The Unwilling Vestal Part 18

The Emperor nodded and Almo bowed himself out.

"Do you know," said Aurelius, when they were alone, "I have been thinking over what you said about Almo's peculiar notability of looks.

It puzzles me as it puzzles you. He is not merely of distinguished appearance, he is unusual, striking, unforgettable, conspicuous. I have talked about it to several of my gentlemen-in-waiting, equerries and orderlies. They have seen him lately about the stables of the Greens.

They all say that he is, in fact, as normally proportioned as any youth alive, but they confirm what you said about his long-legged appearance.

Julia.n.u.s used almost the same word you used, said Almo looked 'Gra.s.shoppery.' They all say Almo is precisely the most unmistakable, the most readily and quickly recognizable youth in all our young n.o.bility."

Brinnaria rose to go. Aurelius bent on her a kindly smile.

"I have been talking about you with Faustina," he said. "We are both much interested by the strangeness of your fate, by the difficulty and delicacy of your situation and by the wonderful constancy of you both.

Faustina and I are a most united pair, never happy out of each other's company and very proud of our domestic felicity. We are, if I may use the word, rather p.r.o.ne to gloat over it, and, while continually congratulating ourselves and each other, we cannot but mourn the infrequency of such happiness throughout our Italian n.o.bility. There are few matrons in Rome as serenely happy as your friend Flexinna, few indeed who find all their happiness in children, husband and household.

And of those who really enjoy their homes most are remarried after a divorce, or even after two or more. Our society suffers from a plague worse than the pestilence itself, a plague of greed for excitement, eagerness for novelty, of peevishness and fickleness.

"In this unhealthy atmosphere such households as Vocco's are most notable. And that you, who seem by nature fitted for just such blessedness as has befallen Flexinna, should have been robbed of it by a strange series of peculiar circ.u.mstances wins for you our interest and our solicitude. Still more are our hearts drawn towards you by your unwavering fidelity, alike to your present duties and all that they imply and to that love which you have had to put away and forget, to the ideal of that felicity which you have had to postpone so far.

"Faustina desires an interview with you. She is now in the amber gallery. I shall have you conducted there, if you do not object."

Brinnaria could not very well object and after an equerry, very stately in his garb of duty, and two gaudily clad pages had escorted her through what seemed like miles of corridors, she found herself alone with the Empress.

The Empress she had so far seen infrequently and spoken with only seldom. It was impossible to be a Vestal, in the heyday of Rome's Imperial times, and not meet and know the Empress of Rome. Brinnaria had seen her whenever they were both present at the Circus or the Amphitheatre; had been close to her at all important state functions; had occasionally dined with her at formal Palace banquets, when the curved sofa about the Empress' table was always occupied by the Empress, the wives of the chief Flamens and the Vestals; but had hardly ever exchanged a word with her.

Faustina was endowed with the general healthiness with which Roman n.o.blewomen were blessed. But she had had the bad luck to suffer from many and severe illnesses. These and her slow recoveries from them had kept her away from very many official functions and public festivals.

Numerous had been the occasions on which Aurelius had appeared without her. When she was well, indeed, they were always together, if possible.

A great proportion of his time, however, was occupied with official duties of such a nature that, according to Roman etiquette, no woman could partic.i.p.ate in them. During such enforced separations Faustina sought amus.e.m.e.nt. And with the overflowing energy and abounding vigor which she displayed between her illness, she threw herself into the whirl of her pleasures with such impetuosity, there was so much rollicking and roistering about her favorite diversions that she attracted to herself and kept around her just those elements of Roman society with which the Vestals were least likely to mingle, professional idlers, and what we moderns would call the fast set. Naturally, therefore, Brinnaria and Faustina had never had any familiar intercourse. This was their first real conversation.

Faustina was not a large woman. She was of medium height, slender and graceful. She was noted for the originality of her coiffures, which made the most of her magnificent hair. Her hair Brinnaria noticed the moment her eyes fell on her.

Her habitual expression of haughtiness and boredom had vanished from the Empress's face and she was all kindliness and solicitude.

Faustina put her at her ease at once.

"I have always been so sorry," she began, "that I was ill the day you climbed over the bal.u.s.trade of the podium and rescued the retiarius.

I've missed many a sight I regretted, I miss so much by falling ill again and again, but I never missed a sight I regretted missing more than that. Nothing more worth seeing ever happened in the Colosseum."

"I was terribly ashamed when I found what I had done," said Brinnaria.

"Of course you were," the Empress agreed.

This broke the ice between them and Faustina led her into a long talk about all her past, her love affair, her life as a Vestal, her bereavements, her embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances, her future, her hopes.

Brinnaria left the Empress, feeling that she had found a real friend and also feeling comforted at heart.

CHAPTER XII -OBSERVANCES

BRINNARIA found that, with Almo definitely and permanently out of the way, she did not worry about Calvaster. She also found that she did not worry about Almo and that her glimpse of him had rather calmed her feelings. She confessed as much to Aurelius when she had a third audience with him before he left for the Rhine frontier, and she thanked him for his insistence.

