Chapter VI: Part I: I (5)

He immediately recognised the voice of the principal dignitary of the Imperial post, Gaudentius. It was he who had suffered from the bad dream.

"One council treads on the heels of another," Gaudentius was complaining; "now it's at Sirmio, now it's at Sardis, now at Antioch, and now here at Constantinople. They discuss and discuss, but never come to an understanding. And I would ask you, for pity's sake, to consider the horses that have to carry these gentlemen about! Out of a relay of ten horses you will hardly find one who is not foundered by the bishops. Another five councils, and my beasts will only be fit for the knacker's yard--not a car will have a wheel on it. Yet, in spite of all, you'll see that the bishops will still be at loggerheads and boggling at the Trinity!"

"Why then, Gaudentius, don't you send in a formal report on the subject to the Emperor?"

"Nobody would believe me. I should be accused of irreligion and lack of respect for the crying needs of the Church."

In the vast round hall, crowned by a cupola on columns of Phrygian marble, the heat was already stifling. Slanting sun rays fell in through uncurtained windows. The noise of voices was like the buzzing of a swarm of bees. The Imperial golden seat--_sella aurea_--was prepared on a daïs. It rested on lions' paws of carved ivory, crossed like those of the curule chairs of Roman consuls.

Close to the throne, the high-priest Paphnutis, with a face empurpled by argument, was declaring--

"For my part, I shall keep to the opinions my fathers taught me! According to the creed of our holy father Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, we must worship a single God in a Trinity, and the Trinity in a single God; the Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Ghost is God, and nevertheless they form together but one God!"

And as if he was smashing an invisible enemy he brought down his enormous right fist into his left-hand palm and glared triumphantly round the assembly.

"That tradition have I received from my fathers, and that tradition I will keep!"

"Who is it? What's he saying?" asked Ozius, a man of a hundred years old, who had been alive in the time of the council of Nicæa. "Where's my trumpet?" Harrowing perplexity could be read on his face. He was deaf, almost blind. The deacon who accompanied him set the ear-trumpet to his ear.

A certain pale thin monk seized Paphnutis by the surplice--

"Father Paphnutis," he shouted to drown the general clamour, "what is all this about?... It is a question of a single word; is not that so?" and forthwith he began to narrate terrible scenes he had witnessed in Alexandria and Constantinople. The Arians had opened with wooden pincers the mouths of those unwilling to receive the Sacrament in heretic churches, and forced the host between their lips. Mere children were subjected to inquisition; the breasts of women were crushed under leaden weights and branded with live iron. In the Church of the Holy Apostles so horrible a struggle had taken place between Arians and Orthodox that the blood, overflowing the cistern which received the drainage of the place, had poured down the steps in front of the western façade and streamed into the market-square. At Alexandria the governor Sebastian had caused virgins to be beaten with thorn branches, so that many of them had succumbed and their bodies lay unburied outside the city gates. All this contention was over a single letter, an _iota_.

"Father Paphnutis," argued the pale monk, "for an iota! The word 'substantial' does not even occur in the holy Scripture. What are we then torturing each other about? Think, Father; it is horrible!"

"Then," interrupted the Arch-priest impatiently, "must we be reconciled with those impious dogs who will not hunt out of their pestilent hearts the doctrine that there was a moment when the Son of God did not exist?"

"'One Shepherd and one Flock,'" the monk returned: "Let us make them some concessions!"

But Paphnutis refused to hear anything, vociferating till the veins of his neck almost burst--

"Let the enemies of God be silent! Never will I give in! Anathema on the Arian heresy! Such have I received the faith from my fathers, and such will I keep it!"

Ozius the centenarian wagged approvingly his white head and long beard. On the other side of the hall two archdeacons were talking together.

"You keep very calm, Father Dorophas. Why are you taking no part in discussion to-day?"

"My voice is gone, Father Flavius. I am too hoarse with anathematising the cursed sectaries."

In another group the deacon from Antioch, Aetius, a bold and fervent disciple of Arius, regarded as an atheist for his audacious and scoffing interpretations of the Trinity, was holding forth.

The career of Aetius had been remarkable for its extraordinary variety. At first a slave, he had afterwards become by turns a coppersmith, a sailor, a rhetorician, a pupil and teacher of Alexandrian philosophy, and finally a deacon.

"God the Father is in His substantial essence different from His Son," Aetius was saying with a smile and evident gusto, to the dismay of his hearers. "The Trinity has differentiations, degrees of glory, according to the nature of the personalities comprised in it. The word 'God' cannot be used of the Son, because He has never applied it to Himself. The Son has never even comprehended the essence of the Father, because it is impossible for Him who had a beginning to imagine that which has neither beginning nor end."

"Blaspheme not!" shouted an indignant bishop. "Where is this Satanic boldness going to stop, my brethren?"

"Drag not the simple-minded into perdition by your speeches!" shrieked another.

"Prove me wrong by philosophic reasoning, and I will acquiesce. But shouts and insults are proof of nothing but impotence," replied Aetius calmly.

"It is written in the Scriptures...."

"What is that to me? God has given intelligence to man that He himself might be understood. I believe in logic of argument and not in texts. Reason with me on the basis of the syllogisms and categories of Aristotle...."

And with a contemptuous smile he threw his surplice around him like the cynic mantle of Diogenes.

Some bishops were beginning to speak in favour of a universal creed in which mutual concession should be made, when the Arian Narcissus of Neronia, a profound expert in all statutes, creeds, and canons of the councils, intervened in discussion. He was a man little liked, suspected of adultery and usury, but admired by everyone for his theological erudition.

"That is a flat heresy!" he declared decisively.

"Why is it a heresy?" demanded several voices.

"Because the assizes of Paphlagonia have already so laid it down."

