A Friend of Caesar by William Stearns Davis

W >> William Stearns Davis >> A Friend of Caesar

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34

[20] A member of the band who with Catiline conspired in 63 B.C. to
overthrow the Roman government.

[21] The Roman millionaire who had just been slain in Parthia.

"I thank them for nothing," was her answer; then more shyly, "except
for your own coming; for, Quintus, you--you--will marry me before very
long?"

"What hinders?" cried the other, in the best of spirits. "To-morrow I
go to Rome; then back again! And then all Praeneste will flock to our
marriage train. No, pout no more over Lucius Ahenobarbus. He shan't
pay disagreeable attentions. And now over to the old villa; for
Mamercus is eating his heart out to see me!"

And away they went arm in arm.

Drusus's head was in the air. He had resolved to marry Cornelia, cost
what it might to his desires. He knew now that he was affianced to the
one maiden in the world quite after his own heart.

III

The paternal villa of Drusus lay on the lower part of the slope of the
Praeneste citadel, facing the east. It was a genuine country and
farming estate--not a mere refuge from the city heat and hubbub. The
Drusi had dwelt on it for generations, and Quintus had spent his
boyhood upon it. The whole mass of farm land was in the very pink of
cultivation. There were lines of stately old elms enclosing the
estate; and within, in regular sequence, lay vineyards producing the
rather poor Praeneste wine, olive orchards, groves of walnut trees, and
many other fruits. Returning to the point where he had left the
carriage, Drusus led Cornelia up a broad avenue flanked by noble
planes and cypresses. Before them soon stood, or rather stretched, the
country house. It was a large grey stone building, added to, from time
to time, by successive owners. Only in front did it show signs of
modern taste and elegance. Here ran a colonnade of twelve red porphyry
pillars, with Corinthian capitals. The part of the house reserved for
the master lay behind this entrance way. Back of it rambled the
structure used by the farm steward, and the slaves and cattle. The
whole house was low--in fact practically one-storied; and the effect
produced was perhaps substantial, but hardly imposing.

Up the broad avenue went the two young people; too busy with their own
gay chatter to notice at a distance how figures were running in and
out amid the colonnade, and how the pillars were festooned with
flowers. But as they drew nearer a throng was evident. The whole farm
establishment--men, women, and children--had assembled, garlanded and
gayly dressed, to greet the young master. Perhaps five hundred
persons--nearly all slaves--had been employed on the huge estate, and
they were all at hand. As Drusus came up the avenue, a general shout
of welcome greeted him.

"_Ave! Ave! Domine!_" and there were some shouts as Cornelia was seen
of, "_Ave! Domina!_"

"_Domina_[22] here very soon," said Drusus, smiling to the young lady;
and disengaging himself from her, he advanced to greet personally a
tall, ponderous figure, with white, flowing hair, a huge white beard,
and a left arm that had been severed at the wrist, who came forward
with a swinging military stride that seemed to belie his evident years.

[22] _Domina_, mistress.

"All hail, dearest Mamercus!" exclaimed the young man, running up to
the burly object. "Here is the little boy you used to scold, fondle,
and tell stories to, back safe and sound to hear the old tales and to
listen to some more admonitions."

The veteran made a hurried motion with his remaining hand, as if to
brush something away from his eyes, and his deep voice seemed a trifle
husky when he replied, speaking slowly:--

"_Mehercle!_[23] All the Gods be praised! The noble Sextus living
again in the form of his son! Ah! This makes my old heart glad;" and
he held out his hand to Drusus. But the young man dashed it away, and
flinging his arms around Mamercus's neck, kissed him on both cheeks.
Then when this warm greeting was over, Drusus had to salute Titus
Mamercus, a solid, stocky, honest-faced country lad of eighteen, the
son of the veteran; and after Titus--since the Mamerci and Drusi were
remotely related and the _jus oscului_[24]--less legally, the "right
of kissing"--existed between them, he felt called upon to press the
cheek of AEmilia, Mamercus's pretty daughter, of about her brother's
age. Cornelia seemed a little discomposed at this, and perhaps so gave
her lover a trifling delight. But next he had to shake all the
freedmen by the hand, also the older and better known slaves; and to
say something in reply to their congratulations. The mass of the
slaves he could not know personally; but to the assembled company he
spoke a few words, with that quiet dignity which belongs to those who
are the heirs of generations of lordly ancestors.

[23] By Hercules.

[24] The right of kissing kinsfolk within the sixth degree.

