Chapter VI: Cœcilia’s Degradation

Scipio burst into the palace garden flushed with the joy of victory, but when he saw his beloved Elissa lying at his feet, he forgot everything, save that there lay, apparently lifeless, the body of the woman whom he loved. He stood for a moment gazing, then angrily turned upon Lælius.

“What is this, Caius? Hast thou slain her? Thou hast surely not dared to slay Elissa? But nay, my friend,” he continued, his anger quickly turning to grief, “I know that thou didst love her even as I did. Forgive me for thus wronging thee. Give me thy hand, my comrade.”

Then throwing himself upon the ground by her side, Scipio cried:

“Oh, Elissa, my beloved Elissa, art thou dead? for if thou art, then will I not survive thee! Gone is the glory of my victory! thrice accursed be the hand that hath struck thee down!”

Gently he raised her in his arms, and, aided by Caius Lælius, reverently they removed her golden helmet and the corselet of steel inlaid with gold, beneath which she was clad in but a silken vest of Tyrian purple, which, being all drenched with blood, they were forced partly to remove in order to staunch the still flowing gore.

Commanding his followers to fall back to a distance, Scipio remained upon his knees supporting her, with her beautiful face lying upon his shoulder; while Caius Lælius brought some water in his helmet from the waters of the upspringing fountain, which were fresh, and unstained with blood.

While she was being supported thus, and the two men were ministering to her, bathing her face and binding up her wound, Elissa recovered her senses with a sigh.

For a few seconds she did not realise the situation, and remained motionless, and then the whole sad truth burst upon her. With a bitter smile she spoke.

“And so it hath then come to pass, oh, Scipio! and thou hast conquered me and killed my faithful troops, and I am now thy slave. I have not forgotten! I was but now, even as thou art thyself, a warrior, then why hast thou removed my harness and exposed my person to the crowd, and why dost thou embrace me thus, even on the battlefield itself? Surely ’tis unmanly of thee. Oh, I do hate thee, Scipio! Release me, I beg of thee, and insult me not in public.”

With a look of repulsion on her beautiful pale face, she turned from him, and would have withdrawn herself from his embrace, but was too weak.

“Nay, nay, dear Elissa, mistrust me not,” rejoined Scipio, with the air not of a conqueror, but of a very suppliant. “Thou dost wrong me. ’Twas but to save thy life that Caius and I alone, both thy friends, have thus removed thine armour; and even now the joy of seeing thee living far outweighs the grief caused by the bitterness of thy words.”

“And so ye are my friends, are ye? Pretty friends, in sooth, to war upon a woman and murder all my people!” answered Elissa, arguing, like a woman, unreasonably, and forgetting that all the bloodshed could have been spared and no lives lost had she but accepted the offered terms of amnesty.

“Is that, too, a friend?” she asked, pointing with her unwounded arm to a Roman warrior who, sorely smitten, was lying near, in whom she recognised Marcus Primus. “Art thou my friend, oh Marcus? Thou who hast eaten the bread of our hospitality here, but who as a return did by treachery escape, and lead back an army to slay those who succoured thee when thou wast wounded and in distress. And is thy paramour, the Princess Cœcilia, likewise my friend? Oh! I see it all now, thy pretended suicide arranged with her, and that ’twas she who taught thee the secret of the lowering of the waters of the lagoon. If this be friendship, a curse I say upon all such friends! and may the dreadful and undying curse of all the almighty gods fall upon both thee and thine accomplice.”

“Nay, curse me not, and I so near death, Elissa,” the young man replied feebly; and the tears came to his eyes, partly from pain at witnessing the bitter distress of this noble young woman, partly from excessive weakness. “I do most deeply grieve for thy sorrow, believe me, and I have but fought for my country as thou hast so nobly done for thine. I pray thee, then, remove thine awful curse from the head of a dying man, or I may not die in peace. Remove that curse, I pray thee once more, then may we meet as brethren in a country where is no war, when it shall be thine own time to cross the Styx.”

“I pray the great god Melcareth that that time be now near at hand, oh, Marcus. In sooth, I feel anew so weak that we may perhaps cross the Styx together; and since ’twould be strange and sad to commence a new existence together as enemies, I will even revoke my curse upon thee, yet not my curse from the head of Cœcilia.”

“Who hath never done thee any wrong, and is most loyal,” replied the dying Marcus Primus. “I thank thee much, Elissa,” he added, with a gasp. And then, with this noble lie upon his lips, uttered merely to save the woman who had loved and befriended him, he gave a long, sad sigh, and fell back dead.

“Scipio,” quoth Elissa, now very faintly, for she had lost much blood, “I think I likewise am dying, and ’tis not meet that I should die thus in the arms of an enemy of my country; therefore, if thou hast any nobility of soul, thou wilt release me and send for Cleandra, one of my women. Know this, I do not, nay, I cannot hate thee as I ought. I might even have loved thee had things been otherwise, for thou art most wondrous kind; but if thou dost love me, then let me not, for my country’s sake, for my lover Maharbal’s sake, for mine own honour’s sake, die thus in thine arms; but yet I thank thee and Lælius likewise.”

