Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 41

'How so?'

'I have treated already with all the officers of the city, and every one of them has acted like a wise man, and given me a promise of help, conditional of course on Heraclian's success, being as tired as I am of that priest-ridden court at Byzantium. Moreover, the stationaries are mine already. So are the soldiery all the way up the Nile. Ah! you have been fancying me idle for these four months, but-You forget that you yourself were the prize of my toil. Could I be a sluggard with that goal in sight?'

Hypatia shuddered, but was silent; and Orestes went on-

'I have unladen several of the wheat-ships for enormous largesses of bread: though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor of the city! What possible business have they with Alexandria?'

'The wish for popularity, I presume.'

'Just so; and then what hold can the government have on a set of rogues whose stomachs are filled without our help?'

'Julian made the same complaint to the high priest of Galatia, in that priceless letter of his.'

'Ah, you will set that all right, you know, shortly. Then again, I do not fear Cyril's power just now. He has injured himself deeply, I am happy to say, in the opinion of the wealthy and educated, by expelling the Jews. And as for his mob, exactly at the right moment, the deities-there are no monks here, so I can attribute my blessings to the right source-have sent us such a boon as may put them into as good a humour as we need.'

'And what is that?' asked Hypatia.

'A white elephant.'

'A white elephant?'

'Yes,' he answered, mistaking or ignoring the tone of her answer. 'A real, live, white elephant; a thing which has not been seen in Alexandria for a hundred years! It was pa.s.sing through with two tame tigers, as a present to the boy at Byzantium, from some hundred-wived kinglet of the Hyperborean Taprobane, or other no-man's-land in the far East. I took the liberty of laying an embargo on them, and, after a little argumentation and a few hints of torture, elephant and tigers are at our service.'

'And of what service are they to be?'

'My dearest madam- Conceive.... How are we to win the mob without a show?.... When were there more than two ways of gaining either the whole or part of the Roman Empire-by force of arms or force of trumpery? Can even you invent a third? The former is unpleasantly exciting, and hardly practicable just now. The latter remains, and, thanks to the white elephant, may be triumphantly successful. I have to exhibit something every week. The people are getting tired of that pantomime; and since the Jews were driven out, the fellow has grown stupid and lazy, having lost the more enthusiastic half of his spectators. As for horse-racing, they are sick of it.... Now, suppose we announce, for the earliest possible day-a spectacle-such a spectacle as never was seen before in this generation. You and I-I as exhibitor, you as representative-for the time being only-of the Vestals of old-sit side by side.... Some worthy friend has his instructions, when the people are beside themselves with rapture, to cry, "Long live Orestes Caesar!"....Another reminds them of Heraclian's victory-another couples your name with mine.... the people applaud.... some Mark Antony steps forward, salutes me as Imperator, Augustus-what you will-the cry is taken up-I refuse as meekly as Julius Caesar himself-am compelled, blushing, to accept the honour-I rise, make an oration about the future independence of the southern continent-union of Africa and Egypt-the empire no longer to be divided into Eastern and Western, but Northern and Southern. Shouts of applause, at two drachmas per man, shake the skies. Everybody believes that everybody else approves, and follows the lead.... And the thing is won.'

'And pray,' asked Hypatia, crushing down her contempt and despair, 'how is this to bear on the worship of the G.o.ds?

'Why.... why,.... if you thought that people's minds were sufficiently prepared, you might rise in your turn, and make an oration-you can conceive one. Set forth how these spectacles, formerly the glory of the empire, had withered under Galilaean superst.i.tion.... How the only path toward the full enjoyment of eye and ear was a frank return to those deities, from whose worship they originally sprang, and connected with which they could alone be enjoyed in their perfection.... But I need not teach you how to do that which you have so often taught me: so now to consider our spectacle, which, next to the largess, is the most important part of our plans. I ought to have exhibited to them the monk who so nearly killed me yesterday. That would indeed have been a triumph of the laws over Christianity. He and the wild beasts might have given the people ten minutes' amus.e.m.e.nt. But wrath conquered prudence; and the fellow has been crucified these two hours. Suppose, then, we had a little exhibition of gladiators. They are forbidden by law, certainly.'

'Thank Heaven, they are!'

'But do you not see that is the very reason why we, to a.s.sert our own independence, should employ them?'

'No! they are gone. Let them never reappear to disgrace the earth.'

'My dear lady, you must not in your present character say that in public; lest Cyril should be impertinent enough to remind you that Christian emperors and bishops put them down.'

