, as implpng no more than we could make good), we will avoid boring those who have a right to, and who expect, the conclusion of a straightforward story at bur hands.t Paulus and his mother were conversing, as has been described, in Greek, while the servant, despite his ignorance of that language, had the air of following the drift of what they said, and of catching the main purport of it with wonder and awe. There was, indeed, at that moment, only one topic in all Jerusalem. He * If any one should feel astonislied at our insisting not only upon the exact day, but the very hour, when certain things occurred, let him or her remember that the calculation of eclipses, passing backward from one to another (as though ascending the steps of a staircase), reaches and fixes the date— yes, the precise minute of day — when incidents took place between which and us the broad haze of twice a thousand years is interposed. t For the rest, in support of the matters we have too briefly to recount, we could burden these pages with voluminous, and some of them most interesting and beautiful, extracts from both heathen and Christian works of classic fame and standard authority ; with passages of direct and indirect evidence from Josephus, Phlegon, Plutarch, Saint Dlony- sius (our own true hero, the Areopagite of Greece, the St. Denis of Prance) \ad Apollophanem, epis. xi., and ad Polycarpum Antislitem, vii.] ; Tertullian (Coni.Jud., c. 8) ; St. Augustine (Civ. Dei, lib. 14) ; St. Chtysostom {Horn. .d unquestionable revelation. " Go on, dear child," said Aglais. " Wha,t further ? " " I asked the pale image what this meant, that he should term the condition in which he is waiting and has yet to wait a little time — that vast, dim, condition — ' a house,' ' a city,' and ' a kingdom.' ' The dwellers,' he replied, ' are watched in that kingdom by silent pro- tectors, mighty and beautiful, whose faces, full of a se- 458 Dion and the Sibyls. vere, sad love, are the torches and the only light those dwellers ever see ; and the vast, dim city has a sunless and a starless sky for its roof, under which they wait ; and that sky is the ceiling which cihoes the sighs of their pain; and thus to them it has been a kingdom, and a city, and a house; and, until the ninth hotu: of last Friday they were numerous as the nations of men ! ' 'And at the ninth hour of that day,' I asked, ' O my father ! what occurred when so many departed, and you and a small number were left still to wait ? ' And he gazed at me for an instant with a wan and wistful look; then, lo! I saw nothing where he had been standing under the fig-tree." " But it was at the ninth hour of the last Friday the Master had expired by the side of the penitent who was that very day to be with him in paradise ! " cried Aglais. At Esther's arrival, Paulus and Aglais had both risen from a kind of semicircular wicker settle which occupied one of the comers of the roof ; and they now, all three, when Esther had finished her strange, brief narrative, leaned silent and musing against the parapet, where; under the shade of a clustering rhododendron, they had a view westward (drawn, as people are who pon- der, toward whatever object is most luminous) of the towers and palaces and pinnacles of the Holy City, then reddening in the sunset. One word respecting the spot where the little group was thus collected and concerning its peculiar scenic effects. The roof was an irregular parallelogram, protected on all sides by a low, thick parapet, at two opposite comers Ol; which, in the diagonals, were two doors of masonry, bolted with massive round bars of iron, or left open, Dion and the Sibyls. 459 thus excluding or admitting communication with the con- tiguous houses. The writer, many years ago, saw such parapet doors on the housetops of modem Algiers ; nor was the arrangement unknown in the more famous East- em cities of antiquity, where the roofs glowed with plants in vases. When, on some public occasion, the passages were opened, the richer inhabitants, far above the noise, dust, squalor, sultriness, and comparative darkness of the narrow and noisome streets, could stroll and lounge for miles, in mid-air, among the flowers; could cross even flying and embowered bridges (of which a privi- leged number possessed the keys) ; and so Dives, im- seen of Lazarus, but seeing far down all things little and supine, could wander through parterres of bloom, and perfumed alleys, and shrubberies of enchantment, with effects of sunlight sprinkled, so to speak; with cool- ness and with shadows, soothed out of the noonday fierce- ness into tints various and tender; unsoiled of the strains and pains that stained and pained the poor sordid world below ; until the hearts of those who thus promenaded amid circumstances of such deUcious refinement and luxury, bearing and hearing news, and exchanging civilities, were "lifted up," and became even like to the heart of Nabuchodonosor, the king. Sometimes the dxilcimer, or the fingered lyre of six strings, made long-forgotten airs of music beguile the declining day, and hnger for hours longer, ravishing the night under the stars of the Syrian sky. Such tha scene. But none of the roof-doors