"The assizes of Paphlagonia?" repeated the desperate bishops; "we had clean forgotten them. What is to be done now?"

"May God have pity on us miserable sinners!" the good bishop Ozius was muttering; "I can no longer understand anything; I can't get out of the labyrinth; my head is buzzing, my ears singing with Greek words; I'm walking in a fog and don't know myself what I believe in and what I disbelieve; what is heresy and what is not.... Jesus help us!... We are falling into the snares of the Devil."

At that moment the hubbub and clamour ceased. The bishop Ursatius of Singidion, one of the Emperor's favourites, mounted the tribune. He was holding in his hand a long scroll of parchment. Two _silentiarii_, having mended their fine pens of Egyptian reed, got ready to write down the conciliar debate. Ursatius read out the message of the Emperor to the bishops--

"Constantius, the triumphant, glorious, and eternal Augustus, to all bishops assembled in this council...."

The Emperor demanded the dismissal of Athanasius, the patriarch of Alexandria, whom he called the most useless of men, the traitor, the accomplice of the insolent and abominable Magnentius.

The courtiers, Valentine, Eusebius, Axentius, hastened to sign the scroll. But a murmur arose.

"It is all a damnable device; a trick of the Arians! We will not let our patriarch suffer...."

"The Emperor calls himself _eternal_ ... nobody is eternal but God! It is a mockery of holy things."

Constantius, lurking behind the curtain, heard this last speech distinctly. Thrusting the hangings roughly by, he pushed unexpectedly into the hall. The lances of the guard surrounded him. His face expressed anger. A heavy silence fell upon the throng.

"What is it, what is it?" the blind Ozius kept whispering in restless perplexity.

"Fathers," the Emperor began, bridling his anger, "allow me, the servant of the Most High, to use my zeal under His providence to a successful issue. Athanasius is a rebel, the chief violator of universal concord and oecumenical peace."

Fresh murmurs arose. Constantius was silent and ran a surprised look over the array of bishops. A voice shouted--

"Anathema upon the abominable Arian heresy!"

"The faith against which you revolt," replied the Emperor, "is my faith. If it is heretical, why has the omnipotent God assigned victory to us over all our enemies? Constans, Vetranio, Gallus, the abominable Magnentius, why has God Himself placed the power over the world in our sacred hands?"

The bishops were dumb; then the courtier Valentius, bishop of Mursa, bowing with great servility--

"God will unveil the truth to your wisdom, sire, well-beloved of the Lord! What you believe cannot be heresy. Did not Cyril of Jerusalem behold a rainbow-surmounted cross in the heavens on the day of your victory over Magnentius?"

"It is my will," interrupted Constantius, rising from the throne. "Athanasius shall be laid low by the power God has entrusted to me. Pray that all these conflicts and controversies may cease, that the murderous heresy of the Sabæans, the partisans of Athanasius, may be destroyed, that the truth may shine into all hearts...."

Suddenly the Emperor grew pale; the words expired on his lips.

"What! How is it that he has been allowed to enter?"

He pointed to a tall old man with a severe and majestic face. It was the bishop Hilarion of Pictavia (Poitiers), who had been exiled and ruined for his faith, one of the greatest enemies of the Arian Emperor. He had come to the council unsummoned, perhaps seeking martyrdom. The old man raised his hand to heaven as if calling down malediction upon the head of the Emperor, and his powerful voice thrilled the silent crowd--

"Brothers, Christ must be about to descend, for Antichrist has already conquered, and that Antichrist is Constantius! He does not break your backs on the wheel, but he flatters your proud bellies. He does not throw us into dungeons, but entices us into his palaces.... Emperor, hearken! I say to you what I have said to Nero, Decius, Maximian, all persecutors of the Church. But you are not, like them, the murderer of men, but the murderer of the Divine love itself! Nero, Decius, Maximian, have better served the God of truth than you! In their reign we conquered the Devil, the blood of the martyrs flowed, cleansing the earth, and their dead bones worked miracles. Whereas you, O King, cruellest of the cruel, slay and yet grant us not the glory of death.... Lord, send us a true despot like Nero, and let the kindly arm of Thy wrath revive again the Church dishonoured by the kiss of this Judas!"

The Emperor sprang to his feet--

"Seize him and the rebels!" he ejaculated, half-choked with rage, pointing to Hilarion.

The guards flung themselves on the bishops.

The crowd became a wild and indescribable mob illumined by the flashing of swords. Roman soldiers, snatching off the breastplate, stole, and chasuble of Hilarion, dragged the old man away. Many present rushed in mad panic to the doors, fell, and were trampled underfoot by the rest. One of the recording clerks leapt on the sill of a window, but a soldier pinned him there by his long vestments and would not release him. The table and the inkstands were upset, red ink poured over the blue jasper floor, and voices shouted at the sight of the crimson sea--

"Blood! blood! blood!"

Others howled--

"Death to the enemies of the thrice-pious Augustus!"

Paphnutis in a thunderous monotone persisted in crying while the guards dragged him away--

"I recognise the council of Nicæa!... Anathema on the Arian heresy!"

Others screamed--

"Be silent, enemies of God! Anathema! the council of Nicæa! the assizes of Sardis! the canons of Paphlagonia!"

Blind Ozius remained seated motionless, forgotten by all, in his episcopal chair, murmuring inaudibly--

"Jesus Christ, Son of God, have pity upon us! What is the matter, my brethren, what is it?"

In vain he stretched feeble hands towards his terrified friends. Nobody saw him, nobody heard him; and tears streamed down his aged cheeks.

Meanwhile Julian watched all, a contemptuous smile upon his lips, full of inward triumph.

