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diff --git a/18100.txt b/18100.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3942cd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/18100.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4372 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Roads from Rome, by Anne C. E. Allinson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Roads from Rome + + +Author: Anne C. E. Allinson + + + +Release Date: April 1, 2006 [eBook #18100] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROADS FROM ROME*** + + +E-text prepared by Ron Swanson + + + +ROADS FROM ROME + +by + +ANNE C. E. ALLINSON + +Author with Francis G. Allinson of "Greek Lands and Letters" + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Poster of the Roman Exposition of 1911] + + + + +New York +The MacMillan Company +1922 +All rights reserved +Printed in the United States of America +Copyright, 1909, 1910, 1913, +by the Atlantic Monthly Company. +Copyright, 1913, +by the MacMillan Company. +Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1913. + + + +Three of the papers in this volume have already appeared in _The +Atlantic Monthly:_ "A Poet's Toll," "The Phrase-Maker," and "A Roman +Citizen." The author is indebted to the Editors for permission to +republish them. The illustration on the title page is reproduced from +the poster of the Roman Exposition of 1911, drawn by Duilio +Cambeliotti, printed by Dr. E. Chappuis. + + + + +PATRI MEO +LUCILIO A. EMERY +JUSTITIAE DISCIPULO, LEGIS MAGISTRO, +LITTERARUM HUMANARUM AMICO + + + + +PREFACE + + +The main purpose of these Roman sketches is to show that the men and +women of ancient Rome were like ourselves. + + "Born into life!--'tis we, + And not the world, are new; + Our cry for bliss, our plea, + Others have urged it too-- + Our wants have all been felt, our errors made before." + +It is only when we perceive in "classical antiquity" a human nature +similar to our own in its mingling of weakness and strength, vice +and virtue, sorrow and joy, defeats and victories that we shall find +in its noblest literature an intimate rather than a formal +inspiration, and in its history either comfort or warning. + +A secondary purpose is to suggest Roman conditions as they may have +affected or appeared to men of letters in successive epochs, from +the last years of the Republic to the Antonine period. Three of the +six sketches are concerned with the long and brilliant "Age of +Augustus." One is laid in the years immediately preceding the death +of Julius Caesar, and one in the time of Trajan and Pliny. The last +sketch deals with the period when Hadrian attempted a renaissance +of Greek art in Athens and creative Roman literature had come to an +end. Its renaissance was to be Italian in a new world. + +In all the sketches the essential facts are drawn directly from the +writings of the men who appear in them. These facts have been merely +cast into an imaginative form which, it is hoped, may help rather +to reveal than cloak their significance for those who believe that +the roads from Rome lead into the highway of human life. + +In choosing between ancient and modern proper names I have thought +it best in each case to decide which would give the keener impression +of verisimilitude. Consistency has, therefore, been abandoned. +Horace, Virgil and Ovid exist side by side with such original Latin +names as Julius Paulus. While Como has been preferred to Comum, the +"Larian Lake" has been retained. Perugia (instead of Perusia) and +Assisi (instead of Assisium) have been used in one sketch and +Laurentum, Tusculum and Tibur in another. The modern name that least +suggests its original is that of the river Adige. The Latin Atesia +would destroy the reader's sense of familiarity with Verona. + +My thanks are due to Professor M. S. Slaughter, of the University +of Wisconsin, who has had the great kindness to read this book in +manuscript. My husband, Francis G. Allinson, has assisted me at every +turn in its preparation. With one exception, acknowledged in its +place, all the translations are his. + +A. C. E. A. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + PAGE + THE ESTRANGER . . . . . . 1 + A POET'S TOLL . . . . . . 37 + THE PHRASE-MAKER . . . . . 72 + A ROMAN CITIZEN . . . . . 107 + FORTUNE'S LEDGER . . . . . 144 + A ROAD TO ROME . . . . . . 176 + + + + +ROADS FROM ROME + + + + +THE ESTRANGER + + +I + +In the effort to dull the edge of his mental anguish by physical +exhaustion Catullus had walked far out from the town, through +vineyards and fruit-orchards displaying their autumnal stores and +clamorous with eager companies of pickers and vintagers. On coming +back to the eastern gate he found himself reluctant to pass from the +heedless activities of the fields to the bustle of the town streets +and the formal observances of his father's house. Seeking a quiet +interlude, he turned northward and climbed the hill which rose high +above the tumultuous Adige. The shadows of the September afternoon +had begun to lengthen when he reached the top and threw himself upon +the ground near a green ash tree. + +The bodily exercise had at least done him this service, that the +formless misery of the past weeks, the monstrous, wordless sense of +desolation, now resolved itself into a grief for which inner words, +however comfortless, sprang into being. Below him Verona, proud +sentinel between the North and Rome, offered herself to the embrace +of the wild, tawny river, as if seeking to retard its ominous journey +from Rhaetia's barbarous mountains to Italy's sea by Venice. Far to +the northeast ghostly Alpine peaks awaited their coronal of sunset +rose. Southward stretched the plain of Lombardy. Within easy reach +of his eye shimmered the lagoon that lay about Mantua. The hour veiled +hills and plain in a luminous blue from which the sun's radiance was +excluded. Through the thick leaves of the ash tree soughed the +evening wind, giving a voice to the dying day. In its moan Catullus +seemed to find his own words: "He is dead, he is dead." His brother +was dead. This fact became at last clear in his consciousness and +he began to take it up and handle it. + +The news had come two weeks ago, just as he was on the point of flying +from Rome and the autumn fevers to the gaieties of Naples and Baiae. +That was an easy escape for a youth whose only taskmasters were the +Muses and who worked or played at the behest of his own mood. But +his brother, Valerius, had obeyed the will of Rome, serving her, +according to her need, at all seasons and in all places. Stationed +this year in Asia Minor he had fallen a victim to one of the disastrous +eastern fevers. And now Troy held his ashes, and never again would +he offer thanks to Jupiter Capitolinus for a safe return to Rome. + +As soon as the letter from Valerius's comrade reached him, Catullus +had started for Verona. For nearly ten years he had spoken of himself +as living in Rome, his house and his work, his friendships and his +love knitting him closely, he had supposed, into the city's life. +But in this naked moment she had shown him her alien and indifferent +face and he knew that he must go _home_ or die. It was not until he +saw his father's stricken eyes that he realised that, for once, +impulse had led him into the path of filial duty. In the days that +followed, however, except by mere presence, neither mourner could +help the other. His father's inner life had always been inaccessible +to Catullus and now in a common need it seemed more than ever +impossible to penetrate beyond the outposts of his noble stoicism. +With Catullus, on the other hand, a moved or troubled mind could +usually find an outlet in swift, hot words, and, in the unnatural +restraint put upon him by his father's speechlessness, his despair, +like a splinter of steel, had only encysted itself more deeply. +To-day he welcomed the relief of being articulate. + +The tie between his brother and himself was formed on the day of his +own birth, when the two year old Valerius--how often their old nurse +had told the story!--had been led in to see him, his little feet +stumbling over each other in happy and unjealous haste. Through the +years of tutelage they had maintained an offensive and defensive +alliance against father, nurses and teachers; and their playmates, +even including Caelius, who was admitted into a happy triumvirate, +knew that no intimacy could exact concessions from their fraternal +loyalty. Their days were spent in the same tasks and the same play, +and the nights, isolating them from the rest of their little world, +nurtured confidence and candour. Memories began to gather and to +torture him: smiling memories of childish nights in connecting +bedrooms, when, left by their nurse to sleep, each boy would slip +down into the middle of his bed, just catching sight of the other +through the open door in the dim glow of the nightlamp, and defy +Morpheus with lively tongue; poignant memories of youthful nights, +when elaborate apartments and separate servants had not checked the +emergence into wholesome speech of vague ambitions, lusty hopes and +shy emotions. It was in one of these nights that Valerius had first +hit upon his favourite nickname for his brother. Pretty Aufilena had +broken a promise and Catullus had vehemently maintained that she was +less honest than a loose woman who kept her part of a bargain. It +was surprising that a conversation so trifling should recur in this +hour, but he could see again before him his brother's smiling face +and hear him saying: "My Diogenes, never let your lantern go out. +It will light your own feet even if you never find a truthful woman." + +All this exquisite identity of daily life had ended eight years ago. +Catullus felt the weight of his twenty-six years when he realised +that ever since he and Valerius had ceased to be boys they had lived +apart, save for the occasional weeks of a soldier's furloughs. Their +outward paths had certainly diverged very widely. He had chosen +literature and Valerius the army. In politics they had fallen equally +far apart, Catullus following Cicero in allegiance to the +constitution and the senate, Valerius continuing his father's +friendship for Caesar and faith in the new democratic ideal. +Different friendships followed upon different pursuits, and +divergent mental characteristics became intensified. Catullus grew +more untamed in the pursuit of an untrammelled individual life, +subversive of accepted standards, rich in emotional incident and +sensuous perception. His adherence to the old political order was +at bottom due to an aesthetic conviction that democracy was vulgar. +To Valerius, on the contrary, the Republic was the chief concern and +Caesar its saviour from fraud and greed. As the years passed he became +more and more absorbed in his country's service at the cost of his +own inclinations. Gravity and reserve grew upon him and the sacrifice +of inherited moral standards to the claims of intellectual freedom +would to him have been abhorrent. + +And yet there had not been even one day in these eight years when +Catullus had felt that he and his brother were not as close to each +other as in the old Verona days. He had lived constantly with his +friends and rarely with his brother, but below even such friendships +as those with Caelius and Calvus, Nepos and Cornificius lay the bond +of brotherhood. In view of their lives this bond had seemed to +Catullus as incomprehensible as it was unbreakable. And he had often +wondered--he wondered now as he lay under the ash tree and listened +to the wind--whether it had had its origin in some urgent +determination of his mother who had brooded over them both. + +She had died before he was six years old, but he had one vivid memory +of her, belonging to his fifth birthday, the beginning, indeed, of +all conscious memory. The day fell in June and could be celebrated +at Sirmio, their summer home on Lake Benacus. In the morning, holding +his silent father's hand, he had received the congratulations of the +servants, and at luncheon he had been handed about among the large +company of June guests to be kissed and toasted. But the high festival +began when all these noisy people had gone off for the siesta. Then, +according to a deep-laid plan, his mother and Valerius and he had +slipped unnoticed out of the great marble doorway and run hand in +hand down the olive-silvery hill to the shore of the lake. She had +promised to spend the whole afternoon with them. Never had he felt +so happy. The deep blue water, ruffled by a summer breeze, sparkled +with a million points of crystal light. Valerius became absorbed in +trying to launch a tiny red-sailed boat, but Catullus rushed back +to his mother, exclaiming, "Mother, mother, the waves are laughing +too!" And she had caught him in her arms and smiled into his eyes +and said: "Child, a great poet said that long ago. Are you going to +be a poet some day? Is that all my bad dreams mean?" + +Then she had called Valerius and asked if they wanted a story of the +sea, and they had curled up in the hollows of her arms and she had +told them about the Argo, the first ship that ever set forth upon +the waters; of how, when her prow broke through the waves, the sailors +could see white-faced Nereids dance and beckon, and of how she bore +within her hold many heroes dedicated to a great quest. It was the +first time Catullus had heard the magic tale of the Golden Fleece +and in his mother's harp-like voice it had brought him his first +desire for strange lands and the wide, grey spaces of distant seas. +Then he had felt his mother's arm tighten around him and something +in her voice made his throat ache, as she went on to tell them of +the sorceress Medea; how she brought the leader of the quest into +wicked ways, so that the glory of his heroism counted for nothing +and misery pursued him, and how she still lived on in one disguise +after another, working ruin, when unresisted, by poisoned sheen or +honeyed draught. Catullus began to feel very much frightened, and +then all at once his mother jumped up and called out excitedly, "Oh, +see, a Nereid, a Nereid!" And they had all three rushed wildly down +the beach to the foamy edge of the lake, and there she danced with +them, her blue eyes laughing like the waves and her loosened hair +shining like the red-gold clouds around the setting sun. They had +danced until the sun slipped below the clouds and out of sight, and +a servant had come with cloaks and a reminder of the dinner hour. + +Now from the hill above Verona Catullus could see the red gold of +another sunset and he was alone. Valerius, who had known him with +that Nereid-mother, had gone forever. Because they had lain upon the +same mother's breast and danced with her upon the Sirmian shore, +Catullus had always known that his older brother's sober life was +the fruit of a wine-red passion for Rome's glory. And Valerius's +knowledge of him--ah, how penetrating that had been! + +Across the plain below him stretched the road to Mantua. Was it only +last April that upon this road he and Valerius had had that revealing +hour? The most devastating of all his memories swept in upon him. +Valerius had had his first furlough in two years and they had spent +a week of it together in Verona. The day before Valerius was to leave +to meet his transport at Brindisi they had repeated a favorite +excursion of their childhood to an excellent farm a little beyond +Mantua, to leave the house steward's orders for the season's honey. + +What a day it had been, with the spring air which set mind and feet +astir, the ride along the rush-fringed banks of the winding Mincio +and the unworldly hours in the old farmstead! The cattle-sheds were +fragrant with the burning of cedar and of Syrian gum to keep off +snakes, and Catullus had felt more strongly than ever that in the +general redolence of homely virtues, natural activities and +scrupulous standards all the noisome life of town and city was kept +at bay. The same wooden image of Bacchus hung from a pine tree in +the vineyard, and the same weather-worn Ceres stood among the first +grain, awaiting the promise of her sheaves. Valerius had been asked +by his father's overseer to make inquiries about a yoke of oxen, and +Catullus went off to look at the bee-hives in their sheltered corner +near a wild olive tree. When he came back he found his brother seated +on a stone bench, carving an odd little satyr out of a bit of wood +and talking to a fragile looking boy about twelve years old. +Valerius's sympathetic gravity always charmed children and Catullus +was not surprised to see this boy's brown eyes lifted in eager +confidence to the older face. + +"So," Valerius was saying, "you don't think we work only to live? +I believe you are right. You find the crops so beautiful that you +don't mind weeding, and I find Rome so beautiful that I don't mind +fighting." "Rome!" The boy's face quivered and his singularly sweet +voice sank to a whisper. "Do you fight for Rome? Father doesn't know +it, but I pray every day to the Good Goddess in the grainfield that +she will let me go to Rome some day. Do you think she will?" Valerius +rose and looked down into the child's starry eyes. "Perhaps she will +for Rome's own sake," he said. "Every lover counts. What is your name, +Companion-in-arms? I should like to know you when you come." +"Virgil," the boy answered shyly, colouring and drawing back as he +saw Catullus. A farm servant brought up the visitors' horses. +"Goodbye, little Virgil," Valerius called out, as he mounted. "A fair +harvest to your crops and your dreams." + +The brothers rode on for some time without speaking, Valerius rather +sombrely, it seemed, absorbed in his own thoughts. When he broke the +silence it was to say abruptly: "I wonder if, when he goes to Rome, +he will keep the light in those eyes and the music in that young +throat." Then he brought his horse close up to his brother's and spoke +rapidly as if he must rid himself of the weight of words. "My Lantern +Bearer, you are not going to lose your light and your music, are you? +The last time I saw Cicero he talked to me about your poetry and your +gifts, which you know I cannot judge as he can. He told me that for +all your 'Greek learning' and your 'Alexandrian technique' no one +could doubt the good red Italian blood in your verses, or even the +homely strain of our own little town. I confess I was thankful to +hear a literary man and a friend praise you for not being cosmopolitan. +I am not afraid now of your going over to the Greeks. But are you +in danger of losing Verona in Rome?" + +The gathering dusk, the day's pure happiness, the sense of impending +separation opened Catullus's heart. "Do you mean Clodia?" he asked +straightforwardly. "Did Cicero talk of her too?" "Not only Cicero," +Valerius had answered gently, "and not only your other friends. Will +you tell me of her yourself?" "What have you heard?" Catullus asked. +Valerius paused and then gave a direct and harsh reply: "That she +was a Medea to her husband, has been a Juno to her brother's Jupiter +and is an easy mistress to many lovers." + +After that, Catullus was thankful now to remember, he himself had +talked passionately as the road slipped away under their horses' feet. +He had told Valerius how cruel the world had been to Clodia. Metellus +had been sick all winter and had died as other men die. He had +belittled her by every indignity that a man of rank can put upon his +wife, but she had borne with him patiently enough. Because she was +no Alcestis need she be called a Medea or a Clytemnestra? And because +the unspeakable Clodius had played Jupiter to his youngest sister's +Juno need Clodia be considered less than a Diana to his Apollo? As +for her lovers--his voice broke upon the word--she loved him, +Catullus, strange as that seemed, and him only. Of course, like all +women of charm, she could play the harmless coquette with other men. +He hated the domestic woman--Lucretius's dun-coloured wife, for +instance--on whom no man except her mate would cast an eye. + +He wanted men to fall at his Love's feet, he thanked Aphrodite that +she had the manner and the subtle fire and the grace to bring them +there. Her mind was wonderful, too, aflame, like Sappho's, with the +love of beauty. That was why he called her Lesbia. He had used +Sappho's great love poem (Valerius probably did not know it, but it +was like a purple wing from Eros's shoulder) as his first messenger +to her, when his heart had grown hot as AEtna's fire or the springs +of Thermopylae. She had finally consented to meet him at Allius's +house. Afterwards she had told him that the day was marked for her +also by a white stone. + +If Valerius could only know how he felt! She was the greatest lady +in Rome, accoutred with wealth and prestige and incomparable beauty. +And she loved him, and was as good and pure and tender-hearted as +any unmarried girl in Verona. He was her lover, but often he felt +toward her as a father might feel toward a child. Catullus had +trembled as he brought out from his inner sanctuary this shyest +treasure. And never should he forget the healing sense of peace that +came to him when Valerius rode closer and put his arm around his +shoulder. "Diogenes," he said, "your flame is still bright. I could +wish you had not fallen in love with another man's wife, and if he +were still living I should try to convince you of the folly of it. +But I know this hot heart of yours is as pure as the snow we see on +the Alps in midsummer. That is all I need to know." And they had ridden +on in the darkness toward the lights of home. + +The wind rose in a fresh wail: "He is dead, he is dead." The touch +of his arm was lost in the unawakening night. His perfect speech was +stilled in the everlasting silence. A smile, both bitter and wistful, +came upon Catullus's lips as he remembered a letter he had had +yesterday from Lucretius, bidding him listen to the voice of Nature +who would bring him peace. "What is so bitter," his friend had urged, +"if it comes in the end to sleep? The wretched cannot want more of +life, and the happy men, men like Valerius, go unreluctantly, like +well-fed guests from a banquet, to enter upon untroubled rest. Nor +is his death outside of law. From all eternity life and death have +been at war with each other. No day and no night passes when the first +cry of a child tossed up on the shores of light is not mingled with +the wailings of mourners. Let me tell you how you may transmute your +sorrow. A battle rages in the plain. The earth is shaken with the +violent charges of the cavalry and with the tramping feet of men. +Cruel weapons gleam in the sun. But to one afar off upon a hill the +army is but a bright spot in the valley, adding beauty, it may well +be, to a sombre scene. And so, ascending into the serene citadel of +Knowledge and looking down upon our noisy griefs, we may find them +to be but high lights, ennobling life's monotonous plain. My friend, +come to Nature and learn of her. Surely Valerius would have wished +you peace." + +"Peace, peace!" Catullus groaned aloud. Lucretius seemed as remote +as the indifferent gods. Valerius, who knew his feet were shaped for +human ways, would have understood that he could not scale the cold +steeps of thought. If he suffered in this hour, what comfort was there +in the thought of other suffering and other years? If Troy now held +Valerius, what peace was there in knowing that its accursed earth +once covered Hector and Patroclus also, and would be forever the +common grave of Asia and of Europe? What healing had nature or law +to give when flesh was torn from flesh and heart estranged from heart +beyond recall? + +Rising, Catullus looked down upon the unresting river. As he walked +homeward, clear-eyed, at last, but unassuaged, he knew that for him +also there could never again be peaceful currents. Like the Adige, +his tumultuous grief, having its source in the pure springs of +childish love, must surge through the years of his manhood, until +at last it might lose itself in the vast sea of his own annihilation. + + +II + +In the capital a dull winter was being prophesied. Only one gleam +was discoverable in the social twilight. The Progressives had +shipped Cato off to Cyprus and society was rid for one season of a +man with a tongue, who believed in economy when money was plentiful, +in sobriety when pleasure was multiform and in domestic fidelities +when escape was easy. But they had done irreparable mischief in +disposing more summarily of Cicero. With the Conservative leader +exiled to Greece and the Progressive leader himself taking the eagles +into Gaul the winter's brilliance was threatened with eclipse. +Pompey was left in Rome, but the waning of his political star, it +could not be denied, had dimmed his social lustre. Clodius, of course, +was in full swing, triumphant in Caesar's friendship and Cicero's +defeat, but if society was able to stomach him, he himself had the +audacious honesty to foregather in grosser companionship. Even +Lucullus, whose food and wine had come to seem a permanent refuge +amid political changes and social shifts, must now be counted out. +His mind was failing, and the beautiful Apollo dining room and +terraced gardens would probably never be opened again. + +In view of the impending handicaps Clodia was especially anxious that +a dinner she was to give immediately on her return from Baiae in +mid-October should be a conspicuous success. During her husband's +consulship two years ago she had won great repute for inducing men +of all parties, officials, artists and writers, to meet in her house. +Last year, owing to Metellus's sickness and death, she had not done +anything on a large scale. This autumn she had come back determined +to reassume her position. She was unaffected by the old-fashioned +prejudice against widows entertaining and she had nothing to fear +from the social skill of this year's consuls. + +Her invitations had been hurried out, and now in her private sitting +room, known as the Venus Room from its choicest ornament, a +life-sized statue of Venus the Plunderer, she was looking over the +answers which had been sorted for her by her secretary. The Greek, +waiting for further orders, looked at her with admiring, if +disillusioned, eyes. Large and robust, her magnificent figure could +display no ungraceful lines as she sat on the low carved chair in +front of a curtain of golden Chinese silk. Her dress was of a strange +sea-green and emeralds shone in her ears and her heavy, black hair. +An orange-coloured cat with gleaming, yellow eyes curved its tail +across her feet. Above her right shoulder hung a silver cage +containing a little bird which chirped and twittered in silly +ignorance of its mistress's mood. Anger disfigured her beautiful +mouth and eyes. The list of regrets stretched out to sinister length +and included such pillars of society as Brutus and Sempronia, Bibulus +and Portia. A cynical smile relieved Clodia's sullen lips. Did these +braggarts imagine her blind to the fact that if lively Sempronia and +stupid Bibulus could conveniently die, Brutus and Portia, who were +wiping her off their visiting lists because her feet had strayed +beyond the marriage paddock, would make short work of their mourning? + +Aurelia's declination she had expected. Her inordinate pride in +being Caesar's mother had not modified her arrogant, old-time +severity toward the freedom of modern life. But that Calpurnia should +plead her husband's absence as an excuse was ominous. Everyone knew +that he dictated her social relations. Terentia had been implacable +since that amusing winter when Clodia had spread a net for Cicero. +For her own sex Clodia had the hawk's contempt for sparrows, but if +Caesar as well as Cicero were to withdraw from her arena, she might +as well prepare herself for the inverted thumbs of Rome. + +On her list of acceptances, outside of her own sisters, who had won +intellectual freedom in the divorce courts, she found the names of +only two women--virtuous Hortensia, who was proud of her emancipated +ideas, and Marcia, who was enjoying her husband's Cyprian business +as much as the rest of the world. Men, on the other hand, bachelors +and divorces, abounded. Catullus, luckily, was still in Verona, +nursing his dull grief for that impossible brother. But she was glad +to be assured that his friend, Rufus Caelius, would come. If Terentia +and Tullia had tried to poison the mind of Cicero's protege against +her, obviously they had not succeeded. He was worth cultivating. His +years in Asia Minor had made a man of the world out of a charming +Veronese boy and he was already becoming known for brilliant work +at the bar. The house he had just bought faced the southern end of +her own garden and gave evidence alike of his money and his taste. + +And yet, in spite of Caelius's connections, he was still too young +to wield social power, and it was with intense chagrin that Clodia +realised that his was the most distinguished name upon her