CHAPTER XIII: THE "MISTRESS AND MOTHER" OF PALACES
AFTER that sharp, brief winter, the sun was already at work, softeningleaf and bud, as you might feel by a faint sweetness in the air; but hedid his work behind an evenly white sky, against which the abode of theCaesars, its cypresses and bronze roofs, seemed like a picture inbeautiful but melancholy colour, as Marius climbed the long flights ofsteps to be introduced to the emperor Aurelius. Attired in the newestmode, his legs wound in dainty fasciae of white leather, with the heavygold ring of the ingenuus, and in his toga of ceremony, he stillretained all his country freshness of complexion. The eyes of the"golden youth" of Rome were upon him as the chosen friend of Cornelius,and the destined servant of the emperor; but not jealously. In spiteof, perhaps partly because of, his habitual reserve of manner, he hadbecome "the fashion," even among those who felt instinctively the ironywhich lay beneath that remarkable self-possession, as of one taking allthings with a [213] difference from other people, perceptible in voice,in expression, and even in his dress. It was, in truth, the air of onewho, entering vividly into life, and relishing to the full thedelicacies of its intercourse, yet feels all the while, from the pointof view of an ideal philosophy, that he is but conceding reality tosuppositions, choosing of his own will to walk in a day-dream, of theillusiveness of which he at least is aware.
In the house of the chief chamberlain Marius waited for the due momentof admission to the emperor's presence. He was admiring the peculiardecoration of the walls, coloured like rich old red leather. In themidst of one of them was depicted, under a trellis of fruit you mighthave gathered, the figure of a woman knocking at a door with wonderfulreality of perspective. Then the summons came; and in a few minutes,the etiquette of the imperial household being still a simple matter, hehad passed the curtains which divided the central hall of the palaceinto three parts--three degrees of approach to the sacred person--andwas speaking to Aurelius himself; not in Greek, in which the emperoroftenest conversed with the learned, but, more familiarly, in Latin,adorned however, or disfigured, by many a Greek phrase, as now andagain French phrases have made the adornment of fashionable English. Itwas with real kindliness that Marcus Aurelius looked upon Marius, as[214] a youth of great attainments in Greek letters and philosophy; andhe liked also his serious expression, being, as we know, a believer inthe doctrine of physiognomy--that, as he puts it, not love only, butevery other affection of man's soul, looks out very plainly from thewindow of the eyes.
The apartment in which Marius found himself was of ancient aspect, andrichly decorated with the favourite toys of two or three generations ofimperial collectors, now finally revised by the high connoisseurship ofthe Stoic emperor himself, though destined not much longer to remaintogether there. It is the repeated boast of Aurelius that he hadlearned from old Antoninus Pius to maintain authority without theconstant use of guards, in a robe woven by the handmaids of his ownconsort, with no processional lights or images, and "that a prince mayshrink himself almost into the figure of a private gentleman." Andyet, again as at his first sight of him, Marius was struck by theprofound religiousness of the surroundings of the imperial presence.The effect might have been due in part to the very simplicity, thediscreet and scrupulous simplicity, of the central figure in thissplendid abode; but Marius could not forget that he saw before him notonly the head of the Roman religion, but one who might actually haveclaimed something like divine worship, had he cared to do so. Thoughthe fantastic pretensions of Caligula had brought some contempt [215]on that claim, which had become almost a jest under the ungainlyClaudius, yet, from Augustus downwards, a vague divinity had seemed tosurround the Caesars even in this life; and the peculiar character ofAurelius, at once a ceremonious polytheist never forgetful of hispontifical calling, and a philosopher whose mystic speculationencircled him with a sort of saintly halo, had restored to his person,without his intending it, something of that divine prerogative, orprestige. Though he would never allow the immediate dedication ofaltars to himself, yet the image of his Genius--his spirituality orcelestial counterpart--was placed among those of the deified princes ofthe past; and his family, including Faustina and the young Commodus,was spoken of as the "holy" or "divine" house. Many a Roman courtieragreed with the barbarian chief, who, after contemplating a predecessorof Aurelius, withdrew from his presence with the exclamation:--"I haveseen a god to-day!" The very roof of his house, rising into a pedimentor gable, like that of the sanctuary of a god, the laurels on eitherside its doorway, the chaplet of oak-leaves above, seemed to designatethe place for religious veneration. And notwithstanding all this, thehousehold of Aurelius was singularly modest, with none of the wastefulexpense of palaces after the fashion of Lewis the Fourteenth; thepalatial dignity being felt only in a peculiar sense of order, theabsence [216] of all that was casual, of vulgarity and discomfort. Amerely official residence of his predecessors, the Palatine had becomethe favourite dwelling-place of Aurelius; its many-coloured memoriessuiting, perhaps, his pensive character, and the crude splendours ofNero and Hadrian being now subdued by time. The window-less Roman abodemust have had much of what to a modern would be gloom. How did thechildren, one wonders, endure houses with so little escape for the eyeinto the world outside? Aurelius, who had altered little else,choosing to live there, in a genuine homeliness, had shifted and madethe most of the level lights, and broken out a quite medieval windowhere and there, and the clear daylight, fully appreciated by hisyouthful visitor, made pleasant shadows among the objects of theimperial collection. Some of these, indeed, by reason of their Greeksimplicity and grace, themselves shone out like spaces of a purer,early light, amid the splendours of the Roman manufacture.
