Zenobia or the Fall of Palmyra Part 16

'That is scarcely a question,' she rejoined. 'She may be a sacrifice; but it will be upon her country's altar. How many of our brave soldiers, how many of our great officers, with devoted patriotism throw away their lives for their country. You will not say that this is done for the paltry recompense, which at best scarce shields the body from the icy winds of winter, or the scorching rays of summer. And shall not a daughter of the royal house stand ready to encounter the hardships of a throne, the dangers of a Persian court, and the terrors of a royal husband, especially when by doing so, fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y wars may be staid, and nations brought into closer unity? I know but little of Hormisdas; report speaks well of him. But were it much less that I know, and were report yet less favorable, it were not enough to turn me from my purpose. Palmyra married to Persia, through Julia married to Hormisdas, is that upon which I and my people dwell.'

'Better a thousand times,' I then said, 'to be born to the lot of the humblest peasant--a slave's is no worse.'

'Upon love's calendar,' said the Queen, 'so it is. But have I not freely admitted, Roman, the dependency, nay slavery, of a royal house? It would grieve my mother's heart, I need scarce a.s.sure thee, were Julia unhappy. But grief to me might bring joy to two kingdoms.'

I then could not but urge the claims of my own family, and that by a more powerful and honored one she could not ally herself to Rome; and might not national interest be as well promoted by such a bond, as by one with the remoter East? I was the friend too of Aurelian, much in his confidence and regard.

Zen.o.bia paused, and was for a few moments buried in thought. A faint smile for the first time played over her features as she said in reply, 'I wish for your sake and Julia's it could be so. But it is too late. Rome is resolved upon the ruin of Palmyra--she cannot be turned aside. Aurelian for worlds would not lose the glory of subduing the East. The greater need of haste in seeking a union with Persia. Were Sapor dead to-day, to-morrow an emba.s.sy should start for Ecbatana. But think not, Piso, I harbor ill will toward you, or hold your offer in contempt. A Queen of the East might not disdain to join herself to a family, whose ancestors were like yours. That Piso who was once the rival, and in power--not indeed in virtue--the equal of the great Germanicus, and looked, not without show of reason, to the seat of Tiberius; and he who so many years and with such honor reigned over the city its unequalled governor; and thou the descendant and companion of princes--an alliance with such might well be an object of ambition with even crowned heads. And it may well be, seeing the steps by which many an emperor of Rome has climbed upon his precarious seat, that the coming years may behold thee in the place which Aurelian fills, and, were I to pleasure thee in thy request, Julia empress of the world! The vision dazzles! But it cannot be. It would be sad recreancy to my most sacred duty were I, falling in love with a dream, to forsake a great reality.'

'I may not then--' I began.

'No, Piso, you may not even hope. I have reasoned with you because I honor you. But think not that I hesitate or waver. Julia can never be yours. She is the daughter of the state, and to a state must be espoused. Seek not therefore any more to deepen the place which you hold in her affections. Canst thou not be a friend, and leave the lover out? Friendship is a sentiment worthy G.o.dlike natures, and is the true sweetener of the cup of life. Love is at best but a bitter sweet; and when sweetest, it is the friendship mingled with it that makes it so. Love, too, wastes away with years. Friendship is eternal. It rests upon qualities that are a part of the soul. The witchery of the outward image helps not to make it, nor being lost as it is with age, can dissolve it. Friendship agrees too with ambition, while love is its most dreaded rival. Need I point to Antony? If, Piso, thou wouldst live the worthy heir of thy great name; if thou wouldst build for thyself a throne in the esteem of mankind, admit friendship, but bar out love. And I trust to hear that thou art great in Rome, greater even than thine ancestor Galba's adopted son. Aim at even the highest, and the arrow, if it reach it not, will hit the nearer. When thou art Caesar, send me an emba.s.sy. Then perhaps--'

She closed with that radiant smile that subdues all to her will, her manner at the same time giving me to understand that the conversation was ended, her own sentence being left playfully unfinished.

