Aurelian or Rome in the Third Century Part 30

Qualities have unfolded themselves, and affections and tastes warmed into life, which we none of us, I believe, so much as suspected the existence of. Zen.o.bia has come to be devotedly attached to him, and to repose the same sort of confidence in him as formerly in Julia. All this makes her the more reluctant to part with him; but, as it is for a throne, she acquiesces. He carries away from Rome with him one of its most beautiful and estimable women--the youngest daughter of the venerable Tacitus--to whom he has just been married. In her you will see an almost too favorable specimen of Roman women.

Several days have elapsed since I wrote to you, giving an account of the sufferings and death of the Christian Macer--as I learned them from those who were present--for a breach of the late edicts, and for sacrilegiously, as the laws term it, tearing down the parchment containing them from one of the columns of the capitol. During this period other horrors of the same kind have been enacted in different parts of the city. Macer is not the only one who has already paid for his faith with his life. All the restraints of the law seem to be withdrawn, not confessedly but virtually, and the Christians in humble condition--and such for the most part we are--are no longer safe from violence in the streets of Rome. Although, Fausta, you believe not with us, you must, scarcely the less for that, pity us in our present straits. Can the mind picture to itself, in some aspects of the case, a more miserable lot! Were the times, even at the worst, so full of horror in Palmyra as now here in Rome? There, if the city were given up to pillage, the citizen had at least the satisfaction of dying in the excitement of a contest, and in the defence of himself and his children.

Here the prospect is--the actual scene is almost arrived and present--that all the Christians of Rome will be given over to the butchery, first, of the Prefect's court, and others of the same character, established throughout the city for the express purpose of trying the Christians--and next, of the mob commissioned with full powers to search out, find, and slay, all who bear the hated name. The Christians, it is true, die for a great cause. In that cause they would rather die than live, if to live, they must sacrifice any of the interests of truth. But still death is not preferred; much less is death, in the revolting and agonizing form, which, chiefly, these voluntary executioners choose, to be viewed in any other light than an evil too great almost to be endured.

It would astonish you, I think, and give you conceptions of the power of this religion such as you have never had as yet, could you with me look into the bosoms of these thousand Christian families, and behold the calmness and the fort.i.tude with which they await the approaching calamities. There is now, as they believe, little else before them but death--and death, such as a foretaste has been given of, in the sufferings of Macer. Yet are they, with wonderfully few exceptions, here in their houses prepared for whatever may betide, and resolved that they will die for him unto whom they have lived. This unshrinking courage, this spirit of self-sacrifice, is the more wonderful, as it is now the received belief that they would not forfeit their Christian name or hope by withdrawing, before the storm bursts, from the scene of danger.

There have been those in the church, and some there are now, who would have all, who in time of persecution seek safety in flight, or by any form of compromise, visited with the severest censures the church can inflict, and forever after refused readmission to the privileges which they once enjoyed. Paying no regard to the peculiar temperament and character of the individual, they would compel all to remain fixed at their post, inviting by a needless ostentation of their name and faith, the search and a.s.sault of the enemy. Macer was of this number. Happily they are now few: and the Christians are left free--free from the constraint of any tyrant opinion, to act according to the real feeling of the heart. But does this freedom carry them away from Rome? Does it show them to the world hurrying in crowds by day, or secretly flying by night, from the threatened woes? No so. All who were here when these troubles first began, are here now, or with few and inconsiderable exceptions--fewer than I could wish. All who have resorted to me under these circ.u.mstances for counsel or aid have I advised, if flight be a possible thing to them, that they should retreat with their children to some remote and secluded spot, and wait till the tempest should have pa.s.sed by. Especially have I so advised and urged all whom I have known to be of a sensitive and timid nature, or bound by ties of more than common interest and necessity to large circles of relatives and dependents. I have aimed to make them believe, that little gain would accrue to the cause of Christ from the addition of them and theirs to the ma.s.s of sufferers--when that ma.s.s is already so large; whereas great and irreparable loss would follow to the community of their friends, and of the Christians who should survive. They would do an equal service to Christ and his church by living, and, on the first appearance of calmer times, rea.s.suming their Christian name and profession; being then a centre about which there might gather together a new mult.i.tude of believers. If still the enemies of Christ should prevail, and a day of rest never dawn nor arise, they might then, when hope was dead, come forth and add themselves to the innumerable company of those, born of Heaven, who hold life and all its joys and comforts as dross, in comparison with the perfect integrity of the mind. By such statements have I prevailed with many. Probus too has exerted his power in the same direction, and has enjoyed the happiness of seeing safely embarked for Greece, or Syria, many whose lives in the coming years will be beyond price to the then just-surviving church.

