A Friend of Caesar by William Stearns Davis

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As a result Cornelia speedily found herself again journeying, not this
time in a slow barge following the main branches of the Nile, but by
more rapid, if less luxurious, conveyance, now by land, now by water,
hurrying westward. They passed through Sethroe and Tanis, Mendes and
Sebennytus, Xais and Sais, where were the tomb of Osiris and the great
Egyptian university in this the capital of the mighty Pharaohs who had
wrested the nation from the clutches of Assyria. Then they fared up
the Nile to the old Milesian trading factory of Naucratis,--now
dropping into decline beside the thriving Alexandria,--and then by
boat they pressed on to the capital itself. Never more delightful
journey for Cornelia or for Drusus; they saw the strange land through
one another's eyes; they expressed their own thoughts through one
another's lips; they were happy together, as if children at play; and
Fabia was their never exacting, ever beneficent, guardian goddess.

Drusus and Cornelia were neither of them the same young persons who
had met in the gardens of the villa of the Lentuli two short years
before. They saw life with a soberer gaze; they had both the wisdom
that experience teaches. Yet for the time not a cloud was drifting
across their sky. Their passions and hates had been too fierce, too
pagan, to feel the death of even Cornelia's uncle very keenly. Lucius
Ahenobarbus was dead--they had no more thought for him than for a dead
viper. Lucius Domitius was dead. Gabinius and Dumnorix were dead.
Pompeius, the tool of guiltier men than himself, was dead. Pratinas
alone of all those who had crossed their path remained; but the wily
Greek was a mere creature of self-interest--what had he to gain by
pressing his animosity, if he had any, against them? Caesar was
triumphant. His enemies were barely lifting their heads in Africa.
Doubtless there was stern work awaiting the Imperator there, but what
of it? Was he not invincible? Was he not about to commence a new order
of things in the world, to tear down the old and decaying, to raise up
a steadfast fabric? Therefore the little party took its pleasure, and
enjoyed every ancient temple of the Amenhoteps, Thothmeses, and
Ramesides that they hurriedly visited; won the favour of the wrinkled
old priests by their plentiful votives of bright philippi; heard a
hundred time-honoured tales that they knew not whether to believe or
laugh at; speculated among themselves as to the sources of the Nile,
the cause of the vocal Memnon, and fifty more darkened wonders, and
resolved to solve every mystery during a second and more prolonged
visit.

So they came to Alexandria, but on the way called at the Nile villa
where was Artemisia, and, to the great satisfaction of that young lady
and of Agias, carried her along with them to the house of Cleomenes,
where that affable host and Berenice and Monime received them with
open arms.

Their pleasure at this reunion, however, began to abate when they
realized the disturbed state of the city.

"I can't say I like the situation," admitted Cleomenes, as soon as he
had been introduced to Drusus, and the first greetings were over; "you
know when Caesar landed he took his consular insignia with him, and the
mob made this mean that he was intending to overthrow the government
and make Egypt a Roman province. If you had not left for Pelusium so
hastily, you would have been present at a very serious riot, that was
with great difficulty put down. The soldiers of the royal garrison are
in an ugly mood, and so are the people. I suspect the king, or rather
Pothinus, is doing nothing to quiet them. There have been slight riots
for several days past, and a good many Roman soldiers who have
straggled away from the palace into the lower quarters of the city
have been murdered."

"I am glad," replied Drusus, "that I can leave Cornelia and my aunt
under your protection, for my duty may keep me continuously with the
Imperator."

The young officer at once hastened to the palace and reported for
service. Caesar questioned him as to the situation at Pelusium, and
Drusus described the unpromising attitude of Pothinus, and also
mentioned how he had found Cornelia and his aunt.

The general, engrossed as he was with his business of state and
threatening war, put all his duties aside and at once went to the
house of Cleomenes. It was the first time Cornelia had ever met the
man whose career had exerted such an influence upon her own life. She
had at first known of him only through the filthy, slanderous verses
of such oligarchs as Catullus and Calvus; then through her lover she
had come to look upon Caesar as an incarnation as it were of
omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence--the man for whom everything
was worth sacrificing, from whom every noble thing was to be expected.

She met the conquerer of Ariovistus, Vercingetorix, and Pompeius like
the frank-hearted, patrician maiden that she was, without shyness,
without servility.