"This day I assume control of my estate. All past offences are
forgiven. I remit any punishments, however justly imposed. To those
who are my faithful servants and clients I will prove a kind and
reasonable master. Let none in the future be mischievous or idle; for
them I cannot spare. But since the season is hot, in honour of my
home-coming, for the next ten days I order that no work, beyond that
barely needed, be done in the fields. Let the familia enjoy rest, and
let them receive as much wine as they may take without being unduly
drunken. Geta, Antiochus, and Kebes, who have been in this house many
years, shall go with me before the praetor, to be set free."

And then, while the slaves still shouted their _aves_ and _salves_,
Mamercus led Drusus and Cornelia through the old villa, through the
atrium where the fountain tinkled, and the smoky, waxen death-masks of
Quintus's noble ancestors grinned from the presses on the wall;
through the handsomely furnished rooms for the master of the house;
out to the barns and storehouses, that stretched away in the rear of
the great farm building. Much pride had the veteran when he showed the
sleek cattle, the cackling poultry-yard, and the tall stacks of hay;
only he growled bitterly over what he termed the ill-timed leniency of
his young patron in releasing the slaves in the chain-gang.

"Oh, such times!" he muttered in his beard; "here's this young upstart
coming home, and teaches me that such dogs as I put in fetters are
better set at large! There'll be a slave revolt next, and some night
all our throats will be cut. But it's none of my doing."

"Well," said Drusus, smiling, "I've been interested at Athens in
learning from philosophy that one owes some kindness even to a slave.
But it's always your way, Mamercus, to tell how much better the old
times were than the new."

"And I am right," growled the other. "Hasn't a man who fought with
Marius, and helped to beat those northern giants, the Cimbri and
Teutones, a right to his opinion? The times are evil--evil! No justice
in the courts. No patriotism in the Senate. Rascality in every consul
and praetor. And the 'Roman People' orators declaim about are only a
mob! _Vah!_ We need an end to this game of fauns and satyrs!"

"Come," said Drusus, "we are not at such a direful strait yet. There
is one man at least whom I am convinced is not altogether a knave; and
I have determined to throw in my lot with him. Do you guess,
Mamercus?"

"Caesar?"

Drusus nodded. Mamercus broke out into a shout of approval.

"_Euge!_ Unless my son Decimus, who is centurion with him, writes me
false, _he_ is a man!"

But Cornelia was distressed of face.

"Quintus," she said very gravely, "do you know that I have often heard
that Caesar is a wicked libertine, who wishes to make himself tyrant?
What have you done?"

"Nothing rashly," said Drusus, also quite grave; "but I have counted
the matter on both sides--the side of Pompeius and the Senate, and the
side of Caesar--and I have written to Balbus, Caesar's manager at Rome,
that I shall use my tiny influence for the proconsul of the Gauls."

Cornelia seemed greatly affected; she clasped and unclasped her hands,
pressed them to her brows; then when she let them fall, she was again
smiling.

"Quintus," she said, putting her arm around him, "Quintus, I am only a
silly little girl. I do not know anything about politics. You are
wiser than I, and I can trust you. But please don't quarrel with my
uncle Lentulus about your decision. He would be terribly angry."

Quintus smiled in turn, and kissing her, said: "Can you trust me? I
hope so. And be assured I will do all I may, not to quarrel with your
uncle. And now away with all this silly serious talk! What a pity for
Mamercus to have been so gloomy as to introduce it! What a pity I must
go to Rome to-morrow, and leave this dear old place! But then, I have
to see my aunt Fabia, and little Livia, the sister I haven't met since
she was a baby. And while I am in Rome I will do something else--can
you guess?" Cornelia shook her head. "Carpenters, painters, masons! I
will send them out to make this old villa fresh and pretty for some
one who, I hope, will come here to live in about a month. No, don't
run away," for Cornelia was trying to hide her flushed face by flight;
"I have something else to get--a present for your own dear self. What
shall it be? I am rich; cost does not matter."

Cornelia pursed her lips in thought.

"Well," she remarked, "if you could bring me out a pretty boy, not too
old or too young, one that was honest and quick-witted, he would be
very convenient to carry messages to you, and to do any little
business for me."

Cornelia asked for a slave-boy just as she might have asked for a new
pony, with that indifference to the question of humanity which
indicated that the demarcation between a slave and an animal was very
slight in her mind.

"Oh! that is nothing," said Drusus; "you shall have the handsomest and
cleverest in all Rome. And if Mamercus complains that I am extravagant
in remodelling the house, let him remember that his wonderful Caesar,
when a young man, head over ears in debt, built an expensive villa at
Aricia, and then pulled it down to the foundations and rebuilt on an
improved plan. Farewell, Sir Veteran, I will take Cornelia home, and
then come back for that dinner which I know the cook has made ready
with his best art."

