The Paladins of Edwin the Great

  CHAPTER I

  FALLEN ROME

  In the end of the sixth century the old Rome, the lingering remnant ofthe imperial city, had nearly disappeared. Language, literature, art,science were being crushed out, not so much by inroads of barbariansas by the bigotry of bishops and monks. When the Goths, under Alaric,entered Rome by the Salarian gate in 410 and revelled in pillagefor six days, they did little or no damage to buildings or works ofart. Half a century afterwards, when Genseric sacked the city forfourteen days, he only carried off the gilt-bronze tiles on the roofof the Capitoline temple of Jupiter and the spoils from the temple ofJerusalem; and during the sack of Ricimer little injury was done tobuildings. Rome suffered more from Totila in 546 than from any formersack, half the walls being destroyed and many houses being burnt.

  Theodoric the Goth established his capital at Ravenna. He took stepsto protect the monuments of Rome, and his reign from 493 to 526 maybe considered to have been the period which saw the last of the trueRomans. Cassiodorus strove to preserve the rapidly failing taste forthe models of classical antiquity. Boethius, the last of the Romanswhom Cato or Cicero would have acknowledged as their countryman,threw a flickering ray over the fallen empire. But both Boethius andhis learned friend Symmachus were murdered by Theodoric in 526. Longbefore this the last joyous festivals of old Rome, the Lupercalia, hadbeen abolished through the bigotry of Pope Gelasius, and with themdisappeared all living vestiges of the old life. The buildings wereimperishable. The shell was there amidst dirt and desolation; the lifewas gone. Monks pulled down or defaced the edifices and statues raisedby genius, and the beautiful temple of Apollo gave place to the cellsof Benedict on the summit of Monte Cassino.

  Belisarius and Narses recovered Italy for the emperors of the Eastin 536, and Justinian fixed the capital of his _exarch_ or governorat Ravenna, not at Rome. But the walls of Rome were repaired, andpartially rebuilt. Only thirty years afterwards Alboin, with anarmy of Lombards, conquered Northern Italy without encountering anyopposition, established an oppressive aristocracy in the subjugatedprovinces, and extended his inroads to the gates of Rome. This wasthe condition of affairs when Mystacon arrived at the mouth of theTiber with his merchandise. Maurice Tiberius, the best of the Easternemperors, had ascended the throne at Constantinople in 582. His exarchRomanus ruled at Ravenna. Young Autharis had succeeded Alboin as kingof the Lombards in 586, and his armies kept Rome in perpetual fear. Thesuburbs were constantly devastated. The city was vacant and solitary:the depopulation had been rapid. Famine was frequent, the edifices wereexposed to ruin, and the chief person in the city was the Bishop, whoexulted over the desolation of idolatry. His name was Pelagius II.,but the ecclesiastic who possessed the greatest influence over themiserable remnant of the inhabitants was the Deacon Gregory. He was anative of the city, born in 544, and his parents, Gordian and Sylvia,were of senatorial rank. He was also wealthy, and he had founded amonastery on the Caelian Hill, dedicated to St. Andrew. He was learnedin the Scriptures and in the works of the early fathers of the Church,and was a voluminous writer both of letters and of commentaries. Whileacting as the Pope's nuncio at Constantinople, he had occupied himselfin a violent controversy with the Eutychians on the question whether,after the resurrection, the bodies of the faithful would be impalpablelike air, or palpable though subtle and sublimed. The former viewwas the heresy which Gregory, with the important aid of the Emperor,effectually suppressed. He then returned to Rome, and maintained hisinfluence by relieving distress through his great wealth and hisorganising ability, and also by the power of his pathetic but rudeeloquence. But he was a narrow-minded bigot. He hated the monuments ofclassic genius, destroyed the magnificent baths and theatres, and didmore harm to the buildings of Rome than all the barbarians, from Alaricto Totila, put together. The decided progress made by the ancientsin astronomy and geography was declared to be contrary to scripturaltruth, sculpture was condemned as an ally of paganism, and both scienceand art disappeared. The belief of Gregory that the end of the worldwas close at hand also had a mischievous tendency. As a young man hewas often tormented with pains in the bowels, and was continuallysuffering from low fever, and these ailments probably had their effecton his temperament. His zeal for the spread of Christianity perhapsatones for his shortcomings in other respects, and at all eventsGregory was the leading figure in the Rome of the end of the sixthcentury.