Though he looked, thought Marius, like a man who did not sleep enough,he was abounding and bright to-day, after one of those pitilessheadaches, which since boyhood had been the "thorn in his side,"challenging the pretensions of his philosophy to fortify one in humbleendurances. At the first moment, to Marius, remembering the spectacleof the emperor in ceremony, it was almost bewildering to be in [217]private conversation with him. There was much in the philosophy ofAurelius--much consideration of mankind at large, of great bodies,aggregates and generalities, after the Stoic manner--which, on a natureless rich than his, might have acted as an inducement to care forpeople in inverse proportion to their nearness to him. That hassometimes been the result of the Stoic cosmopolitanism. Aurelius,however, determined to beautify by all means, great or little, adoctrine which had in it some potential sourness, had brought all thequickness of his intelligence, and long years of observation, to bearon the conditions of social intercourse. He had early determined "notto make business an excuse to decline the offices of humanity--not topretend to be too much occupied with important affairs to concede whatlife with others may hourly demand;" and with such success, that, in anage which made much of the finer points of that intercourse, it wasfelt that the mere honesty of his conversation was more pleasing thanother men's flattery. His agreeableness to his young visitor to-daywas, in truth, a blossom of the same wisdom which had made of LuciusVerus really a brother--the wisdom of not being exigent with men, anymore than with fruit-trees (it is his own favourite figure) beyondtheir nature. And there was another person, still nearer to him,regarding whom this wisdom became a marvel, of equity--of charity.
[218] The centre of a group of princely children, in the same apartmentwith Aurelius, amid all the refined intimacies of a modern home, satthe empress Faustina, warming her hands over a fire. With her longfingers lighted up red by the glowing coals of the brazier Mariuslooked close upon the most beautiful woman in the world, who was alsothe great paradox of the age, among her boys and girls. As has beentruly said of the numerous representations of her in art, so in life,she had the air of one curious, restless, to enter into conversationwith the first comer. She had certainly the power of stimulating avery ambiguous sort of curiosity about herself. And Marius found thisenigmatic point in her expression, that even after seeing
her manytimes he could never precisely recall her features in absence. The ladof six years, looking older, who stood beside her, impatiently pluckinga rose to pieces over the hearth, was, in outward appearance, hisfather--the young Verissimus--over again; but with a certain femininelength of feature, and with all his mother's alertness, or license, ofgaze.
Yet rumour knocked at every door and window of the imperial houseregarding the adulterers who knocked at them, or quietly left theirlovers' garlands there. Was not that likeness of the husband, in theboy beside her, really the effect of a shameful magic, in which theblood of the murdered gladiator, his true father, had been aningredient? Were the tricks for [219] deceiving husbands which theRoman poet describes, really hers, and her household an efficientschool of all the arts of furtive love? Or, was the husband too aware,like every one beside? Were certain sudden deaths which happenedthere, really the work of apoplexy, or the plague?
The man whose ears, whose soul, those rumours were meant to penetrate,was, however, faithful to his sanguine and optimist philosophy, to hisdetermination that the world should be to him simply what the higherreason preferred to conceive it; and the life's journey Aurelius hadmade so far, though involving much moral and intellectual loneliness,had been ever in affectionate and helpful contact with other wayfarers,very unlike himself. Since his days of earliest childhood in theLateran gardens, he seemed to himself, blessing the gods for it afterdeliberate survey, to have been always surrounded by kinsmen, friends,servants, of exceptional virtue. From the great Stoic idea, that weare all fellow-citizens of one city, he had derived a tenderer, a moreequitable estimate than was common among Stoics, of the eternalshortcomings of men and women. Considerations that might tend to thesweetening of his temper it was his daily care to store away, with akind of philosophic pride in the thought that no one took moregood-naturedly than he the "oversights" of his neighbours. For had notPlato taught (it was not [220] paradox, but simple truth of experience)that if people sin, it is because they know no better, and are "underthe necessity of their own ignorance"? Hard to himself, he seemed attimes, doubtless, to decline too softly upon unworthy persons.Actually, he came thereby upon many a useful instrument. The empressFaustina he would seem at least to have kept, by a constrainingaffection, from becoming altogether what most people have believed her,and won in her (we must take him at his word in the "Thoughts,"abundantly confirmed by letters, on both sides, in his correspondencewith Cornelius Fronto) a consolation, the more secure, perhaps, becausemisknown of others. Was the secret of her actual blamelessness, afterall, with him who has at least screened her name? At all events, theone thing quite certain about her, besides her extraordinary beauty, isher sweetness to himself.