were open that Wednes- day evening. Something ailed the Holy City. Out of the hushed heavens, mysteries and a stem doom werw brooding over Jerusalem. Already the fermenting ^in- 460 Dion and the Sibyls. of those dreadful factions which were to tear to pieces, with intestine rage, the whole Jewish body, while the city was writhing in the vain death-struggle against Titus, a few years later, had begun to make itself sensi- ble to the observant. A fierce hatred of the Romans and an insane eagerness to reestablish the old Jewish independence had taken possession of certain youthful fanatics; and " possessed," indeed, they seemed. On the one side the Roman officers of the garrison, from Pilate down, had received anonymous warnings, in the wildest style, requiring them to withdraw from Jerusalem within a given time, or they should be all executed in the streets, as opportunity might occur; on the other, the prefect of Syria had been earnestly requested by Pilate to strengthen the garrison; while in the city itself the soldiers were strictly admonished to keep to their quarters, to avoid late hours, and to hold no intercourse when off duty with the inhabitants. Leaves of absence were stopped. A few legionaries had been already murdered in the neighborhood of wine-shops, in the small winding alleys, and in places of evil repute, and no efforts succeeded in identifpng the perpetrators. But these were only the feeble and evanescent symp- toms, destined to disappear and reappear, of a political and social phase which was not to become the predomi- nant situation imtil another situation should have ex- hausted its first fury. This, the first, was to be the war of the Synagogue against the disciples of the Messias, whom those disciples went about declaring to have risen from the tomb, according to his distinct promise; whom they declared to have been already seen, and heard, and touched by themselves, again and again. Dion and the Sibyls. 461 No wonder, then, if Aglais and Paulus and Esther had discussed in hushed tones, and in Greek, the won- ders and various portents attendant upon the supreme and central fact — that Resurrection of the Master, whicl, absorbed their whole hearts and minds, leaving no room for any other interest therein at this tremendous epoch — the grand turning-point of human destinies and of our whole planet's history. From the parapet against which they were leaning, they now gazed in silence upon the splendid scenes below and opposite. Across a maze of narrow streets they saw the mansions, the pinnacles, the towers, and that great supernal "Temple of God," all so soon to perish violently, in a general, a complete, and an ir- reversible destruction. They saw the play of light and shadow upon one long tree-lined side of Herod's proud palace ; they saw the ripple of quivering leaves reflected apon the white colonnades and tessellated, shady floors jf Pilate's fatal house ; and, while revolving thoughts and questions of imspeakable importance and solem- nity, they suddenly beheld an acted picture, a passing scene, voiceless to them, yet impressive, which blent itself into their recollection of other scenes, never to be effaced from the memory of mankind, which, not a week before, had been under those very colonnades enacted. A woman in the attire of a Roman matron came quickly forth upon the first-story balcony in the house of Pontius Pilate, and, leaning over the rail, waved her hand with an imperative gesture to some one below. She was followed into the balcony more slowly by a man wearing the grand costume of an ancient Roman military governor, who held in his hand a sealed and 462 Dion and the Sibyls. folded letter, tied with the usual silk string. The man was evidently Pilate himself. He looked long and gloomily at the letter, and seemed to be plimged in thought. He even let what he carried fall at his feet, and did not appear to be aware of this for some moments. It was the woman who picked up the letter, and gave it back into his hand. Then Pilate leaned over the balustrade, in his turn, and spoke to a man be- low in miUtary costume, who was mounted on a power- ful horse, and seemed to be equipped for travel. The soldier saluted, looking up, when he was addressed, and saluted again when his superior had ceased speaking ; whereupon Pilate dropped the letter (a large and heavy dispatch), which the soldier caught and secured under his belt, inside the tunic, immediately afterward riding away at a canter. Oiu' three friends saw Pilate, his head bent and his eyes on the ground, slowly re-enter the house by a screen-door, the same through which he had come out upon the balcony; but the lady, clasping her hands a little in front of her forehead, gazed into the heavens with a face ashy pale, and with eyes from which tears were streaming. It is a well-known and for centuries universally re- ceived tradition, besides being a fact recorded by one most respectable and trustworthy author (who, besides, was not a Christian, but a Jew) — a fact without which the allusions to it in various ancient authorities, to- gether with Phlegon the Chronologer's subsequent re- cital of Tiberius's extraordinary conduct, would be un- intelligible and unaccountable — that Pontius Pilate, harassed by the unappeasable reproaches of his wife, and stung by something within his own bosom which Dion and the Sibyls. 