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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
+
+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: Valeria
+       The Martyr of the Catacombs
+
+Author: William Henry Withrow
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2010 [EBook #33484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALERIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rose Mawhorter (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  [Illustration: SCENE IN THE CATACOMBS--AT THE MARTYR'S TOMB.]
+
+
+  VALERIA,
+
+  THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.
+
+  A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome.
+
+  BY
+  W.H. WITHROW, D.D.,
+
+  _Author of "The Catacombs of Rome and their Testimony Relative
+  to Primitive Christianity," Etc._
+
+
+  [Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
+
+
+  TORONTO:
+
+  WILLIAM BRIGGS.
+
+  MONTREAL: C.W. COATES.
+  HALIFAX: S.F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRS IN THE CATACOMBS.
+
+BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.
+
+
+    THEY lie all around me, countless in their number,
+      Each martyr with his palm.
+    No torture now can rack them: safe they slumber,
+      Hushed in eternal calm!
+
+    I read the rude inscriptions, written weeping,
+      At night with hurried tears.
+    Yet what a tale they tell! their secret keeping
+      Through all these thousand years.
+
+    "IN PACE." Yes, at peace. By sword, or fire,
+      Or cross, or lictor's rod--
+    Virgin, or matron; youth, or gray-haired sire:
+      For all, the peace of God.
+
+    "IN CHRISTO." Died in Christ. Oh, tragic story!
+      Yet, over shouts, and cries,
+    And lion's roar, they heard the saints in glory
+      Singing from Paradise.
+
+    "AD DEUM." Went to God. Wide swung the portal;
+      Dim sank the sands away;
+    And, chanting "Alleluia," the immortal
+      Passed to Eternal Day.
+
+    Agnes, Cecilia! Names undying ever,--
+      What's Cæsar's gain to this?
+    He lived for self; they for their high endeavour.
+      His, fame; theirs, endless bliss.
+
+    And pagan Rome herself? Her wisest teacher
+      Could teach but how to die!
+    Sad, hopeless emperor, echoing the Preacher,
+      "All, all is vanity."
+
+    He slew the martyrs. Yet, through ages crying,
+      This noble truth they give:
+    "Life is but birth-throes. Death itself, not dying.
+      We pass to God--to live."
+
+    O blessed hope! O faith that conquers sorrow!
+      Pain, heart-break, all shall cease.
+    They are but gateways to a glad to-morrow.
+      "IN PACE." God is peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The writer having made the early Christian Catacombs a special study for
+several years, and his larger volume on that subject having been
+received with great favour in Great Britain, the United States, and
+Canada, has endeavoured in this story to give as popular an account as
+he could of early Christian life and character as illustrated by these
+interesting memorials of the primitive Church. He has been especially
+careful to maintain historical accuracy in all his statements of fact,
+and in the filling up of details he has endeavoured to preserve the
+historical "keeping" of the picture. Persons wishing to pursue the study
+of the Catacombs still further are referred to the Author's special work
+on that subject. See note at the end of this volume.
+
+W.H.W.
+
+
+
+
+THE CATACOMBS.
+
+BY HARRIET ANNIE WILKINS.
+
+"Miles after miles of graves, and not one word or sign of the gloominess
+or death." _Professor Jules De Launay._
+
+    MILES after miles of graves,
+      League after league of tombs,
+    And not one sign of spectre Death,
+      Waving his shadowy plumes;
+    Hope, beautiful and bright,
+      Spanning the arch above
+    Faith, gentle, overcoming Faith,
+      And Love, God's best gift, Love.
+
+    For early Christians left
+      Their darlings to their rest,
+    As mothers leave their little ones
+      When the sun gilds the west;
+    No mourning robes of black,
+      No crape upon the doors,
+    For the victorious palm-bearers,
+      Who tread the golden floors.
+
+    Arrayed in garments white,
+      No mournful dirges pealing,
+    Bearing green branches in their hands,
+      Around the tomb they're kneeling;
+    This was their marching song,
+      "By death we are not holden;"
+    And this their glorious funeral hymn,
+      "Jerusalem the golden."
+
+    Beautiful girls sleep there,
+      Waiting the Bridegroom's call.
+    Each lamp is burning brilliantly,
+      While the bright shadows fall;
+    And baby martyrs passed
+      Straight to the great I AM,
+    While sturdier soldiers carved o'er each,
+      "VICTOR, GOD'S LITTLE LAMB."
+
+    Miles after miles of graves,
+      League after league of tombs,
+    The cross upon each conqueror's brow
+      Light up the catacombs;
+    "'Tis in this sign we conquer."
+      Sounds on the blood-stained track;
+    "'Tis in this sign we conquer,"
+      We gladly answer back.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+  ON THE APPIAN WAY                  7
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+  IN CÆSAR'S PALACE                 17
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+  EMPRESS AND SLAVE                 23
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+  THE IMPERIAL BANQUET              33
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+  THE CHRISTIANS AND THE LIONS      43
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+  THE MARTYR'S BURIAL               54
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+  WITH HILARUS, THE FOSSOR          64
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+  WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER     75
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+  A DIFFICULT QUEST                 86
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+  A WICKED PLOT                     92
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+  THE SLAVE MARKET                  97
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+  THE LOST FOUND                   105
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+  FATHER AND DAUGHTER              111
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+  "UNSTABLE AS WATER"              117
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+  AT THE BATHS                     124
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+  THE GAMING TABLE                 129
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+  "IN PERICULIS TUTUS"             135
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+  THE MIDNIGHT PLOT                142
+
+  CHAPTER XIX
+  IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER      148
+
+  CHAPTER XX
+  THE PLOT THICKENS                153
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+  A CRIME PREVENTED                161
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+  THE STORM BURSTS                 168
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+  THE MAMERTINE PRISON             177
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+  THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM             184
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+  A ROMAN HOLIDAY                  188
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI
+  THE MARTYRS CROWNED              199
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+  THE MARTYRS BURIED               205
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+  THE BETRAYAL--THE PURSUIT        215
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+  THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR          224
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+  FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF
+    CHRISTIANITY                   229
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VALERIA, THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE APPIAN WAY.
+
+
+[Illustration: "ENTRANCE TO A CATACOMB."]
+
+On a bright spring morning in the year of our Lord 303--it was in the
+"Ides of March," about the middle of the month, but the air was balmy as
+that of June in our northern clime--two note-worthy-looking men were
+riding along the famous Appian Way, near the city of Rome The elder of
+the two, a man of large size and of mighty thews and sinews, was mounted
+on a strong and richly-caparisoned horse. He wore the armour of a Roman
+centurion--a lorica or cuirass, made of plates of bronze, fastened to a
+flexible body of leather; and cothurni, or a sort of laced boots,
+leaching to mid-leg. On his back hung his round embossed shield; by his
+side, in its sheath, his short, straight sword, and on his head was a
+burnished helmet, with a sweeping horsehair crest. His face was bronzed
+with the sun of many climes. But when, for a moment, he removed his
+helmet to cool his brow, one saw that his forehead was high and white.
+His hair curled close to his head, except where it was worn bare at his
+temples by the chafing of his helmet, and was already streaked with
+grey, although he looked not more than five-and forty years of age. Yet
+the eagle glance of his eye was undimmed, and his firm-set muscles, the
+haughty expression of his countenance, and the high courage of his
+bearing, gave evidence that his natural strength was not abated.
+
+His companion contrasted strongly in every respect. He had a slender,
+graceful figure, a mobile and expressive face, a mouth of almost
+feminine softness and beauty, dark and languishing eyes, and long,
+flowing hair. He wore a snowy toga, with a brilliant scarlet border of
+what is still known as "Greek fret;" and over this, fastened by a brooch
+at his throat, a flowing cloak. On his head sat jauntily a soft felt
+hat, not unlike those still worn by the Italian peasantry, and on his
+feet were low-laced shoes or sandals. Instead of a sword, he wore at his
+side a metal case for his reed-pen and for a scroll of papyrus. He was
+in the bloom and beauty of youth, apparently not more than twenty years
+of age.
+
+The elder of the two was the Roman officer Flaccus Sertorius, a
+centurion of the 12th Legion, returning with his Greek secretary,
+Isidorus, from the town of Albano, about seventeen miles from Rome,
+whither he had been sent on business of state.
+
+"This new edict of the Emperor's," remarked Sertorius to his secretary,
+with an air of affable condescension, "is likely to give us both work
+enough to do before long."
+
+"Your Excellency forgets," replied Isidorus, with an obsequious
+inclination of the head, "that your humble secretary has not the same
+means of learning affairs of state as his noble master."
+
+"Oh, you Greeks learn everything!" said the centurion, with a rather
+contemptuous laugh. "Trust you for that."
+
+"We try to make ourselves useful to our patrons," replied the young man,
+"and it seems to be a sort of hereditary habit, for my Athenian
+ancestors were proverbial for seeking to know some new thing."
+
+"Yes, new manners, new customs, new religions; why, your very name
+indicates your adherence to the new-fangled worship of Isis."
+
+"I hold not altogether that way," replied the youth. "I belong rather to
+the eclectic school. My father, Apollodorus, was a priest of Phoebus,
+and named me, like himself, from the sungod, whom he worshipped; but I
+found the party of Isis fashionable at court, so I even changed my name
+and colours to the winning side. When one is at Rome, you know, he must
+do as the Romans do."
+
+"Yes, like the degenerate Romans, who forsake the old gods, under whom
+the State was great and virtuous and strong," said the soldier, with an
+angry gesture. "The more gods, the worse the world becomes. But this new
+edict will make short work of some of them."
+
+"With the Christians you mean," said the supple Greek. "A most
+pernicious sect, that deserve extermination with fire and sword."
+
+"I know little about them," replied Sertorius, with a sneer, "save that
+they have increased prodigiously of late. Even in the army and the
+palace are those known to favour their obscene and contemptible
+doctrines."
+
+"'Tis whispered that even their sacred highnesses the Empresses Prisca
+and Valeria are infected with their grovelling superstition," said the
+Greek secretary. "Certain it is, they seem to avoid being present at the
+public sacrifices, as they used to be. But the evil sect has its
+followers chiefly among the slaves and vile plebs of the poorest
+Transtiberine region of Rome."
+
+"What do they worship, anyhow?" asked the centurion, with an air of
+languid curiosity. "They seem to have no temples, nor altars, nor
+sacrifices."
+
+"They have dark and secret and abominable rites," replied the fawning
+Greek, eager to gratify the curiosity of his patron with popular
+slanders against the Christians. "'Tis said they worship a low-born
+peasant, who was crucified for sedition. Some say he had an ass's
+head,[1] but that, I doubt not, is a vulgar superstition; and one of our
+poets, the admirable Lucian, remarks that their doctrine was brought to
+Rome by a little hook-nosed Jew, named Paulus, who was beheaded by the
+divine Nero over yonder near the Ostian gate, beside the pyramid of
+Cestius, which you may see amongst the cypresses. They have many strange
+usages. Their funeral customs, especially, differ very widely from the
+Greek or Roman ones. They bury the body, with many mysterious rites, in
+vaults or chambers underground, instead of burning it on a funeral pyre.
+They are rank atheists, refusing to worship the gods, or even to throw
+so much as a grain of incense on their altar, or place a garland of
+flowers before their shrines, or even have their images in their
+houses. They are a morose, sullen, and dangerous people, and are said to
+hold hideous orgies at their secret assemblies underground, where they
+banquet on the body of a newly-slain child.[2] See yonder," he
+continued, pointing to a low-browed arch almost concealed by trees in a
+neighbouring garden, "is the entrance to one of their secret crypts,
+where they gather to celebrate their abominable rites, surrounded by the
+bones and ashes of the dead. A vile and craven set of wretches; they are
+not fit to live."
+
+"They are not all cravens; to that I can bear witness," interrupted
+Sertorius. "I knew a fellow in my own company--Lannus was his name--who,
+his comrades said, was a Christian. He was the bravest and steadiest
+fellow in the legion;--saved my life once in Libya;--rushed between me
+and a lion, which sprang from a thicket as I stopped to let my horse
+drink at a stream--as it might be the Anio, there. The lion's fangs met
+in his arm, but he never winced. He may believe what he pleases for me.
+I like not this blood-hound business of hunting down honest men because
+they worship gods of their own. But the Emperor's edict is written, as
+you may say, with the point of a dagger--'The Christian religion must
+everywhere be destroyed.'"
+
+"And quite right, too, your Excellency," said the soft-smiling Greek.
+"They are seditious conspirators, the enemies of Cæsar and of Rome."
+
+"A Roman soldier does not need to learn of thee, hungry Greekling,"[3]
+exclaimed the centurion, haughtily, "what is his duty to his country!"
+
+"True, most noble sir," faltered the discomfited secretary, yet with a
+vindictive glance from his treacherous eyes. "Your Excellency is always
+right."
+
+For a time they rode on in silence, the secretary falling obsequiously a
+little to the rear. It was now high noon, and the crowd and bustle on
+the Appian Way redoubled. This Queen of Roads[4] ran straight as an
+arrow up-hill and down from Rome to Capua and Brundisium, a distance of
+over three hundred miles. Though then nearly six hundred years old, it
+was as firm as the day it was laid, and after the lapse of fifteen
+hundred years more, during which "the Goth, the Christian, Time, War,
+Flood and Fire," have devastated the land, its firm lava pavement of
+broad basaltic slabs seems as enduring as ever. On every side rolled the
+undulating Campagna, now a scene of melancholy desolation, then
+cultivated like a garden, abounding in villas and mansions whose marble
+columns gleamed snowy white through the luxuriant foliage of their
+embosoming myrtle and laurel groves. On either side of the road were the
+stately tombs of Rome's mighty dead-her prætors, proconsuls, and
+senators some, like the mausoleum of Cæcilia Metella,[5] rising like a
+solid fortress; others were like little wayside altars, but all were
+surrounded by an elegantly kept green sward, adorned with parterres of
+flowers. Their ruins now rise like stranded wrecks above the sea of
+verdure of the tomb-abounding plain. On every side are tombs--tombs
+above and tombs below--the graves of contending races, the sepulchres of
+vanished generations. Across the vast field of view stretched, supported
+high in air on hundreds of arches, like a Titan procession, the Marcian
+Aqueduct, erected B.C. 146, which after two thousand years brings to the
+city of Rome an abundant supply of the purest water from the far distant
+Alban Mountains, which present to our gaze to-day the same serrated
+outline and lovely play of colour that delighted the eyes of Horace and
+Cicero.
+
+As they drew nearer the gates of the city, it became difficult to thread
+their way through the throngs of eager travellers--gay lecticæ or
+silken-curtained carriages and flashing chariots, conveying fashionable
+ladies and the gilded gallants of the city to the elegant villas without
+the walls--processions of consuls and proconsuls with their guards, and
+crowds of peasants bringing in the panniers of their patient donkeys
+fruits, vegetables, and even snow from the distant Soracte, protected
+from the heat by a straw matting--just as they do in Italy to-day. The
+busy scene is vividly described in the graphic lines of Milton:
+
+    "What conflux issuing forth or entering in;
+    Prætors, proconsuls to their provinces
+    Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
+    Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
+    Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
+    Or embassies from regions far remote,
+    In various habits on the Appian Road."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] I have myself seen in the museum of the _Collegio Romano_ at Rome, a
+rude caricature which had been scratched upon the wall of the barracks
+of Nero's palace, representing a man with an ass's head upon a cross,
+and beneath it the inscription, _"Alexomenos sebete Theon"_ "Alexomenos
+worships his God." Evidently some Roman soldier had scratched this in an
+idle hour in derision of the worship of our Lord by his Christian
+fellow-soldier. Tertullian also refers to the same calumny; and Lucian,
+a pagan writer, speaks of our Lord as "a crucified impostor." It is
+almost impossible for us to conceive the contempt and detestation in
+which crucifixion was held by the Romans. It was a punishment reserved
+for the worst of felons, or the vilest of slaves.--ED.
+
+[2] All these calumnies, and others still worse, are recorded by pagan
+writers concerning the early Christians. Their celebration of the Lord's
+Supper in the private meetings became the ground of the last-mentioned
+distorted accusation.--ED.
+
+[3] "Graeculus esuriens," the term applied by Juvenal to those foreign
+adventurers who sought to worm their way into the employment and
+confidence of great Roman houses.
+
+[4] _Regina Viarum_, as the Romans called it.
+
+[5] It is a circular structure sixty-five feet in diameter, built upon a
+square base of still larger size. After two thousand years it still
+defies the gnawing tooth of Time.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN CÆSAR'S PALACE.
+
+
+Passing beneath the even then grim and hoary archway of the Porta
+Capena, or Capuan Gate, with the dripping aqueduct above it, the
+centurion and his secretary traversed rapidly the crowded streets of a
+fashionable suburb--now mere mouldering mounds of desolation--to the
+Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. This eminence, which is now a
+mass of crumbling ruins, honey-combed with galleries and subterranean
+corridors through what was once the stately apartments of the Lords of
+the World, where wandering tourists peer and explore and artists sketch
+the falling arch or fading fresco of the banquet halls and chambers of a
+long line of emperors, was then the scene of life and activity, of pomp
+and splendour. Marble courts and columned porticos stretched on in
+almost endless vistas, covering many acres of ground. Flashing fountains
+leaping sunward sparkled in the beams of noonday, diffusing a coolness
+through the air, which was fragrant with blossoms of the orange and
+magnolia trees growing in the open courts. Snowy statuary gleamed amid
+the vivid foliage, and beneath the shadow of the frescoed corridors.
+
+Having dismounted at the outer court and given their horses to
+obsequious grooms, Sertorius and the Greek repaired each to a marble
+bath to remove the stains of travel before entering the presence of the
+Emperor. Having made their toilet they advanced to the inner court. The
+guards who stood in burnished mail at the portal of the palace
+respectfully made way for the well-known imperial officer, but were
+about to obstruct the passage of the Greek secretary, when with a
+gesture of authority Sertorius bade the soldier to permit the man to
+pass.
+
+"Quite right, Max, as a rule: but wrong this time. He accompanies me on
+business of state, before the Emperor."
+
+Two lictors in white tunics with scarlet hem, and bearing each the
+fasces or bundle of rods bound with filets from the top of which
+projected a polished silver axe, came forward and conducted the
+centurion into the Imperial presence chamber, the secretary remaining in
+an ante-room.
+
+The lictors draw aside a heavy gold-embroidered curtain, and Sertorius
+stood in the presence of the Lord of the World, the man to whom divine
+honours had been ascribed, who held in his hand the lives of all his
+myriads of subjects, and the word of whose mouth uttering his despotic
+will might consign even the loftiest, without form or process of law, to
+degradation or death.
+
+Let us note for a moment what manner of man this god on earth, this
+Diocletian, whose name is remembered with abhorrence and execration, the
+degenerate usurper of the august name of the Cæsars, may be. He sits in
+an ivory, purple-cushioned chair, near a table of inlaid precious woods.
+His short and obese figure is enswathed in the folds of an ample
+crimson-bordered toga, or fine linen vestment of flowing folds. His
+broad, coarse features are of plebeian cast, for he had been originally
+a Dalmatian slave, or at least the son of a slave; but the
+long-continued exercise of despotic authority had given an imperious
+haughtiness to his bearing. He was now in his fifty-eighth year, but his
+features, coarsened and bloated by sensuality, gave him a much older
+aspect. He was dictating to a secretary who sat at the table writing
+with a reed pen on a parchment scroll, when the lictors, lowering their
+fasces and holding their hands above their eyes, as if to protect their
+dazzled eyes from the effulgence of the noonday sun, advanced into the
+apartment.
+
+"May it please your divine Majesty," said one of the servile lictors,
+"the centurion whom you summoned to your presence awaits your Imperial
+pleasure."
+
+"Most humbly at your Imperial Majesty's service," said Sertorius, coming
+forward with a profound inclination of his uncovered head. He had left
+his helmet and sword in the ante-chamber.
+
+"Flaccus Sertorius, I have heard that thou art a brave and faithful
+soldier, skilled in affairs of State as well as in the art of war. I
+have need of such to carry out my purpose here in Rome. Vitalius, the
+scribe," he went on, with an allusive gesture toward the secretary, "is
+copying a decree to be promulgated to the utmost limits of the empire
+against the pestilent atheism of the accursed sect of Christians, who
+have spawned and multiplied like frogs throughout the realm. This
+execrable superstition must be everywhere destroyed and the worship of
+the gods revived.[6] Even hero in Rome the odious sect swarms like
+vermin, and 'tis even said that the precincts of this palace are not
+free. Now, purge me this city as with a besom of wrath. Spare not young
+or old, the lofty or the low; purge even this palace, and look to it
+that thy own head be not the forfeit if you fail. This seal shall be
+your warrant;" and lashing himself into rage till the purple veins stood
+out like whipcords on his forehead, he tossed his signet ring across the
+table to the scribe, who prepared a legal instrument to which he affixed
+the Imperial seal.
+
+"May it please your Imperial Majesty," said the centurion, with an
+obeisance, "I am a rude soldier, unskilled to speak in the Imperial
+presence; but I have fought your Majesty's enemies in Iberia, in Gaul,
+in Dacia, in Pannonia, and in Libya, and am ready to fight them
+anywhere. Nevertheless, I would fain be discharged from this office of
+censor of the city. I know naught, save by Rumour, who is ever a lying
+jade, your Imperial Majesty, against this outlawed sect. And I know some
+of them who were brave soldiers in your Imperial Majesty's service, and
+many others are feeble old men or innocent women and children. I pray
+you send me rather to fight against the barbarian Dacians than against
+these."
+
+"I was well informed then that you were a bold fellow," exclaimed the
+Emperor, his brow flushing in his anger a deeper hue; "but I have need
+of such. Do thy duty, on thy allegiance, and see that thou soon bring
+these culprits to justice. Is it not enough that universal rumour
+condemns them? They are pestilent sedition-mongers, and enemies of the
+gods and of the State."
+
+"I, too, am a worshipper of the gods," continued the intrepid soldier,
+"and will fail not to keep my allegiance to your Imperial Majesty, to
+the State, and to those higher powers," and he walked backward out of
+the Imperial presence. As he rejoined his secretary a cloud sat on his
+brow. He was moody and taciturn, and evidently little pleased with his
+newly-imposed duties. But the confirmed habit of unquestioning obedience
+inherent in a Roman soldier led to an almost mechanical acceptance of
+his uncongenial task. Emerging from the outer court he proceeded to his
+own house, in the populous region of the Aventine Hill, now a deserted
+waste, covered with kitchen gardens and vineyards. In the meantime we
+turn to another part of the great Imperial palace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] Even as far west as Spain the following inscription has been found,
+which seems designed as a funeral monument of dead and buried
+Christianity: "DIOCLETIAN. CÆS. AVG. SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST. VBIQ.
+DELETAET CVLTV, DEOR. PROPAGATO"--"To Diocletian, Cæsar Augustus, the
+Christian superstition being everywhere destroyed and the worship of the
+gods extended." But though apparently destroyed, Christianity, like its
+divine Author, instinct with immortality, rose triumphant over all its
+foes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+EMPRESS AND SLAVE.
+
+
+Using the time-honoured privilege of ubiquity accorded to imaginative
+writers, we beg to conduct our readers to a part of the stately palace
+of Diocletian, where, if they had really been found in their own proper
+persons, it would have been at the peril of their lives. After fifteen
+long centuries have passed, we may explore without let or hindrance the
+most private apartments of the once all-potent masters of the world. We
+may roam through their unroofed banquet-chambers. We may gaze upon the
+frescoes, carvings, and mosaics which met their eyes. We may behold the
+evidences of their luxury and profligacy. We may thread the secret
+corridors and galleries connecting the chambers of the palace--all now
+open to the light of day.
+
+We may even penetrate to the boudoirs and tiring rooms of the proud
+dames of antiquity. We may even examine at our will the secrets of the
+toilet--the rouge pots and vases for cosmetics and unguents, the silver
+mirrors, fibulas or brooches, armlets and jewels, and can thus
+reconstruct much of that old Roman life which has vanished forever from
+the face of the earth.[7]
+
+By the light of modern exploration and discovery, therefore, we may
+enter the private apartments of ladies of the Imperial household, and in
+imagination re-furnish these now desolate and ruinous chambers with all
+the luxury and magnificence of their former prime. A room of commodious
+size is paved with tesselated marble slabs, adorned with borders and
+designs of brilliant mosaic. The walls are also marble, save where an
+elegant fresco on a stucco ground--flowers or fruit or graceful
+landscape[8]--greet the eye. A small fountain throws up its silver
+spray, imparting a grateful coolness to the air. Windows, void of
+glass, but mantled and screened by climbing plants and rare exotics,
+look out into a garden where snowy marble statues are relieved against
+the dark green of the cypress and ilex. Around the room are busts and
+effigies of the Imperial household or of historical characters. There
+is, however, a conspicuous absence of the mythological figures, whose
+exquisite execution does not atone for their sensuous conception, which,
+rescued from the _debris_ of ancient civilization, crowd all the
+Art-galleries of Europe. That this is not the result of accident but of
+design is seen by an occasional empty pedestal or niche. Distributed at
+intervals are couches and tables of costly woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+bronze and silver candelabra, lamps and other household objects of
+ornament or use. Sitting in an ivory chair amid all this elegance and
+luxury was a lady in the very flower of her youth, of queenly dignity
+and majestic beauty. She wore a snowy _stola_, or robe of finest linen,
+with purple border, flowing in ample folds to her sandaled feet Over
+this was negligently thrown a saffron-coloured veil of thinnest tissue.
+She held in her hand a burnished silver mirror, at which she glanced
+carelessly from time to time, while a comely slave with dark lustrous
+eyes and finely-formed features carefully brushed and braided her long
+and rippling hair.
+
+This queenly presence was the young and lovely Empress Valeria, the
+daughter of Diocletian and Prisca, and wife of the co-Emperor, Galerius
+Cæsar. The object of envy of all the women of Borne, she lived to become
+within a few short years the object of their profoundest commiseration.
+Of her even the unsympathetic Gibbon remarks that "her melancholy
+adventures might furnish a very singular subject for tragedy."
+
+"Nay, now, Callirhoë," said the Empress, with a weary smile, "that will
+do! Put up my hair and bind it with this fillet," and she held out a
+gold-embroidered ribband. "Thou knowest I care not for the elaborate
+coiffure that is now so fashionable."
+
+"Your Majesty needs it not," said the slave, speaking Greek with a low
+sweet voice, and with an Attic purity of accent. "As one of your own
+poets has said, you appear 'when unadorned, adorned the most.'"
+
+"Flatterer," said the Empress, tapping her gaily and almost caressingly
+with a plumy fan of ostrich feathers which she held lightly in one hand,
+"you are trying to spoil me."
+
+"Such goodness as thine, sweet mistress," said the slave, affectionately
+kissing her hand, "it would be impossible to spoil."
+
+"Dost know, Callirhoë," said the young Empress, with a smile of
+bewitching sweetness, "that I have a surprise for thee? It is, thou
+knowest, my birthday, and in my honour is the banquet given to-day. But
+I have a greater pleasure than the banquet can bestow. I give thee this
+day thy freedom. Thou art no more a slave, but the freedwoman of the
+Empress Valeria. See, here are the papers of thy manumission," and she
+drew from the girdle of her robe a sealed and folded parchment, which
+she handed to the now emancipated slave.
+
+"Dearest mistress!" exclaimed the faithful creature, who had thrown
+herself on the marble pavement and was kissing the sandaled feet of the
+beautiful Empress, but an outburst of sobs and tears choked her
+utterance.
+
+"What! weeping!" exclaimed Valeria. "Are you sorry then?"
+
+"Nay, they are tears of joy," exclaimed the girl, smiling through her
+tears, like the sun shining through a shower; "not that I tire of thy
+service; I wish never to leave it. But I rejoice that my father's
+daughter can serve thee no longer as thy slave, but as thy freedwoman."
+
+"I should indeed be sorry to lose thee," said the august lady with a
+wistful smile. "If I thought I should, I would almost regret thy
+manumission; for believe me, Callirhoë, I have need of true friends, and
+thou, I think, wilt be a faithful one."
+
+"What! I, but this moment a poor slave, the friend of the fairest and
+most envied lady in all Rome! Nay, now thou laughest at me; but believe
+me I am still heart and soul and body thy most devoted servant."
+
+"I do believe it, child," said the Empress; "but tell me, pray, why thou
+speakest in that proud melancholy tone of thy father? Was he a
+freedman?"
+
+"Nay, your Majesty, he was free-born; neither he nor his fathers were
+ever in bondage to any man,"--and the fair face of the girl was suffused
+with the glow of honest pride in the freeborn blood that flowed in her
+veins.
+
+"Forgive me, child, if I touched a sore spot in thy memory. Perchance I
+may heal it. Money can do much, men say."
+
+"In this case, dearest mistress, it is powerless. But from thee I can
+have no secrets, if you care to listen to the story of one so long a
+slave."
+
+"I never knew thou wert aught else, child. My steward bought thee in the
+slave market in the Suburra. Tell me all."
+
+"'Tis a short story, but a sad one, your Majesty," said the girl, as she
+went on braiding her mistress's hair. "My father was a Hebrew merchant,
+a dealer in precious stones, well esteemed in his nation. He lived in
+Damascus, where I was born. He named me after the beautiful fountain
+near the Jordan of his native land."
+
+"I thought it had been from the pagan goddess," interrupted the Empress.
+
+"Nay, 'twas from the healing fountain of Callirhoë, in Judea," continued
+the girl "When my mother died, my father was plunged into inconsolable
+grief, and fell ill, well-nigh to death. The most skilled physician in
+Damascus, Eliezer by name, brought him back to life; but his friends
+thought he had better let him die, for he converted him to the hated
+Christian faith. Persecuted by his kinsmen, he came to Antioch with my
+brother and myself, that he might join the great and flourishing
+Christian Church in that city.[9] While on a trading voyage to Smyrna,
+in which we children accompanied our father, we were captured by
+Illyrian pirates, and carried to the slave market at Ravenna. There I
+was purchased by a slave dealer from Rome, and my father and brother
+were sold I know not whither. I never saw them again,"--and she heaved a
+weary and hopeless sigh.
+
+"Poor child!" said the Empress, a tear of sympathy glistening on her
+cheek, "I fear that I can give thee little help. 'Tis strange how my
+heart went out toward thee when thou wert first brought so tristful and
+forlorn into my presence. 'Tis a sad world, and even the Emperors can do
+little to set it right."
+
+"There is One who rules on high, dear lady, the God of our fathers, by
+whom kings rule and princes decree judgment. He doeth all things well."
+
+"Yes, child, I am not ignorant of the God of the Jews and Christians.
+What a pity that there should be such bitter hate on the part of your
+countrymen towards those who worship the same great God."
+
+"Yes," said Callirhoë, "blindness in part hath happened to Israel. If
+they but knew how Jesus of Nazareth fulfils all the types and prophecies
+of their own Scriptures, they would hail Him as the true Messiah of whom
+Moses and the prophets did write."
+
+"Well, child, I will help thee to find thy father, if possible, though I
+fear it will be a difficult task. Ask me freely anything that I can do.
+As my freedwoman, you will, of course, bear my name with your own. Now
+send my slave Juba to accompany me to the banquet-hall."
+
+Callirhoë, or as we may now call her, after the Roman usage, Valeria
+Callirhoë, fervently kissed the outstretched hand of her august mistress
+and gracefully retired.
+
+It may excite some surprise to find such generous sentiments and such
+gentle manners as we have described attributed to the daughter of a
+persecuting Emperor and the wife of a stern Roman general. But reasons
+are not wanting to justify this delineation. Both Valeria and her mother
+Prisca, during their long residence at Nicomedia, where the Emperor
+Diocletian had established his court, became instructed in the Christian
+religion by the bishop of that important see. Indeed, Eusebius informs
+us that among them there were many Christian converts, both Prisca and
+Valeria, in the Imperial palace. Diocletian and his truculent
+son-in-law, Galerius, were bigoted pagans, and the mother of the latter
+was a fanatical worshipper of the goddess Cybele. The spread of
+Christianity even within the precincts of the palace provoked her
+implacable resentment, and she urged on her son to active persecution. A
+council was therefore held in the palace at Nicomedia, a joint edict for
+the extirpation of Christianity was decreed, and the magnificent
+Christian basilica was razed to the ground. The very next day the edict
+was torn from the public forum by an indignant Christian, and the
+Imperial palace was almost entirely destroyed by fire. The origin of
+this disaster is unknown, but it was ascribed to the Christians, and
+intensified the virulence of the persecution. Diocletian proceeded to
+Rome to celebrate a military triumph and to concert with his western
+colleagues more vigorous methods of persecution. It is at this period
+that the opening scenes of our story take place.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] On the Palatine Hill may still be seen, in the palace of the Flavii,
+the frescoed private apartments and banquet-chambers of the emperors--in
+the walls are even the lead water-pipes, stamped with the maker's name;
+and the innumerable ancient relics in the museums of Rome and Naples
+give such an insight as nothing else can impart of the life and
+character of the palmy days of the empire.
+
+[8] On the banquet-room mentioned in the last note are some remarkable
+frescoes, among other objects being glass vases through whose
+transparent sides are seen exquisitely painted fruits--as fresh,
+apparently, after eighteen centuries as if executed within a few months.
+
+[9] Shortly after this time, that Church numbered 100,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE IMPERIAL BANQUET.
+
+
+At the summons of Callirhoë a Nubian female slave, Juba by name, an old
+family nurse, skilled in the use of herbs and potions, made her
+appearance. Her huge and snowy turban and her bright-coloured dress
+strikingly contrasted with her jet complexion and homely features. Yet,
+as the personal attendant of the young empress, it was her duty to
+accompany her mistress to the banquet-hall, to stand behind her chair,
+to adjust her robes, hold her fan, and obey her every word or gesture.
+As she drew aside the curtain of the apartment which shut out the light
+and heat, two lictors who guarded the door sprang to their feet and
+preceded the empress through the marble corridor to the _triclinium_, or
+banquet chamber. It was a family party, rather than a state banquet, but
+neither Greeks nor Romans practised a profuse hospitality nor held large
+social or festive gatherings like those of modern times. Their feasts
+were rather for the intense epicurean pleasure of a favoured few than
+for the rational enjoyment of a larger company.[10]
+
+Couches inlaid with ivory and decked with cushions surrounded three
+sides of a hollow square. On these the emperor and his male guests
+reclined, each resting on his left arm. On ivory chairs facing the open
+side of the square sat the Empress Prisca (a majestic-looking matron of
+somewhat grave aspect), Valeria, and a lady of the court, each
+accompanied by her female slave. The extreme ugliness of the Nubian Juba
+acted as a foil for the striking beauty of Valeria.
+
+First of all, the guests were crowned with wreaths of fair and fragrant
+flowers. Then elegantly dressed slaves brought in, to the sound of
+music, the different courses: first eggs dressed with vinegar, olives
+and lettuce, like our salad; then roast pheasants, peacocks' tongues and
+thrushes, and the livers of capons steeped in milk; next oysters brought
+alive from the distant shores of Great Britain, and, reversing our
+order, fish in great variety--one of the most beautiful of these was the
+purple mullet--served with high-seasoned condiments and sauces. Of solid
+meats the favourite dish was a roast sucking pig, elegantly garnished.
+Of vegetables they had nothing corresponding to our potatoes, but,
+instead, a profusion of mallows, lentils, truffles, and mushrooms. The
+banquet wound up with figs, olives, almonds, grapes, tarts and
+confections, and apples--hence the phrase _ab ovo ad mala_.
+
+After the first course the emperor poured out a libation of Falernian
+wine, with the Greek formula, "to the supreme God," watching eagerly if
+his wife and daughter would do the same. Lacking the courage to make a
+bold confession of Christianity, and thinking, with a casuistry that we
+shall not attempt to defend, that the ambiguity of the expression
+excused the act, they also, apparently to the great relief of the
+emperor, poured out a libation and sipped a small quantity of the wine.
+The emperor then drank to the health of his wife and daughter, wishing
+the latter many returns of the auspicious day they had met to celebrate.
+Each of the guests also made, according to his ability, a complimentary
+speech, which the ladies acknowledged by a gracious salutation. After
+the repast slaves brought perfumed water and embroidered napkins for the
+guests to wash their fingers, which had been largely employed in the
+process of dining.
+
+The most of the guests were sycophants and satellites of the emperor,
+and in the intervals between the courses employed their art in
+flattering his vanity or fomenting his prejudices. One of them,
+Semphronius by name, an old fellow with a very bald and shiny head and
+a very vivacious manner, made great pretensions to the character of a
+philosopher or professor of universal knowledge, and was ever ready,
+with a great flow of often unmeaning words, to give a theory or
+explanation of every conceivable subject. Others were coarse and
+sensual-looking _bon vivants_, who gave their attention chiefly to the
+enjoyment of the good fare set before them. Another sinister-looking
+fellow, with a disagreeable cast in one eye and a nervous habit of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword, was Quintus Naso, the
+prefect of the city. He had been a successful soldier, or rather
+butcher, in the Pannonian wars, and was promoted to his bad eminence of
+office on account of his truculent severity. Of very different
+character, however, was a young man of noble family, Adauctus by name,
+who was present in his official character as Treasurer of the Imperial
+Exchequer.[11] He almost alone of the guests paid a courteous attention
+to the high-born ladies of the party, to whom he frequently addressed
+polite remarks while the others were intent only in fawning on the great
+source of power. He, also, alone of all present, conspicuously refrained
+from pouring out a libation--a circumstance which did not escape the
+keen eye of the emperor. After interrupted talk on general topics, in
+which the ladies took part, the conversation drifted to public matters,
+on which they were not expected to meddle.
+
+"Well, Naso, how was the edict received?" said the emperor to the
+prefect, as a splendid roast peacock, with sadly despoiled plumage, was
+removed.
+
+"As every command of your divine Majesty should be received," replied
+Naso, "with respectful obedience. One rash fool, indeed, attempted to
+tear it down from the rostra of the Forum, like that mad wretch at
+Nicomedia; but he was taken in the act. He expiates to-night his crime,
+so soon as I shall have wrung from him the names of his fanatical
+accomplices,"--and he clenched his hands nervously, as though he were
+himself applying the instruments of torture.
+
+"And you know well how to do that," said the emperor with a sneer, for,
+like all tyrants, he despised and hated the instruments of his tyranny.
+
+"You may well call them fanatics, good Naso," chimed in the would-be
+philosopher, Semphronius; "a greater set of madmen the world never saw.
+They believe that this Chrestus whom they worship actually rose from the
+dead. Heard ever any man such utter folly as that! Whereas I have
+satisfied myself, from a study of the official records, that he was
+only a Jewish thaumaturge and conjuror, who used to work pretended
+miracles by means of dupes and accomplices. And when, for his sedition,
+he was put to death as the vilest of felons, these accomplices stole his
+body and gave out that he rose from the dead."[12]
+
+"I have heard," said Adauctus gravely, "that the Romans took care to
+prevent such a trick as that by placing a maniple of soldiers on guard
+at His grave."
+
+"Yes, I believe they say so," went on the unabashed Semphronius; "but if
+they did, the dastards were either overpowered, or they all fell asleep
+while his fellow-knaves stole his body away."
+
+"Come now, Semphronius," said the emperor, "that is too improbable a
+story about a whole maniple of soldiers. You and I know too well, Naso,
+the Roman discipline to accept such an absurd story as that."
+
+"Oh, if your divine Majesty thinks it improbable, I fully admit that it
+is so," the supple sophist eagerly replied. "I am inclined to identify
+this impostor and a kinsman of his who was beheaded by the divine Herod
+with the Janus and Jambres whose story is told in the sacred books of
+the Jews. But it is evident, from the identity of name of one of these
+with the god Janus, that they merely borrowed the story from the Roman
+mythology. This execrable superstition, they say, was brought to Rome by
+two brothers named Paulus and Simon Magus. They both expiated their
+crimes, one in the Mammertine Prison, the other without the Ostian Gate.
+They say also that when Simon the magician struck the prison wall, a
+well of water gushed forth for some of their mystic rites; and that when
+the head of Paulus was smitten off it bounded three times on the ground,
+and at each spot where it touched a well of water sprang up. But these
+are stories that no sane man can believe."[13]
+
+"I quite agree with you in that," said Adauctus.
+
+"Do you, indeed?" exclaimed the Emperor; "I am glad to know that so
+brave and trusted an officer can say so."
+
+"I believe, your Majesty, that half the stories told about the
+Christians are calumnies that no candid man can receive," continued the
+young officer.
+
+"You are a bold man to say so, for they have few friends and many
+enemies at court," replied Diocletian; "but we will soon extort their
+secrets by this edict. Will we not, good Naso?"
+
+"It will not be my fault if we do not, your divine Majesty," replied
+that worthy, with a more hideous leer than usual in his cruel eye.
+
+"Another thing these fools of Christians believe," interjected the
+garrulous philosopher, "is, that when they die their souls shall live in
+some blander clime, and breathe some more ethereal air. 'Tis this that
+makes them seem to covet martyrdom, as they call it, instead of, like
+all sane men, shunning death."
+
+"But do not your own poets," chimed in the soft voice of Valeria, "speak
+of the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows where the spirits of
+heroes walk, and of the bark of Charon, who ferries them across the
+fatal Styx?"
+
+"True, your most august Highness," replied the pedant with grimace
+intended to be polite, "but those fables are intended for the vulgar,
+and not for the cultured classes, to which your Imperial Highness
+belongs. Even the priests themselves do not believe in the existence of
+the gods at whose altars they minister; so that Cicero, you will
+remember, said that 'he wondered how one augur could look in the face of
+another without laughing.'"
+
+"I quite admit," remarked Adauctus, "that the priests are often
+impostors, deceiving the people; but our wisest philosophers--the
+thoughtful Pliny, the profound Tacitus, the sage Seneca, and even the
+eloquent Cicero whom you have quoted--teach the probability if not the
+certainty of a future state, where virtue shall be rewarded and
+wickedness punished."
+
+"What do they know about it any more than any of us?" interrupted the
+truculent Naso, to whom ethical themes were by no means familiar or
+welcome. "My creed is embodied in the words of that clever fellow,
+Juvenal, that I used to learn at school--
+
+    'Esse aliquid manes, et subterranea regna,
+    Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.'"[14]
+
+"What's the use of all this talk?" lisped a languid-looking epicurean
+fop, who, sated with dissipation, at twenty-five found life as empty as
+a sucked orange. "We cannot alter fate. Life is short; let us make the
+most of it. I'd like to press its nectar into a single draught and have
+done with it for ever. As the easy-going Horace says, 'The same thing
+happens to us all. When our name, sooner or later, has issued from the
+fatal urn, we leave our woods, our villa, our pleasant homes, and enter
+the bark which is to bear us into eternal exile!'"[15]
+
+Here the Emperor made an impatient gesture, to indicate that he was
+weary of this philosophic discourse. At the signal the ladies rose and
+retired. Adauctus also made his official duties an excuse for leaving
+the table, where Diocletian and his other guests lingered for hours in
+a drunken symposium.
+
+Thus we find that the very questions which engage the agnostics and
+skeptics and pessimists of the present age--the Mallocks, and Cliffords,
+and Harrisons and their tribe--have agitated the world from the very
+dawn of philosophy. Did space permit, we might cite the theories of
+Lucretius as a strange anticipation of the development hypothesis.
+Indeed the writings of Pyrrho, Porphyry and Celsus show us that the
+universal tendency of human philosophy, unaided by divine inspiration,
+is to utter skepticism.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] On a single supper for his friends, Lucullus, who is said to have
+fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slaves, is recorded to have
+expended 50,000 denarii--about $8,500.
+
+[11] His name and office are recorded even by so skeptical a critic as
+Gibbon, and his epitaph has been found in the Catacombs. See Withrow's
+Catacombs, p. 46.
+
+[12] Strauss and Renan and their rationalizing school rival this pagan
+sophist in eliminating the miraculous from the sacred record.
+
+[13] Yet these stories, too incredible for this old pagan, were gravely
+related to the present writer, on the scene of the alleged miracles, by
+the credulous Romans of to-day.
+
+[14] _Sat._ ii. 49. "That the manes are anything, or the nether world
+anything, not even boys believe, unless those still in the nursery."
+
+[15] See that saddest but most beautiful of the ode of Horace, To
+Delius, II. 3:
+
+    ... Et nos in æternum
+    Exilium impositura cymbæ.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"THE CHRISTIANS TO THE LIONS."
+
+
+The progress of our story transports us, on the day after the banquet
+described in our last chapter, to the palace of the Prefect Naso, on the
+Aventine. It was a large and pompous-looking building, with a
+many-columned portico and spacious gardens, both crowded with statuary,
+the spoil of foreign cities, or the product of degenerate Greek art--as
+offensive in design as skilful in execution. The whole bore evidence of
+the ostentation of vulgar wealth rather than of judicious taste. A crowd
+of "clients" and satellites of the great man were hanging round the
+doors, eager to present some petition, proffer some service, or to swell
+his idle retinue, like jackals around a lion, hoping to pick up a living
+as hangers-on of such a powerful and unscrupulous dispenser of
+patronage. In the degenerate days of the Empire, the civic officials
+especially had always a swarm of needy dependents seeking to fatten on
+the spoils of office. They were supposed, in some way, to add to the
+dignity of the consuls and prætors, as in later times were the retainers
+of a mediæval baron. The system of slavery had made all honest labour
+opprobrious, and these idle, corrupt, and dangerous parasites had to be
+kept in good humour by lavish doles and constant amusements. "Bread and
+the Circus," was their imperious demand, and having these, they cared
+for nothing else.
+
+On the morning in question there was considerable excitement among this
+turbulent throng, for the rumour was current that there was to be an
+examination of certain prisoners accused of the vile crime of
+Christianity; and there were hopes that the criminals would supply fresh
+victims for the games of the amphitheatre, which for some time had
+languished for lack of suitable material. The temper of the mob we may
+learn by the remarks that reach our ears as we elbow our way through.
+
+"Ho, Davus! what's the news to-day?" asked a cobbler with his leathern
+apron tucked up about his waist, of a greasy-looking individual who
+strutted about with much affectation of dignity; "you have the run of
+his Excellency's kitchen, and ought to know."
+
+"Are _you_ there, Samos?" (a nick-name meaning Flat Nose). "Back to your
+den, you slave, and don't meddle with gentlemen. _'Ne sutor,'_ you know
+the rest."
+
+"Can't you see that the cook drove him out with the basting ladle?" said
+Muscus, the stout-armed blacksmith, himself a slave, and resenting the
+insult to his class; and so the laugh was turned against the hungry
+parasite.
+
+"Here, good Max, you are on the guard, you can tell us," went on the
+burly smith.
+
+"News enough, as you'll soon find. There's to be more hunting of the
+Christians for those who like it. For my part, I don't."
+
+"Why not," asked Burdo, the butcher, a truculent looking fellow with a
+great knife in a sheath at his girdle. "I'd like no better fun. I'd as
+lief kill a Christian as kill a calf."
+
+"It might suit your business," answered stout Max, with a sneer, "but
+hunting women and children is not a soldier's trade."
+
+"O ho! that's the game that's a-foot!" chuckled a withered little wretch
+with a hungry face and cruel eyes, like a weasel. "Here's a chance for
+an honest man who worships the old gods to turn an honest penny."
+
+"Honest man!" growled Max. "Diogenes would want a good lantern to find
+one in Rome to-day. He'd certainly never take thee for one. Thy very
+face would convict thee of violating all the laws in the Twelve Tables."
+
+"Hunting the Christians, that's the game, is it?" said an ill-dressed
+idler, blear-eyed and besotted; "and pestilent vermin they are. I'd like
+to see them all drowned in the Tiber like so many rats."
+
+"You are more likely to see them devoured in the amphitheatre," said
+Bruto, a Herculean gladiator. "The Prefect is going to give some grand
+games on the Feast of Neptune. Our new lions will have a chance to
+flesh their teeth in the bodies of the Christians. The wretches haven't
+the courage to fight, like the Dacian prisoners, with us gladiators, nor
+even with the beasts; but just let themselves be devoured like sheep."
+
+At this juncture a commotion was observed about the door, and Naso, the
+Prefect, came forth and looked haughtily around. Several clients pressed
+forward with petitions, which he carelessly handed unopened to his
+secretary, who walked behind. He regarded with some interest the
+elegantly-dressed and graceful youth who glided through the throng and
+presented a scroll, saying, as he did so--
+
+"It is of much importance, your Excellency. It is about the Christians."
+
+"Follow me to the Forum," said the Prefect, and our old acquaintance
+Isidorus, for it was he, fell into the train of the great civic
+dignitary. Arrived at the Basilica Julia, or great Court of Justice, the
+Prefect beckoned to the young Greek secretary, and entered a private
+ante-room. Throwing himself into a bronze chair, and pointing the Greek
+to a marble seat, he asked abruptly--
+
+"Now, what is this you know about these Christians?"
+
+"Something of much importance to your Excellency, and I hope to learn
+something still more important."
+
+"You shall be well paid if you do," said the Prefect. "It is difficult
+to convict them of any crime."
+
+"I have secret sources of information, your Excellency. In fact, I hope
+to bring you the names of the ringleaders of the accursed sect."
+
+"How so? Are you not the secretary of Flaccus Sertorius?"
+
+"I am, your Excellency, but he has no heart in the work of this new
+edict. I would like to see more zeal in the Emperor's service."
+
+"I like not this Sertorius," said the Prefect, half musing. "He affects
+too much what they call the severe old Roman virtues to suit these
+times. But how do you expect to learn the secrets of these Christians?"
+
+"By becoming one myself, your Excellency, replied the Greek, with a
+sinister expression in his eyes."
+
+"By becoming one yourself!" exclaimed the Prefect, in a tone of anger
+and surprise. Then noting the wily expression of the supple Greek, he
+added, "Oh! I see, by becoming a spy upon their practices and a betrayer
+of their secrets. Is that it?"
+
+"We Greeks like not the words traitor and spy," said the youth, with a
+faint blush, "but to serve the Emperor and your Excellency we would bear
+even that opprobrium."
+
+"Well, you look capable of it," said the Prefect, with an undisguised
+sneer, "and I will gladly use any instruments to crush this vile sect."
+
+"But, your Excellency," said the cringing Greek, swallowing his chagrin
+and annoyance, "I shall require gold to gain the confidence of these
+Christians--not to bribe them, for that is impossible, but to spend in
+what they call charity--to give to their sick and poor."
+
+"Not forgetting yourself, I'll be bound," sneered the Prefect. "But what
+you say is no doubt true;" and turning to the table he wrote an order
+upon the Imperial Exchequer, and handed it to the Greek, with the words,
+"If you make good use of that, there is more where it comes from. The
+Emperor pays his _faithful_ servants well." Then dismissing the
+treacherous tool whom he himself despised, he passed into the Basilica,
+or court, where the bold Christian youth who had torn down the Emperor's
+edict was to receive his sentence.
+
+Livid with the torture he had undergone to make him disclose the names
+of his accomplices--tortures which he had borne with heroic fortitude
+he boldly avowed his act, and defied the power of the Prefect to extort
+the name of a single Christian from his lips. We will not harrow the
+hearts of our readers by recounting the atrocious tortures by which the
+body of the brave youth had been wrung. He was at length borne away
+fainting to his cruel fate. Although the Prefect, who had sworn to have
+his secret if he tore the heart out of his body, gnashed his teeth in
+impotent rage at the defiance of the mangled martyr, yet he could not in
+his inmost soul help feeling the vast gulf between his sublime fidelity
+and the heinous guilt of the base traitor from whom he had just parted.
+
+The pages of the contemporary historians, Eusebius and Lactantius, give
+too minute and circumstantial accounts of the persecutions, of which
+they were eye-witnesses, to allow us to adopt the complacent theory of
+Gibbon, that the sufferings of the Christians were comparatively few
+and insignificant. "We ourselves have seen," says the Bishop of Cæsarea,
+"crowds of persons, some beheaded, others burned alive in a single day,
+so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken to pieces, and the
+executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over the work
+of blood.... They vied with each other," he continues, "in inventing new
+tortures, as if there were prizes offered to him who should contrive the
+greatest cruelties."[16] Men whose only crime was their religion, were
+scourged with chains laden with bronze balls, till the flesh hung in
+shreds, and even the bones were broken. They were bound in fetters of
+red hot iron, and roasted over fires so slow that they lingered for
+hours, or even days, in their mortal agony; their flesh was scraped from
+the very bone with ragged shells, or lacerated with burning pincers,
+iron hooks, and instruments with horrid teeth and claws, hence called
+_ungulæ_, examples of which have been found in the Catacombs; molten
+metal was applied to their bodies till they became one undistinguishable
+wound, and mingled salt and vinegar,[17] or unslacked lime, were rubbed
+upon the quivering flesh, torn and bleeding from the rack or
+scourge--tortures more inhuman than savage Indian ever wreaked upon his
+mortal foe. Chaste matrons and tender virgins were given over to a fate
+a thousand-fold worse than death, and were subjected to indignities too
+horrible for words to utter. And all these sufferings were endured,
+often with joy and exultation, for the love of a Divine Master, when a
+single word, a grain of incense cast upon the heathen altar, would have
+released the victims from their agonies. No lapse of time, and no recoil
+from the idolatrous homage paid in after ages to the martyr's relics,
+should impair in our hearts the profound and rational reverence with
+which we bend before his tomb.
+
+While the examination of the Christian martyr was in progress, much
+interest was manifested in his fate by the throng of idlers who were
+wont to linger around the public courts, to gratify their curiosity or
+their morbid love of cruelty.
+
+"The State is in danger," said Piso, the barber, gesticulating
+violently, "if such miscreants are suffered to live."
+
+"Ay, is it," chimed in a garrulous pedagogue, "this is rank treason."
+
+"Right, neighbour Probus," added a pettifogging lawyer. "This is the
+very _crimen majestatis_. These men are the enemies of Cæsar and of the
+Roman people."
+
+"Who would think he was so wicked?" said a poor freed-woman who sold
+sugar barley in the Forum. "Sure he looks innocent enough."
+
+"He _is_ innocent," replied her neighbour, who kept a stall for the sale
+of figs and olives. "'Tis that wretch who is wicked," looking fiercely
+at the Prefect as he moved from the court.
+
+"You are right," said a grave-looking man, speaking low, but with a look
+of secret understanding; "but be careful. You can do the brave Lucius no
+good, and may betray the others into jeopardy," and he passed swiftly
+through the throng.
+
+"'Tis time all these Atheists were exterminated," said Furbo, a sort of
+hanger-on at the neighbouring temple of Saturn. "The gods are angry, and
+the victims give sinister auspices. To-day when the priest slew the ram
+for the sacrifice, would you believe it? it had no heart; and the sacred
+chickens refused their food."
+
+"And they certainly are to blame for the floods of the Tiber, which
+destroyed all the olives and lentils in my shop," said Fronto, the oil
+and vegetable seller.
+
+"And the rain rusted all the wheat on our farm," said Macer, the
+villicus or land-steward.
+
+"And the fever has broken out afresh in the Suburra," croaked a withered
+old Egyptian crone, like a living mummy, who told fortunes and sold
+spells in that crowded and pest-smitten quarter, where the poor swarmed
+like flies.
+
+"And the drought has blighted all the vines," echoed Demetrius, the
+wine-merchant.
+
+"I never knew trade so dull," whined Ephraim, the Jewish money-lender.
+"We'll never have good times again till these accursed Christians are
+all destroyed."
+
+"So say I," "And I," "And I," shouted one after another of the mob, till
+the wild cry rang round the Forum, _"Christiani adleones"_--"The
+Christians to the lions."[18]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] Euseb. Hist Eccles., viii. 7.
+
+[17] "Salt me the more, that I may be incorruptible," said Tarachus, the
+martyr, as he underwent this excruciating torture.
+
+[18] "If the Tiber overflows its banks," says Tertullian, "or if the
+Nile does not; if there be drought or earthquakes, famine or pestilence,
+the cry is raised, 'the Christians to the lions.' But I pray you," he
+adds, in refutation of these absurd charges, "were misfortunes unknown
+before Tiberius? The true God was not worshipped when Hannibal conquered
+at Cannæ, or the Gauls filled the city."--Tertul. _Apol._, x.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MARTYR'S BURIAL.
+
+
+The fawning Greek Isidorus had stealthily wormed his way into the
+confidence of Faustus, a servant of Adauctus, by professing to be, if
+not a Christian, at least a sincere inquirer after the truth, and an
+ardent hater of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore promised
+to conduct him to a private meeting of the Christians, where he might be
+more fully instructed by the good presbyter, Primitius. In the short
+summer twilight they therefore made their way to the villa of the
+Christian matron Marcella, on the Appian Way, about two miles from the
+city gates. A high wall surrounded the grounds. In this was a wicket or
+door, at which Faustus knocked. The white-haired porter partly opened
+the door, and recognizing the foremost figure, admitted him, but gave a
+look of inquiry before passing his companion.
+
+"It is all right," said Faustus. "He is a good friend of mine," and so
+they passed on.
+
+The grounds were large and elegant, fountains flashed in the soft
+moonlight, the night-blooming cereus breathed forth its rare perfume,
+and masses of cypress and ilex cast deep shadows on the pleached alleys.
+But there was a conspicuous absence of the garden statuary invariably
+found in pagan grounds. There was no figure of the god Terminus, nor of
+the beautiful Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair goddesses which
+to-day people the galleries of Rome. In the spacious _atrium_, or
+central apartment of the house, which was partially lighted by bronze
+candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly a hundred persons, seated
+on couches around the hall--the men on the right and the women on the
+left. A solemn stillness brooded over the entire assembly. Near a tall
+cadalabrum stood a venerable figure with a snowy beard--the presbyter
+Primitius. From a parchment scroll in his hand he read in impressive
+tones the holy words of hope and consolation, "Let not your hearts be
+troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me," and the rest of that
+sweet, parting counsel of the world's Redeemer.
+
+[Illustration: STAIRWAY TO CATACOMB.]
+
+Before he was through, a procession with torches was seen approaching
+through the garden. On a bier, borne by four young men, lay the body of
+Lucius the martyr, wrapped in white and strewn with flowers--at rest in
+the solemn majesty of death from the tortures of the rack and scourge.
+The little assembly within joined the procession without, and softly
+singing the holy words which still give such consolation to the stricken
+heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui in Domino morientur--Blessed are the dead
+who die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress alleys wound the
+solemn procession. Soon it reached an archway, like that shown in our
+first chapter, the entrance to the catacomb of St. Callixtus, which lay
+beneath the grounds of the Lady Marcella. Then, preceded by torches,
+with careful tread the bearers of the bier slowly descended a rock-hewn
+stairway, and traversed a long and gloomy corridor, lined on either side
+with the graves of the dead.[19] This stairway and corridor are shown in
+the engravings which accompany this chapter.
+
+An almost supernatural fear fell upon the soul of Isidorus the Greek,
+who had followed in the train of the procession, as it penetrated
+further and further into the very heart of the earth. He seemed like
+Ulysses with his ghostly guide visiting the grim regions of the
+nether-world, and the words of the classic poet came to his mind,
+"Horror on all sides, the very silence fills the soul with dread."
+Already for more than two centuries these gloomy galleries had been the
+receptacles of the Christian dead, and in many places the slabs that
+sealed the tombs were broken, and the graves yawned weirdly as he
+passed, revealing the unfleshed skeletons lying on their stony bed. To
+his excited imagination they seemed to menace him with their
+outstretched bony arms. Deep, mysterious shadows crouched around, full
+of vague suggestions of affright. His gay, joyous and pleasure-loving
+nature recoiled from the evidences of mortality around him. His
+footsteps faltered, and he almost fell to the rocky pavement. The
+procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing dimmer and dimmer,
+and then turning an angle they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to
+his feet, and he fled along the narrow path with outstretched hands,
+sometimes touching with a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes
+of the dead. He hurried along, groping from side to side, and when he
+reached the passage down which the funeral procession had disappeared,
+no gleam of it was visible, nor could he tell, so suddenly the lights
+had disappeared, whether it had turned to the right or to the left. The
+darkness was intense--a darkness that might be felt, a brooding horror
+that oppressed every sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed
+to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his faint cry was swallowed up
+in the deep and oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the gods
+overtaken him in punishment for his meditated crime? Was he, who so
+loved the light and air, and joyous sunshine, never to behold them
+again? Must he be buried in these gloomy vaults for ever? These thoughts
+surged through his brain, and almost drove him wild. But what sounds are
+those that steal faintly on his ear? They seem like the music of heaven
+heard in the heart of hell. Stronger, sweeter, clearer, come the holy
+voices. And now they shape themselves to words, "Nam et si ambulavero in
+medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala--Yea, though I walk through the
+valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Was it to taunt his
+terrors those strange words were sung? Then the holy chant went on,
+"Quonian tu mecum es Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata
+sunt--For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." What
+strange secret had these Christians that sustained their souls even
+surrounded by the horrors of the tomb?
+
+[Illustration: CORRIDOR OF CATACOMB.]
+
+Isidorus groped his way amid the gloom toward these heavenly sounds.
+Soon he caught a faint glimmer of light reflected from an angle of the
+corridor, and then a ray through an open doorway pierced the gloom.
+Hurrying forward he found the whole company from which he had become
+separated gathered in a sort of chapel hewn out of the solid rock. The
+body of Lucius lay upon the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the
+wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful torchlight which illumined
+the strange group, and lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the
+wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And I saw under the altar
+the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the
+testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How
+long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on
+them that dwell on the earth?" A great fear fell upon the soul of the
+susceptible Greek, for the slain man seemed, in the solemn majesty of
+death, to become an accusing judge.
+
+Then turning his scroll the presbyter read on, "What are these arrayed
+in white robes and whence came they? These are they which came out of
+great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in
+the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and
+serve Him day and night in His temple.... They shall hunger no more,
+neither thirst any more ... and God shall wipe away all tears from
+their eyes."
+
+These holy words stirred strange emotions in the agitated breast of the
+young Greek. Sweeter were they than ought he had ever read in Pindar's
+page, and more sublime than even Homer's hymns. If these things were
+true, he thought, he would gladly change places with the martyr on his
+bier, if only he might exchange the torturing ambitions, strifes and
+sins of time for the holy joys which that marvellous scroll revealed.
+
+Then by loving hands the martyr's body was placed in its narrow tomb. A
+marble slab, on which were simply written his name and the words,
+"DORMIT IN PACE--He sleeps in peace," was cemented against the opening.
+With a trowel, a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom, was rudely traced
+in the yet unhardened cement, and the little company began to disperse.
+
+"O sir," cried the young Greek, clasping the hand of the venerable
+Primitius, "teach me more fully this excellent way."
+
+"Gladly, my son," replied the benignant old man. "Come hither to-morrow.
+For here," he added with a smile, "my friends insist that I must remain
+concealed till this outburst of persecution shall have passed.[20]
+Hilarus, the fossor, will be thy guide. He will now conduct thee back
+to thy friend Faustus, who is seeking thee."
+
+By the dim light of a waxen taper which he carried, Hilarus led the
+Greek to the entrance to the Catacomb, where they found Faustus waiting
+in some alarm at the delay of his friend. In the bright moonlight they
+walked back to the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving an
+account of his adventure in the Catacomb, and, to turn the conversation,
+asked how the Christians had obtained the body of Lucius from the public
+executioner.
+
+"Oh, money will do anything in Rome," said Faustus, at which the Greek
+visibly winced. "The Lady Marcella, in whose grounds the Catacomb is,
+devotes much of her wealth to burying the poor of the Church, and her
+steward had no difficulty in purchasing from Hanno, the executioner, the
+mangled remains of the martyr. 'Tis like, before long, that he will have
+many such to sell."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] For the details above given, see Bingham's _Origines Ecclesiastica_
+
+[20] Liberius, Bishop of Rome, lay concealed in the Catacombs for a
+whole year, during a time of persecution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WITH HILARUS THE FOSSOR.
+
+
+"No one becomes vile all at once," said the Roman moralist, and we would
+be unjust to the fickle, fawning Greek Isidorus, if we concluded that
+deliberate treachery was his purpose, as, at the invitation of
+Primitius, he repaired next day to the catacomb of St. Calixtus. His was
+a susceptible, impressionable nature, easily influenced by its
+environment, like certain substances that acquire the odour, fragrant or
+foul, of the atmosphere by which they are surrounded. Amid the vileness
+of the Roman court, his better feelings died, and he was willing to
+become the minion of tyranny, or the tool of treachery. Amid the holy
+influences of the Christian assembly, some chord responded, like an
+Eolian harp, to the breathings of the airs from heaven. It was,
+therefore, with strangely conflicting feelings, that he passed beneath
+the Capuan Gate, and along the Appian Way, toward the Villa Marcella.
+His better nature recoiled from his purposed treachery of the previous
+day. His heart yearned to know more of that strange power which
+sustained the Christian martyr in the presence of torture and of death.
+
+
+He was recognized by the porter at the gate of the villa as the
+companion of Faustus, and on his inquiry for the house of Hilarus, the
+fossor, was directed to a low-walled, tile-roofed building, such as may
+be seen in many parts of the Campagna to the present day. About the
+house were many stone chippings, and numerous slabs of marble. Under a
+sort of arbour, covered with vine branches in full leaf, stood a
+grisly-visaged man, with close-cropped, iron-gray hair, chipping with
+mallet and chisel at a large sarcophagus, or stone coffin, upon a
+mason's bench.
+
+"Do I address Hilarus, the fossor?" asked the Greek, with a graceful
+salutation.
+
+"I am Hilarus, at your service, noble sir," replied the old man, with a
+kindly expression of countenance.
+
+The young Greek then told of the invitation given him by the good
+presbyter, Primitius, and requested to be conducted to him.
+
+"You are, of course, known to the porter, or you would not have obtained
+admission to these grounds," said Hilarus. "But you will first honour my
+poor roof by partaking some refreshment after your hot walk from the
+city."
+
+"Thanks, good friend," replied the Greek, "a draught of your native
+wine would not be amiss. Nay, I would prefer it here beneath the
+grateful shadow of this vine," he continued, as Hilarus courteously led
+the way to the open door of the cottage. This was quite small, and had
+almost no furniture save some earthen pots for cooking at an open
+fireplace. In a moment the old man re-appeared with an earthen flagon of
+wine and a bronze salver, with bread and goat's milk cheese, and a
+bronze cup.[21]
+
+"For whom is this elegant sarcophagus?" asked Isidorus, as he sipped his
+wine.
+
+[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS NOW IN LATERAN MUSEUM.]
+
+"I pray it be not for her who orders it," said the old man, devoutly;
+"at least not for many a long day to come. The good Lady Marcella bade
+me exercise my best skill in setting forth the great truths of the
+Gospel, that in death as in life, she said, she might teach the
+doctrines of Christ. She often comes to see how I get on with it, and to
+describe how she wishes it to be. See," said the old man, pointing to
+the side--(see above)--"the general idea is all her own, the details
+only are mine. These four groups exhibit four scenes in the life--or
+rather in the death--of our Lord. To the extreme right we see Pilate,
+warned by his wife, washing his hands and saying 'I am innocent of the
+blood of this just person,' and yet, like a coward, consenting to His
+death, he was as guilty as Judas, who betrayed Him."
+
+At this the Greek visibly winced, then paled and flushed, and said,
+"Well, what is the next group?"
+
+"That is part of the same," said the sculptor, with evident pride in his
+work. "It represents our Lord, guarded by a Roman soldier, witnessing a
+good confession before Pontius Pilate. In the central niche are two
+soldiers, types of the Christian warriors, whose only place of safety is
+beneath the cross; while above are the wreath of victory, the doves of
+peace, and the sacred monogram, made up, I need not tell you, who are a
+Greek, of the two first letters of the word Christos. To the left you
+observe a Roman soldier, putting on Jesus the crown of thorns, and in
+the last, Simon the Cyrenian, guarded by a soldier, bearing His
+cross."[22]
+
+"And for whom are all these funeral tablets," said Isidorus, pointing to
+a number of slabs partly executed--some with the engraved outline of a
+dove, or fish, or anchor, or olive branch upon them--leaning against the
+wall.
+
+"For whom God pleases," said the old man, devoutly. "I keep them ready
+to suit purchasers, and then I have only to fill the name and age, or
+date."
+
+"But see here," said the Greek, touching with his foot one on which were
+effigies of Castor and Pollux, the "great twin brethren" of the Roman
+mythology, and the letters, "DIS MANIBVS--To the Divine Spirits;" "this
+is a pagan inscription. How come you to use that?"
+
+"Oh, we turn up such slabs by scores, in ploughing the fields hereabout.
+They may be hundreds of years old, for aught I know. We just turn that
+side to the wall, or deface it with a few strokes of the chisel."
+
+"It was a prentice hand that made _that_, I'll be bound," said the
+Greek, pointing to one on which was rudely painted in black pigment, the
+sprawling inscription that follows, no two letters being the same size--
+
+LOcvSaVgvStIsvToRis.
+"The Place of Augustus, the Shoemaker."
+
+"Oh, that is the epitaph of a poor cobbler. I let my boys do that for
+nothing. They will soon be able to do better. Here now is one by my
+oldest son, of which I would not be ashamed myself;" and he pointed to a
+neatly-cut inscription, the letters coloured with a bright vermillion
+pigment, which ran thus,--
+
+AVRELIAE THEVDOSIAE
+BENIGNISSIMAE ET INCOMPARABILI FEMINAE
+AVRELIVS OPTATVS
+CONIVGE INNOCENTISSIMAE
+
+"Aurelius Optatus, to his most innocent wife, Aurelia Theudosia, a most
+gracious and incomparable woman."
+
+"We will now, if you are sufficiently cool," he went on, "enter the
+catacomb. It is not well to make too sudden a transition from this
+sultry heat to their chilly depths."
+
+"Thanks," said the young man, "I shall find the change from this sultry
+air, I doubt not, very agreeable;" and they crossed a vineyard under a
+blazing sun, that made the cool crypts exceedingly grateful. Descending
+the stairway, the guide took from a niche a small terra-cotta lamp,
+which he carefully trimmed and lit at another, which was always kept
+burning there.[23]
+
+"Is there not danger of losing one's way in this labyrinth?" asked the
+Greek, feeling no small degree of the terror of his late adventure
+returning.
+
+"Very great danger, indeed," replied Hilarus, "unless you know the clue
+and marks by which we steer, almost like ships at sea. But knowing
+these, the way may become as familiar as the streets of Rome. You may,
+perhaps, have heard of Cæcilia, a blind girl, who acted as guide to
+these subterranean places of assembly, because to her accustomed feet
+the path was as easy as the Appian Way to those who see."
+
+"How many Greek epitaphs there are," said Isidorus, deeply interested in
+scanning the inscriptions as he passed.
+
+"Yes," said the fossor, "there are a-many of your countryfolk buried
+here; and even some who are not like to have their epitaphs written in
+the language in which holy Paulus wrote his epistle to the Church in
+Rome."
+
+"But what wretched scrawls the most of them are," said the Greek, with
+something like a sneer; "and see, here is one even upside down."
+
+"Yes, noble sir," continued the old man, "not many mighty, not many
+noble are called--most of those who sleep around us are God's great
+family of the poor. Indeed, most of them were slaves. That poor fellow
+was a martyr in the last persecution. I mind it well, though it is years
+agone. We buried him by stealth at dead of night, and did not notice
+that the hastily written inscription was reversed."
+
+The dim rays of their lamp and taper made but a faint ring of light
+about their feet. Their steps, as they walked over the rocky floor,
+echoed strangely down the long-drawn corridors and hollow vaults, dying
+gradually away in the solemn stillness of this valley of the shadow of
+death. The sudden transition from the brilliant Italian sunlight to this
+sepulchral gloom, from the busy city of the living to this silent city
+of the dead, smote the heart of the susceptible youth with a feeling of
+awe. And all around in this vast necropolis, each in his narrow cell
+forever laid, were unnumbered thousands, who were once like himself,
+full of energy and life.
+
+[Illustration: SECTIONAL VIEW OF GALLERY AND CHAMBERS, SHOWING LIGHT AND
+AIR SHAFT]
+
+As they advanced, a faint light in the distance seemed to penetrate the
+gloom. It grew brighter as they approached, and attracted by the sound
+of the footsteps, a venerable figure emerged from a doorway and stood in
+the flood of light which poured down from an opening in the vaulted
+roof, which extended to the bright free air above. Almost like an
+apparition from the other world, in the strong, Rembrandt-like
+illumination in which he stood, looked the venerable Primitius, clothed
+in white, with silvery hair and flowing beard, and high, bare brow. As
+Isidorus glanced up the shaft, he saw the blue sky shining far above,
+and the waving of the long grass that fringed the opening for light and
+air. This construction--a very frequent one in the Catacombs--is shown
+in sectional view on the previous page. On each side of the corridor was
+a chamber about twelve feet square, also lit up by this shaft, which,
+plastered with white stucco, reflected the light into every part.
+
+"Welcome, my son," said the venerable presbyter, as he sat down on a
+bench hewn out of the dry pummice-like rock "Welcome to these abodes of
+death; may they prove to thee the birthplace to eternal life;" and he
+laid his hand benignantly on the head of the young man, whom he had
+motioned to a seat beside him.
+
+"Sire," said the youth, all the nobler feelings of his nature deeply
+moved, "I wish above all things to sit at your feet and to learn the
+lessons of wisdom which you are so well able to impart But are these
+seemly surroundings for a man of your years and condition?--this rocky
+vault, this utter loneliness, and these crumbling relics of mortality?"
+and he shuddered as he glanced at the shattered sepulchral slabs, which
+revealed the remains of what was once man in his strength, woman in her
+beauty, or a sweet child in its innocence and glee.
+
+"Why not, my son? soon I must lie down with them and be at rest. The
+thought has no terrors to my soul I know no loneliness, and through the
+care of kind friends my wants are all supplied. But your young blood and
+sensitive imagination, I perceive, shrink from these things to which, by
+long use, I have become accustomed. Let us go into the adjoining
+chamber, which you will find more cheerful, and, I trust, not less
+instructive."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE--SARCOPHAGUS OF JUNIUS BASSUS,
+ROME.]
+
+[Illustration: CEILING PAINTING FROM CATACOMB OF ST. CALIXTUS, ROME.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Just such a peasant's house the writer visited on the Appian Way,
+near this spot, and just such a repast he shared at the entrance of this
+very catacomb. "The wine," said the guide, "is necessary to guard
+against a chill." The contrast between the temperature above ground and
+below was about 30°.
+
+[22] This sarcophagus, with many others resembling it the writer studied
+minutely in the Lateran Museum at Rome.
+
+[23] The writer has some of these earthen lamps which once did service
+in the Catacombs. They bear Christian symbols, inscribed before
+baking--a dove, anchor, olive branch, fish, and the like.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER.
+
+
+The venerable presbyter laid his hand familiarly on the young man's
+shoulder and conducted him into a smaller, but much more elegantly
+finished, apartment. It contained no graves, save an arched tomb which
+had never been used; at one side was a shelf for lamps. The whole
+surface of the wall was covered with hard white stucco, which was
+divided into panels by bands and borders of brilliant red and blue, as
+shown in the cut on next page. The vaulted ceiling was similarly
+divided. The angles were filled in with elegant floral designs, and the
+panels with Biblical and symbolical paintings, which Primitius began now
+to explain.
+
+[Illustration: PAINTED CHAMBER IN THE CATACOMBS]
+
+"Thou seest, my son," he said, "that central group above the arch. That
+represents the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Thou
+perceivest He bears the lost sheep upon His shoulders, and gently leads
+those which follow Him. Even so, all we, like sheep, have gone astray,
+but the blessed Saviour seeks the erring, and brings them into the safe
+and true fold. Thou seest to the left the figure between the two lions.
+That is Daniel in the lion's den; and to the right are the three Hebrews
+in the fiery furnace. These, my son, are symbols of the Church of
+Christ, amid the wild beasts and the fires of persecutions. But she
+shall be delivered unhurt; she shall come forth unscathed. In the
+ceiling you will observe praying figures between lambs, the emblems of
+the Church, the Bride which is the Lamb's wife, perpetually engaged in
+adoration and prayer."
+
+The youth was deeply impressed, and almost awed, to see the
+silvery-haired old man, a refugee from persecution, in these
+subterranean crypts, with the full assurance of faith, confronting all
+the power of the persecuting despot of the world, and predicting the
+triumph of that oppressed Church which was compelled to seek safety in
+those dens and caves of the earth.
+
+The good old man then sought to impart the great truths of our holy
+religion to his new catechumen, and to implant in his soul the same
+germs of lofty faith that flourished in his own. With this object he led
+him through the long corridors and chambers of the vast encampment of
+death--a sort of whispering gallery of the past, eloquent with the
+expression of the faith and hope of the silent sleepers in their narrow
+cells.
+
+"Listen, my son," said Primitius, "to the testimony of the dead in
+Christ, and of the martyrs for the truth," and pausing from time to time
+before some inscribed or painted slab, he pointed out the lofty hopes
+which sustained their souls in the very presence of death.
+
+"Here," he said, entering again the chamber he had first left, "is the
+sepulchre of my own beloved wife. When depressed and lonely, I come
+hither and derive strength and consolation by reading the words which
+she requested, with her dying breath, should be written on her tomb,"
+and with deep emotion he traced with his finger the inscription:--[24]
+
+PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DVLCIS CVM CONIVGE NATAE
+VIVENTEMQVE DEO CREDITE FLERE NEFAS.
+
+"Refrain from tears, my sweet children and husband, and believe that it
+is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God."
+
+"And here," he went on, "is the tomb of our little child," and Isidorus
+read with softened spirit the words:--
+
+AGNELLVS DEI--PARVM STETIT APVD NOS ET
+PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE.
+
+"God's little lamb--he stayed but a short time with us, and went before
+us in peace."
+
+"And here," said Primitius, "is the couch of our eldest daughter," and
+he read, with caressing tones, her epitaph:--
+
+ANIMA DVLCIS INNOCVA SAPIENS ET PVLCHRA--
+NON MORTVA SED DATA SOMNO.
+
+"A sweet spirit, guileless, wise, beautiful. She is not dead but
+sleepeth."
+
+"This is certainly very different," said Isidorus, "from two epitaphs I
+read to-day upon the pagan tombs on the Appian Way. They ran thus:--
+
+DECIPIMVR VOTIS ET TEMPORE FALLIMVR ET MORS
+DERIDET CVRAS ANXIA VITA NIHIL.
+
+"We are deceived by our vows, misled by time, and death derides our
+cares; anxious life is naught."
+
+INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DEI IRATI AETERNO
+SOMNO DEDERVNT.
+
+"To a very sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to eternal sleep."
+
+"Yes," said Primitius, "nothing can sustain the soul in the presence of
+death, but such faith as that of my friend Eutuchius, who sleeps here;"
+and he read the lofty line:--
+
+IN CHRISTVM CREDENS PREMIA LVCIS HABET.
+
+"Believing in Christ, he has the rewards of the light (of heaven)."
+
+"Similar are these also," and he pointed to the following ill-written,
+but sublime, epitaphs, which Isidorus slowly spelled out:--
+
+DVLCIS ET INNOCES _(sic)_ HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS
+SOMNO PACIS CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI
+SVSCEPTVS EST,--IN SEMPETERNALE
+AEVVM QVIESCIT SECVRVS.
+
+"Here lies in the sleep of peace, the sweet and innocent Severianus,
+whose spirit is received into the light of God. He rests free from care
+throughout endless time."
+
+"But how were these Christians so confident of the future life," asked
+the Greek, "when the greatest of the philosophers and sages--a Socrates
+or Cicero--never rose above a vague 'perhaps,' and even the philosophic
+Pliny, anticipating only annihilation, writes, 'there is no more
+consciousness after death than before birth?'"
+
+"Find there thy answer, young man," exclaimed Primitius, and with a
+gleam of exultation in his eyes, he pointed to the following epitaphs:--
+
+CREDO QVIA REDEMPTOR MEVS VIVIT ET NOVISSIMO
+DIE DE TERRA SVSCITABIT ME IN CARNE MEA
+VIDEBO DOMINVM.
+
+"I believe, because that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day shall
+raise me from the earth, that in my flesh I shall see the Lord."
+
+HIC REQVIESCIT CARO MEA NOVISSIMO VERO DIE
+PER CHRISTVM CREDO RECVSCITABITVR A MORTVIS.
+
+"Here rests my flesh, but at the last day, through Christ, I believe it
+will be raised from the dead."
+
+"And must the soul, then, slumber with the body in blank unconsciousness
+till this 'last day?'" asked the Greek. "Methinks I should shudder at
+going out into the dark inane, like a taper extinguished in these gloomy
+vaults. Better is the dim and ghostly Hades, and Elysian Fields of our
+own mythology, than that."
+
+"Not so, my son," replied Primitius, "we believe with the blessed
+Paul--that as soon as the soul passes from earth's living death, it
+enters into the undying life and unfading bliss of heaven." And he
+pointed out, one after another, the following epitaphs corroborating his
+view:--
+
+CORPVS HABET TELLVS ANIMAM CAELESTIA REGNA.
+MENS NESCIA MORTIS VIVIT ET ASPECTV
+FBVITVR BENE CONSCIA CHRISTI.
+
+"The soul lives unknowing of death, and consciously rejoices in the
+vision of Christ."
+
+PRIMA VIVIS IN GLORIA DEI ET IN PACE DOMINI
+NOSTRI XR.
+
+"Prima, thou livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of Christ our
+Lord."
+
+"This is indeed a high philosophy, beyond aught I ever heard before,"
+said Isidorus, deeply moved. "Whence do you Christians derive such lofty
+teachings? For as Hilarus but now said most of your sect are poor and
+lowly in this world's goods and rank."
+
+"Our teaching comes, my son, from God Himself, the Great Father of
+lights, and from Jesus Christ our Lord. Behold, as the greatest favour I
+can do thee, I will lend thee this precious MS. of the Gospel of the
+blessed John;" and he took from a leathern case a purple vellum
+parchment scroll, inscribed with letters of silver. "Cherish it
+carefully; 'tis worth more than gold. When thou hast well pondered it, I
+will lend thee the letter of the blessed Paul to the infant Church in
+this city of Home. But here comes Hilarus to conduct thee back to the
+light of day. Return hither, if thou canst, on the fourth day from now
+--the day of our Sabbath assembly. My blessing be upon thee. _Pax
+vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo._"
+
+The young Greek knelt at the old man's feet, then rose and kissed his
+hand, and followed in silence the fossor Hilarus. At length he broke the
+silence by inquiring,--
+
+"What's the meaning, good Hilarus, of all these strange figures which I
+have noted on the tombstones as I passed. I have observed a lion, a pig,
+an ass, a cobbler's last, carpenters', masons', and wool-combers'
+implements; a fish, a ship, an anchor, and the like--all scratched or
+painted on the stone slabs. They have no religious significance,
+surely?"
+
+[Illustration: TOMB OF THE BISHOPS, CATACOMB OF ST. CALIXTUS.
+
+Seven of the Bishops of the early Christian Church in Rome fell in
+succession by the hand of the headsman, five of them in the space of
+eight years. In this chamber are buried several of those heroic martyrs
+of Jesus.]
+
+"Well, no, not all of them," said Hilarus, with a smile. "You see, many
+of the Christians being lowly craftsmen, are unable to read, so the
+tools or emblems of their calling are inscribed on the tombs of their
+friends, that they may recognize and find them again in this vast
+cemetery."
+
+"But the ship, anchor, and fish are not signs of a handicraft, unless
+that of sailor or fisherman."
+
+"No, the fish has another and a secret meaning. I need not tell a
+scholar like you, that the first letters of the Greek names for Jesus
+Christ, Son of God, the Saviour, make up the word Ichthus, or fish, so
+it is used as a secret symbol of our faith. The ship is the emblem, I
+have been told, even in your own country, of a well-spent life, and to
+us it signifies a soul entering into the haven of eternal rest. While
+our holy hopes are the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
+entering into that within the veil."
+
+"Well, and the lion, ass, and pig? What about them?"
+
+"These," said the fossor, with a laugh, which seemed as incongruous to
+him as it would be to a modern sexton, for such his office virtually
+was, "these are a sort of play upon the names of Leo, Onager, and
+Porcella, the latter was a sort of pet name, I suspect--'Little Pig'--by
+which their friends, who could not read, could find their tombs."
+
+"What wives these Christians must have had," continued the
+keenly-observing Greek. "I have noticed several inscriptions, in which
+they are said to have passed ten, twenty, thirty, and one even fifty
+years of married life--SINE IVRGIO, SINE AEMVLATIONE, SINE DISSIDIO,
+SINE QVERELA--'Without contention, without emulation, without
+dissension, without strife.' There are no such wives in Rome now, I'll
+be bound--at least in the Rome I am acquainted with."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, with a sigh, "come with me into yonder chapel.
+I always, in passing this way, stop there to see again the sepulchre of
+the best wife God ever gave to any man." After walking in silence some
+minutes, he entered a sort of family vault, and lit a bronze lamp,
+shaped like a ship, hanging from the vaulted ceiling, while Isidorus
+studied out the following inscription, not altogether free from errors
+in spelling and grammar:--
+
+CONIVGE VENEVANDE BONE INNOCVA FLORENTIA
+DIGNA PIA AMABILIS PVDICA _(sic)_ DEO FIDELIS
+DVLCIS MARITO NVTRIX FAMILIAE HVMILIS
+CVNCTIS AMATRIX PAVPERVM. BIXIT MECVM
+ANN. XXXII. MENS. IX. DIES V. HOR. X.
+SCRVPVLOS XIL SEMPER CONCORDES SINE VLLA
+QVERELA. BIXIT PLVS MINVS ANN. LII. MENS.
+V. INCOMPARABILEM CONIVGEM MALE FRACTVS
+CONIVX GEMITV TRISTI LACRI MIS DEFLET.
+
+"To my wife Florentia, deserving of honour, good, guileless, worthy,
+pious, amiable, modest, faithful to God, endeared to her husband, the
+nurse of her family, humble to all, a lover of the poor. She lived with
+me (_i.e._, was married) thirty-two years, nine months, five days, ten
+hours, six scruples (about a quarter of an hour--they were very
+scrupulous about this). She lived (altogether) fifty-two years, five
+months, more or less. The sore-broken husband bewails, with tears and
+bitter lamentation, his incomparable spouse."
+
+"Yes, I made it all up, and carved it all myself," said the old man, as
+Isidorus finished reading the long inscription; "and if I say it myself,
+I don't think there is a better in the whole Catacomb; you see, I
+selected the best bits from all the best epitaphs, and she deserved it
+every word, dear soul," and he drew his rough hand across his moistened
+eyes.
+
+The easy-tempered Greek was too good-natured to inflict wanton pain, so
+he ignored its bad Latinity, and contented himself with saying that "it
+was indeed a very remarkable epitaph."
+
+In a few minutes they emerged from the gloom of the Catacomb to the
+golden glory which was flooding the broad Campagna from the westering
+sun. "Would," thought Isidorus within himself, "that I could thus emerge
+from the gloomy doubts and fears in which my spirit gropes, to the
+golden light of Christian life."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] The following, except the last one, are all authentic inscriptions
+from the Catacombs, selected from many hundreds, translated by the
+writer in his volume on this subject.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A DIFFICULT QUEST.
+
+
+The Empress Valeria had not forgotten her purpose to discover, if
+possible, the father of her freed-woman, Callirhoë, and at the earliest
+opportunity took steps to accomplish her design. It was, she knew, a
+task of much difficulty, and one that required an intelligent and
+confidential agent. It was also of the utmost importance that some sign
+of identity should be exhibited as a guarantee of the good faith of the
+agent. With this view the Empress one day, as she sat at her toilet in
+the apartment described in our third chapter, thus interrogated her
+freed-woman and namesake, Valeria Callirhoë.
+
+"Hast thou any token, child," she asked, "by which, should we find thy
+father, he would be assured of thy identity?"
+
+"I was despoiled of everything, your Majesty," said the girl, "by the
+pirates by whom we were captured; except the clothes in which I stood.
+All my rings and jewellery were rudely snatched away, and I never saw
+them again."
+
+"What is that little amulet I have seen thee wear?" asked the Empress;
+"I think thou hast it now."
+
+"Oh, that was so trivial and valueless," said Callirhoë, "that they
+either overlooked it or thought it not worth taking;" and she drew from
+the folds of her robe, where it hung suspended by a silken cord about
+her neck, a cornelian stone, carved into the shape of a tiny fish,[25]
+on which was inscribed the word, ΣΩΤΗΡΣΩΤΗΡ, or "Saviour," and
+on the other side the letters ΚΑΛ.ΔΗΜΗΤ.ΘΥΓ--a contraction for
+"Callirhoë daughter of Demetrius."
+
+"Trivial as it is," said the girl, with emotion, "it is something which
+I value above all price. My sainted mother, before she died, took it
+from her neck and put it upon mine; and I hope to wear it while I live."
+
+"You do not regard it as an amulet, or charm against evil spirits, I am
+sure, like some Christians, who have not quite shaken off their pagan
+superstitions."
+
+"Nay, your Majesty, but as a symbol of our holy faith. Yet it might well
+be a spell to keep my soul from sin, so sacred are its associations."
+
+"I want you to give it to me," said the Empress.
+
+"It is yours, your Majesty," said the girl, taking it from her neck, and
+passionately kissing it. "To no one else on earth would I give it; but
+from my best benefactress I can withhold nothing."
+
+"I would not put thee to the pain of parting with it," said the Empress,
+with a kind caress, "but I need it as a clue, to find, if possible, thy
+father, and when found, as an identification of his child. I do not wish
+to raise hopes which may be doomed to disappointment; but I am about to
+make a strenuous effort to discover thy sire."
+
+"A thousand thanks, dearest lady," exclaimed the grateful girl, kissing
+her mistress's hands and bedewing them with her tears. "I feel sure that
+God will reward your efforts, and answer my ceaseless prayers."
+
+In pursuance of her purpose, the Empress wrote upon a scroll of
+parchment the following letter to her faithful counsellor, Adauctus:--
+
+    "Valeria, consort of the co-Emperor Galerius Cæsar--to Adauctus,
+    Treasurer of the Imperial Exchequer, greeting:
+
+    "Honoured Servant,--Thy mistress hath need of a faithful and
+    intelligent agent, to execute a delicate and difficult mission.
+    He must be of good address, and must be a man whom I can
+    implicitly trust. When thou hast found such, bring him with thee
+    to the palace." L.S.
+
+Having bound the scroll with a silken cord, and affixed her signet in
+purple wax, and addressed the document to the Imperial Treasurer, she
+sent it by a soldier of the guard, whom we would describe in modern
+parlance as an orderly-in-waiting, to Adauctus.
+
+During the latter part of the day, the chamberlain announced a visit
+from "His Excellency the Imperial Treasurer." That officer was received
+with much honour by the Empress, who was attended only by her faithful
+freed woman.
+
+"Many thanks, your Excellency, for your prompt attendance. Have you
+found me the paragon whom I require?"
+
+"I cannot avouch for that, your Majesty, but he is highly commended by
+his master, an honest soldier, who places him at your Majesty's service.
+Of his nimble wit and subtle parts, I can myself bear witness, and my
+own servant testifies that if not a Christian, he is at least a sincere
+inquirer after the truth."
+
+The Empress briefly explained the nature of the commission which she
+wished executed, and asked that the proposed agent, who waited in an
+ante-room, might be presented. In a moment the chamberlain announced our
+old friend Isidorus. With bowed head and hands folded upon his breast,
+he stood on the threshold, and then advancing, knelt gracefully before
+the Empress. He evidently made a good impression, for her Majesty smiled
+graciously and said:--
+
+"It is a difficult quest on which I would send thee, but thou shalt be
+well rewarded for thy fidelity and zeal."
+
+"My humble services, my life, are at your Majesty's disposal," said the
+Greek. "I shall deem myself well rewarded by your Majesty's favour."
+
+"See'st thou this lady?" asked the Empress, pointing to Callirhoë. "To
+find her sire in this wide world--that is thy task;" and she briefly
+explained the nature of the commission.
+
+The youth gazed long and earnestly on the fair face of the girl, and
+replied, "Those features once seen can never be forgotten. If I find
+anywhere on earth aught resembling them, I shall not fail to recognize
+the likeness. In such a quest I would gladly search the wide world
+over."
+
+"My chamberlain will amply equip you for your journey, and will give you
+a letter, with the Emperor's seal, to all the Roman prefects in Italy;
+and, by the Divine favour, I trust you will bring us good tidings."
+
+"So may it be," said the youth, as he retired from the presence, giving,
+as he did so, a lingering look at Callirhoë, who, with dilated eyes and
+parted lips, gazed at him with an intensity of entreaty that would have
+proved an inspiration to a less susceptible nature than his.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] These objects, of which the writer has examined several, were given
+to neophytes on the occasion of their baptism, as an emblem of their
+holy faith. (See explanation of the symbol of the fish in last chapter,
+p. 82.) They were often used as a sign of membership in the Christian
+Church, somewhat like our modern class-tickets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A WICKED PLOT.
+
+
+We have already mentioned the fact that Fausta, the mother of the
+Emperor Galerius, was a fanatical pagan. The especial object of her
+regard was the goddess Cybele, who was worshipped in Rome with rites of
+the most degrading superstition. Fausta was intensely bitter in her
+hatred of the Christian name, and strenuously endeavoured to incite her
+son, the Emperor, to persecution. She was especially virulent towards
+her daughter-in-law, the beautiful Valeria, and sought by every means to
+embitter the mind of Galerius against her. In this she was strongly
+abetted, or rather inspired, by Furca, the vicious old priest of Cybele,
+whose wicked influence over her was very great. This worthy pair, the
+day after the interview above described, were engaged in a secret
+conclave or conspiracy against Valeria and the Christians, while the
+latter was seeking to carry out her benevolent enterprise.
+
+The scene of their interview was the reception-room of Fausta, in the
+palace of the Emperor Galerius. It was far more sumptuously furnished
+and decorated than that of the Empress Valeria, and at one end, in a
+marble niche, stood an ugly image of the goddess Cybele, with her crown
+of many towers, rudely carved out of olive wood, but quite embrowned,
+and almost blackened with age. It was bedizened with costly jewels, and
+was deemed to be of special sanctity. Before it was a small marble
+altar, on which burned, day and night, a silver censer.
+
+At the moment of which we write, Fausta approached the altar, and
+kissing her hand to the image--an ancient mode of worship, from which we
+get the word "adore"--she took some costly Sabean incense from a small
+gold coffer, and sprinkled it on the glowing coals of the censer. Dense
+white fumes arose, whose rich aromatic odour filled the large apartment.
+Fausta had been an Illyrian peasant, and, notwithstanding her
+embroidered robes and costly jewels, she still exhibited much of the
+rude peasant character and lack of culture. Her coarse and wrinkled
+features and swarthy complexion, were all the more striking by their
+contrast with the snowy mantle, with its gold-embroidered border, which
+she wore; and her bright black eyes glittered with an expression of
+deadly malice like those of a serpent. While she stood before the altar,
+a servant announced that Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, had obeyed
+her summons. As the curtain of the door was drawn aside, a little
+weazened old man, as dark as mahogany, wearing a thick crop of snow
+white hair, appeared.
+
+"Thanks, good Furca," said Fausta, "I desire your counsel on a matter of
+much importance to the State, and to the worship of the holy Cybele."
+
+"At your service, your Excellency," said the obsequious priest, who also
+kissed his hand to the black-faced image, and sprinkled a few grains of
+incense on the censer.
+
+"Thou knowest how the worship of the Galilean Christus has increased,
+not only among the common people, the vile plebs, and the still viler
+slave population, but even among the patricians and nobles. I have
+evidence that even in this palace, and very near the throne, the
+execrable superstition is cherished."
+
+"Alas! your Excellency, I fear it is only too true," whined the bigot
+arch-priest. "Certain it is that neither of the Empresses, Prisca or
+Valeria, ever take part in the public worship of the gods, as from their
+lofty station it is their duty to do."
+
+"Yes, and I have reason to believe that there is plotting and conniving
+between the Empress and the accursed Christian sect."
+
+"Hast any proof of this?" asked the arch-priest, eagerly. "This is a
+crime against the State."
+
+"The black slave Juba," replied Fausta, "is, as thou knowest, a faithful
+worshipper of Cybele, and she told me even now, that Adauctus, the
+Imperial Treasurer, had been only yesterday closeted with the Empress,
+and plotting to restore to the favour of the Emperor a certain
+Demetrius, a Christian renegade, who is in hiding for his crimes."
+
+"Oh, ho!" chuckled the priest, with a wicked grin, "my fine lady need
+not think herself so high and mighty as to be above the reach of the
+law, or beyond the anger of the insulted gods."
+
+"I would almost give my eyes," hissed through her teeth the revengeful
+Fausta, "if I could only see that painted doll, Valeria, abased and
+degraded. She has too long held a sway, of which I, the mother of the
+Emperor, have been deprived."
+
+"I trust you may not only see it," said Furca, gloating in anticipation
+over the prospect, "but also see her pale, proud mother, the Empress
+Prisca, humbled at your feet."
+
+"Accomplish this, good Furca," exclaimed Fausta, with exultation, "and
+the goddess Cybele shall have such an offering as she never had
+before."
+
+"We must be wary," said the priest, "or we may ourselves be crushed.
+They are too powerful to be attacked openly. We must plot against them
+secretly. I'll be a _furca_ to them indeed," he added, punning upon his
+own name, which had also the signification of an instrument of
+punishment, something like a cross; and the conspirators parted with
+this pledge of mutual hate against their destined victims.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SLAVE MARKET.
+
+
+In the meantime Isidorus, with well-filled purse, and armed with
+credentials under the Imperial seal, had set off upon his difficult and
+doubtful quest.
+
+"However it turn out," he said to himself, "it will be strange if I do
+not climb a few steps higher on the ladder on which my feet are now
+placed. Being the confidential agent of the Empress is better than
+being the secretary of the rude soldier, Sertorius, and being snubbed by
+him every day, too."
+
+Mounted on one of the best horses in the Imperial stables, he rode forth
+upon the famous Salarian Way, which led straight as an arrow over the
+wide Campagna, and over the rugged Appenines to the distant city of
+Ravenna, among the marshes of the Adriatic. Now a decayed and
+grass-grown city, six miles from the sea, it was then a great and busy
+port, and had been for two centuries and a half an important see of the
+Christian Church. Not to the prefect of the city, but to the bishop of
+Ravenna, Isidorus, with his natural tact and shrewdness, betook himself.
+The sign manual of the Emperor, which he confidently exhibited, did not
+command that regard which he had anticipated; but a private letter from
+Adauctus, commending Isidorus to all Christian bishops and presbyters,
+procured for him a much more cordial reception. He was hospitably
+entertained, and every possible assistance given him in his quest. The
+bishop called together the deacons who had the care of the poor of the
+Church, but none of them knew anything of Demetrius. The bishop had
+ransomed many Christian slaves--prisoners taken in war, or captured by
+pirates. A few years before, when the resources of the Church had been
+completely exhausted by the exercise of this charity,[26] a company of
+captives had been sold by pirates to a Jewish slave-dealer named Ezra,
+and conveyed by him to the city of Mediolanum, or as we now call it,
+Milan, as offering, next to Rome, the best market for his wares. And one
+of the deacons remembered among this slave-gang an old man who resembled
+the description given of Demetrius.
+
+To Milan, therefore, crossing again the Appenines, and riding up the
+broad, rich valley of the Po, went Isidorus. He was surprised to find a
+city, almost rivalling in extent Rome itself, and with a history
+reaching back to the times of the Etruscans, well-nigh a thousand years.
+First he sought the Jewish slave-dealer, who kept a regular mart for the
+sale or hire of human beings, just as one now-a-days keeps a
+livery-stable for the sale or hire of horses. There was as much fraud,
+too, in selling slaves then, as has been proverbially connected with
+horse-dealing and jockeying in every age. The _ergastulum_, or slave-pen
+of Ezra, was a large prison-like structure, surrounding the four sides
+of a hollow square. There were no windows to the street, and only very
+small iron-grated ones to the inner court; with heavy, iron-studded
+doors to the stable-like stalls, where the slaves were chained to a
+stout beam running along the wall.
+
+A slave-auction was in progress when Isidorus arrived, so he had to wait
+till it was over before plying his quest. A gang of slaves, unchained,
+but guarded by keepers, armed with whips and spears, awaited their fate.
+Stripped nearly naked, they were rudely examined, pinched, handled, and
+made to stoop, lift heavy weights, walk, run, and show their paces like
+horses for sale. Many had their ears bored--a sign of servitude from the
+time of Moses--and others were seamed with scars of the cruel lash.
+This, however, lessened their market value, as it was evidence of their
+intractable and troublesome character.
+
+Slavery was, at the time of which we write, one of the greatest evils of
+the Roman empire. It was a deadly canker, eating out the national life.
+It cast a stigma of disgrace on labour, and prevented the formation of
+that intelligent middle class which is the true safeguard of liberty.
+Never in the history of the world was society so based upon the abject
+misery of vast multitudes of human beings. The slaves outnumbered, many
+times, their masters. They were forbidden to wear a peculiar garb, lest
+they should recognize their numbers and their strength, and rise in
+universal revolt. As it was, servile insurrections were of frequent
+occurrence. But they were crushed and punished with ruthless severity.
+In one slave revolt, 60,000 of these wretched beings were slain. The
+first question about a man's property was, _"Quot pascit servos?"_--"How
+many slaves does he keep?" Ten was considered the least number
+consistent with any degree of respectability. Four hundred slaves
+deluged with their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus. Vidius
+Pollio fed his lampreys with the bodies of his human chattels. A single
+freed-man left over 4,000 at his death. Some 2,000 men were lords of the
+Roman world, and the great mass of the rest were slaves. Their condition
+was one of inconceivable wretchedness. They had no rights of marriage,
+nor any claim to their children. Their food was a pound of bread a day,
+with a little salt and oil. Flesh they never tasted, and even wine,
+which flowed like water, almost never. Colossal piles, built by their
+blood and sweat, attest to the present day the bitterness of their
+bondage. The lash of the taskmaster was heard in the fields, and
+crosses, bearing aloft their quivering victims, polluted the wayside.
+
+This dumb, weltering mass of humanity, crushed by power, and led by
+their lusts, became a hot-bed of vice, in which every evil passion grew
+apace. To these wretched beings came the gospel of liberty, with a
+strange, a thrilling power. The oppressed slave, in the intervals of
+toil or torture, caught with joy the emancipating message, and sprang up
+enfranchised by an immortalizing hope. He exulted in a new-found freedom
+in Christ, which no wealth could purchase, no chains of slavery fetter,
+nor even death itself destroy. In the Christian Church the distinctions
+of worldly rank were abolished.[27] The highest spiritual privileges
+were opened to the lowliest slave. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy were
+no rights of birth, and no privileges of blood. In the inscriptions of
+the Catacombs, no badges of servitude, no titles of honour appear. The
+wealthy noble, the lord of many acres, recognized in his lowly servant a
+fellow heir of glory. They bowed together at the same table of the Lord,
+saluted each other with the mutual kiss of charity, and side by side in
+their narrow graves, at length returned to indistinguishable dust. The
+story of Onesimus was often repeated, and the patrician master received
+his returning slave, "not now as a servant, but above a servant--a
+brother beloved." Nay, he may even have bowed to him as his
+ecclesiastical superior, and received from his plebeian hands the
+emblems of their common Lord.
+
+We return from this digression to the slave-market of Milan. Very few of
+Ezra's stock were black--not more than half a dozen, from Nubia and
+Libya. Most of them were as white as himself, or whiter still. There
+were Dalmatians, Illyrians, Iberians, Gauls, Greeks, Syrians, and many
+other nationalities. Ezra was engaged in busy converse, in a broken
+mixture of Latin and Greek, with the wealthy patrician, Vitellius, the
+lord of wide corn lands on the fertile banks of the Po.
+
+"Field hands your Excellency wants? I have some splendid ones," he said,
+eagerly. "Here, you fellows, step out there and show your muscles;" and
+he struck with his whip-lash two brawny white-skinned, blue-eyed,
+yellow-haired British slaves.
+
+"Sullen dogs these British often are," he said, "but they are as good as
+gold. They never run away like the Germans, nor steal like the Greeks,
+nor kill themselves like the Gauls."[28]
+
+"Glad of that," said Vitellius. "I have had a perfect epidemic of
+suicide among my slaves. I had to kill several of them to keep them from
+killing themselves"--a sad but frequent comment on the utter
+wretchedness of their condition, from which death itself was the only
+refuge.
+
+"Does your Excellency want anything of a higher grade?" asked Ezra.
+"Some skilled workmen to finish your elegant villa, for instance. I have
+a splendid Greek sculptor, almost another Phidias, and another a second
+Zeuxis with the brush. Then if you want a steward, or bookkeeper, or
+secretary, or reader, or a skilled physician, I have them all; or a
+hand-maid for your Excellency's wife. I have a beautiful Greek girl
+here, highly accomplished; can embroider, play the zither, sing in two
+languages. I sold her sister last week for 100,000 sesterces[29]--nieces
+of an ex-archon. I felt really sorry for them, but what would
+you?--trade is trade. Times are bad. Poor Ezra has had bad luck. Several
+of his slaves kill themselves. Market glutted; price falls. I sell them
+very cheap--very cheap."
+
+Vitellius made his purchases, had them chained together in a gang, and
+driven by his steward, like cattle, to his farm. The account of Ezra's
+interview with Isidorus we must defer to another chapter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] This might easily happen, for after successful raids or slave
+hunts, the victims were sold by their pirate captors by the thousand.
+The fact is on record, that at Delos, a famous slave market, 60,000 were
+sold by Celician pirates in a single day.
+
+[27] Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et dominos, interest
+nihil. Lactant. _Div. Inst._ v. 14, 15.
+
+[28] These were the most common faults of slaves, for attempting which
+they were often branded on cheek or brow.
+
+[29] Over $4,000 of our money. Very beautiful or accomplished slaves
+sometimes brought twice that amount.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE LOST FOUND.
+
+
+"Do you remember buying or selling a slave named Demetrius, a Jew?"
+asked Isidorus of Ezra, the slave-dealer of Milan. He wasted no words in
+circumlocution, for he knew that there was no use in trying to deceive
+the keen-eyed Jewish dealer in his fellowman; and that his best chances
+of success were in coming directly to the point.
+
+"Selling a Jew? Oh, no! I never sell my own kinsmen. That's against our
+law. It is like seething a kid in its mother's milk. I often ransom them
+from pirates and set them free."
+
+"But this Demetrius was a Christian Jew--a convert from Moses to Jesus,"
+said the Greek.
+
+"A Christian dog," cried Ezra with a wicked execration. "He was no Jew.
+He had sold his birthright like Esau, and had no part nor lot with
+Israel. Of course, I'd sell him if I got him--to the mines, or to the
+galleys, or the field gang, to the hardest master I could find. But I
+know naught about your Demetrius, who was he?"
+
+"He was a Jew of Antioch," said Isidorus, "captured by Illyrian pirates
+and sold in the slave market of Ravenna."
+
+"That is a common tale," replied Ezra. "There are many such. How long
+since this occurred?"
+
+"'Tis now five years since he was last seen by her who seeks him, and
+who will pay well for his recovery."
+
+"Just my luck," grumbled the greedy Jew. "Some one else will gain the
+prize. 'Tis not for me."
+
+"Then you cannot help me in this quest?" said the Greek.
+
+"How can I remember the scores and hundreds of Christian dogs that I
+have bought and sold? Go ask these monks, they know more of the vermin
+than I do."
+
+Acting on this hint, Isidorus made his way to the Convent of San
+Lorenzo, the ancient chapel of which still remains. Knocking at a
+bronze-studded gateway he was admitted to a quadrangle surrounded by
+cloisters or covered galleries upon which opened the doors of the
+different apartments. It was more like a hospital and alms-house than
+like what is now understood as a convent. It served as a sort of school
+of theology, youthful acolytes and deacons being here trained for the
+office and work of presbyters in the Church. Isidorus presented his
+letter from Adauctus to the good Bishop Paulinus, and was most cordially
+received.
+
+"Right welcome art thou, my son," said the bishop, "bearing, as thou
+dost, the commendation of the worthy Adauctus; and right glad shall we
+be to promote thy search. I myself know naught that can throw light upon
+it, inasmuch as I lived not at Milan, but was bishop of Nola at the time
+of which thou speakest."
+
+The scriptor, or secretary, of the convent was also consulted without
+avail, no record being found in the annals of the house that gave any
+hope of discovery.
+
+"Come lunch with us in the refectory," said the bishop, "and I will ask
+if any of the brethren know aught of this mystery."
+
+The refectory was a large bare-looking room--its only furniture being a
+long and solid table with a shorter one across the end for the bishop,
+and presbyters, and visitors. Of this latter there were frequently
+several, as such houses were the chief places for entertaining the
+travelling clergy or even lay members of the Christian brotherhood. Upon
+the walls were certain somewhat grim-looking frescoes, representing
+Biblical scenes and characters like those in the Catacombs described in
+chapter VIII. At one side of the room was a _bema_, or reading-desk, at
+which one of the lectors a distinct ecclesiastical office,[30] with its
+special ordination--read, while the brethren partook of their meals, the
+lessons for the day from the Gospels and Epistles, as well as passages
+from the writings of Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Origen. For
+this usage the scarcity and high price of MS. books, and the desire to
+improve every moment of time was deemed a sufficient ground.
+
+After the meal--which was almost ascetic in its simplicity, consisting
+chiefly of vegetable pottage, lentils, and bread was over, and the
+reading ended, the bishop explained the cause of the presence among them
+of a stranger from Rome.
+
+"My brethren," he said in conclusion, "this is a common story. Many are
+the victims of cruelty and wrong in this great empire. Be it ours, so
+far as God may give us power, to succour the oppressed and redress their
+wrongs."
+
+As he sat down a venerable presbyter rose and said, "Father, five years
+have I been under this hospitable roof, ransomed from bondage by your
+predecessor in office. Five years have I mourned the loss of a son and
+daughter, sold from my arms to I know not what cruel fate. It may be
+that God is about to restore me my children, the flesh of my flesh. Hast
+thou, stranger, any sign or token by which I may be assured of their
+identity?"
+
+"Of thy son I have no tidings; but know thou if this be a token of thy
+daughter's rescue," and Isidorus exhibited the small cornelian _tessara_
+of the fish of which we have spoken.
+
+Eagerly the old man clasped it, and scanned the inscription, and
+joyfully exclaimed, while tears of gladness flowed down his aged cheeks
+and silvery beard, "Thank God, my child yet lives. I shall again behold
+her before I die. See, here is her very name, 'Callirhoë, daughter of
+Demetrius.' I carved it with my own hands one happy day in our dear home
+in Damascus. God is good. I never hoped to see her again. Tell me,
+stranger, is she, too, a slave?"
+
+"Nay," said Isidorus with emotion, for even his careless nature was
+touched with sympathy at the joy of the old man, "She is the freed woman
+of the Empress Valeria, and high in favour, too, I should judge, from
+the interest her august mistress showed in seeking for thee."
+
+"_Benedic, anima mea, Domino,_" exclaimed the aged presbyter with
+fervour. "_Et omnia, quæ intra me sunt, nomini sacro ejus_--Bless the
+Lord, my soul: and all that is within me bless His holy name. He hath
+heard my prayer. He hath answered my supplication."
+
+The old man's story was soon told. He had been rescued from the slave
+pen of Ezra, and employed in the service of the convent. His familiar
+knowledge of Greek led to his appointment as instructor in that language
+of the young acolytes and deacons who were in training for the office of
+the ministry. At length his superior gifts and fervent piety led to his
+own ordination as a presbyter of the Church of Milan.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] This office was possibly derived from the synagogue. As requiring
+good scholarship it was one of much honour, and was even sought by
+laymen. The Emperor Julian, in his youth, and his brother Gallus, were
+readers in the Church of Nicomedia. Many epitaphs of readers occur in
+the Catacombs.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Demetrius was now eager to set out for Rome to behold once more the
+child whom he had scarce hoped ever to see again. A happy leave-taking
+of the brethren of Milan, who rejoiced in fraternal sympathy, followed;
+and on a gently ambling mule, at break of day, the old man rode forth
+beside the gallantly equipped Isidorus. He beguiled the weary way with
+questions about his long-lost daughter, as to her growth, appearance,
+her apparent health, and even the very garb she wore. He was never tired
+hearing about her, and recounting incidents of her childhood and youth.
+The only shadow upon his joy was the vague mystery concerning the fate
+of his son. But he said cheerfully: "God is good. He has restored to me
+one of my children. I feel confident that in His own good time He will
+restore also the other."
+
+Beneath the fatigue of the long journey of nearly three hundred miles
+his powers would have failed, had he not been inspirited and sustained
+by the thrilling anticipation of beholding once more his beloved child.
+
+At length, near sunset, on the tenth day, they drew near the great
+metropolis of the Empire. Clearer and clearer to the view rose the
+seven-hilled city's pride, the snowy marble peristyles and pediments of
+palace and temple, gleaming in the rosy light like transparent
+alabaster. To the left rose the cliff-like walls of the Colosseum, even
+then venerable with the time-stains of over two hundred years. In the
+foreground stretched the long Aurelian Wall, with its towers and
+battlements and strong arched gates. They crossed the Tiber by the
+Milvian Bridge, built three hundred years before, and destined to
+witness within ten years that fierce struggle for the mastery of the
+empire, between Constantine and Maxentius, when the British-born Cæsar
+saw, or thought he saw, in the mid-day heavens a blazing cross, and
+exclaiming "By this sign we conquer," overwhelmed his adversary in the
+rushing river.[31]
+
+Passing under the hill crowned with the famous gardens of Lucullus, now
+known as the Pincio, and beneath the heavy-arched gateway in the wall,
+they made their way through the narrow streets towards the centre of the
+city the--Forum and the Palatine. It was a day of festival--the last day
+of the _Quinquatria_, or festival of Minerva. Garlands of flowers, and
+wreaths of laurel, festooned many of the houses, in front of which
+blazed coloured cressets and lamps. Sacred processions were passing
+through the streets, with torches and music and chantings of priests;
+and ever and anon the shrill blare of the sacred trumpets pierced the
+ear of night. In the Forum the temples of Saturn, and of Castor, and
+Pollux were richly adorned and brilliantly illuminated, and a great
+throng of merry-makers filled the marble square.
+
+Turning to the left, our travellers ascended the slope of the Palatine
+Hill, amid ever-increasing grandeur of architecture. Demetrius, though
+he had travelled far and seen much, was struck with astonishment at the
+splendour and magnificence of the buildings. Not at Jerusalem, or
+Damascus, or Antioch, not at Ravenna or Milan, had he witnessed such
+wealth of porphyry and marble, such stately colonades and peristyles,
+covering acres of ground--now but a mound of mouldering ruins.
+
+"Whither art thou leading me?" asked Demetrius, as they stood before a
+palace of snowy marble which, bathed in the mellow radiance of the
+rising moon, seemed transformed into translucent alabaster.
+
+"To the abode where dwells thy daughter, the favoured freed-woman of the
+mistress of all this splendour," replied Isidorus, enjoying the wonder
+and admiration of his companion in travel.
+
+A fountain splashed in the centre of the square, its waters flashing
+like silver in the moonlight. The burnished mail of the Roman soldiers
+gleamed as the guard was changed, and their armour clashed as they
+grounded their spears and saluted the officer of the watch.
+
+"What, Max, are you on duty to-night?" said Isidorus as he recognized a
+soldier of the guard. "Any promotion in your service yet?"
+
+"No, but I see that there is in yours," said the bluff out-spoken
+guardsman.
+
+"Well, yes, I flatter myself that there is," replied the vain-glorious
+Greek, "and I hope for still more."
+
+Announcing to the chamberlain of the palace that he had just arrived
+from a journey of important business for the Empress Valeria, he with
+Demetrius were taken to a marble bath, where with the aid of a skilful
+slave, they made their toilet for immediate presentation to the Empress.
+
+Valeria was attended as usual by her freed-woman Callirhoë, when the
+Greek was announced.
+
+"We heard," she said to Isidorus, "by thy letters, of the failure of thy
+quest at Ravenna and Milan, but we hope----"
+
+At this moment, with an exclamation of intensest emotion Callirhoë
+rushed forward and flung herself in the arms of the venerable figure
+who had followed the Greek into the apartment.
+
+"My father!" she cried in tones which thrilled every heart, and then she
+embraced him again and again. The impassioned love and joy and gratitude
+of her soul struggling for expression, she burst into a flood of tears.
+
+"My daughter, child of my beloved Rachel," exclaimed the old man, as,
+heedless of the presence of the Empress, he fondly caressed her, "do I
+again embrace thee? Thou art the very image of thy angel-mother, as I
+first beheld her in the rose gardens of Sharon. Truly God is good. Now,
+Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace--the cup of my happiness
+runneth over."
+
+"Nay, good father," broke in the soft voice of the Empress, who was
+deeply moved by the scene, "rather live to share thy daughter's love and
+happiness."
+
+"Pardon, august lady," said Demetrius, falling on his knees, and
+gratefully kissing the Empress's hand. "Pardon, that in the joy of
+finding my child I forgot the duty I owe to my sovereign."
+
+"Thy first duty was there," said Valeria, pointing to the lovely
+Callirhoë, who, smiling through her tears, was now leaning on her
+father's arm. "We leave you to exchange your mutual confidences. Good
+Isidorus it shall be our care to bestow a reward commensurate with thy
+merit;" and she withdrew to her own apartment.
+
+"My everlasting gratitude thou hast," said Callirhoë, with her sweetest
+smile, frankly extending her hand.
+
+"I am, indeed, well repaid," said the Greek, as he respectfully kissed
+it. "I would gladly show my zeal in much more arduous service," and
+bowing low, he was accompanied by the chamberlain to the vestibule. That
+official gave him, by command of the Empress, a purse of gold, and
+assured him of still further reward.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] A magnificent painting in the Vatican represents with vivid realism
+this scene, the drowning of the Pagan Emperor, and the defeat and flight
+of all his army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"UNSTABLE AS WATER."
+
+
+It was with feelings highly elated at his successful achievement, which
+presaged still further advancement, that Isidorus sought his lodgings.
+On the way he met many late revellers returning from the festival,
+"flown with insolence and wine," and making night hideous with their
+riot. Among them, his garments dishevelled, and a withering garland
+falling from his brow, was an old acquaintance, Calphurnius, the son of
+the Perfect, who with maudlin affection embraced him and exclaimed:--
+
+"Friend of my soul, where hast thou hidden thyself? Our wine parties
+lack half their zest, since thou hast turned anchorite. Come, pledge our
+ancient friendship in a goblet of Falernian. The wine shop of Turbo, the
+ex-gladiator, is near at hand."
+
+"You have not turned Christian, have you?" hiccoughed the drunken
+reveller; "no offence, but I heard you had, you know."
+
+Isidorus gave a start. Were his visits to the Catacomb known to this
+fashionable fop? Were they a matter of sport to him and his boon
+companions? Was he to be laughed out of his nascent convictions by these
+empty-headed idlers? No, he determined. He despised the whole crew. But
+he was not the stuff out of which martyrs are made, and he lacked the
+courage to confess to this gilded butterfly, his as yet faltering
+feeling towards Christianity.
+
+"Who says I am?" he asked, anxious to test his knowledge on the subject.
+
+"Who says so? I don't know. Why everybody," was the rather vague reply.
+
+"You don't know what you are talking about, man," said the Greek, with a
+forced laugh. "Go home and sleep off your carouse."
+
+"All right. I told them so. The Christians, indeed, the vermin! Come to
+the Baths of Caracalla at noon to-morrow and I'll tell you all about
+it."
+
+Isidorus went to his lodgings and retired to his couch, but not to
+slumber. He was like a boat drifting rudderless upon the sea, the sport
+of every wind that blew. He had no strength of will, no fixedness of
+purpose, no depth of conviction. His susceptible disposition was easily
+moved to generous impulses and even to noble aspirations, yet he had no
+moral firmness. He is portrayed to the life by the words of the great
+Teacher, "He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he
+that heareth the Word, and anon, with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not
+root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or
+persecution ariseth because of the Word, bye-and-bye he is offended."
+
+"Did his boon companions," he questioned, "suspect that any serious
+convictions had penetrated beneath his light and careless exterior?" All
+his good resolutions had begun like wax in a furnace to melt and give
+way at the sneer and jeer of the shallow fool from whom he had just
+parted--a creature whom in his inmost heart he despised. Strange
+contradiction of human nature! Like the epicurean poet, he saw and
+approved the better way and yet he followed the worse.[32] He seemed to
+gain in the few casual words he had heard, a glimpse of the
+possibilities of persecution which menaced him if faithful to his
+convictions, and he had act moral fibre enough to encounter them. And
+yet his conscience stung and tortured him as he tossed upon his restless
+couch. Toward morning he fell asleep and it was broad day when he awoke.
+His reflections were as different from those with which he fell asleep
+as the brilliant daylight was from the gloomy shadows of night. The air
+was full of the busy hum of life. Water sellers and fruit pedlers and
+the like were crying "_Aqua Gelata_" "Fresh Figs," and "White wine and
+red." Cohorts of soldiers were clattering in squadrons, through the
+streets, the sunlight glittering on their spearpoints and on the bosses
+of their shields and armour. Jet black Nubian slaves, clad in snowy
+white, were bearing in gold-adorned _lecticæ_ or palanquins, proud
+patrician dames, robed in saffron and purple, to visit the shops of the
+jewellers and silk mercers. Senators and civic officials were flocking
+to the Forum with their murmuring crowd of clients. Gilded youths were
+hastening to the schools of the rhetoricians or of the gladiators, both
+alike deemed necessary instructors of these pinks of fashion. The
+streets and squares were a perfect kaleidoscope of colour and
+movement--an eddying throng, on business or on pleasure bent.