On the same day, late in the evening, in a quiet and solitary defile two Mesopotamian monks were journeying afoot together. They had been sent by Syrian bishops to the council, had escaped the palatine guards with great difficulty, and now, their minds at peace, were proceeding towards Ravenna to embark as quickly as possible upon the ship which was to restore them to the desert. Fatigue and sadness were on their faces. Ephraim, one of the two, was extremely old; the other, Pimenus, a lad.

Ephraim said to Pimenus--

"It is time to regain the desert, brother. Better to hear the howling of jackal and lion than the cry that dinned our ears in the Imperial palace. Happy are those who speak not. Happy those who hide themselves in desert places, beyond arguments of masters of the Church, who have understood the uselessness of words; who debate nothing. Happy is he who seeks not to understand God's mysteries, but who, merging his spirit into Thine, sings to Thy face, O Lord, like a harp; understanding how difficult it is to know, how easy to love Thee!"

Ephraim was silent, and Pimenus murmured--

"Amen!"

The quiet of night enveloped the pair, and courageously, steering by the stars, the two monks took their way eastwards rejoicing in the majesty of their barren road.

XVI

The city of Milan lay basking in the sun; and by every street the crowd was turning its steps towards the chief public square.

Tremendous acclamations ran through the throng, and in the triumphant chariot, drawn by twenty horses white as swans, appeared the Emperor. His chariot seat was so lofty that the people were obliged to throw their heads back to behold him. His robes, besown with precious stones, sparkled dazzlingly in the sun. In his right hand he held the sceptre, in the left the Imperial globe crested by a cross.

Motionless as a statue, outrageously painted, he looked straight before him without turning his head, which was held stiff as in a vice. During the whole journey, and despite the joltings of the car, the Emperor stirred not a finger, nor coughed, nor blinked the steady stare of his eyes.

Constantius had acquired this immobility by years of effort, and was particularly proud of it, considering it an indispensable part of Imperial etiquette. On such occasions he would have preferred to undergo torture rather than betray his mortal nature by sneezing, coughing, or wiping off the sweat which stood in beads on his forehead.

Although squat and bow-legged he imagined himself gigantic. When the chariot disappeared under the arch of triumph, not far from the baths of Maximian Hercules, the Emperor bowed his head as if he were afraid of striking his head against the lofty gates which would have freely taken a Cyclops beneath them.

Each side of the road was lined with palatine guards helmeted and cuirassed in gold, the two ranks of the bodyguard flashing in the sun like streams of lightning.

Round the Imperial chariot great dragon-shaped standards were floating. The purple stuff, swollen by the wind engulfed in the gullets of the monsters, gave out a shrill sound like the hiss of snakes, and the long purple tails of the dragons wavered to and fro above the people. In the Forum were drawn up all the legions quartered in Milan. Thunders of applause welcomed the Emperor. Constantius was pleased. The noise had neither been too feeble nor too tumultuous. Arranged beforehand according to the strictest etiquette, the soldiers had been instructed to be enthusiastic with moderation and respect.

Giving each of his motions a kind of stiff and pedantic emphasis, Constantius solemnly descended from the chariot and went up to the tribune raised above the square. It was draped with ragged standards of old victories and studded with metal eagles.

The trumpets sounded up anew in the call denoting that the leader desired to speak to his army. The Forum was instantly hushed.

"_Optimi reipublicæ defensores!_" began Constantius. (Excellent defenders of the Republic.)

The discourse was long-winded, tedious, full of scholastic flowers of rhetoric.

Julian in Court dress now ascended the steps of the tribune, and the fratricide invested the last descendant of Constantius Chlorus with the sacred purple of the Cæsars.

The sunlight filtered through the thin silk when the Emperor raised the purple to enrobe the kneeling Julian. The rich hue tinged the pale face of the new Cæsar, who murmured inwardly the prophetic verse of the Iliad--

"Eyes closed by purple death and puissant Destiny...."

And nevertheless Constantius was welcoming him:

"_Recepisti primævus originis tuæ splendidum florem, amatissime mihi omnium frater._" (Still young, you have attained already the flower of your royal birth, most beloved of all my brothers!)

An enthusiastic roar rose from the legions. Constantius became rather gloomy; that shout had slightly exceeded the proper bounds. Julian must have pleased the soldiers.

"Glory and prosperity to Cæsar Julian!" They cheered louder and louder, till it seemed as if they would never cease.

The new Cæsar thanked the legionaries with a kindly smile, and every soldier clashed his buckler against his knee as a sign of rejoicing.

It seemed to Julian that it was not by the will of the Emperor, but by the will of the gods, that he had reached this eminence.

* * * * *

Every evening Constantius was in the habit of consecrating a quarter of an hour to the polishing of his nails. It was one of the few toilet delicacies that he permitted himself, being sober, unimaginative, and rather gross than effeminate in all his habits. Paring his nails with little files, polishing them with minute brushes, he gaily asked his favourite eunuch, the grand chamberlain Eusebius, on the evening of the day of investiture--

"How soon do you think will Julian conquer the Gauls?"

"I think," answered Eusebius, "that the next news we shall receive will be of the defeat and death of that young man!"

"Really?--that would give me much pain! But I have done, don't you think, everything that lay in my power.... Henceforth he has only himself to blame...."

Constantius smiled, and bowing his head admired his nails.

"You have conquered Magnentius," murmured the eunuch, "you have conquered Vetranio, Constans, Gallus. You will conquer Julian. Then there will be but one shepherd, one flock, God and you alone."

"Yes, yes. But, putting Julian on one side, there is still Athanasius. I shall never be happy until, living or dead, he shall have fallen into my hands."

"Julian is more to be feared than Athanasius, and you have invested him to-day in the purple of death. Oh, wisdom of Providence, destroying by inscrutable means all the enemies of Your Eternity! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and during the night of ages!"