463 allowed him peace no more, until (sleepless, and unable again, unable for ever, to sleep) he bequeathed, some years afterward, by an awful death, whether intentional or not, his name to a great Alpine hill, a hill not thence- forth named, or, to be named, while time and mountains last, by any name but " Pilate's " among distant and then barbarous nations — it is well known, I say, that Pilate sent to Tiberius Caesar a long and minute relation concerning the life, the death, and the disappearance from the tomb of Him whom he had scourged, and whom the Jews had crucified, together with a notice of the supernatural wonders wrought by Him ; His pre- rious notorious announcement of His own intended resurrection j the directly consequent and equally notor- ious precautions ,taken to hinder it ; the disappearance, in spite of this, of the body; the testimony of the soldiers that they were witnesses to the abstraction, which they were unable to stop, because they alleged that they were not witnesses of'xX (being buried in sleep) ; that, in fact, their testimony proved nothing save the body's disappearance from the massively-sealed tomb (which would have stood a small siege) j the failure of the Synagogue to account for the body ; the account of it by the disciples ; and, finally, the admissions of the Pharisees that all their prophets had become unex- plainable if this was not their Messias, yet that such a conclusion was to them impossible, because He was to have been their king, and a conquering king, and to have founded an empire extending through all nations and tongues ; their stem and ever-growing disaffection to the Roman rule ; the universal amazement, excite. ment, and anxiety arising from the circumstance that. veri ra 464 Dion and the Sibyls. while neither the Synagogue nor the soldiers could throw any light upon what had become of the body, the disciples of Him who had predicted His own resur- rection explained the event openly and fearlessly by stating that they had again and again met Him since the previous feria prima ; that they cared for no pro- tection except His alone ; that the dead was once more among them — living, and henceforth immortal — their Master and God, the ultimate Judge of this world, and the foretold Founder of an everlasting kingdom ! Pilate added several strange and astounding particulars. This, in a general way, is known; and it is likewise known that Tiberius Caesar was so deepl)r- impressed by Ihe dispatch of the Jerusalem governor, arriving in his hands about the same moment, as we shall find in the next chapter, when a strange incident {narrated by Plutarch) took place, that he suddenly convened the senate in a formal indiction, and proposed to them to raise a temple to Christ, and to rank Him solemnly among the gods of the empire .' But not such nor of such acknowledgments was to be the kingdom of the " jealous " and the only God. Aglais, Paulus, and Esther had assisted at a memor- able pantomime. They had beheld the mounted sol- dier who rode with a memorable letter to the seacoast; they had seen the vain effort of him who had offered the people a choice between Barabbas and " the de- sired of nations," to call the great of the earth into his perplexitieSj to quiet his awakened conscience, to turn aside from the dread warnings whispered to his soul, to lull — ^by futile means — an all too late remorse. CHAPTER XXVII. pN ovir last chapter, Faulus and his mother had obtained through Esther's recital of her wak- ing dream or vision, one little glimpse at that prison, that place of detention, which she had termed (as she herself had heard it termed) "the dim, vast house," " the vast, dim city," and the " dim, vast kingdom." The vague notion she could give of that scene of im- murement cannot be expected to prove interesting to so large a number as Mr. Pickwick has caused to feel an interest in his glimpses of the " Fleet Prison," once famous in London. But such interest as the former house of detention commands is of a different kind, and those who may experience it are a different class. Plato (as a great critic observes) has been translated from age to age into some dozen great modem languages, in order that he might be read by about a score of persons in each generation. But that score are the little foun- tains of the large rivers that bear to the sea the busmess of the world. Few are directly taught by Kant, Sir WiUiam Hamilton, John Stuart Mill, Cousin, or Balmes ; but the millions are taught and think through those whom they have taught to think. Between the gooc and evil originators or conservators of ideas, and thf huge masses who do all their mental processes at thirc hand, stand the interpreters; and these listen with ben* heads, while they hold trumpets which are heard at tht extremities of the earth. 