A Struggle For Rome Volume Iii Part 18

"I have nothing more for you to eat, but plenty to drink! Come!"

screamed the woman, and, clasping the elder child round the waist with her right arm, and pressing the younger more firmly to her bosom, she cast herself over the wall into the river.

A cry of horror, followed by curses, ran through the crowd.

"She was mad!" said the Prefect in a loud voice, and rode on.

"No, she was the wisest of us all!" cried a voice from the crowd.

"Silence! Legionaries, sound the trumpets! Forwards! To the Forum!"

commanded Cethegus, and the troop of hors.e.m.e.n galloped away.

Across the Fabrician Bridge and through the Carmentalian Gate, the Prefect arrived in the Forum Romanum at the foot of the Capitoline Hill.

The wide s.p.a.ce appeared almost empty; the few thousand people who, clad in miserable garments, crouched upon the steps of the temple and halls, or supported themselves on their staffs or spears, made little impression.

"What does the Prefect want?"--"What can he want? we have nothing left but our lives."--"And those he will--" "Do you know that the day before yesterday the coast town Centumcellae surrendered to the Goths?"--"Yes; the citizens overpowered the Prefect's Isaurians and opened the gates."--"Would that we could follow their example!"--"We must do it soon, or it will be too late."--"Yesterday my brother fell down dead, some boiled nettles still in his mouth. He was too weak to swallow the mess."---"Yesterday in the Forum Boarium a mouse was sold for its weight in gold!"--"For a week I got roasted meat from a butcher--he would not sell the flesh raw."--"You were lucky! They storm all houses where they smell roast meat!"--"But the day before yesterday he was torn to pieces by the mob, for he had enticed beggar-children into his house--and that was the flesh he had sold us!"--"But do you know what the Gothic King does with his prisoners? He treats them as a father treats his helpless children; and most of them enter his army at once."--"Yes, and those who will not he provides with money for the journey."--"Yes, and with clothes and shoes and provisions. The sick and wounded are nursed."--"And he gives them guides to the coast towns."--"And sometimes he even pays for their pa.s.sage in merchant-ships to the East."--"Look, the Prefect dismounts!"

"He looks like Pluto!"

"He is no longer Princeps Senatus, but Princeps Inferorum."

"Look at his eyes! As cold as ice, and yet like red-hot arrows."

"Yes, my G.o.dmother is right; she says that only those who have no heart can look like that."

"That is an old tale. Spectres and Lemures have eaten his heart in the night."

"Ah, bah! There are no Lemures. But there is a devil, for it says so in the Bible. And the Prefect has sold himself to the devil. The Numidian who is holding his black horse by the bridle is an imp from h.e.l.l, who always accompanies him. Nothing can hurt the Prefect. He feels neither hunger nor thirst nor the want of sleep. But he can never smile, for he has sold his soul!"

"How do you know?"

"The deacon of St. Paul's has explained it all. And it is a sin to serve such a man any longer. Did he not betray our Bishop, Silverius, to the Emperor, and send him over the sea in chains?"

"And lately he accused sixty priests, Orthodox and Arian, of treason, and banished them from the city."

"That is true!"

"And he must have promised the devil that he would torment the Romans."

"But we will endure it no longer. We are free! He himself has often told us so. I will ask him by what right----"

But the bold speaker stopped short, for the Prefect glanced at the murmuring group as he mounted the rostrum.

"Quirites," he began, "I call upon you all to become legionaries.

Famine and treachery--a shameful thing to say of Romans!--have thinned the ranks of our defenders. Do you hear the sound of hammers? A crucifix is being erected to punish all deserters. Rome demands still greater sacrifices from her citizens, for _they_ have no choice. The citizens of other towns choose between surrender or destruction. We, who have grown up in the shadow of the Capitol, have no choice; for more than a thousand years of heroism sanctify this place. Here no coward thought dare arise. You cannot again endure to see the barbarians tie their horses to the columns of Trajan. We must make a last effort. The marrow of heroism ripens early in the descendants of Romulus and Caesar; and late is spent the strength of the men who drink of the waters of the Tiber. I call upon all boys from their twelfth, all men until their eightieth year, to help to man the walls. Silence!

Do not murmur. I shall send my tribunes and the lance-bearers into every house--only to prevent boys of too tender years and too aged men from volunteering their services--then why do you murmur? Does any one know of something better? Let him speak out boldly; from this place, which I now vacate in his favour."

At this, the group at which the Prefect looked became perfectly silent.

But behind him, amid those whom his eye could not intimidate, there arose a threatening cry:

"Bread!" "Surrender!" "Bread!"

Cethegus turned.

"Are you not ashamed? You, worthy of your great name, have borne so much, and now, when it is only necessary to hold out a little longer, you would succ.u.mb? In a few days Belisarius will bring relief."

"You told us so seven times already!"

"And after the seventh time Belisarius lost almost all his ships.

"Which now aid in blocking our harbour!"

"You should name a term; a limit to this misery. My heart bleeds for this people!"

"Who are you?" the Prefect asked the invisible speaker of the last sentence; "you can be no Roman!"

"I am Pelagius the deacon, a Christian and a priest of the Lord. And I fear not man but G.o.d. The King of the Goths, although a heretic, has promised to restore to the orthodox the churches of which his fellow-heretics, the Arians, have deprived them, in every town which surrenders. Three times already has he sent a herald to the citizens of Rome with the most lenient proposals--they have never been permitted to speak to us."

"Be silent, priest! You have no fatherland but heaven; no people but the communion of saints; no army but that of the angels. Manage your heavenly kingdom, but leave to men the kingdom of the Romans."

"But the man of G.o.d is right!"

"Set us a term."

"A short one!"

"Till then we will still hold out."

"But if it elapse without relief----"

"Then we will surrender!"

"We will open the gates."

But Cethegus shunned this thought. Not having received news from the outer world for weeks, he had no idea when Belisarius could possibly arrive at the mouth of the Tiber.

"What!" he cried. "Shall I fix a term during which you will remain Romans, and after which you will become cowards and slaves! Honour knows no term!"

"You speak thus, because you do not believe in the reinforcements."

"I speak thus, because I believe in _you_!"

"But we will have a term. We are resolved. You speak of Roman freedom!

Are we free, or are we bound to obey you like your slaves? We demand a term, and we will have it."

"We will have it!" repeated a chorus of voices.