"Amen," concluded the Emperor, having finished the toilet of his nails and thrown away the last minute brush. He approached the ancient banner of Constantine, the Labarum, which stood always in the sleeping-chamber, knelt down, and contemplating the monogram of Christ which shone in the flicker of the still-burning lamp, began his prayers. He accomplished exactly the prescribed number of salves and signs of the cross, addressing God with an imperturbable faith, as one who never doubts his own worth and acceptability.

The three-quarters of an hour of devotions having elapsed, Constantius arose with a light heart. Eunuchs undressed him. He lay down on an Imperial couch propped by cherubim of silver on outspread wings, and fell asleep in placid innocence with a child like smile on his lips.

XVII

At Athens, in one of the most frequented cross-roads, a statue modelled by Arsinoë--_The victorious Octavius holding up the head of Brutus_--was exhibited to the people, and the Athenians welcomed in the daughter of the senator Helvidius Priscus a renewer of the art of their golden age. But the special dignitaries whose business was to keep watch on the public temper, officers strangely but rightly nicknamed "Inquisitors," reported to the proper quarters that the statue might arouse liberal sentiments in the people. A resemblance to Julian was discovered in the face of Brutus, and in the work as a whole a criminal allusion to the recent punishment of Gallus. Attempts were made to discover in Octavius some analogy to the Emperor Constantius. The affair took the proportions of an act of treason, and almost fell into the hands of Paul Catena. Luckily the Imperial chanceries sent direct a severe order to the local magistrate, that not only should the statue disappear from the cross-roads, but that it should be broken to pieces under the eyes of government officials.

Arsinoë wished to hide the statue, but Hortensius was in such mortal affright that he threatened to give up his ward herself to the informers.

In deep disgust at the degradation of the public, Arsinoë allowed them to do with her work everything that Hortensius desired, and masons broke up the figure.

Arsinoë hastily left Athens, her guardian having persuaded her to follow him to Rome, where friends had long promised him the office of Imperial quæstor. They installed themselves in a house not far from the Palatine Hill.

Days flowed by in inactivity, Arsinoë realising that there was no longer scope for the greatness and freedom of antique art. She bore in mind her conversation with Julian at Athens; and it was the only link which restrained her from suicide. The long suspense of inaction seemed to her intolerable. In moments of discouragement she longed to have done with it all, to leave all, to set out for the Gallic battlefield and at the side of the young Cæsar attain power, or perish.

But she fell seriously ill. In the long and calm days of convalescence she found a devoted consoler in her most faithful adorer, Anatolius, a centurion of the Imperial cavalry, son of a rich merchant of Rhodes.

He was a Roman centurion, as he used to say himself, merely as the result of a mistake, having only taken to the military career to satisfy the empty-headed ambition of his father, who desired as the summit of earthly honour to see his son clothed in gilt armour.

Evading discipline by generous gifts, Anatolius passed his life in luxurious idleness, amidst works of art and books, in feastings and indolent and costly travel. The profound lucidity of soul which had characterised ancient Epicureans was not possessed by this modern. He complained to his friends--

"I suffer from a mortal malady...."

They would ask him dubiously--

"What malady?"

And he would say--

"What you call my spirit of irony and what seems to me melancholy madness."

His finely cut delicate features expressed extreme fatigue. Sometimes he would awake as from a sleep, undertake a wild excursion with fishermen in a hurricane in the open sea, or set off to hunt wild boar and bear, or contemplate hatching a plot against the life of Cæsar, or seek initiation into the terrible mysteries of Mithra and Adonis. On such occasions he was capable of astonishing by his rashness and audacity even those persons who were ignorant of his ordinary way of living.

But the excitement once evaporated he would return to listlessness and lassitude, still more sleepy, still more cynical and sad.

"Nothing can be done with you, Anatolius," Arsinoë used to say to him; "you are so soft that people might think you had no bones."

But she felt a kind of Hellenic grace in this last of the Epicureans; liked to read in his weary eyes their melancholy mockery of himself and everything else. He would say--

"The sage can extract enjoyment from the blackest melancholy, as bees of Hymettus make their best honey with the juice of bitterest plants!" and his gossip soothed Arsinoë, who smilingly used to call Anatolius her physician.

In reality she became stronger, but never returned to her studio. The sight of chips of marble filled her with painful memories.

Meanwhile, at the time of which we are speaking Hortensius was preparing wonderful public games in the Flavian Theatre, in honour of his arrival in Rome. He was continually travelling, and busy receiving horses, lions, bears, Scots wolf-dogs, crocodiles from the tropics, and with these, flocks of intrepid hunters, skilled riders, comedians, and gladiators.

The date of the performance was approaching, and the lions had not arrived from Tarentum, where they had disembarked. The bears had grown thin, famished, timid as lambs.

Hortensius became sleepless with anxiety.

Two days before the festival, the gladiators, Saxon prisoners, proud and fearless men for whom he had paid a colossal sum, considering it a disgrace to serve as a sport for the Roman populace, committed suicide by cutting their own throats at night in their prison.

Hortensius, at that unexpected news, nearly went out of his mind. Now all hope concentrated itself on the crocodiles, which excited the special curiosity of the mob.

"Have you tried giving them newly-killed hogs' flesh?" demanded the senator of the slave entrusted with the supervision of these precious beasts.

"Yes; but they won't eat it."

"Have you tried veal?"

"They won't touch that, either."

"And wheaten bread soaked in cream?"

"They turn away from it and go to sleep."

"They must be ill or too fatigued."

"We've even opened their jaws and shoved the food down their throats. They cough it up again."