"My father died in your army," she said on meeting; "my affianced
husband has taught me to admire you, as he himself does. Let us be
friends!"

And Caesar bowed as became the polished gentleman, who had been the
centre of the most brilliant salons of Rome, and took the hand she
offered, and replied:--

"Ah! Lady Cornelia, we have been friends long, though never we met
before! But I am doubly the friend of whosoever is the friend of
Quintus Livius Drusus."

Whereupon Cornelia was more completely the vassal of the Imperator
than ever, and words flew fast between them. In short, just as in the
case with Cleopatra, she opened her heart before she knew that she had
said anything, and told of all her life, with its shadows and
brightness; and Caesar listened and sympathized as might a father; and
Drusus perfectly realized, if Cornelia could not--how many-sided was
the man who could thus turn from weighing the fate of empires to
entering unfeignedly into a sharing of the hopes and fears of a very
young, and still quite unsophisticated, woman.

When the Imperator departed Drusus accompanied him to the palace.
Neither of the two, general nor subaltern, spoke for a long while; at
last Caesar remarked:--

"Do you know what is uppermost in my mind, after meeting women like
Fabia or Cornelia?"

Drusus shook his head.

"I believe that there are gods, who bring such creatures into the
world. They are not chance accretions of atoms." And then Caesar added,
half dreamily: "You ought to be a very happy man. I was once--it was
many years ago. Her name was Cornelia also."

* * * * *

Serious and more serious, grew the situation at Alexandria. King
Ptolemaeus and Pothinus came to the city from Pelusium. Caesar had
announced that he intended to examine the title of the young monarch
to the undivided crown, and make him show cause why he had expelled
Cleopatra. This the will of Ptolemaeus Auletes had enjoined the Roman
government to do; for in it he had commissioned his allies to see that
his oldest children shared the inheritance equally.

But Pothinus came to Alexandria, and trouble came with him. He threw
every possible obstacle in Caesar's way when the latter tried to
collect a heavy loan due the Romans by the late king. The etesian
winds made it impossible to bring up reenforcements, and Caesar's force
was very small. Pothinus grew more insolent each day. For the first
time, Drusus observed that his general was nervous, and suspicious
lest he be assassinated. Finally the Imperator determined to force a
crisis. To leave Egypt without humbling Pothinus meant a great
lowering of prestige. He sent off a private message to Palestine that
Cleopatra should come to Alexandria.

Cleopatra came, not in royal procession, for she knew too well the
finesse of the regent's underlings; but entered the harbour in
disguise in a small boat; and Apollodorus, her Sicilian confidant,
carried her into Caesar's presence wrapped in a bale of bedding which
he had slung across his back.

The queen's suit was won. Cleopatra and the Imperator met, and the two
strong personalities recognized each other's affinity instantly. Her
coming was as a thunder-clap to Pothinus and his puppet Ptolemaeus.
They could only cringe and acquiesce when Caesar ordered them to be
reconciled with the queen, and seal her restoration by a splendid
court banquet.

The palace servants made ready for the feast. The rich and noble of
Alexandria were invited. The stores of gold and silver vessels
treasured in the vaults of the Lagidae were brought forth. The arches
and columns of the palace were festooned with flowers. The best pipers
and harpers of the great city were summoned to delight with their
music. Precious wine of Tanis was ready to flow like water.

Drusus saw the preparations with a glad heart. Cornelia would be
present in all her radiancy; and who there would be more radiant than
she?

Chapter XXIV

Battling for Life

And then it was,--with the chariots bearing the guests almost driving
in at the gates of the palace,--that Cerrinius, Caesar's barber, came
before his master with an alarming tale. The worthy man declared that
he had lighted on nothing less than a plot to murder the Romans, one
and all, by admitting Achillas's soldiery to the palace enclosure,
while all the banqueters were helpless with drugged wine. Pratinas,
who had been supposed to be at Pelusium, Cerrinius had caught in
retired conference with Pothinus, planning the arrangement of the
feast. Achillas's mercenary army was advancing by stealthy marches to
enter the city in the course of the evening. The mob had been aroused
by agitators, until it was in a mood to rise en masse against the
Romans, and join in destroying them. Such, in short, was the barber's
story.