4^5 466 Dion and the Sibyls, Paulus lingered in Jerusalem. Weeks flew by. Spring passed into summer ; summer was passing into autumn ; and still, from time to time, as, in the evenings, mother and son sat among the flowers on the ilat roof, Esther would join them. One night, she had hardly appeared, when Longinus the centurion followed her, bearing a letter for Paulus, which, he said, had just arrived at Fort Antonio, by the hands of an orderly, from the governor. The letter was from Dionysius of Athens, now fun des quarante, a member of that great Areopagus of which the French Academy is partly a modem image ; and it was written immediately after his return from a tovu- in Egypt, and a cruise through the .^gean Sea, among the famous and beautiful Greek Islands, to resume his duties as a teacher of philosophy and a professor of the higher literature at Athens. Paulus, after a word with his mother and Esther, desired Longinus to favor them with his company. Sherbets and other refreshments were brought. They all sat down on the semicircular wicker settle at the comer of the roof, under the bower-like branches of the large rhododendron j a small lamp was held for Paulus by the Jewish serving-man, and Paulus read the letter aloud to that sympathetic group. Extracts we will give, in the substance, concerning two occurrences. The first, as the reader sees, the listening circle learned from Dionysius; but we have it in reality from Plutarch, upon whose narrative Eusebius and many other weighty authorities and grave historians have commented. The captain and owner (for he was both) of the ves- lel in which Dion sailed back from Egypt to Athens was Dion and the Sibyls. 467 an Eg)rptian of the name of Thramnus (some call him Thamus). He said that a very weird thinpf had hap- pened to him in his immediately previous tiip, which had been from Greece to Italy. Dion was at the time at Heliopolis, in Egypt, with his friend, the celebrated philosopher ApoUophanes, who, though (like Dion him- self) only between twenty and thirty, had already (in this also resembling Dion) obtained an almost world-wide fame for eloquence, astronomical science, and general learning. When Thramnus had neared the Echinades Islands, the wind fell, a sudden calm came, and they had to drop anchor near Paxos. The night was sultry; every one was on deck. Suddenly from the lonely shore, a loud, strange voice hailed the captam: " Thram- nus 1 " it cried. None answered. Again, louder than human, came the cry, " Thramnus ! " Still none an- swered. For the third time, "Thramnus!" was thun- dered from the lonely coast. Then Thramnus himself called out: "Who hails? What is it?" Shrill and far louder than before was the voice in reply : " When you reach the Lagoon of Pelodes, announce then that the great Pan is dead." Thereupon, everything became silent, save the slug- gish wash of the waves under the vessel'ii side. A sort of council was at once held on board ; and first they took a note of the exact date and the hour. They found that it was exactly the ninth hour of the sixth feria, or day, in the month of March, in the fourtn year (accord- ing with Phlegon's corrected and checked astronomical chronology) of the two hundred and second Olympiad : in other words, this being translated into modem reck- 468 Dion and the Sibyls. oning, means, six in the afternoon of Friday, the 25th of March, in the thirty-third year of our Lord. Dion breaks off in his letter here to remark : " You wilJ learn presently what happened to me and to Apol- lophanes, and to the whole renowned city of Heliopohs, at the same hour exactly of that same day ; and it is the coincidence between the two occurrences which has fixed them so deeply in my mind." Well; he proceeds to say that Thramnus, having asked his passengers, who happened to be unusually nu- merous, whether they considered he ought to obey this mysterious mandate, and having suggested himself that, if, on reaching Pelodes, the wind held fair, they should not lose time by stopping, but if the wind were there to fail, and they were forced to halt at that place, then it might be no harm to pay attention to the injunc- tion, and see what came of it, they were all unanimously of his opinion. Thereupon, as though by some design, in the midst of a calm the breeze sprang up freshly again, and they proceeded on their way. When they came to the indicated spot, all were again on deck, un- able to forget the strange incident at Paxos , and, on a sudden, the wind fell, and they were becalmed. Thramnus, accordingly, after a pause, leaned over the ship's side, and, as loudly as he could, shouted that the f^reat Fan was dead. No sooner had the words been pronounced than all round the vessel were heard a world of sighs issuing from the deep and in the air, with groans and moanings, and long wild, bitter wailings innumer- able, as though from vast unseen multitudes, and a host 01 creatures plunged in dismay and despair. Those on board were stricken with amazement and terror. When Dion and the Stfyh. 