"Ah! by Jupiter, those foul beasts will be the death of me! We must release them after the first day in the arena or else they will die of hunger," groaned Hortensius falling into a chair.

Arsinoë contemplated him with envy. He at least was not tired of life.

She passed into an isolated chamber whence the windows looked down on the garden. There in the calm moonlight her young sister Myrrha, who was now about sixteen years old, was softly touching the strings of a harp, and the notes were falling like tears. Arsinoë kissed Myrrha, who answered her by a smile without ceasing to play. A loud whistle sounded behind the garden wall:

"It is he," said Myrrha, rising. "Come quickly!"

She grasped Arsinoë's hand tightly. The two young girls threw black cloaks over their shoulders and went out. The wind was chasing the clouds along, and the moon, sometimes hidden, sometimes shone out brightly. Arsinoë opened a door in the outer wall of the house. A young man wrapped in a monk's hooded mantle was awaiting them.

"We are not late, Juventinus?" asked Myrrha.

"I was afraid that you were not coming!"

They walked long and rapidly down narrow lanes, then out among the vineyards, issuing at length into the Roman plain. In the distance the brick-built aqueduct of Servius Tullius was outlined against the sky. Juventinus turned round and said--

"Somebody is following us!"

The two young girls turned round also. A flood of moonlight fell upon them, and the individual following them exclaimed cheerfully--

"Arsinoë! Myrrha!... And so I have found you again! Where are you going?"

"We're going among the Christians," answered Arsinoë. "Come with us, Anatolius; you will see some curious things."

"What do I hear? Among the Christians?--You have always been their enemy!" wondered the centurion.

"With age, my friend, one grows better and more tolerant, or indifferent, if you like to call it so. This is a superstition neither better nor worse than other superstitions. And then one is capable of a good deal when bored. I am going among them for Myrrha's sake; it pleases her...."

"Where is the church? We're out in the plain," murmured Anatolius.

"The churches are destroyed or profaned by their fellow-Christians, the Arians, who believe in Christ otherwise than they do. You must have heard the debates about it at Court. So now the adversaries of the Arians are wont to pray in secret in subterranean vaults, as in the time of the first persecutions."

Myrrha and Juventinus had lingered a little behind the others; Arsinoë and Anatolius could talk freely.

"Who is he?" asked the centurion with a nod towards Juventinus.

"The last scion of the ancient patrician family of the Furii," answered Arsinoë. "The mother wishes to make a consul of him. His only dream is to flee into some Thebaïd, or monkish community in the desert, to spend his days in prayer. He loves his mother and hides himself from her as from an enemy."

"The descendants of the Furii, monks?... 'T is a queer age," sighed the Epicurean.

They approached the _arenarium_, old excavations in crumbling tufa, and went down narrow steps to the bottom of the quarry. The volcanic blocks of red earth looked strange-hued in the moonlight. Juventinus took a little clay lamp from a dark niche, and lighted it; the long flame flickered feebly in its narrow gullet.

They entered the darkness of the side galleries of the _arenarium_. Hollowed by the ancient Romans, the quarry was large and spacious and descended in steep slopes. It was therefore pierced by numerous galleries, for the use of workmen in transporting the tufa. Juventinus led his companions through the labyrinth and halted at last in front of a shaft from which he lifted the coverlid of wood; the party went cautiously down the damp and slippery steps; at the bottom was a narrow door; Juventinus knocked; the door opened, and a grey-headed monk introduced them into a passage hollowed in harder tufa. The walls on both sides from floor to vaulting were covered with slabs of marble, the seals of tombs in which coffins (_loculi_) were ranged.

At every step folk carrying lamps came to meet them. By the flickering light Anatolius read with curiosity on one of these stone flags: "Dorotheus, son of Felix, in this place of coolness, light, and peace, reposes" ("_requiescit in loco refrigii, luminis, pacis_"). On another: "Brethren, disturb not my deep slumber."

The style of the inscriptions was radiant and happy: "Sophronia, beloved, thou art alive for ever in God" ("_Sophronia, dulcis, semper vivis Deo_"). And a little farther on: "_Sophronia vivis!_" ("Sophronia, thou livest!") as if he who had written these words had at length realised that there was no more death.

Nowhere was it written "He is buried here," but only "Here is laid for a certain time" (_depositus_). It seemed as if millions of people, generation upon generation, were lying in this place, not dead, but fallen asleep, all full of mysterious expectation. In the niches lamps were placed. They burned in the close atmosphere with a long steady flame and graceful vases exhaled penetrating odours. Nothing but the faint smell of putrefying bones, which escaped by fissures in the coffins, gave any hint of death.

The passages went down lower and lower, curved as round an amphitheatre; and here and there in the ceiling a large aperture gave light from _luminaria_ opening on the country without.

Sometimes a weak moon-ray passing down the _luminaria_ would strike at the bottom on a slab of marble covered with inscriptions.

At the end of one of these passages they saw a sexton who, chanting gaily, was hollowing the ground with heavy blows of his pick. Several Christians were standing near the principal inspector of the tombs, the _fossor_. He was very well dressed and had a fat cunning face. The _fossor_ had inherited a right freely to dispose of a gallery of catacombs, and to sell unoccupied sites in his gallery, which was all the more appreciated because in it were buried the relics of St. Laurence. Although rich, the _fossor_ was keenly bargaining, as they came up, with a wealthy and miserly leather-merchant. Arsinoë stopped a moment to hear the discussion.

"And my tomb will be far away from the relics?" the leather-dresser was asking mistrustfully, thinking of the big sum exacted by the _fossor_.

"No, just six cubits away."

"Above or beneath?"

"On the right-hand side, sloping down a little. It's an excellent position; I don't ask a penny too much. Though you be as sinful as you please, everything will be forgiven. You will go straight into the heavenly kingdom."