There was no time to delay. Caesar was a stranger in a strange and
probably hostile land, and to fail to take warning were suicide. He
sent for Pothinus, and demanded the whereabouts of Achillas's army.
The regent stammered that it was at Pelusium. Caesar followed up the
charge by inquiring about Pratinas. Pothinus swore that he was at
Pelusium also. But Caesar cut his network of lies short, by commanding
that a malefactor should be forced to swallow a beaker of the wine
prepared for the banquet. In a few moments the man was in a helpless
stupor.

The case was proved and Caesar became all action. A squad of
legionaries haled Pothinus away to an execution not long delayed.
Other legionaries disarmed and replaced the detachment of the royal
guard that controlled the palace gates and walls. And barely had these
steps been taken, when a courier thundered into the palace, hardly
escaped through the raging mob that was gaining control of the city.
Achillas, he reported, had wantonly murdered Dioscorides and Serapion,
whom Caesar had sent as envoys to Pelusium, and was marching on the
city with his whole army of Italian renegades, Syrian banditti,
convicts, and runaway slaves, twenty thousand strong.

There was nothing to do but to prepare to weather the storm in the
palace enclosure, which, with its high walls, was practically a
fortress in itself. There were only four thousand Romans, and yet
there was a long circuit of defences to man. But Drusus never saw his
general putting forth greater energy. That night, instead of feasting,
the soldiers laboured, piling up the ramparts by the light of torches.
The city was surging and thundering without the palace gates. Caesar
had placed the king under guard, but Arsinoe--his younger sister--had
slipped out of the palace to join herself to the advancing host of
Achillas, and speedily that general would be at hand. Caesar as usual
was everywhere, with new schemes for the defences, new enthusiasm for
his officers, new inspiration for his men. No one slept nor cared to
sleep inside the palace walls. They toiled for dear life, for with
morning, at most, Achillas would be upon them; and by morning, if
Pothinus's plans had not failed, they would have been drugged and
helpless to a man, none able to draw sword from scabbard. It was a new
experience to one and all, for these Romans to stand on the defensive.
For once Caesar had made a false step--he ought to have taken on his
voyage more men. He stood with his handful, with the sea on one side
of him and a great city and a nation in arms against him on the other.
The struggle was not to be for empire, but for life. But the Romans
were too busy that night to realize anything save the need of untiring
exertion. If they had counted the odds against them, four thousand
against a nation, they might well have despaired, though their
chieftain were Caesar.

Two years earlier Drusus, as he hurried to and fro transmitting orders
for his general, might have been fain to draw aside and muse on the
strangeness of the night scene. The sky was clear, as almost always in
a land where a thunder-storm is often as rare as an eclipse; the stars
twinkled out of heavens of soft blackness; the crescent of a new moon
hung like a silvered bow out over the harbour, and made a thin pathway
of lustre across the moving, shimmering waters. Dimly the sky-line was
visible; by the Pharos and its mole loomed the vague tracery of masts.
On the west and the south lay the white and dark masses of the city,
now and then brought into clearer relief as the moonbeams swept across
some stately pile, and touched on its Corinthian columns and nobly
wrought pediments. But Drusus was a soldier; and the best of poets
doubtless work poorly when their lives are hanging in the balance.
Over the flower-strewn walks, under the festooned colonnades, ran the
busy legionaries, bestirring themselves as never before; while
Diomedes, and Hector, and Patroclus, and fifty other heroic worthies
waged perpetual battle on their marble heights above the soldiers'
heads. On occasion Drusus was called to one of the upper terraces and
pinnacles of the palace buildings, and then he could catch a glimpse
of the whole sweep of the mighty city. Over to the southeast, where
was the Jewish quarter, the sky was beginning to redden. The mob had
begun to vent its passions on the innocent Israelites, and the
incendiary was at his work. A deep, low, growling hum, as of ten
thousand angry voices, drifted upon the night air. The beast called
the Alexandrian rabble was loose, and it was a terrible animal.

It was midnight. Drusus had toiled since noon. He had hardly tasted
food or drink since morning, but there were three feet more of brick,
stone, and rubbish to be added still to this and that rampart before
it would be secure, and a whole wing of the overgrown palace must be
pulled down to furnish the material. He had climbed out upon the roof
to aid in tearing up the tiles and to encourage the men by his
example, when some one plucked him from behind on the cloak--it was
Caesar.

"You are not needed here," said the general, in a voice that seemed a
bit strained to keep calm. "Read this--take all the men you want."

