A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 30

"How can I be so--childish--as to vex myself? It is all very natural, if very foolish. You are sick, Julius. Wait; I will write you a prescription."

And with an expression of pleased malice on his face, he seated himself upon the writing-divan, took a Cnidian reed-pen, and wrote with the red ink from a cup of agate, in the shape of a lion's head, which was screwed into the lectus:

"To Julius Monta.n.u.s: Cethegus, Prefect of Rome.

"Your touching epistle from Neapolis amused me much. It shows that you have not yet outlived the last childish ailments. When you have laid them aside you will be a man. In order to precipitate this crisis, I will prescribe the best means. You will at once seek for the trader in purple, Valerius Procillus, the oldest friend that I have in Neapolis.

He is the richest merchant of the East, an inveterate enemy of the Emperor of Byzantium, and as good a republican as Cato; merely on that account he is my trusted friend. But his daughter, Valeria Procilla, is the most beautiful Roman girl of our time, and a true daughter of the ancient, the heathen world. She is only three years younger than you, and therefore ten times as wise. At the same time her father will not refuse you if you explain to him that Cethegus sues for you. But thou wilt fall deeply in love at first sight! Of this I am sure; although I tell it you beforehand, although you know that I wish it. In her arms you will forget all the friends in the world; when the sun rises, the moon pales. Besides, do you know that your Castor is one of the most dangerous enemies of the Romans? And I once knew a certain Julius who swore: 'Rome before all things!'--_Vale_."

Cethegus rolled the papyrus together, tied it with a string of red bast, fastened the knot with wax, and pressed his amethyst ring, engraved with a splendid head of Jupiter, upon it. Then he touched a silver eagle which protruded from the marble wainscoting of the room; outside, upon the wall of the vestibule, a bronze thunderbolt struck upon the silver shield of a fallen t.i.tan with a clear bell-like tone.

The slave re-entered the room.

"Let the messenger have a bath; give him food and wine, a gold solidus, and this letter. To-morrow at sunrise he will return to Neapolis."

CHAPTER VII.

Several weeks later we find the grave Prefect in a circle which seemed very ill-suited to his lofty character, or even to his age.

In the singular juxtaposition of heathenism and Christianity which, during the first century succeeding Constantine's conversion, filled the life and manners of the Roman world with such harsh contrasts, the peaceful mingling of the old and the new religious festivals played a striking part. Generally the merry feasts of the ancient G.o.ds still existed, together with the great holidays of the Christian Church, though usually robbed of their original significance, of their religious kernel. The people allowed themselves to be deprived of the belief in Jupiter and Juno, of sacrifices and ceremonies, but not of the games, the festivities, the dances and banquets, by which those ceremonies had been accompanied; and the Church was at all times wise and tolerant enough to suffer what she could not prevent. Thus, even the truly heathen Lupercalia, which were distinguished by gross superst.i.tion and all kinds of rude excess, were only, and with great difficulty, abolished in the year 496.

The days of the Floralia were come, which formerly were celebrated over the whole continent with noisy games and dances, as being specially a feast of happy youth; and which, in the days we speak of, were at least pa.s.sed in banqueting and drinking.

And so the two Licinii, with their circle of young gallants and patricians, had made an appointment to meet together for a symposium upon the princ.i.p.al holiday of the Floralia, to which, as at our picnics, every one contributed his share of food and wine.

The guests a.s.sembled at the house of young Kallistratos, an amiable and rich Greek from Corinth, who had settled in Rome to enjoy an artistic leisure, and had built, near the gardens of Sall.u.s.t, a tasteful house, which became the focus of luxury and polite society.

Besides the rich Roman aristocracy, this house was particularly frequented by artists and scholars; and also by that stratum of the Roman youth, which could spare little time and thought from its horses, chariots and dogs for the State, and which until now had therefore been inaccessible to the influence of the Prefect.

For this reason Cethegus was well-pleased when young Lucius Licinius, now his most devoted adherent, brought him an invitation from the Corinthian.

"I know," said Licinius modestly, "that we can offer you no appropriate entertainment; and if the Falernian and Cyprian, with which Kallistratos regales his guests, do not entice you, you can decline to come."

"No, my son; I will come," said Cethegus; "and it is not the old Cyprian which tempts me, but the young Romans."