I urged not many things which you may well suppose it came into my mind to do, for I neither wished, nor did I feel as if I had a right, at an hour of so much public inquietude, to say aught to add to the burden already weighing upon her. Besides, it occurred to me, that when within so short a time great public changes may take place, and the relations of parties be so essentially altered, it was not worth while to give utterance to sentiments, which the lapse of a brief period might show to have been unnecessary and unwise. I may also add that the presence of this great woman is so imposing; she seems, in the very nature and form the G.o.ds have given her, to move so far above the rest of her kind, that I found it impossible both to say much of what I had intended to say, and to express what I did say with the ease and propriety which are common to me on ordinary or other extraordinary occasions. They are few, I believe, who possess themselves fully in her presence. Even Longinus confesses a constraint.

'It is even as I apprehended,' said Fausta, as I communicated to her the result of my interview with the Queen. 'I know her heart to have been set upon a foreign alliance by marriage with Julia, and that she has been looking forward with impatience to the time when her daughters should be of an age to add in this way new strength to the kingdom. I rather hoped than had faith, that she would listen to your proposals. I thought that perhaps the earnestness of the princess, with the Queen's strong affection for her, together with the weight of your family and name, might prevail. But then I have asked myself, if it were reasonable to indulge such a hope. The Queen is right in stating as she did her dependence, in some sort, upon the people. It is they, as well as she, who are looking forward to this Persian marriage. I know not what discontents would break out were Hormisdas postponed to Piso--Persia to Rome. My position, Lucius, I think a sadder one than Zen.o.bia's. I love Julia as dearly as Zen.o.bia, and you a great deal more than Zen.o.bia does, and would fain see you happy; and yet I love Palmyra I dare not say how much--nor that, if by such an act good might come to my country, I could almost wish that Julia should live in Persia.'

I have within me a better ground of hope than is guessed either by the Queen or Fausta, but yet can name it not. I mention this to you, and pa.s.s to other things.

The city has to-day been greatly moved, owing to the expected audience of our amba.s.sadors before the council, and their final answer. The streets are thronged with mult.i.tudes not engaged in the active affairs of traffic, but standing in larger or smaller crowds talking, and hearing or telling news, as it arrives from the palace or from abroad.

The die is cast The amba.s.sadors are dismissed. The decision of the council has been confirmed by the senate, and Varro and Petronius have with their train departed from the city. War therefore is begun. For it was the distinct language of the emba.s.sy, that no other terms need be proposed, nor would be accepted, beside those offered by them. None others have been offered on the part of Palmyra. And the amba.s.sadors have been delayed rather to avoid the charge of unreasonable precipitancy, than in the belief that the public mind would incline to or permit any reply more moderate than that which they have borne back to the emperor.

It is understood that Aurelian, with an army perfectly equipped, stands waiting, ready to start for Asia on the arrival of the amba.s.sadors or their couriers. From your last letters I gather as much. How, again I ask--as I have often asked both myself and the princ.i.p.al persons here--how is it possible there should be but one issue to this contest? Yet from language which I heard in the senate, as well as in the private apartments of the Queen, there is a mad confidence, that after a battle or two on the outskirts of the kingdom, in which they shall conquer as always heretofore, an advantageous peace will end the contest. In the senate, scarce a voice was raised for concession; its mere mention was enough to bring down the most bitter charges of a want of patriotism, a Roman leaning, a sordid regard to the interests of commerce over those of honor, a poor and low-minded spirit. Such as had courage to lift up a warning voice were soon silenced by the universal clamor of the opposite party; and although the war was opposed by some of the ablest men in the kingdom, men inferior to none of those who have come more especially within my notice, and whom I have named to you, yet it is termed a unanimous decision, and so will be reported at Rome.

The simple truth is however that, with the exception of these very few, there is no independent judgment in Palmyra, on great national questions. The Queen is all in all. She is queen, council and senate. Here are the forms of a republican deliberation, with the reality of a despotic will. Not that Zen.o.bia is a despotic prince, in any bad sense of the term, but being of so exalted a character, ruling with such equity and wisdom; moreover having created the kingdom by her own unrivalled energies and genius, it has become the habit of the people to defer to her in all things; their confidence and love are so deep and fervent, that they have no will nor power now, I believe, to oppose her in any measure she might propose. The city and country of Palmyra proper are her property in as real a sense as my five hundred slaves, on my Tiburtine farm, are mine. Nor is it very much otherwise with many of the nearer allied provinces. The same enthusiasm pervades them. Her watchfulness over their interests, her impartiality, her personal oversight of them by means of the frequent pa.s.sages she makes among them, have all contributed to knit them to her by the closest ties. With the more remote portions of the empire it is very different, and it would require the operation of but slight causes to divide from their allegiance Egypt, Armenia, and the provinces of Asia Minor.