No! The wise, who had made due observation on the trees of the garden,would not expect to gather grapes of thorns or fig-trees: and he wasthe vine, putting forth his genial fruit, by natural law, again andagain, after his kind, whatever use people might make of it. Certainly,his actual presence never lost its power, and Faustina was glad in itto-day, the birthday of one of her children, a boy who stood at herknee holding in his fingers tenderly a tiny silver trumpet, one of hisbirthday gifts.--"For my [221] part, unless I conceive my hurt to besuch, I have no hurt at all,"--boasts the would-be apatheticemperor:--"and how I care to conceive of the thing rests with me." Yetwhen his children fall sick or die, this pretence breaks down, and heis broken-hearted: and one of the charms of certain of his lettersstill extant, is his reference to those childish sicknesses.--"On myreturn to Lorium," he writes, "I found my little lady--domnulammeam--in a fever;" and again, in a letter to one of the most serious ofmen, "You will be glad to hear that our little one is better, andrunning about the room--parvolam nostram melius valere et intracubiculum discurrere."
The young Commodus had departed from the chamber, anxious to witnessthe exercises of certain gladiators, having a native taste for suchcompany, inherited, according to popular rumour, from his truefather--anxious also to escape from the too impressive company of thegravest and sweetest specimen of old age Marius had ever seen, thetutor of the imperial children, who had arrived to offer his birthdaycongratulations, and now, very familiarly and affectionately, made apart of the group, falling on the shoulders of the emperor, kissing theempress Faustina on the face, the little ones on the face and hands.Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the "Orator," favourite teacher of theemperor's youth, afterwards his most trusted counsellor, and now theundisputed occupant of the sophistic throne, whose equipage, [222]elegantly mounted with silver, Marius had seen in the streets of Rome,had certainly turned his many personal gifts to account with a goodfortune, remarkable even in that age, so indulgent to professors orrhetoricians. The gratitude of the emperor Aurelius, always generousto his teachers, arranging their very quarrels sometimes, for they werenot always fair to one another, had helped him to a really great placein the world. But his sumptuous appendages, including the villa andgardens of Maecenas, had been borne with an air perfectly becoming, bythe professor of a philosophy which, even in its most accomplished andelegant phase, presupposed a gentle contempt for such things. With anintimate practical knowledge of manners, physiognomies, smiles,disguises, flatteries, and courtly tricks of every kind--a wholeaccomplished rhetoric of daily life--he applied them all to thepromotion of humanity, and especially of men's family affection.Through a long life of now eighty years, he had been, as it were,surrounded by the gracious and soothing air of his own eloquence--thefame, the echoes, of it--like warbling birds, or murmuring bees.Setting forth in that fine medium the best ideas of matured paganphilosophy, he had become the favourite "director" of noble youth
Yes! it was the one instance Marius, always eagerly on the look-out forsuch, had yet seen of [223] a perfectly tolerable, perfectly beautiful,old age--an old age in which there seemed, to one who perhapshabitually over-valued the expression of youth, nothing to beregretted, nothing really lost, in what years had taken away. The wiseold man, whose blue eyes and fair skin were so delicate, uncontaminateand clear, would seem to have replaced carefully and consciously eachnatural trait of youth, as it departed from him, by an equivalent graceof culture; and had the blitheness, the placid cheerfulness, as he hadalso the infirmity, the claim on stronger people, of a delightfulchild. And yet he seemed to be but awaiting his exit from life--thatmoment with which the Stoics were almost as much preoccupied as theChristians, however differently--and set Marius pondering on thecontrast between a placidity like this, at eighty years, and the sortof desperateness he was aware of in his own manner of entertaining thatthought. His infirmities nevertheless had been painful andlong-continued, with losses of children, of pet grandchildren. Whatwith the crowd, and the wretched streets, it was a sign of affectionwhich had cost him something, for the old man to leave his own house atall that day; and he was glad of the emperor's support, as he movedfrom place to place among the children he protests so often to haveloved as his own.