+
+The stir and animation of the scene dispelled all serious thoughts from
+the mind of the frivolous Greek. He plunged like a strong swimmer into
+the stream of eager busy life surging through the streets. He was one of
+the gayest of the gay, ready with his laugh and joke as he met his
+youthful comrades.
+
+"Ho, Rufus, whither away in such mad haste," he cried as he saw a young
+officer of the 12th Legion dashing past in his chariot, driving with
+admirable skill two milk-white steeds through the crowded streets.
+
+"Oh! are you there? Where have you hidden yourself for the last month?"
+exclaimed Rufus, as he sharply reined up his steeds. "To the Baths of
+Caracalla; will you go?"
+
+"Yes, very gladly," said Isidorus, stepping upon the low platform of the
+open bronze chariot. "I have been beyond the Po, on a special service--a
+barbarous region. No baths, circus, or games like those of Rome."
+
+"There is but one Rome," said the fiery young Hotspur, "but I am
+beginning to hate it. I am fairly rusting with idleness and long for
+active service--whether amid Libyian sands or Pannonian forests, I care
+not."
+
+"It seems to me," replied the effeminate Greek, "that I could console
+myself with your horses and chariot--the coursers of Achilles were not
+more swift--and with the delights which Rome and its fair dames are
+eager to lavish on that favourite of fortune, Ligurius Rufus."
+
+"_Vanitas vanitatis_," yawned the youth. "Life is a tremendous bore. I
+was made for action, for conquest, for state craft; but under this
+despotism of the Cæsars, we are all slaves together. You and I fare a
+little better than that Nubian porter yonder, that is all."
+
+"Yet you seem to bear your bondage very comfortably," laughed the
+light-hearted Greek, "and had I your fortune, so would I."
+
+"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be golden," ejaculated the
+soldier, lashing his steeds into swifter flight, as if to give vent to
+his nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to forget that I am a
+slave. Lost a hundred thousand sesterces at dice last night. The empire
+is hurrying to chaos. There are no paths of honour and ambition open to
+a man. One must crouch like a hound or crawl like a serpent to win
+advancement in the state. I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day are
+an effete and worn out race. The rude Dacians beyond the Tiber possess
+more of the hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic than the
+craven creatures who crawl about the feet of the modern Colossi, who
+bestride the world and are worshipped almost as gods. And unless Rome
+mends her ways they will be the masters of the Empire yet."
+
+"One would think you were Cato the Censor," laughed the Greek. "For my
+part, I think the best philosophy is that of my wise countryman,
+Epicurus--'to take the times as they come, and make the most of them.'
+But here we are at the Thermæ."
+
+Giving his horses to one of the innumerable grooms belonging to the
+establishment, Rufus and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched
+entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32]  Video, proboque meliora,
+      Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT THE BATHS.
+
+
+Nothing can give one a more striking conception of Roman life under the
+Empire than the size, number, and magnificence of the public baths.
+Those of Caracalla are a typical example. They covered an area of
+fifteen hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the surrounding
+grounds being a mile in circumference. They formed a perfect wilderness
+of stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the very mouldering
+remains of which strike one with astonishment. Of this very structure,
+the poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus Unbound," remarks:
+"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths
+of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous
+blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon
+its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Piers of
+sold masonry soar aloft like towers, on the summit of which good-sized
+trees are growing. Climbing one of those massive towers, the present
+writer enjoyed a glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the
+crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure
+all around, and of the far spreading and desolate Campagna.
+
+The great hypocausts, or subterranean furnaces, can be still examined,
+as also the caleducts in the walls for hot air, and the metal pipes for
+hot and cold water. The baths were supplied by an aqueduct constructed
+for that purpose, the arches of which may be seen bestriding the
+Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from the city. There were hot,
+and cold, and tepid baths, _caldaria_, or sweating chambers,
+_frigidaria_, or cooling rooms, _unctoria_, or anointing rooms, and many
+others sufficient to accommodate sixteen hundred bathers at once. There
+were also a vast gymnasium for exercise, a _stadium_, or race-course,
+and a _pinacotheca_, or art gallery. Here were found the famous Farnese
+Bull, the largest group of ancient statuary extant, and many _chefs
+d'œuvre_ of classic sculpture and mosaics.
+
+The Baths of Diocletian, built by the labours of the Christians during
+the last great persecution, one authority says, were twice as large, and
+could accommodate eighteen thousand bathers in a day, but that seems
+incredible. One of its great halls, a hundred yards by thirty in area,
+and thirty yards high, was converted by Michael Angelo into a church. Of
+the remainder, part is used as a monastery, part as barracks, and part
+as an orphanage, a poor-house, and an asylum for the blind, and much is
+in ruins. At Pompeii is a public bath in perfect preservation, with the
+niches for the clothing, soaps, and unguents of the bathers, and even
+the _strigils_, or bronze instruments for scraping the skin--the same
+after eighteen hundred years as though used but yesterday. By these
+means we are able to reconstruct the outward circumstances of that old
+Roman life, almost as though we had shared its busy movement.
+
+As Ligurius Rufus drew aside the heavy matting of the doorway of the
+Thermæ, of Caracalla, which then, as now, kept out the summer heat from
+the buildings of Rome, a busy scene burst upon his view. A great hall,
+lighted by openings in the roof, was filled with gay groups of patrician
+Romans, sauntering, chatting, laughing, exchanging news, betting on the
+next races, and settling bets on the last. As the modern clubman goes to
+his club to see the papers and learn the current gossip, so all the
+idlers in Rome came to the baths as to a social exchange, to learn the
+latest bit of court scandal or public news.
+
+"Ho, Calphurnius!" said Rufus, to the now sobered son of the city
+Prefect; "what's in the wind to-day? You know all the mischief that's
+going."
+
+"Sorry I cannot maintain my reputation then. Things are dull as an old
+_strigil_. Oh, by the way," and he beckoned them into a recess behind a
+porphyry pillar, "there is going to be a precious row up at the palace.
+I tell you in confidence. The old vixen, Fausta, has got a new spite
+against the Empress Valeria, whom all the people of the palace love. The
+termagant is not fit to carry water for her bath. She has found some
+mare's nest of a Christian plot,--by the way you are mixed up in it,
+friend Isidorus. I would advise you to have a care. In the fight of
+Pagan against Christian, I fear Valeria will get the worst of it, _dii
+avertant_."
+
+"The palace walls are not glass," laughed Isidorus, "nor have you a
+Dionysius' ear. How know you all this?"
+
+"As if the Roman Prefect did not know what goes on, that he thinks worth
+knowing, in every house in Rome! He has eyes and ears in his pay
+everywhere; and when honest Juba, or Tubal, come with their secret
+intelligence, they are not above accepting double pay and letting me
+into the secret, too. Besides that crafty old vulture Furca was closeted
+with the Prefect for an hour by the clepshydra, and you always smell
+carrion when he is hovering round."
+
+"What is it all about?" asked Rufus. "I am sure Valeria is as much
+beloved by the people as the old termagant Fausta is hated."
+
+"There's the rub--a bit of spiteful jealousy," answered Calphurnius.
+"But when that old basilisk hates, she will find a way to sting."
+
+"But what have I to do with the quarrels of the palace?" asked Isidorus,
+a little anxiously, for he knew not how far he might be compromised by
+the commission he had executed, of which he had felt not a little proud.
+
+"You know best yourself," answered Calphurnius with a laugh. "If you
+have done a service to Valeria or the Christians, you have made an enemy
+of Fausta and the Pagans."
+
+"Is this what you spoke of last night, and promised to explain to-day?"
+asked the Greek.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so. I have no very distinct recollection of what I said.
+I had been supping with Rufus here, and some other roystering blades,
+and the Folernian was uncommonly good. Come, _amicus meus_," he went on
+turning to Ligurius, "don't you want revenge for those sesterces you
+lost last night?"
+
+"I don't mind if I do punish you a little," yawned the young soldier.
+"It will kill the time for awhile, at all events."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GAMING TABLE.
+
+
+Gaming was a perfect passion among the Romans, and indeed among most
+ancient nations. Dice of bone and ivory, like those in use to-day, have
+been found in the tombs of Thebes and Luxor. Æschylus and Sophocles
+describe their use four hundred years before Christ, and in an ancient
+Greek picture now before us, a female figure is shown tossing _tali_, or
+gaming cubes, and catching them on the back of her hand, as children now
+play "Jacks." Soldiers from the enforced idleness of much of their time
+and the intense excitement of the rest of it, have in every age been
+addicted to gambling to beguile the _ennui_ of their too ample
+leisure--from those of Alexander down to the raw recruits of to-day. Our
+friend, Ligurius Rufus, had undergone frequent experience of the pains
+and pleasures of this siren vice; but was eager to return to its
+embrace. Such vast estates had been squandered, and great families
+impoverished, and large fortunes often staked upon a single throw of the
+dice--beyond anything that Homburg or Monaco ever saw--that gambling was
+forbidden by successive Roman laws. But when were not the rich able to
+indulge in their favourite vices, even under a much purer Government
+than that of Rome? So even in this place of public resort, were numerous
+alcoves in which stood gaming tables, while money changers--generally
+Jews--had tables near for giving good Roman sesterces in exchange for
+the _oboloi_ or _drachmai_ of Greece, the shekels of Jerusalem, or the
+scarabæus coins of Egypt. Into one of these alcoves the three friends
+now turned, Isidorus promising himself that he would only look on. He
+had been excessively addicted to play, but had, notwithstanding
+occasional success, lost so much money that he had abjured the seductive
+vice, especially since his visit to the Catacomb with his friend
+Faustus, who had urged him to forsake a practice so perilous in itself,
+and so opposed to Christian conduct.
+
+Calphurnius and Rufus sat down to the gaming table, and the Greek stood
+looking on. The gold was placed in two piles on the board. The dice
+rattled, and eager eyes took in at a glance the number of red spots on
+the upper surface. Rufus seemed to have recovered his good fortune.
+Throw after throw was successful.
+
+"That is the _Jadus Venereus_," he exclaimed with exultation, as he made
+the cast that counted highest. "We must have wine and I must be
+toast-master," for so was called the leader of the revels.
+
+The Greek watched with honest interest the play, his eye flashing and
+his pulse quickening under its strange spell. The richest wines of Chios
+and Lesbos were ordered; and as the wine was poured into jewelled
+goblets, he required slight urging to partake of the fragrant vintage of
+the Isles of Greece. The eager play was resumed. The Greek noted each
+practised turn of the wrist and cast of the dice--his eye kindling and
+his brain throbbing with the subtle intoxication of both the game and
+the wine.
+
+"I've won enough," said Rufus, "I've got back my own, and more. I don't
+want to ruin you, my good fellow," and he positively declined to play
+any more. His honest nature recoiled from taking that for which he gave
+no value, beyond recouping his previous losses.
+
+"Will you try a cast," he added, turning to Isidorus. "Our friend has
+lots of money to lose?" and he lounged away to watch the game of ball in
+the Gymnasium.
+
+"Yes, take a turn, my luck is wretched to-day!" exclaimed Calphurnius.
+"Come, I will stake that pile of gold on a single cast."
+
+The Greek's whole frame was tingling with excitement--yet he was
+withheld by some lingering restraint of his promise to Faustus to
+abandon play. Calphurnius again rattled the dice, the cast was a
+complete blank--the worst possible combination.
+
+"'Twas lucky for me you were not playing then," he said, laughing; "but
+I'll risk another if you will."
+
+"It must only be for a small stake--a single sesterce," said the
+infatuated youth, quaffing a goblet of wine. "I have given up gambling."
+
+"All right," said his friend, "it's only for amusement that I play," and
+he cast again, and laughing paid over his forfeit.
+
+Isidorus continued to win, each time taking a sip of the strong heady
+wine. The baleful enchantment was upon him.
+
+"Double the stakes!" he cried.
+
+"I thought you would tire of our playing like slaves with jackstones,"
+replied the cool-headed Calphurnius. "This is something like play," he
+continued, as they doubled every time, till the stakes were soon
+enormous. The tide of fortune now turned; but the Greek had become
+perfectly reckless. Conscience was dead, a demon greed for gain had
+taken possession of his soul, the gaming-madness surged through his
+brain. He doubled and redoubled his stakes, till before he rose he had
+lost even the gold received from Valeria the night before, and was
+beggared to his last denarius. With blood-shot eyes and staggering gait
+he reeled away from the table, his handsome features convulsed with rage
+and wicked imprecations pouring from his lips.
+
+"Don't be so vexed about it, man," said his tormentor, for so he
+regarded Calphurnius. "Better luck to-morrow. Here I'll lend you enough
+to set you up. Let us have a bath, we both of us need it to quiet our
+nerves."
+
+Isidorus, in his maudlin intoxication, accepted the offer, and declared,
+with much idle babble, that there was more money where that which he had
+lost came from--that his services were too valuable to the state to be
+overlooked--and that he knew a thing or two--that he could tell some
+secrets, if he would--and much more to the same purpose.
+
+This was just what Calphurnius wanted. He had been set on by his father,
+the Prefect Naso to worm from the Greek the secrets of the Palace and
+the Catacomb, and this by a series of wheedling questions he completely
+succeeded in doing. With some difficulty he got his victim home after he
+had extorted from him all that he cared to know. When Isidorus awoke
+next morning it was with feelings of intense disgust with himself and
+with all the world. He felt that he had played the fool, but how far he
+knew not. He remembered that he had lost all his money, yet he found a
+few coins in his purse. He felt that he had forfeited the confidence of
+his new patron Adauctus, of the Empress, and even was undeserving of the
+gratitude or respect of the beautiful freed-woman, Callirhoë, whose
+father he had restored. He had learned that there was a plot on foot
+against them all. Indeed he had an impression that he had somehow added
+to their peril by his indiscreet revelations. He determined to warn them
+of their danger and try to save them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"IN PERICULIS TUTUS."
+
+
+With this purpose the young Greek assuming his most decorous and sober
+attire, proceeded to what would now be called the bureau of the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was situated near the Forum, in the
+cloister around which were grouped the shops of the _argentarii_ and
+_mensarii_, or private and public bankers of Rome. It held about the
+same relation to those that the Treasury Department at New York does to
+the bankers' offices and Gold Board in Wall Street. On every side were
+evidences of the concentrated wealth and power of the august mistress of
+the world. A vast granite building, as strong and solid as a prison, was
+before him. Roman sentinels paced the street, hugging the wall to share
+the protection from the noontide heat offered by its grateful shade.
+Convoys of specie, guarded by cohorts of soldiers with unsheathed
+swords, were continually arriving or departing. Gangs of sturdy porters,
+naked to the waist, were conveying the heavy iron-bound coffers to and
+from the vaults. Officers were counting the tallies and checking the
+vouchers, giving and accepting receipts. Publicans and tax farmers of
+many hues and varied garbs were there from many distant climes--the
+swart Egyptian, the olive Syrian, the graceful Greek, the pale-faced
+yellow-haired German or Briton. But most prominent of all, everywhere
+was seen the pushing, aggressive, keen-eyed, hook-nosed Jew, who in
+every age and every land seems to have had a genius for finance,
+banking, and the handling of money.
+
+From the hundred provinces of Rome the tribute money wrung from wretched
+peasants, to support Imperial luxury, to maintain the conquering
+legions, to pay for the largess of corn that fed the Roman plebs, and
+for the _fêtes_ of the circus that amused them, and to carry on the
+vast governmental administration of the Empire--all poured into this
+greatest focus of moneyed wealth in the world. Like Daniel in Babylon,
+Adauctus, the Christian, was set over all this treasure, "because an
+excellent spirit was in him, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was
+there any error or fault found in him." The Emperors, when amid
+prevailing corruption, extortion, and fraud, they found an honest
+servant and able administrator, winked pretty hard at his private
+opinions, so long as they did not conflict with his duty to the State.
+Hence, from the days of St. Paul, we find that enrolled among the
+fellowship of Christ's Church were "they of Cæsar's household;" and
+among the epitaphs of the Catacombs we find frequent examples of
+Christians of lofty rank, and holding important offices of trust; as for
+instance: "Secretary of the Patrician Order," "Sergeant of the
+Exchequer," "Prefect of the City," "Ex-Quæstor of the Sacred Palace,"
+"Master of the Imperial Household," and the like.
+
+Making his way to the private apartment, or office of Adauctus, the
+Greek found him dictating despatches to a secretary. At a nod from his
+chief, the secretary retired, and Adauctus, with warm interest,
+addressed Isidorus in the words:
+
+"Right welcome, after your successful quest. You have skilfully
+performed a difficult task. The Empress is greatly gratified, and you
+may count your fortune as good as made."
+
+"Your Excellency is too kind," replied the Greek, with a graceful
+salutation; "I feel that I do not deserve your praise."
+
+"Your modesty, my friend," remarked Adauctus with a smile, "shall not
+prevent your promotion, It is too rare a gift not to be encouraged."
+
+"I have come, your Excellency," said Isidorus, with some degree of
+trepidation, "upon a business that nearly concerns yourself, and some to
+whom you wish well."
+
+"It is very good of you," Adauctus calmly replied, "but I do not think
+you can give me any information that I do not already possess."
+
+"I am in duty bound," continued the Greek, "to reveal to your
+Excellency, what is a secret which is sedulously kept from your
+knowledge. You have enemies who have vowed your destruction--the
+Princess Fausta, Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, and the Prefect Naso.
+They menace also the Empresses Prisca and Valeria, and others in high
+places suspected of Christianity."
+
+"Is that all you can tell me?" asked Adauctus, with a smile. "Look
+you," and unlocking an ivory cabinet, he took out a wax-covered tablet
+on which were inscribed the names of several other conspirators against
+his life, with the particulars of their plots.
+
+"I have not sought one of these disclosures," he went on, "yet they have
+come to me from trustworthy sources; sometimes from men who are
+themselves Pagan, yet with honest souls that recoil from treachery and
+murder."
+
+"And you know all this and remain thus calm!" exclaimed the Greek in
+amazement.
+
+"With such a sword of Damocles hanging over _my_ head, I am sure I could
+neither eat nor sleep."
+
+"Have you never read the words," asked Adauctus solemnly, "'The very
+hairs of your head are all numbered?' and not a sparrow shall fall
+without your Father's notice. Have you never read of righteous Daniel
+whom his enemies cast into the lions' den, and how God shut the lions'
+mouths that they did him no harm. You have seen the pictured story in
+the Catacombs. So will my God deliver me from the mouth of the lion,"
+and a look of heroic faith transfigured his face--"or," he whispered
+lower, but with an expression of even more utter trust, "or give a
+greater victory and take me to Himself."
+
+"Such stoical philosophy, my master," said the Greek with bated breath,
+"neither Zeno nor Seneca ever taught."
+
+"Nay," said the noble Roman, "it is not stoicism, it is faith. Not in
+the Porch or Academy is this holy teaching learned, but in the school of
+Jesus Christ."
+
+"Oh, wretched coward that I am!" cried the Greek, with an impassioned
+aspiration after a moral courage which he felt almost beyond his
+comprehension, "would that I had such faith."
+
+"Seek it, my brother," said Adauctus solemnly, "where alone it may be
+found, at the Cross of Christ. Whoso apprehends in his soul the meaning
+of the Great Sacrifice, will thenceforth count not his life dear unto
+him for the testimony of Jesus."
+
+"But is the way of the Cross such a thorny, bloodstained path?" asked
+the Greek, with quavering voice. "Are those noble souls, the highborn
+and beautiful Valeria, the good and gentle Callirhoë, exposed to such
+appalling perils?"
+
+"We live in troublous times," answered Adauctus. "Christ came not to
+send peace on the earth but a sword. Whoso will save his life by
+cowardice and treachery shall basely lose it. Whoso will lose it for
+Christ's sake shall gloriously and forever find it!"
+
+These words burned into the heart and brain of the craven Greek, and he
+winced and shrank beneath them as if a hot iron were searing his
+quivering flesh.
+
+"But we must hope for the best," went on Adauctus more cheerfully. "We
+must take every precaution. Life and liberty are glorious gifts. We may
+not rashly imperil them. I trust that our august mistress, standing so
+near the throne, stands in no peculiar peril; and you may be sure her
+power will be used for the protection of her friends. So," he added with
+a laugh of keen intelligence, "if thou hast any special interest in the
+fair Callirhoë, be sure she enjoys the most potent patronage in Rome."
+
+"But you, take you no precaution for yourself?" entreated the Greek.
+"You know not the bitterness of the jealousy and hate of your enemies."
+
+"Oh, yes, I do," the Imperial treasurer calmly replied, "As for me, my
+work is here. By ruling righteously and dealing justly I can prevent
+much fraud, and wrong, and suffering. I can shield the innocent and
+frustrate the villany of public thieves--and there are many such in the
+high places of this degenerate city. Our heroic ancestors decreed that
+we must never dispair of our country. But I confess, were it not for
+that salt of Christian faith that preserves the old Roman world, I
+believe it would sink into moral putrescence. It is this divine leaven
+which alone can leaven the whole mass."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE MIDNIGHT PLOT.
+
+
+The scene of our story is now transferred to the Palace of the Emperor
+Galerius, one of the most sumptuous of the group of marble buildings
+which crowned the Palatine Hill. It is the hour of midnight; and in one
+of the most private chambers of the palace a secret conspiracy is in
+progress, which has for its object the destruction of the
+Christians--especially of those high in rank and influence. The lamps
+in the aula and vestibule burned dimly, and, in iron sockets along the
+outside of the palace walls, flared and smoked torches made of tow
+covered with a coating of clay or plaster.[33]
+
+Fausta, the mother of Galerius, and Furca, the high-priest of Cybele,
+were already conferring upon their secret plot. With them was Black
+Juba, who had just returned from gathering, at "the witching hour of
+night," upon the unhallowed ground set apart for the burning of the
+dead, certain baleful plants--wolf's bane, bitter briony, and
+aconite--which she used in wicked spells and incantations. In her native
+Nubia she had an evil reputation as a sorceress, and in Rome she still
+carried on by stealth her nefarious art. It was hinted, indeed, in the
+palace, that by her subtle, deadly potions she fulfilled her own
+prophecies of ill against the objects of the hatred of her employers.
+
+"'Tis certain," hissed through her teeth the spiteful old Fausta, while
+murder gleamed from her sloe-black eyes, "that Galerius will not include
+in the Imperial rescript that painted doll, Valeria. She exerts
+unbounded fascination over him. It must be the spell of her false
+religion."
+
+"The spell of her beauty and grace, rather," answered Furca, with a
+grin.
+
+"What! Are you duped by her wiles, too?" asked Fausta, with bitterness.
+
+"No; I hate her all the more," said the priest; "but I cannot close my
+eyes to what every one sees."
+
+"It is something that I, at least, do not see," muttered the withered
+crone, whose own harsh features seemed the very incarnation of hatred
+and cruelty. "If we cannot get rid of her under the decree," she went
+on, "we can, at least, in a surer but more perilous way. Cunning Juba,
+here, has access to her person; and by her skilled decoctions can make
+her beauty waste, and her life flicker to extinction, like a lamp
+unreplenished with oil."
+
+"Yes, Juba has learned, in the old land of the Nile, some of the dark
+secrets of Egypt," whispered, with bated breath, the dusky African. "But
+it is very perilous to use them. The palace is full of suspicion; and
+that new favourite, Callirhoë,--how I hate her!--keeps watch over her
+mistress like the wild gazelle of the desert over its mate. It will
+take much gold to pay for the risk."
+
+"Gold thou shalt have to thy heart's content, if thou do but rid me of
+that cockatrice, who has usurped my place in my son's affections,"
+hissed the wicked woman, who still felt a fierce, tiger-like love for
+the soldier-son whom she had trained up like a tiger cub. And Juba
+retired, to await further orders.
+
+"But if she die thus," said Furca, with a malignant gleam in his eyes,
+"she dies alone. What we want is to have her drag others down with
+her--her mother, Prisca; that haughty Adauctus, who holds himself so
+high, and the rest of the accursed Christian brood."
+
+"Yes, that is what we want, if it can be done," said Fausta; "but I fear
+it is impossible. You do not know how headstrong Galerius is in his own
+way; and the more he is opposed, the fiercer he is."
+
+"Here comes Naso," said the arch priest. "He hates the Christians, if he
+does not love the gods. We will hear his counsel."
+
+"Welcome, good Naso," exclaimed Fausta, as the Prefect of the city was
+ushered into the room. "We need your advice in the matter of this edict
+against the Christians: how we may use it as a net to snare the higher
+game of the palace and the Imperial household."
+
+"We must be wary as the weasel, sleepless as the basilisk, deadly as the
+aspic," said Naso, sententiously.
+
+"Just what I have been saying," remarked Furca.
+
+"Methinks we must employ the aspic's secret sting, rather than the
+public edict."
+
+"I declare for the edict," exclaimed with energy the truculent Naso.
+"Let its thunders smite the loftiest as well as the lowly. It will carry
+greater terror, and make the ruin of the Christian party more complete.
+What is the use of lopping off the twigs, when the trunk and main
+branches are unscathed? I possess proof that will doom Adauctus, the
+senator Aurelius, and others who stand higher still. The Christians to
+the lions--every one, say I."
+
+"And so say I," ejaculated Furca, with malicious fervour; "but her
+Excellency thinks that Galerius will interpose to protect one who stands
+near the throne, though she be the chief encouragement of the Christian
+vermin that crawl at her feet."
+
+"Madam, he dare not," exclaimed Naso, with his characteristic gesture of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword. "His own crown would stand
+in peril if beneath its shadow he would protect traitors to the State
+and enemies of the gods, however high their station."
+
+"As head of the State," interjected the priest, "he is the champion of
+the gods, and bound to avenge their insulted majesty."
+
+"You know not what he would dare," replied Fausta. "He would defy both
+gods and men, if he took the whim."
+
+"An accusation will be made before me," said Naso, "which not even the
+Emperors can over-look, against the Imperial Consort, Valeria, for
+intriguing with the Christians and bringing their priests to Rome, and
+conniving at their crimes against the State. We will see whether the
+majesty of the Empire or the beauty of a painted butterfly weighs the
+heavier in the scales."
+
+"I will second in private what your accusation demands in public," said
+the implacable Fausta. "Methinks I could die content if I might only
+trample that minion under my feet."
+
+"And I," said Furca, "will menace him with the wrath of the gods if he
+refuse to avenge their wrongs."
+
+"Between us all," added Naso, "it will go hard if we do not crush the
+Christian vermin, even beneath the shadow of the throne."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] Such torch-holders may still be seen on the walls of the Palazzo
+Strozzi and in Florence and elsewhere. Torches of the sort we have
+described were purchased by the writer at Pozzuoli, near Naples.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER.
+
+
+In his statement as to the accusation of the Empress before his
+tribunal, Naso, after his manner, took counsel of his truculent desires
+rather than of his cool reason. He had learned from his scapegrace son,
+Calphurnius, that Isidorus had returned to town from executing a
+commission for the Empress, the general purpose of which that hopeful
+youth had extorted from the drunken maunderings of the inconstant and
+unhappy Greek. Naso took it for granted, from his previous acquaintance
+with human nature of the baser sort, that Isidorus was trying to serve
+two masters, and that while acting as the agent of Valeria he would be
+willing to betray her secrets. Unaware of his vacillation of character
+and of his transient impulses toward Christianity, he further believed
+that the supple Greek, in accordance with his compact, would act as
+public accuser of the Christians. He had impressed upon Calphurnius, who
+was very prompt to learn the lesson, that it was of the utmost
+importance to bring the Greek under his personal influence and control,
+and especially to induce him to come again to the tribunal of the
+Prefect in the Forum.
+
+"We must keep our thumb on him. We can use him to our advantage," said
+the Prefect to his son.
+
+"I think I have him under a screw that will extort from him whatever you
+wish," replied the hopeful youth. "He owes me money, and he shall pay
+good interest on the loan. He is not the material of which heroes are
+made, like that young Christian who suffered martyrdom, as they call it,
+a few weeks ago."
+
+"Well, give your screw another turn," said Naso with a hideous chuckle.
+"That's the way I do when I have them on the rack. Keep him in debt.
+Lure him on. Make him lose money at dice and lend him more. We will
+wring his heart-strings by-and-bye. If we can only secure the death of
+Adauctus and some of his wealthy friends, their fair estates will help
+to line our purses, for the Emperors cannot leave such a zealous servant
+as the Prefect Naso unrewarded," and this well matched pair--the
+offspring of the corruption and cruelty of the Empire--parted, each
+intent on his purposes of evil.
+
+The young scapegrace, Calphurnius--young in years, but old in
+vice--followed only too successfully this Satanic advice. He attached
+himself closely to Isidorus and became his very shadow--his other self.
+He lured him on to ostentatious extravagance of expenditure, often
+allowing him to win large sums at dice to replenish his depleted purse,
+and again winning from him every sesterce, and binding the Greek's
+fortunes more firmly to his own by lending him large sums, yet demanding
+usurious interest. The easy, pleasure-loving nature of Isidorus, intent
+on enjoying the passing hour and shrinking from suffering of body or
+anxiety of mind, made this _descensus Averni_ all the more facile. He
+was thus led to forget all his good resolutions and noble purposes, and
+to plunge into the fashionable follies of the most corrupt society in
+the world. From the maundering remarks which fell from his lips in his
+fits of drunkenness, for he rapidly lapsed into this baneful vice,
+Calphurnius constructed a monstrous story of treachery which he used to
+create an utter rupture between the Greek and the Christians, alleging
+that he had too irreparably betrayed them to be ever forgiven, and that
+the only way of escaping the doom which menaced them was to throw
+himself into the arms of the party in power. It was with feelings of
+horror that in his rare moments of sober reflection Isidorus realized
+how fast and how far he had drifted from the thoughts, and feelings, and
+purposes of the hour when he knelt, in the Catacomb of Callixtus, at the
+feet of the good presbyter Primitius; or since he returned from Milan
+the restorer to the fair Callirhoë of her sire; or even since, a few
+days before, he had conversed with Adauctus and beheld with admiration
+his serenity of spirit under the shadow of persecution and death.
+
+Calphurnius exhausted every art to wring from his lips a legal
+accusation of the Christians, for even the ruthless persecutors wished
+to observe some forms of law in the destruction of their destined
+victims.
+
+"You have already betrayed them beyond reparation," he said, "and you
+may as well obtain the reward. You have told all about your employment
+by Adauctus in a treasonable mission to the Christian sectaries at
+Ravenna and Milan. You have been present at their assemblies at the
+Villa Marcella and in the Catacombs. A short hand notary[34] has taken
+down every word you said, and it shall be used against you unless you
+turn evidence for the State, and save yourself by bringing its enemies
+to justice."
+
+"Wretch!" cried the exasperated Greek. "Cease to torment me! 'Tis you
+who have tempted me to this perfidy, and now you seek to goad me to
+perdition. The Christians are no traitors to the State, and you know
+it."
+
+"The edict of the Emperors declares that they are," said Calphurnius,
+with a sneer, "perhaps you can persuade their Divine Majesties that they
+are mistaken."
+
+"What would you? What further infamy would you have me commit?"
+exclaimed the tortured Isidorus.
+
+"Only declare before the Prefect what you have already divulged to me.
+By refusing you only imperil yourself," replied his tormentor.
+
+"I consent," moaned the craven-hearted Greek, and he went on with a
+shudder, "I am double-dyed in infamy already. I can acquire no deeper
+stain."
+
+"'Tut, man! don't be a fool! Rome can pay her servants well. You will
+soon be well rewarded," and like an incarnate Diabolus, the accuser of
+the brethren proceeded to earn, as another Judas, the wages of iniquity
+by betraying innocent blood.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] These tachugraphoi were in common employment in the courts, and the
+sermons of Chrysostom were also reported by their skill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE PLOT THICKENS.
+
+
+Isidorus reluctantly accompanied Calphurnius to the tribunal of the
+Prefect; and there, partly through intimidation, partly through
+cajolery, he gave such information as to his expedition to Ravenna and
+Milan as the Prefect chose to ask. This was tortured, by that
+unscrupulous officer, into an accusation against the Empress Valeria of
+conspiracy with the Chancellor, Adauctus, and others of the Christian
+sect, against the worship of the gods of Rome, and so, constructively,
+of treason against the State. This indictment--_accusatio_, as it was
+technically called was duly formulated, and attested under the seal of
+the Prefect's Court. Naso, the Prefect, and Furca, the priest, found a
+congenial task in submitting the document to the Emperor Galerius, and
+asking his authority to proceed against the accused. They visited the
+palace at an hour when it had been arranged that the Emperor's evil
+genius, the cruel Fausta, should be with him, to exert her malign
+influence in procuring the downfall of the object of her malice--the
+Empress Valeria--and the destruction of the Christian sect. "The
+insulted gods appeal to your Divine Majesty for protection, and for the
+punishment of the atheists who despise their worship and defy their
+power," began the high-priest of Cybele, seeking to work upon the
+superstition of the Illyrian herdsman, raised to the Imperial purple.
+
+"Well, my worthy friend," replied the Emperor in a bantering tone, "what
+is the matter now. Has any one been poaching on your preserves?"
+
+"This is not a matter of private concern, Your Majesty," remarked the
+Prefect gravely. "It touches the welfare of the State and the stability
+of your throne."
+
+"Yes, and your personal and domestic honour, too," whispered Fausta in
+his ear.
+
+"It must be something pretty comprehensive to do all that. Come, out
+with it at once," laughed the Emperor.
+
+Thus adjured, Furca began to recount the insults offered to the gods by
+the Christians, and, especially, that the Empress no longer attended
+their public festivals.
+
+"Oh yes, I understand," said the Emperor, with a yawn, "your craft is in
+danger. The offerings at your altars are falling off; and we all know
+where _they_ went. The gods are all alike to me; I believe in none of
+them."
+
+"But they are necessary, to keep the mob in subjection," said Naso.
+"Some are amused with their pageants, and others are awed by menaces of
+their wrath."
+
+"Yes, I grant you, they are of some use for that; and that is all they
+are good for," replied this ancient Agnostic.
+
+"But the Christians are traitors to the State," continued the Prefect;
+"rank sedition-mongers. They are secretly sworn to serve another Lord
+than the Cæsars, and they are ceaselessly striving to undermine your
+Imperial Majesty's authority."
+
+"You do well," continued the cruel Galerius, a fire of deadly hate
+burning in his eyes, "to exterminate that accursed vermin, wherever
+found. Burn, crucify, torture, as you will."
+
+"And the estates of the rebels, they escheat to the temples of the
+insulted gods?" asked the priest, with hungry eyes.
+
+"Nay, to the State, I think," laughed the Emperor. "Is it not so, good
+Naso?"
+
+"Half to the State and half to the _delator_, or accuser," answered that
+worthy, learned in the law of pillage.
+
+"Let not the wolves fall out about the prey," said the Emperor, with a
+sneer; "only make sure work."
+
+"Be so good then, Your Majesty, as to affix your seal to these decrees
+of death. With such high officers as Adauctus and Aurelius my authority
+as Prefect is not sufficient."
+
+"And the Empress Valeria; she, too, as traitor to your person and crown,
+is included in the decree," insinuated, in a wheedling tone, the crafty
+priest.
+
+"Base hound," roared the Emperor, laying his hand upon his sword;
+"breathe but the name of the Empress again, and I will pluck thy vile
+tongue from thy throat."
+
+"Nay, Your Majesty," said the crafty Fausta, while the abject priest
+cowered like a whipped cur; "'tis but his excess of zeal for Your
+Majesty's honour, which I fear the Empress betrays."
+
+"Madam," said Galerius, sternly, "I am the guardian of my own honour.
+What the Christians are, I neither know nor care. What the Empress is, I
+know--the noblest soul that breathes in Rome. Who wags his tongue
+against her shall be given to the crows and kites. _Dixi Fiat_--I have
+spoken--so let it be," and his terrible frown, as he stalked from the
+room, showed that he meant what he said.
+
+The three conspirators, for a moment, stared at each other in
+consternation. Then the wily Fausta faltered out, "Said I not, he would
+defy both gods and men? We must do by stealth what we cannot do by
+force. Juba must ply her most secret and most deadly arts. I have
+certain subtle spells myself; and if mortal hate can give them power, I
+will make her beauty waste away like a fading flower, and her strength
+wane like a dying lamp."
+
+"'Tis a dangerous game," replied Naso. "Be wary how you play it. As for
+me, armed with this edict, I will strike at mine ancient foe, for whom I
+long have nursed a bitter spite. Curse him! I am tired of hearing him
+called Adauctus the Just. He held me to such a strict account that I had
+to make a full return of all the fines and mulcts paid in, without
+taking the toll which is my right." And he departed to gratify his
+double passion of revenge and greed.
+
+It may seem strange that such a truculent monster as Galerius, of whom,
+in his later days, his Christian subjects were wont to say that "he
+never supped without human blood--_Nec unquam sine cruore humano
+cœnabat,_"[35]--should be so under the spell of his Christian wife. But
+the statement is corroborated by the records of history, and by the
+philosophy of the human mind. There is a power in moral goodness that
+can awe the rudest natures, a winsome spell that can subdue the hardest
+hearts. It was the story of Una and the Lion, of Beauty and the Beast
+over again; and one of the severest trials for a Christian wife in those
+days of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism for the mastery
+of the world, was that of being allied to a pagan husband. Tertullian,
+in the third century, thus describes the difficulties which a Christian
+woman married to an idolater must encounter in her religious life:
+
+"At the time for worship the husband will appoint the use of the bath;
+when a fast is to be observed he will invite company to a feast When she
+would bestow alms, both safe and cellar are closed against her. What
+heathen will suffer his wife to attend the nightly meetings of the
+Church, the slandered Supper of the Lord, to visit the sick even in the
+poorest hovels, to kiss the martyrs' chains in prison, to rise in the
+night for prayer, to show hospitality to stranger brethren?"[36]
+
+In time of persecution, or in the case of persons of such exalted rank
+as that of Valeria, the difficulty of adorning a Christian life, amid
+their pagan surroundings, was all the greater. Yet not a word of scandal
+has been breathed upon the character of the wife of the arch persecutor
+of the Christians; and even the sneering pen of Gibbon has only words of
+commendation for the Christian Empress who herself under subsequent
+persecution, remained steadfast even unto death.
+
+The beauty and dignity of Christian wedlock in an age of persecution
+and strife are nobly expressed by Tertullian in the following passage,
+addressed to his own wife: "How can I paint the happiness," he exclaims,
+"of a marriage which the Church ratines, the Sacrament confirms, the
+benediction seals, angels announce, and our heavenly Father declares
+valid! What a union of two believers--one hope, one vow, one discipline,
+one worship! They are brother and sister, two fellow-servants, one
+spirit and one flesh. They pray together, fast together, exhort and
+support one another. They go together to the house of God, and to the
+table of the Lord. They share each other's trials, persecutions, and
+joys. Neither avoids, nor hides anything from the other. They delight to
+visit the sick, succour the needy, and daily to lay their offerings
+before the altar without scruple, and without constraint. They do not
+need to keep the sign of the cross hidden, nor to express secretly their
+Christian joy, nor to receive by stealth the eucharist. They join in
+psalms and hymns, and strive who best can praise God. Christ rejoices at
+the sight, and sends His peace upon them. Where two are in His name He
+also is; and where He is, there evil cannot come."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum._
+
+[36] Tertull, _Ad Uzorem_, ii. 8.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A CRIME PREVENTED.
+
+
+The deadly malice of Fausta, Furca, and Naso towards the Empress
+Valeria, foiled in its attempt to invoke upon her the penalties of the
+edict against the Christians, sought, by secret means, to procure her
+death. Juba, the black slave, was heavily bribed to prepare some of her
+most subtle poisons and procure their administration. But here a
+difficulty presented itself, and it is a striking illustration of the
+corruption of the Empire and of the daily peril in which the inhabitants
+of the Imperial palace dwelt--a state of peril which finds its modern
+analogue only in the continual menace under which the Czar of all the
+Russias lives, with a sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair above
+his head. Such was the atmosphere of suspicion which pervaded the whole
+palace, such the dread of assassination or of poisoning, that trusty
+guards and officers swarmed in the ante-chambers and prevented access to
+the members of the Imperial family except under the most rigid
+precautions of safety; and a special officer was appointed, whose duty,
+as his title of _Prægustalor_ implies, was to taste every kind of food
+or drink provided for the Imperial table. Regard for his personal safety
+was, of course, a guarantee that the utmost precautions were observed in
+preparing the daily food of the Imperial household. Juba in vain
+attempted to bribe some of the kitchen scullions and cooks to mix with
+the savoury viands designed for the use of Valeria, who generally
+lunched in her private apartments, a potent poison. They accepted,
+indeed, her bribes, but prudently declined to carry out their part of
+the agreement, well knowing that she dare not venture to criminate
+herself by an open rupture with them.
+
+At length she resolved on attempting a more subtle but less certain mode
+of administering a deadly drug. While in the service of a priest of Isis
+in Egypt, she had extorted or cajoled from an Abyssinian slave in his
+service certain dark secrets, learned it was said by the Queen of Sheba
+from Solomon, and handed down from age to age as the esoteric lore of
+the realm. One of these was the preparation of a volatile poison so
+subtle and powerful that its mere inhalation was of deadly potency. As a
+means of conveying this to her victim, and at the same time of
+disguising the pungent aromatic odour, a basket of flowers which she had
+plentifully sprinkled with the deadly poison was sent to the Empress. To
+make assurance doubly sure, she concealed among the flowers one of
+those beautiful but deadly asps, such as that from the bite of which the
+dusky Queen of Egypt, the wanton Cleopatra, died. This, for purposes
+connected with her nefarious arts, she had procured as what evil thing
+could not be procured?--from the dealers in deadly drugs, philtres, and
+potions in the crowded Ghetto of Rome.
+
+To ensure the conveyance of the deadly gift to the hands of Valeria
+herself, Juba invented the fiction that they were a thankoffering from
+the young Greek, Isidorus, to his Imperial patroness for favours
+received. With her characteristic cunning Juba had possessed herself of
+the secret of his services rendered to the Empress, and of the interest
+felt in him by her august mistress.
+
+Valeria was in her _boudoir_ with her favourite and now inseparable
+Callirhoë, as her tire woman, dressing her hair, when the fatal missive
+arrived. As Callirhoë received the basket from the hands of Juba, the
+eyes of the slave gleamed with the deadly hate of a basilisk, and she
+muttered as she turned away--
+
+"May the curse of Isis rest on them both. My fine lady has driven black
+Juba from the tiring room of the Empress. May she now share her fate,"
+and, like a sable Atropos, she glided from the chamber with stealthy and
+cat-like tread.
+
+"Oh! what fresh and fragrant flowers," exclaimed the Empress Valeria, as
+she bent over them, "see how the dew is yet fresh upon their petals."
+Here she raised the basket so as more fully to inhale their fragrance.
+At that moment the concealed and deadly asp whose dark green and glossy
+skin had prevented its detection among the acanthus and lily leaves,
+seized, with his envenomed fang, the damask cheek of the fair Valeria,
+and for a moment clung firmly there.
+
+"God, save her!" exclaimed Callirhoë, who in a moment recognized the
+cruel aspic, of which, as a child, she had been often warned in her
+native Antioch, and with an eager gesture she flung the venomous reptile
+to the ground and crushed its head beneath her sandal's heel. On the
+quick instinct of the moment and without stopping to think of the
+consequences to herself, she threw her arms about her Imperial mistress'
+neck, and pressing her lips to her cheek, sucked the venom from the yet
+bleeding wound.
+
+The cry of the Empress as the little serpent stung her cheek brought a
+swarm of attendants and slaves into the room, among them black Juba and
+the officer of the guard who was responsible for the Empress' safety.
+Valeria had fainted and lay pale as ashes on her couch, a crimson stream
+flowing from her cheek.
+
+"Dear heart!" exclaimed Juba, with an ostentatious exhibition of
+well-feigned grief, "let her inhale this fragrant elixir. It is a potent
+restorative in such deadly faints," and she attempted to complete her
+desperate crime by thrusting the poisonous perfume under Valeria's
+nostrils.
+
+"Who was last in the presence before this strange accident--if it be an
+accident--occurred?" demanded the officer.
+
+"I and Juba, were the only ones," faltered Callirhoë, when a deathly
+pallor passed over her face, and with a convulsive shudder she fell
+writhing on the ground.
+
+"You are under arrest," said the officer to. Juba, and then to a soldier
+of the guard, "Go, seize and seal up her effects--everything she has;
+and you," turning to another, "send at once the court physician."
+
+The attendants meanwhile were fanning and sprinkling with water the
+seemingly inanimate forms of the Empress and Callirhoë. When the
+physician came and felt the fluttering pulse and noted the dilated eyes
+of his patients, he pronounced it a case of acrid poisoning and
+promptly ordered antidotes. The Empress, in a few days rallied and
+seemed little the worse beyond a strange pallor which overspread her
+features and an abnormal coldness, almost as of death, which pervaded
+her frame. From these she never fully recovered, but throughout her life
+was known in popular speech as "The White Lady."
+
+Upon Callirhoë the effects of the poison were still more serious. By her
+prompt action in sucking the aspic virus from the envenomed wound, she
+had saved the life of her beloved mistress, but at the peril of her own.
+The venom coursed through her veins, kindling the fires of fever in her
+blood. Her dilated eyes shone with unusual brilliance; her speech was
+rapid; her manner urgent; and her emotions and expressions were
+characterized by a strange and unwonted intenseness. The physician in
+answer to the eager questioning of Valeria, gravely shook his head, and
+said that the case was one that baffled his skill--that cure there was
+none for the aspic's poison if absorbed into the system, although as it
+had not in this case been communicated directly to the blood, possibly
+the youth and vigour of the patient might overcome the toxic effect of
+the contagium--so he learnedly discoursed.
+
+"My dear child, you have given your life for mine," exclaimed the
+Empress, throwing her arms around her late enfranchised slave, and
+bedewing her cheek with her tears.
+
+"God grant it be so," said Callirhoë, with kindling eye. "I would gladly
+die to save you from a sorrow or a pain. I owe you more than life. I owe
+you liberty and a life more precious than my own."
+
+"All that love and skill can do, dear heart, shall be done," said the
+Empress caressingly, "to preserve you to your new-found liberty, and to
+your sire."
+
+"As God wills, dearest lady," answered Callirhoë, kissing her mistress'
+hand. "In His great love I live or die content. I bless Him every hour
+that He has permitted me to show in some weak way, the love I bear my
+best and dearest earthly friend."
+
+And with such fond converse passed the hours of Valeria's convalescence,
+and of Callirhoë's deepening decline.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE STORM BURSTS.
+
+
+The crafty Juba, when she found herself arrested in _flagrante
+delicto_--in the very act of her attempted crime--determined to use, if
+possible, the fiction she had employed with reference to Isidorus, as a
+means of escape from the very serious dilemma in which she was placed.
+It will be remembered that she had stated, in order to procure the
+acceptance of her fatal gift, that it was a thank-offering from the
+young Greek who had rendered such service to the Empress and Callirhoë.
+Happy if Valeria had remembered and practised the ancient adage, "_Timeo
+Danaos et dona ferentes._" But suspicion was foreign to her generous
+nature, and even if the wise saw had occurred to her, she would have
+lightly laughed away its cynical suggestion.
+
+When the treacherous slave was examined as to her share in the attempted
+crime, she stoutly adhered to her fictitious story, and protested that
+she knew nothing of the contents of the basket, but that she had
+received it from Isidorus, and had been well paid for conveying it to
+the Empress without suspicion of any sinister design.
+
+The Greek, when charged with the crime of attempting to procure, by
+poison, the death of the Empress Valeria, manifested the greatest
+astonishment. Summoned before the Quæstor of the Palace, an officer of
+co-ordinate jurisdiction with the Prefect of the city, he stoutly
+protested his innocence. But all his protestations were regarded by that
+official, as only the very perfection of art--the well-feigned evasions
+of a mendacious Greek. And certainly appearances were very much against
+him. The Prefect Naso, now that he had extorted from him all the
+information he had to give, abandoned him as a worn-out tool and
+divulged to the Quæstor the damning fact that the Greek by a formal
+document had accused the Empress of treason against the State, and of
+conspiracy with the Christians--for so he represented the confessions
+which, by his diabolical arts, he had wrung from his unhappy victim.
+Confronted by this evidence Isidorus was dumb. He saw the trap into
+which he had been snared, and that by no efforts of his own could he
+extricate himself. He saw, too, the ruin he had brought upon his
+friends, for Naso had procured the immediate arrest of Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and Demetrius, the father of Callirhoë, and other Christians
+connected with the Imperial household. Callirhoë herself was also placed
+under arrest, upon the monstrous accusation of conspiracy with Isidorus
+and Juba to procure the death of the Empress Valeria. One would have
+thought that her self-devotion and almost sacrifice of her life to save
+that of her mistress would have been a sufficient vindication from such
+a charge. But the unreasoning terror of the Emperors and the unreasoning
+hatred of all who bore the Christian name, fostered as these were by the
+machinations and evil suggestions of the Quæstor of the Palace, the
+Prefect of the city, the arch priest of Cybele, and the cruel, crafty
+Fausta, thirsty for the blood of her victim, rendered possible the
+acceptance of any charge, however improbable. "Any stick will do to beat
+a dog," and any accusation, however absurd, was considered available
+against the Christians.
+
+Even Galerius who, left to himself, would, soldier-like, have braved any
+personal danger, completely lost his judgment at the peril menacing the
+Empress. The tortures of slaves and servants by the perverted tribunals,
+miscalled of justice, fomented by the cruel, crafty priests, and the
+eager greed of Prefect and Quæstor, caused an outburst of persecution
+against all who bore the Christian name. The estates of Adauctus, and
+Aurelius were expropriated by the persecutors, and as a consequence
+their late possessors were pre-judged to death. Valeria who would fain
+have interposed her protection, had suffered such a physical shock as
+to be incapable of exercising any authority or influence she might
+possess. And the Empress Prisca, less courageous in spirit, less
+beautiful in person, and less potent in influence, was completely cowed
+by the domineering violence of the Emperor Diocletian, who was quite
+beside himself at the conspiracy against the gods, and against the
+Imperial Household which he persuaded himself had been discovered.
+
+"Madam," he replied, in answer to a weak remonstrance against the
+persecution, "was it not enough that our palace at Nicomedia was burned
+over our heads, that you must apologise for treason in our very
+household and the menace of our very person. No; the Christian
+superstition must be stamped out, and the worship of the gods
+maintained."[37]
+
+Hence throughout the wide empire, in the sober language of history,
+"Edict followed edict, rising in regular gradations of angry barbarity.
+The whole clergy were declared enemies of the State; and bishops,
+presbyters, and deacons were crowded into the prisons intended for the
+basest malefactors"[38]--"an innumerable company," says the Christian
+bishop Eusebius, "so that there was no room left for those condemned for
+crime." "We saw with our own eyes," writes a contemporary historian,
+"our houses of worship thrown down, the sacred Scriptures committed to
+the flames, and the shepherds of the people become the sport of their
+enemies--scourge with rods, tormented with the rack and excruciating
+scrapings, in which some endured the most terrible death. Then men and
+women, with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the
+fire. The persecutors, constantly inventing new tortures, vied with one
+another as if there were prizes offered to him who should invent the
+greatest cruelties. The men bore fire, sword, and crucifixions, savage
+beasts, and the depths of the sea, the maiming of limbs and searing with
+red hot iron, digging out of the eyes and mutilations of the whole body,
+also hunger, the mines, and prison. The women also were strengthened by
+the Divine Word, so that some of them endured the same trials as the
+men, and bore away the same prize. It would exceed all powers of
+detail," he goes on, "to give an idea of the sufferings and tortures
+which the martyrs endured. And these things were done, not for a few
+days, but for a series of whole years. We ourselves," he adds, "have
+seen crowds of persons, some beheaded, some burned alive, in a single
+day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken in pieces,
+and the executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over
+the work of blood."[39] And he goes on to describe deeds of shame and
+torture of which he was an eye-witness, which our pen refuses to record.
+
+The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed at times almost like an epidemic.
+It was one of the most remarkable features of the ages of persecution.
+Notwithstanding the terrific tortures to which they were exposed, the
+zeal of the Christian heroes burned higher and brighter in the fiercest
+tempest of heathen rage. Age after age summoned the soldiers of the
+Cross to the conflict whose highest guerdon was death. They bound
+persecution as a wreath about their brows, and exulted in the "glorious
+infamy" of suffering for their Lord. The brand of shame became the badge
+of highest honour. Besides the joys of heaven they won imperishable fame
+on earth; and the memory of a humble slave was often haloed with a glory
+surpassing that of a Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was ennobled
+by the accolade of martyrdom to the loftiest peerage of the skies. His
+consecration of suffering was elevated to a sacrament, and called the
+baptism of fire or of blood.
+
+Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous candidates for death often
+pressed with eager haste to seize the palm of victory and the martyr's
+crown. They trod with joy the fiery path to glory, and went as gladly to
+the stake as to a marriage feast. "Their fetters," says Eusebius,
+"seemed like the golden ornaments of a bride."[40] They desired
+martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[41] They
+exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to suffer
+for their divine Master. "Let the ungulæ tear us," exclaims
+Tertullian;[42] "the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope us,
+the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon us; the very
+posture of prayer is a preparation for every punishment." "These
+things," says St. Basil, "so far from being a terror, are rather a
+pleasure and a recreation to us."[43] "The tyrants were armed;" says St.
+Chrysostom; "and the martyrs naked; yet they that were naked got the
+victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished."[44] Strong in the
+assurance of immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.
+
+Though weak in body they seemed clothed with vicarious strength, and
+confident that though "counted as sheep for the slaughter," naught could
+separate them from the love of Christ. Wrapped in their fiery vesture
+and shroud of flame, they yet exulted in their glorious victory. While
+the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame, and the eyes filmed with the
+shadows of death, the spirit was enbraved by the beatific vision of the
+opening heaven, and above the roar of the mob fell sweetly on the inner
+sense the assurance of eternal life. "No group, indeed, of Oceanides was
+there to console the Christian Prometheus; yet to his upturned eye
+countless angels were visible--their anthem swept solemnly to his ear
+--and the odours of an opening paradise filled the air. Though the dull
+ear of sense heard nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryphæus
+as he invited him to heaven and promised him an eternal crown."[45] The
+names of the "great army of martyrs," though forgotten by men, are
+written in the Book of Life. "The Lord knoweth them that are His."
+
+    There is a record, traced on high,
+    That shall endure eternally;
+    The angel standing by God's throne
+    Treasures there each word and groan;
+    And not the martyr's speech alone,
+    But every wound is there depicted,
+    With every circumstance of pain
+    The crimson stream, the gash inflicted
+    And not a drop is shed in vain.[46]
+
+This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no
+classical counterpart.[47] Socrates and Seneca suffered with fortitude,
+but not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy dwindled into
+insignificance before the sublimity of Christian hope. This looked
+beyond the shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth to the grandeur
+of the Infinite and the Eternal. The heroic deaths of the believers
+exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal instincts of
+nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life itself. Like a solemn
+voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples urged the
+inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose
+his own soul?" And that voice awakened an echo in full many a heart. The
+martyrs made more converts by their deaths than in their lives. "Kill
+us, rack us condemn us, grind us to powder," exclaims the intrepid
+Christian Apologist; "our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us
+down."[47] The earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but still
+they multiplied and grew, gloriously illustrating the perennial
+truth--_Sanguis martyrum semen ecclesiæ_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] These are the very words of the edict quoted in note to Chapter II.
+
+[38] Milman, History of Christianity, Book II., Chapter ix.
+
+[39] Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History," Book viii., Chaps, ii-xiv.
+
+[40] Hist. Eccles., v. I.
+
+[41] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quærebantur quam
+nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur.--Sulpic. Sever. Hist.,
+lib. II.
+
+[42] Apol. c. 30.
+
+[43] Gregory Nazianzen. Orat. de Laud. Basil. See also the striking
+language of Ignatius. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. III. 36.
+
+[44] Chrys. Horn. 74, de Martyr.
+
+[45] Kip, p. 88--from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for
+martyrdom rose into a passion. Eusebius says (Hist. Eccles., viii., 6)
+that in Nicomedia "Men and women with a certain divine and inexpressible
+alacrity rushed into the fire."
+
+    Inscripta CHRISTO pagina immortalis est,
+    Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.
+    Et quæ locutus martyr, et quæ pertulit:
+    Nec verbum solum disserentis condidit,
+    Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio,
+    Quæ vis doloris, quive segmenti modus:
+    Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit. _Peristeph._
+
+[46] Video, proboque meliora,
+     Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._
+
+[47] The pagans called the martyrs βιαθἁυατοι, or self
+murderers.
+
+[48] Tertul., Apol., c. 50.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE MAMERTINE PRISON.
+
+
+Let us now turn our attention to the fate of the characters in our tale
+of Christian trial and triumph, around whom its interest chiefly
+centres. They have been consigned to one of the most dismal of the many
+gloomy dungeons of Rome--the thrice terrible Mamertine prison--haunted
+with memories of long centuries of cruelty and crime. Manacled each to a
+Roman soldier, Adauctus, Aurelius, Demetrius, and Callirhoë, together
+with other Christians condemned to martyrdom, marched through the
+streets under the noontide glare of a torrid sun. A guard armed _cap à
+pié_, flung open an iron-studded door, and admitted them to a gloomy
+vault a few steps below the level of the street. Here a brawny Vulcan,
+with anvil and hammer, with many a brutal gibe smote off the fetters
+that linked the prisoners and soldiers together, and riveted them again
+so that these victims of oppression were bound together in pairs.
+Sometimes it happened that one of a pair thus bound together died, and
+the survivor endured the horror of being inseparably fettered to a
+festering corpse. To this the apostle refers when, groaning over the
+corruptions of his sinful nature, he exclaims: "O wretched man that I
+am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
+
+"My dainty lady," said the hideous Cyclops, as he rudely seized the arm
+of Callirhoë, "this is not the sort of bracelet you've been used to
+wear. I should not much mind, being bound to such as you myself, only I
+would prefer silken fetters to those iron gyves." Then, as she shrank
+from his touch and winced as he bruised her tender flesh in unriveting
+the fetters, he said, with an insolent jeer, "I wont hurt you more than
+I can help, my beauty. You are not used to having such a rough
+chamberlain;" and he uttered a coarse jest with which we shall not
+pollute our page.
+
+A rosy flush stormed the brow of the maiden as she turned her blushing
+cheek to the mildewed and cold stone wall, in haughty silence disdaining
+a word of reply to the brutal ruffian.
+
+"Nay, my fine gentlemen," went on this typical Roman jailer, as Adauctus
+and the aged Demetrius, weary with their march, sank upon a stone bench,
+"this is too luxurious an apartment for you. For you we have a deeper
+depth." And Be pointed to an opening in the floor, hitherto unnoticed in
+the gloom. "Nay, you need not shrink, old man," he went on, as Demetrius
+recoiled from the grave-like opening at his feet. "Your betters have
+been there before you."
+
+"Father, your blessing e'er you go," exclaimed Callirhoë, and flinging
+herself on his breast, she received his kiss and benediction.
+
+By means of a leathern strap beneath their arms, the prisoners were one
+by one let down into a hideous vault, like men to a living burial. Into
+this lower dungeon no beam of light struggled, save a precarious ray
+from the opening in the floor above. The loathsome cell was even then
+dank with the slime of well-nigh a thousand years, its construction
+being attributed to Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome. Here the
+African prince, Jugurtha, was starved to death. "What a cold bath is
+this!" he exclaimed, as he descended into its chilly gloom. Here the
+Gallic king, Vercingetorix, also died. Here the usurper Sejanus was
+executed, and here the fellow conspirators of Cataline lingered to
+death. If we would accept Roman tradition, we would also believe that
+St. Peter and St. Paul were immured in this dismal vault, and in the
+case of the latter illustrious martyr it is more than likely that the
+story is true. A stairway has now been constructed to this lower depth,
+and the present writer has stood upon the stone pavement worn by the
+feet of generations of victims of oppression, and has drunk of a spring
+at which the Apostle of the Gentiles may have quenched his thirst.
+
+The prisoners enjoyed not long even this sad reprieve from death. They
+were destined soon to finish their course by a glorious martyrdom. The
+Emperors determined to gratify at once their own persecuting fury and
+the cruel thirst for blood of the Roman mob, by offering a holocaust of
+victims in the amphitheatre. The _Acta Diurna_, a sort of public gazette
+of the day, which circulated in the great houses, and baths, and other
+places of concourse, contained the announcement of a grand exhibition of
+the _ludi circenses_, or gladiatorial games, to be celebrated in honour
+of the god Neptune--_Neptunus Equestris_. In the public spaces of the
+Forum, and in the neighbourhood of the Flavian Amphitheatre and
+elsewhere, where the crowd around them would not obstruct the highway,
+were displayed large white bulletin boards, on which were written in
+coloured chalks a list of the games--like the playbills which placard
+the streets of great cities to-day--and heralds proclaimed through every
+street, even in the crowded Ghetto, the splendour of the approaching
+games. These were on a scale on which no modern manager ever dreamed.
+Trajan exhibited games which lasted a hundred and twenty-three days, in
+which 10,000 gladiators fought and 11,000 fierce animals were killed.
+Sometimes the vast arena was flooded with water, and _naumachia_ or
+sea-fights were exhibited. The vast flood-gates and cisterns by which
+this was accomplished may still be seen.
+
+The chief attraction of the games provided by the Emperors Diocletian
+and Galerius, however, was not the conflict of what might almost be
+called armies of trained gladiators, nor the slaughter of hundreds of
+fierce Libyan leopards and Numidian lions, but the sacrifice of some
+scores of helpless and unarmed Christians--old men, weak women, and
+tender and innocent children.
+
+There was much excitement in the schools of the gladiators--vast stone
+barracks, where they were drilled in their dreadful trade. They were
+originally captives taken in war, or condemned malefactors; but in the
+degenerate days of the Empire, knights, senators, and soldiers sought
+distinction in the arena, and even unsexed women fought half-naked in
+the ring, or lay dead and trampled in the sands. To captives of war was
+often offered, as a reward for special skill or courage, their freedom
+and fierce and fell were conflicts to which men wore spurred by the
+double incentives of life and liberty.
+
+Special interest was given to the forthcoming games by the distinguished
+reputation of one of the volunteer gladiators, a brilliant young
+military officer, our friend Ligurius Rufus, who, sated and sickened
+with the most frenzied dissipations that Rome could offer, plunged into
+this mimic war to appease by its excitement the gnawing ennui of his
+life.
+
+The bets ran high upon the reckless young noble who was the favourite of
+the sporting spend-thrifts and profligates of the city. The vilest
+condition of society that ever cursed the earth was filling up the
+measure of its iniquity, and invoking the wrath of Heaven. The wine
+shops in the Suburra and the gladiators' quarter were overflowing with a
+brawling, blaspheming, drunken mob, the vilest dregs of the vilest city
+the patient earth has ever borne upon its bosom.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM.
+
+
+Far different was the scene presented by another spot not far distant--a
+vaulted chamber beneath the stone seats of the Coliseum, whither the
+destined Christian martyrs had been removed on the eve before the day of
+their triumph. As an act of grace, some coarse straw, the refuse of a
+lion's lair, had been given them, and the relief to their fetter-cramped
+limbs, stiffened with lying on a rough stone floor, was in itself an
+indescribable delight. But they had a deeper cause of joy. They were
+found worthy to witness a good confession for Christ before Cæsar, like
+the beloved Apostle Paul; and even as their Lord Himself before Pontius
+Pilate. And now the day of their espousals to their Heavenly Bridegroom
+was at hand.
+
+The silvery-haired Demetrius, a holy calm beaming in his eyes, uttered
+words of peace and comfort. The coarse black barley-bread and muddy wine
+which had been given them lest death should cheat the mob of their
+promised delight on the morrow, the venerable priest had consecrated to
+the Supper of the Lord--the last viaticum to strengthen their souls on
+their journey to the spirit world. Sitting at his feet, faint and wan,
+but with a look of utter content upon her face, was his daughter
+Callirhoë, a heavenly smile flickering about her lips. With an undaunted
+courage, a heroic resolve beaming from his eyes, stood Adauctus,
+waiting, like a valiant soldier at his post, the welcome word of the
+great Captain of his salvation: "Well done! good and faithful servant,
+enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
+
+Ever and anon the deep-mouthed roar of a hungry lion rent the air, his
+fierce bound shook the walls of his cage, and his hot breath came
+through the bars as he keenly sniffed the smell of human flesh. But
+though it caused at times a tremor of the quivering nerves of the wan
+and wasted girl, it shook not her unfaltering soul Listen to the holy
+words calmly spoken by the venerable Demetrius: "'_Non turbetur cor
+vestrum_--Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many
+mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.' Yes, daughter. Yes, brave
+friend; before another sun shall set we shall see the King in His
+beauty, and the laud that is very far off. Mine aged eyes shall see,
+too, the beloved Rachel of my youth, to behold whom they have ached
+these many years. And thou, child, shalt see the mother after whom thy
+heart hath yearned."
+
+"If only, dear father, my brother Ezra were with us," whispered
+Callirhoë, "we soon would be an unbroken family in the city of the great
+King."
+
+"God's will be done, my child," answered the patriarch. "He doeth all
+things well. He could bid His angels fly swiftly, and shut the lions'
+mouths, or better still, convoy our spirits to the marriage supper of
+the Lamb--to the repose of Abraham's bosom. Your brother is a child of
+the covenant, an heir of the promises, the son of many prayers. God will
+count him also in the day when He maketh up His jewels." Then, as if
+gifted with the spirit of prophecy, he exclaimed: "Not always shall the
+servants of the Most High be persecuted unto death. But this very
+structure, now dedicated to slaughter and cruelty, shall hereafter be
+consecrated to the service of the true God"--a prediction which, after
+long centuries, has been literally fulfilled.
+
+Thus in holy converse wore the hours away. And then through the rocky
+vaults of the Coliseum stole the sweet accents of their last evening
+hymn before they should sing the song of Moses and the Lamb on high:--
+
+"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide
+under the shadow of the Almighty."
+
+"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him
+will I trust."
+
+"He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy
+ways."
+
+"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon
+shalt thou trample under foot."
+
+As this pæan of triumph swelled into louder strain, the gladiators, awed
+by its strange power, paused amid their ribald jests, and even the lion
+hushed his hungry roar, and the tiger his angry growl.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
+
+
+Early next morning the army of slaves who had charge of the Coliseum,
+under the direction of Fulvus, the freedman, were hard at work. Some at
+the very summit of the building, with much shouting and pulling of
+ropes, were stretching the great _velarium_ or awning, as a protection
+from the rays of the sun. Others were sweeping the sand of the arena to
+a smooth and even surface. Many cart loads of fresh sand were heaped
+around the base of the podium, for the ghastly purpose of being spread
+upon the blood-stained surface after each act of the sanguinary drama of
+the day. Others were decorating with garlands of flowers, and with gold
+and purple bannerets, the seats of the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius,
+and those of the senators and other persons of distinction. The great
+structure seemed even more striking in its vastness, as a few score
+figures crawled like flies over its empty seats, than when filled with
+its tumultuous throng of spectators. It was an immense oval six hundred
+and fifteen feet in its longer diameter, and five hundred and ten feet
+in the shorter. The circling seats rose tier on tier to the giddy height
+of one hundred and fifty feet.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM, ROME.]
+
+As the present writer climbed those cliff-like walls, now crumbling into
+ruin, he tried to re-people those long-deserted seats with the eager and
+excited throngs which had often filled them to overflowing, when twice
+eighty thousand cruel eyes were wont to gloat upon the dying martyr's
+pang, "butchered to make a Roman holiday."[49] Then he wandered through
+the vast vaulted corridors and stairways, eighty in number, and bearing
+still the old Roman numerals by which access was gained to the different
+galleries. These were so capacious that the whole multitude could in a
+few minutes disperse, and were thence called _vomitoria_. He then
+explored the dens and caves for the wild beasts, and the rocky chambers
+in which the gladiators and martyr victims awaited the signal that
+called them to their doom. The row of seats just above the podium was
+reserved for the equestrian order; those higher still, for the
+_populus_, or common people; and the highest of all, for persons of the
+lowest rank. Early in the day, multitudes of spectators began to arrive,
+mostly arrayed in gala dress, and many wearing the colours of their
+favourite gladiatorial champion. With a loud flourish of trumpets the
+great gates of the imperial entrance opened, and the chariots of the
+Emperors and their respective _suites_ entered and took their places in
+the grand tribune reserved for these august occupants. It was noted with
+dissatisfaction by the multitude that neither of the Empresses Prisca or
+Valeria, were present. But the withered old crone Fausta, mother of
+Galerius, seemed to gloat like a foul harpy on the anticipated spectacle
+of blood, and near by was her sinister shadow, the black-browed priest
+of Cybele.
+
+Our old acquaintance, Burdo, the butcher, was rubicund with joy at the
+approaching conflict, for which, he said, he long had hungered. "But
+why," he asked, "are not their majesties, the Empresses, in the state
+tribune. 'Tis a contempt of a festival sacred to the gods."
+
+"Our dainty Empress," jeered Samos, the "Flat-nose," "has small stomach
+to see her friends the Christians given to the lions, and I suspect the
+old one is tarred with the same stick."
+
+"If I thought that I'd denounce her myself," growled Bruto, the
+gladiator; "Empress or slave, the crime of being a Christian levels all
+ranks."
+
+"And lose your head for your pains," chimed in Piso, the barber. "Don't
+you know that she winds the Emperor round her finger like a silken
+thread."
+
+"Does she favour the accursed Nazarenes?" croaked Ephraim the Jew. "May
+the same fate overtake her."
+
+"I thought they were friends of yours," said our old friend Max, who was
+one of the soldiers on guard. "They say this Christus whom they worship
+was a Jew."
+
+We dare not repeat the wicked imprecation which burst from the lips of
+the exasperated Israelite. But it is notorious that the Jews were far
+more malignant persecutors of the Christians than even the Pagans
+themselves--as is apparent from the Acts of the Apostles and other
+records of the early Church.
+
+The time for beginning the games having come, the priest of Neptune
+poured a libation to the god, and heaped incense on his altar, placed
+near the Imperial tribune. In this act of worship--for these old gods
+were worshipped with the blood of men slain as a holiday pageant--he was
+followed by the Emperors and their chief officers.
+
+Then with another peal of trumpets a procession of gladiators in
+burnished armour entered the arena and marched around its vast circuit.
+Pausing before the tribune of the Emperors they chanted with a loud
+voice: "_Cæsares Augusti, morituri salutarus vos_--Great Cæsars, we who
+are about to die salute you."
+
+First there was a sort of sham battle--_prælusio_, as it was called, in
+which the gladiators fought with wooden swords. But the multitude were
+speedily impatient of that, and demanded the combat _a l'outrance_--to
+the death.
+
+"We came not here to witness such child's play as that," said Burdo, the
+butcher. "I want to see the blood flow as it does in my own shambles;" a
+brutal sentiment which met with much favour from his neighbours.
+
+Soon their desires were gratified. First there was a combat of
+_Andabatæ_, that is, men who wore helmets without any aperture for the
+eyes, so that they were obliged to fight blindfold, and thus excited the
+mirth of the spectators. Although they inflicted some ugly wounds upon
+each other, none of these were mortal, and the mob called loudly for the
+_Hoplomachi_, who were next on the play-bill. These were men who fought
+in a complete suit of armour. They were as completely encased as crabs
+in their shells, but as they could see each other through the bars of
+their visors, they were able skilfully to direct their weapons at the
+joints of their antagonist's armour. Soon the arena was red with blood,
+and more than one victim lay dead and trampled on the sands.
+
+"Good! this is something like the thing," cried Burdo. "But these
+fellows are so cased in their shells it is hard to get at them. Let us
+have the _Retiarii_."
+
+"Yes, the _Retiarii_ and _Mirmillones_," shouted the mob; and they soon
+marched upon the scene.
+
+This conflict promised abundance of excitement The _Retiarii_ wore no
+armour, and their only weapons were a net (_rete_, hence their name) and
+a trident or three-pronged spear. The _Retiarius_ endeavoured to throw
+the net over his antagonist, and then to despatch him with the spear. If
+he missed his aim in throwing his net, he betook himself to flight, and
+endeavoured to prepare his net for a second cast, while his adversary
+followed him round the arena in order to kill him before he could make a
+second attempt. It was a cruel sport, and kindled to fury the fierce
+passions of the eager spectators.
+
+Then came a conflict between skilled gladiators--the most accomplished
+swordsmen of the gladiatorial school. The vast multitude watched with
+fevered interest the wary fencing, the skilful guard and rapid thrust
+and stroke of those trained butchers of their fellow-men. When a
+swordsman was wounded, the spectators rent the air with cries of
+"_Habet! Habet!_" and the one who was vanquished lowered his arms in
+token of submission. His fate, however, depended upon the will of the
+people, who sometimes, when a vanquished swordsman had exhibited
+especial dexterity and skill, gave the signal to spare him by
+stretching out their hands with the thumbs turned down. But if, as was
+more frequently the case, their bloodthirsty passions were roused to
+insatiable fury, they demanded his death by turning their thumbs
+upwards, and shouting, "_Recipe ferrum_!" Without a tremor the victim
+then bared his breast to the sword, and the victor thrust it home to the
+hilt, while the cruel mob shouted their huzzas over the bloody tragedy.
+
+Such is the scene brought vividly before our minds by the matchless
+antique statue of the Dying Gladiator, found in the Gardens of Sallust,
+now in the museum of the Capitol. As one gazes with a strange
+fascination on that wondrous marble, instinct, it seems, with mortal
+agony, callous must be the heart that is unmoved by its touching pathos.
+The exquisite lines of Byron nobly express the emotions which it awakens
+in every breast:--
+
+    I see before me the Gladiator lie:
+    He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
+    Consents to death, but conquers agony,
+    And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
+    And through his side the last drops ebbing slow
+    From the red gash fall heavy, one by one,
+    Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
+    The arena swims around him--he is gone,
+    Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
+
+    He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
+    Were with his heart, and that was far away.
+    He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
+    But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
+    _There_ were his young barbarians all at play,
+    _There_ was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
+    Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
+
+An unwonted interest was given to this cruel scene in the Roman
+amphitheatre, by a novel and unheard of incident which occurred. The
+brilliant young Roman officer, Ligurius Rufus, we have said, was
+announced to take part in these games. It was no uncommon thing for
+military fops, eager to win the applause of the multitude, or to goad
+their jaded weariness of life into a momentary excitement by a spice of
+real danger, to enter the lists of the arena; and Ligurius was at once
+the most brilliant swordsman in the Twelfth Legion, and the most
+_ennuyée_ and world-weary man in Rome.
+
+He was pitted against a brawny Hercules, the strongest and hugest of the
+whole school of gladiators--a British prisoner of war, who had been long
+the pride and boast of the arena. As they stood face to face, the young
+officer in burnished armour, inlaid with silver and gold, and the
+mighty thews of his opponent encased in leather and bronze, the betting
+was heavy in favour of the British giant. Each felt that he had a foeman
+worthy of his steel. They walked warily around each other, each watching
+with eager eye every movement of his antagonist. Every thrust on either
+side was skilfully parried, any advantage of strength on the part of the
+British warrior being matched by the superior nimbleness of the Roman
+officer. At last a rapid thrust by Ligurius severed a tendon in the
+sword-arm of his foe, and it fell nerveless by his side. With a giant
+effort the disabled warrior sprang upon the Roman as if to crush him by
+sheer weight; but Ligurius nimbly sprang aside, and his antagonist,
+slipping in the gory sand, fell headlong to the ground. In an instant
+the Roman's foot was on his neck and his sword at his breast. With a
+courteous gesture, Ligurius raised his sword and waved it toward the
+Emperors' tribune and to the crowded seats of the podium, as if asking
+the signal to spare the vanquished gladiator, while the despairing look
+of the latter seemed with mute eloquence to ask for life. "_Habet!
+Habet!_" rang round the Coliseum, but not a single sign of mercy was
+made, not a single thumb was reversed. "_Recipe ferrum_," roared the mob
+at the prostrate giant; and then shouted to Ligurius, "_Occide!
+Occide!_--Kill! Kill!"
+
+The gallant Roman heeded them as he would heed the howl of wolves. "I am
+not a butcher," he said, with a defiant sneer, and he sheathed his sword
+and, much to the surprise of his discomfitted foe, lent his hand to
+raise him from the ground.
+
+"You are a brave man," he said, "I want you as a standard bearer for the
+Twelfth Legion. That is better than making worm's meat of you. Rome may
+need such soldiers before long."
+
+The Emperors were not unwilling to grant this novel request of a
+favourite officer, and the grateful creature, in token of his fidelity,
+humbly kissed the hand of Ligurius, and followed him from the arena. The
+cruel mob, however, angered at being deprived of their anticipated
+spectacle of blood, howled with rage, and demanded the crowning scene of
+the day's sports--the conflict between the wild beasts and the Christian
+martyrs.
+
+These hateful scenes had become the impassioned delight of all classes,
+from the Emperors to the "vile plebs" of Rome. Even woman's pitiful
+nature forgot its tenderness, and maids and matrons gloated on the cruel
+spectacle, and the honour was reserved for the Vestal Virgin to give the
+signal for the mortal stroke. Such scenes created a ferocious thirst
+for blood throughout society. They overthrew the altar of pity, and
+impelled to every excess and refinement of barbarity. Even children
+imitated the cruel sport in their games, schools of gladiators were
+trained for the work of slaughter, women fought in the arena or lay dead
+and trampled in the sand.
+
+It is to the eternal praise of Christianity that it suppressed these
+odious contests, and forever averted the sword of the gladiator from the
+throat of his victim. The Christian city of Constantinople was never
+polluted by the atrocious exhibition. A Christian poet eloquently
+denounced the bloody spectacle. A Christian monk, roused to indignation
+by the hateful scene, leaped over the barrier to separate the gladiators
+in the very frenzy of the conflict. The maddened mob, enraged at this
+interruption of their sport, stoned him to death. But his heroic
+martydom produced a moral revulsion against the practice, and the laws
+of Honorius, to use the language of Gibbon, "abolished forever the human
+sacrifices of the amphitheatre."
+
+It remains to notice in another chapter the last scene in the stern
+drama of this "Roman holiday."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] On this very arena perished the venerable Ignatius, linked by
+tradition with the Saviour Himself as one of the children whom He took
+in His arms and blessed. "Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts," he
+exclaimed, "by whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat of God,
+and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become the
+pure bread of Christ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE MARTYRS CROWNED.
+
+
+At a flourish of trumpets the iron-studded doors of the cells in which
+the Christians were confined were thrown open, and the destined martyrs
+walked forth on the arena in the sight of assembled thousands. It was a
+spectacle to arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless, and to
+move the sympathy of even the most austere. At the head of the little
+company walked the good presbyter, Demetrius, his silvery hair and beard
+and benignant expression of countenance giving him a strikingly
+venerable aspect. Leaning heavily on his arm, evidently faint in frame
+but strong in spirit, was his daughter Callirhoë. Robed in white, she
+looked the embodiment of saintly purity, and in her eyes there beamed a
+heroic courage which inspired a wonder that so brave a soul should be
+shrined in so frail a body. Adauctus, Aurelius, and other Christian
+confessors condemned to death, made up the little contingent of the
+noble army of martyrs.
+
+The prefect Naso, from his place in the tribune, near the Emperors, read
+the sentence of the court, that the accused having been proven by ample
+testimony to be the enemies of the Cæsars and of the gods, had been
+condemned to death by exposure to wild beasts.
+
+"Nay, not the enemies of the Cæsars," exclaimed the aged Demetrius. "We
+are the friends of all, the enemies of none.[50] We pray for the Cæsars
+at all our assemblies."
+
+"Will you do homage to the gods?" demanded Diocletian. "Will you burn
+incense to Neptune? Here is his altar and here are his priests."
+
+"We worship the true God who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and
+all that in them is," replied the venerable man, with uplifted and
+reverent countenance, "and Him only will we serve. They be no gods which
+are made by man's device, and 'tis idolatry to serve them."
+
+"Away with the Atheists," cried the priests of Neptune; "they blaspheme
+the holy gods."
+
+"The Christians to the lions!" roared the mob, and at the signal from
+the Emperor to the master of the games, the dens of the wild beasts were
+thrown open, and the savage brutes, starved into madness, bounded into
+the arena. The defenceless martyrs fell upon their knees in prayer, and
+seemed conscious only of the presence of Him who stood with the three
+Hebrews in the fiery furnace, so rapt was the expression of faith and
+courage on their upturned faces.
+
+The fierce Numidian lions, and tigers from the Libyan desert, instead of
+bounding upon their prey, began to circle slowly around them, lashing
+their tawny flanks meanwhile, glaring at their victims from bloodshot
+fiery eyes, and uttering horrid growls.
+
+At this moment a loud shout was heard, and a soldier, clad in burnished
+mail, and with his drawn sword in his hand, one of the body guards of
+the Emperors, leaped from the tribune and bounded with clashing armour
+into the arena. Striding across the sand, he hurled aside his iron
+helmet and his sword, and flung himself at the feet of the aged priest,
+with the words:--
+
+"Father, your blessing; Callirhoë, your parting kiss. I, too, am a
+Christian. Long time have I sought you, alas! only to find you thus. But
+gladly will I die with you, and, separated in life, we are united in
+death and forever."
+
+"_Nunc dimittis, Domine!_" exclaimed the old man, raising his eyes to
+heaven. "'Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'" And he
+laid his hands in blessing on the head of his long-lost son.
+
+"Ezra, my brother!" exclaimed Callirhoë, folding him in her arms. "To
+think we were so near, yet knew not of each other. Thank God, we go to
+heaven together; and, long divided on earth, we shall soon, with our
+beloved mother, be a united family forever in the skies. 'And God shall
+wipe away all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death,
+neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.'"
+
+"Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!" spake the young soldier, as he
+enfolded, as if in a sheltering embrace, the gray-haired sire and the
+fair-faced girl.
+
+The utmost consternation was exhibited on the countenance of the old
+Emperor Diocletian. "What! have we Christians and traitors even in our
+body guard? Our very life is at the mercy of those wretches!"
+
+"I would feel safer with them," said the more stoical or more courageous
+Galerius, "than with the _delators_ and informers who betray them," and
+he glanced with mingled contempt and aversion at Naso, the prefect, and
+Furca, the priest. "When a Christian gives his word, 'tis sacred as all
+the oaths of Hecate. I want no better soldiers than those of the
+Thundering Legion."[51]
+
+Meanwhile the wild beasts, startled for a moment by the sudden
+apparition of the mail-clad soldier, seemed roused thereby to ten-fold
+fury. Crouching stealthily for the fatal spring, they bounded upon their
+prey, and in a moment crashing bones and streaming gore appeased the
+growing impatience of the cruel mob, who seemed, like the very wild
+beasts, to hunger and thirst for human flesh and blood.
+
+We dwell not on the painful spectacle. The gallant young soldier was the
+first to die. The brave girl, with a gesture of maiden modesty, drew her
+dishevelled robe about her person, and with a queenly dignity awaited
+the wild beast's fatal spring. She was mercifully spared the spectacle
+of her father's dying agony. Her over-strung nerves gave way, and she
+fell in a swoon upon the sands. Demetrius met his fate praying upon his
+knees. Like Stephen, he gazed steadfastly up into heaven, and the
+fashion of his countenance was suddenly transfigured as he exclaimed:
+"Lord Jesus! Rachel, my beloved! we come, we come." And above the roar
+of the ribald mob and the growl of the savage beasts, fell sweetly on
+his inner ear the song of the redeemed, and burst upon his sight the
+beatific vision of the Lord he loved, and for whom he gladly died.
+
+So, too, like brave men, victorious o'er their latest foe, Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and the others calmly met their fate. When all the rest were
+slain, a lordly lion approached the prostrate form of Callirhoë, but she
+was already dead. She had passed from her swoon, without a pang, to the
+marriage supper of the Lamb--to the presence of the Celestial
+Bridegroom--the fairest among ten thousand, the one altogether
+lovely--to whom the homage of her young heart had been fully given. She
+was spared, too, the indignity, of being mangled by the lion's jaws.
+When the king of beasts found that she was already dead, he raised his
+massy head, gave a mournful howl, and strode haughtily away.
+
+In the great gallery of Doré paintings at London, is one of this Flavian
+Amphitheatre after a human sacrifice such as we have described. There
+lie the mangled forms upon the gory and trampled sands. The sated wild
+beasts prowl listlessly over the arena. The circling seats rise tier
+above tier, empty and desolate. But poised in air, with outspread wings,
+above the slain, with a countenance of light and a palm of victory, is a
+majestic angel; and sweeping upward in serried ranks, amid the shining
+stars, is a cloud of bright-winged angels, the convoy of the martyrs'
+spirits to the skies. So, doubtless, God sent a cohort of sworded
+seraphim to bear the martyrs of our story blessed company, and to sweep
+with them through the gates into the city.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[50] This famous phrase dates from the time of Tertullian, in the 3rd
+century, and is also recorded in the Catacombs.
+
+[51] The _Legio Tonans_, tradition affirms, was a legion composed wholly
+of Christians, whose prayers in a time of drought brought on a violent
+thunder-storm, which confounded the enemy and saved the army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE MARTYRS BURIED.
+
+
+Darker and darker grew the shadows of night over the great empty and
+desolate amphitheatre, but a few hours before clamorous with the shouts
+and din of the tumultuous mob. The silence seemed preternatural, and a
+solemn awfulness seemed to invest the shrouded forms which lay upon the
+sand. By a merciful provision of the Roman law, it made not war upon the
+dead, and the bodies even of criminals were given up to their friends,
+if they had any, that they might not be deprived of funeral rites.
+Having wreaked his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan
+magistrate at least did not deny the privilege of burial to the
+martyrs' mutilated remains. It was esteemed by the primitive believers
+as much an honour as a duty, to ensepulchre with Christian rites the
+remains of the sacred dead.[52]
+
+Faustus, the faithful freedman of Adauctus, Hilarus, the fossor, and the
+servants of the Christian matron, Marcella, came at the fall of night to
+bear away the bodies of the martyrs to their final resting-place in the
+silent Catacomb. The service was not devoid of danger, for vile
+informers prowled around seeking to discover and betray whomsoever would
+pay the rites of sepulture to the remains of the Christian martyrs. But
+there are golden keys which will unlock any doors and seal any lips, and
+Marcella spared not her wealth in this sacred service.
+
+On the present occasion, too, special facility was given for carrying
+out this pious purpose. Through the influence of the Empress Valeria,
+Hilarus, the fossor, was enabled to show to the chief custodian of the
+amphitheatre an authorization under the hand of Galerius for removing
+the bodies of the "criminals who had paid the penalty of the law"--so
+ran the rescript.
+
+Beneath the cliff-like shadow of the Coliseum gathered this little
+Christian company. The iron gates opened their ponderous jaws. By the
+fitful flare of a torch weirdly lighting up the vaulted arches, with
+gentle and reverent hands, as though the cold clay could still feel
+their lightest touch, the bodies of the dead were laid upon the biers.
+Through the silent streets, devout men in silence bore the martyrs to
+their burial. Through the Porta Capena, which opened to the magic spell
+of the Emperor's order; through the silent "Street of Tombs," still
+lined with the monuments of Rome's mighty dead, wended slowly the solemn
+procession. There was no wailing of the pagan _nænia_ or funeral dirge,
+neither was there the chanting of the Christian hymn. But in silence, or
+with only whispered utterance, they reached the door of the private
+grounds of the Villa Marcella.
+
+First the bodies were borne to the villa, where, by loving hands, the
+stains of dust and blood were washed away. Then, robed in white and
+bestrewn with flowers, they were placed on the biers in the marble
+atriun. Again the good presbyter Primitius read the words of life as at
+the burial of Lucius, the martyr,[53] and vows and prayers were offered
+up to God.
+
+While this solemn service was in progress, a lady, deeply-veiled, was
+seen to be agitated by violent grief. Convulsive sobs shook her frame,
+and her tears fell fast. When the forms of the martyrs were uncovered,
+that their friends might take their last farewell, the Empress Valeria,
+for it was she, flung herself on her knees beside the body of the late
+slave maiden, and rained tears of deep emotion on her face. More lovely
+in death than in life, the fine-cut features seemed like the most
+exquisite work of the sculptor carved in translucent alabaster. A crown
+of asphodel blossoms the emblems of immortality--encircled her brow, and
+a palm branch--the symbol of the martyr's victory--was placed upon her
+breast.
+
+"Give her an honoured place among the holy dead," said the Empress, amid
+her sobs, to the venerable Primitius.
+
+"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella, "that she, with her
+father and brother, shall sleep side by side in the chamber prepared as
+the last resting-place for my own family. We shall count it a precious
+privilege, in God's own good time, to be laid to rest near the dust of
+His holy confessors and martyrs."
+
+"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus, the fossor, "which he
+made for himself while yet alive, beside his noble wife, Aurelia
+Theudosia."
+
+"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet the remains of my good
+master Adauctus," said Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.[54]
+
+"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress, "to provide for my beloved
+handmaiden, as a mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of her
+saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in death as in life, so that
+those who read her epitaph may know she was the freedwoman and friend of
+an unhappy Empress."
+
+The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her trusty escort, returned
+to the city.
+
+With psalms and hymns, and the solemn chanting of such versicles as:
+_"Convertere anima mea, in requiem tuam"_--"Return unto thy rest, O my
+soul;" and _"Si ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis, non timebo
+mala"_--"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
+shall fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way, by gleaming
+torchlight, through the cypress glades of the garden to the entrance of
+the Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and tapers were
+lighted, and carefully the sacred burdens were carried down the long and
+narrow stair, and through the intricate passages to the family vault of
+the Lady Marcella.
+
+[Illustration: SUBTERRANEAN ORATORY, CATACOMB OF CALLIXTUS.]
+
+This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness, and had been
+especially prepared for holding religious service during the outbreak of
+persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in the Christian
+Church, and when even the privacy of her own house was not a sufficient
+safeguard against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont to retire to
+the deeper seclusion of this subterranean place of prayer. On each side
+of the door were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the deaconess,
+the other for the female catechist who shared her pious labours. Around
+the wall was a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for the most
+part members of her own household, who here received religious
+instruction. The accompanying engraving indicates the appearance of this
+ancient oratory or class-room, its main features unchanged, although the
+lapse of centuries has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its
+beauty.
+
+With solemn rites and prayers the remains of the martyrs were consigned
+to their last long resting-place. Amid the sobs and tears of the
+mourners, the good presbyter Primitius paid a loving tribute to their
+holy lives and heroic death--all the more thrilling because they
+themselves stood in jeopardy every hour. In the presence of the martyred
+dead the venerable pastor then broke the bread and poured the wine of
+the Last Supper of the Lord, and the little company of worshippers
+seemed united in still closer fellowship with those who now kept the
+sacred feast in the kingdom of their common Father and God.
+
+Before they left the chamber, Hilarus, after he had hermetically sealed
+the tombs of Demetrius and Ezra, his son, cemented with plaster a marble
+slab against the opening of that on which was laid--rude couch for form
+so fair--the body of the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it
+was designed to be but a temporary memorial of the virgin martyr, until
+the costly epitaph which the Empress was to provide should be ready, he
+took the little pot of pigment which he had brought for the purpose, and
+with his brush in, scribed the brief sentence:--
+
+VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
+ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.
+QVI VIXIT ANNOS XVIII. EN. V. DIES X.
+
+"Valeria sleeps in peace. A sweet spirit guileless, wise, beautiful in
+Christ. She lived eighteen years, five months, ten days."
+
+[Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
+
+Alas! the time never came when that costly memorial should be reared.
+The violence of persecution soon drove the Empress herself an exile from
+her home, and when the storm rolled away there was none left to carry
+out her pious wish. Through the long centuries that humble epitaph was
+all the memorial of one of the noblest, sweetest, bravest souls that
+ever lived. And even that rude slab was not destined always to cover her
+remains. After the re-discovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth
+century, many of their tombs were pillaged for relics, or in the vain
+search for treasure. By some ruthless rifler of the grave this very
+slab was shivered, and the lower part of the epitaph destroyed; and
+there upon its rocky bed, on which it had reposed for well-nigh fifteen
+hundred years, lay in mouldering dust the remains of the maiden martyr,
+Valeria Callirhoë. Verily _Pulvis et umbra sumus_!
+
+Primitius and Hilarus, with the little company of devout men who bore
+the martyrs to their burial, now proceeded to the entombment, in a
+neighbouring crypt, of the bodies of Adauctus and Aurelius. As they
+advanced through the dark corridors, but dimly lighted by their tapers'
+feeble rays, the silence of that under-world seemed almost appalling.
+Black shadows crouched around, and their footsteps echoed strangely down
+the distant passages, dying gradually away in this vast valley of the
+shadow of death. Almost in silence their sacred task was completed, and
+they softly sang a funeral hymn before they turned to leave their
+martyred brethren to their last long sleep.
+
+Suddenly there was heard the tumultuous "tramp, tramp," as of armed men.
+Then the clang of iron mail and bronze cuirass resounded through the
+vaulted corridors. The glare of torches was seen at the end of a long
+arched passage, and the sharp, swift word of military command rang out
+stern and clear.
+
+"Forward! Seize the caitiffs! Let not one escape! Slay if they resist!"
+and a rush was made to the chamber where the notes of the Christian
+psalm had but now died away.
+
+"Out with your lights!" exclaimed, in a muffled tone, Hilarus, the
+fossor. "Follow me as closely and as quietly as you can. Good Father
+Primitius, your arm. By God's help we will disappoint those hunters of
+men of their anticipated prey."
+
+"Or join our brethren in martyrdom, as is His will," devoutly added
+Primitius. "He doeth all things well."
+
+But we must go back a little to learn the cause and means of this armed
+invasion of the Catacombs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, vii., 16 and 22. Eutychianus, a Roman
+Christian, is recorded to have buried three hundred and forty-two
+martyrs with his own hands.
+
+[53] See Chapter VI.
+
+[54] Through the long lapse of ages this memorial has been preserved,
+and may still be read in Grater's great collection of ancient
+inscriptions. It is also referred to in Gibbon. In the epitaph occur the
+following fine lines:
+
+INTEMERATA FIDE CONTEMPTO PRINCIPE MVNDI CONFESSVS XRM CAELESTIA REGNA
+PETISTI.
+
+"With unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having
+confessed Christ, thou dost seek the celestial realms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE BETRAYAL--THE PURSUIT.
+
+
+When the unhappy Isidorus discovered that through his cowardice and
+tergiversation, and through the confessions extorted from his
+distempered mind, a criminal charge had been trumped up against the fair
+Callirhoë, whose beauty and grace had touched his susceptible
+imagination, he was almost beside himself with rage and remorse. He
+protested to the Prefect Naso and his disreputable son, Calphurnius,
+that she was as innocent as an unweaned babe of the monstrous crime
+alleged against her--that of conspiracy to poison her beloved mistress.
+
+"Accursed be the day," cried the wretched Isidorus, clenching his hands
+till his nails pierced the flesh, "accursed be the day when I first came
+to your horrid den to betray innocent blood. Would I had perished e'er
+it dawned."
+
+"Hark you, my friend," said Naso, "do you remember by what means you
+promised to earn the good red gold with which I bought you?"
+
+"Do not remind me of my shame in becoming a spy upon the Christians,"
+cried the Greek with a look of self-loathing and abhorrence.
+
+"Nay; 'by becoming one yourself,' that was the phrase as I wrote it on
+my tablets," sneered the prefect.
+
+"Would that I could become one!" exclaimed the unhappy man.
+
+"Suppose I take you at your word and believe you are one?" queried Naso
+with a malignant leer.
+
+"What new wickedness is this you have in your mind?" asked the Greek.
+
+"How would you like to share the doom of your friends, the old Jew and
+his pretty daughter, who are to be thrown to the lions to-day," went on
+the remorseless man, toying with his victim like a tiger with its prey.
+
+"Gladly, were I but worthy," said the Greek. "Had I their holy hopes, I
+would rejoice to bear them company."
+
+"But don't you see," said Naso, "a word of mine would send you to the
+arena, whether you like it or not? Your neck is in the noose, my
+handsome youth, and I do not think, with all your dexterity, you can
+wriggle out of it."
+
+"Oh! any fate but that!" cried the Greek, writhing in anguish. "Let me
+die as a felon, a conspirator, an assassin, if you will; but not by the
+doom of the martyrs."
+
+"Well, you see," went on the prefect, "justice is meted out to the
+Christians so much more swiftly and certainly than even against the
+worst of felons, that I am tempted to take this plan to secure you your
+deserts."
+
+The craven-spirited Greek, to whom the very idea of death was torture,
+blanched with terror and stood speechless, his tongue literally cleaving
+to the roof of his mouth.
+
+When the prefect perceived that he was sufficiently unnerved for his
+final experiment he unveiled his diabolical purpose.
+
+"Hark you, my friend," he whispered or rather hissed into his ear, "you
+may do the State, yourself, and me a service, that will procure you life
+and liberty and fortune. You know the way to the secret assemblies of
+the accursed Christian sect; lead hither a maniple of soldiers and your
+fortune's made."
+
+"Tempter, begone!" exclaimed the Greek in a moment of virtuous
+indignation, "you would make me worse than Judas whom the Christians
+execrate as the betrayer of his Master whom they worship."
+
+"As you please, my dainty youth," answered Naso, with his characteristic
+gesture of clutching his sword. "Prepare to feed the lions on the
+morrow," and he consigned him to a cell in the vaults of the Coliseum.
+
+Very different was the night spent by this craven soul to that of the
+destined martyrs. The darkness, to his distempered imagination, seemed
+full of accusing eyes, which glared reproach and vengeance upon him. The
+hungry lions' roar smote his soul with fearful apprehensions. When the
+savage bounds of the wild beasts shook his cell he cowered upon the
+ground, the picture of abject misery and despair.
+
+When by these mental tortures his nerves were all unstrung, the arch
+tempter silently entered his cell and whispered in his ear, "Well, my
+dainty Greek, are you ready for the games?"
+
+"Save me! save me!" cried the unhappy man, "any death but that! I will
+do anything to escape such a fearful doom."
+
+"I thought you would come to terms," replied the prefect, well skilled
+in the cruel arts of his office. "Life is sweet. Here is gold. By the
+service I require you shall earn liberty," and the compact was sealed
+whereby the Greek was to betray the subterranean hiding-places of the
+Christians to their enemies.
+
+Hence it was that at the dead of night, a band of Roman soldiers,
+reckless ruffians trained to slaughter in many a bloody war, marched
+under cover of darkness along the Appian Way to the villa of the Lady
+Marcella. It was the work of a moment to force the door of the vineyard
+and they soon reached the entrance to the Catacomb.
+
+"It is like a badger's burrow," said the officer in command. "We will
+soon bag our game, Here the old priest has his lair. Secure him at any
+cost. He is worth a score of the meaner vermin."
+
+Lighting their torches they inarched on their devious way under the
+guidance of Isidorus, who had written on a rude chart the number of
+turns to be made to the right or left. With Roman military foresight,
+the officer marked with chalk the route they took, and fixed
+occasionally a torch in the niches in the wall.
+
+Soon the soft, low cadence of the funeral hymn was heard, stealing
+weirdly on the ear, and a faint light glimmered from the chamber in
+which the Christians were paying the last rites to their martyred
+brethren.
+
+"They are at their incantations now," said the Centurion. "'Tis a fit
+place for their abominable orgies. Let us hasten, and we will spoil
+their wicked spells!" and he gave the command, at which the soldiers
+rushed forward toward the distant light.
+
+Instantly it disappeared, and when they reached the spot naught was
+seen, save the tomb of Adauctus; and in the distant darkness was heard
+the sound of hurrying feet.
+
+"The rats have fled," cried the officer; "after them, ferrets! Let not
+one escape!" and at the head of the maniple he darted down the echoing
+corridor.
+
+But Hilarus guided his friends amid the darkness more swiftly than the
+soldiers could pursue by the light of their torches. He followed many a
+devious winding, especially contrived to frustrate capture, and
+facilitate escape. Threading a very narrow passage, he drew from a niche
+a wooden ladder, and placing it against the wall reached a stairway
+which began high up near the roof. The whole party followed, and
+Hilarus, drawing up the ladder after him, completely cut off pursuit.
+They soon reached the comparatively lofty vaults of a deserted
+_arenarium_, or sand pit, which communicated with the open air. As he
+stood with bared brow beneath the light of the silent stars, the good
+Presbyter Primitius devoutly exclaimed:--"_Anima nostra sicut passer
+erepta est de lagueo venantium_--Our soul is escaped as a bird out the
+snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and we are escaped."
+
+The writer has not drawn upon his imagination in describing the
+arrangements for escape made by the persecuted Christians, when taking
+refuge in these dens and caves of the earth. In this very Catacomb of
+Callixtus, such a secret stairway still exists, and is illustrated by
+drawings in his book on this subject. The main entrance was completely
+obstructed and the stairway partially destroyed, so as to prevent
+ingress to the Catacomb, and a narrow stairway was constructed in the
+roof which could only be reached by a moveable ladder, connecting it
+with the floor. By drawing up this ladder pursuit could be easily cut
+off, and escape to a neighbouring _arenarium_ secured. Stores of corn,
+and oil, and wine have been found in these crypts, evidently as a
+provision in time of persecution; frequent wells also occur, amply
+sufficient for the supply of water; and the multitude of lamps which
+have been found would dispel the darkness, while their sudden extinction
+would prove the best concealment from attack by their enemies. Hence the
+Christians were stigmatized as a skulking, darkness-loving race,[55] who
+fled the light of day to burrow like moles in the earth. These
+labyrinths were admirably adapted for eluding pursuit. Familiar with
+their intricacies, and following a well-known clew, the Christian could
+plunge fearlessly into the darkness, where his pursuer would soon be
+inextricably lost.
+
+Such hairbreadth escapes as we have described from the Roman soldiers,
+like sleuth hounds tracking their prey, must have been no uncommon
+events in those troublous times. But sometimes the Christians were
+surprised at their devotions, and their refuge became their sepulchre.
+Such was the tragic fate of Stephen, slain even while ministering at the
+altar; such the event described by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of
+victims were immolated at once by heathen hate; such the peril which
+wrung from a stricken heart the cry, not of anger but of grief, recorded
+on a slab in the Catacombs: _Tempora infausta, quibus inter sacra et
+vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari possimus!_--"Oh! sad times in which,
+among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are not safe." It
+requires no great effort of imagination to conceive of the dangers and
+escapes which must have been frequent episodes in the heroic lives of
+the early soldiers of the cross.
+
+With what emotions must the primitive believers, seeking refuge in these
+crypts, have held their solemn worship and heard the words of life,
+surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what power would come the
+promise of the resurrection of the body, amid the crumbling relics of
+mortality! How fervent their prayers for their companions in
+tribulation, when they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour! Their
+holy ambition was to witness a good confession even unto death. They
+burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs of the faith, the plumeless
+heroes of a nobler chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes
+who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or amid the fiery tortures
+of the stake, not a crown of laurel or of bay, but a crown of life,
+starry and unwithering, that can never pass away. Their humble graves
+are grander monuments than the trophied tombs of Rome's proud conquerors
+upon the Appian Way. Reverently may we mention their names. Lightly may
+we tread beside their ashes.
+
+Though the bodily presence of those conscripts of the tomb no longer
+walked among men, their intrepid spirit animated the heart of each
+member of that little community of persecuted Christians, "of whom the
+world was not worthy; who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in
+dens and caves of the earth, ... being destitute, afflicted,
+tormented."[56]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio. _Minuc. Felix._
+
+[56] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:--
+    "La terre avail gemi sous le fer des tyrans;
+    Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,
+    Qui dans les noirs detours des grottes reculees
+    Derobaient aux bourreaux leurs tetes mutilees."
+         _Poeme de la Religion Vengee,_ chap. viii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR
+
+
+But what, meantime, had become of the pursuers? Baffled in their effort
+to seize their prey, and fearful of losing their way in this tangled
+labyrinth they had sullenly retreated, tracing their steps by the
+chalk-marks they had made upon the walls. At last, they returned to the
+stairway by which they had entered and so found their way above ground.
+
+"This is no work for soldiers," muttered the disgusted officer, "hunting
+these rats through their underground runs. They are a skulking set of
+vermin."
+
+"What has become of that coward Greek?" asked the second in command. "He
+didn't seem to half like the job."
+
+"Is he not here? Then he must have made his escape," said the Centurion.
+"But if he is caught in that rat-trap, there let him stay. I'll not risk
+a Roman soldier's life to save a craven Greek," and he gave the command
+to march back to the city.
+
+Meanwhile, how fares it with the unhappy Isidorus?
+
+When the soldiers caught sight of the Christians and began their
+pursuit, he had no heart to join in it, and lingered in the vaulted
+chamber where the funeral rites had been interrupted. The first thing
+that caught his eye was the epitaph of the noble Adauctus. With
+quavering voice he read the lines we have already given: "With
+unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having confessed
+Christ, thou dids't seek the celestial realms."
+
+"And this was he," he soliloquised, "who gave up name, and fame, and
+fortune, high office, and the favour of the Emperor, and embraced shame,
+and persecution, and a cruel death for conscience sake. How grand he
+was that day when I warned him of the machinations of his foes--so
+undaunted and calm. But grander he is as he lies in the majesty of death
+behind that slab. I felt myself a coward in his living presence then,
+but in the presence of this dead map, I feel a greater coward still. His
+memory haunts, it tortures me, I must away!" and turning from, the
+chamber, he wandered by the dim light of his taper down the grave-lined
+corridor, pausing at times to read their humble inscriptions:--
+
+    Rudely written, but each letter
+    Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,
+    Full of all the tender pathos
+    Of the here and the hereafter.
+
+And their calmness and peacefulness seemed to reproach his
+conscience-smitten and unrestful soul.
+
+Listlessly he turned into another chamber, when, what was it that met
+his startled vision!--
+
+VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
+
+There slept in the sleep of death another victim of his perfidy, one
+whom he had longed to save, one whose beauty had fascinated his
+imagination, whose goodness had touched his heart. Overcome by his
+emotion he flung himself on the ground, and bursting into convulsive
+sobs that shook his frame, he passionately kissed the cold stone slab
+on which was written the much-loved name.
+
+"Would that I, too, slept the sleep of death," he exclaimed; "if I might
+also sleep in peace; if I might seek celestial realms.... So near and
+yet so far ... A great gulf fixed ... Never to see thee more ... in time
+nor in eternity."
+
+Here the drip, drip of water which had infiltrated through the roof and
+fell upon the floor, jarred upon his excited nerves, and suddenly, with
+a hissing splash, fell a great drop on his taper and utterly
+extinguished its light. For a moment, so intense and sudden was the
+darkness, he was almost dazed; but instantly the greatness of his peril
+flashed upon his mind.
+
+"Lost! Lost!" he frantically shrieked. "The outer darkness, the eternal
+wailing while she is in the light of life! Well I remember now the words
+of Primitius, in this very vault, as he spoke of the joys of heaven, the
+pains of hell;" and in the darkness he tried to trace with his finger
+the words, "DORMIT IN PACE"--"Sleeps in peace."
+
+_"Vale! Vale! Eternum Vale!"_ he sobbed, as he kissed once more the
+marble slab, "an everlasting farewell! I must try to find the
+Christians, or the soldiers, or a way of escape from this prison-house
+of graves."
+
+He groped his way to the door of the vault and listened, oh! so
+eagerly--all the faculties of his body and mind seeming concentered in
+his sense of hearing. But "the darkness gave no token and the silence
+was unbroken." Nay, so awful was the stillness that brooded over this
+valley of death, that it seemed as if the motion of the earth on its
+axis must be audible, and the pulses of his temples were to his tortured
+ear like the roaring of the distant sea.
+
+Venturing forth, he groped his way from grave to grave, from vault to
+vault, from corridor to corridor, but no light, no sound, no hope! Ever
+denser seemed the darkness, ever deeper the silence, ever more appalling
+the gloom. For hours he wandered on and on till, faint with hunger,
+parched with thirst, the throbbings, of his heart shaking his unnerved
+frame, he fell into a merciful swoon from which he never awoke.
+Centuries after, an explorer of this vast necropolis found crouching in
+the corner of one of its chambers a fleshless skeleton, and on the tomb
+above he read the words, VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE. Was it accident or
+Providence, or some strange instinct of locality that had brought this
+poor blighted wreck to breathe his latest sigh at the tomb of one whom
+he had so loved and so wronged?
+
+The peasants of the Campagna tell to the present day of certain strange
+sounds heard at midnight from those hollow vaults--at times like the
+hooting of an owl, at times like the wailing of the wind, and at times,
+they whisper with bated breath, like the moaning of a soul in pain. And
+the guides to the Catacombs aver, that ever on the anniversary of the
+martyrdom of Valeria Callirhoë, sighs and groans echo through the hollow
+vaults--the sighs and groans, tradition whispers, of a wretched apostate
+who in the ages of persecution betrayed the early Christians to a
+martyr's doom.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN COLUMRARIUM
+
+The Columbaria were the Pagan Roman underground sepulchres. In the many
+niche-like dovecots--hence the name were placed the urns containing the
+ashes of the dead whose bodies had been burned on the funeral pile.]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+It remains only to trace briefly the fate of the unfortunate Empress
+Valeria--less happy than her lowly namesake, the martyr of the
+Catacombs--and the doom of the persecuting tyrants. In the violent and
+bloody deaths, often more terrible than those which they inflicted on
+the Christians, which overtook, with scarce an exception, these enemies
+of the Church of God, the early believers recognized a divine
+retribution no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of the Pagan
+mythology.[56]
+
+Diocletian, smitten by a mental malady, abandoned the throne of the
+world for the solitude of his palace on the Illyrian shores of the
+Adriatic, where tradition avers that he died by his own hand.
+
+A still more dreadful doom befell the fierce persecutor, Galerius.
+Consumed by the same loathsome and incurable disease which is recorded
+to have smitten his great rivals in bloodshed, Herod the Great and
+Philip II., from his dying couch he implored the prayers of the
+Christians, and, stung by remorse for his cruelties, commanded the
+surcease of their long and bitter persecution.
+
+The Empress Valeria, his widow, by her beauty had the ill fortune to
+attract the regards of his successor in persecution, the Emperor
+Maximin. Spurning his suit with the scorn becoming a pure and
+high-souled woman, at once the daughter and widow of an Emperor, she
+encountered his deadly hate. Her estates were confiscated, her trusted
+servants tortured, and her dearest friends put to death.
+
+"The Empress herself," says Gibbon, "together with her mother, Prisca,
+was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from
+place to place, before they were confined to a sequestered village in
+the deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the
+provinces of the East, which during thirty years, had respected their
+august dignity." On the death of Maximin, Valeria escaped from exile and
+repaired in disguise to the court of his successor, Licinius, hoping for
+more humane treatment. But these hopes, to use again the language of
+Gibbon, "were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and the bloody
+execution which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced
+her that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than
+himself. Valeria consulted her safety by hasty flight, and, still
+accompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months
+through the provinces in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at
+length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death
+was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded and their bodies
+thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; but
+their grief and indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a military
+guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of
+Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we cannot discover their
+crimes."[58]
+
+At length, on the triumph of the British-born Emperor, Constantine, over
+his rivals for the throne of the world, like the trump of Jubilee, the
+edict of the toleration of Christianity, pealed through the land. It
+penetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine, the Catacombs' dim
+labyrinth, and from their sombre depths, vast processions of "noble
+wrestlers for religion," thronged to the long-forsaken churches, with
+grateful songs of praise to God.
+
+Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. It
+emerged from the concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine of
+imperial favour. Constantine, himself, proclaimed to eager thousands the
+New Evangel--the most august lay preacher the Church has ever known. The
+legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates the
+wondrous transformation of society. These Christian brothers, taking
+shelter in a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to the
+legend, after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianity
+everywhere dominant, and a Christian Emperor on the throne of the
+Cæsars.[59] The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quickly
+irradiated the world. With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, in
+the highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung. The
+enemies of God were as though they had not been.[60] The Lord brought up
+the vine of Christianity from a far country, and cast out the heathen,
+and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of the
+Cæsars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land.
+The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the pagan
+flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove, Rome, which
+had dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at its chariot wheels,
+at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus. The old
+faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars of
+midnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook their ancient
+seats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in the grove of
+Daphne. The naiads bathed not in Scamander's stream nor Simois, nor the
+nereids in the waters of the bright Ægean Sea. The nymphs and dryads
+ceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oriads walked no more in light
+on Ida's lofty top.
+
+    O ye vain false gods of Hellas!
+    Ye are vanished evermore!
+
+Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the
+empire, its influence had been felt permeating the entire community.
+Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative
+element--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of
+anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle
+previously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but by
+love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith
+amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reeking
+abominations of a sensual age.
+
+We should do scant justice to the blameless character, simple dignity,
+and moral purity of the primitive Christians, if we forgot the
+thoroughly effete and corrupt society by which they were surrounded. It
+would seem almost impossible for the Christian graces to grow in such a
+foetid atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing in virgin purity
+from the muddy ooze, they are more lovely by contrast with the
+surrounding pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre, breathing
+their fragrance amid scenes of corruption and death, are these holy
+characters, fragrant with the breath of heaven amid the social
+rottenness and moral death of their foul environment.
+
+It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to portray, the abominable
+pollutions of the times. "Society," says Gibbon, "was a rotten, aimless
+chaos of sensuality." It was a boiling Acheron of seething passions,
+unhallowed lusts, and tiger thirst for blood, such as never provoked
+the wrath of Heaven since God drowned the world with water, or destroyed
+the Cities of the Plain by fire. Only those who have visited the secret
+museum of Naples, or that house which no woman may enter at Pompeii, and
+whose paintings no pen may describe; or, who are familiar with the
+scathing denunciations of popular vices by the Roman satirists and
+moralists and by the Christian Fathers, can conceive the appalling
+depravity of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Church
+among this very people, hints at some features of their exceeding
+wickedness. It was to shame even to speak of the things which were done
+by them, but which gifted poets employed their wit to celebrate. A
+brutalized monster was deified as God, received divine homage,[61] and
+beheld all the world at his feet, and the nations trembled at his nod,
+while the multitude wallowed in a sty of sensuality.
+
+Christianity was to be the new Hercules to cleanse this worse than
+Augean pollution. The pure morals and holy lives of the believers were a
+perpetual testimony against abounding iniquity, and a living proof of
+the regenerating power and transforming grace of God. For they
+themselves, as one of their apologists asserts, "had been reclaimed
+from ten thousand vices;" and the Apostle, describing some of the vilest
+characters, exclaims, "such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are
+sanctified." They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from the
+pollutions of the age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth," the
+sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.
+
+Thus amid idolatrous usages and unspeakable moral degradation the
+Christians lived, a holy nation, a peculiar people. "We alone are
+without crime," says Tertullian; "no Christian suffers but for his
+religion." "Your prisons are full," says Minutius Felix, "but they
+contain not one Christian." And these holy lives were an argument which
+even the heathen could not gainsay. The ethics of paganism were the
+speculations of the cultivated few who aspired to the character of
+philosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a system of practical duty
+affecting the daily life of the most lowly and unlettered. "Philosophy,"
+says Lecky, "may dignify, but is impotent to regenerate man; it may
+cultivate virtue, but cannot restrain vice." But Christianity introduced
+a new sense of sin and of holiness, of everlasting reward and of endless
+condemnation. It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ in the
+heart, inflaming all its affections. It transformed the character from
+icy stoicism or epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculating
+self-abnegation and devotion.
+
+This divine principle developed a new instinct of philanthropy in the
+soul. A feeling of common brotherhood knit the hearts of the believers
+together. To love a slave! to love an enemy! was accounted the
+impossible among the heathen; yet this incredible virtue they beheld
+every day among the Christians. "This surprised them beyond measure,"
+says Tertullian, "that one man should die for another." Hence, in the
+Christian inscriptions no word of bitterness, even toward their
+persecutors, is to be found. Sweet peace, the peace of God that passeth
+all understanding, breathes on every side.
+
+One of the most striking results of the new spirit of philanthropy which
+Christianity introduced is seen in the copious charity of the primitive
+Church. Amid the ruins of ancient palaces and temples, theatres and
+baths, there are none of any house of mercy. Charity among the pagans,
+was at best, a fitful and capricious fancy. Among the Christians it was
+a vast and vigorous organization and was cultivated with noble
+enthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of Rome, with its fierce
+oppressions and inhuman wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for the
+Christ-like ministrations of love and pity. There were Christian slaves
+to succour, exposed to unutterable indignities and cruel punishment,
+even unto crucifixion for conscience' sake. There were often martyrs'
+pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by the
+nameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised and
+broken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcast
+babes to pluck from death. There were a thousand forms of suffering and
+sorrow to relieve; and the ever-present thought of Him who came, not to
+be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for
+many, was an inspiration to heroic sacrifice and self-denial. And
+doubtless the religion of mercy won its way to many a stony pagan heart
+by the winsome spell of the saintly charities and heavenly benedictions
+of the persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has since covered
+the earth with its institutions of mercy, and with a passionate zeal has
+sought out the woes of raan in every land, in order to their relief.
+
+In the primitive Church voluntary collections[62] were regularly made
+for the poor, the aged, the sick, the brethren in bonds, and for the
+burial of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred, and all usury
+forbidden. Many gave all their goods to feed the poor. "Our charity
+dispenses more in the streets," says Tertullian to the heathen, "than
+your religion in your temples." He upbraids them for offering to the
+gods only the worn-out and useless, such as is given to dogs. "How
+monstrous is it," exclaims the Alexandrian Clement, "to live in luxury
+while so many are in want." "As you would receive, show mercy," says
+Chrysostom; "make God your debtor that you may receive again with
+usury." The Church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained three thousand
+widows and virgins, besides the sick and the poor. Under the persecuting
+Decius the widows and the infirm under the care of the Church at Rome
+were fifteen hundred. "Behold the treasures of the Church," said St.
+Lawrence pointing to the aged and poor, when the heathen prefect came to
+confiscate its wealth. The Church in Carthage sent a sum equal to four
+thousand dollars to ransom Christian captives in Numidia. St. Ambrose
+sold the sacred vessels of the Church of Milan to rescue prisoners from
+the Goths, esteeming it their truest consecration to the service of
+God. "Better clothe the Christ," says living temples of Jerome, "than
+adorn the temples of stone." "God has no need of plates and dishes,"
+said Acacius, Bishop of Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number of
+poor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus of Nola sold the treasures
+of his beautiful church, and, it is said, even sold himself into African
+slavery. The Christian traveller was hospitably entertained by the
+faithful; and before the close of the fourth century asylums were
+provided for the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian persecution,
+when the streets of Carthage were strewn with the dying and the dead,
+the Christians, with the scars of recent torture and imprisonment upon
+them, exhibited the nobility of a gospel revenge in their care for their
+fever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the martyrdom of Christian
+charity, even more glorious than that they had escaped. In the plague of
+Alexandria, six hundred _parabolani_ periled their lives to succour the
+dying and bury the dead. Julian urged the pagan priests to imitate the
+virtues of the lowly Christians.
+
+Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human life. The exposure of
+infants was a fearfully prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato and
+Aristotle permitted. We have had evidences of the tender charity of the
+Christians in rescuing these foundlings from death, or from a fate more
+dreadful still--a life of infamy. Christianity also emphatically
+affirmed the Almighty's "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," which crime the
+pagans had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a patient
+endurance of suffering, like Job's, exhibited a loftier courage than
+Cato's renunciation of life.
+
+We have thus seen from the testimony of the Catacombs, the immense
+superiority, in all the elements of true dignity and excellence, of
+primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it was
+surrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals of
+mankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it had
+fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations of
+life, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown.
+Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became infected in the days
+of its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity was
+infinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave a
+sacredness before unconceived to human life. It averted the sword from
+the throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from
+exposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threw
+the ægis of its protection over the slave and the oppressed, raising
+them from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and the
+fellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity it
+yearned over the suffering and the sorrowing everywhere, and created a
+vast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the world
+had before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holy
+Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of the
+Divine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the
+world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakable
+pollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and made
+possible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poets
+pictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco,
+written in blood, and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgment
+seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experience
+has shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer and
+loftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance of
+form, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions
+of the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism,
+polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, and
+pathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. It
+taught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the supreme
+majesty of gentleness and truth.
+
+    NOTE.--The entire subject of Christian evidences from the
+    Catacombs, which has been so cursorily glanced at in the
+    foregoing pages, is treated with great fullness of detail and
+    copious pictorial illustration in a work by the writer, "The
+    Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony Relative to Primitive
+    Christianity." Cr. 8vo, 560 pp., 136 engravings. New York:
+    Phillips & Hunt. Price $2.50. It discusses at length the
+    structure, origin, and history of the Catacombs; their art and
+    symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology,
+    ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and
+    Christian Life and Character in the early ages. The gradual
+    corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist
+    errors, as the _cultus_ of Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers
+    of the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory,
+    the celibacy of the clergy rite of monastic orders, and other
+    allied subjects are fully treated.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[57] See Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum, Passim_; Eusebius _Hist.
+Ecclec._ viii, 17; ix. 9, 10; Tertullian _ad Scap._, c. 3.