How is not this rashness, this folly, to be deplored! Could the early counsels of Longinus have been but heeded, all had been well. But he is now as much devoted to the will and interests of Zen.o.bia as any in the kingdom, and lends all the energies of his great mind to the promotion of her cause. He said truly, that he like others is but a slave yoked to her car. His opinion now is, that no concessions would avail to preserve the independent existence of Palmyra. The question lies between war and a voluntary descent to the condition of a Roman province. Nothing less than that will satisfy the ambition and the pride of Rome. The first step may be such as that proposed by Varro--the lopping off of the late conquered provinces, leaving Zen.o.bia the city, the circ.u.mjacent territory, and Syria. But a second step would soon follow the first, and the foot of Aurelian would plant itself upon the neck of Zen.o.bia herself. This he felt a.s.sured of, both from observation upon the Roman character and history, upon the personal character of Aurelian, and from private advices from Rome. He is now accordingly the moving spirit of the enterprise, going with all his heart and mind into every measure of the Queen.

I am just returned from a singular adventure. My hand trembles as I write. I had laid down my pen and gone forth upon my Arab, accompanied by Milo, to refresh and invigorate my frame after our late carousal--shall I term it?--at the palace. I took my way, as I often do, to the Long Portico, that I might again look upon its faultless beauty and watch the changing crowds. Turning from that, I then amused my vacant mind by posting myself where I could overlook, as if I were indeed the builder or superintendent, the laborers upon the column of Aurelian. I became at length particularly interested in the efforts of a huge elephant, who was employed in dragging up to the foundations of the column, so that they might he fastened to machines to be then hoisted to their place, enormous blocks of marble. He was a n.o.ble animal, and, as it seemed to me, of far more than common size and strength. Yet did not his utmost endeavors appear to satisfy the demands of those who drove him, and who plied without mercy the barbed scourges which they bore. His temper at length gave way. He was chained to a ma.s.s of rock, which it was evidently beyond his power to move. It required the united strength of two at least. But this was nothing to his inhuman masters. They ceased not to urge him with cries and blows. One of them at length, transported by that insane fury which seizes the vulgar when their will is not done by the brute creation, laid hold upon a long lance, terminated with a sharp iron goad, long as my sword, and rushing upon the beast, drove it into his hinder part. At that very moment the chariot of the Queen, containing Zen.o.bia herself, Julia, and the other princesses, came suddenly against the column, on its way to the palace. I made every possible sign to the charioteer to turn and fly. But it was too late. The infuriated monster snapped the chains that held him to the stone, at a single bound, as the iron entered him, and trampling to death one of his drivers, dashed forward to wreak his vengeance upon the first object that should come in his way. That, to the universal terror and distraction of the now scattered and flying crowds, was the chariot of the Queen. Her mounted guards, at the first onset of the maddened animal, putting their horses to their speed, by quick leaps escaped. The horses attached to the chariot, springing forward to do the same, urged by the lash of the charioteer, were met by the elephant with straightened trunk and tail, who, in the twinkling of an eye, wreathed his proboscis round the neck of the first he encountered, and wrenching him from his harness, whirled him aloft and dashed him to the ground. This I saw was the moment to save the life of the Queen, if it was indeed to be saved. s.n.a.t.c.hing from a flying soldier his long spear, and knowing well the temper of my horse, I ran upon the monster as he disengaged his trunk from the crushed and dying Arabian for a new a.s.sault, and drove it with unerring aim into his eye, and through that opening on into the brain. He fell as if a bolt from heaven had struck him. The terrified and struggling horses of the chariot were secured by the now returning crowds, and the Queen and the princesses relieved from the peril which was so imminent, and had blanched with terror every cheek but Zen.o.bia's. She had stood the while, I was told--there being no exertion which she could make--watching with eager and intense gaze my movements, upon which she felt that their safety, perhaps their lives, depended.