dinner +list. Indifferent to the opinion of the world as long as she could +keep her shapely foot upon its neck, she dreaded more than anything +else a loss of the social prestige which enabled her to seek pleasure +where she chose. Was this fear at last overtaking her swiftest pace? +Her secretary, watching her, prepared himself for one of the violent +storms with which all her servants were familiar. But at this moment +a house slave came in to ask if she would see Lucretius. "Him and +no one else," she answered curtly, and the Greekling slipped +thankfully out as the curtains were drawn aside to admit a man, about +thirty-five years old, whose face and bearing brought suddenly into +the fretful room a consciousness of a larger world, a more difficult +arena. Clodia smiled, and her beauty emerged like the argent moon +from sullen clouds. An extraordinary friendship existed between this +woman who was the bawd of every tongue in Rome, from Palatine to +Subura, and this man whose very name was unknown to nine-tenths of +his fellow-citizens and who could have passed unrecognised among +most of the aristocrats who knew his family or of the literary men +who had it from Cicero that he was at work on a _magnum opus_. Cicero +was Lucretius's only close friend, and supposed he had also read +every page of Clodia's life, but not even he guessed that a chance +conversation had originated a friendship which Clodia found unique +because it was sexless, and Lucretius because, within its barriers, +he dared display some of his vacillations of purpose. The woman who +was a prey of moods seemed to understand that when he chose science +as his mistress he had strangled a passion for poetry; and that when +he had determined to withdraw from the life of his day and generation +and to pursue, for humanity's sake, that Truth which alone is +immortal beyond the waxing and waning of nations, he had violated +a craving to consecrate his time to the immediate service of Rome. +And he, in his turn, who could penetrate beyond the flaming ramparts +of the world in his search for causes, had somehow discovered beyond +this woman's deadly fires a cold retreat of thought, where all things +were stripped naked of pretence. + +Their intercourse was fitful and unconventional. Clodia was +accustomed to Lucretius's coming at unexpected hours with unexpected +demands upon her understanding. He even came, now and then, in those +strange moods which Cicero said made him wonder whether the gods had +confused neighbouring brews and ladled out madness when they meant +to dip from the vat of genius. At such times he might go as abruptly +as he came, leaving some wild sentence reechoing behind him. But at +all times they were amazingly frank with each other. So now Clodia's +eyes met his calmly enough as he said without any preface: "I have +come to answer your note. I prefer that my wife should keep out of +your circle. You used to have doves about you, who could protect a +wren, but they are fluttering away now and your own plumage is +appalling." With the phrase his eyes became conscious of her emeralds +and her shimmering Cean silks and then travelled to the nude grace +of Venus the Plunderer. He faced her violently. "Clodia," he said, +slaying a sentence on her lips, "Clodia, do you know that hell is +here on this earth and that such as you help to people it? There is +no Tityus, his heart eaten out by vultures, save the victim of passion. +And what passion is more devouring than that frenzy of the lover which +is never satisfied? Venus's garlanded hours are followed by misery. +She plunders men of their money, of their liberty, of their character. +Duties give way to cups and perfumes and garlands. And yet, amid the +very flowers pain dwells. The lover fails to understand and sickness +creeps upon him, as men sicken of hidden poison. Tell me," he added +brutally, leaning toward her, "for who should know better than you? +does not the sweetest hour of love hold a drop of bitter? Why do you +not restore your lovers to their reason, to the service of the state, +to a knowledge of nature?" + +His eyes were hot with pity for the world's pain. Hers grew cold. +"Jove," she sneered, "rules the world and kisses Juno between the +thunderbolts. Men have been known to conquer the Helvetii with their +right hands and bring roses to Venus with their left. Your 'poison' +is but the spicy sauce for a strong man's meat, your 'plundering' +but the stealing of a napkin from a loaded table. Look for your +denizens of hell not among lovers of women, but among lovers of money +and of power and of fame. Their dreams are the futile frenzies." + +"Dreams!" Lucretius interrupted. Clodia shrank a little from the +strange look in his eyes. "Do you, too, dream at night? I worked late +last night, struggling to fit into Latin words ideas no Latin mind +ever had. Toward morning I fell asleep and then I seemed to be borne +over strange seas and rivers and mountains and to be crossing plains +on foot and to hear strange noises. These waked me at last and I sprang +up and walked out into the Campagna where the dawn was fresh and cool. +But all day I have scarcely felt at home. And I may dream again +to-night. This time my dead may appear to me. They often do." He +walked toward her suddenly and his eyes seemed to bore into hers. +"Do you ever dream of your dead?" A horrible fright took possession +of her. She fell back against the Venus, her sea-green dress rippling +upon the white marble, and covered her eyes with her hands. When she +looked again, Lucretius was gone. + +How terrible he had been to-day! Dream of the dead, he had said, the +dead! And why had he talked of _a hidden poison of which men might +sicken and die_? She felt a silly desire to shriek, to strike her +head against the painted wall, to tear the jewels from her ears. The +orange cat arched its back and rubbed its head against her. She kicked +it fiercely, and its snarl of pain seemed to bring her to her senses. +She picked the creature up and stroked it. The bird in the cage broke +into a mad little melody. How morbid she was growing! She had been +depressed by her ridiculous dinner and Lucretius had been most +unpleasant. He was such a fool, too, in his idea of love. The brevity +of the heated hours was the flame's best fuel. Venus the Plunderer +seemed to smile, and there quickened within her the desire for +excitement, for the exercise of power, for the obliterating +ecstasies of a fresh amour. She had not had a lover since she accepted +Catullus. How the thought of that boy sickened her! He had been so +absurd that first day when she went to him at Allius's. After writing +her that his heart was an AEtna of imprisoned fire, in the first +moment he had reminded her of ice-cold Alps. He had knelt and kissed +her foot and then had kissed her lips--_her lips!_--as coolly as a +father might kiss a child. The unleashed passion, the lordly +love-making which followed had won her. But that first caress and +its fellow at later meetings was like crystal water in strong +wine--she preferred hers unmixed. Of a poet she had had enough for +one while; if she ever wanted him back she need only say so. + +In the mean time it would be a relief to play the game with a man +who understood it. Youth she enjoyed, if it were not too +inexperienced. Caelius's smile, for instance, boyish and inviting, +had seemed to her full of promise. He was worth the winning and was +close at hand. Catullus had introduced him, which would add piquancy +to her letting the din of the Forum succeed the babbling of Heliconian +streams. Suddenly she laughed aloud, cruelly, as another thought +struck her. How furious and how impotent Cicero would be! If she could +play with this disciple of his, and then divest him of every shred +of reputation, she might feel that at last she was avenged on the +man whom she had meant to marry (after they had sloughed off Metellus +and Terentia) and who had escaped her. Calling back her secretary +she ordered writing materials and with her own hand wrote the +following note: + +"Does Caelius know that Clodia's roses are loveliest at dusk, when +the first stars alone keep watch?" + + +III + +About seven o'clock on a clear evening of early November Catullus +arrived in Rome. With the passage of the weeks his jealous grief had +learned to dwell with other emotions, and a longing to be with Lesbia, +once more admitted, had reassumed its habitual sway. Coming first +in guise of the need of comfort, it had impelled him to leave Verona, +and on the journey it had grown into a lover's exclusive frenzy. +To-morrow he might examine the structure of his familiar life which +had been beaten upon by the storm of sorrow. To-night his ears rang +and his eyes were misty with the desire to see Lesbia. He had written +her that he would call the following morning, but he could not wait. +Stopping only to dress after his journey, fitting himself, he shyly +thought, to take her loveliness into his arms, he started for the +Palatine. The full moon illumined the city, but he had no eyes for +the marvel wrought upon temples and porticoes. Clodia's house stood +at the farther end of the hill, her gardens stretching towards the +Tiber and offering to her intimates a pleasanter approach than the +usual thoroughfare. To-night he found the entrance gate still open +and made his way through the long avenue of cypress trees, hearing +his own heart beat in the shadowed silence. The avenue ended in a +wide, open space, dominated by a huge fountain. The kindly moonlight +lent an unwonted grace to the coarse workmanship of the marble Nymphs +which sprawled in the waters of the central basin, their shoulders +and breasts drenched in silvered spray. Upon the night air hung the +faint scent of late roses. It had been among summer roses under a +summer moon that Catullus had once drunk deepest of Lesbia's honeyed +cup. This autumn night seemed freighted with the same warmth and +sweetness. He was hurrying forward when he caught sight of two +figures turning the corner of a tall box hedge. His heart leaped and +then stood still. A woman and a man walked to the fountain and sat +down upon the carved balustrade. The woman unfastened her white cloak. +The man laughed low and bent and kissed her white throat where it +rose above soft silken folds. Clodia loosened the folds. Caelius +laughed again. + +Catullus never remembered clearly what happened to him that night +after he had plunged down the cypress avenue, his feet making no sound +on the green turf. In the mad hours he found his first way into haunts +of the Subura which later became familiar enough to him, and at dawn +he came home spent. Standing at his window, he watched the pitiless, +grey light break over Rome. The magic city of the moonlit night, the +creation of fragile, reflected radiance, had evanished in bricks and +mortar. The city of his heart, also, built of gossamer dreams and +faiths, lay before him, reduced to the hideous realities of impure +love and lying friendship. In the chaos substituted for his +accustomed world he recognised only a grave in Troy. + +His servant found him in a delirium and for a week his fever ran high. +In it were consumed the illusions of which it had been born. As he +gained strength again, he found that his anger against Caelius was +more contemptuous than regretful; he discovered a sneering desire +for Lesbia's beauty divorced from a regard for her purity. The ashes +of his old love for her, the love that Valerius had understood, in +the dusk, coming home from Mantua, were hidden away in their burial +urn. Should he hold out his cold hands to this new fire? Should he +go to her as a suppliant and pay in reiterated torture for +Clytemnestra's embrace and for Juno's regilded favours? He was +unaccustomed to weighing impulses, to resisting emotions. For the +first time in his life slothful reason arose and fought with desire. + +The issue of the conflict was still in the balance when, a few days +later, a little gold box was brought to him without name or note. +Opening it he found a round, white stone. Loosened flame could have +leaped no more swiftly to its goal. Lesbia had said a white stone +marked in her memory the day she had first given herself to him. She +wanted him to come to her. She was holding out to him her white arms. +He trembled with a passion which no longer filtered through shyness. +The listlessness of his body was gone. His house was not a prison +and the Palatine was near. Valerius would never come back from Asia, +but Lesbia stood within his hand's sweet reach. + +As he made his way through the Forum two drunken wretches shambled +past him, and he caught a coarse laugh and the words, "Our Palatine +Medea." Why did his ears ring, suddenly, strangely, with the laughter +of bright, blue waves and the cadences of a voice telling a child +Medea's story? Did he know that not the unawakening night but this +brief, garish day separated him from one who had listened to that +story with him in the covert of his mother's arms; that not the salt +waves of trackless seas but the easy passage of a city street marked +his distance from a soldier's grave? He had blamed death for his +separation from Valerius. But what Death had been powerless to +accomplish his own choice of evil had brought about. Between him and +his brother there now walked the Estranger--Life. + + + + +A POET'S TOLL + + +I + +The boy's mother let the book fall, and, walking restlessly to the +doorway, flung aside the curtains that separated the library from +the larger and open hall. The December afternoon was sharp and cold, +and she had courted an hour's forgetfulness within a secluded room, +bidding her maid bring a brazier and draw the curtains close, and +deliberately selecting from her son's books a volume of Lucretius. +But her oblivion had been penetrated by an unexpected line, shot like +a poisoned arrow from the sober text:-- + +Breast of his mother should pierce with a wound sempiternal, +unhealing. + +That was her own breast, she said to herself, and there was no hope +of escape from the fever of its wound. A curious physical fear took +possession of her, parching her throat and robbing her of breath. +It was a recoil from the conviction that she must continue to suffer +because her son, so young even for his twenty-three years, had openly +flouted her for one of the harpies of the city and delivered over +his manhood to the gossip-mongers of Rome. + +Seeking now the sting of the winter air which she had been avoiding, +she pushed the heavy draperies aside and hurried into the atrium. +Through an opening in the roof a breath from December blew +refreshingly, seeming almost to ruffle the hair of the little marble +Pan who played his pipes by the rim of the basin sunk in the centre +of the hall to catch the rain-water from above. She had taken pains +years ago to bring the quaint, goat-footed figure to Rome from Assisi, +because the laughing face, set there within a bright-coloured garden, +had seemed to her a happy omen on the day when she came as a bride +to her husband's house, and in the sullen hours of her later sorrow +had comforted her more than the words of her friends. + +As she saw it now, exiled and restrained within a city house, a new +longing came upon her for her Umbrian home. Even the imperious winds +which sometimes in the winter swept up the wide valley, and leaped +over the walls of Assisi and shrieked in the streets, were better +than the Roman Aquilo which during these last days had been biting +into the very corners of the house. And how often, under the winter +sun, the northern valley used to lie quiet and serene, its brown +vineyards and expectant olive orchards held close within the shelter +of the blue hills which stretched protectingly below the +snow-covered peaks of the Apennines. How charming, too, the spring +used to be, when the vineyards grew green, and the slow, white oxen +brought the produce of the plain up the steep slopes to the town. + +She wondered now why, in leaving Assisi when Propertius was a child, +she had not foreseen her own regretful loneliness. Her reason for +leaving had been the necessity of educating her son, but the choice +had been made easy by the bitterness in her own life. Her husband +had died when the child was eight years old, and a year later her +brother, who had bulwarked her against despair, had been killed in +the terrible siege of Perugia. + +Her own family and her husband's had never been friendly to Caesar's +successor. Her husband's large estates had been confiscated when +Octavius came back from Philippi, and her brother had eagerly joined +Antony's brother in seizing the old Etruscan stronghold across the +valley from Assisi and holding it against the national troops. The +fierce assaults, the prolonged and cruel famine, the final +destruction of a prosperous city by a fire which alone saved it from +the looting of Octavius's soldiers, made a profound impression upon +all Umbria. Her own home seemed to be physically darkened by evil +memories. Her mind strayed morbidly in the shadows, forever +picturing her brother's last hours in some fresh guise of horror. +She recovered her self-control only through the shock of discovering +that her trouble was eating into her boy's life also. + +He was a sensitive, shrinking child, easily irritated, and given to +brooding. One night she awoke from a fitful sleep to find him +shivering by her bed, his little pale face and terrified eyes defined +by the moonlight that streamed in from the opposite window. "It is +my uncle," he whispered; "he came into my room all red with blood; +he wants a grave; he is tired of wandering over the hills." As she +caught the child in her arms her mind found a new mooring in the +determination to seek freedom for him and for herself from the +memories of Assisi, where night brought restless spectres and day +revealed the blackened walls and ruins of Perugia. + +That was fourteen years ago, but to-day she knew that in Rome she +herself had never wholly been at home. Her income had sufficed for +a very modest establishment in the desirable Esquiline quarter; and +her good, if provincial, ancestry had placed her in an agreeable +circle of friends. She and her son had no entree among the greater +Roman nobles, but they had a claim on the acquaintance of several +families connected with the government and through them she had all +the introductions she needed. There was, however, much about city +life which offended her tastes. Its restlessness annoyed her, its +indifference chilled her. Architecture and sculpture failed to make +up to her for the presence of mountain and valley. Ornate temples, +crowded with fashionable votaries, more often estranged than +comforted her. Agrippa's new Pantheon was now the talk of the day, +but to her the building seemed cold and formal. And two years ago, +when all Rome flocked to the dedication of the new temple of Apollo +on the Palatine, her own excitement had given way to tender memories +of the dedication of Minerva's temple in her old home. Inside the +spacious Roman portico, with its columns of African marble and its +wonderful images of beasts and mortals and gods, and in front of the +gleaming temple, with its doors of carven ivory and the sun's chariot +poised above its gable peak, she had been conscious chiefly of a +longing to see once more the homely market-place of Assisi, to climb +the high steps to the exquisite temple-porch which faced southward +toward the sunbathed valley, and then to seek the cool dimness within, +where the Guardian of Woman's Work stood ready to hear her prayers. + +To-day as she walked feverishly up and down, fretted by the walls +of her Roman house, her homesickness grew into a violent desire for +the old life. Perugia was rebuilt, and rehabilitated, in spite of +the conquering name of Augustus superimposed upon its most ancient +Etruscan portal. Assisi was plying a busy and happy life on the +opposite hillside. The intervening valley, once cowering under the +flail of war, was given over now to plenty and to peace. Its beauty, +as she had seen it last, recurred to her vividly. She had left home +in the early morning. The sky still held the flush of dawn, and the +white mists were just rising from the valley and floating away over +the tops of the awakening hills. She had held her child close to her +side as the carriage passed out under the gate of the town and began +the descent into the plain, and the buoyant freshness of the morning +had entered into her heart and given her hope for the boy's future. +He was to grow strong and wise, his childish impetuosity was to be +disciplined, he was to study and become a lawyer and serve his country +as his ancestors had before him. His father's broken youth was to +continue in him, and her life was to fructify in his and in his +children's, when the time came. + +The mother bowed her head upon her clenched hands. How empty, empty +her hopes had been! Even his boyhood had disappointed her, in spite +of his cleverness at his books. The irritability of his childhood +had become moroseness, and he had alienated more often than he had +attached his friends. A certain passionate sincerity, however, had +never been lacking in his worst moods; and toward her he had been +a loyal, if often heedless, son. In this loyalty, as the years passed, +she had come to place her last hope that he would be deaf to the siren +calls of the great city. Outdoor sports and wholesome friendships +he had rejected, even while his solitary nature and high-strung +temperament made some defense against temptation imperative. + +When he was eighteen he refused to go into law, and declared for a +literary life. She had tried hard to conceal her disappointment and +timid chagrin. She realised that the literary circle in Rome was +quite different from any she knew. It was no more aristocratic than +her own, and yet she felt intuitively that its standards were even +more fastidious and its judgments more scornful. If Propertius were +to grow rich and powerful, as the great Cicero had, and win the +friendship of the old senatorial families, she could more easily +adjust herself to formal intercourse with them than to meeting on +equal terms such men as Tibullus and Ponticus and Bassus, and perhaps +even Horace and Virgil. But later her sensitive fear that she could +not help her son in his new career had been swallowed up in the anguish +of learning that he had entirely surrendered himself to a woman of +the town. This woman, she had been told, was much older than +Propertius, beautiful and accomplished, and the lure of many rich +and distinguished lovers. Why should she seek out a slight, pale boy +who had little to give her except a heart too honest for her to +understand? + +When the knowledge first came to her, she had begged for her son's +confidence, until, in one of his morose moods, he had flung away from +her, leaving her to the weary alternations of hope and fear. Two weeks +ago, however, all uncertainty had ended. The sword had fallen. +Propertius had published a series of poems boasting of his love, +scorning all the ideals of courage and manhood in which she had tried +to nurture him, exhibiting to Rome in unashamed nakedness the +spectacle of his defeated youth. Since the day when her slave had +brought home the volume from the book-store and she had read it at +night in the privacy of her bedroom, she had found no words in which +to speak to him about his poetry. Any hope that she had ever had of +again appealing to him died before his cruel lines:-- + + Never be dearer to me even love of a mother beloved, + Never an interest in life dear, if of thee I'm bereft. + Thou and thou only to me art my home, to me, Cynthia, only + Father and mother art thou--thou all my moments of joy. + +He had, indeed, been affectionate toward her once more, and had made +a point of telling her things that he thought would please her. He +had even, some days before, seemed boyishly eager for her sympathetic +pleasure in an invitation to dine with Maecenas. + +"I am made, mother," he said, "if he takes me up." + +"_Made!_" she repeated now to herself. Made into what? + +A friend had told her that the Forum was ringing with the fame of +this new writer, and that from the Palatine to the Subura his poetry +was taking like wildfire. She was dumb before such strange comfort. +What was this "fame" to which men were willing to sacrifice their +citizenship? Nothing in Rome had so shocked her as the laxity of +family life, the reluctance of young men to marry, the frequency of +divorce. She had felt her first sympathy with Augustus when he had +endeavoured to force through a law compelling honourable marriage. +Now, all that was best in her, all her loyalty to the traditions of +her family, rose in revolt against a popular favour which applauded +the rhymes of a ruined boy and admired the shameless revelations of +debauchery. + +These plain words, spoken to herself, acted upon her mind like a tonic. +In facing the facts at their worst, she gained courage to believe +that there must still be something she could do, if she could only +grow calmer and think more clearly. She stopped her restless walking, +and, taking a chair, forced herself to lean back and rest. The +afternoon was growing dark, and a servant was beginning to light the +lamps. In the glow of the little yellow flames Pan seemed to be piping +a jocund melody. + +The frenzy of despair left her, and she began to remember her son's +youth and the charming, boyish things about him. Perhaps among his +new friends some would love him and help him where she and his earlier +friends had failed. There was Virgil, for example. He was older, but +Propertius's enthusiasm for him seemed unbounded. He had pored over +the _Georgics_ when they came out, and only the other day he had told +her that the poet was at work on an epic that would be greater than +the _Iliad_. The boy's likes and dislikes were always violent, and +he had said once, in his absurd way, that he would rather eat crumbs +from Virgil's table than loaves from Horace's. + +She knew that Virgil believed in noble things, and she had heard that +he was kind and full of sympathy. As the son of a peasant he did not +seem too imposing to her. He had been pointed out to her one day in +the street, and the memory of his shy bearing and of the embarrassed +flush on his face as he saw himself the object of interest, now gave +her courage to think of appealing to him. + +Her loosened thoughts hurried on more ambitiously still. Of +Maecenas's recent kindness Propertius was inordinately proud. Would +it not be possible to reach the great man through Tullus, her son's +faithful friend, whose government position gave him a claim upon the +prime minister's attention? Surely, if the older man realised how +fast the boy was throwing his life away he would put out a restraining +hand. She had always understood that he set great store by Roman +morals. Rising from her chair with fresh energy, she bade a servant +bring her writing materials to the library. The swift Roman night +had fallen, and the house looked dull and dim except within the short +radius of each lamp. But to her it seemed lit by a new and saving +hope. + + +II + +Nearly a week later Horace was dining quietly with Maecenas. It was +during one of the frequent estrangements between the prime minister +and his wife, and Maecenas often sent for Horace when the strain of +work had left him with little inclination to collect a larger company. +The meal was over, and on the polished citron-wood table stood a +silver mixing-bowl, and an hospitable array--after the princely +manner of the house--of gold cups, crystal flagons, and tall, slender +glasses which looked as if they might have been cut out of deep-hued +amethyst. The slaves had withdrawn, as it was one of the first nights +of the Saturnalia and their duties were lightened by a considerate +master. The unusual cold and the savage winds that had held Rome in +their grip for the past few days were forgotten within the beautiful +dining-room. A multitude of lamps, hanging from the lacquered +ceiling, standing around the room on tall AEginetan candelabra, and +resting on low, graceful standards on the table itself, threw a warm +radiance over the mosaic floor and over the walls painted with +architectural designs, through which, as if through colonnades of +real marble, charming landscapes lured and beckoned. One of the +choicest Greek wines in the host's famous cellar had been brought +in for the friends. There was enough snow on Soracte, Maecenas had +said laughingly, to justify the oldest Chian, if Horace could forego +his Italian numbers and his home-brewed Sabine for one night. + +"I will leave both my metre and my stomach to the gods," Horace had +retorted, "if you will turn over to them your worry about Rome, and +pluck the blossom of the hour with me. Augustus is safe in Spain, +you cannot be summoned to the Palatine, and to-morrow is early enough +for the noise of the Forum. By the way," he added somewhat testily +and unexpectedly, "I wish I could ever get to your house without being +held up for 'news.' A perfect stranger--he pretended to know +me--stopped me to-night and asked me if I thought there was anything +in the rumour that Augustus has no intention of going to get the +standards back from the Parthians, but is thinking only of the +Spanish gold-mines. 