+
+[58] Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim mensibus plebeio
+cultu pervagata.... Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
+Lactantius _De Mart. Persec._ Cap. 51.
+
+[59] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive the
+possibility of this event "Sed et Cæsares credidissent super Christo,"
+he exclaims, "si aut Cæsares non essent seculo necessario, aut si et
+Christiani potuissent esse Cæsares." _Apol._, c. 21.
+
+[60] Literally, "They are no more because they never were." Eusebius
+applies, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration of the
+exiled Jews from Babylon (Psa. lxxx; xcviii;) to the condition of
+Christianity in his day. The above citations are given in his very
+words.
+
+[61] While yet alive, Domitian was called, "our Lord and God"--_Dominus
+et Deus noster._
+
+[62] Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert _Tertul Apol._ c. 39.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
+
+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: Valeria
+       The Martyr of the Catacombs
+
+Author: William Henry Withrow
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2010 [EBook #33484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALERIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rose Mawhorter (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  [Illustration: SCENE IN THE CATACOMBS--AT THE MARTYR'S TOMB.]
+
+
+  VALERIA,
+
+  THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.
+
+  A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome.
+
+  BY
+  W.H. WITHROW, D.D.,
+
+  _Author of "The Catacombs of Rome and their Testimony Relative
+  to Primitive Christianity," Etc._
+
+
+  [Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
+
+
+  TORONTO:
+
+  WILLIAM BRIGGS.
+
+  MONTREAL: C.W. COATES.
+  HALIFAX: S.F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRS IN THE CATACOMBS.
+
+BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.
+
+
+    THEY lie all around me, countless in their number,
+      Each martyr with his palm.
+    No torture now can rack them: safe they slumber,
+      Hushed in eternal calm!
+
+    I read the rude inscriptions, written weeping,
+      At night with hurried tears.
+    Yet what a tale they tell! their secret keeping
+      Through all these thousand years.
+
+    "IN PACE." Yes, at peace. By sword, or fire,
+      Or cross, or lictor's rod--
+    Virgin, or matron; youth, or gray-haired sire:
+      For all, the peace of God.
+
+    "IN CHRISTO." Died in Christ. Oh, tragic story!
+      Yet, over shouts, and cries,
+    And lion's roar, they heard the saints in glory
+      Singing from Paradise.
+
+    "AD DEUM." Went to God. Wide swung the portal;
+      Dim sank the sands away;
+    And, chanting "Alleluia," the immortal
+      Passed to Eternal Day.
+
+    Agnes, Cecilia! Names undying ever,--
+      What's C�sar's gain to this?
+    He lived for self; they for their high endeavour.
+      His, fame; theirs, endless bliss.
+
+    And pagan Rome herself? Her wisest teacher
+      Could teach but how to die!
+    Sad, hopeless emperor, echoing the Preacher,
+      "All, all is vanity."
+
+    He slew the martyrs. Yet, through ages crying,
+      This noble truth they give:
+    "Life is but birth-throes. Death itself, not dying.
+      We pass to God--to live."
+
+    O blessed hope! O faith that conquers sorrow!
+      Pain, heart-break, all shall cease.
+    They are but gateways to a glad to-morrow.
+      "IN PACE." God is peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The writer having made the early Christian Catacombs a special study for
+several years, and his larger volume on that subject having been
+received with great favour in Great Britain, the United States, and
+Canada, has endeavoured in this story to give as popular an account as
+he could of early Christian life and character as illustrated by these
+interesting memorials of the primitive Church. He has been especially
+careful to maintain historical accuracy in all his statements of fact,
+and in the filling up of details he has endeavoured to preserve the
+historical "keeping" of the picture. Persons wishing to pursue the study
+of the Catacombs still further are referred to the Author's special work
+on that subject. See note at the end of this volume.
+
+W.H.W.
+
+
+
+
+THE CATACOMBS.
+
+BY HARRIET ANNIE WILKINS.
+
+"Miles after miles of graves, and not one word or sign of the gloominess
+or death." _Professor Jules De Launay._
+
+    MILES after miles of graves,
+      League after league of tombs,
+    And not one sign of spectre Death,
+      Waving his shadowy plumes;
+    Hope, beautiful and bright,
+      Spanning the arch above
+    Faith, gentle, overcoming Faith,
+      And Love, God's best gift, Love.
+
+    For early Christians left
+      Their darlings to their rest,
+    As mothers leave their little ones
+      When the sun gilds the west;
+    No mourning robes of black,
+      No crape upon the doors,
+    For the victorious palm-bearers,
+      Who tread the golden floors.
+
+    Arrayed in garments white,
+      No mournful dirges pealing,
+    Bearing green branches in their hands,
+      Around the tomb they're kneeling;
+    This was their marching song,
+      "By death we are not holden;"
+    And this their glorious funeral hymn,
+      "Jerusalem the golden."
+
+    Beautiful girls sleep there,
+      Waiting the Bridegroom's call.
+    Each lamp is burning brilliantly,
+      While the bright shadows fall;
+    And baby martyrs passed
+      Straight to the great I AM,
+    While sturdier soldiers carved o'er each,
+      "VICTOR, GOD'S LITTLE LAMB."
+
+    Miles after miles of graves,
+      League after league of tombs,
+    The cross upon each conqueror's brow
+      Light up the catacombs;
+    "'Tis in this sign we conquer."
+      Sounds on the blood-stained track;
+    "'Tis in this sign we conquer,"
+      We gladly answer back.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+  ON THE APPIAN WAY                  7
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+  IN C�SAR'S PALACE                 17
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+  EMPRESS AND SLAVE                 23
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+  THE IMPERIAL BANQUET              33
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+  THE CHRISTIANS AND THE LIONS      43
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+  THE MARTYR'S BURIAL               54
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+  WITH HILARUS, THE FOSSOR          64
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+  WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER     75
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+  A DIFFICULT QUEST                 86
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+  A WICKED PLOT                     92
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+  THE SLAVE MARKET                  97
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+  THE LOST FOUND                   105
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+  FATHER AND DAUGHTER              111
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+  "UNSTABLE AS WATER"              117
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+  AT THE BATHS                     124
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+  THE GAMING TABLE                 129
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+  "IN PERICULIS TUTUS"             135
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+  THE MIDNIGHT PLOT                142
+
+  CHAPTER XIX
+  IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER      148
+
+  CHAPTER XX
+  THE PLOT THICKENS                153
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+  A CRIME PREVENTED                161
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+  THE STORM BURSTS                 168
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+  THE MAMERTINE PRISON             177
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+  THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM             184
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+  A ROMAN HOLIDAY                  188
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI
+  THE MARTYRS CROWNED              199
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+  THE MARTYRS BURIED               205
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+  THE BETRAYAL--THE PURSUIT        215
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+  THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR          224
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+  FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF
+    CHRISTIANITY                   229
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VALERIA, THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE APPIAN WAY.
+
+
+[Illustration: "ENTRANCE TO A CATACOMB."]
+
+On a bright spring morning in the year of our Lord 303--it was in the
+"Ides of March," about the middle of the month, but the air was balmy as
+that of June in our northern clime--two note-worthy-looking men were
+riding along the famous Appian Way, near the city of Rome The elder of
+the two, a man of large size and of mighty thews and sinews, was mounted
+on a strong and richly-caparisoned horse. He wore the armour of a Roman
+centurion--a lorica or cuirass, made of plates of bronze, fastened to a
+flexible body of leather; and cothurni, or a sort of laced boots,
+leaching to mid-leg. On his back hung his round embossed shield; by his
+side, in its sheath, his short, straight sword, and on his head was a
+burnished helmet, with a sweeping horsehair crest. His face was bronzed
+with the sun of many climes. But when, for a moment, he removed his
+helmet to cool his brow, one saw that his forehead was high and white.
+His hair curled close to his head, except where it was worn bare at his
+temples by the chafing of his helmet, and was already streaked with
+grey, although he looked not more than five-and forty years of age. Yet
+the eagle glance of his eye was undimmed, and his firm-set muscles, the
+haughty expression of his countenance, and the high courage of his
+bearing, gave evidence that his natural strength was not abated.
+
+His companion contrasted strongly in every respect. He had a slender,
+graceful figure, a mobile and expressive face, a mouth of almost
+feminine softness and beauty, dark and languishing eyes, and long,
+flowing hair. He wore a snowy toga, with a brilliant scarlet border of
+what is still known as "Greek fret;" and over this, fastened by a brooch
+at his throat, a flowing cloak. On his head sat jauntily a soft felt
+hat, not unlike those still worn by the Italian peasantry, and on his
+feet were low-laced shoes or sandals. Instead of a sword, he wore at his
+side a metal case for his reed-pen and for a scroll of papyrus. He was
+in the bloom and beauty of youth, apparently not more than twenty years
+of age.
+
+The elder of the two was the Roman officer Flaccus Sertorius, a
+centurion of the 12th Legion, returning with his Greek secretary,
+Isidorus, from the town of Albano, about seventeen miles from Rome,
+whither he had been sent on business of state.
+
+"This new edict of the Emperor's," remarked Sertorius to his secretary,
+with an air of affable condescension, "is likely to give us both work
+enough to do before long."
+
+"Your Excellency forgets," replied Isidorus, with an obsequious
+inclination of the head, "that your humble secretary has not the same
+means of learning affairs of state as his noble master."
+
+"Oh, you Greeks learn everything!" said the centurion, with a rather
+contemptuous laugh. "Trust you for that."
+
+"We try to make ourselves useful to our patrons," replied the young man,
+"and it seems to be a sort of hereditary habit, for my Athenian
+ancestors were proverbial for seeking to know some new thing."
+
+"Yes, new manners, new customs, new religions; why, your very name
+indicates your adherence to the new-fangled worship of Isis."
+
+"I hold not altogether that way," replied the youth. "I belong rather to
+the eclectic school. My father, Apollodorus, was a priest of Phoebus,
+and named me, like himself, from the sungod, whom he worshipped; but I
+found the party of Isis fashionable at court, so I even changed my name
+and colours to the winning side. When one is at Rome, you know, he must
+do as the Romans do."
+
+"Yes, like the degenerate Romans, who forsake the old gods, under whom
+the State was great and virtuous and strong," said the soldier, with an
+angry gesture. "The more gods, the worse the world becomes. But this new
+edict will make short work of some of them."
+
+"With the Christians you mean," said the supple Greek. "A most
+pernicious sect, that deserve extermination with fire and sword."
+
+"I know little about them," replied Sertorius, with a sneer, "save that
+they have increased prodigiously of late. Even in the army and the
+palace are those known to favour their obscene and contemptible
+doctrines."
+
+"'Tis whispered that even their sacred highnesses the Empresses Prisca
+and Valeria are infected with their grovelling superstition," said the
+Greek secretary. "Certain it is, they seem to avoid being present at the
+public sacrifices, as they used to be. But the evil sect has its
+followers chiefly among the slaves and vile plebs of the poorest
+Transtiberine region of Rome."
+
+"What do they worship, anyhow?" asked the centurion, with an air of
+languid curiosity. "They seem to have no temples, nor altars, nor
+sacrifices."
+
+"They have dark and secret and abominable rites," replied the fawning
+Greek, eager to gratify the curiosity of his patron with popular
+slanders against the Christians. "'Tis said they worship a low-born
+peasant, who was crucified for sedition. Some say he had an ass's
+head,[1] but that, I doubt not, is a vulgar superstition; and one of our
+poets, the admirable Lucian, remarks that their doctrine was brought to
+Rome by a little hook-nosed Jew, named Paulus, who was beheaded by the
+divine Nero over yonder near the Ostian gate, beside the pyramid of
+Cestius, which you may see amongst the cypresses. They have many strange
+usages. Their funeral customs, especially, differ very widely from the
+Greek or Roman ones. They bury the body, with many mysterious rites, in
+vaults or chambers underground, instead of burning it on a funeral pyre.
+They are rank atheists, refusing to worship the gods, or even to throw
+so much as a grain of incense on their altar, or place a garland of
+flowers before their shrines, or even have their images in their
+houses. They are a morose, sullen, and dangerous people, and are said to
+hold hideous orgies at their secret assemblies underground, where they
+banquet on the body of a newly-slain child.[2] See yonder," he
+continued, pointing to a low-browed arch almost concealed by trees in a
+neighbouring garden, "is the entrance to one of their secret crypts,
+where they gather to celebrate their abominable rites, surrounded by the
+bones and ashes of the dead. A vile and craven set of wretches; they are
+not fit to live."
+
+"They are not all cravens; to that I can bear witness," interrupted
+Sertorius. "I knew a fellow in my own company--Lannus was his name--who,
+his comrades said, was a Christian. He was the bravest and steadiest
+fellow in the legion;--saved my life once in Libya;--rushed between me
+and a lion, which sprang from a thicket as I stopped to let my horse
+drink at a stream--as it might be the Anio, there. The lion's fangs met
+in his arm, but he never winced. He may believe what he pleases for me.
+I like not this blood-hound business of hunting down honest men because
+they worship gods of their own. But the Emperor's edict is written, as
+you may say, with the point of a dagger--'The Christian religion must
+everywhere be destroyed.'"
+
+"And quite right, too, your Excellency," said the soft-smiling Greek.
+"They are seditious conspirators, the enemies of C�sar and of Rome."
+
+"A Roman soldier does not need to learn of thee, hungry Greekling,"[3]
+exclaimed the centurion, haughtily, "what is his duty to his country!"
+
+"True, most noble sir," faltered the discomfited secretary, yet with a
+vindictive glance from his treacherous eyes. "Your Excellency is always
+right."
+
+For a time they rode on in silence, the secretary falling obsequiously a
+little to the rear. It was now high noon, and the crowd and bustle on
+the Appian Way redoubled. This Queen of Roads[4] ran straight as an
+arrow up-hill and down from Rome to Capua and Brundisium, a distance of
+over three hundred miles. Though then nearly six hundred years old, it
+was as firm as the day it was laid, and after the lapse of fifteen
+hundred years more, during which "the Goth, the Christian, Time, War,
+Flood and Fire," have devastated the land, its firm lava pavement of
+broad basaltic slabs seems as enduring as ever. On every side rolled the
+undulating Campagna, now a scene of melancholy desolation, then
+cultivated like a garden, abounding in villas and mansions whose marble
+columns gleamed snowy white through the luxuriant foliage of their
+embosoming myrtle and laurel groves. On either side of the road were the
+stately tombs of Rome's mighty dead-her pr�tors, proconsuls, and
+senators some, like the mausoleum of C�cilia Metella,[5] rising like a
+solid fortress; others were like little wayside altars, but all were
+surrounded by an elegantly kept green sward, adorned with parterres of
+flowers. Their ruins now rise like stranded wrecks above the sea of
+verdure of the tomb-abounding plain. On every side are tombs--tombs
+above and tombs below--the graves of contending races, the sepulchres of
+vanished generations. Across the vast field of view stretched, supported
+high in air on hundreds of arches, like a Titan procession, the Marcian
+Aqueduct, erected B.C. 146, which after two thousand years brings to the
+city of Rome an abundant supply of the purest water from the far distant
+Alban Mountains, which present to our gaze to-day the same serrated
+outline and lovely play of colour that delighted the eyes of Horace and
+Cicero.
+
+As they drew nearer the gates of the city, it became difficult to thread
+their way through the throngs of eager travellers--gay lectic� or
+silken-curtained carriages and flashing chariots, conveying fashionable
+ladies and the gilded gallants of the city to the elegant villas without
+the walls--processions of consuls and proconsuls with their guards, and
+crowds of peasants bringing in the panniers of their patient donkeys
+fruits, vegetables, and even snow from the distant Soracte, protected
+from the heat by a straw matting--just as they do in Italy to-day. The
+busy scene is vividly described in the graphic lines of Milton:
+
+    "What conflux issuing forth or entering in;
+    Pr�tors, proconsuls to their provinces
+    Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
+    Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
+    Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
+    Or embassies from regions far remote,
+    In various habits on the Appian Road."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] I have myself seen in the museum of the _Collegio Romano_ at Rome, a
+rude caricature which had been scratched upon the wall of the barracks
+of Nero's palace, representing a man with an ass's head upon a cross,
+and beneath it the inscription, _"Alexomenos sebete Theon"_ "Alexomenos
+worships his God." Evidently some Roman soldier had scratched this in an
+idle hour in derision of the worship of our Lord by his Christian
+fellow-soldier. Tertullian also refers to the same calumny; and Lucian,
+a pagan writer, speaks of our Lord as "a crucified impostor." It is
+almost impossible for us to conceive the contempt and detestation in
+which crucifixion was held by the Romans. It was a punishment reserved
+for the worst of felons, or the vilest of slaves.--ED.
+
+[2] All these calumnies, and others still worse, are recorded by pagan
+writers concerning the early Christians. Their celebration of the Lord's
+Supper in the private meetings became the ground of the last-mentioned
+distorted accusation.--ED.
+
+[3] "Graeculus esuriens," the term applied by Juvenal to those foreign
+adventurers who sought to worm their way into the employment and
+confidence of great Roman houses.
+
+[4] _Regina Viarum_, as the Romans called it.
+
+[5] It is a circular structure sixty-five feet in diameter, built upon a
+square base of still larger size. After two thousand years it still
+defies the gnawing tooth of Time.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN C�SAR'S PALACE.
+
+
+Passing beneath the even then grim and hoary archway of the Porta
+Capena, or Capuan Gate, with the dripping aqueduct above it, the
+centurion and his secretary traversed rapidly the crowded streets of a
+fashionable suburb--now mere mouldering mounds of desolation--to the
+Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. This eminence, which is now a
+mass of crumbling ruins, honey-combed with galleries and subterranean
+corridors through what was once the stately apartments of the Lords of
+the World, where wandering tourists peer and explore and artists sketch
+the falling arch or fading fresco of the banquet halls and chambers of a
+long line of emperors, was then the scene of life and activity, of pomp
+and splendour. Marble courts and columned porticos stretched on in
+almost endless vistas, covering many acres of ground. Flashing fountains
+leaping sunward sparkled in the beams of noonday, diffusing a coolness
+through the air, which was fragrant with blossoms of the orange and
+magnolia trees growing in the open courts. Snowy statuary gleamed amid
+the vivid foliage, and beneath the shadow of the frescoed corridors.
+
+Having dismounted at the outer court and given their horses to
+obsequious grooms, Sertorius and the Greek repaired each to a marble
+bath to remove the stains of travel before entering the presence of the
+Emperor. Having made their toilet they advanced to the inner court. The
+guards who stood in burnished mail at the portal of the palace
+respectfully made way for the well-known imperial officer, but were
+about to obstruct the passage of the Greek secretary, when with a
+gesture of authority Sertorius bade the soldier to permit the man to
+pass.
+
+"Quite right, Max, as a rule: but wrong this time. He accompanies me on
+business of state, before the Emperor."
+
+Two lictors in white tunics with scarlet hem, and bearing each the
+fasces or bundle of rods bound with filets from the top of which
+projected a polished silver axe, came forward and conducted the
+centurion into the Imperial presence chamber, the secretary remaining in
+an ante-room.
+
+The lictors draw aside a heavy gold-embroidered curtain, and Sertorius
+stood in the presence of the Lord of the World, the man to whom divine
+honours had been ascribed, who held in his hand the lives of all his
+myriads of subjects, and the word of whose mouth uttering his despotic
+will might consign even the loftiest, without form or process of law, to
+degradation or death.
+
+Let us note for a moment what manner of man this god on earth, this
+Diocletian, whose name is remembered with abhorrence and execration, the
+degenerate usurper of the august name of the C�sars, may be. He sits in
+an ivory, purple-cushioned chair, near a table of inlaid precious woods.
+His short and obese figure is enswathed in the folds of an ample
+crimson-bordered toga, or fine linen vestment of flowing folds. His
+broad, coarse features are of plebeian cast, for he had been originally
+a Dalmatian slave, or at least the son of a slave; but the
+long-continued exercise of despotic authority had given an imperious
+haughtiness to his bearing. He was now in his fifty-eighth year, but his
+features, coarsened and bloated by sensuality, gave him a much older
+aspect. He was dictating to a secretary who sat at the table writing
+with a reed pen on a parchment scroll, when the lictors, lowering their
+fasces and holding their hands above their eyes, as if to protect their
+dazzled eyes from the effulgence of the noonday sun, advanced into the
+apartment.
+
+"May it please your divine Majesty," said one of the servile lictors,
+"the centurion whom you summoned to your presence awaits your Imperial
+pleasure."
+
+"Most humbly at your Imperial Majesty's service," said Sertorius, coming
+forward with a profound inclination of his uncovered head. He had left
+his helmet and sword in the ante-chamber.
+
+"Flaccus Sertorius, I have heard that thou art a brave and faithful
+soldier, skilled in affairs of State as well as in the art of war. I
+have need of such to carry out my purpose here in Rome. Vitalius, the
+scribe," he went on, with an allusive gesture toward the secretary, "is
+copying a decree to be promulgated to the utmost limits of the empire
+against the pestilent atheism of the accursed sect of Christians, who
+have spawned and multiplied like frogs throughout the realm. This
+execrable superstition must be everywhere destroyed and the worship of
+the gods revived.[6] Even hero in Rome the odious sect swarms like
+vermin, and 'tis even said that the precincts of this palace are not
+free. Now, purge me this city as with a besom of wrath. Spare not young
+or old, the lofty or the low; purge even this palace, and look to it
+that thy own head be not the forfeit if you fail. This seal shall be
+your warrant;" and lashing himself into rage till the purple veins stood
+out like whipcords on his forehead, he tossed his signet ring across the
+table to the scribe, who prepared a legal instrument to which he affixed
+the Imperial seal.
+
+"May it please your Imperial Majesty," said the centurion, with an
+obeisance, "I am a rude soldier, unskilled to speak in the Imperial
+presence; but I have fought your Majesty's enemies in Iberia, in Gaul,
+in Dacia, in Pannonia, and in Libya, and am ready to fight them
+anywhere. Nevertheless, I would fain be discharged from this office of
+censor of the city. I know naught, save by Rumour, who is ever a lying
+jade, your Imperial Majesty, against this outlawed sect. And I know some
+of them who were brave soldiers in your Imperial Majesty's service, and
+many others are feeble old men or innocent women and children. I pray
+you send me rather to fight against the barbarian Dacians than against
+these."
+
+"I was well informed then that you were a bold fellow," exclaimed the
+Emperor, his brow flushing in his anger a deeper hue; "but I have need
+of such. Do thy duty, on thy allegiance, and see that thou soon bring
+these culprits to justice. Is it not enough that universal rumour
+condemns them? They are pestilent sedition-mongers, and enemies of the
+gods and of the State."
+
+"I, too, am a worshipper of the gods," continued the intrepid soldier,
+"and will fail not to keep my allegiance to your Imperial Majesty, to
+the State, and to those higher powers," and he walked backward out of
+the Imperial presence. As he rejoined his secretary a cloud sat on his
+brow. He was moody and taciturn, and evidently little pleased with his
+newly-imposed duties. But the confirmed habit of unquestioning obedience
+inherent in a Roman soldier led to an almost mechanical acceptance of
+his uncongenial task. Emerging from the outer court he proceeded to his
+own house, in the populous region of the Aventine Hill, now a deserted
+waste, covered with kitchen gardens and vineyards. In the meantime we
+turn to another part of the great Imperial palace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] Even as far west as Spain the following inscription has been found,
+which seems designed as a funeral monument of dead and buried
+Christianity: "DIOCLETIAN. C�S. AVG. SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST. VBIQ.
+DELETAET CVLTV, DEOR. PROPAGATO"--"To Diocletian, C�sar Augustus, the
+Christian superstition being everywhere destroyed and the worship of the
+gods extended." But though apparently destroyed, Christianity, like its
+divine Author, instinct with immortality, rose triumphant over all its
+foes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+EMPRESS AND SLAVE.
+
+
+Using the time-honoured privilege of ubiquity accorded to imaginative
+writers, we beg to conduct our readers to a part of the stately palace
+of Diocletian, where, if they had really been found in their own proper
+persons, it would have been at the peril of their lives. After fifteen
+long centuries have passed, we may explore without let or hindrance the
+most private apartments of the once all-potent masters of the world. We
+may roam through their unroofed banquet-chambers. We may gaze upon the
+frescoes, carvings, and mosaics which met their eyes. We may behold the
+evidences of their luxury and profligacy. We may thread the secret
+corridors and galleries connecting the chambers of the palace--all now
+open to the light of day.
+
+We may even penetrate to the boudoirs and tiring rooms of the proud
+dames of antiquity. We may even examine at our will the secrets of the
+toilet--the rouge pots and vases for cosmetics and unguents, the silver
+mirrors, fibulas or brooches, armlets and jewels, and can thus
+reconstruct much of that old Roman life which has vanished forever from
+the face of the earth.[7]
+
+By the light of modern exploration and discovery, therefore, we may
+enter the private apartments of ladies of the Imperial household, and in
+imagination re-furnish these now desolate and ruinous chambers with all
+the luxury and magnificence of their former prime. A room of commodious
+size is paved with tesselated marble slabs, adorned with borders and
+designs of brilliant mosaic. The walls are also marble, save where an
+elegant fresco on a stucco ground--flowers or fruit or graceful
+landscape[8]--greet the eye. A small fountain throws up its silver
+spray, imparting a grateful coolness to the air. Windows, void of
+glass, but mantled and screened by climbing plants and rare exotics,
+look out into a garden where snowy marble statues are relieved against
+the dark green of the cypress and ilex. Around the room are busts and
+effigies of the Imperial household or of historical characters. There
+is, however, a conspicuous absence of the mythological figures, whose
+exquisite execution does not atone for their sensuous conception, which,
+rescued from the _debris_ of ancient civilization, crowd all the
+Art-galleries of Europe. That this is not the result of accident but of
+design is seen by an occasional empty pedestal or niche. Distributed at
+intervals are couches and tables of costly woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+bronze and silver candelabra, lamps and other household objects of
+ornament or use. Sitting in an ivory chair amid all this elegance and
+luxury was a lady in the very flower of her youth, of queenly dignity
+and majestic beauty. She wore a snowy _stola_, or robe of finest linen,
+with purple border, flowing in ample folds to her sandaled feet Over
+this was negligently thrown a saffron-coloured veil of thinnest tissue.
+She held in her hand a burnished silver mirror, at which she glanced
+carelessly from time to time, while a comely slave with dark lustrous
+eyes and finely-formed features carefully brushed and braided her long
+and rippling hair.
+
+This queenly presence was the young and lovely Empress Valeria, the
+daughter of Diocletian and Prisca, and wife of the co-Emperor, Galerius
+C�sar. The object of envy of all the women of Borne, she lived to become
+within a few short years the object of their profoundest commiseration.
+Of her even the unsympathetic Gibbon remarks that "her melancholy
+adventures might furnish a very singular subject for tragedy."
+
+"Nay, now, Callirho�," said the Empress, with a weary smile, "that will
+do! Put up my hair and bind it with this fillet," and she held out a
+gold-embroidered ribband. "Thou knowest I care not for the elaborate
+coiffure that is now so fashionable."
+
+"Your Majesty needs it not," said the slave, speaking Greek with a low
+sweet voice, and with an Attic purity of accent. "As one of your own
+poets has said, you appear 'when unadorned, adorned the most.'"
+
+"Flatterer," said the Empress, tapping her gaily and almost caressingly
+with a plumy fan of ostrich feathers which she held lightly in one hand,
+"you are trying to spoil me."
+
+"Such goodness as thine, sweet mistress," said the slave, affectionately
+kissing her hand, "it would be impossible to spoil."
+
+"Dost know, Callirho�," said the young Empress, with a smile of
+bewitching sweetness, "that I have a surprise for thee? It is, thou
+knowest, my birthday, and in my honour is the banquet given to-day. But
+I have a greater pleasure than the banquet can bestow. I give thee this
+day thy freedom. Thou art no more a slave, but the freedwoman of the
+Empress Valeria. See, here are the papers of thy manumission," and she
+drew from the girdle of her robe a sealed and folded parchment, which
+she handed to the now emancipated slave.
+
+"Dearest mistress!" exclaimed the faithful creature, who had thrown
+herself on the marble pavement and was kissing the sandaled feet of the
+beautiful Empress, but an outburst of sobs and tears choked her
+utterance.
+
+"What! weeping!" exclaimed Valeria. "Are you sorry then?"
+
+"Nay, they are tears of joy," exclaimed the girl, smiling through her
+tears, like the sun shining through a shower; "not that I tire of thy
+service; I wish never to leave it. But I rejoice that my father's
+daughter can serve thee no longer as thy slave, but as thy freedwoman."
+
+"I should indeed be sorry to lose thee," said the august lady with a
+wistful smile. "If I thought I should, I would almost regret thy
+manumission; for believe me, Callirho�, I have need of true friends, and
+thou, I think, wilt be a faithful one."
+
+"What! I, but this moment a poor slave, the friend of the fairest and
+most envied lady in all Rome! Nay, now thou laughest at me; but believe
+me I am still heart and soul and body thy most devoted servant."
+
+"I do believe it, child," said the Empress; "but tell me, pray, why thou
+speakest in that proud melancholy tone of thy father? Was he a
+freedman?"
+
+"Nay, your Majesty, he was free-born; neither he nor his fathers were
+ever in bondage to any man,"--and the fair face of the girl was suffused
+with the glow of honest pride in the freeborn blood that flowed in her
+veins.
+
+"Forgive me, child, if I touched a sore spot in thy memory. Perchance I
+may heal it. Money can do much, men say."
+
+"In this case, dearest mistress, it is powerless. But from thee I can
+have no secrets, if you care to listen to the story of one so long a
+slave."
+
+"I never knew thou wert aught else, child. My steward bought thee in the
+slave market in the Suburra. Tell me all."
+
+"'Tis a short story, but a sad one, your Majesty," said the girl, as she
+went on braiding her mistress's hair. "My father was a Hebrew merchant,
+a dealer in precious stones, well esteemed in his nation. He lived in
+Damascus, where I was born. He named me after the beautiful fountain
+near the Jordan of his native land."
+
+"I thought it had been from the pagan goddess," interrupted the Empress.
+
+"Nay, 'twas from the healing fountain of Callirho�, in Judea," continued
+the girl "When my mother died, my father was plunged into inconsolable
+grief, and fell ill, well-nigh to death. The most skilled physician in
+Damascus, Eliezer by name, brought him back to life; but his friends
+thought he had better let him die, for he converted him to the hated
+Christian faith. Persecuted by his kinsmen, he came to Antioch with my
+brother and myself, that he might join the great and flourishing
+Christian Church in that city.[9] While on a trading voyage to Smyrna,
+in which we children accompanied our father, we were captured by
+Illyrian pirates, and carried to the slave market at Ravenna. There I
+was purchased by a slave dealer from Rome, and my father and brother
+were sold I know not whither. I never saw them again,"--and she heaved a
+weary and hopeless sigh.
+
+"Poor child!" said the Empress, a tear of sympathy glistening on her
+cheek, "I fear that I can give thee little help. 'Tis strange how my
+heart went out toward thee when thou wert first brought so tristful and
+forlorn into my presence. 'Tis a sad world, and even the Emperors can do
+little to set it right."
+
+"There is One who rules on high, dear lady, the God of our fathers, by
+whom kings rule and princes decree judgment. He doeth all things well."
+
+"Yes, child, I am not ignorant of the God of the Jews and Christians.
+What a pity that there should be such bitter hate on the part of your
+countrymen towards those who worship the same great God."
+
+"Yes," said Callirho�, "blindness in part hath happened to Israel. If
+they but knew how Jesus of Nazareth fulfils all the types and prophecies
+of their own Scriptures, they would hail Him as the true Messiah of whom
+Moses and the prophets did write."
+
+"Well, child, I will help thee to find thy father, if possible, though I
+fear it will be a difficult task. Ask me freely anything that I can do.
+As my freedwoman, you will, of course, bear my name with your own. Now
+send my slave Juba to accompany me to the banquet-hall."
+
+Callirho�, or as we may now call her, after the Roman usage, Valeria
+Callirho�, fervently kissed the outstretched hand of her august mistress
+and gracefully retired.
+
+It may excite some surprise to find such generous sentiments and such
+gentle manners as we have described attributed to the daughter of a
+persecuting Emperor and the wife of a stern Roman general. But reasons
+are not wanting to justify this delineation. Both Valeria and her mother
+Prisca, during their long residence at Nicomedia, where the Emperor
+Diocletian had established his court, became instructed in the Christian
+religion by the bishop of that important see. Indeed, Eusebius informs
+us that among them there were many Christian converts, both Prisca and
+Valeria, in the Imperial palace. Diocletian and his truculent
+son-in-law, Galerius, were bigoted pagans, and the mother of the latter
+was a fanatical worshipper of the goddess Cybele. The spread of
+Christianity even within the precincts of the palace provoked her
+implacable resentment, and she urged on her son to active persecution. A
+council was therefore held in the palace at Nicomedia, a joint edict for
+the extirpation of Christianity was decreed, and the magnificent
+Christian basilica was razed to the ground. The very next day the edict
+was torn from the public forum by an indignant Christian, and the
+Imperial palace was almost entirely destroyed by fire. The origin of
+this disaster is unknown, but it was ascribed to the Christians, and
+intensified the virulence of the persecution. Diocletian proceeded to
+Rome to celebrate a military triumph and to concert with his western
+colleagues more vigorous methods of persecution. It is at this period
+that the opening scenes of our story take place.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] On the Palatine Hill may still be seen, in the palace of the Flavii,
+the frescoed private apartments and banquet-chambers of the emperors--in
+the walls are even the lead water-pipes, stamped with the maker's name;
+and the innumerable ancient relics in the museums of Rome and Naples
+give such an insight as nothing else can impart of the life and
+character of the palmy days of the empire.
+
+[8] On the banquet-room mentioned in the last note are some remarkable
+frescoes, among other objects being glass vases through whose
+transparent sides are seen exquisitely painted fruits--as fresh,
+apparently, after eighteen centuries as if executed within a few months.
+
+[9] Shortly after this time, that Church numbered 100,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE IMPERIAL BANQUET.
+
+
+At the summons of Callirho� a Nubian female slave, Juba by name, an old
+family nurse, skilled in the use of herbs and potions, made her
+appearance. Her huge and snowy turban and her bright-coloured dress
+strikingly contrasted with her jet complexion and homely features. Yet,
+as the personal attendant of the young empress, it was her duty to
+accompany her mistress to the banquet-hall, to stand behind her chair,
+to adjust her robes, hold her fan, and obey her every word or gesture.
+As she drew aside the curtain of the apartment which shut out the light
+and heat, two lictors who guarded the door sprang to their feet and
+preceded the empress through the marble corridor to the _triclinium_, or
+banquet chamber. It was a family party, rather than a state banquet, but
+neither Greeks nor Romans practised a profuse hospitality nor held large
+social or festive gatherings like those of modern times. Their feasts
+were rather for the intense epicurean pleasure of a favoured few than
+for the rational enjoyment of a larger company.[10]
+
+Couches inlaid with ivory and decked with cushions surrounded three
+sides of a hollow square. On these the emperor and his male guests
+reclined, each resting on his left arm. On ivory chairs facing the open
+side of the square sat the Empress Prisca (a majestic-looking matron of
+somewhat grave aspect), Valeria, and a lady of the court, each
+accompanied by her female slave. The extreme ugliness of the Nubian Juba
+acted as a foil for the striking beauty of Valeria.
+
+First of all, the guests were crowned with wreaths of fair and fragrant
+flowers. Then elegantly dressed slaves brought in, to the sound of
+music, the different courses: first eggs dressed with vinegar, olives
+and lettuce, like our salad; then roast pheasants, peacocks' tongues and
+thrushes, and the livers of capons steeped in milk; next oysters brought
+alive from the distant shores of Great Britain, and, reversing our
+order, fish in great variety--one of the most beautiful of these was the
+purple mullet--served with high-seasoned condiments and sauces. Of solid
+meats the favourite dish was a roast sucking pig, elegantly garnished.
+Of vegetables they had nothing corresponding to our potatoes, but,
+instead, a profusion of mallows, lentils, truffles, and mushrooms. The
+banquet wound up with figs, olives, almonds, grapes, tarts and
+confections, and apples--hence the phrase _ab ovo ad mala_.
+
+After the first course the emperor poured out a libation of Falernian
+wine, with the Greek formula, "to the supreme God," watching eagerly if
+his wife and daughter would do the same. Lacking the courage to make a
+bold confession of Christianity, and thinking, with a casuistry that we
+shall not attempt to defend, that the ambiguity of the expression
+excused the act, they also, apparently to the great relief of the
+emperor, poured out a libation and sipped a small quantity of the wine.
+The emperor then drank to the health of his wife and daughter, wishing
+the latter many returns of the auspicious day they had met to celebrate.
+Each of the guests also made, according to his ability, a complimentary
+speech, which the ladies acknowledged by a gracious salutation. After
+the repast slaves brought perfumed water and embroidered napkins for the
+guests to wash their fingers, which had been largely employed in the
+process of dining.
+
+The most of the guests were sycophants and satellites of the emperor,
+and in the intervals between the courses employed their art in
+flattering his vanity or fomenting his prejudices. One of them,
+Semphronius by name, an old fellow with a very bald and shiny head and
+a very vivacious manner, made great pretensions to the character of a
+philosopher or professor of universal knowledge, and was ever ready,
+with a great flow of often unmeaning words, to give a theory or
+explanation of every conceivable subject. Others were coarse and
+sensual-looking _bon vivants_, who gave their attention chiefly to the
+enjoyment of the good fare set before them. Another sinister-looking
+fellow, with a disagreeable cast in one eye and a nervous habit of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword, was Quintus Naso, the
+prefect of the city. He had been a successful soldier, or rather
+butcher, in the Pannonian wars, and was promoted to his bad eminence of
+office on account of his truculent severity. Of very different
+character, however, was a young man of noble family, Adauctus by name,
+who was present in his official character as Treasurer of the Imperial
+Exchequer.[11] He almost alone of the guests paid a courteous attention
+to the high-born ladies of the party, to whom he frequently addressed
+polite remarks while the others were intent only in fawning on the great
+source of power. He, also, alone of all present, conspicuously refrained
+from pouring out a libation--a circumstance which did not escape the
+keen eye of the emperor. After interrupted talk on general topics, in
+which the ladies took part, the conversation drifted to public matters,
+on which they were not expected to meddle.
+
+"Well, Naso, how was the edict received?" said the emperor to the
+prefect, as a splendid roast peacock, with sadly despoiled plumage, was
+removed.
+
+"As every command of your divine Majesty should be received," replied
+Naso, "with respectful obedience. One rash fool, indeed, attempted to
+tear it down from the rostra of the Forum, like that mad wretch at
+Nicomedia; but he was taken in the act. He expiates to-night his crime,
+so soon as I shall have wrung from him the names of his fanatical
+accomplices,"--and he clenched his hands nervously, as though he were
+himself applying the instruments of torture.
+
+"And you know well how to do that," said the emperor with a sneer, for,
+like all tyrants, he despised and hated the instruments of his tyranny.
+
+"You may well call them fanatics, good Naso," chimed in the would-be
+philosopher, Semphronius; "a greater set of madmen the world never saw.
+They believe that this Chrestus whom they worship actually rose from the
+dead. Heard ever any man such utter folly as that! Whereas I have
+satisfied myself, from a study of the official records, that he was
+only a Jewish thaumaturge and conjuror, who used to work pretended
+miracles by means of dupes and accomplices. And when, for his sedition,
+he was put to death as the vilest of felons, these accomplices stole his
+body and gave out that he rose from the dead."[12]
+
+"I have heard," said Adauctus gravely, "that the Romans took care to
+prevent such a trick as that by placing a maniple of soldiers on guard
+at His grave."
+
+"Yes, I believe they say so," went on the unabashed Semphronius; "but if
+they did, the dastards were either overpowered, or they all fell asleep
+while his fellow-knaves stole his body away."
+
+"Come now, Semphronius," said the emperor, "that is too improbable a
+story about a whole maniple of soldiers. You and I know too well, Naso,
+the Roman discipline to accept such an absurd story as that."
+
+"Oh, if your divine Majesty thinks it improbable, I fully admit that it
+is so," the supple sophist eagerly replied. "I am inclined to identify
+this impostor and a kinsman of his who was beheaded by the divine Herod
+with the Janus and Jambres whose story is told in the sacred books of
+the Jews. But it is evident, from the identity of name of one of these
+with the god Janus, that they merely borrowed the story from the Roman
+mythology. This execrable superstition, they say, was brought to Rome by
+two brothers named Paulus and Simon Magus. They both expiated their
+crimes, one in the Mammertine Prison, the other without the Ostian Gate.
+They say also that when Simon the magician struck the prison wall, a
+well of water gushed forth for some of their mystic rites; and that when
+the head of Paulus was smitten off it bounded three times on the ground,
+and at each spot where it touched a well of water sprang up. But these
+are stories that no sane man can believe."[13]
+
+"I quite agree with you in that," said Adauctus.
+
+"Do you, indeed?" exclaimed the Emperor; "I am glad to know that so
+brave and trusted an officer can say so."
+
+"I believe, your Majesty, that half the stories told about the
+Christians are calumnies that no candid man can receive," continued the
+young officer.
+
+"You are a bold man to say so, for they have few friends and many
+enemies at court," replied Diocletian; "but we will soon extort their
+secrets by this edict. Will we not, good Naso?"
+
+"It will not be my fault if we do not, your divine Majesty," replied
+that worthy, with a more hideous leer than usual in his cruel eye.
+
+"Another thing these fools of Christians believe," interjected the
+garrulous philosopher, "is, that when they die their souls shall live in
+some blander clime, and breathe some more ethereal air. 'Tis this that
+makes them seem to covet martyrdom, as they call it, instead of, like
+all sane men, shunning death."
+
+"But do not your own poets," chimed in the soft voice of Valeria, "speak
+of the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows where the spirits of
+heroes walk, and of the bark of Charon, who ferries them across the
+fatal Styx?"
+
+"True, your most august Highness," replied the pedant with grimace
+intended to be polite, "but those fables are intended for the vulgar,
+and not for the cultured classes, to which your Imperial Highness
+belongs. Even the priests themselves do not believe in the existence of
+the gods at whose altars they minister; so that Cicero, you will
+remember, said that 'he wondered how one augur could look in the face of
+another without laughing.'"
+
+"I quite admit," remarked Adauctus, "that the priests are often
+impostors, deceiving the people; but our wisest philosophers--the
+thoughtful Pliny, the profound Tacitus, the sage Seneca, and even the
+eloquent Cicero whom you have quoted--teach the probability if not the
+certainty of a future state, where virtue shall be rewarded and
+wickedness punished."
+
+"What do they know about it any more than any of us?" interrupted the
+truculent Naso, to whom ethical themes were by no means familiar or
+welcome. "My creed is embodied in the words of that clever fellow,
+Juvenal, that I used to learn at school--
+
+    'Esse aliquid manes, et subterranea regna,
+    Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum �re lavantur.'"[14]
+
+"What's the use of all this talk?" lisped a languid-looking epicurean
+fop, who, sated with dissipation, at twenty-five found life as empty as
+a sucked orange. "We cannot alter fate. Life is short; let us make the
+most of it. I'd like to press its nectar into a single draught and have
+done with it for ever. As the easy-going Horace says, 'The same thing
+happens to us all. When our name, sooner or later, has issued from the
+fatal urn, we leave our woods, our villa, our pleasant homes, and enter
+the bark which is to bear us into eternal exile!'"[15]
+
+Here the Emperor made an impatient gesture, to indicate that he was
+weary of this philosophic discourse. At the signal the ladies rose and
+retired. Adauctus also made his official duties an excuse for leaving
+the table, where Diocletian and his other guests lingered for hours in
+a drunken symposium.
+
+Thus we find that the very questions which engage the agnostics and
+skeptics and pessimists of the present age--the Mallocks, and Cliffords,
+and Harrisons and their tribe--have agitated the world from the very
+dawn of philosophy. Did space permit, we might cite the theories of
+Lucretius as a strange anticipation of the development hypothesis.
+Indeed the writings of Pyrrho, Porphyry and Celsus show us that the
+universal tendency of human philosophy, unaided by divine inspiration,
+is to utter skepticism.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] On a single supper for his friends, Lucullus, who is said to have
+fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slaves, is recorded to have
+expended 50,000 denarii--about $8,500.
+
+[11] His name and office are recorded even by so skeptical a critic as
+Gibbon, and his epitaph has been found in the Catacombs. See Withrow's
+Catacombs, p. 46.
+
+[12] Strauss and Renan and their rationalizing school rival this pagan
+sophist in eliminating the miraculous from the sacred record.
+
+[13] Yet these stories, too incredible for this old pagan, were gravely
+related to the present writer, on the scene of the alleged miracles, by
+the credulous Romans of to-day.
+
+[14] _Sat._ ii. 49. "That the manes are anything, or the nether world
+anything, not even boys believe, unless those still in the nursery."
+
+[15] See that saddest but most beautiful of the ode of Horace, To
+Delius, II. 3:
+
+    ... Et nos in �ternum
+    Exilium impositura cymb�.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"THE CHRISTIANS TO THE LIONS."
+
+
+The progress of our story transports us, on the day after the banquet
+described in our last chapter, to the palace of the Prefect Naso, on the
+Aventine. It was a large and pompous-looking building, with a
+many-columned portico and spacious gardens, both crowded with statuary,
+the spoil of foreign cities, or the product of degenerate Greek art--as
+offensive in design as skilful in execution. The whole bore evidence of
+the ostentation of vulgar wealth rather than of judicious taste. A crowd
+of "clients" and satellites of the great man were hanging round the
+doors, eager to present some petition, proffer some service, or to swell
+his idle retinue, like jackals around a lion, hoping to pick up a living
+as hangers-on of such a powerful and unscrupulous dispenser of
+patronage. In the degenerate days of the Empire, the civic officials
+especially had always a swarm of needy dependents seeking to fatten on
+the spoils of office. They were supposed, in some way, to add to the
+dignity of the consuls and pr�tors, as in later times were the retainers
+of a medi�val baron. The system of slavery had made all honest labour
+opprobrious, and these idle, corrupt, and dangerous parasites had to be
+kept in good humour by lavish doles and constant amusements. "Bread and
+the Circus," was their imperious demand, and having these, they cared
+for nothing else.
+
+On the morning in question there was considerable excitement among this
+turbulent throng, for the rumour was current that there was to be an
+examination of certain prisoners accused of the vile crime of
+Christianity; and there were hopes that the criminals would supply fresh
+victims for the games of the amphitheatre, which for some time had
+languished for lack of suitable material. The temper of the mob we may
+learn by the remarks that reach our ears as we elbow our way through.
+
+"Ho, Davus! what's the news to-day?" asked a cobbler with his leathern
+apron tucked up about his waist, of a greasy-looking individual who
+strutted about with much affectation of dignity; "you have the run of
+his Excellency's kitchen, and ought to know."
+
+"Are _you_ there, Samos?" (a nick-name meaning Flat Nose). "Back to your
+den, you slave, and don't meddle with gentlemen. _'Ne sutor,'_ you know
+the rest."
+
+"Can't you see that the cook drove him out with the basting ladle?" said
+Muscus, the stout-armed blacksmith, himself a slave, and resenting the
+insult to his class; and so the laugh was turned against the hungry
+parasite.
+
+"Here, good Max, you are on the guard, you can tell us," went on the
+burly smith.
+
+"News enough, as you'll soon find. There's to be more hunting of the
+Christians for those who like it. For my part, I don't."
+
+"Why not," asked Burdo, the butcher, a truculent looking fellow with a
+great knife in a sheath at his girdle. "I'd like no better fun. I'd as
+lief kill a Christian as kill a calf."
+
+"It might suit your business," answered stout Max, with a sneer, "but
+hunting women and children is not a soldier's trade."
+
+"O ho! that's the game that's a-foot!" chuckled a withered little wretch
+with a hungry face and cruel eyes, like a weasel. "Here's a chance for
+an honest man who worships the old gods to turn an honest penny."
+
+"Honest man!" growled Max. "Diogenes would want a good lantern to find
+one in Rome to-day. He'd certainly never take thee for one. Thy very
+face would convict thee of violating all the laws in the Twelve Tables."
+
+"Hunting the Christians, that's the game, is it?" said an ill-dressed
+idler, blear-eyed and besotted; "and pestilent vermin they are. I'd like
+to see them all drowned in the Tiber like so many rats."
+
+"You are more likely to see them devoured in the amphitheatre," said
+Bruto, a Herculean gladiator. "The Prefect is going to give some grand
+games on the Feast of Neptune. Our new lions will have a chance to
+flesh their teeth in the bodies of the Christians. The wretches haven't
+the courage to fight, like the Dacian prisoners, with us gladiators, nor
+even with the beasts; but just let themselves be devoured like sheep."
+
+At this juncture a commotion was observed about the door, and Naso, the
+Prefect, came forth and looked haughtily around. Several clients pressed
+forward with petitions, which he carelessly handed unopened to his
+secretary, who walked behind. He regarded with some interest the
+elegantly-dressed and graceful youth who glided through the throng and
+presented a scroll, saying, as he did so--
+
+"It is of much importance, your Excellency. It is about the Christians."
+
+"Follow me to the Forum," said the Prefect, and our old acquaintance
+Isidorus, for it was he, fell into the train of the great civic
+dignitary. Arrived at the Basilica Julia, or great Court of Justice, the
+Prefect beckoned to the young Greek secretary, and entered a private
+ante-room. Throwing himself into a bronze chair, and pointing the Greek
+to a marble seat, he asked abruptly--
+
+"Now, what is this you know about these Christians?"
+
+"Something of much importance to your Excellency, and I hope to learn
+something still more important."
+
+"You shall be well paid if you do," said the Prefect. "It is difficult
+to convict them of any crime."
+
+"I have secret sources of information, your Excellency. In fact, I hope
+to bring you the names of the ringleaders of the accursed sect."
+
+"How so? Are you not the secretary of Flaccus Sertorius?"
+
+"I am, your Excellency, but he has no heart in the work of this new
+edict. I would like to see more zeal in the Emperor's service."
+
+"I like not this Sertorius," said the Prefect, half musing. "He affects
+too much what they call the severe old Roman virtues to suit these
+times. But how do you expect to learn the secrets of these Christians?"
+
+"By becoming one myself, your Excellency, replied the Greek, with a
+sinister expression in his eyes."
+
+"By becoming one yourself!" exclaimed the Prefect, in a tone of anger
+and surprise. Then noting the wily expression of the supple Greek, he
+added, "Oh! I see, by becoming a spy upon their practices and a betrayer
+of their secrets. Is that it?"
+
+"We Greeks like not the words traitor and spy," said the youth, with a
+faint blush, "but to serve the Emperor and your Excellency we would bear
+even that opprobrium."
+
+"Well, you look capable of it," said the Prefect, with an undisguised
+sneer, "and I will gladly use any instruments to crush this vile sect."
+
+"But, your Excellency," said the cringing Greek, swallowing his chagrin
+and annoyance, "I shall require gold to gain the confidence of these
+Christians--not to bribe them, for that is impossible, but to spend in
+what they call charity--to give to their sick and poor."
+
+"Not forgetting yourself, I'll be bound," sneered the Prefect. "But what
+you say is no doubt true;" and turning to the table he wrote an order
+upon the Imperial Exchequer, and handed it to the Greek, with the words,
+"If you make good use of that, there is more where it comes from. The
+Emperor pays his _faithful_ servants well." Then dismissing the
+treacherous tool whom he himself despised, he passed into the Basilica,
+or court, where the bold Christian youth who had torn down the Emperor's
+edict was to receive his sentence.
+
+Livid with the torture he had undergone to make him disclose the names
+of his accomplices--tortures which he had borne with heroic fortitude
+he boldly avowed his act, and defied the power of the Prefect to extort
+the name of a single Christian from his lips. We will not harrow the
+hearts of our readers by recounting the atrocious tortures by which the
+body of the brave youth had been wrung. He was at length borne away
+fainting to his cruel fate. Although the Prefect, who had sworn to have
+his secret if he tore the heart out of his body, gnashed his teeth in
+impotent rage at the defiance of the mangled martyr, yet he could not in
+his inmost soul help feeling the vast gulf between his sublime fidelity
+and the heinous guilt of the base traitor from whom he had just parted.
+
+The pages of the contemporary historians, Eusebius and Lactantius, give
+too minute and circumstantial accounts of the persecutions, of which
+they were eye-witnesses, to allow us to adopt the complacent theory of
+Gibbon, that the sufferings of the Christians were comparatively few
+and insignificant. "We ourselves have seen," says the Bishop of C�sarea,
+"crowds of persons, some beheaded, others burned alive in a single day,
+so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken to pieces, and the
+executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over the work
+of blood.... They vied with each other," he continues, "in inventing new
+tortures, as if there were prizes offered to him who should contrive the
+greatest cruelties."[16] Men whose only crime was their religion, were
+scourged with chains laden with bronze balls, till the flesh hung in
+shreds, and even the bones were broken. They were bound in fetters of
+red hot iron, and roasted over fires so slow that they lingered for
+hours, or even days, in their mortal agony; their flesh was scraped from
+the very bone with ragged shells, or lacerated with burning pincers,
+iron hooks, and instruments with horrid teeth and claws, hence called
+_ungul�_, examples of which have been found in the Catacombs; molten
+metal was applied to their bodies till they became one undistinguishable
+wound, and mingled salt and vinegar,[17] or unslacked lime, were rubbed
+upon the quivering flesh, torn and bleeding from the rack or
+scourge--tortures more inhuman than savage Indian ever wreaked upon his
+mortal foe. Chaste matrons and tender virgins were given over to a fate
+a thousand-fold worse than death, and were subjected to indignities too
+horrible for words to utter. And all these sufferings were endured,
+often with joy and exultation, for the love of a Divine Master, when a
+single word, a grain of incense cast upon the heathen altar, would have
+released the victims from their agonies. No lapse of time, and no recoil
+from the idolatrous homage paid in after ages to the martyr's relics,
+should impair in our hearts the profound and rational reverence with
+which we bend before his tomb.
+
+While the examination of the Christian martyr was in progress, much
+interest was manifested in his fate by the throng of idlers who were
+wont to linger around the public courts, to gratify their curiosity or
+their morbid love of cruelty.
+
+"The State is in danger," said Piso, the barber, gesticulating
+violently, "if such miscreants are suffered to live."
+
+"Ay, is it," chimed in a garrulous pedagogue, "this is rank treason."
+
+"Right, neighbour Probus," added a pettifogging lawyer. "This is the
+very _crimen majestatis_. These men are the enemies of C�sar and of the
+Roman people."
+
+"Who would think he was so wicked?" said a poor freed-woman who sold
+sugar barley in the Forum. "Sure he looks innocent enough."
+
+"He _is_ innocent," replied her neighbour, who kept a stall for the sale
+of figs and olives. "'Tis that wretch who is wicked," looking fiercely
+at the Prefect as he moved from the court.
+
+"You are right," said a grave-looking man, speaking low, but with a look
+of secret understanding; "but be careful. You can do the brave Lucius no
+good, and may betray the others into jeopardy," and he passed swiftly
+through the throng.
+
+"'Tis time all these Atheists were exterminated," said Furbo, a sort of
+hanger-on at the neighbouring temple of Saturn. "The gods are angry, and
+the victims give sinister auspices. To-day when the priest slew the ram
+for the sacrifice, would you believe it? it had no heart; and the sacred
+chickens refused their food."
+
+"And they certainly are to blame for the floods of the Tiber, which
+destroyed all the olives and lentils in my shop," said Fronto, the oil
+and vegetable seller.
+
+"And the rain rusted all the wheat on our farm," said Macer, the
+villicus or land-steward.
+
+"And the fever has broken out afresh in the Suburra," croaked a withered
+old Egyptian crone, like a living mummy, who told fortunes and sold
+spells in that crowded and pest-smitten quarter, where the poor swarmed
+like flies.
+
+"And the drought has blighted all the vines," echoed Demetrius, the
+wine-merchant.
+
+"I never knew trade so dull," whined Ephraim, the Jewish money-lender.
+"We'll never have good times again till these accursed Christians are
+all destroyed."
+
+"So say I," "And I," "And I," shouted one after another of the mob, till
+the wild cry rang round the Forum, _"Christiani adleones"_--"The
+Christians to the lions."[18]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] Euseb. Hist Eccles., viii. 7.
+
+[17] "Salt me the more, that I may be incorruptible," said Tarachus, the
+martyr, as he underwent this excruciating torture.
+
+[18] "If the Tiber overflows its banks," says Tertullian, "or if the
+Nile does not; if there be drought or earthquakes, famine or pestilence,
+the cry is raised, 'the Christians to the lions.' But I pray you," he
+adds, in refutation of these absurd charges, "were misfortunes unknown
+before Tiberius? The true God was not worshipped when Hannibal conquered
+at Cann�, or the Gauls filled the city."--Tertul. _Apol._, x.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MARTYR'S BURIAL.
+
+
+The fawning Greek Isidorus had stealthily wormed his way into the
+confidence of Faustus, a servant of Adauctus, by professing to be, if
+not a Christian, at least a sincere inquirer after the truth, and an
+ardent hater of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore promised
+to conduct him to a private meeting of the Christians, where he might be
+more fully instructed by the good presbyter, Primitius. In the short
+summer twilight they therefore made their way to the villa of the
+Christian matron Marcella, on the Appian Way, about two miles from the
+city gates. A high wall surrounded the grounds. In this was a wicket or
+door, at which Faustus knocked. The white-haired porter partly opened
+the door, and recognizing the foremost figure, admitted him, but gave a
+look of inquiry before passing his companion.
+
+"It is all right," said Faustus. "He is a good friend of mine," and so
+they passed on.
+
+The grounds were large and elegant, fountains flashed in the soft
+moonlight, the night-blooming cereus breathed forth its rare perfume,
+and masses of cypress and ilex cast deep shadows on the pleached alleys.
+But there was a conspicuous absence of the garden statuary invariably
+found in pagan grounds. There was no figure of the god Terminus, nor of
+the beautiful Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair goddesses which
+to-day people the galleries of Rome. In the spacious _atrium_, or
+central apartment of the house, which was partially lighted by bronze
+candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly a hundred persons, seated
+on couches around the hall--the men on the right and the women on the
+left. A solemn stillness brooded over the entire assembly. Near a tall
+cadalabrum stood a venerable figure with a snowy beard--the presbyter
+Primitius. From a parchment scroll in his hand he read in impressive
+tones the holy words of hope and consolation, "Let not your hearts be
+troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me," and the rest of that
+sweet, parting counsel of the world's Redeemer.
+
+[Illustration: STAIRWAY TO CATACOMB.]
+
+Before he was through, a procession with torches was seen approaching
+through the garden. On a bier, borne by four young men, lay the body of
+Lucius the martyr, wrapped in white and strewn with flowers--at rest in
+the solemn majesty of death from the tortures of the rack and scourge.
+The little assembly within joined the procession without, and softly
+singing the holy words which still give such consolation to the stricken
+heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui in Domino morientur--Blessed are the dead
+who die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress alleys wound the
+solemn procession. Soon it reached an archway, like that shown in our
+first chapter, the entrance to the catacomb of St. Callixtus, which lay
+beneath the grounds of the Lady Marcella. Then, preceded by torches,
+with careful tread the bearers of the bier slowly descended a rock-hewn
+stairway, and traversed a long and gloomy corridor, lined on either side
+with the graves of the dead.[19] This stairway and corridor are shown in
+the engravings which accompany this chapter.
+
+An almost supernatural fear fell upon the soul of Isidorus the Greek,
+who had followed in the train of the procession, as it penetrated
+further and further into the very heart of the earth. He seemed like
+Ulysses with his ghostly guide visiting the grim regions of the
+nether-world, and the words of the classic poet came to his mind,
+"Horror on all sides, the very silence fills the soul with dread."
+Already for more than two centuries these gloomy galleries had been the
+receptacles of the Christian dead, and in many places the slabs that
+sealed the tombs were broken, and the graves yawned weirdly as he
+passed, revealing the unfleshed skeletons lying on their stony bed. To
+his excited imagination they seemed to menace him with their
+outstretched bony arms. Deep, mysterious shadows crouched around, full
+of vague suggestions of affright. His gay, joyous and pleasure-loving
+nature recoiled from the evidences of mortality around him. His
+footsteps faltered, and he almost fell to the rocky pavement. The
+procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing dimmer and dimmer,
+and then turning an angle they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to
+his feet, and he fled along the narrow path with outstretched hands,
+sometimes touching with a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes
+of the dead. He hurried along, groping from side to side, and when he
+reached the passage down which the funeral procession had disappeared,
+no gleam of it was visible, nor could he tell, so suddenly the lights
+had disappeared, whether it had turned to the right or to the left. The
+darkness was intense--a darkness that might be felt, a brooding horror
+that oppressed every sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed
+to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his faint cry was swallowed up
+in the deep and oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the gods
+overtaken him in punishment for his meditated crime? Was he, who so
+loved the light and air, and joyous sunshine, never to behold them
+again? Must he be buried in these gloomy vaults for ever? These thoughts
+surged through his brain, and almost drove him wild. But what sounds are
+those that steal faintly on his ear? They seem like the music of heaven
+heard in the heart of hell. Stronger, sweeter, clearer, come the holy
+voices. And now they shape themselves to words, "Nam et si ambulavero in
+medio umbr� mortis, non timebo mala--Yea, though I walk through the
+valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Was it to taunt his
+terrors those strange words were sung? Then the holy chant went on,
+"Quonian tu mecum es Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata
+sunt--For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." What
+strange secret had these Christians that sustained their souls even
+surrounded by the horrors of the tomb?
+
+[Illustration: CORRIDOR OF CATACOMB.]
+
+Isidorus groped his way amid the gloom toward these heavenly sounds.
+Soon he caught a faint glimmer of light reflected from an angle of the
+corridor, and then a ray through an open doorway pierced the gloom.
+Hurrying forward he found the whole company from which he had become
+separated gathered in a sort of chapel hewn out of the solid rock. The
+body of Lucius lay upon the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the
+wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful torchlight which illumined
+the strange group, and lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the
+wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And I saw under the altar
+the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the
+testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How
+long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on
+them that dwell on the earth?" A great fear fell upon the soul of the
+susceptible Greek, for the slain man seemed, in the solemn majesty of
+death, to become an accusing judge.
+
+Then turning his scroll the presbyter read on, "What are these arrayed
+in white robes and whence came they? These are they which came out of
+great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in
+the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and
+serve Him day and night in His temple.... They shall hunger no more,
+neither thirst any more ... and God shall wipe away all tears from
+their eyes."
+
+These holy words stirred strange emotions in the agitated breast of the
+young Greek. Sweeter were they than ought he had ever read in Pindar's
+page, and more sublime than even Homer's hymns. If these things were
+true, he thought, he would gladly change places with the martyr on his
+bier, if only he might exchange the torturing ambitions, strifes and
+sins of time for the holy joys which that marvellous scroll revealed.
+
+Then by loving hands the martyr's body was placed in its narrow tomb. A
+marble slab, on which were simply written his name and the words,
+"DORMIT IN PACE--He sleeps in peace," was cemented against the opening.
+With a trowel, a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom, was rudely traced
+in the yet unhardened cement, and the little company began to disperse.
+
+"O sir," cried the young Greek, clasping the hand of the venerable
+Primitius, "teach me more fully this excellent way."
+
+"Gladly, my son," replied the benignant old man. "Come hither to-morrow.
+For here," he added with a smile, "my friends insist that I must remain
+concealed till this outburst of persecution shall have passed.[20]
+Hilarus, the fossor, will be thy guide. He will now conduct thee back
+to thy friend Faustus, who is seeking thee."
+
+By the dim light of a waxen taper which he carried, Hilarus led the
+Greek to the entrance to the Catacomb, where they found Faustus waiting
+in some alarm at the delay of his friend. In the bright moonlight they
+walked back to the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving an
+account of his adventure in the Catacomb, and, to turn the conversation,
+asked how the Christians had obtained the body of Lucius from the public
+executioner.
+
+"Oh, money will do anything in Rome," said Faustus, at which the Greek
+visibly winced. "The Lady Marcella, in whose grounds the Catacomb is,
+devotes much of her wealth to burying the poor of the Church, and her
+steward had no difficulty in purchasing from Hanno, the executioner, the
+mangled remains of the martyr. 'Tis like, before long, that he will have
+many such to sell."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] For the details above given, see Bingham's _Origines Ecclesiastica_
+
+[20] Liberius, Bishop of Rome, lay concealed in the Catacombs for a
+whole year, during a time of persecution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WITH HILARUS THE FOSSOR.
+
+
+"No one becomes vile all at once," said the Roman moralist, and we would
+be unjust to the fickle, fawning Greek Isidorus, if we concluded that
+deliberate treachery was his purpose, as, at the invitation of
+Primitius, he repaired next day to the catacomb of St. Calixtus. His was
+a susceptible, impressionable nature, easily influenced by its
+environment, like certain substances that acquire the odour, fragrant or
+foul, of the atmosphere by which they are surrounded. Amid the vileness
+of the Roman court, his better feelings died, and he was willing to
+become the minion of tyranny, or the tool of treachery. Amid the holy
+influences of the Christian assembly, some chord responded, like an
+Eolian harp, to the breathings of the airs from heaven. It was,
+therefore, with strangely conflicting feelings, that he passed beneath
+the Capuan Gate, and along the Appian Way, toward the Villa Marcella.
+His better nature recoiled from his purposed treachery of the previous
+day. His heart yearned to know more of that strange power which
+sustained the Christian martyr in the presence of torture and of death.
+
+
+He was recognized by the porter at the gate of the villa as the
+companion of Faustus, and on his inquiry for the house of Hilarus, the
+fossor, was directed to a low-walled, tile-roofed building, such as may
+be seen in many parts of the Campagna to the present day. About the
+house were many stone chippings, and numerous slabs of marble. Under a
+sort of arbour, covered with vine branches in full leaf, stood a
+grisly-visaged man, with close-cropped, iron-gray hair, chipping with
+mallet and chisel at a large sarcophagus, or stone coffin, upon a
+mason's bench.
+
+"Do I address Hilarus, the fossor?" asked the Greek, with a graceful
+salutation.
+
+"I am Hilarus, at your service, noble sir," replied the old man, with a
+kindly expression of countenance.
+
+The young Greek then told of the invitation given him by the good
+presbyter, Primitius, and requested to be conducted to him.
+
+"You are, of course, known to the porter, or you would not have obtained
+admission to these grounds," said Hilarus. "But you will first honour my
+poor roof by partaking some refreshment after your hot walk from the
+city."
+
+"Thanks, good friend," replied the Greek, "a draught of your native
+wine would not be amiss. Nay, I would prefer it here beneath the
+grateful shadow of this vine," he continued, as Hilarus courteously led
+the way to the open door of the cottage. This was quite small, and had
+almost no furniture save some earthen pots for cooking at an open
+fireplace. In a moment the old man re-appeared with an earthen flagon of
+wine and a bronze salver, with bread and goat's milk cheese, and a
+bronze cup.[21]
+
+"For whom is this elegant sarcophagus?" asked Isidorus, as he sipped his
+wine.
+
+[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS NOW IN LATERAN MUSEUM.]
+
+"I pray it be not for her who orders it," said the old man, devoutly;
+"at least not for many a long day to come. The good Lady Marcella bade
+me exercise my best skill in setting forth the great truths of the
+Gospel, that in death as in life, she said, she might teach the
+doctrines of Christ. She often comes to see how I get on with it, and to
+describe how she wishes it to be. See," said the old man, pointing to
+the side--(see above)--"the general idea is all her own, the details
+only are mine. These four groups exhibit four scenes in the life--or
+rather in the death--of our Lord. To the extreme right we see Pilate,
+warned by his wife, washing his hands and saying 'I am innocent of the
+blood of this just person,' and yet, like a coward, consenting to His
+death, he was as guilty as Judas, who betrayed Him."
+
+At this the Greek visibly winced, then paled and flushed, and said,
+"Well, what is the next group?"
+
+"That is part of the same," said the sculptor, with evident pride in his
+work. "It represents our Lord, guarded by a Roman soldier, witnessing a
+good confession before Pontius Pilate. In the central niche are two
+soldiers, types of the Christian warriors, whose only place of safety is
+beneath the cross; while above are the wreath of victory, the doves of
+peace, and the sacred monogram, made up, I need not tell you, who are a
+Greek, of the two first letters of the word Christos. To the left you
+observe a Roman soldier, putting on Jesus the crown of thorns, and in
+the last, Simon the Cyrenian, guarded by a soldier, bearing His
+cross."[22]
+
+"And for whom are all these funeral tablets," said Isidorus, pointing to
+a number of slabs partly executed--some with the engraved outline of a
+dove, or fish, or anchor, or olive branch upon them--leaning against the
+wall.
+
+"For whom God pleases," said the old man, devoutly. "I keep them ready
+to suit purchasers, and then I have only to fill the name and age, or
+date."
+
+"But see here," said the Greek, touching with his foot one on which were
+effigies of Castor and Pollux, the "great twin brethren" of the Roman
+mythology, and the letters, "DIS MANIBVS--To the Divine Spirits;" "this
+is a pagan inscription. How come you to use that?"
+
+"Oh, we turn up such slabs by scores, in ploughing the fields hereabout.
+They may be hundreds of years old, for aught I know. We just turn that
+side to the wall, or deface it with a few strokes of the chisel."
+
+"It was a prentice hand that made _that_, I'll be bound," said the
+Greek, pointing to one on which was rudely painted in black pigment, the
+sprawling inscription that follows, no two letters being the same size--
+
+LOcvSaVgvStIsvToRis.
+"The Place of Augustus, the Shoemaker."
+
+"Oh, that is the epitaph of a poor cobbler. I let my boys do that for
+nothing. They will soon be able to do better. Here now is one by my
+oldest son, of which I would not be ashamed myself;" and he pointed to a
+neatly-cut inscription, the letters coloured with a bright vermillion
+pigment, which ran thus,--
+
+AVRELIAE THEVDOSIAE
+BENIGNISSIMAE ET INCOMPARABILI FEMINAE
+AVRELIVS OPTATVS
+CONIVGE INNOCENTISSIMAE
+
+"Aurelius Optatus, to his most innocent wife, Aurelia Theudosia, a most
+gracious and incomparable woman."
+
+"We will now, if you are sufficiently cool," he went on, "enter the
+catacomb. It is not well to make too sudden a transition from this
+sultry heat to their chilly depths."
+
+"Thanks," said the young man, "I shall find the change from this sultry
+air, I doubt not, very agreeable;" and they crossed a vineyard under a
+blazing sun, that made the cool crypts exceedingly grateful. Descending
+the stairway, the guide took from a niche a small terra-cotta lamp,
+which he carefully trimmed and lit at another, which was always kept
+burning there.[23]
+
+"Is there not danger of losing one's way in this labyrinth?" asked the
+Greek, feeling no small degree of the terror of his late adventure
+returning.
+
+"Very great danger, indeed," replied Hilarus, "unless you know the clue
+and marks by which we steer, almost like ships at sea. But knowing
+these, the way may become as familiar as the streets of Rome. You may,
+perhaps, have heard of C�cilia, a blind girl, who acted as guide to
+these subterranean places of assembly, because to her accustomed feet
+the path was as easy as the Appian Way to those who see."
+
+"How many Greek epitaphs there are," said Isidorus, deeply interested in
+scanning the inscriptions as he passed.
+
+"Yes," said the fossor, "there are a-many of your countryfolk buried
+here; and even some who are not like to have their epitaphs written in
+the language in which holy Paulus wrote his epistle to the Church in
+Rome."
+
+"But what wretched scrawls the most of them are," said the Greek, with
+something like a sneer; "and see, here is one even upside down."
+
+"Yes, noble sir," continued the old man, "not many mighty, not many
+noble are called--most of those who sleep around us are God's great
+family of the poor. Indeed, most of them were slaves. That poor fellow
+was a martyr in the last persecution. I mind it well, though it is years
+agone. We buried him by stealth at dead of night, and did not notice
+that the hastily written inscription was reversed."
+
+The dim rays of their lamp and taper made but a faint ring of light
+about their feet. Their steps, as they walked over the rocky floor,
+echoed strangely down the long-drawn corridors and hollow vaults, dying
+gradually away in the solemn stillness of this valley of the shadow of
+death. The sudden transition from the brilliant Italian sunlight to this
+sepulchral gloom, from the busy city of the living to this silent city
+of the dead, smote the heart of the susceptible youth with a feeling of
+awe. And all around in this vast necropolis, each in his narrow cell
+forever laid, were unnumbered thousands, who were once like himself,
+full of energy and life.
+
+[Illustration: SECTIONAL VIEW OF GALLERY AND CHAMBERS, SHOWING LIGHT AND
+AIR SHAFT]
+
+As they advanced, a faint light in the distance seemed to penetrate the
+gloom. It grew brighter as they approached, and attracted by the sound
+of the footsteps, a venerable figure emerged from a doorway and stood in
+the flood of light which poured down from an opening in the vaulted
+roof, which extended to the bright free air above. Almost like an
+apparition from the other world, in the strong, Rembrandt-like
+illumination in which he stood, looked the venerable Primitius, clothed
+in white, with silvery hair and flowing beard, and high, bare brow. As
+Isidorus glanced up the shaft, he saw the blue sky shining far above,
+and the waving of the long grass that fringed the opening for light and
+air. This construction--a very frequent one in the Catacombs--is shown
+in sectional view on the previous page. On each side of the corridor was
+a chamber about twelve feet square, also lit up by this shaft, which,
+plastered with white stucco, reflected the light into every part.
+
+"Welcome, my son," said the venerable presbyter, as he sat down on a
+bench hewn out of the dry pummice-like rock "Welcome to these abodes of
+death; may they prove to thee the birthplace to eternal life;" and he
+laid his hand benignantly on the head of the young man, whom he had
+motioned to a seat beside him.
+
+"Sire," said the youth, all the nobler feelings of his nature deeply
+moved, "I wish above all things to sit at your feet and to learn the
+lessons of wisdom which you are so well able to impart But are these
+seemly surroundings for a man of your years and condition?--this rocky
+vault, this utter loneliness, and these crumbling relics of mortality?"
+and he shuddered as he glanced at the shattered sepulchral slabs, which
+revealed the remains of what was once man in his strength, woman in her
+beauty, or a sweet child in its innocence and glee.
+
+"Why not, my son? soon I must lie down with them and be at rest. The
+thought has no terrors to my soul I know no loneliness, and through the
+care of kind friends my wants are all supplied. But your young blood and
+sensitive imagination, I perceive, shrink from these things to which, by
+long use, I have become accustomed. Let us go into the adjoining
+chamber, which you will find more cheerful, and, I trust, not less
+instructive."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE--SARCOPHAGUS OF JUNIUS BASSUS,
+ROME.]
+
+[Illustration: CEILING PAINTING FROM CATACOMB OF ST. CALIXTUS, ROME.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Just such a peasant's house the writer visited on the Appian Way,
+near this spot, and just such a repast he shared at the entrance of this
+very catacomb. "The wine," said the guide, "is necessary to guard
+against a chill." The contrast between the temperature above ground and
+below was about 30�.
+
+[22] This sarcophagus, with many others resembling it the writer studied
+minutely in the Lateran Museum at Rome.
+
+[23] The writer has some of these earthen lamps which once did service
+in the Catacombs. They bear Christian symbols, inscribed before
+baking--a dove, anchor, olive branch, fish, and the like.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER.
+
+
+The venerable presbyter laid his hand familiarly on the young man's
+shoulder and conducted him into a smaller, but much more elegantly
+finished, apartment. It contained no graves, save an arched tomb which
+had never been used; at one side was a shelf for lamps. The whole
+surface of the wall was covered with hard white stucco, which was
+divided into panels by bands and borders of brilliant red and blue, as
+shown in the cut on next page. The vaulted ceiling was similarly
+divided. The angles were filled in with elegant floral designs, and the
+panels with Biblical and symbolical paintings, which Primitius began now
+to explain.
+
+[Illustration: PAINTED CHAMBER IN THE CATACOMBS]
+
+"Thou seest, my son," he said, "that central group above the arch. That
+represents the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Thou
+perceivest He bears the lost sheep upon His shoulders, and gently leads
+those which follow Him. Even so, all we, like sheep, have gone astray,
+but the blessed Saviour seeks the erring, and brings them into the safe
+and true fold. Thou seest to the left the figure between the two lions.
+That is Daniel in the lion's den; and to the right are the three Hebrews
+in the fiery furnace. These, my son, are symbols of the Church of
+Christ, amid the wild beasts and the fires of persecutions. But she
+shall be delivered unhurt; she shall come forth unscathed. In the
+ceiling you will observe praying figures between lambs, the emblems of
+the Church, the Bride which is the Lamb's wife, perpetually engaged in
+adoration and prayer."
+
+The youth was deeply impressed, and almost awed, to see the
+silvery-haired old man, a refugee from persecution, in these
+subterranean crypts, with the full assurance of faith, confronting all
+the power of the persecuting despot of the world, and predicting the
+triumph of that oppressed Church which was compelled to seek safety in
+those dens and caves of the earth.
+
+The good old man then sought to impart the great truths of our holy
+religion to his new catechumen, and to implant in his soul the same
+germs of lofty faith that flourished in his own. With this object he led
+him through the long corridors and chambers of the vast encampment of
+death--a sort of whispering gallery of the past, eloquent with the
+expression of the faith and hope of the silent sleepers in their narrow
+cells.
+
+"Listen, my son," said Primitius, "to the testimony of the dead in
+Christ, and of the martyrs for the truth," and pausing from time to time
+before some inscribed or painted slab, he pointed out the lofty hopes
+which sustained their souls in the very presence of death.
+
+"Here," he said, entering again the chamber he had first left, "is the
+sepulchre of my own beloved wife. When depressed and lonely, I come
+hither and derive strength and consolation by reading the words which
+she requested, with her dying breath, should be written on her tomb,"
+and with deep emotion he traced with his finger the inscription:--[24]
+
+PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DVLCIS CVM CONIVGE NATAE
+VIVENTEMQVE DEO CREDITE FLERE NEFAS.
+
+"Refrain from tears, my sweet children and husband, and believe that it
+is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God."
+
+"And here," he went on, "is the tomb of our little child," and Isidorus
+read with softened spirit the words:--
+
+AGNELLVS DEI--PARVM STETIT APVD NOS ET
+PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE.
+
+"God's little lamb--he stayed but a short time with us, and went before
+us in peace."
+
+"And here," said Primitius, "is the couch of our eldest daughter," and
+he read, with caressing tones, her epitaph:--
+
+ANIMA DVLCIS INNOCVA SAPIENS ET PVLCHRA--
+NON MORTVA SED DATA SOMNO.
+
+"A sweet spirit, guileless, wise, beautiful. She is not dead but
+sleepeth."
+
+"This is certainly very different," said Isidorus, "from two epitaphs I
+read to-day upon the pagan tombs on the Appian Way. They ran thus:--
+
+DECIPIMVR VOTIS ET TEMPORE FALLIMVR ET MORS
+DERIDET CVRAS ANXIA VITA NIHIL.
+
+"We are deceived by our vows, misled by time, and death derides our
+cares; anxious life is naught."
+
+INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DEI IRATI AETERNO
+SOMNO DEDERVNT.
+
+"To a very sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to eternal sleep."
+
+"Yes," said Primitius, "nothing can sustain the soul in the presence of
+death, but such faith as that of my friend Eutuchius, who sleeps here;"
+and he read the lofty line:--
+
+IN CHRISTVM CREDENS PREMIA LVCIS HABET.
+
+"Believing in Christ, he has the rewards of the light (of heaven)."
+
+"Similar are these also," and he pointed to the following ill-written,
+but sublime, epitaphs, which Isidorus slowly spelled out:--
+
+DVLCIS ET INNOCES _(sic)_ HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS
+SOMNO PACIS CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI
+SVSCEPTVS EST,--IN SEMPETERNALE
+AEVVM QVIESCIT SECVRVS.
+
+"Here lies in the sleep of peace, the sweet and innocent Severianus,
+whose spirit is received into the light of God. He rests free from care
+throughout endless time."
+
+"But how were these Christians so confident of the future life," asked
+the Greek, "when the greatest of the philosophers and sages--a Socrates
+or Cicero--never rose above a vague 'perhaps,' and even the philosophic
+Pliny, anticipating only annihilation, writes, 'there is no more
+consciousness after death than before birth?'"
+
+"Find there thy answer, young man," exclaimed Primitius, and with a
+gleam of exultation in his eyes, he pointed to the following epitaphs:--
+
+CREDO QVIA REDEMPTOR MEVS VIVIT ET NOVISSIMO
+DIE DE TERRA SVSCITABIT ME IN CARNE MEA
+VIDEBO DOMINVM.
+
+"I believe, because that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day shall
+raise me from the earth, that in my flesh I shall see the Lord."
+
+HIC REQVIESCIT CARO MEA NOVISSIMO VERO DIE
+PER CHRISTVM CREDO RECVSCITABITVR A MORTVIS.
+
+"Here rests my flesh, but at the last day, through Christ, I believe it
+will be raised from the dead."
+
+"And must the soul, then, slumber with the body in blank unconsciousness
+till this 'last day?'" asked the Greek. "Methinks I should shudder at
+going out into the dark inane, like a taper extinguished in these gloomy
+vaults. Better is the dim and ghostly Hades, and Elysian Fields of our
+own mythology, than that."
+
+"Not so, my son," replied Primitius, "we believe with the blessed
+Paul--that as soon as the soul passes from earth's living death, it
+enters into the undying life and unfading bliss of heaven." And he
+pointed out, one after another, the following epitaphs corroborating his
+view:--
+
+CORPVS HABET TELLVS ANIMAM CAELESTIA REGNA.
+MENS NESCIA MORTIS VIVIT ET ASPECTV
+FBVITVR BENE CONSCIA CHRISTI.
+
+"The soul lives unknowing of death, and consciously rejoices in the
+vision of Christ."
+
+PRIMA VIVIS IN GLORIA DEI ET IN PACE DOMINI
+NOSTRI XR.
+
+"Prima, thou livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of Christ our
+Lord."
+
+"This is indeed a high philosophy, beyond aught I ever heard before,"
+said Isidorus, deeply moved. "Whence do you Christians derive such lofty
+teachings? For as Hilarus but now said most of your sect are poor and
+lowly in this world's goods and rank."
+
+"Our teaching comes, my son, from God Himself, the Great Father of
+lights, and from Jesus Christ our Lord. Behold, as the greatest favour I
+can do thee, I will lend thee this precious MS. of the Gospel of the
+blessed John;" and he took from a leathern case a purple vellum
+parchment scroll, inscribed with letters of silver. "Cherish it
+carefully; 'tis worth more than gold. When thou hast well pondered it, I
+will lend thee the letter of the blessed Paul to the infant Church in
+this city of Home. But here comes Hilarus to conduct thee back to the
+light of day. Return hither, if thou canst, on the fourth day from now
+--the day of our Sabbath assembly. My blessing be upon thee. _Pax
+vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo._"
+
+The young Greek knelt at the old man's feet, then rose and kissed his
+hand, and followed in silence the fossor Hilarus. At length he broke the
+silence by inquiring,--
+
+"What's the meaning, good Hilarus, of all these strange figures which I
+have noted on the tombstones as I passed. I have observed a lion, a pig,
+an ass, a cobbler's last, carpenters', masons', and wool-combers'
+implements; a fish, a ship, an anchor, and the like--all scratched or
+painted on the stone slabs. They have no religious significance,
+surely?"
+
+[Illustration: TOMB OF THE BISHOPS, CATACOMB OF ST. CALIXTUS.
+
+Seven of the Bishops of the early Christian Church in Rome fell in
+succession by the hand of the headsman, five of them in the space of
+eight years. In this chamber are buried several of those heroic martyrs
+of Jesus.]
+
+"Well, no, not all of them," said Hilarus, with a smile. "You see, many
+of the Christians being lowly craftsmen, are unable to read, so the
+tools or emblems of their calling are inscribed on the tombs of their
+friends, that they may recognize and find them again in this vast
+cemetery."
+
+"But the ship, anchor, and fish are not signs of a handicraft, unless
+that of sailor or fisherman."
+
+"No, the fish has another and a secret meaning. I need not tell a
+scholar like you, that the first letters of the Greek names for Jesus
+Christ, Son of God, the Saviour, make up the word Ichthus, or fish, so
+it is used as a secret symbol of our faith. The ship is the emblem, I
+have been told, even in your own country, of a well-spent life, and to
+us it signifies a soul entering into the haven of eternal rest. While
+our holy hopes are the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
+entering into that within the veil."
+
+"Well, and the lion, ass, and pig? What about them?"
+
+"These," said the fossor, with a laugh, which seemed as incongruous to
+him as it would be to a modern sexton, for such his office virtually
+was, "these are a sort of play upon the names of Leo, Onager, and
+Porcella, the latter was a sort of pet name, I suspect--'Little Pig'--by
+which their friends, who could not read, could find their tombs."
+
+"What wives these Christians must have had," continued the
+keenly-observing Greek. "I have noticed several inscriptions, in which
+they are said to have passed ten, twenty, thirty, and one even fifty
+years of married life--SINE IVRGIO, SINE AEMVLATIONE, SINE DISSIDIO,
+SINE QVERELA--'Without contention, without emulation, without
+dissension, without strife.' There are no such wives in Rome now, I'll
+be bound--at least in the Rome I am acquainted with."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, with a sigh, "come with me into yonder chapel.
+I always, in passing this way, stop there to see again the sepulchre of
+the best wife God ever gave to any man." After walking in silence some
+minutes, he entered a sort of family vault, and lit a bronze lamp,
+shaped like a ship, hanging from the vaulted ceiling, while Isidorus
+studied out the following inscription, not altogether free from errors
+in spelling and grammar:--
+
+CONIVGE VENEVANDE BONE INNOCVA FLORENTIA
+DIGNA PIA AMABILIS PVDICA _(sic)_ DEO FIDELIS
+DVLCIS MARITO NVTRIX FAMILIAE HVMILIS
+CVNCTIS AMATRIX PAVPERVM. BIXIT MECVM
+ANN. XXXII. MENS. IX. DIES V. HOR. X.
+SCRVPVLOS XIL SEMPER CONCORDES SINE VLLA
+QVERELA. BIXIT PLVS MINVS ANN. LII. MENS.
+V. INCOMPARABILEM CONIVGEM MALE FRACTVS
+CONIVX GEMITV TRISTI LACRI MIS DEFLET.
+
+"To my wife Florentia, deserving of honour, good, guileless, worthy,
+pious, amiable, modest, faithful to God, endeared to her husband, the
+nurse of her family, humble to all, a lover of the poor. She lived with
+me (_i.e._, was married) thirty-two years, nine months, five days, ten
+hours, six scruples (about a quarter of an hour--they were very
+scrupulous about this). She lived (altogether) fifty-two years, five
+months, more or less. The sore-broken husband bewails, with tears and
+bitter lamentation, his incomparable spouse."
+
+"Yes, I made it all up, and carved it all myself," said the old man, as
+Isidorus finished reading the long inscription; "and if I say it myself,
+I don't think there is a better in the whole Catacomb; you see, I
+selected the best bits from all the best epitaphs, and she deserved it
+every word, dear soul," and he drew his rough hand across his moistened
+eyes.
+
+The easy-tempered Greek was too good-natured to inflict wanton pain, so
+he ignored its bad Latinity, and contented himself with saying that "it
+was indeed a very remarkable epitaph."
+
+In a few minutes they emerged from the gloom of the Catacomb to the
+golden glory which was flooding the broad Campagna from the westering
+sun. "Would," thought Isidorus within himself, "that I could thus emerge
+from the gloomy doubts and fears in which my spirit gropes, to the
+golden light of Christian life."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] The following, except the last one, are all authentic inscriptions
+from the Catacombs, selected from many hundreds, translated by the
+writer in his volume on this subject.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A DIFFICULT QUEST.
+
+
+The Empress Valeria had not forgotten her purpose to discover, if
+possible, the father of her freed-woman, Callirho�, and at the earliest
+opportunity took steps to accomplish her design. It was, she knew, a
+task of much difficulty, and one that required an intelligent and
+confidential agent. It was also of the utmost importance that some sign
+of identity should be exhibited as a guarantee of the good faith of the
+agent. With this view the Empress one day, as she sat at her toilet in
+the apartment described in our third chapter, thus interrogated her
+freed-woman and namesake, Valeria Callirho�.
+
+"Hast thou any token, child," she asked, "by which, should we find thy
+father, he would be assured of thy identity?"
+
+"I was despoiled of everything, your Majesty," said the girl, "by the
+pirates by whom we were captured; except the clothes in which I stood.
+All my rings and jewellery were rudely snatched away, and I never saw
+them again."
+
+"What is that little amulet I have seen thee wear?" asked the Empress;
+"I think thou hast it now."
+
+"Oh, that was so trivial and valueless," said Callirho�, "that they
+either overlooked it or thought it not worth taking;" and she drew from
+the folds of her robe, where it hung suspended by a silken cord about
+her neck, a cornelian stone, carved into the shape of a tiny fish,[25]
+on which was inscribed the word, [Greek: S�T�RS�T�R], or "Saviour," and
+on the other side the letters [Greek: KAL.D�M�T.THYG]--a contraction for
+"Callirho� daughter of Demetrius."
+
+"Trivial as it is," said the girl, with emotion, "it is something which
+I value above all price. My sainted mother, before she died, took it
+from her neck and put it upon mine; and I hope to wear it while I live."
+
+"You do not regard it as an amulet, or charm against evil spirits, I am
+sure, like some Christians, who have not quite shaken off their pagan
+superstitions."
+
+"Nay, your Majesty, but as a symbol of our holy faith. Yet it might well
+be a spell to keep my soul from sin, so sacred are its associations."
+
+"I want you to give it to me," said the Empress.
+
+"It is yours, your Majesty," said the girl, taking it from her neck, and
+passionately kissing it. "To no one else on earth would I give it; but
+from my best benefactress I can withhold nothing."
+
+"I would not put thee to the pain of parting with it," said the Empress,
+with a kind caress, "but I need it as a clue, to find, if possible, thy
+father, and when found, as an identification of his child. I do not wish
+to raise hopes which may be doomed to disappointment; but I am about to
+make a strenuous effort to discover thy sire."
+
+"A thousand thanks, dearest lady," exclaimed the grateful girl, kissing
+her mistress's hands and bedewing them with her tears. "I feel sure that
+God will reward your efforts, and answer my ceaseless prayers."
+
+In pursuance of her purpose, the Empress wrote upon a scroll of
+parchment the following letter to her faithful counsellor, Adauctus:--
+
+    "Valeria, consort of the co-Emperor Galerius C�sar--to Adauctus,
+    Treasurer of the Imperial Exchequer, greeting:
+
+    "Honoured Servant,--Thy mistress hath need of a faithful and
+    intelligent agent, to execute a delicate and difficult mission.
+    He must be of good address, and must be a man whom I can
+    implicitly trust. When thou hast found such, bring him with thee
+    to the palace." L.S.
+
+Having bound the scroll with a silken cord, and affixed her signet in
+purple wax, and addressed the document to the Imperial Treasurer, she
+sent it by a soldier of the guard, whom we would describe in modern
+parlance as an orderly-in-waiting, to Adauctus.
+
+During the latter part of the day, the chamberlain announced a visit
+from "His Excellency the Imperial Treasurer." That officer was received
+with much honour by the Empress, who was attended only by her faithful
+freed woman.
+
+"Many thanks, your Excellency, for your prompt attendance. Have you
+found me the paragon whom I require?"
+
+"I cannot avouch for that, your Majesty, but he is highly commended by
+his master, an honest soldier, who places him at your Majesty's service.
+Of his nimble wit and subtle parts, I can myself bear witness, and my
+own servant testifies that if not a Christian, he is at least a sincere
+inquirer after the truth."
+
+The Empress briefly explained the nature of the commission which she
+wished executed, and asked that the proposed agent, who waited in an
+ante-room, might be presented. In a moment the chamberlain announced our
+old friend Isidorus. With bowed head and hands folded upon his breast,
+he stood on the threshold, and then advancing, knelt gracefully before
+the Empress. He evidently made a good impression, for her Majesty smiled
+graciously and said:--
+
+"It is a difficult quest on which I would send thee, but thou shalt be
+well rewarded for thy fidelity and zeal."
+
+"My humble services, my life, are at your Majesty's disposal," said the
+Greek. "I shall deem myself well rewarded by your Majesty's favour."
+
+"See'st thou this lady?" asked the Empress, pointing to Callirho�. "To
+find her sire in this wide world--that is thy task;" and she briefly
+explained the nature of the commission.
+
+The youth gazed long and earnestly on the fair face of the girl, and
+replied, "Those features once seen can never be forgotten. If I find
+anywhere on earth aught resembling them, I shall not fail to recognize
+the likeness. In such a quest I would gladly search the wide world
+over."
+
+"My chamberlain will amply equip you for your journey, and will give you
+a letter, with the Emperor's seal, to all the Roman prefects in Italy;
+and, by the Divine favour, I trust you will bring us good tidings."
+
+"So may it be," said the youth, as he retired from the presence, giving,
+as he did so, a lingering look at Callirho�, who, with dilated eyes and
+parted lips, gazed at him with an intensity of entreaty that would have
+proved an inspiration to a less susceptible nature than his.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] These objects, of which the writer has examined several, were given
+to neophytes on the occasion of their baptism, as an emblem of their
+holy faith. (See explanation of the symbol of the fish in last chapter,
+p. 82.) They were often used as a sign of membership in the Christian
+Church, somewhat like our modern class-tickets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A WICKED PLOT.
+
+
+We have already mentioned the fact that Fausta, the mother of the
+Emperor Galerius, was a fanatical pagan. The especial object of her
+regard was the goddess Cybele, who was worshipped in Rome with rites of
+the most degrading superstition. Fausta was intensely bitter in her
+hatred of the Christian name, and strenuously endeavoured to incite her
+son, the Emperor, to persecution. She was especially virulent towards
+her daughter-in-law, the beautiful Valeria, and sought by every means to
+embitter the mind of Galerius against her. In this she was strongly
+abetted, or rather inspired, by Furca, the vicious old priest of Cybele,
+whose wicked influence over her was very great. This worthy pair, the
+day after the interview above described, were engaged in a secret
+conclave or conspiracy against Valeria and the Christians, while the
+latter was seeking to carry out her benevolent enterprise.
+
+The scene of their interview was the reception-room of Fausta, in the
+palace of the Emperor Galerius. It was far more sumptuously furnished
+and decorated than that of the Empress Valeria, and at one end, in a
+marble niche, stood an ugly image of the goddess Cybele, with her crown
+of many towers, rudely carved out of olive wood, but quite embrowned,
+and almost blackened with age. It was bedizened with costly jewels, and
+was deemed to be of special sanctity. Before it was a small marble
+altar, on which burned, day and night, a silver censer.
+
+At the moment of which we write, Fausta approached the altar, and
+kissing her hand to the image--an ancient mode of worship, from which we
+get the word "adore"--she took some costly Sabean incense from a small
+gold coffer, and sprinkled it on the glowing coals of the censer. Dense
+white fumes arose, whose rich aromatic odour filled the large apartment.
+Fausta had been an Illyrian peasant, and, notwithstanding her
+embroidered robes and costly jewels, she still exhibited much of the
+rude peasant character and lack of culture. Her coarse and wrinkled
+features and swarthy complexion, were all the more striking by their
+contrast with the snowy mantle, with its gold-embroidered border, which
+she wore; and her bright black eyes glittered with an expression of
+deadly malice like those of a serpent. While she stood before the altar,
+a servant announced that Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, had obeyed
+her summons. As the curtain of the door was drawn aside, a little
+weazened old man, as dark as mahogany, wearing a thick crop of snow
+white hair, appeared.
+
+"Thanks, good Furca," said Fausta, "I desire your counsel on a matter of
+much importance to the State, and to the worship of the holy Cybele."
+
+"At your service, your Excellency," said the obsequious priest, who also
+kissed his hand to the black-faced image, and sprinkled a few grains of
+incense on the censer.
+
+"Thou knowest how the worship of the Galilean Christus has increased,
+not only among the common people, the vile plebs, and the still viler
+slave population, but even among the patricians and nobles. I have
+evidence that even in this palace, and very near the throne, the
+execrable superstition is cherished."
+
+"Alas! your Excellency, I fear it is only too true," whined the bigot
+arch-priest. "Certain it is that neither of the Empresses, Prisca or
+Valeria, ever take part in the public worship of the gods, as from their
+lofty station it is their duty to do."
+
+"Yes, and I have reason to believe that there is plotting and conniving
+between the Empress and the accursed Christian sect."
+
+"Hast any proof of this?" asked the arch-priest, eagerly. "This is a
+crime against the State."
+
+"The black slave Juba," replied Fausta, "is, as thou knowest, a faithful
+worshipper of Cybele, and she told me even now, that Adauctus, the
+Imperial Treasurer, had been only yesterday closeted with the Empress,
+and plotting to restore to the favour of the Emperor a certain
+Demetrius, a Christian renegade, who is in hiding for his crimes."
+
+"Oh, ho!" chuckled the priest, with a wicked grin, "my fine lady need
+not think herself so high and mighty as to be above the reach of the
+law, or beyond the anger of the insulted gods."
+
+"I would almost give my eyes," hissed through her teeth the revengeful
+Fausta, "if I could only see that painted doll, Valeria, abased and
+degraded. She has too long held a sway, of which I, the mother of the
+Emperor, have been deprived."
+
+"I trust you may not only see it," said Furca, gloating in anticipation
+over the prospect, "but also see her pale, proud mother, the Empress
+Prisca, humbled at your feet."
+
+"Accomplish this, good Furca," exclaimed Fausta, with exultation, "and
+the goddess Cybele shall have such an offering as she never had
+before."
+
+"We must be wary," said the priest, "or we may ourselves be crushed.
+They are too powerful to be attacked openly. We must plot against them
+secretly. I'll be a _furca_ to them indeed," he added, punning upon his
+own name, which had also the signification of an instrument of
+punishment, something like a cross; and the conspirators parted with
+this pledge of mutual hate against their destined victims.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SLAVE MARKET.
+
+
+In the meantime Isidorus, with well-filled purse, and armed with
+credentials under the Imperial seal, had set off upon his difficult and
+doubtful quest.
+
+"However it turn out," he said to himself, "it will be strange if I do
+not climb a few steps higher on the ladder on which my feet are now
+placed. Being the confidential agent of the Empress is better than
+being the secretary of the rude soldier, Sertorius, and being snubbed by
+him every day, too."
+
+Mounted on one of the best horses in the Imperial stables, he rode forth
+upon the famous Salarian Way, which led straight as an arrow over the
+wide Campagna, and over the rugged Appenines to the distant city of
+Ravenna, among the marshes of the Adriatic. Now a decayed and
+grass-grown city, six miles from the sea, it was then a great and busy
+port, and had been for two centuries and a half an important see of the
+Christian Church. Not to the prefect of the city, but to the bishop of
+Ravenna, Isidorus, with his natural tact and shrewdness, betook himself.
+The sign manual of the Emperor, which he confidently exhibited, did not
+command that regard which he had anticipated; but a private letter from
+Adauctus, commending Isidorus to all Christian bishops and presbyters,
+procured for him a much more cordial reception. He was hospitably
+entertained, and every possible assistance given him in his quest. The
+bishop called together the deacons who had the care of the poor of the
+Church, but none of them knew anything of Demetrius. The bishop had
+ransomed many Christian slaves--prisoners taken in war, or captured by
+pirates. A few years before, when the resources of the Church had been
+completely exhausted by the exercise of this charity,[26] a company of
+captives had been sold by pirates to a Jewish slave-dealer named Ezra,
+and conveyed by him to the city of Mediolanum, or as we now call it,
+Milan, as offering, next to Rome, the best market for his wares. And one
+of the deacons remembered among this slave-gang an old man who resembled
+the description given of Demetrius.
+
+To Milan, therefore, crossing again the Appenines, and riding up the
+broad, rich valley of the Po, went Isidorus. He was surprised to find a
+city, almost rivalling in extent Rome itself, and with a history
+reaching back to the times of the Etruscans, well-nigh a thousand years.
+First he sought the Jewish slave-dealer, who kept a regular mart for the
+sale or hire of human beings, just as one now-a-days keeps a
+livery-stable for the sale or hire of horses. There was as much fraud,
+too, in selling slaves then, as has been proverbially connected with
+horse-dealing and jockeying in every age. The _ergastulum_, or slave-pen
+of Ezra, was a large prison-like structure, surrounding the four sides
+of a hollow square. There were no windows to the street, and only very
+small iron-grated ones to the inner court; with heavy, iron-studded
+doors to the stable-like stalls, where the slaves were chained to a
+stout beam running along the wall.
+
+A slave-auction was in progress when Isidorus arrived, so he had to wait
+till it was over before plying his quest. A gang of slaves, unchained,
+but guarded by keepers, armed with whips and spears, awaited their fate.
+Stripped nearly naked, they were rudely examined, pinched, handled, and
+made to stoop, lift heavy weights, walk, run, and show their paces like
+horses for sale. Many had their ears bored--a sign of servitude from the
+time of Moses--and others were seamed with scars of the cruel lash.
+This, however, lessened their market value, as it was evidence of their
+intractable and troublesome character.
+
+Slavery was, at the time of which we write, one of the greatest evils of
+the Roman empire. It was a deadly canker, eating out the national life.
+It cast a stigma of disgrace on labour, and prevented the formation of
+that intelligent middle class which is the true safeguard of liberty.
+Never in the history of the world was society so based upon the abject
+misery of vast multitudes of human beings. The slaves outnumbered, many
+times, their masters. They were forbidden to wear a peculiar garb, lest
+they should recognize their numbers and their strength, and rise in
+universal revolt. As it was, servile insurrections were of frequent
+occurrence. But they were crushed and punished with ruthless severity.
+In one slave revolt, 60,000 of these wretched beings were slain. The
+first question about a man's property was, _"Quot pascit servos?"_--"How
+many slaves does he keep?" Ten was considered the least number
+consistent with any degree of respectability. Four hundred slaves
+deluged with their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus. Vidius
+Pollio fed his lampreys with the bodies of his human chattels. A single
+freed-man left over 4,000 at his death. Some 2,000 men were lords of the
+Roman world, and the great mass of the rest were slaves. Their condition
+was one of inconceivable wretchedness. They had no rights of marriage,
+nor any claim to their children. Their food was a pound of bread a day,
+with a little salt and oil. Flesh they never tasted, and even wine,
+which flowed like water, almost never. Colossal piles, built by their
+blood and sweat, attest to the present day the bitterness of their
+bondage. The lash of the taskmaster was heard in the fields, and
+crosses, bearing aloft their quivering victims, polluted the wayside.
+
+This dumb, weltering mass of humanity, crushed by power, and led by
+their lusts, became a hot-bed of vice, in which every evil passion grew
+apace. To these wretched beings came the gospel of liberty, with a
+strange, a thrilling power. The oppressed slave, in the intervals of
+toil or torture, caught with joy the emancipating message, and sprang up
+enfranchised by an immortalizing hope. He exulted in a new-found freedom
+in Christ, which no wealth could purchase, no chains of slavery fetter,
+nor even death itself destroy. In the Christian Church the distinctions
+of worldly rank were abolished.[27] The highest spiritual privileges
+were opened to the lowliest slave. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy were
+no rights of birth, and no privileges of blood. In the inscriptions of
+the Catacombs, no badges of servitude, no titles of honour appear. The
+wealthy noble, the lord of many acres, recognized in his lowly servant a
+fellow heir of glory. They bowed together at the same table of the Lord,
+saluted each other with the mutual kiss of charity, and side by side in
+their narrow graves, at length returned to indistinguishable dust. The
+story of Onesimus was often repeated, and the patrician master received
+his returning slave, "not now as a servant, but above a servant--a
+brother beloved." Nay, he may even have bowed to him as his
+ecclesiastical superior, and received from his plebeian hands the
+emblems of their common Lord.
+
+We return from this digression to the slave-market of Milan. Very few of
+Ezra's stock were black--not more than half a dozen, from Nubia and
+Libya. Most of them were as white as himself, or whiter still. There
+were Dalmatians, Illyrians, Iberians, Gauls, Greeks, Syrians, and many
+other nationalities. Ezra was engaged in busy converse, in a broken
+mixture of Latin and Greek, with the wealthy patrician, Vitellius, the
+lord of wide corn lands on the fertile banks of the Po.
+
+"Field hands your Excellency wants? I have some splendid ones," he said,
+eagerly. "Here, you fellows, step out there and show your muscles;" and
+he struck with his whip-lash two brawny white-skinned, blue-eyed,
+yellow-haired British slaves.
+
+"Sullen dogs these British often are," he said, "but they are as good as
+gold. They never run away like the Germans, nor steal like the Greeks,
+nor kill themselves like the Gauls."[28]
+
+"Glad of that," said Vitellius. "I have had a perfect epidemic of
+suicide among my slaves. I had to kill several of them to keep them from
+killing themselves"--a sad but frequent comment on the utter
+wretchedness of their condition, from which death itself was the only
+refuge.
+
+"Does your Excellency want anything of a higher grade?" asked Ezra.
+"Some skilled workmen to finish your elegant villa, for instance. I have
+a splendid Greek sculptor, almost another Phidias, and another a second
+Zeuxis with the brush. Then if you want a steward, or bookkeeper, or
+secretary, or reader, or a skilled physician, I have them all; or a
+hand-maid for your Excellency's wife. I have a beautiful Greek girl
+here, highly accomplished; can embroider, play the zither, sing in two
+languages. I sold her sister last week for 100,000 sesterces[29]--nieces
+of an ex-archon. I felt really sorry for them, but what would
+you?--trade is trade. Times are bad. Poor Ezra has had bad luck. Several
+of his slaves kill themselves. Market glutted; price falls. I sell them
+very cheap--very cheap."
+
+Vitellius made his purchases, had them chained together in a gang, and
+driven by his steward, like cattle, to his farm. The account of Ezra's
+interview with Isidorus we must defer to another chapter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] This might easily happen, for after successful raids or slave
+hunts, the victims were sold by their pirate captors by the thousand.
+The fact is on record, that at Delos, a famous slave market, 60,000 were
+sold by Celician pirates in a single day.
+
+[27] Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et dominos, interest
+nihil. Lactant. _Div. Inst._ v. 14, 15.
+
+[28] These were the most common faults of slaves, for attempting which
+they were often branded on cheek or brow.
+
+[29] Over $4,000 of our money. Very beautiful or accomplished slaves
+sometimes brought twice that amount.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE LOST FOUND.
+
+
+"Do you remember buying or selling a slave named Demetrius, a Jew?"
+asked Isidorus of Ezra, the slave-dealer of Milan. He wasted no words in
+circumlocution, for he knew that there was no use in trying to deceive
+the keen-eyed Jewish dealer in his fellowman; and that his best chances
+of success were in coming directly to the point.
+
+"Selling a Jew? Oh, no! I never sell my own kinsmen. That's against our
+law. It is like seething a kid in its mother's milk. I often ransom them
+from pirates and set them free."
+
+"But this Demetrius was a Christian Jew--a convert from Moses to Jesus,"
+said the Greek.
+
+"A Christian dog," cried Ezra with a wicked execration. "He was no Jew.
+He had sold his birthright like Esau, and had no part nor lot with
+Israel. Of course, I'd sell him if I got him--to the mines, or to the
+galleys, or the field gang, to the hardest master I could find. But I
+know naught about your Demetrius, who was he?"
+
+"He was a Jew of Antioch," said Isidorus, "captured by Illyrian pirates
+and sold in the slave market of Ravenna."
+
+"That is a common tale," replied Ezra. "There are many such. How long
+since this occurred?"
+
+"'Tis now five years since he was last seen by her who seeks him, and
+who will pay well for his recovery."
+
+"Just my luck," grumbled the greedy Jew. "Some one else will gain the
+prize. 'Tis not for me."
+
+"Then you cannot help me in this quest?" said the Greek.
+
+"How can I remember the scores and hundreds of Christian dogs that I
+have bought and sold? Go ask these monks, they know more of the vermin
+than I do."
+
+Acting on this hint, Isidorus made his way to the Convent of San
+Lorenzo, the ancient chapel of which still remains. Knocking at a
+bronze-studded gateway he was admitted to a quadrangle surrounded by
+cloisters or covered galleries upon which opened the doors of the
+different apartments. It was more like a hospital and alms-house than
+like what is now understood as a convent. It served as a sort of school
+of theology, youthful acolytes and deacons being here trained for the
+office and work of presbyters in the Church. Isidorus presented his
+letter from Adauctus to the good Bishop Paulinus, and was most cordially
+received.
+
+"Right welcome art thou, my son," said the bishop, "bearing, as thou
+dost, the commendation of the worthy Adauctus; and right glad shall we
+be to promote thy search. I myself know naught that can throw light upon
+it, inasmuch as I lived not at Milan, but was bishop of Nola at the time
+of which thou speakest."
+
+The scriptor, or secretary, of the convent was also consulted without
+avail, no record being found in the annals of the house that gave any
+hope of discovery.
+
+"Come lunch with us in the refectory," said the bishop, "and I will ask
+if any of the brethren know aught of this mystery."
+
+The refectory was a large bare-looking room--its only furniture being a
+long and solid table with a shorter one across the end for the bishop,
+and presbyters, and visitors. Of this latter there were frequently
+several, as such houses were the chief places for entertaining the
+travelling clergy or even lay members of the Christian brotherhood. Upon
+the walls were certain somewhat grim-looking frescoes, representing
+Biblical scenes and characters like those in the Catacombs described in
+chapter VIII. At one side of the room was a _bema_, or reading-desk, at
+which one of the lectors a distinct ecclesiastical office,[30] with its
+special ordination--read, while the brethren partook of their meals, the
+lessons for the day from the Gospels and Epistles, as well as passages
+from the writings of Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Origen. For
+this usage the scarcity and high price of MS. books, and the desire to
+improve every moment of time was deemed a sufficient ground.
+
+After the meal--which was almost ascetic in its simplicity, consisting
+chiefly of vegetable pottage, lentils, and bread was over, and the
+reading ended, the bishop explained the cause of the presence among them
+of a stranger from Rome.
+
+"My brethren," he said in conclusion, "this is a common story. Many are
+the victims of cruelty and wrong in this great empire. Be it ours, so
+far as God may give us power, to succour the oppressed and redress their
+wrongs."
+
+As he sat down a venerable presbyter rose and said, "Father, five years
+have I been under this hospitable roof, ransomed from bondage by your
+predecessor in office. Five years have I mourned the loss of a son and
+daughter, sold from my arms to I know not what cruel fate. It may be
+that God is about to restore me my children, the flesh of my flesh. Hast
+thou, stranger, any sign or token by which I may be assured of their
+identity?"
+
+"Of thy son I have no tidings; but know thou if this be a token of thy
+daughter's rescue," and Isidorus exhibited the small cornelian _tessara_
+of the fish of which we have spoken.
+
+Eagerly the old man clasped it, and scanned the inscription, and
+joyfully exclaimed, while tears of gladness flowed down his aged cheeks
+and silvery beard, "Thank God, my child yet lives. I shall again behold
+her before I die. See, here is her very name, 'Callirho�, daughter of
+Demetrius.' I carved it with my own hands one happy day in our dear home
+in Damascus. God is good. I never hoped to see her again. Tell me,
+stranger, is she, too, a slave?"
+
+"Nay," said Isidorus with emotion, for even his careless nature was
+touched with sympathy at the joy of the old man, "She is the freed woman
+of the Empress Valeria, and high in favour, too, I should judge, from
+the interest her august mistress showed in seeking for thee."
+
+"_Benedic, anima mea, Domino,_" exclaimed the aged presbyter with
+fervour. "_Et omnia, qu� intra me sunt, nomini sacro ejus_--Bless the
+Lord, my soul: and all that is within me bless His holy name. He hath
+heard my prayer. He hath answered my supplication."
+
+The old man's story was soon told. He had been rescued from the slave
+pen of Ezra, and employed in the service of the convent. His familiar
+knowledge of Greek led to his appointment as instructor in that language
+of the young acolytes and deacons who were in training for the office of
+the ministry. At length his superior gifts and fervent piety led to his
+own ordination as a presbyter of the Church of Milan.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] This office was possibly derived from the synagogue. As requiring
+good scholarship it was one of much honour, and was even sought by
+laymen. The Emperor Julian, in his youth, and his brother Gallus, were
+readers in the Church of Nicomedia. Many epitaphs of readers occur in
+the Catacombs.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Demetrius was now eager to set out for Rome to behold once more the
+child whom he had scarce hoped ever to see again. A happy leave-taking
+of the brethren of Milan, who rejoiced in fraternal sympathy, followed;
+and on a gently ambling mule, at break of day, the old man rode forth
+beside the gallantly equipped Isidorus. He beguiled the weary way with
+questions about his long-lost daughter, as to her growth, appearance,
+her apparent health, and even the very garb she wore. He was never tired
+hearing about her, and recounting incidents of her childhood and youth.
+The only shadow upon his joy was the vague mystery concerning the fate
+of his son. But he said cheerfully: "God is good. He has restored to me
+one of my children. I feel confident that in His own good time He will
+restore also the other."
+
+Beneath the fatigue of the long journey of nearly three hundred miles
+his powers would have failed, had he not been inspirited and sustained
+by the thrilling anticipation of beholding once more his beloved child.
+
+At length, near sunset, on the tenth day, they drew near the great
+metropolis of the Empire. Clearer and clearer to the view rose the
+seven-hilled city's pride, the snowy marble peristyles and pediments of
+palace and temple, gleaming in the rosy light like transparent
+alabaster. To the left rose the cliff-like walls of the Colosseum, even
+then venerable with the time-stains of over two hundred years. In the
+foreground stretched the long Aurelian Wall, with its towers and
+battlements and strong arched gates. They crossed the Tiber by the
+Milvian Bridge, built three hundred years before, and destined to
+witness within ten years that fierce struggle for the mastery of the
+empire, between Constantine and Maxentius, when the British-born C�sar
+saw, or thought he saw, in the mid-day heavens a blazing cross, and
+exclaiming "By this sign we conquer," overwhelmed his adversary in the
+rushing river.[31]
+
+Passing under the hill crowned with the famous gardens of Lucullus, now
+known as the Pincio, and beneath the heavy-arched gateway in the wall,
+they made their way through the narrow streets towards the centre of the
+city the--Forum and the Palatine. It was a day of festival--the last day
+of the _Quinquatria_, or festival of Minerva. Garlands of flowers, and
+wreaths of laurel, festooned many of the houses, in front of which
+blazed coloured cressets and lamps. Sacred processions were passing
+through the streets, with torches and music and chantings of priests;
+and ever and anon the shrill blare of the sacred trumpets pierced the
+ear of night. In the Forum the temples of Saturn, and of Castor, and
+Pollux were richly adorned and brilliantly illuminated, and a great
+throng of merry-makers filled the marble square.
+
+Turning to the left, our travellers ascended the slope of the Palatine
+Hill, amid ever-increasing grandeur of architecture. Demetrius, though
+he had travelled far and seen much, was struck with astonishment at the
+splendour and magnificence of the buildings. Not at Jerusalem, or
+Damascus, or Antioch, not at Ravenna or Milan, had he witnessed such
+wealth of porphyry and marble, such stately colonades and peristyles,
+covering acres of ground--now but a mound of mouldering ruins.
+
+"Whither art thou leading me?" asked Demetrius, as they stood before a
+palace of snowy marble which, bathed in the mellow radiance of the
+rising moon, seemed transformed into translucent alabaster.
+
+"To the abode where dwells thy daughter, the favoured freed-woman of the
+mistress of all this splendour," replied Isidorus, enjoying the wonder
+and admiration of his companion in travel.
+
+A fountain splashed in the centre of the square, its waters flashing
+like silver in the moonlight. The burnished mail of the Roman soldiers
+gleamed as the guard was changed, and their armour clashed as they
+grounded their spears and saluted the officer of the watch.
+
+"What, Max, are you on duty to-night?" said Isidorus as he recognized a
+soldier of the guard. "Any promotion in your service yet?"
+
+"No, but I see that there is in yours," said the bluff out-spoken
+guardsman.
+
+"Well, yes, I flatter myself that there is," replied the vain-glorious
+Greek, "and I hope for still more."
+
+Announcing to the chamberlain of the palace that he had just arrived
+from a journey of important business for the Empress Valeria, he with
+Demetrius were taken to a marble bath, where with the aid of a skilful
+slave, they made their toilet for immediate presentation to the Empress.
+
+Valeria was attended as usual by her freed-woman Callirho�, when the
+Greek was announced.
+
+"We heard," she said to Isidorus, "by thy letters, of the failure of thy
+quest at Ravenna and Milan, but we hope----"
+
+At this moment, with an exclamation of intensest emotion Callirho�
+rushed forward and flung herself in the arms of the venerable figure
+who had followed the Greek into the apartment.
+
+"My father!" she cried in tones which thrilled every heart, and then she
+embraced him again and again. The impassioned love and joy and gratitude
+of her soul struggling for expression, she burst into a flood of tears.
+
+"My daughter, child of my beloved Rachel," exclaimed the old man, as,
+heedless of the presence of the Empress, he fondly caressed her, "do I
+again embrace thee? Thou art the very image of thy angel-mother, as I
+first beheld her in the rose gardens of Sharon. Truly God is good. Now,
+Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace--the cup of my happiness
+runneth over."
+
+"Nay, good father," broke in the soft voice of the Empress, who was
+deeply moved by the scene, "rather live to share thy daughter's love and
+happiness."
+
+"Pardon, august lady," said Demetrius, falling on his knees, and
+gratefully kissing the Empress's hand. "Pardon, that in the joy of
+finding my child I forgot the duty I owe to my sovereign."
+
+"Thy first duty was there," said Valeria, pointing to the lovely
+Callirho�, who, smiling through her tears, was now leaning on her
+father's arm. "We leave you to exchange your mutual confidences. Good
+Isidorus it shall be our care to bestow a reward commensurate with thy
+merit;" and she withdrew to her own apartment.
+
+"My everlasting gratitude thou hast," said Callirho�, with her sweetest
+smile, frankly extending her hand.
+
+"I am, indeed, well repaid," said the Greek, as he respectfully kissed
+it. "I would gladly show my zeal in much more arduous service," and
+bowing low, he was accompanied by the chamberlain to the vestibule. That
+official gave him, by command of the Empress, a purse of gold, and
+assured him of still further reward.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] A magnificent painting in the Vatican represents with vivid realism
+this scene, the drowning of the Pagan Emperor, and the defeat and flight
+of all his army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"UNSTABLE AS WATER."
+
+
+It was with feelings highly elated at his successful achievement, which
+presaged still further advancement, that Isidorus sought his lodgings.
+On the way he met many late revellers returning from the festival,
+"flown with insolence and wine," and making night hideous with their
+riot. Among them, his garments dishevelled, and a withering garland
+falling from his brow, was an old acquaintance, Calphurnius, the son of
+the Perfect, who with maudlin affection embraced him and exclaimed:--
+
+"Friend of my soul, where hast thou hidden thyself? Our wine parties
+lack half their zest, since thou hast turned anchorite. Come, pledge our
+ancient friendship in a goblet of Falernian. The wine shop of Turbo, the
+ex-gladiator, is near at hand."
+
+"You have not turned Christian, have you?" hiccoughed the drunken
+reveller; "no offence, but I heard you had, you know."
+
+Isidorus gave a start. Were his visits to the Catacomb known to this
+fashionable fop? Were they a matter of sport to him and his boon
+companions? Was he to be laughed out of his nascent convictions by these
+empty-headed idlers? No, he determined. He despised the whole crew. But
+he was not the stuff out of which martyrs are made, and he lacked the
+courage to confess to this gilded butterfly, his as yet faltering
+feeling towards Christianity.
+
+"Who says I am?" he asked, anxious to test his knowledge on the subject.
+
+"Who says so? I don't know. Why everybody," was the rather vague reply.
+
+"You don't know what you are talking about, man," said the Greek, with a
+forced laugh. "Go home and sleep off your carouse."
+
+"All right. I told them so. The Christians, indeed, the vermin! Come to
+the Baths of Caracalla at noon to-morrow and I'll tell you all about
+it."
+
+Isidorus went to his lodgings and retired to his couch, but not to
+slumber. He was like a boat drifting rudderless upon the sea, the sport
+of every wind that blew. He had no strength of will, no fixedness of
+purpose, no depth of conviction. His susceptible disposition was easily
+moved to generous impulses and even to noble aspirations, yet he had no
+moral firmness. He is portrayed to the life by the words of the great
+Teacher, "He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he
+that heareth the Word, and anon, with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not
+root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or
+persecution ariseth because of the Word, bye-and-bye he is offended."
+
+"Did his boon companions," he questioned, "suspect that any serious
+convictions had penetrated beneath his light and careless exterior?" All
+his good resolutions had begun like wax in a furnace to melt and give
+way at the sneer and jeer of the shallow fool from whom he had just
+parted--a creature whom in his inmost heart he despised. Strange
+contradiction of human nature! Like the epicurean poet, he saw and
+approved the better way and yet he followed the worse.[32] He seemed to
+gain in the few casual words he had heard, a glimpse of the
+possibilities of persecution which menaced him if faithful to his
+convictions, and he had act moral fibre enough to encounter them. And
+yet his conscience stung and tortured him as he tossed upon his restless
+couch. Toward morning he fell asleep and it was broad day when he awoke.