For a strange piece of literary good fortune, at the beginning of thepresent century, has set [224] free the long-buried fragrance of thisfamous friendship of the old world, from below a valueless latermanuscript, in a series of letters, wherein the two writers exchange,for the most part their evening thoughts, especially at familyanniversaries, and with entire intimacy, on their children, on the artof speech, on all the various subtleties of the "science ofimages"--rhetorical images--above all, of course, on sleep and mattersof health. They are full of mutual admiration of each other'seloquence, restless in absence till they see one another again, noting,characteristically, their very dreams of each other, expecting the daywhich will terminate the office, the business or duty, which separatesthem--"as superstitious people watch for the star, at the rising ofwhich they may break their fast." To one of the writers, to Aurelius,the correspondence was sincerely of value. We see him once reading hisletters with genuine delight on going to rest. Fronto seeks to deterhis pupil from writing in Greek.--Why buy, at great cost, a foreignwine, inferior to that from one's own
vineyard? Aurelius, on the otherhand, with an extraordinary innate susceptibility to words--la parolepour la parole, as the French say--despairs, in presence of Fronto'srhetorical perfection.
Like the modern visitor to the Capitoline and some other museums,Fronto had been struck, pleasantly struck, by the family likeness [225]among the Antonines; and it was part of his friendship to make much ofit, in the case of the children of Faustina. "Well! I have seen thelittle ones," he writes to Aurelius, then, apparently, absent fromthem: "I have seen the little ones--the pleasantest sight of my life;for they are as like yourself as could possibly be. It has well repaidme for my journey over that slippery road, and up those steep rocks;for I beheld you, not simply face to face before me, but, moregenerously, whichever way I turned, to my right and my left. For therest, I found them, Heaven be thanked! with healthy cheeks and lustyvoices. One was holding a slice of white bread, like a king's son; theother a crust of brown bread, as becomes the offspring of aphilosopher. I pray the gods to have both the sower and the seed intheir keeping; to watch over this field wherein the ears of corn are sokindly alike. Ah! I heard too their pretty voices, so sweet that inthe childish prattle of one and the other I seemed somehow to belistening--yes! in that chirping of your pretty chickens--to thelimpid+ and harmonious notes of your own oratory. Take care! you willfind me growing independent, having those I could love in yourplace:--love, on the surety of my eyes and ears."
"Magistro meo salutem!" replies the Emperor, "I too have seen my littleones in your sight of them; as, also, I saw yourself in reading your[226] letter. It is that charming letter forces me to write thus:"with reiterations of affection, that is, which are continual in theseletters, on both sides, and which may strike a modern reader perhaps asfulsome; or, again, as having something in common with the old Judaicunction of friendship. They were certainly sincere.
To one of those children Fronto had now brought the birthday gift ofthe silver trumpet, upon which he ventured to blow softly now andagain, turning away with eyes delighted at the sound, when he thoughtthe old man was not listening. It was the well-worn, valetudinariansubject of sleep, on which Fronto and Aurelius were talking together;Aurelius always feeling it a burden, Fronto a thing of magiccapacities, so that he had written an encomium in its praise, and oftenby ingenious arguments recommends his imperial pupil not to be sparingof it. To-day, with his younger listeners in mind, he had a story totell about it:--
"They say that our father Jupiter, when he ordered the world at thebeginning, divided time into two parts exactly equal: the one part heclothed with light, the other with darkness: he called them Day andNight; and he assigned rest to the night and to day the work of life.At that time Sleep was not yet born and men passed the whole of theirlives awake: only, the quiet of the night was ordained for them,instead of sleep. But it came to pass, little by little, [227] beingthat the minds of men are restless, that they carried on their businessalike by night as by day, and gave no part at all to repose. AndJupiter, when he perceived that even in the night-time they ceased notfrom trouble and disputation, and that even the courts of law remainedopen (it was the pride of Aurelius, as Fronto knew, to be assiduous inthose courts till far into the night) resolved to appoint one of hisbrothers to be the overseer of the night and have authority over man'srest. But Neptune pleaded in excuse the gravity of his constant chargeof the seas, and Father Dis the difficulty of keeping in subjection thespirits below; and Jupiter, having taken counsel with the other gods,perceived that the practice of nightly vigils was somewhat in favour.It was then, for the most part, that Juno gave birth to her children:Minerva, the mistress of all art and craft, loved the midnight lamp:Mars delighted in the darkness for his plots and sallies; and thefavour of Venus and Bacchus was with those who roused by night. Thenit was that Jupiter formed the design of creating Sleep; and he addedhim to the number of the gods, and gave him the charge over night andrest, putting into his hands the keys of human eyes. With his ownhands he mingled the juices wherewith Sleep should soothe the hearts ofmortals--herb of Enjoyment and herb of Safety, gathered from a grove inHeaven; and, from the meadows of [228] Acheron, the herb of Death;expressing from it one single drop only, no bigger than a tear onemight hide. 