It all pa.s.sed in a moment. Soon as I drew out my spear from the dying animal, the air was rent with the shouts of the surrounding populace. Surely, at that moment I was the greatest, at least the most fortunate, man in Palmyra. These approving shouts, but still more the few words uttered by Zen.o.bia and Julia, were more than recompense enough for the small service I had performed; especially, however, the invitation of the Queen:

'But come, n.o.ble Piso, leave not the work half done; we need now a protector for the remainder of the way. Ascend, if you will do us such pleasure, and join us to the palace.'

I needed no repeated urging, but taking the offered seat--whereupon new acclamations went up from the now augmented throngs--I was driven, as I conceived, in a sort of triumph to the palace, where pa.s.sing an hour, which it seems to me held more than all the rest of my life, I have now returned to my apartment, and relate what has happened for your entertainment. You will not wonder that for many reasons my hand trembles, and my letters are not formed with their accustomed exactness.

Again I am interrupted. What can be the meaning of the noise and running to and fro which I hear? Some one with a quick, light foot approaches.

It is now night. The palace is asleep, but I take again my pen to tell you of the accomplishment of the dear object for which I have wandered to this distant spot. Calpurnius is arrived!

The quick, light foot by which I was disturbed was Fausta's. I knew it, and sprang to the door. She met me with her bright and glowing countenance bursting with expression. 'Calpurnius!' said she, 'your brother! is here'--and seizing my hand drew me to the apartment where he sat by the side of Gracchus; Isaac, with his inseparable pack, standing near.

I need not, as I cannot, describe our meeting. It was the meeting of brothers--yet of strangers--and a confusion of wonder, curiosity, vague expectation, and doubt, possessed the soul of each. I trust and believe, that notwithstanding the different political bias which sways each, the ancient ties which bound us together as brothers will again unite us. The countenance of Calpurnius, though dark and almost stern in its general expression, yet unbends and relaxes frequently and suddenly, in a manner that impresses you forcibly with an inward humanity as the presiding though often concealed quality of his nature. I can trace faintly the features which have been stamped upon my memory--and the form too--chiefly by the recollected scene of that bright morning, when he with our elder brother and venerable parent gave me each a last embrace, as they started for the tents of Valerian. A warmer climate has deepened the olive of his complexion, and at the same time added brilliancy to an eye by nature soft as a woman's. His Persian dress increases greatly the effect of his rare beauty, yet I heartily wish it off, as it contributes more I believe than the lapse of so many years to separate us. He will not seem and feel as a brother till he returns to the costume of his native land. How great this power of mere dress is upon our affections and our regard, you can yourself bear witness, when those who parted from you to travel in foreign countries have returned metamorphosed into Greeks, Egyptians, or Persians, according to the fashions that have struck their foolish fancies. The a.s.sumed and foreign air chills the untravelled heart as it greets them. They are no longer the same. However the reason may strive to overcome what seems the mere prejudice of a wayward nature, we strive in vain--nature will be uppermost--and many, many times have I seen the former friend-ships break away and perish.

I could not but be alive to the general justness of the comparison inst.i.tuted by Isaac, between Calpurnius and Julia. There are many points of resemblance. The very same likeness in kind that we so often observe between a brother and sister--such as we have often remarked in our nephew and niece, Drusus and Lavinia--whose dress being changed, and they are changed.

No sooner had I greeted and welcomed my brother, than I turned to Isaac and saluted him, I am persuaded, with scarcely less cordiality.

'I sincerely bless the G.o.ds,' said I, 'that you have escaped the perils of two such pa.s.sages through the desert, and are safe in Palmyra. May every wish of your heart, concerning your beloved Jerusalem, be accomplished. In the keeping of Demetrius will you find not only the single talent agreed upon in case you returned, but the two which were to be paid had you perished. One such tempest upon the desert, escaped, is more and worse than death itself met softly upon one's bed.'

'Now, Jehovah be praised,' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Isaac, 'who himself has moved thy heart to this grace! Israel will feel this bounty through every limb, it will be to her as the oil of life.'

'And my debt,' said Calpurnius, 'is greater yet, and should in reason be more largely paid. Through the hands of Demetrius I will discharge it.'

'We are all bound to you,' said Fausta, 'more than words can tell or money pay.'

'You owe more than you are perhaps aware of to the rhetoric of Isaac,' added Calpurnius. 'Had it not been for the faithful zeal and cunning of your messenger in his arguments not less than his contrivances, I had hardly now been sitting within the walls of Palmyra.'