Yet do not imagine, Fausta, that we are an immaculate people; that the weaknesses and faults which seem universal to mankind, are not to be discovered in us that we are all, what by our acknowledged principles we ought to be. We have our traitors and our renegades, our backsliders, and our well-dissembling hypocrites--but so few are they, that they give us little disquiet, and bring slight discredit upon us with the enemy.

And beside these, there will now be those, as in former persecutions, who, as the day of evil approaches, will, through the operation simply of their fears, renounce their name and faith. Of the former, some have already made themselves conspicuous--conspicuous now by their cowardly and hasty apostacy, as they were before by a narrow, contentious, and restless zeal. Among others, the very one, who, on the evening when the Christians a.s.sembled near the baths of Macer, was so forward to a.s.sail the faith of Probus, and who ever before, on other occasions, when a display could by any possibility be made of devotion to his party, or an ostentatious parade of his love of Christ, was always thrusting himself upon the notice of our body and clamoring for notoriety, has already abandoned us and sought safety in apostacy. Others of the same stamp have in like manner deserted us. They are neither lamented by us nor honored by the other party. It is said of him whom I have just spoken of, that soon as he had publicly renounced Christ, and sacrificed, hisses and yells of contempt broke from the surrounding crowds. He, doubtless it occurred to them, who had so proved himself weak, cowardly, and faithless, to one set of friends, could scarcely be trusted as brave and sincere by those to whom he then joined himself.

There are no virtues esteemed by the Romans like courage and sincerity.

This trait in their character is a n.o.ble one, and is greatly in our favor. For, much as they detest our superst.i.tions, they so honor our fort.i.tude under suffering, that a deep sympathy springs up almost unconsciously in our behalf. Half of those who, on the first outbreak of these disorders, would have been found bitterly hostile, if their hearts could be scanned now or when this storm shall have pa.s.sed by, would be found most warmly with us--not in belief indeed, but in a fellow-feeling, which is its best preparation and almost certain antecedent. Even in such an inhuman rabble as perpetrated the savage murder of the family of Macer, there were thousands who, then driven on by the fury of pa.s.sion, will, as soon as reflection returns, bear testimony in a wholly altered feeling toward us, to the power with which the miraculous serenity and calm courage of those true martyrs have wrought within them. No others are now spoken of in Rome, but Macer and his heroic wife and children.

Throughout the city it is this morning current that new edicts are to be issued in the course of the day. Milo, returning from some of his necessary excursions into the more busy and crowded parts of the city, says that it is confidently believed. I told him that I could scarcely think it, as I had reason to believe that the Emperor had engaged that they should not be as yet.

'An Emperor surely,' said Milo, 'may change his mind if he lists. He is little better than the rest of us, if he have not so much power as that.

I think, if I were Emperor, that would be my chief pleasure, to do and say one thing to-day and just the contrary thing to-morrow, without being obliged to give a reason for it. If there be anything that makes slavery it is this rendering a reason. In the service of the most n.o.ble Gallienus, fifty slaves were subject to me, and never was I known to render a reason for a single office I put them to. That was being nearer an Emperor than I fear I shall ever be again.'