+His reflections were as different from those with which he fell asleep
+as the brilliant daylight was from the gloomy shadows of night. The air
+was full of the busy hum of life. Water sellers and fruit pedlers and
+the like were crying "_Aqua Gelata_" "Fresh Figs," and "White wine and
+red." Cohorts of soldiers were clattering in squadrons, through the
+streets, the sunlight glittering on their spearpoints and on the bosses
+of their shields and armour. Jet black Nubian slaves, clad in snowy
+white, were bearing in gold-adorned _lectic�_ or palanquins, proud
+patrician dames, robed in saffron and purple, to visit the shops of the
+jewellers and silk mercers. Senators and civic officials were flocking
+to the Forum with their murmuring crowd of clients. Gilded youths were
+hastening to the schools of the rhetoricians or of the gladiators, both
+alike deemed necessary instructors of these pinks of fashion. The
+streets and squares were a perfect kaleidoscope of colour and
+movement--an eddying throng, on business or on pleasure bent.
+
+The stir and animation of the scene dispelled all serious thoughts from
+the mind of the frivolous Greek. He plunged like a strong swimmer into
+the stream of eager busy life surging through the streets. He was one of
+the gayest of the gay, ready with his laugh and joke as he met his
+youthful comrades.
+
+"Ho, Rufus, whither away in such mad haste," he cried as he saw a young
+officer of the 12th Legion dashing past in his chariot, driving with
+admirable skill two milk-white steeds through the crowded streets.
+
+"Oh! are you there? Where have you hidden yourself for the last month?"
+exclaimed Rufus, as he sharply reined up his steeds. "To the Baths of
+Caracalla; will you go?"
+
+"Yes, very gladly," said Isidorus, stepping upon the low platform of the
+open bronze chariot. "I have been beyond the Po, on a special service--a
+barbarous region. No baths, circus, or games like those of Rome."
+
+"There is but one Rome," said the fiery young Hotspur, "but I am
+beginning to hate it. I am fairly rusting with idleness and long for
+active service--whether amid Libyian sands or Pannonian forests, I care
+not."
+
+"It seems to me," replied the effeminate Greek, "that I could console
+myself with your horses and chariot--the coursers of Achilles were not
+more swift--and with the delights which Rome and its fair dames are
+eager to lavish on that favourite of fortune, Ligurius Rufus."
+
+"_Vanitas vanitatis_," yawned the youth. "Life is a tremendous bore. I
+was made for action, for conquest, for state craft; but under this
+despotism of the C�sars, we are all slaves together. You and I fare a
+little better than that Nubian porter yonder, that is all."
+
+"Yet you seem to bear your bondage very comfortably," laughed the
+light-hearted Greek, "and had I your fortune, so would I."
+
+"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be golden," ejaculated the
+soldier, lashing his steeds into swifter flight, as if to give vent to
+his nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to forget that I am a
+slave. Lost a hundred thousand sesterces at dice last night. The empire
+is hurrying to chaos. There are no paths of honour and ambition open to
+a man. One must crouch like a hound or crawl like a serpent to win
+advancement in the state. I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day are
+an effete and worn out race. The rude Dacians beyond the Tiber possess
+more of the hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic than the
+craven creatures who crawl about the feet of the modern Colossi, who
+bestride the world and are worshipped almost as gods. And unless Rome
+mends her ways they will be the masters of the Empire yet."
+
+"One would think you were Cato the Censor," laughed the Greek. "For my
+part, I think the best philosophy is that of my wise countryman,
+Epicurus--'to take the times as they come, and make the most of them.'
+But here we are at the Therm�."
+
+Giving his horses to one of the innumerable grooms belonging to the
+establishment, Rufus and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched
+entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32]  Video, proboque meliora,
+      Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT THE BATHS.
+
+
+Nothing can give one a more striking conception of Roman life under the
+Empire than the size, number, and magnificence of the public baths.
+Those of Caracalla are a typical example. They covered an area of
+fifteen hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the surrounding
+grounds being a mile in circumference. They formed a perfect wilderness
+of stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the very mouldering
+remains of which strike one with astonishment. Of this very structure,
+the poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus Unbound," remarks:
+"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths
+of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous
+blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon
+its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Piers of
+sold masonry soar aloft like towers, on the summit of which good-sized
+trees are growing. Climbing one of those massive towers, the present
+writer enjoyed a glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the
+crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure
+all around, and of the far spreading and desolate Campagna.
+
+The great hypocausts, or subterranean furnaces, can be still examined,
+as also the caleducts in the walls for hot air, and the metal pipes for
+hot and cold water. The baths were supplied by an aqueduct constructed
+for that purpose, the arches of which may be seen bestriding the
+Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from the city. There were hot,
+and cold, and tepid baths, _caldaria_, or sweating chambers,
+_frigidaria_, or cooling rooms, _unctoria_, or anointing rooms, and many
+others sufficient to accommodate sixteen hundred bathers at once. There
+were also a vast gymnasium for exercise, a _stadium_, or race-course,
+and a _pinacotheca_, or art gallery. Here were found the famous Farnese
+Bull, the largest group of ancient statuary extant, and many _chefs
+d'oeuvre_ of classic sculpture and mosaics.
+
+The Baths of Diocletian, built by the labours of the Christians during
+the last great persecution, one authority says, were twice as large, and
+could accommodate eighteen thousand bathers in a day, but that seems
+incredible. One of its great halls, a hundred yards by thirty in area,
+and thirty yards high, was converted by Michael Angelo into a church. Of
+the remainder, part is used as a monastery, part as barracks, and part
+as an orphanage, a poor-house, and an asylum for the blind, and much is
+in ruins. At Pompeii is a public bath in perfect preservation, with the
+niches for the clothing, soaps, and unguents of the bathers, and even
+the _strigils_, or bronze instruments for scraping the skin--the same
+after eighteen hundred years as though used but yesterday. By these
+means we are able to reconstruct the outward circumstances of that old
+Roman life, almost as though we had shared its busy movement.
+
+As Ligurius Rufus drew aside the heavy matting of the doorway of the
+Therm�, of Caracalla, which then, as now, kept out the summer heat from
+the buildings of Rome, a busy scene burst upon his view. A great hall,
+lighted by openings in the roof, was filled with gay groups of patrician
+Romans, sauntering, chatting, laughing, exchanging news, betting on the
+next races, and settling bets on the last. As the modern clubman goes to
+his club to see the papers and learn the current gossip, so all the
+idlers in Rome came to the baths as to a social exchange, to learn the
+latest bit of court scandal or public news.
+
+"Ho, Calphurnius!" said Rufus, to the now sobered son of the city
+Prefect; "what's in the wind to-day? You know all the mischief that's
+going."
+
+"Sorry I cannot maintain my reputation then. Things are dull as an old
+_strigil_. Oh, by the way," and he beckoned them into a recess behind a
+porphyry pillar, "there is going to be a precious row up at the palace.
+I tell you in confidence. The old vixen, Fausta, has got a new spite
+against the Empress Valeria, whom all the people of the palace love. The
+termagant is not fit to carry water for her bath. She has found some
+mare's nest of a Christian plot,--by the way you are mixed up in it,
+friend Isidorus. I would advise you to have a care. In the fight of
+Pagan against Christian, I fear Valeria will get the worst of it, _dii
+avertant_."
+
+"The palace walls are not glass," laughed Isidorus, "nor have you a
+Dionysius' ear. How know you all this?"
+
+"As if the Roman Prefect did not know what goes on, that he thinks worth
+knowing, in every house in Rome! He has eyes and ears in his pay
+everywhere; and when honest Juba, or Tubal, come with their secret
+intelligence, they are not above accepting double pay and letting me
+into the secret, too. Besides that crafty old vulture Furca was closeted
+with the Prefect for an hour by the clepshydra, and you always smell
+carrion when he is hovering round."
+
+"What is it all about?" asked Rufus. "I am sure Valeria is as much
+beloved by the people as the old termagant Fausta is hated."
+
+"There's the rub--a bit of spiteful jealousy," answered Calphurnius.
+"But when that old basilisk hates, she will find a way to sting."
+
+"But what have I to do with the quarrels of the palace?" asked Isidorus,
+a little anxiously, for he knew not how far he might be compromised by
+the commission he had executed, of which he had felt not a little proud.
+
+"You know best yourself," answered Calphurnius with a laugh. "If you
+have done a service to Valeria or the Christians, you have made an enemy
+of Fausta and the Pagans."
+
+"Is this what you spoke of last night, and promised to explain to-day?"
+asked the Greek.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so. I have no very distinct recollection of what I said.
+I had been supping with Rufus here, and some other roystering blades,
+and the Folernian was uncommonly good. Come, _amicus meus_," he went on
+turning to Ligurius, "don't you want revenge for those sesterces you
+lost last night?"
+
+"I don't mind if I do punish you a little," yawned the young soldier.
+"It will kill the time for awhile, at all events."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GAMING TABLE.
+
+
+Gaming was a perfect passion among the Romans, and indeed among most
+ancient nations. Dice of bone and ivory, like those in use to-day, have
+been found in the tombs of Thebes and Luxor. �schylus and Sophocles
+describe their use four hundred years before Christ, and in an ancient
+Greek picture now before us, a female figure is shown tossing _tali_, or
+gaming cubes, and catching them on the back of her hand, as children now
+play "Jacks." Soldiers from the enforced idleness of much of their time
+and the intense excitement of the rest of it, have in every age been
+addicted to gambling to beguile the _ennui_ of their too ample
+leisure--from those of Alexander down to the raw recruits of to-day. Our
+friend, Ligurius Rufus, had undergone frequent experience of the pains
+and pleasures of this siren vice; but was eager to return to its
+embrace. Such vast estates had been squandered, and great families
+impoverished, and large fortunes often staked upon a single throw of the
+dice--beyond anything that Homburg or Monaco ever saw--that gambling was
+forbidden by successive Roman laws. But when were not the rich able to
+indulge in their favourite vices, even under a much purer Government
+than that of Rome? So even in this place of public resort, were numerous
+alcoves in which stood gaming tables, while money changers--generally
+Jews--had tables near for giving good Roman sesterces in exchange for
+the _oboloi_ or _drachmai_ of Greece, the shekels of Jerusalem, or the
+scarab�us coins of Egypt. Into one of these alcoves the three friends
+now turned, Isidorus promising himself that he would only look on. He
+had been excessively addicted to play, but had, notwithstanding
+occasional success, lost so much money that he had abjured the seductive
+vice, especially since his visit to the Catacomb with his friend
+Faustus, who had urged him to forsake a practice so perilous in itself,
+and so opposed to Christian conduct.
+
+Calphurnius and Rufus sat down to the gaming table, and the Greek stood
+looking on. The gold was placed in two piles on the board. The dice
+rattled, and eager eyes took in at a glance the number of red spots on
+the upper surface. Rufus seemed to have recovered his good fortune.
+Throw after throw was successful.
+
+"That is the _Jadus Venereus_," he exclaimed with exultation, as he made
+the cast that counted highest. "We must have wine and I must be
+toast-master," for so was called the leader of the revels.
+
+The Greek watched with honest interest the play, his eye flashing and
+his pulse quickening under its strange spell. The richest wines of Chios
+and Lesbos were ordered; and as the wine was poured into jewelled
+goblets, he required slight urging to partake of the fragrant vintage of
+the Isles of Greece. The eager play was resumed. The Greek noted each
+practised turn of the wrist and cast of the dice--his eye kindling and
+his brain throbbing with the subtle intoxication of both the game and
+the wine.
+
+"I've won enough," said Rufus, "I've got back my own, and more. I don't
+want to ruin you, my good fellow," and he positively declined to play
+any more. His honest nature recoiled from taking that for which he gave
+no value, beyond recouping his previous losses.
+
+"Will you try a cast," he added, turning to Isidorus. "Our friend has
+lots of money to lose?" and he lounged away to watch the game of ball in
+the Gymnasium.
+
+"Yes, take a turn, my luck is wretched to-day!" exclaimed Calphurnius.
+"Come, I will stake that pile of gold on a single cast."
+
+The Greek's whole frame was tingling with excitement--yet he was
+withheld by some lingering restraint of his promise to Faustus to
+abandon play. Calphurnius again rattled the dice, the cast was a
+complete blank--the worst possible combination.
+
+"'Twas lucky for me you were not playing then," he said, laughing; "but
+I'll risk another if you will."
+
+"It must only be for a small stake--a single sesterce," said the
+infatuated youth, quaffing a goblet of wine. "I have given up gambling."
+
+"All right," said his friend, "it's only for amusement that I play," and
+he cast again, and laughing paid over his forfeit.
+
+Isidorus continued to win, each time taking a sip of the strong heady
+wine. The baleful enchantment was upon him.
+
+"Double the stakes!" he cried.
+
+"I thought you would tire of our playing like slaves with jackstones,"
+replied the cool-headed Calphurnius. "This is something like play," he
+continued, as they doubled every time, till the stakes were soon
+enormous. The tide of fortune now turned; but the Greek had become
+perfectly reckless. Conscience was dead, a demon greed for gain had
+taken possession of his soul, the gaming-madness surged through his
+brain. He doubled and redoubled his stakes, till before he rose he had
+lost even the gold received from Valeria the night before, and was
+beggared to his last denarius. With blood-shot eyes and staggering gait
+he reeled away from the table, his handsome features convulsed with rage
+and wicked imprecations pouring from his lips.
+
+"Don't be so vexed about it, man," said his tormentor, for so he
+regarded Calphurnius. "Better luck to-morrow. Here I'll lend you enough
+to set you up. Let us have a bath, we both of us need it to quiet our
+nerves."
+
+Isidorus, in his maudlin intoxication, accepted the offer, and declared,
+with much idle babble, that there was more money where that which he had
+lost came from--that his services were too valuable to the state to be
+overlooked--and that he knew a thing or two--that he could tell some
+secrets, if he would--and much more to the same purpose.
+
+This was just what Calphurnius wanted. He had been set on by his father,
+the Prefect Naso to worm from the Greek the secrets of the Palace and
+the Catacomb, and this by a series of wheedling questions he completely
+succeeded in doing. With some difficulty he got his victim home after he
+had extorted from him all that he cared to know. When Isidorus awoke
+next morning it was with feelings of intense disgust with himself and
+with all the world. He felt that he had played the fool, but how far he
+knew not. He remembered that he had lost all his money, yet he found a
+few coins in his purse. He felt that he had forfeited the confidence of
+his new patron Adauctus, of the Empress, and even was undeserving of the
+gratitude or respect of the beautiful freed-woman, Callirho�, whose
+father he had restored. He had learned that there was a plot on foot
+against them all. Indeed he had an impression that he had somehow added
+to their peril by his indiscreet revelations. He determined to warn them
+of their danger and try to save them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"IN PERICULIS TUTUS."
+
+
+With this purpose the young Greek assuming his most decorous and sober
+attire, proceeded to what would now be called the bureau of the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was situated near the Forum, in the
+cloister around which were grouped the shops of the _argentarii_ and
+_mensarii_, or private and public bankers of Rome. It held about the
+same relation to those that the Treasury Department at New York does to
+the bankers' offices and Gold Board in Wall Street. On every side were
+evidences of the concentrated wealth and power of the august mistress of
+the world. A vast granite building, as strong and solid as a prison, was
+before him. Roman sentinels paced the street, hugging the wall to share
+the protection from the noontide heat offered by its grateful shade.
+Convoys of specie, guarded by cohorts of soldiers with unsheathed
+swords, were continually arriving or departing. Gangs of sturdy porters,
+naked to the waist, were conveying the heavy iron-bound coffers to and
+from the vaults. Officers were counting the tallies and checking the
+vouchers, giving and accepting receipts. Publicans and tax farmers of
+many hues and varied garbs were there from many distant climes--the
+swart Egyptian, the olive Syrian, the graceful Greek, the pale-faced
+yellow-haired German or Briton. But most prominent of all, everywhere
+was seen the pushing, aggressive, keen-eyed, hook-nosed Jew, who in
+every age and every land seems to have had a genius for finance,
+banking, and the handling of money.
+
+From the hundred provinces of Rome the tribute money wrung from wretched
+peasants, to support Imperial luxury, to maintain the conquering
+legions, to pay for the largess of corn that fed the Roman plebs, and
+for the _f�tes_ of the circus that amused them, and to carry on the
+vast governmental administration of the Empire--all poured into this
+greatest focus of moneyed wealth in the world. Like Daniel in Babylon,
+Adauctus, the Christian, was set over all this treasure, "because an
+excellent spirit was in him, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was
+there any error or fault found in him." The Emperors, when amid
+prevailing corruption, extortion, and fraud, they found an honest
+servant and able administrator, winked pretty hard at his private
+opinions, so long as they did not conflict with his duty to the State.
+Hence, from the days of St. Paul, we find that enrolled among the
+fellowship of Christ's Church were "they of C�sar's household;" and
+among the epitaphs of the Catacombs we find frequent examples of
+Christians of lofty rank, and holding important offices of trust; as for
+instance: "Secretary of the Patrician Order," "Sergeant of the
+Exchequer," "Prefect of the City," "Ex-Qu�stor of the Sacred Palace,"
+"Master of the Imperial Household," and the like.
+
+Making his way to the private apartment, or office of Adauctus, the
+Greek found him dictating despatches to a secretary. At a nod from his
+chief, the secretary retired, and Adauctus, with warm interest,
+addressed Isidorus in the words:
+
+"Right welcome, after your successful quest. You have skilfully
+performed a difficult task. The Empress is greatly gratified, and you
+may count your fortune as good as made."
+
+"Your Excellency is too kind," replied the Greek, with a graceful
+salutation; "I feel that I do not deserve your praise."
+
+"Your modesty, my friend," remarked Adauctus with a smile, "shall not
+prevent your promotion, It is too rare a gift not to be encouraged."
+
+"I have come, your Excellency," said Isidorus, with some degree of
+trepidation, "upon a business that nearly concerns yourself, and some to
+whom you wish well."
+
+"It is very good of you," Adauctus calmly replied, "but I do not think
+you can give me any information that I do not already possess."
+
+"I am in duty bound," continued the Greek, "to reveal to your
+Excellency, what is a secret which is sedulously kept from your
+knowledge. You have enemies who have vowed your destruction--the
+Princess Fausta, Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, and the Prefect Naso.
+They menace also the Empresses Prisca and Valeria, and others in high
+places suspected of Christianity."
+
+"Is that all you can tell me?" asked Adauctus, with a smile. "Look
+you," and unlocking an ivory cabinet, he took out a wax-covered tablet
+on which were inscribed the names of several other conspirators against
+his life, with the particulars of their plots.
+
+"I have not sought one of these disclosures," he went on, "yet they have
+come to me from trustworthy sources; sometimes from men who are
+themselves Pagan, yet with honest souls that recoil from treachery and
+murder."
+
+"And you know all this and remain thus calm!" exclaimed the Greek in
+amazement.
+
+"With such a sword of Damocles hanging over _my_ head, I am sure I could
+neither eat nor sleep."
+
+"Have you never read the words," asked Adauctus solemnly, "'The very
+hairs of your head are all numbered?' and not a sparrow shall fall
+without your Father's notice. Have you never read of righteous Daniel
+whom his enemies cast into the lions' den, and how God shut the lions'
+mouths that they did him no harm. You have seen the pictured story in
+the Catacombs. So will my God deliver me from the mouth of the lion,"
+and a look of heroic faith transfigured his face--"or," he whispered
+lower, but with an expression of even more utter trust, "or give a
+greater victory and take me to Himself."
+
+"Such stoical philosophy, my master," said the Greek with bated breath,
+"neither Zeno nor Seneca ever taught."
+
+"Nay," said the noble Roman, "it is not stoicism, it is faith. Not in
+the Porch or Academy is this holy teaching learned, but in the school of
+Jesus Christ."
+
+"Oh, wretched coward that I am!" cried the Greek, with an impassioned
+aspiration after a moral courage which he felt almost beyond his
+comprehension, "would that I had such faith."
+
+"Seek it, my brother," said Adauctus solemnly, "where alone it may be
+found, at the Cross of Christ. Whoso apprehends in his soul the meaning
+of the Great Sacrifice, will thenceforth count not his life dear unto
+him for the testimony of Jesus."
+
+"But is the way of the Cross such a thorny, bloodstained path?" asked
+the Greek, with quavering voice. "Are those noble souls, the highborn
+and beautiful Valeria, the good and gentle Callirho�, exposed to such
+appalling perils?"
+
+"We live in troublous times," answered Adauctus. "Christ came not to
+send peace on the earth but a sword. Whoso will save his life by
+cowardice and treachery shall basely lose it. Whoso will lose it for
+Christ's sake shall gloriously and forever find it!"
+
+These words burned into the heart and brain of the craven Greek, and he
+winced and shrank beneath them as if a hot iron were searing his
+quivering flesh.
+
+"But we must hope for the best," went on Adauctus more cheerfully. "We
+must take every precaution. Life and liberty are glorious gifts. We may
+not rashly imperil them. I trust that our august mistress, standing so
+near the throne, stands in no peculiar peril; and you may be sure her
+power will be used for the protection of her friends. So," he added with
+a laugh of keen intelligence, "if thou hast any special interest in the
+fair Callirho�, be sure she enjoys the most potent patronage in Rome."
+
+"But you, take you no precaution for yourself?" entreated the Greek.
+"You know not the bitterness of the jealousy and hate of your enemies."
+
+"Oh, yes, I do," the Imperial treasurer calmly replied, "As for me, my
+work is here. By ruling righteously and dealing justly I can prevent
+much fraud, and wrong, and suffering. I can shield the innocent and
+frustrate the villany of public thieves--and there are many such in the
+high places of this degenerate city. Our heroic ancestors decreed that
+we must never dispair of our country. But I confess, were it not for
+that salt of Christian faith that preserves the old Roman world, I
+believe it would sink into moral putrescence. It is this divine leaven
+which alone can leaven the whole mass."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE MIDNIGHT PLOT.
+
+
+The scene of our story is now transferred to the Palace of the Emperor
+Galerius, one of the most sumptuous of the group of marble buildings
+which crowned the Palatine Hill. It is the hour of midnight; and in one
+of the most private chambers of the palace a secret conspiracy is in
+progress, which has for its object the destruction of the
+Christians--especially of those high in rank and influence. The lamps
+in the aula and vestibule burned dimly, and, in iron sockets along the
+outside of the palace walls, flared and smoked torches made of tow
+covered with a coating of clay or plaster.[33]
+
+Fausta, the mother of Galerius, and Furca, the high-priest of Cybele,
+were already conferring upon their secret plot. With them was Black
+Juba, who had just returned from gathering, at "the witching hour of
+night," upon the unhallowed ground set apart for the burning of the
+dead, certain baleful plants--wolf's bane, bitter briony, and
+aconite--which she used in wicked spells and incantations. In her native
+Nubia she had an evil reputation as a sorceress, and in Rome she still
+carried on by stealth her nefarious art. It was hinted, indeed, in the
+palace, that by her subtle, deadly potions she fulfilled her own
+prophecies of ill against the objects of the hatred of her employers.
+
+"'Tis certain," hissed through her teeth the spiteful old Fausta, while
+murder gleamed from her sloe-black eyes, "that Galerius will not include
+in the Imperial rescript that painted doll, Valeria. She exerts
+unbounded fascination over him. It must be the spell of her false
+religion."
+
+"The spell of her beauty and grace, rather," answered Furca, with a
+grin.
+
+"What! Are you duped by her wiles, too?" asked Fausta, with bitterness.
+
+"No; I hate her all the more," said the priest; "but I cannot close my
+eyes to what every one sees."
+
+"It is something that I, at least, do not see," muttered the withered
+crone, whose own harsh features seemed the very incarnation of hatred
+and cruelty. "If we cannot get rid of her under the decree," she went
+on, "we can, at least, in a surer but more perilous way. Cunning Juba,
+here, has access to her person; and by her skilled decoctions can make
+her beauty waste, and her life flicker to extinction, like a lamp
+unreplenished with oil."
+
+"Yes, Juba has learned, in the old land of the Nile, some of the dark
+secrets of Egypt," whispered, with bated breath, the dusky African. "But
+it is very perilous to use them. The palace is full of suspicion; and
+that new favourite, Callirho�,--how I hate her!--keeps watch over her
+mistress like the wild gazelle of the desert over its mate. It will
+take much gold to pay for the risk."
+
+"Gold thou shalt have to thy heart's content, if thou do but rid me of
+that cockatrice, who has usurped my place in my son's affections,"
+hissed the wicked woman, who still felt a fierce, tiger-like love for
+the soldier-son whom she had trained up like a tiger cub. And Juba
+retired, to await further orders.
+
+"But if she die thus," said Furca, with a malignant gleam in his eyes,
+"she dies alone. What we want is to have her drag others down with
+her--her mother, Prisca; that haughty Adauctus, who holds himself so
+high, and the rest of the accursed Christian brood."
+
+"Yes, that is what we want, if it can be done," said Fausta; "but I fear
+it is impossible. You do not know how headstrong Galerius is in his own
+way; and the more he is opposed, the fiercer he is."
+
+"Here comes Naso," said the arch priest. "He hates the Christians, if he
+does not love the gods. We will hear his counsel."
+
+"Welcome, good Naso," exclaimed Fausta, as the Prefect of the city was
+ushered into the room. "We need your advice in the matter of this edict
+against the Christians: how we may use it as a net to snare the higher
+game of the palace and the Imperial household."
+
+"We must be wary as the weasel, sleepless as the basilisk, deadly as the
+aspic," said Naso, sententiously.
+
+"Just what I have been saying," remarked Furca.
+
+"Methinks we must employ the aspic's secret sting, rather than the
+public edict."
+
+"I declare for the edict," exclaimed with energy the truculent Naso.
+"Let its thunders smite the loftiest as well as the lowly. It will carry
+greater terror, and make the ruin of the Christian party more complete.
+What is the use of lopping off the twigs, when the trunk and main
+branches are unscathed? I possess proof that will doom Adauctus, the
+senator Aurelius, and others who stand higher still. The Christians to
+the lions--every one, say I."
+
+"And so say I," ejaculated Furca, with malicious fervour; "but her
+Excellency thinks that Galerius will interpose to protect one who stands
+near the throne, though she be the chief encouragement of the Christian
+vermin that crawl at her feet."
+
+"Madam, he dare not," exclaimed Naso, with his characteristic gesture of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword. "His own crown would stand
+in peril if beneath its shadow he would protect traitors to the State
+and enemies of the gods, however high their station."
+
+"As head of the State," interjected the priest, "he is the champion of
+the gods, and bound to avenge their insulted majesty."
+
+"You know not what he would dare," replied Fausta. "He would defy both
+gods and men, if he took the whim."
+
+"An accusation will be made before me," said Naso, "which not even the
+Emperors can over-look, against the Imperial Consort, Valeria, for
+intriguing with the Christians and bringing their priests to Rome, and
+conniving at their crimes against the State. We will see whether the
+majesty of the Empire or the beauty of a painted butterfly weighs the
+heavier in the scales."
+
+"I will second in private what your accusation demands in public," said
+the implacable Fausta. "Methinks I could die content if I might only
+trample that minion under my feet."
+
+"And I," said Furca, "will menace him with the wrath of the gods if he
+refuse to avenge their wrongs."
+
+"Between us all," added Naso, "it will go hard if we do not crush the
+Christian vermin, even beneath the shadow of the throne."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] Such torch-holders may still be seen on the walls of the Palazzo
+Strozzi and in Florence and elsewhere. Torches of the sort we have
+described were purchased by the writer at Pozzuoli, near Naples.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER.
+
+
+In his statement as to the accusation of the Empress before his
+tribunal, Naso, after his manner, took counsel of his truculent desires
+rather than of his cool reason. He had learned from his scapegrace son,
+Calphurnius, that Isidorus had returned to town from executing a
+commission for the Empress, the general purpose of which that hopeful
+youth had extorted from the drunken maunderings of the inconstant and
+unhappy Greek. Naso took it for granted, from his previous acquaintance
+with human nature of the baser sort, that Isidorus was trying to serve
+two masters, and that while acting as the agent of Valeria he would be
+willing to betray her secrets. Unaware of his vacillation of character
+and of his transient impulses toward Christianity, he further believed
+that the supple Greek, in accordance with his compact, would act as
+public accuser of the Christians. He had impressed upon Calphurnius, who
+was very prompt to learn the lesson, that it was of the utmost
+importance to bring the Greek under his personal influence and control,
+and especially to induce him to come again to the tribunal of the
+Prefect in the Forum.
+
+"We must keep our thumb on him. We can use him to our advantage," said
+the Prefect to his son.
+
+"I think I have him under a screw that will extort from him whatever you
+wish," replied the hopeful youth. "He owes me money, and he shall pay
+good interest on the loan. He is not the material of which heroes are
+made, like that young Christian who suffered martyrdom, as they call it,
+a few weeks ago."
+
+"Well, give your screw another turn," said Naso with a hideous chuckle.
+"That's the way I do when I have them on the rack. Keep him in debt.
+Lure him on. Make him lose money at dice and lend him more. We will
+wring his heart-strings by-and-bye. If we can only secure the death of
+Adauctus and some of his wealthy friends, their fair estates will help
+to line our purses, for the Emperors cannot leave such a zealous servant
+as the Prefect Naso unrewarded," and this well matched pair--the
+offspring of the corruption and cruelty of the Empire--parted, each
+intent on his purposes of evil.
+
+The young scapegrace, Calphurnius--young in years, but old in
+vice--followed only too successfully this Satanic advice. He attached
+himself closely to Isidorus and became his very shadow--his other self.
+He lured him on to ostentatious extravagance of expenditure, often
+allowing him to win large sums at dice to replenish his depleted purse,
+and again winning from him every sesterce, and binding the Greek's
+fortunes more firmly to his own by lending him large sums, yet demanding
+usurious interest. The easy, pleasure-loving nature of Isidorus, intent
+on enjoying the passing hour and shrinking from suffering of body or
+anxiety of mind, made this _descensus Averni_ all the more facile. He
+was thus led to forget all his good resolutions and noble purposes, and
+to plunge into the fashionable follies of the most corrupt society in
+the world. From the maundering remarks which fell from his lips in his
+fits of drunkenness, for he rapidly lapsed into this baneful vice,
+Calphurnius constructed a monstrous story of treachery which he used to
+create an utter rupture between the Greek and the Christians, alleging
+that he had too irreparably betrayed them to be ever forgiven, and that
+the only way of escaping the doom which menaced them was to throw
+himself into the arms of the party in power. It was with feelings of
+horror that in his rare moments of sober reflection Isidorus realized
+how fast and how far he had drifted from the thoughts, and feelings, and
+purposes of the hour when he knelt, in the Catacomb of Callixtus, at the
+feet of the good presbyter Primitius; or since he returned from Milan
+the restorer to the fair Callirho� of her sire; or even since, a few
+days before, he had conversed with Adauctus and beheld with admiration
+his serenity of spirit under the shadow of persecution and death.
+
+Calphurnius exhausted every art to wring from his lips a legal
+accusation of the Christians, for even the ruthless persecutors wished
+to observe some forms of law in the destruction of their destined
+victims.
+
+"You have already betrayed them beyond reparation," he said, "and you
+may as well obtain the reward. You have told all about your employment
+by Adauctus in a treasonable mission to the Christian sectaries at
+Ravenna and Milan. You have been present at their assemblies at the
+Villa Marcella and in the Catacombs. A short hand notary[34] has taken
+down every word you said, and it shall be used against you unless you
+turn evidence for the State, and save yourself by bringing its enemies
+to justice."
+
+"Wretch!" cried the exasperated Greek. "Cease to torment me! 'Tis you
+who have tempted me to this perfidy, and now you seek to goad me to
+perdition. The Christians are no traitors to the State, and you know
+it."
+
+"The edict of the Emperors declares that they are," said Calphurnius,
+with a sneer, "perhaps you can persuade their Divine Majesties that they
+are mistaken."
+
+"What would you? What further infamy would you have me commit?"
+exclaimed the tortured Isidorus.
+
+"Only declare before the Prefect what you have already divulged to me.
+By refusing you only imperil yourself," replied his tormentor.
+
+"I consent," moaned the craven-hearted Greek, and he went on with a
+shudder, "I am double-dyed in infamy already. I can acquire no deeper
+stain."
+
+"'Tut, man! don't be a fool! Rome can pay her servants well. You will
+soon be well rewarded," and like an incarnate Diabolus, the accuser of
+the brethren proceeded to earn, as another Judas, the wages of iniquity
+by betraying innocent blood.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] These tachugraphoi were in common employment in the courts, and the
+sermons of Chrysostom were also reported by their skill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE PLOT THICKENS.
+
+
+Isidorus reluctantly accompanied Calphurnius to the tribunal of the
+Prefect; and there, partly through intimidation, partly through
+cajolery, he gave such information as to his expedition to Ravenna and
+Milan as the Prefect chose to ask. This was tortured, by that
+unscrupulous officer, into an accusation against the Empress Valeria of
+conspiracy with the Chancellor, Adauctus, and others of the Christian
+sect, against the worship of the gods of Rome, and so, constructively,
+of treason against the State. This indictment--_accusatio_, as it was
+technically called was duly formulated, and attested under the seal of
+the Prefect's Court. Naso, the Prefect, and Furca, the priest, found a
+congenial task in submitting the document to the Emperor Galerius, and
+asking his authority to proceed against the accused. They visited the
+palace at an hour when it had been arranged that the Emperor's evil
+genius, the cruel Fausta, should be with him, to exert her malign
+influence in procuring the downfall of the object of her malice--the
+Empress Valeria--and the destruction of the Christian sect. "The
+insulted gods appeal to your Divine Majesty for protection, and for the
+punishment of the atheists who despise their worship and defy their
+power," began the high-priest of Cybele, seeking to work upon the
+superstition of the Illyrian herdsman, raised to the Imperial purple.
+
+"Well, my worthy friend," replied the Emperor in a bantering tone, "what
+is the matter now. Has any one been poaching on your preserves?"
+
+"This is not a matter of private concern, Your Majesty," remarked the
+Prefect gravely. "It touches the welfare of the State and the stability
+of your throne."
+
+"Yes, and your personal and domestic honour, too," whispered Fausta in
+his ear.
+
+"It must be something pretty comprehensive to do all that. Come, out
+with it at once," laughed the Emperor.
+
+Thus adjured, Furca began to recount the insults offered to the gods by
+the Christians, and, especially, that the Empress no longer attended
+their public festivals.
+
+"Oh yes, I understand," said the Emperor, with a yawn, "your craft is in
+danger. The offerings at your altars are falling off; and we all know
+where _they_ went. The gods are all alike to me; I believe in none of
+them."
+
+"But they are necessary, to keep the mob in subjection," said Naso.
+"Some are amused with their pageants, and others are awed by menaces of
+their wrath."
+
+"Yes, I grant you, they are of some use for that; and that is all they
+are good for," replied this ancient Agnostic.
+
+"But the Christians are traitors to the State," continued the Prefect;
+"rank sedition-mongers. They are secretly sworn to serve another Lord
+than the C�sars, and they are ceaselessly striving to undermine your
+Imperial Majesty's authority."
+
+"You do well," continued the cruel Galerius, a fire of deadly hate
+burning in his eyes, "to exterminate that accursed vermin, wherever
+found. Burn, crucify, torture, as you will."
+
+"And the estates of the rebels, they escheat to the temples of the
+insulted gods?" asked the priest, with hungry eyes.
+
+"Nay, to the State, I think," laughed the Emperor. "Is it not so, good
+Naso?"
+
+"Half to the State and half to the _delator_, or accuser," answered that
+worthy, learned in the law of pillage.
+
+"Let not the wolves fall out about the prey," said the Emperor, with a
+sneer; "only make sure work."
+
+"Be so good then, Your Majesty, as to affix your seal to these decrees
+of death. With such high officers as Adauctus and Aurelius my authority
+as Prefect is not sufficient."
+
+"And the Empress Valeria; she, too, as traitor to your person and crown,
+is included in the decree," insinuated, in a wheedling tone, the crafty
+priest.
+
+"Base hound," roared the Emperor, laying his hand upon his sword;
+"breathe but the name of the Empress again, and I will pluck thy vile
+tongue from thy throat."
+
+"Nay, Your Majesty," said the crafty Fausta, while the abject priest
+cowered like a whipped cur; "'tis but his excess of zeal for Your
+Majesty's honour, which I fear the Empress betrays."
+
+"Madam," said Galerius, sternly, "I am the guardian of my own honour.
+What the Christians are, I neither know nor care. What the Empress is, I
+know--the noblest soul that breathes in Rome. Who wags his tongue
+against her shall be given to the crows and kites. _Dixi Fiat_--I have
+spoken--so let it be," and his terrible frown, as he stalked from the
+room, showed that he meant what he said.
+
+The three conspirators, for a moment, stared at each other in
+consternation. Then the wily Fausta faltered out, "Said I not, he would
+defy both gods and men? We must do by stealth what we cannot do by
+force. Juba must ply her most secret and most deadly arts. I have
+certain subtle spells myself; and if mortal hate can give them power, I
+will make her beauty waste away like a fading flower, and her strength
+wane like a dying lamp."
+
+"'Tis a dangerous game," replied Naso. "Be wary how you play it. As for
+me, armed with this edict, I will strike at mine ancient foe, for whom I
+long have nursed a bitter spite. Curse him! I am tired of hearing him
+called Adauctus the Just. He held me to such a strict account that I had
+to make a full return of all the fines and mulcts paid in, without
+taking the toll which is my right." And he departed to gratify his
+double passion of revenge and greed.
+
+It may seem strange that such a truculent monster as Galerius, of whom,
+in his later days, his Christian subjects were wont to say that "he
+never supped without human blood--_Nec unquam sine cruore humano
+coenabat,_"[35]--should be so under the spell of his Christian wife. But
+the statement is corroborated by the records of history, and by the
+philosophy of the human mind. There is a power in moral goodness that
+can awe the rudest natures, a winsome spell that can subdue the hardest
+hearts. It was the story of Una and the Lion, of Beauty and the Beast
+over again; and one of the severest trials for a Christian wife in those
+days of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism for the mastery
+of the world, was that of being allied to a pagan husband. Tertullian,
+in the third century, thus describes the difficulties which a Christian
+woman married to an idolater must encounter in her religious life:
+
+"At the time for worship the husband will appoint the use of the bath;
+when a fast is to be observed he will invite company to a feast When she
+would bestow alms, both safe and cellar are closed against her. What
+heathen will suffer his wife to attend the nightly meetings of the
+Church, the slandered Supper of the Lord, to visit the sick even in the
+poorest hovels, to kiss the martyrs' chains in prison, to rise in the
+night for prayer, to show hospitality to stranger brethren?"[36]
+
+In time of persecution, or in the case of persons of such exalted rank
+as that of Valeria, the difficulty of adorning a Christian life, amid
+their pagan surroundings, was all the greater. Yet not a word of scandal
+has been breathed upon the character of the wife of the arch persecutor
+of the Christians; and even the sneering pen of Gibbon has only words of
+commendation for the Christian Empress who herself under subsequent
+persecution, remained steadfast even unto death.
+
+The beauty and dignity of Christian wedlock in an age of persecution
+and strife are nobly expressed by Tertullian in the following passage,
+addressed to his own wife: "How can I paint the happiness," he exclaims,
+"of a marriage which the Church ratines, the Sacrament confirms, the
+benediction seals, angels announce, and our heavenly Father declares
+valid! What a union of two believers--one hope, one vow, one discipline,
+one worship! They are brother and sister, two fellow-servants, one
+spirit and one flesh. They pray together, fast together, exhort and
+support one another. They go together to the house of God, and to the
+table of the Lord. They share each other's trials, persecutions, and
+joys. Neither avoids, nor hides anything from the other. They delight to
+visit the sick, succour the needy, and daily to lay their offerings
+before the altar without scruple, and without constraint. They do not
+need to keep the sign of the cross hidden, nor to express secretly their
+Christian joy, nor to receive by stealth the eucharist. They join in
+psalms and hymns, and strive who best can praise God. Christ rejoices at
+the sight, and sends His peace upon them. Where two are in His name He
+also is; and where He is, there evil cannot come."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum._
+
+[36] Tertull, _Ad Uzorem_, ii. 8.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A CRIME PREVENTED.
+
+
+The deadly malice of Fausta, Furca, and Naso towards the Empress
+Valeria, foiled in its attempt to invoke upon her the penalties of the
+edict against the Christians, sought, by secret means, to procure her
+death. Juba, the black slave, was heavily bribed to prepare some of her
+most subtle poisons and procure their administration. But here a
+difficulty presented itself, and it is a striking illustration of the
+corruption of the Empire and of the daily peril in which the inhabitants
+of the Imperial palace dwelt--a state of peril which finds its modern
+analogue only in the continual menace under which the Czar of all the
+Russias lives, with a sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair above
+his head. Such was the atmosphere of suspicion which pervaded the whole
+palace, such the dread of assassination or of poisoning, that trusty
+guards and officers swarmed in the ante-chambers and prevented access to
+the members of the Imperial family except under the most rigid
+precautions of safety; and a special officer was appointed, whose duty,
+as his title of _Pr�gustalor_ implies, was to taste every kind of food
+or drink provided for the Imperial table. Regard for his personal safety
+was, of course, a guarantee that the utmost precautions were observed in
+preparing the daily food of the Imperial household. Juba in vain
+attempted to bribe some of the kitchen scullions and cooks to mix with
+the savoury viands designed for the use of Valeria, who generally
+lunched in her private apartments, a potent poison. They accepted,
+indeed, her bribes, but prudently declined to carry out their part of
+the agreement, well knowing that she dare not venture to criminate
+herself by an open rupture with them.
+
+At length she resolved on attempting a more subtle but less certain mode
+of administering a deadly drug. While in the service of a priest of Isis
+in Egypt, she had extorted or cajoled from an Abyssinian slave in his
+service certain dark secrets, learned it was said by the Queen of Sheba
+from Solomon, and handed down from age to age as the esoteric lore of
+the realm. One of these was the preparation of a volatile poison so
+subtle and powerful that its mere inhalation was of deadly potency. As a
+means of conveying this to her victim, and at the same time of
+disguising the pungent aromatic odour, a basket of flowers which she had
+plentifully sprinkled with the deadly poison was sent to the Empress. To
+make assurance doubly sure, she concealed among the flowers one of
+those beautiful but deadly asps, such as that from the bite of which the
+dusky Queen of Egypt, the wanton Cleopatra, died. This, for purposes
+connected with her nefarious arts, she had procured as what evil thing
+could not be procured?--from the dealers in deadly drugs, philtres, and
+potions in the crowded Ghetto of Rome.
+
+To ensure the conveyance of the deadly gift to the hands of Valeria
+herself, Juba invented the fiction that they were a thankoffering from
+the young Greek, Isidorus, to his Imperial patroness for favours
+received. With her characteristic cunning Juba had possessed herself of
+the secret of his services rendered to the Empress, and of the interest
+felt in him by her august mistress.
+
+Valeria was in her _boudoir_ with her favourite and now inseparable
+Callirho�, as her tire woman, dressing her hair, when the fatal missive
+arrived. As Callirho� received the basket from the hands of Juba, the
+eyes of the slave gleamed with the deadly hate of a basilisk, and she
+muttered as she turned away--
+
+"May the curse of Isis rest on them both. My fine lady has driven black
+Juba from the tiring room of the Empress. May she now share her fate,"
+and, like a sable Atropos, she glided from the chamber with stealthy and
+cat-like tread.
+
+"Oh! what fresh and fragrant flowers," exclaimed the Empress Valeria, as
+she bent over them, "see how the dew is yet fresh upon their petals."
+Here she raised the basket so as more fully to inhale their fragrance.
+At that moment the concealed and deadly asp whose dark green and glossy
+skin had prevented its detection among the acanthus and lily leaves,
+seized, with his envenomed fang, the damask cheek of the fair Valeria,
+and for a moment clung firmly there.
+
+"God, save her!" exclaimed Callirho�, who in a moment recognized the
+cruel aspic, of which, as a child, she had been often warned in her
+native Antioch, and with an eager gesture she flung the venomous reptile
+to the ground and crushed its head beneath her sandal's heel. On the
+quick instinct of the moment and without stopping to think of the
+consequences to herself, she threw her arms about her Imperial mistress'
+neck, and pressing her lips to her cheek, sucked the venom from the yet
+bleeding wound.
+
+The cry of the Empress as the little serpent stung her cheek brought a
+swarm of attendants and slaves into the room, among them black Juba and
+the officer of the guard who was responsible for the Empress' safety.
+Valeria had fainted and lay pale as ashes on her couch, a crimson stream
+flowing from her cheek.
+
+"Dear heart!" exclaimed Juba, with an ostentatious exhibition of
+well-feigned grief, "let her inhale this fragrant elixir. It is a potent
+restorative in such deadly faints," and she attempted to complete her
+desperate crime by thrusting the poisonous perfume under Valeria's
+nostrils.
+
+"Who was last in the presence before this strange accident--if it be an
+accident--occurred?" demanded the officer.
+
+"I and Juba, were the only ones," faltered Callirho�, when a deathly
+pallor passed over her face, and with a convulsive shudder she fell
+writhing on the ground.
+
+"You are under arrest," said the officer to. Juba, and then to a soldier
+of the guard, "Go, seize and seal up her effects--everything she has;
+and you," turning to another, "send at once the court physician."
+
+The attendants meanwhile were fanning and sprinkling with water the
+seemingly inanimate forms of the Empress and Callirho�. When the
+physician came and felt the fluttering pulse and noted the dilated eyes
+of his patients, he pronounced it a case of acrid poisoning and
+promptly ordered antidotes. The Empress, in a few days rallied and
+seemed little the worse beyond a strange pallor which overspread her
+features and an abnormal coldness, almost as of death, which pervaded
+her frame. From these she never fully recovered, but throughout her life
+was known in popular speech as "The White Lady."
+
+Upon Callirho� the effects of the poison were still more serious. By her
+prompt action in sucking the aspic virus from the envenomed wound, she
+had saved the life of her beloved mistress, but at the peril of her own.
+The venom coursed through her veins, kindling the fires of fever in her
+blood. Her dilated eyes shone with unusual brilliance; her speech was
+rapid; her manner urgent; and her emotions and expressions were
+characterized by a strange and unwonted intenseness. The physician in
+answer to the eager questioning of Valeria, gravely shook his head, and
+said that the case was one that baffled his skill--that cure there was
+none for the aspic's poison if absorbed into the system, although as it
+had not in this case been communicated directly to the blood, possibly
+the youth and vigour of the patient might overcome the toxic effect of
+the contagium--so he learnedly discoursed.
+
+"My dear child, you have given your life for mine," exclaimed the
+Empress, throwing her arms around her late enfranchised slave, and
+bedewing her cheek with her tears.
+
+"God grant it be so," said Callirho�, with kindling eye. "I would gladly
+die to save you from a sorrow or a pain. I owe you more than life. I owe
+you liberty and a life more precious than my own."
+
+"All that love and skill can do, dear heart, shall be done," said the
+Empress caressingly, "to preserve you to your new-found liberty, and to
+your sire."
+
+"As God wills, dearest lady," answered Callirho�, kissing her mistress'
+hand. "In His great love I live or die content. I bless Him every hour
+that He has permitted me to show in some weak way, the love I bear my
+best and dearest earthly friend."
+
+And with such fond converse passed the hours of Valeria's convalescence,
+and of Callirho�'s deepening decline.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE STORM BURSTS.
+
+
+The crafty Juba, when she found herself arrested in _flagrante
+delicto_--in the very act of her attempted crime--determined to use, if
+possible, the fiction she had employed with reference to Isidorus, as a
+means of escape from the very serious dilemma in which she was placed.
+It will be remembered that she had stated, in order to procure the
+acceptance of her fatal gift, that it was a thank-offering from the
+young Greek who had rendered such service to the Empress and Callirho�.
+Happy if Valeria had remembered and practised the ancient adage, "_Timeo
+Danaos et dona ferentes._" But suspicion was foreign to her generous
+nature, and even if the wise saw had occurred to her, she would have
+lightly laughed away its cynical suggestion.
+
+When the treacherous slave was examined as to her share in the attempted
+crime, she stoutly adhered to her fictitious story, and protested that
+she knew nothing of the contents of the basket, but that she had
+received it from Isidorus, and had been well paid for conveying it to
+the Empress without suspicion of any sinister design.
+
+The Greek, when charged with the crime of attempting to procure, by
+poison, the death of the Empress Valeria, manifested the greatest
+astonishment. Summoned before the Qu�stor of the Palace, an officer of
+co-ordinate jurisdiction with the Prefect of the city, he stoutly
+protested his innocence. But all his protestations were regarded by that
+official, as only the very perfection of art--the well-feigned evasions
+of a mendacious Greek. And certainly appearances were very much against
+him. The Prefect Naso, now that he had extorted from him all the
+information he had to give, abandoned him as a worn-out tool and
+divulged to the Qu�stor the damning fact that the Greek by a formal
+document had accused the Empress of treason against the State, and of
+conspiracy with the Christians--for so he represented the confessions
+which, by his diabolical arts, he had wrung from his unhappy victim.
+Confronted by this evidence Isidorus was dumb. He saw the trap into
+which he had been snared, and that by no efforts of his own could he
+extricate himself. He saw, too, the ruin he had brought upon his
+friends, for Naso had procured the immediate arrest of Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and Demetrius, the father of Callirho�, and other Christians
+connected with the Imperial household. Callirho� herself was also placed
+under arrest, upon the monstrous accusation of conspiracy with Isidorus
+and Juba to procure the death of the Empress Valeria. One would have
+thought that her self-devotion and almost sacrifice of her life to save
+that of her mistress would have been a sufficient vindication from such
+a charge. But the unreasoning terror of the Emperors and the unreasoning
+hatred of all who bore the Christian name, fostered as these were by the
+machinations and evil suggestions of the Qu�stor of the Palace, the
+Prefect of the city, the arch priest of Cybele, and the cruel, crafty
+Fausta, thirsty for the blood of her victim, rendered possible the
+acceptance of any charge, however improbable. "Any stick will do to beat
+a dog," and any accusation, however absurd, was considered available
+against the Christians.
+
+Even Galerius who, left to himself, would, soldier-like, have braved any
+personal danger, completely lost his judgment at the peril menacing the
+Empress. The tortures of slaves and servants by the perverted tribunals,
+miscalled of justice, fomented by the cruel, crafty priests, and the
+eager greed of Prefect and Qu�stor, caused an outburst of persecution
+against all who bore the Christian name. The estates of Adauctus, and
+Aurelius were expropriated by the persecutors, and as a consequence
+their late possessors were pre-judged to death. Valeria who would fain
+have interposed her protection, had suffered such a physical shock as
+to be incapable of exercising any authority or influence she might
+possess. And the Empress Prisca, less courageous in spirit, less
+beautiful in person, and less potent in influence, was completely cowed
+by the domineering violence of the Emperor Diocletian, who was quite
+beside himself at the conspiracy against the gods, and against the
+Imperial Household which he persuaded himself had been discovered.
+
+"Madam," he replied, in answer to a weak remonstrance against the
+persecution, "was it not enough that our palace at Nicomedia was burned
+over our heads, that you must apologise for treason in our very
+household and the menace of our very person. No; the Christian
+superstition must be stamped out, and the worship of the gods
+maintained."[37]
+
+Hence throughout the wide empire, in the sober language of history,
+"Edict followed edict, rising in regular gradations of angry barbarity.
+The whole clergy were declared enemies of the State; and bishops,
+presbyters, and deacons were crowded into the prisons intended for the
+basest malefactors"[38]--"an innumerable company," says the Christian
+bishop Eusebius, "so that there was no room left for those condemned for
+crime." "We saw with our own eyes," writes a contemporary historian,
+"our houses of worship thrown down, the sacred Scriptures committed to
+the flames, and the shepherds of the people become the sport of their
+enemies--scourge with rods, tormented with the rack and excruciating
+scrapings, in which some endured the most terrible death. Then men and
+women, with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the
+fire. The persecutors, constantly inventing new tortures, vied with one
+another as if there were prizes offered to him who should invent the
+greatest cruelties. The men bore fire, sword, and crucifixions, savage
+beasts, and the depths of the sea, the maiming of limbs and searing with
+red hot iron, digging out of the eyes and mutilations of the whole body,
+also hunger, the mines, and prison. The women also were strengthened by
+the Divine Word, so that some of them endured the same trials as the
+men, and bore away the same prize. It would exceed all powers of
+detail," he goes on, "to give an idea of the sufferings and tortures
+which the martyrs endured. And these things were done, not for a few
+days, but for a series of whole years. We ourselves," he adds, "have
+seen crowds of persons, some beheaded, some burned alive, in a single
+day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken in pieces,
+and the executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over
+the work of blood."[39] And he goes on to describe deeds of shame and
+torture of which he was an eye-witness, which our pen refuses to record.
+
+The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed at times almost like an epidemic.
+It was one of the most remarkable features of the ages of persecution.
+Notwithstanding the terrific tortures to which they were exposed, the
+zeal of the Christian heroes burned higher and brighter in the fiercest
+tempest of heathen rage. Age after age summoned the soldiers of the
+Cross to the conflict whose highest guerdon was death. They bound
+persecution as a wreath about their brows, and exulted in the "glorious
+infamy" of suffering for their Lord. The brand of shame became the badge
+of highest honour. Besides the joys of heaven they won imperishable fame
+on earth; and the memory of a humble slave was often haloed with a glory
+surpassing that of a Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was ennobled
+by the accolade of martyrdom to the loftiest peerage of the skies. His
+consecration of suffering was elevated to a sacrament, and called the
+baptism of fire or of blood.
+
+Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous candidates for death often
+pressed with eager haste to seize the palm of victory and the martyr's
+crown. They trod with joy the fiery path to glory, and went as gladly to
+the stake as to a marriage feast. "Their fetters," says Eusebius,
+"seemed like the golden ornaments of a bride."[40] They desired
+martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[41] They
+exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to suffer
+for their divine Master. "Let the ungul� tear us," exclaims
+Tertullian;[42] "the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope us,
+the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon us; the very
+posture of prayer is a preparation for every punishment." "These
+things," says St. Basil, "so far from being a terror, are rather a
+pleasure and a recreation to us."[43] "The tyrants were armed;" says St.
+Chrysostom; "and the martyrs naked; yet they that were naked got the
+victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished."[44] Strong in the
+assurance of immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.
+
+Though weak in body they seemed clothed with vicarious strength, and
+confident that though "counted as sheep for the slaughter," naught could
+separate them from the love of Christ. Wrapped in their fiery vesture
+and shroud of flame, they yet exulted in their glorious victory. While
+the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame, and the eyes filmed with the
+shadows of death, the spirit was enbraved by the beatific vision of the
+opening heaven, and above the roar of the mob fell sweetly on the inner
+sense the assurance of eternal life. "No group, indeed, of Oceanides was
+there to console the Christian Prometheus; yet to his upturned eye
+countless angels were visible--their anthem swept solemnly to his ear
+--and the odours of an opening paradise filled the air. Though the dull
+ear of sense heard nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryph�us
+as he invited him to heaven and promised him an eternal crown."[45] The
+names of the "great army of martyrs," though forgotten by men, are
+written in the Book of Life. "The Lord knoweth them that are His."
+
+    There is a record, traced on high,
+    That shall endure eternally;
+    The angel standing by God's throne
+    Treasures there each word and groan;
+    And not the martyr's speech alone,
+    But every wound is there depicted,
+    With every circumstance of pain
+    The crimson stream, the gash inflicted
+    And not a drop is shed in vain.[46]
+
+This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no
+classical counterpart.[47] Socrates and Seneca suffered with fortitude,
+but not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy dwindled into
+insignificance before the sublimity of Christian hope. This looked
+beyond the shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth to the grandeur
+of the Infinite and the Eternal. The heroic deaths of the believers
+exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal instincts of
+nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life itself. Like a solemn
+voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples urged the
+inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose
+his own soul?" And that voice awakened an echo in full many a heart. The
+martyrs made more converts by their deaths than in their lives. "Kill
+us, rack us condemn us, grind us to powder," exclaims the intrepid
+Christian Apologist; "our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us
+down."[47] The earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but still
+they multiplied and grew, gloriously illustrating the perennial
+truth--_Sanguis martyrum semen ecclesi�_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] These are the very words of the edict quoted in note to Chapter II.
+
+[38] Milman, History of Christianity, Book II., Chapter ix.
+
+[39] Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History," Book viii., Chaps, ii-xiv.
+
+[40] Hist. Eccles., v. I.
+
+[41] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus qu�rebantur quam
+nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur.--Sulpic. Sever. Hist.,
+lib. II.
+
+[42] Apol. c. 30.
+
+[43] Gregory Nazianzen. Orat. de Laud. Basil. See also the striking
+language of Ignatius. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. III. 36.
+
+[44] Chrys. Horn. 74, de Martyr.
+
+[45] Kip, p. 88--from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for
+martyrdom rose into a passion. Eusebius says (Hist. Eccles., viii., 6)
+that in Nicomedia "Men and women with a certain divine and inexpressible
+alacrity rushed into the fire."
+
+    Inscripta CHRISTO pagina immortalis est,
+    Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.
+    Et qu� locutus martyr, et qu� pertulit:
+    Nec verbum solum disserentis condidit,
+    Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio,
+    Qu� vis doloris, quive segmenti modus:
+    Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit. _Peristeph._
+
+[46] Video, proboque meliora,
+     Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._
+
+[47] The pagans called the martyrs [Greek: biatha(uatoi], or self
+murderers.
+
+[48] Tertul., Apol., c. 50.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE MAMERTINE PRISON.
+
+
+Let us now turn our attention to the fate of the characters in our tale
+of Christian trial and triumph, around whom its interest chiefly
+centres. They have been consigned to one of the most dismal of the many
+gloomy dungeons of Rome--the thrice terrible Mamertine prison--haunted
+with memories of long centuries of cruelty and crime. Manacled each to a
+Roman soldier, Adauctus, Aurelius, Demetrius, and Callirho�, together
+with other Christians condemned to martyrdom, marched through the
+streets under the noontide glare of a torrid sun. A guard armed _cap �
+pi�_, flung open an iron-studded door, and admitted them to a gloomy
+vault a few steps below the level of the street. Here a brawny Vulcan,
+with anvil and hammer, with many a brutal gibe smote off the fetters
+that linked the prisoners and soldiers together, and riveted them again
+so that these victims of oppression were bound together in pairs.
+Sometimes it happened that one of a pair thus bound together died, and
+the survivor endured the horror of being inseparably fettered to a
+festering corpse. To this the apostle refers when, groaning over the
+corruptions of his sinful nature, he exclaims: "O wretched man that I
+am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
+
+"My dainty lady," said the hideous Cyclops, as he rudely seized the arm
+of Callirho�, "this is not the sort of bracelet you've been used to
+wear. I should not much mind, being bound to such as you myself, only I
+would prefer silken fetters to those iron gyves." Then, as she shrank
+from his touch and winced as he bruised her tender flesh in unriveting
+the fetters, he said, with an insolent jeer, "I wont hurt you more than
+I can help, my beauty. You are not used to having such a rough
+chamberlain;" and he uttered a coarse jest with which we shall not
+pollute our page.
+
+A rosy flush stormed the brow of the maiden as she turned her blushing
+cheek to the mildewed and cold stone wall, in haughty silence disdaining
+a word of reply to the brutal ruffian.
+
+"Nay, my fine gentlemen," went on this typical Roman jailer, as Adauctus
+and the aged Demetrius, weary with their march, sank upon a stone bench,
+"this is too luxurious an apartment for you. For you we have a deeper
+depth." And Be pointed to an opening in the floor, hitherto unnoticed in
+the gloom. "Nay, you need not shrink, old man," he went on, as Demetrius
+recoiled from the grave-like opening at his feet. "Your betters have
+been there before you."
+
+"Father, your blessing e'er you go," exclaimed Callirho�, and flinging
+herself on his breast, she received his kiss and benediction.
+
+By means of a leathern strap beneath their arms, the prisoners were one
+by one let down into a hideous vault, like men to a living burial. Into
+this lower dungeon no beam of light struggled, save a precarious ray
+from the opening in the floor above. The loathsome cell was even then
+dank with the slime of well-nigh a thousand years, its construction
+being attributed to Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome. Here the
+African prince, Jugurtha, was starved to death. "What a cold bath is
+this!" he exclaimed, as he descended into its chilly gloom. Here the
+Gallic king, Vercingetorix, also died. Here the usurper Sejanus was
+executed, and here the fellow conspirators of Cataline lingered to
+death. If we would accept Roman tradition, we would also believe that
+St. Peter and St. Paul were immured in this dismal vault, and in the
+case of the latter illustrious martyr it is more than likely that the
+story is true. A stairway has now been constructed to this lower depth,
+and the present writer has stood upon the stone pavement worn by the
+feet of generations of victims of oppression, and has drunk of a spring
+at which the Apostle of the Gentiles may have quenched his thirst.
+
+The prisoners enjoyed not long even this sad reprieve from death. They
+were destined soon to finish their course by a glorious martyrdom. The
+Emperors determined to gratify at once their own persecuting fury and
+the cruel thirst for blood of the Roman mob, by offering a holocaust of
+victims in the amphitheatre. The _Acta Diurna_, a sort of public gazette
+of the day, which circulated in the great houses, and baths, and other
+places of concourse, contained the announcement of a grand exhibition of
+the _ludi circenses_, or gladiatorial games, to be celebrated in honour
+of the god Neptune--_Neptunus Equestris_. In the public spaces of the
+Forum, and in the neighbourhood of the Flavian Amphitheatre and
+elsewhere, where the crowd around them would not obstruct the highway,
+were displayed large white bulletin boards, on which were written in
+coloured chalks a list of the games--like the playbills which placard
+the streets of great cities to-day--and heralds proclaimed through every
+street, even in the crowded Ghetto, the splendour of the approaching
+games. These were on a scale on which no modern manager ever dreamed.
+Trajan exhibited games which lasted a hundred and twenty-three days, in
+which 10,000 gladiators fought and 11,000 fierce animals were killed.
+Sometimes the vast arena was flooded with water, and _naumachia_ or
+sea-fights were exhibited. The vast flood-gates and cisterns by which
+this was accomplished may still be seen.
+
+The chief attraction of the games provided by the Emperors Diocletian
+and Galerius, however, was not the conflict of what might almost be
+called armies of trained gladiators, nor the slaughter of hundreds of
+fierce Libyan leopards and Numidian lions, but the sacrifice of some
+scores of helpless and unarmed Christians--old men, weak women, and
+tender and innocent children.
+
+There was much excitement in the schools of the gladiators--vast stone
+barracks, where they were drilled in their dreadful trade. They were
+originally captives taken in war, or condemned malefactors; but in the
+degenerate days of the Empire, knights, senators, and soldiers sought
+distinction in the arena, and even unsexed women fought half-naked in
+the ring, or lay dead and trampled in the sands. To captives of war was
+often offered, as a reward for special skill or courage, their freedom
+and fierce and fell were conflicts to which men wore spurred by the
+double incentives of life and liberty.
+
+Special interest was given to the forthcoming games by the distinguished
+reputation of one of the volunteer gladiators, a brilliant young
+military officer, our friend Ligurius Rufus, who, sated and sickened
+with the most frenzied dissipations that Rome could offer, plunged into
+this mimic war to appease by its excitement the gnawing ennui of his
+life.
+
+The bets ran high upon the reckless young noble who was the favourite of
+the sporting spend-thrifts and profligates of the city. The vilest
+condition of society that ever cursed the earth was filling up the
+measure of its iniquity, and invoking the wrath of Heaven. The wine
+shops in the Suburra and the gladiators' quarter were overflowing with a
+brawling, blaspheming, drunken mob, the vilest dregs of the vilest city
+the patient earth has ever borne upon its bosom.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM.
+
+
+Far different was the scene presented by another spot not far distant--a
+vaulted chamber beneath the stone seats of the Coliseum, whither the
+destined Christian martyrs had been removed on the eve before the day of
+their triumph. As an act of grace, some coarse straw, the refuse of a
+lion's lair, had been given them, and the relief to their fetter-cramped
+limbs, stiffened with lying on a rough stone floor, was in itself an
+indescribable delight. But they had a deeper cause of joy. They were
+found worthy to witness a good confession for Christ before C�sar, like
+the beloved Apostle Paul; and even as their Lord Himself before Pontius
+Pilate. And now the day of their espousals to their Heavenly Bridegroom
+was at hand.
+
+The silvery-haired Demetrius, a holy calm beaming in his eyes, uttered
+words of peace and comfort. The coarse black barley-bread and muddy wine
+which had been given them lest death should cheat the mob of their
+promised delight on the morrow, the venerable priest had consecrated to
+the Supper of the Lord--the last viaticum to strengthen their souls on
+their journey to the spirit world. Sitting at his feet, faint and wan,
+but with a look of utter content upon her face, was his daughter
+Callirho�, a heavenly smile flickering about her lips. With an undaunted
+courage, a heroic resolve beaming from his eyes, stood Adauctus,
+waiting, like a valiant soldier at his post, the welcome word of the
+great Captain of his salvation: "Well done! good and faithful servant,
+enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
+
+Ever and anon the deep-mouthed roar of a hungry lion rent the air, his
+fierce bound shook the walls of his cage, and his hot breath came
+through the bars as he keenly sniffed the smell of human flesh. But
+though it caused at times a tremor of the quivering nerves of the wan
+and wasted girl, it shook not her unfaltering soul Listen to the holy
+words calmly spoken by the venerable Demetrius: "'_Non turbetur cor
+vestrum_--Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many
+mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.' Yes, daughter. Yes, brave
+friend; before another sun shall set we shall see the King in His
+beauty, and the laud that is very far off. Mine aged eyes shall see,
+too, the beloved Rachel of my youth, to behold whom they have ached
+these many years. And thou, child, shalt see the mother after whom thy
+heart hath yearned."
+
+"If only, dear father, my brother Ezra were with us," whispered
+Callirho�, "we soon would be an unbroken family in the city of the great
+King."
+
+"God's will be done, my child," answered the patriarch. "He doeth all
+things well. He could bid His angels fly swiftly, and shut the lions'
+mouths, or better still, convoy our spirits to the marriage supper of
+the Lamb--to the repose of Abraham's bosom. Your brother is a child of
+the covenant, an heir of the promises, the son of many prayers. God will
+count him also in the day when He maketh up His jewels." Then, as if
+gifted with the spirit of prophecy, he exclaimed: "Not always shall the
+servants of the Most High be persecuted unto death. But this very
+structure, now dedicated to slaughter and cruelty, shall hereafter be
+consecrated to the service of the true God"--a prediction which, after
+long centuries, has been literally fulfilled.
+
+Thus in holy converse wore the hours away. And then through the rocky
+vaults of the Coliseum stole the sweet accents of their last evening
+hymn before they should sing the song of Moses and the Lamb on high:--
+
+"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide
+under the shadow of the Almighty."
+
+"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him
+will I trust."
+
+"He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy
+ways."
+
+"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon
+shalt thou trample under foot."
+
+As this p�an of triumph swelled into louder strain, the gladiators, awed
+by its strange power, paused amid their ribald jests, and even the lion
+hushed his hungry roar, and the tiger his angry growl.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
+
+
+Early next morning the army of slaves who had charge of the Coliseum,
+under the direction of Fulvus, the freedman, were hard at work. Some at
+the very summit of the building, with much shouting and pulling of
+ropes, were stretching the great _velarium_ or awning, as a protection
+from the rays of the sun. Others were sweeping the sand of the arena to
+a smooth and even surface. Many cart loads of fresh sand were heaped
+around the base of the podium, for the ghastly purpose of being spread
+upon the blood-stained surface after each act of the sanguinary drama of
+the day. Others were decorating with garlands of flowers, and with gold
+and purple bannerets, the seats of the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius,
+and those of the senators and other persons of distinction. The great
+structure seemed even more striking in its vastness, as a few score
+figures crawled like flies over its empty seats, than when filled with
+its tumultuous throng of spectators. It was an immense oval six hundred
+and fifteen feet in its longer diameter, and five hundred and ten feet
+in the shorter. The circling seats rose tier on tier to the giddy height
+of one hundred and fifty feet.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM, ROME.]
+
+As the present writer climbed those cliff-like walls, now crumbling into
+ruin, he tried to re-people those long-deserted seats with the eager and
+excited throngs which had often filled them to overflowing, when twice
+eighty thousand cruel eyes were wont to gloat upon the dying martyr's
+pang, "butchered to make a Roman holiday."[49] Then he wandered through
+the vast vaulted corridors and stairways, eighty in number, and bearing
+still the old Roman numerals by which access was gained to the different
+galleries. These were so capacious that the whole multitude could in a
+few minutes disperse, and were thence called _vomitoria_. He then
+explored the dens and caves for the wild beasts, and the rocky chambers
+in which the gladiators and martyr victims awaited the signal that
+called them to their doom. The row of seats just above the podium was
+reserved for the equestrian order; those higher still, for the
+_populus_, or common people; and the highest of all, for persons of the
+lowest rank. Early in the day, multitudes of spectators began to arrive,
+mostly arrayed in gala dress, and many wearing the colours of their
+favourite gladiatorial champion. With a loud flourish of trumpets the
+great gates of the imperial entrance opened, and the chariots of the
+Emperors and their respective _suites_ entered and took their places in
+the grand tribune reserved for these august occupants. It was noted with
+dissatisfaction by the multitude that neither of the Empresses Prisca or
+Valeria, were present. But the withered old crone Fausta, mother of
+Galerius, seemed to gloat like a foul harpy on the anticipated spectacle
+of blood, and near by was her sinister shadow, the black-browed priest
+of Cybele.
+
+Our old acquaintance, Burdo, the butcher, was rubicund with joy at the
+approaching conflict, for which, he said, he long had hungered. "But
+why," he asked, "are not their majesties, the Empresses, in the state
+tribune. 'Tis a contempt of a festival sacred to the gods."
+
+"Our dainty Empress," jeered Samos, the "Flat-nose," "has small stomach
+to see her friends the Christians given to the lions, and I suspect the
+old one is tarred with the same stick."
+
+"If I thought that I'd denounce her myself," growled Bruto, the
+gladiator; "Empress or slave, the crime of being a Christian levels all
+ranks."
+
+"And lose your head for your pains," chimed in Piso, the barber. "Don't
+you know that she winds the Emperor round her finger like a silken
+thread."
+
+"Does she favour the accursed Nazarenes?" croaked Ephraim the Jew. "May
+the same fate overtake her."
+
+"I thought they were friends of yours," said our old friend Max, who was
+one of the soldiers on guard. "They say this Christus whom they worship
+was a Jew."
+
+We dare not repeat the wicked imprecation which burst from the lips of
+the exasperated Israelite. But it is notorious that the Jews were far
+more malignant persecutors of the Christians than even the Pagans
+themselves--as is apparent from the Acts of the Apostles and other
+records of the early Church.
+
+The time for beginning the games having come, the priest of Neptune
+poured a libation to the god, and heaped incense on his altar, placed
+near the Imperial tribune. In this act of worship--for these old gods
+were worshipped with the blood of men slain as a holiday pageant--he was
+followed by the Emperors and their chief officers.
+
+Then with another peal of trumpets a procession of gladiators in
+burnished armour entered the arena and marched around its vast circuit.
+Pausing before the tribune of the Emperors they chanted with a loud
+voice: "_C�sares Augusti, morituri salutarus vos_--Great C�sars, we who
+are about to die salute you."
+
+First there was a sort of sham battle--_pr�lusio_, as it was called, in
+which the gladiators fought with wooden swords. But the multitude were
+speedily impatient of that, and demanded the combat _a l'outrance_--to
+the death.
+
+"We came not here to witness such child's play as that," said Burdo, the
+butcher. "I want to see the blood flow as it does in my own shambles;" a
+brutal sentiment which met with much favour from his neighbours.
+
+Soon their desires were gratified. First there was a combat of
+_Andabat�_, that is, men who wore helmets without any aperture for the
+eyes, so that they were obliged to fight blindfold, and thus excited the
+mirth of the spectators. Although they inflicted some ugly wounds upon
+each other, none of these were mortal, and the mob called loudly for the
+_Hoplomachi_, who were next on the play-bill. These were men who fought
+in a complete suit of armour. They were as completely encased as crabs
+in their shells, but as they could see each other through the bars of
+their visors, they were able skilfully to direct their weapons at the
+joints of their antagonist's armour. Soon the arena was red with blood,
+and more than one victim lay dead and trampled on the sands.
+
+"Good! this is something like the thing," cried Burdo. "But these
+fellows are so cased in their shells it is hard to get at them. Let us
+have the _Retiarii_."
+
+"Yes, the _Retiarii_ and _Mirmillones_," shouted the mob; and they soon
+marched upon the scene.
+
+This conflict promised abundance of excitement The _Retiarii_ wore no
+armour, and their only weapons were a net (_rete_, hence their name) and
+a trident or three-pronged spear. The _Retiarius_ endeavoured to throw
+the net over his antagonist, and then to despatch him with the spear. If
+he missed his aim in throwing his net, he betook himself to flight, and
+endeavoured to prepare his net for a second cast, while his adversary
+followed him round the arena in order to kill him before he could make a
+second attempt. It was a cruel sport, and kindled to fury the fierce
+passions of the eager spectators.
+
+Then came a conflict between skilled gladiators--the most accomplished
+swordsmen of the gladiatorial school. The vast multitude watched with
+fevered interest the wary fencing, the skilful guard and rapid thrust
+and stroke of those trained butchers of their fellow-men. When a
+swordsman was wounded, the spectators rent the air with cries of
+"_Habet! Habet!_" and the one who was vanquished lowered his arms in
+token of submission. His fate, however, depended upon the will of the
+people, who sometimes, when a vanquished swordsman had exhibited
+especial dexterity and skill, gave the signal to spare him by
+stretching out their hands with the thumbs turned down. But if, as was
+more frequently the case, their bloodthirsty passions were roused to
+insatiable fury, they demanded his death by turning their thumbs
+upwards, and shouting, "_Recipe ferrum_!" Without a tremor the victim
+then bared his breast to the sword, and the victor thrust it home to the
+hilt, while the cruel mob shouted their huzzas over the bloody tragedy.
+
+Such is the scene brought vividly before our minds by the matchless
+antique statue of the Dying Gladiator, found in the Gardens of Sallust,
+now in the museum of the Capitol. As one gazes with a strange
+fascination on that wondrous marble, instinct, it seems, with mortal
+agony, callous must be the heart that is unmoved by its touching pathos.
+The exquisite lines of Byron nobly express the emotions which it awakens
+in every breast:--
+
+    I see before me the Gladiator lie:
+    He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
+    Consents to death, but conquers agony,
+    And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
+    And through his side the last drops ebbing slow
+    From the red gash fall heavy, one by one,
+    Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
+    The arena swims around him--he is gone,
+    Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
+
+    He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
+    Were with his heart, and that was far away.
+    He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
+    But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
+    _There_ were his young barbarians all at play,
+    _There_ was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
+    Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
+
+An unwonted interest was given to this cruel scene in the Roman
+amphitheatre, by a novel and unheard of incident which occurred. The
+brilliant young Roman officer, Ligurius Rufus, we have said, was
+announced to take part in these games. It was no uncommon thing for
+military fops, eager to win the applause of the multitude, or to goad
+their jaded weariness of life into a momentary excitement by a spice of
+real danger, to enter the lists of the arena; and Ligurius was at once
+the most brilliant swordsman in the Twelfth Legion, and the most
+_ennuy�e_ and world-weary man in Rome.
+
+He was pitted against a brawny Hercules, the strongest and hugest of the
+whole school of gladiators--a British prisoner of war, who had been long
+the pride and boast of the arena. As they stood face to face, the young
+officer in burnished armour, inlaid with silver and gold, and the
+mighty thews of his opponent encased in leather and bronze, the betting
+was heavy in favour of the British giant. Each felt that he had a foeman
+worthy of his steel. They walked warily around each other, each watching
+with eager eye every movement of his antagonist. Every thrust on either
+side was skilfully parried, any advantage of strength on the part of the
+British warrior being matched by the superior nimbleness of the Roman
+officer. At last a rapid thrust by Ligurius severed a tendon in the
+sword-arm of his foe, and it fell nerveless by his side. With a giant
+effort the disabled warrior sprang upon the Roman as if to crush him by
+sheer weight; but Ligurius nimbly sprang aside, and his antagonist,
+slipping in the gory sand, fell headlong to the ground. In an instant
+the Roman's foot was on his neck and his sword at his breast. With a
+courteous gesture, Ligurius raised his sword and waved it toward the
+Emperors' tribune and to the crowded seats of the podium, as if asking
+the signal to spare the vanquished gladiator, while the despairing look
+of the latter seemed with mute eloquence to ask for life. "_Habet!
+Habet!_" rang round the Coliseum, but not a single sign of mercy was
+made, not a single thumb was reversed. "_Recipe ferrum_," roared the mob
+at the prostrate giant; and then shouted to Ligurius, "_Occide!
+Occide!_--Kill! Kill!"
+
+The gallant Roman heeded them as he would heed the howl of wolves. "I am
+not a butcher," he said, with a defiant sneer, and he sheathed his sword
+and, much to the surprise of his discomfitted foe, lent his hand to
+raise him from the ground.
+
+"You are a brave man," he said, "I want you as a standard bearer for the
+Twelfth Legion. That is better than making worm's meat of you. Rome may
+need such soldiers before long."
+
+The Emperors were not unwilling to grant this novel request of a
+favourite officer, and the grateful creature, in token of his fidelity,
+humbly kissed the hand of Ligurius, and followed him from the arena. The
+cruel mob, however, angered at being deprived of their anticipated
+spectacle of blood, howled with rage, and demanded the crowning scene of
+the day's sports--the conflict between the wild beasts and the Christian
+martyrs.
+
+These hateful scenes had become the impassioned delight of all classes,
+from the Emperors to the "vile plebs" of Rome. Even woman's pitiful
+nature forgot its tenderness, and maids and matrons gloated on the cruel
+spectacle, and the honour was reserved for the Vestal Virgin to give the
+signal for the mortal stroke. Such scenes created a ferocious thirst
+for blood throughout society. They overthrew the altar of pity, and
+impelled to every excess and refinement of barbarity. Even children
+imitated the cruel sport in their games, schools of gladiators were
+trained for the work of slaughter, women fought in the arena or lay dead
+and trampled in the sand.
+
+It is to the eternal praise of Christianity that it suppressed these
+odious contests, and forever averted the sword of the gladiator from the
+throat of his victim. The Christian city of Constantinople was never
+polluted by the atrocious exhibition. A Christian poet eloquently
+denounced the bloody spectacle. A Christian monk, roused to indignation
+by the hateful scene, leaped over the barrier to separate the gladiators
+in the very frenzy of the conflict. The maddened mob, enraged at this
+interruption of their sport, stoned him to death. But his heroic
+martydom produced a moral revulsion against the practice, and the laws
+of Honorius, to use the language of Gibbon, "abolished forever the human
+sacrifices of the amphitheatre."
+
+It remains to notice in another chapter the last scene in the stern
+drama of this "Roman holiday."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] On this very arena perished the venerable Ignatius, linked by
+tradition with the Saviour Himself as one of the children whom He took
+in His arms and blessed. "Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts," he
+exclaimed, "by whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat of God,
+and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become the
+pure bread of Christ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE MARTYRS CROWNED.
+
+
+At a flourish of trumpets the iron-studded doors of the cells in which
+the Christians were confined were thrown open, and the destined martyrs
+walked forth on the arena in the sight of assembled thousands. It was a
+spectacle to arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless, and to
+move the sympathy of even the most austere. At the head of the little
+company walked the good presbyter, Demetrius, his silvery hair and beard
+and benignant expression of countenance giving him a strikingly
+venerable aspect. Leaning heavily on his arm, evidently faint in frame
+but strong in spirit, was his daughter Callirho�. Robed in white, she
+looked the embodiment of saintly purity, and in her eyes there beamed a
+heroic courage which inspired a wonder that so brave a soul should be
+shrined in so frail a body. Adauctus, Aurelius, and other Christian
+confessors condemned to death, made up the little contingent of the
+noble army of martyrs.
+
+The prefect Naso, from his place in the tribune, near the Emperors, read
+the sentence of the court, that the accused having been proven by ample
+testimony to be the enemies of the C�sars and of the gods, had been
+condemned to death by exposure to wild beasts.
+
+"Nay, not the enemies of the C�sars," exclaimed the aged Demetrius. "We
+are the friends of all, the enemies of none.[50] We pray for the C�sars
+at all our assemblies."
+
+"Will you do homage to the gods?" demanded Diocletian. "Will you burn
+incense to Neptune? Here is his altar and here are his priests."
+
+"We worship the true God who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and
+all that in them is," replied the venerable man, with uplifted and
+reverent countenance, "and Him only will we serve. They be no gods which
+are made by man's device, and 'tis idolatry to serve them."
+
+"Away with the Atheists," cried the priests of Neptune; "they blaspheme
+the holy gods."
+
+"The Christians to the lions!" roared the mob, and at the signal from
+the Emperor to the master of the games, the dens of the wild beasts were
+thrown open, and the savage brutes, starved into madness, bounded into
+the arena. The defenceless martyrs fell upon their knees in prayer, and
+seemed conscious only of the presence of Him who stood with the three
+Hebrews in the fiery furnace, so rapt was the expression of faith and
+courage on their upturned faces.
+
+The fierce Numidian lions, and tigers from the Libyan desert, instead of
+bounding upon their prey, began to circle slowly around them, lashing
+their tawny flanks meanwhile, glaring at their victims from bloodshot
+fiery eyes, and uttering horrid growls.
+
+At this moment a loud shout was heard, and a soldier, clad in burnished
+mail, and with his drawn sword in his hand, one of the body guards of
+the Emperors, leaped from the tribune and bounded with clashing armour
+into the arena. Striding across the sand, he hurled aside his iron
+helmet and his sword, and flung himself at the feet of the aged priest,
+with the words:--
+
+"Father, your blessing; Callirho�, your parting kiss. I, too, am a
+Christian. Long time have I sought you, alas! only to find you thus. But
+gladly will I die with you, and, separated in life, we are united in
+death and forever."
+
+"_Nunc dimittis, Domine!_" exclaimed the old man, raising his eyes to
+heaven. "'Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'" And he
+laid his hands in blessing on the head of his long-lost son.
+
+"Ezra, my brother!" exclaimed Callirho�, folding him in her arms. "To
+think we were so near, yet knew not of each other. Thank God, we go to
+heaven together; and, long divided on earth, we shall soon, with our
+beloved mother, be a united family forever in the skies. 'And God shall
+wipe away all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death,
+neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.'"
+
+"Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!" spake the young soldier, as he
+enfolded, as if in a sheltering embrace, the gray-haired sire and the
+fair-faced girl.
+
+The utmost consternation was exhibited on the countenance of the old
+Emperor Diocletian. "What! have we Christians and traitors even in our
+body guard? Our very life is at the mercy of those wretches!"
+
+"I would feel safer with them," said the more stoical or more courageous
+Galerius, "than with the _delators_ and informers who betray them," and
+he glanced with mingled contempt and aversion at Naso, the prefect, and
+Furca, the priest. "When a Christian gives his word, 'tis sacred as all
+the oaths of Hecate. I want no better soldiers than those of the
+Thundering Legion."[51]
+
+Meanwhile the wild beasts, startled for a moment by the sudden
+apparition of the mail-clad soldier, seemed roused thereby to ten-fold
+fury. Crouching stealthily for the fatal spring, they bounded upon their
+prey, and in a moment crashing bones and streaming gore appeased the
+growing impatience of the cruel mob, who seemed, like the very wild
+beasts, to hunger and thirst for human flesh and blood.
+
+We dwell not on the painful spectacle. The gallant young soldier was the
+first to die. The brave girl, with a gesture of maiden modesty, drew her
+dishevelled robe about her person, and with a queenly dignity awaited
+the wild beast's fatal spring. She was mercifully spared the spectacle
+of her father's dying agony. Her over-strung nerves gave way, and she
+fell in a swoon upon the sands. Demetrius met his fate praying upon his
+knees. Like Stephen, he gazed steadfastly up into heaven, and the
+fashion of his countenance was suddenly transfigured as he exclaimed:
+"Lord Jesus! Rachel, my beloved! we come, we come." And above the roar
+of the ribald mob and the growl of the savage beasts, fell sweetly on
+his inner ear the song of the redeemed, and burst upon his sight the
+beatific vision of the Lord he loved, and for whom he gladly died.
+
+So, too, like brave men, victorious o'er their latest foe, Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and the others calmly met their fate. When all the rest were
+slain, a lordly lion approached the prostrate form of Callirho�, but she
+was already dead. She had passed from her swoon, without a pang, to the
+marriage supper of the Lamb--to the presence of the Celestial
+Bridegroom--the fairest among ten thousand, the one altogether
+lovely--to whom the homage of her young heart had been fully given. She
+was spared, too, the indignity, of being mangled by the lion's jaws.
+When the king of beasts found that she was already dead, he raised his
+massy head, gave a mournful howl, and strode haughtily away.
+
+In the great gallery of Dor� paintings at London, is one of this Flavian
+Amphitheatre after a human sacrifice such as we have described. There
+lie the mangled forms upon the gory and trampled sands. The sated wild
+beasts prowl listlessly over the arena. The circling seats rise tier
+above tier, empty and desolate. But poised in air, with outspread wings,
+above the slain, with a countenance of light and a palm of victory, is a
+majestic angel; and sweeping upward in serried ranks, amid the shining
+stars, is a cloud of bright-winged angels, the convoy of the martyrs'
+spirits to the skies. So, doubtless, God sent a cohort of sworded
+seraphim to bear the martyrs of our story blessed company, and to sweep
+with them through the gates into the city.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[50] This famous phrase dates from the time of Tertullian, in the 3rd
+century, and is also recorded in the Catacombs.
+
+[51] The _Legio Tonans_, tradition affirms, was a legion composed wholly
+of Christians, whose prayers in a time of drought brought on a violent
+thunder-storm, which confounded the enemy and saved the army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE MARTYRS BURIED.
+
+
+Darker and darker grew the shadows of night over the great empty and
+desolate amphitheatre, but a few hours before clamorous with the shouts
+and din of the tumultuous mob. The silence seemed preternatural, and a
+solemn awfulness seemed to invest the shrouded forms which lay upon the
+sand. By a merciful provision of the Roman law, it made not war upon the
+dead, and the bodies even of criminals were given up to their friends,
+if they had any, that they might not be deprived of funeral rites.
+Having wreaked his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan
+magistrate at least did not deny the privilege of burial to the
+martyrs' mutilated remains. It was esteemed by the primitive believers
+as much an honour as a duty, to ensepulchre with Christian rites the
+remains of the sacred dead.[52]
+
+Faustus, the faithful freedman of Adauctus, Hilarus, the fossor, and the
+servants of the Christian matron, Marcella, came at the fall of night to
+bear away the bodies of the martyrs to their final resting-place in the
+silent Catacomb. The service was not devoid of danger, for vile
+informers prowled around seeking to discover and betray whomsoever would
+pay the rites of sepulture to the remains of the Christian martyrs. But
+there are golden keys which will unlock any doors and seal any lips, and
+Marcella spared not her wealth in this sacred service.
+
+On the present occasion, too, special facility was given for carrying
+out this pious purpose. Through the influence of the Empress Valeria,
+Hilarus, the fossor, was enabled to show to the chief custodian of the
+amphitheatre an authorization under the hand of Galerius for removing
+the bodies of the "criminals who had paid the penalty of the law"--so
+ran the rescript.
+
+Beneath the cliff-like shadow of the Coliseum gathered this little
+Christian company. The iron gates opened their ponderous jaws. By the
+fitful flare of a torch weirdly lighting up the vaulted arches, with
+gentle and reverent hands, as though the cold clay could still feel
+their lightest touch, the bodies of the dead were laid upon the biers.
+Through the silent streets, devout men in silence bore the martyrs to
+their burial. Through the Porta Capena, which opened to the magic spell
+of the Emperor's order; through the silent "Street of Tombs," still
+lined with the monuments of Rome's mighty dead, wended slowly the solemn
+procession. There was no wailing of the pagan _n�nia_ or funeral dirge,
+neither was there the chanting of the Christian hymn. But in silence, or
+with only whispered utterance, they reached the door of the private
+grounds of the Villa Marcella.
+
+First the bodies were borne to the villa, where, by loving hands, the
+stains of dust and blood were washed away. Then, robed in white and
+bestrewn with flowers, they were placed on the biers in the marble
+atriun. Again the good presbyter Primitius read the words of life as at
+the burial of Lucius, the martyr,[53] and vows and prayers were offered
+up to God.
+
+While this solemn service was in progress, a lady, deeply-veiled, was
+seen to be agitated by violent grief. Convulsive sobs shook her frame,
+and her tears fell fast. When the forms of the martyrs were uncovered,
+that their friends might take their last farewell, the Empress Valeria,
+for it was she, flung herself on her knees beside the body of the late
+slave maiden, and rained tears of deep emotion on her face. More lovely
+in death than in life, the fine-cut features seemed like the most
+exquisite work of the sculptor carved in translucent alabaster. A crown
+of asphodel blossoms the emblems of immortality--encircled her brow, and
+a palm branch--the symbol of the martyr's victory--was placed upon her
+breast.
+
+"Give her an honoured place among the holy dead," said the Empress, amid
+her sobs, to the venerable Primitius.
+
+"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella, "that she, with her
+father and brother, shall sleep side by side in the chamber prepared as
+the last resting-place for my own family. We shall count it a precious
+privilege, in God's own good time, to be laid to rest near the dust of
+His holy confessors and martyrs."
+
+"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus, the fossor, "which he
+made for himself while yet alive, beside his noble wife, Aurelia
+Theudosia."
+
+"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet the remains of my good
+master Adauctus," said Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.[54]
+
+"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress, "to provide for my beloved
+handmaiden, as a mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of her
+saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in death as in life, so that
+those who read her epitaph may know she was the freedwoman and friend of
+an unhappy Empress."
+
+The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her trusty escort, returned
+to the city.
+
+With psalms and hymns, and the solemn chanting of such versicles as:
+_"Convertere anima mea, in requiem tuam"_--"Return unto thy rest, O my
+soul;" and _"Si ambulavero in medio umbr� mortis, non timebo
+mala"_--"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
+shall fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way, by gleaming
+torchlight, through the cypress glades of the garden to the entrance of
+the Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and tapers were
+lighted, and carefully the sacred burdens were carried down the long and
+narrow stair, and through the intricate passages to the family vault of
+the Lady Marcella.
+
+[Illustration: SUBTERRANEAN ORATORY, CATACOMB OF CALLIXTUS.]
+
+This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness, and had been
+especially prepared for holding religious service during the outbreak of
+persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in the Christian
+Church, and when even the privacy of her own house was not a sufficient
+safeguard against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont to retire to
+the deeper seclusion of this subterranean place of prayer. On each side
+of the door were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the deaconess,
+the other for the female catechist who shared her pious labours. Around
+the wall was a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for the most
+part members of her own household, who here received religious
+instruction. The accompanying engraving indicates the appearance of this
+ancient oratory or class-room, its main features unchanged, although the
+lapse of centuries has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its
+beauty.
+
+With solemn rites and prayers the remains of the martyrs were consigned
+to their last long resting-place. Amid the sobs and tears of the
+mourners, the good presbyter Primitius paid a loving tribute to their
+holy lives and heroic death--all the more thrilling because they
+themselves stood in jeopardy every hour. In the presence of the martyred
+dead the venerable pastor then broke the bread and poured the wine of
+the Last Supper of the Lord, and the little company of worshippers
+seemed united in still closer fellowship with those who now kept the
+sacred feast in the kingdom of their common Father and God.
+
+Before they left the chamber, Hilarus, after he had hermetically sealed
+the tombs of Demetrius and Ezra, his son, cemented with plaster a marble
+slab against the opening of that on which was laid--rude couch for form
+so fair--the body of the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it
+was designed to be but a temporary memorial of the virgin martyr, until
+the costly epitaph which the Empress was to provide should be ready, he
+took the little pot of pigment which he had brought for the purpose, and
+with his brush in, scribed the brief sentence:--
+
+VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
+ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.
+QVI VIXIT ANNOS XVIII. EN. V. DIES X.
+
+"Valeria sleeps in peace. A sweet spirit guileless, wise, beautiful in
+Christ. She lived eighteen years, five months, ten days."
+
+[Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
+
+Alas! the time never came when that costly memorial should be reared.
+The violence of persecution soon drove the Empress herself an exile from
+her home, and when the storm rolled away there was none left to carry
+out her pious wish. Through the long centuries that humble epitaph was
+all the memorial of one of the noblest, sweetest, bravest souls that
+ever lived. And even that rude slab was not destined always to cover her
+remains. After the re-discovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth
+century, many of their tombs were pillaged for relics, or in the vain
+search for treasure. By some ruthless rifler of the grave this very
+slab was shivered, and the lower part of the epitaph destroyed; and
+there upon its rocky bed, on which it had reposed for well-nigh fifteen
+hundred years, lay in mouldering dust the remains of the maiden martyr,
+Valeria Callirho�. Verily _Pulvis et umbra sumus_!
+
+Primitius and Hilarus, with the little company of devout men who bore
+the martyrs to their burial, now proceeded to the entombment, in a
+neighbouring crypt, of the bodies of Adauctus and Aurelius. As they
+advanced through the dark corridors, but dimly lighted by their tapers'
+feeble rays, the silence of that under-world seemed almost appalling.
+Black shadows crouched around, and their footsteps echoed strangely down
+the distant passages, dying gradually away in this vast valley of the
+shadow of death. Almost in silence their sacred task was completed, and
+they softly sang a funeral hymn before they turned to leave their
+martyred brethren to their last long sleep.
+
+Suddenly there was heard the tumultuous "tramp, tramp," as of armed men.
+Then the clang of iron mail and bronze cuirass resounded through the
+vaulted corridors. The glare of torches was seen at the end of a long
+arched passage, and the sharp, swift word of military command rang out
+stern and clear.
+
+"Forward! Seize the caitiffs! Let not one escape! Slay if they resist!"
+and a rush was made to the chamber where the notes of the Christian
+psalm had but now died away.
+
+"Out with your lights!" exclaimed, in a muffled tone, Hilarus, the
+fossor. "Follow me as closely and as quietly as you can. Good Father
+Primitius, your arm. By God's help we will disappoint those hunters of
+men of their anticipated prey."
+
+"Or join our brethren in martyrdom, as is His will," devoutly added
+Primitius. "He doeth all things well."
+
+But we must go back a little to learn the cause and means of this armed
+invasion of the Catacombs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, vii., 16 and 22. Eutychianus, a Roman
+Christian, is recorded to have buried three hundred and forty-two
+martyrs with his own hands.
+
+[53] See Chapter VI.
+
+[54] Through the long lapse of ages this memorial has been preserved,
+and may still be read in Grater's great collection of ancient
+inscriptions. It is also referred to in Gibbon. In the epitaph occur the
+following fine lines:
+
+INTEMERATA FIDE CONTEMPTO PRINCIPE MVNDI CONFESSVS XRM CAELESTIA REGNA
+PETISTI.
+
+"With unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having
+confessed Christ, thou dost seek the celestial realms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE BETRAYAL--THE PURSUIT.
+
+
+When the unhappy Isidorus discovered that through his cowardice and
+tergiversation, and through the confessions extorted from his
+distempered mind, a criminal charge had been trumped up against the fair
+Callirho�, whose beauty and grace had touched his susceptible
+imagination, he was almost beside himself with rage and remorse. He
+protested to the Prefect Naso and his disreputable son, Calphurnius,
+that she was as innocent as an unweaned babe of the monstrous crime
+alleged against her--that of conspiracy to poison her beloved mistress.
+
+"Accursed be the day," cried the wretched Isidorus, clenching his hands
+till his nails pierced the flesh, "accursed be the day when I first came
+to your horrid den to betray innocent blood. Would I had perished e'er
+it dawned."
+
+"Hark you, my friend," said Naso, "do you remember by what means you
+promised to earn the good red gold with which I bought you?"
+
+"Do not remind me of my shame in becoming a spy upon the Christians,"
+cried the Greek with a look of self-loathing and abhorrence.
+
+"Nay; 'by becoming one yourself,' that was the phrase as I wrote it on
+my tablets," sneered the prefect.
+
+"Would that I could become one!" exclaimed the unhappy man.
+
+"Suppose I take you at your word and believe you are one?" queried Naso
+with a malignant leer.
+
+"What new wickedness is this you have in your mind?" asked the Greek.
+
+"How would you like to share the doom of your friends, the old Jew and
+his pretty daughter, who are to be thrown to the lions to-day," went on
+the remorseless man, toying with his victim like a tiger with its prey.
+
+"Gladly, were I but worthy," said the Greek. "Had I their holy hopes, I
+would rejoice to bear them company."
+
+"But don't you see," said Naso, "a word of mine would send you to the
+arena, whether you like it or not? Your neck is in the noose, my
+handsome youth, and I do not think, with all your dexterity, you can
+wriggle out of it."
+
+"Oh! any fate but that!" cried the Greek, writhing in anguish. "Let me
+die as a felon, a conspirator, an assassin, if you will; but not by the
+doom of the martyrs."
+
+"Well, you see," went on the prefect, "justice is meted out to the
+Christians so much more swiftly and certainly than even against the
+worst of felons, that I am tempted to take this plan to secure you your
+deserts."
+
+The craven-spirited Greek, to whom the very idea of death was torture,
+blanched with terror and stood speechless, his tongue literally cleaving
+to the roof of his mouth.
+
+When the prefect perceived that he was sufficiently unnerved for his
+final experiment he unveiled his diabolical purpose.
+
+"Hark you, my friend," he whispered or rather hissed into his ear, "you
+may do the State, yourself, and me a service, that will procure you life
+and liberty and fortune. You know the way to the secret assemblies of
+the accursed Christian sect; lead hither a maniple of soldiers and your
+fortune's made."
+
+"Tempter, begone!" exclaimed the Greek in a moment of virtuous
+indignation, "you would make me worse than Judas whom the Christians
+execrate as the betrayer of his Master whom they worship."
+
+"As you please, my dainty youth," answered Naso, with his characteristic
+gesture of clutching his sword. "Prepare to feed the lions on the
+morrow," and he consigned him to a cell in the vaults of the Coliseum.
+
+Very different was the night spent by this craven soul to that of the
+destined martyrs. The darkness, to his distempered imagination, seemed
+full of accusing eyes, which glared reproach and vengeance upon him. The
+hungry lions' roar smote his soul with fearful apprehensions. When the
+savage bounds of the wild beasts shook his cell he cowered upon the
+ground, the picture of abject misery and despair.
+
+When by these mental tortures his nerves were all unstrung, the arch
+tempter silently entered his cell and whispered in his ear, "Well, my
+dainty Greek, are you ready for the games?"
+
+"Save me! save me!" cried the unhappy man, "any death but that! I will
+do anything to escape such a fearful doom."
+
+"I thought you would come to terms," replied the prefect, well skilled
+in the cruel arts of his office. "Life is sweet. Here is gold. By the
+service I require you shall earn liberty," and the compact was sealed
+whereby the Greek was to betray the subterranean hiding-places of the
+Christians to their enemies.
+
+Hence it was that at the dead of night, a band of Roman soldiers,
+reckless ruffians trained to slaughter in many a bloody war, marched
+under cover of darkness along the Appian Way to the villa of the Lady
+Marcella. It was the work of a moment to force the door of the vineyard
+and they soon reached the entrance to the Catacomb.
+
+"It is like a badger's burrow," said the officer in command. "We will
+soon bag our game, Here the old priest has his lair. Secure him at any
+cost. He is worth a score of the meaner vermin."
+
+Lighting their torches they inarched on their devious way under the
+guidance of Isidorus, who had written on a rude chart the number of
+turns to be made to the right or left. With Roman military foresight,
+the officer marked with chalk the route they took, and fixed
+occasionally a torch in the niches in the wall.
+
+Soon the soft, low cadence of the funeral hymn was heard, stealing
+weirdly on the ear, and a faint light glimmered from the chamber in
+which the Christians were paying the last rites to their martyred
+brethren.
+
+"They are at their incantations now," said the Centurion. "'Tis a fit
+place for their abominable orgies. Let us hasten, and we will spoil
+their wicked spells!" and he gave the command, at which the soldiers
+rushed forward toward the distant light.
+
+Instantly it disappeared, and when they reached the spot naught was
+seen, save the tomb of Adauctus; and in the distant darkness was heard
+the sound of hurrying feet.
+
+"The rats have fled," cried the officer; "after them, ferrets! Let not
+one escape!" and at the head of the maniple he darted down the echoing
+corridor.
+
+But Hilarus guided his friends amid the darkness more swiftly than the
+soldiers could pursue by the light of their torches. He followed many a
+devious winding, especially contrived to frustrate capture, and
+facilitate escape. Threading a very narrow passage, he drew from a niche
+a wooden ladder, and placing it against the wall reached a stairway
+which began high up near the roof. The whole party followed, and
+Hilarus, drawing up the ladder after him, completely cut off pursuit.
+They soon reached the comparatively lofty vaults of a deserted
+_arenarium_, or sand pit, which communicated with the open air. As he
+stood with bared brow beneath the light of the silent stars, the good
+Presbyter Primitius devoutly exclaimed:--"_Anima nostra sicut passer
+erepta est de lagueo venantium_--Our soul is escaped as a bird out the
+snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and we are escaped."
+
+The writer has not drawn upon his imagination in describing the
+arrangements for escape made by the persecuted Christians, when taking
+refuge in these dens and caves of the earth. In this very Catacomb of
+Callixtus, such a secret stairway still exists, and is illustrated by
+drawings in his book on this subject. The main entrance was completely
+obstructed and the stairway partially destroyed, so as to prevent
+ingress to the Catacomb, and a narrow stairway was constructed in the
+roof which could only be reached by a moveable ladder, connecting it
+with the floor. By drawing up this ladder pursuit could be easily cut
+off, and escape to a neighbouring _arenarium_ secured. Stores of corn,
+and oil, and wine have been found in these crypts, evidently as a
+provision in time of persecution; frequent wells also occur, amply
+sufficient for the supply of water; and the multitude of lamps which
+have been found would dispel the darkness, while their sudden extinction
+would prove the best concealment from attack by their enemies. Hence the
+Christians were stigmatized as a skulking, darkness-loving race,[55] who
+fled the light of day to burrow like moles in the earth. These
+labyrinths were admirably adapted for eluding pursuit. Familiar with
+their intricacies, and following a well-known clew, the Christian could
+plunge fearlessly into the darkness, where his pursuer would soon be
+inextricably lost.
+
+Such hairbreadth escapes as we have described from the Roman soldiers,
+like sleuth hounds tracking their prey, must have been no uncommon
+events in those troublous times. But sometimes the Christians were
+surprised at their devotions, and their refuge became their sepulchre.
+Such was the tragic fate of Stephen, slain even while ministering at the
+altar; such the event described by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of
+victims were immolated at once by heathen hate; such the peril which
+wrung from a stricken heart the cry, not of anger but of grief, recorded
+on a slab in the Catacombs: _Tempora infausta, quibus inter sacra et
+vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari possimus!_--"Oh! sad times in which,
+among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are not safe." It
+requires no great effort of imagination to conceive of the dangers and
+escapes which must have been frequent episodes in the heroic lives of
+the early soldiers of the cross.
+
+With what emotions must the primitive believers, seeking refuge in these
+crypts, have held their solemn worship and heard the words of life,
+surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what power would come the
+promise of the resurrection of the body, amid the crumbling relics of
+mortality! How fervent their prayers for their companions in
+tribulation, when they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour! Their
+holy ambition was to witness a good confession even unto death. They
+burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs of the faith, the plumeless
+heroes of a nobler chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes
+who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or amid the fiery tortures
+of the stake, not a crown of laurel or of bay, but a crown of life,
+starry and unwithering, that can never pass away. Their humble graves
+are grander monuments than the trophied tombs of Rome's proud conquerors
+upon the Appian Way. Reverently may we mention their names. Lightly may
+we tread beside their ashes.
+
+Though the bodily presence of those conscripts of the tomb no longer
+walked among men, their intrepid spirit animated the heart of each
+member of that little community of persecuted Christians, "of whom the
+world was not worthy; who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in
+dens and caves of the earth, ... being destitute, afflicted,
+tormented."[56]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio. _Minuc. Felix._
+
+[56] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:--
+    "La terre avail gemi sous le fer des tyrans;
+    Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,
+    Qui dans les noirs detours des grottes reculees
+    Derobaient aux bourreaux leurs tetes mutilees."
+         _Poeme de la Religion Vengee,_ chap. viii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR
+
+
+But what, meantime, had become of the pursuers? Baffled in their effort
+to seize their prey, and fearful of losing their way in this tangled
+labyrinth they had sullenly retreated, tracing their steps by the
+chalk-marks they had made upon the walls. At last, they returned to the
+stairway by which they had entered and so found their way above ground.
+
+"This is no work for soldiers," muttered the disgusted officer, "hunting
+these rats through their underground runs. They are a skulking set of
+vermin."
+
+"What has become of that coward Greek?" asked the second in command. "He
+didn't seem to half like the job."
+
+"Is he not here? Then he must have made his escape," said the Centurion.
+"But if he is caught in that rat-trap, there let him stay. I'll not risk
+a Roman soldier's life to save a craven Greek," and he gave the command
+to march back to the city.
+
+Meanwhile, how fares it with the unhappy Isidorus?
+
+When the soldiers caught sight of the Christians and began their
+pursuit, he had no heart to join in it, and lingered in the vaulted
+chamber where the funeral rites had been interrupted. The first thing
+that caught his eye was the epitaph of the noble Adauctus. With
+quavering voice he read the lines we have already given: "With
+unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having confessed
+Christ, thou dids't seek the celestial realms."
+
+"And this was he," he soliloquised, "who gave up name, and fame, and
+fortune, high office, and the favour of the Emperor, and embraced shame,
+and persecution, and a cruel death for conscience sake. How grand he
+was that day when I warned him of the machinations of his foes--so
+undaunted and calm. But grander he is as he lies in the majesty of death
+behind that slab. I felt myself a coward in his living presence then,
+but in the presence of this dead map, I feel a greater coward still. His
+memory haunts, it tortures me, I must away!" and turning from, the
+chamber, he wandered by the dim light of his taper down the grave-lined
+corridor, pausing at times to read their humble inscriptions:--
+
+    Rudely written, but each letter
+    Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,
+    Full of all the tender pathos
+    Of the here and the hereafter.
+
+And their calmness and peacefulness seemed to reproach his
+conscience-smitten and unrestful soul.
+
+Listlessly he turned into another chamber, when, what was it that met
+his startled vision!--
+
+VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
+
+There slept in the sleep of death another victim of his perfidy, one
+whom he had longed to save, one whose beauty had fascinated his
+imagination, whose goodness had touched his heart. Overcome by his
+emotion he flung himself on the ground, and bursting into convulsive
+sobs that shook his frame, he passionately kissed the cold stone slab
+on which was written the much-loved name.
+
+"Would that I, too, slept the sleep of death," he exclaimed; "if I might
+also sleep in peace; if I might seek celestial realms.... So near and
+yet so far ... A great gulf fixed ... Never to see thee more ... in time
+nor in eternity."
+
+Here the drip, drip of water which had infiltrated through the roof and
+fell upon the floor, jarred upon his excited nerves, and suddenly, with
+a hissing splash, fell a great drop on his taper and utterly
+extinguished its light. For a moment, so intense and sudden was the
+darkness, he was almost dazed; but instantly the greatness of his peril
+flashed upon his mind.
+
+"Lost! Lost!" he frantically shrieked. "The outer darkness, the eternal
+wailing while she is in the light of life! Well I remember now the words
+of Primitius, in this very vault, as he spoke of the joys of heaven, the
+pains of hell;" and in the darkness he tried to trace with his finger
+the words, "DORMIT IN PACE"--"Sleeps in peace."
+
+_"Vale! Vale! Eternum Vale!"_ he sobbed, as he kissed once more the
+marble slab, "an everlasting farewell! I must try to find the
+Christians, or the soldiers, or a way of escape from this prison-house
+of graves."
+
+He groped his way to the door of the vault and listened, oh! so
+eagerly--all the faculties of his body and mind seeming concentered in
+his sense of hearing. But "the darkness gave no token and the silence
+was unbroken." Nay, so awful was the stillness that brooded over this
+valley of death, that it seemed as if the motion of the earth on its
+axis must be audible, and the pulses of his temples were to his tortured
+ear like the roaring of the distant sea.
+
+Venturing forth, he groped his way from grave to grave, from vault to
+vault, from corridor to corridor, but no light, no sound, no hope! Ever
+denser seemed the darkness, ever deeper the silence, ever more appalling
+the gloom. For hours he wandered on and on till, faint with hunger,
+parched with thirst, the throbbings, of his heart shaking his unnerved
+frame, he fell into a merciful swoon from which he never awoke.
+Centuries after, an explorer of this vast necropolis found crouching in
+the corner of one of its chambers a fleshless skeleton, and on the tomb
+above he read the words, VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE. Was it accident or
+Providence, or some strange instinct of locality that had brought this
+poor blighted wreck to breathe his latest sigh at the tomb of one whom
+he had so loved and so wronged?
+
+The peasants of the Campagna tell to the present day of certain strange
+sounds heard at midnight from those hollow vaults--at times like the
+hooting of an owl, at times like the wailing of the wind, and at times,
+they whisper with bated breath, like the moaning of a soul in pain. And
+the guides to the Catacombs aver, that ever on the anniversary of the
+martyrdom of Valeria Callirho�, sighs and groans echo through the hollow
+vaults--the sighs and groans, tradition whispers, of a wretched apostate
+who in the ages of persecution betrayed the early Christians to a
+martyr's doom.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN COLUMRARIUM
+
+The Columbaria were the Pagan Roman underground sepulchres. In the many
+niche-like dovecots--hence the name were placed the urns containing the
+ashes of the dead whose bodies had been burned on the funeral pile.]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+It remains only to trace briefly the fate of the unfortunate Empress
+Valeria--less happy than her lowly namesake, the martyr of the
+Catacombs--and the doom of the persecuting tyrants. In the violent and
+bloody deaths, often more terrible than those which they inflicted on
+the Christians, which overtook, with scarce an exception, these enemies
+of the Church of God, the early believers recognized a divine
+retribution no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of the Pagan
+mythology.[56]
+
+Diocletian, smitten by a mental malady, abandoned the throne of the
+world for the solitude of his palace on the Illyrian shores of the
+Adriatic, where tradition avers that he died by his own hand.
+
+A still more dreadful doom befell the fierce persecutor, Galerius.
+Consumed by the same loathsome and incurable disease which is recorded
+to have smitten his great rivals in bloodshed, Herod the Great and
+Philip II., from his dying couch he implored the prayers of the
+Christians, and, stung by remorse for his cruelties, commanded the
+surcease of their long and bitter persecution.
+
+The Empress Valeria, his widow, by her beauty had the ill fortune to
+attract the regards of his successor in persecution, the Emperor
+Maximin. Spurning his suit with the scorn becoming a pure and
+high-souled woman, at once the daughter and widow of an Emperor, she
+encountered his deadly hate. Her estates were confiscated, her trusted
+servants tortured, and her dearest friends put to death.
+
+"The Empress herself," says Gibbon, "together with her mother, Prisca,
+was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from
+place to place, before they were confined to a sequestered village in
+the deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the
+provinces of the East, which during thirty years, had respected their
+august dignity." On the death of Maximin, Valeria escaped from exile and
+repaired in disguise to the court of his successor, Licinius, hoping for
+more humane treatment. But these hopes, to use again the language of
+Gibbon, "were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and the bloody
+execution which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced
+her that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than
+himself. Valeria consulted her safety by hasty flight, and, still
+accompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months
+through the provinces in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at
+length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death
+was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded and their bodies
+thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; but
+their grief and indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a military
+guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of
+Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we cannot discover their
+crimes."[58]
+
+At length, on the triumph of the British-born Emperor, Constantine, over
+his rivals for the throne of the world, like the trump of Jubilee, the
+edict of the toleration of Christianity, pealed through the land. It
+penetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine, the Catacombs' dim
+labyrinth, and from their sombre depths, vast processions of "noble
+wrestlers for religion," thronged to the long-forsaken churches, with
+grateful songs of praise to God.
+
+Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. It
+emerged from the concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine of
+imperial favour. Constantine, himself, proclaimed to eager thousands the
+New Evangel--the most august lay preacher the Church has ever known. The
+legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates the
+wondrous transformation of society. These Christian brothers, taking
+shelter in a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to the
+legend, after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianity
+everywhere dominant, and a Christian Emperor on the throne of the
+C�sars.[59] The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quickly
+irradiated the world. With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, in
+the highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung. The
+enemies of God were as though they had not been.[60] The Lord brought up
+the vine of Christianity from a far country, and cast out the heathen,
+and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of the
+C�sars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land.
+The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the pagan
+flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove, Rome, which
+had dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at its chariot wheels,
+at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus. The old
+faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars of
+midnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook their ancient
+seats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in the grove of
+Daphne. The naiads bathed not in Scamander's stream nor Simois, nor the
+nereids in the waters of the bright �gean Sea. The nymphs and dryads
+ceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oriads walked no more in light
+on Ida's lofty top.
+
+    O ye vain false gods of Hellas!
+    Ye are vanished evermore!
+
+Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the
+empire, its influence had been felt permeating the entire community.
+Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative
+element--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of
+anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle
+previously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but by
+love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith
+amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reeking
+abominations of a sensual age.
+
+We should do scant justice to the blameless character, simple dignity,
+and moral purity of the primitive Christians, if we forgot the
+thoroughly effete and corrupt society by which they were surrounded. It
+would seem almost impossible for the Christian graces to grow in such a
+foetid atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing in virgin purity
+from the muddy ooze, they are more lovely by contrast with the
+surrounding pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre, breathing
+their fragrance amid scenes of corruption and death, are these holy
+characters, fragrant with the breath of heaven amid the social
+rottenness and moral death of their foul environment.
+
+It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to portray, the abominable
+pollutions of the times. "Society," says Gibbon, "was a rotten, aimless
+chaos of sensuality." It was a boiling Acheron of seething passions,
+unhallowed lusts, and tiger thirst for blood, such as never provoked
+the wrath of Heaven since God drowned the world with water, or destroyed
+the Cities of the Plain by fire. Only those who have visited the secret
+museum of Naples, or that house which no woman may enter at Pompeii, and
+whose paintings no pen may describe; or, who are familiar with the
+scathing denunciations of popular vices by the Roman satirists and
+moralists and by the Christian Fathers, can conceive the appalling
+depravity of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Church
+among this very people, hints at some features of their exceeding
+wickedness. It was to shame even to speak of the things which were done
+by them, but which gifted poets employed their wit to celebrate. A
+brutalized monster was deified as God, received divine homage,[61] and
+beheld all the world at his feet, and the nations trembled at his nod,
+while the multitude wallowed in a sty of sensuality.
+
+Christianity was to be the new Hercules to cleanse this worse than
+Augean pollution. The pure morals and holy lives of the believers were a
+perpetual testimony against abounding iniquity, and a living proof of
+the regenerating power and transforming grace of God. For they
+themselves, as one of their apologists asserts, "had been reclaimed
+from ten thousand vices;" and the Apostle, describing some of the vilest
+characters, exclaims, "such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are
+sanctified." They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from the
+pollutions of the age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth," the
+sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.
+
+Thus amid idolatrous usages and unspeakable moral degradation the
+Christians lived, a holy nation, a peculiar people. "We alone are
+without crime," says Tertullian; "no Christian suffers but for his
+religion." "Your prisons are full," says Minutius Felix, "but they
+contain not one Christian." And these holy lives were an argument which
+even the heathen could not gainsay. The ethics of paganism were the
+speculations of the cultivated few who aspired to the character of
+philosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a system of practical duty
+affecting the daily life of the most lowly and unlettered. "Philosophy,"
+says Lecky, "may dignify, but is impotent to regenerate man; it may
+cultivate virtue, but cannot restrain vice." But Christianity introduced
+a new sense of sin and of holiness, of everlasting reward and of endless
+condemnation. It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ in the
+heart, inflaming all its affections. It transformed the character from
+icy stoicism or epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculating
+self-abnegation and devotion.
+
+This divine principle developed a new instinct of philanthropy in the
+soul. A feeling of common brotherhood knit the hearts of the believers
+together. To love a slave! to love an enemy! was accounted the
+impossible among the heathen; yet this incredible virtue they beheld
+every day among the Christians. "This surprised them beyond measure,"
+says Tertullian, "that one man should die for another." Hence, in the
+Christian inscriptions no word of bitterness, even toward their
+persecutors, is to be found. Sweet peace, the peace of God that passeth
+all understanding, breathes on every side.
+
+One of the most striking results of the new spirit of philanthropy which
+Christianity introduced is seen in the copious charity of the primitive
+Church. Amid the ruins of ancient palaces and temples, theatres and
+baths, there are none of any house of mercy. Charity among the pagans,
+was at best, a fitful and capricious fancy. Among the Christians it was
+a vast and vigorous organization and was cultivated with noble
+enthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of Rome, with its fierce
+oppressions and inhuman wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for the
+Christ-like ministrations of love and pity. There were Christian slaves
+to succour, exposed to unutterable indignities and cruel punishment,
+even unto crucifixion for conscience' sake. There were often martyrs'
+pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by the
+nameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised and
+broken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcast
+babes to pluck from death. There were a thousand forms of suffering and
+sorrow to relieve; and the ever-present thought of Him who came, not to
+be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for
+many, was an inspiration to heroic sacrifice and self-denial. And
+doubtless the religion of mercy won its way to many a stony pagan heart
+by the winsome spell of the saintly charities and heavenly benedictions
+of the persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has since covered
+the earth with its institutions of mercy, and with a passionate zeal has
+sought out the woes of raan in every land, in order to their relief.
+
+In the primitive Church voluntary collections[62] were regularly made
+for the poor, the aged, the sick, the brethren in bonds, and for the
+burial of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred, and all usury
+forbidden. Many gave all their goods to feed the poor. "Our charity
+dispenses more in the streets," says Tertullian to the heathen, "than
+your religion in your temples." He upbraids them for offering to the
+gods only the worn-out and useless, such as is given to dogs. "How
+monstrous is it," exclaims the Alexandrian Clement, "to live in luxury
+while so many are in want." "As you would receive, show mercy," says
+Chrysostom; "make God your debtor that you may receive again with
+usury." The Church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained three thousand
+widows and virgins, besides the sick and the poor. Under the persecuting
+Decius the widows and the infirm under the care of the Church at Rome
+were fifteen hundred. "Behold the treasures of the Church," said St.
+Lawrence pointing to the aged and poor, when the heathen prefect came to
+confiscate its wealth. The Church in Carthage sent a sum equal to four
+thousand dollars to ransom Christian captives in Numidia. St. Ambrose
+sold the sacred vessels of the Church of Milan to rescue prisoners from
+the Goths, esteeming it their truest consecration to the service of
+God. "Better clothe the Christ," says living temples of Jerome, "than
+adorn the temples of stone." "God has no need of plates and dishes,"
+said Acacius, Bishop of Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number of
+poor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus of Nola sold the treasures
+of his beautiful church, and, it is said, even sold himself into African
+slavery. The Christian traveller was hospitably entertained by the
+faithful; and before the close of the fourth century asylums were
+provided for the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian persecution,
+when the streets of Carthage were strewn with the dying and the dead,
+the Christians, with the scars of recent torture and imprisonment upon
+them, exhibited the nobility of a gospel revenge in their care for their
+fever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the martyrdom of Christian
+charity, even more glorious than that they had escaped. In the plague of
+Alexandria, six hundred _parabolani_ periled their lives to succour the
+dying and bury the dead. Julian urged the pagan priests to imitate the
+virtues of the lowly Christians.
+
+Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human life. The exposure of
+infants was a fearfully prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato and
+Aristotle permitted. We have had evidences of the tender charity of the
+Christians in rescuing these foundlings from death, or from a fate more
+dreadful still--a life of infamy. Christianity also emphatically
+affirmed the Almighty's "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," which crime the
+pagans had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a patient
+endurance of suffering, like Job's, exhibited a loftier courage than
+Cato's renunciation of life.
+
+We have thus seen from the testimony of the Catacombs, the immense
+superiority, in all the elements of true dignity and excellence, of
+primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it was
+surrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals of
+mankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it had
+fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations of
+life, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown.
+Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became infected in the days
+of its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity was
+infinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave a
+sacredness before unconceived to human life. It averted the sword from
+the throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from
+exposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threw
+the �gis of its protection over the slave and the oppressed, raising
+them from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and the
+fellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity it
+yearned over the suffering and the sorrowing everywhere, and created a
+vast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the world
+had before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holy
+Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of the
+Divine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the
+world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakable
+pollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and made
+possible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poets
+pictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco,
+written in blood, and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgment
+seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experience
+has shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer and
+loftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance of
+form, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions
+of the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism,
+polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, and
+pathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. It
+taught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the supreme
+majesty of gentleness and truth.
