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A Friend of Caesar by William Stearns Davis

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Had Valeria been willing, she might have feared no comparison with her
maids; for from a merely sensuous standpoint, she would have been
reckoned very beautiful. She had by nature large brown eyes, luxuriant
brown hair, and what had been a clear brunette skin, and well-rounded
and regular features. But her lips were curled in hard, haughty lines,
her long eyelashes drooped as though she took little interest in life;
and, worse than all, to satisfy the demands of fashion, she had
bleached her hair to a German blonde, by a process ineffective and
injurious. The lady was just fuming to herself over a gray hair
Arsinoe had discovered, and Arsinoe went around in evident fear lest
Valeria should vent her vexation on her innocent ministers.

Over in one corner of the room, on a low divan, was sitting a
strange-looking personage. A gaunt, elderly man clothed in a very
dingy Greek himation, with shaggy grey hair, and an enormous beard
that tumbled far down his breast. This personage was Pisander,
Valeria's "house-philosopher," who was expected to be always at her
elbow pouring into her ears a rain of learned lore. For this worthy
lady (and two thousand years later would she not be attending lectures
on Dante or Browning?) was devoted to philosophy, and loved to hear
the Stoics[36] and Epicureans expound their varying systems of the
cosmos. At this moment she was feasting her soul on Plato. Pisander
was reading from the "Phaidros," "They might have seen beauty shining
in brightness, when the happy band, following in the train of Zeus (as
we philosophers did; or with the other gods, as others did), saw a
vision, and were initiated into most blessed mysteries, which we
celebrated in our state of innocence; and having no feeling of evils
yet to come; beholding apparitions, innocent and simple and calm and
happy as in a mystery; shining in pure light; pure ourselves, and not
yet enchained in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we
are imprisoned in the body ..."

[36] The opponents of the Epicureans; they nobly antagonized the mere
pursuit of pleasure held out as the one end of life by the Epicurean,
and glorified duty.

"Pratinas, to see her ladyship!" bawled a servant-boy[37] at the
doorway, very unceremoniously interrupting the good man and his
learnedly sublime lore. And Pratinas, with the softest and sweetest of
his Greek smiles, entered the room.

[37] _Cubicularius_.

"Your ladyship does me the honour," he began, with an extremely
deferential salutation.

"Oh, my dear Pratinas," cried Valeria, in a language she called Greek,
seizing his hand and almost embracing him, "how delighted I am to see
you! We haven't met since--since yesterday morning. I did so want to
have a good talk with you about Plato's theory of the separate
existence of ideas. But first I must ask you, have you heard whether
the report is true that Terentia, Caius Glabrio's wife, has run off
with a gladiator?"

"So Gabinius, I believe," replied Pratinas, "just told me. And I heard
something else. A great secret. You must not tell."

"Oh! I am dying to know," smirked Valeria.

"Well," said the Greek, confidentially, "Publius Silanus has divorced
his wife, Crispia. 'She went too much,' he says, 'with young
Purpureo.'"

"You do not say so!" exclaimed the lady. "I always knew that would
happen! Now tell me, don't you think this perfume of iris is delicate?
It's in that little glass scent bottle; break the neck.[38] I shall
use it in a minute. I have just had some bottles sent up from Capua.
Roman perfumes are so vulgar!"

[38] To let out the ointment. Capua was a famed emporium for perfumes
and like wares.

"I fear," said Pratinas, doing as bidden, and testing the essence with
evident satisfaction, "that I have interrupted your philosophical
studies." And he glanced at Pisander, who was sitting lonesome and
offended in his corner.

"Oh! not in the least," ran on Valeria; "but though I know you are
Epicurean, surely you enjoy Plato?"

"Certainly," said Pratinas, with dramatic dignity, "I suck the sweets
from the flowers left us by all the wise and good. Epicurean though I
am, your ladyship must permit me to lend you a copy of an essay I have
with me, by that great philosopher, the Stoic Chrysippos,[39] although
I cannot agree with all his teachings; and this copy of Panaitios, the
Eclectic's great _Treatise on Duty_, which cannot fail to edify your
ladyship." And he held out the two rolls.

[39] Born 180 B.C.

"A thousand thanks," said Valeria, languidly, "hand them to Pisander.
I will have him read them. A little more white lead, Arsinoe, I am too
tanned; make me paler. Just run over the veins of my temples with a
touch of blue paint. Now a tint of antimony on my eyelids."

"Your ladyship seems in wonderfully good spirits this morning,"
insinuated Pratinas.