'I hope so, Milo,' I said. 'But what reason have you to think,--if you will render a reason,--that Aurelian has changed his mind?'

'I have given proof,' answered Milo, 'have I not, that if anything is known in Rome, it is known by Curio?'

'I think you have shown that he knows some things.'

'He was clearly right about the sacrifices,' responded Milo, 'as events afterwards declared. Just as many suffered as he related to me. What now he told me this morning was this, "that certain persons would find themselves mistaken--that some knew more than others--that the ox led to the slaughter knew less than the butcher--that great persons trusted not their secrets to every one--Emperors had their confidants--and Fronto had his."'

'Was that all?' I patiently asked.

'I thought, n.o.ble sir,' he replied, 'that it was--for upon that he only sagaciously shook his head and was silent. However, as I said nothing, knowing well that some folks would die if they retained a secret, though they never would part with it for the asking, Curio began again, soon as he despaired of any question from me, and said "he could tell me what was known but to three persons in Rome." His wish was that I should ask him who they were, and what it was that was known but to so few; but I did not, but began a new bargain with a man for his poultry--for, you must know, we were in the market. He then began himself and said, "Who think you they were?" But I answered not. "Who," he then whispered in my ear, "but Aurelian, Fronto, and myself!" Then I gratified him by asking what the secret was, for if it had anything to do with the Christians I should like to know it. "I will tell it to thee," he said, "but to no other in Rome, and to thee only on the promise that it goes in at thy ear but not out at thy mouth." I said that I trusted that I, who had kept, I dared hardly say how many years, and kept them still, the secrets of Gallienus, should know how to keep and how to reveal anything he had to say. Whereupon, without any more reserve, he a.s.sured me that Fronto had persuaded the Emperor to publish new and more severe edicts before the sixth hour, telling him as a reason for it, that the Christians were flying from Rome in vast numbers; that every night--they having first pa.s.sed the gates in the day--mult.i.tudes were hastening into the country, making for Gaul and Spain, or else embarking in vessels long prepared for such service on the Tiber; that, unless instantly arrested, there would be none or few for the edicts to operate upon, and then, when all had become calm again, and he--Aurelian--were dead, and another less pious upon the throne, they would all return, and Rome swarm with them as before. Curio said that, when the Emperor heard this, he broke out into a wild and furious pa.s.sion. He swore by the great G.o.d of light--which is an oath Curio says he never uses but he keeps--that you, sir, Piso, had deceived him--had cajoled him; that you had persuaded him to wait and hear what the Christians had to say for themselves before they were summarily dealt with, which he had consented to do, but which he now saw was a device to gain time by which all, or the greater part, might escape secretly from the capital. He then, with Fronto and the secretaries, prepared and drew up new edicts, declaring every Christian an enemy of the state and of the G.o.ds, and requiring them everywhere to be informed against, and upon conviction of being Christians, to be thrown into prison and await there the judgment of the Emperor. These things, sir, are what I learned from Curio, which I make no secret of, for many reasons. I trust you will believe them, for I heard the same story all along the streets, and mine is better worthy of belief only because of where and whom it comes from.'

I told Milo that I could not but suppose there was something in it, as I had heard the rumor from several other sources; that, if Curio spoke the truth, it was worse than I had apprehended.

Putting together what was thus communicated by Milo, and what, as he said, was to be heard anywhere in the streets, I feared that some dark game might indeed be playing by the priest against us, by which our lives might be sacrificed even before the day were out.

'Should you not,' said Julia, 'instantly seek Aurelian? If what Milo has said possess any particle of truth, it is most evident the Emperor has been imposed upon by the lies of Fronto. He has cunningly used his opportunities: and you, Lucius, except he be instantly undeceived, may be the first to feel his power.'

While she was speaking, Probus, Felix, and others of the princ.i.p.al Christians of Rome entered the apartment. Their faces and their manner, and their first words, declared that the same conviction possessed them as us.