With an expert hand the gravedigger took the measurements for the tomb as a tailor measures for a coat, the leather-dresser insisting that he should have as much room as possible in order to lie in comfort.

An old woman approached the sexton.

"What do you want, mother?"

"Here's the money--the extra payment!"

"What extra payment?"

"For the right-hand tomb."

"Ah, I see; you don't want the crooked one?"

"No; my old bones crack at the very idea of the crooked one."

In the catacombs, and especially near the relics, so much value was set upon grave-sites that it was necessary to contrive slanting tombs which were leased to the poor.

"God knows how long one will have to wait for the resurrection," the old woman was explaining; "and if I took a tomb on the slant it would be all very well to begin with, but when I got tired it wouldn't do at all."

Anatolius listened in astonishment.

"It is much more curious than the mysteries of Mithra," he observed to Arsinoë with a languid smile. "Pity that I didn't know it sooner. I've never seen such an amusing cemetery."

They went on into a rather large chamber called the _cubicula of consolation_. A multitude of small lamps were burning on the walls. The priest was at the evening office, the stone lid of a martyr's tomb placed under an arched vault (_arcosolium_) serving as altar. There were many of the faithful in long white robes, every face serenely happy. Myrrha, kneeling with eyes full of love, was gazing at the Good Shepherd pictured on the ceiling of the chamber. In the catacombs early Christian customs had been revived, so that after the liturgy all present, looking on themselves as brothers and sisters, gave each other the kiss of peace. Arsinoë following the general example with a smile kissed Anatolius.

Then all four climbed again toward the upper storeys, whence they could take their way to the secret retreat of Juventinus, an old pagan tomb, a _columbarium_, lying at some distance from the Appian Way. There, while waiting for the ship which was to take him to Egypt, the land of holy anchorites, he was living hidden from the searches of his mother and of government officials. He lodged with Didimus, a good old man from the Lower Thebaïd, to whom Juventinus gave blind and unquestioning obedience.

Here they found Didimus squatting on his heels, weaving basket-work. The moon-rays, filtering through a narrow opening, glinted on his white hair and long beard. From top to bottom of the walls of the _columbarium_ were little niches like pigeons' nests, and each of these contained a mortuary urn.

Myrrha, of whom the old man was very fond, kissed his withered hand respectfully, and prayed him to tell her some story about the hermit fathers of the desert. Nothing pleased her better than these wonderful and terrible tales by Didimus.

The company grouped themselves round the white-headed old man, Myrrha watching him with feverish eyes and feeble hands clasped to her heaving breast. Nothing was heard save his voice and the distant hum of Rome, when suddenly, at the inner door communicating with the catacomb, a knock was heard.

Juventinus rose, went to the door and asked, without opening it--

"Who is there?"

No answer came, but a still gentler knock as of entreaty.

With great precaution Juventinus held the door ajar, shuddered and recoiled. A woman of tall stature came into the _columbarium_. Long white vestments enveloped her and a veil hid her face. Her gait was that of one recovering from an illness or of a very old woman. With a sudden movement she raised the veil and Juventinus cried--

"My mother!"

Didimus rose, a severe expression on his countenance.

The woman threw herself at the feet of her son and kissed them, grey tresses falling dishevelled over her lean and haggard face, which bore traces of high patrician beauty. Juventinus took the head of his mother between his hands and kissed it.

"Juventinus!" the old man called.

The young man made no response.

His mother, as if they had been completely alone, murmured hastily and joyously--

"O my son, I thought I should never see you again; I would have set out for Alexandria--O I would have found you even in the desert! But now all is over, is it not? Tell me that you will not go! Wait until I die! Afterwards do what you will...."

The old man resumed--

"Do you hear me, Juventinus?"

"Old man," answered the patrician mother, "you will not carry off a son from her that bore him!... Listen, if it must be so, I will deny the faith of my fathers; I will believe in the Crucified!... I will become a nun!"

"Ah, pagan! thou canst not understand the law of Christ. A mother cannot be a nun, nor can a nun be still a mother."

"I have borne him in anguish; he is mine!"

"It is not the soul, but the body, that you love."

The patrician woman cast at Didimus a look full of hatred.

"Be then accursed for your lying speeches," she exclaimed; "accursed, you stealers of children--tempters of the guileless! ye black-robed fearers of the celestial light--slaves of the Crucified! destroyers of all beauty and joy!"

Her face changed; she drew her son yet closer, and said chokingly--

"I know thee, my son! thou wilt not go ... thou canst not...."

Old Didimus, cross in hand, stood at the open door leading to the catacombs. He said solemnly--

"For the last time, and in the name of God, I order you, my son, to follow me and to leave her."

Then the patrician relaxed her hold of Juventinus, and faltered--

"Then go! Let it be so.... Leave me, if thou canst!"

Tears flowed no longer down her furrowed cheeks; her arms fell rigid, with a heart-broken gesture, to her sides. She waited. All were silent.

"O Lord, help me ... inspire me!" Juventinus prayed in terrible distress.

"He who will follow Me, and will not hate father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, and even his own life, can never be My disciple!"

These words were recited by Didimus, turning for the last time towards Juventinus--

"Remain in the world! Thou hast rejected Christ! Be accursed in this age and in the age to come!"

"No, no! Cast me not out, father! I am on your side. Lord, here am I," exclaimed Juventinus following his master.

His mother made no arresting movement; not a muscle of her face stirred; but when the noise of his footsteps died away a hoarse sob heaved her breast and she fell into a swoon.

"Open--in the name of the most holy Emperor Constantius!"

It was the summons of soldiery sent by the prefect to hunt the Sabæan rebels, on the denunciation of the patrician mother of Juventinus.