+
+    NOTE.--The entire subject of Christian evidences from the
+    Catacombs, which has been so cursorily glanced at in the
+    foregoing pages, is treated with great fullness of detail and
+    copious pictorial illustration in a work by the writer, "The
+    Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony Relative to Primitive
+    Christianity." Cr. 8vo, 560 pp., 136 engravings. New York:
+    Phillips & Hunt. Price $2.50. It discusses at length the
+    structure, origin, and history of the Catacombs; their art and
+    symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology,
+    ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and
+    Christian Life and Character in the early ages. The gradual
+    corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist
+    errors, as the _cultus_ of Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers
+    of the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory,
+    the celibacy of the clergy rite of monastic orders, and other
+    allied subjects are fully treated.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[57] See Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum, Passim_; Eusebius _Hist.
+Ecclec._ viii, 17; ix. 9, 10; Tertullian _ad Scap._, c. 3.
+
+[58] Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim mensibus plebeio
+cultu pervagata.... Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
+Lactantius _De Mart. Persec._ Cap. 51.
+
+[59] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive the
+possibility of this event "Sed et C�sares credidissent super Christo,"
+he exclaims, "si aut C�sares non essent seculo necessario, aut si et
+Christiani potuissent esse C�sares." _Apol._, c. 21.
+
+[60] Literally, "They are no more because they never were." Eusebius
+applies, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration of the
+exiled Jews from Babylon (Psa. lxxx; xcviii;) to the condition of
+Christianity in his day. The above citations are given in his very
+words.
+
+[61] While yet alive, Domitian was called, "our Lord and God"--_Dominus
+et Deus noster._
+
+[62] Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert _Tertul Apol._ c. 39.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
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+      Valeria, The Martyr of the Catacombs. by W.H. Withrow, D.D.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
+
+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: Valeria
+       The Martyr of the Catacombs
+
+Author: William Henry Withrow
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2010 [EBook #33484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALERIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rose Mawhorter (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 385px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0001.jpeg" width="385" height="600" alt="Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 367px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0006.png" width="367" height="600" alt="Scene In The Catacombs&mdash;At The Martyr&#39;s Tomb." />
+<span class="caption">Scene In The Catacombs&mdash;At The Martyr&#39;s Tomb.</span>
+</div>
+
+<h1 style="margin-top: 2em;">VALERIA,</h1>
+
+<h3>THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.</h3>
+
+<h4 style="margin-top:4em; margin-bottom: 4em;">A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome.</h4>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+<h3>W.H. WITHROW, D.D.,</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Author of "The Catacombs of Rome and their Testimony <br />
+Relative to Primitive Christianity," Etc.</i><br /></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0007.png" width="400" height="194" alt="&quot;Valeria Sleeps In Peace.&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Valeria Sleeps In Peace.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 1.5em">TORONTO: <br />
+WILLIAM BRIGGS. <br />MONTREAL: C.W. COATES.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+HALIFAX: S.F. HUESTIS.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>THE MARTYRS IN THE CATACOMBS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poemblock">
+
+<div>They lie all around me, countless in their number,</div>
+<div class="indent3">Each martyr with his palm.</div>
+<div>No torture now can rack them: safe they slumber,</div>
+<div class="indent4">Hushed in eternal calm!</div>
+
+<div>I read the rude inscriptions, written weeping,</div>
+<div class="indent3">At night with hurried tears.</div>
+<div>Yet what a tale they tell! their secret keeping</div>
+<div class="indent4">Through all these thousand years.</div>
+
+<div>"In Pace." Yes, at peace. By sword, or fire,</div>
+<div class="indent3">Or cross, or lictor's rod&mdash;</div>
+<div>Virgin, or matron; youth, or gray-haired sire:</div>
+<div class="indent4">For all, the peace of God.</div>
+
+<div>"In Christo." Died in Christ. Oh, tragic story!</div>
+<div class="indent3">Yet, over shouts, and cries,</div>
+<div>And lion's roar, they heard the saints in glory</div>
+<div class="indent4">Singing from Paradise.</div>
+
+<div>"Ad Deum." Went to God. Wide swung the portal;</div>
+<div class="indent3">Dim sank the sands away;</div>
+<div>And, chanting "Alleluia," the immortal</div>
+<div class="indent4">Passed to Eternal Day.</div>
+
+<div>Agnes, Cecilia! Names undying ever,&mdash;</div>
+<div class="indent3">What's Cæsar's gain to this?</div>
+<div>He lived for self; they for their high endeavour.</div>
+<div class="indent4">His, fame; theirs, endless bliss.</div>
+
+<div>And pagan Rome herself? Her wisest teacher</div>
+<div class="indent3">Could teach but how to die!</div>
+<div>Sad, hopeless emperor, echoing the Preacher,</div>
+<div class="indent4">"All, all is vanity."</div>
+
+<div>He slew the martyrs. Yet, through ages crying,</div>
+<div class="indent3">This noble truth they give:</div>
+<div>"Life is but birth-throes. Death itself, not dying.</div>
+<div class="indent4">We pass to God&mdash;to live."</div>
+
+<div>O blessed hope! O faith that conquers sorrow!</div>
+<div class="indent3">Pain, heart-break, all shall cease.</div>
+<div>They are but gateways to a glad to-morrow.</div>
+<div class="indent4">"In Pace." God is peace.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0009.png" width="400" height="86" alt="Decoration" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>The writer having made the early Christian
+Catacombs a special study for several
+years, and his larger volume on that subject
+having been received with great favour in Great
+Britain, the United States, and Canada, has
+endeavoured in this story to give as popular
+an account as he could of early Christian life
+and character as illustrated by these interesting
+memorials of the primitive Church. He has
+been especially careful to maintain historical
+accuracy in all his statements of fact, and in
+the filling up of details he has endeavoured
+to preserve the historical "keeping" of the
+picture. Persons wishing to pursue the study
+of the Catacombs still further are referred to
+the Author's special work on that subject.
+See note at the end of this volume.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 40em;" >W.H.W.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>THE CATACOMBS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY HARRIET ANNIE WILKINS.</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Miles after miles of graves, and not one word or<br /> sign of the gloominess
+or death."&mdash;<i>Professor Jules De Launay.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poemblock2">
+<div>Miles after miles of graves,</div>
+<div class="indent3">League after league of tombs,</div>
+<div>And not one sign of spectre Death,</div>
+<div class="indent3">Waving his shadowy plumes;</div>
+<div>Hope, beautiful and bright,</div>
+<div class="indent3">Spanning the arch above</div>
+<div>Faith, gentle, overcoming Faith,</div>
+<div class="indent4">And Love, God's best gift, Love.</div>
+
+<div>For early Christians left</div>
+<div class="indent3">Their darlings to their rest,</div>
+<div>As mothers leave their little ones</div>
+<div class="indent3">When the sun gilds the west;</div>
+<div>No mourning robes of black,</div>
+<div class="indent3">No crape upon the doors,</div>
+<div>For the victorious palm-bearers,</div>
+<div class="indent4">Who tread the golden floors.</div>
+
+<div>Arrayed in garments white,</div>
+<div class="indent3">No mournful dirges pealing,</div>
+<div>Bearing green branches in their hands,</div>
+<div class="indent3">Around the tomb they're kneeling;</div>
+<div>This was their marching song,</div>
+<div class="indent3">"By death we are not holden;"</div>
+<div>And this their glorious funeral hymn,</div>
+<div class="indent4">"Jerusalem the golden."</div>
+
+<div>Beautiful girls sleep there,</div>
+<div class="indent3">Waiting the Bridegroom's call.</div>
+<div>Each lamp is burning brilliantly,</div>
+<div class="indent3">While the bright shadows fall;</div>
+<div>And baby martyrs passed</div>
+<div class="indent3">Straight to the great I AM,</div>
+<div>While sturdier soldiers carved o'er each,</div>
+<div class="indent4">"Victor, God's little lamb."</div>
+
+<div>Miles after miles of graves,</div>
+<div class="indent3">League after league of tombs,</div>
+<div>The cross upon each conqueror's brow</div>
+<div class="indent3">Light up the catacombs;</div>
+<div>"'Tis in this sign we conquer."</div>
+<div class="indent3">Sounds on the blood-stained track;</div>
+<div>"'Tis in this sign we conquer,"</div>
+<div class="indent4">We gladly answer back.</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0011.png" width="400" height="119" alt="Decoration" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" summary="table of contents">
+
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER I. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;ON THE APPIAN WAY</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">7</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER II. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;IN CÆSAR'S PALACE</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">17</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER III. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;EMPRESS AND SLAVE</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">23</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IV. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE IMPERIAL BANQUET</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER V. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE CHRISTIANS AND THE LIONS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VI. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MARTYR'S BURIAL</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;WITH HILARUS, THE FOSSOR</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VIII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">75</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IX. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;A DIFFICULT QUEST</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">86</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER X. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;A WICKED PLOT</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">92</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XI <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE SLAVE MARKET</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE LOST FOUND</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;FATHER AND DAUGHTER</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">111</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIV. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;"UNSTABLE AS WATER"</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XV. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;AT THE BATHS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVI. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE GAMING TABLE</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;"IN PERICULIS TUTUS"</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">135</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVIII <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MIDNIGHT PLOT</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIX <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">148</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XX <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE PLOT THICKENS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXI. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;A CRIME PREVENTED</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE STORM BURSTS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">168</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MAMERTINE PRISON</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">177</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIV. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">184</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXV. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;A ROMAN HOLIDAY</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">188</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVI <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MARTYRS CROWNED</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MARTYRS BURIED</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVIII. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE BETRAYAL&mdash;THE PURSUIT</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">215</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIX. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">224</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXX. <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS&mdash;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">229</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0013_2.png" width="400" height="99" alt="Decoration" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h1>VALERIA,</h1>
+<h3>THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE APPIAN WAY.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0013.png" width="400" height="227" alt="&quot;Entrance To A Catacomb.&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Entrance To A Catacomb.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap">On a bright spring morning in the year of our
+Lord 303&mdash;it was in the "Ides of March,"
+about the middle of the month, but the air was
+balmy as that of June in our northern clime&mdash;two
+note-worthy-looking men were riding along
+the famous Appian Way, near the city of Rome
+The elder of the two, a man of large size and of
+mighty thews and sinews, was mounted on a strong
+and richly-caparisoned horse. He wore the armour
+of a Roman centurion&mdash;a lorica or cuirass, made
+of plates of bronze, fastened to a flexible body of
+leather; and cothurni, or a sort of laced boots,
+leaching to mid-leg. On his back hung his round
+embossed shield; by his side, in its sheath, his
+short, straight sword, and on his head was a
+burnished helmet, with a sweeping horsehair crest.
+His face was bronzed with the sun of many climes.
+But when, for a moment, he removed his helmet
+to cool his brow, one saw that his forehead was
+high and white. His hair curled close to his head,
+except where it was worn bare at his temples
+by the chafing of his helmet, and was already
+streaked with grey, although he looked not more
+than five-and forty years of age. Yet the eagle
+glance of his eye was undimmed, and his firm-set
+muscles, the haughty expression of his countenance,
+and the high courage of his bearing, gave
+evidence that his natural strength was not abated.</p>
+
+<p>His companion contrasted strongly in every
+respect. He had a slender, graceful figure, a
+mobile and expressive face, a mouth of almost
+feminine softness and beauty, dark and languishing
+eyes, and long, flowing hair. He wore a
+snowy toga, with a brilliant scarlet border of
+what is still known as "Greek fret;" and over
+this, fastened by a brooch at his throat, a flowing
+cloak. On his head sat jauntily a soft felt hat,
+not unlike those still worn by the Italian peasantry,
+and on his feet were low-laced shoes or
+sandals. Instead of a sword, he wore at his side
+a metal case for his reed-pen and for a scroll of
+papyrus. He was in the bloom and beauty of
+youth, apparently not more than twenty years
+of age.</p>
+
+<p>The elder of the two was the Roman officer
+Flaccus Sertorius, a centurion of the 12th Legion,
+returning with his Greek secretary, Isidorus, from
+the town of Albano, about seventeen miles from
+Rome, whither he had been sent on business of
+state.</p>
+
+<p>"This new edict of the Emperor's," remarked
+Sertorius to his secretary, with an air of affable
+condescension, "is likely to give us both work
+enough to do before long."</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency forgets," replied Isidorus,
+with an obsequious inclination of the head, "that
+your humble secretary has not the same means
+of learning affairs of state as his noble master."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you Greeks learn everything!" said the
+centurion, with a rather contemptuous laugh.
+"Trust you for that."</p>
+
+<p>"We try to make ourselves useful to our
+patrons," replied the young man, "and it seems
+to be a sort of hereditary habit, for my Athenian
+ancestors were proverbial for seeking to know
+some new thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, new manners, new customs, new religions;
+why, your very name indicates your adherence to the
+new-fangled worship of Isis."</p>
+
+<p>"I hold not altogether that way," replied the
+youth. "I belong rather to the eclectic school.
+My father, Apollodorus, was a priest of Phoebus,
+and named me, like himself, from the sungod,
+whom he worshipped; but I found the party of
+Isis fashionable at court, so I even changed my
+name and colours to the winning side. When
+one is at Rome, you know, he must do as the
+Romans do."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, like the degenerate Romans, who forsake
+the old gods, under whom the State was great
+and virtuous and strong," said the soldier, with
+an angry gesture. "The more gods, the worse
+the world becomes. But this new edict will
+make short work of some of them."</p>
+
+<p>"With the Christians you mean," said the
+supple Greek. "A most pernicious sect, that
+deserve extermination with fire and sword."</p>
+
+<p>"I know little about them," replied Sertorius,
+with a sneer, "save that they have increased
+prodigiously of late. Even in the army and the
+palace are those known to favour their obscene
+and contemptible doctrines."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis whispered that even their sacred highnesses
+the Empresses Prisca and Valeria are
+infected with their grovelling superstition," said
+the Greek secretary. "Certain it is, they seem
+to avoid being present at the public sacrifices, as
+they used to be. But the evil sect has its followers
+chiefly among the slaves and vile plebs of
+the poorest Transtiberine region of Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"What do they worship, anyhow?" asked the
+centurion, with an air of languid curiosity. "They
+seem to have no temples, nor altars, nor sacrifices."</p>
+
+<p>"They have dark and secret and abominable
+rites," replied the fawning Greek, eager to gratify
+the curiosity of his patron with popular slanders
+against the Christians. "'Tis said they worship
+a low-born peasant, who was crucified for sedition.
+Some say he had an ass's head,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> but that, I doubt
+not, is a vulgar superstition; and one of our
+poets, the admirable Lucian, remarks that their
+doctrine was brought to Rome by a little hook-nosed
+Jew, named Paulus, who was beheaded by
+the divine Nero over yonder near the Ostian
+gate, beside the pyramid of Cestius, which you
+may see amongst the cypresses. They have many
+strange usages. Their funeral customs, especially,
+differ very widely from the Greek or Roman ones.
+They bury the body, with many mysterious rites,
+in vaults or chambers underground, instead of
+burning it on a funeral pyre. They are rank
+atheists, refusing to worship the gods, or even to
+throw so much as a grain of incense on their altar,
+or place a garland of flowers before their shrines,
+or even have their images in their houses. They
+are a morose, sullen, and dangerous people, and
+are said to hold hideous orgies at their secret
+assemblies underground, where they banquet on
+the body of a newly-slain child.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> See yonder,"
+he continued, pointing to a low-browed arch
+almost concealed by trees in a neighbouring garden,
+"is the entrance to one of their secret crypts,
+where they gather to celebrate their abominable
+rites, surrounded by the bones and ashes of the
+dead. A vile and craven set of wretches; they
+are not fit to live.</p>
+
+<p>"They are not all cravens; to that I can bear
+witness," interrupted Sertorius. "I knew a fellow
+in my own company&mdash;Lannus was his name&mdash;who,
+his comrades said, was a Christian. He
+was the bravest and steadiest fellow in the legion;
+&mdash;saved my life once in Libya;&mdash;rushed between
+me and a lion, which sprang from a thicket as
+I stopped to let my horse drink at a stream&mdash;as
+it might be the Anio, there. The lion's fangs
+met in his arm, but he never winced. He may
+believe what he pleases for me. I like not this
+blood-hound business of hunting down honest
+men because they worship gods of their own.
+But the Emperor's edict is written, as you may
+say, with the point of a dagger&mdash;'The Christian
+religion must everywhere be destroyed.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And quite right, too, your Excellency," said
+the soft-smiling Greek. "They are seditious
+conspirators, the enemies of Cæsar and of Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"A Roman soldier does not need to learn of
+thee, hungry Greekling,"<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> exclaimed the centurion,
+haughtily, "what is his duty to his country!"</p>
+
+<p>"True, most noble sir," faltered the discomfited
+secretary, yet with a vindictive glance from his
+treacherous eyes. "Your Excellency is always
+right."</p>
+
+<p>For a time they rode on in silence, the secretary
+falling obsequiously a little to the rear. It
+was now high noon, and the crowd and bustle
+on the Appian Way redoubled. This Queen of
+Roads<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> ran straight as an arrow up-hill and
+down from Rome to Capua and Brundisium, a
+distance of over three hundred miles. Though
+then nearly six hundred years old, it was as firm
+as the day it was laid, and after the lapse of
+fifteen hundred years more, during which "the
+Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood and Fire,"
+have devastated the land, its firm lava pavement
+of broad basaltic slabs seems as enduring as ever.
+On every side rolled the undulating Campagna,
+now a scene of melancholy desolation, then
+cultivated like a garden, abounding in villas and
+mansions whose marble columns gleamed snowy
+white through the luxuriant foliage of their
+embosoming myrtle and laurel groves. On either
+side of the road were the stately tombs of Rome's
+mighty dead-her prætors, proconsuls, and
+senators some, like the mausoleum of Cæcilia Metella,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
+rising like a solid fortress; others were
+like little wayside altars, but all were surrounded
+by an elegantly kept green sward, adorned with
+parterres of flowers. Their ruins now rise like
+stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure of the
+tomb-abounding plain. On every side are tombs
+&mdash;tombs above and tombs below&mdash;the graves of
+contending races, the sepulchres of vanished generations.
+Across the vast field of view stretched,
+supported high in air on hundreds of arches, like
+a Titan procession, the Marcian Aqueduct, erected
+B.C. 146, which after two thousand years brings
+to the city of Rome an abundant supply of the
+purest water from the far distant Alban Mountains,
+which present to our gaze to-day the same
+serrated outline and lovely play of colour that
+delighted the eyes of Horace and Cicero.</p>
+
+<p>As they drew nearer the gates of the city, it
+became difficult to thread their way through the
+throngs of eager travellers&mdash;gay lecticæ or silken-curtained
+carriages and flashing chariots, conveying
+fashionable ladies and the gilded gallants
+of the city to the elegant villas without the walls
+&mdash;processions of consuls and proconsuls with
+their guards, and crowds of peasants bringing in
+the panniers of their patient donkeys fruits, vegetables,
+and even snow from the distant Soracte,
+protected from the heat by a straw matting&mdash;just
+as they do in Italy to-day. The busy scene
+is vividly described in the graphic lines of
+Milton:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"What conflux issuing forth or entering in;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prætors, proconsuls to their provinces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or embassies from regions far remote,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In various habits on the Appian Road."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I have myself seen in the museum of the <i>Collegio
+Romano</i> at Rome, a rude caricature which had been
+scratched upon the wall of the barracks of Nero's palace,
+representing a man with an ass's head upon a cross,
+and beneath it the inscription, <i>"Alexomenos sebete
+Theon"</i> "Alexomenos worships his God." Evidently
+some Roman soldier had scratched this in an idle hour
+in derision of the worship of our Lord by his Christian
+fellow-soldier. Tertullian also refers to the same calumny;
+and Lucian, a pagan writer, speaks of our Lord
+as "a crucified impostor." It is almost impossible for
+us to conceive the contempt and detestation in which
+crucifixion was held by the Romans. It was a punishment
+reserved for the worst of felons, or the vilest of
+slaves.&mdash;ED.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> All these calumnies, and others still worse, are
+recorded by pagan writers concerning the early Christians.
+Their celebration of the Lord's Supper in the private
+meetings became the ground of the last-mentioned
+distorted accusation.&mdash;ED.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "Graeculus esuriens," the term applied by Juvenal to
+those foreign adventurers who sought to worm their way
+into the employment and confidence of great Roman
+houses.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Regina Viarum</i>, as the Romans called it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> It is a circular structure sixty-five feet in diameter,
+built upon a square base of still larger size. After two
+thousand years it still defies the gnawing tooth of
+Time.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">IN CÆSAR'S PALACE.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Passing beneath the even then grim and hoary
+archway of the Porta Capena, or Capuan Gate,
+with the dripping aqueduct above it, the centurion
+and his secretary traversed rapidly the crowded
+streets of a fashionable suburb&mdash;now mere
+mouldering mounds of desolation&mdash;to the Imperial
+Palace on the Palatine Hill. This eminence,
+which is now a mass of crumbling ruins,
+honey-combed with galleries and subterranean corridors
+through what was once the stately apartments of
+the Lords of the World, where wandering tourists
+peer and explore and artists sketch the falling
+arch or fading fresco of the banquet halls and
+chambers of a long line of emperors, was then the
+scene of life and activity, of pomp and splendour.
+Marble courts and columned porticos stretched
+on in almost endless vistas, covering many acres
+of ground. Flashing fountains leaping sunward
+sparkled in the beams of noonday, diffusing a
+coolness through the air, which was fragrant with
+blossoms of the orange and magnolia trees growing
+in the open courts. Snowy statuary gleamed
+amid the vivid foliage, and beneath the shadow
+of the frescoed corridors.</p>
+
+<p>Having dismounted at the outer court and
+given their horses to obsequious grooms, Sertorius
+and the Greek repaired each to a marble bath to
+remove the stains of travel before entering the
+presence of the Emperor. Having made their
+toilet they advanced to the inner court. The
+guards who stood in burnished mail at the portal
+of the palace respectfully made way for the well-known
+imperial officer, but were about to obstruct
+the passage of the Greek secretary, when with a
+gesture of authority Sertorius bade the soldier
+to permit the man to pass.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right, Max, as a rule: but wrong this
+time. He accompanies me on business of state,
+before the Emperor."</p>
+
+<p>Two lictors in white tunics with scarlet hem,
+and bearing each the fasces or bundle of rods
+bound with filets from the top of which projected
+a polished silver axe, came forward and conducted
+the centurion into the Imperial presence chamber,
+the secretary remaining in an ante-room.</p>
+
+<p>The lictors draw aside a heavy gold-embroidered
+curtain, and Sertorius stood in the presence of the
+Lord of the World, the man to whom divine
+honours had been ascribed, who held in his hand
+the lives of all his myriads of subjects, and the
+word of whose mouth uttering his despotic will
+might consign even the loftiest, without form or
+process of law, to degradation or death.</p>
+
+<p>Let us note for a moment what manner of man
+this god on earth, this Diocletian, whose name is
+remembered with abhorrence and execration, the
+degenerate usurper of the august name of the
+Cæsars, may be. He sits in an ivory, purple-cushioned
+chair, near a table of inlaid precious
+woods. His short and obese figure is enswathed
+in the folds of an ample crimson-bordered toga,
+or fine linen vestment of flowing folds. His
+broad, coarse features are of plebeian cast, for
+he had been originally a Dalmatian slave, or at
+least the son of a slave; but the long-continued
+exercise of despotic authority had given an
+imperious haughtiness to his bearing. He was now
+in his fifty-eighth year, but his features, coarsened
+and bloated by sensuality, gave him a much older
+aspect. He was dictating to a secretary who sat
+at the table writing with a reed pen on a
+parchment scroll, when the lictors, lowering their fasces
+and holding their hands above their eyes, as if
+to protect their dazzled eyes from the effulgence
+of the noonday sun, advanced into the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"May it please your divine Majesty," said one
+of the servile lictors, "the centurion whom you
+summoned to your presence awaits your Imperial
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Most humbly at your Imperial Majesty's service,"
+said Sertorius, coming forward with a
+profound inclination of his uncovered head. He had
+left his helmet and sword in the ante-chamber.</p>
+
+<p>"Flaccus Sertorius, I have heard that thou art
+a brave and faithful soldier, skilled in affairs of
+State as well as in the art of war. I have need
+of such to carry out my purpose here in Rome.
+Vitalius, the scribe," he went on, with an allusive
+gesture toward the secretary, "is copying a decree
+to be promulgated to the utmost limits of the
+empire against the pestilent atheism of the
+accursed sect of Christians, who have spawned and
+multiplied like frogs throughout the realm. This
+execrable superstition must be everywhere
+destroyed and the worship of the gods revived.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>
+Even hero in Rome the odious sect swarms
+like vermin, and 'tis even said that the precincts
+of this palace are not free. Now, purge me this
+city as with a besom of wrath. Spare not young
+or old, the lofty or the low; purge even this
+palace, and look to it that thy own head be not
+the forfeit if you fail. This seal shall be your
+warrant;" and lashing himself into rage till the
+purple veins stood out like whipcords on his
+forehead, he tossed his signet ring across the
+table to the scribe, who prepared a legal instrument
+to which he affixed the Imperial seal.</p>
+
+<p>"May it please your Imperial Majesty," said
+the centurion, with an obeisance, "I am a rude
+soldier, unskilled to speak in the Imperial presence;
+but I have fought your Majesty's enemies
+in Iberia, in Gaul, in Dacia, in Pannonia, and
+in Libya, and am ready to fight them anywhere.
+Nevertheless, I would fain be discharged from
+this office of censor of the city. I know naught,
+save by Rumour, who is ever a lying jade, your
+Imperial Majesty, against this outlawed sect.
+And I know some of them who were brave
+soldiers in your Imperial Majesty's service, and
+many others are feeble old men or innocent
+women and children. I pray you send me rather
+to fight against the barbarian Dacians than
+against these."</p>
+
+<p>"I was well informed then that you were a
+bold fellow," exclaimed the Emperor, his brow
+flushing in his anger a deeper hue; "but I have
+need of such. Do thy duty, on thy allegiance,
+and see that thou soon bring these culprits to
+justice. Is it not enough that universal rumour
+condemns them? They are pestilent sedition-mongers,
+and enemies of the gods and of the
+State."</p>
+
+<p>"I, too, am a worshipper of the gods,"
+continued the intrepid soldier, "and will fail not to
+keep my allegiance to your Imperial Majesty, to
+the State, and to those higher powers," and he
+walked backward out of the Imperial presence.
+As he rejoined his secretary a cloud sat on his
+brow. He was moody and taciturn, and
+evidently little pleased with his newly-imposed
+duties. But the confirmed habit of unquestioning
+obedience inherent in a Roman soldier led
+to an almost mechanical acceptance of his
+uncongenial task. Emerging from the outer court
+he proceeded to his own house, in the populous
+region of the Aventine Hill, now a deserted
+waste, covered with kitchen gardens and
+vineyards. In the meantime we turn to another part
+of the great Imperial palace.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Even as far west as Spain the following inscription
+has been found, which seems designed as a funeral monument
+of dead and buried Christianity: <span class="smcap">"DIOCLETIAN.
+CÆS. AVG. SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST. VBIQ. DELETAET
+CVLTV, DEOR. PROPAGATO"</span>&mdash;"To Diocletian, Cæsar
+Augustus, the Christian superstition being everywhere
+destroyed and the worship of the gods extended." But
+though apparently destroyed, Christianity, like its divine
+Author, instinct with immortality, rose triumphant over
+all its foes.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">EMPRESS AND SLAVE.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Using the time-honoured privilege of ubiquity
+accorded to imaginative writers, we
+beg to conduct our readers to a part of the stately
+palace of Diocletian, where, if they had really
+been found in their own proper persons, it would
+have been at the peril of their lives. After
+fifteen long centuries have passed, we may explore
+without let or hindrance the most private
+apartments of the once all-potent masters of the
+world. We may roam through their unroofed
+banquet-chambers. We may gaze upon the
+frescoes, carvings, and mosaics which met their eyes.
+We may behold the evidences of their luxury
+and profligacy. We may thread the secret
+corridors and galleries connecting the chambers of
+the palace&mdash;all now open to the light of day.</p>
+
+<p>We may even penetrate to the boudoirs and
+tiring rooms of the proud dames of antiquity.
+We may even examine at our will the secrets of
+the toilet&mdash;the rouge pots and vases for cosmetics
+and unguents, the silver mirrors, fibulas or
+brooches, armlets and jewels, and can thus
+reconstruct much of that old Roman life which has
+vanished forever from the face of the earth.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>By the light of modern exploration and discovery,
+therefore, we may enter the private
+apartments of ladies of the Imperial household, and
+in imagination re-furnish these now desolate and
+ruinous chambers with all the luxury and
+magnificence of their former prime. A room of
+commodious size is paved with tesselated marble
+slabs, adorned with borders and designs of
+brilliant mosaic. The walls are also marble, save
+where an elegant fresco on a stucco ground&mdash;flowers
+or fruit or graceful landscape<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>&mdash;greet the
+eye. A small fountain throws up its silver spray,
+imparting a grateful coolness to the air.
+Windows, void of glass, but mantled and screened by
+climbing plants and rare exotics, look out into a
+garden where snowy marble statues are relieved
+against the dark green of the cypress and ilex.
+Around the room are busts and effigies of the
+Imperial household or of historical characters.
+There is, however, a conspicuous absence of the
+mythological figures, whose exquisite execution
+does not atone for their sensuous conception,
+which, rescued from the <i>debris</i> of ancient civilization,
+crowd all the Art-galleries of Europe. That
+this is not the result of accident but of design is
+seen by an occasional empty pedestal or niche.
+Distributed at intervals are couches and tables of
+costly woods, inlaid with ivory, and bronze and
+silver candelabra, lamps and other household
+objects of ornament or use. Sitting in an ivory
+chair amid all this elegance and luxury was a
+lady in the very flower of her youth, of queenly
+dignity and majestic beauty. She wore a snowy
+<i>stola</i>, or robe of finest linen, with purple border,
+flowing in ample folds to her sandaled feet
+Over this was negligently thrown a saffron-coloured
+veil of thinnest tissue. She held in her
+hand a burnished silver mirror, at which she
+glanced carelessly from time to time, while a
+comely slave with dark lustrous eyes and finely-formed
+features carefully brushed and braided
+her long and rippling hair.</p>
+
+<p>This queenly presence was the young and
+lovely Empress Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian
+and Prisca, and wife of the co-Emperor,
+Galerius Cæsar. The object of envy of all the
+women of Borne, she lived to become within a
+few short years the object of their profoundest
+commiseration. Of her even the unsympathetic
+Gibbon remarks that "her melancholy adventures
+might furnish a very singular subject for
+tragedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, now, Callirhoë," said the Empress, with
+a weary smile, "that will do! Put up my hair
+and bind it with this fillet," and she held out a
+gold-embroidered ribband. "Thou knowest I
+care not for the elaborate coiffure that is now so
+fashionable."</p>
+
+<p>"Your Majesty needs it not," said the slave,
+speaking Greek with a low sweet voice, and with
+an Attic purity of accent. "As one of your own
+poets has said, you appear 'when unadorned,
+adorned the most.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Flatterer," said the Empress, tapping her
+gaily and almost caressingly with a plumy fan of
+ostrich feathers which she held lightly in one
+hand, "you are trying to spoil me."</p>
+
+<p>"Such goodness as thine, sweet mistress," said
+the slave, affectionately kissing her hand, "it
+would be impossible to spoil."</p>
+
+<p>"Dost know, Callirhoë," said the young
+Empress, with a smile of bewitching sweetness, "that
+I have a surprise for thee? It is, thou knowest,
+my birthday, and in my honour is the banquet
+given to-day. But I have a greater pleasure than
+the banquet can bestow. I give thee this day
+thy freedom. Thou art no more a slave, but the
+freedwoman of the Empress Valeria. See, here
+are the papers of thy manumission," and she
+drew from the girdle of her robe a sealed and
+folded parchment, which she handed to the now
+emancipated slave.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest mistress!" exclaimed the faithful
+creature, who had thrown herself on the marble
+pavement and was kissing the sandaled feet of
+the beautiful Empress, but an outburst of sobs
+and tears choked her utterance.</p>
+
+<p>"What! weeping!" exclaimed Valeria. "Are
+you sorry then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, they are tears of joy," exclaimed the
+girl, smiling through her tears, like the sun
+shining through a shower; "not that I tire of
+thy service; I wish never to leave it. But I
+rejoice that my father's daughter can serve thee
+no longer as thy slave, but as thy freedwoman."</p>
+
+<p>"I should indeed be sorry to lose thee," said
+the august lady with a wistful smile. "If I
+thought I should, I would almost regret thy
+manumission; for believe me, Callirhoë, I have
+need of true friends, and thou, I think, wilt be a
+faithful one."</p>
+
+<p>"What! I, but this moment a poor slave, the
+friend of the fairest and most envied lady in all
+Rome! Nay, now thou laughest at me; but
+believe me I am still heart and soul and body
+thy most devoted servant."</p>
+
+<p>"I do believe it, child," said the Empress;
+"but tell me, pray, why thou speakest in that
+proud melancholy tone of thy father? Was he
+a freedman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, your Majesty, he was free-born; neither
+he nor his fathers were ever in bondage to any
+man,"&mdash;and the fair face of the girl was suffused
+with the glow of honest pride in the freeborn
+blood that flowed in her veins.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, child, if I touched a sore spot in
+thy memory. Perchance I may heal it. Money
+can do much, men say."</p>
+
+<p>"In this case, dearest mistress, it is powerless.
+But from thee I can have no secrets, if you care
+to listen to the story of one so long a slave."</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew thou wert aught else, child.
+My steward bought thee in the slave market
+in the Suburra. Tell me all."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a short story, but a sad one, your
+Majesty," said the girl, as she went on braiding
+her mistress's hair. "My father was a Hebrew
+merchant, a dealer in precious stones, well
+esteemed in his nation. He lived in Damascus,
+where I was born. He named me after the
+beautiful fountain near the Jordan of his native
+land."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it had been from the pagan goddess," interrupted the Empress.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, 'twas from the healing fountain of
+Callirhoë, in Judea," continued the girl "When
+my mother died, my father was plunged into
+inconsolable grief, and fell ill, well-nigh to death.
+The most skilled physician in Damascus, Eliezer
+by name, brought him back to life; but his
+friends thought he had better let him die, for he
+converted him to the hated Christian faith.
+Persecuted by his kinsmen, he came to Antioch with
+my brother and myself, that he might join the
+great and flourishing Christian Church in that
+city.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> While on a trading voyage to Smyrna, in
+which we children accompanied our father, we
+were captured by Illyrian pirates, and carried to
+the slave market at Ravenna. There I was
+purchased by a slave dealer from Rome, and my
+father and brother were sold I know not whither.
+I never saw them again,"&mdash;and she heaved a
+weary and hopeless sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child!" said the Empress, a tear of
+sympathy glistening on her cheek, "I fear that I
+can give thee little help. 'Tis strange how my
+heart went out toward thee when thou wert first
+brought so tristful and forlorn into my presence.
+'Tis a sad world, and even the Emperors can do
+little to set it right."</p>
+
+<p>"There is One who rules on high, dear lady,
+the God of our fathers, by whom kings rule and
+princes decree judgment. He doeth all things
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, child, I am not ignorant of the God of
+the Jews and Christians. What a pity that there
+should be such bitter hate on the part of your
+countrymen towards those who worship the same
+great God."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Callirhoë, "blindness in part hath
+happened to Israel. If they but knew how Jesus
+of Nazareth fulfils all the types and prophecies
+of their own Scriptures, they would hail Him as
+the true Messiah of whom Moses and the prophets
+did write."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, child, I will help thee to find thy father,
+if possible, though I fear it will be a difficult
+task. Ask me freely anything that I can do.
+As my freedwoman, you will, of course, bear my
+name with your own. Now send my slave Juba
+to accompany me to the banquet-hall."</p>
+
+<p>Callirhoë, or as we may now call her, after the
+Roman usage, Valeria Callirhoë, fervently kissed
+the outstretched hand of her august mistress and
+gracefully retired.</p>
+
+<p>It may excite some surprise to find such
+generous sentiments and such gentle manners as
+we have described attributed to the daughter of
+a persecuting Emperor and the wife of a stern
+Roman general. But reasons are not wanting to
+justify this delineation. Both Valeria and her
+mother Prisca, during their long residence at
+Nicomedia, where the Emperor Diocletian had
+established his court, became instructed in the
+Christian religion by the bishop of that
+important see. Indeed, Eusebius informs us that
+among them there were many Christian converts,
+both Prisca and Valeria, in the Imperial palace.
+Diocletian and his truculent son-in-law, Galerius,
+were bigoted pagans, and the mother of the latter
+was a fanatical worshipper of the goddess Cybele.
+The spread of Christianity even within the
+precincts of the palace provoked her implacable
+resentment, and she urged on her son to active
+persecution. A council was therefore held in the
+palace at Nicomedia, a joint edict for the
+extirpation of Christianity was decreed, and the
+magnificent Christian basilica was razed to the
+ground. The very next day the edict was torn
+from the public forum by an indignant Christian,
+and the Imperial palace was almost entirely
+destroyed by fire. The origin of this disaster is
+unknown, but it was ascribed to the Christians,
+and intensified the virulence of the persecution.
+Diocletian proceeded to Rome to celebrate a
+military triumph and to concert with his western
+colleagues more vigorous methods of persecution.
+It is at this period that the opening scenes of our
+story take place.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> On the Palatine Hill may still be seen, in the palace
+of the Flavii, the frescoed private apartments and banquet-chambers
+of the emperors&mdash;in the walls are even
+the lead water-pipes, stamped with the maker's name;
+and the innumerable ancient relics in the museums of
+Rome and Naples give such an insight as nothing else
+can impart of the life and character of the palmy days
+of the empire.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> On the banquet-room mentioned in the last note are
+some remarkable frescoes, among other objects being
+glass vases through whose transparent sides are seen
+exquisitely painted fruits&mdash;as fresh, apparently, after
+eighteen centuries as if executed within a few months.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Shortly after this time, that Church numbered 100,000
+persons.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE IMPERIAL BANQUET.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">At the summons of Callirhoë a Nubian female
+slave, Juba by name, an old family nurse,
+skilled in the use of herbs and potions, made her
+appearance. Her huge and snowy turban and
+her bright-coloured dress strikingly contrasted
+with her jet complexion and homely features.
+Yet, as the personal attendant of the young
+empress, it was her duty to accompany her mistress
+to the banquet-hall, to stand behind her chair,
+to adjust her robes, hold her fan, and obey her
+every word or gesture. As she drew aside the
+curtain of the apartment which shut out the
+light and heat, two lictors who guarded the door
+sprang to their feet and preceded the empress
+through the marble corridor to the <i>triclinium</i>, or
+banquet chamber. It was a family party, rather
+than a state banquet, but neither Greeks nor
+Romans practised a profuse hospitality nor held
+large social or festive gatherings like those of
+modern times. Their feasts were rather for the
+intense epicurean pleasure of a favoured few than
+for the rational enjoyment of a larger company.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>Couches inlaid with ivory and decked with
+cushions surrounded three sides of a hollow
+square. On these the emperor and his male
+guests reclined, each resting on his left arm.
+On ivory chairs facing the open side of the
+square sat the Empress Prisca (a majestic-looking
+matron of somewhat grave aspect), Valeria,
+and a lady of the court, each accompanied by
+her female slave. The extreme ugliness of the
+Nubian Juba acted as a foil for the striking
+beauty of Valeria.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, the guests were crowned with
+wreaths of fair and fragrant flowers. Then
+elegantly dressed slaves brought in, to the sound
+of music, the different courses: first eggs dressed
+with vinegar, olives and lettuce, like our salad;
+then roast pheasants, peacocks' tongues and
+thrushes, and the livers of capons steeped in
+milk; next oysters brought alive from the distant
+shores of Great Britain, and, reversing our
+order, fish in great variety&mdash;one of the most
+beautiful of these was the purple mullet&mdash;served
+with high-seasoned condiments and sauces. Of
+solid meats the favourite dish was a roast sucking
+pig, elegantly garnished. Of vegetables they had
+nothing corresponding to our potatoes, but,
+instead, a profusion of mallows, lentils, truffles, and
+mushrooms. The banquet wound up with figs,
+olives, almonds, grapes, tarts and confections, and
+apples&mdash;hence the phrase <i>ab ovo ad mala</i>.</p>
+
+<p>After the first course the emperor poured out a
+libation of Falernian wine, with the Greek
+formula, "to the supreme God," watching eagerly
+if his wife and daughter would do the same.
+Lacking the courage to make a bold confession
+of Christianity, and thinking, with a casuistry
+that we shall not attempt to defend, that the
+ambiguity of the expression excused the act, they
+also, apparently to the great relief of the emperor,
+poured out a libation and sipped a small quantity
+of the wine. The emperor then drank to the
+health of his wife and daughter, wishing the
+latter many returns of the auspicious day they
+had met to celebrate. Each of the guests also
+made, according to his ability, a complimentary
+speech, which the ladies acknowledged by a
+gracious salutation. After the repast slaves
+brought perfumed water and embroidered
+napkins for the guests to wash their fingers, which
+had been largely employed in the process of dining.</p>
+
+<p>The most of the guests were sycophants and
+satellites of the emperor, and in the intervals
+between the courses employed their art in
+flattering his vanity or fomenting his prejudices.
+One of them, Semphronius by name, an old
+fellow with a very bald and shiny head and a
+very vivacious manner, made great pretensions
+to the character of a philosopher or professor of
+universal knowledge, and was ever ready, with a
+great flow of often unmeaning words, to give a
+theory or explanation of every conceivable
+subject. Others were coarse and sensual-looking
+<i>bon vivants</i>, who gave their attention chiefly to
+the enjoyment of the good fare set before them.
+Another sinister-looking fellow, with a disagreeable
+cast in one eye and a nervous habit of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword, was
+Quintus Naso, the prefect of the city. He had
+been a successful soldier, or rather butcher, in
+the Pannonian wars, and was promoted to his
+bad eminence of office on account of his truculent
+severity. Of very different character, however,
+was a young man of noble family, Adauctus by
+name, who was present in his official character
+as Treasurer of the Imperial Exchequer.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He
+almost alone of the guests paid a courteous
+attention to the high-born ladies of the party, to
+whom he frequently addressed polite remarks
+while the others were intent only in fawning on
+the great source of power. He, also, alone of all
+present, conspicuously refrained from pouring out
+a libation&mdash;a circumstance which did not escape
+the keen eye of the emperor. After interrupted
+talk on general topics, in which the ladies took
+part, the conversation drifted to public matters,
+on which they were not expected to meddle.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Naso, how was the edict received?"
+said the emperor to the prefect, as a splendid
+roast peacock, with sadly despoiled plumage, was
+removed.</p>
+
+<p>"As every command of your divine Majesty
+should be received," replied Naso, "with respectful
+obedience. One rash fool, indeed, attempted
+to tear it down from the rostra of the Forum,
+like that mad wretch at Nicomedia; but he was
+taken in the act. He expiates to-night his crime,
+so soon as I shall have wrung from him the
+names of his fanatical accomplices,"&mdash;and he
+clenched his hands nervously, as though he were
+himself applying the instruments of torture.</p>
+
+<p>"And you know well how to do that," said the
+emperor with a sneer, for, like all tyrants, he
+despised and hated the instruments of his tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>"You may well call them fanatics, good Naso,"
+chimed in the would-be philosopher, Semphronius;
+"a greater set of madmen the world never saw.
+They believe that this Chrestus whom they
+worship actually rose from the dead. Heard ever any
+man such utter folly as that! Whereas I have
+satisfied myself, from a study of the official
+records, that he was only a Jewish thaumaturge and
+conjuror, who used to work pretended miracles
+by means of dupes and accomplices. And when,
+for his sedition, he was put to death as the vilest
+of felons, these accomplices stole his body and
+gave out that he rose from the dead."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>"I have heard," said Adauctus gravely, "that
+the Romans took care to prevent such a trick as
+that by placing a maniple of soldiers on guard at
+His grave."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I believe they say so," went on the
+unabashed Semphronius; "but if they did, the
+dastards were either overpowered, or they all fell
+asleep while his fellow-knaves stole his body
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Semphronius," said the emperor,
+"that is too improbable a story about a whole
+maniple of soldiers. You and I know too well,
+Naso, the Roman discipline to accept such an
+absurd story as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if your divine Majesty thinks it
+improbable, I fully admit that it is so," the supple
+sophist eagerly replied. "I am inclined to
+identify this impostor and a kinsman of his who was
+beheaded by the divine Herod with the Janus
+and Jambres whose story is told in the sacred
+books of the Jews. But it is evident, from the
+identity of name of one of these with the god
+Janus, that they merely borrowed the story from
+the Roman mythology. This execrable
+superstition, they say, was brought to Rome by two
+brothers named Paulus and Simon Magus. They
+both expiated their crimes, one in the
+Mammertine Prison, the other without the Ostian Gate.
+They say also that when Simon the magician
+struck the prison wall, a well of water gushed
+forth for some of their mystic rites; and that
+when the head of Paulus was smitten off it
+bounded three times on the ground, and at each
+spot where it touched a well of water sprang up.
+But these are stories that no sane man can
+believe."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>"I quite agree with you in that," said Adauctus.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you, indeed?" exclaimed the Emperor;
+"I am glad to know that so brave and trusted an
+officer can say so."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, your Majesty, that half the stories
+told about the Christians are calumnies that no
+candid man can receive," continued the young
+officer.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a bold man to say so, for they have
+few friends and many enemies at court," replied
+Diocletian; "but we will soon extort their secrets
+by this edict. Will we not, good Naso?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be my fault if we do not, your
+divine Majesty," replied that worthy, with a more
+hideous leer than usual in his cruel eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Another thing these fools of Christians
+believe," interjected the garrulous philosopher, "is,
+that when they die their souls shall live in some
+blander clime, and breathe some more ethereal
+air. 'Tis this that makes them seem to covet
+martyrdom, as they call it, instead of, like all
+sane men, shunning death."</p>
+
+<p>"But do not your own poets," chimed in the
+soft voice of Valeria, "speak of the Elysian fields
+and the asphodel meadows where the spirits of
+heroes walk, and of the bark of Charon, who
+ferries them across the fatal Styx?"</p>
+
+<p>"True, your most august Highness," replied
+the pedant with grimace intended to be polite,
+"but those fables are intended for the vulgar, and
+not for the cultured classes, to which your
+Imperial Highness belongs. Even the priests
+themselves do not believe in the existence of the gods
+at whose altars they minister; so that Cicero, you
+will remember, said that 'he wondered how one
+augur could look in the face of another without
+laughing.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I quite admit," remarked Adauctus, "that the
+priests are often impostors, deceiving the people;
+but our wisest philosophers&mdash;the thoughtful Pliny,
+the profound Tacitus, the sage Seneca, and even
+the eloquent Cicero whom you have quoted&mdash;teach
+the probability if not the certainty of a
+future state, where virtue shall be rewarded and
+wickedness punished."</p>
+
+<p>"What do they know about it any more than
+any of us?" interrupted the truculent Naso, to
+whom ethical themes were by no means familiar
+or welcome. My creed is embodied in the words
+of that clever fellow, Juvenal, that I used to learn
+at school&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Esse aliquid manes, et subterranea regna,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.'"<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"What's the use of all this talk?" lisped a
+languid-looking epicurean fop, who, sated with
+dissipation, at twenty-five found life as empty as
+a sucked orange. "We cannot alter fate. Life
+is short; let us make the most of it. I'd like to
+press its nectar into a single draught and have
+done with it for ever. As the easy-going Horace
+says, 'The same thing happens to us all. When
+our name, sooner or later, has issued from the
+fatal urn, we leave our woods, our villa, our
+pleasant homes, and enter the bark which is to
+bear us into eternal exile!'"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here the Emperor made an impatient gesture,
+to indicate that he was weary of this philosophic
+discourse. At the signal the ladies rose and
+retired. Adauctus also made his official duties
+an excuse for leaving the table, where Diocletian
+and his other guests lingered for hours in a
+drunken symposium.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we find that the very questions which
+engage the agnostics and skeptics and pessimists
+of the present age&mdash;the Mallocks, and Cliffords,
+and Harrisons and their tribe&mdash;have agitated the
+world from the very dawn of philosophy. Did
+space permit, we might cite the theories of
+Lucretius as a strange anticipation of the
+development hypothesis. Indeed the writings of
+Pyrrho, Porphyry and Celsus show us that the
+universal tendency of human philosophy, unaided
+by divine inspiration, is to utter skepticism.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> On a single supper for his friends, Lucullus, who is
+said to have fed his lampreys with the bodies of his
+slaves, is recorded to have expended 50,000 denarii&mdash;about
+$8,500.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> His name and office are recorded even by so skeptical
+a critic as Gibbon, and his epitaph has been found
+in the Catacombs. See Withrow's Catacombs, p. 46.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Strauss and Renan and their rationalizing school
+rival this pagan sophist in eliminating the miraculous
+from the sacred record.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Yet these stories, too incredible for this old pagan,
+were gravely related to the present writer, on the scene
+of the alleged miracles, by the credulous Romans of
+to-day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Sat.</i> ii. 49. "That the manes are anything, or the
+nether world anything, not even boys believe, unless
+those still in the nursery."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See that saddest but most beautiful of the ode of
+Horace, To Delius, II. 3:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">... Et nos in æternum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exilium impositura cymbæ.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">"THE CHRISTIANS TO THE LIONS."</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The progress of our story transports us, on
+the day after the banquet described in our
+last chapter, to the palace of the Prefect Naso,
+on the Aventine. It was a large and pompous-looking
+building, with a many-columned portico
+and spacious gardens, both crowded with statuary,
+the spoil of foreign cities, or the product of
+degenerate Greek art&mdash;as offensive in design as
+skilful in execution. The whole bore evidence
+of the ostentation of vulgar wealth rather than
+of judicious taste. A crowd of "clients" and
+satellites of the great man were hanging round
+the doors, eager to present some petition, proffer
+some service, or to swell his idle retinue, like
+jackals around a lion, hoping to pick up a living
+as hangers-on of such a powerful and unscrupulous
+dispenser of patronage. In the degenerate
+days of the Empire, the civic officials especially
+had always a swarm of needy dependents seeking
+to fatten on the spoils of office. They were
+supposed, in some way, to add to the dignity
+of the consuls and prætors, as in later times
+were the retainers of a mediæval baron. The
+system of slavery had made all honest labour
+opprobrious, and these idle, corrupt, and dangerous
+parasites had to be kept in good humour by
+lavish doles and constant amusements. "Bread
+and the Circus," was their imperious demand,
+and having these, they cared for nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning in question there was
+considerable excitement among this turbulent throng,
+for the rumour was current that there was to
+be an examination of certain prisoners accused
+of the vile crime of Christianity; and there were
+hopes that the criminals would supply fresh
+victims for the games of the amphitheatre, which
+for some time had languished for lack of suitable
+material. The temper of the mob we may learn
+by the remarks that reach our ears as we elbow
+our way through.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, Davus! what's the news to-day?" asked
+a cobbler with his leathern apron tucked up
+about his waist, of a greasy-looking individual
+who strutted about with much affectation of
+dignity; "you have the run of his Excellency's
+kitchen, and ought to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Are <i>you</i> there, Samos?" (a nick-name meaning
+Flat Nose). "Back to your den, you slave,
+and don't meddle with gentlemen. <i>'Ne sutor,'</i>
+you know the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you see that the cook drove him out
+with the basting ladle?" said Muscus, the stout-armed
+blacksmith, himself a slave, and resenting
+the insult to his class; and so the laugh was
+turned against the hungry parasite.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, good Max, you are on the guard, you
+can tell us," went on the burly smith.</p>
+
+<p>"News enough, as you'll soon find. There's
+to be more hunting of the Christians for those
+who like it. For my part, I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not," asked Burdo, the butcher, a truculent
+looking fellow with a great knife in a sheath
+at his girdle. "I'd like no better fun. I'd as
+lief kill a Christian as kill a calf."</p>
+
+<p>"It might suit your business," answered stout
+Max, with a sneer, "but hunting women and
+children is not a soldier's trade."</p>
+
+<p>"O ho! that's the game that's a-foot!"
+chuckled a withered little wretch with a hungry face
+and cruel eyes, like a weasel. "Here's a chance
+for an honest man who worships the old gods
+to turn an honest penny."</p>
+
+<p>"Honest man!" growled Max. "Diogenes
+would want a good lantern to find one in Rome
+to-day. He'd certainly never take thee for one.
+Thy very face would convict thee of violating
+all the laws in the Twelve Tables."</p>
+
+<p>"Hunting the Christians, that's the game, is
+it?" said an ill-dressed idler, blear-eyed and
+besotted; "and pestilent vermin they are. I'd
+like to see them all drowned in the Tiber like
+so many rats."</p>
+
+<p>"You are more likely to see them devoured
+in the amphitheatre," said Bruto, a Herculean
+gladiator. "The Prefect is going to give some
+grand games on the Feast of Neptune. Our new
+lions will have a chance to flesh their teeth in
+the bodies of the Christians. The wretches
+haven't the courage to fight, like the Dacian
+prisoners, with us gladiators, nor even with the
+beasts; but just let themselves be devoured like
+sheep."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture a commotion was observed
+about the door, and Naso, the Prefect, came forth
+and looked haughtily around. Several clients
+pressed forward with petitions, which he
+carelessly handed unopened to his secretary, who
+walked behind. He regarded with some interest
+the elegantly-dressed and graceful youth who
+glided through the throng and presented a scroll,
+saying, as he did so&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is of much importance, your Excellency.
+It is about the Christians."</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me to the Forum," said the Prefect,
+and our old acquaintance Isidorus, for it was
+he, fell into the train of the great civic dignitary.
+Arrived at the Basilica Julia, or great Court
+of Justice, the Prefect beckoned to the young
+Greek secretary, and entered a private ante-room.
+Throwing himself into a bronze chair, and pointing
+the Greek to a marble seat, he asked
+abruptly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what is this you know about these
+Christians?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something of much importance to your
+Excellency, and I hope to learn something still
+more important."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall be well paid if you do," said the
+Prefect. "It is difficult to convict them of any
+crime."</p>
+
+<p>"I have secret sources of information, your
+Excellency. In fact, I hope to bring you the
+names of the ringleaders of the accursed sect."</p>
+
+<p>"How so? Are you not the secretary of
+Flaccus Sertorius?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am, your Excellency, but he has no heart
+in the work of this new edict. I would like
+to see more zeal in the Emperor's service."</p>
+
+<p>"I like not this Sertorius," said the Prefect,
+half musing. "He affects too much what they
+call the severe old Roman virtues to suit these
+times. But how do you expect to learn the
+secrets of these Christians?"</p>
+
+<p>"By becoming one myself, your Excellency,
+replied the Greek, with a sinister expression
+in his eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"By becoming one yourself!" exclaimed the
+Prefect, in a tone of anger and surprise. Then
+noting the wily expression of the supple Greek,
+he added, "Oh! I see, by becoming a spy upon
+their practices and a betrayer of their secrets.
+Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We Greeks like not the words traitor and
+spy," said the youth, with a faint blush, "but
+to serve the Emperor and your Excellency we
+would bear even that opprobrium."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you look capable of it," said the
+Prefect, with an undisguised sneer, "and I will
+gladly use any instruments to crush this vile
+sect."</p>
+
+<p>"But, your Excellency," said the cringing
+Greek, swallowing his chagrin and annoyance,
+"I shall require gold to gain the confidence of
+these Christians&mdash;not to bribe them, for that
+is impossible, but to spend in what they call
+charity&mdash;to give to their sick and poor."</p>
+
+<p>"Not forgetting yourself, I'll be bound," sneered
+the Prefect. "But what you say is no doubt
+true;" and turning to the table he wrote an
+order upon the Imperial Exchequer, and handed
+it to the Greek, with the words, "If you make
+good use of that, there is more where it comes
+from. The Emperor pays his <i>faithful</i> servants
+well." Then dismissing the treacherous tool
+whom he himself despised, he passed into the
+Basilica, or court, where the bold Christian youth
+who had torn down the Emperor's edict was
+to receive his sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Livid with the torture he had undergone to
+make him disclose the names of his accomplices
+&mdash;tortures which he had borne with heroic
+fortitude he boldly avowed his act, and defied the
+power of the Prefect to extort the name of a
+single Christian from his lips. We will not
+harrow the hearts of our readers by recounting
+the atrocious tortures by which the body of the
+brave youth had been wrung. He was at length
+borne away fainting to his cruel fate. Although
+the Prefect, who had sworn to have his secret
+if he tore the heart out of his body, gnashed
+his teeth in impotent rage at the defiance of
+the mangled martyr, yet he could not in his
+inmost soul help feeling the vast gulf between
+his sublime fidelity and the heinous guilt of the
+base traitor from whom he had just parted.</p>
+
+<p>The pages of the contemporary historians,
+Eusebius and Lactantius, give too minute and
+circumstantial accounts of the persecutions, of
+which they were eye-witnesses, to allow us to
+adopt the complacent theory of Gibbon, that
+the sufferings of the Christians were
+comparatively few and insignificant. "We ourselves
+have seen," says the Bishop of Cæsarea, "crowds
+of persons, some beheaded, others burned alive
+in a single day, so that the murderous weapons
+were blunted and broken to pieces, and the
+executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to
+give over the work of blood.... They vied
+with each other," he continues, "in inventing
+new tortures, as if there were prizes offered to
+him who should contrive the greatest cruelties."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
+Men whose only crime was their religion, were
+scourged with chains laden with bronze balls,
+till the flesh hung in shreds, and even the bones
+were broken. They were bound in fetters of
+red hot iron, and roasted over fires so slow
+that they lingered for hours, or even days, in
+their mortal agony; their flesh was scraped from
+the very bone with ragged shells, or lacerated
+with burning pincers, iron hooks, and instruments
+with horrid teeth and claws, hence called <i>ungulæ</i>,
+examples of which have been found in the
+Catacombs; molten metal was applied to their bodies
+till they became one undistinguishable wound,
+and mingled salt and vinegar,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> or unslacked
+lime, were rubbed upon the quivering flesh, torn
+and bleeding from the rack or scourge&mdash;tortures
+more inhuman than savage Indian ever wreaked
+upon his mortal foe. Chaste matrons and tender
+virgins were given over to a fate a thousand-fold
+worse than death, and were subjected to indignities
+too horrible for words to utter. And all
+these sufferings were endured, often with joy and
+exultation, for the love of a Divine Master, when
+a single word, a grain of incense cast upon the
+heathen altar, would have released the victims
+from their agonies. No lapse of time, and no
+recoil from the idolatrous homage paid in after
+ages to the martyr's relics, should impair in
+our hearts the profound and rational reverence
+with which we bend before his tomb.</p>
+
+<p>While the examination of the Christian martyr
+was in progress, much interest was manifested
+in his fate by the throng of idlers who were
+wont to linger around the public courts, to gratify
+their curiosity or their morbid love of cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>"The State is in danger," said Piso, the barber,
+gesticulating violently, "if such miscreants are
+suffered to live."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, is it," chimed in a garrulous pedagogue,
+"this is rank treason."</p>
+
+<p>"Right, neighbour Probus," added a
+pettifogging lawyer. "This is the very <i>crimen
+majestatis</i>. These men are the enemies of Cæsar
+and of the Roman people."</p>
+
+<p>"Who would think he was so wicked?" said
+a poor freed-woman who sold sugar barley in
+the Forum. "Sure he looks innocent enough."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i> innocent," replied her neighbour, who
+kept a stall for the sale of figs and olives. "'Tis
+that wretch who is wicked," looking fiercely at
+the Prefect as he moved from the court.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said a grave-looking man,
+speaking low, but with a look of secret
+understanding; "but be careful. You can do the
+brave Lucius no good, and may betray the others
+into jeopardy," and he passed swiftly through
+the throng.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis time all these Atheists were exterminated,"
+said Furbo, a sort of hanger-on at the
+neighbouring temple of Saturn. "The gods are
+angry, and the victims give sinister auspices.
+To-day when the priest slew the ram for the
+sacrifice, would you believe it? it had no heart;
+and the sacred chickens refused their food."</p>
+
+<p>"And they certainly are to blame for the
+floods of the Tiber, which destroyed all the
+olives and lentils in my shop," said Fronto, the
+oil and vegetable seller.</p>
+
+<p>"And the rain rusted all the wheat on our
+farm," said Macer, the villicus or land-steward.</p>
+
+<p>"And the fever has broken out afresh in the
+Suburra," croaked a withered old Egyptian crone,
+like a living mummy, who told fortunes and sold
+spells in that crowded and pest-smitten quarter,
+where the poor swarmed like flies.</p>
+
+<p>"And the drought has blighted all the vines,"
+echoed Demetrius, the wine-merchant.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew trade so dull," whined Ephraim,
+the Jewish money-lender. "We'll never have
+good times again till these accursed Christians
+are all destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>"So say I," "And I," "And I," shouted one
+after another of the mob, till the wild cry rang
+round the Forum, <i>"Christiani adleones"</i>&mdash;"The
+Christians to the lions."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Euseb. Hist Eccles., viii. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> "Salt me the more, that I may be incorruptible,"
+said Tarachus, the martyr, as he underwent this excruciating torture.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> "If the Tiber overflows its banks," says Tertullian,
+"or if the Nile does not; if there be drought or
+earthquakes, famine or pestilence, the cry is raised, 'the
+Christians to the lions.' But I pray you," he adds, in
+refutation of these absurd charges, "were misfortunes
+unknown before Tiberius? The true God was not
+worshipped when Hannibal conquered at Cannæ, or
+the Gauls filled the city."&mdash;Tertul. <i>Apol.</i>, x.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE MARTYR'S BURIAL.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The fawning Greek Isidorus had stealthily
+wormed his way into the confidence of
+Faustus, a servant of Adauctus, by professing
+to be, if not a Christian, at least a sincere
+inquirer after the truth, and an ardent hater
+of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore
+promised to conduct him to a private meeting
+of the Christians, where he might be more
+fully instructed by the good presbyter, Primitius.
+In the short summer twilight they therefore
+made their way to the villa of the Christian
+matron Marcella, on the Appian Way, about two
+miles from the city gates. A high wall
+surrounded the grounds. In this was a wicket or
+door, at which Faustus knocked. The white-haired
+porter partly opened the door, and recognizing
+the foremost figure, admitted him, but
+gave a look of inquiry before passing his
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all right," said Faustus. "He is a good
+friend of mine," and so they passed on.</p>
+
+<p>The grounds were large and elegant, fountains
+flashed in the soft moonlight, the night-blooming
+cereus breathed forth its rare perfume, and
+masses of cypress and ilex cast deep shadows
+on the pleached alleys. But there was a conspicuous
+absence of the garden statuary invariably
+found in pagan grounds. There was no
+figure of the god Terminus, nor of the beautiful
+Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair goddesses
+which to-day people the galleries of Rome.
+In the spacious <i>atrium</i>, or central apartment of
+the house, which was partially lighted by bronze
+candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly
+a hundred persons, seated on couches around
+the hall&mdash;the men on the right and the women
+on the left. A solemn stillness brooded over
+the entire assembly. Near a tall cadalabrum
+stood a venerable figure with a snowy beard&mdash;the presbyter Primitius. From a parchment
+scroll in his hand he read in impressive tones
+the holy words of hope and consolation, "Let
+not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God,
+believe also in me," and the rest of that sweet,
+parting counsel of the world's Redeemer.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 257px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0062.png" width="257" height="400" alt="Stairway To Catacomb." />
+<span class="caption">Stairway To Catacomb.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Before he was through, a procession with
+torches was seen approaching through the garden.
+On a bier, borne by four young men, lay the
+body of Lucius the martyr, wrapped in white
+and strewn with flowers&mdash;at rest in the solemn
+majesty of death from the tortures of the rack
+and scourge. The little assembly within joined
+the procession without, and softly singing the
+holy words which still give such consolation
+to the stricken heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui
+in Domino morientur&mdash;Blessed are the dead who
+die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress
+alleys wound the solemn procession. Soon it
+reached an archway, like that shown in our <a href="#CHAPTER_I">first
+chapter</a>, the entrance to the catacomb of St.
+Callixtus, which lay beneath the grounds of the
+Lady Marcella. Then, preceded by torches, with
+careful tread the bearers of the bier slowly descended
+a rock-hewn stairway, and traversed a
+long and gloomy corridor, lined on either side
+with the graves of the dead.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> This stairway
+and corridor are shown in the engravings which
+accompany this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>An almost supernatural fear fell upon the soul
+of Isidorus the Greek, who had followed in the
+train of the procession, as it penetrated further
+and further into the very heart of the earth.
+He seemed like Ulysses with his ghostly guide
+visiting the grim regions of the nether-world,
+and the words of the classic poet came to his
+mind, "Horror on all sides, the very silence fills
+the soul with dread." Already for more than
+two centuries these gloomy galleries had been
+the receptacles of the Christian dead, and in
+many places the slabs that sealed the tombs were
+broken, and the graves yawned weirdly as he
+passed, revealing the unfleshed skeletons lying
+on their stony bed. To his excited imagination
+they seemed to menace him with their outstretched
+bony arms. Deep, mysterious shadows
+crouched around, full of vague suggestions of
+affright. His gay, joyous and pleasure-loving
+nature recoiled from the evidences of mortality
+around him. His footsteps faltered, and he
+almost fell to the rocky pavement.
+The procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing
+dimmer and dimmer, and then turning an angle
+they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to
+his feet, and he fled along the narrow path
+with outstretched hands, sometimes touching with
+a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes
+of the dead. He hurried along, groping from
+side to side, and when he reached the passage
+down which the funeral procession had disappeared,
+no gleam of it was visible, nor could
+he tell, so suddenly the lights had disappeared,
+whether it had turned to the right or to the left.
+The darkness was intense&mdash;a darkness that might
+be felt, a brooding horror that oppressed every
+sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue
+seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and
+his faint cry was swallowed up in the deep and
+oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the
+gods overtaken him in punishment for his meditated
+crime? Was he, who so loved the light
+and air, and joyous sunshine, never to behold
+them again? Must he be buried in these gloomy
+vaults for ever? These thoughts surged through
+his brain, and almost drove him wild. But
+what sounds are those that steal faintly on his
+ear? They seem like the music of heaven heard
+in the heart of hell. Stronger, sweeter, clearer,
+come the holy voices. And now they shape
+themselves to words, "Nam et si ambulavero in
+medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala&mdash;Yea,
+though I walk through the valley of the shadow
+of death, I will fear no evil." Was it to taunt
+his terrors those strange words were sung? Then
+the holy chant went on, "Quonian tu mecum es
+Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata
+sunt&mdash;For thou art with me, thy rod and thy
+staff they comfort me." What strange secret had
+these Christians that sustained their souls even
+surrounded by the horrors of the tomb?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 322px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0065.png" width="322" height="400" alt="Corridor Of Catacomb." />
+<span class="caption">Corridor Of Catacomb.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Isidorus groped his way amid the gloom toward
+these heavenly sounds. Soon he caught a faint
+glimmer of light reflected from an angle of the
+corridor, and then a ray through an open doorway
+pierced the gloom. Hurrying forward he found
+the whole company from which he had become
+separated gathered in a sort of chapel hewn out
+of the solid rock. The body of Lucius lay upon
+the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the
+wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful
+torchlight which illumined the strange group, and
+lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the
+wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And
+I saw under the altar the souls of them that
+were slain for the Word of God and for the
+testimony which they held, and they cried with
+a loud voice, saying, How long, Lord, holy
+and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our
+blood on them that dwell on the earth?" A
+great fear fell upon the soul of the susceptible
+Greek, for the slain man seemed, in the solemn
+majesty of death, to become an accusing judge.</p>
+
+<p>Then turning his scroll the presbyter read on,
+"What are these arrayed in white robes and
+whence came they? These are they which came
+out of great tribulation, and have washed their
+robes and made them white in the blood of
+the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne
+of God, and serve Him day and night in His
+temple.... They shall hunger no more, neither
+thirst any more ... and God shall wipe away
+all tears from their eyes."</p>
+
+<p>These holy words stirred strange emotions in
+the agitated breast of the young Greek. Sweeter
+were they than ought he had ever read in
+Pindar's page, and more sublime than even
+Homer's hymns. If these things were true, he
+thought, he would gladly change places with the
+martyr on his bier, if only he might exchange
+the torturing ambitions, strifes and sins of time
+for the holy joys which that marvellous scroll
+revealed.</p>
+
+<p>Then by loving hands the martyr's body was
+placed in its narrow tomb. A marble slab, on
+which were simply written his name and the
+words, "DORMIT IN PACE&mdash;He sleeps in peace,"
+was cemented against the opening. With a
+trowel, a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom,
+was rudely traced in the yet unhardened cement,
+and the little company began to disperse.</p>
+
+<p>"O sir," cried the young Greek, clasping the
+hand of the venerable Primitius, "teach me more
+fully this excellent way."</p>
+
+<p>"Gladly, my son," replied the benignant old
+man. "Come hither to-morrow. For here," he
+added with a smile, "my friends insist that I
+must remain concealed till this outburst of
+persecution shall have passed.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Hilarus, the fossor,
+will be thy guide. He will now conduct thee
+back to thy friend Faustus, who is seeking thee."</p>
+
+<p>By the dim light of a waxen taper which he
+carried, Hilarus led the Greek to the entrance
+to the Catacomb, where they found Faustus waiting
+in some alarm at the delay of his friend.
+In the bright moonlight they walked back to
+the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving
+an account of his adventure in the Catacomb,
+and, to turn the conversation, asked how the
+Christians had obtained the body of Lucius from
+the public executioner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, money will do anything in Rome," said
+Faustus, at which the Greek visibly winced.
+"The Lady Marcella, in whose grounds the Catacomb
+is, devotes much of her wealth to burying
+the poor of the Church, and her steward had
+no difficulty in purchasing from Hanno, the executioner,
+the mangled remains of the martyr.
+'Tis like, before long, that he will have many
+such to sell."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> For the details above given, see Bingham's <i>Origines
+Ecclesiastica</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Liberius, Bishop of Rome, lay concealed in the
+Catacombs for a whole year, during a time of persecution.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">WITH HILARUS THE FOSSOR.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"No one becomes vile all at once," said the
+Roman moralist, and we would be unjust to
+the fickle, fawning Greek Isidorus, if we concluded
+that deliberate treachery was his purpose, as, at
+the invitation of Primitius, he repaired next day
+to the catacomb of St. Calixtus. His was a susceptible,
+impressionable nature, easily influenced
+by its environment, like certain substances that
+acquire the odour, fragrant or foul, of the atmosphere
+by which they are surrounded. Amid the
+vileness of the Roman court, his better feelings
+died, and he was willing to become the minion of
+tyranny, or the tool of treachery. Amid the holy
+influences of the Christian assembly, some chord
+responded, like an Eolian harp, to the breathings
+of the airs from heaven. It was, therefore, with
+strangely conflicting feelings, that he passed
+beneath the Capuan Gate, and along the Appian
+Way, toward the Villa Marcella. His better
+nature recoiled from his purposed treachery of
+the previous day. His heart yearned to know
+more of that strange power which sustained the
+Christian martyr in the presence of torture and
+of death.</p>
+
+<p>He was recognized by the porter at the gate of
+the villa as the companion of Faustus, and on his
+inquiry for the house of Hilarus, the fossor, was
+directed to a low-walled, tile-roofed building, such
+as may be seen in many parts of the Campagna
+to the present day. About the house were many
+stone chippings, and numerous slabs of marble.
+Under a sort of arbour, covered with vine branches
+in full leaf, stood a grisly-visaged man, with
+close-cropped, iron-gray hair, chipping with
+mallet and chisel at a large sarcophagus, or stone
+coffin, upon a mason's bench.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I address Hilarus, the fossor?" asked the
+Greek, with a graceful salutation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Hilarus, at your service, noble sir,"
+replied the old man, with a kindly expression of
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>The young Greek then told of the invitation
+given him by the good presbyter, Primitius, and
+requested to be conducted to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are, of course, known to the porter, or
+you would not have obtained admission to these
+grounds," said Hilarus. "But you will first honour
+my poor roof by partaking some refreshment after
+your hot walk from the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, good friend," replied the Greek, "a
+draught of your native wine would not be amiss.
+Nay, I would prefer it here beneath the grateful
+shadow of this vine," he continued, as Hilarus
+courteously led the way to the open door of the
+cottage. This was quite small, and had almost
+no furniture save some earthen pots for cooking
+at an open fireplace. In a moment the old man
+re-appeared with an earthen flagon of wine and a
+bronze salver, with bread and goat's milk cheese,
+and a bronze cup.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>"For whom is this elegant sarcophagus?" asked
+Isidorus, as he sipped his wine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0073.png" width="600" height="195" alt="Sarcophagus now in Lateran Museum." />
+<span class="caption">Sarcophagus now in Lateran Museum.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I pray it be not for her who orders it," said
+the old man, devoutly; "at least not for many a
+long day to come. The good Lady Marcella bade
+me exercise my best skill in setting forth the
+great truths of the Gospel, that in death as in
+life, she said, she might teach the doctrines of
+Christ. She often comes to see how I get on
+with it, and to describe how she wishes it to be.
+See," said the old man,
+pointing to the side&mdash;(see
+above)&mdash;"the general idea is all
+her own, the details
+only are mine. These
+four groups exhibit
+four scenes in the life&mdash;or
+rather in the
+death&mdash;of our Lord.
+To the extreme right
+we see Pilate, warned
+by his wife, washing
+his hands and saying
+'I am innocent of the
+blood of this just person,'
+and yet, like a
+coward, consenting to
+His death, he was as
+guilty as Judas, who
+betrayed Him."</p>
+
+<p>At this the Greek visibly winced, then paled
+and flushed, and said, "Well, what is the next
+group?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is part of the same," said the sculptor,
+with evident pride in his work. "It represents
+our Lord, guarded by a Roman soldier, witnessing
+a good confession before Pontius Pilate. In the
+central niche are two soldiers, types of the Christian
+warriors, whose only place of safety is beneath
+the cross; while above are the wreath of victory,
+the doves of peace, and the sacred monogram,
+made up, I need not tell you, who are a Greek,
+of the two first letters of the word Christos. To
+the left you observe a Roman soldier, putting on
+Jesus the crown of thorns, and in the last, Simon
+the Cyrenian, guarded by a soldier, bearing His
+cross."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>"And for whom are all these funeral tablets,"
+said Isidorus, pointing to a number of slabs partly
+executed&mdash;some with the engraved outline of a
+dove, or fish, or anchor, or olive branch upon
+them&mdash;leaning against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"For whom God pleases," said the old man,
+devoutly. "I keep them ready to suit purchasers,
+and then I have only to fill the name and age, or
+date."</p>
+
+<p>"But see here," said the Greek, touching with
+his foot one on which were effigies of Castor and
+Pollux, the "great twin brethren" of the Roman
+mythology, and the letters, "<span class="smcap">Dis Manibvs</span>&mdash;To
+the Divine Spirits;" "this is a pagan inscription.
+How come you to use that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we turn up such slabs by scores, in
+ploughing the fields hereabout. They may be
+hundreds of years old, for aught I know. We
+just turn that side to the wall, or deface it with
+a few strokes of the chisel."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a prentice hand that made <i>that</i>, I'll
+be bound," said the Greek, pointing to one on
+which was rudely painted in black pigment, the
+sprawling inscription that follows, no two letters
+being the same size&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">LOcvSaVgvStIsvToRis.</span><br />
+"The Place of Augustus, the Shoemaker."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is the epitaph of a poor cobbler. I
+let my boys do that for nothing. They will soon
+be able to do better. Here now is one by my
+oldest son, of which I would not be ashamed
+myself;" and he pointed to a neatly-cut inscription,
+the letters coloured with a bright vermillion
+pigment, which ran thus,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="bbox">AVRELIAE THEVDOSIAE<br />
+BENIGNISSIMAE ET INCOMPARABILI FEMINAE<br />
+AVRELIVS OPTATVS<br />
+CONIVGE INNOCENTISSIMAE</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Aurelius Optatus, to his most innocent wife, Aurelia<br />
+Theudosia, a most gracious and incomparable woman."</p>
+
+<p>"We will now, if you are sufficiently cool,"
+he went on, "enter the catacomb. It is not well
+to make too sudden a transition from this sultry
+heat to their chilly depths."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said the young man, "I shall find
+the change from this sultry air, I doubt not, very
+agreeable;" and they crossed a vineyard under a
+blazing sun, that made the cool crypts exceedingly
+grateful. Descending the stairway, the guide took
+from a niche a small terra-cotta lamp, which he
+carefully trimmed and lit at another, which was
+always kept burning there.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Is there not danger of losing one's way in
+this labyrinth?" asked the Greek, feeling no
+small degree of the terror of his late adventure
+returning.</p>
+
+<p>"Very great danger, indeed," replied Hilarus,
+"unless you know the clue and marks by which
+we steer, almost like ships at sea. But knowing
+these, the way may become as familiar as the
+streets of Rome. You may, perhaps, have heard
+of Cæcilia, a blind girl, who acted as guide to
+these subterranean places of assembly, because to
+her accustomed feet the path was as easy as the
+Appian Way to those who see."</p>
+
+<p>"How many Greek epitaphs there are," said
+Isidorus, deeply interested in scanning the
+inscriptions as he passed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the fossor, "there are a-many of
+your countryfolk buried here; and even some
+who are not like to have their epitaphs written
+in the language in which holy Paulus wrote his
+epistle to the Church in Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"But what wretched scrawls the most of them
+are," said the Greek, with something like a sneer;
+"and see, here is one even upside down."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, noble sir," continued the old man, "not
+many mighty, not many noble are called&mdash;most
+of those who sleep around us are God's great
+family of the poor. Indeed, most of them were
+slaves. That poor fellow was a martyr in the
+last persecution. I mind it well, though it is
+years agone. We buried him by stealth at dead
+of night, and did not notice that the hastily
+written inscription was reversed."</p>
+
+<p>The dim rays of their lamp and taper made
+but a faint ring of light about their feet. Their
+steps, as they walked over the rocky floor, echoed
+strangely down the long-drawn corridors and hollow
+vaults, dying gradually away in the solemn
+stillness of this valley of the shadow of death.
+The sudden transition from the brilliant Italian
+sunlight to this sepulchral gloom, from the busy
+city of the living to this silent city of the dead,
+smote the heart of the susceptible youth with a
+feeling of awe. And all around in this vast
+necropolis, each in his narrow cell forever laid, were
+unnumbered thousands, who were once like himself,
+full of energy and life.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0078.png" width="500" height="343" alt="Sectional View of Gallery and
+Chambers, Showing Light and air Shaft" />
+<span class="caption">Sectional View of Gallery and
+Chambers, Showing Light and air Shaft</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As they advanced, a faint light in the distance
+seemed to penetrate the gloom. It grew brighter
+as they approached, and attracted by the sound
+of the footsteps, a venerable figure emerged from
+a doorway and stood in the flood of light which
+poured down from an opening in the vaulted
+roof, which extended to the bright free air above.
+Almost like an apparition from the other world,
+in the strong, Rembrandt-like illumination in
+which he stood, looked the venerable Primitius,
+clothed in white, with silvery hair and flowing
+beard, and high, bare brow. As Isidorus glanced
+up the shaft, he saw the blue sky shining far
+above, and the waving of the long grass that
+fringed the opening for light and air. This
+construction&mdash;a very frequent one in the Catacombs&mdash;is
+shown in sectional view on the previous page.
+On each side of the corridor was a chamber about
+twelve feet square, also lit up by this shaft,
+which, plastered with white stucco, reflected the
+light into every part.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, my son," said the venerable presbyter,
+as he sat down on a bench hewn out of
+the dry pummice-like rock "Welcome to these
+abodes of death; may they prove to thee the
+birthplace to eternal life;" and he laid his hand
+benignantly on the head of the young man, whom
+he had motioned to a seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sire," said the youth, all the nobler feelings
+of his nature deeply moved, "I wish above all
+things to sit at your feet and to learn the lessons
+of wisdom which you are so well able to impart
+But are these seemly surroundings for a man of
+your years and condition?&mdash;this rocky vault, this
+utter loneliness, and these crumbling relics of
+mortality?" and he shuddered as he glanced at
+the shattered sepulchral slabs, which revealed the
+remains of what was once man in his strength,
+woman in her beauty, or a sweet child in its
+innocence and glee.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, my son? soon I must lie down
+with them and be at rest. The thought has no
+terrors to my soul I know no loneliness, and
+through the care of kind friends my wants are
+all supplied. But your young blood and sensitive
+imagination, I perceive, shrink from these
+things to which, by long use, I have become
+accustomed. Let us go into the adjoining chamber,
+which you will find more cheerful, and, I trust,
+not less instructive."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0081.png" width="600" height="346" alt="Early Christian
+Sculpture&mdash;Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Rome." />
+<span class="caption">Early Christian
+Sculpture&mdash;Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Rome.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0082.png" width="400" height="398" alt="Ceiling Painting From Catacomb Of
+St. Calixtus, Rome." />
+<span class="caption">Ceiling Painting From Catacomb Of
+St. Calixtus, Rome.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Just such a peasant's house the writer visited on the
+Appian Way, near this spot, and just such a repast he
+shared at the entrance of this very catacomb. "The
+wine," said the guide, "is necessary to guard against
+a chill." The contrast between the temperature above
+ground and below was about 30°.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> This sarcophagus, with many others resembling it
+the writer studied minutely in the Lateran Museum at
+Rome.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The writer has some of these earthen lamps which
+once did service in the Catacombs. They bear Christian
+symbols, inscribed before baking&mdash;a dove, anchor, olive
+branch, fish, and the like.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The venerable presbyter laid his hand familiarly
+on the young man's shoulder and
+conducted him into a smaller, but much more elegantly
+finished, apartment. It contained no graves, save
+an arched tomb which had never been used; at one
+side was a shelf for lamps. The whole surface
+of the wall was covered with hard white stucco,
+which was divided into panels by bands and
+borders of brilliant red and blue, as shown in
+the cut on next page. The vaulted ceiling was
+similarly divided. The angles were filled in with
+elegant floral designs, and the panels with Biblical
+and symbolical paintings, which Primitius
+began now to explain.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0084.png" width="400" height="325" alt="Painted Chamber in the Catacombs" />
+<span class="caption">Painted Chamber in the Catacombs</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Thou seest, my son," he said, "that central
+group above the arch. That represents the Good
+Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Thou
+perceivest He bears the lost sheep upon His
+shoulders, and gently leads those which follow
+Him. Even so, all we, like sheep, have gone
+astray, but the blessed Saviour seeks the erring,
+and brings them into the safe and true fold.
+Thou seest to the left the figure between the
+two lions. That is Daniel in the lion's den; and
+to the right are the three Hebrews in the fiery
+furnace. These, my son, are symbols of the
+Church of Christ, amid the wild beasts and the
+fires of persecutions. But she shall be delivered
+unhurt; she shall come forth unscathed. In the
+ceiling you will observe praying figures between
+lambs, the emblems of the Church, the Bride
+which is the Lamb's wife, perpetually engaged
+in adoration and prayer."</p>
+
+<p>The youth was deeply impressed, and almost
+awed, to see the silvery-haired old man, a refugee
+from persecution, in these subterranean crypts,
+with the full assurance of faith, confronting all
+the power of the persecuting despot of the world,
+and predicting the triumph of that oppressed
+Church which was compelled to seek safety in
+those dens and caves of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The good old man then sought to impart the
+great truths of our holy religion to his new
+catechumen, and to implant in his soul the same
+germs of lofty faith that flourished in his own.
+With this object he led him through the long
+corridors and chambers of the vast encampment
+of death&mdash;a sort of whispering gallery of the
+past, eloquent with the expression of the faith
+and hope of the silent sleepers in their narrow
+cells.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, my son," said Primitius, "to the
+testimony of the dead in Christ, and of the martyrs
+for the truth," and pausing from time to time
+before some inscribed or painted slab, he pointed
+out the lofty hopes which sustained their souls
+in the very presence of death.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," he said, entering again the chamber
+he had first left, "is the sepulchre of my own
+beloved wife. When depressed and lonely, I
+come hither and derive strength and consolation
+by reading the words which she requested, with
+her dying breath, should be written on her tomb,"
+and with deep emotion he traced with his finger
+the inscription:&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p class="center">PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DVLCIS CVM CONIVGE NATAE<br />
+VIVENTEMQVE DEO CREDITE FLERE NEFAS.<br /><br />
+
+"Refrain from tears, my sweet children and husband,<br />
+and believe that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives<br />
+in God."</p>
+
+<p>"And here," he went on, "is the tomb of our
+little child," and Isidorus read with softened
+spirit the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">AGNELLVS DEI&mdash;PARVM STETIT APVD NOS ET<br />
+PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE.<br /><br />
+
+"God's little lamb&mdash;he stayed but a short time with<br />
+us, and went before us in peace."</p>
+
+<p>"And here," said Primitius, "is the couch of
+our eldest daughter," and he read, with caressing
+tones, her epitaph:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">ANIMA DVLCIS INNOCVA SAPIENS ET PVLCHRA&mdash;<br />
+NON MORTVA SED DATA SOMNO.<br /><br />
+
+"A sweet spirit, guileless, wise, beautiful. She is not<br />
+dead but sleepeth."</p>
+
+<p>"This is certainly very different," said Isidorus,
+"from two epitaphs I read to-day upon the pagan
+tombs on the Appian Way. They ran thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">DECIPIMVR VOTIS ET TEMPORE FALLIMVR ET MORS<br />
+DERIDET CVRAS ANXIA VITA NIHIL.<br /><br />
+
+"We are deceived by our vows, misled by time, and<br />
+death derides our cares; anxious life is naught."</p>
+
+<p class="center">INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DEI IRATI AETERNO<br />
+SOMNO DEDERVNT.<br /><br />
+
+"To a very sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to<br />
+eternal sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Primitius, "nothing can sustain the
+soul in the presence of death, but such faith as
+that of my friend Eutuchius, who sleeps here;"
+and he read the lofty line:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">IN CHRISTVM CREDENS PREMIA LVCIS HABET.<br /><br />
+
+"Believing in Christ, he has the rewards of the light<br />
+(of heaven)."</p>
+
+<p>"Similar are these also," and he pointed to the
+following ill-written, but sublime, epitaphs, which
+Isidorus slowly spelled out:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">DVLCIS ET INNOCES <i>(sic)</i> HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS<br />
+SOMNO PACIS CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI<br />
+SVSCEPTVS EST,&mdash;IN SEMPETERNALE<br />
+AEVVM QVIESCIT SECVRVS.<br /><br />
+
+"Here lies in the sleep of peace, the sweet and<br />
+innocent Severianus, whose spirit is received into the<br />
+light of God. He rests free from care throughout<br />
+endless time."</p>
+
+<p>"But how were these Christians so confident
+of the future life," asked the Greek, "when the
+greatest of the philosophers and sages&mdash;a Socrates
+or Cicero&mdash;never rose above a vague 'perhaps,'
+and even the philosophic Pliny, anticipating only
+annihilation, writes, 'there is no more consciousness
+after death than before birth?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Find there thy answer, young man," exclaimed
+Primitius, and with a gleam of exultation in his
+eyes, he pointed to the following epitaphs:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">CREDO QVIA REDEMPTOR MEVS VIVIT ET NOVISSIMO<br />
+DIE DE TERRA SVSCITABIT ME IN CARNE MEA<br />
+VIDEBO DOMINVM.<br /><br />
+
+"I believe, because that my Redeemer liveth, and in<br />
+the last day shall raise me from the earth, that in my<br />
+flesh I shall see the Lord."</p>
+
+<p class="center">HIC REQVIESCIT CARO MEA NOVISSIMO VERO DIE<br />
+PER CHRISTVM CREDO RECVSCITABITVR A MORTVIS.<br /><br />
+
+"Here rests my flesh, but at the last day, through<br />
+Christ, I believe it will be raised from the dead."</p>
+
+<p>"And must the soul, then, slumber with the
+body in blank unconsciousness till this 'last
+day?'" asked the Greek. "Methinks I should
+shudder at going out into the dark inane, like
+a taper extinguished in these gloomy vaults.
+Better is the dim and ghostly Hades, and Elysian
+Fields of our own mythology, than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, my son," replied Primitius, "we
+believe with the blessed Paul&mdash;that as soon as the
+soul passes from earth's living death, it enters into
+the undying life and unfading bliss of heaven."
+And he pointed out, one after another, the
+following epitaphs corroborating his view:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">CORPVS HABET TELLVS ANIMAM CAELESTIA REGNA.<br />
+MENS NESCIA MORTIS VIVIT ET ASPECTV<br />
+FBVITVR BENE CONSCIA CHRISTI.<br /><br />
+
+"The soul lives unknowing of death, and consciously
+rejoices in the vision of Christ."</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIMA VIVIS IN GLORIA DEI ET IN PACE DOMINI
+NOSTRI XR.<br /><br />
+
+"Prima, thou livest in the glory of God, and in the
+peace of Christ our Lord."</p>
+
+<p>"This is indeed a high philosophy, beyond
+aught I ever heard before," said Isidorus, deeply
+moved. "Whence do you Christians derive such
+lofty teachings? For as Hilarus but now said
+most of your sect are poor and lowly in this
+world's goods and rank."</p>
+
+<p>"Our teaching comes, my son, from God Himself,
+the Great Father of lights, and from Jesus
+Christ our Lord. Behold, as the greatest favour
+I can do thee, I will lend thee this precious MS.
+of the Gospel of the blessed John;" and he took
+from a leathern case a purple vellum parchment
+scroll, inscribed with letters of silver. "Cherish
+it carefully; 'tis worth more than gold. When
+thou hast well pondered it, I will lend thee the
+letter of the blessed Paul to the infant Church
+in this city of Home. But here comes Hilarus
+to conduct thee back to the light of day. Return
+hither, if thou canst, on the fourth day from now
+&mdash;the day of our Sabbath assembly. My blessing
+be upon thee. <i>Pax vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The young Greek knelt at the old man's feet,
+then rose and kissed his hand, and followed in
+silence the fossor Hilarus. At length he broke
+the silence by inquiring,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What's the meaning, good Hilarus, of all
+these strange figures which I have noted on the
+tombstones as I passed. I have observed a lion,
+a pig, an ass, a cobbler's last, carpenters', masons',
+and wool-combers' implements; a fish, a ship, an
+anchor, and the like&mdash;all scratched or painted on
+the stone slabs. They have no religious
+significance, surely?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 406px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0091.png" width="406" height="600" alt="Tomb Of The Bishops, Catacomb Of St. Calixtus." />
+<div><div class="captiontitle">Tomb Of The Bishops, Catacomb Of St. Calixtus.</div><br /><br />
+
+Seven of the Bishops of the early Christian Church in Rome fell in
+succession by the hand of the headsman, five of them in the space of
+eight years. In this chamber are buried several of those heroic martyrs
+of Jesus.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well, no, not all of them," said Hilarus, with
+a smile. "You see, many of the Christians being
+lowly craftsmen, are unable to read, so the tools
+or emblems of their calling are inscribed on the
+tombs of their friends, that they may recognize
+and find them again in this vast cemetery."</p>
+
+<p>"But the ship, anchor, and fish are not signs of
+a handicraft, unless that of sailor or fisherman."</p>
+
+<p>"No, <a name="the_fish" id="the_fish">the fish</a> has another and a secret meaning.
+I need not tell a scholar like you, that the first
+letters of the Greek names for Jesus Christ, Son
+of God, the Saviour, make up the word Ichthus,
+or fish, so it is used as a secret symbol of our
+faith. The ship is the emblem, I have been told,
+even in your own country, of a well-spent life,
+and to us it signifies a soul entering into the
+haven of eternal rest. While our holy hopes are
+the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
+entering into that within the veil."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and the lion, ass, and pig? What about
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"These," said the fossor, with a laugh, which
+seemed as incongruous to him as it would be
+to a modern sexton, for such his office virtually
+was, "these are a sort of play upon the names
+of Leo, Onager, and Porcella, the latter was a
+sort of pet name, I suspect&mdash;'Little Pig'&mdash;by
+which their friends, who could not read, could
+find their tombs."</p>
+
+<p>"What wives these Christians must have had,"
+continued the keenly-observing Greek. "I have
+noticed several inscriptions, in which they are
+said to have passed ten, twenty, thirty, and one
+even fifty years of married life&mdash;SINE IVRGIO,
+SINE AEMVLATIONE, SINE DISSIDIO, SINE QVERELA&mdash;'Without
+contention, without emulation, without
+dissension, without strife.' There are no such
+wives in Rome now, I'll be bound&mdash;at least in
+the Rome I am acquainted with."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the old man, with a sigh, "come
+with me into yonder chapel. I always, in passing
+this way, stop there to see again the sepulchre of
+the best wife God ever gave to any man." After
+walking in silence some minutes, he entered a
+sort of family vault, and lit a bronze lamp, shaped
+like a ship, hanging from the vaulted ceiling,
+while Isidorus studied out the following inscription,
+not altogether free from errors in spelling
+and grammar:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">CONIVGE VENEVANDE BONE INNOCVA FLORENTIA<br />
+DIGNA PIA AMABILIS PVDICA <i>(sic)</i> DEO FIDELIS<br />
+DVLCIS MARITO NVTRIX FAMILIAE HVMILIS<br />
+CVNCTIS AMATRIX PAVPERVM. BIXIT MECVM<br />
+ANN. XXXII. MENS. IX. DIES V. HOR. X.<br />
+SCRVPVLOS XIL SEMPER CONCORDES SINE VLLA<br />
+QVERELA. BIXIT PLVS MINVS ANN. LII. MENS.<br />
+V. INCOMPARABILEM CONIVGEM MALE FRACTVS<br />
+CONIVX GEMITV TRISTI LACRI MIS DEFLET.<br /><br />
+
+"To my wife Florentia, deserving of honour, good,<br />
+guileless, worthy, pious, amiable, modest, faithful to<br />
+God, endeared to her husband, the nurse of her family,<br />
+humble to all, a lover of the poor. She lived with me<br />
+(<i>i.e.</i>, was married) thirty-two years, nine months, five<br />
+days, ten hours, six scruples (about a quarter of an hour<br />
+&mdash;they were very scrupulous about this). She lived<br />
+(altogether) fifty-two years, five months, more or less.<br />
+The sore-broken husband bewails, with tears and bitter<br />
+lamentation, his incomparable spouse."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I made it all up, and carved it all
+myself," said the old man, as Isidorus finished
+reading the long inscription; "and if I say it
+myself, I don't think there is a better in the
+whole Catacomb; you see, I selected the best
+bits from all the best epitaphs, and she deserved
+it every word, dear soul," and he drew his rough
+hand across his moistened eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The easy-tempered Greek was too good-natured
+to inflict wanton pain, so he ignored its bad
+Latinity, and contented himself with saying that
+"it was indeed a very remarkable epitaph."</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes they emerged from the gloom
+of the Catacomb to the golden glory which was
+flooding the broad Campagna from the westering
+sun. "Would," thought Isidorus within himself,
+"that I could thus emerge from the gloomy
+doubts and fears in which my spirit gropes, to
+the golden light of Christian life."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The following, except the last one, are all authentic
+inscriptions from the Catacombs, selected from many
+hundreds, translated by the writer in his volume on this
+subject.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">A DIFFICULT QUEST.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The Empress Valeria had not forgotten her
+purpose to discover, if possible, the father
+of her freed-woman, Callirhoë, and at the earliest
+opportunity took steps to accomplish her design.
+It was, she knew, a task of much difficulty, and
+one that required an intelligent and confidential
+agent. It was also of the utmost importance
+that some sign of identity should be exhibited
+as a guarantee of the good faith of the agent.
+With this view the Empress one day, as she sat
+at her toilet in the apartment described in our
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">third chapter</a>, thus interrogated her freed-woman
+and namesake, Valeria Callirhoë.</p>
+
+<p>"Hast thou any token, child," she asked, "by
+which, should we find thy father, he would be
+assured of thy identity?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was despoiled of everything, your Majesty,"
+said the girl, "by the pirates by whom we were
+captured; except the clothes in which I stood.
+All my rings and jewellery were rudely snatched
+away, and I never saw them again."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that little amulet I have seen thee
+wear?" asked the Empress; "I think thou hast
+it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was so trivial and valueless," said
+Callirhoë, "that they either overlooked it or
+thought it not worth taking; "and she drew
+from the folds of her robe, where it hung
+suspended by a silken cord about her neck, a
+cornelian stone, carved into the shape of a tiny
+fish,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> on which was inscribed the word, ΣΩΤΗΡ,
+or "Saviour," and on the other side the letters
+ΚΑΛ.ΔΗΜΗΤ.ΘΥΓ&mdash;a contraction for "Callirhoë
+daughter of Demetrius."</p>
+
+<p>"Trivial as it is," said the girl, with emotion,
+"it is something which I value above all price.
+My sainted mother, before she died, took it from
+her neck and put it upon mine; and I hope to
+wear it while I live."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not regard it as an amulet, or charm
+against evil spirits, I am sure, like some Christians,
+who have not quite shaken off their pagan superstitions."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, your Majesty, but as a symbol of our
+holy faith. Yet it might well be a spell to keep
+my soul from sin, so sacred are its associations."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to give it to me," said the
+Empress.</p>
+
+<p>"It is yours, your Majesty," said the girl,
+taking it from her neck, and passionately kissing
+it. "To no one else on earth would I give it; but
+from my best benefactress I can withhold nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not put thee to the pain of parting
+with it," said the Empress, with a kind caress,
+"but I need it as a clue, to find, if possible, thy
+father, and when found, as an identification of
+his child. I do not wish to raise hopes which
+may be doomed to disappointment; but I am
+about to make a strenuous effort to discover thy
+sire."</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand thanks, dearest lady," exclaimed
+the grateful girl, kissing her mistress's hands and
+bedewing them with her tears. "I feel sure that
+God will reward your efforts, and answer my
+ceaseless prayers."</p>
+
+<p>In pursuance of her purpose, the Empress
+wrote upon a scroll of parchment the following
+letter to her faithful counsellor, Adauctus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Valeria, consort of the co-Emperor Galerius
+Cæsar&mdash;to Adauctus, Treasurer of the Imperial
+Exchequer, greeting:</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Honoured Servant,&mdash;Thy mistress hath need
+of a faithful and intelligent agent, to execute a
+delicate and difficult mission. He must be of
+good address, and must be a man whom I can
+implicitly trust. When thou hast found such,
+bring him with thee to the palace." L.S.</p>
+
+<p>Having bound the scroll with a silken cord,
+and affixed her signet in purple wax, and
+addressed the document to the Imperial Treasurer,
+she sent it by a soldier of the guard, whom we
+would describe in modern parlance as an
+orderly-in-waiting, to Adauctus.</p>
+
+<p>During the latter part of the day, the
+chamberlain announced a visit from "His Excellency
+the Imperial Treasurer." That officer was
+received with much honour by the Empress, who
+was attended only by her faithful freed woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Many thanks, your Excellency, for your
+prompt attendance. Have you found me the
+paragon whom I require?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot avouch for that, your Majesty, but
+he is highly commended by his master, an honest
+soldier, who places him at your Majesty's service.
+Of his nimble wit and subtle parts, I can myself
+bear witness, and my own servant testifies that
+if not a Christian, he is at least a sincere inquirer
+after the truth."</p>
+
+<p>The Empress briefly explained the nature of
+the commission which she wished executed, and
+asked that the proposed agent, who waited in an
+ante-room, might be presented. In a moment
+the chamberlain announced our old friend
+Isidorus. With bowed head and hands folded
+upon his breast, he stood on the threshold, and
+then advancing, knelt gracefully before the
+Empress. He evidently made a good impression,
+for her Majesty smiled graciously and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is a difficult quest on which I would send
+thee, but thou shalt be well rewarded for thy
+fidelity and zeal."</p>
+
+<p>"My humble services, my life, are at your
+Majesty's disposal," said the Greek. "I shall
+deem myself well rewarded by your Majesty's
+favour."</p>
+
+<p>"See'st thou this lady?" asked the Empress,
+pointing to Callirhoë. "To find her sire in this
+wide world&mdash;that is thy task;" and she briefly
+explained the nature of the commission.</p>
+
+<p>The youth gazed long and earnestly on the
+fair face of the girl, and replied, "Those features
+once seen can never be forgotten. If I find
+anywhere on earth aught resembling them, I shall
+not fail to recognize the likeness. In such a
+quest I would gladly search the wide world over."</p>
+
+<p>"My chamberlain will amply equip you for
+your journey, and will give you a letter, with the
+Emperor's seal, to all the Roman prefects in
+Italy; and, by the Divine favour, I trust you
+will bring us good tidings."</p>
+
+<p>"So may it be," said the youth, as he retired
+from the presence, giving, as he did so, a lingering
+look at Callirhoë, who, with dilated eyes and
+parted lips, gazed at him with an intensity of
+entreaty that would have proved an inspiration
+to a less susceptible nature than his.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> These objects, of which the writer has examined
+several, were given to neophytes on the occasion of
+their baptism, as an emblem of their holy faith. (See
+explanation of the symbol of the fish in last chapter,
+<a href="#the_fish">p. 82.</a>) They were often used as a sign of membership
+in the Christian Church, somewhat like our modern
+class-tickets.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">A WICKED PLOT.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">We have already mentioned the fact that
+Fausta, the mother of the Emperor
+Galerius, was a fanatical pagan. The especial
+object of her regard was the goddess Cybele, who
+was worshipped in Rome with rites of the most
+degrading superstition. Fausta was intensely
+bitter in her hatred of the Christian name, and
+strenuously endeavoured to incite her son, the
+Emperor, to persecution. She was especially
+virulent towards her daughter-in-law, the
+beautiful Valeria, and sought by every means to
+embitter the mind of Galerius against her. In
+this she was strongly abetted, or rather inspired,
+by Furca, the vicious old priest of Cybele,
+whose wicked influence over her was very great.
+This worthy pair, the day after the interview
+above described, were engaged in a secret conclave
+or conspiracy against Valeria and the
+Christians, while the latter was seeking to carry
+out her benevolent enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>The scene of their interview was the reception-room
+of Fausta, in the palace of the Emperor
+Galerius. It was far more sumptuously furnished
+and decorated than that of the Empress Valeria,
+and at one end, in a marble niche, stood an ugly
+image of the goddess Cybele, with her crown of
+many towers, rudely carved out of olive wood,
+but quite embrowned, and almost blackened with
+age. It was bedizened with costly jewels, and
+was deemed to be of special sanctity. Before
+it was a small marble altar, on which burned,
+day and night, a silver censer.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment of which we write, Fausta
+approached the altar, and kissing her hand to
+the image&mdash;an ancient mode of worship, from
+which we get the word "adore"&mdash;she took some
+costly Sabean incense from a small gold coffer,
+and sprinkled it on the glowing coals of the
+censer. Dense white fumes arose, whose rich
+aromatic odour filled the large apartment. Fausta
+had been an Illyrian peasant, and, notwithstanding
+her embroidered robes and costly jewels,
+she still exhibited much of the rude peasant
+character and lack of culture. Her coarse and
+wrinkled features and swarthy complexion, were
+all the more striking by their contrast with the
+snowy mantle, with its gold-embroidered border,
+which she wore; and her bright black eyes
+glittered with an expression of deadly malice
+like those of a serpent. While she stood before
+the altar, a servant announced that Furca, the
+arch-priest of Cybele, had obeyed her summons.
+As the curtain of the door was drawn aside, a
+little weazened old man, as dark as mahogany,
+wearing a thick crop of snow white hair, appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, good Furca," said Fausta, "I desire
+your counsel on a matter of much importance to
+the State, and to the worship of the holy
+Cybele."</p>
+
+<p>"At your service, your Excellency," said the
+obsequious priest, who also kissed his hand to the
+black-faced image, and sprinkled a few grains of
+incense on the censer.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou knowest how the worship of the
+Galilean Christus has increased, not only among
+the common people, the vile plebs, and the still
+viler slave population, but even among the
+patricians and nobles. I have evidence that even in
+this palace, and very near the throne, the
+execrable superstition is cherished."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! your Excellency, I fear it is only too
+true," whined the bigot arch-priest. "Certain it
+is that neither of the Empresses, Prisca or
+Valeria, ever take part in the public worship of
+the gods, as from their lofty station it is their
+duty to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I have reason to believe that there
+is plotting and conniving between the Empress
+and the accursed Christian sect."</p>
+
+<p>"Hast any proof of this?" asked the arch-priest,
+eagerly. "This is a crime against the
+State."</p>
+
+<p>"The black slave Juba," replied Fausta, "is, as
+thou knowest, a faithful worshipper of Cybele,
+and she told me even now, that Adauctus, the
+Imperial Treasurer, had been only yesterday
+closeted with the Empress, and plotting to restore
+to the favour of the Emperor a certain Demetrius,
+a Christian renegade, who is in hiding for his
+crimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ho!" chuckled the priest, with a wicked
+grin, "my fine lady need not think herself so high
+and mighty as to be above the reach of the law,
+or beyond the anger of the insulted gods."</p>
+
+<p>"I would almost give my eyes," hissed through
+her teeth the revengeful Fausta, "if I could only
+see that painted doll, Valeria, abased and degraded.
+She has too long held a sway, of which I, the
+mother of the Emperor, have been deprived."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust you may not only see it," said Furca,
+gloating in anticipation over the prospect, "but
+also see her pale, proud mother, the Empress
+Prisca, humbled at your feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Accomplish this, good Furca," exclaimed
+Fausta, with exultation, "and the goddess Cybele
+shall have such an offering as she never had
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"We must be wary," said the priest, "or we
+may ourselves be crushed. They are too powerful
+to be attacked openly. We must plot
+against them secretly. I'll be a <i>furca</i> to them
+indeed," he added, punning upon his own name,
+which had also the signification of an instrument
+of punishment, something like a cross; and the
+conspirators parted with this pledge of mutual
+hate against their destined victims.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE SLAVE MARKET.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">In the meantime Isidorus, with well-filled
+purse, and armed with credentials under
+the Imperial seal, had set off upon his difficult
+and doubtful quest.</p>
+
+<p>"However it turn out," he said to himself, "it
+will be strange if I do not climb a few steps
+higher on the ladder on which my feet are now
+placed. Being the confidential agent of the
+Empress is better than being the secretary of the
+rude soldier, Sertorius, and being snubbed by him
+every day, too."</p>
+
+<p>Mounted on one of the best horses in the
+Imperial stables, he rode forth upon the famous
+Salarian Way, which led straight as an arrow
+over the wide Campagna, and over the rugged
+Appenines to the distant city of Ravenna, among
+the marshes of the Adriatic. Now a decayed
+and grass-grown city, six miles from the sea, it
+was then a great and busy port, and had been for
+two centuries and a half an important see of the
+Christian Church. Not to the prefect of the
+city, but to the bishop of Ravenna, Isidorus,
+with his natural tact and shrewdness, betook
+himself. The sign manual of the Emperor, which
+he confidently exhibited, did not command that
+regard which he had anticipated; but a private
+letter from Adauctus, commending Isidorus to
+all Christian bishops and presbyters, procured
+for him a much more cordial reception. He
+was hospitably entertained, and every possible
+assistance given him in his quest. The bishop
+called together the deacons who had the care of
+the poor of the Church, but none of them knew
+anything of Demetrius. The bishop had
+ransomed many Christian slaves&mdash;prisoners taken in
+war, or captured by pirates. A few years before,
+when the resources of the Church had been
+completely exhausted by the exercise of this
+charity,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> a company of captives had been sold by
+pirates to a Jewish slave-dealer named Ezra, and
+conveyed by him to the city of Mediolanum, or
+as we now call it, Milan, as offering, next to
+Rome, the best market for his wares. And one
+of the deacons remembered among this slave-gang
+an old man who resembled the description given
+of Demetrius.</p>
+
+<p>To Milan, therefore, crossing again the
+Appenines, and riding up the broad, rich valley of
+the Po, went Isidorus. He was surprised to
+find a city, almost rivalling in extent Rome
+itself, and with a history reaching back to the
+times of the Etruscans, well-nigh a thousand
+years. First he sought the Jewish slave-dealer,
+who kept a regular mart for the sale or hire of
+human beings, just as one now-a-days keeps a
+livery-stable for the sale or hire of horses. There
+was as much fraud, too, in selling slaves then,
+as has been proverbially connected with
+horse-dealing and jockeying in every age. The <i>ergastulum</i>,
+or slave-pen of Ezra, was a large prison-like
+structure, surrounding the four sides of a hollow
+square. There were no windows to the street,
+and only very small iron-grated ones to the inner
+court; with heavy, iron-studded doors to the
+stable-like stalls, where the slaves were chained
+to a stout beam running along the wall.</p>
+
+<p>A slave-auction was in progress when Isidorus
+arrived, so he had to wait till it was over before
+plying his quest. A gang of slaves, unchained,
+but guarded by keepers, armed with whips and
+spears, awaited their fate. Stripped nearly naked,
+they were rudely examined, pinched, handled,
+and made to stoop, lift heavy weights, walk, run,
+and show their paces like horses for sale. Many
+had their ears bored&mdash;a sign of servitude from
+the time of Moses&mdash;and others were seamed with
+scars of the cruel lash. This, however, lessened
+their market value, as it was evidence of their
+intractable and troublesome character.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery was, at the time of which we write,
+one of the greatest evils of the Roman empire.
+It was a deadly canker, eating out the national
+life. It cast a stigma of disgrace on labour, and
+prevented the formation of that intelligent middle
+class which is the true safeguard of liberty.
+Never in the history of the world was society so
+based upon the abject misery of vast multitudes
+of human beings. The slaves outnumbered,
+many times, their masters. They were forbidden
+to wear a peculiar garb, lest they should
+recognize their numbers and their strength, and rise
+in universal revolt. As it was, servile
+insurrections were of frequent occurrence. But they
+were crushed and punished with ruthless severity.
+In one slave revolt, 60,000 of these wretched
+beings were slain. The first question about a
+man's property was, <i>"Quot pascit servos?"</i>&mdash;"How
+many slaves does he keep?" Ten was considered
+the least number consistent with any degree of
+respectability. Four hundred slaves deluged with
+their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus.
+Vidius Pollio fed his lampreys with the
+bodies of his human chattels. A single freed-man
+left over 4,000 at his death. Some 2,000
+men were lords of the Roman world, and the
+great mass of the rest were slaves. Their
+condition was one of inconceivable wretchedness.
+They had no rights of marriage, nor any claim to
+their children. Their food was a pound of bread
+a day, with a little salt and oil. Flesh they
+never tasted, and even wine, which flowed like
+water, almost never. Colossal piles, built by
+their blood and sweat, attest to the present day
+the bitterness of their bondage. The lash of the
+taskmaster was heard in the fields, and crosses,
+bearing aloft their quivering victims, polluted the
+wayside.</p>
+
+<p>This dumb, weltering mass of humanity,
+crushed by power, and led by their lusts, became
+a hot-bed of vice, in which every evil passion
+grew apace. To these wretched beings came the
+gospel of liberty, with a strange, a thrilling power.
+The oppressed slave, in the intervals of toil or
+torture, caught with joy the emancipating
+message, and sprang up enfranchised by an
+immortalizing hope. He exulted in a new-found
+freedom in Christ, which no wealth could purchase,
+no chains of slavery fetter, nor even death
+itself destroy. In the Christian Church the
+distinctions of worldly rank were abolished.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>
+The highest spiritual privileges were opened to
+the lowliest slave. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy
+were no rights of birth, and no privileges of
+blood. In the inscriptions of the Catacombs, no
+badges of servitude, no titles of honour appear.
+The wealthy noble, the lord of many acres,
+recognized in his lowly servant a fellow heir
+of glory. They bowed together at the same
+table of the Lord, saluted each other with the
+mutual kiss of charity, and side by side in their
+narrow graves, at length returned to indistinguishable
+dust. The story of Onesimus was often
+repeated, and the patrician master received his
+returning slave, "not now as a servant, but
+above a servant&mdash;a brother beloved." Nay, he
+may even have bowed to him as his ecclesiastical
+superior, and received from his plebeian hands
+the emblems of their common Lord.</p>
+
+<p>We return from this digression to the slave-market
+of Milan. Very few of Ezra's stock were
+black&mdash;not more than half a dozen, from Nubia
+and Libya. Most of them were as white as
+himself, or whiter still. There were Dalmatians,
+Illyrians, Iberians, Gauls, Greeks, Syrians, and
+many other nationalities. Ezra was engaged
+in busy converse, in a broken mixture of Latin
+and Greek, with the wealthy patrician, Vitellius,
+the lord of wide corn lands on the fertile banks
+of the Po.</p>
+
+<p>"Field hands your Excellency wants? I have
+some splendid ones," he said, eagerly. "Here,
+you fellows, step out there and show your
+muscles;" and he struck with his whip-lash two
+brawny white-skinned, blue-eyed, yellow-haired
+British slaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Sullen dogs these British often are," he said,
+"but they are as good as gold. They never run
+away like the Germans, nor steal like the Greeks,
+nor kill themselves like the Gauls."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Glad of that," said Vitellius. "I have had a
+perfect epidemic of suicide among my slaves. I
+had to kill several of them to keep them from
+killing themselves"&mdash;a sad but frequent comment
+on the utter wretchedness of their condition,
+from which death itself was the only
+refuge.</p>
+
+<p>"Does your Excellency want anything of a
+higher grade?" asked Ezra. "Some skilled
+workmen to finish your elegant villa, for instance.
+I have a splendid Greek sculptor, almost another
+Phidias, and another a second Zeuxis with the
+brush. Then if you want a steward, or bookkeeper,
+or secretary, or reader, or a skilled physician,
+I have them all; or a hand-maid for your
+Excellency's wife. I have a beautiful Greek girl
+here, highly accomplished; can embroider, play
+the zither, sing in two languages. I sold her
+sister last week for 100,000 sesterces<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>&mdash;nieces
+of an ex-archon. I felt really sorry for them, but
+what would you?&mdash;trade is trade. Times are
+bad. Poor Ezra has had bad luck. Several of
+his slaves kill themselves. Market glutted; price
+falls. I sell them very cheap&mdash;very cheap."</p>
+
+<p>Vitellius made his purchases, had them chained
+together in a gang, and driven by his steward,
+like cattle, to his farm. The account of Ezra's
+interview with Isidorus we must defer to another
+chapter.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> This might easily happen, for after successful raids
+or slave hunts, the victims were sold by their pirate
+captors by the thousand. The fact is on record, that at
+Delos, a famous slave market, 60,000 were sold by
+Celician pirates in a single day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et
+dominos, interest nihil. Lactant. <i>Div. Inst.</i> v. 14, 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> These were the most common faults of slaves, for
+attempting which they were often branded on cheek or
+brow.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a>Over $4,000 of our money. Very beautiful or accomplished
+slaves sometimes brought twice that amount.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE LOST FOUND.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"Do you remember buying or selling a slave
+named Demetrius, a Jew?" asked Isidorus
+of Ezra, the slave-dealer of Milan. He
+wasted no words in circumlocution, for he knew
+that there was no use in trying to deceive
+the keen-eyed Jewish dealer in his fellowman;
+and that his best chances of success were
+in coming directly to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"Selling a Jew? Oh, no! I never sell my
+own kinsmen. That's against our law. It is
+like seething a kid in its mother's milk. I
+often ransom them from pirates and set them
+free."</p>
+
+<p>"But this Demetrius was a Christian Jew&mdash;a
+convert from Moses to Jesus," said the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"A Christian dog," cried Ezra with a wicked
+execration. "He was no Jew. He had sold
+his birthright like Esau, and had no part nor
+lot with Israel. Of course, I'd sell him if I
+got him&mdash;to the mines, or to the galleys, or
+the field gang, to the hardest master I could
+find. But I know naught about your Demetrius,
+who was he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was a Jew of Antioch," said Isidorus,
+"captured by Illyrian pirates and sold in the
+slave market of Ravenna."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a common tale," replied Ezra.
+"There are many such. How long since this
+occurred?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis now five years since he was last seen
+by her who seeks him, and who will pay well
+for his recovery."</p>
+
+<p>"Just my luck," grumbled the greedy Jew.
+"Some one else will gain the prize. 'Tis not
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you cannot help me in this quest?"
+said the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I remember the scores and hundreds
+of Christian dogs that I have bought
+and sold? Go ask these monks, they know
+more of the vermin than I do."</p>
+
+<p>Acting on this hint, Isidorus made his way
+to the Convent of San Lorenzo, the ancient
+chapel of which still remains. Knocking at
+a bronze-studded gateway he was admitted to
+a quadrangle surrounded by cloisters or covered
+galleries upon which opened the doors of the
+different apartments. It was more like a
+hospital and alms-house than like what is now
+understood as a convent. It served as a sort
+of school of theology, youthful acolytes and
+deacons being here trained for the office and
+work of presbyters in the Church. Isidorus
+presented his letter from Adauctus to the good
+Bishop Paulinus, and was most cordially received.</p>
+
+<p>"Right welcome art thou, my son," said the
+bishop, "bearing, as thou dost, the commendation
+of the worthy Adauctus; and right glad
+shall we be to promote thy search. I myself
+know naught that can throw light upon it,
+inasmuch as I lived not at Milan, but was
+bishop of Nola at the time of which thou
+speakest."</p>
+
+<p>The scriptor, or secretary, of the convent was
+also consulted without avail, no record being
+found in the annals of the house that gave
+any hope of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Come lunch with us in the refectory," said
+the bishop, "and I will ask if any of the
+brethren know aught of this mystery."</p>
+
+<p>The refectory was a large bare-looking room&mdash;its
+only furniture being a long and solid table
+with a shorter one across the end for the bishop,
+and presbyters, and visitors. Of this latter
+there were frequently several, as such houses
+were the chief places for entertaining the travelling
+clergy or even lay members of the Christian
+brotherhood. Upon the walls were certain
+somewhat grim-looking frescoes, representing
+Biblical scenes and characters like those in
+the Catacombs described in <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">chapter VIII.</a> At
+one side of the room was a <i>bema</i>, or reading-desk,
+at which one of the lectors a distinct
+ecclesiastical office,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> with its special ordination&mdash;read,
+while the brethren partook of their
+meals, the lessons for the day from the Gospels
+and Epistles, as well as passages from the
+writings of Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr,
+and Origen. For this usage the scarcity and
+high price of MS. books, and the desire to
+improve every moment of time was deemed
+a sufficient ground.</p>
+
+<p>After the meal&mdash;which was almost ascetic in
+its simplicity, consisting chiefly of vegetable
+pottage, lentils, and bread was over, and the
+reading ended, the bishop explained the cause
+of the presence among them of a stranger from
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"My brethren," he said in conclusion, "this
+is a common story. Many are the victims of
+cruelty and wrong in this great empire. Be
+it ours, so far as God may give us power, to
+succour the oppressed and redress their wrongs."</p>
+
+<p>As he sat down a venerable presbyter rose
+and said, "Father, five years have I been under
+this hospitable roof, ransomed from bondage
+by your predecessor in office. Five years have
+I mourned the loss of a son and daughter, sold
+from my arms to I know not what cruel fate.
+It may be that God is about to restore me
+my children, the flesh of my flesh. Hast thou,
+stranger, any sign or token by which I may
+be assured of their identity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of thy son I have no tidings; but know
+thou if this be a token of thy daughter's
+rescue," and Isidorus exhibited the small
+cornelian <i>tessara</i> of the fish of which we have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Eagerly the old man clasped it, and scanned
+the inscription, and joyfully exclaimed, while
+tears of gladness flowed down his aged cheeks
+and silvery beard, "Thank God, my child yet
+lives. I shall again behold her before I die.
+See, here is her very name, 'Callirhoë, daughter
+of Demetrius.' I carved it with my own hands
+one happy day in our dear home in Damascus.
+God is good. I never hoped to see her again.
+Tell me, stranger, is she, too, a slave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said Isidorus with emotion, for even
+his careless nature was touched with sympathy
+at the joy of the old man, "She is the freed
+woman of the Empress Valeria, and high in
+favour, too, I should judge, from the interest
+her august mistress showed in seeking for thee."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Benedic, anima mea, Domino,</i>" exclaimed the
+aged presbyter with fervour. "<i>Et omnia, quæ
+intra me sunt, nomini sacro ejus</i>&mdash;Bless the Lord,
+my soul: and all that is within me bless His
+holy name. He hath heard my prayer. He
+hath answered my supplication."</p>
+
+<p>The old man's story was soon told. He had
+been rescued from the slave pen of Ezra, and
+employed in the service of the convent. His
+familiar knowledge of Greek led to his
+appointment as instructor in that language of the
+young acolytes and deacons who were in training
+for the office of the ministry. At length
+his superior gifts and fervent piety led to his
+own ordination as a presbyter of the Church
+of Milan.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> This office was possibly derived from the synagogue.
+As requiring good scholarship it was one of much honour,
+and was even sought by laymen. The Emperor Julian,
+in his youth, and his brother Gallus, were readers in
+the Church of Nicomedia. Many epitaphs of readers
+occur in the Catacombs.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">FATHER AND DAUGHTER.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Demetrius was now eager to set out for
+Rome to behold once more the child
+whom he had scarce hoped ever to see again.
+A happy leave-taking of the brethren of Milan,
+who rejoiced in fraternal sympathy, followed;
+and on a gently ambling mule, at break of day,
+the old man rode forth beside the gallantly
+equipped Isidorus. He beguiled the weary way
+with questions about his long-lost daughter,
+as to her growth, appearance, her apparent
+health, and even the very garb she wore. He
+was never tired hearing about her, and
+recounting incidents of her childhood and youth.
