VII.
"FREEDOM."
The morning air of the Seplasia reeked with perfumes, more, even, thanwas its wont; for Carthaginian and Capuan revellers had been carousingthere, and several of the shops had been broken open. The guttersstreamed wine with which were mingled all the essences of India andAsia. Flowers, withered and soaked with coarser odours than their own,floated on the pools and drifted down the rivulets. Inert bodies,drunk to repletion, lay scattered about, helpless, unable to drinkconsciously, but absorbing the wasted liquor through every pore. Adead citizen, his head crushed in by a single blow, sprawled hideouslyin the middle of the street; while his murderer, a gigantic Gaul, wasembracing the corpse with maudlin affection and whispering in its earto arise and guide him back to camp. Those who passed, from time totime, paused to join the soldier's comrades in laughter and rude jestsand suggestions of new methods of awakening his friend.
And now, down the street, extending from wall to wall, came a line ofyoung men, their faces flushed, their garments disordered or castaside, and their brows crowned with what had once been chaplets ofroses. Three or four courtesans, with gowns and tunics torn from theirwhite shoulders, were being dragged along, half laughing, halfresisting, and wholly possessed by Bacchic frenzy.
In front of the company marched a slender youth with dark, curling hairand delicate features. In his hand was a thyrsis, and his eyes blazedwith the madness of the wine.
"Evoe! evoe!" he shouted. "Comrades! Bacchantes! there is no water inCapua to mix with wine. Equal mixture for poets and fools; undilutedwine for victors and lovers!"
"Perolla is a good Carthaginian to-day," shouted one of his fellows."Behold how Bacchus has answered our prayers! Kiss him, Cluvia, for areward."
Pushed forward, the courtesan fell upon the young man's neck, almostbearing him to the street and overwhelming him with drunken caresses.A moment later he freed himself from her arms.
"What is Roman beauty to our Capuan?" he hiccoughed."Marcia--Cluvia--all are one. All are women, and we are Capuans;braver than Romans, wiser than Carthaginians. Listen, friends! when myfather rules Italy, you shall all be kings and queens. Evoe! evoe!"
Shouts and shrieks of drunken joy greeted his words. Several sought toembrace him, and, staggering back, he stumbled over the Gaul and thedead Capuan where they sprawled in the street. Mingled laughter andcurses rose all around. Blows and kisses were given and received, andthe mad company rolled on through the Seplasia and into the Forum.
Here, too, were intoxication and debauchery, but they were restrainedwithin some manner of bounds. The fact that grave events were takingplace, seemed to exert a sobering influence on the populace, and theygathered in a dense throng around the Senate House, whence ominousrumours pursued each other in quick succession.
"The Senate was in session. Hannibal was before them. Decius Magiushad been arrested at his demand." So ran the talk.
Guards of Carthaginian soldiery were posted at several points, butespecially at all the entrances to the chamber in which the fathers ofthe city discussed--or obeyed; and against these lines the waves of therabble surged and broke and receded. Men offered the soldiers moneyfor free passage or news; women offered them kisses for money; and thesoldiers took both and gave nothing but jeers and blows.
Perolla and his drunken company had but just poured out to swell thetide of this ocean of popular passion, when a commotion of a differentcharacter began at the other end of the Forum. The closed door of theSenate House swung open, and a man in the garb of a senator, butchained and shackled, issued forth and stood on the steps, beneath theporch. Surrounded by a guard of Africans, it was fully a moment,before the mob recognized Decius Magius, the partisan, of Rome. Then achorus of howls and curses rose up. Insults were hurled,--the grossestthat the minds of a licentious rabble could suggest, fists were shaken,women spat toward the prisoner,--even a few stones were cast, and whenone of these happened to strike an African of the guard, he turnedquietly and cut down the nearest citizen. Then, with their heavyjavelins so held as to be used either as spears or clubs, the soldiersdescended into the Forum, and, with the captive in their midst, begantheir progress toward the street and gate that led to the Carthaginiancamp. There was no weak delay in this progress, no requests forpassage; the escort clove through the mass of the people, as a wargalley dashes through the breakers of a turbulent sea. A spray ofhuman beings that strove to escape but could not, boiled up about theprow; a wake of bodies, writhing or senseless, fell behind the stern,while, at either side, the stout javelins rose and fell like thestrokes of oars, splashing up blood for foam.
The taunts and threats that had assailed the prisoner died away amidshrieks of terror or pain and the deep rumble of the mob. Stupid withdrink, drunk with the exultation of ungoverned power, they wonderedvaguely, as they crushed back, why their new friends should strike,merely because they,--the Capuan people,--allies of Carthage, strove topunish a traitor and a common enemy. The prisoner's lips were seenmoving, as his captors hurried him along; but no speech from them couldbe heard, until the Forum had been nearly traversed. Then, on the hushborn of surprise and efforts to escape blows, the words of Magius wereaudible, at least to those nearest.
He was protesting against this violation of the treaty. He wasspeaking of himself; a Capuan, than whom no one was of higher rank,being dragged in chains to the camp of an ally who had sworn that noCarthaginian should have power over a citizen of Capua. At the mentionof his rank, malice and envy lent to some of the cowed rabble courageto jeer once more. Then he had asked, how they expected that an allyso careless of recently sworn obligations would respect his vow that noCapuan would be compelled to do military service against his will;whereupon, some of those who heard looked serious, for this seemedreasonable, and brought the possibility of evil unpleasantly home tothem. Finally, he congratulated them upon this marvellous, new-foundfreedom which the Carthaginian alliance had brought, and which they hadbeen celebrating so earnestly.
Perolla and his companions had found themselves crushed against theportico of the temple of Hercules, in which, only the day before, hadbeen established, also, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth, out ofcompliment to the new alliance.