With a powerful lever the soldiers attempted to prise open the door of the _columbarium_, shaking the edifice on its foundations. The little silver urns vibrated plaintively under the blows. Half of the door gave way.

Anatolius, Myrrha, and Arsinoë rushed into the inner gallery. The Christians hurried along the narrow passages like ants disturbed in their mound, making for all the secret outlets communicating with the quarry. But Arsinoë and Myrrha, unfamiliar with the exact situation of the galleries, lost their way in the labyrinth and at last reached the lowest floor of all at a depth of fifty cubits under ground. It became difficult to breathe; muddy water lay under foot. The flame of the lamps became dim and almost blew out. Putrid miasmas filled the air. Myrrha felt her head swim and gradually lost consciousness.

Anatolius took her in his arms. At every step they feared to encounter the legionaries; all the outlets might be blocked and sealed up; they were running the risk of being buried alive.

At last they heard the voice of Juventinus calling--

"Here! here!"

Bent double, he was carrying the old Didimus on his back.

At the end of a few minutes they reached a secret door opening on the Campagna.

On returning to the house, Arsinoë quickly undressed Myrrha and put her to bed, still in a dead faint. Kneeling by her side the elder sister long kissed and chafed the thin, yellow, and inert hands. A pang of agonising presentiment shot through her heart.

The face of the sleeper bore a strange expression. Never had it reflected so bodiless a charm. All the little body seemed transparent and frail as the sides of an alabaster jar illumined by an inner fire.

XVIII

Late one evening in a marshy wood not far from the Rhine, between the fortified post, _Tres Tabernæ_ and the Roman town of Argentoratum,[1] conquered a short time previously by the _Alemanni_, two soldiers who had lost their way were slouching along. One named Aragaris, an awkward and red-headed giant, a Sarmatian in the Roman service; the other Strombix, a lean and frowning little Syrian.

[1] Strasburg.

The spaces between the trunks of trees were densely dark. A fine rain was falling through warm air. The birches diffused an odour of damp leaves, and far off a cuckoo was calling.

At every crack of the branches the startled Strombix began to quake and seized the fist of his companion.

"Oh, cousin! cousin!"

He used to call Aragaris cousin, not through blood relationship, but for friendship's sake. They had been taken into the Roman army from opposite ends of the world. The northern barbarian, a huge guzzler but a chaste liver, despised the voluptuous and timid Syrian who was so frugal in his eating and drinking. But while mocking him he pitied him as a child.

"Cousin!" wailed Strombix.

"Well, what is it? Can't you be quiet?"

"Are there bears in this wood?"

"Yes!" answered Aragaris sullenly.

"And suppose we met one, eh?"

"We should knock him on the head, sell his skin, and go and drink."

"And suppose the bear, instead of being killed..."

"Poltroon! it isn't difficult to see that you're a Christian!"

"Why must a Christian be a coward?" said Strombix with a vexed air.

"You've told me yourself that in your Book it is written _whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also_."

"True."

"Well, I'm right; and if so, to my thinking you mustn't go to wars; the enemy will strike you on one cheek and you turn him round the other. You're a set of cowards, I say."

"The Cæsar Julian's a Christian, and _he_ isn't a coward!" retorted Strombix.

"I know, my boy," continued Aragaris, "that you can pardon enemies when you have to fight them, poor chicken! Your belly is no bigger than my fist. With a clove in it you're fed up for the whole day; and so your blood is no better than marsh-water!"

"Ah, cousin! cousin!" observed Strombix reproachfully, "why did you talk about food? Now I've got another gnawing ache in my stomach. Give me a little garlic! There's some left in your bag."

"If I give you what there's left we shall both starve to-morrow in this forest!"

"Ah, but if you don't give me some now, I shall fall from weakness and you will be obliged to carry me."

"Well, stuff and swill, dog!"

"And a little bread too," begged Strombix.

Aragaris gave him, with an oath, his last ration of biscuit. He himself had eaten overnight enough for two days, of fat pork and bean pottage.

"Attention! Hark!" he said halting. "There's a trumpet! We're not far from the camp. We must steer round to the north.... I don't mind bears," added Aragaris thoughtfully, "but that centurion..."

The soldiers had nicknamed this hated centurion "Cedo Alteram," because he used to cry out gleefully every time he broke the rod with which he was striking a delinquent, _Cedo alteram!_ that is to say, "Give us another!"

"I'm certain," said the barbarian--"I'll wager that Cedo Alteram will tan my back as a tanner whacks a bullock's hide. It's abominable, my friend, abominable."

The worthy pair were now stragglers behind the army, because Aragaris according to his custom had got dead drunk in a plundered village and Strombix had been thrashed. The little Syrian had made a fruitless attempt to obtain the favours of a handsome Frankish girl. This sixteen-year-old-beauty, daughter of a barbarian killed in the fight, had administered to him two such blows that he had fallen on his back and had then fairly stamped upon him.

"She wasn't a girl but a devil," declared Strombix. "I hardly took hold of her and she nearly broke every rib in my body."

The note of the trumpet became more and more distinct. Aragaris, sniffing the wind like a blood-hound, noticed the smell of smoke; the bivouacs must be but a short way off.

The night became pitch dark. They could hardly make out the road; the path was lost in marshes in which they leapt from tussock to tussock. Fog began to rise. Suddenly from a great yew, with branches from which moss hung like long grey beards, something fled away with a harsh cry. Strombix crouched down with fear. It was a black cock.

They finally lost their bearings. Strombix climbed a tree.

"The bivouacs lie northwards--not far off. There's a wide river below."

"The Rhine, the Rhine!" exclaimed Aragaris. "Now go ahead!"