'Does he think to wing our Roman eagles with +money or with glory?' he asked, with what I thought was an insolent +sneer. I shook him off, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. However," +smiling again as he saw a familiar impassiveness settle upon his +host's face, "for you to-night there shall be neither Parthians nor +budgets. I offer myself as the victim of your thoughts. You may even +ask me why I have not published my odes since you last saw me." + +Maecenas's eyes brightened with affectionate amusement. + +"Well, my friend," he said, "both money and glory would wing your +flight. You have the public ear already, and can fix your own +royalties with the Sosii. And everybody, from Augustus to the +capricious fair, would welcome the published volume. You should +think too of my reputation as showman. Messala told me last week that +he had persuaded Tibullus to bring out a book of verse immediately, +while you and Virgil are dallying between past and future triumphs. +I am tempted to drop you both and take up with ambitious youth. Here +is Propertius setting the town agog, and yesterday the Sosii told +me of another clever boy, the young Ovid, who is already writing verse +at seventeen: a veritable rascal, they say, for wit and wickedness, +but a born poet." + +"If he is that," Horace said, in a tone of irritation very unusual +with him, "you had better substitute him for your Propertius. I think +his success is little short of scandalous." + +"You sound like Tullus," Maecenas said banteringly, "or like the +friend of Virgil's father who arrived from Mantua last week and began +to look for the good old Tatii and Sabines in Pompey's Portico and +the Temple of Isis! Since when have you turned Cato?" + +Horace laughed good-humouredly again. "At any rate," he said, "you +might have done worse by me than likening me to Tullus. I sometimes +wish we were all like him, unplagued by imagination, innocent of +Greek, quite sure of the admirableness of admirably administering +the government, and of the rightness of everything Roman. What does +he think of Propertius's peccadilloes, by the way? He is a friend +of the family, is he not?" + +"Yes," said Maecenas, "and he is doing his friendly duty with the +dogged persistence you would expect. He has haunted me in the Forum +lately, and yesterday we had a long talk. His point of view is obvious. +A Roman ought to be a soldier, and he ought to marry and beget more +soldiers. Propertius boasts of being deaf to the trumpet if a woman +weeps, and the woman is one he cannot marry. _Ergo_, Propertius is +a disgrace to his country. It is as clear as Euclid. All the friends +of the family, it seems, have taken a hand in the matter. Tullus +himself has tried to make the boy ambitious to go to Athens, Bassus +has tried to discount the lady's charms, Lynceus has urged the +pleasures of philosophy, and Ponticus of writing epics. And various +grey-beards have done their best to make a love-sick poet pay court +to wisdom. I could scarcely keep from laughing at the look of +perplexity and indignation in Tullus's face when he quoted +Propertius's reply. The boy actually asked them if they thought the +poor flute ought to be set adrift just because swelled cheeks weren't +becoming to Pallas! The long and short of it is that he wants me to +interfere, and convince Propertius of his public duty. That public +duty may conceivably take the form of writing poetry is beyond his +grasp." + +Horace laughed. "Now, my difficulty," he said, "is just the reverse. +I object to this young man because he is a bad poet." + +"Why?" Maecenas asked, rather abruptly. + +"Because," Horace answered, "he contorts the Latin language and +muddies his thought by Alexandrian debris." + +Maecenas reached for the silver ladle and slowly filled his cup once +more from the mixing-bowl before replying. Then he said in a more +serious tone than he had used hitherto:-- + +"If you will allow me to say so, Flaccus, that is a cheap criticism +to come from the keenest critic in Rome. Is it not possible that you +are misled by your personal prejudices? You dislike the young man +himself, I know, because he is moody and emotional and uncontrolled, +and because he considers his own emotions fit subjects for discussion. +A boy, self-centred, melancholy, and in love--what do you want of +him?" + +"Is that quite fair?" Horace answered. "Tibullus is young and in love, +and a very Heracleitus for melancholy, and you know that I not only +love him as a friend but also value him as a poet, in spite of my +belief that elegiac verse is not a fortunate medium for our language. +His Latin is limpid and direct, his metre is finished, and his emotion +as a lover is properly subordinated to his work as a poet." + +"Ah," said Maecenas quickly, "but just there you betray yourself." +He hesitated a moment and then went on as if the words were welling +up from reluctant depths in his own experience. "Flaccus, you have +never loved a woman, have you?" + +Horace smiled whimsically. "Not to the extent of surrendering my +standards," he said. "So far Mercury has always rescued me in time +from both Mars and Venus." + +But Maecenas went on gravely, "You are, then, incapacitated for +appreciating the force and fervour of a certain kind of genius. I +know that you have never understood Catullus, and I have a feeling +that something of his spirit is reappearing in this boy to-day. If +Propertius lacks his virility and directness, that may well be +because of a heart in which there is a stormier conflict of emotions. +Certainly his passion transcends the vivacious sentiment of poor +Gallus. I tell you, my wary critic, I am almost willing to believe +that through this silly young dandy we are getting a new voice in +our literature. Who knows? who knows? It is un-Roman, yes, incoherent +and moody and subversive of law and order, but is it false to human +life? A man may choose to dwell apart with his own heart rather than +with Lucretius's science or Virgil's nature, or your own practical +philosophy. Certain lines that this boy has written haunt +me--perhaps they will prove true:-- + + Then you will wonder, and often, at me not ignoble a poet; + Then midst the talent of Rome I shall be ranked in the van; + Then will the youths break silence by side of my grave and be saying: + 'Dead! Thou of passion our lord! Great one, O poet, laid low!'" + +A silence fell between the friends. Two slaves, their faces flushed +with unusual wine, came in to replenish the small lamps on the table, +and stole quietly out again. Horace watched his friend with grave +affection, knowing well where his thoughts had strayed. Presently +Maecenas shook himself with a laugh. + +"Exit Terentia's husband," he said, "and reenter the galley-slave +of the Roman State. I have, indeed, been thinking for some time that +this new talent ought to be deflected into other lines. Its energy +would put vitality into national themes. A little less Cynthia and +a little more Caesar will please us all. I mean to suggest some +historical subjects to the boy. Thinking about them may stiffen up +this oversoft Muse of his." + +"You speak hopefully," Horace said, "but you have our Hostia (I +understand the 'Cynthia' is an open secret) to reckon with. She is +not going to loosen her hold on a young man who is making her famous, +and whose sudden success with you is due to poetry about her. We have +to acknowledge that she is almost as wonderful as the young fool +thinks she is." + +"Certainly," Maecenas answered, "she has insight. Her favour must +have been won by his talent, for he hasn't money enough to meet her +price." + +"And I," scoffed Horace, "think the dice about equal between her +favour and his talent. However, I wish you luck, and shall look for +a crop of songs on Caesar and Carthage and the Cimbrians." + +With a smile of mutual understanding the friends pledged each other +in one last draught of Chian, as Horace rose to take his leave. + +"How lately have you heard from Virgil?" Maecenas asked while they +waited for Davus to be summoned from the festivities in the servants' +hall. + +"A letter came yesterday," Horace answered, "and it troubled me +greatly. He wrote in one of his blackest moods of despair over the +_AEneid_. He says he feels as if he were caught in a nightmare, trying +madly to march along a road, while his feet drag heavily, and his +tongue refuses to form sounds and words. I confess that I am anxious, +for I think his mind may prey too far upon his physical strength. +Only last week Varius told me that he thinks Virgil himself is +obsessed by the idea that he may die before he has finished his work, +he has begged him so often to promise to destroy whatever is left +uncompleted." + +A sudden sadness, like the shadow of familiar pain, fell upon +Maecenas's face. + +"Flaccus, my Flaccus," he exclaimed, "it is I who shall die, die +before Virgil finishes his _AEneid_, or you your _Odes_. My life will +have been futile. The Romans do not understand. They want their +standards back from the Parthians, they want the mines of Spain and +the riches of Arabia. They cast greedy eyes on Britain and make much +ado about ruling Gaul and Asia and Greece and Egypt. And they think +that I am one of them. But the Etruscan ghosts within me stir +strangely at times, and walk abroad through the citadel of my soul. +Then I know that the idlest dream of a dreamer may have form when +our civilisation shall have crumbled, and that the verse of a poet, +even of this boy Propertius, will outlast the toil of my nights. You +and Virgil often tell me that you owe your fortunes to me,--your lives, +you sometimes say with generous exaggeration. But I tell you that +the day is coming when I shall owe my life to you, when, save for +you, I shall be a mere name in the rotting archives of a forgotten +state. Why, then, do you delay to fulfill my hope? Virgil at least +is working. What are you doing, my best of friends?" + +Davus had come in, and was laying the soft, thick folds of a long +coat over his master's shoulders, as Maecenas's almost fretful +appeal came to an end. + +Horace, accustomed to his friend's overstrained moods, and +understanding the cure for them, turned toward him with a gentle +respect which was free from all constraint or apology. His voice lost +its frequent note of good-tempered mockery and became warm with +feeling, as he answered:-- + +"My friend, have patience. You will not die, nor shall I, until I +have laid before you a work worthy of your friendship. You are indeed +the honour and the glory of my life, and your faith in my lyric gift +lifts me to the stars. But you must remember that my Muse is wayward +and my vein of genius not too rich. No Hercules will reward my travail, +so do not expect of me the birth-pangs that are torturing Virgil. +I have time to look abroad on life and to correct tears by wine and +laughter while my hands are busy with the file and pumice-stone. +Before you know it, the billboards of the Sosii will announce the +completed work, and the dedication shall show Rome who is responsible +for my offending." + +The look of anxious irritability faded from Maecenas's face, and in +restored serenity he walked with Horace from the dining-room, +through the spacious, unroofed peristyle, where marble pillars and +statues, flower-beds and fountains were blanched by the winter moon +to one tone of silver, and through the magnificent atrium, where the +images of noble ancestors kept their silent watch over the new +generation. At the vestibule door a porter, somewhat befuddled by +Saturnalian merry-making, was waiting sleepily. When he had opened +the door into the street the two friends stood silent a moment in +the outer portico, suddenly conscious, after the seclusion of the +great house and their evening's talk, of the city life +beyond,--hilarious, disordered, without subtlety in desire and +regret, rich in the common passions of humanity. At this moment a +troop of revelers stumbled past with wagging torches in their drunken +hands. Among them, conspicuous in the moonlight, the boy Propertius +swayed unsteadily, and pushed back a torn garland from his forehead. +Horace turned to Maecenas. + +"Cynthia's wine," he said. "Do you expect to extract from the lees +an ode to Augustus?" + +Maecenas shrugged his shoulders. "Probably," he said, "he will write +me a charming poem to explain why he cannot do what I ask. I know +the tricks of your tribe." + +With a final laugh and a clasp of the hands the friends parted company. +Maecenas went back to his library to reread dispatches from Spain +before seeking his few hours of sleep. Horace, finding that the wind +had gone down, and tempted by the moonlight, turned toward the Subura +to stroll for another hour among the Saturnalian crowds. + + +III + +Propertius made his way past the slave at his own door, who was +surprised only by his young master's arrival before daybreak, and +stumbled to his bedroom, where the night-lamp was burning. The +drinking at Cynthia's--he always thought of her by that name--had +been fast and furious. She had been more beautiful than he had ever +seen her. Her eyes had shone like stars, and the garlands had hung +down over her face and trailed in her cup of yellow wine. And she +had told him that he was the only true poet in Rome, and had read +his poems aloud in a voice so sweet and clear that he had been nearly +crazed with pride and delight. Capriciously she had driven him away +early with the other guests, but to-morrow he would see her again, +or, perhaps, he could get through her door again to-night--to-night-- + +His feverish reverie was broken in upon by the frightened and +apologetic porter, bringing a letter which his mistress had told him +to deliver as soon as the master came home. Propertius dismissed him +angrily, and held the letter in an unwilling and shaking hand. +Perhaps he would not have read it at all if it had been written on +an ordinary wax tablet. But the little parchment roll had an unusual +and insistent look about it, and he finally unrolled it and, holding +it out as steadily as he could under the small wick of his lamp, read +what was written:-- + +"P. Virgilius Maro to his Propertius, greeting. +I hope you will allow me to congratulate you on your recent volume +of verse. Your management of the elegiac metre, which my friend +Gallus, before his tragic death, taught me to understand, seems to +me ennobling and enriching, and in both the fire and the pathos of +many of your lines I recognise the true poet. Perhaps you will +recognise the rustic in me when I add that I also welcomed a note +of love for your Umbrian groves of beeches and pines and for +water-meadows which you must have seen, perhaps by the banks of your +Clitumnus, filled with white lilies and scarlet poppies. Most of all +have I been moved by the candour of your idealism. It is rare indeed +in this age to hear any scorn of the golden streams of Pactolus and +the jewels of the Red Sea, of pictured tapestries and thresholds of +Arabian onyx. The knowledge that things like these are as nothing +to you, compared with love, stirs me to gratitude. + +"It was in these ways that I was thinking of you yesterday, when I +put my own work aside and walked by the shore of the great bay here, +looking toward Capri. And will you let a man who has lived nearly +a quarter of a century longer than you have add that I wondered also +whether before long you will not seek another mistress for your +worship, one whose service shall transcend not only riches but all +personal passions? + +"Like you, I have lain by the Tiber, and watched the skiffs hurrying +by, and the slow barges towed along the yellow waves. And my thoughts +also have been of the meanness of wealth and of the glory of love. +But it was to Rome herself that I made my vows, and in whose service +I enlisted. Was there ever a time when she needed more the loyalty +of us all? While she is fashioning that Empire which shall be without +limit or end and raise us to the lordship of the earth, she runs the +risks of attack from impalpable enemies who shall defile her highways +and debauch her sons. Arrogance, luxury, violent ambition, false +desires, are more to be dreaded than a Parthian victory. The subtle +wickedness of the Orient may conquer us when the spears of Britain +are of no avail. Antony and Gallus are not the only Romans from whom +Egypt has sucked life and honour. + +"Like you, again, I am no soldier. Your friends and my friends go +lustily to Ionia and Lydia and Gaul and Spain, co-workers, as you +say, in a beloved government. Is not Rome, then, all the more left +to our defence? You pleased me once by saying that you 'knew every +line' of my _Georgics_. You know, then, that I have believed that +the sickened minds of to-day could be healed, if men would but return +to the intimacies of the soil and farm. Our great master, Lucretius, +preached salvation through knowledge of the physical world. I have +ventured to say that it could be found through the kindly help of +the country gods. But now I am beginning to see deeper. In Rome +herself lie the seeds of a new birth. When men see her as she is in +her ancient greatness and her immortal future, will not greed and +lust depart from their hearts? I think it must have been at dawn, +when the sea was first reddening under the early sun, that AEneas +sailed up to the mouth of the Tiber, and found at last the heart of +that Hesperia whose shores had seemed ever to recede as he drew near +them. Now that our sky is blazing with the midday sun, shall we betray +and make void those early hopes? Shall the sistrum of Isis drown our +prayers to the gods of our country, native-born, who guard the Tiber +and our Roman Palatine? + +"I am seeking to write a poem which shall make men reverence their +past and build for their future. Will you not help me to work for +Rome's need? You have sincerity, passion, talent. You have commended +a beautiful woman to me. Will you not let me commend my Mistress to +you? Farewell." + +The letter slipped from the boy's fingers to the floor. The wonderful +voice of Virgil, which made men forget his slight frame and awkward +manners, seemed to echo in his ears. In that voice he had heard +stately hexameters read until, shutting his eyes, he could have +believed Apollo spoke from cloudy Olympus. And this voice +condescended now to plead with him and to offer him a new love. +Cynthia's voice or his--or his. He tried to distinguish each in his +clouded memory--Virgil's praising Rome, Cynthia's praising himself. +His head ached violently, and his ears rang. A blind rage seized him +because he could not distinguish either voice clearly. The letter +was to blame. He would destroy that, and one voice at least would +cease its torment. He gathered up the loose roll, twisted it in his +trembling fingers, and held it to the flame of the little lamp. + +"To Venus--a hecatomb!" he shouted wildly. + +As the parchment caught fire, the blaze of light illumined his +flushed cheeks and burning eyes, and the boyish curve of his sullen +lips. + + * * * * * + +It was in the spring, when the little marble Pan looked rosy in the +warmer sunlight, and the white oxen must have been climbing the +steeps of Assisi, that the boy's mother let go her slight hold on +life. In Rome the roses were in bloom, and Soracte was veiled in a +soft, blue haze. + +Tullus came to Maecenas to excuse Propertius from a dinner, and a +slave led him into the famous garden where the prime minister often +received his guests. Virgil was with him now, and they both cordially +greeted the young official. As he gave his message, his face, moulded +into firm, strong lines by his habits of thought, was softened as +if by a personal regret. The three men stood in silence for a moment, +and then Tullus turned impulsively to Maecenas. + +"He chose between his mother and his mistress," he said. "When I +talked with you in the winter you said that perhaps his mother would +have to face death again to give birth to a poet, as she had already +to give birth to a child. I have never understood what you meant." + +"Ah, Tullus," Maecenas answered, laying his hand affectionately upon +the shoulder of the younger man, "I spoke of a law not inscribed on +the Twelve Tables, but cut deep in the bedrock of life--is it not, +my Virgil?" + +But the poet, toward whom he had quickly turned, did not hear him. +He stood withdrawn into his own thoughts. A shaft of sun, piercing +through the ilex trees, laid upon his white toga a sudden sheen of +gold, and Maecenas heard him say softly to himself, in a voice whose +harmonies he felt he had never wholly gauged before,-- + + Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. + + + + +THE PHRASE-MAKER + + Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit.--HORACE. + + +The sun still hung high over a neat little farm among the Sabine hills, +although the midday heat had given way to the soft and comforting +warmth of a September afternoon. Delicate shadows from dark-leaved +ilexes, from tall pines and white poplars, fell waveringly across +a secluded grass-plot which looked green and inviting even after the +parching summer. The sound of water bickering down the winding way +of a stream gave life and coolness to the warm silence. Thick among +the tree-trunks on one side grew cornel bushes and sloes, making a +solid mass of underbrush, while on the other side there was an opening +through which one might catch sight of a long meadow, and arable +fields beyond, and even of blue hills along the horizon. + +But the master of this charming outlook evidently had his mind on +something else. He was a man about fifty-five years old, short and +stout, and with hair even greyer than his age warranted. As he leaned +back among his cushions on a stone bench, so skilfully placed under +an ilex tree that his face was protected while the sun fell across +his body, he looked an unromantic figure enough, no better than any +other Roman gentleman past his prime, seeking the sunshine and intent +on physical comfort. Indeed, only a gracefully low forehead and eyes +at once keen and genial saved his face from commonplaceness, and +would have led a spectator to feel any curiosity about his +meditations. + +He had let fall into his lap a letter which had reached him that +morning, and which he had just reread. It had travelled all the way +from Gaul, and he had opened it eagerly, curious to know with what +new idea his younger friend was coquetting, and hoping to hear some +interesting literary gossip about their common acquaintances. But +the letter had been chiefly filled with questions as to why he had +not yet written, and, above all, why he did not send on some verses. +Horace still felt the irritation of the first reading, although he +had had his lunch and his nap, and had reached the serenest hour of +the day. When they said good-by in Rome he had told Florus that he +should not write: he was too lazy in these later years to write very +regularly to any one except Maecenas, the other part of his soul, +and it was foolish of the younger man not to have accepted the +situation. As for the request for verses, Horace felt ashamed of the +anger it had aroused in him. One would think that he was twenty years +old again, with black curls, lively legs, and a taste for iambs, to +get so out of patience with poor Florus. But it certainly was annoying +to be pressed for odes when he had long ago determined to spend the +rest of his life in studying philosophy. To be sure, he had once made +that vow too early and had been forced to tune his lyre again after +he had thought to hang it in Apollo's temple. He had had a pride in +the enthusiastic reception of his new odes, and in the proof that +his hand had by no means lost its cunning; but Florus ought to +understand that he had at that time yielded to the Emperor's request +as equivalent to a command, and that he meant what he said when he +declared that he wished to leave the lyric arena. + +He had never been unreasonable in his demands on life, nor slow in +the contribution of his share. It seemed only just that he should +spend the years that were left to him as he chose. People talked about +his tossing off an ode as if he could do it at dessert, and spend +the solid part of the day in other pursuits. They little dreamed that +the solid part of many days had often gone into one of his lyric +trifles, and that Polyhymnia, she who had invented the lyre, and +struck it herself in Lesbos, was among the most exacting of the Muses. +With the departure of his green youth and play-time had gone the +inclination, as well as the courage, to set himself such tasks. He +had always been interested in reading the moral philosophers, and, +whatever his friends said, he meant to keep to his books, and to write, +if he wrote at all, in a comfortable, contemplative style. + +Besides (so his irritated thoughts ran on), how could Florus expect +a man who lived in Rome to write imaginative poetry? How tiresome +the days were there! Whenever he went out, some one wanted his help +in a dull business matter or dragged him off to a public reading by +some equally dull author. Even if he tried to visit his friends, one +lived on the Quirinal and one on the Aventine, and the walk between +lay through noisy streets filled with clumsy workmen, huge wagons, +funeral processions, mad dogs, dirty pigs, and human bores. No notes +from the lyre could make themselves heard amid such confusion. + +Suddenly his feeling quickened: how good it was to be away just now +in this autumnal season, when Rome laboured under leaden winds +fraught with melancholy depression, and when his head always gave +him trouble and he especially needed quiet and freedom! The afternoon +sun enveloped him in a delicious warmth, the shadows on the grass +danced gayly, as a faint breeze stirred the branches above his head, +the merry little stream near by seemed to prattle of endless content. + +The frown above Horace's eyes disappeared, and with it his inner +annoyance. Florus was a dear fellow, after all, and although he +intended to write him a piece of his mind, he would do it in hexameters, +more for his amusement than for his edification. It would be a pretty +task for the morning hours to-morrow. Now he meant to be still, and +forget his writing tablets altogether. He was glad that his house +was empty of guests, much as he had enjoyed the preceding week when +a lively company had come over from Tibur, in whose retreat they were +spending September, to hunt him out. They had had charming dinners +together, falling easily into conversations that were worth while, +and by tacit consent forgetting the inanities of town gossip. But +at present he liked the quiet even better. He had been walking about +his little place more regularly, laughing at his steward who often +grew impatient over the tiny crops, and assuring himself of the +comfort of the few slaves who ran the farm. And on more extended walks +he had felt once more, as he had so often in these long years, the +charm of the village people near him, with their friendly manners, +their patient devotion to work, and their childlike enjoyment of +country holidays. + +Certainly, as he grew older and his physical energy diminished (he +had not been really well since he was a very young man, and now before +his time he felt old), he appreciated more and more his good fortune +in owning a corner of the earth so situated. He remembered with +amusement that in earlier days he sometimes used to feel bored by +the solitude of his farm, at the end of his journey from Rome, and +wonder why he had left the lively city. But that was when he was young +enough to enjoy the bustle of the streets, and, especially in the +evenings, to join the crowds of pleasure-seekers and watch the +fortune-tellers and their victims. That he could mingle +inconspicuously with the populace he had always counted one of the +chief rewards of an inconspicuous income. Now, the quiet of the +country and the leisure for reading seemed so much more important. +He was not even as anxious as he used to be to go to fashionable Tibur +or Tarentum or Baiae in search of refreshment. How pleased Virgil +would have been with his rustic content! + +The sudden thought brought a smile to his eyes and then a shadow. +Virgil had been dead more than ten years, but his loss seemed all +at once a freshly grievous thing. So much that was valuable in his +life was inextricably associated with him. Horace's mind, usually +sanely absorbed in present interests, began, because of a trick of +memory, to turn more and more toward the past. Virgil had been one +of the first to help him out of the bitterness that made him a rather +gloomy young man when the Republic