469 they arrived in Rome, and were recounting the adven- tures of their voyage, this wild story sent its rumor far and near, and made such an impression that it reached the ears of Tiberius Caesar, who was then in the capital. He sent for Thramnus and several of the passengers, as Plutarch records for us, particularly one, Epitherses, who afterwards, at Athens, with his son ^milianus, and the traveller Philip, used often to tell the story till his death. Tiberius, after ascertaining the facts, summoned all the learned men who chanced then to be in Rome, and requested their opinion. Their opinion, which is extant, matters little. The holy fathers who have investigated this occurrence are divided in their views. It must be remembered that Plutarch relates another truly wonderful fact universal in its range, as being notoriously simultaneous with the singular local adventure above described — the sudden silence of Delphi, and all the other famous pagan oracles, from the 8th day before the Kalends of April, in the 202d Olympiad, at six p.m. At that hour, on that day (March 25, Friday, Anno Domini 33), those oracles were stricken dumb, and never more returned answers to their votaries. Coupling these phenomena together, in presence of a thousand other portents, the holy fathers think, one party of them, that the enemy of man and of God, and that enemy's legions, were grieving and wail- ing, at the hour which Plutarch specifies (the time of evening, and on the very day, when our Lord died), at the redemption just then consummated; others, that ihe Almighty permitted nature " to sigh through all her works," in sympathy with the voluntary sufferings of her expiring Lord. 47© Dion and the Sibyls, "Now, hearken," proceeded Dion in his letter, '?to how I was occupied, hundreds of miles away, in Heli- opolis, at the time, the very hour of the very day, when so wild and weird a response came from the powers of the air and the recesses of the deep to those who shouted forth, amid a calm on the silent breast of the ^gean Sea, that the great Pan ('the great AH,' 'the universal Lord,' as you, my friends, are aware it means in Greek) had died! " I had gone out, shortly before the sixth hour on this sixth day, to take a stroll in the tree-shaded suburbs of Heliopolis, with my friend ApoUophanes. Suddenly, the sun, in a horrible manner, withdrew its light so effectually that we saw the stars. It was the time of the Hebrew Pasch, and the season of the month when the moon is at the full, and the period of an eclipse, or of the moon's apparent conjunction with the sun, was well known not to be then ; independently of which, two unexampled and unnatural portents, contrary to the laws of the heavenly bodies, occurred: first, the moon entered the sun's disc from the east ; secondly, when she had covered the disc and touched the opposite diameter, instead of passing on- ward, she receded, and resumed her former position in the sky. All the astronomers will tell you that these two facts, and also the time of the eclipse itself, are equally in positive deviation from the otherwise everlasting laws of the sidereal or planetary movements. I felt that either this universal frame was perishing or the Lord and Pilot of nature was himself suffering; and I turned to Apol- lophanes, and, ' O light of philosophy, glass of science ! ' I said, 'explain to me what this means.' " Before answering me, he required that we should to- gether apply the astronomical rule, or formula, of PhUip Aridaeus ; after doing which with the utmost care, he said : ' These changes are supernatural ; there is some stupen- ZHott and the Silfyls. 471 dous revolution or catastrophe occurring in divine a£Eairs, affecting the whole of the Supreme Being^s creation.' " You may be sure, my friends, that we both took a careful note of the hour, the day, the week, month, year ; and I intend to inquire everywhere whether in other lands any similar phenomena have appeared ; and what over- whelming, unexampled event can have taken place on this little planet of ours to bring the heavens themselves into confusion, and coerce all the powers of nature into so awful a manifestation of sympathy or of horror." He ended by conveying to Aglais and Paulus the loving remembrance of the Lady Damarais. Aglais and her son and Esther were spellbound with amazement when his letter had been read ; and Paulus exclaimed : " What will Dion say when he hears that we also saw this very darkness at the same moment; that the veil of the Temple here has been rent in twain ; and that he who expired amid these and so many other portents, Esther, and in the full culmination of the prophecies, is again living, speaking, acting, the Con- queror of death, as he was the Lord of life ? " " Let us go to Athens; let us bring our friends, the Lady Damarais and our dear Dion, to learn and under- ttand what we have ourselves been mercifully taught." So spoke Aglais, offering at the same time to Esther t, mother's protection and love along the journey. Faulus was silent, but gazed pleadingly at Esther. It was agreed. But in the political dangers of that reign, Paulus, owing to his fame itself, had to take so many precautions that much time was unavoidably tost 472 Dion and the Sibyls, Meanwhile, he had again asked the Jewish maiden to become his wife. Need we say that this time his suit was successful ? Paulus and Esther were married. Christianity in the interim grew from month to month and from year to year, and our wanderers had but just arrived at last in Athens in time to