Chapter II: The Slaves' Feast (1)

The great Festival called _Saturnalia_ was being celebrated in Rome when these events took place. The occurrence of this feast enabled the Christians from many parts of the world to assemble in the city, and to celebrate under cover of it the feast of Christmas. History does not light us with certainty to the precise time at which this latter feast was instituted, but shows it in matured existence at a very early period. Tradition has surmised that it had its birth in the first century, and that it was celebrated in secret and security under shadow of the pagan festivities of the _Saturnalia_.

The _Saturnalia_, in honor of _Saturnus_, to whom the Latins traced the introduction into Italy of agriculture and the civilizing arts, fell toward the end of December. The agricultural labors of the year being then over, it became a kind of harvest-home with the rural population. After the Julian addition of two days to the month of December, it commenced on the 16th of the Kalends of January, that is, on the 17th December, and continued for three days. But the people generally anticipated the time and prolonged it to the end of the month, especially to the 24th, when it became merged in another feast called _Sigillaria_, on account of the earthenware figures then hawked about as toys for children.

During the feast the slaves were allowed great liberty of act and of speech. Throwing off their sombre garments of brown and black, which, together with their slippers, made up the servile dress, (_vestis servilis_,) they donned their masters' clothes, assumed like freedmen the _pileus_, or felten cap, considered the badge of freedom. Their allowance of bread and salt and oil was increased and made palatable by the addition of wine. Their masters often waited on them at table, where thoughts were freely uttered in joke and song as well as in sober earnest without restraint or blame. The whole people made merry; the toga was laid aside, and the loose-fitting garment _synthesis_ put on with a high-peaked skull-cap without brim, (_pileus_.) Wax-tapers were given as presents, particularly by slaves to their owners and by the clients to their patrons; with these lighted in their hands, they went along the streets shouting "_Io Saturnalia!_" Stores and courts were closed; schools kept holiday; war could not be proclaimed; evil-doers could not be punished; gambling, prevented by law at other times, was permitted. In private circles mock-kings were chosen, who ruled the sports with right royal dignity. All these and greater privileges, were granted the slaves.

Aurelian was in no mood for enjoyment since his interview with Flavia. Knowing that many strangers would be calling at his Roman palace, he avoided them by betaking himself to his suburban villa. There, too, he could with less fear of discovery keep his engagements with Zoilus and Sisinnius for the 8th of the Kalends of January. He was nervously anxious to prove the truth of what the former had told him.

He retired, therefore, to the country. Thither he invited Sisinnius to meet him on the day agreed on with Zoilus, under plea of seeing his slaves celebrate the feast in rural style. {530} Sisinnius found him in the _Tablinum_, a room opposite the hall door, where family records and archives were kept. Seeing Aurelian, thin, pale, and dull, writing on a parchment roll, he asked:

"Is it making your will you are? You remind me of the shade of Dido! This comes of neglecting the gods and their feasts, and shutting yourself up among those woods and stone-walls like a vestal. If you staid in the city, and lighted your wax-taper, and sang your song to Saturn like a good jolly fellow, you would be far more cheerful and comely!"

"Perhaps so. But the three destinies are not all and always kind. I have had my happy times; it is fair my sad ones should come."

"Pshaw, Aurelian! Pour out a libation to Bacchus and then empty off the goblet yourself, and you shall find the jolly god will stiffen up your drooping spirits! I know the cause of all this--your interview with that wilful girl! Cheer up! women are like the summer clouds, one time damp and dark, the next beaming with the sunshine of love and beauty."

"Very poetical, Sisinnius, but Flavia is not after the ordinary mould. Tonight, however, will decide my doubts and hopes for ever. You remember our engagement with Zoilus?"

"Yes, I am half sorry I made it. I cannot read that slave. He seems to know every one and everything; and one can scarcely distinguish between his jocose and his serious moods. Do you know where I met him as I came to the crossway of the Appian and Latin roads? Talking to that Jewish beggar who sits morning, noon, and night asking pennies from the passers-by near the Egerian fountain."

"I allowed him into the city to arrange for our admission to the meeting-place of the Christians. He certainly does know a great deal, and must be a clever deceiver. Otherwise he could not have crept into the secrets of those mysterious, plotting Jewish sects without being distrusted. However, in the present instance he is serious and to be trusted; for I have promised him and a female slave--a Jewess also, who has fascinated him--their liberty, in case he convinces me that Flavia has become a Christian. But, hush! here he comes. Well, Zoilus, you have returned sooner than I expected. What news from the city?"

"Hail, noble Sisinnius!" said the Greek, bowing. "Well, master, the divine Domitian is in a fury; the exhibition of games in the new amphitheatre has been a failure. He had ordered, it is said, nearly ten thousand beasts and a proportionate number of gladiators, a number exceeding that with which his brother Titus had dedicated it. The play of Hercules and Omphale was to be enacted before the people. A gladiator was under training for many weeks to sustain the character of Hercules, and was to have been burned alive at the end in a skirt set on fire with vitriol and tar. The gladiator went through the preparatory training well, and seemed to enjoy the good things ordered him by the emperor with the view of making him fleshier and fatter for the burning. But, while being brought to the amphitheatre this morning, he slipped his head between the spokes of the cart-wheel, and, without gratitude for the good things, or feeling for the disappointment of the imperial god, suffered his neck to broken. This was really too bad of mere slave! [Footnote 166]

[Footnote 166: An historical fact. _Friedlander_.]

