CHAPTER XII
_ONESIMUS_
‘Non tressis agaso.’--PERSIUS, v. 76.
But we must now turn for a time from the Palace of the Emperorand the grand houses of the nobles crowded with ancestral images,gleaming with precious marbles, enriched with Greek statues ofpriceless beauty, to the squalid taverns and lodging-houses of thepoorest of that vast and mongrel populace which surged through thestreets of Rome.
It was not an Italian populace, but was composed of the dregs ofall nations, which had been flowing for several generations into thecommon sewer of Rome. It congregated in all the humbler and narrowerstreets; in the Velabrum it bawled mussels and salt fish for sale;it thronged the cook-shops of the Esquiline; it crowded densely intothe cheaper baths; it swarmed in the haunts of vice which gave sobad a name to the Subura. Long ago the Syrian Orontes had flowed intothe Tiber, and brought with it its flute-players, and dancers, andimmoralities.[28] Long ago, when the Forum loungers dared to howl athim, the great Scipio had stormed at them as step-sons of Italy--aspeople who had no father and no mother--and bidden them to be silent.
The city was almost as much a Greek as it was a Roman city. But,besides this, it abounded in Orientals. Here would be heard theshaken sistra of the Egyptian Serapis, whose little temple in theCampus Martius was crowded by credulous women. Here you would bemet by the drunken Galli of the Phrygian Cybele, whose withered,beardless faces, cracked voices, orgiastic dances, and gashings ofthemselves with knives, made their mendicancy more offensive than theimportunities of the beggars who lounged all day about the Sublicianand Fabrician bridges, or half-stormed the carriages of the noblesas they slowly drove up the steep hill of Aricia. Of this promiscuousthrong--to say nothing of Asiatics, Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, andScythians--some were
‘From farthest south, Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, Meroe, Nilotic isle; and more to west The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea; From India and the Golden Chersonese, And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane, Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed.’
One quarter of the city--that across the Tiber--was largely given upto Jews. They had flocked to Rome in extraordinary numbers after thevisit of Pompey to Jerusalem. Sober Roman burghers long rememberedwith astonishment, and something of alarm, the wild wail which theyraised at the funeral of Julius Cæsar, who had always been theirgenerous patron. They were numerous enough, and organised enough,to make it a formidable matter to offend them, though the majorityof them--conspicuous everywhere by the basket and hay which theycarried to keep their food clean from Gentile profanation--pursuedthe humblest crafts, and sold sulphur-matches or mended brokenpottery, while the lowest of all told fortunes, or begged, orcheated, with cringing mien. The persistence and ability of many oftheir race had, however, gained them a footing in the houses of thegreat. Aliturus, the actor, was at this moment a favourite of Nero,and of Rome. The authors of that age--Martial, Juvenal, Persius,Tacitus--abound with wondering and stinging allusions to the votariesof Mosaism.
They made many converts, and the splendid beauty of Berenice andDrusilla, the daughters of Herod Agrippa I., together with the wealthof their brother, Agrippa II., had given them a prominent positionin distinguished circles. To their father, the brilliant adventurerAgrippa I., the favourite of Caligula, Claudius had practically owedhis elevation to the Empire, since he it was who induced the senatorsto acquiesce in that uncouth dominion.
The streets of Rome were full of persons who lived in semi-pauperism;lazzaroni who had nothing to depend upon but the _sportula_ or dolesupplied by noble and wealthy families, or grants of corn made atnominal prices by the Emperor. They lived anyhow, by their wits andby their vices. In that sunny climate the wants of life are few, andthey found abundance of excitement and amusement, while they couldhardly be left to starve amid the universal profusion which sometimessquandered millions of sesterces over a single meal.
But few of the dregs of the people presented a more miserable aspectthan a Phrygian youth who was loitering aimlessly about the Forumnear the hour of noon. The Forum was nearly deserted, for most ofthe people were taking their siesta, and the youth sat down, lookingthe picture of wretchedness. He was pale and thin, as though he hadgone through many hardships. His tunic was soiled and ragged, and heappeared to be, as he was, a homeless and friendless stranger, aloneamong the depraved and selfish millions of the world’s capital.
While he was thinking what he had best do to allay the pangs ofhunger, he saw a young student enter the Forum followed by a littleslave. He paid no particular attention to them, but a few momentslater his curiosity was aroused, first by hearing the blows of anaxe, and then by seeing the student run hastily out of the Forum withthe slave-child at his heels. Strolling to the corner from which thesounds had come, he found himself opposite to the lattice-work whichprojected over the shops of the silversmiths, and seeing an axe lyingon the ground, picked it up, and examined it. Alarmed by a rush offeet, he looked up and saw the ‘bucket-men’[29] (as the mob nicknamedthe police) running up to him. While he was wondering what they couldwant, he found himself rudely arrested, and saluted with a volley ofviolent abuse.[30]
‘What have I done?’ he asked in Greek.
‘What have you done, you thievish rascal? You ask that, when we havecaught you, axe in hand, hewing at and stealing the lead of the roof?’
The youth, who knew Latin imperfectly, was too much puzzled andconfused to understand the objurgations addressed to him; but acrowd of idlers rapidly collected, and speaking to one of them, hewas answered in Greek that the people of the neighbourhood had longbeen blamed for stealing the lead from the silversmiths. They had notdone it, and were indignant at being falsely accused. And now, as hehad been caught in the act, he would be haled off to the court of theCity Prætor, and it would be likely to go hard with him. If he gotoff with thirty lashes he might think himself lucky. More probably hewould be condemned to branding, or--since an example was needed--tothe cross.
The youth could only cry, and wring his hands, and protest hisinnocence; but his protests were met by the jeers of the crowd.