"Yes," said Valeria, with a sigh, "I endure the woes of life as should
one who is consoled by philosophy."

"Shall I continue the Plato?" edged in poor Pisander, who was raging
inwardly to think that Pratinas should dare to assume the name of a
"lover of learning."

"When you are needed, I can tell you," snapped Valeria, sharply, at
the feeble remonstrance. "Now, Semiramis, you may arrange my hair."

The girl looked puzzled. To tell the truth, Valeria was speaking in a
tongue that was a babel of Greek and Latin, although she fondly
imagined it to be the former, and Semiramis could hardly understand
her.

"If your ladyship will speak in Latin," faltered the maid.

"Speak in Latin! Speak in Latin!" flared up Valeria. "Am I deceived?
Are you not Greeks? Are you some ignorant Italian wenches who can't
speak anything but their native jargon? Bah! You've misplaced a curl.
Take that!" And she struck the girl across the palms, with the flat of
her silver mirror. Semiramis shivered and flushed, but said nothing.

"Do I not have a perfect Greek pronunciation?" said the lady, turning
to Pratinas. "It is impossible to carry on a polite conversation in
Latin."

"I can assure your ladyship," said the Hellene, with still another
bland smile, "that your pronunciation is something exceedingly
remarkable."

Valeria was pacified, and lay back submitting to her hairdressers[40],
while Pratinas, who knew what kind of "philosophy" appealed most to
his fair patroness, read with a delicate yet altogether admirable
voice, a number of scraps of erotic verse that he said friends had
just sent on from Alexandria.

[40] _Ornatrices_.

"Oh! the shame to call himself a philosopher," groaned the neglected
Pisander to himself. "If I believed in the old gods, I would invoke
the Furies upon him."

But Valeria was now in the best of spirits. "By the two
Goddesses,"[41] she swore, "what charming sentiments you Greeks can
express. Now I think I look presentable, and can go around and see
Papiria, and learn about that dreadful Silanus affair. Tell Agias to
bring in the cinnamon ointment. I will try that for a change. It is in
the murrhine[42] vase in the other room."

[41] Demeter and Persephone, a Greek woman's oath.

[42] A costly substance, probably porcelain agate.

Iasus the serving-boy stepped into the next apartment, and gave the
order to one of his fellow slaves. A minute later there was a crash.
Arsinoe, who was without, screamed, and Semiramis, who thrust her head
out the door, drew it back with a look of dismay.

"What has happened?" cried Valeria, startled and angry.

Into the room came Arsinoe, Iasus, and a second slave-boy, a
well-favoured, intelligent looking young Greek of about seventeen. His
ruddy cheeks had turned very pale, as had those of Iasus.

"What has happened?" thundered Valeria, in a tone that showed that a
sorry scene was impending.

The slaves fell on their knees; cowered, in fact, on the rugs at the
lady's feet.

"_A! A! A!_ Lady! Mercy!" they all began in a breath. "The murrhina
vase! It is broken!"

"Who broke it?" cried their mistress, casting lightning glances from
one to another.

Now the truth had been, that while Agias was coming through a door
covered with a curtain, carrying the vase, Iasus had carelessly
blundered against him and caused the catastrophe. But there had been
no other witnesses to the accident; and when Iasus saw that his
mistress's anger would promptly descend on somebody, he had not the
moral courage to take the consequences of his carelessness. What
amounted to a frightful crime was committed in an instant.

"Agias stumbled and dropped the vase," said Iasus, telling the truth,
but not the whole truth.

"Send for Alfidius the _lorarius_,"[43] raged Valeria, who, with the
promptness that characterizes a certain class of women, jumped at a
conclusion and remained henceforth obstinate. "This shall not happen
again! Oh! my vase! my vase! I shall never get another one like it! It
was one of the spoils of Mithridates, and"--here her eye fell on
Agias, cringing and protesting his innocence in a fearful agony.

[43] Whipper; many Roman houses had such a functionary, and he does
not seem to have lacked employment.

"Stand up, boy! Stop whining! Of course you broke the vase. Who else
had it? I will make you a lesson to all the slaves in my house. They
need one badly. I will get another serving-boy who will be more
careful."

Agias was deathly pale; the beads of sweat stood out on his forehead;
he grasped convulsively at the hem of his mistress's robe, and
murmured wildly of "mercy! mercy!" Pratinas stood back with his
imperturbable smile on his face; and if he felt the least pity for his
fellow-countryman, he did not show it.

"Alfidius awaits the mistress," announced Semiramis, with trembling
lips.