"So another had to substituted; what comfort or cause of laughter would there be in witnessing the burning of the corpse? A live substitute was found, who most ungraciously refused to move either hand or foot in the love-making of Hercules and Omphale. However, this could be borne in anticipation of the fiery ending; but, wonderful to relate, when the skirt was put on and the flames were lighted, he stood unscorched in their midst, calling on the Christian God. Was not the emperor in a rage! {531} The water was let into the arena and the crocodiles and other amphibious monsters were swimming about, devouring each other; and the man was thrown in, but they would not touch him! Floating on the surface of the water, with upturned face and clasped hands, he prayed the Christian God to have pity on Domitian. This so angered the latter that, standing up from his seat above the arena, he cursed the Christian and the Christian's God, in the name of his own and of Jupiter's divinity. When, lo! as if Jupiter was provoked, a thunderbolt like a burning globe came flashing as if from highest heaven, and went hissing through the water in the arena, killing every living thing within it except the floating Christian! The veil of the amphitheatre, with the machinery by which it was sustained, was set on fire and torn away. The people rushed from their seats; it is not known how many lives were lost. The emperor himself was terrified, and, running from his throne to his chariot, drove furiously to his palace, to find it also struck by the lightning." [Footnote 167]

[Footnote 167: These facts are substantially true. Tillemont's Lives of
the Emperors, and the History of the Flavian Amphitheatre, or
Colosseum, relate things as wonderful of Domitian's reign.]

"This will hasten the edict of persecution against the Christians; and it is time," observed Aurelian.

The villa stood on a farm of many hundred acres. A wooded hill, from which it was separated by a stream emptying into the Tiber, sheltered it from the wintry winds. The stream drained the land, which otherwise would have been a marsh, and thus prevented the unhealthy effluvia which unfitted many parts near the city for human resilience. Its distance of some miles from the great southern road saved it from many visitors, and thereby rendered it a secure retreat for a mind seeking solitude. Attached to the villa, but at some hundred yards from it, were the dwelling-places of the outdoor slaves, in and around which they were now feasting. It consisted of two open courts, [Footnote 168] an outer and an inner one.

[Footnote 168: Cohortes, chortes, cortes--courts.]

In the buildings around the former was the kitchen, an apartment large enough to contain the whole _family_ employed on the farm. _Family_ (_familia_) was the word used to designate the total number of slaves employed on an estate or in a household. Near the kitchen were the baths, the oil and wine-presses, the cellars, and in the upper stories the granaries, carefully protected from damp, heat, and insects. At the entrance-gate of this court were the apartments for the _Villicus_, or chief steward, and for the _Procurator_ of the _family_. In the inner court were the stables, stalls, and sheds, (_equilia, bubilia,_ and _ovilia_.) In the centre of each court was a large reservoir, into which the water from the stream was carried through terra-cotta pipes, or Roman-arched drains. The reservoir in the outer court was generally used for cleansing and soaking vegetables; that in the inner was carefully supplied with fresh water for poultry and cattle. Around both courts were the chambers (_cellae_) of the slaves, which fronted southward so as to catch the sun's light and heat. Near these chambers, but partly underground, was the prison for refractory or fugitive slaves; it was partially lighted by long and narrow windows.

Aurelian and Sisinnius strolled leisurely from the villa, accompanied by Zoilus, and discussing the wonderful events he had related. When they reached the courts, they found the slaves engaged in different amusements. It was a bright, bracing day; the sun shone in a cloudless sky, which had been swept by the wind. There was nothing to remind them of December, save only the long, dry branches of the trees rustling and swaying on the hillside, and the gusts sweeping at times in eddies round the courts as if they had lost their way. Some of the slaves were playing at quoits; others at draughts (_latrunculi_) in sheltered nooks. Some indulged in the usually forbidden game of dice, while younger ones took a boyish pleasure in rattling the cylindrical dice-boxes of bone or ivory, (_fritillus_.) {532} A group in the central area of the outer court played at odd and even, (_par impar ludere_;) while another was gathered around a slave with long-flowing philosophic beard, who proposed puzzles on the abacus, or calculating tray. Many sat quietly apart; others walked moodily about, wrapped in thoughts that seemed tinged with disappointment and gloom. But the great body of the family was in the kitchen, which resounded with singing, music, and dancing. As soon as Aurelian and his companions had entered the last-named apartment, a little slave with hunchback, wiry frame bounded from a couch and seized the skirt of his master's toga, which was slung in walking style over the left shoulder.

"The gods will be angry with the senator for wearing his toga during the feast, and for not waiting on Caipor as he did last year," exclaimed the dwarf.

"No, no, Caipor! Saturnus has given me leave to retain the toga; because I am not well, and he fears I would catch cold if I laid it aside for a lighter dress."

The face of Caipor darkened and tears brightened through his eyelashes.

"Poor master is not well and shall die! Then what will Caipor do? Villicus will whip him and put him in the _furca_ for ringing his bells; or they will sell him and he will never more see or love good master or beautiful Flavia."

Aurelian assured him that there was no danger of his own death, and that he might ring his bells and should not be whipped. The little fellow shook his Phrygian cap, and rang a tiny peal from the tiny bells attached around it. The jingle caused him to laugh out with idiotic delight.

"Villicus cannot whip Caipor for shaking his bells, ha, ha! Villicus whipped Lucius to-day until the big drops of blood came from between the shoulders, and put him on the mill in the prison."