'We are constrained,' said Felix, 'thus with little ceremony, n.o.ble Piso, to intrude upon your privacy But in truth the affair we have come upon admits not of ceremony or delay.'

'Let there be none then, I pray, and let us hear at once what concerns us all.'

'It is spread over the city,' replied the bishop, 'that before the sixth hour edicts are to be issued that will go to the extreme we have feared--affecting the liberty and life of every Christian in Rome. We find it hard to believe this, however, as it is in the face of what Aurelian has most expressly stipulated. It is therefore the wish and prayer of the Christians that you, being nearer to him than any, should seek an interview with him, and then serve our cause in such manner and by such arguments as you best can.'

'This is what we desire, Piso,' said they all.

I replied, that I would immediately perform that which they desired, but that I would that some other of our number should accompany me.

Whereupon Felix was urged to join me; and consenting, we, at the moment, departed for the palace of Aurelian.

On arriving at the gardens, it was only by urgency that I obtained admission to the presence of the Emperor. But upon declaring that I came upon an errand that nearly concerned himself and Rome, I was ordered to be brought into his private apartment.

As I entered, Aurelian quickly rose from the table, at which he had been sitting, on the other side of which sat Fronto. None of the customary urbanity was visible in his deportment; his countenance was dark and severe, his reception of me cold and stately, his voice more harsh and bitter than ever. I could willingly have excused the presence of the priest.

'Amba.s.sadors,' said Aurelian inclining toward us, 'I may suppose from the community of Christians.'

'We came at their request,' I replied; 'rumors are abroad through the city, too confidently reported, and too generally credited to be regarded as wholly groundless, yet which it is impossible for those who know Aurelian to believe, a.s.serting that to-day edicts are to be issued affecting both the liberty and the lives of the Christians--'

'I would, Piso, that rumor were never farther from the truth than in this.'

'But,' I rejoined, 'has not Aurelian said that he would proceed against them no further till he had first heard their defence from their own organs?'

'Is it one party only in human affairs, young Piso,' he sharply replied,'that must conform to truth and keep inviolate a plighted word?

Is deception no vice when it is a Christian who deceives? I indeed said that I would hear the Christians, though, when I made that promise, I also said that 'twould profit them nothing; but I then little knew why it was that Piso was so urgent.'

'Truth,' I replied, 'cannot be received from some quarters, any more than sweet and wholesome water through poisoned channels. Even, Aurelian, if Fronto designed not to mislead, no statement pa.s.sing through his lips--if it concerned the Christians--could do so, without there being added to it, or lost from it, much that properly belonged to it. I have heard that too, which, I may suppose, has been poured into the mind of Aurelian, to fill it with a bitterer enmity still toward the Christians--that the Christians have sought this delay only that they might use the opportunities thus afforded, to escape from his power--and that, using them, they have already in the greater part fled from the capital, leaving to the Emperor but a few old women and children upon whom to wreak his vengeance. How does pa.s.sion bring its film over the clearest mind! How does the eye that will not see, shut out the light though it be brighter than that of day! It had been wiser in Aurelian, as well as more merciful, first to have tried the truth of what has thus been thrust upon his credulity ere he made it a ground of action. True himself, he suspects not others; but suspicion were sometimes a higher virtue than frank confidence. Had Aurelian but looked into the streets of Rome, he could not but have seen the grossness of the lie that has been palmed upon his too willing ear. Of the seventy thousand Christians who dwelt in Rome, the same seventy thousand, less by scarce a seventieth part, are now here within their dwellings waiting the will of Aurelian. Take this on the word of one whom, in former days at least, you have found worthy of your trust. Take it on the word of the venerable head of this community who stands here to confirm it either by word or oath--and in Rome it needs but to know that Felix, the Christian, has spoken, to know that truth has spoken too.'