Her last words were scarcely audible.

Scipio, himself nearly as pale as Elissa, pressed one reverent kiss upon her lips, and murmured:

“I obey thy behest, Elissa.” Then he laid her gently down, and, leaving Lælius with her, dashed within the palace for the first time, wandering vaguely about, and calling for the woman named Cleandra, who was soon brought out to him from among the captives.

Leading her to Elissa, he gave his fair foe into Cleandra’s charge.

Elissa, now speechless with pain and weakness, yet still sensible, gave him one look of gratitude, and then closed her eyes. And thus, with instructions that she should be borne gently into her own apartments, Scipio left her to see to his troops and to the thousands of prisoners. The whole scene had not taken more than some ten minutes.

There was plenty for Scipio to do, for now were all his generals and captains attending upon him from all parts of the town to ask for instructions on every subject. Among other points to be decided two men were brought before him, each a claimant for the mural crown in gold, promised to the first man who had escaladed the wall.

One of them was Quintus Trebellius, a centurion of the fourth legion; the other was Sextus Digitius, a seaman; and a hot contest was on foot between the soldiers of the land forces, and the seamen and marines of the fleet, who espoused their rival claims with great warmth.

Although Scipio appointed three commissioners to decide the case, the contest between the soldiers and the sailors became so hot that Caius Lælius soon pointed out to his friend and leader that unless the matter were decided so as to please both parties, a conflict would probably break out.

Thereupon Scipio showed his tact. Calling both Trebellius and Digitius before him, he complimented each of them warmly, said he was convinced that they had both mounted the wall at the same time, and granted them both mural crowns for valour. To his friend Lælius he also awarded a mural crown, and gave him besides thirty head of oxen. Many other rewards he gave to those who had distinguished themselves. In this way he preserved peace in his camp, and all were satisfied and pleased with their general.

There was another incident which occurred on the following day, which did much to enhance young Scipio’s reputation with his troops, and his popularity with the Iberians, hitherto the allies of Carthage.

From the period when, after the morning repast, Elissa had sallied forth to repel the stormers, the lovely young girl Idalia had been missing from the palace. In the confusion of the assault and subsequent events, none of the frightened women in the palace had observed her absence, but, once the storm completed and the Romans masters of the place, the women, who were now prisoners, noticed that she was no longer among their number.

When on the following morning Scipio was superintending the division of the enormous plunder among the legions, a small knot of soldiers were seen approaching him, leading a young girl, who was thickly veiled from head to foot. Their leader, coming forward to Scipio, addressed him as follows:

“Oh, Scipio, well is it known throughout the army that thou dost give great rewards and mete out justice to others, and yet, save the reward of honour, nought hast thou retained for thine own self. Now we, some of thy followers, seeing that thou art a young man, and known from thy youth to love the fair, have discovered a gift which we would offer unto thee in the shape of a young virgin, who is fit for a king. For we have thought that such a gift would be acceptable unto thee. We took the girl yesterday, and she hath been religiously respected and carefully veiled, lest any of the tribunes or prefects, seeing her, should have become enamoured of her beauty and taken her away from us, who would save her for thee.”

The young general’s curiosity was at once excited. Smiling, he said:

“I thank ye, my men, for your kind thought of your general; but come, let us see this paragon of beauty. Unveil her.”

When the thick covering which alone concealed the face and form of the maiden was removed, Scipio and all the officers near him were simply astounded at the excessive loveliness of the charming Idalia, who, her eyes suffused with tears and her face and bosom with burning blushes, stood revealed, trembling before him.

Scipio was moved to pity for her wretched condition.

“By Hymen and Venus! thou hast spoken the truth, my men, and I do greatly thank ye for this beautiful present. For never save in one woman alone,”--he was thinking of Elissa--“have I seen aught so lovely in the human form. My men, since ye have made me the gift, I shall retain it to do as I choose with, and ye shall be all suitably rewarded. And were I other than the general commanding the forces, there is no present which could have been so acceptable. But seeing that I am the general, it becomes me to use a little self-denial in this matter. Therefore, lest from gazing too long upon such charms I should begin to think that I am but a private person who can do as he chooseth in such a matter, give me that veil.”

Taking the heavy veil he went up to the trembling girl, and reassuring her kindly, covered her shoulders and limbs with it. At the same time he gave her a fraternal kiss on the cheek, bidding her not to fear, for he would be as a brother to her. But Idalia, broken down with all the suffering and shame that she had undergone, and moved by Scipio’s unexpected kindness, threw herself down and, clasping his knees, would have kissed his feet. This he would by no means allow, but raising her gently, inquired into her condition and the circumstances attending her capture.