"Impossible!" said Sisinnius. "It is not lawful to punish or imprison during the feast."

"Lucius said so. But Villicus would not listen. Lucius is a big, strong man --why did he not kill Villicus? He did not cry or stir, but he kept calling on Jesus to help him; but Jesus did not come. Master, who is Jesus?" asked the fool.

Aurelian's curiosity was aroused. On questioning the steward, he was told that Lucius, with many other slaves, refused to join in honoring Saturn or any of the gods, or to award divinity to the emperor; that it was necessary to punish some one for example's sake, and that Lucius, other wise quiet and inoffensive, was chosen as being principal among the recusants.

"What is to come next?" said Aurelian bitterly to Sisinnius. "Our wives and daughters, and now our lowest slaves, are lured by this Christian seducer! Like the pestilence from the marshes, his influence is creeping into every corner and poisoning the whole atmosphere of our social system. Something must be done to check its deadly progress. A stronger dose than that administered by Nero is requisite to kill it."

Caipor was clinging affectionately to his master's side. At length, drawing the toga by a sudden jerk, he looked up into Aurelian's face and said:

"Caipor waits upon the senator the year round. Will not the senate wait upon Caipor during the festival?"

"Certainly, I will be your slave and wait on you, my Caipor! Where is your couch?"

Couches with, small tables for the guests had been arranged in form of a triclinium at one end of the large apartment. Leading Aurelian to one of these seats, the hunchback fool reclined upon his elbow in [a] most approved dining attitude; and, as Aurelian rolled the table to his side and helped him to wine and fruit, looked around the room with mingled pride and pleasure at being the only one so honored.

Meantime Zoilus told Sisinnius the history and character of several slaves. There were about four hundred present. {533} Our readers may give us credit for exaggeration if we draw attention to the vast numbers, the varied origin, and occupations of slaves owned by noble Romans in the age of Domitian. Slavery arose from three causes, namely, from birth, from civil punishment, and captivity in war. The captives by war alone would swell the number enormously. In the reign of Augustus a freedman died leaving by will over four thousand slaves, after having lost other thousands in the civil wars. Historians say that many Romans had from ten to twenty thousand. Juvenal puts the test of a person's fortune in the question, "_Quot pascit servos?_" "How many slaves does he support?" During the empire they filled every position, from the most menial to the most literary. They were tillers and caretakers of the territories of the patricians in Italy, Sicily, and in the provinces beyond the mountains and the seas. They were employed as bakers, barbers, cooks, stewards, and artisans; as tutors, clerks, amanuenses, readers, teachers, physicians, astronomers, rhetoricians, poets, and philosophers. The literature and science of the Roman world, the "Orbis terrarum" found many a worthy representative in their ranks. Hence it has been well said that the martial prowess of Rome conquered that of foreign nations, but that the civilization and learning of foreigners conquered or rather produced hers.

We need not wonder, therefore to find hundreds of slaves in the household of Aurelian. His family was among the oldest and noblest of the city. Counting those on his Italian and foreign estates, they numbered many thousands. In the assemblage which Sisinnius was scanning, many nationalities had representatives--Phrygians, Cappadocians, Thracians, Britons, Greeks, and Jews.

"Whence was Caipor purchased?" asked Sisinnius.

"The mother of Aurelian," answered Zoilus, "was driving in her four-wheeled chariot (_rheda_) through the streets of Rome. Her attention was drawn to a dwarfish figure, who, emerging from the forum of Augustus, followed the chariot-wheels, clapping his hands and crying out, 'Well done! little wheel. Run fast! Big wheel can't catch you; well done, little wheel!' He was in ecstasies on seeing the smaller wheels of the carriage, as it rolled quickly on, keep their position at the same distance from the larger. The slave-dealer from whom he had wandered came up and scourged him severely. He cried piteously and called on the lady for protection. Moved with pity, she made her husband buy him at a cost of ten thousand sestertia, ($50,000.) [Footnote 169] Since that time he has been the pet fool of the household (_morio_,) and was, according to custom, named Caipor (_Caii puer_) after my noble master's father."

[Footnote 169: A _morio_, or fool, in the reign of Nero cost
$15,000! _Dio_.]

"What is the name of that female yonder? How beautiful is the symmetry of her face and figure! But there is determined purpose in her lip and eye."

"That is Judith the Jewess," said Zoilus, slightly confused. "She was bought like myself from among the slaves left by the late Consul Domitilla. She was a little girl during the siege of Jerusalem; and, having miraculously escaped was, like other girls of her age and beauty, brought to grace the triumphal return of the conqueror Titus. During the procession she was perched like a winged Iris on the same chariot with Venus and Apollo."

"And that other near her?"

"Is the daughter of a Roman plebeian, and by birth a free woman. But, having secretly married a slave, she was on discovery reduced to his level. She bears her lot patiently, however, because she cannot be separated by sale from her husband."

"I see two strongly built slaves sitting near each other. One of them wears his beard; and the fair locks of the other are down to his shoulders. They seem to look contemptuously on the amusements."