'The n.o.ble Piso,' added Felix 'has spoken what all who know aught of the affairs and condition of the Christians know to be true. There is among us, great Emperor, too much, rather than too little, of that courage that meets suffering and death without shrinking. Let your proclamations this moment be sounded abroad calling upon the Christians to appear for judgment upon their faith before the tribunals of Rome, and they will come flocking up as do your Pagan mult.i.tudes to the games of the Flavian.'

While we had been speaking, Fronto sat, inattentive as it seemed to what was going on. But at these last words he was compelled to give ear, and did it as a man does who has heard unwelcome truths. As Felix ended, the Emperor turned toward him without speaking, and without any look of doubt or pa.s.sion, waiting for such explanation as he might have to give.

Fronto, instantly re-a.s.suring himself, rose from his seat with the air of a man who doubts not the soundness of his cause, and feels sure of the ear of his judge.

'I will not say, great Emperor, that I have not in my ardor made broader the statements which I have received from others. It is an error quite possible to have been guilty of. My zeal for the G.o.ds is warm and oft-times outruns the calm dictates of reason. But if what has now been affirmed as true, be true, it is more I believe than they who so report can make good--or than others can, be they friends or enemies of this tribe. Who shall now go out into this wilderness of streets, into the midst of this countless mult.i.tude of citizens and strangers--men of all religions and all manners--and pick me out the seventy thousand Christians, and show that all are close at home? Out of the seventy thousand, is it not palpable that its third or half may have fled, and yet it shall be in no man's power to make it so appear--to point to the spot whence they have departed, or to that whither they have gone? But beside this, I must here and now confess, that it was upon no knowledge of my own gathered by my own eyes and ears that I based the truth, now charged as error; but upon what came to me through those in whose word I have ever placed the most sacred trust, the priests of the temple, and, more than all, my faithful servant--friend I may call him--Curio, into whom drops by some miracle all that is strange or new in Rome.'

I said in reply, 'that it were not so difficult perhaps as the priest has made it seem, to learn what part of the Christians were now in Rome, and what part were gone. There are among us, Aurelian, in every separate church, men who discharge duties corresponding to those which Fronto performs in the Temple of the Sun. We have our priests, and others subordinate to them, who fill offices of dignity and trust. Beside these, there are others still, who, for their wealth or their worth, are known well, not among the Christians only, but the Romans also. Of these, it were an easy matter to learn, whether or not they are now in Rome. And if these are here, who, from the posts they fill would be the first victims, it may be fairly supposed that the humbler sort and less able to depart--and therefore safer--are also here. Here I stand, and here stands Felix; we are not among the missing! And we boast not of a courage greater than may be claimed for the greater part of those to whom we belong.'

'Great Emperor,' said Fronto, 'I will say no more than this, that in its whole aspect this bears the same front, as the black aspersions of the wretch Macer, whose lies, grosser than Cretan ever forged, poured in a foul and rotten current from his swollen lips; yea, while the hot irons were tearing out his very heart-strings, did he still belch forth fresh torrents blacker and fouler as they flowed longer, till death came and took him to other tortures worse a thousand-fold--the just doom of such as put false for true. That those were the malignant lies I have said they are, Aurelian can need no other proof, I hope, than that which has been already given.'

'I am still, Fronto, as when your witnesses were here before me, satisfied with your defence. When indeed I doubt the truth of Aurelian, I may be found to question that of Fronto. Piso--hold! We have heard and said too much already. Take me not, as if I doubted, more than Fronto, the word which you have uttered, or that of the venerable Felix. You have said that which you truly believe. The honor of a Piso has never been impeached, nor, as I trust, can be. Yet, has there been error, both here and there, and, I doubt not, is. Let it be thus determined then.

If, upon any, blame shall seem to rest, let it be upon myself. If any shall be charged with doing to-day what must be undone to-morrow, let the burden be upon my shoulders. I will therefore recede; the edicts, which, as you have truly heard, were to-day to have been promulged, shall sleep at least another day. To-morrow, Piso, at the sixth hour, in the palace on the Palatine, shall Probus--if such be the pleasure of the Christians--plead in their behalf. Then and there will I hear what this faith is, from him, or from whomsoever they shall appoint. And now no more.'