'With this juice,' he said, 'pour slumber upon the eyelidsof mortals. So soon as it hath touched them they will lay themselvesdown motionless, under thy power. But be not afraid: they shallrevive, and in a while stand up again upon their feet.' Thereafter,Jupiter gave wings to Sleep, attached, not, like Mercury's, to hisheels, but to his shoulders, like the wings of Love. For he said, 'Itbecomes thee not to approach men's eyes as with the noise of chariots,and the rushing of a swift courser, but in placid and merciful flight,as upon the wings of a swallow--nay! with not so much as the flutter ofthe dove.' Besides all this, that he might be yet pleasanter to men,he committed to him also a multitude of blissful dreams, according toevery man's desire. One watched his favourite actor; another listenedto the flute, or guided a charioteer in the race: in his dream, thesoldier was victorious, the general was borne in triumph, the wandererreturned home. Yes!--and sometimes those dreams come true!
Just then Aurelius was summoned to make the birthday offerings to hishousehold gods. A heavy curtain of tapestry was drawn back; and beyondit Marius gazed for a few moments into the Lararium, or imperialchapel. A patrician youth, in white habit, was in waiting, with alittle chest in his hand containing incense for the [229] use of thealtar. On richly carved consoles, or side boards, around this narrowchamber, were arranged the rich apparatus of worship and the golden orgilded images, adorned to-day with fresh flowers, among them that imageof Fortune from the apartment of Antoninus Pius, and such of theemperor's own teachers as were gone to their rest. A dim fresco on thewall commemorated the ancient piety of Lucius Albinius, who in flightfrom Rome on the morrow of a great disaster, overtaking certain priestson foot with their sacred utensils, descended from the wagon in whichhe rode and yielded it to the ministers of the gods. As he ascendedinto the chapel the emperor paused, and with a grave but friendly lookat his young visitor, delivered a parting sentence, audible to himalone: Imitation is the most acceptable-- Make sure that those to whomyou come nearest be the happier by your*
It was the very spirit of the scene and the hour--the hour Marius hadspent in the imperial house. How temperate, how tranquillising! whathumanity! Yet, as he left the eminent company concerning whose ways oflife at home he had been so youthfully curious, and sought, after hismanner, to determine the main trait in all this, he had to confess thatit was a sentiment of mediocrity, though of a mediocrity for oncereally golden.
NOTES
225. +"Limpid" is misprinted "Limped."
CHAPTER XIV: MANLY AMUSEMENT
DURING the Eastern war there came a moment when schism in the empirehad seemed possible through the defection of Lucius Verus; when toAurelius it had also seemed possible to confirm his allegiance by noless a gift than his beautiful daughter Lucilla, the eldest of hischildren--the domnula, probably, of those letters. The little lady,grown now to strong and stately maidenhood, had been ever something ofthe good genius, the better soul, to Lucius Verus, by the law ofcontraries, her somewhat cold and apathetic modesty acting ascounterfoil to the young man's tigrish fervour. Conducted to Ephesus,she had become his wife by form of civil marriage, the more solemnwedding rites being deferred till their return to Rome.
The ceremony of the Confarreation, or religious marriage, in whichbride and bridegroom partook together of a certain mystic bread, wascelebrated accordingly, with due pomp, early in the spring; Aureliushimself [231] assisting, with much domestic feeling. A crowd offashionable people filled the space before the entrance to theapartments of Lucius on the Palatine hill, richly decorated for theoccasion, commenting, not always quite delicately, on the variousdetails of the rite, which only a favoured few succeeded in actuallywitnessing. "She comes!" Marius could hear them say, "escorted by heryoung brothers: it is the young Commodus who carries the torch ofwh
ite-thornwood, the little basket of work-things, the toys for thechildren:"--and then, after a watchful pause, "she is winding thewoollen thread round the doorposts. Ah! I see the marriage-cake: thebridegroom presents the fire and water." Then, in a longer pause, washeard the chorus, Thalassie! Thalassie! and for just a few moments, inthe strange light of many wax tapers at noonday, Marius could see themboth, side by side, while the bride was lifted over the doorstep:Lucius Verus heated and handsome--the pale, impassive Lucilla lookingvery long and slender, in her closely folded yellow veil, and highnuptial crown.