hear, near the statue of " the unknown God," while Damarais, the friend of Aglais, and Dion, the friend of them all, stood near, a majestic stranger, a Roman citizen, him who had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the glorious Apostle of the Gen- tiles, who had been " faithful to the heavenly Vision,'' though he had not seen the Resurrection, explain to the Athenians "him whom they had ignorantly wor- shiped." And when the sublime messenger of glad tidings related the circumstances of the Passion,^ the scenes which had been enacted in Pilate's house (so well remembered by them), the next day's dread event, and when he touched upon the preternatural accom- paniments of that final catastrophe, and described the darkness which had overspread the earth from the sixth hour of that day, Dionysius, tmning pale, drew out the tablets which he carried habitually, examined the date of which, at HeUopolis, he and Apollophanes had jointly made note, and showed symptoms of an emotion such as he had never before experienced. He and Damarais, as is well known, were among the converts of Saint Paul on that great occasion. How our other characters felt we need not describe. Yielding to the entreaties of their beloved Dionysius, they actually loitered in Gfeece for a few years, during which Christianity had outstripped them and penetrated to Rome, where it was soon welcomed with fire and Dion and the Sibyls. 473 sword, and where " the blood of martyrs became the seed of Christians." Esther shuddered as she heard names dear to her in the murmured accounts of dread- ful torments. Resuming their westward course, how Paulus re- joiced that he had in time sold everything in Italy, and was armed with opulence in the midst of new and strange trials ! They gave Italy a wide offing, and passing round by the south of Germany, with an armed escort which Thellus (who had also become a Christian, and had, while they were in Greece, sent for Prudentia) commanded, they never ceased their travels till they reached the banks of the Seine ; and there, undiscemi- ble to the vision of Roman tyranny in the distance, they obtained, by means of the treasures they had brought, hundreds of stout Gaulish hands to do their bidding, and soon founded a peaceful home amid a happy colony. Hence they sent letters to Agatha and Paterculus. Two arrivals from the realms of civilization waked into excitement the peaceful tenor of their days. Paulus himself, hearing of the death of Paterculus, ventured quickly back to Italy, in the horrible, short reign of Caligula, and fetched his sister Agatha, now a widow, to live with them. Later still, they were surprised to behold arrive among them one whom they had often mourned as lost to them forever. It was Dionysius. He came to found Christianity in Gaul, and settled, amidst the friends of his youth, on the banks of the Seine. Often they reverted, with a clear light, to the favorite themes of their boyhood ; and often the princi- pal personages who throughout this story have, we hope. 474 Dion and the Sibyls, interested the reader, gathered around that same Dio- nysius (who is, indeed, the St. Denis of France), and listened, near the place where Notre Dame now towers, to the first Bishop of Paris, correcting the theories which he had propounded to the Areopagus of Athens as the last of the great Greek philosophers.* One other arrival greeted, indeed, the expatriated but happy settlement. Longinus found his way among them ; and as the proud ideas of a social system upon which they had turned their back no longer tyrannized over Aglais or Paulus, the brave man, biding his time * The Roman Breviaty thus speaks of St. Dionysius : " Dionysius of Athens, one of the judges of the Areopagus, was versed in every kind of learning. It is said that, while yet in the errors of pa- ganism, having noticed on the day on which Christ the I.ord was cruci- fied that the sim was eclipsed out of the regular course, he exclaimed : ' Either the God of nature is sufifering, or the universe is on the point of dissolution.' When afterward the Apostle Paul came to Athens, and, being led to the Areopagus, explained the doctrine which he preached, teaching that Christ the Lord had risen, and that the dearl would aU return to life, Dionysius believed with many others. He was then bap- tized by the apostle and placed over the church in Athens. He after- ward came to Rome, whence he was sent to Gaul by Pope Clement to preach the Gospel. Rusticus, a priest, and Bleutherius, a deacon, fol- lowed him to Paris, Here he was scourged, together with his compan- ions, by the Prefect Fescennius, because he had converted many to Christianity, and, as he continued with the greatest constancy to preach the faith, he was afterward stretched upon a gridiron over a fire, and tortured in many other ways ; as were likewise his companions. After bearing all these sufierings courageously and gladly, on the ninth of October, Dionysius, now more than a hundred years of age, together with the others, was beheaded. There is a tradition that he took up his head after it had been cut off, and walked with it in his hands a distance of two Roman miles. He wrote admirable and most beautiful books on the divine names, on the heavenly and ecclesiastical hierarchy, on mys- tical theology, and a number of others." The Abb< Darras has published a work on the question of the identity of Dionysius of Athens with Dionysius, first Bishop of Paris, sustaining, with great strength and cogency of argument, the affirmative side. The authenticity of the works which pass under his name, although denied by nearly all modem critics, was defended >>y Mgr. Darboy, Archbishop »f Paris.