Into the room came a brutish, hard-featured, shock-headed man, with a
large scar, caused by branding, on his forehead. He carried a short
rope and scourge,[44]--a whip with a short handle to which were
attached three long lashes, set at intervals with heavy bits of
bronze. He cast one glance over the little group in the room, and his
dull piglike eyes seemed to light up with a fierce glee, as he
comprehended the situation.

[44] _Flagellum_.

"What does your ladyship wish?" he growled.

"Take this wretched boy," cried Valeria, spurning Agias with her foot;
"take him away. Make an example of him. Take him out beyond the Porta
Esquilina and whip him to death. Let me never see him again."

Pisander sprang up in his corner, quivering with righteous wrath.

"What is this?" he cried. "The lad is not guilty of any real crime. It
would be absurd to punish a horse for an action like his, and a slave
is as good as a horse. What philosopher could endure to see such an
outrage?"

Valeria was too excited to hear him. Pratinas coolly took the
perturbed philosopher round the waist, and by sheer force seated him
in a chair.

"My friend," he said calmly, "you can only lose your place by
interfering; the boy is food for the crows already. Philosophy should
teach you to regard little affairs like this unmoved."

Before Pisander could remonstrate further Alfidius had caught up Agias
as if he had been an infant, and carried him, while moaning and
pleading, out of the room. Iasus was still trembling. He was not a
knave--simply unheroic, and he knew that he had committed the basest
of actions. Semiramis and Arsinoe were both very pale, but spoke never
a word. Arsinoe looked pityingly after the poor boy, for she had grown
very fond of his bright words and obliging manners. For some minutes
there was, in fact, perfect silence in the boudoir.

Alfidius carried his victim out into the slaves' quarters in the rear
of the house; there he bound his hands and called in the aid of an
assistant to help him execute his mistress's stern mandate.

Agias had been born for far better things than to be a slave. His
father had been a cultured Alexandrine Greek, a banker, and had given
his young son the beginnings of a good education. But the rascality of
a business partner had sent the father to the grave bankrupt, the son
to the slave-market to satisfy the creditors. And now Alfidius and his
myrmidon bound their captive to a furca, a wooden yoke passing down
the back of the neck and down each arm. The rude thongs cut the flesh
cruelly, and the wretches laughed to see how the delicate boy writhed
and faltered under the pain and the load.

"Ah, ha! my fine _Furcifer_,"[45] cried Alfidius, when this work was
completed. "How do you find yourself?"

[45] Furca-bearer, a coarse epithet.

"Do you mock at me, you '_three letter man_'?" retorted Agias in grim
despair, referring cuttingly to FVR[46] branded on Alfidius's
forehead.

[46] Thief. Branding was a common punishment for slaves.

"So you sing, my pretty bird," laughed the executioner. "I think you
will croak sorrowfully enough before long. Call me '_man of letters_'
if you will; to-night the dogs tear that soft skin of yours, while my
hide is sound. Now off for the Porta Esquilina! Trot along with you!"
and he swung his lash over the wretched boy's shoulders.

Agias was led out into the street. He was too pained and numbed to
groan, resist, or even think and fear. The thongs might well have been
said to press his mind as much as his skin.




Chapter III

The Privilege of a Vestal


I

Drusus started long before daybreak on his journey to Rome; with him
went Cappadox, his ever faithful body-servant, and Pausanias, the
amiable and cultivated freedman who had been at his elbow ever since
he had visited Athens. For a while the young master dozed in his
carriage; but, as they whirled over mile after mile of the Campagna,
the sun arose; then, when sleep left him, the Roman was all alive to
the patriotic reminiscences each scene suggested. Yonder to the far
south lay Alba, the old home of the Latins, and a little southward too
was the Lake of Regillus, where tradition had it the free Romans won
their first victory, and founded the greatness of the Republic. Along
the line of the Anio, a few miles north, had marched Hannibal on his
mad dash against Rome to save the doomed Capua. And these pictures of
brave days, and many another vision like them, welled up in Drusus's
mind, and the remembrance of the marble temples of the Greek cities
faded from his memory; for, as he told himself, Rome was built of
nobler stuff than marble;--she was built of the deeds of men strong
and brave, and masters of every hostile fate. And he rejoiced that he
could be a Roman, and share in his country's deathless fame, perhaps
could win for her new honour,--could be consul, triumphator, and lead
his applauding legions up to the temple of Capitoline Jove--another
national glory added to so many.