As Marius turned away, glad to escape from the pressure of the crowd,he found himself face to face with Cornelius, an infrequent spectatoron occasions such as this. It was a relief to depart with him--sofresh and quiet he looked, though in all his splendid equestrian arrayin honour of the ceremony--from the garish heat [232] of the marriagescene. The reserve which had puzzled Marius so much on his first dayin Rome, was but an instance of many, to him wholly unaccountable,avoidances alike of things and persons, which must certainly mean thatan intimate companionship would cost him something in the way ofseemingly indifferent amusements. Some inward standard Marius seemedto detect there (though wholly unable to estimate its nature) ofdistinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of thefervid and corrupt life across which they were moving together:--somesecret, constraining motive, ever on the alert at eye and ear, whichcarried him through Rome as under a charm, so that Marius could not butthink of that figure of the white bird in the market-place asundoubtedly made true of him. And Marius was still full of admirationfor this companion, who had known how to make himself very pleasant tohim. Here was the clear, cold corrective, which the fever of hispresent life demanded. Without it, he would have felt alternatelysuffocated and exhausted by an existence, at once so gaudy andoverdone, and yet so intolerably empty; in which people, even at theirbest, seemed only to be brooding, like the wise emperor himself, over aworld's disillusion. For with all the severity of Cornelius, there wassuch a breeze of hopefulness--freshness and hopefulness, as of newmorning, about him. [233] For the most part, as I said, those refusals,that reserve of his, seemed unaccountable. But there were cases wherethe unknown monitor acted in a direction with which the judgment, orinstinct, of Marius himself wholly concurred; the effective decision ofCornelius strengthening him further therein, as by a kind of outwardlyembodied conscience. And the entire drift of his education determinedhim, on one point at least, to be wholly of the same mind with thispeculiar friend (they two, it might be, together, against the world!)when, alone of a whole company of brilliant youth, he had withdrawnfrom his appointed place in the amphitheatre, at a grand public show,which after an interval of many months, was presented there, in honourof the nuptials of Lucius Verus and Lucilla.
And it was still to the eye, through visible movement and aspect, thatthe character, or genius of Cornelius made itself felt by Marius; evenas on that afternoon when he had girt on his armour, among theexpressive lights and shades of the dim old villa at the roadside, andevery object of his knightly array had seemed to be but sign or symbolof some other thing far beyond it. For, consistently with his reallypoetic temper, all influence reached Marius, even more exclusively thanhe was aware, through the medium of sense. From Flavian in that briefearly summer of his existence, he had derived a powerful impression ofthe [234] "perpetual flux": he had caught there, as in cipher orsymbol, or low whispers more effective than any definite language, hisown Cyrenaic philosophy, presented thus, for the first time, in animage or person, with much attractiveness, touched also, consequently,with a pathetic sense of personal sorrow:--a concrete image, theabstract equivalent of which he could recognise afterwards, when theagitating personal influence had settled down for him, clearly enough,into a theory of practice. But of what possible intellectual formulacould this mystic Cornelius be the sensible exponent; seeming, as hedid, to live ever in close relationship with, and recognition of, amental view, a source of discernment, a light upon his way, which hadcertainly not yet sprung up for Marius? Meantime, the discretion ofCornelius, his energetic clearness and purity, were a charm, ratherphysical than moral: his exquisite correctness of spirit, at allevents, accorded so perfectly with the regular beauty of his person, asto seem to depend upon it. And wholly different as was this laterfriendship, with its exigency, its warnings, its restraints, from thefeverish attachment to Flavian, which had made him at times like anuneasy slave, still, like that, it was a reconciliation to the world ofsense, the visible world. From the hopefulness of this graciouspresence, all visible things around him, even the commonest objects ofeveryday life--if they but [235] stood together to warm their hands atthe same fire--took for him a new poetry, a delicate fresh bloom, andinterest. It was as if his bodily eyes had been indeed mysticallywashed, renewed, strengthened.