And the Imperator himself held up the torch, while Drusus took the
tablet thrust into his hands and read the hastily scribbled lines:--

"Cleomenes to Drusus. The ladies are in danger. I will resist the mob
as long as I can. Send help."

Drusus threw down the tablet; forgot to so much as salute his
commander. He had laid off his armour during the work on the ramparts;
he ran for it, put it on with feverish haste. A moment more and he was
running among the soldiers, calling this and that legionary by name.
The troops all knew him, and would have followed him to the death.
When he asked for thirty volunteers for dangerous service, none
demanded of him the occasion; he simply selected his men as fast as he
might. He secured four chariots and placed in them the fastest horses
in the royal stables and trusted men for drivers. He mounted the rest
of his thirty on other steeds, and the preparations were over. The
gate was thrown open; Decimus Mamercus, who was his subaltern, led out
the little company. Drusus rode out last, in one of the chariots. The
troops on the walls cheered them as they departed.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the palace there prevailed an
ominous silence. Earlier in the night a few cohorts had charged out
and scattered the street rabble; and the mob had kept at a distance.
There was no light save that of the moon and the distant glow of the
burning buildings. Drusus felt his breath coming thick and fast, the
drops of sweat were hanging on his forehead, something within was
driving his heart into his throat. "If--" he never went further;
unless he brought Cornelia and Fabia back to the palace unscathed, he
knew the Alexandrian rabble would howl over his unconscious body.

"Ride!" he commanded, as if the rush of the chariots and horses would
drown the fears that nearly drove him frantic. "Ride!"

The drivers lashed the teams, the horsemen pricked with the spur.
Drusus caught the reins from his chariot companion, and swung the lash
himself over the four steeds. Faster and faster they flew down the
splendidly paved and built highways. Temples and majestic public
buildings rose in sombre grandeur above their heads; above them winged
"Victories" seemed springing up into dark void, their sculptured
symmetries just visible in the moonlight. On and on, swift and more
swift--persons began shouting from the buildings which they passed,
now a few voices, now many, now a hundred. A volley of stones was
dashed down from the safe recesses of the pillars at the head of the
long flight of steps leading up to a temple. Presently an arrow
whirred over Drusus's head and smote on the masonry across the street.
There were lights ahead--scores of torches waving--a small building
was on fire; the glare grew redder and brighter every instant; and a
din, a din lifted by ten thousand men when their brute instincts are
enkindled, grew and grew. Drusus dashed the cold sweat from his brow,
his hand was trembling. He had a quiver and bow in the chariot,--a
powerful Parthian bow, and the arrows were abundant. Mamercus had
taught him to be a good archer, as a boy. Could he turn his old skill
to account? Not unless his hand became more steady.

Women screamed out at him and his band from the house roofs; a tile
struck one of the chariot horses and made it plunge wildly; Drusus
flung his strength into the reins, and curbed in the raging beast; he
tossed the lines back to his driver and tore the bow from its casings.
His car had rushed on ahead of Decimus Mamercus and the rest; two
furlongs more would bring him to the house of Cleomenes on one of the
squares of the city. The chariot swung around a street corner for the
final stretch, the way was broad, the buildings on either side (the
residences of the Alexandrian gentry) high; but the whole street from
wall to wall was a seething mass of human forms. The fire was
spreading; the brightening flames shone down on the tossing, howling
multitude--excited Egyptians from the quarter of Rhacotis, frenzied
Asiatics in their turbans, mad sailors from the Eunostian port and the
Pharos island. At the head of the street the flames were pressing in
upon a stately mansion around which the raging mob was packed thickly.
On the roof of the threatened house figures could be seen in the lurid
light, running to and fro, flinging down bricks and stones, and trying
to beat back the fire. It was the house of Cleomenes. Insensibly the
veteran who had been driving reined in the horses, who themselves drew
back, loath to plunge into the living barriers ahead. But Drusus was
past fear or prudence; with his own hands he sent the lash stinging
over all the four, and the team, that had won more than a single
trophy in the games, shot forward. The chariot struck the multitude
and went, not through it, but over it. The on-rush was too rapid, too
unexpected, for resistance. To right and left, as the water gives way
before the bows of an on-rushing ship, the crowd surged back, the
instinct of panic reigning in every breast. Thick and fast, as quickly
as he might set shaft to string, flew Drusus's arrows--not a shaft
that failed a mark, as it cut into the living masses. The chariot
reeled again and again, as this wheel or that passed over something
animate and struggling. The horses caught the fire of conflict; they
raced, they ran--and the others sped after them. The mob left off
howling: it screamed with a single voice of mortal dread. And before
Drusus or any one else realized, the deed was done, the long lane was
cleared, and the drivers were drawing rein before the house of
Cleomenes.