was defeated, and his own little +property dissipated, and had introduced him to Maecenas, the source +of all his material prosperity and of much of his happiness. And +indeed he had justified Virgil's faith, Horace said to himself with +a certain pride. He had begun as the obscure son of a freedman, and +here he was now, after fifty, one of the most successful poets of +Rome, a friend of Augustus, a person of importance in important +circles, and withal a contented man. + +This last achievement he knew to be the most difficult, as it was +the most unusual. And there in the clarifying sunshine he said to +himself that the rich treasure of his content had been bought by noble +coin: by his temperance and good sense in a luxurious society, by +his self-respecting independence in a circle of rich patrons, and +perhaps, above all, by his austerely honest work among many +temptations to debase the gift the Muses had bestowed upon him. He +had had no Stoic contempt for the outward things of this world. Indeed, +after he had frankly accepted the Empire he came to feel a pride in +the glory of Augustus's reign, as he felt a deep, reconciling +satisfaction in its peace, its efforts at restoring public morals, +its genuine insistence on a renewed purity of national life. The +outward tokens of increasing wealth charmed his eyes, and he took +the keenest pleasure in the gorgeous marble pillars and porticoes +of many of the houses he frequented, in the beautiful statues, the +bronze figures, the tapestries, the gold and silver vessels owned +by many of his friends, and in the rich appointments and the perfect +service of their dining-rooms, where he was a familiar guest. But +he had never wanted these things for himself, any more than he wished +for a pedigree and the images of ancestors to adorn lofty halls. He +came away from splendid houses more than willing to fall back into +plainer ways. Neither had he ever been apologetic toward his friends. +If they wanted to come and dine with him on inexpensive vegetables, +he would gladly himself superintend the polishing of his few pieces +of silver and the setting of his cheap table. If they did not choose +to accept his invitations, why, they knew how much their standards +amused him. As for his more august friends, the Emperor himself, +Maecenas, and Messala, and Pollio, he had always thought it a mere +matter of justice and common courtesy to repay their many kindnesses +by a cheerful adaptability when he was with them, and by a dignified +gratitude. But not even the Emperor could have compelled him to +surrender his inner citadel. + +Perhaps, after all, that was why Augustus had forced him back to the +lyre, in support of his reforms and in praise of the triumphal +campaigns of Tiberius and Drusus. An honest mind betokened honest +workmanship, and upon such workmanship, rather than upon a +subsidised flattery, the imperial intruder wished to stake his +repute. + +However lightly Horace may from time to time have taken other things, +he never trifled with his literary purpose after it had once matured. +Even his first satiric efforts had been honestly made; and when he +found his true mission of adapting the perfect Greek poetry to Latin +measures, there was no airy grace of phrase, no gossamer-like +slightness of theme, which did not rest upon the unseen structure +of artistic sincerity. That was why in rare solemn moments he +believed that his poetry would live, live beyond his own lifetime +and his age, even, perhaps, as long as the Pontifex Maximus and the +Vestal Virgin should ascend to the Capitol in public processional. +He had said laughingly of his published metrical letters that they +might please Rome for a day, travel on to the provinces, and finally +become exercise-books for school-boys in remote villages. But his +odes were different. They were not prosaic facts and comments put +into metre: they were poetry. If he were only a laborious bee compared +with the soaring swans of Greek lyric, at least he had distilled pure +honey from the Parnassian thyme. Now that he had determined to touch +the lyre no more, he felt more than ever sure that his lyre had served +Rome well. How much better, indeed, than his sword could have served +her, in spite of the military ambitions of his youth. What a fool +he had been to believe that the Republic could be saved by blood, +or that he could be a soldier! + +All these things Horace was meditating beneath his ilex tree, being +moved to evaluate his life by the chance appeal of his memory to that +dead friend whose "white soul" had so often, when he was alive, proved +a touchstone for those who knew him. He was sure that in the larger +issues Virgil would have given him praise on this afternoon; and with +that thought came another which was already familiar to him. It was +less probing, perhaps, but more regretfully sad. If only his father +could have lived to see his success! His mother he had not known at +all, except in his halting, childish imagination when, one day in +each year, he had been led by his father's hand to stand before the +small, plain urn containing her ashes. But his father had been his +perfect friend and comrade for twenty years. He had been able to talk +to him about anything. Above all the reserves of maturer life, he +could remember the confidence with which as a child he had been used +to rush home, bursting with the gossip of the playground, or some +childish annoyance, or some fresh delight. He could not remember that +he was ever scolded during his little choleric outbursts or +untempered enthusiasms, and yet, somehow, after a talk with his +father he had so often found himself feeling much calmer or really +happier. Anger in some way or other came to seem a foolish thing; +and even if he had come in from an ecstasy of play, it was certainly +pleasant to have the beating throbs in his head die away and to feel +his cheeks grow cool again. In looking back, Horace knew that no +philosophy had ever so deeply influenced him to self-control and to +mental temperance as had the common, kindly, shrewd man who had once +been a slave, and whose freedom had come to him only a few years before +the birth of his son. + +And how ambitious the freedman had been for the education of his son! +Horace could understand now the significance of two days in his life +which at their occurrence had merely seemed full of a vivid +excitement. One had come when he was ten years old, but no lapse of +years could dull its colours. On the day before, he had been wondering +how soon he would be allowed to enter the village school, and become +one of the big boys whom he watched every morning with round eyes +as they went past his house, their bags and tablets hanging from their +arms. But on that great day his father had lifted him in his arms--he +was a little fellow--and looking at him long and earnestly had said, +"My boy, we are going to Rome next week, so that you may go to school. +I have made up my mind that you deserve as good an education as the +son of any knight or senator." Horace had cried a little at first +in nervous excitement, and in bewilderment at his father's unwonted +gravity. But all that was soon forgotten in the important bustle of +preparations for a journey to the Capital. The whole village had made +them the centre of critical interest. Once a bald, thick-set +centurion had met them on the street, and stopped them with an +incredulous question. When he was informed that it was true that the +boy was to be taken to Rome, he had laughed sneeringly and said, "How +proud you will be of his city education when you find that he comes +back to your little government position, and can make no more money +than you have." Horace had looked wonderingly into his father's face, +and found it unannoyed and smiling. And even as a child he had noticed +the dignity with which he answered the village magnate: "Sir, I wish +to educate my son to know what is best to know, and to be a good man. +If in outward circumstances he becomes only an honest tax-collector, +he will not for that reason have studied amiss, nor shall I be +discontented." + +The next day they had started for Rome, and soon the boy was rioting +in the inexpressible glories of his first impressions of the great +city. Even the ordeal of going to a strange school had its +compensations in the two slaves who went behind him to carry his books. +The centurions' sons at home had carried their own, and Horace felt +a harmless, boyish pleasure (without in the least understanding the +years of economy on his father's part that made it possible) in the +fact that here in Rome he had what his schoolmates had, and appeared +at school in the same state. One thing he had that was better than +theirs, and he felt very sorry for them. A special servant went about +with each of the other boys, to see that he attended his classes, +was polite to his teachers, and did his work. But Horace had his own +father to look after him, a thousand times better than any carping +_paedagogus_. His father had explained to him that the other fathers +were busy men, that they were the ones who carried on the great +government, and ruled this splendid Rome; they could not spend hours +going to school with their little sons. But Horace thought it was +a great pity, and was sure that he was the luckiest boy in school. + +How good it had been to have his father learn directly from the grim +Orbilius of his first success, to see him with a quick flush on his +face take from the teacher's hands the wax tablet on which his son +had written "the best exercise in the class." His father had not +spoken directly of the matter, but in some way Horace had felt that +the extra sweet-meats they had had that night at supper were a mark +of his special pleasure. And many years afterwards, when he was +looking through a chest that had always been locked in his father's +lifetime, he had found the little wax tablet still showing the +imprint of his childish stylus. + +For ten years Horace's school life had continued, and then the second +great day had come. He was familiar with early Latin literature and +with Homer. He had studied philosophy and rhetoric with eager +industry. The end was near, and he had begun to wonder what lay before +him. Some of his friends hoped to get into political life at once, +and perhaps obtain positions in the provinces. Others had literary +ambitions. A few--the most enviable--were planning to go to Greece +for further study in the great philosophical schools. Horace +wondered whether his father would want to go back to his old home +in the country, and whether outside of Rome he himself could find +the stimulus to make something out of such abilities as he had. And +then the miracle happened. His father came to his room one night and +said, in a voice which was not as steady as he tried to make it, "My +boy,"--the old familiar preface to all the best gifts of his early +life--"My boy, would you like to go to Athens?" + +That sudden question had changed the course of Horace's life. But +his father had not lived to see the fruits of his sacrifice. The last +time Horace saw him had been on the beach at Brindisi, just as his +vessel cast off from its moorings, and the wind began to fill the +widespread sails. Horace had always realised that the most poignant +emotion of a life which had been singularly free from despotic +passions had come to him on that day when wind and tide seemed to +be hurrying him relentlessly away from the Italian shore, and on its +edge, at the last, he saw a figure grown suddenly old and tired. + +The journey itself across the Ionian Sea had not helped to increase +his cheerfulness. There had been a heavy storm, and then long days +of leaden sky and sea, and a cold mist through which one could descry +only at rare intervals ghostly sails of other ships, to remind one +that here was the beaten track of commerce from the Orient. Even as +they approached the Piraeus, and beat slowly and carefully up the +bay, the desolate mist continued, settling down over the long +anticipated coast-line, and putting an end to all the colour and +light of Greece. But afterwards Horace realised that the +unpropitious arrival had but served as a background for the later +revelation. The sungod did grant him a glorious epiphany on that +first day, springing, as it were, full panoplied out of a gulf of +darkness. His friend Pompeius, who had gone to Athens a month earlier, +had by some fortunate chance chosen the afternoon of his arrival to +make one of his frequent visits to the shops and taverns of the +harbour town. Drawn to the dock by the news that a ship from Italy +was approaching, he met Horace with open arms, and afterwards +accompanied him to the city along the Phaleron road. + +During the hour's walk the mist had gradually lifted, and the sky +grew more luminous. By the time they reached the ancient but still +unfinished temple to Zeus, some of whose Corinthian columns they had +often seen in Rome, built into their own Capitoline temple, the +setting sun had burst through all obstructions, and was irradiating +the surrounding landscape. The hills turned violet and amethyst, the +sea lighted into a splendid, shining waterway, the sky near the +horizon cleared into a deep greenish-blue, and flared into a vast +expanse of gold above. The Corinthian pillars near them changed into +burnished gold. Purple shadows fell on the brown rock of the +Acropolis, while, above, the temple of Athena was outlined against +the golden sky, and the Sun tipped as with gleaming fire the spear +and the helmet of his sister goddess, the bronze Athena herself, as +she stood a little beyond her temple, austere guardian of her city. + +On this soft autumn afternoon among the Italian hills Horace could +still remember his startled amazement when he first saw the radiance +of Greek colouring. He had not realised that the physical aspect of +mountains and sky would be so different from the landscape about Rome, +and he had never lost his delight in the fresh transparency of the +Athenian air. One of his earliest experiments in translation had been +with Euripides's choral description of the "blest children of +Erechtheus going on their way, daintily enfolded in the bright, +bright air." + +His student life in the old home of learning had also proved to be +more charming than he could have anticipated. There had been the dual +claims of literature and philosophy to stir his mind, and memories +of the ancient masters of Greece to make honoured and venerable the +gardens and the gymnasiums where he listened to his modern lectures, +to enhance the beauty of the incomparable marble temples, to throw +a glamour even over the streets of Athens, and so to minimise his +Roman contempt for the weakness of her public life. And then there +were the pleasures of youth, the breaks in the long days, when he +and his comrades would toss lecture notes, and even the poets, to +the winds, buy sweet-smelling ointments for their hair in some +Oriental shop in the lively market-place, pick out a better wine than +usual, and let Dionysus and Aphrodite control the fleeting hours. +On the morrow Apollo and Athena would once more hold their proper +place. + +Of Roman affairs they knew little and thought less, in their +charmingly egotistic absorption in student life. But a violent shock +was finally to shatter this serene oblivion. Horace could remember +the smallest details about that day. It was in the spring. The March +sun had risen brightly over Hymettus, and the sky was cloudless. +Marcus, meeting him at a morning lecture of Cratippus, had surprised +him by asking him to take his afternoon walk with him. "My father," +he explained, "has written me about a walk that he and my uncle +Quintus took to the Academy when they were students. They felt that +Plato was still alive there, and in passing the hill of Colonus they +thought of Sophocles. He wants me to take the same walk, and I wish +you would come along, too, and tell me some Sophocles and Plato to +spout back; my father will be sure to expect a rhapsody." Horace had +joyfully assented, for Marcus was always an entertaining fellow, and +might he not write to Cicero about his new acquaintance, and might +that not lead to his some day meeting the great man, and hearing him +talk about Greek philosophy and poetry? + +In the cool of the late afternoon the two young men had found the +lovely grove of the Academy almost deserted, and even Marcus had +grown silent under the spell of its memories. As they turned homeward +the violet mantle had once more been let fall by the setting sun over +Athens and the western hills. Only the sound of their own footsteps +could be heard along the quiet road. But at the Dipylon Gate an end +was put to their converse with the past. The whole Roman colony of +students was there to meet them, and it was evident that the crowd +was mastered by some unprecedented emotion. Marcus darted forward, +and it was he who turned to Horace with whitened face, and said in +a curiously dull voice, "Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides." +The news had come directly from the governor, Sulpicius, one of whose +staff had happened to meet a student an hour after the arrival of +the official packet from Rome. Marcus hurried off to the governor's +house, thinking that so good a friend of his father would be willing +to see him and tell him details. Horace could see that the boy was +sick with fear for his father's safety. + +For several weeks the students could think or talk of nothing else, +their discussions taking a fresh impetus from any letters that +arrived from Rome. Gradually, however, they settled back again into +their studies and pleasures, feeling remote and irresponsible. But +with the advent of the autumn a new force entered into their lives. +Brutus came to Athens, and, while he was awaiting the development +of political events at home, began to attend the lectures of the +philosophers. + +Horace was among the first of the young Romans to yield to the +extraordinary spell exercised by this grave, thin-faced, scholarly +man, whose profound integrity of character was as obvious to his +enemies as to his friends, and as commanding among the populace as +among his peers. Before he came Horace had been moderately glad that +the Republic had struck at tyranny and meted out to the dictator his +deserts. Now he was conscious of an intense partisanship, of a +personal loyalty, of a passionate wish to spend his life, too, in +fighting for Roman freedom. And so, when this wonderful man asked +him, who was merely a boy with a taste for moral philosophy, and a +knack at translating Alcaeus and Sappho, to become one of his +tribunes, and to go with him to meet the forces of Caesar's arrogant +young nephew in one final conflict, it was no wonder he turned his +back upon the schools and the Muses, and with fierce pride followed +his commander. He could remember how stirred he had been that last +morning when, on riding out of the city, he had passed the famous +old statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. In immortal youth they +stood there to prove that in Athens a tyrant had been slain by her +sons. The ancient popular song that he had so often heard sung by +modern Greek students over their cups seemed to be beaten out by his +horse's hoofs as, in the pale dawn, they clattered out of the city +gate:-- + + In a wreath of myrtle I'll wear my glaive, + Like Harmodius and Aristogeiton brave, + Who, striking the tyrant down, + Made Athens a freeman's town. + + Harmodius, our darling, thou art not dead! + Thou liv'st in the isles of the blest, 'tis said, + With Achilles, first in speed, + And Tydides Diomede. + + In a wreath of myrtle I'll wear my glaive, + Like Harmodius and Aristogeiton brave, + When the twain on Athena's day + Did the tyrant Hipparchus slay.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Translated by John Conington.] + +Even now, more than thirty years later, the breeze in the Sabine ilex +seemed to be playing a wraith of the same tune. And suddenly there +began to follow, creeping out of long closed fastnesses, a spectral +troop of loftier reminders. Horace stirred a little uneasily. Was +it only hot youth and Brutus that had carried him off on that +foolhardy expedition? Was it possible that Athens herself had driven +him forth, furnishing him as wings superb impulses born of the glory +of her past? For many years now he had been accustomed to feel that +he owed to Greece a quickening and a sane training of his artistic +abilities; a salvation from Alexandrian pedantry, through a detailed +knowledge of the original and masterly epochs of Greek literature; +a wholesome fear of Roman grandiosity in any form, engendered by a +sojourn among perfect exemplars of architecture and sculpture. For +many years, too, he had been in the habit of regarding Brutus as nobly +mistaken; of realising that Julius Caesar might have developed a more +rational freedom in Rome than one enshrined merely in republican +institutions. Even great men like Brutus and Cicero, although they +were above the private meanness and jealousy that in so many cases +adulterated the pure love of liberty, had not seen far enough. What +could a theory of freedom give the country better than the peace and +the prosperity brought about by the magnanimous Emperor? Horace's +part in the battle of Philippi had long since become to him a +laughable episode of youth. He had even made a merry verse about it, +casting the unashamed story of his flight in the words of Archilochus +and Alcaeus, as if the chief result for him had been a bit of literary +experiment. + +But now, like the phantom in Brutus's tent at Philippi, a grim +question stole upon him out of the shadows of his memory. Was it +possible that his fight on that field of defeat had been, not a folly, +but the golden moment of his life? Had Athens taught him something +even profounder than the art which had made him Rome's best lyric +poet? He had forgotten much of her humiliation, and of his own Roman +pride in her subjection during those days when he had lived, in +youthful hero-worship, with the spirits of her great past. Had she, +after all, not only taught the sons of her masters philosophy and +the arts, but taken them captive, as well, by the imperious ideals +of her own youth, by her love of freedom and of truth? + +Horace remembered a day when he and Messala had hired at the Piraeus +a boat rigged with bright canvas, and sped before the wind to Salamis, +their readiness for any holiday guided by a recent reading of +Herodotus and AEschylus, and by a desire to see the actual waters +and shores where brute force had been compelled to put its neck +beneath wisdom and courage. The day had been a radiant one, the sky +fresh and blue, although flecked here and there by clouds, and the +sea and the hills and the islands rich in brilliant colour. They had +worked their way through the shipping of the harbour, and then sailed +straight for the shore of Salamis. When they passed the island of +Psyttaleia, where the "dance-loving Pan had once walked up and down," +they had been able to see very plainly how the Persian and Greek +fleets lay of old, to imagine the narrow strait once more choked with +upturned keels, and fighting or flying triremes, to picture Greeks +leaping into the sea in full armour to swim to Psyttaleia and grapple +with the Persians who paced the beach in insolent assurance. The wind +whistled in their ears, freighted, as it seemed to them, with the +full-throated shout which, according to the AEschylean story, rang +through the battle:-- + + Sons of the Hellenes! On! Set free your native land! + Your children free, your wives, ancestral shrines of gods, + And tombs of fathers' fathers! Now for all we strive! + +A thunder-storm had arisen before they left Salamis, and their +homeward sail had satisfied their love for adventure. Clouds and sun +had battled vehemently, and as they finally walked back to the city +from the harbour, they had seen the Parthenon rising in grave +splendour against the warring sky, a living symbol of an ancient +victory. + +At another time, the same group of friends had chosen a hot day of +midsummer to ride on mules along the stretch of Attic road to Marathon. +The magnificent hills girdling the horizon had freshly impressed +them as more sculpturesque in outline than the familiar ones about +their own Rome, and the very shape of the olive trees in a large +orchard by the roadside had seemed un-Italian and strange. They had +already become attuned to a Greek mood when the blue sea opened before +them and they reached the large plain, stretching from the foot-hills +of Pentelicon to the water's edge. The heat had stilled all life in +the neighbourhood, and Marathon seemed hushed, after all these five +hundred years, in reverence before the spirit of liberty. Their ride +home had been taken in the cool of the day, so that the hills which +rose from the sea had assumed a covering of deep purple or more +luminous amethyst. From the shore of the sea they had passed into +a wooded road, with a golden sky shining through the black branches. +Later the stars had come out in great clusters, and Messala, who now +and then betrayed a knowledge of poetry and a gravity of thought that +surprised his friends, had recited Pindar's lines:-- + + ... Aye, undismayed + And deep the mood inspired, + A light for man to trust, a star + Of guidance sure, that shines afar. + If he that hath it can the sequel know, + How from the guilty here, forthwith below + A quittance is required. + + But in sunlight undimmed by night and by day + Toil-free is the life of the good--for they + Nor vex earth's soil with the labour of hand, + Nor the waters of Ocean in that far land-- + Nay, whoever in keeping of oaths were fearless + With the honoured of gods share life that is tearless. + +That night-ride had come back to Horace several years ago when he +was writing his ode on Pindar, but to-day's memory seemed strangely +different. Then he had remembered what a revelation Pindar's lyric +art had been to him amid the severe and lofty beauty of Greek scenery. +Now he caught a haunting echo also of how, when he was twenty-one, +these lines of the artist had seemed to him a fitting explanation +of the mound of earth heaped over the dead at Marathon. He had long +ago learned to laugh at the fervour of youth's first grappling with +ideas, and had come to see that the part of a sensible man was to +select judiciously here and there, from all the schools, enough +reasonable tenets to enable him to preserve a straight course of +personal conduct. As for understanding first causes, the human race +never had and never could; and as for a belief in heavenly revelations +or in divine influences, all such tendencies ended in philosophic +absurdity. Why, then, at this late day, should he remember that night, +on the road from Marathon to Athens, when the ancient struggle for +liberty had stirred in his own heart "a mood deep and undismayed," +and when an impalpable ideal, under the power of a rushing torrent +of melody, had come to seem a "light for man to trust?" + +Was it, indeed, days like these that had made Brutus's work so easy +when he began to collect his young company about him? And what if +Brutus had been "mistaken?" Was there not a higher wisdom than that +which could fashion nations? Horace had seen his dead face at +Philippi. Had he done right ever afterwards, however reverently, to +attribute a blunder to that mighty spirit which had left upon the +lifeless body such an imprint of majesty and repose? Surely common +sense, temperance, honest work, honourableness, fidelity, were good +fruits of human life and of useful citizenship. But was there a vaster +significance in a noble death? Was there even a truer citizenship +in the prodigal and voluntary pouring out of life, on a field of +defeat, amid alien and awful desolation? + +The sun was hurrying toward the west, and Horace realised, with a +quick chill, that he was entirely in the shadow. Beyond the meadow +he could see a team of oxen turn wearily, with a heavily loaded wagon, +toward their little stable. The driver walked with a weary limp. Even +the little boy by his side forgot to play and scamper, and rather +listlessly put the last touches to a wreath of autumn flowers which +he meant to hang about the neck of the marble Faunus at the edge of +the garden. + +Where could Davus be? Ah, there he came, half-running already as if +he knew his master wanted him. + +"Davus," he called out, "make haste. I have had a visit from the +shades, and it has been as unpleasant as those cold baths the doctor +makes me take." Then, as he saw the look of fright on the wrinkled +face of the old slave who had been with his father when he died, he +broke into a laugh and put his hand on his shoulder. "Calm yourself, +my good fellow," he said, "we shall all be shades some day, and to-day +I feel nearer than usual to that charming state. But in the meantime +there is a chance for Bacchus and the Muses. Tell