Then the soldiers told him that on the previous day, when the order had been given for a space to slay every living thing that they met, but not to begin to plunder until further orders, they had pursued some fugitives into the porch of a doorway and killed them. Glancing within a room beyond, they had seen a wounded Iberian chieftain, and were about to kill him also, but that this maiden had flung her body full length upon the Iberian, and clung to him so tightly that they had been unable to slay him without wounding or perhaps slaying her also. Then had their leader, the same who now had addressed Scipio, reminded the men that the order was to kill all whom they should meet in the streets, but that there was no order to slay those in the houses, and as the young man himself also offered, in the Latin tongue, a large ransom for his life, they had spared them both.

“In that ye have done well,” said Scipio; “and thy reward shall be the greater,” continued he to the leader, “for that thou didst exactly obey and follow out mine orders to the letter. For mine order was indeed but to slay all living things ye met in the street; there was no order to slay those in the houses. Now tell the Quæstors, whose duty it is to take the money for such as are ransomed, where this young man lies, and when they have rewarded you as I shall direct, ye can depart, leaving the maiden here.”

So the soldiers all received large sums of money, and their leader in addition had a magnificent golden ring presented to him, and they departed rejoicing.

Scipio took Idalia with him to the palace, where Elissa was delighted to see her once more. Scipio, then sending for Allucius, prince of the Celtiberians, whose life had been twice saved by his beautiful lover, first by dragging him when wounded into a house, and then by covering his body with her own, caused him to be brought before him in a litter. The ransom for his life was paid by the father and mother of the maiden, the former being an Iberian noble and the latter a Carthaginian lady.

When they were all assembled together before him, Scipio handed over the ransom that had been paid for his life to Allucius as a wedding portion, and ordered the father and mother to have the wedding celebrated at once between him and the lovely Idalia, without even waiting for his recovery from his wound.

The fame of this action soon spread throughout all Spain and inclined the Iberians greatly to Scipio; but whether he would have acted thus had it not been for his own great love for Elissa, no man can tell.

The next few days were passed by the young Roman general in making arrangements about his prisoners, of whom he disposed in various ways, generally acting with great leniency to the Iberians, and pressing all the surviving soldiers of other nationalities into his own navy, thus largely augmenting his fleet. Of such men and women as were made slaves he made a suitable disposition, rewarding his generals and tribunes with the best of each. And thus Cleandra was presented to Caius Lælius and the other women in the palace were disposed of according to rank and beauty to the higher nobles in the army. Of Elissa there was no word said, but it was understood as a matter of course that she belonged to Scipio himself. Yet was she treated with all honour. As Lælius remained in the palace with Scipio, she still had her friend Cleandra to minister to her; and Scipio himself, much as he longed to see her face again, refrained entirely from intruding upon her privacy.

One woman there was however in the palace for whom neither the general nor the admiral felt any goodwill, and this was the Princess Cœcilia. Young Marcus Primus being dead, there was now none to speak for her, and both Scipio and Lælius resented the knowledge of the fact that never could the battlements have been so easily surmounted or the city captured by the passing of the lagoon had it not been for the treachery of that woman towards her niece Elissa.

Therefore, at the instance of Lælius, his original proposition, made in jest at the camp of Tarraco, was carried out. It was resolved that she should be married to the chief boatswain of the flag-ship. This man’s name was Valerius, and he was a most truculent-looking ruffian, of great size. He was much renowned for his bloodthirstiness in action, but was a good sailor, and extremely feared by all in authority under him.

To him then was the Princess Cœcilia offered as his wife by his chief, Caius Lælius. He was given to understand that a lady of such high rank was offered to him as a reward for his bravery in the storming of the town. When, moreover, he was promised a considerable dowry of her own money, as well as her person, he was both flattered and delighted. He could not speak any language save Latin, and of that tongue his intended bride did not understand a word. For the diversion of the nobles in the palace, the marriage was, despite the pitiable lamentations of the unwilling bride, celebrated one day with much festivity and license, for much wine was purposely given to the seamen at the feast that the traitress might be made to feel her punishment the more. And when night fell the now drunken boatswain carried off his bride, who had been forced to attire herself with great splendour, from the palace, where she had lived for so many years, to a mean fisherman’s cottage by the port. She had been given to Valerius for the purpose intentionally, that she might be able to reflect therein at leisure upon the vicissitudes of life, of which her treachery to her niece had been the direct cause, and of her own repeated acts of folly that had led to the treachery. Elissa, who was aware of what was about to take place, had, although the princess had begged her in their sole interview to intercede on her behalf, refused absolutely, with the utmost scorn and loathing to do so. She had, moreover, reproached her bitterly with being the cause of all the bloodshed and of the loss of the town and of the enslavement of them all. In conclusion, she informed Cœcilia that, should she open her lips to mention her name to Scipio, it would not be to ask for a reconsideration of the matter of her marriage, but only to beg that he would inflict some far more terrible punishment.

This was the last time that Elissa and Cœcilia ever met, and from this time forth the princess disappears entirely from this history, for her subsequent fate is unknown. One thing only is certain, that when Caius Lælius sometime later sailed for Italy, the boatswain did not take his wife with him. So it is probable that he had either drowned her in the gulf, wrung her neck, or sold her into slavery.