They slid down through the birches and aspen trees a hundred years old.

"Cousin, I'm drowning!" yelled Strombix. "Somebody's hauling me by the feet!"

"Where are you?"

With great difficulty Aragaris extricated him, and, swearing, took him on his shoulders. Under his feet the Sarmatian felt the stems of faggots laid down by the Romans. This causeway of faggot work led to the great road hewn not long before through the forest by the army of Severus, Julian's general. The barbarians, according to their custom, had blocked and encumbered the track with enormous trunks of trees. These trunks had to be clambered over. Sometimes rotten, moss-covered, and crumbling under foot, and sometimes hard and slippery with rain, they made the march most difficult; and it was by roads like these, always in fear of an attack, that the army of about thirteen thousand men had to move. That army every Imperial general except Severus had traitorously abandoned.

Strombix was cursing his comrade--

"I won't go a step farther, heathen! I'd rather lie down on the dead leaves and die; at least I should not see your damned visage--huh! Unbeliever! It's easy to see that you don't wear the cross! Is it a Christian's business to drag along a road like this, and what are we pushing on to? The rods of the centurion. I won't go a step farther."

Aragaris hauled him on by main force, and, when the road became more practicable, carried shoulder-high the whimsical companion who kept abusing and pummelling him all the time and shortly fell soundly asleep on those mighty pagan shoulders.

At midnight they reached the gates of the Roman camp. Everything was still. The drawbridge had long been raised. The friends had to sleep in the wood near the hinder gate, usually called the Decumanal.

At dawn the trumpet sounded. The nightingale had been singing in the misty wood; he ceased, frightened by the warlike notes. Aragaris snuffed the smell of soup and woke Strombix. They made their way into the camp and sat down near the cauldrons. In the principal tent near the Pretorian gate the Cæsar Julian was keeping watch.

From the day on which he had been nominated Cæsar at Milan thanks to the protection of the Empress Eusebia, Julian had applied himself with zeal to soldierly exercises. He not only used to study the art of war under the direction of Severus, but desired moreover to master every detail of the work of the rank and file. Within sound of the trumpet, in barracks, on the Campus Martius in company with new recruits, during whole days he would learn to march, to use the bow and sling, to leap ditches, and to run under the heavy weight of full marching order. He became also an adept in swordsmanship.

The blood of the race of Constantine, a race of austere and obstinate warriors, woke in the young man and overcame his monkish hypocrisy.

"Alack! divine Iamblicus and Plato! if you could only see what your pupil is becoming!" he would sometimes exclaim, wiping the sweat from his brow.

And pointing to his armour he would add--

"Don't you think, Severus, that this steel sits as badly on a pupil of philosophers as a war-saddle on an ox?"

Severus would only reply by a mischievous smile; he knew that these sighings and complaints were not sincere, and that in reality Julian was delighted with his military progress.

In a few months he had been so transformed and hardened into manhood that it was not easy to recognise in him the "little Greek" of the Court of Constantius. His eyes alone had not changed, still shining with a strange and unforgettable keenness which had in it something of fever. Julian felt himself growing stronger every day, not only physically, but morally also. For the first time in his existence he felt the happiness that comes from the love of simple and common folk.

From the first it had gratified the legionaries to see a real Cæsar, cousin of the Augustus, learning soldiering in barracks, with no repugnance for the coarse fare of soldiers. Austere faces of the veterans would light up with grim tenderness as they watched young Cæsar, and remembering their own youth wondered at his rapid progress. Julian used to hail them, listen to their gossip over old campaigns, and advice about fastening the breastplate so that the straps might chafe less and the best way of holding the foot while marching to avoid over-fatigue.

The rumour went round that the Emperor Constantius had sent the inexperienced young man among the barbarians of Gaul to get killed, that he himself might be rid of a rival. It was said that the generals, following the hints of Imperial eunuchs, had abandoned and betrayed the young Cæsar accordingly. All this increased the affection of the legions for Julian.

Skilled in the arts of winning favour, acquired during his monkish education, Julian cautiously used every means to strengthen the love felt towards himself and to deepen the unpopularity of the Emperor. Before the soldiers he would speak of his brother Constantius with meaning humility, lowering his eyes and affecting the aspect of a victim. It was the easier for him to captivate the warriors by fearlessness, inasmuch as death in battle seemed to him a thing to be desired. The kind of death to which Gallus had been subjected formed no part of his designs.

Julian had organised his life after the austere example of ancient conquerors. His stoic education by the tutor Mardonius helped him to endure total absence of comfort. He allowed himself less sleep than the meanest soldier, and lay not on a bed but upon a coarse rough carpet, like that called in popular parlance _suburra_.

The first part of the night was devoted to sleep, the second to the business of state and war, the third to the Muses. For Julian's favourite books were never left behind when he was campaigning. He inspired himself with Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Cato the elder; and by day he endeavoured to put in practice what he had mused over with them by night.

On the memorable morning before the battle of Argentoratum, when he heard the _reveillé_ at dawn, Julian quickly donned complete armour, and ordered his charger to be brought round. While waiting he withdrew into the inmost part of the tent. There was ensconced a lovely statuette of the winged Mercury, bearing the caduceus--the god of movement, gaiety, success. Julian bowed before the image and threw some grains of incense on a little tripod. According to the direction of the smoke the Cæsar, who flattered himself that he understood the divining art, sought to ascertain the influence of the day. Overnight he had heard a raven crying three times--a bad omen.

Julian was so convinced that his unexpected military success in Gaul was due to some supernatural power that from day to day he became more superstitious.

When issuing from the tent he stumbled over the wooden beam at the threshold. The face of the Cæsar darkened. All the omens were unfavourable; he inwardly resolved to postpone the battle till the morrow.