them to get out +a jar of Falernian to-night, and do you unroll Menander. The counsels +of the divine Plato are too eternal for my little mind. And, Davus," +he added thoughtfully, as he rose and leaned on the slave's willing +arm, "as soon as we get to the house, write down, 'Greece took her +captors captive.' That has the making of a good phrase in it--a good +phrase. I shall polish it up and use it some day." + + + + +A ROMAN CITIZEN + + +I + +"Look at him--a subject for his own verses--a grandfather +metamorphosed into an infant Bacchus! Will he be a Mercury in +swaddling clothes by next year? O, father, father, the gods certainly +laid their own youth in your cradle fifty-two years ago!" + +The speaker, a young matron, smiled into her father's eyes, which +were as brilliant and tender as her own. Ovid and his daughter were +singularly alike in a certain blitheness of demeanour, and in Fabia's +eyes they made a charming picture now, both of them in festal white +against the March green of the slender poplars. Perilla's little boy +had climbed into his grandfather's lap and laid carefully upon his +hair, still thick and black, a wreath of grape leaves picked from +early vines in a sunny corner. Fabia and Perilla's husband, Fidus +Cornelius, smiled at each other in mutual appreciation of a youth +shared equally, it seemed to them, by the other three with the +new-born spring. + +It was Ovid's birthday and they were celebrating it in their country +place at the juncture of the Flaminian and Clodian roads. The poet +had a special liking for his gardens here, and he had preferred to +hold his fete away from the city, in family seclusion, because Fidus +was about to take Perilla off to Africa, where he was to be proconsul. +The shadow of the parting had thrown into high relief the happiness +of the day. Perilla had always said that it was worth while to pay +attention to her father's birthday, because he could accept family +incense without strutting like a god and was never so charming as +when he was being spoiled. To-day they had spared no pains, and his +manner in return had fused with the tenderness kept for them alone +the gallantry, at once that of worldling and of poet, which made him +the most popular man in Roman society. Now, as the afternoon grew +older and his grandson curled comfortably into his arms, the +conversation turned naturally to personal things. Perilla's jest led +her father to talk of his years, and to wonder whether he was to have +as long a life as his father, who had died only two or three years +before at ninety. + +"At least, having no sons," he went on, "I shall be spared some of +his disappointments. It was cruel that my brother, who could have +satisfied him by going into public life, should have died. Father +had no use for literature. He used to point out to me that not even +Homer made money, so what could I expect? But I believe that even +he saw that my student speeches sounded like metreless verse, and +later on he accepted the bad bargain with some grace. He had sniffed +at what I considered my youthful successes. I was immensely proud +over seeing Virgil once in the same room as myself, and when I came +to know Horace and Propertius fairly intimately I felt myself quite +a figure in Rome. But father had little or no respect for them--except +when Horace turned preacher--and no patience at all with what I wrote. +Before he died, however, when these greater men had passed off the +stage and he saw young men look up to me as I had looked up to them, +and found I could sell my wares, he began to grant that I had, after +all, done something with my time." + +"I never can realise," Perilla exclaimed, "that you are old enough +to have seen Virgil! Why, I wasn't even born when he died! I suppose +those times, when Augustus was young, were very fiery and inspiring, +but I am so glad I live in this very year. I would rather have you +the chief poet of Rome than a hundred solemn Virgils, and surely life +can never have been as lovely as it is now. Isn't Rome much finer +and more finished?" + +Fidus smiled. "You are your father's own child," he said. "We +certainly are getting the rustic accent out of our mouths and the +rustic scruples out of our morals. In the meantime"--he added +lightly--"some of us have to plod along with our old habits, or where +would the Empire be? I don't expect to improve much on the +proconsulship of my father." + +Ovid's eyes rested whimsically on the young man, and after a pause +he said: "Art is one thing and conduct is another. I trust Perilla +to you but with no firmer assurance of her happiness than I have of +Fabia's entrusted to me. Soldiering and proconsuling have their +place, but so has the service of the Muses. While you are looking +after taxes in Africa, we will make Rome a place to come back to from +the ends of the earth. After all, to live is the object of life, and +where can you live more richly, more exquisitely than here? You will +find you cannot stay away long. Rome is the breath we breathe. I like +to believe that will prove true of you. I cannot give up Perilla long, +even with this young Roman as a hostage." The child had fallen asleep, +and with a light kiss on his tousled curls the grandfather turned +him over to his mother's arms. "Let us leave these connoisseurs to +discuss his dimples," he said to his son-in-law, "drag our other boy +out of his bee-hives and have one more game of ball before I get too +old." + +Perilla watched the two men as they walked off toward the apiary, +and when she turned to her stepmother her eyes were wet with sudden +tears. "Fidus was almost impertinent to father, wasn't he? And father +was so perfect to him! That is what I tell Fidus, when he talks like +grandfather and says we are all going to the dogs--I tell him that +at least we are keeping our manners as we go, which is more than can +be said of the reformers. I am always nervous when he and father get +on to social questions, they feel so differently. Fidus was quite +angry with me the other day because I said I was thankful that we +had learned to have some appreciation of taste and good form and +elegance and that we should never go back to being boors and prudes. +He insisted that if by boors and prudes I meant men and women who +cared more for courage and virtue than for 'hypocrisy' and 'license,' +I should see them become the fashion again in Rome, before I knew +it. Augustus was not blindfolded, if he was old. But, although Fidus +doesn't understand father, he does love him. He said about coming +here that he would rather spend his last day with father than with +any other man in Rome. And what a happy day it has been!" + +Perilla rose impulsively and, tucking her sleeping child in among +the cushions of a neighbouring bench, threw herself on the grass by +the older woman. Her forty-five years sat lightly upon Fabia, leaving +her still lovely in the sensitive eyes of her husband and +stepdaughter. A temperamental equableness and a disciplined +character gave to her finely modelled face an inward tranquillity +which was a refuge to their ardent natures. She only smiled now, as +Perilla's lively tongue began again: "How happy you make father all +the time! It keeps me from feeling too dreadfully about going off +to Africa. Do you know, when you first came to us, I had an idea you +wouldn't understand him! I was just old enough to realise that all +your traditions were very austere ones, that your family belonged +to the old order and had done wonderful things that weren't poetry +and the joy of living at all. But I was far too young to understand +that just because you did belong to people like that, when you married +a man you would sink your life in his. That seems to me now to be +the strongest thing about you. I have a feeling that inside you +somewhere your character stands like a rock upon which father's ideas +could beat forever without changing it. But you never let that +character make you into a force separate from him. You have made his +home perfect in every detail, but outside of it you are just his wife. +Tell me, does that really satisfy you?" + +Fabia's smile grew into a laugh. "I seem very old-fashioned to you, +do I not, dear child? It is not because of my age, either, for plenty +of middle-aged women agree with you. It is quite in the air, isn't +it, the independence of women, their right to choose their own paths? +I was invited to a reading of the _Lysistrata_ the other day, and +actually one woman said afterwards that she believed Aristophanes +was only foreseeing a time when women would take part in the +government! She was laughed down for that, but most of the others +agreed that the whole progress of society since Aristophanes's time +lay in the emancipation of women from the confines of the home and +from intellectual servility. I, too, believe in mental freedom, but +you all insist a great deal upon the rights involved in being +individuals. I have never been able to see what you gain by that. +My husband is a citizen of Rome. To be called his wife is my proudest +title. It makes no difference to the state what I am or do of myself. +I live to the state only through him." + +The younger woman had begun to speak almost before Fabia had finished, +but the conversation was interrupted by the nurse coming for the +child. Perilla went back to the house with them, confessing, with +a laugh, that an hour with her boy at bed-time was more important +than trying to change her perfect mother. It was not yet time to dress +for the birthday dinner, which was to crown the day, and Fabia +lingered on in the garden to watch the gathering rose in the late +afternoon sky above the tree-tops. An enchanted sense of happiness +came to her in the silence of the hour. She did not agree with her +husband that happiness was the main object of life, but she was very +grateful to the gods who had allowed her to be happy ever since she +was a little girl, left to the care of a devoted uncle by parents +she was too young to mourn. The latter half of her life these gods +had crowned with a love which made her youth immortal. She had been +married when she was a mere girl to a young soldier who had not lived +long enough to obtrude upon her life more than a gentle memory of +his bravery. The bearing of a child had been the vital part of that +marriage, and the child had come into her new home with her, leaving +it only for a happy one of her own. Her husband's child had been like +a second daughter to her, and throughout the twenty years of her life +with Ovid joy had consistently outweighed all difficulties. Insolent +tongues had been busy with his faithlessness to her. But after the +first fears she had come to understand that, although other women +often touched the poet and artist in him, none save herself knew the +essential fidelity and the chivalrous tenderness of the husband. She +had accepted with pride his shining place in public regard. It was +no wonder that he loved Rome, for Rome loved him. + +A nightingale broke into song among the rose bushes. Her face was +like a girl's as she thought of Ovid, with the grape leaves above +his vivid face, young as the gods are young, seeking her eyes with +his. A faint smell, as of homely things, rose from the familiar earth. +Lights began to appear in the windows of the villa. She had come to +this home when she and Ovid were married, and this morning she had +again offered her tranquil prayers to the Penates so long her own. +The happy years broke in upon her. Ah, yes, she and her husband had +the divine essence of youth within them. But they had something finer +too, something that comes only to middle age--the sense of security +and peace, the assurance that, except for death, no violent changes +lay ahead of them. She had only to nurture, as they faced old age +together, a happiness already in full measure theirs. + +As she turned toward the house she met her husband, come himself to +seek her. In the recurrent springs of her after life the faint smell +of the burgeoning earth filled her with an unappeasable desire. + + +II + +The next week Fidus and Perilla started for Libya, leaving the two +children with their grandfather rather than expose them to the +dangers of the African climate. Ovid and Fabia spent the summer as +usual in the cool Apennines at the old family homestead at Sulmo. +They lingered on into the autumn for the sake of the vintage, a +favourite season with them, and did not return to their beautiful +town house at the foot of the Capitoline hill until late in October. +While Fabia was busy with the household readjustments entailed by +the presence of the children with their attendants and tutors, and +before social engagements should become too numerous, Ovid spent +several hours each day over his _Metamorphoses_, to which he was +giving the final polish. Patient work of this kind was always +distasteful to him and he welcomed any chance to escape from it. At +the end of November Fabia's cousin, Fabius Maximus, went to the +island of Elba to look after some family mines, and Ovid made his +wife's business interests a pretext for a short trip up the Tuscan +coast in his company. He was to be back for a dinner at Macer's, his +fellow poet's, on the Ides of December, to meet some friends of both +from Athens. + +On the morning of the eighth day before the Ides a message came to +Fabia from the Palace asking where Ovid was. The inquiry seemed +flattering and Fabia wondered what pleasant attention was in store +for her husband. As it happened, she saw no one outside of her own +household either that day or the next, being kept indoors by the +necessity of installing new servants sent down from the estate at +Sulmo. She was, therefore, entirely unprepared for the appalling +public news which her uncle, Rufus, brought to her in the early +evening of the seventh day before the Ides. There was something +almost terrifying in the wrenching of her mind from the placid +details of linen chests and store-rooms to the disasters in Caesar's +household. Augustus, without warning, at the opening of what +promised to be a brilliant social season, had risen in terrible +wrath; and Julia, his granddaughter, her lover, Decimus Junius +Silanus, and, it was rumoured, several other prominent men had been +given the choice of accepting banishment or submitting to a public +prosecution. There was really no choice for them. The courts would +condemn relentlessly, and the only way to save even life was to leave +Rome. + +"But the brutal suddenness of it!" Fabia exclaimed. "It seems more +tragic, somehow, than her mother's punishment. Isn't everybody +aghast? And do you think she has deserved it?" Rufus looked grave +and troubled. "It is not easy to know what one does think," he said. +"There has been a great deal of boasting about our prosperity, our +victories abroad and our lustre at home. But some of us who have been +watching closely have wondered how long this would last. The Empire +has been created at a great cost and cannot be preserved at a lesser +price. Insurrections have to be put down in the provinces, harmony +and efficiency have to be maintained in the capital. It takes harsh +courage, inflexible morals to do all that. Julia and with her Roman +society have defied Caesar's desires, just as her mother and her set +defied them ten years ago. Imagine the grief and despair of our old +Emperor! He must do something savage, drastic, irrevocable, to save +his state. My heart breaks for him, and yet I cannot help pitying +our imperial lady. With her light grace, her audacious humour, among +our stern old standards, she has often made me think of a Dryad moving +with rosy feet and gleaming shoulders in a black forest. All our +family, Fabia, have been like the trees. But perhaps Rome needs the +Dryads too. What is moral truth?" Fabia smiled suddenly. "Ovid would +say it is beauty," she said. "That is an old dispute between us." +Her face fell again. "He will be deeply distressed by this calamity. +Julia has been very gracious to him and he admires her even more than +he did her mother." + +"When is he coming home?" Rufus asked. "I didn't expect him until +the day before the Ides," Fabia answered, "but I think now he may +come earlier. Caesar sent this morning to inquire where he was, and +perhaps some honour is going to be offered that will bring him back +immediately--a reading at the Palace, perhaps, or--but, uncle," she +exclaimed, "what is the matter? You have turned so white. You are +sick." She came near him with tender, anxious hands, and he gathered +them into his thin, old ones and drew her to him. "No, dear heart," +he said. "I am not sick. For a moment fear outwitted me, a Fabian. +You must promise me not to be afraid, whatever happens. Is it cruel +to warn you of what may never come to you? But our days are troubled. +Jove's thunderstorm has broken upon us. Your husband is among the +lofty. It is only the obscure who are sure of escaping the lightning. +Send for me, if you need me. Remember whose blood is in you. I must +go--there may yet be time." He kissed her forehead hurriedly and was +gone. + +Fabia never knew accurately what happened before the sun rose a +second time after this night. Afterwards she recognised the linked +hours as the bridge upon which she passed, without return, from joy +to pain, from youth to age, from ignorance to knowledge. But the +manner of the crossing never became clear in her memory. Details +stood out mercilessly. Their relationship, their significance were +at the time as phantasmagoric as if she had been lost in the torturing +unrealities of a nightmare. Just after her uncle left she was called +to the room of Perilla's youngest child who had awakened with a sore +throat and fever. Against the protests of the nurse, she sat up with +him herself because through the shadows that darkened her mind she +groped after some service to her husband. When she was an old woman +she could have told what was carved on the cover of the little box +from which she gave the medicine every hour until the fever broke, +and the colour of the nurse's dress as she hurried in at dawn. +Practical matters claimed her attention after she had bathed and +dressed. The doctor was sent for to confirm her own belief that the +child had nothing more than a cold. The older boy's tutor consulted +her about a change in the hours of exercise. A Greek artist came to +talk over new decorations for the walls of the dining room. + +The forenoon passed. The cold wind, which had been blowing all night, +an early herald of winter, died down. A portentous silence seemed +to isolate her from the rest of the city. At noon Ovid came home. +She felt no surprise. They clung to each other in silence and when +he did speak he seemed to be saying what she had known already. The +words made little impression. She only thought how white he was, and +how old, as old as she was herself. His voice seemed to reach her +ears from a great distance. He was to go away from her to the world's +end, to a place called Tomi on the terrible Black Sea. The formal +decree had stated as the cause the immorality of his _Art of +Love_--yes, the volume had been published ten years ago and he had +enjoyed the imperial favour as much since then as before. The real +reason, so the confidential messenger had explained to him, was +something quite different. It was not safe to tell her. Her ignorance +was better for them both. He had made a terrible blunder, the Emperor +called it a crime, but he was innocent of evil intent. No, there was +no use in making any plea. He had talked the matter over with Maximus, +although he had not told him what the "crime" was. Maximus had been +sure that nothing could be done, that denial would lead only to a +public trial, the verdict of which would be still more disastrous. +The Emperor was clement, his anger might cool, patience for a year +or two might bring a remission of the sentence. The only hope lay +in obedience. Maximus had not been allowed to return with him in the +hurried journey by government post. The officers had held out little +hope to him. A change had come over Caesar. Banishment was banishment. +"An _exile_?"--no, he was not that! He was still a citizen of Rome, +he still had his property and his rights--she was no exile's wife! +Yes, she must stay in Rome. It was futile for her to argue. Caesar +was inexorable. She asked him when he must go. He said before another +sunrise, to-morrow must not see him within the city limits. The words +held no new meaning for her. What were hours and minutes to the dead? +They talked in broken sentences. She promised to comfort Perilla. +He was glad his father and mother were dead. He hoped her daughter +could come to her at once from Verona. + +They were interrupted by the stormy arrival of a few faithful +friends--how few they were she did not realise until later. Rufus +was the first to come and she thought it strange that he should break +down and sob while Ovid's eyes were dry and hard. Knowing the servants, +he undertook to tell them what had happened to their master. Their +noisy grief throughout the house brought a dreary sense of disorder. +Sextus Pompeius arrived and characteristically out of the chaos of +grief plucked the need of practical preparation for the long journey. +He brought out maps and went over each stage of the way. Only the +sea journey from Brindisi to Corinth would be familiar to Ovid, but +Pompeius had seen many years of military service in various northern +stations, from the Hellespont to the Danube, and knew what to +recommend. Although Tomi was a seaport, he advised making the last +part of the journey by land through Thrace. He knew what dangers to +fear from the natives, what precautions to take against sickness, +and what private supplies a traveller might advantageously carry +with him. They made a list of necessary things and Pompeius sent some +of Ovid's servants out to procure what they could before night. The +rest could be sent on to Brindisi before the ship sailed. He would +see to that, Fabia need have no care. It was a great disadvantage +that they could not control the choice of the travelling companions, +but he would go at once and see if he could exercise any influence. + +The packing consumed several hours. This unemotional activity would +have strengthened Fabia, had it not had a completely unnerving effect +on Ovid. The preparations for a wild and dangerous country seemed +to bring him face to face with despair. He rushed to the fire and +threw upon it the thick manuscript of his _Metamorphoses_. Looking +sullenly at the smouldering parchment he began to talk wildly, +protesting first that no one should see any of his work unfinished +and then passing to a paroxysm of rage against all his poetry, to +which he attributed his ruin. He began to walk up and down the room, +pushed his wife aside, and declared that he was going to end his life. +In the long nightmare Fabia found this hour the most terrifying. She +could never express her gratitude to Celsus who had come after +Pompeius left and who now alone proved able to influence Ovid. By +a patient reasonableness he made headway against his hysterical mood, +bringing him back, step by step, to saner thoughts. + +The servants, stimulated to their duties by Rufus, brought in food. +Fabia made Ovid eat some bread and fruit. The evening wore on. The +December moon was mounting the sky. Voices and footsteps of +passers-by were vaguely heard. In the distance a dog barked +incessantly. Lights were lit, but the usual decorum of the house was +broken. The fire died dully upon the hearth. The children were +brought into the room, looking pale and worn with the unwonted hour. +Midnight came and went. All sounds of the city died away. Even the +dog ceased his howling. They were alone with disaster. Ovid went to +the window and drew aside the heavy curtain. The moon rode high over +the Capitol. Suddenly he stretched out his arms and they heard him +praying to the great gods of his country. In this moment Fabia's +self-control, like a dam too long under pressure, gave way. Except +on ceremonial occasions she had never heard her husband pray. Now, +he who had had the heart of a child for Rome and for her was cast +out by Rome and was beyond her help. From her breast he must turn +to the indifferent gods in heaven. She broke into hard, terrible sobs +and threw herself down before the hearth, kissing the grey ashes. +Unregardful of those about her, she prayed wildly to the lesser gods +of home, her gods. From the temple on the Capitoline, from the Penates +came no answer. + +His friends began to urge Ovid to start. His carriage was ready, he +must run no risk of not clearing Rome by daylight. Why should he go, +he asked with a flicker of his old vivacity, when to go meant leaving +Rome and turning toward Scythia? He called the children to him and +talked low to them of their mother. Again his friends urged him. Three +times he started for the door and three times he came back. At the +end Fabia clung to him and beat upon his shoulders and declared she +must go with him. What was Augustus's command to her? Love was her +Caesar. Rufus came and drew her away. The door opened. The cold night +air swept the atrium. She caught sight of Ovid's face, haggard and +white against the black mass of his dishevelled hair. His shoulders +sagged. He stumbled as he went out. She was conscious of falling, +and knew nothing more. + + +III + +Ovid's second birthday in exile had passed. The hope of an early +release, harboured at first by his family and friends, had died away. +None of them knew what the "blunder" or "crime" was which had aroused +the anger of Augustus, and every effort to bring into high relief +the innocence of Ovid's personal life and his loyalty to the imperial +family simply made them more cognisant of a mystery they could not +fathom. Access to Caesar was easy to some of them, and through Marcia, +Maximus's wife, they had hoped to reach Livia. But these high +personages remained inscrutable and relentless. At times it seemed +as if even Tiberius, although long absent from the city, might be +playing a sinister role in the drama. All that was clear was that +some storm-wind from the fastnesses of the imperial will had swept +through the gaiety of Rome and quenched, like a candle, the bright +life of her favourite poet. It was easy to say that an astonishing +amount of freedom was still Ovid's. His books had been removed from +the public libraries, but the individual's liberty to own or read +them was in no way diminished. Nor was the publication of new work +frowned upon. In the autumn before his banishment Ovid had given out +one or two preliminary copies of his _Metamorphoses_, and his friends +now insisted that a work so full of charm, so characteristic of his +best powers, so innocent of questionable material should be +published, even if it had not undergone a final revision. The author +sent back from Tomi some lines of apology and explanation which he +wished prefixed. He also arranged with the Sosii for the bringing +out of his work on the Roman Calendar when he should have completed +it. And he was at liberty not only to keep up whatever private +correspondence he chose, but to have published a new set of elegiac +poems in the form of frank letters about his present life to his wife +and friends. A third volume of these poems, which he called _Tristia_, +had just appeared and more were likely to follow. He had an +extraordinary instinct for self-revelation. + +But in spite of this freedom to raise his voice in Rome, it was obvious +that all that made life dear to Ovid had been taken away. The lover +of sovereign Rome, of her streets and porticoes and theatres, her +temples and forums and gardens, must live at the farthest limit of +the Empire, in a little walled town from whose highest towers a +constant watch was kept against the incursions of untamed barbarians. +The poet to whom war had meant the brilliance of triumphal pageants +in the Sacred Way must now see the rude farmers of a Roman colony +borne off as captives or sacrificing to the enemy their oxen and carts +and little rustic treasures. The man of fifty who had spent his youth +in writing love poetry and who through all his life had had an eye +for Venus in the temple of Mars must wear a sword and helmet, and +dream at night of poisoned arrows and of fetters upon his wrists. +The son of the Italian soil, bred in warmth, his eye accustomed to +flowers and brooks and fertile meadows, must shiver most of the year +under bitter north winds sweeping over the fields of snow which +melted under neither sun nor rain; and in spring could only watch +for the breaking up of the ice in the Danube, the restoration of the +gloomy plains to their crop of wormwood, and the rare arrival of some +brave ship from Italy or Greece. The acknowledged master of the Latin +tongue, the courted talker in brilliant circles in Rome must learn +to write and speak a barbarous jargon if he wished to have any +intercourse with his neighbours. The husband with the heart of