‘Ah!’ said one, ‘how will you like to have the three letters brandedwith a hot iron right across your forehead? That won’t make the girlslike your face better.’
‘Whose slave are you?’ asked another. ‘Won’t you catch it from yourmaster! You’ll have to work chained in the slave-jail or at the mill,and may bid good-bye to the sunlight for a year or two at least.’
‘Slave?’ said another. ‘I don’t believe he’s a slave. He looks tooragged and starved. He’s had no regular rations for a long time, I’llbe bound.’
‘A runaway, I expect,’ said a third. ‘Well, anyhow he’ll have to givean account of himself, unless he likes to have a ride on the littlehorse,[31] or have his neck wedged tight into a wooden fork.’
‘_Furcifer?_ Gallows-bird!’ cried others of the crowd. ‘And we honestcitizens are to be accused of stealing because of his tricks!’
‘It’s a sad pity, too,’ said a young woman; ‘for look how handsome heis with those dark Asiatic eyes!’
As most of these remarks had been poured out in voluble andslang Latin, the young Phrygian could only make out enough to knowthat he was in evil case; and, weakened as he was by exposure andinsufficient food, he could but feebly plead for mercy, and protestthat he had done no wrong.
But the police had not dragged him far when they saw Pudens and Titusapproaching them down the Viminal Hill, on which the centurion lived.At the sight of a centurion in the armour of the Prætorians, anda boy who wore a golden bulla, and whom some of them recognised asa son of the brave general Vespasian, the crowd made way. As theypassed by, Titus noticed the youth’s distress, and, compassionateas usual, begged Pudens to ask what was the matter. The _vigiles_briefly explained how they had seized their prisoner, who must havebeen guilty of the lead-stealing complained of, for the axe was inhis hand, and no one else was near.
‘What h
ave you to say for yourself?’ asked the centurion.
‘I am innocent,’ said the prisoner, in Greek; ‘the axe is not mine.I only picked it up to look at it. It must have been a young studentwho was using it, for I saw him run out of the Forum with his slave.’
Pudens and Titus exchanged glances, for they had met the student andslave still hurrying rapidly along. He was the real culprit, but hehad heard the silversmiths call for the police, and had taken to hisheels. Pudens had seen him stop at the house of a knight a street ortwo distant, and run up the steps with a speed which a Roman regardedas very undignified.
‘Come with me,’ he said to the police, ‘and I think I can take you tothe real offender. This youth is innocent, though things look againsthim.’
Followed by the crowd, who grumbled a little at losing the enjoymentof watching the trial, Pudens led them to the knight’s house. Thelittle slave was amusing himself with hopping to and fro under thevestibule.
‘Keep back, Quirites,’ said the head _vigil_. ‘The centurion and Iwill ask a question here.’
‘Do you know this axe, my small _salaputium_[32]?’ said Pudens.
‘Yes,’ said the child with alacrity, for he was too young tounderstand the situation. ‘It is ours. We dropped it not long ago.’
‘The case is clear,’ said Pudens. ‘I will be witness;’ and he offeredhis ears for the officer to touch.[33] ‘Meanwhile you can set thisyouth free.’
The officer touched his ear with the recognised formula. ‘Remember,you will be my witness in this case.’
The student was arrested, but his father got him off by a largesecret bribe to the police and to the silversmiths. The crowddispersed, and Pudens and Titus, without waiting to watch the issueof the affair, turned their steps towards the Vicus Apollinis, whichled to the Palace.
Soon afterwards they heard footsteps behind them, and, turning round,saw the youth whom they had rescued.
‘What more do you want?’ said Pudens, in answer to his eager,appealing look. ‘I have got you out of your trouble; is not thatenough?’
‘I am weak, and hungry, and a stranger,’ said the youth, humbly.
‘He wants money,’ whispered Titus, and drawing a denarius from thebreast of his toga, he put it into his hand.
But, kneeling down, the stranger seized the hem of the scarlet sagumwhich Pudens happened to be wearing, and kissing it, exclaimed, ‘Oh,sir, take me into your household! I will do anything!’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Onesimus.’
‘A good name, and of good omen.[34] _What_ are you? You look like aslave. Not a runaway slave, I hope?’
‘No sir,’ said Onesimus, to whom a lie came as easy as to most of hisrace. ‘I lived at Colossæ. I was kidnapped by a slave-dealer, but Iescaped.’
‘And you want to go back to Colossæ?’
‘No sir. I am left an orphan. I want to earn my living here.’
‘Take him,’ said Titus. ‘You have plenty of room for an extra slave,and I like his looks.’
But Pudens hesitated.
‘A Phrygian slave!’ he said; ‘why even proverbs warn me against him.’He quoted two, _sotto voce_, to Titus--‘Worst of the Mysians,’ usedof persons despicably bad; and ‘More cowardly than a Phrygian hare.’
‘Well,’ said Titus, ‘I will give you proverb for proverb; “Phrygiansare improved by scourging.”’[35]
‘Yes,’ answered Pudens; ‘but I am not accustomed to rule my slaves bythe whip.’
The boy had not heard them, for they spoke in low tones, but hemarked the hesitation of Pudens, and, still crying bitterly, stoopedas though to make marks with his finger on the ground. His motionwas quick, but Pudens saw that he had drawn in the dust very rapidlya rude outline of a fish, which he had almost instantaneouslyobliterated with a movement of his palm.
Pudens understood the sign. The youth was, or had been, a Christian,and knew that if Pudens happened to be a Christian too his favourwould be secured.
‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘My household is small and humble, but I havejust lost my lacquey, who died of fever. I will speak to my headfreedman. Perhaps, when we have heard something more about you, hewill let you fill the vacant place.’