Hypatia bit her lip, and was silent.

'Well, I do not wish to urge anything unpleasant to you.... If we could but contrive a few martyrdoms-but I really fear we must wait a year or two longer, in the present state of public opinion, before we can attempt that.'

'Wait? wait for ever! Did not Julian-and he must be our model-forbid the persecution of the Galilaeans, considering them sufficiently punished by their own atheism and self-tormenting superst.i.tion?'

'Another small error of that great man.-He should have recollected that for three hundred years nothing, not even the gladiators themselves, had been found to put the mob in such good humour as to see a few Christians, especially young and handsome women, burned alive, or thrown to the lions.'

Hypatia bit her lip once more. 'I can hear no more of this, sir. You forget that you are speaking to a woman.'

'Most supreme wisdom,' answered Orestes, in his blandest tone, 'you cannot suppose that I wish to pain your ears. But allow me to observe, as a general theorem, that if one wishes to effect any purpose, it is necessary to use the means; and on the whole, those which have been tested by four hundred years' experience will be the safest. I speak as a plain practical statesman-but surely your philosophy will not dissent?'

Hypatia looked down in painful thought. What could she answer? Was it not too true? and had not Orestes fact and experience on his side?

'Well, if you must-but I cannot have gladiators. Why not a-one of those battles with wild beasts? They are disgusting enough but still they are less inhuman than the others; and you might surely take precautions to prevent the men being hurt.'

'Ah! that would indeed be a scentless rose! If there is neither danger nor bloodshed, the charm is gone. But really wild beasts are too expensive just now; and if I kill down my present menagerie, I can afford no more. Why not have something which costs no money, like prisoners?'

'What! do you rank human beings below brutes?'

'Heaven forbid! But they are practically less expensive. Remember, that without money we are powerless; we must husband our resources for the cause of the G.o.ds.'

Hypatia was silent.

'Now, there are fifty or sixty Libyan prisoners just brought in from the desert. Why not let them fight an equal number of soldiers? They are rebels to the empire, taken in war.'

'Ah, then,' said Hypatia, catching at any thread of self-justification, 'their lives are forfeit in any case.'

'Of course. So the Christians could not complain of us for that. Did not the most Christian Emperor Constantine set some three hundred German prisoners to butcher each other in the amphitheatre of Treves?'

'But they refused, and died like heroes, each falling on his own sword.'

'Ah-those Germans are always unmanageable. My guards, now, are just as stiff-necked. To tell you the truth, I have asked them already to exhibit their prowess on these Libyans, and what do you suppose they answered?'

'They refused, I hope.'

'They told me in the most insolent tone that they were men, and not stage-players; and hired to fight, and not to butcher. I expected a Socratic dialogue after such a display of dialectic, and bowed myself out.'

'They were right.'

'Not a doubt of it, from a philosophic point of view; from a practical one they were great pedants, and I an ill-used master. However, I can find unfortunate and misunderstood heroes enough in the prisons, who, for the chance of their liberty, will acquit themselves valiantly enough; and I know of a few old gladiators still lingering about the wine-shops, who will be proud enough to give them a week's training. So that may pa.s.s. Now for some lighter species of representation to follow-something more or less dramatic.'

'You forget that you speak to one who trusts to be, as soon as she has the power, the high-priestess of Athene, and who in the meanwhile is bound to obey her tutor Julian's commands to the priests of his day, and imitate the Galilaeans as much in their abhorrence for the theatre as she hopes hereafter to do in their care for the widow and the stranger.'

'Far be it from me to impugn that great man's wisdom. But allow me to remark, that to judge by the present state of the empire, one has a right to say that he failed.'

'The Sun-G.o.d whom he loved took him to himself, too early, by a hero's death.'

'And the moment he was removed, the wave of Christian barbarism rolled back again into its old channel.'

'Ah! had he but lived twenty years longer!'

'The Sun-G.o.d, perhaps, was not so solicitous as we are for the success of his high-priest's project.'

Hypatia reddened-was Orestes, after all laughing in his sleeve at her and her hopes?

'Do not blaspheme!' she said solemnly.

'Heaven forbid! I only offer one possible explanation of a plain fact. The other is, that as Julian was not going quite the right way to work to restore the worship of the Olympians, the Sun-G.o.d found it expedient to withdraw him from his post, and now sends in his place Hypatia the philosopher, who will be wise enough to avoid Julian's error, and not copy the Galilaeans too closely, by imitating a severity of morals at which they are the only true and natural adepts.'