And how eagerly, with what a light heart, would Flavian have taken hisplace in the amphitheatre, among the youth of his own age! with what anappetite for every detail of the entertainment, and its variousaccessories:--the sunshine, filtered into soft gold by the vela, withtheir serpentine patterning, spread over the more select part of thecompany; the Vestal virgins, taking their privilege of seats near theempress Faustina, who sat there in a maze of double-coloured gems,changing, as she moved, like the waves of the sea; the cool circle ofshadow, in which the wonderful toilets of the fashionable told soeffectively around the blazing arena, covered again and again duringthe many hours' show, with clean sand for the absorption of certaingreat red patches there, by troops of white-shirted boys, for whom thegood-natured audience provided a scramble of nuts and small coin, flungto them over a trellis-work of silver-gilt and amber, precious gift ofNero, while a rain of flowers and perfume fell over themselves, as theypaused between the parts of their long feast upon the spectacle ofanimal suffering.
During his sojourn at Ephesus, Lucius Verus had readily become apatron, patron or protege, [236] of the great goddess of Ephesus, thegoddess of hunters; and the show, celebrated by way of a compliment tohim to-day, was to present some incidents of her story, where shefigures almost as the genius of madness, in animals, or in the humanitywhich comes in contact with them. The entertainment would have anelement of old Greek revival in it, welcome to the taste of a learnedand Hellenising society; and, as Lucius Verus was in some sense a loverof animals, was to be a display of animals mainly. There would be realwild and domestic creatures, all of rare species; and a real slaughter.On so happy an occasion, it was hoped, the elder emperor might evenconcede a point, and a living criminal fall into the jaws of the wildbeasts. And the spectacle was, certainly, to end in the destruction,by one mighty shower of arrows, of a hundred lions, "nobly" provided byAurelius himself for the amusement of his people.--Tam magnanimus fuit!
The arena, decked and in order for the first scene, looked delightfullyfresh, re-inforcing on the spirits of the audience the actual freshnessof the morning, which at this season still brought the dew. Along thesubterranean ways that led up to it, the sound of an advancing choruswas heard at last, chanting the words of a sacred song, or hymn toDiana; for the spectacle of the amphitheatre was, after all, a [237]religious occasion. To its grim acts of blood-shedding a kind ofsacrificial character still belonged in the view of certain religiouscasuists, tending conveniently to soothe the humane sensibilities of sopious an emperor as Aurelius, who, in his fraternal complacency, hadconsented to preside over the shows.
Artemis or Diana, as she may be understood in the actual development ofher worship, was, indeed, the symbolical expression of two allied yetcontrasted elements of human temper and experience--man's amity, andalso his enmity, towards the wild creatures, when they were still, in acertain sense, his brothers. She is the complete, and therefore highlycomplex, representative of a state, in which man was still muchoccupied with animals, not as his flock, or as his servants after thepastoral relationship of our later, orderly world, but rather as hisequals, on friendly terms or the reverse,--a state full of primeva
lsympathies and antipathies, of rivalries and common wants--while hewatched, and could enter into, the humours of those "younger brothers,"with an intimacy, the "survivals" of which in a later age seem often tohave had a kind of madness about them. Diana represents alike thebright and the dark side of such relationship. But the humanities ofthat relationship were all forgotten to-day in the excitement of ashow, in which mere cruelty to animals, their useless suffering anddeath, formed [238] the main point of interest. People watched theirdestruction, batch after batch, in a not particularly inventivefashion; though it was expected that the animals themselves, as livingcreatures are apt to do when hard put to it, would become inventive,and make up, by the fantastic accidents of their agony, for thedeficiencies of an age fallen behind in this matter of manly amusement.It was as a Deity of Slaughter--the Taurian goddess who demands thesacrifice of the shipwrecked sailors thrown on her coasts--the cruel,moonstruck huntress, who brings not only sudden death, but rabies,among the wild creatures that Diana was to be presented, in the personof a famous courtesan. The aim at an actual theatrical illusion, afterthe first introductory scene, was frankly surrendered to the display ofthe animals, artificially stimulated and maddened to attack each other.And as Diana was also a special protectress of new-born creatures,there would be a certain curious interest in the dexterously contrivedescape of the young from their mother's torn bosoms; as many pregnantanimals as possible being carefully selected for the purpose.