So the vision of the great city of tall ugly tenement houses, basking
on her "Seven Hills," which only on their summits showed the nobler
temples or the dwellings of the great patricians, broke upon him. And
it was with eyes a-sparkle with enthusiasm, and a light heart, that he
reached the Porta Esquilina, left the carriage for a litter borne by
four stout Syrians sent out from the house of his late uncle, and was
carried soon into the hubbub of the city streets.

Everywhere was the same crowd; shopping parties were pressing in and
out the stores, outrunners and foot-boys were continually colliding.
Drusus's escort could barely win a slow progress for their master.
Once on the Sacred Way the advance was more rapid; although even this
famous street was barely twenty-two feet wide from house wall to house
wall. Here was the "Lombard" or "Wall Street" of antiquity. Here were
the offices of the great banking houses and syndicates that held the
world in fee. Here centred those busy equites, the capitalists, whose
transactions ran out even beyond the lands covered by the eagles, so
that while Gaul was yet unconquered, Cicero could boast, "not a
sesterce in Gaul changes hands without being entered in a Roman
ledger." And here were brokers whose clients were kings, and who by
their "influence" almost made peace or war, like modern Rothschilds.

Thither Drusus's litter carried him, for he knew that his first act on
coming to Rome to take possession of his uncle's property should be to
consult without delay his agent and financial and legal adviser, lest
any loophole be left for a disappointed fortune-hunter to contest the
will. The bearers put him down before the important firm of Flaccus
and Sophus. Out from the open, windowless office ran the senior
partner, Sextus Fulvius Flaccus, a stout, comfortable, rosy-faced old
eques, who had half Rome as his financial clients, the other half in
his debt. Many were his congratulations upon Drusus's manly growth,
and many more upon the windfall of Vibulanus's fortune, which, as he
declared, was too securely conveyed to the young man to be open to any
legal attack.

But when Drusus intimated that he expected soon to invite the good man
to his marriage feast, Flaccus shook his head.

"You will never get a sesterce of Cornelia's dowry," he declared. "Her
uncle Lentulus Crus is head over ears in debt. Nothing can save him,
unless--"

"I don't understand you," said the other.

"Well," continued Flaccus, "to be frank; unless there is nothing short
of a revolution."

"Will it come to that?" demanded Drusus.

"Can't say," replied Flaccus, as if himself perplexed. "Everybody
declares Caesar and Pompeius are dreadfully alienated. Pompeius is
joining the Senate. Half the great men of Rome are in debt, as I have
cause to know, and unless we have an overturn, with 'clean accounts'
as a result, more than one noble lord is ruined. I am calling in all
my loans, turning everything into cash. Credit is bad--bad. Caesar paid
Curio's debts--sixty millions of sesterces.[47] That's why Curio is a
Caesarian now. Oh! money is the cause of all these vile political
changes! Trouble is coming! Sulla's old throat cuttings will be
nothing to it! But don't marry Lentulus's niece!"

[47] I.e. $2,400,000; a sesterce was about 4 cents.

"Well," said Drusus, when the business was done, and he turned to go,
"I want Cornelia, not her dowry."

"Strange fellow," muttered Flaccus, while Drusus started off in his
litter. "I always consider the dowry the principal part of a
marriage."


II

Drusus regained his litter, and ordered his bearers to take him to the
house of the Vestals,--back of the Temple of Vesta,--where he wished
to see his aunt Fabia and Livia, his little half-sister. The Temple
itself--a small, round structure, with columns, a conical roof which
was fringed about with dragons and surmounted by a statue--still
showed signs of the fire, which, in 210 B.C., would have destroyed it
but for thirteen slaves, who won their liberty by checking the blaze.
Tradition had it that here the holy Numa had built the hut which
contained the hearth-fire of Rome,--the divine spark which now shed
its radiance over the nations. Back of the Temple was the House of the
Vestals, a structure with a plain exterior, differing little from the
ordinary private dwellings. Here Drusus had his litter set down for a
second time, and notified the porter that he would be glad to see his
aunt and sister. The young man was ushered into a spacious, handsomely
furnished and decorated atrium, where were arranged lines of statues
of the various _maximae_[48] of the little religious order. A shy young
girl with a white dress and fillet, who was reading in the apartment,
slipped noiselessly out, as the young man entered; for the novices
were kept under strict control, with few liberties, until their elder
sisters could trust them in male society. Then there was a rustle of
robes and ribbons, and in came a tall, stately lady, also in pure
white, and a little girl of about five, who shrank coyly back when
Drusus called her his "Liviola"[49] and tried to catch her in his
arms. But the lady embraced him, and kissed him, and asked a thousand
things about him, as tenderly as if she had been his mother.

[48] Senior Vestals.

[49] A diminutive of endearment.