  The son of the Senator Gordian was not the only wealthy man in Rome,or it would have been no place for Mystacon and his wares. Patricians,with incomes from estates in Campania and Sicily, still lived in someof the ruins of departed greatness on the Caelian Hill. We meet withthe names of Decius, Basilius, Olybrius, Orestes, Maximus, Symmachus,and Pamphronius. But the sons and daughters of others were reduced topenury, and many descendants of consuls and senators were begging theirbread in the streets.

  Pamphronius was one of those who, by flight on some occasions andprompt submission on others, had succeeded in preserving sufficient ofthis world's goods to enable him to live in a partially-rebuilt villa,and to show signs of comparative wealth. He had a few clients roundhim, and was a customer of Mystacon.

  Symmachus Boethius was another survivor of an ancient and renownedfamily. His maternal ancestor had been a bright model of learningand virtue in the days of Constantine and his immediate successors.Scholar, statesman, and orator, he gave new life and vigour to theliterature of Rome, and he was zealous for the ancient faith. Heremonstrated with the Emperor Gratian on the removal of the altar ofvictory from the Senate in 384. His letters are extant, and that infavour of the altar of victory is, we are told, infinitely superior tothe verbose, abusive, and dishonest reply of St. Ambrose. Proconsul inAchaia and Africa, he had great wealth, estates in Campania, Sicily,and Mauritania, and a mansion on the Caelian Hill. His descendants forfour generations were all distinguished. The fifth in descent, namedQuintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, had an only daughter Rusticiana.She was happily married to Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, whosefather was consul in 487. Boethius was famous for his learning and forhis charities. He was accused of a wish to free Rome from the Goths,was condemned unheard, and put to death, with his son, by order ofTheodoric. His _Consolatio Philosophiae_, written in prison, shows thathe was not a Christian. Rusticiana was reduced to poverty until herproperty was restored by Theodoric's daughter Amalasontha. At the sackof Rome in 541 she was again reduced to beggary, and was only savedfrom death by the intervention of Totila.

  Anicius Severinus Boethius, the son of the great Boethius and ofRusticiana, was consul in 522, and died, soon after his mother, in570. He had succeeded in recovering his Sicilian estates, and inraising the fortunes of his family sufficiently to be able to residein the fine old mansion of the Symmachus family on the Caelian. Hisson Symmachus Boethius continued to prosper, and, at the time of whichwe speak, he was one of the few wealthy patricians of Rome. His wifewas a virtuous lady named Otacilia. His villa made some pretensionsto its ancient splendour, and its owner, now a man between fifty andsixty, outwardly conformed to the Christian religion, as all who valuedtheir peace and safety were bound to do in those days. The religion ofAmbrose and of Gregory became a persecuting religion as soon as itshierarchy had the power to persecute. In this and in other essentialsit differed widely from the religion of Christ. By ready conformitythe patricians Pamphronius and Symmachus Boethius maintained friendlyrelations with the Deacon Gregory and his monks of St. Andrew, whowere their neighbours on the Caelian Hill. They were consulted on theaffairs of the city, especially on the absorbing questions relatingto food-supply, but all real power was in the hands of the Bishopand clergy, whose preaching swayed the mob. Gregory was, indeed, aremarkable personality. His character presented a singular mixture ofsense and superstition, pride and humility, simplicity and cunning; andthrough all there was that touch of sympathy which secured the supportof the multitude, and that burning and impulsive zeal which seemed tocarry all before it, and which was mainly directed to the propagationof his faith. His wors
t trait was his unprincipled time-serving. Whenthe good Emperor Maurice was murdered, whom he knew well, and from whomhe had received much kindness, he wrote a flattering letter to hismurderer Phocas, one of the most infamous wretches that ever disgracedthe purple, which is worded in a way that is simply revolting. It needsmuch zeal to atone for such baseness.