{534}

"One of these is a Getulian, the other a Briton. They were both chiefs and warriors in their respective countries. You perceive the mark (_stigma_) burned into the former's forehead? When first exposed in the slave-market, having on his neck the tablet (_titulus_) describing his various qualities, a physician was brought, before whom he was to be stripped and examined. Before they had time to so treat him he snatched up a staff, and, having prostrated slave dealer and physician, with a sweep bounded over the railing of the area and escaped among the buildings of the old forum. It cost the lives of three slave-hunters before he was captured. He was branded as a dangerous character and condemned to die as a gladiator. But Aurelian succeeded in procuring him. Since he came on this estate he has made no attempt at escape. Being allowed a percentage (_peculium_) on his work like many others employed by our master, he has become industrious, and hopes after some years to be able to purchase his liberty by his savings. The Briton is similarly situated. If they succeed in procuring freedom, depend upon it, they will return to their native hills and relight the torch of war."

"Who is that old man with bald head and long white beard, to whom Aurelian is now speaking?"

"That is Bathus, the tutor and caretaker of Aurelian's youthhood. He wears the long beard and cloak of a philosopher by license of the festival. He hates the emperor on account of his late edict of expulsion against the philosophic tribe. He also professes grammar and rhetoric. Next [to] him is Tritonios, a disciple of Hippocrates. He is famous for his skill in bleeding and in amulets. His bored ears show his Eastern origin, probably in Arabia. You may find him any morning before sunrise gathering herbs for charms. There is scarcely a slave, or a tree on the estate that has not a triangular Abracadabra, or some other amulet suspended on him or it, as a protection against disease and the evil genii."

While Zoilus and Sisinnius were thus conversing, those in the other parts of the apartment were not without their own topics and amusements. It was observable that they instinctively took their places according to their position and rank in the family. Those born in the household, the _vernae_, were more forward and talkative than the others; they well deserved the character given of them by the poet as the "_vernae procaces_."

A Roman slave-family contained all the sources of social enjoyment and happiness, such as was possible for persons in their condition, provided the owner and the superintendents were not inclined to tyranny. Their marriage was not indeed sanctioned by law; but the _contubernium_, which permitted them to live as man and wife under the same roof, was respected in its relations as much perhaps among the pagan, as among Christian nations, among whom slavery flourished. [Footnote 170]

[Footnote 170: Cod. iii. 23.]

An enactment was passed by the senate that in sales and divisions of property husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, should not be sundered. Roman jurists, no doubt, defined slavery to be a "_constitutio juris gentium, quâ quis contra naturam alterius dominis subjicitur_," thus strictly giving the master power to do much as he liked with the slave; to sell, punish, and put to death. In consequence great cruelties were often inflicted. But generally social intercourse and positive morality softened down their severity. Positive legislation also came to the aid of the slave. Under the Antonines, a man putting his slave to death without a justifying cause was subject to a heavy penalty. If a slave were treated too harshly, he might bring the case before the public tribunal and claim to be sold to another master. If a sickly or aged slave were exposed by the owner, he became free; and, if put to death, the crime was punished as murder. Christianity, though it did not proclaim slavery to be an essential evil, made way for emancipation. {535} The great principles of charity were urged by the first Christian writers and fathers of the church. Clement of Alexandria devoted much of his eloquence to this subject. Gradually this Christian spirit impregnated society, especially after the triumph of the cross under Constantine. Slaves who became priests, monks, nuns, or were promoted to any clerical order, were made free by law. Owing to these circumstances, the number of slaves became very much lessened. Many Christian masters emancipated all they possessed; others kept them, until they were instructed and converted, and then gave them freedom. Justinian particularly did much for the overthrow of slavery: his legislation, inspired by the Catholic Church, would have wholly extinguished it, but for the invasion of the northern barbarians. These brought with them their slaves, who were mostly Sclavonians, (_sclavi_, or _slaves_,) and reduced many of the conquered to the same level. The church was true to her policy of not suddenly tearing up any of the foundations of society when not essentially wrong; but she never ceased to preach, "in season and out of season," the great principle of "doing unto others as we would have them do unto us." This is the mirror she has always held up before master and slave. Seeing their duties here reflected, the evils of slavery, and finally the system itself, began to fade like snow under the softening influence of the sun. The voice of the Catholic Church was the herald of freedom from the beginning. Wondrous changes were brought about without those calamities accompanying sudden transitions. The echoes of her teaching have been taken up by religious and political parties. But they have had the injustice of appropriating it as their own, and the ingratitude to forget that the Catholic Church was the mother at whose knees mankind learned the lessons of Christian charity and liberty! But we must return.

During the conversation between Zoilus and Sisinnius, the jests and laughter of the "vernae" were heard above all other sounds.

"Observe Zoilus," said one, "he looks as sober and serious as Rhadamanthus on the judgment-seat. What is the matter with him?"

"He is expecting to be a freedman one of these days, and thinks it time to become a gentleman and quit his old habits and associates."

"Why, as to that matter, he is as free as the wind on the hill-side. He is in and out of the city as often as he likes. What induces master to give him so much freedom? There is something in it."

"See Murena, too! He expects in a few months to buy himself out with the profits of his peculium."

"That accounts for his being so great a miser. The barber told me that, after having his hair cut and nails pared the other day, Murena gathered the cuttings in order to make a denarius on them!"

This observation of the physician Tritonios caused laughter and was not unheard by Murena, who replied:

"O doctor! that is a stale joke stolen from Plautus. Next time I will preserve the parings for your amulets, they may be as good for the toothache or the colic as the hairs on the goat's chin which you hung upon the arm of Marcus!"

"Take care, Murena!" said a third, "you don't know how soon you may require Tritonios to assist you."

"Yes, and share the fate of Procax, who only saw the doctor in a dream, and awoke no more, though he carried an amulet."