— Eo.C. W. Dion and the Sibyls. 475 and vratcfainghis opportunities, found no insurmountable obstacles in obtaining a fair rewcurd for twenty years and more of patient and unalterable love. He and Agatha were mairied. PBINTED BY BSNZIGBR BROTHERS, NEW YORK. BOOKS OF DOCTRINE, INSTRUCTION, DEVOTION, MEDITATION, BIOG- RAPHY, NOVELS, JUVENILES, ETC. PUBLISHED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS ciKciKHATi: NEW YORK: cbtcago: 343 Main St. 36-38 Barclay St. 214-216 W. MoiotOE Stw _ Books not marked net will be sent postpaid on receipt of the adver- tised price. Books marked net are sucli where ten per cent must bo added for posta^. 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SO ELDER MISS AINSBOROUGH. Taggakt 1 25 ESQUIMAUX, THE. 50 FABIOLA. WiSBMAK SO FABIOLA'S SISTERS. Clarke. SO FATAL BEACON, THE. Bhackel. 1 25 FAUSTULA. Ayscouch. net, 1 35 FINE CLAY. Clarke. net, 1 35 FLOWERS OF THE CLOISTER. tA Mottb. 1 2S FORGIVE AND FORGET. Lingen. SO FRIENDLY LITTLE HOUSE, THE, AND OTHER STORIES. SO FURS AND FUR HUNTERS. SO GRAPES OF THORNS. Waggamah. net, 1 25 HANDLING MAIL FOR MILLIONS. SO HEART OF A MAN, THE. Maher. net, 1 35 HEARTS OF GOLD. Edhoh. 1 25 HEIRESS OF CRONENSTEIN. Hahh-Hahk. SO HER BLIND FOLLY. Holt. 1 25 HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. Hinksom. 1 25 HER FATHER'S SHARE. Power. net, 1 25 HER JOURNEY'S END. Cooke. SO IDOLS: OR THE SECRET OF THE RUE CHAUSSEE D'ANTIN. Navery. SO IN GOD'S GOOD TIME. Ross. SO IN THE DAYS OF KING HAL. Taggart.- 1 25 IVY HEDGE, THE. Egan. net, 1 3S KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS. Hahrisoh. 1 ?5 LADY OF THE TOWER, THE, AND OTHER STORIES. 50 LIFE UNDERGROUND. SO LIGHT OF HIS COUNTENANCE. Harte. SO "LIKE UNTO A MERCHANT.'^ Gray. net, 1 35 LINKED LIVES. Douglas. net, 1 35 LITTLE CARDINAL, THE. Parr. 1 25 MARCELLA GRACE. Mulholland. SO 31ARIAE COROLLA. (Poems.) Hill, C.P. 1 25 MARIE OF THE HOUSE D'ANTERS. Earls, S.J. net, 1 35 MELCHIOR OF BOSTON. Earls, S.J. 1 00 MIGHTY FRIEND, THE. L'Ermite. net, 1 35 MIRROR OF SHALOTT. Bensom. net, 1 35 MISS ERIN. Francis. SO MONK'S PARDON, THE. Navery. p 50 MR. BILLY BUTTONS. Lecky. 1 2S MY LADY BEATRICE. Cooke. 50 NOT A JUDGMENT. Keow. 1 25 ON PATROL WITH A BOUNDARY RIDER. SO ONLY ANNE. Clarke. net. I 35 OTHER MISS LISLE, THE. Martin. SO OUT OF BONDAGE. Holt. 1 25 OUTLAW OF CAMARGUE. Lamothe. SO PASSING SHADOWS. Yorke. 1 25 PAT. HiKKSON. ftet, 1 35 PERE MONNIER'S WARD. Lecky. 1 25 FILKINGTON HEIR, THE. Saouer. 1 25 8 PRISONERS' YEARS. Clarke. net, 1 35 PRODIGAL'S DAUGHTER, THE. BuGO. 1 00 PROPHET'S WIFE, THE. Bbowni. 1 25 RED INN OF ST. LYPHAR. Sadliek. 1 25 REST HOUSE. THE. Clarke. net, 1 35 ROAD BEYOND THE TOWN, AND OTHER POEMS. Earls, S.J. 1 25 ROSE OF THE WORLD. Martiw. SO ROUND TABLE OF AMERICAN CATHOLIC NOVEL- ISTS. 50 ROUND TABLE OF FRENCH CATHOLIC NOVEL- ISTS. SO SOUND TABLE OF GERMAN CATHOLIC NOVEL- ISTS. SO ROITND TABLE OF IRISH AND ENGLISH CATHOLIC NOVELISTS. SO RULER OF THE KINGDOM, THE. Keon. 1 25 SECRET CITADEL, THE. Clarke net, 1 35 SECRET OF THE GREEN VASE. Cooke. 50 SENIOR LIEUTENANT'S WAGER, THE. AND OTHER STORIES. SO SHADOW OF EVERSLEIGH, THE. Lansdowne. 50 SHIELD OF SILENCE, THE. Hehry-Ruffin. net, 1 35 SO AS BY FIRE. Connor. 50 SOGGASTH AROON, THE. GuiHAN. 1 25 SON OF SIRO. Copcs, S.J. net, 1 35 STORY OF CECILIA. Hinkson. 1 25 STREET SCENES IN DIFFERENT LANDS. SO STUORE. (Stories.) Earls, S.J. 1 00 TEMPEST OF THE HEART, THE. Gray. SO TEST OF COURAGE, THE. Ross. 50 THAT MAN'S DAUGHTER. Ross. 1 25 THEIR CHOICE. Skinner. 50 THROUGH THE DESERT. SiENKiEwicz. net. 1 35 TRAIL OF THE DRAGON, THE. AND OTHER STORIES. 50 TRAINING OF SILAS. Devine. 1 25 TRUE STORY OF MASTER GERARD. Sadlier. 1 25 TURN OF THE TIDE. Gray. SO UNBIDDEN GUEST, THE. Cooke. SO UNDER THE CEDARS AND THE STARS. Sheehak. net, 1 SO UNRAVELLING OF A TANGLE. Taggart. 1 25 UP IN ARDMUIRLAND. Barrett. O.S.B. net, 1 25 VOCATION OF EDWARD CONWAY. Egak. 1 25 WARGRAVE TRUST, THE. Reid. 1 25 WAY THAT LED BEYOND, THE. Harrison. 1 25 WEDDING BELLS OF GLENDALOUGH. Earls, S.J. net, 1 35 WEST AND THE GREAT PETRIFIED FOREST, THE, 50 WHEN LOVE IS STRONG. Keon. 1 25 WINNING OF THE NEW WEST, THE. 50 WOMAN OF FORTUNE. Reid. 1 25 JUVENILES ADVENTURE WITH THE APACHES. Ferry. 35 ALTHEA. NiRDLiNGER. SO AS GOLD IN THE FURNACE. Copus. 1 00 AS TRUE AS GOLD. Mannix. 35 BELL FOUNDRY. Schachihg. 35 BERKLEYS, THE. Wight. 