The heavily barred carriage-way was thrown open, the valiant merchant
and his faithful employees and slaves greeted their rescuers as the
little cavalcade drove in. There was not a moment to lose. Cleomenes
and his household might indeed have long made good the house against
the mere attacks of the mob; but the rioters had set the torch to some
adjacent buildings, and all efforts to beat back the flames were
proving futile. There was no time to condole with the merchant over
the loss of his house. The mob had surged again into the streets and
was pressing back, this time more or less prepared to resist the
Romans. The colonnades and the house roofs were swarming, the din was
indescribable, and the crackling and roar of the advancing flames grew
ever louder.

The only alternative was a return to the palace. Cleomenes's employees
and slaves were to scatter into the crowd, where they would easily
escape notice; he himself, with his daughters, Artemisia, and the
Roman ladies, must go in the chariots to the palace. Cornelia came
down from her chamber, her face more flushed with excitement than
alarm. Troubles enough she had had, but never before personal danger;
and she could not easily grasp the peril.

"Are you afraid, carissima," said Drusus, lifting her into his
chariot, "to ride back with me to the palace, through that wolf pack?"

"With you?" she said, admiring the ease with which he sprang about in
full armour; "I would laugh at Medusa or the Hydra of Lerna with you
beside me."

Cleomenes had been again upon the housetop to watch the progress of
the fire. He came down, and Drusus instantly saw that there was dismay
written on his face. The merchant, who was himself armed with sword
and target, drew the officer aside and whispered:--

"Pray, Roman, to all your native gods! I can see a _lochos_[184] of
regular troops filing into the square before the house. Achillas is
entering the city with his men. We shall have to fight our way through
his thousands."

[184] A company of about one hundred men.

Drusus uttered a deep and silent curse on himself for the mad bravado
that led him to leave the palace with but thirty men; why had he not
waited to assemble more? He could ride over the mob; to master
Achillas's disciplined forces was otherwise.

A freedman came running down from the roof, crying out that it was
already on fire. It was a time for action, not thought, yet even at
the moment Drusus's schoolboy Polybius was running through his
mind--the description of the great riot when Agathocles, the wicked
regent of Ptolemaeus Philopator, and his sister Agathocleia, and his
mother Oenanthe, had been seized by the multitude and torn in pieces,
bit by bit, while yet they lived. Cornelia seemed to have caught some
new cause for fear; she was trembling and shivering when Drusus took
her in his arms and swung her into the chariot. He lifted in Fabia
likewise, but the Vestal only bowed her head in calm silence. She had
overheard Cleomenes's tidings, but, by stress of all the force of her
strong nature, remained composed. Decimus Mamercus took Artemisia,
frightened and crying, into his own chariot. Monime, Berenice, and
their father were to go in the other cars. The fire was gaining on the
roof, smoke was pouring down into the court-yard, and now and then a
gleam came from a firebrand. The horses were growing restive and
frightened.

"Throw open the gate!" commanded Drusus; his anxieties and despair
were driving him almost to frenzy, but the gods, if gods there were,
knew that it was not for himself that he was fearful. His voice
sounded hollow in his throat; he would have given a talent of gold for
a draught of water. One of his men flung back the gateway, and in at
the entrance came the glare of great bonfires lighted in the streets,
of hundreds of tossing torches. The yelling of the multitude was
louder than ever. There it was, packed thick on all sides: in its
midst Drusus could see bright lines of tossing steel--the armour of
Achillas's soldiery! As the portal opened, a mighty howl of triumph
burst from the people; the fire had driven forth to the mob its prey.
Cornelia heard the howl--the voice of a wild and raging beast--and
trembled more.

"Cornelia," said Drusus, lowering his head so as to make himself
heard, "do not look above the framework of the chariot. Cling to it
tightly, for we may have to pass over obstacles. Above all, do not
spring out, however much we may be swayed and shaken."

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