+The only shadow upon his joy was the vague
+mystery concerning the fate of his son. But he
+said cheerfully: "God is good. He has restored
+to me one of my children. I feel confident that
+in His own good time He will restore also
+the other."</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the fatigue of the long journey of
+nearly three hundred miles his powers would
+have failed, had he not been inspirited and
+sustained by the thrilling anticipation of
+beholding once more his beloved child.</p>
+
+<p>At length, near sunset, on the tenth day, they
+drew near the great metropolis of the Empire.
+Clearer and clearer to the view rose the seven-hilled
+city's pride, the snowy marble peristyles
+and pediments of palace and temple, gleaming
+in the rosy light like transparent alabaster. To
+the left rose the cliff-like walls of the Colosseum,
+even then venerable with the time-stains of
+over two hundred years. In the foreground
+stretched the long Aurelian Wall, with its towers
+and battlements and strong arched gates. They
+crossed the Tiber by the Milvian Bridge, built
+three hundred years before, and destined to
+witness within ten years that fierce struggle
+for the mastery of the empire, between
+Constantine and Maxentius, when the British-born
+Cæsar saw, or thought he saw, in the mid-day
+heavens a blazing cross, and exclaiming "By
+this sign we conquer," overwhelmed his adversary
+in the rushing river.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>Passing under the hill crowned with the
+famous gardens of Lucullus, now known as the
+Pincio, and beneath the heavy-arched gateway
+in the wall, they made their way through the
+narrow streets towards the centre of the city
+the&mdash;Forum and the Palatine. It was a day
+of festival&mdash;the last day of the <i>Quinquatria</i>,
+or festival of Minerva. Garlands of flowers,
+and wreaths of laurel, festooned many of the
+houses, in front of which blazed coloured cressets
+and lamps. Sacred processions were passing
+through the streets, with torches and music
+and chantings of priests; and ever and anon
+the shrill blare of the sacred trumpets pierced
+the ear of night. In the Forum the temples
+of Saturn, and of Castor, and Pollux were
+richly adorned and brilliantly illuminated, and
+a great throng of merry-makers filled the
+marble square.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the left, our travellers ascended
+the slope of the Palatine Hill, amid
+ever-increasing grandeur of architecture. Demetrius,
+though he had travelled far and seen much,
+was struck with astonishment at the splendour
+and magnificence of the buildings. Not at
+Jerusalem, or Damascus, or Antioch, not at
+Ravenna or Milan, had he witnessed such wealth
+of porphyry and marble, such stately colonades
+and peristyles, covering acres of ground&mdash;now
+but a mound of mouldering ruins.</p>
+
+<p>"Whither art thou leading me?" asked
+Demetrius, as they stood before a palace of
+snowy marble which, bathed in the mellow
+radiance of the rising moon, seemed transformed
+into translucent alabaster.</p>
+
+<p>"To the abode where dwells thy daughter,
+the favoured freed-woman of the mistress of all
+this splendour," replied Isidorus, enjoying the
+wonder and admiration of his companion in
+travel.</p>
+
+<p>A fountain splashed in the centre of the
+square, its waters flashing like silver in the
+moonlight. The burnished mail of the Roman
+soldiers gleamed as the guard was changed, and
+their armour clashed as they grounded their
+spears and saluted the officer of the watch.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Max, are you on duty to-night?" said
+Isidorus as he recognized a soldier of the guard.
+"Any promotion in your service yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I see that there is in yours," said
+the bluff out-spoken guardsman.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, I flatter myself that there is,"
+replied the vain-glorious Greek, "and I hope for
+still more."</p>
+
+<p>Announcing to the chamberlain of the palace
+that he had just arrived from a journey of
+important business for the Empress Valeria, he
+with Demetrius were taken to a marble bath,
+where with the aid of a skilful slave, they made
+their toilet for immediate presentation to the
+Empress.</p>
+
+<p>Valeria was attended as usual by her freed-woman
+Callirhoë, when the Greek was announced.</p>
+
+<p>"We heard," she said to Isidorus, "by thy
+letters, of the failure of thy quest at Ravenna
+and Milan, but we hope&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, with an exclamation of
+intensest emotion Callirhoë rushed forward and
+flung herself in the arms of the venerable figure
+who had followed the Greek into the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"My father!" she cried in tones which thrilled
+every heart, and then she embraced him again
+and again. The impassioned love and joy and
+gratitude of her soul struggling for expression,
+she burst into a flood of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter, child of my beloved Rachel,"
+exclaimed the old man, as, heedless of the
+presence of the Empress, he fondly caressed her,
+"do I again embrace thee? Thou art the very
+image of thy angel-mother, as I first beheld
+her in the rose gardens of Sharon. Truly God
+is good. Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant
+depart in peace&mdash;the cup of my happiness
+runneth over."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, good father," broke in the soft voice
+of the Empress, who was deeply moved by the
+scene, "rather live to share thy daughter's love
+and happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, august lady," said Demetrius, falling
+on his knees, and gratefully kissing the
+Empress's hand. "Pardon, that in the joy of finding
+my child I forgot the duty I owe to my
+sovereign."</p>
+
+<p>"Thy first duty was there," said Valeria, pointing
+to the lovely Callirhoë, who, smiling through
+her tears, was now leaning on her father's arm.
+"We leave you to exchange your mutual confidences.
+Good Isidorus it shall be our care
+to bestow a reward commensurate with thy
+merit;" and she withdrew to her own apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"My everlasting gratitude thou hast," said
+Callirhoë, with her sweetest smile, frankly extending
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I am, indeed, well repaid," said the Greek,
+as he respectfully kissed it. "I would gladly
+show my zeal in much more arduous service,"
+and bowing low, he was accompanied by the
+chamberlain to the vestibule. That official gave
+him, by command of the Empress, a purse of
+gold, and assured him of still further reward.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> A magnificent painting in the Vatican represents with
+vivid realism this scene, the drowning of the Pagan
+Emperor, and the defeat and flight of all his army.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">"UNSTABLE AS WATER."</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">It was with feelings highly elated at his
+successful achievement, which presaged
+still further advancement, that Isidorus sought
+his lodgings. On the way he met many late
+revellers returning from the festival, "flown
+with insolence and wine," and making night
+hideous with their riot. Among them, his
+garments dishevelled, and a withering garland
+falling from his brow, was an old acquaintance,
+Calphurnius, the son of the Perfect, who with
+maudlin affection embraced him and exclaimed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Friend of my soul, where hast thou hidden
+thyself? Our wine parties lack half their zest,
+since thou hast turned anchorite. Come, pledge
+our ancient friendship in a goblet of Falernian.
+The wine shop of Turbo, the ex-gladiator, is
+near at hand."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not turned Christian, have you?"
+hiccoughed the drunken reveller; "no offence,
+but I heard you had, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Isidorus gave a start. Were his visits to the
+Catacomb known to this fashionable fop?
+Were they a matter of sport to him and his
+boon companions? Was he to be laughed out
+of his nascent convictions by these empty-headed
+idlers? No, he determined. He despised
+the whole crew. But he was not the stuff out
+of which martyrs are made, and he lacked the
+courage to confess to this gilded butterfly, his
+as yet faltering feeling towards Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says I am?" he asked, anxious to
+test his knowledge on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says so? I don't know. Why everybody,"
+was the rather vague reply.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know what you are talking about,
+man," said the Greek, with a forced laugh.
+"Go home and sleep off your carouse."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I told them so. The Christians,
+indeed, the vermin! Come to the Baths of
+Caracalla at noon to-morrow and I'll tell you
+all about it."</p>
+
+<p>Isidorus went to his lodgings and retired
+to his couch, but not to slumber. He was like
+a boat drifting rudderless upon the sea, the
+sport of every wind that blew. He had no
+strength of will, no fixedness of purpose, no
+depth of conviction. His susceptible disposition
+was easily moved to generous impulses and even
+to noble aspirations, yet he had no moral
+firmness. He is portrayed to the life by the
+words of the great Teacher, "He that received
+the seed into stony places, the same is he that
+heareth the Word, and anon, with joy receiveth
+it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth
+for a while; for when tribulation or persecution
+ariseth because of the Word, bye-and-bye he
+is offended."</p>
+
+<p>"Did his boon companions," he questioned,
+"suspect that any serious convictions had penetrated
+beneath his light and careless exterior?"
+All his good resolutions had begun like wax
+in a furnace to melt and give way at the
+sneer and jeer of the shallow fool from whom
+he had just parted&mdash;a creature whom in his
+inmost heart he despised. Strange contradiction
+of human nature! Like the epicurean poet,
+he saw and approved the better way and yet
+he followed the worse.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He seemed to gain
+in the few casual words he had heard, a glimpse
+of the possibilities of persecution which menaced
+him if faithful to his convictions, and he had
+act moral fibre enough to encounter them. And
+yet his conscience stung and tortured him as
+he tossed upon his restless couch. Toward
+morning he fell asleep and it was broad day
+when he awoke. His reflections were as
+different from those with which he fell asleep
+as the brilliant daylight was from the gloomy
+shadows of night. The air was full of the busy
+hum of life. Water sellers and fruit pedlers
+and the like were crying "<i>Aqua Gelata</i>" "Fresh
+Figs," and "White wine and red." Cohorts of
+soldiers were clattering in squadrons, through
+the streets, the sunlight glittering on their
+spearpoints and on the bosses of their shields
+and armour. Jet black Nubian slaves, clad in
+snowy white, were bearing in gold-adorned
+<i>lecticæ</i> or palanquins, proud patrician dames,
+robed in saffron and purple, to visit the shops
+of the jewellers and silk mercers. Senators
+and civic officials were flocking to the Forum
+with their murmuring crowd of clients. Gilded
+youths were hastening to the schools of the
+rhetoricians or of the gladiators, both alike
+deemed necessary instructors of these pinks
+of fashion. The streets and squares were a
+perfect kaleidoscope of colour and movement&mdash;an
+eddying throng, on business or on pleasure
+bent.</p>
+
+<p>The stir and animation of the scene dispelled
+all serious thoughts from the mind of the
+frivolous Greek. He plunged like a strong
+swimmer into the stream of eager busy life
+surging through the streets. He was one of
+the gayest of the gay, ready with his laugh
+and joke as he met his youthful comrades.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, Rufus, whither away in such mad
+haste," he cried as he saw a young officer of
+the 12th Legion dashing past in his chariot,
+driving with admirable skill two milk-white
+steeds through the crowded streets.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! are you there? Where have you
+hidden yourself for the last month?" exclaimed
+Rufus, as he sharply reined up his steeds. "To
+the Baths of Caracalla; will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very gladly," said Isidorus, stepping
+upon the low platform of the open bronze
+chariot. "I have been beyond the Po, on a
+special service&mdash;a barbarous region. No baths,
+circus, or games like those of Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"There is but one Rome," said the fiery young
+Hotspur, "but I am beginning to hate it. I
+am fairly rusting with idleness and long for
+active service&mdash;whether amid Libyian sands or
+Pannonian forests, I care not."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," replied the effeminate Greek,
+"that I could console myself with your horses
+and chariot&mdash;the coursers of Achilles were not
+more swift&mdash;and with the delights which Rome
+and its fair dames are eager to lavish on that
+favourite of fortune, Ligurius Rufus."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Vanitas vanitatis</i>," yawned the youth. "Life
+is a tremendous bore. I was made for action,
+for conquest, for state craft; but under this
+despotism of the Cæsars, we are all slaves
+together. You and I fare a little better than
+that Nubian porter yonder, that is all."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you seem to bear your bondage very
+comfortably," laughed the light-hearted Greek,
+"and had I your fortune, so would I."</p>
+
+<p>"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be
+golden," ejaculated the soldier, lashing his steeds
+into swifter flight, as if to give vent to his
+nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to
+forget that I am a slave. Lost a hundred
+thousand sesterces at dice last night. The
+empire is hurrying to chaos. There are no
+paths of honour and ambition open to a man.
+One must crouch like a hound or crawl like
+a serpent to win advancement in the state.
+I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day
+are an effete and worn out race. The rude
+Dacians beyond the Tiber possess more of the
+hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic
+than the craven creatures who crawl about
+the feet of the modern Colossi, who bestride
+the world and are worshipped almost as gods.
+And unless Rome mends her ways they will
+be the masters of the Empire yet."</p>
+
+<p>"One would think you were Cato the Censor,"
+laughed the Greek. "For my part, I think the
+best philosophy is that of my wise countryman,
+Epicurus&mdash;'to take the times as they come,
+and make the most of them.' But here we
+are at the Thermæ."</p>
+
+<p>Giving his horses to one of the innumerable
+grooms belonging to the establishment, Rufus
+and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched
+entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Video, proboque meliora,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deterioraque sequor.&mdash;<i>Hor.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">AT THE BATHS.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Nothing can give one a more striking
+conception of Roman life under the Empire
+than the size, number, and magnificence of the
+public baths. Those of Caracalla are a typical
+example. They covered an area of fifteen
+hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the
+surrounding grounds being a mile in circumference.
+They formed a perfect wilderness of
+stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the
+very mouldering remains of which strike one
+with astonishment. Of this very structure, the
+poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus
+Unbound," remarks: "This poem was chiefly
+written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths
+of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and
+thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which
+are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon
+its immense platforms, and dizzy arches
+suspended in the air." Piers of sold masonry soar
+aloft like towers, on the summit of which
+good-sized trees are growing. Climbing one of those
+massive towers, the present writer enjoyed a
+glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the
+crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks
+above the sea of verdure all around, and of the
+far spreading and desolate Campagna.</p>
+
+<p>The great hypocausts, or subterranean furnaces,
+can be still examined, as also the caleducts
+in the walls for hot air, and the metal pipes for
+hot and cold water. The baths were supplied by
+an aqueduct constructed for that purpose, the
+arches of which may be seen bestriding the
+Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from
+the city. There were hot, and cold, and tepid
+baths, <i>caldaria</i>, or sweating chambers, <i>frigidaria</i>,
+or cooling rooms, <i>unctoria</i>, or anointing rooms,
+and many others sufficient to accommodate
+sixteen hundred bathers at once. There were
+also a vast gymnasium for exercise, a <i>stadium</i>,
+or race-course, and a <i>pinacotheca</i>, or art gallery.
+Here were found the famous Farnese Bull, the
+largest group of ancient statuary extant, and many
+<i>chefs d'&#339;uvre</i> of classic sculpture and mosaics.</p>
+
+<p>The Baths of Diocletian, built by the labours
+of the Christians during the last great persecution,
+one authority says, were twice as large,
+and could accommodate eighteen thousand bathers
+in a day, but that seems incredible. One of
+its great halls, a hundred yards by thirty in area,
+and thirty yards high, was converted by Michael
+Angelo into a church. Of the remainder, part
+is used as a monastery, part as barracks, and part
+as an orphanage, a poor-house, and an asylum
+for the blind, and much is in ruins. At Pompeii
+is a public bath in perfect preservation, with the
+niches for the clothing, soaps, and unguents of
+the bathers, and even the <i>strigils</i>, or bronze
+instruments for scraping the skin&mdash;the same
+after eighteen hundred years as though used but
+yesterday. By these means we are able to
+reconstruct the outward circumstances of that old
+Roman life, almost as though we had shared
+its busy movement.</p>
+
+<p>As Ligurius Rufus drew aside the heavy
+matting of the doorway of the Thermæ, of
+Caracalla, which then, as now, kept out the
+summer heat from the buildings of Rome, a busy
+scene burst upon his view. A great hall, lighted
+by openings in the roof, was filled with gay
+groups of patrician Romans, sauntering, chatting,
+laughing, exchanging news, betting on the next
+races, and settling bets on the last. As the
+modern clubman goes to his club to see the
+papers and learn the current gossip, so all the
+idlers in Rome came to the baths as to a social
+exchange, to learn the latest bit of court scandal
+or public news.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, Calphurnius!" said Rufus, to the now
+sobered son of the city Prefect; "what's in the
+wind to-day? You know all the mischief that's
+going."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry I cannot maintain my reputation then.
+Things are dull as an old <i>strigil</i>. Oh, by the
+way," and he beckoned them into a recess behind
+a porphyry pillar, "there is going to be a precious
+row up at the palace. I tell you in confidence.
+The old vixen, Fausta, has got a new spite
+against the Empress Valeria, whom all the people
+of the palace love. The termagant is not fit to
+carry water for her bath. She has found some
+mare's nest of a Christian plot,&mdash;by the way you
+are mixed up in it, friend Isidorus. I would
+advise you to have a care. In the fight of
+Pagan against Christian, I fear Valeria will get
+the worst of it, <i>dii avertant</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"The palace walls are not glass," laughed
+Isidorus, "nor have you a Dionysius' ear. How
+know you all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if the Roman Prefect did not know what
+goes on, that he thinks worth knowing, in every
+house in Rome! He has eyes and ears in his
+pay everywhere; and when honest Juba, or
+Tubal, come with their secret intelligence, they
+are not above accepting double pay and letting
+me into the secret, too. Besides that crafty
+old vulture Furca was closeted with the Prefect
+for an hour by the clepshydra, and you always
+smell carrion when he is hovering round."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it all about?" asked Rufus. "I am
+sure Valeria is as much beloved by the people
+as the old termagant Fausta is hated."</p>
+
+<p>"There's the rub&mdash;a bit of spiteful jealousy,"
+answered Calphurnius. "But when that old
+basilisk hates, she will find a way to sting."</p>
+
+<p>"But what have I to do with the quarrels
+of the palace?" asked Isidorus, a little anxiously,
+for he knew not how far he might be
+compromised by the commission he had executed,
+of which he had felt not a little proud.</p>
+
+<p>"You know best yourself," answered
+Calphurnius with a laugh. "If you have done a
+service to Valeria or the Christians, you have
+made an enemy of Fausta and the Pagans."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this what you spoke of last night, and
+promised to explain to-day?" asked the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so. I have no very distinct
+recollection of what I said. I had been supping
+with Rufus here, and some other roystering
+blades, and the Folernian was uncommonly good.
+Come, <i>amicus meus</i>," he went on turning to
+Ligurius, "don't you want revenge for those
+sesterces you lost last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind if I do punish you a little,"
+yawned the young soldier. "It will kill the
+time for awhile, at all events."</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE GAMING TABLE.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Gaming was a perfect passion among the
+Romans, and indeed among most ancient
+nations. Dice of bone and ivory, like those
+in use to-day, have been found in the tombs of
+Thebes and Luxor. Æschylus and Sophocles
+describe their use four hundred years before
+Christ, and in an ancient Greek picture now
+before us, a female figure is shown tossing <i>tali</i>,
+or gaming cubes, and catching them on the
+back of her hand, as children now play "Jacks."
+Soldiers from the enforced idleness of much of
+their time and the intense excitement of the
+rest of it, have in every age been addicted to
+gambling to beguile the <i>ennui</i> of their too ample
+leisure&mdash;from those of Alexander down to the
+raw recruits of to-day. Our friend, Ligurius
+Rufus, had undergone frequent experience of
+the pains and pleasures of this siren vice; but
+was eager to return to its embrace. Such vast
+estates had been squandered, and great families
+impoverished, and large fortunes often staked
+upon a single throw of the dice&mdash;beyond anything
+that Homburg or Monaco ever saw&mdash;that
+gambling was forbidden by successive Roman
+laws. But when were not the rich able to
+indulge in their favourite vices, even under a
+much purer Government than that of Rome?
+So even in this place of public resort, were
+numerous alcoves in which stood gaming tables,
+while money changers&mdash;generally Jews&mdash;had
+tables near for giving good Roman sesterces
+in exchange for the <i>oboloi</i> or <i>drachmai</i> of Greece,
+the shekels of Jerusalem, or the scarabæus coins
+of Egypt. Into one of these alcoves the three
+friends now turned, Isidorus promising himself
+that he would only look on. He had been
+excessively addicted to play, but had,
+notwithstanding occasional success, lost so much money
+that he had abjured the seductive vice, especially
+since his visit to the Catacomb with his friend
+Faustus, who had urged him to forsake a practice
+so perilous in itself, and so opposed to Christian
+conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Calphurnius and Rufus sat down to the gaming
+table, and the Greek stood looking on. The
+gold was placed in two piles on the board. The
+dice rattled, and eager eyes took in at a glance
+the number of red spots on the upper surface.
+Rufus seemed to have recovered his good fortune.
+Throw after throw was successful.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the <i>Jadus Venereus</i>," he exclaimed
+with exultation, as he made the cast that counted
+highest. "We must have wine and I must be
+toast-master," for so was called the leader of the
+revels.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek watched with honest interest the
+play, his eye flashing and his pulse quickening
+under its strange spell. The richest wines of
+Chios and Lesbos were ordered; and as the
+wine was poured into jewelled goblets, he required
+slight urging to partake of the fragrant vintage
+of the Isles of Greece. The eager play was
+resumed. The Greek noted each practised turn
+of the wrist and cast of the dice&mdash;his eye
+kindling and his brain throbbing with the subtle
+intoxication of both the game and the wine.</p>
+
+<p>"I've won enough," said Rufus, "I've got back
+my own, and more. I don't want to ruin you,
+my good fellow," and he positively declined to
+play any more. His honest nature recoiled from
+taking that for which he gave no value, beyond
+recouping his previous losses.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you try a cast," he added, turning to
+Isidorus. "Our friend has lots of money to
+lose?" and he lounged away to watch the game
+of ball in the Gymnasium.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, take a turn, my luck is wretched to-day!"
+exclaimed Calphurnius. "Come, I will stake
+that pile of gold on a single cast."</p>
+
+<p>The Greek's whole frame was tingling with
+excitement&mdash;yet he was withheld by some lingering
+restraint of his promise to Faustus to abandon
+play. Calphurnius again rattled the dice, the
+cast was a complete blank&mdash;the worst possible
+combination.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas lucky for me you were not playing
+then," he said, laughing; "but I'll risk another
+if you will."</p>
+
+<p>"It must only be for a small stake&mdash;a single
+sesterce," said the infatuated youth, quaffing a
+goblet of wine. "I have given up gambling."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said his friend, "it's only for
+amusement that I play," and he cast again, and
+laughing paid over his forfeit.</p>
+
+<p>Isidorus continued to win, each time taking
+a sip of the strong heady wine. The baleful
+enchantment was upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Double the stakes!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would tire of our playing like
+slaves with jackstones," replied the cool-headed
+Calphurnius. "This is something like play," he
+continued, as they doubled every time, till the
+stakes were soon enormous. The tide of fortune
+now turned; but the Greek had become perfectly
+reckless. Conscience was dead, a demon
+greed for gain had taken possession of his soul,
+the gaming-madness surged through his brain.
+He doubled and redoubled his stakes, till before
+he rose he had lost even the gold received from
+Valeria the night before, and was beggared to
+his last denarius. With blood-shot eyes and
+staggering gait he reeled away from the table,
+his handsome features convulsed with rage and
+wicked imprecations pouring from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so vexed about it, man," said his
+tormentor, for so he regarded Calphurnius.
+"Better luck to-morrow. Here I'll lend you
+enough to set you up. Let us have a bath, we
+both of us need it to quiet our nerves."</p>
+
+<p>Isidorus, in his maudlin intoxication, accepted
+the offer, and declared, with much idle babble,
+that there was more money where that which
+he had lost came from&mdash;that his services were
+too valuable to the state to be overlooked&mdash;and
+that he knew a thing or two&mdash;that he could tell
+some secrets, if he would&mdash;and much more to
+the same purpose.</p>
+
+<p>This was just what Calphurnius wanted. He
+had been set on by his father, the Prefect Naso
+to worm from the Greek the secrets of the Palace
+and the Catacomb, and this by a series of
+wheedling questions he completely succeeded in
+doing. With some difficulty he got his victim
+home after he had extorted from him all that
+he cared to know. When Isidorus awoke next
+morning it was with feelings of intense disgust
+with himself and with all the world. He felt
+that he had played the fool, but how far he
+knew not. He remembered that he had lost all
+his money, yet he found a few coins in his purse.
+He felt that he had forfeited the confidence
+of his new patron Adauctus, of the Empress,
+and even was undeserving of the gratitude or
+respect of the beautiful freed-woman, Callirhoë,
+whose father he had restored. He had learned
+that there was a plot on foot against them all.
+Indeed he had an impression that he had
+somehow added to their peril by his indiscreet
+revelations. He determined to warn them of
+their danger and try to save them.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">"IN PERICULIS TUTUS."</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">With this purpose the young Greek assuming
+his most decorous and sober
+attire, proceeded to what would now be called
+the bureau of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
+It was situated near the Forum, in the cloister
+around which were grouped the shops of the
+<i>argentarii</i> and <i>mensarii</i>, or private and public
+bankers of Rome. It held about the same
+relation to those that the Treasury Department
+at New York does to the bankers' offices and
+Gold Board in Wall Street. On every side were
+evidences of the concentrated wealth and power
+of the august mistress of the world. A vast
+granite building, as strong and solid as a prison,
+was before him. Roman sentinels paced the
+street, hugging the wall to share the protection
+from the noontide heat offered by its grateful
+shade. Convoys of specie, guarded by cohorts
+of soldiers with unsheathed swords, were
+continually arriving or departing. Gangs of sturdy
+porters, naked to the waist, were conveying the
+heavy iron-bound coffers to and from the vaults.
+Officers were counting the tallies and checking
+the vouchers, giving and accepting receipts.
+Publicans and tax farmers of many hues and
+varied garbs were there from many distant climes&mdash;the
+swart Egyptian, the olive Syrian, the
+graceful Greek, the pale-faced yellow-haired
+German or Briton. But most prominent of all,
+everywhere was seen the pushing, aggressive,
+keen-eyed, hook-nosed Jew, who in every age
+and every land seems to have had a genius for
+finance, banking, and the handling of money.</p>
+
+<p>From the hundred provinces of Rome the
+tribute money wrung from wretched peasants,
+to support Imperial luxury, to maintain the
+conquering legions, to pay for the largess of corn
+that fed the Roman plebs, and for the <i>fêtes</i> of
+the circus that amused them, and to carry on
+the vast governmental administration of the
+Empire&mdash;all poured into this greatest focus of
+moneyed wealth in the world. Like Daniel in
+Babylon, Adauctus, the Christian, was set over
+all this treasure, "because an excellent spirit was
+in him, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither
+was there any error or fault found in him."
+The Emperors, when amid prevailing corruption,
+extortion, and fraud, they found an honest servant
+and able administrator, winked pretty hard at
+his private opinions, so long as they did not
+conflict with his duty to the State. Hence,
+from the days of St. Paul, we find that enrolled
+among the fellowship of Christ's Church were
+"they of Cæsar's household;" and among the
+epitaphs of the Catacombs we find frequent
+examples of Christians of lofty rank, and holding
+important offices of trust; as for instance:
+"Secretary of the Patrician Order," "Sergeant of the
+Exchequer," "Prefect of the City," "Ex-Quæstor
+of the Sacred Palace," "Master of the Imperial
+Household," and the like.</p>
+
+<p>Making his way to the private apartment, or
+office of Adauctus, the Greek found him dictating
+despatches to a secretary. At a nod from his
+chief, the secretary retired, and Adauctus, with
+warm interest, addressed Isidorus in the words:</p>
+
+<p>"Right welcome, after your successful quest.
+You have skilfully performed a difficult task.
+The Empress is greatly gratified, and you may
+count your fortune as good as made."</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency is too kind," replied the
+Greek, with a graceful salutation; "I feel that
+I do not deserve your praise."</p>
+
+<p>"Your modesty, my friend," remarked Adauctus
+with a smile, "shall not prevent your promotion,
+It is too rare a gift not to be encouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"I have come, your Excellency," said Isidorus,
+with some degree of trepidation, "upon a business
+that nearly concerns yourself, and some to whom
+you wish well."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very good of you," Adauctus calmly
+replied, "but I do not think you can give me
+any information that I do not already possess."</p>
+
+<p>"I am in duty bound," continued the Greek,
+"to reveal to your Excellency, what is a secret
+which is sedulously kept from your knowledge.
+You have enemies who have vowed your
+destruction&mdash;the Princess Fausta, Furca, the
+arch-priest of Cybele, and the Prefect Naso. They
+menace also the Empresses Prisca and Valeria,
+and others in high places suspected of Christianity."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all you can tell me?" asked Adauctus,
+with a smile. "Look you," and unlocking an
+ivory cabinet, he took out a wax-covered tablet
+on which were inscribed the names of several
+other conspirators against his life, with the
+particulars of their plots.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not sought one of these disclosures,"
+he went on, "yet they have come to me from
+trustworthy sources; sometimes from men who
+are themselves Pagan, yet with honest souls that
+recoil from treachery and murder."</p>
+
+<p>"And you know all this and remain thus
+calm!" exclaimed the Greek in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"With such a sword of Damocles hanging over
+<i>my</i> head, I am sure I could neither eat nor
+sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never read the words," asked
+Adauctus solemnly, "'The very hairs of your head
+are all numbered?' and not a sparrow shall fall
+without your Father's notice. Have you never
+read of righteous Daniel whom his enemies cast
+into the lions' den, and how God shut the lions'
+mouths that they did him no harm. You have
+seen the pictured story in the Catacombs. So
+will my God deliver me from the mouth of
+the lion," and a look of heroic faith transfigured
+his face&mdash;"or," he whispered lower, but with an
+expression of even more utter trust, "or give
+a greater victory and take me to Himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Such stoical philosophy, my master," said the
+Greek with bated breath, "neither Zeno nor
+Seneca ever taught."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said the noble Roman, "it is not
+stoicism, it is faith. Not in the Porch or
+Academy is this holy teaching learned, but in
+the school of Jesus Christ."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, wretched coward that I am!" cried the
+Greek, with an impassioned aspiration after a
+moral courage which he felt almost beyond his
+comprehension, "would that I had such faith."</p>
+
+<p>"Seek it, my brother," said Adauctus solemnly,
+"where alone it may be found, at the Cross of
+Christ. Whoso apprehends in his soul the
+meaning of the Great Sacrifice, will thenceforth
+count not his life dear unto him for the testimony
+of Jesus."</p>
+
+<p>"But is the way of the Cross such a thorny,
+bloodstained path?" asked the Greek, with
+quavering voice. "Are those noble souls, the
+highborn and beautiful Valeria, the good and
+gentle Callirhoë, exposed to such appalling
+perils?"</p>
+
+<p>"We live in troublous times," answered
+Adauctus. "Christ came not to send peace on
+the earth but a sword. Whoso will save his
+life by cowardice and treachery shall basely
+lose it. Whoso will lose it for Christ's sake shall
+gloriously and forever find it!"</p>
+
+<p>These words burned into the heart and brain
+of the craven Greek, and he winced and shrank
+beneath them as if a hot iron were searing his
+quivering flesh.</p>
+
+<p>"But we must hope for the best," went on
+Adauctus more cheerfully. "We must take every
+precaution. Life and liberty are glorious gifts.
+We may not rashly imperil them. I trust that
+our august mistress, standing so near the throne,
+stands in no peculiar peril; and you may be
+sure her power will be used for the protection
+of her friends. So," he added with a laugh of
+keen intelligence, "if thou hast any special
+interest in the fair Callirhoë, be sure she enjoys
+the most potent patronage in Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"But you, take you no precaution for yourself?"
+entreated the Greek. "You know not the
+bitterness of the jealousy and hate of your enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I do," the Imperial treasurer calmly
+replied, "As for me, my work is here. By
+ruling righteously and dealing justly I can
+prevent much fraud, and wrong, and suffering. I
+can shield the innocent and frustrate the villany
+of public thieves&mdash;and there are many such in
+the high places of this degenerate city. Our
+heroic ancestors decreed that we must never
+dispair of our country. But I confess, were it
+not for that salt of Christian faith that preserves
+the old Roman world, I believe it would sink
+into moral putrescence. It is this divine leaven
+which alone can leaven the whole mass."</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE MIDNIGHT PLOT.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The scene of our story is now transferred to
+the Palace of the Emperor Galerius, one of
+the most sumptuous of the group of marble
+buildings which crowned the Palatine Hill. It
+is the hour of midnight; and in one of the most
+private chambers of the palace a secret
+conspiracy is in progress, which has for its object
+the destruction of the Christians&mdash;especially of
+those high in rank and influence. The lamps in
+the aula and vestibule burned dimly, and, in iron
+sockets along the outside of the palace walls,
+flared and smoked torches made of tow covered
+with a coating of clay or plaster.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>Fausta, the mother of Galerius, and Furca, the
+high-priest of Cybele, were already conferring
+upon their secret plot. With them was Black
+Juba, who had just returned from gathering, at
+"the witching hour of night," upon the unhallowed
+ground set apart for the burning of the
+dead, certain baleful plants&mdash;wolf's bane, bitter
+briony, and aconite&mdash;which she used in wicked
+spells and incantations. In her native Nubia she
+had an evil reputation as a sorceress, and in Rome
+she still carried on by stealth her nefarious art.
+It was hinted, indeed, in the palace, that by her
+subtle, deadly potions she fulfilled her own
+prophecies of ill against the objects of the hatred
+of her employers.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis certain," hissed through her teeth the
+spiteful old Fausta, while murder gleamed from
+her sloe-black eyes, "that Galerius will not
+include in the Imperial rescript that painted doll,
+Valeria. She exerts unbounded fascination over
+him. It must be the spell of her false religion."</p>
+
+<p>"The spell of her beauty and grace, rather,"
+answered Furca, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Are you duped by her wiles, too?"
+asked Fausta, with bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I hate her all the more," said the priest;
+"but I cannot close my eyes to what every one
+sees."</p>
+
+<p>"It is something that I, at least, do not see,"
+muttered the withered crone, whose own harsh
+features seemed the very incarnation of hatred
+and cruelty. "If we cannot get rid of her under
+the decree," she went on, "we can, at least, in a
+surer but more perilous way. Cunning Juba,
+here, has access to her person; and by her skilled
+decoctions can make her beauty waste, and her
+life flicker to extinction, like a lamp unreplenished
+with oil."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Juba has learned, in the old land of the
+Nile, some of the dark secrets of Egypt,"
+whispered, with bated breath, the dusky African.
+"But it is very perilous to use them. The palace
+is full of suspicion; and that new favourite,
+Callirhoë,&mdash;how I hate her!&mdash;keeps watch over
+her mistress like the wild gazelle of the desert
+over its mate. It will take much gold to pay for
+the risk."</p>
+
+<p>"Gold thou shalt have to thy heart's content,
+if thou do but rid me of that cockatrice, who has
+usurped my place in my son's affections," hissed
+the wicked woman, who still felt a fierce, tiger-like
+love for the soldier-son whom she had
+trained up like a tiger cub. And Juba retired, to
+await further orders.</p>
+
+<p>"But if she die thus," said Furca, with a
+malignant gleam in his eyes, "she dies alone.
+What we want is to have her drag others down
+with her&mdash;her mother, Prisca; that haughty
+Adauctus, who holds himself so high, and the rest
+of the accursed Christian brood."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is what we want, if it can be done,"
+said Fausta; "but I fear it is impossible. You
+do not know how headstrong Galerius is in his
+own way; and the more he is opposed, the fiercer
+he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes Naso," said the arch priest.
+"He hates the Christians, if he does not love
+the gods. We will hear his counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, good Naso," exclaimed Fausta, as
+the Prefect of the city was ushered into the
+room. "We need your advice in the matter of
+this edict against the Christians: how we may
+use it as a net to snare the higher game of the
+palace and the Imperial household."</p>
+
+<p>"We must be wary as the weasel, sleepless as
+the basilisk, deadly as the aspic," said Naso,
+sententiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I have been saying," remarked
+Furca.</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks we must employ the aspic's secret
+sting, rather than the public edict."</p>
+
+<p>"I declare for the edict," exclaimed with
+energy the truculent Naso. "Let its thunders
+smite the loftiest as well as the lowly. It will
+carry greater terror, and make the ruin of the
+Christian party more complete. What is the use
+of lopping off the twigs, when the trunk and
+main branches are unscathed? I possess proof
+that will doom Adauctus, the senator Aurelius,
+and others who stand higher still. The Christians
+to the lions&mdash;every one, say I."</p>
+
+<p>"And so say I," ejaculated Furca, with malicious
+fervour; "but her Excellency thinks that
+Galerius will interpose to protect one who stands
+near the throne, though she be the chief
+encouragement of the Christian vermin that crawl
+at her feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, he dare not," exclaimed Naso, with
+his characteristic gesture of clenching his hand as
+if grasping his sword. "His own crown would
+stand in peril if beneath its shadow he would
+protect traitors to the State and enemies of the
+gods, however high their station."</p>
+
+<p>"As head of the State," interjected the priest,
+"he is the champion of the gods, and bound to
+avenge their insulted majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"You know not what he would dare," replied
+Fausta. "He would defy both gods and men, if
+he took the whim."</p>
+
+<p>"An accusation will be made before me," said
+Naso, "which not even the Emperors can over-look,
+against the Imperial Consort, Valeria, for
+intriguing with the Christians and bringing their
+priests to Rome, and conniving at their crimes
+against the State. We will see whether the
+majesty of the Empire or the beauty of a painted
+butterfly weighs the heavier in the scales."</p>
+
+<p>"I will second in private what your accusation
+demands in public," said the implacable Fausta.
+"Methinks I could die content if I might only
+trample that minion under my feet."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," said Furca, "will menace him with
+the wrath of the gods if he refuse to avenge their
+wrongs."</p>
+
+<p>"Between us all," added Naso, "it will go hard
+if we do not crush the Christian vermin, even
+beneath the shadow of the throne."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Such torch-holders may still be seen on the walls of
+the Palazzo Strozzi and in Florence and elsewhere.
+Torches of the sort we have described were purchased
+by the writer at Pozzuoli, near Naples.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">In his statement as to the accusation of the
+Empress before his tribunal, Naso, after his
+manner, took counsel of his truculent desires
+rather than of his cool reason. He had learned
+from his scapegrace son, Calphurnius, that Isidorus
+had returned to town from executing a commission
+for the Empress, the general purpose of
+which that hopeful youth had extorted from the
+drunken maunderings of the inconstant and
+unhappy Greek. Naso took it for granted, from his
+previous acquaintance with human nature of the
+baser sort, that Isidorus was trying to serve two
+masters, and that while acting as the agent of
+Valeria he would be willing to betray her secrets.
+Unaware of his vacillation of character and of
+his transient impulses toward Christianity, he
+further believed that the supple Greek, in
+accordance with his compact, would act as public
+accuser of the Christians. He had impressed
+upon Calphurnius, who was very prompt to learn
+the lesson, that it was of the utmost importance
+to bring the Greek under his personal influence
+and control, and especially to induce him to
+come again to the tribunal of the Prefect in the
+Forum.</p>
+
+<p>"We must keep our thumb on him. We can
+use him to our advantage," said the Prefect to his
+son.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I have him under a screw that will
+extort from him whatever you wish," replied the
+hopeful youth. "He owes me money, and he
+shall pay good interest on the loan. He is not
+the material of which heroes are made, like that
+young Christian who suffered martyrdom, as they
+call it, a few weeks ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, give your screw another turn," said
+Naso with a hideous chuckle. "That's the way
+I do when I have them on the rack. Keep him
+in debt. Lure him on. Make him lose money
+at dice and lend him more. We will wring his
+heart-strings by-and-bye. If we can only secure
+the death of Adauctus and some of his wealthy
+friends, their fair estates will help to line our
+purses, for the Emperors cannot leave such a
+zealous servant as the Prefect Naso unrewarded,"
+and this well matched pair&mdash;the offspring of the
+corruption and cruelty of the Empire&mdash;parted,
+each intent on his purposes of evil.</p>
+
+<p>The young scapegrace, Calphurnius&mdash;young in
+years, but old in vice&mdash;followed only too
+successfully this Satanic advice. He attached himself
+closely to Isidorus and became his very shadow&mdash;his
+other self. He lured him on to ostentatious
+extravagance of expenditure, often allowing him
+to win large sums at dice to replenish his depleted
+purse, and again winning from him every sesterce,
+and binding the Greek's fortunes more firmly to
+his own by lending him large sums, yet demanding
+usurious interest. The easy, pleasure-loving
+nature of Isidorus, intent on enjoying the passing
+hour and shrinking from suffering of body or
+anxiety of mind, made this <i>descensus Averni</i> all
+the more facile. He was thus led to forget all
+his good resolutions and noble purposes, and to
+plunge into the fashionable follies of the most
+corrupt society in the world. From the maundering
+remarks which fell from his lips in his fits of
+drunkenness, for he rapidly lapsed into this
+baneful vice, Calphurnius constructed a monstrous
+story of treachery which he used to create an
+utter rupture between the Greek and the Christians,
+alleging that he had too irreparably betrayed
+them to be ever forgiven, and that the
+only way of escaping the doom which menaced
+them was to throw himself into the arms of the
+party in power. It was with feelings of horror
+that in his rare moments of sober reflection
+Isidorus realized how fast and how far he had
+drifted from the thoughts, and feelings, and
+purposes of the hour when he knelt, in the Catacomb
+of Callixtus, at the feet of the good presbyter
+Primitius; or since he returned from Milan the
+restorer to the fair Callirhoë of her sire; or even
+since, a few days before, he had conversed with
+Adauctus and beheld with admiration his serenity
+of spirit under the shadow of persecution and
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Calphurnius exhausted every art to wring from
+his lips a legal accusation of the Christians, for
+even the ruthless persecutors wished to observe
+some forms of law in the destruction of their
+destined victims.</p>
+
+<p>"You have already betrayed them beyond
+reparation," he said, "and you may as well
+obtain the reward. You have told all about
+your employment by Adauctus in a treasonable
+mission to the Christian sectaries at Ravenna
+and Milan. You have been present at their
+assemblies at the Villa Marcella and in the
+Catacombs. A short hand notary<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> has taken
+down every word you said, and it shall be used
+against you unless you turn evidence for the
+State, and save yourself by bringing its enemies
+to justice."</p>
+
+<p>"Wretch!" cried the exasperated Greek.
+"Cease to torment me! 'Tis you who have
+tempted me to this perfidy, and now you seek
+to goad me to perdition. The Christians are no
+traitors to the State, and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>"The edict of the Emperors declares that they
+are," said Calphurnius, with a sneer, "perhaps
+you can persuade their Divine Majesties that
+they are mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you? What further infamy
+would you have me commit?" exclaimed the
+tortured Isidorus.</p>
+
+<p>"Only declare before the Prefect what you
+have already divulged to me. By refusing you
+only imperil yourself," replied his tormentor.</p>
+
+<p>"I consent," moaned the craven-hearted Greek,
+and he went on with a shudder, "I am double-dyed
+in infamy already. I can acquire no deeper
+stain."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tut, man! don't be a fool! Rome can pay
+her servants well. You will soon be well
+rewarded," and like an incarnate Diabolus, the
+accuser of the brethren proceeded to earn, as
+another Judas, the wages of iniquity by betraying
+innocent blood.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> These tachugraphoi were in common employment
+in the courts, and the sermons of Chrysostom were also
+reported by their skill.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE PLOT THICKENS.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Isidorus reluctantly accompanied Calphurnius
+to the tribunal of the Prefect;
+and there, partly through intimidation, partly
+through cajolery, he gave such information as to
+his expedition to Ravenna and Milan as the
+Prefect chose to ask. This was tortured, by that
+unscrupulous officer, into an accusation against
+the Empress Valeria of conspiracy with the
+Chancellor, Adauctus, and others of the Christian
+sect, against the worship of the gods of Rome,
+and so, constructively, of treason against the
+State. This indictment&mdash;<i>accusatio</i>, as it was
+technically called was duly formulated, and
+attested under the seal of the Prefect's Court.
+Naso, the Prefect, and Furca, the priest, found a
+congenial task in submitting the document to
+the Emperor Galerius, and asking his authority
+to proceed against the accused. They visited the
+palace at an hour when it had been arranged
+that the Emperor's evil genius, the cruel Fausta,
+should be with him, to exert her malign influence
+in procuring the downfall of the object of her
+malice&mdash;the Empress Valeria&mdash;and the destruction
+of the Christian sect. "The insulted gods
+appeal to your Divine Majesty for protection,
+and for the punishment of the atheists who
+despise their worship and defy their power," began
+the high-priest of Cybele, seeking to work upon
+the superstition of the Illyrian herdsman, raised
+to the Imperial purple.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my worthy friend," replied the Emperor
+in a bantering tone, "what is the matter now.
+Has any one been poaching on your preserves?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is not a matter of private concern, Your
+Majesty," remarked the Prefect gravely. "It
+touches the welfare of the State and the stability
+of your throne."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and your personal and domestic honour,
+too," whispered Fausta in his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be something pretty comprehensive
+to do all that. Come, out with it at once," laughed
+the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Thus adjured, Furca began to recount the
+insults offered to the gods by the Christians, and,
+especially, that the Empress no longer attended
+their public festivals.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I understand," said the Emperor, with
+a yawn, "your craft is in danger. The offerings
+at your altars are falling off; and we all know
+where <i>they</i> went. The gods are all alike to me;
+I believe in none of them."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are necessary, to keep the mob in
+subjection," said Naso. "Some are amused with
+their pageants, and others are awed by menaces
+of their wrath."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I grant you, they are of some use for
+that; and that is all they are good for," replied
+this ancient Agnostic.</p>
+
+<p>"But the Christians are traitors to the State,"
+continued the Prefect; "rank sedition-mongers.
+They are secretly sworn to serve another Lord
+than the Cæsars, and they are ceaselessly striving
+to undermine your Imperial Majesty's authority."</p>
+
+<p>"You do well," continued the cruel Galerius,
+a fire of deadly hate burning in his eyes, "to
+exterminate that accursed vermin, wherever
+found. Burn, crucify, torture, as you will."</p>
+
+<p>"And the estates of the rebels, they escheat to
+the temples of the insulted gods?" asked the
+priest, with hungry eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, to the State, I think," laughed the
+Emperor. "Is it not so, good Naso?"</p>
+
+<p>"Half to the State and half to the <i>delator</i>,
+or accuser," answered that worthy, learned in the
+law of pillage.</p>
+
+<p>"Let not the wolves fall out about the prey,"
+said the Emperor, with a sneer; "only make sure
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"Be so good then, Your Majesty, as to affix
+your seal to these decrees of death. With such
+high officers as Adauctus and Aurelius my
+authority as Prefect is not sufficient."</p>
+
+<p>"And the Empress Valeria; she, too, as traitor
+to your person and crown, is included in the
+decree," insinuated, in a wheedling tone, the
+crafty priest.</p>
+
+<p>"Base hound," roared the Emperor, laying his
+hand upon his sword; "breathe but the name of
+the Empress again, and I will pluck thy vile
+tongue from thy throat."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Your Majesty," said the crafty Fausta,
+while the abject priest cowered like a whipped
+cur; "'tis but his excess of zeal for Your
+Majesty's honour, which I fear the Empress
+betrays."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," said Galerius, sternly, "I am the
+guardian of my own honour. What the Christians
+are, I neither know nor care. What the
+Empress is, I know&mdash;the noblest soul that
+breathes in Rome. Who wags his tongue against
+her shall be given to the crows and kites. <i>Dixi
+Fiat</i>&mdash;I have spoken&mdash;so let it be," and his
+terrible frown, as he stalked from the room,
+showed that he meant what he said.</p>
+
+<p>The three conspirators, for a moment, stared at
+each other in consternation. Then the wily
+Fausta faltered out, "Said I not, he would defy
+both gods and men? We must do by stealth
+what we cannot do by force. Juba must ply her
+most secret and most deadly arts. I have certain
+subtle spells myself; and if mortal hate can give
+them power, I will make her beauty waste away
+like a fading flower, and her strength wane like a
+dying lamp."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a dangerous game," replied Naso. "Be
+wary how you play it. As for me, armed with
+this edict, I will strike at mine ancient foe, for
+whom I long have nursed a bitter spite. Curse
+him! I am tired of hearing him called Adauctus
+the Just. He held me to such a strict account
+that I had to make a full return of all the fines
+and mulcts paid in, without taking the toll which
+is my right." And he departed to gratify his
+double passion of revenge and greed.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem strange that such a truculent
+monster as Galerius, of whom, in his later days,
+his Christian subjects were wont to say that "he
+never supped without human blood&mdash;<i>Nec unquam
+sine cruore humano c&#339;nabat,</i>"<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>&mdash;should be so
+under the spell of his Christian wife. But the
+statement is corroborated by the records of
+history, and by the philosophy of the human mind.
+There is a power in moral goodness that can awe
+the rudest natures, a winsome spell that can subdue
+the hardest hearts. It was the story of Una
+and the Lion, of Beauty and the Beast over again;
+and one of the severest trials for a Christian
+wife in those days of the struggle between
+Christianity and Paganism for the mastery of the
+world, was that of being allied to a pagan
+husband. Tertullian, in the third century, thus
+describes the difficulties which a Christian woman
+married to an idolater must encounter in her
+religious life:</p>
+
+<p>"At the time for worship the husband will
+appoint the use of the bath; when a fast is to be
+observed he will invite company to a feast
+When she would bestow alms, both safe and
+cellar are closed against her. What heathen will
+suffer his wife to attend the nightly meetings of
+the Church, the slandered Supper of the Lord, to
+visit the sick even in the poorest hovels, to kiss
+the martyrs' chains in prison, to rise in the night
+for prayer, to show hospitality to stranger
+brethren?"<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p>In time of persecution, or in the case of
+persons of such exalted rank as that of Valeria, the
+difficulty of adorning a Christian life, amid their
+pagan surroundings, was all the greater. Yet not
+a word of scandal has been breathed upon the
+character of the wife of the arch persecutor of
+the Christians; and even the sneering pen of
+Gibbon has only words of commendation for the
+Christian Empress who herself under subsequent
+persecution, remained steadfast even unto death.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty and dignity of Christian wedlock
+in an age of persecution and strife are nobly
+expressed by Tertullian in the following passage,
+addressed to his own wife: "How can I paint the
+happiness," he exclaims, "of a marriage which
+the Church ratines, the Sacrament confirms, the
+benediction seals, angels announce, and our
+heavenly Father declares valid! What a union
+of two believers&mdash;one hope, one vow, one
+discipline, one worship! They are brother and sister,
+two fellow-servants, one spirit and one flesh.
+They pray together, fast together, exhort and
+support one another. They go together to the
+house of God, and to the table of the Lord.
+They share each other's trials, persecutions, and
+joys. Neither avoids, nor hides anything from
+the other. They delight to visit the sick, succour
+the needy, and daily to lay their offerings before
+the altar without scruple, and without constraint.
+They do not need to keep the sign of the cross
+hidden, nor to express secretly their Christian
+joy, nor to receive by stealth the eucharist. They
+join in psalms and hymns, and strive who best
+can praise God. Christ rejoices at the sight, and
+sends His peace upon them. Where two are in
+His name He also is; and where He is, there evil
+cannot come."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Lactantius, <i>De Mortibus Persecutorum.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Tertull, <i>Ad Uzorem</i>, ii. 8.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">A CRIME PREVENTED.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The deadly malice of Fausta, Furca, and Naso
+towards the Empress Valeria, foiled in its
+attempt to invoke upon her the penalties of the
+edict against the Christians, sought, by secret
+means, to procure her death. Juba, the black
+slave, was heavily bribed to prepare some of her
+most subtle poisons and procure their administration.
+But here a difficulty presented itself,
+and it is a striking illustration of the corruption
+of the Empire and of the daily peril in which the
+inhabitants of the Imperial palace dwelt&mdash;a state
+of peril which finds its modern analogue only
+in the continual menace under which the Czar
+of all the Russias lives, with a sword of Damocles
+suspended by a single hair above his head. Such
+was the atmosphere of suspicion which pervaded
+the whole palace, such the dread of assassination
+or of poisoning, that trusty guards and
+officers swarmed in the ante-chambers and
+prevented access to the members of the Imperial
+family except under the most rigid precautions
+of safety; and a special officer was appointed,
+whose duty, as his title of <i>Prægustalor</i> implies,
+was to taste every kind of food or drink provided
+for the Imperial table. Regard for his
+personal safety was, of course, a guarantee that
+the utmost precautions were observed in preparing
+the daily food of the Imperial household. Juba
+in vain attempted to bribe some of the kitchen
+scullions and cooks to mix with the savoury
+viands designed for the use of Valeria, who
+generally lunched in her private apartments, a potent
+poison. They accepted, indeed, her bribes, but
+prudently declined to carry out their part of the
+agreement, well knowing that she dare not venture
+to criminate herself by an open rupture with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>At length she resolved on attempting a more
+subtle but less certain mode of administering a
+deadly drug. While in the service of a priest of
+Isis in Egypt, she had extorted or cajoled from
+an Abyssinian slave in his service certain dark
+secrets, learned it was said by the Queen of Sheba
+from Solomon, and handed down from age to age
+as the esoteric lore of the realm. One of these
+was the preparation of a volatile poison so subtle
+and powerful that its mere inhalation was of
+deadly potency. As a means of conveying this
+to her victim, and at the same time of disguising
+the pungent aromatic odour, a basket of flowers
+which she had plentifully sprinkled with the
+deadly poison was sent to the Empress. To make
+assurance doubly sure, she concealed among the
+flowers one of those beautiful but deadly asps,
+such as that from the bite of which the dusky
+Queen of Egypt, the wanton Cleopatra, died.
+This, for purposes connected with her nefarious
+arts, she had procured as what evil thing could
+not be procured?&mdash;from the dealers in deadly
+drugs, philtres, and potions in the crowded Ghetto
+of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>To ensure the conveyance of the deadly gift
+to the hands of Valeria herself, Juba invented
+the fiction that they were a thankoffering from
+the young Greek, Isidorus, to his Imperial
+patroness for favours received. With her
+characteristic cunning Juba had possessed herself of
+the secret of his services rendered to the Empress,
+and of the interest felt in him by her august
+mistress.</p>
+
+<p>Valeria was in her <i>boudoir</i> with her favourite
+and now inseparable Callirhoë, as her tire woman,
+dressing her hair, when the fatal missive arrived.
+As Callirhoë received the basket from the hands
+of Juba, the eyes of the slave gleamed with the
+deadly hate of a basilisk, and she muttered as she
+turned away&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"May the curse of Isis rest on them both. My
+fine lady has driven black Juba from the tiring
+room of the Empress. May she now share her
+fate," and, like a sable Atropos, she glided from
+the chamber with stealthy and cat-like tread.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what fresh and fragrant flowers,"
+exclaimed the Empress Valeria, as she bent over
+them, "see how the dew is yet fresh upon their
+petals." Here she raised the basket so as more
+fully to inhale their fragrance. At that moment
+the concealed and deadly asp whose dark green
+and glossy skin had prevented its detection among
+the acanthus and lily leaves, seized, with his
+envenomed fang, the damask cheek of the fair
+Valeria, and for a moment clung firmly there.</p>
+
+<p>"God, save her!" exclaimed Callirhoë, who
+in a moment recognized the cruel aspic, of which,
+as a child, she had been often warned in her
+native Antioch, and with an eager gesture she
+flung the venomous reptile to the ground and
+crushed its head beneath her sandal's heel. On
+the quick instinct of the moment and without
+stopping to think of the consequences to herself,
+she threw her arms about her Imperial mistress'
+neck, and pressing her lips to her cheek, sucked
+the venom from the yet bleeding wound.</p>
+
+<p>The cry of the Empress as the little serpent
+stung her cheek brought a swarm of attendants
+and slaves into the room, among them black Juba
+and the officer of the guard who was responsible
+for the Empress' safety. Valeria had fainted and
+lay pale as ashes on her couch, a crimson stream
+flowing from her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear heart!" exclaimed Juba, with an
+ostentatious exhibition of well-feigned grief, "let her
+inhale this fragrant elixir. It is a potent
+restorative in such deadly faints," and she attempted to
+complete her desperate crime by thrusting the
+poisonous perfume under Valeria's nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was last in the presence before this
+strange accident&mdash;if it be an accident&mdash;occurred?"
+demanded the officer.</p>
+
+<p>"I and Juba, were the only ones," faltered
+Callirhoë, when a deathly pallor passed over her
+face, and with a convulsive shudder she fell
+writhing on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"You are under arrest," said the officer to.
+Juba, and then to a soldier of the guard, "Go,
+seize and seal up her effects&mdash;everything she has;
+and you," turning to another, "send at once the
+court physician."</p>
+
+<p>The attendants meanwhile were fanning and
+sprinkling with water the seemingly inanimate
+forms of the Empress and Callirhoë. When the
+physician came and felt the fluttering pulse and
+noted the dilated eyes of his patients, he
+pronounced it a case of acrid poisoning and promptly
+ordered antidotes. The Empress, in a few days
+rallied and seemed little the worse beyond a
+strange pallor which overspread her features and
+an abnormal coldness, almost as of death, which
+pervaded her frame. From these she never fully
+recovered, but throughout her life was known in
+popular speech as "The White Lady."</p>
+
+<p>Upon Callirhoë the effects of the poison were
+still more serious. By her prompt action in
+sucking the aspic virus from the envenomed
+wound, she had saved the life of her beloved
+mistress, but at the peril of her own. The venom
+coursed through her veins, kindling the fires of
+fever in her blood. Her dilated eyes shone with
+unusual brilliance; her speech was rapid; her
+manner urgent; and her emotions and expressions
+were characterized by a strange and unwonted
+intenseness. The physician in answer to
+the eager questioning of Valeria, gravely shook
+his head, and said that the case was one that
+baffled his skill&mdash;that cure there was none for
+the aspic's poison if absorbed into the system,
+although as it had not in this case been
+communicated directly to the blood, possibly the
+youth and vigour of the patient might overcome
+the toxic effect of the contagium&mdash;so he
+learnedly discoursed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, you have given your life for
+mine," exclaimed the Empress, throwing her arms
+around her late enfranchised slave, and bedewing
+her cheek with her tears.</p>
+
+<p>"God grant it be so," said Callirhoë, with
+kindling eye. "I would gladly die to save you
+from a sorrow or a pain. I owe you more than
+life. I owe you liberty and a life more precious
+than my own."</p>
+
+<p>"All that love and skill can do, dear heart, shall
+be done," said the Empress caressingly, "to
+preserve you to your new-found liberty, and to your
+sire."</p>
+
+<p>"As God wills, dearest lady," answered
+Callirhoë, kissing her mistress' hand. "In His great
+love I live or die content. I bless Him every
+hour that He has permitted me to show in some
+weak way, the love I bear my best and dearest
+earthly friend."</p>
+
+<p>And with such fond converse passed the hours
+of Valeria's convalescence, and of Callirhoë's
+deepening decline.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE STORM BURSTS.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">The crafty Juba, when she found herself
+arrested in <i>flagrante delicto</i>&mdash;in the very
+act of her attempted crime&mdash;determined to use,
+if possible, the fiction she had employed with
+reference to Isidorus, as a means of escape from
+the very serious dilemma in which she was placed.
+It will be remembered that she had stated, in order
+to procure the acceptance of her fatal gift, that
+it was a thank-offering from the young Greek
+who had rendered such service to the Empress
+and Callirhoë. Happy if Valeria had remembered
+and practised the ancient adage, "<i>Timeo
+Danaos et dona ferentes.</i>" But suspicion was
+foreign to her generous nature, and even if the
+wise saw had occurred to her, she would have
+lightly laughed away its cynical suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>When the treacherous slave was examined as
+to her share in the attempted crime, she stoutly
+adhered to her fictitious story, and protested that
+she knew nothing of the contents of the basket,
+but that she had received it from Isidorus, and
+had been well paid for conveying it to the
+Empress without suspicion of any sinister design.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek, when charged with the crime of
+attempting to procure, by poison, the death of the
+Empress Valeria, manifested the greatest astonishment.
+Summoned before the Quæstor of the
+Palace, an officer of co-ordinate jurisdiction with
+the Prefect of the city, he stoutly protested his
+innocence. But all his protestations were
+regarded by that official, as only the very
+perfection of art&mdash;the well-feigned evasions of a
+mendacious Greek. And certainly appearances
+were very much against him. The Prefect Naso,
+now that he had extorted from him all the
+information he had to give, abandoned him as a
+worn-out tool and divulged to the Quæstor the damning
+fact that the Greek by a formal document had
+accused the Empress of treason against the State,
+and of conspiracy with the Christians&mdash;for so
+he represented the confessions which, by his
+diabolical arts, he had wrung from his unhappy
+victim. Confronted by this evidence Isidorus
+was dumb. He saw the trap into which he had
+been snared, and that by no efforts of his own
+could he extricate himself. He saw, too, the ruin
+he had brought upon his friends, for Naso had
+procured the immediate arrest of Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and Demetrius, the father of Callirhoë,
+and other Christians connected with the Imperial
+household. Callirhoë herself was also placed
+under arrest, upon the monstrous accusation of
+conspiracy with Isidorus and Juba to procure
+the death of the Empress Valeria. One would
+have thought that her self-devotion and almost
+sacrifice of her life to save that of her mistress
+would have been a sufficient vindication from
+such a charge. But the unreasoning terror of
+the Emperors and the unreasoning hatred of all
+who bore the Christian name, fostered as these
+were by the machinations and evil suggestions of
+the Quæstor of the Palace, the Prefect of the
+city, the arch priest of Cybele, and the cruel,
+crafty Fausta, thirsty for the blood of her victim,
+rendered possible the acceptance of any charge,
+however improbable. "Any stick will do to beat
+a dog," and any accusation, however absurd, was
+considered available against the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Even Galerius who, left to himself, would,
+soldier-like, have braved any personal danger,
+completely lost his judgment at the peril
+menacing the Empress. The tortures of slaves and
+servants by the perverted tribunals, miscalled of
+justice, fomented by the cruel, crafty priests, and
+the eager greed of Prefect and Quæstor, caused
+an outburst of persecution against all who bore
+the Christian name. The estates of Adauctus,
+and Aurelius were expropriated by the persecutors,
+and as a consequence their late possessors
+were pre-judged to death. Valeria who would
+fain have interposed her protection, had suffered
+such a physical shock as to be incapable of
+exercising any authority or influence she might possess.
+And the Empress Prisca, less courageous in spirit,
+less beautiful in person, and less potent in
+influence, was completely cowed by the domineering
+violence of the Emperor Diocletian, who was
+quite beside himself at the conspiracy against the
+gods, and against the Imperial Household which
+he persuaded himself had been discovered.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," he replied, in answer to a weak
+remonstrance against the persecution, "was it not
+enough that our palace at Nicomedia was burned
+over our heads, that you must apologise for
+treason in our very household and the menace of
+our very person. No; the Christian superstition
+must be stamped out, and the worship of the
+gods maintained."<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>Hence throughout the wide empire, in the sober
+language of history, "Edict followed edict, rising
+in regular gradations of angry barbarity. The
+whole clergy were declared enemies of the State;
+and bishops, presbyters, and deacons were crowded
+into the prisons intended for the basest malefactors"<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>&mdash;"an
+innumerable company," says the
+Christian bishop Eusebius, "so that there was
+no room left for those condemned for crime."
+"We saw with our own eyes," writes a contemporary
+historian, "our houses of worship thrown
+down, the sacred Scriptures committed to the
+flames, and the shepherds of the people become
+the sport of their enemies&mdash;scourge with rods,
+tormented with the rack and excruciating
+scrapings, in which some endured the most
+terrible death. Then men and women, with a
+certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed
+into the fire. The persecutors, constantly
+inventing new tortures, vied with one another as if
+there were prizes offered to him who should
+invent the greatest cruelties. The men bore fire,
+sword, and crucifixions, savage beasts, and the
+depths of the sea, the maiming of limbs and
+searing with red hot iron, digging out of the eyes
+and mutilations of the whole body, also hunger,
+the mines, and prison. The women also were
+strengthened by the Divine Word, so that some
+of them endured the same trials as the men, and
+bore away the same prize. It would exceed all
+powers of detail," he goes on, "to give an idea
+of the sufferings and tortures which the martyrs
+endured. And these things were done, not for
+a few days, but for a series of whole years. We
+ourselves," he adds, "have seen crowds of persons,
+some beheaded, some burned alive, in a single
+day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted
+and broken in pieces, and the executioners, weary
+with slaughter, were obliged to give over the
+work of blood."<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> And he goes on to describe
+deeds of shame and torture of which he was
+an eye-witness, which our pen refuses to record.</p>
+
+<p>The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed at
+times almost like an epidemic. It was one of
+the most remarkable features of the ages of
+persecution. Notwithstanding the terrific
+tortures to which they were exposed, the zeal of the
+Christian heroes burned higher and brighter in
+the fiercest tempest of heathen rage. Age after
+age summoned the soldiers of the Cross to the
+conflict whose highest guerdon was death. They
+bound persecution as a wreath about their brows,
+and exulted in the "glorious infamy" of
+suffering for their Lord. The brand of shame
+became the badge of highest honour. Besides
+the joys of heaven they won imperishable fame
+on earth; and the memory of a humble slave was
+often haloed with a glory surpassing that of a
+Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was
+ennobled by the accolade of martyrdom to the
+loftiest peerage of the skies. His consecration
+of suffering was elevated to a sacrament, and
+called the baptism of fire or of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous
+candidates for death often pressed with eager
+haste to seize the palm of victory and the
+martyr's crown. They trod with joy the fiery
+path to glory, and went as gladly to the stake as
+to a marriage feast. "Their fetters," says
+Eusebius, "seemed like the golden ornaments of a
+bride."<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> They desired martyrdom more ardently
+than men afterward sought a bishopric.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> They
+exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were
+counted worthy to suffer for their divine Master.
+"Let the ungulæ tear us," exclaims Tertullian;<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>
+"the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope
+us, the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts
+spring upon us; the very posture of prayer is a
+preparation for every punishment." "These
+things," says St. Basil, "so far from being a terror,
+are rather a pleasure and a recreation to us."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>
+"The tyrants were armed;" says St. Chrysostom;
+"and the martyrs naked; yet they that were
+naked got the victory, and they that carried arms
+were vanquished."<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Strong in the assurance of
+immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.</p>
+
+<p>Though weak in body they seemed clothed
+with vicarious strength, and confident that though
+"counted as sheep for the slaughter," naught
+could separate them from the love of Christ.
+Wrapped in their fiery vesture and shroud of
+flame, they yet exulted in their glorious victory.
+While the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame,
+and the eyes filmed with the shadows of death,
+the spirit was enbraved by the beatific vision of
+the opening heaven, and above the roar of the
+mob fell sweetly on the inner sense the assurance
+of eternal life. "No group, indeed, of Oceanides
+was there to console the Christian Prometheus;
+yet to his upturned eye countless angels were
+visible&mdash;their anthem swept solemnly to his ear
+&mdash;and the odours of an opening paradise filled the
+air. Though the dull ear of sense heard nothing,
+he could listen to the invisible Coryphæus as
+he invited him to heaven and promised him an
+eternal crown."<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The names of the "great army
+of martyrs," though forgotten by men, are written
+in the Book of Life. "The Lord knoweth them
+that are His."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is a record, traced on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shall endure eternally;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The angel standing by God's throne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Treasures there each word and groan;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not the martyr's speech alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But every wound is there depicted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With every circumstance of pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crimson stream, the gash inflicted<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not a drop is shed in vain.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle
+in society. It had no classical counterpart.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a>
+Socrates and Seneca suffered with fortitude, but
+not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy
+dwindled into insignificance before the sublimity
+of Christian hope. This looked beyond the
+shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth
+to the grandeur of the Infinite and the Eternal.
+The heroic deaths of the believers exhibited a
+spiritual power mightier than the primal
+instincts of nature, the love of wife or child, or
+even of life itself. Like a solemn voice falling
+on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples
+urged the inquiry, "What shall it profit a man
+if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
+And that voice awakened an echo in full many a
+heart. The martyrs made more converts by their
+deaths than in their lives. "Kill us, rack us
+condemn us, grind us to powder," exclaims the
+intrepid Christian Apologist; "our numbers
+increase in proportion as you mow us down."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> The
+earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but
+still they multiplied and grew, gloriously
+illustrating the perennial truth&mdash;<i>Sanguis martyrum
+semen ecclesiæ</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> These are the very words of the edict quoted in note
+to <a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Milman, History of Christianity, Book II., Chapter ix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History," Book viii.,
+Chaps, ii-xiv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Hist. Eccles., v. I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus
+quærebantur quam nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus
+appetuntur.&mdash;Sulpic. Sever. Hist., lib. II.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Apol. c. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Gregory Nazianzen. Orat. de Laud. Basil. See also
+the striking language of Ignatius. Euseb. Hist. Eccles.
+III. 36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Chrys. Horn. 74, de Martyr.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Kip, p. 88&mdash;from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the
+ardour for martyrdom rose into a passion. Eusebius
+says (Hist. Eccles., viii., 6) that in Nicomedia "Men
+and women with a certain divine and inexpressible
+alacrity rushed into the fire."
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Inscripta <span class="smcap">Christo</span> pagina immortalis est,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et quæ locutus martyr, et quæ pertulit:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nec verbum solum disserentis condidit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quæ vis doloris, quive segmenti modus:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit. <i>Peristeph.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Video, proboque meliora,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deterioraque sequor.&mdash;<i>Hor.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The pagans called the martyrs βιαθἁἁυατοι, or self
+murderers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Tertul., Apol., c. 50.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE MAMERTINE PRISON.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Let us now turn our attention to the fate of the
+characters in our tale of Christian trial and
+triumph, around whom its interest chiefly centres.
+They have been consigned to one of the most
+dismal of the many gloomy dungeons of Rome&mdash;the
+thrice terrible Mamertine prison&mdash;haunted
+with memories of long centuries of cruelty and
+crime. Manacled each to a Roman soldier,
+Adauctus, Aurelius, Demetrius, and Callirhoë,
+together with other Christians condemned to
+martyrdom, marched through the streets under
+the noontide glare of a torrid sun. A guard
+armed <i>cap à pié</i>, flung open an iron-studded door,
+and admitted them to a gloomy vault a few steps
+below the level of the street. Here a brawny
+Vulcan, with anvil and hammer, with many a
+brutal gibe smote off the fetters that linked the
+prisoners and soldiers together, and riveted them
+again so that these victims of oppression were
+bound together in pairs. Sometimes it happened
+that one of a pair thus bound together died, and
+the survivor endured the horror of being
+inseparably fettered to a festering corpse. To this
+the apostle refers when, groaning over the
+corruptions of his sinful nature, he exclaims: "O
+wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me
+from the body of this death?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dainty lady," said the hideous Cyclops,
+as he rudely seized the arm of Callirhoë, "this
+is not the sort of bracelet you've been used to
+wear. I should not much mind, being bound to
+such as you myself, only I would prefer silken
+fetters to those iron gyves." Then, as she shrank
+from his touch and winced as he bruised her
+tender flesh in unriveting the fetters, he said,
+with an insolent jeer, "I wont hurt you more
+than I can help, my beauty. You are not used
+to having such a rough chamberlain;" and he
+uttered a coarse jest with which we shall not
+pollute our page.</p>
+
+<p>A rosy flush stormed the brow of the maiden
+as she turned her blushing cheek to the mildewed
+and cold stone wall, in haughty silence disdaining
+a word of reply to the brutal ruffian.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my fine gentlemen," went on this typical
+Roman jailer, as Adauctus and the aged
+Demetrius, weary with their march, sank upon a stone
+bench, "this is too luxurious an apartment for
+you. For you we have a deeper depth." And
+Be pointed to an opening in the floor, hitherto
+unnoticed in the gloom. "Nay, you need not
+shrink, old man," he went on, as Demetrius
+recoiled from the grave-like opening at his feet.
+"Your betters have been there before you."</p>
+
+<p>"Father, your blessing e'er you go," exclaimed
+Callirhoë, and flinging herself on his breast, she
+received his kiss and benediction.</p>
+
+<p>By means of a leathern strap beneath their
+arms, the prisoners were one by one let down into
+a hideous vault, like men to a living burial. Into
+this lower dungeon no beam of light struggled,
+save a precarious ray from the opening in the
+floor above. The loathsome cell was even then
+dank with the slime of well-nigh a thousand
+years, its construction being attributed to Ancus
+Martius, the fourth king of Rome. Here the
+African prince, Jugurtha, was starved to death.
+"What a cold bath is this!" he exclaimed, as he
+descended into its chilly gloom. Here the Gallic
+king, Vercingetorix, also died. Here the usurper
+Sejanus was executed, and here the fellow
+conspirators of Cataline lingered to death. If we
+would accept Roman tradition, we would also
+believe that St. Peter and St. Paul were immured
+in this dismal vault, and in the case of the latter
+illustrious martyr it is more than likely that the
+story is true. A stairway has now been
+constructed to this lower depth, and the present
+writer has stood upon the stone pavement worn
+by the feet of generations of victims of
+oppression, and has drunk of a spring at which the
+Apostle of the Gentiles may have quenched his
+thirst.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoners enjoyed not long even this sad
+reprieve from death. They were destined soon
+to finish their course by a glorious martyrdom.
+The Emperors determined to gratify at once their
+own persecuting fury and the cruel thirst for
+blood of the Roman mob, by offering a holocaust
+of victims in the amphitheatre. The <i>Acta Diurna</i>,
+a sort of public gazette of the day, which
+circulated in the great houses, and baths, and other
+places of concourse, contained the announcement
+of a grand exhibition of the <i>ludi circenses</i>, or
+gladiatorial games, to be celebrated in honour of
+the god Neptune&mdash;<i>Neptunus Equestris</i>. In the
+public spaces of the Forum, and in the
+neighbourhood of the Flavian Amphitheatre and elsewhere,
+where the crowd around them would not obstruct
+the highway, were displayed large white bulletin
+boards, on which were written in coloured chalks
+a list of the games&mdash;like the playbills which
+placard the streets of great cities to-day&mdash;and
+heralds proclaimed through every street, even in
+the crowded Ghetto, the splendour of the
+approaching games. These were on a scale on which
+no modern manager ever dreamed. Trajan
+exhibited games which lasted a hundred and twenty-three
+days, in which 10,000 gladiators fought and
+11,000 fierce animals were killed. Sometimes
+the vast arena was flooded with water, and
+<i>naumachia</i> or sea-fights were exhibited. The vast
+flood-gates and cisterns by which this was
+accomplished may still be seen.</p>
+
+<p>The chief attraction of the games provided by
+the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius, however,
+was not the conflict of what might almost be
+called armies of trained gladiators, nor the
+slaughter of hundreds of fierce Libyan leopards
+and Numidian lions, but the sacrifice of some
+scores of helpless and unarmed Christians&mdash;old
+men, weak women, and tender and innocent
+children.</p>
+
+<p>There was much excitement in the schools of
+the gladiators&mdash;vast stone barracks, where they
+were drilled in their dreadful trade. They were
+originally captives taken in war, or condemned
+malefactors; but in the degenerate days of the
+Empire, knights, senators, and soldiers sought
+distinction in the arena, and even unsexed women
+fought half-naked in the ring, or lay dead and
+trampled in the sands. To captives of war was
+often offered, as a reward for special skill or
+courage, their freedom and fierce and fell were
+conflicts to which men wore spurred by the double
+incentives of life and liberty.</p>
+
+<p>Special interest was given to the forthcoming
+games by the distinguished reputation of one of
+the volunteer gladiators, a brilliant young military
+officer, our friend Ligurius Rufus, who, sated and
+sickened with the most frenzied dissipations that
+Rome could offer, plunged into this mimic war to
+appease by its excitement the gnawing ennui of
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>The bets ran high upon the reckless young
+noble who was the favourite of the sporting
+spend-thrifts and profligates of the city. The vilest
+condition of society that ever cursed the earth
+was filling up the measure of its iniquity, and
+invoking the wrath of Heaven. The wine shops
+in the Suburra and the gladiators' quarter were
+overflowing with a brawling, blaspheming, drunken
+mob, the vilest dregs of the vilest city the patient
+earth has ever borne upon its bosom.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Far different was the scene presented by
+another spot not far distant&mdash;a vaulted chamber
+beneath the stone seats of the Coliseum, whither
+the destined Christian martyrs had been removed
+on the eve before the day of their triumph. As
+an act of grace, some coarse straw, the refuse of
+a lion's lair, had been given them, and the relief
+to their fetter-cramped limbs, stiffened with lying
+on a rough stone floor, was in itself an indescribable
+delight. But they had a deeper cause of joy.
+They were found worthy to witness a good
+confession for Christ before Cæsar, like the beloved
+Apostle Paul; and even as their Lord Himself
+before Pontius Pilate. And now the day of their
+espousals to their Heavenly Bridegroom was at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>The silvery-haired Demetrius, a holy calm
+beaming in his eyes, uttered words of peace and
+comfort. The coarse black barley-bread and muddy
+wine which had been given them lest death should
+cheat the mob of their promised delight on the
+morrow, the venerable priest had consecrated to
+the Supper of the Lord&mdash;the last viaticum to
+strengthen their souls on their journey to the
+spirit world. Sitting at his feet, faint and wan,
+but with a look of utter content upon her face,
+was his daughter Callirhoë, a heavenly smile
+flickering about her lips. With an undaunted
+courage, a heroic resolve beaming from his eyes,
+stood Adauctus, waiting, like a valiant soldier at
+his post, the welcome word of the great Captain
+of his salvation: "Well done! good and faithful
+servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."</p>
+
+<p>Ever and anon the deep-mouthed roar of a
+hungry lion rent the air, his fierce bound shook
+the walls of his cage, and his hot breath came
+through the bars as he keenly sniffed the smell
+of human flesh. But though it caused at times
+a tremor of the quivering nerves of the wan and
+wasted girl, it shook not her unfaltering soul
+Listen to the holy words calmly spoken by the
+venerable Demetrius: "'<i>Non turbetur cor vestrum</i>&mdash;Let
+not your heart be troubled. In my Father's
+house are many mansions. I go to prepare a
+place for you.' Yes, daughter. Yes, brave friend;
+before another sun shall set we shall see the King
+in His beauty, and the laud that is very far off.
+Mine aged eyes shall see, too, the beloved Rachel
+of my youth, to behold whom they have ached
+these many years. And thou, child, shalt see
+the mother after whom thy heart hath yearned."</p>
+
+<p>"If only, dear father, my brother Ezra were
+with us," whispered Callirhoë, "we soon would
+be an unbroken family in the city of the great
+King."</p>
+
+<p>"God's will be done, my child," answered the
+patriarch. "He doeth all things well. He could
+bid His angels fly swiftly, and shut the lions'
+mouths, or better still, convoy our spirits to the
+marriage supper of the Lamb&mdash;to the repose of
+Abraham's bosom. Your brother is a child of the
+covenant, an heir of the promises, the son of
+many prayers. God will count him also in the
+day when He maketh up His jewels." Then,
+as if gifted with the spirit of prophecy, he
+exclaimed: "Not always shall the servants of
+the Most High be persecuted unto death. But
+this very structure, now dedicated to slaughter
+and cruelty, shall hereafter be consecrated to the
+service of the true God"&mdash;a prediction which,
+after long centuries, has been literally fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in holy converse wore the hours away.
+And then through the rocky vaults of the Coliseum
+stole the sweet accents of their last evening
+hymn before they should sing the song of Moses
+and the Lamb on high:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the
+Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the
+Almighty."</p>
+
+<p>"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and
+my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust."</p>
+
+<p>"He shall give His angels charge over thee,
+to keep thee in all thy ways."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder;
+the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample
+under foot."</p>
+
+<p>As this pæan of triumph swelled into louder
+strain, the gladiators, awed by its strange power,
+paused amid their ribald jests, and even the lion
+hushed his hungry roar, and the tiger his angry
+growl.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">A ROMAN HOLIDAY.</p>
+
+
+<p class="dropcap">Early next morning the army of slaves whO
+had charge of the Coliseum, under the
+direction of Fulvus, the freedman, were hard at
+work. Some at the very summit of the building,
+with much shouting and pulling of ropes, were
+stretching the great <i>velarium</i> or awning, as a
+protection from the rays of the sun. Others were
+sweeping the sand of the arena to a smooth and
+even surface. Many cart loads of fresh sand were
+heaped around the base of the podium, for the
+ghastly purpose of being spread upon the blood-stained
+surface after each act of the sanguinary
+drama of the day. Others were decorating with
+garlands of flowers, and with gold and purple
+bannerets, the seats of the Emperors Diocletian
+and Galerius, and those of the senators and other
+persons of distinction. The great structure seemed
+even more striking in its vastness, as a few score
+figures crawled like flies over its empty seats,
+than when filled with its tumultuous throng of
+spectators. It was an immense oval six hundred
+and fifteen feet in its longer diameter, and five
+hundred and ten feet in the shorter. The circling
+seats rose tier on tier to the giddy height of one
+hundred and fifty feet.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0200.png" width="600" height="332" alt="Interior of the Coliseum, Rome." />
+<span class="caption">Interior of the Coliseum, Rome.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As the present writer climbed those cliff-like
+walls, now crumbling into ruin, he tried to
+re-people those long-deserted seats with the eager
+and excited throngs which had often filled them
+to overflowing, when twice eighty thousand cruel
+eyes were wont to gloat upon the dying martyr's
+pang, "butchered to make a Roman holiday."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>
+Then he wandered through the vast vaulted
+corridors and stairways, eighty in number, and
+bearing still the old Roman numerals by which
+access was gained to the different galleries. These
+were so capacious that the whole multitude could
+in a few minutes disperse, and were thence called
+<i>vomitoria</i>. He then explored the dens and caves
+for the wild beasts, and the rocky chambers in
+which the gladiators and martyr victims awaited
+the signal that called them to their doom. The
+row of seats just above the podium was reserved
+for the equestrian order; those higher still, for
+the <i>populus</i>, or common people; and the highest
+of all, for persons of the lowest rank. Early in
+the day, multitudes of spectators began to arrive,
+mostly arrayed in gala dress, and many wearing
+the colours of their favourite gladiatorial
+champion. With a loud flourish of trumpets the great
+gates of the imperial entrance opened, and the
+chariots of the Emperors and their respective
+<i>suites</i> entered and took their places in the grand
+tribune reserved for these august occupants. It
+was noted with dissatisfaction by the multitude
+that neither of the Empresses Prisca or Valeria,
+were present. But the withered old crone Fausta,
+mother of Galerius, seemed to gloat like a foul
+harpy on the anticipated spectacle of blood, and
+near by was her sinister shadow, the black-browed
+priest of Cybele.</p>
+
+<p>Our old acquaintance, Burdo, the butcher, was
+rubicund with joy at the approaching conflict, for
+which, he said, he long had hungered. "But
+why," he asked, "are not their majesties, the
+Empresses, in the state tribune. 'Tis a contempt
+of a festival sacred to the gods."</p>
+
+<p>"Our dainty Empress," jeered Samos, the
+"Flat-nose," "has small stomach to see her friends the
+Christians given to the lions, and I suspect the old
+one is tarred with the same stick."</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought that I'd denounce her myself,"
+growled Bruto, the gladiator; "Empress or slave,
+the crime of being a Christian levels all ranks."</p>
+
+<p>"And lose your head for your pains," chimed
+in Piso, the barber. "Don't you know that she
+winds the Emperor round her finger like a silken
+thread."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she favour the accursed Nazarenes?"
+croaked Ephraim the Jew. "May the same fate
+overtake her."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they were friends of yours," said
+our old friend Max, who was one of the soldiers
+on guard. "They say this Christus whom they
+worship was a Jew."</p>
+
+<p>We dare not repeat the wicked imprecation
+which burst from the lips of the exasperated
+Israelite. But it is notorious that the Jews were
+far more malignant persecutors of the Christians
+than even the Pagans themselves&mdash;as is apparent
+from the Acts of the Apostles and other records
+of the early Church.</p>
+
+<p>The time for beginning the games having come,
+the priest of Neptune poured a libation to the
+god, and heaped incense on his altar, placed near
+the Imperial tribune. In this act of worship&mdash;for
+these old gods were worshipped with the blood
+of men slain as a holiday pageant&mdash;he was
+followed by the Emperors and their chief officers.</p>
+
+<p>Then with another peal of trumpets a procession
+of gladiators in burnished armour entered
+the arena and marched around its vast circuit.
+Pausing before the tribune of the Emperors they
+chanted with a loud voice: "<i>Cæsares Augusti,
+morituri salutarus vos</i>&mdash;Great Cæsars, we who are
+about to die salute you."</p>
+
+<p>First there was a sort of sham battle&mdash;<i>prælusio</i>,
+as it was called, in which the gladiators fought
+with wooden swords. But the multitude were
+speedily impatient of that, and demanded the
+combat <i>a l'outrance</i>&mdash;to the death.</p>
+
+<p>"We came not here to witness such child's
+play as that," said Burdo, the butcher. "I want
+to see the blood flow as it does in my own
+shambles;" a brutal sentiment which met with
+much favour from his neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>Soon their desires were gratified. First there
+was a combat of <i>Andabatæ</i>, that is, men who wore
+helmets without any aperture for the eyes, so that
+they were obliged to fight blindfold, and thus
+excited the mirth of the spectators. Although
+they inflicted some ugly wounds upon each other,
+none of these were mortal, and the mob called
+loudly for the <i>Hoplomachi</i>, who were next on the
+play-bill. These were men who fought in a
+complete suit of armour. They were as completely
+encased as crabs in their shells, but as they could
+see each other through the bars of their visors,
+they were able skilfully to direct their weapons
+at the joints of their antagonist's armour. Soon
+the arena was red with blood, and more than one
+victim lay dead and trampled on the sands.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! this is something like the thing," cried
+Burdo. "But these fellows are so cased in their
+shells it is hard to get at them. Let us have the
+<i>Retiarii</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the <i>Retiarii</i> and <i>Mirmillones</i>," shouted
+the mob; and they soon marched upon the scene.</p>
+
+<p>This conflict promised abundance of excitement
+The <i>Retiarii</i> wore no armour, and their only
+weapons were a net (<i>rete</i>, hence their name) and
+a trident or three-pronged spear. The <i>Retiarius</i>
+endeavoured to throw the net over his antagonist,
+and then to despatch him with the spear. If he
+missed his aim in throwing his net, he betook
+himself to flight, and endeavoured to prepare his
+net for a second cast, while his adversary followed
+him round the arena in order to kill him before
+he could make a second attempt. It was a cruel
+sport, and kindled to fury the fierce passions of
+the eager spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a conflict between skilled gladiators&mdash;the
+most accomplished swordsmen of the
+gladiatorial school. The vast multitude watched
+with fevered interest the wary fencing, the skilful
+guard and rapid thrust and stroke of those trained
+butchers of their fellow-men. When a swordsman
+was wounded, the spectators rent the air
+with cries of "<i>Habet! Habet!</i>" and the one who
+was vanquished lowered his arms in token of
+submission. His fate, however, depended upon
+the will of the people, who sometimes, when a
+vanquished swordsman had exhibited especial
+dexterity and skill, gave the signal to spare him
+by stretching out their hands with the thumbs
+turned down. But if, as was more frequently the
+case, their bloodthirsty passions were roused to
+insatiable fury, they demanded his death by
+turning their thumbs upwards, and shouting, "<i>Recipe
+ferrum</i>!" Without a tremor the victim then
+bared his breast to the sword, and the victor
+thrust it home to the hilt, while the cruel mob
+shouted their huzzas over the bloody tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the scene brought vividly before our
+minds by the matchless antique statue of the
+Dying Gladiator, found in the Gardens of Sallust,
+now in the museum of the Capitol. As one gazes
+with a strange fascination on that wondrous
+marble, instinct, it seems, with mortal agony,
+callous must be the heart that is unmoved by
+its touching pathos. The exquisite lines of Byron
+nobly express the emotions which it awakens in
+every breast:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I see before me the Gladiator lie:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He leans upon his hand&mdash;his manly brow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Consents to death, but conquers agony,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his drooped head sinks gradually low&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through his side the last drops ebbing slow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the red gash fall heavy, one by one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the first of a thunder shower; and now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The arena swims around him&mdash;he is gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He heard it, but he heeded not&mdash;his eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were with his heart, and that was far away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>There</i> were his young barbarians all at play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>There</i> was their Dacian mother&mdash;he, their sire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Butchered to make a Roman holiday.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>An unwonted interest was given to this cruel
+scene in the Roman amphitheatre, by a novel and
+unheard of incident which occurred. The
+brilliant young Roman officer, Ligurius Rufus, we
+have said, was announced to take part in these
+games. It was no uncommon thing for military
+fops, eager to win the applause of the multitude,
+or to goad their jaded weariness of life into a
+momentary excitement by a spice of real danger,
+to enter the lists of the arena; and Ligurius was
+at once the most brilliant swordsman in the
+Twelfth Legion, and the most <i>ennuyée</i> and world-weary
+man in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>He was pitted against a brawny Hercules, the
+strongest and hugest of the whole school of
+gladiators&mdash;a British prisoner of war, who had
+been long the pride and boast of the arena. As
+they stood face to face, the young officer in
+burnished armour, inlaid with silver and gold,
+and the mighty thews of his opponent encased in
+leather and bronze, the betting was heavy in
+favour of the British giant. Each felt that he
+had a foeman worthy of his steel. They walked
+warily around each other, each watching with
+eager eye every movement of his antagonist.
+Every thrust on either side was skilfully parried,
+any advantage of strength on the part of the
+British warrior being matched by the superior
+nimbleness of the Roman officer. At last a rapid
+thrust by Ligurius severed a tendon in the
+sword-arm of his foe, and it fell nerveless by his side.
+With a giant effort the disabled warrior sprang
+upon the Roman as if to crush him by sheer
+weight; but Ligurius nimbly sprang aside, and
+his antagonist, slipping in the gory sand, fell
+headlong to the ground. In an instant the
+Roman's foot was on his neck and his sword at
+his breast. With a courteous gesture, Ligurius
+raised his sword and waved it toward the
+Emperors' tribune and to the crowded seats of the
+podium, as if asking the signal to spare the
+vanquished gladiator, while the despairing look
+of the latter seemed with mute eloquence to ask
+for life. "<i>Habet! Habet!</i>" rang round the
+Coliseum, but not a single sign of mercy was made,
+not a single thumb was reversed. "<i>Recipe ferrum</i>,"
+roared the mob at the prostrate giant; and
+then shouted to Ligurius, "<i>Occide! Occide!</i>&mdash;Kill!
+Kill!"</p>
+
+<p>The gallant Roman heeded them as he would
+heed the howl of wolves. "I am not a butcher,"
+he said, with a defiant sneer, and he sheathed his
+sword and, much to the surprise of his
+discomfitted foe, lent his hand to raise him from the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a brave man," he said, "I want you
+as a standard bearer for the Twelfth Legion.
+That is better than making worm's meat of you.
+Rome may need such soldiers before long."</p>
+
+<p>The Emperors were not unwilling to grant this
+novel request of a favourite officer, and the grateful
+creature, in token of his fidelity, humbly kissed
+the hand of Ligurius, and followed him from the
+arena. The cruel mob, however, angered at being
+deprived of their anticipated spectacle of blood,
+howled with rage, and demanded the crowning
+scene of the day's sports&mdash;the conflict between
+the wild beasts and the Christian martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>These hateful scenes had become the
+impassioned delight of all classes, from the Emperors
+to the "vile plebs" of Rome. Even woman's
+pitiful nature forgot its tenderness, and maids
+and matrons gloated on the cruel spectacle, and
+the honour was reserved for the Vestal Virgin
+to give the signal for the mortal stroke. Such
+scenes created a ferocious thirst for blood throughout
+society. They overthrew the altar of pity,
+and impelled to every excess and refinement of
+barbarity. Even children imitated the cruel
+sport in their games, schools of gladiators were
+trained for the work of slaughter, women fought
+in the arena or lay dead and trampled in the
+sand.</p>
+
+<p>It is to the eternal praise of Christianity that
+it suppressed these odious contests, and forever
+averted the sword of the gladiator from the throat
+of his victim. The Christian city of Constantinople
+was never polluted by the atrocious exhibition.
+A Christian poet eloquently denounced
+the bloody spectacle. A Christian monk, roused
+to indignation by the hateful scene, leaped over
+the barrier to separate the gladiators in the very
+frenzy of the conflict. The maddened mob,
+enraged at this interruption of their sport, stoned
+him to death. But his heroic martydom
+produced a moral revulsion against the practice,
+and the laws of Honorius, to use the language of
+Gibbon, "abolished forever the human sacrifices
+of the amphitheatre."</p>
+
+<p>It remains to notice in another chapter the last
+scene in the stern drama of this "Roman
+holiday."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> On this very arena perished the venerable Ignatius,
+linked by tradition with the Saviour Himself as one of
+the children whom He took in His arms and blessed.
+"Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts," he exclaimed,
+"by whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat
+of God, and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild
+beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE MARTYRS CROWNED.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">At a flourish of trumpets the iron-studded
+doors of the cells in which the Christians
+were confined were thrown open, and the destined
+martyrs walked forth on the arena in the sight
+of assembled thousands. It was a spectacle to
+arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless,
+and to move the sympathy of even the most
+austere. At the head of the little company walked
+the good presbyter, Demetrius, his silvery hair
+and beard and benignant expression of countenance
+giving him a strikingly venerable aspect. Leaning
+heavily on his arm, evidently faint in frame but
+strong in spirit, was his daughter Callirhoë.
+Robed in white, she looked the embodiment of
+saintly purity, and in her eyes there beamed a
+heroic courage which inspired a wonder that so
+brave a soul should be shrined in so frail a body.
+Adauctus, Aurelius, and other Christian
+confessors condemned to death, made up the little
+contingent of the noble army of martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>The prefect Naso, from his place in the
+tribune, near the Emperors, read the sentence of
+the court, that the accused having been proven by
+ample testimony to be the enemies of the Cæsars
+and of the gods, had been condemned to death
+by exposure to wild beasts.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, not the enemies of the Cæsars,"
+exclaimed the aged Demetrius. "We are the friends
+of all, the enemies of none.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> We pray for the
+Cæsars at all our assemblies."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do homage to the gods?" demanded
+Diocletian. "Will you burn incense to Neptune?
+Here is his altar and here are his priests."</p>
+
+<p>"We worship the true God who made the
+heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in
+them is," replied the venerable man, with uplifted
+and reverent countenance, "and Him only will
+we serve. They be no gods which are made
+by man's device, and 'tis idolatry to serve them."</p>
+
+<p>"Away with the Atheists," cried the priests
+of Neptune; "they blaspheme the holy gods."</p>
+
+<p>"The Christians to the lions!" roared the mob,
+and at the signal from the Emperor to the master
+of the games, the dens of the wild beasts were
+thrown open, and the savage brutes, starved into
+madness, bounded into the arena. The defenceless
+martyrs fell upon their knees in prayer, and
+seemed conscious only of the presence of Him
+who stood with the three Hebrews in the fiery
+furnace, so rapt was the expression of faith and
+courage on their upturned faces.</p>
+
+<p>The fierce Numidian lions, and tigers from the
+Libyan desert, instead of bounding upon their
+prey, began to circle slowly around them, lashing
+their tawny flanks meanwhile, glaring at their
+victims from bloodshot fiery eyes, and uttering
+horrid growls.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a loud shout was heard, and a
+soldier, clad in burnished mail, and with his
+drawn sword in his hand, one of the body guards
+of the Emperors, leaped from the tribune and
+bounded with clashing armour into the arena.
+Striding across the sand, he hurled aside his iron
+helmet and his sword, and flung himself at the
+feet of the aged priest, with the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Father, your blessing; Callirhoë, your parting
+kiss. I, too, am a Christian. Long time have I
+sought you, alas! only to find you thus. But
+gladly will I die with you, and, separated in life,
+we are united in death and forever."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nunc dimittis, Domine!</i>" exclaimed the old
+man, raising his eyes to heaven. "'Now, Lord,
+lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'" And
+he laid his hands in blessing on the head of his
+long-lost son.</p>
+
+<p>"Ezra, my brother!" exclaimed Callirhoë,
+folding him in her arms. "To think we were so
+near, yet knew not of each other. Thank God,
+we go to heaven together; and, long divided on
+earth, we shall soon, with our beloved mother, be
+a united family forever in the skies. 'And God
+shall wipe away all tears from our eyes; and
+there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
+crying, neither shall there be any more pain.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!" spake
+the young soldier, as he enfolded, as if in a
+sheltering embrace, the gray-haired sire and the
+fair-faced girl.</p>
+
+<p>The utmost consternation was exhibited on the
+countenance of the old Emperor Diocletian.
+"What! have we Christians and traitors even in
+our body guard? Our very life is at the mercy
+of those wretches!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would feel safer with them," said the more
+stoical or more courageous Galerius, "than with
+the <i>delators</i> and informers who betray them," and
+he glanced with mingled contempt and aversion
+at Naso, the prefect, and Furca, the priest.
+"When a Christian gives his word, 'tis sacred
+as all the oaths of Hecate. I want no better soldiers
+than those of the Thundering Legion."<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the wild beasts, startled for a
+moment by the sudden apparition of the mail-clad
+soldier, seemed roused thereby to ten-fold fury.
+Crouching stealthily for the fatal spring, they
+bounded upon their prey, and in a moment
+crashing bones and streaming gore appeased the growing
+impatience of the cruel mob, who seemed, like
+the very wild beasts, to hunger and thirst for
+human flesh and blood.</p>
+
+<p>We dwell not on the painful spectacle. The
+gallant young soldier was the first to die. The
+brave girl, with a gesture of maiden modesty,
+drew her dishevelled robe about her person, and
+with a queenly dignity awaited the wild beast's
+fatal spring. She was mercifully spared the
+spectacle of her father's dying agony. Her
+over-strung nerves gave way, and she fell in a swoon
+upon the sands. Demetrius met his fate praying
+upon his knees. Like Stephen, he gazed
+steadfastly up into heaven, and the fashion of his
+countenance was suddenly transfigured as he
+exclaimed: "Lord Jesus! Rachel, my beloved!
+we come, we come." And above the roar of the
+ribald mob and the growl of the savage beasts,
+fell sweetly on his inner ear the song of the
+redeemed, and burst upon his sight the beatific
+vision of the Lord he loved, and for whom he
+gladly died.</p>
+
+<p>So, too, like brave men, victorious o'er their
+latest foe, Adauctus, Aurelius, and the others
+calmly met their fate. When all the rest were
+slain, a lordly lion approached the prostrate form
+of Callirhoë, but she was already dead. She had
+passed from her swoon, without a pang, to the
+marriage supper of the Lamb&mdash;to the presence of
+the Celestial Bridegroom&mdash;the fairest among ten
+thousand, the one altogether lovely&mdash;to whom the
+homage of her young heart had been fully given.
+She was spared, too, the indignity, of being mangled
+by the lion's jaws. When the king of beasts
+found that she was already dead, he raised his
+massy head, gave a mournful howl, and strode
+haughtily away.</p>
+
+<p>In the great gallery of Doré paintings at
+London, is one of this Flavian Amphitheatre after
+a human sacrifice such as we have described.
+There lie the mangled forms upon the gory and
+trampled sands. The sated wild beasts prowl
+listlessly over the arena. The circling seats rise
+tier above tier, empty and desolate. But poised
+in air, with outspread wings, above the slain,
+with a countenance of light and a palm of victory,
+is a majestic angel; and sweeping upward in
+serried ranks, amid the shining stars, is a cloud
+of bright-winged angels, the convoy of the
+martyrs' spirits to the skies. So, doubtless, God
+sent a cohort of sworded seraphim to bear the
+martyrs of our story blessed company, and to
+sweep with them through the gates into the city.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> This famous phrase dates from the time of Tertullian,
+in the 3rd century, and is also recorded in the Catacombs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The <i>Legio Tonans</i>, tradition affirms, was a legion
+composed wholly of Christians, whose prayers in a time
+of drought brought on a violent thunder-storm, which
+confounded the enemy and saved the army.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE MARTYRS BURIED.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">Darker and darker grew the shadows of night
+over the great empty and desolate amphitheatre,
+but a few hours before clamorous with the
+shouts and din of the tumultuous mob. The silence
+seemed preternatural, and a solemn awfulness
+seemed to invest the shrouded forms which lay
+upon the sand. By a merciful provision of the
+Roman law, it made not war upon the dead, and
+the bodies even of criminals were given up to
+their friends, if they had any, that they might
+not be deprived of funeral rites. Having wreaked
+his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan
+magistrate at least did not deny the privilege of
+burial to the martyrs' mutilated remains. It
+was esteemed by the primitive believers as much
+an honour as a duty, to ensepulchre with Christian
+rites the remains of the sacred dead.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<p>Faustus, the faithful freedman of Adauctus,
+Hilarus, the fossor, and the servants of the
+Christian matron, Marcella, came at the fall of night
+to bear away the bodies of the martyrs to their
+final resting-place in the silent Catacomb. The
+service was not devoid of danger, for vile
+informers prowled around seeking to discover and
+betray whomsoever would pay the rites of
+sepulture to the remains of the Christian martyrs.
+But there are golden keys which will unlock any
+doors and seal any lips, and Marcella spared
+not her wealth in this sacred service.</p>
+
+<p>On the present occasion, too, special facility
+was given for carrying out this pious purpose.
+Through the influence of the Empress Valeria,
+Hilarus, the fossor, was enabled to show to the
+chief custodian of the amphitheatre an
+authorization under the hand of Galerius for removing
+the bodies of the "criminals who had paid the
+penalty of the law"&mdash;so ran the rescript.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the cliff-like shadow of the Coliseum
+gathered this little Christian company. The iron
+gates opened their ponderous jaws. By the fitful
+flare of a torch weirdly lighting up the vaulted
+arches, with gentle and reverent hands, as though
+the cold clay could still feel their lightest touch,
+the bodies of the dead were laid upon the biers.
+Through the silent streets, devout men in silence
+bore the martyrs to their burial. Through the
+Porta Capena, which opened to the magic spell
+of the Emperor's order; through the silent
+"Street of Tombs," still lined with the monuments
+of Rome's mighty dead, wended slowly the solemn
+procession. There was no wailing of the pagan
+<i>nænia</i> or funeral dirge, neither was there the
+chanting of the Christian hymn. But in silence,
+or with only whispered utterance, they reached
+the door of the private grounds of the Villa
+Marcella.</p>
+
+<p>First the bodies were borne to the villa, where,
+by loving hands, the stains of dust and blood
+were washed away. Then, robed in white and
+bestrewn with flowers, they were placed on the
+biers in the marble atriun. Again the good
+presbyter Primitius read the words of life as at
+the burial of Lucius, the martyr,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> and vows and
+prayers were offered up to God.</p>
+
+<p>While this solemn service was in progress, a
+lady, deeply-veiled, was seen to be agitated by
+violent grief. Convulsive sobs shook her frame,
+and her tears fell fast. When the forms of the
+martyrs were uncovered, that their friends might
+take their last farewell, the Empress Valeria, for
+it was she, flung herself on her knees beside the
+body of the late slave maiden, and rained tears
+of deep emotion on her face. More lovely in
+death than in life, the fine-cut features seemed
+like the most exquisite work of the sculptor
+carved in translucent alabaster. A crown of
+asphodel blossoms the emblems of immortality&mdash;encircled
+her brow, and a palm branch&mdash;the
+symbol of the martyr's victory&mdash;was placed upon
+her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Give her an honoured place among the holy
+dead," said the Empress, amid her sobs, to the
+venerable Primitius.</p>
+
+<p>"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella,
+"that she, with her father and brother, shall sleep
+side by side in the chamber prepared as the last
+resting-place for my own family. We shall count
+it a precious privilege, in God's own good time,
+to be laid to rest near the dust of His holy
+confessors and martyrs."</p>
+
+<p>"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus,
+the fossor, "which he made for himself while yet
+alive, beside his noble wife, Aurelia Theudosia."</p>
+
+<p>"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet
+the remains of my good master Adauctus," said
+Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<p>"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress,
+"to provide for my beloved handmaiden, as a
+mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of
+her saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in
+death as in life, so that those who read her epitaph
+may know she was the freedwoman and friend of
+an unhappy Empress."</p>
+
+<p>The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her
+trusty escort, returned to the city.</p>
+
+<p>With psalms and hymns, and the solemn
+chanting of such versicles as: <i>"Convertere anima
+mea, in requiem tuam"</i>&mdash;"Return unto thy rest,
+O my soul;" and <i>"Si ambulavero in medio umbræ
+mortis, non timebo mala"</i>&mdash;"Though I walk
+through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall
+fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way,
+by gleaming torchlight, through the cypress
+glades of the garden to the entrance of the
+Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and
+tapers were lighted, and carefully the sacred
+burdens were carried down the long and narrow
+stair, and through the intricate passages to the
+family vault of the Lady Marcella.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0222.png" width="400" height="371" alt="Subterranean Oratory, Catacomb Of Callixtus." />
+<span class="caption">Subterranean Oratory, Catacomb Of Callixtus.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness,
+and had been especially prepared for holding
+religious service during the outbreak of
+persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in
+the Christian Church, and when even the privacy
+of her own house was not a sufficient safeguard
+against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont
+to retire to the deeper seclusion of this
+subterranean place of prayer. On each side of the door
+were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the
+deaconess, the other for the female catechist who
+shared her pious labours. Around the wall was
+a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for
+the most part members of her own household,
+who here received religious instruction. The
+accompanying engraving indicates the appearance
+of this ancient oratory or class-room, its main
+features unchanged, although the lapse of centuries
+has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>With solemn rites and prayers the remains
+of the martyrs were consigned to their last long
+resting-place. Amid the sobs and tears of the
+mourners, the good presbyter Primitius paid a
+loving tribute to their holy lives and heroic death&mdash;all
+the more thrilling because they themselves
+stood in jeopardy every hour. In the presence
+of the martyred dead the venerable pastor then
+broke the bread and poured the wine of the Last
+Supper of the Lord, and the little company of
+worshippers seemed united in still closer
+fellowship with those who now kept the sacred feast
+in the kingdom of their common Father and God.</p>
+
+<p>Before they left the chamber, Hilarus, after he
+had hermetically sealed the tombs of Demetrius
+and Ezra, his son, cemented with plaster a marble
+slab against the opening of that on which was
+laid&mdash;rude couch for form so fair&mdash;the body of
+the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it
+was designed to be but a temporary memorial of
+the virgin martyr, until the costly epitaph which
+the Empress was to provide should be ready, he
+took the little pot of pigment which he had
+brought for the purpose, and with his brush in,
+scribed the brief sentence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.<br />
+ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.<br />
+QVI VIXIT ANNOS XVIII. EN. V. DIES X.<br /><br />
+
+"Valeria sleeps in peace. A sweet spirit<br />
+guileless, wise, beautiful in Christ. She lived<br />
+eighteen years, five months, ten days."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0007.png" width="400" height="194" alt="&quot;VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE.&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Alas! the time never came when that costly
+memorial should be reared. The violence of
+persecution soon drove the Empress herself an
+exile from her home, and when the storm rolled
+away there was none left to carry out her pious
+wish. Through the long centuries that humble
+epitaph was all the memorial of one of the noblest,
+sweetest, bravest souls that ever lived. And even
+that rude slab was not destined always to cover
+her remains. After the re-discovery of the
+Catacombs in the sixteenth century, many of their
+tombs were pillaged for relics, or in the vain
+search for treasure. By some ruthless rifler of
+the grave this very slab was shivered, and the
+lower part of the epitaph destroyed; and there
+upon its rocky bed, on which it had reposed for
+well-nigh fifteen hundred years, lay in mouldering
+dust the remains of the maiden martyr, Valeria
+Callirhoë. Verily <i>Pulvis et umbra sumus</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Primitius and Hilarus, with the little company
+of devout men who bore the martyrs to their
+burial, now proceeded to the entombment, in a
+neighbouring crypt, of the bodies of Adauctus
+and Aurelius. As they advanced through the
+dark corridors, but dimly lighted by their tapers'
+feeble rays, the silence of that under-world
+seemed almost appalling. Black shadows crouched
+around, and their footsteps echoed strangely down
+the distant passages, dying gradually away in this
+vast valley of the shadow of death. Almost in
+silence their sacred task was completed, and they
+softly sang a funeral hymn before they turned to
+leave their martyred brethren to their last long
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was heard the tumultuous
+"tramp, tramp," as of armed men. Then the clang
+of iron mail and bronze cuirass resounded through
+the vaulted corridors. The glare of torches was
+seen at the end of a long arched passage, and
+the sharp, swift word of military command rang
+out stern and clear.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward! Seize the caitiffs! Let not one
+escape! Slay if they resist!" and a rush was
+made to the chamber where the notes of the
+Christian psalm had but now died away.</p>
+
+<p>"Out with your lights!" exclaimed, in a muffled
+tone, Hilarus, the fossor. "Follow me as closely
+and as quietly as you can. Good Father
+Primitius, your arm. By God's help we will
+disappoint those hunters of men of their anticipated
+prey."</p>
+
+<p>"Or join our brethren in martyrdom, as is His
+will," devoutly added Primitius. "He doeth all
+things well."</p>
+
+<p>But we must go back a little to learn the cause
+and means of this armed invasion of the Catacombs.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, vii., 16 and 22.
+Eutychianus, a Roman Christian, is recorded to have buried
+three hundred and forty-two martyrs with his own hands.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI.</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Through the long lapse of ages this memorial has
+been preserved, and may still be read in Grater's great
+collection of ancient inscriptions. It is also referred to
+in Gibbon. In the epitaph occur the following fine lines:
+</p><p class="center">
+INTEMERATA FIDE CONTEMPTO PRINCIPE MVNDI<br />
+CONFESSVS XRM CAELESTIA REGNA PETISTI.<br /><br />
+
+"With unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the<br />
+world, having confessed Christ, thou dost seek the<br />
+celestial realms."
+</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE BETRAYAL&mdash;THE PURSUIT.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">When the unhappy Isidorus discovered that
+through his cowardice and tergiversation,
+and through the confessions extorted from his
+distempered mind, a criminal charge had been
+trumped up against the fair Callirhoë, whose
+beauty and grace had touched his susceptible
+imagination, he was almost beside himself with
+rage and remorse. He protested to the Prefect
+Naso and his disreputable son, Calphurnius, that
+she was as innocent as an unweaned babe of the
+monstrous crime alleged against her&mdash;that of
+conspiracy to poison her beloved mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"Accursed be the day," cried the wretched
+Isidorus, clenching his hands till his nails pierced
+the flesh, "accursed be the day when I first came
+to your horrid den to betray innocent blood.
+Would I had perished e'er it dawned."</p>
+
+<p>"Hark you, my friend," said Naso, "do you
+remember by what means you promised to earn
+the good red gold with which I bought you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not remind me of my shame in becoming
+a spy upon the Christians," cried the Greek with
+a look of self-loathing and abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay; 'by becoming one yourself,' that was
+the phrase as I wrote it on my tablets," sneered
+the prefect.</p>
+
+<p>"Would that I could become one!" exclaimed
+the unhappy man.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I take you at your word and believe
+you are one?" queried Naso with a malignant
+leer.</p>
+
+<p>"What new wickedness is this you have in
+your mind?" asked the Greek.</p>
+
+<p>"How would you like to share the doom of
+your friends, the old Jew and his pretty daughter,
+who are to be thrown to the lions to-day," went
+on the remorseless man, toying with his victim
+like a tiger with its prey.</p>
+
+<p>"Gladly, were I but worthy," said the Greek.
+"Had I their holy hopes, I would rejoice to bear
+them company."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you see," said Naso, "a word of
+mine would send you to the arena, whether you
+like it or not? Your neck is in the noose, my
+handsome youth, and I do not think, with all your
+dexterity, you can wriggle out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! any fate but that!" cried the Greek,
+writhing in anguish. "Let me die as a felon, a
+conspirator, an assassin, if you will; but not by
+the doom of the martyrs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," went on the prefect, "justice
+is meted out to the Christians so much more
+swiftly and certainly than even against the worst
+of felons, that I am tempted to take this plan to
+secure you your deserts."</p>
+
+<p>The craven-spirited Greek, to whom the very
+idea of death was torture, blanched with terror
+and stood speechless, his tongue literally cleaving
+to the roof of his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>When the prefect perceived that he was
+sufficiently unnerved for his final experiment he
+unveiled his diabolical purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Hark you, my friend," he whispered or rather
+hissed into his ear, "you may do the State,
+yourself, and me a service, that will procure you life
+and liberty and fortune. You know the way to the
+secret assemblies of the accursed Christian sect;
+lead hither a maniple of soldiers and your
+fortune's made."</p>
+
+<p>"Tempter, begone!" exclaimed the Greek in
+a moment of virtuous indignation, "you would
+make me worse than Judas whom the Christians
+execrate as the betrayer of his Master whom they
+worship."</p>
+
+<p>"As you please, my dainty youth," answered
+Naso, with his characteristic gesture of clutching
+his sword. "Prepare to feed the lions on the
+morrow," and he consigned him to a cell in the
+vaults of the Coliseum.</p>
+
+<p>Very different was the night spent by this
+craven soul to that of the destined martyrs. The
+darkness, to his distempered imagination, seemed
+full of accusing eyes, which glared reproach and
+vengeance upon him. The hungry lions' roar
+smote his soul with fearful apprehensions. When
+the savage bounds of the wild beasts shook his
+cell he cowered upon the ground, the picture of
+abject misery and despair.</p>
+
+<p>When by these mental tortures his nerves were
+all unstrung, the arch tempter silently entered
+his cell and whispered in his ear, "Well, my
+dainty Greek, are you ready for the games?"</p>
+
+<p>"Save me! save me!" cried the unhappy man,
+"any death but that! I will do anything to
+escape such a fearful doom."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would come to terms," replied
+the prefect, well skilled in the cruel arts of his
+office. "Life is sweet. Here is gold. By the
+service I require you shall earn liberty," and the
+compact was sealed whereby the Greek was to
+betray the subterranean hiding-places of the
+Christians to their enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it was that at the dead of night, a band
+of Roman soldiers, reckless ruffians trained to
+slaughter in many a bloody war, marched under
+cover of darkness along the Appian Way to the
+villa of the Lady Marcella. It was the work of
+a moment to force the door of the vineyard and
+they soon reached the entrance to the Catacomb.</p>
+
+<p>"It is like a badger's burrow," said the officer
+in command. "We will soon bag our game,
+Here the old priest has his lair. Secure him at
+any cost. He is worth a score of the meaner
+vermin."</p>
+
+<p>Lighting their torches they inarched on their
+devious way under the guidance of Isidorus, who
+had written on a rude chart the number of turns
+to be made to the right or left. With Roman
+military foresight, the officer marked with chalk
+the route they took, and fixed occasionally a torch
+in the niches in the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the soft, low cadence of the funeral hymn
+was heard, stealing weirdly on the ear, and a faint
+light glimmered from the chamber in which the
+Christians were paying the last rites to their
+martyred brethren.</p>
+
+<p>"They are at their incantations now," said the
+Centurion. "'Tis a fit place for their abominable
+orgies. Let us hasten, and we will spoil their
+wicked spells!" and he gave the command, at
+which the soldiers rushed forward toward the
+distant light.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly it disappeared, and when they reached
+the spot naught was seen, save the tomb of
+Adauctus; and in the distant darkness was heard
+the sound of hurrying feet.</p>
+
+<p>"The rats have fled," cried the officer; "after
+them, ferrets! Let not one escape!" and at the
+head of the maniple he darted down the echoing
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>But Hilarus guided his friends amid the
+darkness more swiftly than the soldiers could pursue
+by the light of their torches. He followed many
+a devious winding, especially contrived to frustrate
+capture, and facilitate escape. Threading a very
+narrow passage, he drew from a niche a wooden
+ladder, and placing it against the wall reached a
+stairway which began high up near the roof. The
+whole party followed, and Hilarus, drawing up
+the ladder after him, completely cut off pursuit.
+They soon reached the comparatively lofty vaults
+of a deserted <i>arenarium</i>, or sand pit, which communicated
+with the open air. As he stood with
+bared brow beneath the light of the silent stars,
+the good Presbyter Primitius devoutly exclaimed:&mdash;"<i>Anima
+nostra sicut passer erepta est de lagueo
+venantium</i>&mdash;Our soul is escaped as a bird out the
+snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and we
+are escaped."</p>
+
+<p>The writer has not drawn upon his imagination
+in describing the arrangements for escape made
+by the persecuted Christians, when taking refuge
+in these dens and caves of the earth. In this
+very Catacomb of Callixtus, such a secret stairway
+still exists, and is illustrated by drawings in his
+book on this subject. The main entrance was
+completely obstructed and the stairway partially
+destroyed, so as to prevent ingress to the
+Catacomb, and a narrow stairway was constructed in
+the roof which could only be reached by a
+moveable ladder, connecting it with the floor. By
+drawing up this ladder pursuit could be easily
+cut off, and escape to a neighbouring <i>arenarium</i>
+secured. Stores of corn, and oil, and wine have
+been found in these crypts, evidently as a
+provision in time of persecution; frequent wells also
+occur, amply sufficient for the supply of water;
+and the multitude of lamps which have been
+found would dispel the darkness, while their
+sudden extinction would prove the best concealment
+from attack by their enemies. Hence the
+Christians were stigmatized as a skulking,
+darkness-loving race,<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> who fled the light of day
+to burrow like moles in the earth. These
+labyrinths were admirably adapted for eluding
+pursuit. Familiar with their intricacies, and
+following a well-known clew, the Christian could
+plunge fearlessly into the darkness, where his
+pursuer would soon be inextricably lost.</p>
+
+<p>Such hairbreadth escapes as we have described
+from the Roman soldiers, like sleuth hounds
+tracking their prey, must have been no uncommon
+events in those troublous times. But sometimes
+the Christians were surprised at their devotions,
+and their refuge became their sepulchre. Such
+was the tragic fate of Stephen, slain even while
+ministering at the altar; such the event described
+by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of victims
+were immolated at once by heathen hate; such
+the peril which wrung from a stricken heart the
+cry, not of anger but of grief, recorded on a slab
+in the Catacombs: <i>Tempora infausta, quibus
+inter sacra et vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari
+possimus!</i>&mdash;"Oh! sad times in which, among
+sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are
+not safe." It requires no great effort of
+imagination to conceive of the dangers and escapes which
+must have been frequent episodes in the heroic
+lives of the early soldiers of the cross.</p>
+
+<p>With what emotions must the primitive
+believers, seeking refuge in these crypts, have held
+their solemn worship and heard the words of life,
+surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what
+power would come the promise of the resurrection
+of the body, amid the crumbling relics of mortality!
+How fervent their prayers for their
+companions in tribulation, when they themselves
+stood in jeopardy every hour! Their holy ambition
+was to witness a good confession even unto death.
+They burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs
+of the faith, the plumeless heroes of a nobler
+chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes
+who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or
+amid the fiery tortures of the stake, not a crown
+of laurel or of bay, but a crown of life, starry and
+unwithering, that can never pass away. Their
+humble graves are grander monuments than the
+trophied tombs of Rome's proud conquerors upon
+the Appian Way. Reverently may we mention
+their names. Lightly may we tread beside their ashes.</p>
+
+<p>Though the bodily presence of those conscripts
+of the tomb no longer walked among men, their
+intrepid spirit animated the heart of each member
+of that little community of persecuted Christians,
+"of whom the world was not worthy; who wandered
+in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens
+and caves of the earth, ... being destitute,
+afflicted, tormented."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Latebrosa et lucifugax natio. <i>Minuc. Felix.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:&mdash;
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"La terre avail gemi sous le fer des tyrans;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui dans les noirs detours des grottes reculees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Derobaient aux bourreaux leurs tetes mutilees."<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Poeme de la Religion Vengee,</i> chap. viii.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">But what, meantime, had become of the
+pursuers? Baffled in their effort to seize
+their prey, and fearful of losing their way in this
+tangled labyrinth they had sullenly retreated,
+tracing their steps by the chalk-marks they had
+made upon the walls. At last, they returned to
+the stairway by which they had entered and so
+found their way above ground.</p>
+
+<p>"This is no work for soldiers," muttered the
+disgusted officer, "hunting these rats through
+their underground runs. They are a skulking
+set of vermin."</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of that coward Greek?"