'But then again, n.o.ble Roman,' said Isaac, 'to be honest, I ought to say what I said not--for it had not then occurred--in my letter to thy brother, how by my indiscretion I had nearly brought upon myself the wrath, even unto death, of a foul Persian mob, and so sealed thy fate together with my own. Ye have heard doubtless of Manes the Persian, who deems himself some great one, and sent of G.o.d? It was noised abroad ere I left Palmyra, that for failing in a much boasted attempt to work a cure by miracle upon the Prince Hormisdas, he had been strangled by order of Sapor. Had he done so, his love of death-doing had at length fallen upon a proper object, a true child of Satan. But as I can testify, his end was not such, and is not yet. He still walks the earth, poisoning the air he breathes, and deluding the souls of men. Him I encountered one day, the very day I had despatched thy letter, in the streets of Ecbatana, dogged at the heels by his twelve ragged apostles, dragging along their thin and bloodless limbs, that seemed each step ready to give way beneath the weight, little as it was, they had to bear. Their master, puffed up with the pride of a reformer, as forsooth he holds himself, stalked by at their head, drawing the admiration of the besotted people by his great show of sanct.i.ty, and the wise saws which every now and then he let drop for the edification of such as heard. Some of these sayings fell upon my ear, and who was I, to hear them and not speak? Ye may know that this false prophet has made it his aim to bring into one the Magian and Christian superst.i.tions, so that by such incongruous and deadly mixture he might feed the disciples of those two widely sundered religions, retaining, as he foolishly hoped, enough of the faith of each to satisfy all who should receive the compound. In doing this he hath cast dirt upon the religion of the Jew, blasphemously teaching that our sacred books are the work of the author of evil, while those of Christ are by the author of good. With more zeal, it must be confessed, than wisdom, seeing where I was and why I was there, I resisted this father of lies, and withstood him to his face. 'Who art thou, bold blasphemer,' I said, 'that takest away the G.o.dhead, breaking into twain that which is infinite and indivisible? Who art thou to tread into the dust the faith of Abraham, and Moses, and the prophets, imputing their words, uttered by the spirit of Jehovah, to the great enemy of mankind? I wonder, people of Ecbatana, that the thunders of G.o.d sleep, and strike him not to the earth as a rebel--nay, that the earth cleaveth not beneath him and swalloweth him not up, as once before the rebels Korah, Dathan, and Abiram;' and much more in the same mad way, till while I was yet speaking, those lean and hungry followers of his set upon me with violence, crying out against me as a Jew, and stirring up the people, who were nothing unwilling, but fell upon me, and throwing me down, dragged me to a gate of the city, and casting me out as I had been a dead dog, returned themselves like dogs to their vomit--that accursed dish of Manichean garbage. I believed myself for a long while surely dead; and in my half conscious state took shame to myself, as I was bound to do, for meddling in the affairs of Pagan misbelievers--putting thy safety at risk. Through the compa.s.sion of an Arab woman dwelling without the walls, I was restored and healed--for whose sake I shall ever bless the Ishmaelite. I doubt not, Roman, while I lay at the hut of that good woman, thou thoughtest me a false man?'

'I could not but think so,' said Calpurnius, 'and after the strong desire of escape which you had at length kindled, I a.s.sure you I heaped curses upon you in no stinted measure.'

'But all has ended well and so all is well,' said Fausta, 'and it was perhaps too much to expect, Isaac, that you should stand quietly by and hear the religion of your fathers traduced. You are well rewarded for what you did and suffered, by the light in which your tribe will now regard you, as an almost-martyr, and owing to no want of will, or endeavor on your part, that almost did not end in quite. Hannibal, good Isaac, will now see to your entertainment.'