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of two slaves, a male and female, dressed in short and close garments for the dance. They wore leathern skull-caps for protection of the head in case of falling, because as they danced they flung themselves on their heads and alighted again upon their feet. Another slave played appropriate airs on the flute. {536} After engaging in this dance, in which, after Spartan style, the hands and head and eyes were in motion as well as the feet, a rope was extended across the room. The female dancer ascended, carrying a thyrsus bound with white fillet and ending in a bunch of vine and ivy leaves mixed with berries. Balancing herself with this, she danced in many graceful attitudes, representing satyrs, fauns, bacchanals, and other mythological beings. Then exchanging the thyrsus for a crater of wine and a small drinking-cup, she danced and meantime poured the wine from one vessel into the other, balancing herself by the action, and then descended amid great applause. After the dance the amanuensis of Aurelian declaimed with great spirit the beautiful passage of Homer in which the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles is described. Here some one remarked that Zoilus had not sung or improvised during the evening, and a unanimous call was made on turn, with which, after some hesitation, he complied by singing the following:

The Song of Saturnus.

A hymn to Saturnus, a grateful hymn,
With goblets festooned to the bead-crowned brim,
On his festival we sing:
Who once in the year
Doth freedom and cheer
To slave and to master bring,
Bring,
To slave and to master bring.

He taught unto men how to till the hard soil,
To plant the green grape and to draw the fat oil
Which flows in the olive's heart,
To prune the vine
And to tap the mine,
And every useful art.

He breathed on the earth; and his breath is the spring
Which flowers and fruits on its bosom doth fling,
And sweetens the summer breeze
As it freshly blows
Where the water flows
Through the roots of the leaf-clad trees.

He breathed on the sea; and the ripples came
Like smiles o'er its face, and its amorous frame
Kissed with its cooling lip
The shore in the hours
When the sky sends its showers
For the thirsty earth to sip.

He breathed on the air; and its brow grew white
With rays scarce concealed by the veil of night;
And the sun from its blue looked down
With a smile so bland
As to free the land
From the chill of his winter frown.

He breathed on the springs; and the streams rushed out
From their mother's lap with a mirthful shout:
"Oh! come to the fields," they sang,
"For the parched meads
Need our limpid beads,"
And they laughed as they onward sprang.

Then a hymn to Saturnus, a grateful hymn,
With goblets festooned to the wine-crowned brim,
On his festival we sing:
Who once in the year
Doth freedom and cheer
To slave and to master bring!

"Why, Zoilus, you rival Martial the Spaniard in wooing the virgin Nine," said Bathus. "If the emperor only knew your powers, he would patronize you as well as Juvenal, Quinctilian, and the Jew Josephus."

"The renegade from his race and creed!" said Ephrem, a Jewish slave, in an underbreath to Judith, who sat beside him.

"The golden age of poesy, like that of philosophy, has departed," remarked Zoilus in answer to Bathus. "The emperor has lost his early love of verse-making, and betaken himself to the burning of vestals [Footnote 171] and of Christians.

[Footnote 171: Vestals were burned in the reign of Domitian for
violation of their vows.]

"By the way, Bathus, have you heard that Epictetus and the whole host of philosophers have been exiled? They say that Dio Chrysostom is consoling himself in the Getulian desert with a tract of Plato and a speech of Demosthenes. I would advise you strongly to shave your beard and lay aside the philosopher's cloak, or the beard may be cut off with the head attached to it. Genius is at a low ebb nowadays; that is my reason for having ceased to be one."

"Beware, lest you might share a like fate; your tongue wags very freely," observed Aurelian, who overheard the conversation.

"Noble master, this is the feast of free speech. To-morrow I will padlock my lips, and nothing but a golden key will open them." said the slave, glancing knowingly at his master. Then turning to Ephrem the Jew, "Sing us that ode to your native land I heard you repeat the other day, Ephrem."

"It is in Hebrew, and would not be understood."

{537}

"No matter; the metre and air are sweet and melancholy. I will have it translated into Latin hexameter by your countryman Josephus, one of these days, if you like."

"Name him not, the arch-sycophant, who lives by flattering tyrants," whispered Judith with a fierce tone and glance, before which Zoilus blanched and trembled.

"Fair Judith, be not angry; I meant it only in joke."

"Jokes at the expense of others' feelings deserve not the award of wit," said Ephrem, who, standing up, declaimed the following with a vehement earnestness:

Ode of the Exiled Jew to Jerusalem.

I.

Thy heart, Jerusalem! is desert and drear,
Thy children no more in thy bosom appear;
In the land of the Gentiles they sigh and they moan,
While thou, dear mother! dost pine all alone.

II.

Thy turrets, and temple, and beautiful gate--
The gems that shone bright in the crown of thy state--
Like the ark of the prophets, no longer remain,
And the Philistine foxes thy beauty profane!

III.

The gold harp of David awakens no more
Thy echoes where pontiff and people adore;
Thy silver-voiced trumpets are silent and dead,
No smoke from thy temple ascends overhead.

IV.

Like the weeds on the beach by the ocean-tide hurled,
Thy daughters are cast on the shores of the world;
Thy eye's filled with weeping, thy heart's filled with woe,
And thy brow once so fair in the dust is laid low!

V.

The dust of thy kings in thy bosom remains
Where the hoofs of the Gentiles insult thy sad plains,
And their lamps sacrilegious invade the deep glooms
That wrap them to rest in thy Valley of Tombs!