+asked the second in command. "He didn't seem
+to half like the job."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he not here? Then he must have made
+his escape," said the Centurion. "But if he is
+caught in that rat-trap, there let him stay. I'll
+not risk a Roman soldier's life to save a craven
+Greek," and he gave the command to march back
+to the city.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, how fares it with the unhappy
+Isidorus?</p>
+
+<p>When the soldiers caught sight of the Christians
+and began their pursuit, he had no heart to join
+in it, and lingered in the vaulted chamber where
+the funeral rites had been interrupted. The first
+thing that caught his eye was the epitaph of the
+noble Adauctus. With quavering voice he read
+the lines we have already given: "With unfaltering
+faith, despising the lord of the world, having
+confessed Christ, thou dids't seek the celestial
+realms."</p>
+
+<p>"And this was he," he soliloquised, "who gave
+up name, and fame, and fortune, high office, and
+the favour of the Emperor, and embraced shame,
+and persecution, and a cruel death for conscience
+sake. How grand he was that day when I warned
+him of the machinations of his foes&mdash;so undaunted
+and calm. But grander he is as he lies in the
+majesty of death behind that slab. I felt myself
+a coward in his living presence then, but in the
+presence of this dead map, I feel a greater coward
+still. His memory haunts, it tortures me, I must
+away!" and turning from, the chamber, he
+wandered by the dim light of his taper down the
+grave-lined corridor, pausing at times to read
+their humble inscriptions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rudely written, but each letter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full of all the tender pathos<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the here and the hereafter.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And their calmness and peacefulness seemed to
+reproach his conscience-smitten and unrestful
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>Listlessly he turned into another chamber,
+when, what was it that met his startled vision!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.</span></p>
+
+<p>There slept in the sleep of death another victim
+of his perfidy, one whom he had longed to save,
+one whose beauty had fascinated his imagination,
+whose goodness had touched his heart. Overcome
+by his emotion he flung himself on the ground,
+and bursting into convulsive sobs that shook his
+frame, he passionately kissed the cold stone slab
+on which was written the much-loved name.</p>
+
+<p>"Would that I, too, slept the sleep of death,"
+he exclaimed; "if I might also sleep in peace; if
+I might seek celestial realms.... So near and yet
+so far ... A great gulf fixed ... Never to see thee
+more ... in time nor in eternity."</p>
+
+<p>Here the drip, drip of water which had
+infiltrated through the roof and fell upon the floor,
+jarred upon his excited nerves, and suddenly, with
+a hissing splash, fell a great drop on his taper and
+utterly extinguished its light. For a moment,
+so intense and sudden was the darkness, he was
+almost dazed; but instantly the greatness of his
+peril flashed upon his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost! Lost!" he frantically shrieked. "The
+outer darkness, the eternal wailing while she is
+in the light of life! Well I remember now the
+words of Primitius, in this very vault, as he spoke
+of the joys of heaven, the pains of hell;" and in
+the darkness he tried to trace with his finger the
+words, "<span class="smcap">DORMIT IN PACE</span>"&mdash;"Sleeps in peace."</p>
+
+<p><i>"Vale! Vale! Eternum Vale!"</i> he sobbed, as
+he kissed once more the marble slab, "an
+everlasting farewell! I must try to find the
+Christians, or the soldiers, or a way of escape from this
+prison-house of graves."</p>
+
+<p>He groped his way to the door of the vault and
+listened, oh! so eagerly&mdash;all the faculties of his
+body and mind seeming concentered in his sense
+of hearing. But "the darkness gave no token and
+the silence was unbroken." Nay, so awful was
+the stillness that brooded over this valley of death,
+that it seemed as if the motion of the earth on
+its axis must be audible, and the pulses of his
+temples were to his tortured ear like the roaring
+of the distant sea.</p>
+
+<p>Venturing forth, he groped his way from grave
+to grave, from vault to vault, from corridor to
+corridor, but no light, no sound, no hope! Ever
+denser seemed the darkness, ever deeper the
+silence, ever more appalling the gloom. For hours
+he wandered on and on till, faint with hunger,
+parched with thirst, the throbbings, of his heart
+shaking his unnerved frame, he fell into a merciful
+swoon from which he never awoke. Centuries
+after, an explorer of this vast necropolis found
+crouching in the corner of one of its chambers a
+fleshless skeleton, and on the tomb above he read
+the words, <span class="smcap">VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE</span>. Was it
+accident or Providence, or some strange instinct
+of locality that had brought this poor blighted
+wreck to breathe his latest sigh at the tomb of
+one whom he had so loved and so wronged?</p>
+
+<p>The peasants of the Campagna tell to the
+present day of certain strange sounds heard at
+midnight from those hollow vaults&mdash;at times like
+the hooting of an owl, at times like the wailing
+of the wind, and at times, they whisper with
+bated breath, like the moaning of a soul in pain.
+And the guides to the Catacombs aver, that ever
+on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Valeria
+Callirhoë, sighs and groans echo through the
+hollow vaults&mdash;the sighs and groans, tradition
+whispers, of a wretched apostate who in the ages
+of persecution betrayed the early Christians to a
+martyr's doom.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 429px;">
+<img src="images/valeriamartyrofc00withiala_0241.png" width="429" height="600" alt="Roman Columrarium" />
+<div><div class="captiontitle">Roman Columrarium</div><br /><br />
+The Columbaria were the Pagan Roman underground sepulchres. In
+the many niche-like dovecots&mdash;hence the name&mdash;were placed the urns
+containing the ashes of the dead whose bodies had been burned on the
+funeral pile.</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS&mdash;TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">It remains only to trace briefly the fate of
+the unfortunate Empress Valeria&mdash;less
+happy than her lowly namesake, the martyr of
+the Catacombs&mdash;and the doom of the persecuting
+tyrants. In the violent and bloody deaths, often
+more terrible than those which they inflicted on
+the Christians, which overtook, with scarce an
+exception, these enemies of the Church of God,
+the early believers recognized a divine retribution
+no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of
+the Pagan mythology.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p>
+
+<p>Diocletian, smitten by a mental malady,
+abandoned the throne of the world for the solitude of
+his palace on the Illyrian shores of the Adriatic,
+where tradition avers that he died by his own
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>A still more dreadful doom befell the fierce
+persecutor, Galerius. Consumed by the same
+loathsome and incurable disease which is recorded
+to have smitten his great rivals in bloodshed,
+Herod the Great and Philip II., from his dying
+couch he implored the prayers of the Christians,
+and, stung by remorse for his cruelties,
+commanded the surcease of their long and bitter
+persecution.</p>
+
+<p>The Empress Valeria, his widow, by her beauty
+had the ill fortune to attract the regards of his
+successor in persecution, the Emperor Maximin.
+Spurning his suit with the scorn becoming a pure
+and high-souled woman, at once the daughter and
+widow of an Emperor, she encountered his deadly
+hate. Her estates were confiscated, her trusted
+servants tortured, and her dearest friends put to
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"The Empress herself," says Gibbon, "together
+with her mother, Prisca, was condemned to exile;
+and as they were ignominiously hurried from
+place to place, before they were confined to a
+sequestered village in the deserts of Syria, they
+exposed their shame and distress to the provinces
+of the East, which during thirty years, had
+respected their august dignity." On the death of
+Maximin, Valeria escaped from exile and repaired
+in disguise to the court of his successor, Licinius,
+hoping for more humane treatment. But these
+hopes, to use again the language of Gibbon, "were
+soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and
+the bloody execution which stained the palace
+of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced her that the
+throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more
+inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her
+safety by hasty flight, and, still accompanied by
+her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen
+months through the provinces in the disguise of
+plebeian habits. They were at length discovered
+at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their
+death was already pronounced, they were
+immediately beheaded and their bodies thrown into
+the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy
+spectacle; but their grief and indignation were
+suppressed by the terrors of a military guard.
+Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and
+daughter of Diocletian. We lament their
+misfortunes, we cannot discover their crimes."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p>
+
+<p>At length, on the triumph of the British-born
+Emperor, Constantine, over his rivals for the
+throne of the world, like the trump of Jubilee,
+the edict of the toleration of Christianity, pealed
+through the land. It penetrated the gloomy
+dungeon, the darksome mine, the Catacombs' dim
+labyrinth, and from their sombre depths, vast
+processions of "noble wrestlers for religion,"
+thronged to the long-forsaken churches, with
+grateful songs of praise to God.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity, after long repression, became at
+length triumphant. It emerged from the
+concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine of imperial
+favour. Constantine, himself, proclaimed to eager
+thousands the New Evangel&mdash;the most august lay
+preacher the Church has ever known. The legend
+of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly
+illustrates the wondrous transformation of society.
+These Christian brothers, taking shelter in a cave
+during the Decian persecution, awoke, according
+to the legend, after a slumber of over a century,
+to find Christianity everywhere dominant, and a
+Christian Emperor on the throne of the Cæsars.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>
+The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun,
+quickly irradiated the world. With choirs and
+hymns, in cities and villages, in the highways and
+markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung.
+The enemies of God were as though they had not
+been.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> The Lord brought up the vine of
+Christianity from a far country, and cast out the
+heathen, and planted and watered it, till it twined
+round the sceptre of the Cæsars, wreathed the
+columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land.
+The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods
+discrowned, and the pagan flamen no longer offered
+sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove, Rome, which had
+dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at
+its chariot wheels, at length yielded to a mightier
+than all the gods of Olympus. The old faiths
+faded from the firmament of human thought as the
+stars of midnight at the dawn of day. The
+banished deities forsook their ancient seats. They
+walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in
+the grove of Daphne. The naiads bathed not in
+Scamander's stream nor Simois, nor the nereids
+in the waters of the bright Ægean Sea. The
+nymphs and dryads ceased to haunt the sylvan
+solitudes. The oriads walked no more in light
+on Ida's lofty top.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O ye vain false gods of Hellas!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye are vanished evermore!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Long before the recognition of Christianity as
+the religion of the empire, its influence had been
+felt permeating the entire community. Amid the
+disintegration of society it was the sole
+conservative element&mdash;the salt which preserved it
+from corruption. In the midst of anarchy and
+confusion a community was being organized on
+a principle previously unknown in the heathen
+world, ruling not by terror but by love; by moral
+power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty
+faith amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating
+moral purity amid the reeking abominations of a
+sensual age.</p>
+
+<p>We should do scant justice to the blameless
+character, simple dignity, and moral purity of the
+primitive Christians, if we forgot the thoroughly
+effete and corrupt society by which they were
+surrounded. It would seem almost impossible
+for the Christian graces to grow in such a foetid
+atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing
+in virgin purity from the muddy ooze, they are
+more lovely by contrast with the surrounding
+pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre,
+breathing their fragrance amid scenes of
+corruption and death, are these holy characters, fragrant
+with the breath of heaven amid the social
+rottenness and moral death of their foul environment.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to
+portray, the abominable pollutions of the times.
+"Society," says Gibbon, "was a rotten, aimless
+chaos of sensuality." It was a boiling Acheron of
+seething passions, unhallowed lusts, and tiger
+thirst for blood, such as never provoked the wrath
+of Heaven since God drowned the world with
+water, or destroyed the Cities of the Plain by fire.
+Only those who have visited the secret museum
+of Naples, or that house which no woman may
+enter at Pompeii, and whose paintings no pen
+may describe; or, who are familiar with the
+scathing denunciations of popular vices by the
+Roman satirists and moralists and by the
+Christian Fathers, can conceive the appalling depravity
+of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to
+the Church among this very people, hints at some
+features of their exceeding wickedness. It was to
+shame even to speak of the things which were
+done by them, but which gifted poets employed
+their wit to celebrate. A brutalized monster was
+deified as God, received divine homage,<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> and
+beheld all the world at his feet, and the nations
+trembled at his nod, while the multitude wallowed
+in a sty of sensuality.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity was to be the new Hercules to
+cleanse this worse than Augean pollution. The
+pure morals and holy lives of the believers were
+a perpetual testimony against abounding iniquity,
+and a living proof of the regenerating power and
+transforming grace of God. For they themselves,
+as one of their apologists asserts, "had been
+reclaimed from ten thousand vices;" and the
+Apostle, describing some of the vilest characters,
+exclaims, "such were some of you, but ye are
+washed, ye are sanctified." They recoiled with
+the utmost abhorrence from the pollutions of the
+age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth,"
+the sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total
+disintegration of society.</p>
+
+<p>Thus amid idolatrous usages and unspeakable
+moral degradation the Christians lived, a holy
+nation, a peculiar people. "We alone are without
+crime," says Tertullian; "no Christian suffers but
+for his religion." "Your prisons are full," says
+Minutius Felix, "but they contain not one Christian."
+And these holy lives were an argument
+which even the heathen could not gainsay. The
+ethics of paganism were the speculations of the
+cultivated few who aspired to the character of
+philosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a
+system of practical duty affecting the daily life
+of the most lowly and unlettered. "Philosophy,"
+says Lecky, "may dignify, but is impotent to
+regenerate man; it may cultivate virtue, but
+cannot restrain vice." But Christianity
+introduced a new sense of sin and of holiness, of
+everlasting reward and of endless condemnation.
+It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ
+in the heart, inflaming all its affections. It
+transformed the character from icy stoicism or
+epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculating
+self-abnegation and devotion.</p>
+
+<p>This divine principle developed a new instinct
+of philanthropy in the soul. A feeling of common
+brotherhood knit the hearts of the believers
+together. To love a slave! to love an enemy! was
+accounted the impossible among the heathen;
+yet this incredible virtue they beheld every day
+among the Christians. "This surprised them
+beyond measure," says Tertullian, "that one man
+should die for another." Hence, in the Christian
+inscriptions no word of bitterness, even toward
+their persecutors, is to be found. Sweet peace,
+the peace of God that passeth all understanding,
+breathes on every side.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most striking results of the new
+spirit of philanthropy which Christianity
+introduced is seen in the copious charity of the
+primitive Church. Amid the ruins of ancient
+palaces and temples, theatres and baths, there are
+none of any house of mercy. Charity among the
+pagans, was at best, a fitful and capricious fancy.
+Among the Christians it was a vast and vigorous
+organization and was cultivated with noble
+enthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of
+Rome, with its fierce oppressions and inhuman
+wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for the
+Christ-like ministrations of love and pity. There
+were Christian slaves to succour, exposed to
+unutterable indignities and cruel punishment, even
+unto crucifixion for conscience' sake. There were
+often martyrs' pangs to assuage, the aching
+wounds inflicted by the rack or by the nameless
+tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their
+bruised and broken hearts to cheer with heavenly
+consolation. There were outcast babes to pluck
+from death. There were a thousand forms of
+suffering and sorrow to relieve; and the ever-present
+thought of Him who came, not to be ministered
+unto, but to minister and to give His life a
+ransom for many, was an inspiration to heroic
+sacrifice and self-denial. And doubtless the
+religion of mercy won its way to many a stony
+pagan heart by the winsome spell of the saintly
+charities and heavenly benedictions of the
+persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has
+since covered the earth with its institutions of
+mercy, and with a passionate zeal has sought out
+the woes of raan in every land, in order to their
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>In the primitive Church voluntary collections<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a>
+were regularly made for the poor, the aged, the
+sick, the brethren in bonds, and for the burial
+of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred,
+and all usury forbidden. Many gave all their
+goods to feed the poor. "Our charity dispenses
+more in the streets," says Tertullian to the
+heathen, "than your religion in your temples."
+He upbraids them for offering to the gods only
+the worn-out and useless, such as is given to
+dogs. "How monstrous is it," exclaims the
+Alexandrian Clement, "to live in luxury while
+so many are in want." "As you would receive,
+show mercy," says Chrysostom; "make God your
+debtor that you may receive again with usury."
+The Church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained
+three thousand widows and virgins, besides the
+sick and the poor. Under the persecuting Decius
+the widows and the infirm under the care of
+the Church at Rome were fifteen hundred.
+"Behold the treasures of the Church," said St.
+Lawrence pointing to the aged and poor, when
+the heathen prefect came to confiscate its wealth.
+The Church in Carthage sent a sum equal to
+four thousand dollars to ransom Christian
+captives in Numidia. St. Ambrose sold the sacred
+vessels of the Church of Milan to rescue prisoners
+from the Goths, esteeming it their truest
+consecration to the service of God. "Better clothe
+the Christ," says living temples of Jerome, "than
+adorn the temples of stone." "God has no need
+of plates and dishes," said Acacius, Bishop of
+Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number of
+poor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus
+of Nola sold the treasures of his beautiful church,
+and, it is said, even sold himself into African
+slavery. The Christian traveller was hospitably
+entertained by the faithful; and before the close
+of the fourth century asylums were provided for
+the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian
+persecution, when the streets of Carthage were
+strewn with the dying and the dead, the
+Christians, with the scars of recent torture and
+imprisonment upon them, exhibited the nobility of
+a gospel revenge in their care for their
+fever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the
+martyrdom of Christian charity, even more
+glorious than that they had escaped. In the
+plague of Alexandria, six hundred <i>parabolani</i>
+periled their lives to succour the dying and bury
+the dead. Julian urged the pagan priests to
+imitate the virtues of the lowly Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human
+life. The exposure of infants was a fearfully
+prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato and
+Aristotle permitted. We have had evidences of
+the tender charity of the Christians in rescuing
+these foundlings from death, or from a fate more
+dreadful still&mdash;a life of infamy. Christianity
+also emphatically affirmed the Almighty's "canon
+'gainst self-slaughter," which crime the pagans
+had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a
+patient endurance of suffering, like Job's,
+exhibited a loftier courage than Cato's renunciation
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>We have thus seen from the testimony of the
+Catacombs, the immense superiority, in all the
+elements of true dignity and excellence, of
+primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization
+by which it was surrounded. It ennobled the
+character and purified the morals of mankind. It
+raised society from the ineffable slough into which
+it had fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to
+the domestic relations of life, and enshrined
+marriage in a sanctity before unknown.
+Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became
+infected in the days of its power and pride, even
+the worst form of Christianity was infinitely
+preferable to the abominations of paganism. It
+gave a sacredness before unconceived to human
+life. It averted the sword from the throat of the
+gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from
+exposure to untimely death, nourished it in
+Christian homes. It threw the ægis of its protection
+over the slave and the oppressed, raising them
+from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men
+and the fellowship of saints. With an unwearied
+and passionate charity it yearned over the
+suffering and the sorrowing everywhere, and created
+a vast and comprehensive organization for their
+relief, of which the world had before no example
+and had formed no conception. It was a holy
+Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity,
+witnessing ever of the Divine, and keeping the
+sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the
+world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an
+era of unspeakable pollution and sadness, revived
+the sinking heart of mankind, and made possible
+a Golden Age in the future transcending far that
+which poets pictured in the past. It blotted out
+cruel laws, like those of Draco, written in blood,
+and led back Justice, long banished, to the
+judgment seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal
+code, and, as experience has shown, lessened the
+amount of crime. It created an art purer and
+loftier than that of paganism; and a literature
+rivaling in elegance of form, and surpassing in
+nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions of
+the classic muse. Instead of the sensual
+conceptions of heathenism, polluting the soul, it
+supplied images of purity, tenderness, and pathos,
+which fascinated the imagination and hallowed
+the heart. It taught the sanctity of suffering
+and of weakness, and the supreme majesty of
+gentleness and truth.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.&mdash;The entire subject of Christian evidences
+from the Catacombs, which has been so cursorily
+glanced at in the foregoing pages, is treated with great
+fullness of detail and copious pictorial illustration in a
+work by the writer, "The Catacombs of Rome, and their
+Testimony Relative to Primitive Christianity." Cr. 8vo,
+560 pp., 136 engravings. New York: Phillips &amp; Hunt.
+Price $2.50. It discusses at length the structure, origin,
+and history of the Catacombs; their art and symbolism;
+their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology, ministry,
+rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and
+Christian Life and Character in the early ages. The
+gradual corruption of doctrine and practice and
+introduction of Romanist errors, as the <i>cultus</i> of Mary, the
+primacy of Peter, prayers of the dead, the invocation of
+saints, the notion of purgatory, the celibacy of the clergy
+rite of monastic orders, and other allied subjects are
+fully treated.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> See Lactantius, <i>De Mortibus Persecutorum, Passim</i>;
+Eusebius <i>Hist. Ecclec.</i> viii, 17; ix. 9, 10; Tertullian <i>ad
+Scap.</i>, c. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim
+mensibus plebeio cultu pervagata.... Ita illis pudicitia et
+conditio exitio fuit. Lactantius <i>De Mart. Persec.</i> Cap. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot
+conceive the possibility of this event "Sed et Cæsares
+credidissent super Christo," he exclaims, "si aut Cæsares
+non essent seculo necessario, aut si et Christiani
+potuissent esse Cæsares." <i>Apol.</i>, c. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Literally, "They are no more because they never
+were." Eusebius applies, the promises of Scripture
+concerning the restoration of the exiled Jews from Babylon
+(Psa. lxxx; xcviii;) to the condition of Christianity in
+his day. The above citations are given in his very words.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> While yet alive, Domitian was called, "our Lord
+and God"&mdash;<i>Dominus et Deus noster.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert <i>Tertul
+Apol.</i> c. 39.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>THE END.</h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
+
+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: Valeria
+       The Martyr of the Catacombs
+
+Author: William Henry Withrow
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2010 [EBook #33484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALERIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rose Mawhorter (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+  Ascii conversion was done as follows:
+  e with circumflex is now [e>]
+  a with grave is now [a\]
+  o with circumflex is now [o>]
+  e with acute is now [e/]
+  ae ligature is now [ae]
+  e with diaeresis is now [e:]
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  [Illustration: SCENE IN THE CATACOMBS--AT THE MARTYR'S TOMB.]
+
+
+  VALERIA,
+
+  THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.
+
+  A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome.
+
+  BY
+  W.H. WITHROW, D.D.,
+
+  _Author of "The Catacombs of Rome and their Testimony Relative
+  to Primitive Christianity," Etc._
+
+
+  [Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
+
+
+  TORONTO:
+
+  WILLIAM BRIGGS.
+
+  MONTREAL: C.W. COATES.
+  HALIFAX: S.F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRS IN THE CATACOMBS.
+
+BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.
+
+
+    THEY lie all around me, countless in their number,
+      Each martyr with his palm.
+    No torture now can rack them: safe they slumber,
+      Hushed in eternal calm!
+
+    I read the rude inscriptions, written weeping,
+      At night with hurried tears.
+    Yet what a tale they tell! their secret keeping
+      Through all these thousand years.
+
+    "IN PACE." Yes, at peace. By sword, or fire,
+      Or cross, or lictor's rod--
+    Virgin, or matron; youth, or gray-haired sire:
+      For all, the peace of God.
+
+    "IN CHRISTO." Died in Christ. Oh, tragic story!
+      Yet, over shouts, and cries,
+    And lion's roar, they heard the saints in glory
+      Singing from Paradise.
+
+    "AD DEUM." Went to God. Wide swung the portal;
+      Dim sank the sands away;
+    And, chanting "Alleluia," the immortal
+      Passed to Eternal Day.
+
+    Agnes, Cecilia! Names undying ever,--
+      What's C[ae]sar's gain to this?
+    He lived for self; they for their high endeavour.
+      His, fame; theirs, endless bliss.
+
+    And pagan Rome herself? Her wisest teacher
+      Could teach but how to die!
+    Sad, hopeless emperor, echoing the Preacher,
+      "All, all is vanity."
+
+    He slew the martyrs. Yet, through ages crying,
+      This noble truth they give:
+    "Life is but birth-throes. Death itself, not dying.
+      We pass to God--to live."
+
+    O blessed hope! O faith that conquers sorrow!
+      Pain, heart-break, all shall cease.
+    They are but gateways to a glad to-morrow.
+      "IN PACE." God is peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The writer having made the early Christian Catacombs a special study for
+several years, and his larger volume on that subject having been
+received with great favour in Great Britain, the United States, and
+Canada, has endeavoured in this story to give as popular an account as
+he could of early Christian life and character as illustrated by these
+interesting memorials of the primitive Church. He has been especially
+careful to maintain historical accuracy in all his statements of fact,
+and in the filling up of details he has endeavoured to preserve the
+historical "keeping" of the picture. Persons wishing to pursue the study
+of the Catacombs still further are referred to the Author's special work
+on that subject. See note at the end of this volume.
+
+W.H.W.
+
+
+
+
+THE CATACOMBS.
+
+BY HARRIET ANNIE WILKINS.
+
+"Miles after miles of graves, and not one word or sign of the gloominess
+or death." _Professor Jules De Launay._
+
+    MILES after miles of graves,
+      League after league of tombs,
+    And not one sign of spectre Death,
+      Waving his shadowy plumes;
+    Hope, beautiful and bright,
+      Spanning the arch above
+    Faith, gentle, overcoming Faith,
+      And Love, God's best gift, Love.
+
+    For early Christians left
+      Their darlings to their rest,
+    As mothers leave their little ones
+      When the sun gilds the west;
+    No mourning robes of black,
+      No crape upon the doors,
+    For the victorious palm-bearers,
+      Who tread the golden floors.
+
+    Arrayed in garments white,
+      No mournful dirges pealing,
+    Bearing green branches in their hands,
+      Around the tomb they're kneeling;
+    This was their marching song,
+      "By death we are not holden;"
+    And this their glorious funeral hymn,
+      "Jerusalem the golden."
+
+    Beautiful girls sleep there,
+      Waiting the Bridegroom's call.
+    Each lamp is burning brilliantly,
+      While the bright shadows fall;
+    And baby martyrs passed
+      Straight to the great I AM,
+    While sturdier soldiers carved o'er each,
+      "VICTOR, GOD'S LITTLE LAMB."
+
+    Miles after miles of graves,
+      League after league of tombs,
+    The cross upon each conqueror's brow
+      Light up the catacombs;
+    "'Tis in this sign we conquer."
+      Sounds on the blood-stained track;
+    "'Tis in this sign we conquer,"
+      We gladly answer back.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+  ON THE APPIAN WAY                  7
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+  IN C[AE]SAR'S PALACE                 17
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+  EMPRESS AND SLAVE                 23
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+  THE IMPERIAL BANQUET              33
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+  THE CHRISTIANS AND THE LIONS      43
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+  THE MARTYR'S BURIAL               54
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+  WITH HILARUS, THE FOSSOR          64
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+  WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER     75
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+  A DIFFICULT QUEST                 86
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+  A WICKED PLOT                     92
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+  THE SLAVE MARKET                  97
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+  THE LOST FOUND                   105
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+  FATHER AND DAUGHTER              111
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+  "UNSTABLE AS WATER"              117
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+  AT THE BATHS                     124
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+  THE GAMING TABLE                 129
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+  "IN PERICULIS TUTUS"             135
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+  THE MIDNIGHT PLOT                142
+
+  CHAPTER XIX
+  IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER      148
+
+  CHAPTER XX
+  THE PLOT THICKENS                153
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+  A CRIME PREVENTED                161
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+  THE STORM BURSTS                 168
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+  THE MAMERTINE PRISON             177
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+  THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM             184
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+  A ROMAN HOLIDAY                  188
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI
+  THE MARTYRS CROWNED              199
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+  THE MARTYRS BURIED               205
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+  THE BETRAYAL--THE PURSUIT        215
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+  THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR          224
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+  FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF
+    CHRISTIANITY                   229
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VALERIA, THE MARTYR OF THE CATACOMBS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE APPIAN WAY.
+
+
+[Illustration: "ENTRANCE TO A CATACOMB."]
+
+On a bright spring morning in the year of our Lord 303--it was in the
+"Ides of March," about the middle of the month, but the air was balmy as
+that of June in our northern clime--two note-worthy-looking men were
+riding along the famous Appian Way, near the city of Rome The elder of
+the two, a man of large size and of mighty thews and sinews, was mounted
+on a strong and richly-caparisoned horse. He wore the armour of a Roman
+centurion--a lorica or cuirass, made of plates of bronze, fastened to a
+flexible body of leather; and cothurni, or a sort of laced boots,
+leaching to mid-leg. On his back hung his round embossed shield; by his
+side, in its sheath, his short, straight sword, and on his head was a
+burnished helmet, with a sweeping horsehair crest. His face was bronzed
+with the sun of many climes. But when, for a moment, he removed his
+helmet to cool his brow, one saw that his forehead was high and white.
+His hair curled close to his head, except where it was worn bare at his
+temples by the chafing of his helmet, and was already streaked with
+grey, although he looked not more than five-and forty years of age. Yet
+the eagle glance of his eye was undimmed, and his firm-set muscles, the
+haughty expression of his countenance, and the high courage of his
+bearing, gave evidence that his natural strength was not abated.
+
+His companion contrasted strongly in every respect. He had a slender,
+graceful figure, a mobile and expressive face, a mouth of almost
+feminine softness and beauty, dark and languishing eyes, and long,
+flowing hair. He wore a snowy toga, with a brilliant scarlet border of
+what is still known as "Greek fret;" and over this, fastened by a brooch
+at his throat, a flowing cloak. On his head sat jauntily a soft felt
+hat, not unlike those still worn by the Italian peasantry, and on his
+feet were low-laced shoes or sandals. Instead of a sword, he wore at his
+side a metal case for his reed-pen and for a scroll of papyrus. He was
+in the bloom and beauty of youth, apparently not more than twenty years
+of age.
+
+The elder of the two was the Roman officer Flaccus Sertorius, a
+centurion of the 12th Legion, returning with his Greek secretary,
+Isidorus, from the town of Albano, about seventeen miles from Rome,
+whither he had been sent on business of state.
+
+"This new edict of the Emperor's," remarked Sertorius to his secretary,
+with an air of affable condescension, "is likely to give us both work
+enough to do before long."
+
+"Your Excellency forgets," replied Isidorus, with an obsequious
+inclination of the head, "that your humble secretary has not the same
+means of learning affairs of state as his noble master."
+
+"Oh, you Greeks learn everything!" said the centurion, with a rather
+contemptuous laugh. "Trust you for that."
+
+"We try to make ourselves useful to our patrons," replied the young man,
+"and it seems to be a sort of hereditary habit, for my Athenian
+ancestors were proverbial for seeking to know some new thing."
+
+"Yes, new manners, new customs, new religions; why, your very name
+indicates your adherence to the new-fangled worship of Isis."
+
+"I hold not altogether that way," replied the youth. "I belong rather to
+the eclectic school. My father, Apollodorus, was a priest of Phoebus,
+and named me, like himself, from the sungod, whom he worshipped; but I
+found the party of Isis fashionable at court, so I even changed my name
+and colours to the winning side. When one is at Rome, you know, he must
+do as the Romans do."
+
+"Yes, like the degenerate Romans, who forsake the old gods, under whom
+the State was great and virtuous and strong," said the soldier, with an
+angry gesture. "The more gods, the worse the world becomes. But this new
+edict will make short work of some of them."
+
+"With the Christians you mean," said the supple Greek. "A most
+pernicious sect, that deserve extermination with fire and sword."
+
+"I know little about them," replied Sertorius, with a sneer, "save that
+they have increased prodigiously of late. Even in the army and the
+palace are those known to favour their obscene and contemptible
+doctrines."
+
+"'Tis whispered that even their sacred highnesses the Empresses Prisca
+and Valeria are infected with their grovelling superstition," said the
+Greek secretary. "Certain it is, they seem to avoid being present at the
+public sacrifices, as they used to be. But the evil sect has its
+followers chiefly among the slaves and vile plebs of the poorest
+Transtiberine region of Rome."
+
+"What do they worship, anyhow?" asked the centurion, with an air of
+languid curiosity. "They seem to have no temples, nor altars, nor
+sacrifices."
+
+"They have dark and secret and abominable rites," replied the fawning
+Greek, eager to gratify the curiosity of his patron with popular
+slanders against the Christians. "'Tis said they worship a low-born
+peasant, who was crucified for sedition. Some say he had an ass's
+head,[1] but that, I doubt not, is a vulgar superstition; and one of our
+poets, the admirable Lucian, remarks that their doctrine was brought to
+Rome by a little hook-nosed Jew, named Paulus, who was beheaded by the
+divine Nero over yonder near the Ostian gate, beside the pyramid of
+Cestius, which you may see amongst the cypresses. They have many strange
+usages. Their funeral customs, especially, differ very widely from the
+Greek or Roman ones. They bury the body, with many mysterious rites, in
+vaults or chambers underground, instead of burning it on a funeral pyre.
+They are rank atheists, refusing to worship the gods, or even to throw
+so much as a grain of incense on their altar, or place a garland of
+flowers before their shrines, or even have their images in their
+houses. They are a morose, sullen, and dangerous people, and are said to
+hold hideous orgies at their secret assemblies underground, where they
+banquet on the body of a newly-slain child.[2] See yonder," he
+continued, pointing to a low-browed arch almost concealed by trees in a
+neighbouring garden, "is the entrance to one of their secret crypts,
+where they gather to celebrate their abominable rites, surrounded by the
+bones and ashes of the dead. A vile and craven set of wretches; they are
+not fit to live."
+
+"They are not all cravens; to that I can bear witness," interrupted
+Sertorius. "I knew a fellow in my own company--Lannus was his name--who,
+his comrades said, was a Christian. He was the bravest and steadiest
+fellow in the legion;--saved my life once in Libya;--rushed between me
+and a lion, which sprang from a thicket as I stopped to let my horse
+drink at a stream--as it might be the Anio, there. The lion's fangs met
+in his arm, but he never winced. He may believe what he pleases for me.
+I like not this blood-hound business of hunting down honest men because
+they worship gods of their own. But the Emperor's edict is written, as
+you may say, with the point of a dagger--'The Christian religion must
+everywhere be destroyed.'"
+
+"And quite right, too, your Excellency," said the soft-smiling Greek.
+"They are seditious conspirators, the enemies of C[ae]sar and of Rome."
+
+"A Roman soldier does not need to learn of thee, hungry Greekling,"[3]
+exclaimed the centurion, haughtily, "what is his duty to his country!"
+
+"True, most noble sir," faltered the discomfited secretary, yet with a
+vindictive glance from his treacherous eyes. "Your Excellency is always
+right."
+
+For a time they rode on in silence, the secretary falling obsequiously a
+little to the rear. It was now high noon, and the crowd and bustle on
+the Appian Way redoubled. This Queen of Roads[4] ran straight as an
+arrow up-hill and down from Rome to Capua and Brundisium, a distance of
+over three hundred miles. Though then nearly six hundred years old, it
+was as firm as the day it was laid, and after the lapse of fifteen
+hundred years more, during which "the Goth, the Christian, Time, War,
+Flood and Fire," have devastated the land, its firm lava pavement of
+broad basaltic slabs seems as enduring as ever. On every side rolled the
+undulating Campagna, now a scene of melancholy desolation, then
+cultivated like a garden, abounding in villas and mansions whose marble
+columns gleamed snowy white through the luxuriant foliage of their
+embosoming myrtle and laurel groves. On either side of the road were the
+stately tombs of Rome's mighty dead-her pr[ae]tors, proconsuls, and
+senators some, like the mausoleum of C[ae]cilia Metella,[5] rising like a
+solid fortress; others were like little wayside altars, but all were
+surrounded by an elegantly kept green sward, adorned with parterres of
+flowers. Their ruins now rise like stranded wrecks above the sea of
+verdure of the tomb-abounding plain. On every side are tombs--tombs
+above and tombs below--the graves of contending races, the sepulchres of
+vanished generations. Across the vast field of view stretched, supported
+high in air on hundreds of arches, like a Titan procession, the Marcian
+Aqueduct, erected B.C. 146, which after two thousand years brings to the
+city of Rome an abundant supply of the purest water from the far distant
+Alban Mountains, which present to our gaze to-day the same serrated
+outline and lovely play of colour that delighted the eyes of Horace and
+Cicero.
+
+As they drew nearer the gates of the city, it became difficult to thread
+their way through the throngs of eager travellers--gay lectic[ae] or
+silken-curtained carriages and flashing chariots, conveying fashionable
+ladies and the gilded gallants of the city to the elegant villas without
+the walls--processions of consuls and proconsuls with their guards, and
+crowds of peasants bringing in the panniers of their patient donkeys
+fruits, vegetables, and even snow from the distant Soracte, protected
+from the heat by a straw matting--just as they do in Italy to-day. The
+busy scene is vividly described in the graphic lines of Milton:
+
+    "What conflux issuing forth or entering in;
+    Pr[ae]tors, proconsuls to their provinces
+    Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
+    Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
+    Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
+    Or embassies from regions far remote,
+    In various habits on the Appian Road."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] I have myself seen in the museum of the _Collegio Romano_ at Rome, a
+rude caricature which had been scratched upon the wall of the barracks
+of Nero's palace, representing a man with an ass's head upon a cross,
+and beneath it the inscription, _"Alexomenos sebete Theon"_ "Alexomenos
+worships his God." Evidently some Roman soldier had scratched this in an
+idle hour in derision of the worship of our Lord by his Christian
+fellow-soldier. Tertullian also refers to the same calumny; and Lucian,
+a pagan writer, speaks of our Lord as "a crucified impostor." It is
+almost impossible for us to conceive the contempt and detestation in
+which crucifixion was held by the Romans. It was a punishment reserved
+for the worst of felons, or the vilest of slaves.--ED.
+
+[2] All these calumnies, and others still worse, are recorded by pagan
+writers concerning the early Christians. Their celebration of the Lord's
+Supper in the private meetings became the ground of the last-mentioned
+distorted accusation.--ED.
+
+[3] "Graeculus esuriens," the term applied by Juvenal to those foreign
+adventurers who sought to worm their way into the employment and
+confidence of great Roman houses.
+
+[4] _Regina Viarum_, as the Romans called it.
+
+[5] It is a circular structure sixty-five feet in diameter, built upon a
+square base of still larger size. After two thousand years it still
+defies the gnawing tooth of Time.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN C[AE]SAR'S PALACE.
+
+
+Passing beneath the even then grim and hoary archway of the Porta
+Capena, or Capuan Gate, with the dripping aqueduct above it, the
+centurion and his secretary traversed rapidly the crowded streets of a
+fashionable suburb--now mere mouldering mounds of desolation--to the
+Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. This eminence, which is now a
+mass of crumbling ruins, honey-combed with galleries and subterranean
+corridors through what was once the stately apartments of the Lords of
+the World, where wandering tourists peer and explore and artists sketch
+the falling arch or fading fresco of the banquet halls and chambers of a
+long line of emperors, was then the scene of life and activity, of pomp
+and splendour. Marble courts and columned porticos stretched on in
+almost endless vistas, covering many acres of ground. Flashing fountains
+leaping sunward sparkled in the beams of noonday, diffusing a coolness
+through the air, which was fragrant with blossoms of the orange and
+magnolia trees growing in the open courts. Snowy statuary gleamed amid
+the vivid foliage, and beneath the shadow of the frescoed corridors.
+
+Having dismounted at the outer court and given their horses to
+obsequious grooms, Sertorius and the Greek repaired each to a marble
+bath to remove the stains of travel before entering the presence of the
+Emperor. Having made their toilet they advanced to the inner court. The
+guards who stood in burnished mail at the portal of the palace
+respectfully made way for the well-known imperial officer, but were
+about to obstruct the passage of the Greek secretary, when with a
+gesture of authority Sertorius bade the soldier to permit the man to
+pass.
+
+"Quite right, Max, as a rule: but wrong this time. He accompanies me on
+business of state, before the Emperor."
+
+Two lictors in white tunics with scarlet hem, and bearing each the
+fasces or bundle of rods bound with filets from the top of which
+projected a polished silver axe, came forward and conducted the
+centurion into the Imperial presence chamber, the secretary remaining in
+an ante-room.
+
+The lictors draw aside a heavy gold-embroidered curtain, and Sertorius
+stood in the presence of the Lord of the World, the man to whom divine
+honours had been ascribed, who held in his hand the lives of all his
+myriads of subjects, and the word of whose mouth uttering his despotic
+will might consign even the loftiest, without form or process of law, to
+degradation or death.
+
+Let us note for a moment what manner of man this god on earth, this
+Diocletian, whose name is remembered with abhorrence and execration, the
+degenerate usurper of the august name of the C[ae]sars, may be. He sits in
+an ivory, purple-cushioned chair, near a table of inlaid precious woods.
+His short and obese figure is enswathed in the folds of an ample
+crimson-bordered toga, or fine linen vestment of flowing folds. His
+broad, coarse features are of plebeian cast, for he had been originally
+a Dalmatian slave, or at least the son of a slave; but the
+long-continued exercise of despotic authority had given an imperious
+haughtiness to his bearing. He was now in his fifty-eighth year, but his
+features, coarsened and bloated by sensuality, gave him a much older
+aspect. He was dictating to a secretary who sat at the table writing
+with a reed pen on a parchment scroll, when the lictors, lowering their
+fasces and holding their hands above their eyes, as if to protect their
+dazzled eyes from the effulgence of the noonday sun, advanced into the
+apartment.
+
+"May it please your divine Majesty," said one of the servile lictors,
+"the centurion whom you summoned to your presence awaits your Imperial
+pleasure."
+
+"Most humbly at your Imperial Majesty's service," said Sertorius, coming
+forward with a profound inclination of his uncovered head. He had left
+his helmet and sword in the ante-chamber.
+
+"Flaccus Sertorius, I have heard that thou art a brave and faithful
+soldier, skilled in affairs of State as well as in the art of war. I
+have need of such to carry out my purpose here in Rome. Vitalius, the
+scribe," he went on, with an allusive gesture toward the secretary, "is
+copying a decree to be promulgated to the utmost limits of the empire
+against the pestilent atheism of the accursed sect of Christians, who
+have spawned and multiplied like frogs throughout the realm. This
+execrable superstition must be everywhere destroyed and the worship of
+the gods revived.[6] Even hero in Rome the odious sect swarms like
+vermin, and 'tis even said that the precincts of this palace are not
+free. Now, purge me this city as with a besom of wrath. Spare not young
+or old, the lofty or the low; purge even this palace, and look to it
+that thy own head be not the forfeit if you fail. This seal shall be
+your warrant;" and lashing himself into rage till the purple veins stood
+out like whipcords on his forehead, he tossed his signet ring across the
+table to the scribe, who prepared a legal instrument to which he affixed
+the Imperial seal.
+
+"May it please your Imperial Majesty," said the centurion, with an
+obeisance, "I am a rude soldier, unskilled to speak in the Imperial
+presence; but I have fought your Majesty's enemies in Iberia, in Gaul,
+in Dacia, in Pannonia, and in Libya, and am ready to fight them
+anywhere. Nevertheless, I would fain be discharged from this office of
+censor of the city. I know naught, save by Rumour, who is ever a lying
+jade, your Imperial Majesty, against this outlawed sect. And I know some
+of them who were brave soldiers in your Imperial Majesty's service, and
+many others are feeble old men or innocent women and children. I pray
+you send me rather to fight against the barbarian Dacians than against
+these."
+
+"I was well informed then that you were a bold fellow," exclaimed the
+Emperor, his brow flushing in his anger a deeper hue; "but I have need
+of such. Do thy duty, on thy allegiance, and see that thou soon bring
+these culprits to justice. Is it not enough that universal rumour
+condemns them? They are pestilent sedition-mongers, and enemies of the
+gods and of the State."
+
+"I, too, am a worshipper of the gods," continued the intrepid soldier,
+"and will fail not to keep my allegiance to your Imperial Majesty, to
+the State, and to those higher powers," and he walked backward out of
+the Imperial presence. As he rejoined his secretary a cloud sat on his
+brow. He was moody and taciturn, and evidently little pleased with his
+newly-imposed duties. But the confirmed habit of unquestioning obedience
+inherent in a Roman soldier led to an almost mechanical acceptance of
+his uncongenial task. Emerging from the outer court he proceeded to his
+own house, in the populous region of the Aventine Hill, now a deserted
+waste, covered with kitchen gardens and vineyards. In the meantime we
+turn to another part of the great Imperial palace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] Even as far west as Spain the following inscription has been found,
+which seems designed as a funeral monument of dead and buried
+Christianity: "DIOCLETIAN. C[AE]S. AVG. SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST. VBIQ.
+DELETAET CVLTV, DEOR. PROPAGATO"--"To Diocletian, C[ae]sar Augustus, the
+Christian superstition being everywhere destroyed and the worship of the
+gods extended." But though apparently destroyed, Christianity, like its
+divine Author, instinct with immortality, rose triumphant over all its
+foes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+EMPRESS AND SLAVE.
+
+
+Using the time-honoured privilege of ubiquity accorded to imaginative
+writers, we beg to conduct our readers to a part of the stately palace
+of Diocletian, where, if they had really been found in their own proper
+persons, it would have been at the peril of their lives. After fifteen
+long centuries have passed, we may explore without let or hindrance the
+most private apartments of the once all-potent masters of the world. We
+may roam through their unroofed banquet-chambers. We may gaze upon the
+frescoes, carvings, and mosaics which met their eyes. We may behold the
+evidences of their luxury and profligacy. We may thread the secret
+corridors and galleries connecting the chambers of the palace--all now
+open to the light of day.
+
+We may even penetrate to the boudoirs and tiring rooms of the proud
+dames of antiquity. We may even examine at our will the secrets of the
+toilet--the rouge pots and vases for cosmetics and unguents, the silver
+mirrors, fibulas or brooches, armlets and jewels, and can thus
+reconstruct much of that old Roman life which has vanished forever from
+the face of the earth.[7]
+
+By the light of modern exploration and discovery, therefore, we may
+enter the private apartments of ladies of the Imperial household, and in
+imagination re-furnish these now desolate and ruinous chambers with all
+the luxury and magnificence of their former prime. A room of commodious
+size is paved with tesselated marble slabs, adorned with borders and
+designs of brilliant mosaic. The walls are also marble, save where an
+elegant fresco on a stucco ground--flowers or fruit or graceful
+landscape[8]--greet the eye. A small fountain throws up its silver
+spray, imparting a grateful coolness to the air. Windows, void of
+glass, but mantled and screened by climbing plants and rare exotics,
+look out into a garden where snowy marble statues are relieved against
+the dark green of the cypress and ilex. Around the room are busts and
+effigies of the Imperial household or of historical characters. There
+is, however, a conspicuous absence of the mythological figures, whose
+exquisite execution does not atone for their sensuous conception, which,
+rescued from the _debris_ of ancient civilization, crowd all the
+Art-galleries of Europe. That this is not the result of accident but of
+design is seen by an occasional empty pedestal or niche. Distributed at
+intervals are couches and tables of costly woods, inlaid with ivory, and
+bronze and silver candelabra, lamps and other household objects of
+ornament or use. Sitting in an ivory chair amid all this elegance and
+luxury was a lady in the very flower of her youth, of queenly dignity
+and majestic beauty. She wore a snowy _stola_, or robe of finest linen,
+with purple border, flowing in ample folds to her sandaled feet Over
+this was negligently thrown a saffron-coloured veil of thinnest tissue.
+She held in her hand a burnished silver mirror, at which she glanced
+carelessly from time to time, while a comely slave with dark lustrous
+eyes and finely-formed features carefully brushed and braided her long
+and rippling hair.
+
+This queenly presence was the young and lovely Empress Valeria, the
+daughter of Diocletian and Prisca, and wife of the co-Emperor, Galerius
+C[ae]sar. The object of envy of all the women of Borne, she lived to become
+within a few short years the object of their profoundest commiseration.
+Of her even the unsympathetic Gibbon remarks that "her melancholy
+adventures might furnish a very singular subject for tragedy."
+
+"Nay, now, Callirho[e:]," said the Empress, with a weary smile, "that will
+do! Put up my hair and bind it with this fillet," and she held out a
+gold-embroidered ribband. "Thou knowest I care not for the elaborate
+coiffure that is now so fashionable."
+
+"Your Majesty needs it not," said the slave, speaking Greek with a low
+sweet voice, and with an Attic purity of accent. "As one of your own
+poets has said, you appear 'when unadorned, adorned the most.'"
+
+"Flatterer," said the Empress, tapping her gaily and almost caressingly
+with a plumy fan of ostrich feathers which she held lightly in one hand,
+"you are trying to spoil me."
+
+"Such goodness as thine, sweet mistress," said the slave, affectionately
+kissing her hand, "it would be impossible to spoil."
+
+"Dost know, Callirho[e:]," said the young Empress, with a smile of
+bewitching sweetness, "that I have a surprise for thee? It is, thou
+knowest, my birthday, and in my honour is the banquet given to-day. But
+I have a greater pleasure than the banquet can bestow. I give thee this
+day thy freedom. Thou art no more a slave, but the freedwoman of the
+Empress Valeria. See, here are the papers of thy manumission," and she
+drew from the girdle of her robe a sealed and folded parchment, which
+she handed to the now emancipated slave.
+
+"Dearest mistress!" exclaimed the faithful creature, who had thrown
+herself on the marble pavement and was kissing the sandaled feet of the
+beautiful Empress, but an outburst of sobs and tears choked her
+utterance.
+
+"What! weeping!" exclaimed Valeria. "Are you sorry then?"
+
+"Nay, they are tears of joy," exclaimed the girl, smiling through her
+tears, like the sun shining through a shower; "not that I tire of thy
+service; I wish never to leave it. But I rejoice that my father's
+daughter can serve thee no longer as thy slave, but as thy freedwoman."
+
+"I should indeed be sorry to lose thee," said the august lady with a
+wistful smile. "If I thought I should, I would almost regret thy
+manumission; for believe me, Callirho[e:], I have need of true friends, and
+thou, I think, wilt be a faithful one."
+
+"What! I, but this moment a poor slave, the friend of the fairest and
+most envied lady in all Rome! Nay, now thou laughest at me; but believe
+me I am still heart and soul and body thy most devoted servant."
+
+"I do believe it, child," said the Empress; "but tell me, pray, why thou
+speakest in that proud melancholy tone of thy father? Was he a
+freedman?"
+
+"Nay, your Majesty, he was free-born; neither he nor his fathers were
+ever in bondage to any man,"--and the fair face of the girl was suffused
+with the glow of honest pride in the freeborn blood that flowed in her
+veins.
+
+"Forgive me, child, if I touched a sore spot in thy memory. Perchance I
+may heal it. Money can do much, men say."
+
+"In this case, dearest mistress, it is powerless. But from thee I can
+have no secrets, if you care to listen to the story of one so long a
+slave."
+
+"I never knew thou wert aught else, child. My steward bought thee in the
+slave market in the Suburra. Tell me all."
+
+"'Tis a short story, but a sad one, your Majesty," said the girl, as she
+went on braiding her mistress's hair. "My father was a Hebrew merchant,
+a dealer in precious stones, well esteemed in his nation. He lived in
+Damascus, where I was born. He named me after the beautiful fountain
+near the Jordan of his native land."
+
+"I thought it had been from the pagan goddess," interrupted the Empress.
+
+"Nay, 'twas from the healing fountain of Callirho[e:], in Judea," continued
+the girl "When my mother died, my father was plunged into inconsolable
+grief, and fell ill, well-nigh to death. The most skilled physician in
+Damascus, Eliezer by name, brought him back to life; but his friends
+thought he had better let him die, for he converted him to the hated
+Christian faith. Persecuted by his kinsmen, he came to Antioch with my
+brother and myself, that he might join the great and flourishing
+Christian Church in that city.[9] While on a trading voyage to Smyrna,
+in which we children accompanied our father, we were captured by
+Illyrian pirates, and carried to the slave market at Ravenna. There I
+was purchased by a slave dealer from Rome, and my father and brother
+were sold I know not whither. I never saw them again,"--and she heaved a
+weary and hopeless sigh.
+
+"Poor child!" said the Empress, a tear of sympathy glistening on her
+cheek, "I fear that I can give thee little help. 'Tis strange how my
+heart went out toward thee when thou wert first brought so tristful and
+forlorn into my presence. 'Tis a sad world, and even the Emperors can do
+little to set it right."
+
+"There is One who rules on high, dear lady, the God of our fathers, by
+whom kings rule and princes decree judgment. He doeth all things well."
+
+"Yes, child, I am not ignorant of the God of the Jews and Christians.
+What a pity that there should be such bitter hate on the part of your
+countrymen towards those who worship the same great God."
+
+"Yes," said Callirho[e:], "blindness in part hath happened to Israel. If
+they but knew how Jesus of Nazareth fulfils all the types and prophecies
+of their own Scriptures, they would hail Him as the true Messiah of whom
+Moses and the prophets did write."
+
+"Well, child, I will help thee to find thy father, if possible, though I
+fear it will be a difficult task. Ask me freely anything that I can do.
+As my freedwoman, you will, of course, bear my name with your own. Now
+send my slave Juba to accompany me to the banquet-hall."
+
+Callirho[e:], or as we may now call her, after the Roman usage, Valeria
+Callirho[e:], fervently kissed the outstretched hand of her august mistress
+and gracefully retired.
+
+It may excite some surprise to find such generous sentiments and such
+gentle manners as we have described attributed to the daughter of a
+persecuting Emperor and the wife of a stern Roman general. But reasons
+are not wanting to justify this delineation. Both Valeria and her mother
+Prisca, during their long residence at Nicomedia, where the Emperor
+Diocletian had established his court, became instructed in the Christian
+religion by the bishop of that important see. Indeed, Eusebius informs
+us that among them there were many Christian converts, both Prisca and
+Valeria, in the Imperial palace. Diocletian and his truculent
+son-in-law, Galerius, were bigoted pagans, and the mother of the latter
+was a fanatical worshipper of the goddess Cybele. The spread of
+Christianity even within the precincts of the palace provoked her
+implacable resentment, and she urged on her son to active persecution. A
+council was therefore held in the palace at Nicomedia, a joint edict for
+the extirpation of Christianity was decreed, and the magnificent
+Christian basilica was razed to the ground. The very next day the edict
+was torn from the public forum by an indignant Christian, and the
+Imperial palace was almost entirely destroyed by fire. The origin of
+this disaster is unknown, but it was ascribed to the Christians, and
+intensified the virulence of the persecution. Diocletian proceeded to
+Rome to celebrate a military triumph and to concert with his western
+colleagues more vigorous methods of persecution. It is at this period
+that the opening scenes of our story take place.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] On the Palatine Hill may still be seen, in the palace of the Flavii,
+the frescoed private apartments and banquet-chambers of the emperors--in
+the walls are even the lead water-pipes, stamped with the maker's name;
+and the innumerable ancient relics in the museums of Rome and Naples
+give such an insight as nothing else can impart of the life and
+character of the palmy days of the empire.
+
+[8] On the banquet-room mentioned in the last note are some remarkable
+frescoes, among other objects being glass vases through whose
+transparent sides are seen exquisitely painted fruits--as fresh,
+apparently, after eighteen centuries as if executed within a few months.
+
+[9] Shortly after this time, that Church numbered 100,000 persons.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE IMPERIAL BANQUET.
+
+
+At the summons of Callirho[e:] a Nubian female slave, Juba by name, an old
+family nurse, skilled in the use of herbs and potions, made her
+appearance. Her huge and snowy turban and her bright-coloured dress
+strikingly contrasted with her jet complexion and homely features. Yet,
+as the personal attendant of the young empress, it was her duty to
+accompany her mistress to the banquet-hall, to stand behind her chair,
+to adjust her robes, hold her fan, and obey her every word or gesture.
+As she drew aside the curtain of the apartment which shut out the light
+and heat, two lictors who guarded the door sprang to their feet and
+preceded the empress through the marble corridor to the _triclinium_, or
+banquet chamber. It was a family party, rather than a state banquet, but
+neither Greeks nor Romans practised a profuse hospitality nor held large
+social or festive gatherings like those of modern times. Their feasts
+were rather for the intense epicurean pleasure of a favoured few than
+for the rational enjoyment of a larger company.[10]
+
+Couches inlaid with ivory and decked with cushions surrounded three
+sides of a hollow square. On these the emperor and his male guests
+reclined, each resting on his left arm. On ivory chairs facing the open
+side of the square sat the Empress Prisca (a majestic-looking matron of
+somewhat grave aspect), Valeria, and a lady of the court, each
+accompanied by her female slave. The extreme ugliness of the Nubian Juba
+acted as a foil for the striking beauty of Valeria.
+
+First of all, the guests were crowned with wreaths of fair and fragrant
+flowers. Then elegantly dressed slaves brought in, to the sound of
+music, the different courses: first eggs dressed with vinegar, olives
+and lettuce, like our salad; then roast pheasants, peacocks' tongues and
+thrushes, and the livers of capons steeped in milk; next oysters brought
+alive from the distant shores of Great Britain, and, reversing our
+order, fish in great variety--one of the most beautiful of these was the
+purple mullet--served with high-seasoned condiments and sauces. Of solid
+meats the favourite dish was a roast sucking pig, elegantly garnished.
+Of vegetables they had nothing corresponding to our potatoes, but,
+instead, a profusion of mallows, lentils, truffles, and mushrooms. The
+banquet wound up with figs, olives, almonds, grapes, tarts and
+confections, and apples--hence the phrase _ab ovo ad mala_.
+
+After the first course the emperor poured out a libation of Falernian
+wine, with the Greek formula, "to the supreme God," watching eagerly if
+his wife and daughter would do the same. Lacking the courage to make a
+bold confession of Christianity, and thinking, with a casuistry that we
+shall not attempt to defend, that the ambiguity of the expression
+excused the act, they also, apparently to the great relief of the
+emperor, poured out a libation and sipped a small quantity of the wine.
+The emperor then drank to the health of his wife and daughter, wishing
+the latter many returns of the auspicious day they had met to celebrate.
+Each of the guests also made, according to his ability, a complimentary
+speech, which the ladies acknowledged by a gracious salutation. After
+the repast slaves brought perfumed water and embroidered napkins for the
+guests to wash their fingers, which had been largely employed in the
+process of dining.
+
+The most of the guests were sycophants and satellites of the emperor,
+and in the intervals between the courses employed their art in
+flattering his vanity or fomenting his prejudices. One of them,
+Semphronius by name, an old fellow with a very bald and shiny head and
+a very vivacious manner, made great pretensions to the character of a
+philosopher or professor of universal knowledge, and was ever ready,
+with a great flow of often unmeaning words, to give a theory or
+explanation of every conceivable subject. Others were coarse and
+sensual-looking _bon vivants_, who gave their attention chiefly to the
+enjoyment of the good fare set before them. Another sinister-looking
+fellow, with a disagreeable cast in one eye and a nervous habit of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword, was Quintus Naso, the
+prefect of the city. He had been a successful soldier, or rather
+butcher, in the Pannonian wars, and was promoted to his bad eminence of
+office on account of his truculent severity. Of very different
+character, however, was a young man of noble family, Adauctus by name,
+who was present in his official character as Treasurer of the Imperial
+Exchequer.[11] He almost alone of the guests paid a courteous attention
+to the high-born ladies of the party, to whom he frequently addressed
+polite remarks while the others were intent only in fawning on the great
+source of power. He, also, alone of all present, conspicuously refrained
+from pouring out a libation--a circumstance which did not escape the
+keen eye of the emperor. After interrupted talk on general topics, in
+which the ladies took part, the conversation drifted to public matters,
+on which they were not expected to meddle.
+
+"Well, Naso, how was the edict received?" said the emperor to the
+prefect, as a splendid roast peacock, with sadly despoiled plumage, was
+removed.
+
+"As every command of your divine Majesty should be received," replied
+Naso, "with respectful obedience. One rash fool, indeed, attempted to
+tear it down from the rostra of the Forum, like that mad wretch at
+Nicomedia; but he was taken in the act. He expiates to-night his crime,
+so soon as I shall have wrung from him the names of his fanatical
+accomplices,"--and he clenched his hands nervously, as though he were
+himself applying the instruments of torture.
+
+"And you know well how to do that," said the emperor with a sneer, for,
+like all tyrants, he despised and hated the instruments of his tyranny.
+
+"You may well call them fanatics, good Naso," chimed in the would-be
+philosopher, Semphronius; "a greater set of madmen the world never saw.
+They believe that this Chrestus whom they worship actually rose from the
+dead. Heard ever any man such utter folly as that! Whereas I have
+satisfied myself, from a study of the official records, that he was
+only a Jewish thaumaturge and conjuror, who used to work pretended
+miracles by means of dupes and accomplices. And when, for his sedition,
+he was put to death as the vilest of felons, these accomplices stole his
+body and gave out that he rose from the dead."[12]
+
+"I have heard," said Adauctus gravely, "that the Romans took care to
+prevent such a trick as that by placing a maniple of soldiers on guard
+at His grave."
+
+"Yes, I believe they say so," went on the unabashed Semphronius; "but if
+they did, the dastards were either overpowered, or they all fell asleep
+while his fellow-knaves stole his body away."
+
+"Come now, Semphronius," said the emperor, "that is too improbable a
+story about a whole maniple of soldiers. You and I know too well, Naso,
+the Roman discipline to accept such an absurd story as that."
+
+"Oh, if your divine Majesty thinks it improbable, I fully admit that it
+is so," the supple sophist eagerly replied. "I am inclined to identify
+this impostor and a kinsman of his who was beheaded by the divine Herod
+with the Janus and Jambres whose story is told in the sacred books of
+the Jews. But it is evident, from the identity of name of one of these
+with the god Janus, that they merely borrowed the story from the Roman
+mythology. This execrable superstition, they say, was brought to Rome by
+two brothers named Paulus and Simon Magus. They both expiated their
+crimes, one in the Mammertine Prison, the other without the Ostian Gate.
+They say also that when Simon the magician struck the prison wall, a
+well of water gushed forth for some of their mystic rites; and that when
+the head of Paulus was smitten off it bounded three times on the ground,
+and at each spot where it touched a well of water sprang up. But these
+are stories that no sane man can believe."[13]
+
+"I quite agree with you in that," said Adauctus.
+
+"Do you, indeed?" exclaimed the Emperor; "I am glad to know that so
+brave and trusted an officer can say so."
+
+"I believe, your Majesty, that half the stories told about the
+Christians are calumnies that no candid man can receive," continued the
+young officer.
+
+"You are a bold man to say so, for they have few friends and many
+enemies at court," replied Diocletian; "but we will soon extort their
+secrets by this edict. Will we not, good Naso?"
+
+"It will not be my fault if we do not, your divine Majesty," replied
+that worthy, with a more hideous leer than usual in his cruel eye.
+
+"Another thing these fools of Christians believe," interjected the
+garrulous philosopher, "is, that when they die their souls shall live in
+some blander clime, and breathe some more ethereal air. 'Tis this that
+makes them seem to covet martyrdom, as they call it, instead of, like
+all sane men, shunning death."
+
+"But do not your own poets," chimed in the soft voice of Valeria, "speak
+of the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows where the spirits of
+heroes walk, and of the bark of Charon, who ferries them across the
+fatal Styx?"
+
+"True, your most august Highness," replied the pedant with grimace
+intended to be polite, "but those fables are intended for the vulgar,
+and not for the cultured classes, to which your Imperial Highness
+belongs. Even the priests themselves do not believe in the existence of
+the gods at whose altars they minister; so that Cicero, you will
+remember, said that 'he wondered how one augur could look in the face of
+another without laughing.'"
+
+"I quite admit," remarked Adauctus, "that the priests are often
+impostors, deceiving the people; but our wisest philosophers--the
+thoughtful Pliny, the profound Tacitus, the sage Seneca, and even the
+eloquent Cicero whom you have quoted--teach the probability if not the
+certainty of a future state, where virtue shall be rewarded and
+wickedness punished."
+
+"What do they know about it any more than any of us?" interrupted the
+truculent Naso, to whom ethical themes were by no means familiar or
+welcome. "My creed is embodied in the words of that clever fellow,
+Juvenal, that I used to learn at school--
+
+    'Esse aliquid manes, et subterranea regna,
+    Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum [ae]re lavantur.'"[14]
+
+"What's the use of all this talk?" lisped a languid-looking epicurean
+fop, who, sated with dissipation, at twenty-five found life as empty as
+a sucked orange. "We cannot alter fate. Life is short; let us make the
+most of it. I'd like to press its nectar into a single draught and have
+done with it for ever. As the easy-going Horace says, 'The same thing
+happens to us all. When our name, sooner or later, has issued from the
+fatal urn, we leave our woods, our villa, our pleasant homes, and enter
+the bark which is to bear us into eternal exile!'"[15]
+
+Here the Emperor made an impatient gesture, to indicate that he was
+weary of this philosophic discourse. At the signal the ladies rose and
+retired. Adauctus also made his official duties an excuse for leaving
+the table, where Diocletian and his other guests lingered for hours in
+a drunken symposium.
+
+Thus we find that the very questions which engage the agnostics and
+skeptics and pessimists of the present age--the Mallocks, and Cliffords,
+and Harrisons and their tribe--have agitated the world from the very
+dawn of philosophy. Did space permit, we might cite the theories of
+Lucretius as a strange anticipation of the development hypothesis.
+Indeed the writings of Pyrrho, Porphyry and Celsus show us that the
+universal tendency of human philosophy, unaided by divine inspiration,
+is to utter skepticism.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] On a single supper for his friends, Lucullus, who is said to have
+fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slaves, is recorded to have
+expended 50,000 denarii--about $8,500.
+
+[11] His name and office are recorded even by so skeptical a critic as
+Gibbon, and his epitaph has been found in the Catacombs. See Withrow's
+Catacombs, p. 46.
+
+[12] Strauss and Renan and their rationalizing school rival this pagan
+sophist in eliminating the miraculous from the sacred record.
+
+[13] Yet these stories, too incredible for this old pagan, were gravely
+related to the present writer, on the scene of the alleged miracles, by
+the credulous Romans of to-day.
+
+[14] _Sat._ ii. 49. "That the manes are anything, or the nether world
+anything, not even boys believe, unless those still in the nursery."
+
+[15] See that saddest but most beautiful of the ode of Horace, To
+Delius, II. 3:
+
+    ... Et nos in [ae]ternum
+    Exilium impositura cymb[ae].
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+"THE CHRISTIANS TO THE LIONS."
+
+
+The progress of our story transports us, on the day after the banquet
+described in our last chapter, to the palace of the Prefect Naso, on the
+Aventine. It was a large and pompous-looking building, with a
+many-columned portico and spacious gardens, both crowded with statuary,
+the spoil of foreign cities, or the product of degenerate Greek art--as
+offensive in design as skilful in execution. The whole bore evidence of
+the ostentation of vulgar wealth rather than of judicious taste. A crowd
+of "clients" and satellites of the great man were hanging round the
+doors, eager to present some petition, proffer some service, or to swell
+his idle retinue, like jackals around a lion, hoping to pick up a living
+as hangers-on of such a powerful and unscrupulous dispenser of
+patronage. In the degenerate days of the Empire, the civic officials
+especially had always a swarm of needy dependents seeking to fatten on
+the spoils of office. They were supposed, in some way, to add to the
+dignity of the consuls and pr[ae]tors, as in later times were the retainers
+of a medi[ae]val baron. The system of slavery had made all honest labour
+opprobrious, and these idle, corrupt, and dangerous parasites had to be
+kept in good humour by lavish doles and constant amusements. "Bread and
+the Circus," was their imperious demand, and having these, they cared
+for nothing else.
+
+On the morning in question there was considerable excitement among this
+turbulent throng, for the rumour was current that there was to be an
+examination of certain prisoners accused of the vile crime of
+Christianity; and there were hopes that the criminals would supply fresh
+victims for the games of the amphitheatre, which for some time had
+languished for lack of suitable material. The temper of the mob we may
+learn by the remarks that reach our ears as we elbow our way through.
+
+"Ho, Davus! what's the news to-day?" asked a cobbler with his leathern
+apron tucked up about his waist, of a greasy-looking individual who
+strutted about with much affectation of dignity; "you have the run of
+his Excellency's kitchen, and ought to know."
+
+"Are _you_ there, Samos?" (a nick-name meaning Flat Nose). "Back to your
+den, you slave, and don't meddle with gentlemen. _'Ne sutor,'_ you know
+the rest."
+
+"Can't you see that the cook drove him out with the basting ladle?" said
+Muscus, the stout-armed blacksmith, himself a slave, and resenting the
+insult to his class; and so the laugh was turned against the hungry
+parasite.
+
+"Here, good Max, you are on the guard, you can tell us," went on the
+burly smith.
+
+"News enough, as you'll soon find. There's to be more hunting of the
+Christians for those who like it. For my part, I don't."
+
+"Why not," asked Burdo, the butcher, a truculent looking fellow with a
+great knife in a sheath at his girdle. "I'd like no better fun. I'd as
+lief kill a Christian as kill a calf."
+
+"It might suit your business," answered stout Max, with a sneer, "but
+hunting women and children is not a soldier's trade."
+
+"O ho! that's the game that's a-foot!" chuckled a withered little wretch
+with a hungry face and cruel eyes, like a weasel. "Here's a chance for
+an honest man who worships the old gods to turn an honest penny."
+
+"Honest man!" growled Max. "Diogenes would want a good lantern to find
+one in Rome to-day. He'd certainly never take thee for one. Thy very
+face would convict thee of violating all the laws in the Twelve Tables."
+
+"Hunting the Christians, that's the game, is it?" said an ill-dressed
+idler, blear-eyed and besotted; "and pestilent vermin they are. I'd like
+to see them all drowned in the Tiber like so many rats."
+
+"You are more likely to see them devoured in the amphitheatre," said
+Bruto, a Herculean gladiator. "The Prefect is going to give some grand
+games on the Feast of Neptune. Our new lions will have a chance to
+flesh their teeth in the bodies of the Christians. The wretches haven't
+the courage to fight, like the Dacian prisoners, with us gladiators, nor
+even with the beasts; but just let themselves be devoured like sheep."
+
+At this juncture a commotion was observed about the door, and Naso, the
+Prefect, came forth and looked haughtily around. Several clients pressed
+forward with petitions, which he carelessly handed unopened to his
+secretary, who walked behind. He regarded with some interest the
+elegantly-dressed and graceful youth who glided through the throng and
+presented a scroll, saying, as he did so--
+
+"It is of much importance, your Excellency. It is about the Christians."
+
+"Follow me to the Forum," said the Prefect, and our old acquaintance
+Isidorus, for it was he, fell into the train of the great civic
+dignitary. Arrived at the Basilica Julia, or great Court of Justice, the
+Prefect beckoned to the young Greek secretary, and entered a private
+ante-room. Throwing himself into a bronze chair, and pointing the Greek
+to a marble seat, he asked abruptly--
+
+"Now, what is this you know about these Christians?"
+
+"Something of much importance to your Excellency, and I hope to learn
+something still more important."
+
+"You shall be well paid if you do," said the Prefect. "It is difficult
+to convict them of any crime."
+
+"I have secret sources of information, your Excellency. In fact, I hope
+to bring you the names of the ringleaders of the accursed sect."
+
+"How so? Are you not the secretary of Flaccus Sertorius?"
+
+"I am, your Excellency, but he has no heart in the work of this new
+edict. I would like to see more zeal in the Emperor's service."
+
+"I like not this Sertorius," said the Prefect, half musing. "He affects
+too much what they call the severe old Roman virtues to suit these
+times. But how do you expect to learn the secrets of these Christians?"
+
+"By becoming one myself, your Excellency, replied the Greek, with a
+sinister expression in his eyes."
+
+"By becoming one yourself!" exclaimed the Prefect, in a tone of anger
+and surprise. Then noting the wily expression of the supple Greek, he
+added, "Oh! I see, by becoming a spy upon their practices and a betrayer
+of their secrets. Is that it?"
+
+"We Greeks like not the words traitor and spy," said the youth, with a
+faint blush, "but to serve the Emperor and your Excellency we would bear
+even that opprobrium."
+
+"Well, you look capable of it," said the Prefect, with an undisguised
+sneer, "and I will gladly use any instruments to crush this vile sect."
+
+"But, your Excellency," said the cringing Greek, swallowing his chagrin
+and annoyance, "I shall require gold to gain the confidence of these
+Christians--not to bribe them, for that is impossible, but to spend in
+what they call charity--to give to their sick and poor."
+
+"Not forgetting yourself, I'll be bound," sneered the Prefect. "But what
+you say is no doubt true;" and turning to the table he wrote an order
+upon the Imperial Exchequer, and handed it to the Greek, with the words,
+"If you make good use of that, there is more where it comes from. The
+Emperor pays his _faithful_ servants well." Then dismissing the
+treacherous tool whom he himself despised, he passed into the Basilica,
+or court, where the bold Christian youth who had torn down the Emperor's
+edict was to receive his sentence.
+
+Livid with the torture he had undergone to make him disclose the names
+of his accomplices--tortures which he had borne with heroic fortitude
+he boldly avowed his act, and defied the power of the Prefect to extort
+the name of a single Christian from his lips. We will not harrow the
+hearts of our readers by recounting the atrocious tortures by which the
+body of the brave youth had been wrung. He was at length borne away
+fainting to his cruel fate. Although the Prefect, who had sworn to have
+his secret if he tore the heart out of his body, gnashed his teeth in
+impotent rage at the defiance of the mangled martyr, yet he could not in
+his inmost soul help feeling the vast gulf between his sublime fidelity
+and the heinous guilt of the base traitor from whom he had just parted.
+
+The pages of the contemporary historians, Eusebius and Lactantius, give
+too minute and circumstantial accounts of the persecutions, of which
+they were eye-witnesses, to allow us to adopt the complacent theory of
+Gibbon, that the sufferings of the Christians were comparatively few
+and insignificant. "We ourselves have seen," says the Bishop of C[ae]sarea,
+"crowds of persons, some beheaded, others burned alive in a single day,
+so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken to pieces, and the
+executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over the work
+of blood.... They vied with each other," he continues, "in inventing new
+tortures, as if there were prizes offered to him who should contrive the
+greatest cruelties."[16] Men whose only crime was their religion, were
+scourged with chains laden with bronze balls, till the flesh hung in
+shreds, and even the bones were broken. They were bound in fetters of
+red hot iron, and roasted over fires so slow that they lingered for
+hours, or even days, in their mortal agony; their flesh was scraped from
+the very bone with ragged shells, or lacerated with burning pincers,
+iron hooks, and instruments with horrid teeth and claws, hence called
+_ungul[ae]_, examples of which have been found in the Catacombs; molten
+metal was applied to their bodies till they became one undistinguishable
+wound, and mingled salt and vinegar,[17] or unslacked lime, were rubbed
+upon the quivering flesh, torn and bleeding from the rack or
+scourge--tortures more inhuman than savage Indian ever wreaked upon his
+mortal foe. Chaste matrons and tender virgins were given over to a fate
+a thousand-fold worse than death, and were subjected to indignities too
+horrible for words to utter. And all these sufferings were endured,
+often with joy and exultation, for the love of a Divine Master, when a
+single word, a grain of incense cast upon the heathen altar, would have
+released the victims from their agonies. No lapse of time, and no recoil
+from the idolatrous homage paid in after ages to the martyr's relics,
+should impair in our hearts the profound and rational reverence with
+which we bend before his tomb.
+
+While the examination of the Christian martyr was in progress, much
+interest was manifested in his fate by the throng of idlers who were
+wont to linger around the public courts, to gratify their curiosity or
+their morbid love of cruelty.
+
+"The State is in danger," said Piso, the barber, gesticulating
+violently, "if such miscreants are suffered to live."
+
+"Ay, is it," chimed in a garrulous pedagogue, "this is rank treason."
+
+"Right, neighbour Probus," added a pettifogging lawyer. "This is the
+very _crimen majestatis_. These men are the enemies of C[ae]sar and of the
+Roman people."
+
+"Who would think he was so wicked?" said a poor freed-woman who sold
+sugar barley in the Forum. "Sure he looks innocent enough."
+
+"He _is_ innocent," replied her neighbour, who kept a stall for the sale
+of figs and olives. "'Tis that wretch who is wicked," looking fiercely
+at the Prefect as he moved from the court.
+
+"You are right," said a grave-looking man, speaking low, but with a look
+of secret understanding; "but be careful. You can do the brave Lucius no
+good, and may betray the others into jeopardy," and he passed swiftly
+through the throng.
+
+"'Tis time all these Atheists were exterminated," said Furbo, a sort of
+hanger-on at the neighbouring temple of Saturn. "The gods are angry, and
+the victims give sinister auspices. To-day when the priest slew the ram
+for the sacrifice, would you believe it? it had no heart; and the sacred
+chickens refused their food."
+
+"And they certainly are to blame for the floods of the Tiber, which
+destroyed all the olives and lentils in my shop," said Fronto, the oil
+and vegetable seller.
+
+"And the rain rusted all the wheat on our farm," said Macer, the
+villicus or land-steward.
+
+"And the fever has broken out afresh in the Suburra," croaked a withered
+old Egyptian crone, like a living mummy, who told fortunes and sold
+spells in that crowded and pest-smitten quarter, where the poor swarmed
+like flies.
+
+"And the drought has blighted all the vines," echoed Demetrius, the
+wine-merchant.
+
+"I never knew trade so dull," whined Ephraim, the Jewish money-lender.
+"We'll never have good times again till these accursed Christians are
+all destroyed."
+
+"So say I," "And I," "And I," shouted one after another of the mob, till
+the wild cry rang round the Forum, _"Christiani adleones"_--"The
+Christians to the lions."[18]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] Euseb. Hist Eccles., viii. 7.
+
+[17] "Salt me the more, that I may be incorruptible," said Tarachus, the
+martyr, as he underwent this excruciating torture.
+
+[18] "If the Tiber overflows its banks," says Tertullian, "or if the
+Nile does not; if there be drought or earthquakes, famine or pestilence,
+the cry is raised, 'the Christians to the lions.' But I pray you," he
+adds, in refutation of these absurd charges, "were misfortunes unknown
+before Tiberius? The true God was not worshipped when Hannibal conquered
+at Cann[ae], or the Gauls filled the city."--Tertul. _Apol._, x.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MARTYR'S BURIAL.
+
+
+The fawning Greek Isidorus had stealthily wormed his way into the
+confidence of Faustus, a servant of Adauctus, by professing to be, if
+not a Christian, at least a sincere inquirer after the truth, and an
+ardent hater of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore promised
+to conduct him to a private meeting of the Christians, where he might be
+more fully instructed by the good presbyter, Primitius. In the short
+summer twilight they therefore made their way to the villa of the
+Christian matron Marcella, on the Appian Way, about two miles from the
+city gates. A high wall surrounded the grounds. In this was a wicket or
+door, at which Faustus knocked. The white-haired porter partly opened
+the door, and recognizing the foremost figure, admitted him, but gave a
+look of inquiry before passing his companion.
+
+"It is all right," said Faustus. "He is a good friend of mine," and so
+they passed on.
+
+The grounds were large and elegant, fountains flashed in the soft
+moonlight, the night-blooming cereus breathed forth its rare perfume,
+and masses of cypress and ilex cast deep shadows on the pleached alleys.
+But there was a conspicuous absence of the garden statuary invariably
+found in pagan grounds. There was no figure of the god Terminus, nor of
+the beautiful Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair goddesses which
+to-day people the galleries of Rome. In the spacious _atrium_, or
+central apartment of the house, which was partially lighted by bronze
+candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly a hundred persons, seated
+on couches around the hall--the men on the right and the women on the
+left. A solemn stillness brooded over the entire assembly. Near a tall
+cadalabrum stood a venerable figure with a snowy beard--the presbyter
+Primitius. From a parchment scroll in his hand he read in impressive
+tones the holy words of hope and consolation, "Let not your hearts be
+troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me," and the rest of that
+sweet, parting counsel of the world's Redeemer.
+
+[Illustration: STAIRWAY TO CATACOMB.]
+
+Before he was through, a procession with torches was seen approaching
+through the garden. On a bier, borne by four young men, lay the body of
+Lucius the martyr, wrapped in white and strewn with flowers--at rest in
+the solemn majesty of death from the tortures of the rack and scourge.
+The little assembly within joined the procession without, and softly
+singing the holy words which still give such consolation to the stricken
+heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui in Domino morientur--Blessed are the dead
+who die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress alleys wound the
+solemn procession. Soon it reached an archway, like that shown in our
+first chapter, the entrance to the catacomb of St. Callixtus, which lay
+beneath the grounds of the Lady Marcella. Then, preceded by torches,
+with careful tread the bearers of the bier slowly descended a rock-hewn
+stairway, and traversed a long and gloomy corridor, lined on either side
+with the graves of the dead.[19] This stairway and corridor are shown in
+the engravings which accompany this chapter.
+
+An almost supernatural fear fell upon the soul of Isidorus the Greek,
+who had followed in the train of the procession, as it penetrated
+further and further into the very heart of the earth. He seemed like
+Ulysses with his ghostly guide visiting the grim regions of the
+nether-world, and the words of the classic poet came to his mind,
+"Horror on all sides, the very silence fills the soul with dread."
+Already for more than two centuries these gloomy galleries had been the
+receptacles of the Christian dead, and in many places the slabs that
+sealed the tombs were broken, and the graves yawned weirdly as he
+passed, revealing the unfleshed skeletons lying on their stony bed. To
+his excited imagination they seemed to menace him with their
+outstretched bony arms. Deep, mysterious shadows crouched around, full
+of vague suggestions of affright. His gay, joyous and pleasure-loving
+nature recoiled from the evidences of mortality around him. His
+footsteps faltered, and he almost fell to the rocky pavement. The
+procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing dimmer and dimmer,
+and then turning an angle they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to
+his feet, and he fled along the narrow path with outstretched hands,
+sometimes touching with a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes
+of the dead. He hurried along, groping from side to side, and when he
+reached the passage down which the funeral procession had disappeared,
+no gleam of it was visible, nor could he tell, so suddenly the lights
+had disappeared, whether it had turned to the right or to the left. The
+darkness was intense--a darkness that might be felt, a brooding horror
+that oppressed every sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed
+to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his faint cry was swallowed up
+in the deep and oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the gods
+overtaken him in punishment for his meditated crime? Was he, who so
+loved the light and air, and joyous sunshine, never to behold them
+again? Must he be buried in these gloomy vaults for ever? These thoughts
+surged through his brain, and almost drove him wild. But what sounds are
+those that steal faintly on his ear? They seem like the music of heaven
+heard in the heart of hell. Stronger, sweeter, clearer, come the holy
+voices. And now they shape themselves to words, "Nam et si ambulavero in
+medio umbr[ae] mortis, non timebo mala--Yea, though I walk through the
+valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Was it to taunt his
+terrors those strange words were sung? Then the holy chant went on,
+"Quonian tu mecum es Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata
+sunt--For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." What
+strange secret had these Christians that sustained their souls even
+surrounded by the horrors of the tomb?
+
+[Illustration: CORRIDOR OF CATACOMB.]
+
+Isidorus groped his way amid the gloom toward these heavenly sounds.
+Soon he caught a faint glimmer of light reflected from an angle of the
+corridor, and then a ray through an open doorway pierced the gloom.
+Hurrying forward he found the whole company from which he had become
+separated gathered in a sort of chapel hewn out of the solid rock. The
+body of Lucius lay upon the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the
+wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful torchlight which illumined
+the strange group, and lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the
+wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And I saw under the altar
+the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the
+testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How
+long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on
+them that dwell on the earth?" A great fear fell upon the soul of the
+susceptible Greek, for the slain man seemed, in the solemn majesty of
+death, to become an accusing judge.
+
+Then turning his scroll the presbyter read on, "What are these arrayed
+in white robes and whence came they? These are they which came out of
+great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in
+the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and
+serve Him day and night in His temple.... They shall hunger no more,
+neither thirst any more ... and God shall wipe away all tears from
+their eyes."
+
+These holy words stirred strange emotions in the agitated breast of the
+young Greek. Sweeter were they than ought he had ever read in Pindar's
+page, and more sublime than even Homer's hymns. If these things were
+true, he thought, he would gladly change places with the martyr on his
+bier, if only he might exchange the torturing ambitions, strifes and
+sins of time for the holy joys which that marvellous scroll revealed.
+
+Then by loving hands the martyr's body was placed in its narrow tomb. A
+marble slab, on which were simply written his name and the words,
+"DORMIT IN PACE--He sleeps in peace," was cemented against the opening.
+With a trowel, a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom, was rudely traced
+in the yet unhardened cement, and the little company began to disperse.
+
+"O sir," cried the young Greek, clasping the hand of the venerable
+Primitius, "teach me more fully this excellent way."
+
+"Gladly, my son," replied the benignant old man. "Come hither to-morrow.
+For here," he added with a smile, "my friends insist that I must remain
+concealed till this outburst of persecution shall have passed.[20]
+Hilarus, the fossor, will be thy guide. He will now conduct thee back
+to thy friend Faustus, who is seeking thee."
+
+By the dim light of a waxen taper which he carried, Hilarus led the
+Greek to the entrance to the Catacomb, where they found Faustus waiting
+in some alarm at the delay of his friend. In the bright moonlight they
+walked back to the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving an
+account of his adventure in the Catacomb, and, to turn the conversation,
+asked how the Christians had obtained the body of Lucius from the public
+executioner.
+
+"Oh, money will do anything in Rome," said Faustus, at which the Greek
+visibly winced. "The Lady Marcella, in whose grounds the Catacomb is,
+devotes much of her wealth to burying the poor of the Church, and her
+steward had no difficulty in purchasing from Hanno, the executioner, the
+mangled remains of the martyr. 'Tis like, before long, that he will have
+many such to sell."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] For the details above given, see Bingham's _Origines Ecclesiastica_
+
+[20] Liberius, Bishop of Rome, lay concealed in the Catacombs for a
+whole year, during a time of persecution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WITH HILARUS THE FOSSOR.
+
+
+"No one becomes vile all at once," said the Roman moralist, and we would
+be unjust to the fickle, fawning Greek Isidorus, if we concluded that
+deliberate treachery was his purpose, as, at the invitation of
+Primitius, he repaired next day to the catacomb of St. Calixtus. His was
+a susceptible, impressionable nature, easily influenced by its
+environment, like certain substances that acquire the odour, fragrant or
+foul, of the atmosphere by which they are surrounded. Amid the vileness
+of the Roman court, his better feelings died, and he was willing to
+become the minion of tyranny, or the tool of treachery. Amid the holy
+influences of the Christian assembly, some chord responded, like an
+Eolian harp, to the breathings of the airs from heaven. It was,
+therefore, with strangely conflicting feelings, that he passed beneath
+the Capuan Gate, and along the Appian Way, toward the Villa Marcella.
+His better nature recoiled from his purposed treachery of the previous
+day. His heart yearned to know more of that strange power which
+sustained the Christian martyr in the presence of torture and of death.
+
+
+He was recognized by the porter at the gate of the villa as the
+companion of Faustus, and on his inquiry for the house of Hilarus, the
+fossor, was directed to a low-walled, tile-roofed building, such as may
+be seen in many parts of the Campagna to the present day. About the
+house were many stone chippings, and numerous slabs of marble. Under a
+sort of arbour, covered with vine branches in full leaf, stood a
+grisly-visaged man, with close-cropped, iron-gray hair, chipping with
+mallet and chisel at a large sarcophagus, or stone coffin, upon a
+mason's bench.
+
+"Do I address Hilarus, the fossor?" asked the Greek, with a graceful
+salutation.
+
+"I am Hilarus, at your service, noble sir," replied the old man, with a
+kindly expression of countenance.
+
+The young Greek then told of the invitation given him by the good
+presbyter, Primitius, and requested to be conducted to him.
+
+"You are, of course, known to the porter, or you would not have obtained
+admission to these grounds," said Hilarus. "But you will first honour my
+poor roof by partaking some refreshment after your hot walk from the
+city."
+
+"Thanks, good friend," replied the Greek, "a draught of your native
+wine would not be amiss. Nay, I would prefer it here beneath the
+grateful shadow of this vine," he continued, as Hilarus courteously led
+the way to the open door of the cottage. This was quite small, and had
+almost no furniture save some earthen pots for cooking at an open
+fireplace. In a moment the old man re-appeared with an earthen flagon of
+wine and a bronze salver, with bread and goat's milk cheese, and a
+bronze cup.[21]
+
+"For whom is this elegant sarcophagus?" asked Isidorus, as he sipped his
+wine.
+
+[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS NOW IN LATERAN MUSEUM.]
+
+"I pray it be not for her who orders it," said the old man, devoutly;
+"at least not for many a long day to come. The good Lady Marcella bade
+me exercise my best skill in setting forth the great truths of the
+Gospel, that in death as in life, she said, she might teach the
+doctrines of Christ. She often comes to see how I get on with it, and to
+describe how she wishes it to be. See," said the old man, pointing to
+the side--(see above)--"the general idea is all her own, the details
+only are mine. These four groups exhibit four scenes in the life--or
+rather in the death--of our Lord. To the extreme right we see Pilate,
+warned by his wife, washing his hands and saying 'I am innocent of the
+blood of this just person,' and yet, like a coward, consenting to His
+death, he was as guilty as Judas, who betrayed Him."
+
+At this the Greek visibly winced, then paled and flushed, and said,
+"Well, what is the next group?"
+
+"That is part of the same," said the sculptor, with evident pride in his
+work. "It represents our Lord, guarded by a Roman soldier, witnessing a
+good confession before Pontius Pilate. In the central niche are two
+soldiers, types of the Christian warriors, whose only place of safety is
+beneath the cross; while above are the wreath of victory, the doves of
+peace, and the sacred monogram, made up, I need not tell you, who are a
+Greek, of the two first letters of the word Christos. To the left you
+observe a Roman soldier, putting on Jesus the crown of thorns, and in
+the last, Simon the Cyrenian, guarded by a soldier, bearing His
+cross."[22]
+
+"And for whom are all these funeral tablets," said Isidorus, pointing to
+a number of slabs partly executed--some with the engraved outline of a
+dove, or fish, or anchor, or olive branch upon them--leaning against the
+wall.
+
+"For whom God pleases," said the old man, devoutly. "I keep them ready
+to suit purchasers, and then I have only to fill the name and age, or
+date."
+
+"But see here," said the Greek, touching with his foot one on which were
+effigies of Castor and Pollux, the "great twin brethren" of the Roman
+mythology, and the letters, "DIS MANIBVS--To the Divine Spirits;" "this
+is a pagan inscription. How come you to use that?"
+
+"Oh, we turn up such slabs by scores, in ploughing the fields hereabout.
+They may be hundreds of years old, for aught I know. We just turn that
+side to the wall, or deface it with a few strokes of the chisel."
+
+"It was a prentice hand that made _that_, I'll be bound," said the
+Greek, pointing to one on which was rudely painted in black pigment, the
+sprawling inscription that follows, no two letters being the same size--
+
+LOcvSaVgvStIsvToRis.
+"The Place of Augustus, the Shoemaker."
+
+"Oh, that is the epitaph of a poor cobbler. I let my boys do that for
+nothing. They will soon be able to do better. Here now is one by my
+oldest son, of which I would not be ashamed myself;" and he pointed to a
+neatly-cut inscription, the letters coloured with a bright vermillion
+pigment, which ran thus,--
+
+AVRELIAE THEVDOSIAE
+BENIGNISSIMAE ET INCOMPARABILI FEMINAE
+AVRELIVS OPTATVS
+CONIVGE INNOCENTISSIMAE
+
+"Aurelius Optatus, to his most innocent wife, Aurelia Theudosia, a most
+gracious and incomparable woman."
+
+"We will now, if you are sufficiently cool," he went on, "enter the
+catacomb. It is not well to make too sudden a transition from this
+sultry heat to their chilly depths."
+
+"Thanks," said the young man, "I shall find the change from this sultry
+air, I doubt not, very agreeable;" and they crossed a vineyard under a
+blazing sun, that made the cool crypts exceedingly grateful. Descending
+the stairway, the guide took from a niche a small terra-cotta lamp,
+which he carefully trimmed and lit at another, which was always kept
+burning there.[23]
+
+"Is there not danger of losing one's way in this labyrinth?" asked the
+Greek, feeling no small degree of the terror of his late adventure
+returning.
+
+"Very great danger, indeed," replied Hilarus, "unless you know the clue
+and marks by which we steer, almost like ships at sea. But knowing
+these, the way may become as familiar as the streets of Rome. You may,
+perhaps, have heard of C[ae]cilia, a blind girl, who acted as guide to
+these subterranean places of assembly, because to her accustomed feet
+the path was as easy as the Appian Way to those who see."
+
+"How many Greek epitaphs there are," said Isidorus, deeply interested in
+scanning the inscriptions as he passed.
+
+"Yes," said the fossor, "there are a-many of your countryfolk buried
+here; and even some who are not like to have their epitaphs written in
+the language in which holy Paulus wrote his epistle to the Church in
+Rome."
+
+"But what wretched scrawls the most of them are," said the Greek, with
+something like a sneer; "and see, here is one even upside down."
+
+"Yes, noble sir," continued the old man, "not many mighty, not many
+noble are called--most of those who sleep around us are God's great
+family of the poor. Indeed, most of them were slaves. That poor fellow
+was a martyr in the last persecution. I mind it well, though it is years
+agone. We buried him by stealth at dead of night, and did not notice
+that the hastily written inscription was reversed."
+
+The dim rays of their lamp and taper made but a faint ring of light
+about their feet. Their steps, as they walked over the rocky floor,
+echoed strangely down the long-drawn corridors and hollow vaults, dying
+gradually away in the solemn stillness of this valley of the shadow of
+death. The sudden transition from the brilliant Italian sunlight to this
+sepulchral gloom, from the busy city of the living to this silent city
+of the dead, smote the heart of the susceptible youth with a feeling of
+awe. And all around in this vast necropolis, each in his narrow cell
+forever laid, were unnumbered thousands, who were once like himself,
+full of energy and life.
+
+[Illustration: SECTIONAL VIEW OF GALLERY AND CHAMBERS, SHOWING LIGHT AND
+AIR SHAFT]
+
+As they advanced, a faint light in the distance seemed to penetrate the
+gloom. It grew brighter as they approached, and attracted by the sound
+of the footsteps, a venerable figure emerged from a doorway and stood in
+the flood of light which poured down from an opening in the vaulted
+roof, which extended to the bright free air above. Almost like an
+apparition from the other world, in the strong, Rembrandt-like
+illumination in which he stood, looked the venerable Primitius, clothed
+in white, with silvery hair and flowing beard, and high, bare brow. As
+Isidorus glanced up the shaft, he saw the blue sky shining far above,
+and the waving of the long grass that fringed the opening for light and
+air. This construction--a very frequent one in the Catacombs--is shown
+in sectional view on the previous page. On each side of the corridor was
+a chamber about twelve feet square, also lit up by this shaft, which,
+plastered with white stucco, reflected the light into every part.
+
+"Welcome, my son," said the venerable presbyter, as he sat down on a
+bench hewn out of the dry pummice-like rock "Welcome to these abodes of
+death; may they prove to thee the birthplace to eternal life;" and he
+laid his hand benignantly on the head of the young man, whom he had
+motioned to a seat beside him.
+
+"Sire," said the youth, all the nobler feelings of his nature deeply
+moved, "I wish above all things to sit at your feet and to learn the
+lessons of wisdom which you are so well able to impart But are these
+seemly surroundings for a man of your years and condition?--this rocky
+vault, this utter loneliness, and these crumbling relics of mortality?"
+and he shuddered as he glanced at the shattered sepulchral slabs, which
+revealed the remains of what was once man in his strength, woman in her
+beauty, or a sweet child in its innocence and glee.
+
+"Why not, my son? soon I must lie down with them and be at rest. The
+thought has no terrors to my soul I know no loneliness, and through the
+care of kind friends my wants are all supplied. But your young blood and
+sensitive imagination, I perceive, shrink from these things to which, by
+long use, I have become accustomed. Let us go into the adjoining
+chamber, which you will find more cheerful, and, I trust, not less
+instructive."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE--SARCOPHAGUS OF JUNIUS BASSUS,
+ROME.]
+
+[Illustration: CEILING PAINTING FROM CATACOMB OF ST. CALIXTUS, ROME.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Just such a peasant's house the writer visited on the Appian Way,
+near this spot, and just such a repast he shared at the entrance of this
+very catacomb. "The wine," said the guide, "is necessary to guard
+against a chill." The contrast between the temperature above ground and
+below was about 30 degrees.
+
+[22] This sarcophagus, with many others resembling it the writer studied
+minutely in the Lateran Museum at Rome.
+
+[23] The writer has some of these earthen lamps which once did service
+in the Catacombs. They bear Christian symbols, inscribed before
+baking--a dove, anchor, olive branch, fish, and the like.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER.
+
+
+The venerable presbyter laid his hand familiarly on the young man's
+shoulder and conducted him into a smaller, but much more elegantly
+finished, apartment. It contained no graves, save an arched tomb which
+had never been used; at one side was a shelf for lamps. The whole
+surface of the wall was covered with hard white stucco, which was
+divided into panels by bands and borders of brilliant red and blue, as
+shown in the cut on next page. The vaulted ceiling was similarly
+divided. The angles were filled in with elegant floral designs, and the
+panels with Biblical and symbolical paintings, which Primitius began now
+to explain.
+
+[Illustration: PAINTED CHAMBER IN THE CATACOMBS]
+
+"Thou seest, my son," he said, "that central group above the arch. That
+represents the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Thou
+perceivest He bears the lost sheep upon His shoulders, and gently leads
+those which follow Him. Even so, all we, like sheep, have gone astray,
+but the blessed Saviour seeks the erring, and brings them into the safe
+and true fold. Thou seest to the left the figure between the two lions.
+That is Daniel in the lion's den; and to the right are the three Hebrews
+in the fiery furnace. These, my son, are symbols of the Church of
+Christ, amid the wild beasts and the fires of persecutions. But she
+shall be delivered unhurt; she shall come forth unscathed. In the
+ceiling you will observe praying figures between lambs, the emblems of
+the Church, the Bride which is the Lamb's wife, perpetually engaged in
+adoration and prayer."
+
+The youth was deeply impressed, and almost awed, to see the
+silvery-haired old man, a refugee from persecution, in these
+subterranean crypts, with the full assurance of faith, confronting all
+the power of the persecuting despot of the world, and predicting the
+triumph of that oppressed Church which was compelled to seek safety in
+those dens and caves of the earth.
+
+The good old man then sought to impart the great truths of our holy
+religion to his new catechumen, and to implant in his soul the same
+germs of lofty faith that flourished in his own. With this object he led
+him through the long corridors and chambers of the vast encampment of
+death--a sort of whispering gallery of the past, eloquent with the
+expression of the faith and hope of the silent sleepers in their narrow
+cells.
+
+"Listen, my son," said Primitius, "to the testimony of the dead in
+Christ, and of the martyrs for the truth," and pausing from time to time
+before some inscribed or painted slab, he pointed out the lofty hopes
+which sustained their souls in the very presence of death.
+
+"Here," he said, entering again the chamber he had first left, "is the
+sepulchre of my own beloved wife. When depressed and lonely, I come
+hither and derive strength and consolation by reading the words which
+she requested, with her dying breath, should be written on her tomb,"
+and with deep emotion he traced with his finger the inscription:--[24]
+
+PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DVLCIS CVM CONIVGE NATAE
+VIVENTEMQVE DEO CREDITE FLERE NEFAS.
+
+"Refrain from tears, my sweet children and husband, and believe that it
+is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God."
+
+"And here," he went on, "is the tomb of our little child," and Isidorus
+read with softened spirit the words:--
+
+AGNELLVS DEI--PARVM STETIT APVD NOS ET
+PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE.
+
+"God's little lamb--he stayed but a short time with us, and went before
+us in peace."
+
+"And here," said Primitius, "is the couch of our eldest daughter," and
+he read, with caressing tones, her epitaph:--
+
+ANIMA DVLCIS INNOCVA SAPIENS ET PVLCHRA--
+NON MORTVA SED DATA SOMNO.
+
+"A sweet spirit, guileless, wise, beautiful. She is not dead but
+sleepeth."
+
+"This is certainly very different," said Isidorus, "from two epitaphs I
+read to-day upon the pagan tombs on the Appian Way. They ran thus:--
+
+DECIPIMVR VOTIS ET TEMPORE FALLIMVR ET MORS
+DERIDET CVRAS ANXIA VITA NIHIL.
+
+"We are deceived by our vows, misled by time, and death derides our
+cares; anxious life is naught."
+
+INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DEI IRATI AETERNO
+SOMNO DEDERVNT.
+
+"To a very sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to eternal sleep."
+
+"Yes," said Primitius, "nothing can sustain the soul in the presence of
+death, but such faith as that of my friend Eutuchius, who sleeps here;"
+and he read the lofty line:--
+
+IN CHRISTVM CREDENS PREMIA LVCIS HABET.
+
+"Believing in Christ, he has the rewards of the light (of heaven)."
+
+"Similar are these also," and he pointed to the following ill-written,
+but sublime, epitaphs, which Isidorus slowly spelled out:--
+
+DVLCIS ET INNOCES _(sic)_ HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS
+SOMNO PACIS CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI
+SVSCEPTVS EST,--IN SEMPETERNALE
+AEVVM QVIESCIT SECVRVS.
+
+"Here lies in the sleep of peace, the sweet and innocent Severianus,
+whose spirit is received into the light of God. He rests free from care
+throughout endless time."
+
+"But how were these Christians so confident of the future life," asked
+the Greek, "when the greatest of the philosophers and sages--a Socrates
+or Cicero--never rose above a vague 'perhaps,' and even the philosophic
+Pliny, anticipating only annihilation, writes, 'there is no more
+consciousness after death than before birth?'"
+
+"Find there thy answer, young man," exclaimed Primitius, and with a
+gleam of exultation in his eyes, he pointed to the following epitaphs:--
+
+CREDO QVIA REDEMPTOR MEVS VIVIT ET NOVISSIMO
+DIE DE TERRA SVSCITABIT ME IN CARNE MEA
+VIDEBO DOMINVM.
+
+"I believe, because that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day shall
+raise me from the earth, that in my flesh I shall see the Lord."
+
+HIC REQVIESCIT CARO MEA NOVISSIMO VERO DIE
+PER CHRISTVM CREDO RECVSCITABITVR A MORTVIS.
+
+"Here rests my flesh, but at the last day, through Christ, I believe it
+will be raised from the dead."
+
+"And must the soul, then, slumber with the body in blank unconsciousness
+till this 'last day?'" asked the Greek. "Methinks I should shudder at
+going out into the dark inane, like a taper extinguished in these gloomy
+vaults. Better is the dim and ghostly Hades, and Elysian Fields of our
+own mythology, than that."
+
+"Not so, my son," replied Primitius, "we believe with the blessed
+Paul--that as soon as the soul passes from earth's living death, it
+enters into the undying life and unfading bliss of heaven." And he
+pointed out, one after another, the following epitaphs corroborating his
+view:--
+
+CORPVS HABET TELLVS ANIMAM CAELESTIA REGNA.
+MENS NESCIA MORTIS VIVIT ET ASPECTV
+FBVITVR BENE CONSCIA CHRISTI.
+
+"The soul lives unknowing of death, and consciously rejoices in the
+vision of Christ."
+
+PRIMA VIVIS IN GLORIA DEI ET IN PACE DOMINI
+NOSTRI XR.
+
+"Prima, thou livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of Christ our
+Lord."
+
+"This is indeed a high philosophy, beyond aught I ever heard before,"
+said Isidorus, deeply moved. "Whence do you Christians derive such lofty
+teachings? For as Hilarus but now said most of your sect are poor and
+lowly in this world's goods and rank."
+
+"Our teaching comes, my son, from God Himself, the Great Father of
+lights, and from Jesus Christ our Lord. Behold, as the greatest favour I
+can do thee, I will lend thee this precious MS. of the Gospel of the
+blessed John;" and he took from a leathern case a purple vellum
+parchment scroll, inscribed with letters of silver. "Cherish it
+carefully; 'tis worth more than gold. When thou hast well pondered it, I
+will lend thee the letter of the blessed Paul to the infant Church in
+this city of Home. But here comes Hilarus to conduct thee back to the
+light of day. Return hither, if thou canst, on the fourth day from now
+--the day of our Sabbath assembly. My blessing be upon thee. _Pax
+vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo._"
+
+The young Greek knelt at the old man's feet, then rose and kissed his
+hand, and followed in silence the fossor Hilarus. At length he broke the
+silence by inquiring,--
+
+"What's the meaning, good Hilarus, of all these strange figures which I
+have noted on the tombstones as I passed. I have observed a lion, a pig,
+an ass, a cobbler's last, carpenters', masons', and wool-combers'
+implements; a fish, a ship, an anchor, and the like--all scratched or
+painted on the stone slabs. They have no religious significance,
+surely?"
+
+[Illustration: TOMB OF THE BISHOPS, CATACOMB OF ST. CALIXTUS.
+
+Seven of the Bishops of the early Christian Church in Rome fell in
+succession by the hand of the headsman, five of them in the space of
+eight years. In this chamber are buried several of those heroic martyrs
+of Jesus.]
+
+"Well, no, not all of them," said Hilarus, with a smile. "You see, many
+of the Christians being lowly craftsmen, are unable to read, so the
+tools or emblems of their calling are inscribed on the tombs of their
+friends, that they may recognize and find them again in this vast
+cemetery."
+
+"But the ship, anchor, and fish are not signs of a handicraft, unless
+that of sailor or fisherman."
+
+"No, the fish has another and a secret meaning. I need not tell a
+scholar like you, that the first letters of the Greek names for Jesus
+Christ, Son of God, the Saviour, make up the word Ichthus, or fish, so
+it is used as a secret symbol of our faith. The ship is the emblem, I
+have been told, even in your own country, of a well-spent life, and to
+us it signifies a soul entering into the haven of eternal rest. While
+our holy hopes are the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
+entering into that within the veil."
+
+"Well, and the lion, ass, and pig? What about them?"
+
+"These," said the fossor, with a laugh, which seemed as incongruous to
+him as it would be to a modern sexton, for such his office virtually
+was, "these are a sort of play upon the names of Leo, Onager, and
+Porcella, the latter was a sort of pet name, I suspect--'Little Pig'--by
+which their friends, who could not read, could find their tombs."
+
+"What wives these Christians must have had," continued the
+keenly-observing Greek. "I have noticed several inscriptions, in which
+they are said to have passed ten, twenty, thirty, and one even fifty
+years of married life--SINE IVRGIO, SINE AEMVLATIONE, SINE DISSIDIO,
+SINE QVERELA--'Without contention, without emulation, without
+dissension, without strife.' There are no such wives in Rome now, I'll
+be bound--at least in the Rome I am acquainted with."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, with a sigh, "come with me into yonder chapel.
+I always, in passing this way, stop there to see again the sepulchre of
+the best wife God ever gave to any man." After walking in silence some
+minutes, he entered a sort of family vault, and lit a bronze lamp,
+shaped like a ship, hanging from the vaulted ceiling, while Isidorus
+studied out the following inscription, not altogether free from errors
+in spelling and grammar:--
+
+CONIVGE VENEVANDE BONE INNOCVA FLORENTIA
+DIGNA PIA AMABILIS PVDICA _(sic)_ DEO FIDELIS
+DVLCIS MARITO NVTRIX FAMILIAE HVMILIS
+CVNCTIS AMATRIX PAVPERVM. BIXIT MECVM
+ANN. XXXII. MENS. IX. DIES V. HOR. X.
+SCRVPVLOS XIL SEMPER CONCORDES SINE VLLA
+QVERELA. BIXIT PLVS MINVS ANN. LII. MENS.
+V. INCOMPARABILEM CONIVGEM MALE FRACTVS
+CONIVX GEMITV TRISTI LACRI MIS DEFLET.
+
+"To my wife Florentia, deserving of honour, good, guileless, worthy,
+pious, amiable, modest, faithful to God, endeared to her husband, the
+nurse of her family, humble to all, a lover of the poor. She lived with
+me (_i.e._, was married) thirty-two years, nine months, five days, ten
+hours, six scruples (about a quarter of an hour--they were very
+scrupulous about this). She lived (altogether) fifty-two years, five
+months, more or less. The sore-broken husband bewails, with tears and
+bitter lamentation, his incomparable spouse."
+
+"Yes, I made it all up, and carved it all myself," said the old man, as
+Isidorus finished reading the long inscription; "and if I say it myself,
+I don't think there is a better in the whole Catacomb; you see, I
+selected the best bits from all the best epitaphs, and she deserved it
+every word, dear soul," and he drew his rough hand across his moistened
+eyes.
+
+The easy-tempered Greek was too good-natured to inflict wanton pain, so
+he ignored its bad Latinity, and contented himself with saying that "it
+was indeed a very remarkable epitaph."
+
+In a few minutes they emerged from the gloom of the Catacomb to the
+golden glory which was flooding the broad Campagna from the westering
+sun. "Would," thought Isidorus within himself, "that I could thus emerge
+from the gloomy doubts and fears in which my spirit gropes, to the
+golden light of Christian life."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] The following, except the last one, are all authentic inscriptions
+from the Catacombs, selected from many hundreds, translated by the
+writer in his volume on this subject.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A DIFFICULT QUEST.
+
+
+The Empress Valeria had not forgotten her purpose to discover, if
+possible, the father of her freed-woman, Callirho[e:], and at the earliest
+opportunity took steps to accomplish her design. It was, she knew, a
+task of much difficulty, and one that required an intelligent and
+confidential agent. It was also of the utmost importance that some sign
+of identity should be exhibited as a guarantee of the good faith of the
+agent. With this view the Empress one day, as she sat at her toilet in
+the apartment described in our third chapter, thus interrogated her
+freed-woman and namesake, Valeria Callirho[e:].
+
+"Hast thou any token, child," she asked, "by which, should we find thy
+father, he would be assured of thy identity?"
+
+"I was despoiled of everything, your Majesty," said the girl, "by the
+pirates by whom we were captured; except the clothes in which I stood.
+All my rings and jewellery were rudely snatched away, and I never saw
+them again."
+
+"What is that little amulet I have seen thee wear?" asked the Empress;
+"I think thou hast it now."
+
+"Oh, that was so trivial and valueless," said Callirho[e:], "that they
+either overlooked it or thought it not worth taking;" and she drew from
+the folds of her robe, where it hung suspended by a silken cord about
+her neck, a cornelian stone, carved into the shape of a tiny fish,[25]
+on which was inscribed the word, [Greek: S[O>]T[E>]RS[O>]T[E>]R], or "Saviour," and
+on the other side the letters [Greek: KAL.D[E>]M[E>]T.THYG]--a contraction for
+"Callirho[e:] daughter of Demetrius."
+
+"Trivial as it is," said the girl, with emotion, "it is something which
+I value above all price. My sainted mother, before she died, took it
+from her neck and put it upon mine; and I hope to wear it while I live."
+
+"You do not regard it as an amulet, or charm against evil spirits, I am
+sure, like some Christians, who have not quite shaken off their pagan
+superstitions."
+
+"Nay, your Majesty, but as a symbol of our holy faith. Yet it might well
+be a spell to keep my soul from sin, so sacred are its associations."
+
+"I want you to give it to me," said the Empress.
+
+"It is yours, your Majesty," said the girl, taking it from her neck, and
+passionately kissing it. "To no one else on earth would I give it; but
+from my best benefactress I can withhold nothing."
+
+"I would not put thee to the pain of parting with it," said the Empress,
+with a kind caress, "but I need it as a clue, to find, if possible, thy
+father, and when found, as an identification of his child. I do not wish
+to raise hopes which may be doomed to disappointment; but I am about to
+make a strenuous effort to discover thy sire."
+
+"A thousand thanks, dearest lady," exclaimed the grateful girl, kissing
+her mistress's hands and bedewing them with her tears. "I feel sure that
+God will reward your efforts, and answer my ceaseless prayers."
+
+In pursuance of her purpose, the Empress wrote upon a scroll of
+parchment the following letter to her faithful counsellor, Adauctus:--
+
+    "Valeria, consort of the co-Emperor Galerius C[ae]sar--to Adauctus,
+    Treasurer of the Imperial Exchequer, greeting:
+
+    "Honoured Servant,--Thy mistress hath need of a faithful and
+    intelligent agent, to execute a delicate and difficult mission.
+    He must be of good address, and must be a man whom I can
+    implicitly trust. When thou hast found such, bring him with thee
+    to the palace." L.S.
+
+Having bound the scroll with a silken cord, and affixed her signet in
+purple wax, and addressed the document to the Imperial Treasurer, she
+sent it by a soldier of the guard, whom we would describe in modern
+parlance as an orderly-in-waiting, to Adauctus.
+
+During the latter part of the day, the chamberlain announced a visit
+from "His Excellency the Imperial Treasurer." That officer was received
+with much honour by the Empress, who was attended only by her faithful
+freed woman.
+
+"Many thanks, your Excellency, for your prompt attendance. Have you
+found me the paragon whom I require?"
+
+"I cannot avouch for that, your Majesty, but he is highly commended by
+his master, an honest soldier, who places him at your Majesty's service.
+Of his nimble wit and subtle parts, I can myself bear witness, and my
+own servant testifies that if not a Christian, he is at least a sincere
+inquirer after the truth."
+
+The Empress briefly explained the nature of the commission which she
+wished executed, and asked that the proposed agent, who waited in an
+ante-room, might be presented. In a moment the chamberlain announced our
+old friend Isidorus. With bowed head and hands folded upon his breast,
+he stood on the threshold, and then advancing, knelt gracefully before
+the Empress. He evidently made a good impression, for her Majesty smiled
+graciously and said:--
+
+"It is a difficult quest on which I would send thee, but thou shalt be
+well rewarded for thy fidelity and zeal."
+
+"My humble services, my life, are at your Majesty's disposal," said the
+Greek. "I shall deem myself well rewarded by your Majesty's favour."
+
+"See'st thou this lady?" asked the Empress, pointing to Callirho[e:]. "To
+find her sire in this wide world--that is thy task;" and she briefly
+explained the nature of the commission.
+
+The youth gazed long and earnestly on the fair face of the girl, and
+replied, "Those features once seen can never be forgotten. If I find
+anywhere on earth aught resembling them, I shall not fail to recognize
+the likeness. In such a quest I would gladly search the wide world
+over."
+
+"My chamberlain will amply equip you for your journey, and will give you
+a letter, with the Emperor's seal, to all the Roman prefects in Italy;
+and, by the Divine favour, I trust you will bring us good tidings."
+
+"So may it be," said the youth, as he retired from the presence, giving,
+as he did so, a lingering look at Callirho[e:], who, with dilated eyes and
+parted lips, gazed at him with an intensity of entreaty that would have
+proved an inspiration to a less susceptible nature than his.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] These objects, of which the writer has examined several, were given
+to neophytes on the occasion of their baptism, as an emblem of their
+holy faith. (See explanation of the symbol of the fish in last chapter,
+p. 82.) They were often used as a sign of membership in the Christian
+Church, somewhat like our modern class-tickets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A WICKED PLOT.
+
+
+We have already mentioned the fact that Fausta, the mother of the
+Emperor Galerius, was a fanatical pagan. The especial object of her
+regard was the goddess Cybele, who was worshipped in Rome with rites of
+the most degrading superstition. Fausta was intensely bitter in her
+hatred of the Christian name, and strenuously endeavoured to incite her
+son, the Emperor, to persecution. She was especially virulent towards
+her daughter-in-law, the beautiful Valeria, and sought by every means to
+embitter the mind of Galerius against her. In this she was strongly
+abetted, or rather inspired, by Furca, the vicious old priest of Cybele,
+whose wicked influence over her was very great. This worthy pair, the
+day after the interview above described, were engaged in a secret
+conclave or conspiracy against Valeria and the Christians, while the
+latter was seeking to carry out her benevolent enterprise.
+
+The scene of their interview was the reception-room of Fausta, in the
+palace of the Emperor Galerius. It was far more sumptuously furnished
+and decorated than that of the Empress Valeria, and at one end, in a
+marble niche, stood an ugly image of the goddess Cybele, with her crown
+of many towers, rudely carved out of olive wood, but quite embrowned,
+and almost blackened with age. It was bedizened with costly jewels, and
+was deemed to be of special sanctity. Before it was a small marble
+altar, on which burned, day and night, a silver censer.
+
+At the moment of which we write, Fausta approached the altar, and
+kissing her hand to the image--an ancient mode of worship, from which we
+get the word "adore"--she took some costly Sabean incense from a small
+gold coffer, and sprinkled it on the glowing coals of the censer. Dense
+white fumes arose, whose rich aromatic odour filled the large apartment.
+Fausta had been an Illyrian peasant, and, notwithstanding her
+embroidered robes and costly jewels, she still exhibited much of the
+rude peasant character and lack of culture. Her coarse and wrinkled
+features and swarthy complexion, were all the more striking by their
+contrast with the snowy mantle, with its gold-embroidered border, which
+she wore; and her bright black eyes glittered with an expression of
+deadly malice like those of a serpent. While she stood before the altar,
+a servant announced that Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, had obeyed
+her summons. As the curtain of the door was drawn aside, a little
+weazened old man, as dark as mahogany, wearing a thick crop of snow
+white hair, appeared.
+
+"Thanks, good Furca," said Fausta, "I desire your counsel on a matter of
+much importance to the State, and to the worship of the holy Cybele."
+
+"At your service, your Excellency," said the obsequious priest, who also
+kissed his hand to the black-faced image, and sprinkled a few grains of
+incense on the censer.
+
+"Thou knowest how the worship of the Galilean Christus has increased,
+not only among the common people, the vile plebs, and the still viler
+slave population, but even among the patricians and nobles. I have
+evidence that even in this palace, and very near the throne, the
+execrable superstition is cherished."
+
+"Alas! your Excellency, I fear it is only too true," whined the bigot
+arch-priest. "Certain it is that neither of the Empresses, Prisca or
+Valeria, ever take part in the public worship of the gods, as from their
+lofty station it is their duty to do."
+
+"Yes, and I have reason to believe that there is plotting and conniving
+between the Empress and the accursed Christian sect."
+
+"Hast any proof of this?" asked the arch-priest, eagerly. "This is a
+crime against the State."
+
+"The black slave Juba," replied Fausta, "is, as thou knowest, a faithful
+worshipper of Cybele, and she told me even now, that Adauctus, the
+Imperial Treasurer, had been only yesterday closeted with the Empress,
+and plotting to restore to the favour of the Emperor a certain
+Demetrius, a Christian renegade, who is in hiding for his crimes."
+
+"Oh, ho!" chuckled the priest, with a wicked grin, "my fine lady need
+not think herself so high and mighty as to be above the reach of the
+law, or beyond the anger of the insulted gods."
+
+"I would almost give my eyes," hissed through her teeth the revengeful
+Fausta, "if I could only see that painted doll, Valeria, abased and
+degraded. She has too long held a sway, of which I, the mother of the
+Emperor, have been deprived."
+
+"I trust you may not only see it," said Furca, gloating in anticipation
+over the prospect, "but also see her pale, proud mother, the Empress
+Prisca, humbled at your feet."
+
+"Accomplish this, good Furca," exclaimed Fausta, with exultation, "and
+the goddess Cybele shall have such an offering as she never had
+before."
+
+"We must be wary," said the priest, "or we may ourselves be crushed.
+They are too powerful to be attacked openly. We must plot against them
+secretly. I'll be a _furca_ to them indeed," he added, punning upon his
+own name, which had also the signification of an instrument of
+punishment, something like a cross; and the conspirators parted with
+this pledge of mutual hate against their destined victims.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SLAVE MARKET.
+
+
+In the meantime Isidorus, with well-filled purse, and armed with
+credentials under the Imperial seal, had set off upon his difficult and
+doubtful quest.
+
+"However it turn out," he said to himself, "it will be strange if I do
+not climb a few steps higher on the ladder on which my feet are now
+placed. Being the confidential agent of the Empress is better than
+being the secretary of the rude soldier, Sertorius, and being snubbed by
+him every day, too."
+
+Mounted on one of the best horses in the Imperial stables, he rode forth
+upon the famous Salarian Way, which led straight as an arrow over the
+wide Campagna, and over the rugged Appenines to the distant city of
+Ravenna, among the marshes of the Adriatic. Now a decayed and
+grass-grown city, six miles from the sea, it was then a great and busy
+port, and had been for two centuries and a half an important see of the
+Christian Church. Not to the prefect of the city, but to the bishop of
+Ravenna, Isidorus, with his natural tact and shrewdness, betook himself.
+The sign manual of the Emperor, which he confidently exhibited, did not
+command that regard which he had anticipated; but a private letter from
+Adauctus, commending Isidorus to all Christian bishops and presbyters,
+procured for him a much more cordial reception. He was hospitably
+entertained, and every possible assistance given him in his quest. The
+bishop called together the deacons who had the care of the poor of the
+Church, but none of them knew anything of Demetrius. The bishop had
+ransomed many Christian slaves--prisoners taken in war, or captured by
+pirates. A few years before, when the resources of the Church had been
+completely exhausted by the exercise of this charity,[26] a company of
+captives had been sold by pirates to a Jewish slave-dealer named Ezra,
+and conveyed by him to the city of Mediolanum, or as we now call it,
+Milan, as offering, next to Rome, the best market for his wares. And one
+of the deacons remembered among this slave-gang an old man who resembled
+the description given of Demetrius.
+
+To Milan, therefore, crossing again the Appenines, and riding up the
+broad, rich valley of the Po, went Isidorus. He was surprised to find a
+city, almost rivalling in extent Rome itself, and with a history
+reaching back to the times of the Etruscans, well-nigh a thousand years.
+First he sought the Jewish slave-dealer, who kept a regular mart for the
+sale or hire of human beings, just as one now-a-days keeps a
+livery-stable for the sale or hire of horses. There was as much fraud,
+too, in selling slaves then, as has been proverbially connected with
+horse-dealing and jockeying in every age. The _ergastulum_, or slave-pen
+of Ezra, was a large prison-like structure, surrounding the four sides
+of a hollow square. There were no windows to the street, and only very
+small iron-grated ones to the inner court; with heavy, iron-studded
+doors to the stable-like stalls, where the slaves were chained to a
+stout beam running along the wall.
+
+A slave-auction was in progress when Isidorus arrived, so he had to wait
+till it was over before plying his quest. A gang of slaves, unchained,
+but guarded by keepers, armed with whips and spears, awaited their fate.
+Stripped nearly naked, they were rudely examined, pinched, handled, and
+made to stoop, lift heavy weights, walk, run, and show their paces like
+horses for sale. Many had their ears bored--a sign of servitude from the
+time of Moses--and others were seamed with scars of the cruel lash.
+This, however, lessened their market value, as it was evidence of their
+intractable and troublesome character.
+
+Slavery was, at the time of which we write, one of the greatest evils of
+the Roman empire. It was a deadly canker, eating out the national life.
+It cast a stigma of disgrace on labour, and prevented the formation of
+that intelligent middle class which is the true safeguard of liberty.
+Never in the history of the world was society so based upon the abject
+misery of vast multitudes of human beings. The slaves outnumbered, many
+times, their masters. They were forbidden to wear a peculiar garb, lest
+they should recognize their numbers and their strength, and rise in
+universal revolt. As it was, servile insurrections were of frequent
+occurrence. But they were crushed and punished with ruthless severity.