a +child, whose little caprices and moods, whose appetite and health +had been the concern of tender eyes, must learn to be sick without +proper food or medicine or nursing, must before his time grow old +and grey and thin and weak, dragged from the covert of a woman's love. + + * * * * * + +It was spring again and the late afternoon air, which came through +the open window by which Fabia was sitting, was sweet with the year's +new hope, even though borne over city roofs. Fabia had dwelt with +sorrow day and night until there was no one of its Protean shapes +which she did not intimately know. She had even attained to a certain +tolerance of her own hysteria that first night when her uncle and +her servants had had to care for her till morning. It was the last +service she had required of others. Her daughter had hurried to her +and spent weeks with her in watchful companionship. Perilla had come +back in the summer and gone with her to Sulmo. But neither the love +of the one child nor the grief of the other passed into the citadel +where her will stood at bay before the beleaguering troops of pain. +They were newer to her than they usually are to a woman of her age. +The death of her child's father had brought regret rather than sorrow. +Her will had been disciplined only by the habitual performance of +simple duties which had given her happiness. But untaught, unaided, +it slew her enemies and left her victor. Her daughters had long since +given over worrying about her, had, indeed, begun to draw again upon +her generous stores. Only her uncle, who knew the cost of warfare +better, still silently watched her eyes. He knew that her victory +had to be won afresh every night as soon as the aegis of the day was +lifted. For a long time this had meant nights of dry-eyed anguish, +which threatened her sanity, or nights of weakening tears. Through +these months her uncle had come to see her every day. He had not +doubted the strength of her will, but he had feared that the strength +of her body might be sacrificed to its triumph. Her long days of +self-control, however, repaired the ravages of the night hours, and +little by little her strong mind, from which she had resolutely +withheld all narcotics, reasserted its sway over her nerves. She +recovered her power to think. To her a clear understanding of +principles by which she was to decide the details of conduct had +always been essential. + +To-day, in this favourite hour of hers, when the mask laid by a busy +day over the realities of life began to be gently withdrawn, she had +set herself the task of analysing certain thoughts which had been +with her hazily for over a week. On Ovid's birthday she had sent +little presents to the grandchildren and written to her stepdaughter +a letter which she hoped would make her feel that she was still the +daughter of her father's house. In doing this she had been poignantly +reminded of the birthday fete two years ago, of Perilla's sweetness +to her, and of their conversation, so light-hearted at the time, +about woman's place in the state. Since then she had been wondering +whether she could still say that it was enough for her to be a wife. +She was perfectly sure that she did not miss the outer satisfactions +of being Ovid's wife. Except as they indicated his downfall, she did +not regret the loss of her former place in society or the desertion +of many of their so-called friends. Indeed, she had welcomed as her +only comfort whatever share she could have in his losses. But was +it true that her life as a whole had no meaning or value apart from +his? Had the hard, solitary fight to be brave meant nothing except +that she could write her husband stimulating letters and help his +child to take up again the joys of youth? She had found and tested +powers in herself that were not Ovid's. What meaning was there in +her phrase--"The wife of a Roman citizen?" She began to think over +Ovid's idea of citizenship. Suddenly she realised, in one of those +flashes that illuminate a series of facts long taken for granted, +that the time he had shown most emotion over being a citizen was on +the night he had left home, when he had insisted that he still +retained his property and his rights. Before that indeed, on the +annual occasions when the Emperor reviewed the equestrian order and +he rode on his beautiful horse in the procession, he had always come +home in a glow of enthusiasm. But she had often felt vaguely, even +then, that the citizen's pride was largely made up of the courtier's +devotion to a ruler, the artist's delight in a pageant and the +favourite's pleasure in applause in which he had a personal share. +That he loved Rome she had never doubted. He loved the external city +because it was fair to the eye. He loved Roman life because it was +free from all that was rustic, because it gave the prizes to wit and +imagination and refinement. The culture of Athens had at last become +domiciled in the capital of a world-empire. Ovid's idea of +citizenship, Fabia said to herself, was to live, amid the beauties +of this capital and in the warmth of imperial and popular favour, +freely, easily, joyfully. + +And what was her own idea? Fabia's mind fled back to the days when +she was a little girl in Falerii and her uncle used to come to the +nursery after his dinner and take her on his lap and tell her stories +until she was borne off to bed. The stories had always been about +brave people, and her nurse used to scold, while she undressed her, +about her flushed cheeks and shining eyes. The procession of these +brave ones walked before her now, as a child's eyes had seen +them--Horatius, Virginia, Lucretia, Decius, Regulus, Cato--men and +women who had loved the honour and virtue demanded by Rome, or Rome's +safety better than their lives. The best story of all had been the +one about her own ancestors, the three hundred and six Fabii who, +to establish their country's power, fought by the River Cremera until +every man was dead. + +She had grown old enough to read her own stories, to marry, and to +tell stories to a child and to grandchildren, but the time had never +come when her heart had not beat quicker at the thought of men +sacrificing their life or their children, their will or their +well-being to their country's need. She had become a widely read +woman in both Latin and Greek. Her reason told her that appreciation +of beauty in nature and art, grace and elegance in manners, +intellectual freedom and a zest for individual development were +essential factors in the progress of civilisation. She knew that if +her husband had not believed in these things he could not have been +the poet he was, and she knew his poetry had done something for Roman +letters that Virgil's had not done. She had not only loved, with all +the pure passion of her maturity, his charm and his blitheness and +his gifted sensitiveness, but she had been proud of his achievements. +His citizenship had satisfied her. But always, within the barriers +of her own individuality, that faith which is deeper, warmer, more +masterly than reason, had kept her the reverent lover of duty, the +passionate guardian of character, for whose sake she would deny not +only ease and joy, but, even, if the dire need came, beauty itself. +Art the Romans had had to borrow. Their character they had hewn for +themselves, with a chisel unknown to the Greeks, out of the brute +mass of their instincts. Its constancy, its dignity, its magnanimity, +probity and fidelity Cicero had described in words befitting their +massive splendour. To possess this character was to be a Roman +citizen, in the Forum and on the battlefield, in the study and the +studio, in exile and in prison, in life and in death. Ovid's +citizenship, save for the empty title, had been ended by an imperial +decree. In losing Rome he had ceased to be a Roman. His voice came +back only in cries in which there was no dignity and no fortitude. +He was tiring out his friends. Perilla no longer let Fidus see his +letters. Even in her own heart the sharpest sorrow was not his exile +but his defeat. Her love had outlived her pride. + +The dreaded night was coming on. Would he moan in his sleep again, +without her quieting hand upon his face, or wake from dreams of her +to loneliness? She rose impetuously and looked up through the narrow +window. The sky was filled with the brightness of the April sunset. +Of pain she was no longer afraid. But she was afraid to go on fighting +with nothing to justify the cost of her successive battles or to +glorify their result. Against the sunset sky rose the Capitol. +Burnished gold had been laid upon its austere contours. Strength was +aflame with glory. She never knew how or why, but suddenly an +answering flame leaped within her. In that majestic temple dwelt the +omnipotent gods of her country. Why should all her prayers be said +to the Penates on her hearth? What did her country need, save, in +manifold forms, which obliterated the barriers of sex, the sacrifice +of self, the performance of duty, the choice of courage? The feverish +talk of women about their independence had failed to hold her +attention. Now a mightier voice, borne from the graves of the dead, +trumpeted from the lives of the living, called to her, above the +warring of her will with sorrow, to be a Roman citizen. She had +neither arms nor counsels to give to her country. She could not even +give sons born of her body, taught of her spirit. She was a woman +alone, she was growing old, she was ungifted. She would be nothing +but a private in the ranks, an obscure workman among master builders. +But she could offer her victory over herself, and ask her country +to take back and use a character hewn and shaped in accordance with +its traditions. Her husband's citizenship had become a legal fable. +She would take it and weld it with her own, and, content never to +know the outcome, lay them both together upon the altar of Rome's +immortal Spirit. + +The new moon hung in the still radiant west. On a moonlit night she +had fallen by the ashes of her hearth and prayed in futile agony to +the gods of her home. Now she stood erect and looked out upon the +city and with a solemn faith prayed to the greater gods. Later she +slept peacefully, for the first time in fifteen months, as one whose +taskmaster has turned comrade. + +In the morning her uncle, who had been in Falerii for a few weeks, +came to see her. He looked keenly into her eyes as she hastened across +the wide room to greet him. Then his own eyes flashed and with a sudden +glad movement he bent and kissed her hands. "Heart of my heart," he +said, "in an exile's house I salute a Roman." + + + + +FORTUNE'S LEDGER + + +I + +His Lady of Gifts smiled at him and held out her hand with something +shut tight inside of it. The white fingers were just about to open +into his palm, when he felt his mother's hand on his and heard her +say: "Come, Marcus, come, the sun will get ahead of you this morning." +He knew that she had kissed his eyes and hurried away again before +he could open them upon the faint, grey light in his tiny room. A +piercing thought put an end to sleepiness and brought him swiftly +from his bed. This was the day of his Lady's festival! His mother +seemed to have forgotten it, but he could say a prayer for her as +well as for himself at the shrine by the Spring. He must make haste +now, however, for before the June sun should fairly have come up over +the tops of the hills he must get his sheep and goats to their pasture +on the lower slopes. + +When he had slipped into his blue cotton tunic, which reached just +to his knees, leaving bare his stout brown legs, he went into his +mother's room and plunged his head into a copper basin of water +standing ready for his use. Shaking the drops from his black curls, +he hastened on to the kitchen for his porridge. His grandfather was +already there, sitting in his large chair, mumbling half-heard words +to himself, while his daughter-in-law dipped out his breakfast from +a pot hung over a small fire laid frugally in the middle of the wide, +stone hearth. Marcus went up to him and kissed his forehead before +he threw his arms around the neck of the big white sheep-dog which +had leaped forward as he entered. His mother smiled out of her tired +eyes as she gave him his morning portion, and then began to wrap up +in a spotless napkin the dry bread and few olives which were to be +his lunch in the pasture. When the last bit of hot porridge and the +cup of goat's milk had been finished, he kissed her hand, gave the +signal to the impatient dog, and ran across the courtyard to the fold +where his meagre flock awaited their release. The sky was turning +pink and gold, the sweet air of dawn filled his nostrils and, in spite +of his mother's forgetfulness, he knew that on this day of all days +in the year Good Fortune might be met by mortals face to face. As +he and his dog marshalled the sheep and goats out of the gate, he +turned happily toward the long, hard road which to him was but a +pathway to his upland pasture and his Lady's shrine. + +His mother came to the gate and watched the springing step with which +he met the day. Her most passionate desire was that he might, +throughout his life, be spared the sorrow, the disillusionment and +the exhaustion which were her daily portion. But what chance was +there of such a desire being fulfilled? A cry from the house, half +frightened, half peevish, called her back from dreams to duties. + +Marcus was the last child of a long line of independent farmers. When +he was born his father was sharing with his grandfather the +management of a prosperous estate. But before Marcus could talk +plainly the crash had come. It seemed incredible that the Emperor +in Rome should have known anything about the owners of a farm in Como. +But Domitian's evil nature lay like a blight over the whole empire, +and his cruelty, mean-spirited as well as irrational, was as likely +to touch the low as the high. Angered by some officer's careless story +of an insolent soldier's interview with Marcus's grandfather, he +used a spare moment to order the confiscation of the rich acres and +the slaves of the farm, and the imprisonment of their owner. The +imprisonment had been short, as no one was concerned to continue it +after Domitian's death. But it had been long enough to break the +victim's spirit and hasten his dotage. By this time he knew almost +nothing of what went on around him. He did not know that Domitian +had been killed and that at last men breathed freely under the good +Trajan. He was still full of old fears, pathetically unable to grasp +the joy of this tranquillity, which, like recreative sunshine, +penetrated to every corner of the exhausted empire. Nor, in fretting +over the absence of his son, did he remember the brave fight that +he had made for a livelihood as a muleteer in the Alps just above +Como, nor the manner, almost heroic, of his death. + +The burden fell upon Marcus's young mother. It was no wonder that +her eyes were always tired, her hands rough and red, and her shoulders +no longer straight. The actual farmstead had been left to them, but +its former comfort now imposed only a heavy load. Once the servants +had been almost as numerous as in the great villas along the lake. +There had been stables for oxen and horses and sheep, lofts full of +hay and corn, spacious tool-rooms, store-rooms for olive oil and +fruits and wine, hen-yards and pigsties, and generous quarters for +the workmen. Most of this was now falling into decay, year by year. +Only a few bedrooms were used--the smallest and warmest--and the +great kitchen was the only living room. It had been large enough for +all the farm-servants to eat in and for the spinning and weaving of +the women. Now the family of three gathered lonesomely close to the +hearth when a rare fire was indulged in on stormy winter nights. The +only source of income were the few sheep and goats and hens. In the +old days great flocks of sheep on the farm had sent fleeces to Milan. +Now there were only enough to furnish lambs on feast days and +occasional fleeces to more prosperous neighbors. The few goats +provided the family with milk. Far oftener than anyone knew, in the +winters, they were in actual distress, lacking food and fuel. + +But it was not her own hunger that burdened the nights of Marcus's +mother. In letting her old father-in-law be hungry she felt that she +was false to a trust. And her boy must be saved to a happier life +than his father's had been. He was eleven years old and must soon, +if ever, turn to something better than tending sheep in a lonely +pasture from sunrise till sunset. She did not let him know it, +thinking that he was too young to look beyond the passing days in +which he seemed able to find happiness, but she had laid aside every +year, heedless of the sacrifice, some little part of the scanty money +that came from the eggs and chickens. What she could do with it she +did not know. It grew so slowly. But there was always the hope that +some day Marcus would find it a full-grown treasure to face the world +with. When, seven years ago, the great Pliny had given to Como a fund +to educate freeborn orphans, she had thought bitterly that her baby +would be better off without her. Sometimes, since then, she had been +mad enough to think of trying to see Pliny when he came to the villa +which was nearest to her farm. He was there now. Stories of his +magnificent kindnesses were rife. His tenants were the most +contented in the country-side and his slaves were better treated than +many Roman citizens. He had given his old nurse a little farm to live +on and sent one of his freedmen to Egypt when he was threatened with +consumption. But she had never found the courage--she could not find +it now--to believe that he would care what happened to a child in +no way connected with him. His wealth, by no means the largest known +in his own circle, to her seemed appalling. The Emperor could not +have been more distant from her than this magnate, who, although he +had been born in Como and was said to love his Como villas better +than any of his other houses, yet had about him the awful remoteness +of Rome. Of course she could never be admitted to his presence. She +could only store up a few more coins each year and trust to the gods. + +With a start she realised that to-day was the festival of Fors Fortuna. +In the hurried morning she had forgotten to remind Marcus of his +prayers. In the days when the farm had been sure of the largest +harvest in the neighbourhood this summer festival had been +brilliantly celebrated, and as long as Marcus's father had lived the +family had still cherished the quaint rites and the merrymaking of +a holiday especially dear to the common people of both city and +country. But in these later years there had been neither time nor +money for any fetes. Piety, however, was still left, and it was +characteristic of the scrupulousness persisting in Marcus's mother +through all the demoralising experiences of poverty that, after she +had finished the heavier tasks, she should set to work to mark the +religious day by a freshly washed cloth upon the table, with a bowl +of red roses picked from the bush that grew by the doorway, and a +gala supper of new-laid eggs, lentil soup and goat's milk cheese. + +In the meantime Marcus had been having adventures. His pasture was +on a grassy plateau of a mountain slope, edged by heavy green +cypresses and dotted with holm-oaks. In the woods above him chestnut +and walnut trees showed vividly against the silver olives. Below +stretched the shining waters of the Larian Lake. Here, while the +sheep browsed happily, he was wont to feed his little soul on dreams. +Sitting to-day where he could look out to a distant horizon, his blue +tunic seeming to insert into the varied greens about him a bit of +colour from sky or lake, he dug his toes into the soft grass and for +the hundredth time tried to think out how he could attain his heart's +desire. He knew exactly what that was. He wanted to go to school! +If anyone had tried to find out why, he would have discovered in the +boy's mind a tangled mass of hopes--hopes of helping his mother and +owning once more their big fields and vineyards, of going to Rome +and coming home again, rich and famous. But to any glorious future +school was the portal, of that he was sure. The nearest boys' school +was in Milan, and to Milan he must go. The golden fleece on the borders +of strange seas, the golden apples in unknown gardens, never seemed +to lords of high adventure more remote or more desirable than a +provincial school-room thirty miles away seemed to this little +shepherd. He dreamed of it by day and by night. Last night, when the +Lady of the Spring held out her hand to him he had been sure that +what it held would help him to go to Milan. He knew he must have money, +and that was why he had never told his mother what he wanted. She +would be unhappy, he knew, that she could not give it to him. He wanted +her to think that he asked for nothing better than to mind the sheep +all day. Sometimes his heart would be so hot with desire that only +tears could cool it, and all alone in the pasture he would bury his +face in the grass and sob until his dog came and licked his neck. +At other times it was his pan's-pipe that brought ease. His father +had taught him to play on it when he was a mere baby, and sometimes +he would forget his burden in making high, clear notes come out of +the slender reeds. To-day, especially, tears seemed far away, and +he piped and piped until his heart was at rest, and the sun, now nearly +in mid-heaven, made him warm and drowsy. + +An hour later he woke with a start into a strange noonday silence. +Every blade, and twig, and flower, was hushed. A soft white light +dimmed the brilliant colours of the day. No sound was heard from bird +or insect, and the only movement was among his white sheep, which +noiselessly, like a distant stream of foamy water, seemed to flow +down a winding path. The goats were standing quite still. Suddenly +they flung up their heads, as if at an imperious call, and in wild +abandon rushed toward the shadowy woods above. The dog, as if roused +from a trance, gave chase, shattering the silence with yelping barks. +The boy, his heart beating violently, followed. It took all the +afternoon to collect and quiet the flock, and when Marcus started +home he had himself not lost the awed sense of a Presence in his +pasture. The nearness seemed less familiar than that of his Lady of +Gifts, and yet she must have been concerned in it, for the thrill +that remained with him was a happy one. + +It was late, but to-day more than ever he must stop at her shrine. +Near his regular path, below a narrow gorge, there was a marvellous +spring. It rose in the mountains, ran down among the rocks, and was +received in an artificial chamber. After a short halt there, it fell +into the lake below. The extraordinary thing about it was that three +times in each day it increased and decreased with regular rise and +fall. One could lie beside it and watch its measured movements. +Everybody from far and near came to see it, even the grand people +from the villas. But Marcus, coming in the early morning or evening, +had almost never met anyone there and had grown to feel that the spot +was his own. In the dusk or at dawn it often seemed to him as if a +lovely lady, with eyes such as his mother might have had, came up +out of the spring and laid smooth, cool hands on his face. Because +the Goddess of Gifts had become associated in his mind with the first +day he could remember in his early childhood--a radiant and merry +day--he had come to identify with her this Lady of the Spring, who +alone gave romance to the harsher, soberer years that followed his +father's death. To-day Marcus could have sworn she smiled at him +before she disappeared, as the water receded after the gushing flow +which he had come just in time to watch. He was rising from his knees +when his eye fell upon a strange, green gleam upon the wet rock. For +a moment he thought it was the gleam of a lizard's back, but as he +took the little object into his hand he realised that it was hard, +and inert, and transparent. Even in the dusk he could see the light +in it. It almost burned in his hand. He felt sure that it was a gift +from his Lady, but he did not stop to think what he could do with +it. He was filled with happiness just in looking at it. It was the +most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he could take it to his +mother and it would make her smile. Full of joy, he hurried homeward. +Even on ordinary occasions he loved the end of summer days. His +grandfather would go to sleep and cease saying strange things, and, +after he and his mother had finished the evening tasks in house and +court-yard and sheepfold, they would sit for a while together in the +warm doorway, and she would tell him stories of his father and of +many other people and things. Sometimes when he leaned against her +and her voice grew sweet and low he forgot he was a man and a shepherd. + +To-night this did not happen, although the air was sweet with roses, +and the stars were large and bright. Marcus had shown his mother the +green marvel and told her how the Lady of the Spring had brought it +out to him from her secret recesses. She had caught her breath and +turned it over and over, and then she had put her arms close round +him and explained to him that this beautiful thing was a jewel, an +emerald, and must have belonged in a great lady's ring. Her father +had been a goldsmith and she had often seen such jewels in their +setting. They were bought with great sums of money, and to lose one +was like losing money. And that was true, too, of finding one. Money +must be returned and so must this. + +Money--money--his head swam. Could he have bought his heart's desire +with the little green gleam? He put his head on his mother's knee +and, for all his efforts, a sob sounded in his throat. She lifted +him up against her warm, soft breast, and her hands were smoother +and cooler than his Lady's, and he told her all that was in his heart, +and she told him all that was in hers, for him. + +Later they talked like comrades and partners about the emerald, and +decided that it must belong to someone in Pliny's villa, either to +Calpurnia herself or to one of her guests. They agreed that they could +not sleep until it was returned. The mother had to stay near the +sleeping old man, but the villa was only two miles away, the +neighbourhood was safe, with a dog as companion, and Marcus was a +fast walker on his strong bare feet. At the villa he could ask for +Lucius, who came to the farm twice a week for eggs and chickens. "He +is an old servant," she said, "loyal to his master and friendly toward +us. He is sure to be kind to you. I will do the jewel up in a little +package and put father's seal on it, and you can trust it to him. +Be sure to give it to no one else." + +So Marcus, with his dog, long past his usual bed-time, trudged forth +into the night whose cavernous shadows deepened the shadows in his +little heart. The worst of the adventure was walking up through the +grounds of the villa and facing the porter at the servants' door and +asking for Lucius. When he came, the boy thrust the package into his +hand, stammered out an explanation, and ran away before the +bewildered old man knew what had happened. On the way home the dog +seemed to share his master's discouragement and left unchallenged +the evening music of the bull-frogs. When Marcus stretched his tired +legs out in bed he thought of to-morrow with the sheep again, and +wondered dully why his Lady and her mysterious comrade in the pasture +had cheated him. His mother, going into the kitchen to see that the +wood was ready for the morning, snatched the red roses from the table +spread for Fors Fortuna and threw them fiercely on the ashes. + + +II + +The day at the villa had been the most trying one of a trying week +for Pliny and Calpurnia. A restful house-party of their dearest +friends had been spoiled by the arrival of Quadratilla, heralded by +one of her incredible letters dated at Baiae: + +"I lost at the dice last night," she had written. "The dancers from +Cadiz had thick ankles. The oysters were not above suspicion and the +sows'-bellies were unseasoned. We have exhausted the love affairs +and debts of our neighbours, and made each other's wills. (I am to +leave my money--I rely on you to tell Quadratus--to a curled darling +here who hums Alexandrian dance tunes divinely). And we have +discussed _ad nauseam_ the rainfall in Upper Egypt, the number of +legions on the Rhine and the ships in from Africa. That clever Spanish +friend of yours--what was his name?