'One word if it please you,' said Isaac, 'before I depart. The gentile despises the Jew. He charges upon him usury and extortion. He accuses him of avarice. He believes him to subsist upon the very life blood of whomsoever he can draw into his meshes. I have known those who have firm faith that the Jew feeds but upon the flesh and blood of Pagan and Christian infants, whom, by necromantic power, he beguiles from their homes. He is held as the common enemy of man, a universal robber, whom all are bound to hate and oppress. Reward me now with your belief, better than even the two gold talents I have earned, that all are not such. This is the charity, and all that I would beg; and I beg it of you, for that I love you all, and would have your esteem. Believe that in the Jew there is a heart of flesh as well as in a dog. Believe that some n.o.ble ambition visits his mind as well as yours. Credit it not--it is against nature--that any tribe of man is what you make the Jew. Look upon me, and behold the emblem of my tribe. What do you see? A man bent with years and toil; this ragged tunic his richest garb; his face worn with the storms of all climates; a wanderer over the earth; my home--Piso, thou hast seen it--a single room, with my good dromedary's furniture for my bed at night, and my seat by day; this pack my only apparent wealth. Yet here have I now received two gold talents of Jerusalem!--what most would say were wealth enough, and this is not the tythe of that which I possess. What then? Is it for that I love obscurity, slavery, and a beggar's raiment, that I live and labor thus, when my wealth would raise me to a prince's state? Or is it that I love to sit and count my h.o.a.rded gains? Good friends, for such you are, believe it not. You have found me faithful and true to my engagements; believe my word also. You have heard of Jerusalem, once the chief city of the East, where stood the great temple of our faith, and which was the very heart of our nation, and you know how it was beleaguered by the Romans, and its very foundations rooted up, and her inhabitants driven abroad as outcasts, to wander over the face of the earth, with every where a country, but no where a home. And does the Jew, think you, sit down quietly under these wrongs? Trajan's reign may answer that. Is there no patriotism yet alive in the bosom of a Jew? Will every other toil and die for his country and not the Jew? Believe me again, the prayers which go up morning, noon and night, for the restoration of Jerusalem, are not fewer than those which go up for Rome or Palmyra. And their deeds are not less; for every prayer there are two acts. It is for Jerusalem! that you behold me thus in rags, and yet rich. It is for her glory that I am the servant of all and the scorn of all, that I am now pinched by the winters of Byzantium, now scorched by the heats of Asia, and buried beneath the sands of the desert. All that I have and am is for Jerusalem. And in telling you of myself, I have told you of my tribe. What we do and are is not for ourselves, but for oar country. Friends, the hour of our redemption draweth nigh. The Messiah treads in the steps of Zen.o.bia! and when the East shall behold the disasters of Aurelian--as it will--it will behold the restoration of that empire, which is destined in the lapse of ages to gather to itself the glory and dominion of the whole earth.'

Saying these words, during which he seemed no longer Isaac the Jew, but the very Prince of the Captivity himself, he turned and took his departure.

Long and earnest conversation now ensued, in which we received from Calpurnius the most exact accounts of his whole manner of life during his captivity; of his early sufferings and disgraces, and his late honors and elevation; and gave in return similar details concerning the history of our family and of Rome, during the same period of time. I will not pretend to set down the narrative of Calpurnius. It was delivered with a grace which I can by no means transfer to these pages. I trust you may one day hear it from his own lips. Neither can I tell you how beautiful it was to see Fausta hanging upon his words, with a devotion that made her insensible to all else--her varying color and changing expression showing how deeply she sympathized with the narrator. When he had ended, and we had become weary of the excitement of this first interview, Fausta proposed that we should separate to meet again at supper. To this we agreed.

According to the proposal of Fausta, we were again, soon as evening had come, a.s.sembled around the table of the princely Gracchus.

When we had partaken of the luxuries of the feast, and various lighter discourse had caused the time to pa.s.s by in an agreeable manner, I said thus, turning to my brother:

'I would, Calpurnius, that the temper of one's mind could as easily be changed as one's garments. You now seem to me, having put off your Persian robes, far more like Piso than before. Your dress, though but in part Roman and part Palmyrene, still brings you nearer. Were it wholly Roman it were better. Is nothing of the Persian really put off, and nothing of the Roman put on, by this change?'

'Whatever of the Persian there was about me,' replied Calpurnius, 'I am free to say I have laid aside with my Persian attire. I was a Persian not by choice and preference, I need scarcely a.s.sure you, but by a sort of necessity, just as it was with my costume. I could not procure Roman clothes if I would. I could not help too putting off the Roman--seeing how I was dealt by--and putting on the Persian. Yet I part with whatever of the Persian has cleaved to me without reluctance--would it were so that I could again a.s.sume the Roman--but that can never be. But Isaac has already told you all.'