3S BEST FOOT FORWARD, THE. Finh. 1 00 BETWEEN FRIENDS. Admerle. SO BISTOURI. Mblandri. }S BLISSLYVANIA POST-OFFICE, THE. -Taggaht. BOB ©"LINK. Waggaman. BROWNIE AND I. Aumerle. BUNT AND BILL. Mdlholland. BY BRANSCOME RIVER. Taggart. CAMP BY COPPER RIVER. Spalding. CAPTAIN TED. Waggamah. CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK. SpALDIHG. CHARLIE CHITTYWICK. Bbasne. CHILDREN OF CUPA. Mahhix. CHILDREN OF THE LOG CABIN. DelamAIK CLARE LORAINE. "Lee." CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. FiSN. COLLEGE BOY, A. Yorke. CUPA REVISITED. Mahhijc. CUPID OF CAMPION. FiKK. DADDY DAN. Waggaman. DEAR FRIENDS. Nikdungek. DIMPLING'S SUCCESS. Mulholland. ETHELRED PRESTON. Finn. EVERYDAY GIRL, AN. Crowley. FAIRY OF THE SNOWS, THE. FiHK. FIVE BIRDS IN A NEST. Delamare. FIVE O'CLOCK STORIES. FLOWER OF THE FLOCK, THE. Egan. FOR THE WHITE ROSE. Hinkson. FRED'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. Smith. FREDDY CARR'S ADVENTURES. Gaksold. FREDDY CARR AND HIS FRIENDS. GauoLP. GOLDEN LILY, THE. Hinkson. GREAT CAPTAIN, THE. Hinkson. GUILD BOYS" PLAY AT RIDINGDALE. BeAKWB. HALDEMAN CHILDREN, THE. Mahnix. HARMONY FLATS. Whitmise. HARRY DEE, Finn. HARRY RUSSELL. Copus. HEIR OF DREAMS, AN. O'Mallev. HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. FlMH. HOSTAGE OF WAR. A. Bonesteel. HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. Egan. IN QUEST OF ADVENTURE. Mannix. IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN CHEST. Baktoh. JACK. Religious H.C.J. JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. Taggabt. JACK-O'-LANTERN. Waggaman. JUNIORS OF ST. BEDE'S. Brysoit. JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First Series, Second Series. Third Series. Each, KLONDIKE PICNIC, A. Donnelly. LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE HOLY CHILD JESUS. LuTz. LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES. Delamare. LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST. Roberts. LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL. Ryeuan. LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE LAKE. Nixoil-RorLET. LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. TAGGART. MAD KNIGHT, THE. Schaching. MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE'S. Brunowe. MAKING OF MORTLAKE. Copus. MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS. Spaldihg. 10 3S 3S SO 3S 35 1 00 50 1 00 1 00 35 50 50 1 00 1 00 35 1 00 35 50 35 1 00 35 1 00 50 75 1 00 35 35 50 50 3S 35 1 00 35 SO 1 00 1 00 35 1 00 35 e SO 35 SO 35 50 35 SO 1 00 SO 75 35 35 35 50 35 1 00 35 35 1 00 1 00 MARY TRACY'S FORTUNE. Sadlier. 3S MELOR OF THE SILVER HAND. BsASNC 1 00 MILLY AVELING. Suith. SO MIRALDA. Johnston. 35 MORE FIVE O'CLOCK STORIES. 7S MOSTLY BOYS. Finn. 1 00 MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. Sadliu. 35 MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. Barton 50 MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL. Saoliu. 50 NAN NOBODY. Waggaman. 35 NED RIEDER. Wehs. 50 NEW BOYS AT RIDINGDALE. Beakhe. 1 00 NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE'S. BrunowI. 50 OLD CHARLMONT'S SEED-BED. Smith. 35 OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. Spai.dihg. 1 00 ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND. Manhuc. 1 00 OUR LADY'S LUTENIST. Bearne. 1 00 PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Mahhix. 35 PAUUNE ARCHER. Sadlier. 35 PERCY WYNN. Finn. 1 00 PERIL OF DIONYSIO. THE. Mannix. 35 PETRONILLA, AND OTHER STORIES. DoNMlLLY. 50 PICKLE AND PEPPER. Dorsey. 1 00 PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. Carnoi. 35 PLAYWATER PLOT. THE. Waggaman. 50 POLLY DAY'S ISLAND. Roberts. 1 00 POVERINA. BucKEHHAM 50 QUEEN'S PAGE. THE. HiNXSON. 35 eUEEN'S PROMISE, THE. Waggaman. 50 UEST OF MARY SELWYN. Clemcntia. 1 00 RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. Spalding. 1 00 RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. Bonesteeu 35 RIDINGDALE FLOWER SHOW. Bearhe. 1 00 ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON. BxAillx. 1 00 ST. CUTHBERT'S. Cores. 1 00 SANDY JOE. Waggaman. 1 00 SEA-GULLS' ROCK. Sandeav. 35 SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS. NixON-RouLET. 35 SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus. 1 00 SHEER PLUCK. Bearne. 1 00 SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK. Spaibino. 1 00 SHIPMATES, Waggaman. 50 STRONG-ARM OF AVALON. Waggaman. 1 00 SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. Spalding. 1 00 SUMMER AT WOODVILLE, A. Sadlier. 35 TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Capella. 75 TALISMAN, THE. Sadlier. 50 TAMING OF POLLY, THE. Dorsey. 1 00 THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Fink. 1 00 THAT OFFICE BOY. Finn. 1 00 THREE LITTLE GIRLS, AND ESPECIALLY ONE. Taggart. 35 TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Salome. SO TOM LOSELY: BOY. Copus. 1 00 TOM PLAYFAIR. Finn. 1 00 TOM'S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. 35 TOORALLADDY. Walsh. 35 TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE. Wagcamait. SO TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN. Taggaxt. 50 TWO UTTLE GIRLS. Macx. 35 11 UNCLE FRANK'S MARY. Clehzhtu. 1 00 UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE. Wasgamaw. 35 VIOLIN MAKER, THE. Adapted by Saza Tkaines Suith. 35 WAYWARD WINIFRED. Sadlie*. 1 00 WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. Taggait. SO WITCH OF RIDINGDALE. Beasne. 1 (0 YOUNG COLOR GUARD. Bohxstuu 3S X/JC) 19