VI.

Jerusalem, mother! we pray unto Him
Who has filled up thy chalice of woe to the brim:
"A curse on the tyrants whose impious hands
Have seized thee, denied thee, and bound thee in bands!

VII.

"O send down, Jehovah! by night and by day,
Thy blight on apostate impostors, we pray;
The Christian deceivers, whose God we nailed fast [Footnote 172]
To the tree of the cross as a sail to the mast!

[Footnote 172: The Jews cursed the Christians three times a day in
their synagogues, says Epiphanius in this direful form, "Send down thy
curse, God! on the Christians."]

VIII.

"Since the hour he was crucified outside thy gate,
His blood like a poison has mixed in thy fate!
May the God of thy fathers, the God of our race,
From thy forehead, Jerusalem, wipe the disgrace!

During the delivery of the first verses tears flowed down the cheeks of Judith. During the last part fire seemed to flash from her eyes.

After Ephrem others were induced to sing or deliver pieces in the languages of their respective countries. In the reign of Domitian, the Sarmatians, Dacians, Parthians, and the German tribes beyond the Rhine had been completely subdued. Agricola had broken on the Grampians the fierce hardihood of the tribes beyond the Tay and Tweed. The success of the Jewish war in the two preceding reigns had scattered that unfortunate race over the earth. We can thence understand how on a large estate like that of Aurelian so many nationalities met. Leaving them to amuse themselves, we will follow Zoilus.

He left the hall quietly, crossed the outer court and a paddock between it and the villa, and entered through a low-arched door into the garden behind it. Between this garden and the villa was the peristyle, a rectangular area so named from having stone pillars around it. In its centre was a xystus with box and other shrubs, shaped like tigers, lions, and galleys. The deepening shades of evening brought out their figures with weird-like indistinctness. Judith the Jewess stood between two pillars, and as she stood, tall, straight, and motionless, might have passed for the guardian goddess of the place.

"I have been expecting you, Zoilus."

"You do not forget your promise, then?"

"No! my part shall be fulfilled as soon as you have complied with the conditions."

"Judith! these conditions are hard. I have my misgivings and fears about the part I have to play."

"Fears and misgivings?" she repeated. "These account for your changed manner this evening?"

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"Yes, I have never known any one to end well who interfered with the Christians."

"Ha, ha!" she laughed ironically. "You fear the uncircumcised dogs!"

"Not them; but I fear their God."

"_Their_ God! Is it the Galilean impostor?"

"Moreover," he went on, not noticing her question, "I do not like to betray the niece of our former owner Domitilla the consul. She was always good and kind to me."

"Look here," said the Jewess, baring her right arm, "see that scar, which after many years leaves a red seam behind. It was that girl, so good and kind, that drove her ivory hair-pin into the very bone, because I did not plat her hair to her liking. Was she not good and kind to me, Zoilus?"

"She was then young and thoughtless, but she is now different," he said.

"You see that tiger," she pointed to a shrub shaped like that animal, "does not the young cub betray the instincts of the full grown beast? But she is different, you will perhaps say, since she became a Christian. As well might you expect the drugs of Locusta [Footnote 173] to cure the leprosy. Have you heard what takes place in the private meetings of those fully initiated? Ah! _there_ she can indulge her liking for human blood!"

[Footnote 173: A famous poisoner in the time of Nero.]

Zoilus was silent. Some struggle of feeling with principle was going on. Judith, observing him, exclaimed:

"A lustrum of five long years has gone by since you asked me to become your wife. I told you I would never be a wife, or have a husband, in slavery. It is in your power now to procure freedom for both. Do so, and Judith will be yours to-morrow. Hesitate now, and she takes back for ever the promise and the pledge she made you!" She left the peristyle before he had time to answer.

To Be Continued.

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From The Popular Science Review.

On the Struggle for Existence Amongst Plants.

The quaint dictum, "Plants do not grow where they like best, but where other plants will let them," which is credited to the late eminent horticulturalist, Dean Herbert of Manchester, expresses a truth not yet half appreciated by botanists. It is a protest against the prevalent belief that circumstances of climate and soil are the omnipotent regulators of the distribution of vegetables, and that all other considerations are comparatively powerless. The dean's crude axiom has lately found a philosophical exposition and expression in Mr. Darwin's more celebrated doctrine of the "struggle for life, and preservation thereby of the favored races," and if to it we add that great naturalist's more fruitful discovery of the necessity for insect and other foreign agencies in ensuring fertility, and hence perpetuating the species, we shall find that the powers of climate and soil are reduced to comparatively very narrow limits. Before proceeding to show what are the causes that do materially limit the distribution of species, it may be well to inquire how far the hard pressed soil and climate theory really helps us to a practical understanding of one or two great questions that fall under our daily observation; of these, the following are the most prominent.

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That very similar soils and climates, in different geographical areas, are not inhabited naturally either by like species or like genera; that very different soils and climates will produce almost equally abundant crops of the same cultivated plants; and that, in the same soil and climate, many hundreds, nay, thousands of species, from other very different soils and climates, may be grown and propagated for an indefinite number of successive generations.