With her mind at peace Brinnaria settled more and more into the routine of her life and enjoyed it more and more.

She came to feel keenly the spiritual significance of every detail of the ritual observances in which she took part. Besides the maintenance of the sacred fire, the Vestals had many obligatory duties. Every sacrifice of the Roman public worship involved the sprinkling of the sacred meal upon the head of the victim, if a live animal was offered, or upon the fire, if the sacrifice was bloodless. Early in each ceremony one of the small boys a.s.sisting the priest carried around to all the partic.i.p.ants in the act of worship a maple-wood box containing the holy meal; from it each worshipper ladled a small portion into the palm of his right hand; at a specified point in the course of the ceremonial each partic.i.p.ant sprinkled the meal as prescribed.

The holy meal was made of very coa.r.s.ely ground wheat, a sort of grits, salted and toasted. It was prepared by the Vestals according to immemorial custom. They were supplied with a sufficient quant.i.ty of heads of wheat, the best of the produce of two of their estates, one near Caere, the other near Lanuvium. These wheat ears were packed in baskets and stored on the farms in dry, airy barns. There they were kept drying and hardening their grains until the next spring. Then the allotted baskets were brought into Rome. On the seventh of May, after a ceremonial of prayer, the three elder Vestals began going over these wheat-ears, sorting out those entirely perfect, and placing them in larger baskets shaped like the big earthen jars in which the Romans commonly tored wheat, olives, oil, wine and other similar supplies.

On the next day the wheat from the first day's selection of ears was separated from the straw, beards and chaff, was roasted and coa.r.s.ely ground. The resultant groats were then put away in great earthen jars in the outer storeroom of the temple. On the third day they again selected wheat ears, on the fourth they again prepared wheat-grits, and so on alternately for eight days. By the evening of the eighth day they had stored enough groats to make the sacred meal for one year's ceremonies of the entire Roman ritual.

The salt with which they salted the holy meal was prepared with similar invariable formality. Crude salt, obtained from evaporated sea-water out of the sand-pits on the seash.o.r.e near Lavinium, was conveyed to the Atrium in small two-handled earthenware jars. This coa.r.s.e, dirty, dark-colored salt was dissolved by the three younger Vestals in boiling water, which water might not be obtained from the lead pipes which connected the Atrium with the general water-supply of the city's aqueducts, but must be drawn by the Vestals themselves and carried by them in the earthenware jars from the famous fountain of Jaturna, at which Castor and Pollux were fabled to have watered their white horses after bringing to Rome the news of the victory at Lake Regillus. The solution was purified by repeated boilings, the impurities being gotten rid of by successive careful decantings of the liquid from one vessel into another, so that the sediment might be left behind as the top part was poured off. When sufficiently boiled down the solution was recrystallized in shallow earthenware pans. The resulting slabs of salt were harder than the pans and were freed from them by breaking the earthenware with an ancient stone hammer, said to have been captured by AEneas himself from a king of Ardea. The slabs of salt were sawed into pieces with an iron saw, the pieces were pounded in a mortar, the fine salt was thrown into an earthenware bowl and dried out in a kiln. When dried a little powdered gypsum was stirred through it to prevent it from again becoming moist. It was then stored in a tall jar with a tight lid, which was kept in the outer storeroom of the temple, along with the jars of meal. Three times a year, on the ninth of June, on the thirteenth of September and on the fifteenth of February, with solemn prayers the Vestals mixed the prepared salt with the prepared grits, the resultant mixture being the sacred meal.

On each First of March the fire in the temple was allowed to go out and was solemnly rekindled by the friction of maple wood on apple wood, as when the fire went out by accident. The temple was then decorated with fresh boughs of green laurel, after the boughs put up the year before had been removed.

On May fifteenth the Vestals were the chief figures in a solemn procession of the entire Roman hierarchy to the Sublician bridge, from which the Vestals threw into the Tiber thirty dolls made of rushes, fifteen representing men, fifteen women, each about two feet high.

This offering to the river of effigies of men and women commemorated the primitive human sacrifices by which the river was each year placated, that it might not drown more by floods.

On June fifth the inner storeroom of the temple was opened and its treasures inspected by the Pontifex wearing his antique vestments. With him entered always also the Chief Vestal clad in her austere habit with all her badges of office. They were attended by the other Vestals, who went through traditional pacings, haltings and prayers. The Temple of Vesta was an enclosure from which all men were rigidly excluded.

The only exceptions to this immemorial taboo were a few of the more important Pontiffs, and they might only enter on specified festal days, and then must be in their full regalia. Also, in general, the temple was closed against all women except the Vestals and their a.s.sistants. It was open, however, from sunrise on the morning of each seventh of June until sunset on the evening of the fourteenth of June. During this period it was inc.u.mbent upon every Roman matron to visit the temple. And each worshipper must walk the entire distance from her home to the temple and must leave her house barefoot, barefoot she must walk from the temple to her home. Only illness excused a Roman woman from this religious duty.

Few ever omitted it from indifference.

During these eight days the temple was thronged.

During these eight days also fell the great yearly festival of Vesta, on the ninth of June, on which day also all millers kept holiday, with processions and picnics to which the mill-donkeys were led decorated with wreaths of flowers and strings of tiny, crisp-baked rolls.