The time had been, and was to come again, when the pleasures of theamphitheatre centered in a similar practical joking upon human beings.What more ingenious diversion had stage manager ever contrived thanthat incident, itself a practical epigram never to be forgottten, [239]when a criminal, who, like slaves and animals, had no rights, wascompelled to present the part of Icarus; and, the wings failing him indue course, had fallen into a pack of hungry bears? For the long showsof the amphitheatre were, so to speak, the novel-reading of that age--acurrent help provided for sluggish imaginations, in regard, forinstance, to grisly accidents, such as might happen to one's self; butwith every facility for comfortable inspection. Scaevola might watchhis own hand, consuming, crackling, in the fire, in the person of aculprit, willing to redeem his life by an act so delightful to theeyes, the very ears, of a curious public. If the part of Marsyas wascalled for, there was a criminal condemned to lose his skin. It mightbe almost edifying to study minutely the expression of his face, whilethe assistants corded and pegged him to the bench, cunningly; theservant of the law waiting by, who, after one short cut with his knife,would slip the man's leg from his skin, as neatly as if it were astocking--a finesse in providing the due amount of suffering forwrong-doers only brought to its height in Nero's living bonfires. Butthen, by making his suffering ridiculous, you enlist against thesufferer, some real, and all would-be manliness, and do much to stifleany false sentiment of compassion. The philosophic emperor, having nogreat taste for sport, and asserting here a personal scruple, hadgreatly changed all [240] that; had provided that nets should be spreadunder the dancers on the tight-rope, and buttons for the swords of thegladiators. But the gladiators were still there. Their bloodycontests had, under the form of a popular amusement, the efficacy of ahuman sacrifice; as, indeed, the whole system of the public shows wasunderstood to possess a religious import. Just at this point,certainly, the judgment of Lucretius on pagan religion is withoutreproach--
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
And Marius, weary and indignant, feeling isolated in the greatslaughter-house, could not but observe that, in his habitualcomplaisance to Lucius Verus, who, with loud shouts of applause fromtime to time, lounged beside him, Aurelius had sat impassibly throughall the hours Marius himself had remained there. For the most partindeed, the emperor had actually averted his eyes from the show,reading, or writing on matters of public business, but had seemed,after all, indifferent. He was revolving, perhaps, that old Stoicparadox of the Imperceptibility of pain; which might serve as anexcuse, should those savage popular humours ever again turn against menand women. Marius remembered well his very attitude and expression onthis day, when, a few years later, certain things came to pass in Gaul,under his full authority; and that attitude and expression [241]defined already, even thus early in their so friendly intercourse, andthough he was still full of gratitude for his interest, a permanentpoint of difference between the emperor and himself--between himself,with all the convictions of his life taking centre to-day in hismerciful, angry heart, and Aurelius, as representing all the light, allthe apprehensive power there might be in pagan intellect. There wassomething in a tolerance such as this, in the bare fact that he couldsit patiently through a scene like this, which seemed to Marius to markAurelius as his inferior now and for ever on the question ofrighteousness; to set them on opposite sides, in some great conflict,of which that difference was but a single presentment. Due, inwhatever proportions, to the abstract principles he had formulated forhimself, or in spite of them, there was the loyal conscience withinhim, deciding, judging himself and every one else, with a wonderfulsort of authority:--You ought, methinks, to be something quitedifferent from what you are; here! and here! Surely Aurelius must belacking in that decisive conscience at first sight, of the intimationsof which Marius could entertain no doubt--which he looked for inothers. He at least, the humble follower of the bodily eye, was awareof a crisis in life, in this brief, obscure existence, a fierceopposition of real good and real evil around him, the issues of whichhe must by no [242] means compromise or confuse; of the antagonisms ofwhich the "wise" Marcus Aurelius was unaware.
That long chapter of the cruelty of the Roman public shows may,perhaps, leave with the children of the modern world a feeling ofself-complacency. Yet it might seem well to ask ourselves--it isalways well to do so, when we read of the slave-trade, for instance, orof great religious persecutions on this side or on that, or of anythingelse which raises in us the question, "Is thy servant a dog, that heshould do this thing?"--not merely, what germs of feeling we mayentertain which, under fitting circumstances, would induce us to thelike; but, even more practically, what thoughts, what sort ofconsiderations, may be actually present to our minds such as might havefurnished us, living in another age, and in the midst of those legalcrimes, with plausible excuses for them: each age in turn, perhaps,having its own peculiar point of blindness, with its consequentpeculiar sin--the touch-stone of an unfailing conscience in the selectfew.
Those cruel amusements were, certainly, the sin of blindness, ofdeadness and stupidity, in the age of Marius; and his light had notfailed him regarding it. Yes! what was needed was the heart that wouldmake it impossible to witness all this; and the future would be withthe forces that could beget a heart like that. [243] His chosenphilosophy had said,--Trust the eye: Strive to be right always inregard to the concrete experience: Beware of falsifying yourimpressions. And its sanction had at least been effective here, inprotesting--"This, and this, is what you may not look upon!" Surelyevil was a real thing, and the wise man wanting in the sense of it,where, not to have been, by instinctive election, on the right side,was to have failed in life.
END OF VOL. I
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