Of the first of these statements, the examples embrace some of the best known facts in geographical botany; as, for example, that the flora of Europe differs wholly from that of temperate North America, South Africa, Australia, and temperate South America, and all these from one another. And that neither soil nor climate is the cause of this difference is illustrated by the fact that thousands of acres in each of these countries are covered, year after year, by crops of the same plant, introduced from one to the other; and by annually increasing numbers of trees, shrubs, and herbs, that have either run wild or are successfully cultivated in each and all of them. The third proposition follows from the two others, and of this the best example is afforded by a good garden, wherein, on the same soil and under identical conditions, we grow, side by side, plants from very various soils and climates, and ripen their seeds too, provided only that their fertilization is insured. The Cape geraniums, London pride, and Lysimachia nummularia in our London areas, the pendent American cacti in the cottage windows of Southwalk and Lambeth, are even more striking examples of the comparative indifference of many plants to good or bad climate or soil; and what can be more unlike their natural conditions than those to which ferns are exposed in those invaluable contrivances, Ward's cases, in the heart of the city? True, the conditions suit them well, and, with respect to humidity and equability of temperature, are natural to them; but neither is the absolute temperature, nor the constitution, nor freshness of the air, the same as of the places the ferns are brought from; nor is any systematic attempt made to suit the soil to the species cultivated; for, as Mr. Ward himself well shows, the arctic saxifrage, the English rose, the tropical palm, and desert cactus live side by side in the same box, and under precisely similar circumstances, and, as it were, in defiance of their natal conditions.

Let it not be supposed that we at all underrate such power as soil and climate really possess. In some cases, as those of chalk, sand, bog, and saline and water plants, soil is very potent; but the number of plants actually dependent on these or other peculiarities of the soil is much more limited than is supposed. Of _bonâ-fide_ water-plants there are few amongst phaenogams. Sand plants, as a rule, grow equally well on stiffer soils, but are there turned out by more sturdy competitors; and with regard to the calcareous soils, it is their warmth and dryness that fits them, to so great an extent, for many plants that are almost confined to them, or are absolutely peculiar to them. So, too, with regard to temperature, there are limits, as regards heat, cold, and humidity, that species will not overstep and live; but, on the other hand, so much has been done by selection in procuring hardy races of tender plants, and so much may be done by regulating the distribution of earth-temperature, etc., that we already grow tropical plants in the open air during a portion of the year, and eventually may do so for longer periods.

Amongst the most striking examples of apparent indifference to natural conditions of soil and climate, I would especially adduce two. One is the _Salicornia Arabica_, a plant never found in its natural state, except in most saline situations, but which has flourished for years in the Succulent House at Kew, in a pot full of common soil, to which no salt has ever been added; the other is the tea-plant, which luxuriates in the hot, humid valleys of Assam, where the thermometer ranges between 70° and 85°, and the atmosphere is so perennially humid that watches are said to be destroyed after a few months of wear; and it is no less at home in north-western India, where the summers are as hot and cloudless as any in the world, and the winters very cold. {540} I may add that the tea-plant has survived the intense cold of this last January, at Kew, on the same wall where many hardy and half-hardy plants have been killed.

It is, further, a great mistake to suppose that the native vegetation of a country suffers little and very exceptionally by abnormal seasons. The most conspicuous instance of the contrary that ever fell under my observation was the destruction of the gigantic gum-tree (_Eucalyptus_) forests in the central districts of Tasmania, which occurred, if I remember right, about the year 1837. In 1840, I rode over many square miles of country, through stupendous forests, in which every tree was, to all appearance, absolutely lifeless. The district was totally uninhabited, consisting of low mountain ranges, 2,000 feet above the sea, separating marshy tracts interspersed with broad fresh-water lakes. The trees, much like the great gaunt elms in Kensington Gardens during winter, but much larger, were in countless multitudes, 80 to 180 feet high, close set, and ten to twenty feet in girth; their weird and ghostly aspect being heightened by the fact of most being charred for a considerable distance up the trunk, the effects of the native practice of firing the grass in summer during the kangaroo hunting season; and by the bark above hanging from their trunks in streaming shreds, that waved dismally in the wind; for the species was the stringy-bark gum, that sheds its bark after this fashion. And not only had the gum-trees suffered, but the hardier _Leptospermum_ (tea tree bush) and many others were killed, some to the ground and some altogether; so that, though my journey was in spring and the weather was delightful, the aspect of the vegetation was desolate in the extreme.

In such climates as our own, similar devastations are unknown, and, though we know that our island was once covered with other timber than now clothes it, we have every reason to suppose that the change was slow, and the effect either of a gradually altered climate, or of the immigration of trees equally well or better suited to the conditions of the soil and climate, but which had not previously had the opportunity of contesting the ground with the ruling monarchs of the forest.

Making every allowance, then, for the influence of soil and climate in checking the multiplication of individuals, we have still two classes of facts to account for: the one, that plants which succeed so well, when cultivated, that we are assured both soil and climate are favorable to their propagation, nevertheless become immediately or soon extinct when the cultivator's care is withdrawn; the other, that plants of one country, when introduced into another, even with a very different soil and climate, will overrun it, destroy the native vegetation, and prove themselves better suited to local circumstances than the aboriginal plants of the country. In the first case, the reasons are very various, all of them relating to the conditions of the plant's existence. Of these the two most potent are, the absence of fertilizing agents, and the destruction of seeds and seeding plants. In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say which of these is most fatal in its effect. In the case of our annual plants or our cereals, which never run wild, it is the latter certainly; for they seed freely enough; in the case of many perennials, shrubs, and trees, it may be the former, as with the common elm and lime, which rarely or never seed in England, though the latter is so notably frequented by insects during its flowering season; whilst a third cause is to be found in their seedling plants being smothered by others, of which we have numerous examples in our common pasture grasses, which are, perhaps, the most prejudicial in this respect. {541} A most conspicuous example of this is afforded by the common maple, of which the seedlings come up early in spring by thousands in the neighborhood of the parent tree, in lawns and plantations, but scarcely ever survive the smothering effects of the common summer grasses as soon as these begin to shoot.