On June fifteenth the temple was ceremonially cleaned and the sweepings and the ashes collected from the sacred fire for the year past were solemnly carried in a stately procession to a prescribed spot on the slope of the Capitol where a great pit was closed by a heavy maple-wood door. In this pit the ashes were reverently buried.

Besides these observances of their special cult the Vestals took part in nearly every important sacrifice, procession and festival of the public worship of Rome. They were busy women and among them Brinnaria was anything but idle. She never found time hang heavy on her hands.

So busied with her duties she pa.s.sed three peaceful years, contented and happy. There was but one drawback to life in the Atrium from Brinnaria's point of view. That drawback was Meffia. Meffia was never ill but never well. Everything tired her. It tired her to walk upstairs, to stand for any length of time, to do anything. She was forever sitting down to rest or lying down to rest. Excitement exhausted her totally. She was a perpetual worry to the other Vestals.

Otherwise Brinnaria was very happy. Through Flexinna she had frequent news of Almo. Ancient Rome had no inst.i.tution, public or private, in any way corresponding to our post office. But routes of trade and travel by land and sea were well defined and traffic along them fairly regular, on the most used routes almost continual. There were private organizations, vaguely resembling our modern express companies, which forwarded merchandise along the main-travelled routes and even into remote regions. Their messengers took charge of bales, boxes and packages of all sizes and also of letters. The service on the roads of Africa, from Bescera, Nepte and Putea along the frontier of the desert, through Lambese, Capsa and Thysdrus, to Carthage, by well-built vehicles with frequent relays of horses on the excellent highroads was fairly good. The ships from Sicily plied with almost the regularity of our ocean-liners. Roads and road-service in Sicily were of a high quality of excellence. The transit to Italy at Messina was a sort of ferry. Italy was served by a network of roads always busy. Almo's letters to Flexinna were fairly regular and Vocco heard frequently from his friends among Almo's brother officers and sometimes from his military superiors.

Almo was an immediate and brilliant success as a leader of scouting expeditions, cavalry dashes, and, within a year, of raids in considerable force. His men adored him at once; his fellow-officers found him excellent company, una.s.suming and companionable, his commanders came early to rely on him. He won an excellent reputation and was universally regarded as a young officer of great promise, likely to rise to high position and not unlikely to become famous.

This kind of news delighted Brinnaria and promoted her peace of mind. In great contentment she went about her duties, loving them more and more from month to month, preparing the blessed salt, a.s.sisting at sacrifices, partic.i.p.ating in processions.

Also interest in music and enjoyment of music came to play more and more a part in her spiritual life. As a child she had hated music and had been in continual conflict with her musical governesses. Even after she entered the Atrium her aversion to learning anything about music had given Causidiena a great deal of trouble. Later Brinnaria was docile, but the reverse of enthusiastic. Only after Almo's departure for Africa did music begins to mean anything to her.

But one keyed instrument was known to the ancients. That was a form of organ, in effect and appearance not very dissimilar to a small portable modern organ, with one bank of keys. Its mechanism, however, was very different in respect to the construction of the pipe stops and bellows.

In particular, the steady flow of air to the pipes was obtained from the pressure of water, and a receptacle partly filled with water was an essential part of every Roman organ. From this feature it was called the water-organ. The Emperor Nero had been a notable performer on the water-organ and had interested himself in some improvements in its mechanism.

As with the modern organ, so with the Roman water-organ, the sonorous, sustained and resonant notes lent themselves naturally to the expression of religious emotion.

Religious emotions, Brinnaria, at this period of her life, felt to an overwhelming extent. She expressed them in long colloquies with Numisia and Causidiena, in a tendency to be unnecessarily careful about her duties, to pet her daily routine, as it were; and in an awakening to the charms of music in general and of organ music in particular. She developed into a capable performer on the water-organ, bought for herself the finest to be found in all Rome, had it set up in the Atrium in place of the old one which had belonged to the order of Vestals, and sat before it for hours at a time.

Her solitary communings with her favorite instrument became her chief solace when she was: low-spirited, which was seldom, and her favorite diversion when she was high-spirited, which was often. Moreover, her rendition of well-known airs and he improvisings came to be a great pleasure to all the inmates of the Atrium, most of all to Causidiena.

Besides her many duties and her indoor amus.e.m.e.nts, Brinnaria found time for much activity outside the Atrium. She had kept up her girlish friendship for the sieve-maker Truttidius, and saw him occasionally, sometimes ordering her litter halted before his shop and leaning out to ask after his health and that of his family. Truttidius had an ailing household, though he himself was always well and never seemed to get any older.

From her talks with Truttidius she came to take a personal interest in the welfare of the countless tenants in her many properties in the poorer quarters of the city. She visited some of them-a sort of approach to modern slumming by the philanthropic rich. Such actions on the part of a landowner and such an att.i.tude of mind from any rich person toward the poor was very unusual in the ancient world. Her behavior in this regard won Brinnaria a sort of fame among the poor, as if she were a live G.o.ddess moving among them.