Arm in arm the young people went away down the avenue of shade trees,
dim in the gathering twilight. Mamercus stood gazing after them.

"What a pity! What a pity!" he repeated to himself, "that Sextus and
Caius are not alive; how they would have rejoiced in their children!
Why do the fates order things as they do? Only let them be kind enough
to let me live until I hold another little Drusus on my knee, and tell
him of the great battles! But the Gods forbid, Lentulus should find
out speedily that his lordship has gone over to Caesar; or there will
be trouble enough for both his lordship and my lady. The consul-elect
is a stubborn, bitter man. He would be terribly offended to give his
niece in marriage to a political enemy. But it may all turn out well.
Who knows?" And he went into the house.

Chapter II

The Upper Walks of Society

I

It was very early in the morning. From the streets, far below, a dull
rumbling was drifting in at the small, dim windows. On the couch,
behind some faded curtains, a man turned and yawned, grunted and
rubbed his eyes. The noise of the heavy timber, stone, and merchandise
wagons hastening out of the city before daybreak,[25] jarred the room,
and made sleep almost impossible. The person awakened swore quietly to
himself in Greek.

[25] No teaming was allowed in Rome by day.

"_Heracles!_ Was ever one in such a city! What malevolent spirit
brought me here? Throat-cutting on the streets at night; highwaymen in
every foul alley; unsafe to stir at evening without an armed band! No
police worth mentioning; freshets every now and then; fires every day
or else a building tumbles down. And then they must wake me up at an
unearthly hour in the morning. Curses on me for ever coming near the
place!" And the speaker rolled over on the bed, and shook himself,
preparatory to getting up.

"Bah! Can these Roman dogs never learn that power is to be used, not
abused? Why don't they spend some of their revenues to level these
seven hills that shut off the light, and straighten and widen their
abominable, ill-paved streets, and keep houses from piling up as if to
storm Olympus? Pshaw, I had better stop croaking, and be up and
about."

The speaker sat up in bed, and clapped his hands. Into the ill-lighted
and unpretentiously furnished room came a tall, bony, ebon-skinned old
Ethiopian, very scantily attired, who awaited the wishes of his
master.

"Come, Sesostris," said the latter, "get out my best
_himation_[26]--the one with the azure tint. Give me a clean
_chiton_,[27] and help me dress."

[26] Greek outer mantle.

[27] Greek under garment.

And while the servant bustled briskly about his work, Pratinas, for
such was his lord's name, continued his monologue, ignoring the
presence of his attendant. "Not so bad with me after all. Six years
ago to-day it was I came to Rome, with barely an obol of ready money,
to make my fortune by my wits. Zeus! But I can't but say I've
succeeded. A thousand sesterces here and five hundred there, and now
and then a better stroke of fortune--politics, intrigues, gambling;
all to the same end. And now?--oh, yes, my 'friends' would say I am
very respectable, but quite poor--but they don't know how I have
economized, and how my account stands with Sosthenes the banker at
Alexandria. My old acquaintance with Lucius Domitius was of some use.
A few more months of this life and I am away from this beastly Rome,
to enjoy myself among civilized people."

Pratinas went over to a large wooden chest with iron clasps, unlocked
it, and gazed for a moment inside with evident satisfaction. "There
are six good talents in there," he remarked to himself, "and then
there is Artemisia."

He had barely concluded this last, hardly intelligible assertion, when
the curtain of the room was pushed aside, and in came a short, plump,
rosy-faced little maiden of twelve, with a clearly chiselled Greek
profile and lips as red as a cherry. Her white chiton was mussed and a
trifle soiled; and her thick black hair was tied back in a low knot,
so as to cover what were two very shapely little ears. All in all, she
presented a very pretty picture, as the sunlight streamed over her,
when she drew back the hangings at the window.

"Good morning, Uncle Pratinas," she said sweetly.

"Good morning, Artemisia, my dear," replied the other, giving her
round neck a kiss, and a playful pinch. "You will practise on your
lyre, and let Sesostris teach you to sing. You know we shall go back
to Alexandria very soon; and it is pleasant there to have some
accomplishments."

"And must you go out so early, uncle?" said the girl. "Can't you stay
with me any part of the day? Sometimes I get very lonely."

"Ah! my dear," said Pratinas, smoothly, "if I could do what I wished,
I would never leave you. But business cannot wait. I must go and see
the noble Lucius Calatinus on some very important political matters,
which you could not understand. Now run away like a good girl, and
don't become doleful."