When I visited the cedar grove on Mount Lebanon, in the autumn of 1860, I found thousands of seedling plants, but every one of them dead; and so effectual is the annual slaughter of the yearlings in that grove, that, though the seeds are shed in millions, and innumerable seedlings annually spring up, there is not a plant in the grove less than about sixty years old. It may hence have been sixty years since a cedar there survived the first year of its existence; that is to say, has struggled through its infancy, and reached the age even of childhood!

On the other hand, when once the natural conditions of a country have been disturbed, the spread and multiplication of immigrants is so rapid that it shortly becomes impossible to discover the limits of the old, indigenous flora. Take the English flora, for example. If we contrast the cultivated counties with the uncultivated, the difference of their vegetation is so great that I have often been compelled to doubt whether many of the most familiar so called wild flowers of the cultivated counties are indigenous at all; nay, more, I have been tempted to suspect that some of the more variable of them, as some species of _chenopodium_ and fumitory, may have originated since cultivation began. In the uncultivated counties the proportion of annual plants is exceedingly small, whereas in the cultivated counties annuals are very numerous; and the further we go from cultivation, roads, and made ground, the rarer they become, till at last, in the uninhabited islets of the west coast of Scotland, and in its mountainous glens, annuals are extremely rare, and confined to the immediate vicinity of cottages. Let any one who doubts this contrast between the floras of cultivated and uncultivated regions compare the annuals in such florae as those of Suffolk or Essex, the North Riding or Cumberland, with those of the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Arran. And it is not only that annuals abound in the cultivated districts, but that so many are nearly confined to ground that is annually or frequently disturbed. The three commonest of all British plants, for example, are, perhaps, groundsel, shepherd's purse, and _Poa annua_. I do not remember ever having seen any of these plants established where the soil was undisturbed, or where, if undisturbed, they had not been obviously brought by man or the lower animals; and yet I have gathered one of these, the shepherd's purse, in various parts of Europe, in Syria, in the Himalayas, in Australia, New Zealand, and the Falkland Islands. Were England to be depopulated, I believe that in a very few years these plants, and a large proportion of our common annual "wild flowers," would become exceedingly rare or extinct, such as the poppies, fumitories, trefoils, fedias, various species of speed-well, polygonum, mallow, euphorbia, thlaspi, senebiera, medicago, anthemis, centaurea, linaria, lamium, etc., etc.

It is usually said of some of the above-named plants that they prefer cultivated ground, nitrogenous soil, and so forth; and this is no doubt true, but that they will flourish where no such advantages attend them, a very little observation shows; and that they do not continue to flourish elsewhere is due mainly to the fact that, being annuals, their room is taken as soon as they die, and the next year's seedling has no chance of success in the struggle with perennials.

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For good instances of this rapid replacement of annuals by perennials, the new railroad embankments should be examined. Whence the plants come from which spring up like magic in the cuttings many feet below the surface of the soil, is a complete mystery, and reminds us of the so-called spontaneous generation of protozoa in newly made infusions or in distilled water. In the south of Scotland in 1840-50, and many parts of the north of England, the first plant that made its appearance was _Equisetum arvense_, which covered the new-formed banks, for miles and miles, with the most lovely green forest of miniature pines. In the following year comparatively few of these were to be seen, and coltsfoot, dandelions, and other biennials, especially umbelliferae, with a great number of annuals, presented themselves. For many successive years I had no opportunity of watching the struggle for life on these banks, but when I last saw them they were clothed with perennial grasses, docks, plantains, and other perennial rooted plants.

The destruction of native vegetations by introduced is a subject that has only lately attracted much attention, but it has already assumed an aspect that has startled the most careless observer. Some thirty years ago the fecundity of the horse and European cardoon in the Argentine provinces of South America, so graphically described by Sir Edmund Head, drew the attention of naturalists to the fact that animals and plants did not necessarily thrive best where found in an indigenous condition; and the spread of the common Dutch clover, _Trifolium repens_, in North America, where it follows the footsteps of man through the pathless forests, has long afforded an equally remarkable instance of vegetable colonization. Still more recently in South Africa, Australia, and Tasmania, the Scotch thistle, brier rose, xanthium, plantain, docks, etc., have all become noxious weeds; and this leads me to the last and most curious point to which I shall allude in this article, namely, that the same annuals and other weeds that are held so well in check by the indigenous perennial plants of our country, when transplanted to others, show themselves superior to the perennial vegetation of the latter. Of this New Zealand furnishes the most conspicuous example; it was first visited scarcely more than 100 years ago, and it is not yet fifty since the missionaries first settled in it, and scarce thirty since it received its earliest colonists. The islands contain about 1,000 species of flowering plants, amongst which no fewer than 180 European weeds have been recorded as intruding themselves and having become thoroughly naturalized; and probably double that number will yet be found, as they have never been systematically collected; but the most curious part of the history is this, that whereas of indigenous New Zealand plants scarcely any are annual, no less than half the naturalized European ones are annual.