  These were the leaders of Rome, but not of living Rome. They werelike small crabs in a great dead shell. It is difficult to realise theeffect on the mind of any one then coming to Rome for the first time,and gazing upon the superb baths and theatres, the splendid temples andhalls in long vistas, all desolate and abandoned, with here and therea priceless work of art thrown down and broken. Everywhere silence anddesolation, except where some monk might be seen preaching to a squalidgroup, or where half-starved crowds assembled at church doors for dolesof food. The population had dwindled from millions to thousands, andclergy had taken the place of soldiery and well-to-do citizens of theempire, but in much smaller numbers. Still there were a few wealthypeople, sufficient to induce traders to expose valuable goods for sale.

  Mystacon Attacked by his Boy Captives]

  Mystacon, when he arrived in his vessel, found the port of Ostiaquite empty, and there was ample space at his disposal in the longrow of dilapidated emporia facing the Tiber, at the foot of MountAventine. Here his goods were warehoused until the day of the market,which was then held in the beautiful Forum of Trajan. He now had todisclose his real intention to the English boys. He had safely housedthem in a large room, with plenty of his own hirelings always more orless on guard outside. He opened his communication by dwelling uponhis kindness and liberality, on having saved their lives when thesea-thieves would have killed them, and on the gratitude they owedhim. At last the truth came out. He would be obliged to sell them inthe market, owing to the great expense they had been to him, and if asufficient sum could not be obtained, he would have to take them toRavenna or to Constantinople. He was unprepared for the outburst ofrage and fury with which his base scheme was received by the littleboys. They told him that Hereric was an atheling, and that all were thesons of thegns, better born than any one in Rome. Their eyes flamedwith Berserker madness as they cried out that they would kill him asthey would kill a wild-cat or a badger, and Forthere actually flew athis throat. The coward was taken by surprise. He cried out for help,and could not collect his ideas and decide upon the course to takeuntil the lads were all tied hand and foot. He was in great perplexity.A violent scene at the market was out of the question. His wish wasto flog them within an inch of their lives; but, as he had told hisdeceased accomplices, damaged goods only fetch half-price. He mustdisplay them with whole skins. At last he determined to starve theminto submission. He told them that they would have no food until theyconsented to go quietly to the Forum, and left them with the door wellbarred. For more than thirty-six hours they resolutely held out, butthe bigger boys could not bear to hear little Godric and Sivel cryingfor food. They turned to Porlor for his counsel. None of them had beenmore furious, none of them now felt a stronger desire to kill thetreacherous villain who had employed the kidnappers, as they now fullybelieved. He said that the shame was almost more than they could bear,but that it would at least be a great gain to be free from Mystacon. Nomaster could be worse, and when they were older and stronger they coulddefy any master to detain them. "But the shame! the shame!" moanedCoelred and Oswith, as they lay with their heads in their hands proneto the ground. It had to be done. The next time Mystacon came, Porlortold him to bring food, and that they would go without resistance. Theboys had few words and could not scold. But the villain was told thatthey knew him as he was, far viler and baser than the sea-thieves, aniddring and a liar, and that some day they would kill him. He sentthem plenty of food, and his sickly smile betokened malice not unmixedwith fear. His mind was, however, relieved: he would get his price.

  "To be sold as slaves!" In all their thoughts of possible danger andsuffering, they had never anticipated anything so bad as this. Theycalled to mind the words that the sounds in the forest seemed to formthemselves into, and shuddered. But after hours of despondency thebrave little fellows took heart. Coelred was the leader who now urgedhis companions to remember the words of the Princess. They talked longand anxiously, but before they laid down their heads to sleep, theyhad, with one accord, all raised their right hands and cried--"Comewhat may, we will quit ourselves like men--above all, like Englishmen!"