Fabia the Vestal was now about thirty-seven years of age. One and
thirty years before had the Pontifex Maximus chosen her out--a little
girl--to become the priestess of Vesta, the hearth-goddess, the
home-goddess of Pagan Rome. Fabia had dwelt almost all her life in the
house of the Vestals. Her very existence had become identified with
the little sisterhood, which she and her five associates composed. It
was a rather isolated yet singularly pure and peaceful life which she
had led. Revolutions might rock the city and Empire; Marians and
Sullians contend; Catilina plot ruin and destruction; Clodius and his
ruffians terrorize the streets; but the fire of the great
hearth-goddess was never scattered, nor were its gentle ministers
molested. Fabia had thus grown to mature womanhood. Ten years she had
spent in learning the Temple ritual, ten years in performing the
actual duties of the sacred fire and its cultus, ten years in teaching
the young novices. And now she was free, if she chose, to leave the
Temple service, and even to marry. But Fabia had no intention of
taking a step which would tear her from the circle in which she was
dearly loved, and which, though permitted by law, would be publicly
deplored as an evil omen.

The Vestal's pure simple life had left its impress on her features.
Peace and innocent delight in innocent things shone through her dark
eyes and soft, well-rounded face. Her light brown hair was covered and
confined by a fillet of white wool.[50] She wore a stola and outer
garment of stainless white linen--the perfectly plain badge of her
chaste and holy office; while on her small feet were dainty sandals,
bound on by thongs of whitened leather. Everything about her dress and
features betokened the priestess of a gentle religion.

[50] _Infula_.

When questions and repeated salutations were over, and Livia had
ceased to be too afraid of her quite strange brother, Fabia asked what
she could do for her nephew. As one of the senior Vestals, her time
was quite her own. "Would he like to have her go out with him to visit
friends, or go shopping? Or could she do anything to aid him about
ordering frescoers and carpenters for the old Praeneste villa?"

This last was precisely what Drusus had had in mind. And so forth aunt
and nephew sallied. Some of the streets they visited were so narrow
that they had to send back even their litters; but everywhere the
crowds bowed such deference and respect to the Vestal's white robes
that their progress was easy. Drusus soon had given his orders to
cabinet-makers and selected the frescoer's designs. It remained to
purchase Cornelia's slave-boy. He wanted not merely an attractive
serving-lad, but one whose intelligence and probity could be relied
upon; and in the dealers' stalls not one of the dark orientals,
although all had around their necks tablets with long lists of
encomiums, promised conscience or character. Drusus visited, several
very choice boys that were exhibited in separate rooms, at fancy
prices, but none of these pretty Greeks or Asiatics seemed promising.

Deeply disgusted, he led Fabia away from the slave-market.

"I will try to-morrow," he said, vexed at his defeat. "I need a new
toga. Let us go to the shop on the Clivus Suburanus; there used to be
a good woollen merchant, Lucius Marius, on the way to the Porta
Esquilina."

Accordingly the two went on in the direction indicated; but at the
spot where the Clivus Suburanus was cut by the Vicus Longus, there was
so dense a crowd and so loud a hubbub, that their attendants could not
clear a way. For a time it was impossible to see what was the matter.
Street gamins were howling, and idle slaves and hucksters were pouring
forth volleys of taunts and derision at some luckless wight.

"Away with them! the whip-scoundrel! _Verbero!_"[51] yelled a lusty
produce-vender. "Lash him again! Tan his hide for him! Don't you enjoy
it? Not accustomed to such rough handling, eh! my pretty sparrow?"

[51] A coarse epithet.

Fabia without the least hesitation thrust herself into the
dirty-robed, foul-mouthed crowd. At sight of the Vestal's white dress
and fillets the pack gave way before her, as a swarm of gnats at the
wave of a hand. Drusus strode at her heels.

It was a sorry enough sight that met them--though not uncommon in the
age and place. Some wretched slave-boy, a slight, delicate fellow, had
been bound to the bars of a furca, and was being driven by two brutal
executioners to the place of doom outside the gates. At the
street-crossing he had sunk down, and all the blows of the driver's
scourge could not compel him to arise. He lay in the dust, writhing
and moaning, with the great welts showing on his bare back, where the
brass knots of the lash had stripped away the cloth.

"Release this boy! Cease to beat him!" cried Fabia, with a commanding
mien, that made the crowd shrink further back; while the two
executioners looked stupid and sheepish, but did nothing.

"Release this boy!" commanded the Vestal. "Dare you hesitate? Do you
wish to undo yourselves by defying me?"

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