With these words on the part of Aurelian, our audience closed, and we turned away--grieving to see that a man like him, otherwise a t.i.tan every way, should have so surrendered himself into the keeping of another; yet rejoicing that some of that spirit of justice that once wholly swayed him still remained, and that our appeal to it had not been in vain.

To-morrow then, at the sixth hour, will Probus appear before Aurelian.

It is not, Fausta, because I, or any, suppose that Aurelian himself can be so wrought upon as to change any of his purposes, that we desire this hearing. He is too far entered into this business--too heartily, and, I may add, too conscientiously--to be drawn away from it, or diverted from the great object which he has set up before him. I will not despair, however, that even he may be softened, and abate somewhat of that raging thirst for our blood, for the blood of us all, that now seems to madden him. But, however this may be, upon other minds impressions may be made that may be of service to us either directly or indirectly. We may suppose that the hearing of the Christians will be public, that many of great weight with Aurelian will be there, who never before heard a word from a Christian's lips, and who know only that we are held as enemies of the state and its religion. Especially, I doubt not, will many, most or all, of the Senate be there; and it is to that body I still look, as, in the last resort, able perhaps to exert a power that may save us at least from absolute annihilation.

To-day has Probus been heard; and while others sleep, I resume my pen to describe to you the events of it, as they have occurred.

It was in the banqueting hall of the imperial palace on the Palatine, that Probus was directed to appear, and defend his cause before the Emperor. It is a room of great size, and beautiful in its proportions and decorations. A row of marble pillars adorns each longer side of the apartment. Its lofty ceiling presents to the eye in allegory, and in colors that can never fade, Rome victorious over the world. The great and good of Rome's earlier days stand around, in marble or bra.s.s, upon pedestals, or in niches, sunk into the substance of the walls. And where the walls are not thus broken, pictures wrought upon them, set before the beholder many of the scenes in which the patriots of former days achieved or suffered for the cause of their country. Into this apartment, soon as it was thrown open, poured a crowd both of Christians and Pagans, of Romans and of strangers from every quarter of the world.

There was scarcely a remote province of the empire that had not there its representative; and from the far East, discernible at once by their costume, were many present, who seemed interested not less than others in the great questions to be agitated. Between the two central columns upon the western side, just beneath the pedestal of a colossal statue of Vespasian, the great military idol of Aurelian, upon a seat slightly raised above the floor, having on his right hand Livia and Julia, sat the Emperor. He was surrounded by his favorite generals and the chief members of the senate, seated, or else standing against the columns or statues which were near him. There too, at the side of, or immediately before, Aurelian, but placed lower, were Porphyrius, Varus, Fronto, and half the priesthood of Rome. A little way in front of the Emperor, and nearly in the centre of the room, stood Probus.

If Aurelian sat in his chair of gold, looking the omnipotent master of all the world, as if no mere mortal force could drive him from the place he held and filled--Probus, on his part, though he wanted all that air of pride and self-confidence written upon every line of Aurelian's face and form, yet seemed like one, who, in the very calmness of an unfaltering trust in a goodness and power above that of earth, was in perfect possession of himself, and fearless of all that man might say or do. His face was pale; but his eye was clear. His air was that of a man mild and gentle, who would not injure willingly the meanest thing endowed with life; but of a man too of that energy and inward strength of purpose, that he would not on the other hand suffer an injury to be done to another, if any power lodged within him could prevent it. It was that of a man to be loved, and yet to be feared; whose compa.s.sion you might rely upon; but whose indignation at wrong and injustice might also be relied upon, whenever the weak or the oppressed should cry out for help against the strong and the cruel.

No sooner had Aurelian seated himself, and the thronged apartment become still, than he turned to those who were present and said,