Artemisia left the room, and Pratinas busied himself about the fine
touches of his toilet. When he held the silver mirror up to his face,
he remarked to himself that he was not an unhandsome man. "If I did
not have to play the philosopher, and wear this thick, hot beard,[28]
I would not be ashamed to show my head anywhere." Then while he
perfumed himself with oil of saffron out of a little onyx bottle, he
went on:--

[28] At an age when respectable men were almost invariably smooth
shaven, the philosophers wore flowing beards, as a sort of professional
badge.

"What dogs and gluttons these Romans are! They have no real taste for
art, for beauty. They cannot even conduct a murder, save in a bungling
way. They have to call in us Hellenes to help them. Ha! ha! this is
the vengeance for Hellas, for the sack and razing of Corinth and all
the other atrocities! Rome can conquer with the sword; but we Greeks,
though conquered, can, unarmed, conquer Rome. How these Italians can
waste their money! Villas, statues, pretty slaves, costly vases, and
tables of mottled cypress,[29] oysters worth their weight in gold, and
I know not what else! And I, poor Pratinas, the Greek, who lives in an
upper floor of a Subura house at only two thousand sesterces rental,
find in these noble Roman lords only so much plunder. Ha! ha! Hellas,
thou art avenged!"

[29] A "fad" of this time. Such tables often cost $20,000.

And gathering his mantle about him, he went down the several flights
of very rickety stairs, and found himself in the buzzing street.

II

The Romans hugged a fond belief that houses shut out from sunlight and
air were extremely healthy. If such were the fact, there should have
been no sickness in a great part of the capital. The street in which
Pratinas found himself was so dark, that he was fain to wait till his
eyes accommodated themselves to the change. The street was no wider
than an alley, yet packed with booths and hucksters,--sellers of
boiled peas and hot sausage, and fifty other wares. On the worthy
Hellene pressed, while rough German slaves or swarthy Africans jostled
against him; the din of scholars declaiming in an adjoining school
deafened him; a hundred unhappy odors made him wince. Then, as he
fought his way, the streets grew a trifle wider; as he approached the
Forum the shops became more pretentious; at last he reached his
destination in the aristocratic quarter of the Palatine, and paused
before a new and ostentatious mansion, in whose vestibule was swarming
a great bevy of clients, all come in the official calling costume--a
ponderous toga--to pay their respects to the great man. But as the
inner door was pushed aside by the vigilant keeper, all the rest of
the crowd were kept out till Pratinas could pass within.

The atrium of the house was a splendid sight, with its veined marble
pillars, mosaic floor, bubbling fountain, choice frescoes, and
expensive furniture upholstered in Tyrian purple. A little in the rear
of this gorgeous room was seated in a high armchair the individual who
boasted himself the lord of this establishment, Lucius Atilius
Calatinus. He was a large, coarse man, with a rough, bull-dog face and
straight red hair. He had been drinking heavily the night before, and
his small bluish eyes had wide dark circles beneath them, and his
breath showed strongly the garlic with which he had seasoned the bread
and grapes of his early lunch. He was evidently very glad to see his
Greek visitor, and drove the six large, heavily gemmed rings which he
wore on one of his fat fingers, almost into the other's hand when he
shook it.

"Well met, Pratinas!" was his salutation. "Tell me, is that little
affair of yours settled? Have you stopped the mouth of that beastly
fellow, Postumus Pyrgensis, who said that I was a base upstart, with
no claim to my gentile name, and a bad record as a tax farmer in
Spain, and therefore should not be elected tribune[30]?"

[30] The ten tribunes had power to convene the people and Senate,
propose laws and "veto" the actions of other magistrates.

"I have stopped him," said Pratinas, with a little cough. "But it was
expensive. He stuck out for ten thousand sesterces."

"Oh, cheaply off," said Calatinus, laughing. "I will give you my
cheque on Flaccus the banker. But I want to know about the other
matter. Can you make sure of the votes of the Suburana tribe? Have you
seen Autronius?"

"I have seen him," said Pratinas, dryly.

"And he said?"

"Twenty thousand sesterces for him to deposit with trustees[31] until
the election is over. Then he as go-between[32] will make sure of a
majority of the tribesmen, and distribute to them the money if all
goes well at the _comitia_.[33] It was the best bargain I could make;
for Autronius really controls the tribe, and some one might outbid us."

[31] _Sequestres_.

[32] _Interpres_.

[33] Assembly of the Roman tribes for election.