--Martial--was quite right about +our conversations. It is a pity he had to pay out his obol for the +longer journey before he could get back to Rome. + +"My digestion demands fresh eggs and lettuce to the rhythm of +hexameters. Or is it sapphics to which we eat this year? I must know +what the next crop of the stylus is to be. I cannot sleep at night +for wondering who is to teach in your new school. Will he be as merry +a guide as your Quintilian was? And will the Como boys become +sparkling little Plinies? + +"I must see the grown-up Pliny's noble brow and my Calpurnia's +eyes--and the Tartarean frown of Tacitus, who, I hear, is with you. +Quadratus says you are at the smallest of your Como villas. The mood +suits me. At Tusculum or Tibur or Praeneste or Laurentum you might +have longed for me in vain. In your Arcadian retreat expect me on +the tenth day." + +The hale old woman took a terrible advantage of her years and her +tongue to do as she chose among her acquaintances. And Pliny was more +or less at her mercy, because his mother and she had been friends +in their girlhood, and because her grandson, Quadratus, was among +the closest of his own younger friends. Unluckily, too, she had taken +a violent fancy to Calpurnia. She spared her none of her flings, but +evidently in some strange way the exquisite breeding and candid +goodness of the younger woman appealed to her antipodal nature. She +had lived riotously through seven imperial reigns, gambling, owning +and exhibiting pantomimes, nourishing all manner of luxurious whims, +whether the state lay gasping under a Nero or Domitian, or breathed +once more in the smile of Trajan. Her liking for Calpurnia was of +a piece, her acquaintances thought, with her bringing up of her +grandson. No boy in Rome had had an austerer training. He was never +allowed to mingle with her coarser companions, and when the dice were +brought in she always sent him out of the room--"back to his books." +No breath of scandal had ever touched his good name, and his tastes +could not have been more prudent, his grandmother used to say, with +uplifted eyebrows, had he had the "inestimable advantage of being +brought up by Pliny's uncle." + +After a winter and spring of varied activities the friends gathered +at Pliny's villa had eagerly looked forward to a brief peace. Pliny's +law business had been unusually exacting. He had worked early and +late, and made a series of crucial speeches, and when spring came +on he had allowed neither work nor social demands to interfere with +his attendance at the almost numberless literary readings. His +"conscientious and undiscriminating concern for dead matter," +Quadratilla once said, "rivalled Charon's." Calpurnia, never strong, +but always supplementing at every turn her husband's work, had felt +especially this year the strain of Roman life. Tacitus, already a +figure in the literary world through his _Agricola_ and _Germania_, +had made a beginning on his more elaborate _Histories_ and been +enslaved to his genius. Pompeius Saturninus and his clever wife, +Cornelia, were hoping for a little rustic idleness before beginning +the summer entertaining at their place in Tuscany. The group under +Pliny's roof was completed by Calpurnia's lovely aunt, Hispulla, and +Fannia, whose famous ancestry was accentuated in her own +distinguished character. Pliny's old schoolfellow, Caninus Rufus, +had come to his adjacent villa, bringing with him their common friend, +Voconius Romanus. These friends had entered upon one of the holiday +seasons rarely granted to people of importance. Their debts to the +worlds of business or society or literature held in abeyance, they +were lightly devoting their days to fishing and hunting, sailing and +riding, while the keenness of their intellectual interests--they +belonged to a very different set from Quadratilla's--was restfully +tempered and the sincerity of them deepened by a thorough-going +intimacy. + +Upon the second fortnight of this life Quadratilla broke like a +thunder-squall. Whatever feelings had prompted her to leave her +fashionable resort, her mood after she arrived was characteristically +Bacchanal. She had a genius for making the tenderest feeling or the +deepest conviction seem absurd. Rufus did not know whether to be more +angry at her open hint to Pliny that his childlessness was like that +of so many millionaires of the day, a voluntary lure for the +attention of legacy hunters, or at her sardonic inquiries after +Tacitus's dyspepsia. His best friends knew that his gloom issued from +the travail of a mind which had sickened mortally under Domitian and +could not find in the present tranquillity more than a brief +interruption to the madness of men and the wrath of gods. It was not +that Quadratilla failed to perceive the massive intellectual force of +Tacitus. On the contrary, she enraged Rufus and the others still +further by a covert irony about Pliny's classing himself as a man of +letters with the historian, an innocent vanity which endeared him +only the more to those whose experience of his loyal and generous +heart left no room for critical appraisement of his mental calibre. + +The day in question had been full of small annoyances. Calpurnia, +wishing, on the Feast of Fors Fortuna, to excuse the dining-room +servants from a noonday attendance, had had a luncheon served in the +grotto of the tidal spring. Unluckily, while they were testing the +ebb and flow by putting rings and other small objects on a dry spot +and watching the water cover them, Quadratilla lost out of one of +her rings a very valuable emerald. From that moment until the stone +was returned by Marcus everybody's patience had been strained to the +breaking point by the old lady's peevish temper. After dinner, when +they were sitting in the loggia overlooking the lake, which lay dark +and still beneath the June stars, they all united in a tacit effort +to divert her attention. Pliny told a story of some neighbours to +illustrate that the same kind of courage existed in the middle class +as in the aristocracy. A wife, finding that her husband was wasting +away with an incurable disease, not only urged him to end his life, +but joined him in the brave adventure, fastening his weakened body +to hers and then leaping with him from a window overlooking the lake. + +Fannia agreed enthusiastically that the deed was as brave as the one +by which her famous grandmother had shown her husband the way to meet +an emperor's command to die; and she went on to say that she and Pliny +had decided once that some of the unknown hours of Arria's life were +as courageous as the final one of death. "Mother has told me all kinds +of things about her," she said. "Once her husband and son were both +desperately ill, and the son died. It wasn't safe to tell grandfather, +and grandmother went through it all, even the funeral, without his +knowing it. She would go into his room and answer questions about +the boy, saying he had slept well and eaten more. When she couldn't +bear it any longer she would go to her own room and give way, and +come back again, calm and serene, to nurse her husband." + +"I wonder," said Cornelia, "if blood counted more in that apparently +simpler thing. Do you think a middle-class woman could have +controlled herself so finely?" Voconius broke in with a quick answer: +"It is nothing against Arria, whose memory we all reverence, if I +say I think she might. It seems to me that the kind of thing that +only an aristocrat could do was done by Corellius Rufus. It isn't +a matter of courage but of humour. Tell the story, Pliny. I haven't +heard it since the year he died--let me see, seven years ago, that +was. It's time we heard it again." + +Tacitus leaned forward to listen as Pliny willingly complied: +"Corellius was, you know, a Stoic of the Stoics, believing in suicide. +When the doctors had assured him that he could never be cured of a +most dreadful disease, all his reasons for living, his wealth and +position and fame, his wife and daughter and grandchildren and +sisters and friends, became secondary to his reasons for dying. He +had held the disease in check, while he was younger, by the most +temperate living. But in old age it gained on him; he was bedridden +and had only weakening torments to face. I went to see him one day +while Domitian was still living. His wife went out of the room, for, +although she had his full confidence, she was tactful enough to leave +him alone with his friends. He turned his eyes to me and said: 'Why +do you think I have endured this pain so long? It is because I want +to survive our Hangman at least one day.' As soon as we were rid of +Domitian he began to starve himself to death. I agree with Voconius +that only an aristocrat could have thought of outwitting a tyrant +by outliving him." + +"It is a pity, is it not," said Cornelia, "that Juvenal could not +have known men like Corellius and your uncle, Pliny, and all the rest +of you? He might be less savage in his attacks on our order." "And +equally a pity," Pliny gallantly responded, "that he could not modify +his views on your sex by knowing such ladies as are in this room." +Tacitus bowed gravely to Quadratilla as their host said this. A +retort trembled on the wicked old lips, but Calpurnia, seeing it, +made haste to ask if any of them had ever talked with Juvenal. "I +asked Martial once," she said, "to bring him to see us, but he never +came. I cannot help feeling that, if he could know us better, his +arraignment would be less harsh." "Dear Lady," said Tacitus, "you +forget that people like you are cut jewels, very different from the +rough rock of our order as well as from the shifting sands of the +populace." "Dear Cynic," laughed Calpurnia, "do we know any more +about the populace than Juvenal knows about us?" + +But in Tacitus's unfortunate figure Quadratilla saw her chance to +annoy him by belittling the conversation. To everyone's despair, she +intruded maliciously: "To my thinking, the finding of my emerald +would show to advantage the cut of our aristocratic wits." Cornelia +had just whispered to Rufus, "I wish we could lose her as adequately +out of our setting," when Lucius came into the loggia with the sealed +package for Pliny. A question from his master gave him a chance to +tell Marcus's story, which lost nothing in the friendly, rustic +narration. A chorus of praise for the boy rose from the eager +listeners. Even Quadratilla remarked that he was a decent little +clod-hopper, as she demanded a lamp by which to examine her jewel. +Pliny and Calpurnia's eyes met in swift response to each other's +thoughts. They examined the farmer's seal and questioned Lucius more +closely. Calpurnia's eyes filled with tears at his account of the +old grandfather--"ruined," she exclaimed to the others, "in the very +month that Pliny's name, as we afterwards discovered, was put on the +prescription list. We were so anxious at the time--that must explain +our never following the family up. I will go early to-morrow," she +added, turning to her husband, "and see the mother. We must make up +for lost time." "Find out," said Pliny, "whether the boy wants to +go to school." + +A cackle of laughter came from Quadratilla's chair back of the group +that had gathered around the servant. "How like my Pliny!" she +remarked genially. "A dirty little rascal restores my property in +the hope of picking up a reward. His heart's desire is doubtless a +strip of bacon for his stomach on a holiday. And Pliny offers him +an education!" + + +III + +Marcus had been in his pasture for many an hour when Calpurnia came +to the farm. His mother was on her knees washing up the stone floor +of the kitchen. A sweet voice sounded in her ears, and she looked +up to see a goddess--as she thought in the first blinding moment--a +goddess dressed in silvery white with a gleam of gold at her throat. +Neither woman ever told all that passed between them in their long +talk in the sunlit courtyard, where they sought solitude, but when +Marcus's mother kissed her visitor's hands at parting, Calpurnia's +eyes shone with tears and her own were bright as with a vision. + +When she went back into the kitchen, she found on the stone table +a great hamper, from which a bottle of wine generously protruded. +Her father-in-law from his chair in the window began an excited and +incoherent story. She ran to him and knelt by his side and begged +him to understand while she told him of a miracle. The dull old eyes +looked only troubled. So she choked back her tears and stroked his +hands gently and said over and over, until his face brightened, "You +are never going to be cold or hungry again--never cold or hungry." + +Even with her many tasks the summer day seemed unending to her. +Finally, as the shadows lengthened, she could no longer endure to +wait and started out to meet Marcus. Across a green meadow she saw +him coming, walking soberly and wearily in front of his herded flock. +As he saw her, his listlessness fell from him and he ran forward +anxiously. But when he reached her and saw her eyes, his heart almost +stopped beating in glad amazement. And she held out her hands, while +the dog jumped up on them both in an ecstasy, and said to him, "My +son, Fors Fortuna, your Lady of the Spring, has blessed us. You are +to go to school." + +Later in the evening, when the wonderful supper from the hamper had +been eaten and cleared away, and the grandfather had fallen +peacefully asleep, and the sheep and goats and hens had been tended +for the night, Marcus and his mother sat in the doorway beside the +red rosebush and dreamed dreams together of a time when house and +courtyard, renewed, should once more exercise a happy sovereignty +over fruitful acres. The world seemed Marcus's because he was to go +to school, this very year, in their own Como. They had not known +before that Pliny had offered to share with the citizens the expense +of a school of their own, so that boys need not go as far as Milan. +Marcus was awed into speechlessness when his mother told him that +the great man was personally to see to his registration and fees and +clothes and books. The evening wore on, and the boy's head, heavy +with visions, fell sleepily against his mother's breast. As she held +him to her, her thoughts wandered from him to the radiant lady who +had brought such light into their darkness. Could Fors Fortuna +herself, she wondered, be any happier, laden with beauty and riches +and power, and making of them a saving gift for mortals? + +At the villa dinner had passed off successfully, Quadratilla having +been entertaining oftener than outrageous and the others having been +in a compliant mood because she was to leave the next day. After +dinner, in the cool atrium, Calpurnia had sung some of her husband's +verses, which she had herself charmingly adapted to the lyre. Later +Quadratilla challenged the younger people to the dice, while +Hispulla retired to the library. Calpurnia slipped into the garden. +There Pliny, never contented when she was out of his sight, found +her leaning against a marble balustrade among the ghostly flowerbeds, +where in the night deep pink azaleas and crimson and amber roses +became one with tall white lilies. Nightingales were singing and the +darkness was sparkling with fireflies. Her fragile face shone out +upon him like a flower. If about Pliny the public official there was +anything a little amusing, a little pompous, it was not to be found +in Pliny the married lover. Immemorial tendernesses were in his voice +as he spoke to his wife: "My sweet, what are you thinking of, +withdrawn so far from me?" Calpurnia smiled bravely into his face, +as she answered: "Of the mothers who have little sons to send to +school." + + + + +A ROAD TO ROME + + An ardour not of Eros' lips.--WILLIAM WATSON. + + +I + +The spring had come promptly this year and with it the usual invoice +of young Romans to Athens. Some of them were planning to stay only +a month or two to see the country and hear the more famous professors +lecture. Others were settling down for a long period of serious study +in rhetoric and philosophy. Scarcely to be classed among any of these +was the young poet Julius Paulus,[2] who, as he put it to himself +with the frank grandiosity of youth, was in search of the flame of +life--_studiosus ardoris vivendi_. He had brought a letter to Aulus +Gellius, and Gellius, dutifully responsive to all social claims, +invited him on a day in early March to join him and a few friends +for a country walk and an outdoor lunch in one of their favourite +meeting places. + +[Footnote 2: A poet Julius Paulus is mentioned once by Aulus Gellius +in the _Attic Nights_, in terms which seem to suggest both his worldly +prosperity and his cultivated tastes. But the suggestion for his +character in this imaginary sketch has come, in reality, from +generous and ardent young students of to-day, turning reluctantly +from their life in Athens to patient achievement in the countries +whose sons they are.] + +This place, an unfrequented precinct of Aphrodite, about two hours +distant from the marketplace, lay below the rocky summit of Hymettus +within the hollow of the foot hills. The walk was an easy one, but +the forenoon sun was warm and the young pedestrians upon their +arrival paused in grateful relief by a spring under a large plane +tree which still bore its leaves of wintry gold. The clear water, +a boon in arid Attica, completed their temperate lunch of bread and +eggs, dried figs and native wine. After eating they climbed farther +up the hillside and stretched themselves out in the soft grass that +lurked among boulders in the shade of a beech tree. Aulus, with the +air of performing an habitual action, produced a book. To-day it +proved to be a choice old volume of Ovid, which he had secured at +a bargain on the quay at Brindisi, convinced that it had belonged, +fully one hundred and fifty years ago, to the poet himself. It had +gone far, he said, toward consoling him for the loss of an original +Second Book of the _AEneid_ snatched up by a friend in the Image +Market at Rome. The Ovid was for Paulus's edification. Aulus unrolled +his treasure and read aloud "an accurate description of this very +spot:" + + Violet crests of Hymettus a-flower + Neighbour a fountain consecrate. + Yielding and green is the turf. In a bower + Trees low-growing meet and mate; + Arbutus shadeth the green grass kirtle, + Sweet the scent of rosemary; + Fragrant the bay and the bloom of the myrtle; + Nay, nor fail thee here to see + Tamarisks delicate, box-wood masses, + Lordly pine and clover low. + Legions of leaves and the top of the grasses + Stir with healing zephyrs slow. + +The reader's indifference to what confronted his eyes, added to his +dull regard for the verbal accuracy of ancient verses, shrivelled +the modern poet's ardent humour. Was this an example of the +intellectual enlightenment awaiting him, he had so fondly hoped, in +Athens? With apprehension he remembered what his father's friend, +a rich dilettante, one of the best liked men in Rome, had written +him when he sent him the letter of introduction: + +"You will find Gellius the best fellow in the world but not a fagot +to kindle the fires of pleasure. I hear that he has called his book, +a particoloured digest of information, _Attic Nights_, because he +has spent his nights in Athens writing it--nights, mark you, when +even in her own city Athena closes her grey eyes within her virgin +shrine and leaves Pan to guard from his cave below the roysterings +of youth. It is easy to let an allusion to my friend Lucian slip off +the end of my stylus when I think of Athens. He and Gellius are +scarcely the 'like pleasing like' of the proverb! Lucian, in fact, +disposed of Gellius once by calling him an 'Infant Ignorance on the +arm of Fashion.' This was after he had watched a peasant making +holiday among the statues and temples on the Acropolis, carrying in +his arms a three months old child who dozed in a colonnade of the +Parthenon and sucked his thumb in front of Athena Promachus. The +blinking baby, he said, made him think of Aulus, futilely carried +about by the trend of the age among ideas and achievements beyond +his understanding. But in fairness I must add that when this was +repeated to Marcus Aurelius he retorted: 'Better a child than an +iconoclast in the presence of beauty. I should call Gellius an honest +errand boy in Athena's temple.' So there you have two ways of looking +at your future host. If Lucian is the most enlightened wit of the +day, Aurelius is the most Roman of us all and likely to rule over +us when Antoninus rejoins the gods. + +"On Gellius's return next year he is to be made a judge. He will study +law painstakingly and apply it exactly. And Rome will never for him +be one whit juster. However, your father will be delighted to have +you make such a friend--a man of thirty whose idea of a debauch is +to make a syllogism, who is a favourite student of great teachers +and can introduce you to Herodes Atticus and to all the best life +of Athens. Nor, indeed, do I marvel at Aurelius for trusting him. +As a scholar or a jurist he will always be negligible, but as a man +he is naively sincere and candid and with all the strength of his +Roman will he is determined that both his work and his pleasures shall +be such as befit a gentleman of honour and refinement. He may bore +you, but, if I do not misread you, the pleasures that are within his +gift will have a finer edge for you than those of the Colosseum and +the Circus Maximus." + +As Gellius droned on about some of the niceties of Ovid's language, +fragmentary sentences of this letter recurred to Paulus and he +wondered what his father's friend would think of him could he +accurately read his desires for pleasure. Certainly the shows of the +Amphitheatre seemed remote enough here under the cool, grey branches, +tipped with early green, of the Attic beech tree, but scarcely, after +all, more remote than they often seemed in Rome itself to a youth +who found virile recreation by the sea at Ostia or in following the +Anio over the hills of Tibur. No, he had not flung away from Rome +to escape in the back waters of a smaller town the noisy vulgarities +of the metropolis. Nor was he one of those who confused the contests +of the Circus with the creative struggles of the Forum. His +abstinence from political life was due to temperament rather than +conviction, nature having shaped him for active citizenship in a +world dissociated from public insignia. It was in this world that +he found himself at twenty-five ill at ease. Without genius, his +slender vein of talent was yet of pure gold. There was no danger of +his overrating his own poetry. He saw it as it was, of the day and +hour, wearing no immortal grace of thought or language. But in it +he was at his best, more honest and more whole-hearted than he could +be in any public service. This seemed to him, quite simply, to +constitute a reason for being such a poet as he was. + +He belonged to an ancient family, which had furnished a consul in +the first Punic War, had left distinguished dead on the field of +Cannae and had borne on its roll the conqueror of Macedonia. AEmilius +Paulus Macedonicus had rendered Rome the further and signal service +of a public life as spotless as it was brilliant, and something of +this statesman's scrupulous integrity had passed to the youngest son +of the house, leading him to discriminate in his world also between +shadows and realities. To Paulus the happiest age in the world's +history was the age of Pericles, when the wedlock of life and learning +issued in universal power. In Rome he would have been glad to have +lived in the last years of the Republic, or under Augustus, when +Lucretius and Catullus, Virgil and Horace, by submitting themselves +in pupilage to the Greeks, became masters of new thoughts and new +emotions among the masters of the world. How different was their +discipleship from the imitative methods of modern literati! While +it was the fashion to boast of refinement and learning, while +libraries jostled each other and rhetoricians and philosophers +swarmed in the city, Paulus was chiefly conscious that in the place +of creative imagination a soulless erudition walked abroad. In the +vestibule of the Palatine temple, waiting for the morning appearance +of the Emperor, rhetoricians discussed the meaning of an adverb. In +the baths they tested each other's knowledge of Sallust. Grammarians +gathered in secondhand bookshops around rare copies of Varro's +satires and Fabius's chronicles and hunted for copyist's errors. If +one were tired of the streets and went to walk in Agrippa's park, +he ran into men quarrelling over a vocative. Even on a holiday at +Ostia he could not escape discussions between Stoics and +Peripatetics. With all this activity, philosophy and literature grew +only more anaemic. + +Paulus, too limited to be himself a formative influence, was also +too truth-loving to be satisfied in Rome with the only life he was +fitted to lead. Indifferent to the persuasions of Aphrodite, he yet +harboured in his temperament a certain warmth which made him eager +to live with passion and abandon, to scorch his hands in the fires +of the world rather than drearily to warm them at burnt out ashes. +Hopeless in Rome, he determined to seek his fortune elsewhere. An +intellectual life real enough to claim his spendthrift allegiance, +this, concretely, was the prize for which he had set sail from +Brindisi two months before. + +The act gave him an outward resemblance to the horde of young bloods +who were always swinging out on the high seas in search of sport and +adventure. The most restless made for Britain and the shores of the +Euxine or the Baltic, or for the interior of Syria and Persia. The +larger number followed the beaten and luxurious paths to Egypt, where +they plunged into the gaieties of Alexandria and, cursorily enough, +saw the sights of Memphis and Thebes. Paulus also went to Egypt. But +in spite of his introductions and his opportunities to experiment +with modern life under the absolving witchery of Oriental conditions, +he gave himself over to the subtler influences of the past. Pilgrim +rather than tourist, he visited eagerly the pyramids and the Sphinx, +the temples of Karnak and Thebes, the tombs of the Theban kings, the +colossi of the desert. In the frightful course of the centuries, as +they unrolled before him, he seized upon the guidance of Herodotus, +to whom the monuments of Egypt had seemed as incalculably old as they +did to him. The choice, however, had proved unfortunate for his +sympathetic reading of Egyptian history. Dwelling on the radiant +progress towards truth and beauty of a free race, bondsmen only to +law and reason, younger brothers of bright gods, he became +querulously critical of a race whose Pharaohs strangled life in the +thought of death and eternity, prostrated themselves before gods in +monstrous shapes, and produced art at the expense of human +well-being. + +The landscape of Egypt also seemed to Paulus as sinister as it was +exquisite. Its beauty, whether of silver Nile or lilac mountains or +tawny desert, enervated by its appeal to the love of easy delight, +and bred mad, vagrant thoughts, precursors of moral disaster. He had +slept in the desert one night. The enamelled turquoise of the +daylight sky, the clear, red gold of the sunset, the ghostly amber +of the afterglow gave way to moonlight. As he lay and watched the +silver bloom spread over the sand dunes, he felt suddenly a great +terror. The golden apples of his western labour, the hard-won fruits +of his stern young virtue, were slipping out of his grasp. The white +desert lay upon his spirit like mist upon the sea, obliterating the +promised course. Desires, unknown before, crept in upon him over the +waves of the sand. All that he had rejected claimed him. All that +he had thought holy mocked him. The next day he hurried to Alexandria +and, recoiling from the library he had planned to visit, took the +first ship to Greece. + +He had landed a week ago. To-day's excursion, offering a pleasant +comradeship with those of his own race in a strange land, came almost +opportunely, he fancied, to break an exalted mood. He had found +himself roused to the uttermost by his first impressions of Athens. +Put to flight by the seduction of river and desert, it was the +influence of the landscape rather than of art and history to which +he was here first made sensitive. Sea, mountains and plain were +informed with a beauty which purged his memory of the evil loveliness +of Egypt and restored gravity and dignity to his conception of human +life. He was struck by what Plato would have called the Doric strain +in the harmonies of outline and colour. Idyllic scenes he had already +run across in his walks out from the city, scenes formed and reformed +by the lovely occupations of farm and vineyard and pasture. But the +lyric note so familiar to him in Italy seemed always overborne by +a deeper. Whether it was because of the noble modelling of the +fleshless mountains or because of an inner restraint in the minor +elements of the landscape, the mood generated by the beauty of the +Attic plain was always a grave one, delight swelling into reverence. + +Now also, as his thoughts ceased whirling and he became conscious +again