'Isaac has indeed informed me in his letter from Ecbatana, that you had renounced your country, and that it was the expectation of war with Rome that alone had power to draw you from your captivity. But I have not believed that you would stand by that determination. The days of republican patriotism I know are pa.s.sed, but even now under the empire our country has claims and her children owe her duties.'

'The figure is a common one,' Calpurnius answered, 'by which our country is termed a parent, and we her children. Allow it just. Do I owe obedience to an unjust or tyrannical parent? to one who has abandoned me in helplessness or exposed me in infancy? Are not the natural ties then sundered?'

'I think not,' I replied; 'no provocation nor injury can justify a parricidal blow. Our parent is our creator--in some sense a G.o.d to us. The tie that binds us to him is like no other tie; to do it violence, is not only a wrong, but an impiety.'

'I cannot think so,' he rejoined. 'A parent is our creator, not so much for our good as his own pleasure. In the case of the G.o.ds this is reversed: they have given us being for our advantage, not theirs. We lie under obligation to a parent then, only as he fulfils the proper duties of one. When he ceases to be virtuous, the child must cease to respect. When he ceases to be just, or careful, or kind, the child must cease to love. And from whomsoever else then the child receives the treatment, becoming a parent, that person is to him the true parent. It is idle to be governed by names rather than things; it is more, it is mischievous and injurious.'

'I still am of opinion,' I replied, 'that nature has ordained what I have a.s.serted to be an everlasting and universal truth, by the instincts which she has implanted. All men, of all tribes, have united in expressions of horror against him who does violence to his parents. And have not the poets truly painted, when they have set before us the parricide, forever after the guilty act, pursued by the Furies, and delivered over to their judicial torments?'

'All instincts,' he replied, 'are not to be defended: some animals devour their own young as soon as born. Vice is instinctive. If it be instinctive to honor, and love, and obey a vicious parent, to be unresisting under the most galling oppression, then I say, the sooner reason usurps the place of instinct the safer for mankind. No error can be more gross or hurtful, than to respect vice because of the person in whom it is embodied, even though that person be a parent. Vice is vice, injustice is injustice, wrong is wrong, wheresoever they are found; and are to be detested and withstood. But I might admit that I am in an error here; and still maintain my cause by denying the justice of the figure by which our country is made our parent, and our obligations to her made to rest on the same ground. It is mere fancy, it is a nullity, unless it be true, as I think it is, that it has been the source of great mischiefs to the world, in which case it cannot be termed a nullity, but something positively pernicious. What age of the world can be named when an insane devotion to one's country has not been the mother of war upon war, evil upon evil, beyond the power of memory to recount? Patriotism, standing for this instinctive slavery of the will, has cursed as much as it has blessed mankind. Men have not reasoned, they have only felt: they have not inquired, is the cause of my country just--but is it her cause? That has ever been the cry in Rome. "Our country! our country!--right or wrong--our country!" It is a maxim good for conquest and despotism; bad, for peace and justice. It has made Rome mistress of the world, and at the same time the scourge of the world, and trodden down into their own blood-stained soil the people of many a clime, who had else dwelt in freedom. I am no Roman in this sense, and ought never to have been. Admit that I am not justified in raising my hand against the life of a parent--though if I could defend myself against violence no otherwise, I should raise that hand--I will never allow that I am to approve and second with my best blood all the acts of my country; but when she errs am bound, on the other hand, to blame, and if need be oppose. Why not? What is this country? Men like myself. Who enact the decrees by which I am to be thus bound? Senators, no more profoundly wise perhaps, and no more irreproachably virtuous, than myself. And do I owe their judgments, which I esteem false, a dearer allegiance than I do to my own, which I esteem right and true? Never: such patriotism is a degradation and a vice. Rome, Lucius, I think to have dealt by me and the miserable men who, with me, fell into the hands of Sapor, after the manner of a selfish, cold-hearted, unnatural parent, and I renounce her, and all allegiance to her. I am from this hour a Palmyrene, Zen.o.bia is my mother, Palmyra my country.'

'But,' I could not but still urge, 'should no distinction be made between your country and her emperor? Is the country to rest under the imputation which is justly perhaps cast upon him? That were hardly right. To renounce Gallienus, were he now emperor, were a defensible act: But why Rome or Aurelian?'