"All right," broke out Calatinus with a laugh, "another cheque on
Flaccus."

"One thing else," said Pratinas; "I must have a little money to shut
up any complaints that those ridiculous anti-bribery Licinian and
Pompeian Laws are being broken. Then there is my fee."

"Oh, yes," replied the other, not to be daunted in his good humour,
"I'll give you fifty thousand in all. Now I must see this rabble."

And the mob of clients swept up to the armchair, grasping after the
great man's hand, and raining on him their _aves_, while some daring
mortals tried to thrust in a kiss.

Pratinas drew back and watched the crowd with a smile half cynical,
half amused. Some of the visitors were regular hangers-on, who perhaps
expected an invitation to dine; some were seekers of patronage; some
had an eye to political preferment, a few were real acquaintances of
Calatinus or came on some legitimate business. Pratinas observed three
friends waiting to speak with Calatinus, and was soon in conversation.

The first of the trio was known as Publius Gabinius, who was by far
the oldest. Coarse-featured, with broken complexion, it needed but a
glance to proclaim him as gifted with no other distinctions than those
of a hard drinker, fast liver, and the owner of an attenuated
conscience. Servius Flaccus, the second, was of a different type. He
was languid; spirited only when he railed at a slave who brushed
against his immaculate toga. The frills on his robes made him almost
feminine; and he spoke, even in invective, in a soft, lisping voice.
Around him floated the aroma of countless rare unguents, that made his
coming known afar off. His only aim in life was evidently to get
through it with as little exertion of brain or muscle as was possible.
The third friend was unlike the others. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
clearly amounted to more than either of his companions. A constant
worship of three very popular gods of the day--Women, Wine, and
Gaming--with the other excitements of a dissipated life, had ruined a
fine fair complexion. As it was, he had the profile of a handsome,
affable man; only the mouth was hard and sensual, and his skin was
faded and broken. He wore a little brown beard carefully trimmed
around his well-oiled chin after the manner of Roman men of fashion;
and his dark hair was crimped in regular steps or gradations, parting
in the middle and arranged on both sides like a girl's.[34]

[34] Suet., "Nero," 51.

"Good morning, Pratinas!" said Lucius, warmly, taking the Greek's
hand. "How glad we are to find you here. I wanted to ask you around to
Marcus Laeca's to-night; we think he will give something of a feast,
and you must see my latest sweetheart--Clyte! She is a little pearl. I
have had her head cut in intaglio on this onyx; is she not pretty?"

"Very pretty," said Pratinas, looking at the engraving on the ring.
"But perhaps it is not right for me, a grave philosopher, to go to
your banquet."

"How (h)absurd! (H)of c(h)ourse you c(h)an!" lisped Flaccus, who
affected Greek so far as to aspirate every word beginning with a
vowel, and to change every _c_ into a _ch_.

"Well," said Pratinas, laughing, for he was a dearly loved favourite
of all these gilded youth, "I will see! And now Gabinius is inviting
Calatinus also, and we are dispersing for the morning."

"Alas," groaned Ahenobarbus, "I must go to the Forum to plead with
that wretch Phormio, the broker, to arrange a new loan."

"And I to the Forum, also," added Calatinus, coming up, "to continue
this pest of a canvass for votes."

The clients fell into line behind Calatinus like a file of soldiers,
but before Pratinas could start away with the other friends, a
slave-boy came running out from the inner house, to say that "the Lady
Valeria would be glad of his company in her boudoir." The Greek bowed
his farewells, then followed the boy back through the court of the
peristylium.[35]

[35] An inner private court back of the atrium.

III

The dressing room occupied by Valeria--once wife of Sextus Drusus and
now living with Calatinus as her third husband in about four
years--was fitted up with every luxury which money, and a taste which
carried refinement to an extreme point, could accomplish. The walls
were bright with splendid mythological scenes by really good artists;
the furniture itself was plated with silver; the rugs were
magnificent. The mistress of this palatial abode was sitting in a low
easy-chair, holding before her a fairly large silver mirror. She wore
a loose gown of silken texture, edged to an ostentatious extent with
purple. Around her hovered Arsinoe and Semiramis, two handsome Greek
slave-girls, who were far better looking than their owner, inasmuch as
their complexions had never been ruined by paints and ointments. They
were expert hairdressers, and Valeria had paid twenty-five thousand
sesterces for each of them, on the strength of their proficiency in
that art, and because they were said to speak with a pure Attic Greek
accent. At the moment they were busy stripping off from the lady's
face a thick layer of dried enamel that had been put on the night
before.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34