Kallistratos, who loved to display his Grecian origin, had built his house in the midst of Rome in Grecian style; not in the style then prevalent, but in that of the free Greece of Pericles, which, by contrast with the tasteless overcharging usual in Rome in those days, made an impression of n.o.ble simplicity.

Through a narrow pa.s.sage one entered the peristyle, or open court, surrounded by a colonnade, in the centre of which a splashing fountain fell into a coloured marble basin. The colonnade, open to the north, contained, besides other rooms, the banqueting hall, in which the company was now a.s.sembled.

Cethegus had stipulated that he should not be present at the c[oe]na, or actual banquet, but only at the compotatio, the drinking-bout which followed.

So he found the friends in the elegant drinking-room, where the bronze lamps upon the tortoise-sh.e.l.l slabs on the walls were already lighted, and the guests, crowned with roses and ivy, lay upon the cushions of the horse-shoe-shaped triclinium.

A stupefying mixture of wine-odours and flower-scents, a glare of torches and glow of colour, met him upon the threshold.

"_Salve_, Cethegus!" cried the host, as he entered. "You find but a small party."

Cethegus ordered the slave who followed him, a beautiful and slender young Moor, whose finely-shaped limbs were rather revealed than hidden by the scarlet gauze of his light tunic, to unloose his sandals.

Meanwhile he counted the guests.

"Not less than the Graces, nor more than the Muses," he said with a smile.

"Quick, choose a wreath," said Kallistratos, "and take your place up there, upon the seat of honour on the couch. We have chosen you beforehand for the king of the feast."

The Prefect was determined to charm these young people. He knew how well he could do so, and that day he wished to make a particular impression. He chose a crown of roses, and took the ivory sceptre, which a Syrian slave handed to him upon his knees.

Placing the rose-wreath on his head, he raised the sceptre with dignity.

"Thus I put an end to your freedom!"

"A born ruler!" cried Kallistratos, half in joke, half in earnest.

"But I will be a gentle tyrant! My first law: one-third water--two-thirds wine."

"Oho!" cried Lucius Licinius, and drank to him, "_bene te!_ you govern luxuriously. Equal parts is usually our strongest mixture."

"Yes, friend," said Cethegus, smiling, and seating himself upon the corner seat of the central triclinium, the "Consul's seat," "but I took lessons in drinking amongst the Egyptians; they drink pure wine. Ho, cupbearer--what is he called?"

"Ganymede--he is from Phrygia. Fine fellow--eh?"

"So, Ganymede, obey thy Jupiter, and place near each guest; a patera of Mamertine wine--but near Balbus two, because he is a countryman."

The young people laughed.

Balbus was a rich Sicilian proprietor, still quite young, and already very stout.

"Bah!" said he, laughing, "ivy round my head, and an amethyst on my finger--I defy the power of Bacchus!"

"Well, at which wine have you arrived?" asked Cethegus, at the same time signing to the Moor who now stood behind him, and who at once brought a second wreath of roses, and, this time, wound it about his neck.

"Must of Setinum, with honey from Hymettus, was the last. There, try it!" said Piso, the roguish poet, whose epigrams and anacreontics could not be copied quickly enough by the booksellers; and whose finances, notwithstanding, were always in poetical disorder. He handed to the Prefect what we should call a _vexing-cup_, a bronze serpent's-head, which, lifted carelessly to the lips, violently shot a stream of wine into the drinker's throat.

But Cethegus knew the trick, drank carefully, and returned the cup.

"I like your _dry_ wit better, Piso," he said, laughing; and s.n.a.t.c.hed a wax tablet from a fold in the other's garment.

"Oh, give it me back," said Piso; "it is no verses--just the contrary--a list of my debts for wine and horses."

"Well," observed Cethegus, "I have taken it--so it and they are mine. To-morrow you may fetch the quittance at my house; but not for nothing--for one of your most spiteful epigrams upon my pious friend Silverius."

"Oh, Cethegus!" cried the poet, delighted and flattered, "how spiteful one can be for 40,000 solidi! Woe to the holy man of G.o.d!"

CHAPTER VIII.

"And the dessert--how far have you got there?" asked Cethegus, "already at the apples? are these they?" and he looked, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes, at two heaped-up fruit-baskets, which stood upon a bronze table with ivory legs.