of what lay around him, his irritation died. All that was +trifling must be discarded when his eye could travel beyond wild +hyacinth and myrtle, past pines and olive groves and cypresses, past +the rosy soil of upturned fields, to the long, firm lines of Parnes's +purple ridge and to the snowy summit, a midday beacon, high-uplifted, +of distant Helicon. + +To his relief, Paulus found that Gellius's monologue had given way +to general conversation. As he listened his heart grew hot within +him. These young men, of whom only Gellius and Servilianus had passed +out of their twenties, had lived in Athens for a year or longer, and +now, conscious of their approaching departure, they had fallen to +talking of the past months. A strange power Athens seemed to have +of exacting from aliens the intimate loyalty of sons. Here, Paulus +felt, was no miserly counting up of gains, but an inner concern with +art and history. Not as gluttonous travellers, but as those facing +a long exile, they talked of a city richer than Rome or Alexandria +or Antioch, richer than all the cities of the Empire taken together, +in masterpieces of architect and sculptor and painter; of a +country-side alive with memories of poets and thinkers and soldiers. +Taking with a catholic enthusiasm the hot winds and driving white +dust of summer, the deforming rains of winter, and the bright +splendour of sky and earth at the advent of spring, they had tramped +hither and yon, light-hearted in the vigour of youth, reverent in +the impulse of pilgrimage. Mountain fastnesses where the clarion +winds still trumpeted the victory of freedom and of Thrasybulus; +upland caves where Plato had been taken as a child to worship Pan; +long, white roads leading to the village homes of Euripides and +Demosthenes; the wind in the pine trees on Pentelicon, reminding them +of the wind in the groves of Tusculum; the autumn leaves on the plane +trees by the Ilissus; the silver moon seen from the water's edge at +Phaleron, swinging into the eastern void above the amethyst-dyed +rocks of Hymettus; a sail on a summer star-lit night from AEgina to +Piraeus--all these things crept one by one into their conversation. +Here, Paulus recognised, was a group of young men on fire with a real +emotion, cleansed in the presence of beauty and of great memories, +witnesses afresh to a procreative Hellas. When the party broke up +he thanked his host for the happiest day he had spent in many months. + +On the way home, after rounding the last foot hill, they saw the +Acropolis across the plain. The sun fell on the red in the natural +rock and intensified the white of the marbles. Against the sombre +mountains the isolated citadel glowed inly, like a milk-white opal +shot with rose. Paulus caught his breath. Was it here, his flame of +life? + + +II + +In the following weeks Paulus remembered some things in the +conversation of this day, which at the time had made but slight +impression on him. The stories of professors and teachers had meant +little until he knew at first hand the lentil suppers and brilliant +talking at the house of Taurus, the ethical discussions with +Peregrinus in his hovel on the outskirts of the city, and, most of +all, the generous and ennobling hospitality, in his city house and +villas, of the millionaire rhetorician, Herodes Atticus. About +Peregrinus Paulus could never make up his mind. Was he the helpful +teacher Gellius thought him, or the blatant charlatan of Lucian's +frequent attacks? At any rate, the stories that were abroad about +his wild youth, his connection with the strange sect known as +Christians, his excommunication by them for profaning one of their +rites, his expulsion from Rome by the Prefect of the City for his +anarchistic harangues made a picturesque background for his cynic +garb and ascetic preaching. To Taurus and Atticus, on the other hand, +Paulus could give himself with unreserved loyalty. His hardy will +responded to the severe standards of thought and conduct set by the +Platonic philosopher, while the wilder heart within him seemed to +seek and understand the rhetorician's emotional nature and +extravagant affections. + +Indeed, as the spring passed into summer, all the elements in +Paulus's life seemed to confirm the glory of that day on the slopes +of Hymettus when he had first felt sure of the significance Greece +held for him. The cumulative effect of his association with older +men, his young friendships, his work toward his chosen goal, his +grave but piercing pleasures, was to make him at home in Athens as +he had never been at home in Rome. He rested in the charm of the +smaller, simpler city, where among all classes and all ways of life +mental refinement took precedence of crass display. Here, he felt, +he could live and work, unknown to fame indeed, but with all that +was best in him dedicated in freedom and integrity to the life of +the spirit. The memory of Egypt, where all effort lost itself in the +mockery of the desert, and the thought of Rome, where in these later +years all fruitful effort was military, political, commercial, +became almost equally abhorrent to him. Greece, set within her +stainless seas, was like a holy temple set apart, a place of refuge +from shams and error and confusion. + +This worshipful attitude towards Athens was crystallized in the +young poet at the time of the Panathenaic festival, in July. The +festival was still a brilliant one, a brief radiance falling upon +city and citizens. Unlike a holiday season at Rome, here were no shows +of gladiators or beasts, no procession of captors and captives, no +array of Arabian gold or Chinese silk or Indian embroideries. The +Athenians, seeking novelty, found it in their own renewed +appreciation of the physical skill of athletes, of music and drama, +of observances still hallowed by religion and patriotism. On the +Acropolis Paulus watched the arrival of the procession bringing this +year's peplos to Athena. After centuries of shame in the political +life of her city the gold-ivory statue of the Guardian Goddess shone +undefiled in a temple whose beauty was a denial of time. The pageant +also, once more paying tribute to Wisdom, was noble and beautiful +as in the days of Phidias. The gifts of Greece were beyond the reach +of conqueror or destroyer. Paulus entered the inner shrine and looked +up at the winged Victory borne upon the hand of the goddess. To dwell +in Athens seemed a sacred purpose. Involuntarily, in self-dedication, +he found himself using the familiar prayer of the theatre: + + O majestical Victory, shelter my life + Neath thy covert of wings, + Aye, cease not to grant me thy crowning. + + +III + +The answer to this prayer, the grant of victory, came, as it happened, +in strange guise. The sensitive Roman youth, still in the potter's +hands, had reckoned without the final Greek experience which lay +ahead of him, the issue of one night in the early autumn. During the +season of the full moon in September all lectures were suspended and +most of the Roman students joined the crowd of travellers to Elis +to see the Olympic games. Paulus had had a touch of malaria and his +physician had urged him not to expose himself to the dangers of +outdoor camping in a low country. He consented lightly, thinking to +himself that since he was to live in Greece he could afford to +postpone for a few years the arduous pleasures of the great festival. +Herodes Atticus had gone this year, and upon his return brought with +him for a visit a group of very distinguished men, including Lucian +and Apuleius and the Alexandrian astronomer, Ptolemy. Paulus was +astonished and proud to receive, with Gellius, an invitation to a +dinner in their honour given at Cephisia. + +The weather was still extremely hot and the dinner hour was set late. +Even when Paulus and Gellius left the city the air was heavy and +exhausting and never had the villa seemed to them more beautiful. +The great groves of cypresses and pines, of poplars and plane trees, +were dark with the shadow of the moonless night. In the broad pools +the stars were reflected. The birds were hushed, but the sound of +cool, running water rang sweet in urban ears. Within the dining-room +an unhampered taste had done all that was possible to obliterate the +memory of the scorching day. A certain restraint in all the +appointments perfected the sense of well-being. As Paulus yielded +to it and looked at his fellow guests, he drew a long breath of +contentment. How exquisite, he thought, was Greek life, how vivid +the inspiration of this hour! + +Conversation naturally turned at first to episodes of the Games and +the successes of the victors; then by easy stages drifted to the +discussion of the nature of success of any kind. + +Alpheus of Mytilene, hailing, by how long an interval, from the city +and the craft of the Lesbian Muse, turned to the host. "Atticus," +he said, "here is an easy question for you. Tell us how to succeed." +All the guests paused expectantly, knowing that a chance question +would sometimes lead Atticus into one of the vivid displays of +extemporaneous oratory for which he was famous. Nor were they +disappointed now. He looked at the company before him, men, for the +most part, younger than himself. A strange glow, as if from +smouldering fires freshly stirred, brightened in his dark eyes, and +he began to speak, impetuously. His voice, low in its first haste, +rose shrill with the tide of emotion, as he passed headlong over the +barriers of logic and of form. + +"You ask me about success because you think I have succeeded. Do you +know what the characteristic moment of my life was? It was when, +almost forty years ago, I failed in my first speech before divine +Hadrian and sickened with chagrin. Most of you are young and will +not wonder, as I might now wonder at myself, that I stood by the Danube +that night and nearly threw myself into the oblivious water. Concrete +failure is as palpable a thing as concrete success. The one is like +a golden cup which you turn in your hands and lift in the sunlight +before you test at your lips the wine it holds. The other is wormwood +forced into your mouth. Like wormwood, it may be cleansing. My +'success' in my chosen profession, the fact that I have made great +speeches, held high positions, acquired fame, is due to the inner +sickness that night by the river. You will find that the name of many +a man of my age is in men's mouths because at the outset Defeat became +his trophy, the Gorgon's head, despoiled by his first sword of hiss +and venom. So there, my friends, you have the rule you ask for--fail +once so ignominiously that you wish to die, and you may wrest from +fate a brief name and the cloak of success. + +"But beneath the cloak what is there? What, I mean, has there been +for me? If it is true that success is to be measured by the fulfilment +of desires, then through all these years I have but stood by the bank +of the Danube. You know that I am an exemplar, fit for a schoolboy's +rhetorical exercise, of the old lesson of life, that wealth and power +do not bring fruition in the intimate affections and hopes. My son, +my daughter, have died.[3] The only son left to me is a daily torture +to my pride. The disciples I took into their places have died. The +statues of them which I set up at Marathon no longer comfort me. Like +Menelaus, I have learned to hate the empty hollows of their eyes where +'Love lies dead.' + +[Footnote 3: It was after the date assumed for this dinner that +Regilla, the Roman wife of Herodes Atticus, died under peculiarly +tragic circumstances. In commemoration of her he built his famous +Odeum on the south slope of the Acropolis.] + +"All these things you have been taught by history to discount. +Barrenness in the personal life is the price many a man has paid for +public honours. Fortune must preserve an equilibrium among us. No +man is blessed in everything. That you know from the Horace of your +own school days. But, seldom hearing men speak the truth, you may +not know that to some of us, at least, there is no return for the +price we pay. When we give up juggling with facts for the sake of +performing the work of the world, we know that, instead of +achievement, + + Mournful phantoms of dreams are there, + Fancies as vain as the joys they bear, + Vain--for think we that good has neared, + It slips through the hand or e'er 't has appeared, + And the vision has vanished on wings that keep + Company on the paths of sleep. + +"I can make you see this in my own life by an illustration which may +surprise you. Some of you have envied me my power to enrich and +beautify Greece. You imagine that I myself find some satisfaction +in the white marble over the Stadion in Athens, in the water works +in Olympia, where we no longer drink in fevers, in the embellishments +at Delphi, in the theatre at Corinth. You think it a great thing that +I can, by turning to my money, create memorials to myself in the +greater comfort of cities of Asia Minor and of Italy. But I tell you +that all these things are nothing to me because the only thing I want +to do for my country is to connect the two seas at Corinth by a canal +cut through the solid earth. What is all the rest? A playing with +perishable materials, an erecting of 'memorials' which you and I find +beautiful and serviceable, which in another hundred years may serve +but to mark the transitoriness of our civilisation, and of which in +five hundred years only traces will remain to be pointed out as +Mycenae was pointed out to you, Alpheus, by a goatherd, driving his +flocks where once was a city of gold. My 'success' is of the moment. +My desire is for the conquest of nature herself, to bind her for all +time to the service of man. The idea of a canal teased Julius Caesar, +and Nero, with purple pomp, began to cut the rock; and yet the land +still stands between the eastern and the western seas, limiting +commerce, exhausting energies. When Panathenaic games are no longer +held in the Stadion, when Apollo speaks clearest from other oracles +than Delphi, Greeks will be building ships; Asia Minor, Egypt and +India will be sending their treasures to Italy; the passage from east +to west will be utilised. I should have done a thing for all time, +not for ourselves." + +The speaker paused as his hot eyes swept over his guests. Then he +rushed on again: + +"But I can see from your faces that this illustration does not +convince you. To you the canal is even less important than a new +facade for the well-house of Corinthian Peirene. Let me try again. +I have heard people say what a satisfaction it must be to me to play +a conspicuous part in the life of our own generation. But what is +the life of our generation--the life, I mean, in which I have any +individual share? My contribution is in art and literature, not in +politics or war. And in art and literature what are we doing, save +recalling in vague echoes the greater voices of a dead past? Even +Lucian here, who is the only original of us all in letters, even +Ptolemy, who is a master in science, will agree with me. Our greatness +is of the past. + +"Look at the statues in the theatre! AEschylus, Sophocles and +Euripides surrounded by what a horde of little moderns! Menander +standing cheek by jowl with a poetaster! The Emperors have dallied +with us, wanting the gifts we bear to the Empire. The Roman Republic +saw to it that we should bring no new gifts. The trees in Aristotle's +Lyceum were cut down by Sulla to make his engines of war. When he +turned these engines on the Acropolis, Athena's golden lamp went out. + +"I was consul once at Rome, but few will remember it of me, for it +was not the real I that did that work. But I was doing, I sometimes +think, a more real thing than when I try to clothe Athens again with +the glory of Pericles's age or seek in long lost quarries for my prose +style. I envied divine Hadrian his faith in a restoration. His pride +in Rome seemed really equalled by his passionate sentiment for Athens +and his determination to make her once more the nurse of the arts. +Commerce and wealth have swept by us to Egypt. Ships put in at Piraeus +merely for repairs, and no longer, as in the great past, pay a part +of their cargoes to Athens, a fee of harbourage. Learning, too, has +swept eastward. Librarians and learned men dwell at Alexandria. +Hadrian asked me to help him reawaken in Athens Apollo and his Muses. +The restorer's buildings are round about you, his library and temples, +in their new splendour typical of his hope. But wherein, after all, +lies the greatness of the greatest of them? The Temple of Zeus imposes +chiefly, I think, by its display of the world-wide power of Hadrian. +You see the statues of himself in and about it, raised by Rome and +Carthage, by Corinth and Byzantium, by Miletus and Laodicea, by every +city of the Empire, paying homage to an emperor who by some divine +grace happened to prefer to be honoured by marble in Athens rather +than to have gold sent to him in Rome. How different is the Parthenon, +still, after six hundred years, the embodiment of a common impulse +of a free people! Try as Hadrian would, he could not restore the art +of the past." + +Atticus looked at the Romans among the company and his voice became +golden and persuasive as he continued: + +"I have come to feel, my friends, that the restoration of an art that +is not the outcome of a genuine national life is a futile thing. Rome +cannot restore the glory of old Athens. She can only learn from Greece +how to create a glory of her own. She must so govern her life, so +train her sons, that out of their own impulses a new poetry, a new +art will grow. Divine influences from the past, yes, they exist. In +your own most creative times Cicero and Lucretius, Virgil and Horace, +did more than restore. Seeking aliment from Greece, they nurtured +their own genius. But you, what are you and your friends doing? Why +are you over here? Tell me that. Are you here to learn to be better +Romans, carrying on your own national life, creating at last out of +the forces of your own time an architecture and sculpture, a painting +and poetry commensurate with your powers? Sometimes I fear you make +a cult of Athens, lose yourselves in remembering her as she once was. +You seem to spend your lives, as I have sometimes spent wakeful nights +at Marathon, my birthplace, listening for the feet of heroes and the +neighing of horses on the field where a great battle was once fought. +That may do for the night seasons, but with the sun are there not +new conquests, and new shields? + +"You scorn your own Romans who come over here and put up their names +on old statues of Themistocles and Miltiades. You admire Cicero who, +although he loved Athens and wished that he might leave here some +gift from himself, scorned to pervert an ancient statue. And yet, +I tell you, Cicero was a Roman first, a lover of Greek culture second. +All that he learned here he dedicated to the Republic. He studied +Isocrates and Demosthenes in order that by his voice he might free +Rome from traitors and persuade Justice to 'walk down her broad +highways as Warder.' He read Plato that philosophy might soften the +harsher temper of his own people. He partook of our refinement that +the vigour of Rome might be used in the service of humanity. + +"Take warning by me. Do not, indeed, forget our past. Stay here as +long as you will. Touch lingeringly the hem of Athena's peplos. But +when your minds are strengthened, when your powers are matured, go +back to your own people and make them also, because you have dwelt +for a time in the home of Plato, look 'to the pattern that is laid +up in heaven for him who wills to see, and, seeing, so to plant his +dwelling.' Work for Rome. Let the memory of Athens be no cup of +eastern magic. Listen, rather, for her voice as worshippers at the +salt well on the Acropolis listen, when the south wind blows, for +the sound of the waves of the purging sea." + +The rich, emotional voice ceased suddenly like the flood tide of +Northern seas. Paulus was not prepared for the swift transformation +of ardent speaker into observant host as Atticus turned with a +whispered order to the slave who stood behind him. He was shocked, +too, failing to perceive its note of defiant bitterness, by a laugh +from Lucian and his careless, "My felicitations, Atticus, on your +welding of dirge and exhortation into one epideictic oration! +Aulus," he added, looking across the table, "don't forget to make +a note of the prepositions the master used in burying Greece." + +The sneer fortunately was almost on the instant covered up by Ptolemy, +who, as if awakened from a revery, turned toward his host. "Atticus," +he said, "you have convinced me that I am right. Pedigree, wealth +and art, nations and civilisations and the destiny of men bring you +no happiness. I find myself at peace in the heavens. While you were +speaking I rivalled Alpheus here and beat out an epigram: + + That I am mortal and a day my span + I know and own, + Yet when the circling ebb and flow I scan + Of stars thick-strewn, + No longer brush the earth my feet, + And I abide, + While God's own food ambrosial doth replete, + By Zeus's side." + +Like a gust of wind, the unexpected poet might have swept the +conversation into his own ether, if at this juncture the doors had +not opened to admit a group of well known actors. There was a general +exclamation of surprise, special entertainments being almost unknown +at Atticus's dinners. The host turned smiling to his guests. "My +friends," he said, "I know you share my pride in the rare event of +Apuleius's presence. He is not as accustomed as we are to the grey +monotone of our own thoughts. Shall he go back to Carthage or Rome +to laugh at our village banquets? Ptolemy, you know Menander shared +your regard for-- + + these majestic sights--the common sun, + Water and clouds, the stars and fire. + +Let him take you off now among our country folk out here near Parnes. +We still have the human comedy, played out under sun and stars. Love +and deceit, troubles and rewards are as ageless as the heavens. +Gentlemen, this distinguished company has consented to give us +to-night a presentation of _The Arbitrants_ equal to the famous one +of the last Dionysia." + +Apuleius's handsome face lit up with gaiety and good will. "I thank +you, O wise host," he called out. + + To-day's my joy and sorrow, + Who knows what comes to-morrow? + +Let us spend the moment we have in the merry company of a wise poet." + +The play began. Moods of tragedy were forgotten. Only Paulus found +himself unable to listen. His host's appeal, made apparently with +such ready emotion, and so easily forgotten by the other men--he was +the youngest of the company--had shaken his soul as a young tree on +a mountain is shaken by the night wind. The comedy went on, punctuated +by applause. In his mind met and struggled high desires. When Atticus +had talked of Athens and of Rome he had remembered Virgil's great +defence of his own people, the weapon of all patriots after him: + +Others, I well believe, shall mould the bronze to breathe in softer +form, from marble shall unveil the living countenance, shall plead +with greater eloquence, and heaven's paths map out with rod in hand +and tell the rising of the stars. Upon the tablets of thy memory, +O Roman, it is laid to hold the peoples in thy sway. These are thy +arts and shall be: To impose the ways of peace; to spare the +vanquished and subject the proud. + +Now there leaped into life within him a realisation of Rome's +incommunicable greatness. He perceived at last the nature of the _pax +romana_, that peace, compounded of power, which welded the +continents together, made the seas into serviceable highways and +held all men secure within the barriers of law and justice. Was it +possible that a nation which had given birth to a force like this +could also bring forth in due season a love of beauty, a thirst for +truth? Could tameless genius and conquering will, could a passion +for ideas and a passion for deeds dwell together until side by side +men of one blood should add to the glory of worldly power the glory +of spiritual conquest, should superimpose upon the beauty of just +laws the beauty of wrought bronze and woven language? + +And if this could be, what was the duty of each Roman whose pure +desires lay with Poetry and her sisters? Paulus shuddered as he felt +the question tearing its way through the peaceful plans he had been +making for his life. He remembered the story of Menander refusing +to leave the intellectual life of Athens for the luxuries of +Ptolemy's court. Must he, on the contrary, for the sake of an idea, +renounce this life, with its cherished poverty and philosophy, its +peace and learned leisure, its freedom and candour and regard for +beauty, to go back to Rome where, in terrifying coalition, power and +pleasure, wealth and display, passion and brutality were forever +crowding in upon the city's honour? The irresponsibility of the +insignificant assailed him. A Virgil, he supposed, might know that +his presence would affect his country for good or evil. But what could +he, Paulus, do? In Rome, in Athens, he was one of the little men. +Was he not, then, justified in living his own life in the best +possible way, atoning for the meagreness of his talent by the +honourableness of his quest? + +But even as he said this to himself he remembered why Athens had +achieved perfection. In the age of Pericles, geniuses, like flawless +jewels cut out of a proper matrix, had been fashioned out of a large +body of men, themselves not gifted, but able to understand and +safeguard those who were. He had left Rome because she was no matrix +for poets and artists and thinkers. Ought he now to return to her +and live and work and die unknown, serving only as one more citizen +ready to welcome the poets to be? + +His panting desires put up one last defence. Was he not narrowing +art within the borders of nationality? In the service of beauty was +there either Greek or Roman? Alas! Atticus had beaten that down +already. Art was no fungus, growing on a rotten stump of national +life. Greeks had been artists only when they had been conquerors, +soldiers, traders, rulers. The Romans now held the world. In them, +the eagle's brood, lay the hope of a new birth of the spirit. With +a certain noble unreason, he dismissed the idea that by living in +Athens he might fight the battle for Rome. If he was to fight at all, +it was to be where the enemy was fiercest and the hope of victory +least. Upon any easier choice his ancestors within him laid their +iron grasp. His ears caught the words of one of the actors: + + "Well, do not then the gods look out for us?" you'll say. + To each of us they have allotted Character + As garrison commander. + +Gathering his forces in obedience to his garrison commander Paulus +tried to decide to go back to Rome. Greece called to him insistently. +Confused and exhausted, he joined perfunctorily in the loud applause +that closed the comedy, and in the speeches of gratitude and farewell +to the host. + +The play had been long, and the autumn night, he found to his surprise, +had passed. Emerging from the house, he breasted the dawn. With +curious suddenness the sense of conflict left him. The beauty of the +Attic plain, born, unlike the beauty of the Roman Campagna, of light +rather than of unshed tears, had often seemed to him to quicken the +perception of truth. Certainly the dullest eyes must see at this hour, +when, at the behest of the approaching sun, outlines were cleared +of all that was shadowy and fanciful, and colours were touched to +buoyant life. Greece called to him, but with what a message! +Imaginings, vain desires, regrets, were swept away from his mind, +even as the receding shadows left bare the contours of the mountains. +He saw that his concern was with the battle, not with its issue. In +this enlightening hour he understood that Rome would never become +mother of the arts, until, in some unimagined future, through +transforming national experiences, she should be made pregnant with +ideas beyond the ken of his generation. Poets might again be born +of her, but he and his like would long since have been lying among +her forgotten children. And yet, the life of the future, however +distant, would not be unaffected by the obscure work and faith of +the present age. He himself would never see victory, but the struggle +was his inalienable heritage. Revealed in light and joy he knew his +purpose. Down from the crags of Parnes, great wings strong with the +morning, swept an eagle--as if homeward--toward the western sea. +With it, like an arrow to its goal, alert with the vigour of dawn, +aflame with the ardour of life, sped the heart of the young Roman. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROADS FROM ROME*** + + +******* This file should be named 18100.txt or 18100.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/1/0/18100 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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