At first they had realized but little of what was going on before andaround them. They had listened vacantly to crazy rumours of how thestatue of Jupiter in the Senate House had bowed to Hannibal as heentered, and how the Senate had forthwith saluted him as a god anddeclared him the patron and protector of the city; and, again, to otherrumours even more wild of how the wives of all the Capuans had beendecreed to be given to the Carthaginians, in return for which the womenof Rome were to be surrendered to the Capuans by their victoriousallies.
When Decius Magius was led out in custody of the soldiers, Perolla wastrying to think whether, after all, he would not prefer Marcia toCluvia. Then followed the passage through the crowded Forum, straighttoward the exit beside the temple of Hercules, and Perolla foundhimself within a spear's length of his captive friend, whose words ofprotest and warning fell upon his ears like molten lead, and whosereproachful eyes gazed into his own, piercing through them to his brainand dissipating the fumes of intoxication as sunlight melts the fog.Decius had not spoken to him, for he was mindful that such speech mightbring suspicion upon the younger man, but his look had said all thathis tongue refrained from saying, and Perolla realized his degradationand his shame.
He started forward and cried out:--
"I was mad, my father; _mad_! do you hear? It was because I knewsuddenly that I loved her, and that she would never love me! and then Irushed out and met others who were drinking, and we feasted and drankuntil I knew nothing. Pardon! pardon!"
Suddenly he became conscious that Decius and his guards were gone. Hadhe heard his plea? Surely yes, for did not he, Perolla, now hear hisfriend's eyes saying to him that he was but a fool who had added tofolly, philosophy, and to both, weakness, and to all, madness? Helooked around at his companions.
Some were gaping at him vacantly,some were laughing. Cluvia tried to grasp his arm, and he shook heroff and saw her stumble and roll down the steps that led up to theportico; then a new commotion arose in the direction of the SenateHouse, and the attention of the bystanders was diverted. MoreCarthaginian soldiers were forming and marching through the mob thatnow opened to give passage of double width; and, as the escort camenearer, Perolla saw Hannibal, clad in the gown of a Capuan senator,moving calmly in their midst.
A new frenzy came to his brain to take the place of the fumes of wine:perhaps it was one compounded of that and of shame and horror andrevenge. He groped under his torn tunic and found his dagger; then,brandishing it, he burst down through the crowd, uttering incoherentwords, and threw himself, like a wild beast, upon the guards.
He had stabbed one through the throat and another in the shoulder,before he was beaten down by a blow from the staff of a javelin. Amoment later, the first soldier to recover from the surprise of theincident bent over him with drawn sword.
A sharp exclamation from behind checked the descending thrust, and thesoldier turned quickly. Hannibal stood beside him, with a thoughtfulsmile upon his lips.
"Would you kill a citizen of Capua? a man of our allies?" he saidquietly.
The African looked around stupidly. That he should not crush theItalian vermin forthwith was beyond his comprehension, but evidentlysuch was not the schalischim's wish. Grumbling, he slipped his swordslowly back into its sheath, and, at that moment, several of the Capuansenators in Hannibal's train gathered round him with protestations andexpressions of regret. The general looked at them and frowned.
"I have been with you scarcely two days," he said, "and now you try tomurder me."
The senators fell upon their knees, kissing his gown and hands, in afrenzy of horror at the thought.
"Who is this fellow?" asked Hannibal, turning Perolla over with hisfoot. Then, recognizing the son of Pacuvius Calavius, he went on:"Some one of no consequence, doubtless; dust of the street that stingswhen the wind drives it," and he glared around at the prostratesenators.
They glanced at the senseless figure, as if hardly daring so much.Some knew him, more did not; but all united in protesting theirignorance.
Hannibal viewed them with drooping lids, and the smile returned to hislips. Perolla stirred slightly.
Again he addressed the Capuans, raising his voice somewhat, so that thecrowd might hear.
"What is your law for the punishment of such a crime?"
Those who had not recognized the assassin, cried out, "Death." Others,divided between the more powerful enmity of Hannibal and the slowerrevenge of Calavius, made their lips move but were silent, hoping toescape notice in the shout of the others. A few of these were enviousof the young man's father; more feared him.
Hannibal noted their confusion and came to their relief.
"But perhaps so wicked a man is not a Capuan, after all. It isdifficult to believe that the gods would suffer such impiety to lurk ina city so beloved as yours; and, if no one knows him--"
A chorus of disclaimers snatched at the proffered evasion, and thesmile on Hannibal's lips grew more subtle, as he said:--
"In that case, the treaty does not stand, and you, my fathers, arerelieved from the burden of his trial and punishment. I am still freeto condemn an ally of Rome. Let your rods and axe do their office."
The senators were standing now, and several of them winced and lookedfrightened at the swift result of their complaisance. One, even,gathered courage to say:--
"When is it my lord's will that punishment fall?"
Hannibal eyed him closely for a moment.
"Here, in your forum, and now," he said, "provided you would giveprompt warning to such vermin."
The Capuan shifted uneasily and looked down. Several of the soldiershad already lifted Perolla to his feet, and, holding him upright, hadtorn away what remained of his garments; others sent for theexecutioners, and, in a moment, these appeared with the instruments oftheir calling.
It was doubtful whether the prisoner had recovered full consciousnesswhen the first rod fell upon his shoulders, but he groaned and writhedslightly in the grasp of the four soldiers who held him extended uponthe pavement.
Then Hannibal turned away, ordering one of his officers to remain andsee the end. He signed to the Capuans to follow him.
"Such jackals, my fathers, are not worthy that men of rank and wealthshould watch them die," he said lightly. "The rabble will provide himwith sufficient audience."
And the senators, with awed and thoughtful faces, followed in the trainof the captain-general of Carthage.