+In one slave revolt, 60,000 of these wretched beings were slain. The
+first question about a man's property was, _"Quot pascit servos?"_--"How
+many slaves does he keep?" Ten was considered the least number
+consistent with any degree of respectability. Four hundred slaves
+deluged with their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus. Vidius
+Pollio fed his lampreys with the bodies of his human chattels. A single
+freed-man left over 4,000 at his death. Some 2,000 men were lords of the
+Roman world, and the great mass of the rest were slaves. Their condition
+was one of inconceivable wretchedness. They had no rights of marriage,
+nor any claim to their children. Their food was a pound of bread a day,
+with a little salt and oil. Flesh they never tasted, and even wine,
+which flowed like water, almost never. Colossal piles, built by their
+blood and sweat, attest to the present day the bitterness of their
+bondage. The lash of the taskmaster was heard in the fields, and
+crosses, bearing aloft their quivering victims, polluted the wayside.
+
+This dumb, weltering mass of humanity, crushed by power, and led by
+their lusts, became a hot-bed of vice, in which every evil passion grew
+apace. To these wretched beings came the gospel of liberty, with a
+strange, a thrilling power. The oppressed slave, in the intervals of
+toil or torture, caught with joy the emancipating message, and sprang up
+enfranchised by an immortalizing hope. He exulted in a new-found freedom
+in Christ, which no wealth could purchase, no chains of slavery fetter,
+nor even death itself destroy. In the Christian Church the distinctions
+of worldly rank were abolished.[27] The highest spiritual privileges
+were opened to the lowliest slave. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy were
+no rights of birth, and no privileges of blood. In the inscriptions of
+the Catacombs, no badges of servitude, no titles of honour appear. The
+wealthy noble, the lord of many acres, recognized in his lowly servant a
+fellow heir of glory. They bowed together at the same table of the Lord,
+saluted each other with the mutual kiss of charity, and side by side in
+their narrow graves, at length returned to indistinguishable dust. The
+story of Onesimus was often repeated, and the patrician master received
+his returning slave, "not now as a servant, but above a servant--a
+brother beloved." Nay, he may even have bowed to him as his
+ecclesiastical superior, and received from his plebeian hands the
+emblems of their common Lord.
+
+We return from this digression to the slave-market of Milan. Very few of
+Ezra's stock were black--not more than half a dozen, from Nubia and
+Libya. Most of them were as white as himself, or whiter still. There
+were Dalmatians, Illyrians, Iberians, Gauls, Greeks, Syrians, and many
+other nationalities. Ezra was engaged in busy converse, in a broken
+mixture of Latin and Greek, with the wealthy patrician, Vitellius, the
+lord of wide corn lands on the fertile banks of the Po.
+
+"Field hands your Excellency wants? I have some splendid ones," he said,
+eagerly. "Here, you fellows, step out there and show your muscles;" and
+he struck with his whip-lash two brawny white-skinned, blue-eyed,
+yellow-haired British slaves.
+
+"Sullen dogs these British often are," he said, "but they are as good as
+gold. They never run away like the Germans, nor steal like the Greeks,
+nor kill themselves like the Gauls."[28]
+
+"Glad of that," said Vitellius. "I have had a perfect epidemic of
+suicide among my slaves. I had to kill several of them to keep them from
+killing themselves"--a sad but frequent comment on the utter
+wretchedness of their condition, from which death itself was the only
+refuge.
+
+"Does your Excellency want anything of a higher grade?" asked Ezra.
+"Some skilled workmen to finish your elegant villa, for instance. I have
+a splendid Greek sculptor, almost another Phidias, and another a second
+Zeuxis with the brush. Then if you want a steward, or bookkeeper, or
+secretary, or reader, or a skilled physician, I have them all; or a
+hand-maid for your Excellency's wife. I have a beautiful Greek girl
+here, highly accomplished; can embroider, play the zither, sing in two
+languages. I sold her sister last week for 100,000 sesterces[29]--nieces
+of an ex-archon. I felt really sorry for them, but what would
+you?--trade is trade. Times are bad. Poor Ezra has had bad luck. Several
+of his slaves kill themselves. Market glutted; price falls. I sell them
+very cheap--very cheap."
+
+Vitellius made his purchases, had them chained together in a gang, and
+driven by his steward, like cattle, to his farm. The account of Ezra's
+interview with Isidorus we must defer to another chapter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] This might easily happen, for after successful raids or slave
+hunts, the victims were sold by their pirate captors by the thousand.
+The fact is on record, that at Delos, a famous slave market, 60,000 were
+sold by Celician pirates in a single day.
+
+[27] Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et dominos, interest
+nihil. Lactant. _Div. Inst._ v. 14, 15.
+
+[28] These were the most common faults of slaves, for attempting which
+they were often branded on cheek or brow.
+
+[29] Over $4,000 of our money. Very beautiful or accomplished slaves
+sometimes brought twice that amount.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE LOST FOUND.
+
+
+"Do you remember buying or selling a slave named Demetrius, a Jew?"
+asked Isidorus of Ezra, the slave-dealer of Milan. He wasted no words in
+circumlocution, for he knew that there was no use in trying to deceive
+the keen-eyed Jewish dealer in his fellowman; and that his best chances
+of success were in coming directly to the point.
+
+"Selling a Jew? Oh, no! I never sell my own kinsmen. That's against our
+law. It is like seething a kid in its mother's milk. I often ransom them
+from pirates and set them free."
+
+"But this Demetrius was a Christian Jew--a convert from Moses to Jesus,"
+said the Greek.
+
+"A Christian dog," cried Ezra with a wicked execration. "He was no Jew.
+He had sold his birthright like Esau, and had no part nor lot with
+Israel. Of course, I'd sell him if I got him--to the mines, or to the
+galleys, or the field gang, to the hardest master I could find. But I
+know naught about your Demetrius, who was he?"
+
+"He was a Jew of Antioch," said Isidorus, "captured by Illyrian pirates
+and sold in the slave market of Ravenna."
+
+"That is a common tale," replied Ezra. "There are many such. How long
+since this occurred?"
+
+"'Tis now five years since he was last seen by her who seeks him, and
+who will pay well for his recovery."
+
+"Just my luck," grumbled the greedy Jew. "Some one else will gain the
+prize. 'Tis not for me."
+
+"Then you cannot help me in this quest?" said the Greek.
+
+"How can I remember the scores and hundreds of Christian dogs that I
+have bought and sold? Go ask these monks, they know more of the vermin
+than I do."
+
+Acting on this hint, Isidorus made his way to the Convent of San
+Lorenzo, the ancient chapel of which still remains. Knocking at a
+bronze-studded gateway he was admitted to a quadrangle surrounded by
+cloisters or covered galleries upon which opened the doors of the
+different apartments. It was more like a hospital and alms-house than
+like what is now understood as a convent. It served as a sort of school
+of theology, youthful acolytes and deacons being here trained for the
+office and work of presbyters in the Church. Isidorus presented his
+letter from Adauctus to the good Bishop Paulinus, and was most cordially
+received.
+
+"Right welcome art thou, my son," said the bishop, "bearing, as thou
+dost, the commendation of the worthy Adauctus; and right glad shall we
+be to promote thy search. I myself know naught that can throw light upon
+it, inasmuch as I lived not at Milan, but was bishop of Nola at the time
+of which thou speakest."
+
+The scriptor, or secretary, of the convent was also consulted without
+avail, no record being found in the annals of the house that gave any
+hope of discovery.
+
+"Come lunch with us in the refectory," said the bishop, "and I will ask
+if any of the brethren know aught of this mystery."
+
+The refectory was a large bare-looking room--its only furniture being a
+long and solid table with a shorter one across the end for the bishop,
+and presbyters, and visitors. Of this latter there were frequently
+several, as such houses were the chief places for entertaining the
+travelling clergy or even lay members of the Christian brotherhood. Upon
+the walls were certain somewhat grim-looking frescoes, representing
+Biblical scenes and characters like those in the Catacombs described in
+chapter VIII. At one side of the room was a _bema_, or reading-desk, at
+which one of the lectors a distinct ecclesiastical office,[30] with its
+special ordination--read, while the brethren partook of their meals, the
+lessons for the day from the Gospels and Epistles, as well as passages
+from the writings of Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Origen. For
+this usage the scarcity and high price of MS. books, and the desire to
+improve every moment of time was deemed a sufficient ground.
+
+After the meal--which was almost ascetic in its simplicity, consisting
+chiefly of vegetable pottage, lentils, and bread was over, and the
+reading ended, the bishop explained the cause of the presence among them
+of a stranger from Rome.
+
+"My brethren," he said in conclusion, "this is a common story. Many are
+the victims of cruelty and wrong in this great empire. Be it ours, so
+far as God may give us power, to succour the oppressed and redress their
+wrongs."
+
+As he sat down a venerable presbyter rose and said, "Father, five years
+have I been under this hospitable roof, ransomed from bondage by your
+predecessor in office. Five years have I mourned the loss of a son and
+daughter, sold from my arms to I know not what cruel fate. It may be
+that God is about to restore me my children, the flesh of my flesh. Hast
+thou, stranger, any sign or token by which I may be assured of their
+identity?"
+
+"Of thy son I have no tidings; but know thou if this be a token of thy
+daughter's rescue," and Isidorus exhibited the small cornelian _tessara_
+of the fish of which we have spoken.
+
+Eagerly the old man clasped it, and scanned the inscription, and
+joyfully exclaimed, while tears of gladness flowed down his aged cheeks
+and silvery beard, "Thank God, my child yet lives. I shall again behold
+her before I die. See, here is her very name, 'Callirho[e:], daughter of
+Demetrius.' I carved it with my own hands one happy day in our dear home
+in Damascus. God is good. I never hoped to see her again. Tell me,
+stranger, is she, too, a slave?"
+
+"Nay," said Isidorus with emotion, for even his careless nature was
+touched with sympathy at the joy of the old man, "She is the freed woman
+of the Empress Valeria, and high in favour, too, I should judge, from
+the interest her august mistress showed in seeking for thee."
+
+"_Benedic, anima mea, Domino,_" exclaimed the aged presbyter with
+fervour. "_Et omnia, qu[ae] intra me sunt, nomini sacro ejus_--Bless the
+Lord, my soul: and all that is within me bless His holy name. He hath
+heard my prayer. He hath answered my supplication."
+
+The old man's story was soon told. He had been rescued from the slave
+pen of Ezra, and employed in the service of the convent. His familiar
+knowledge of Greek led to his appointment as instructor in that language
+of the young acolytes and deacons who were in training for the office of
+the ministry. At length his superior gifts and fervent piety led to his
+own ordination as a presbyter of the Church of Milan.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] This office was possibly derived from the synagogue. As requiring
+good scholarship it was one of much honour, and was even sought by
+laymen. The Emperor Julian, in his youth, and his brother Gallus, were
+readers in the Church of Nicomedia. Many epitaphs of readers occur in
+the Catacombs.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Demetrius was now eager to set out for Rome to behold once more the
+child whom he had scarce hoped ever to see again. A happy leave-taking
+of the brethren of Milan, who rejoiced in fraternal sympathy, followed;
+and on a gently ambling mule, at break of day, the old man rode forth
+beside the gallantly equipped Isidorus. He beguiled the weary way with
+questions about his long-lost daughter, as to her growth, appearance,
+her apparent health, and even the very garb she wore. He was never tired
+hearing about her, and recounting incidents of her childhood and youth.
+The only shadow upon his joy was the vague mystery concerning the fate
+of his son. But he said cheerfully: "God is good. He has restored to me
+one of my children. I feel confident that in His own good time He will
+restore also the other."
+
+Beneath the fatigue of the long journey of nearly three hundred miles
+his powers would have failed, had he not been inspirited and sustained
+by the thrilling anticipation of beholding once more his beloved child.
+
+At length, near sunset, on the tenth day, they drew near the great
+metropolis of the Empire. Clearer and clearer to the view rose the
+seven-hilled city's pride, the snowy marble peristyles and pediments of
+palace and temple, gleaming in the rosy light like transparent
+alabaster. To the left rose the cliff-like walls of the Colosseum, even
+then venerable with the time-stains of over two hundred years. In the
+foreground stretched the long Aurelian Wall, with its towers and
+battlements and strong arched gates. They crossed the Tiber by the
+Milvian Bridge, built three hundred years before, and destined to
+witness within ten years that fierce struggle for the mastery of the
+empire, between Constantine and Maxentius, when the British-born C[ae]sar
+saw, or thought he saw, in the mid-day heavens a blazing cross, and
+exclaiming "By this sign we conquer," overwhelmed his adversary in the
+rushing river.[31]
+
+Passing under the hill crowned with the famous gardens of Lucullus, now
+known as the Pincio, and beneath the heavy-arched gateway in the wall,
+they made their way through the narrow streets towards the centre of the
+city the--Forum and the Palatine. It was a day of festival--the last day
+of the _Quinquatria_, or festival of Minerva. Garlands of flowers, and
+wreaths of laurel, festooned many of the houses, in front of which
+blazed coloured cressets and lamps. Sacred processions were passing
+through the streets, with torches and music and chantings of priests;
+and ever and anon the shrill blare of the sacred trumpets pierced the
+ear of night. In the Forum the temples of Saturn, and of Castor, and
+Pollux were richly adorned and brilliantly illuminated, and a great
+throng of merry-makers filled the marble square.
+
+Turning to the left, our travellers ascended the slope of the Palatine
+Hill, amid ever-increasing grandeur of architecture. Demetrius, though
+he had travelled far and seen much, was struck with astonishment at the
+splendour and magnificence of the buildings. Not at Jerusalem, or
+Damascus, or Antioch, not at Ravenna or Milan, had he witnessed such
+wealth of porphyry and marble, such stately colonades and peristyles,
+covering acres of ground--now but a mound of mouldering ruins.
+
+"Whither art thou leading me?" asked Demetrius, as they stood before a
+palace of snowy marble which, bathed in the mellow radiance of the
+rising moon, seemed transformed into translucent alabaster.
+
+"To the abode where dwells thy daughter, the favoured freed-woman of the
+mistress of all this splendour," replied Isidorus, enjoying the wonder
+and admiration of his companion in travel.
+
+A fountain splashed in the centre of the square, its waters flashing
+like silver in the moonlight. The burnished mail of the Roman soldiers
+gleamed as the guard was changed, and their armour clashed as they
+grounded their spears and saluted the officer of the watch.
+
+"What, Max, are you on duty to-night?" said Isidorus as he recognized a
+soldier of the guard. "Any promotion in your service yet?"
+
+"No, but I see that there is in yours," said the bluff out-spoken
+guardsman.
+
+"Well, yes, I flatter myself that there is," replied the vain-glorious
+Greek, "and I hope for still more."
+
+Announcing to the chamberlain of the palace that he had just arrived
+from a journey of important business for the Empress Valeria, he with
+Demetrius were taken to a marble bath, where with the aid of a skilful
+slave, they made their toilet for immediate presentation to the Empress.
+
+Valeria was attended as usual by her freed-woman Callirho[e:], when the
+Greek was announced.
+
+"We heard," she said to Isidorus, "by thy letters, of the failure of thy
+quest at Ravenna and Milan, but we hope----"
+
+At this moment, with an exclamation of intensest emotion Callirho[e:]
+rushed forward and flung herself in the arms of the venerable figure
+who had followed the Greek into the apartment.
+
+"My father!" she cried in tones which thrilled every heart, and then she
+embraced him again and again. The impassioned love and joy and gratitude
+of her soul struggling for expression, she burst into a flood of tears.
+
+"My daughter, child of my beloved Rachel," exclaimed the old man, as,
+heedless of the presence of the Empress, he fondly caressed her, "do I
+again embrace thee? Thou art the very image of thy angel-mother, as I
+first beheld her in the rose gardens of Sharon. Truly God is good. Now,
+Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace--the cup of my happiness
+runneth over."
+
+"Nay, good father," broke in the soft voice of the Empress, who was
+deeply moved by the scene, "rather live to share thy daughter's love and
+happiness."
+
+"Pardon, august lady," said Demetrius, falling on his knees, and
+gratefully kissing the Empress's hand. "Pardon, that in the joy of
+finding my child I forgot the duty I owe to my sovereign."
+
+"Thy first duty was there," said Valeria, pointing to the lovely
+Callirho[e:], who, smiling through her tears, was now leaning on her
+father's arm. "We leave you to exchange your mutual confidences. Good
+Isidorus it shall be our care to bestow a reward commensurate with thy
+merit;" and she withdrew to her own apartment.
+
+"My everlasting gratitude thou hast," said Callirho[e:], with her sweetest
+smile, frankly extending her hand.
+
+"I am, indeed, well repaid," said the Greek, as he respectfully kissed
+it. "I would gladly show my zeal in much more arduous service," and
+bowing low, he was accompanied by the chamberlain to the vestibule. That
+official gave him, by command of the Empress, a purse of gold, and
+assured him of still further reward.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] A magnificent painting in the Vatican represents with vivid realism
+this scene, the drowning of the Pagan Emperor, and the defeat and flight
+of all his army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+"UNSTABLE AS WATER."
+
+
+It was with feelings highly elated at his successful achievement, which
+presaged still further advancement, that Isidorus sought his lodgings.
+On the way he met many late revellers returning from the festival,
+"flown with insolence and wine," and making night hideous with their
+riot. Among them, his garments dishevelled, and a withering garland
+falling from his brow, was an old acquaintance, Calphurnius, the son of
+the Perfect, who with maudlin affection embraced him and exclaimed:--
+
+"Friend of my soul, where hast thou hidden thyself? Our wine parties
+lack half their zest, since thou hast turned anchorite. Come, pledge our
+ancient friendship in a goblet of Falernian. The wine shop of Turbo, the
+ex-gladiator, is near at hand."
+
+"You have not turned Christian, have you?" hiccoughed the drunken
+reveller; "no offence, but I heard you had, you know."
+
+Isidorus gave a start. Were his visits to the Catacomb known to this
+fashionable fop? Were they a matter of sport to him and his boon
+companions? Was he to be laughed out of his nascent convictions by these
+empty-headed idlers? No, he determined. He despised the whole crew. But
+he was not the stuff out of which martyrs are made, and he lacked the
+courage to confess to this gilded butterfly, his as yet faltering
+feeling towards Christianity.
+
+"Who says I am?" he asked, anxious to test his knowledge on the subject.
+
+"Who says so? I don't know. Why everybody," was the rather vague reply.
+
+"You don't know what you are talking about, man," said the Greek, with a
+forced laugh. "Go home and sleep off your carouse."
+
+"All right. I told them so. The Christians, indeed, the vermin! Come to
+the Baths of Caracalla at noon to-morrow and I'll tell you all about
+it."
+
+Isidorus went to his lodgings and retired to his couch, but not to
+slumber. He was like a boat drifting rudderless upon the sea, the sport
+of every wind that blew. He had no strength of will, no fixedness of
+purpose, no depth of conviction. His susceptible disposition was easily
+moved to generous impulses and even to noble aspirations, yet he had no
+moral firmness. He is portrayed to the life by the words of the great
+Teacher, "He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he
+that heareth the Word, and anon, with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not
+root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or
+persecution ariseth because of the Word, bye-and-bye he is offended."
+
+"Did his boon companions," he questioned, "suspect that any serious
+convictions had penetrated beneath his light and careless exterior?" All
+his good resolutions had begun like wax in a furnace to melt and give
+way at the sneer and jeer of the shallow fool from whom he had just
+parted--a creature whom in his inmost heart he despised. Strange
+contradiction of human nature! Like the epicurean poet, he saw and
+approved the better way and yet he followed the worse.[32] He seemed to
+gain in the few casual words he had heard, a glimpse of the
+possibilities of persecution which menaced him if faithful to his
+convictions, and he had act moral fibre enough to encounter them. And
+yet his conscience stung and tortured him as he tossed upon his restless
+couch. Toward morning he fell asleep and it was broad day when he awoke.
+His reflections were as different from those with which he fell asleep
+as the brilliant daylight was from the gloomy shadows of night. The air
+was full of the busy hum of life. Water sellers and fruit pedlers and
+the like were crying "_Aqua Gelata_" "Fresh Figs," and "White wine and
+red." Cohorts of soldiers were clattering in squadrons, through the
+streets, the sunlight glittering on their spearpoints and on the bosses
+of their shields and armour. Jet black Nubian slaves, clad in snowy
+white, were bearing in gold-adorned _lectic[ae]_ or palanquins, proud
+patrician dames, robed in saffron and purple, to visit the shops of the
+jewellers and silk mercers. Senators and civic officials were flocking
+to the Forum with their murmuring crowd of clients. Gilded youths were
+hastening to the schools of the rhetoricians or of the gladiators, both
+alike deemed necessary instructors of these pinks of fashion. The
+streets and squares were a perfect kaleidoscope of colour and
+movement--an eddying throng, on business or on pleasure bent.
+
+The stir and animation of the scene dispelled all serious thoughts from
+the mind of the frivolous Greek. He plunged like a strong swimmer into
+the stream of eager busy life surging through the streets. He was one of
+the gayest of the gay, ready with his laugh and joke as he met his
+youthful comrades.
+
+"Ho, Rufus, whither away in such mad haste," he cried as he saw a young
+officer of the 12th Legion dashing past in his chariot, driving with
+admirable skill two milk-white steeds through the crowded streets.
+
+"Oh! are you there? Where have you hidden yourself for the last month?"
+exclaimed Rufus, as he sharply reined up his steeds. "To the Baths of
+Caracalla; will you go?"
+
+"Yes, very gladly," said Isidorus, stepping upon the low platform of the
+open bronze chariot. "I have been beyond the Po, on a special service--a
+barbarous region. No baths, circus, or games like those of Rome."
+
+"There is but one Rome," said the fiery young Hotspur, "but I am
+beginning to hate it. I am fairly rusting with idleness and long for
+active service--whether amid Libyian sands or Pannonian forests, I care
+not."
+
+"It seems to me," replied the effeminate Greek, "that I could console
+myself with your horses and chariot--the coursers of Achilles were not
+more swift--and with the delights which Rome and its fair dames are
+eager to lavish on that favourite of fortune, Ligurius Rufus."
+
+"_Vanitas vanitatis_," yawned the youth. "Life is a tremendous bore. I
+was made for action, for conquest, for state craft; but under this
+despotism of the C[ae]sars, we are all slaves together. You and I fare a
+little better than that Nubian porter yonder, that is all."
+
+"Yet you seem to bear your bondage very comfortably," laughed the
+light-hearted Greek, "and had I your fortune, so would I."
+
+"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be golden," ejaculated the
+soldier, lashing his steeds into swifter flight, as if to give vent to
+his nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to forget that I am a
+slave. Lost a hundred thousand sesterces at dice last night. The empire
+is hurrying to chaos. There are no paths of honour and ambition open to
+a man. One must crouch like a hound or crawl like a serpent to win
+advancement in the state. I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day are
+an effete and worn out race. The rude Dacians beyond the Tiber possess
+more of the hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic than the
+craven creatures who crawl about the feet of the modern Colossi, who
+bestride the world and are worshipped almost as gods. And unless Rome
+mends her ways they will be the masters of the Empire yet."
+
+"One would think you were Cato the Censor," laughed the Greek. "For my
+part, I think the best philosophy is that of my wise countryman,
+Epicurus--'to take the times as they come, and make the most of them.'
+But here we are at the Therm[ae]."
+
+Giving his horses to one of the innumerable grooms belonging to the
+establishment, Rufus and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched
+entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32]  Video, proboque meliora,
+      Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT THE BATHS.
+
+
+Nothing can give one a more striking conception of Roman life under the
+Empire than the size, number, and magnificence of the public baths.
+Those of Caracalla are a typical example. They covered an area of
+fifteen hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the surrounding
+grounds being a mile in circumference. They formed a perfect wilderness
+of stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the very mouldering
+remains of which strike one with astonishment. Of this very structure,
+the poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus Unbound," remarks:
+"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths
+of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous
+blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon
+its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Piers of
+sold masonry soar aloft like towers, on the summit of which good-sized
+trees are growing. Climbing one of those massive towers, the present
+writer enjoyed a glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the
+crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure
+all around, and of the far spreading and desolate Campagna.
+
+The great hypocausts, or subterranean furnaces, can be still examined,
+as also the caleducts in the walls for hot air, and the metal pipes for
+hot and cold water. The baths were supplied by an aqueduct constructed
+for that purpose, the arches of which may be seen bestriding the
+Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from the city. There were hot,
+and cold, and tepid baths, _caldaria_, or sweating chambers,
+_frigidaria_, or cooling rooms, _unctoria_, or anointing rooms, and many
+others sufficient to accommodate sixteen hundred bathers at once. There
+were also a vast gymnasium for exercise, a _stadium_, or race-course,
+and a _pinacotheca_, or art gallery. Here were found the famous Farnese
+Bull, the largest group of ancient statuary extant, and many _chefs
+d'oeuvre_ of classic sculpture and mosaics.
+
+The Baths of Diocletian, built by the labours of the Christians during
+the last great persecution, one authority says, were twice as large, and
+could accommodate eighteen thousand bathers in a day, but that seems
+incredible. One of its great halls, a hundred yards by thirty in area,
+and thirty yards high, was converted by Michael Angelo into a church. Of
+the remainder, part is used as a monastery, part as barracks, and part
+as an orphanage, a poor-house, and an asylum for the blind, and much is
+in ruins. At Pompeii is a public bath in perfect preservation, with the
+niches for the clothing, soaps, and unguents of the bathers, and even
+the _strigils_, or bronze instruments for scraping the skin--the same
+after eighteen hundred years as though used but yesterday. By these
+means we are able to reconstruct the outward circumstances of that old
+Roman life, almost as though we had shared its busy movement.
+
+As Ligurius Rufus drew aside the heavy matting of the doorway of the
+Therm[ae], of Caracalla, which then, as now, kept out the summer heat from
+the buildings of Rome, a busy scene burst upon his view. A great hall,
+lighted by openings in the roof, was filled with gay groups of patrician
+Romans, sauntering, chatting, laughing, exchanging news, betting on the
+next races, and settling bets on the last. As the modern clubman goes to
+his club to see the papers and learn the current gossip, so all the
+idlers in Rome came to the baths as to a social exchange, to learn the
+latest bit of court scandal or public news.
+
+"Ho, Calphurnius!" said Rufus, to the now sobered son of the city
+Prefect; "what's in the wind to-day? You know all the mischief that's
+going."
+
+"Sorry I cannot maintain my reputation then. Things are dull as an old
+_strigil_. Oh, by the way," and he beckoned them into a recess behind a
+porphyry pillar, "there is going to be a precious row up at the palace.
+I tell you in confidence. The old vixen, Fausta, has got a new spite
+against the Empress Valeria, whom all the people of the palace love. The
+termagant is not fit to carry water for her bath. She has found some
+mare's nest of a Christian plot,--by the way you are mixed up in it,
+friend Isidorus. I would advise you to have a care. In the fight of
+Pagan against Christian, I fear Valeria will get the worst of it, _dii
+avertant_."
+
+"The palace walls are not glass," laughed Isidorus, "nor have you a
+Dionysius' ear. How know you all this?"
+
+"As if the Roman Prefect did not know what goes on, that he thinks worth
+knowing, in every house in Rome! He has eyes and ears in his pay
+everywhere; and when honest Juba, or Tubal, come with their secret
+intelligence, they are not above accepting double pay and letting me
+into the secret, too. Besides that crafty old vulture Furca was closeted
+with the Prefect for an hour by the clepshydra, and you always smell
+carrion when he is hovering round."
+
+"What is it all about?" asked Rufus. "I am sure Valeria is as much
+beloved by the people as the old termagant Fausta is hated."
+
+"There's the rub--a bit of spiteful jealousy," answered Calphurnius.
+"But when that old basilisk hates, she will find a way to sting."
+
+"But what have I to do with the quarrels of the palace?" asked Isidorus,
+a little anxiously, for he knew not how far he might be compromised by
+the commission he had executed, of which he had felt not a little proud.
+
+"You know best yourself," answered Calphurnius with a laugh. "If you
+have done a service to Valeria or the Christians, you have made an enemy
+of Fausta and the Pagans."
+
+"Is this what you spoke of last night, and promised to explain to-day?"
+asked the Greek.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so. I have no very distinct recollection of what I said.
+I had been supping with Rufus here, and some other roystering blades,
+and the Folernian was uncommonly good. Come, _amicus meus_," he went on
+turning to Ligurius, "don't you want revenge for those sesterces you
+lost last night?"
+
+"I don't mind if I do punish you a little," yawned the young soldier.
+"It will kill the time for awhile, at all events."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GAMING TABLE.
+
+
+Gaming was a perfect passion among the Romans, and indeed among most
+ancient nations. Dice of bone and ivory, like those in use to-day, have
+been found in the tombs of Thebes and Luxor. [AE]schylus and Sophocles
+describe their use four hundred years before Christ, and in an ancient
+Greek picture now before us, a female figure is shown tossing _tali_, or
+gaming cubes, and catching them on the back of her hand, as children now
+play "Jacks." Soldiers from the enforced idleness of much of their time
+and the intense excitement of the rest of it, have in every age been
+addicted to gambling to beguile the _ennui_ of their too ample
+leisure--from those of Alexander down to the raw recruits of to-day. Our
+friend, Ligurius Rufus, had undergone frequent experience of the pains
+and pleasures of this siren vice; but was eager to return to its
+embrace. Such vast estates had been squandered, and great families
+impoverished, and large fortunes often staked upon a single throw of the
+dice--beyond anything that Homburg or Monaco ever saw--that gambling was
+forbidden by successive Roman laws. But when were not the rich able to
+indulge in their favourite vices, even under a much purer Government
+than that of Rome? So even in this place of public resort, were numerous
+alcoves in which stood gaming tables, while money changers--generally
+Jews--had tables near for giving good Roman sesterces in exchange for
+the _oboloi_ or _drachmai_ of Greece, the shekels of Jerusalem, or the
+scarab[ae]us coins of Egypt. Into one of these alcoves the three friends
+now turned, Isidorus promising himself that he would only look on. He
+had been excessively addicted to play, but had, notwithstanding
+occasional success, lost so much money that he had abjured the seductive
+vice, especially since his visit to the Catacomb with his friend
+Faustus, who had urged him to forsake a practice so perilous in itself,
+and so opposed to Christian conduct.
+
+Calphurnius and Rufus sat down to the gaming table, and the Greek stood
+looking on. The gold was placed in two piles on the board. The dice
+rattled, and eager eyes took in at a glance the number of red spots on
+the upper surface. Rufus seemed to have recovered his good fortune.
+Throw after throw was successful.
+
+"That is the _Jadus Venereus_," he exclaimed with exultation, as he made
+the cast that counted highest. "We must have wine and I must be
+toast-master," for so was called the leader of the revels.
+
+The Greek watched with honest interest the play, his eye flashing and
+his pulse quickening under its strange spell. The richest wines of Chios
+and Lesbos were ordered; and as the wine was poured into jewelled
+goblets, he required slight urging to partake of the fragrant vintage of
+the Isles of Greece. The eager play was resumed. The Greek noted each
+practised turn of the wrist and cast of the dice--his eye kindling and
+his brain throbbing with the subtle intoxication of both the game and
+the wine.
+
+"I've won enough," said Rufus, "I've got back my own, and more. I don't
+want to ruin you, my good fellow," and he positively declined to play
+any more. His honest nature recoiled from taking that for which he gave
+no value, beyond recouping his previous losses.
+
+"Will you try a cast," he added, turning to Isidorus. "Our friend has
+lots of money to lose?" and he lounged away to watch the game of ball in
+the Gymnasium.
+
+"Yes, take a turn, my luck is wretched to-day!" exclaimed Calphurnius.
+"Come, I will stake that pile of gold on a single cast."
+
+The Greek's whole frame was tingling with excitement--yet he was
+withheld by some lingering restraint of his promise to Faustus to
+abandon play. Calphurnius again rattled the dice, the cast was a
+complete blank--the worst possible combination.
+
+"'Twas lucky for me you were not playing then," he said, laughing; "but
+I'll risk another if you will."
+
+"It must only be for a small stake--a single sesterce," said the
+infatuated youth, quaffing a goblet of wine. "I have given up gambling."
+
+"All right," said his friend, "it's only for amusement that I play," and
+he cast again, and laughing paid over his forfeit.
+
+Isidorus continued to win, each time taking a sip of the strong heady
+wine. The baleful enchantment was upon him.
+
+"Double the stakes!" he cried.
+
+"I thought you would tire of our playing like slaves with jackstones,"
+replied the cool-headed Calphurnius. "This is something like play," he
+continued, as they doubled every time, till the stakes were soon
+enormous. The tide of fortune now turned; but the Greek had become
+perfectly reckless. Conscience was dead, a demon greed for gain had
+taken possession of his soul, the gaming-madness surged through his
+brain. He doubled and redoubled his stakes, till before he rose he had
+lost even the gold received from Valeria the night before, and was
+beggared to his last denarius. With blood-shot eyes and staggering gait
+he reeled away from the table, his handsome features convulsed with rage
+and wicked imprecations pouring from his lips.
+
+"Don't be so vexed about it, man," said his tormentor, for so he
+regarded Calphurnius. "Better luck to-morrow. Here I'll lend you enough
+to set you up. Let us have a bath, we both of us need it to quiet our
+nerves."
+
+Isidorus, in his maudlin intoxication, accepted the offer, and declared,
+with much idle babble, that there was more money where that which he had
+lost came from--that his services were too valuable to the state to be
+overlooked--and that he knew a thing or two--that he could tell some
+secrets, if he would--and much more to the same purpose.
+
+This was just what Calphurnius wanted. He had been set on by his father,
+the Prefect Naso to worm from the Greek the secrets of the Palace and
+the Catacomb, and this by a series of wheedling questions he completely
+succeeded in doing. With some difficulty he got his victim home after he
+had extorted from him all that he cared to know. When Isidorus awoke
+next morning it was with feelings of intense disgust with himself and
+with all the world. He felt that he had played the fool, but how far he
+knew not. He remembered that he had lost all his money, yet he found a
+few coins in his purse. He felt that he had forfeited the confidence of
+his new patron Adauctus, of the Empress, and even was undeserving of the
+gratitude or respect of the beautiful freed-woman, Callirho[e:], whose
+father he had restored. He had learned that there was a plot on foot
+against them all. Indeed he had an impression that he had somehow added
+to their peril by his indiscreet revelations. He determined to warn them
+of their danger and try to save them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"IN PERICULIS TUTUS."
+
+
+With this purpose the young Greek assuming his most decorous and sober
+attire, proceeded to what would now be called the bureau of the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was situated near the Forum, in the
+cloister around which were grouped the shops of the _argentarii_ and
+_mensarii_, or private and public bankers of Rome. It held about the
+same relation to those that the Treasury Department at New York does to
+the bankers' offices and Gold Board in Wall Street. On every side were
+evidences of the concentrated wealth and power of the august mistress of
+the world. A vast granite building, as strong and solid as a prison, was
+before him. Roman sentinels paced the street, hugging the wall to share
+the protection from the noontide heat offered by its grateful shade.
+Convoys of specie, guarded by cohorts of soldiers with unsheathed
+swords, were continually arriving or departing. Gangs of sturdy porters,
+naked to the waist, were conveying the heavy iron-bound coffers to and
+from the vaults. Officers were counting the tallies and checking the
+vouchers, giving and accepting receipts. Publicans and tax farmers of
+many hues and varied garbs were there from many distant climes--the
+swart Egyptian, the olive Syrian, the graceful Greek, the pale-faced
+yellow-haired German or Briton. But most prominent of all, everywhere
+was seen the pushing, aggressive, keen-eyed, hook-nosed Jew, who in
+every age and every land seems to have had a genius for finance,
+banking, and the handling of money.
+
+From the hundred provinces of Rome the tribute money wrung from wretched
+peasants, to support Imperial luxury, to maintain the conquering
+legions, to pay for the largess of corn that fed the Roman plebs, and
+for the _f[e>]tes_ of the circus that amused them, and to carry on the
+vast governmental administration of the Empire--all poured into this
+greatest focus of moneyed wealth in the world. Like Daniel in Babylon,
+Adauctus, the Christian, was set over all this treasure, "because an
+excellent spirit was in him, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was
+there any error or fault found in him." The Emperors, when amid
+prevailing corruption, extortion, and fraud, they found an honest
+servant and able administrator, winked pretty hard at his private
+opinions, so long as they did not conflict with his duty to the State.
+Hence, from the days of St. Paul, we find that enrolled among the
+fellowship of Christ's Church were "they of C[ae]sar's household;" and
+among the epitaphs of the Catacombs we find frequent examples of
+Christians of lofty rank, and holding important offices of trust; as for
+instance: "Secretary of the Patrician Order," "Sergeant of the
+Exchequer," "Prefect of the City," "Ex-Qu[ae]stor of the Sacred Palace,"
+"Master of the Imperial Household," and the like.
+
+Making his way to the private apartment, or office of Adauctus, the
+Greek found him dictating despatches to a secretary. At a nod from his
+chief, the secretary retired, and Adauctus, with warm interest,
+addressed Isidorus in the words:
+
+"Right welcome, after your successful quest. You have skilfully
+performed a difficult task. The Empress is greatly gratified, and you
+may count your fortune as good as made."
+
+"Your Excellency is too kind," replied the Greek, with a graceful
+salutation; "I feel that I do not deserve your praise."
+
+"Your modesty, my friend," remarked Adauctus with a smile, "shall not
+prevent your promotion, It is too rare a gift not to be encouraged."
+
+"I have come, your Excellency," said Isidorus, with some degree of
+trepidation, "upon a business that nearly concerns yourself, and some to
+whom you wish well."
+
+"It is very good of you," Adauctus calmly replied, "but I do not think
+you can give me any information that I do not already possess."
+
+"I am in duty bound," continued the Greek, "to reveal to your
+Excellency, what is a secret which is sedulously kept from your
+knowledge. You have enemies who have vowed your destruction--the
+Princess Fausta, Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, and the Prefect Naso.
+They menace also the Empresses Prisca and Valeria, and others in high
+places suspected of Christianity."
+
+"Is that all you can tell me?" asked Adauctus, with a smile. "Look
+you," and unlocking an ivory cabinet, he took out a wax-covered tablet
+on which were inscribed the names of several other conspirators against
+his life, with the particulars of their plots.
+
+"I have not sought one of these disclosures," he went on, "yet they have
+come to me from trustworthy sources; sometimes from men who are
+themselves Pagan, yet with honest souls that recoil from treachery and
+murder."
+
+"And you know all this and remain thus calm!" exclaimed the Greek in
+amazement.
+
+"With such a sword of Damocles hanging over _my_ head, I am sure I could
+neither eat nor sleep."
+
+"Have you never read the words," asked Adauctus solemnly, "'The very
+hairs of your head are all numbered?' and not a sparrow shall fall
+without your Father's notice. Have you never read of righteous Daniel
+whom his enemies cast into the lions' den, and how God shut the lions'
+mouths that they did him no harm. You have seen the pictured story in
+the Catacombs. So will my God deliver me from the mouth of the lion,"
+and a look of heroic faith transfigured his face--"or," he whispered
+lower, but with an expression of even more utter trust, "or give a
+greater victory and take me to Himself."
+
+"Such stoical philosophy, my master," said the Greek with bated breath,
+"neither Zeno nor Seneca ever taught."
+
+"Nay," said the noble Roman, "it is not stoicism, it is faith. Not in
+the Porch or Academy is this holy teaching learned, but in the school of
+Jesus Christ."
+
+"Oh, wretched coward that I am!" cried the Greek, with an impassioned
+aspiration after a moral courage which he felt almost beyond his
+comprehension, "would that I had such faith."
+
+"Seek it, my brother," said Adauctus solemnly, "where alone it may be
+found, at the Cross of Christ. Whoso apprehends in his soul the meaning
+of the Great Sacrifice, will thenceforth count not his life dear unto
+him for the testimony of Jesus."
+
+"But is the way of the Cross such a thorny, bloodstained path?" asked
+the Greek, with quavering voice. "Are those noble souls, the highborn
+and beautiful Valeria, the good and gentle Callirho[e:], exposed to such
+appalling perils?"
+
+"We live in troublous times," answered Adauctus. "Christ came not to
+send peace on the earth but a sword. Whoso will save his life by
+cowardice and treachery shall basely lose it. Whoso will lose it for
+Christ's sake shall gloriously and forever find it!"
+
+These words burned into the heart and brain of the craven Greek, and he
+winced and shrank beneath them as if a hot iron were searing his
+quivering flesh.
+
+"But we must hope for the best," went on Adauctus more cheerfully. "We
+must take every precaution. Life and liberty are glorious gifts. We may
+not rashly imperil them. I trust that our august mistress, standing so
+near the throne, stands in no peculiar peril; and you may be sure her
+power will be used for the protection of her friends. So," he added with
+a laugh of keen intelligence, "if thou hast any special interest in the
+fair Callirho[e:], be sure she enjoys the most potent patronage in Rome."
+
+"But you, take you no precaution for yourself?" entreated the Greek.
+"You know not the bitterness of the jealousy and hate of your enemies."
+
+"Oh, yes, I do," the Imperial treasurer calmly replied, "As for me, my
+work is here. By ruling righteously and dealing justly I can prevent
+much fraud, and wrong, and suffering. I can shield the innocent and
+frustrate the villany of public thieves--and there are many such in the
+high places of this degenerate city. Our heroic ancestors decreed that
+we must never dispair of our country. But I confess, were it not for
+that salt of Christian faith that preserves the old Roman world, I
+believe it would sink into moral putrescence. It is this divine leaven
+which alone can leaven the whole mass."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE MIDNIGHT PLOT.
+
+
+The scene of our story is now transferred to the Palace of the Emperor
+Galerius, one of the most sumptuous of the group of marble buildings
+which crowned the Palatine Hill. It is the hour of midnight; and in one
+of the most private chambers of the palace a secret conspiracy is in
+progress, which has for its object the destruction of the
+Christians--especially of those high in rank and influence. The lamps
+in the aula and vestibule burned dimly, and, in iron sockets along the
+outside of the palace walls, flared and smoked torches made of tow
+covered with a coating of clay or plaster.[33]
+
+Fausta, the mother of Galerius, and Furca, the high-priest of Cybele,
+were already conferring upon their secret plot. With them was Black
+Juba, who had just returned from gathering, at "the witching hour of
+night," upon the unhallowed ground set apart for the burning of the
+dead, certain baleful plants--wolf's bane, bitter briony, and
+aconite--which she used in wicked spells and incantations. In her native
+Nubia she had an evil reputation as a sorceress, and in Rome she still
+carried on by stealth her nefarious art. It was hinted, indeed, in the
+palace, that by her subtle, deadly potions she fulfilled her own
+prophecies of ill against the objects of the hatred of her employers.
+
+"'Tis certain," hissed through her teeth the spiteful old Fausta, while
+murder gleamed from her sloe-black eyes, "that Galerius will not include
+in the Imperial rescript that painted doll, Valeria. She exerts
+unbounded fascination over him. It must be the spell of her false
+religion."
+
+"The spell of her beauty and grace, rather," answered Furca, with a
+grin.
+
+"What! Are you duped by her wiles, too?" asked Fausta, with bitterness.
+
+"No; I hate her all the more," said the priest; "but I cannot close my
+eyes to what every one sees."
+
+"It is something that I, at least, do not see," muttered the withered
+crone, whose own harsh features seemed the very incarnation of hatred
+and cruelty. "If we cannot get rid of her under the decree," she went
+on, "we can, at least, in a surer but more perilous way. Cunning Juba,
+here, has access to her person; and by her skilled decoctions can make
+her beauty waste, and her life flicker to extinction, like a lamp
+unreplenished with oil."
+
+"Yes, Juba has learned, in the old land of the Nile, some of the dark
+secrets of Egypt," whispered, with bated breath, the dusky African. "But
+it is very perilous to use them. The palace is full of suspicion; and
+that new favourite, Callirho[e:],--how I hate her!--keeps watch over her
+mistress like the wild gazelle of the desert over its mate. It will
+take much gold to pay for the risk."
+
+"Gold thou shalt have to thy heart's content, if thou do but rid me of
+that cockatrice, who has usurped my place in my son's affections,"
+hissed the wicked woman, who still felt a fierce, tiger-like love for
+the soldier-son whom she had trained up like a tiger cub. And Juba
+retired, to await further orders.
+
+"But if she die thus," said Furca, with a malignant gleam in his eyes,
+"she dies alone. What we want is to have her drag others down with
+her--her mother, Prisca; that haughty Adauctus, who holds himself so
+high, and the rest of the accursed Christian brood."
+
+"Yes, that is what we want, if it can be done," said Fausta; "but I fear
+it is impossible. You do not know how headstrong Galerius is in his own
+way; and the more he is opposed, the fiercer he is."
+
+"Here comes Naso," said the arch priest. "He hates the Christians, if he
+does not love the gods. We will hear his counsel."
+
+"Welcome, good Naso," exclaimed Fausta, as the Prefect of the city was
+ushered into the room. "We need your advice in the matter of this edict
+against the Christians: how we may use it as a net to snare the higher
+game of the palace and the Imperial household."
+
+"We must be wary as the weasel, sleepless as the basilisk, deadly as the
+aspic," said Naso, sententiously.
+
+"Just what I have been saying," remarked Furca.
+
+"Methinks we must employ the aspic's secret sting, rather than the
+public edict."
+
+"I declare for the edict," exclaimed with energy the truculent Naso.
+"Let its thunders smite the loftiest as well as the lowly. It will carry
+greater terror, and make the ruin of the Christian party more complete.
+What is the use of lopping off the twigs, when the trunk and main
+branches are unscathed? I possess proof that will doom Adauctus, the
+senator Aurelius, and others who stand higher still. The Christians to
+the lions--every one, say I."
+
+"And so say I," ejaculated Furca, with malicious fervour; "but her
+Excellency thinks that Galerius will interpose to protect one who stands
+near the throne, though she be the chief encouragement of the Christian
+vermin that crawl at her feet."
+
+"Madam, he dare not," exclaimed Naso, with his characteristic gesture of
+clenching his hand as if grasping his sword. "His own crown would stand
+in peril if beneath its shadow he would protect traitors to the State
+and enemies of the gods, however high their station."
+
+"As head of the State," interjected the priest, "he is the champion of
+the gods, and bound to avenge their insulted majesty."
+
+"You know not what he would dare," replied Fausta. "He would defy both
+gods and men, if he took the whim."
+
+"An accusation will be made before me," said Naso, "which not even the
+Emperors can over-look, against the Imperial Consort, Valeria, for
+intriguing with the Christians and bringing their priests to Rome, and
+conniving at their crimes against the State. We will see whether the
+majesty of the Empire or the beauty of a painted butterfly weighs the
+heavier in the scales."
+
+"I will second in private what your accusation demands in public," said
+the implacable Fausta. "Methinks I could die content if I might only
+trample that minion under my feet."
+
+"And I," said Furca, "will menace him with the wrath of the gods if he
+refuse to avenge their wrongs."
+
+"Between us all," added Naso, "it will go hard if we do not crush the
+Christian vermin, even beneath the shadow of the throne."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] Such torch-holders may still be seen on the walls of the Palazzo
+Strozzi and in Florence and elsewhere. Torches of the sort we have
+described were purchased by the writer at Pozzuoli, near Naples.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN THE TOILS OF THE TEMPTER.
+
+
+In his statement as to the accusation of the Empress before his
+tribunal, Naso, after his manner, took counsel of his truculent desires
+rather than of his cool reason. He had learned from his scapegrace son,
+Calphurnius, that Isidorus had returned to town from executing a
+commission for the Empress, the general purpose of which that hopeful
+youth had extorted from the drunken maunderings of the inconstant and
+unhappy Greek. Naso took it for granted, from his previous acquaintance
+with human nature of the baser sort, that Isidorus was trying to serve
+two masters, and that while acting as the agent of Valeria he would be
+willing to betray her secrets. Unaware of his vacillation of character
+and of his transient impulses toward Christianity, he further believed
+that the supple Greek, in accordance with his compact, would act as
+public accuser of the Christians. He had impressed upon Calphurnius, who
+was very prompt to learn the lesson, that it was of the utmost
+importance to bring the Greek under his personal influence and control,
+and especially to induce him to come again to the tribunal of the
+Prefect in the Forum.
+
+"We must keep our thumb on him. We can use him to our advantage," said
+the Prefect to his son.
+
+"I think I have him under a screw that will extort from him whatever you
+wish," replied the hopeful youth. "He owes me money, and he shall pay
+good interest on the loan. He is not the material of which heroes are
+made, like that young Christian who suffered martyrdom, as they call it,
+a few weeks ago."
+
+"Well, give your screw another turn," said Naso with a hideous chuckle.
+"That's the way I do when I have them on the rack. Keep him in debt.
+Lure him on. Make him lose money at dice and lend him more. We will
+wring his heart-strings by-and-bye. If we can only secure the death of
+Adauctus and some of his wealthy friends, their fair estates will help
+to line our purses, for the Emperors cannot leave such a zealous servant
+as the Prefect Naso unrewarded," and this well matched pair--the
+offspring of the corruption and cruelty of the Empire--parted, each
+intent on his purposes of evil.
+
+The young scapegrace, Calphurnius--young in years, but old in
+vice--followed only too successfully this Satanic advice. He attached
+himself closely to Isidorus and became his very shadow--his other self.
+He lured him on to ostentatious extravagance of expenditure, often
+allowing him to win large sums at dice to replenish his depleted purse,
+and again winning from him every sesterce, and binding the Greek's
+fortunes more firmly to his own by lending him large sums, yet demanding
+usurious interest. The easy, pleasure-loving nature of Isidorus, intent
+on enjoying the passing hour and shrinking from suffering of body or
+anxiety of mind, made this _descensus Averni_ all the more facile. He
+was thus led to forget all his good resolutions and noble purposes, and
+to plunge into the fashionable follies of the most corrupt society in
+the world. From the maundering remarks which fell from his lips in his
+fits of drunkenness, for he rapidly lapsed into this baneful vice,
+Calphurnius constructed a monstrous story of treachery which he used to
+create an utter rupture between the Greek and the Christians, alleging
+that he had too irreparably betrayed them to be ever forgiven, and that
+the only way of escaping the doom which menaced them was to throw
+himself into the arms of the party in power. It was with feelings of
+horror that in his rare moments of sober reflection Isidorus realized
+how fast and how far he had drifted from the thoughts, and feelings, and
+purposes of the hour when he knelt, in the Catacomb of Callixtus, at the
+feet of the good presbyter Primitius; or since he returned from Milan
+the restorer to the fair Callirho[e:] of her sire; or even since, a few
+days before, he had conversed with Adauctus and beheld with admiration
+his serenity of spirit under the shadow of persecution and death.
+
+Calphurnius exhausted every art to wring from his lips a legal
+accusation of the Christians, for even the ruthless persecutors wished
+to observe some forms of law in the destruction of their destined
+victims.
+
+"You have already betrayed them beyond reparation," he said, "and you
+may as well obtain the reward. You have told all about your employment
+by Adauctus in a treasonable mission to the Christian sectaries at
+Ravenna and Milan. You have been present at their assemblies at the
+Villa Marcella and in the Catacombs. A short hand notary[34] has taken
+down every word you said, and it shall be used against you unless you
+turn evidence for the State, and save yourself by bringing its enemies
+to justice."
+
+"Wretch!" cried the exasperated Greek. "Cease to torment me! 'Tis you
+who have tempted me to this perfidy, and now you seek to goad me to
+perdition. The Christians are no traitors to the State, and you know
+it."
+
+"The edict of the Emperors declares that they are," said Calphurnius,
+with a sneer, "perhaps you can persuade their Divine Majesties that they
+are mistaken."
+
+"What would you? What further infamy would you have me commit?"
+exclaimed the tortured Isidorus.
+
+"Only declare before the Prefect what you have already divulged to me.
+By refusing you only imperil yourself," replied his tormentor.
+
+"I consent," moaned the craven-hearted Greek, and he went on with a
+shudder, "I am double-dyed in infamy already. I can acquire no deeper
+stain."
+
+"'Tut, man! don't be a fool! Rome can pay her servants well. You will
+soon be well rewarded," and like an incarnate Diabolus, the accuser of
+the brethren proceeded to earn, as another Judas, the wages of iniquity
+by betraying innocent blood.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] These tachugraphoi were in common employment in the courts, and the
+sermons of Chrysostom were also reported by their skill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE PLOT THICKENS.
+
+
+Isidorus reluctantly accompanied Calphurnius to the tribunal of the
+Prefect; and there, partly through intimidation, partly through
+cajolery, he gave such information as to his expedition to Ravenna and
+Milan as the Prefect chose to ask. This was tortured, by that
+unscrupulous officer, into an accusation against the Empress Valeria of
+conspiracy with the Chancellor, Adauctus, and others of the Christian
+sect, against the worship of the gods of Rome, and so, constructively,
+of treason against the State. This indictment--_accusatio_, as it was
+technically called was duly formulated, and attested under the seal of
+the Prefect's Court. Naso, the Prefect, and Furca, the priest, found a
+congenial task in submitting the document to the Emperor Galerius, and
+asking his authority to proceed against the accused. They visited the
+palace at an hour when it had been arranged that the Emperor's evil
+genius, the cruel Fausta, should be with him, to exert her malign
+influence in procuring the downfall of the object of her malice--the
+Empress Valeria--and the destruction of the Christian sect. "The
+insulted gods appeal to your Divine Majesty for protection, and for the
+punishment of the atheists who despise their worship and defy their
+power," began the high-priest of Cybele, seeking to work upon the
+superstition of the Illyrian herdsman, raised to the Imperial purple.
+
+"Well, my worthy friend," replied the Emperor in a bantering tone, "what
+is the matter now. Has any one been poaching on your preserves?"
+
+"This is not a matter of private concern, Your Majesty," remarked the
+Prefect gravely. "It touches the welfare of the State and the stability
+of your throne."
+
+"Yes, and your personal and domestic honour, too," whispered Fausta in
+his ear.
+
+"It must be something pretty comprehensive to do all that. Come, out
+with it at once," laughed the Emperor.
+
+Thus adjured, Furca began to recount the insults offered to the gods by
+the Christians, and, especially, that the Empress no longer attended
+their public festivals.
+
+"Oh yes, I understand," said the Emperor, with a yawn, "your craft is in
+danger. The offerings at your altars are falling off; and we all know
+where _they_ went. The gods are all alike to me; I believe in none of
+them."
+
+"But they are necessary, to keep the mob in subjection," said Naso.
+"Some are amused with their pageants, and others are awed by menaces of
+their wrath."
+
+"Yes, I grant you, they are of some use for that; and that is all they
+are good for," replied this ancient Agnostic.
+
+"But the Christians are traitors to the State," continued the Prefect;
+"rank sedition-mongers. They are secretly sworn to serve another Lord
+than the C[ae]sars, and they are ceaselessly striving to undermine your
+Imperial Majesty's authority."
+
+"You do well," continued the cruel Galerius, a fire of deadly hate
+burning in his eyes, "to exterminate that accursed vermin, wherever
+found. Burn, crucify, torture, as you will."
+
+"And the estates of the rebels, they escheat to the temples of the
+insulted gods?" asked the priest, with hungry eyes.
+
+"Nay, to the State, I think," laughed the Emperor. "Is it not so, good
+Naso?"
+
+"Half to the State and half to the _delator_, or accuser," answered that
+worthy, learned in the law of pillage.
+
+"Let not the wolves fall out about the prey," said the Emperor, with a
+sneer; "only make sure work."
+
+"Be so good then, Your Majesty, as to affix your seal to these decrees
+of death. With such high officers as Adauctus and Aurelius my authority
+as Prefect is not sufficient."
+
+"And the Empress Valeria; she, too, as traitor to your person and crown,
+is included in the decree," insinuated, in a wheedling tone, the crafty
+priest.
+
+"Base hound," roared the Emperor, laying his hand upon his sword;
+"breathe but the name of the Empress again, and I will pluck thy vile
+tongue from thy throat."
+
+"Nay, Your Majesty," said the crafty Fausta, while the abject priest
+cowered like a whipped cur; "'tis but his excess of zeal for Your
+Majesty's honour, which I fear the Empress betrays."
+
+"Madam," said Galerius, sternly, "I am the guardian of my own honour.
+What the Christians are, I neither know nor care. What the Empress is, I
+know--the noblest soul that breathes in Rome. Who wags his tongue
+against her shall be given to the crows and kites. _Dixi Fiat_--I have
+spoken--so let it be," and his terrible frown, as he stalked from the
+room, showed that he meant what he said.
+
+The three conspirators, for a moment, stared at each other in
+consternation. Then the wily Fausta faltered out, "Said I not, he would
+defy both gods and men? We must do by stealth what we cannot do by
+force. Juba must ply her most secret and most deadly arts. I have
+certain subtle spells myself; and if mortal hate can give them power, I
+will make her beauty waste away like a fading flower, and her strength
+wane like a dying lamp."
+
+"'Tis a dangerous game," replied Naso. "Be wary how you play it. As for
+me, armed with this edict, I will strike at mine ancient foe, for whom I
+long have nursed a bitter spite. Curse him! I am tired of hearing him
+called Adauctus the Just. He held me to such a strict account that I had
+to make a full return of all the fines and mulcts paid in, without
+taking the toll which is my right." And he departed to gratify his
+double passion of revenge and greed.
+
+It may seem strange that such a truculent monster as Galerius, of whom,
+in his later days, his Christian subjects were wont to say that "he
+never supped without human blood--_Nec unquam sine cruore humano
+coenabat,_"[35]--should be so under the spell of his Christian wife. But
+the statement is corroborated by the records of history, and by the
+philosophy of the human mind. There is a power in moral goodness that
+can awe the rudest natures, a winsome spell that can subdue the hardest
+hearts. It was the story of Una and the Lion, of Beauty and the Beast
+over again; and one of the severest trials for a Christian wife in those
+days of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism for the mastery
+of the world, was that of being allied to a pagan husband. Tertullian,
+in the third century, thus describes the difficulties which a Christian
+woman married to an idolater must encounter in her religious life:
+
+"At the time for worship the husband will appoint the use of the bath;
+when a fast is to be observed he will invite company to a feast When she
+would bestow alms, both safe and cellar are closed against her. What
+heathen will suffer his wife to attend the nightly meetings of the
+Church, the slandered Supper of the Lord, to visit the sick even in the
+poorest hovels, to kiss the martyrs' chains in prison, to rise in the
+night for prayer, to show hospitality to stranger brethren?"[36]
+
+In time of persecution, or in the case of persons of such exalted rank
+as that of Valeria, the difficulty of adorning a Christian life, amid
+their pagan surroundings, was all the greater. Yet not a word of scandal
+has been breathed upon the character of the wife of the arch persecutor
+of the Christians; and even the sneering pen of Gibbon has only words of
+commendation for the Christian Empress who herself under subsequent
+persecution, remained steadfast even unto death.
+
+The beauty and dignity of Christian wedlock in an age of persecution
+and strife are nobly expressed by Tertullian in the following passage,
+addressed to his own wife: "How can I paint the happiness," he exclaims,
+"of a marriage which the Church ratines, the Sacrament confirms, the
+benediction seals, angels announce, and our heavenly Father declares
+valid! What a union of two believers--one hope, one vow, one discipline,
+one worship! They are brother and sister, two fellow-servants, one
+spirit and one flesh. They pray together, fast together, exhort and
+support one another. They go together to the house of God, and to the
+table of the Lord. They share each other's trials, persecutions, and
+joys. Neither avoids, nor hides anything from the other. They delight to
+visit the sick, succour the needy, and daily to lay their offerings
+before the altar without scruple, and without constraint. They do not
+need to keep the sign of the cross hidden, nor to express secretly their
+Christian joy, nor to receive by stealth the eucharist. They join in
+psalms and hymns, and strive who best can praise God. Christ rejoices at
+the sight, and sends His peace upon them. Where two are in His name He
+also is; and where He is, there evil cannot come."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum._
+
+[36] Tertull, _Ad Uzorem_, ii. 8.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A CRIME PREVENTED.
+
+
+The deadly malice of Fausta, Furca, and Naso towards the Empress
+Valeria, foiled in its attempt to invoke upon her the penalties of the
+edict against the Christians, sought, by secret means, to procure her
+death. Juba, the black slave, was heavily bribed to prepare some of her
+most subtle poisons and procure their administration. But here a
+difficulty presented itself, and it is a striking illustration of the
+corruption of the Empire and of the daily peril in which the inhabitants
+of the Imperial palace dwelt--a state of peril which finds its modern
+analogue only in the continual menace under which the Czar of all the
+Russias lives, with a sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair above
+his head. Such was the atmosphere of suspicion which pervaded the whole
+palace, such the dread of assassination or of poisoning, that trusty
+guards and officers swarmed in the ante-chambers and prevented access to
+the members of the Imperial family except under the most rigid
+precautions of safety; and a special officer was appointed, whose duty,
+as his title of _Pr[ae]gustalor_ implies, was to taste every kind of food
+or drink provided for the Imperial table. Regard for his personal safety
+was, of course, a guarantee that the utmost precautions were observed in
+preparing the daily food of the Imperial household. Juba in vain
+attempted to bribe some of the kitchen scullions and cooks to mix with
+the savoury viands designed for the use of Valeria, who generally
+lunched in her private apartments, a potent poison. They accepted,
+indeed, her bribes, but prudently declined to carry out their part of
+the agreement, well knowing that she dare not venture to criminate
+herself by an open rupture with them.
+
+At length she resolved on attempting a more subtle but less certain mode
+of administering a deadly drug. While in the service of a priest of Isis
+in Egypt, she had extorted or cajoled from an Abyssinian slave in his
+service certain dark secrets, learned it was said by the Queen of Sheba
+from Solomon, and handed down from age to age as the esoteric lore of
+the realm. One of these was the preparation of a volatile poison so
+subtle and powerful that its mere inhalation was of deadly potency. As a
+means of conveying this to her victim, and at the same time of
+disguising the pungent aromatic odour, a basket of flowers which she had
+plentifully sprinkled with the deadly poison was sent to the Empress. To
+make assurance doubly sure, she concealed among the flowers one of
+those beautiful but deadly asps, such as that from the bite of which the
+dusky Queen of Egypt, the wanton Cleopatra, died. This, for purposes
+connected with her nefarious arts, she had procured as what evil thing
+could not be procured?--from the dealers in deadly drugs, philtres, and
+potions in the crowded Ghetto of Rome.
+
+To ensure the conveyance of the deadly gift to the hands of Valeria
+herself, Juba invented the fiction that they were a thankoffering from
+the young Greek, Isidorus, to his Imperial patroness for favours
+received. With her characteristic cunning Juba had possessed herself of
+the secret of his services rendered to the Empress, and of the interest
+felt in him by her august mistress.
+
+Valeria was in her _boudoir_ with her favourite and now inseparable
+Callirho[e:], as her tire woman, dressing her hair, when the fatal missive
+arrived. As Callirho[e:] received the basket from the hands of Juba, the
+eyes of the slave gleamed with the deadly hate of a basilisk, and she
+muttered as she turned away--
+
+"May the curse of Isis rest on them both. My fine lady has driven black
+Juba from the tiring room of the Empress. May she now share her fate,"
+and, like a sable Atropos, she glided from the chamber with stealthy and
+cat-like tread.
+
+"Oh! what fresh and fragrant flowers," exclaimed the Empress Valeria, as
+she bent over them, "see how the dew is yet fresh upon their petals."
+Here she raised the basket so as more fully to inhale their fragrance.
+At that moment the concealed and deadly asp whose dark green and glossy
+skin had prevented its detection among the acanthus and lily leaves,
+seized, with his envenomed fang, the damask cheek of the fair Valeria,
+and for a moment clung firmly there.
+
+"God, save her!" exclaimed Callirho[e:], who in a moment recognized the
+cruel aspic, of which, as a child, she had been often warned in her
+native Antioch, and with an eager gesture she flung the venomous reptile
+to the ground and crushed its head beneath her sandal's heel. On the
+quick instinct of the moment and without stopping to think of the
+consequences to herself, she threw her arms about her Imperial mistress'
+neck, and pressing her lips to her cheek, sucked the venom from the yet
+bleeding wound.
+
+The cry of the Empress as the little serpent stung her cheek brought a
+swarm of attendants and slaves into the room, among them black Juba and
+the officer of the guard who was responsible for the Empress' safety.
+Valeria had fainted and lay pale as ashes on her couch, a crimson stream
+flowing from her cheek.
+
+"Dear heart!" exclaimed Juba, with an ostentatious exhibition of
+well-feigned grief, "let her inhale this fragrant elixir. It is a potent
+restorative in such deadly faints," and she attempted to complete her
+desperate crime by thrusting the poisonous perfume under Valeria's
+nostrils.
+
+"Who was last in the presence before this strange accident--if it be an
+accident--occurred?" demanded the officer.
+
+"I and Juba, were the only ones," faltered Callirho[e:], when a deathly
+pallor passed over her face, and with a convulsive shudder she fell
+writhing on the ground.
+
+"You are under arrest," said the officer to. Juba, and then to a soldier
+of the guard, "Go, seize and seal up her effects--everything she has;
+and you," turning to another, "send at once the court physician."
+
+The attendants meanwhile were fanning and sprinkling with water the
+seemingly inanimate forms of the Empress and Callirho[e:]. When the
+physician came and felt the fluttering pulse and noted the dilated eyes
+of his patients, he pronounced it a case of acrid poisoning and
+promptly ordered antidotes. The Empress, in a few days rallied and
+seemed little the worse beyond a strange pallor which overspread her
+features and an abnormal coldness, almost as of death, which pervaded
+her frame. From these she never fully recovered, but throughout her life
+was known in popular speech as "The White Lady."
+
+Upon Callirho[e:] the effects of the poison were still more serious. By her
+prompt action in sucking the aspic virus from the envenomed wound, she
+had saved the life of her beloved mistress, but at the peril of her own.
+The venom coursed through her veins, kindling the fires of fever in her
+blood. Her dilated eyes shone with unusual brilliance; her speech was
+rapid; her manner urgent; and her emotions and expressions were
+characterized by a strange and unwonted intenseness. The physician in
+answer to the eager questioning of Valeria, gravely shook his head, and
+said that the case was one that baffled his skill--that cure there was
+none for the aspic's poison if absorbed into the system, although as it
+had not in this case been communicated directly to the blood, possibly
+the youth and vigour of the patient might overcome the toxic effect of
+the contagium--so he learnedly discoursed.
+
+"My dear child, you have given your life for mine," exclaimed the
+Empress, throwing her arms around her late enfranchised slave, and
+bedewing her cheek with her tears.
+
+"God grant it be so," said Callirho[e:], with kindling eye. "I would gladly
+die to save you from a sorrow or a pain. I owe you more than life. I owe
+you liberty and a life more precious than my own."
+
+"All that love and skill can do, dear heart, shall be done," said the
+Empress caressingly, "to preserve you to your new-found liberty, and to
+your sire."
+
+"As God wills, dearest lady," answered Callirho[e:], kissing her mistress'
+hand. "In His great love I live or die content. I bless Him every hour
+that He has permitted me to show in some weak way, the love I bear my
+best and dearest earthly friend."
+
+And with such fond converse passed the hours of Valeria's convalescence,
+and of Callirho[e:]'s deepening decline.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE STORM BURSTS.
+
+
+The crafty Juba, when she found herself arrested in _flagrante
+delicto_--in the very act of her attempted crime--determined to use, if
+possible, the fiction she had employed with reference to Isidorus, as a
+means of escape from the very serious dilemma in which she was placed.
+It will be remembered that she had stated, in order to procure the
+acceptance of her fatal gift, that it was a thank-offering from the
+young Greek who had rendered such service to the Empress and Callirho[e:].
+Happy if Valeria had remembered and practised the ancient adage, "_Timeo
+Danaos et dona ferentes._" But suspicion was foreign to her generous
+nature, and even if the wise saw had occurred to her, she would have
+lightly laughed away its cynical suggestion.
+
+When the treacherous slave was examined as to her share in the attempted
+crime, she stoutly adhered to her fictitious story, and protested that
+she knew nothing of the contents of the basket, but that she had
+received it from Isidorus, and had been well paid for conveying it to
+the Empress without suspicion of any sinister design.
+
+The Greek, when charged with the crime of attempting to procure, by
+poison, the death of the Empress Valeria, manifested the greatest
+astonishment. Summoned before the Qu[ae]stor of the Palace, an officer of
+co-ordinate jurisdiction with the Prefect of the city, he stoutly
+protested his innocence. But all his protestations were regarded by that
+official, as only the very perfection of art--the well-feigned evasions
+of a mendacious Greek. And certainly appearances were very much against
+him. The Prefect Naso, now that he had extorted from him all the
+information he had to give, abandoned him as a worn-out tool and
+divulged to the Qu[ae]stor the damning fact that the Greek by a formal
+document had accused the Empress of treason against the State, and of
+conspiracy with the Christians--for so he represented the confessions
+which, by his diabolical arts, he had wrung from his unhappy victim.
+Confronted by this evidence Isidorus was dumb. He saw the trap into
+which he had been snared, and that by no efforts of his own could he
+extricate himself. He saw, too, the ruin he had brought upon his
+friends, for Naso had procured the immediate arrest of Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and Demetrius, the father of Callirho[e:], and other Christians
+connected with the Imperial household. Callirho[e:] herself was also placed
+under arrest, upon the monstrous accusation of conspiracy with Isidorus
+and Juba to procure the death of the Empress Valeria. One would have
+thought that her self-devotion and almost sacrifice of her life to save
+that of her mistress would have been a sufficient vindication from such
+a charge. But the unreasoning terror of the Emperors and the unreasoning
+hatred of all who bore the Christian name, fostered as these were by the
+machinations and evil suggestions of the Qu[ae]stor of the Palace, the
+Prefect of the city, the arch priest of Cybele, and the cruel, crafty
+Fausta, thirsty for the blood of her victim, rendered possible the
+acceptance of any charge, however improbable. "Any stick will do to beat
+a dog," and any accusation, however absurd, was considered available
+against the Christians.
+
+Even Galerius who, left to himself, would, soldier-like, have braved any
+personal danger, completely lost his judgment at the peril menacing the
+Empress. The tortures of slaves and servants by the perverted tribunals,
+miscalled of justice, fomented by the cruel, crafty priests, and the
+eager greed of Prefect and Qu[ae]stor, caused an outburst of persecution
+against all who bore the Christian name. The estates of Adauctus, and
+Aurelius were expropriated by the persecutors, and as a consequence
+their late possessors were pre-judged to death. Valeria who would fain
+have interposed her protection, had suffered such a physical shock as
+to be incapable of exercising any authority or influence she might
+possess. And the Empress Prisca, less courageous in spirit, less
+beautiful in person, and less potent in influence, was completely cowed
+by the domineering violence of the Emperor Diocletian, who was quite
+beside himself at the conspiracy against the gods, and against the
+Imperial Household which he persuaded himself had been discovered.
+
+"Madam," he replied, in answer to a weak remonstrance against the
+persecution, "was it not enough that our palace at Nicomedia was burned
+over our heads, that you must apologise for treason in our very
+household and the menace of our very person. No; the Christian
+superstition must be stamped out, and the worship of the gods
+maintained."[37]
+
+Hence throughout the wide empire, in the sober language of history,
+"Edict followed edict, rising in regular gradations of angry barbarity.
+The whole clergy were declared enemies of the State; and bishops,
+presbyters, and deacons were crowded into the prisons intended for the
+basest malefactors"[38]--"an innumerable company," says the Christian
+bishop Eusebius, "so that there was no room left for those condemned for
+crime." "We saw with our own eyes," writes a contemporary historian,
+"our houses of worship thrown down, the sacred Scriptures committed to
+the flames, and the shepherds of the people become the sport of their
+enemies--scourge with rods, tormented with the rack and excruciating
+scrapings, in which some endured the most terrible death. Then men and
+women, with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the
+fire. The persecutors, constantly inventing new tortures, vied with one
+another as if there were prizes offered to him who should invent the
+greatest cruelties. The men bore fire, sword, and crucifixions, savage
+beasts, and the depths of the sea, the maiming of limbs and searing with
+red hot iron, digging out of the eyes and mutilations of the whole body,
+also hunger, the mines, and prison. The women also were strengthened by
+the Divine Word, so that some of them endured the same trials as the
+men, and bore away the same prize. It would exceed all powers of
+detail," he goes on, "to give an idea of the sufferings and tortures
+which the martyrs endured. And these things were done, not for a few
+days, but for a series of whole years. We ourselves," he adds, "have
+seen crowds of persons, some beheaded, some burned alive, in a single
+day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken in pieces,
+and the executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over
+the work of blood."[39] And he goes on to describe deeds of shame and
+torture of which he was an eye-witness, which our pen refuses to record.
+
+The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed at times almost like an epidemic.
+It was one of the most remarkable features of the ages of persecution.
+Notwithstanding the terrific tortures to which they were exposed, the
+zeal of the Christian heroes burned higher and brighter in the fiercest
+tempest of heathen rage. Age after age summoned the soldiers of the
+Cross to the conflict whose highest guerdon was death. They bound
+persecution as a wreath about their brows, and exulted in the "glorious
+infamy" of suffering for their Lord. The brand of shame became the badge
+of highest honour. Besides the joys of heaven they won imperishable fame
+on earth; and the memory of a humble slave was often haloed with a glory
+surpassing that of a Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was ennobled
+by the accolade of martyrdom to the loftiest peerage of the skies. His
+consecration of suffering was elevated to a sacrament, and called the
+baptism of fire or of blood.
+
+Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous candidates for death often
+pressed with eager haste to seize the palm of victory and the martyr's
+crown. They trod with joy the fiery path to glory, and went as gladly to
+the stake as to a marriage feast. "Their fetters," says Eusebius,
+"seemed like the golden ornaments of a bride."[40] They desired
+martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[41] They
+exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to suffer
+for their divine Master. "Let the ungul[ae] tear us," exclaims
+Tertullian;[42] "the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope us,
+the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon us; the very
+posture of prayer is a preparation for every punishment." "These
+things," says St. Basil, "so far from being a terror, are rather a
+pleasure and a recreation to us."[43] "The tyrants were armed;" says St.
+Chrysostom; "and the martyrs naked; yet they that were naked got the
+victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished."[44] Strong in the
+assurance of immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.
+
+Though weak in body they seemed clothed with vicarious strength, and
+confident that though "counted as sheep for the slaughter," naught could
+separate them from the love of Christ. Wrapped in their fiery vesture
+and shroud of flame, they yet exulted in their glorious victory. While
+the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame, and the eyes filmed with the
+shadows of death, the spirit was enbraved by the beatific vision of the
+opening heaven, and above the roar of the mob fell sweetly on the inner
+sense the assurance of eternal life. "No group, indeed, of Oceanides was
+there to console the Christian Prometheus; yet to his upturned eye
+countless angels were visible--their anthem swept solemnly to his ear
+--and the odours of an opening paradise filled the air. Though the dull
+ear of sense heard nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryph[ae]us
+as he invited him to heaven and promised him an eternal crown."[45] The
+names of the "great army of martyrs," though forgotten by men, are
+written in the Book of Life. "The Lord knoweth them that are His."
+
+    There is a record, traced on high,
+    That shall endure eternally;
+    The angel standing by God's throne
+    Treasures there each word and groan;
+    And not the martyr's speech alone,
+    But every wound is there depicted,
+    With every circumstance of pain
+    The crimson stream, the gash inflicted
+    And not a drop is shed in vain.[46]
+
+This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no
+classical counterpart.[47] Socrates and Seneca suffered with fortitude,
+but not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy dwindled into
+insignificance before the sublimity of Christian hope. This looked
+beyond the shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth to the grandeur
+of the Infinite and the Eternal. The heroic deaths of the believers
+exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal instincts of
+nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life itself. Like a solemn
+voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples urged the
+inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose
+his own soul?" And that voice awakened an echo in full many a heart. The
+martyrs made more converts by their deaths than in their lives. "Kill
+us, rack us condemn us, grind us to powder," exclaims the intrepid
+Christian Apologist; "our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us
+down."[47] The earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but still
+they multiplied and grew, gloriously illustrating the perennial
+truth--_Sanguis martyrum semen ecclesi[ae]_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] These are the very words of the edict quoted in note to Chapter II.
+
+[38] Milman, History of Christianity, Book II., Chapter ix.
+
+[39] Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History," Book viii., Chaps, ii-xiv.
+
+[40] Hist. Eccles., v. I.
+
+[41] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus qu[ae]rebantur quam
+nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur.--Sulpic. Sever. Hist.,
+lib. II.
+
+[42] Apol. c. 30.
+
+[43] Gregory Nazianzen. Orat. de Laud. Basil. See also the striking
+language of Ignatius. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. III. 36.
+
+[44] Chrys. Horn. 74, de Martyr.
+
+[45] Kip, p. 88--from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for
+martyrdom rose into a passion. Eusebius says (Hist. Eccles., viii., 6)
+that in Nicomedia "Men and women with a certain divine and inexpressible
+alacrity rushed into the fire."
+
+    Inscripta CHRISTO pagina immortalis est,
+    Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.
+    Et qu[ae] locutus martyr, et qu[ae] pertulit:
+    Nec verbum solum disserentis condidit,
+    Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio,
+    Qu[ae] vis doloris, quive segmenti modus:
+    Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit. _Peristeph._
+
+[46] Video, proboque meliora,
+     Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._
+
+[47] The pagans called the martyrs [Greek: biatha(uatoi], or self
+murderers.
+
+[48] Tertul., Apol., c. 50.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE MAMERTINE PRISON.
+
+
+Let us now turn our attention to the fate of the characters in our tale
+of Christian trial and triumph, around whom its interest chiefly
+centres. They have been consigned to one of the most dismal of the many
+gloomy dungeons of Rome--the thrice terrible Mamertine prison--haunted
+with memories of long centuries of cruelty and crime. Manacled each to a
+Roman soldier, Adauctus, Aurelius, Demetrius, and Callirho[e:], together
+with other Christians condemned to martyrdom, marched through the
+streets under the noontide glare of a torrid sun. A guard armed _cap [a\]
+pi[e/]_, flung open an iron-studded door, and admitted them to a gloomy
+vault a few steps below the level of the street. Here a brawny Vulcan,
+with anvil and hammer, with many a brutal gibe smote off the fetters
+that linked the prisoners and soldiers together, and riveted them again
+so that these victims of oppression were bound together in pairs.
+Sometimes it happened that one of a pair thus bound together died, and
+the survivor endured the horror of being inseparably fettered to a
+festering corpse. To this the apostle refers when, groaning over the
+corruptions of his sinful nature, he exclaims: "O wretched man that I
+am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
+
+"My dainty lady," said the hideous Cyclops, as he rudely seized the arm
+of Callirho[e:], "this is not the sort of bracelet you've been used to
+wear. I should not much mind, being bound to such as you myself, only I
+would prefer silken fetters to those iron gyves." Then, as she shrank
+from his touch and winced as he bruised her tender flesh in unriveting
+the fetters, he said, with an insolent jeer, "I wont hurt you more than
+I can help, my beauty. You are not used to having such a rough
+chamberlain;" and he uttered a coarse jest with which we shall not
+pollute our page.
+
+A rosy flush stormed the brow of the maiden as she turned her blushing
+cheek to the mildewed and cold stone wall, in haughty silence disdaining
+a word of reply to the brutal ruffian.
+
+"Nay, my fine gentlemen," went on this typical Roman jailer, as Adauctus
+and the aged Demetrius, weary with their march, sank upon a stone bench,
+"this is too luxurious an apartment for you. For you we have a deeper
+depth." And Be pointed to an opening in the floor, hitherto unnoticed in
+the gloom. "Nay, you need not shrink, old man," he went on, as Demetrius
+recoiled from the grave-like opening at his feet. "Your betters have
+been there before you."
+
+"Father, your blessing e'er you go," exclaimed Callirho[e:], and flinging
+herself on his breast, she received his kiss and benediction.
+
+By means of a leathern strap beneath their arms, the prisoners were one
+by one let down into a hideous vault, like men to a living burial. Into
+this lower dungeon no beam of light struggled, save a precarious ray
+from the opening in the floor above. The loathsome cell was even then
+dank with the slime of well-nigh a thousand years, its construction
+being attributed to Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome. Here the
+African prince, Jugurtha, was starved to death. "What a cold bath is
+this!" he exclaimed, as he descended into its chilly gloom. Here the
+Gallic king, Vercingetorix, also died. Here the usurper Sejanus was
+executed, and here the fellow conspirators of Cataline lingered to
+death. If we would accept Roman tradition, we would also believe that
+St. Peter and St. Paul were immured in this dismal vault, and in the
+case of the latter illustrious martyr it is more than likely that the
+story is true. A stairway has now been constructed to this lower depth,
+and the present writer has stood upon the stone pavement worn by the
+feet of generations of victims of oppression, and has drunk of a spring
+at which the Apostle of the Gentiles may have quenched his thirst.
+
+The prisoners enjoyed not long even this sad reprieve from death. They
+were destined soon to finish their course by a glorious martyrdom. The
+Emperors determined to gratify at once their own persecuting fury and
+the cruel thirst for blood of the Roman mob, by offering a holocaust of
+victims in the amphitheatre. The _Acta Diurna_, a sort of public gazette
+of the day, which circulated in the great houses, and baths, and other
+places of concourse, contained the announcement of a grand exhibition of
+the _ludi circenses_, or gladiatorial games, to be celebrated in honour
+of the god Neptune--_Neptunus Equestris_. In the public spaces of the
+Forum, and in the neighbourhood of the Flavian Amphitheatre and
+elsewhere, where the crowd around them would not obstruct the highway,
+were displayed large white bulletin boards, on which were written in
+coloured chalks a list of the games--like the playbills which placard
+the streets of great cities to-day--and heralds proclaimed through every
+street, even in the crowded Ghetto, the splendour of the approaching
+games. These were on a scale on which no modern manager ever dreamed.
+Trajan exhibited games which lasted a hundred and twenty-three days, in
+which 10,000 gladiators fought and 11,000 fierce animals were killed.
+Sometimes the vast arena was flooded with water, and _naumachia_ or
+sea-fights were exhibited. The vast flood-gates and cisterns by which
+this was accomplished may still be seen.
+
+The chief attraction of the games provided by the Emperors Diocletian
+and Galerius, however, was not the conflict of what might almost be
+called armies of trained gladiators, nor the slaughter of hundreds of
+fierce Libyan leopards and Numidian lions, but the sacrifice of some
+scores of helpless and unarmed Christians--old men, weak women, and
+tender and innocent children.
+
+There was much excitement in the schools of the gladiators--vast stone
+barracks, where they were drilled in their dreadful trade. They were
+originally captives taken in war, or condemned malefactors; but in the
+degenerate days of the Empire, knights, senators, and soldiers sought
+distinction in the arena, and even unsexed women fought half-naked in
+the ring, or lay dead and trampled in the sands. To captives of war was
+often offered, as a reward for special skill or courage, their freedom
+and fierce and fell were conflicts to which men wore spurred by the
+double incentives of life and liberty.
+
+Special interest was given to the forthcoming games by the distinguished
+reputation of one of the volunteer gladiators, a brilliant young
+military officer, our friend Ligurius Rufus, who, sated and sickened
+with the most frenzied dissipations that Rome could offer, plunged into
+this mimic war to appease by its excitement the gnawing ennui of his
+life.
+
+The bets ran high upon the reckless young noble who was the favourite of
+the sporting spend-thrifts and profligates of the city. The vilest
+condition of society that ever cursed the earth was filling up the
+measure of its iniquity, and invoking the wrath of Heaven. The wine
+shops in the Suburra and the gladiators' quarter were overflowing with a
+brawling, blaspheming, drunken mob, the vilest dregs of the vilest city
+the patient earth has ever borne upon its bosom.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM.
+
+
+Far different was the scene presented by another spot not far distant--a
+vaulted chamber beneath the stone seats of the Coliseum, whither the
+destined Christian martyrs had been removed on the eve before the day of
+their triumph. As an act of grace, some coarse straw, the refuse of a
+lion's lair, had been given them, and the relief to their fetter-cramped
+limbs, stiffened with lying on a rough stone floor, was in itself an
+indescribable delight. But they had a deeper cause of joy. They were
+found worthy to witness a good confession for Christ before C[ae]sar, like
+the beloved Apostle Paul; and even as their Lord Himself before Pontius
+Pilate. And now the day of their espousals to their Heavenly Bridegroom
+was at hand.
+
+The silvery-haired Demetrius, a holy calm beaming in his eyes, uttered
+words of peace and comfort. The coarse black barley-bread and muddy wine
+which had been given them lest death should cheat the mob of their
+promised delight on the morrow, the venerable priest had consecrated to
+the Supper of the Lord--the last viaticum to strengthen their souls on
+their journey to the spirit world. Sitting at his feet, faint and wan,
+but with a look of utter content upon her face, was his daughter
+Callirho[e:], a heavenly smile flickering about her lips. With an undaunted
+courage, a heroic resolve beaming from his eyes, stood Adauctus,
+waiting, like a valiant soldier at his post, the welcome word of the
+great Captain of his salvation: "Well done! good and faithful servant,
+enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
+
+Ever and anon the deep-mouthed roar of a hungry lion rent the air, his
+fierce bound shook the walls of his cage, and his hot breath came
+through the bars as he keenly sniffed the smell of human flesh. But
+though it caused at times a tremor of the quivering nerves of the wan
+and wasted girl, it shook not her unfaltering soul Listen to the holy
+words calmly spoken by the venerable Demetrius: "'_Non turbetur cor
+vestrum_--Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many
+mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.' Yes, daughter. Yes, brave
+friend; before another sun shall set we shall see the King in His
+beauty, and the laud that is very far off. Mine aged eyes shall see,
+too, the beloved Rachel of my youth, to behold whom they have ached
+these many years. And thou, child, shalt see the mother after whom thy
+heart hath yearned."
+
+"If only, dear father, my brother Ezra were with us," whispered
+Callirho[e:], "we soon would be an unbroken family in the city of the great
+King."
+
+"God's will be done, my child," answered the patriarch. "He doeth all
+things well. He could bid His angels fly swiftly, and shut the lions'
+mouths, or better still, convoy our spirits to the marriage supper of
+the Lamb--to the repose of Abraham's bosom. Your brother is a child of
+the covenant, an heir of the promises, the son of many prayers. God will
+count him also in the day when He maketh up His jewels." Then, as if
+gifted with the spirit of prophecy, he exclaimed: "Not always shall the
+servants of the Most High be persecuted unto death. But this very
+structure, now dedicated to slaughter and cruelty, shall hereafter be
+consecrated to the service of the true God"--a prediction which, after
+long centuries, has been literally fulfilled.
+
+Thus in holy converse wore the hours away. And then through the rocky
+vaults of the Coliseum stole the sweet accents of their last evening
+hymn before they should sing the song of Moses and the Lamb on high:--
+
+"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide
+under the shadow of the Almighty."
+
+"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him
+will I trust."
+
+"He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy
+ways."
+
+"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon
+shalt thou trample under foot."
+
+As this p[ae]an of triumph swelled into louder strain, the gladiators, awed
+by its strange power, paused amid their ribald jests, and even the lion
+hushed his hungry roar, and the tiger his angry growl.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
+
+
+Early next morning the army of slaves who had charge of the Coliseum,
+under the direction of Fulvus, the freedman, were hard at work. Some at
+the very summit of the building, with much shouting and pulling of
+ropes, were stretching the great _velarium_ or awning, as a protection
+from the rays of the sun. Others were sweeping the sand of the arena to
+a smooth and even surface. Many cart loads of fresh sand were heaped
+around the base of the podium, for the ghastly purpose of being spread
+upon the blood-stained surface after each act of the sanguinary drama of
+the day. Others were decorating with garlands of flowers, and with gold
+and purple bannerets, the seats of the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius,
+and those of the senators and other persons of distinction. The great
+structure seemed even more striking in its vastness, as a few score
+figures crawled like flies over its empty seats, than when filled with
+its tumultuous throng of spectators. It was an immense oval six hundred
+and fifteen feet in its longer diameter, and five hundred and ten feet
+in the shorter. The circling seats rose tier on tier to the giddy height
+of one hundred and fifty feet.
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM, ROME.]
+
+As the present writer climbed those cliff-like walls, now crumbling into
+ruin, he tried to re-people those long-deserted seats with the eager and
+excited throngs which had often filled them to overflowing, when twice
+eighty thousand cruel eyes were wont to gloat upon the dying martyr's
+pang, "butchered to make a Roman holiday."[49] Then he wandered through
+the vast vaulted corridors and stairways, eighty in number, and bearing
+still the old Roman numerals by which access was gained to the different
+galleries. These were so capacious that the whole multitude could in a
+few minutes disperse, and were thence called _vomitoria_. He then
+explored the dens and caves for the wild beasts, and the rocky chambers
+in which the gladiators and martyr victims awaited the signal that
+called them to their doom. The row of seats just above the podium was
+reserved for the equestrian order; those higher still, for the
+_populus_, or common people; and the highest of all, for persons of the
+lowest rank. Early in the day, multitudes of spectators began to arrive,
+mostly arrayed in gala dress, and many wearing the colours of their
+favourite gladiatorial champion. With a loud flourish of trumpets the
+great gates of the imperial entrance opened, and the chariots of the
+Emperors and their respective _suites_ entered and took their places in
+the grand tribune reserved for these august occupants. It was noted with
+dissatisfaction by the multitude that neither of the Empresses Prisca or
+Valeria, were present. But the withered old crone Fausta, mother of
+Galerius, seemed to gloat like a foul harpy on the anticipated spectacle
+of blood, and near by was her sinister shadow, the black-browed priest
+of Cybele.
+
+Our old acquaintance, Burdo, the butcher, was rubicund with joy at the
+approaching conflict, for which, he said, he long had hungered. "But
+why," he asked, "are not their majesties, the Empresses, in the state
+tribune. 'Tis a contempt of a festival sacred to the gods."
+
+"Our dainty Empress," jeered Samos, the "Flat-nose," "has small stomach
+to see her friends the Christians given to the lions, and I suspect the
+old one is tarred with the same stick."
+
+"If I thought that I'd denounce her myself," growled Bruto, the
+gladiator; "Empress or slave, the crime of being a Christian levels all
+ranks."
+
+"And lose your head for your pains," chimed in Piso, the barber. "Don't
+you know that she winds the Emperor round her finger like a silken
+thread."
+
+"Does she favour the accursed Nazarenes?" croaked Ephraim the Jew. "May
+the same fate overtake her."
+
+"I thought they were friends of yours," said our old friend Max, who was
+one of the soldiers on guard. "They say this Christus whom they worship
+was a Jew."
+
+We dare not repeat the wicked imprecation which burst from the lips of
+the exasperated Israelite. But it is notorious that the Jews were far
+more malignant persecutors of the Christians than even the Pagans
+themselves--as is apparent from the Acts of the Apostles and other
+records of the early Church.
+
+The time for beginning the games having come, the priest of Neptune
+poured a libation to the god, and heaped incense on his altar, placed
+near the Imperial tribune. In this act of worship--for these old gods
+were worshipped with the blood of men slain as a holiday pageant--he was
+followed by the Emperors and their chief officers.
+
+Then with another peal of trumpets a procession of gladiators in
+burnished armour entered the arena and marched around its vast circuit.
+Pausing before the tribune of the Emperors they chanted with a loud
+voice: "_C[ae]sares Augusti, morituri salutarus vos_--Great C[ae]sars, we who
+are about to die salute you."
+
+First there was a sort of sham battle--_pr[ae]lusio_, as it was called, in
+which the gladiators fought with wooden swords. But the multitude were
+speedily impatient of that, and demanded the combat _a l'outrance_--to
+the death.
+
+"We came not here to witness such child's play as that," said Burdo, the
+butcher. "I want to see the blood flow as it does in my own shambles;" a
+brutal sentiment which met with much favour from his neighbours.
+
+Soon their desires were gratified. First there was a combat of
+_Andabat[ae]_, that is, men who wore helmets without any aperture for the
+eyes, so that they were obliged to fight blindfold, and thus excited the
+mirth of the spectators. Although they inflicted some ugly wounds upon
+each other, none of these were mortal, and the mob called loudly for the
+_Hoplomachi_, who were next on the play-bill. These were men who fought
+in a complete suit of armour. They were as completely encased as crabs
+in their shells, but as they could see each other through the bars of
+their visors, they were able skilfully to direct their weapons at the
+joints of their antagonist's armour. Soon the arena was red with blood,
+and more than one victim lay dead and trampled on the sands.
+
+"Good! this is something like the thing," cried Burdo. "But these
+fellows are so cased in their shells it is hard to get at them. Let us
+have the _Retiarii_."
+
+"Yes, the _Retiarii_ and _Mirmillones_," shouted the mob; and they soon
+marched upon the scene.
+
+This conflict promised abundance of excitement The _Retiarii_ wore no
+armour, and their only weapons were a net (_rete_, hence their name) and
+a trident or three-pronged spear. The _Retiarius_ endeavoured to throw
+the net over his antagonist, and then to despatch him with the spear. If
+he missed his aim in throwing his net, he betook himself to flight, and
+endeavoured to prepare his net for a second cast, while his adversary
+followed him round the arena in order to kill him before he could make a
+second attempt. It was a cruel sport, and kindled to fury the fierce
+passions of the eager spectators.
+
+Then came a conflict between skilled gladiators--the most accomplished
+swordsmen of the gladiatorial school. The vast multitude watched with
+fevered interest the wary fencing, the skilful guard and rapid thrust
+and stroke of those trained butchers of their fellow-men. When a
+swordsman was wounded, the spectators rent the air with cries of
+"_Habet! Habet!_" and the one who was vanquished lowered his arms in
+token of submission. His fate, however, depended upon the will of the
+people, who sometimes, when a vanquished swordsman had exhibited
+especial dexterity and skill, gave the signal to spare him by
+stretching out their hands with the thumbs turned down. But if, as was
+more frequently the case, their bloodthirsty passions were roused to
+insatiable fury, they demanded his death by turning their thumbs
+upwards, and shouting, "_Recipe ferrum_!" Without a tremor the victim
+then bared his breast to the sword, and the victor thrust it home to the
+hilt, while the cruel mob shouted their huzzas over the bloody tragedy.
+
+Such is the scene brought vividly before our minds by the matchless
+antique statue of the Dying Gladiator, found in the Gardens of Sallust,
+now in the museum of the Capitol. As one gazes with a strange
+fascination on that wondrous marble, instinct, it seems, with mortal
+agony, callous must be the heart that is unmoved by its touching pathos.
+The exquisite lines of Byron nobly express the emotions which it awakens
+in every breast:--
+
+    I see before me the Gladiator lie:
+    He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
+    Consents to death, but conquers agony,
+    And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
+    And through his side the last drops ebbing slow
+    From the red gash fall heavy, one by one,
+    Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
+    The arena swims around him--he is gone,
+    Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
+
+    He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
+    Were with his heart, and that was far away.
+    He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
+    But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
+    _There_ were his young barbarians all at play,
+    _There_ was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
+    Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
+
+An unwonted interest was given to this cruel scene in the Roman
+amphitheatre, by a novel and unheard of incident which occurred. The
+brilliant young Roman officer, Ligurius Rufus, we have said, was
+announced to take part in these games. It was no uncommon thing for
+military fops, eager to win the applause of the multitude, or to goad
+their jaded weariness of life into a momentary excitement by a spice of
+real danger, to enter the lists of the arena; and Ligurius was at once
+the most brilliant swordsman in the Twelfth Legion, and the most
+_ennuy[e/]e_ and world-weary man in Rome.
+
+He was pitted against a brawny Hercules, the strongest and hugest of the
+whole school of gladiators--a British prisoner of war, who had been long
+the pride and boast of the arena. As they stood face to face, the young
+officer in burnished armour, inlaid with silver and gold, and the
+mighty thews of his opponent encased in leather and bronze, the betting
+was heavy in favour of the British giant. Each felt that he had a foeman
+worthy of his steel. They walked warily around each other, each watching
+with eager eye every movement of his antagonist. Every thrust on either
+side was skilfully parried, any advantage of strength on the part of the
+British warrior being matched by the superior nimbleness of the Roman
+officer. At last a rapid thrust by Ligurius severed a tendon in the
+sword-arm of his foe, and it fell nerveless by his side. With a giant
+effort the disabled warrior sprang upon the Roman as if to crush him by
+sheer weight; but Ligurius nimbly sprang aside, and his antagonist,
+slipping in the gory sand, fell headlong to the ground. In an instant
+the Roman's foot was on his neck and his sword at his breast. With a
+courteous gesture, Ligurius raised his sword and waved it toward the
+Emperors' tribune and to the crowded seats of the podium, as if asking
+the signal to spare the vanquished gladiator, while the despairing look
+of the latter seemed with mute eloquence to ask for life. "_Habet!
+Habet!_" rang round the Coliseum, but not a single sign of mercy was
+made, not a single thumb was reversed. "_Recipe ferrum_," roared the mob
+at the prostrate giant; and then shouted to Ligurius, "_Occide!
+Occide!_--Kill! Kill!"
+
+The gallant Roman heeded them as he would heed the howl of wolves. "I am
+not a butcher," he said, with a defiant sneer, and he sheathed his sword
+and, much to the surprise of his discomfitted foe, lent his hand to
+raise him from the ground.
+
+"You are a brave man," he said, "I want you as a standard bearer for the
+Twelfth Legion. That is better than making worm's meat of you. Rome may
+need such soldiers before long."
+
+The Emperors were not unwilling to grant this novel request of a
+favourite officer, and the grateful creature, in token of his fidelity,
+humbly kissed the hand of Ligurius, and followed him from the arena. The
+cruel mob, however, angered at being deprived of their anticipated
+spectacle of blood, howled with rage, and demanded the crowning scene of
+the day's sports--the conflict between the wild beasts and the Christian
+martyrs.
+
+These hateful scenes had become the impassioned delight of all classes,
+from the Emperors to the "vile plebs" of Rome. Even woman's pitiful
+nature forgot its tenderness, and maids and matrons gloated on the cruel
+spectacle, and the honour was reserved for the Vestal Virgin to give the
+signal for the mortal stroke. Such scenes created a ferocious thirst
+for blood throughout society. They overthrew the altar of pity, and
+impelled to every excess and refinement of barbarity. Even children
+imitated the cruel sport in their games, schools of gladiators were
+trained for the work of slaughter, women fought in the arena or lay dead
+and trampled in the sand.
+
+It is to the eternal praise of Christianity that it suppressed these
+odious contests, and forever averted the sword of the gladiator from the
+throat of his victim. The Christian city of Constantinople was never
+polluted by the atrocious exhibition. A Christian poet eloquently
+denounced the bloody spectacle. A Christian monk, roused to indignation
+by the hateful scene, leaped over the barrier to separate the gladiators
+in the very frenzy of the conflict. The maddened mob, enraged at this
+interruption of their sport, stoned him to death. But his heroic
+martydom produced a moral revulsion against the practice, and the laws
+of Honorius, to use the language of Gibbon, "abolished forever the human
+sacrifices of the amphitheatre."
+
+It remains to notice in another chapter the last scene in the stern
+drama of this "Roman holiday."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] On this very arena perished the venerable Ignatius, linked by
+tradition with the Saviour Himself as one of the children whom He took
+in His arms and blessed. "Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts," he
+exclaimed, "by whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat of God,
+and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become the
+pure bread of Christ."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE MARTYRS CROWNED.
+
+
+At a flourish of trumpets the iron-studded doors of the cells in which
+the Christians were confined were thrown open, and the destined martyrs
+walked forth on the arena in the sight of assembled thousands. It was a
+spectacle to arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless, and to
+move the sympathy of even the most austere. At the head of the little
+company walked the good presbyter, Demetrius, his silvery hair and beard
+and benignant expression of countenance giving him a strikingly
+venerable aspect. Leaning heavily on his arm, evidently faint in frame
+but strong in spirit, was his daughter Callirho[e:]. Robed in white, she
+looked the embodiment of saintly purity, and in her eyes there beamed a
+heroic courage which inspired a wonder that so brave a soul should be
+shrined in so frail a body. Adauctus, Aurelius, and other Christian
+confessors condemned to death, made up the little contingent of the
+noble army of martyrs.
+
+The prefect Naso, from his place in the tribune, near the Emperors, read
+the sentence of the court, that the accused having been proven by ample
+testimony to be the enemies of the C[ae]sars and of the gods, had been
+condemned to death by exposure to wild beasts.
+
+"Nay, not the enemies of the C[ae]sars," exclaimed the aged Demetrius. "We
+are the friends of all, the enemies of none.[50] We pray for the C[ae]sars
+at all our assemblies."
+
+"Will you do homage to the gods?" demanded Diocletian. "Will you burn
+incense to Neptune? Here is his altar and here are his priests."
+
+"We worship the true God who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and
+all that in them is," replied the venerable man, with uplifted and
+reverent countenance, "and Him only will we serve. They be no gods which
+are made by man's device, and 'tis idolatry to serve them."
+
+"Away with the Atheists," cried the priests of Neptune; "they blaspheme
+the holy gods."
+
+"The Christians to the lions!" roared the mob, and at the signal from
+the Emperor to the master of the games, the dens of the wild beasts were
+thrown open, and the savage brutes, starved into madness, bounded into
+the arena. The defenceless martyrs fell upon their knees in prayer, and
+seemed conscious only of the presence of Him who stood with the three
+Hebrews in the fiery furnace, so rapt was the expression of faith and
+courage on their upturned faces.
+
+The fierce Numidian lions, and tigers from the Libyan desert, instead of
+bounding upon their prey, began to circle slowly around them, lashing
+their tawny flanks meanwhile, glaring at their victims from bloodshot
+fiery eyes, and uttering horrid growls.
+
+At this moment a loud shout was heard, and a soldier, clad in burnished
+mail, and with his drawn sword in his hand, one of the body guards of
+the Emperors, leaped from the tribune and bounded with clashing armour
+into the arena. Striding across the sand, he hurled aside his iron
+helmet and his sword, and flung himself at the feet of the aged priest,
+with the words:--
+
+"Father, your blessing; Callirho[e:], your parting kiss. I, too, am a
+Christian. Long time have I sought you, alas! only to find you thus. But
+gladly will I die with you, and, separated in life, we are united in
+death and forever."
+
+"_Nunc dimittis, Domine!_" exclaimed the old man, raising his eyes to
+heaven. "'Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'" And he
+laid his hands in blessing on the head of his long-lost son.
+
+"Ezra, my brother!" exclaimed Callirho[e:], folding him in her arms. "To
+think we were so near, yet knew not of each other. Thank God, we go to
+heaven together; and, long divided on earth, we shall soon, with our
+beloved mother, be a united family forever in the skies. 'And God shall
+wipe away all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death,
+neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.'"
+
+"Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!" spake the young soldier, as he
+enfolded, as if in a sheltering embrace, the gray-haired sire and the
+fair-faced girl.
+
+The utmost consternation was exhibited on the countenance of the old
+Emperor Diocletian. "What! have we Christians and traitors even in our
+body guard? Our very life is at the mercy of those wretches!"
+
+"I would feel safer with them," said the more stoical or more courageous
+Galerius, "than with the _delators_ and informers who betray them," and
+he glanced with mingled contempt and aversion at Naso, the prefect, and
+Furca, the priest. "When a Christian gives his word, 'tis sacred as all
+the oaths of Hecate. I want no better soldiers than those of the
+Thundering Legion."[51]
+
+Meanwhile the wild beasts, startled for a moment by the sudden
+apparition of the mail-clad soldier, seemed roused thereby to ten-fold
+fury. Crouching stealthily for the fatal spring, they bounded upon their
+prey, and in a moment crashing bones and streaming gore appeased the
+growing impatience of the cruel mob, who seemed, like the very wild
+beasts, to hunger and thirst for human flesh and blood.
+
+We dwell not on the painful spectacle. The gallant young soldier was the
+first to die. The brave girl, with a gesture of maiden modesty, drew her
+dishevelled robe about her person, and with a queenly dignity awaited
+the wild beast's fatal spring. She was mercifully spared the spectacle
+of her father's dying agony. Her over-strung nerves gave way, and she
+fell in a swoon upon the sands. Demetrius met his fate praying upon his
+knees. Like Stephen, he gazed steadfastly up into heaven, and the
+fashion of his countenance was suddenly transfigured as he exclaimed:
+"Lord Jesus! Rachel, my beloved! we come, we come." And above the roar
+of the ribald mob and the growl of the savage beasts, fell sweetly on
+his inner ear the song of the redeemed, and burst upon his sight the
+beatific vision of the Lord he loved, and for whom he gladly died.
+
+So, too, like brave men, victorious o'er their latest foe, Adauctus,
+Aurelius, and the others calmly met their fate. When all the rest were
+slain, a lordly lion approached the prostrate form of Callirho[e:], but she
+was already dead. She had passed from her swoon, without a pang, to the
+marriage supper of the Lamb--to the presence of the Celestial
+Bridegroom--the fairest among ten thousand, the one altogether
+lovely--to whom the homage of her young heart had been fully given. She
+was spared, too, the indignity, of being mangled by the lion's jaws.
+When the king of beasts found that she was already dead, he raised his
+massy head, gave a mournful howl, and strode haughtily away.
+
+In the great gallery of Dor[e/] paintings at London, is one of this Flavian
+Amphitheatre after a human sacrifice such as we have described. There
+lie the mangled forms upon the gory and trampled sands. The sated wild
+beasts prowl listlessly over the arena. The circling seats rise tier
+above tier, empty and desolate. But poised in air, with outspread wings,
+above the slain, with a countenance of light and a palm of victory, is a
+majestic angel; and sweeping upward in serried ranks, amid the shining
+stars, is a cloud of bright-winged angels, the convoy of the martyrs'
+spirits to the skies. So, doubtless, God sent a cohort of sworded
+seraphim to bear the martyrs of our story blessed company, and to sweep
+with them through the gates into the city.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[50] This famous phrase dates from the time of Tertullian, in the 3rd
+century, and is also recorded in the Catacombs.
+
+[51] The _Legio Tonans_, tradition affirms, was a legion composed wholly
+of Christians, whose prayers in a time of drought brought on a violent
+thunder-storm, which confounded the enemy and saved the army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE MARTYRS BURIED.
+
+
+Darker and darker grew the shadows of night over the great empty and
+desolate amphitheatre, but a few hours before clamorous with the shouts
+and din of the tumultuous mob. The silence seemed preternatural, and a
+solemn awfulness seemed to invest the shrouded forms which lay upon the
+sand. By a merciful provision of the Roman law, it made not war upon the
+dead, and the bodies even of criminals were given up to their friends,
+if they had any, that they might not be deprived of funeral rites.
+Having wreaked his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan
+magistrate at least did not deny the privilege of burial to the
+martyrs' mutilated remains. It was esteemed by the primitive believers
+as much an honour as a duty, to ensepulchre with Christian rites the
+remains of the sacred dead.[52]
+
+Faustus, the faithful freedman of Adauctus, Hilarus, the fossor, and the
+servants of the Christian matron, Marcella, came at the fall of night to
+bear away the bodies of the martyrs to their final resting-place in the
+silent Catacomb. The service was not devoid of danger, for vile
+informers prowled around seeking to discover and betray whomsoever would
+pay the rites of sepulture to the remains of the Christian martyrs. But
+there are golden keys which will unlock any doors and seal any lips, and
+Marcella spared not her wealth in this sacred service.
+
+On the present occasion, too, special facility was given for carrying
+out this pious purpose. Through the influence of the Empress Valeria,
+Hilarus, the fossor, was enabled to show to the chief custodian of the
+amphitheatre an authorization under the hand of Galerius for removing
+the bodies of the "criminals who had paid the penalty of the law"--so
+ran the rescript.
+
+Beneath the cliff-like shadow of the Coliseum gathered this little
+Christian company. The iron gates opened their ponderous jaws. By the
+fitful flare of a torch weirdly lighting up the vaulted arches, with
+gentle and reverent hands, as though the cold clay could still feel
+their lightest touch, the bodies of the dead were laid upon the biers.
+Through the silent streets, devout men in silence bore the martyrs to
+their burial. Through the Porta Capena, which opened to the magic spell
+of the Emperor's order; through the silent "Street of Tombs," still
+lined with the monuments of Rome's mighty dead, wended slowly the solemn
+procession. There was no wailing of the pagan _n[ae]nia_ or funeral dirge,
+neither was there the chanting of the Christian hymn. But in silence, or
+with only whispered utterance, they reached the door of the private
+grounds of the Villa Marcella.
+
+First the bodies were borne to the villa, where, by loving hands, the
+stains of dust and blood were washed away. Then, robed in white and
+bestrewn with flowers, they were placed on the biers in the marble
+atriun. Again the good presbyter Primitius read the words of life as at
+the burial of Lucius, the martyr,[53] and vows and prayers were offered
+up to God.
+
+While this solemn service was in progress, a lady, deeply-veiled, was
+seen to be agitated by violent grief. Convulsive sobs shook her frame,
+and her tears fell fast. When the forms of the martyrs were uncovered,
+that their friends might take their last farewell, the Empress Valeria,
+for it was she, flung herself on her knees beside the body of the late
+slave maiden, and rained tears of deep emotion on her face. More lovely
+in death than in life, the fine-cut features seemed like the most
+exquisite work of the sculptor carved in translucent alabaster. A crown
+of asphodel blossoms the emblems of immortality--encircled her brow, and
+a palm branch--the symbol of the martyr's victory--was placed upon her
+breast.
+
+"Give her an honoured place among the holy dead," said the Empress, amid
+her sobs, to the venerable Primitius.
+
+"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella, "that she, with her
+father and brother, shall sleep side by side in the chamber prepared as
+the last resting-place for my own family. We shall count it a precious
+privilege, in God's own good time, to be laid to rest near the dust of
+His holy confessors and martyrs."
+
+"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus, the fossor, "which he
+made for himself while yet alive, beside his noble wife, Aurelia
+Theudosia."
+
+"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet the remains of my good
+master Adauctus," said Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.[54]
+
+"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress, "to provide for my beloved
+handmaiden, as a mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of her
+saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in death as in life, so that
+those who read her epitaph may know she was the freedwoman and friend of
+an unhappy Empress."
+
+The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her trusty escort, returned
+to the city.
+
+With psalms and hymns, and the solemn chanting of such versicles as:
+_"Convertere anima mea, in requiem tuam"_--"Return unto thy rest, O my
+soul;" and _"Si ambulavero in medio umbr[ae] mortis, non timebo
+mala"_--"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
+shall fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way, by gleaming
+torchlight, through the cypress glades of the garden to the entrance of
+the Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and tapers were
+lighted, and carefully the sacred burdens were carried down the long and
+narrow stair, and through the intricate passages to the family vault of
+the Lady Marcella.
+
+[Illustration: SUBTERRANEAN ORATORY, CATACOMB OF CALLIXTUS.]
+
+This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness, and had been
+especially prepared for holding religious service during the outbreak of
+persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in the Christian
+Church, and when even the privacy of her own house was not a sufficient
+safeguard against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont to retire to
+the deeper seclusion of this subterranean place of prayer. On each side
+of the door were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the deaconess,
+the other for the female catechist who shared her pious labours. Around
+the wall was a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for the most
+part members of her own household, who here received religious
+instruction. The accompanying engraving indicates the appearance of this
+ancient oratory or class-room, its main features unchanged, although the
+lapse of centuries has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its
+beauty.
+
+With solemn rites and prayers the remains of the martyrs were consigned
+to their last long resting-place. Amid the sobs and tears of the
+mourners, the good presbyter Primitius paid a loving tribute to their
+holy lives and heroic death--all the more thrilling because they
+themselves stood in jeopardy every hour. In the presence of the martyred
+dead the venerable pastor then broke the bread and poured the wine of
+the Last Supper of the Lord, and the little company of worshippers
+seemed united in still closer fellowship with those who now kept the
+sacred feast in the kingdom of their common Father and God.
+
+Before they left the chamber, Hilarus, after he had hermetically sealed
+the tombs of Demetrius and Ezra, his son, cemented with plaster a marble
+slab against the opening of that on which was laid--rude couch for form
+so fair--the body of the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it
+was designed to be but a temporary memorial of the virgin martyr, until
+the costly epitaph which the Empress was to provide should be ready, he
+took the little pot of pigment which he had brought for the purpose, and
+with his brush in, scribed the brief sentence:--
+
+VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
+ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.
+QVI VIXIT ANNOS XVIII. EN. V. DIES X.
+
+"Valeria sleeps in peace. A sweet spirit guileless, wise, beautiful in
+Christ. She lived eighteen years, five months, ten days."
+
+[Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
+
+Alas! the time never came when that costly memorial should be reared.
+The violence of persecution soon drove the Empress herself an exile from
+her home, and when the storm rolled away there was none left to carry
+out her pious wish. Through the long centuries that humble epitaph was
+all the memorial of one of the noblest, sweetest, bravest souls that
+ever lived. And even that rude slab was not destined always to cover her
+remains. After the re-discovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth
+century, many of their tombs were pillaged for relics, or in the vain
+search for treasure. By some ruthless rifler of the grave this very
+slab was shivered, and the lower part of the epitaph destroyed; and
+there upon its rocky bed, on which it had reposed for well-nigh fifteen
+hundred years, lay in mouldering dust the remains of the maiden martyr,
+Valeria Callirho[e:]. Verily _Pulvis et umbra sumus_!
+
+Primitius and Hilarus, with the little company of devout men who bore
+the martyrs to their burial, now proceeded to the entombment, in a
+neighbouring crypt, of the bodies of Adauctus and Aurelius. As they
+advanced through the dark corridors, but dimly lighted by their tapers'
+feeble rays, the silence of that under-world seemed almost appalling.
+Black shadows crouched around, and their footsteps echoed strangely down
+the distant passages, dying gradually away in this vast valley of the
+shadow of death. Almost in silence their sacred task was completed, and
+they softly sang a funeral hymn before they turned to leave their
+martyred brethren to their last long sleep.
+
+Suddenly there was heard the tumultuous "tramp, tramp," as of armed men.
+Then the clang of iron mail and bronze cuirass resounded through the
+vaulted corridors. The glare of torches was seen at the end of a long
+arched passage, and the sharp, swift word of military command rang out
+stern and clear.
+
+"Forward! Seize the caitiffs! Let not one escape! Slay if they resist!"
+and a rush was made to the chamber where the notes of the Christian
+psalm had but now died away.
+
+"Out with your lights!" exclaimed, in a muffled tone, Hilarus, the
+fossor. "Follow me as closely and as quietly as you can. Good Father
+Primitius, your arm. By God's help we will disappoint those hunters of
+men of their anticipated prey."
+
+"Or join our brethren in martyrdom, as is His will," devoutly added
+Primitius. "He doeth all things well."
+
+But we must go back a little to learn the cause and means of this armed
+invasion of the Catacombs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, vii., 16 and 22. Eutychianus, a Roman
+Christian, is recorded to have buried three hundred and forty-two
+martyrs with his own hands.
+
+[53] See Chapter VI.
+
+[54] Through the long lapse of ages this memorial has been preserved,
+and may still be read in Grater's great collection of ancient
+inscriptions. It is also referred to in Gibbon. In the epitaph occur the
+following fine lines:
+
+INTEMERATA FIDE CONTEMPTO PRINCIPE MVNDI CONFESSVS XRM CAELESTIA REGNA
+PETISTI.
+
+"With unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having
+confessed Christ, thou dost seek the celestial realms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE BETRAYAL--THE PURSUIT.
+
+
+When the unhappy Isidorus discovered that through his cowardice and
+tergiversation, and through the confessions extorted from his
+distempered mind, a criminal charge had been trumped up against the fair
+Callirho[e:], whose beauty and grace had touched his susceptible
+imagination, he was almost beside himself with rage and remorse. He
+protested to the Prefect Naso and his disreputable son, Calphurnius,
+that she was as innocent as an unweaned babe of the monstrous crime
+alleged against her--that of conspiracy to poison her beloved mistress.
+
+"Accursed be the day," cried the wretched Isidorus, clenching his hands
+till his nails pierced the flesh, "accursed be the day when I first came
+to your horrid den to betray innocent blood. Would I had perished e'er
+it dawned."
+
+"Hark you, my friend," said Naso, "do you remember by what means you
+promised to earn the good red gold with which I bought you?"
+
+"Do not remind me of my shame in becoming a spy upon the Christians,"
+cried the Greek with a look of self-loathing and abhorrence.
+
+"Nay; 'by becoming one yourself,' that was the phrase as I wrote it on
+my tablets," sneered the prefect.
+
+"Would that I could become one!" exclaimed the unhappy man.
+
+"Suppose I take you at your word and believe you are one?" queried Naso
+with a malignant leer.
+
+"What new wickedness is this you have in your mind?" asked the Greek.
+
+"How would you like to share the doom of your friends, the old Jew and
+his pretty daughter, who are to be thrown to the lions to-day," went on
+the remorseless man, toying with his victim like a tiger with its prey.
+
+"Gladly, were I but worthy," said the Greek. "Had I their holy hopes, I
+would rejoice to bear them company."
+
+"But don't you see," said Naso, "a word of mine would send you to the
+arena, whether you like it or not? Your neck is in the noose, my
+handsome youth, and I do not think, with all your dexterity, you can
+wriggle out of it."
+
+"Oh! any fate but that!" cried the Greek, writhing in anguish. "Let me
+die as a felon, a conspirator, an assassin, if you will; but not by the
+doom of the martyrs."
+
+"Well, you see," went on the prefect, "justice is meted out to the
+Christians so much more swiftly and certainly than even against the
+worst of felons, that I am tempted to take this plan to secure you your
+deserts."
+
+The craven-spirited Greek, to whom the very idea of death was torture,
+blanched with terror and stood speechless, his tongue literally cleaving
+to the roof of his mouth.
+
+When the prefect perceived that he was sufficiently unnerved for his
+final experiment he unveiled his diabolical purpose.
+
+"Hark you, my friend," he whispered or rather hissed into his ear, "you
+may do the State, yourself, and me a service, that will procure you life
+and liberty and fortune. You know the way to the secret assemblies of
+the accursed Christian sect; lead hither a maniple of soldiers and your
+fortune's made."
+
+"Tempter, begone!" exclaimed the Greek in a moment of virtuous
+indignation, "you would make me worse than Judas whom the Christians
+execrate as the betrayer of his Master whom they worship."
+
+"As you please, my dainty youth," answered Naso, with his characteristic
+gesture of clutching his sword. "Prepare to feed the lions on the
+morrow," and he consigned him to a cell in the vaults of the Coliseum.
+
+Very different was the night spent by this craven soul to that of the
+destined martyrs. The darkness, to his distempered imagination, seemed
+full of accusing eyes, which glared reproach and vengeance upon him. The
+hungry lions' roar smote his soul with fearful apprehensions. When the
+savage bounds of the wild beasts shook his cell he cowered upon the
+ground, the picture of abject misery and despair.
+
+When by these mental tortures his nerves were all unstrung, the arch
+tempter silently entered his cell and whispered in his ear, "Well, my
+dainty Greek, are you ready for the games?"
+
+"Save me! save me!" cried the unhappy man, "any death but that! I will
+do anything to escape such a fearful doom."
+
+"I thought you would come to terms," replied the prefect, well skilled
+in the cruel arts of his office. "Life is sweet. Here is gold. By the
+service I require you shall earn liberty," and the compact was sealed
+whereby the Greek was to betray the subterranean hiding-places of the
+Christians to their enemies.
+
+Hence it was that at the dead of night, a band of Roman soldiers,
+reckless ruffians trained to slaughter in many a bloody war, marched
+under cover of darkness along the Appian Way to the villa of the Lady
+Marcella. It was the work of a moment to force the door of the vineyard
+and they soon reached the entrance to the Catacomb.
+
+"It is like a badger's burrow," said the officer in command. "We will
+soon bag our game, Here the old priest has his lair. Secure him at any
+cost. He is worth a score of the meaner vermin."
+
+Lighting their torches they inarched on their devious way under the
+guidance of Isidorus, who had written on a rude chart the number of
+turns to be made to the right or left. With Roman military foresight,
+the officer marked with chalk the route they took, and fixed
+occasionally a torch in the niches in the wall.
+
+Soon the soft, low cadence of the funeral hymn was heard, stealing
+weirdly on the ear, and a faint light glimmered from the chamber in
+which the Christians were paying the last rites to their martyred
+brethren.
+
+"They are at their incantations now," said the Centurion. "'Tis a fit
+place for their abominable orgies. Let us hasten, and we will spoil
+their wicked spells!" and he gave the command, at which the soldiers
+rushed forward toward the distant light.
+
+Instantly it disappeared, and when they reached the spot naught was
+seen, save the tomb of Adauctus; and in the distant darkness was heard
+the sound of hurrying feet.
+
+"The rats have fled," cried the officer; "after them, ferrets! Let not
+one escape!" and at the head of the maniple he darted down the echoing
+corridor.
+
+But Hilarus guided his friends amid the darkness more swiftly than the
+soldiers could pursue by the light of their torches. He followed many a
+devious winding, especially contrived to frustrate capture, and
+facilitate escape. Threading a very narrow passage, he drew from a niche
+a wooden ladder, and placing it against the wall reached a stairway
+which began high up near the roof. The whole party followed, and
+Hilarus, drawing up the ladder after him, completely cut off pursuit.
+They soon reached the comparatively lofty vaults of a deserted
+_arenarium_, or sand pit, which communicated with the open air. As he
+stood with bared brow beneath the light of the silent stars, the good
+Presbyter Primitius devoutly exclaimed:--"_Anima nostra sicut passer
+erepta est de lagueo venantium_--Our soul is escaped as a bird out the
+snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and we are escaped."
+
+The writer has not drawn upon his imagination in describing the
+arrangements for escape made by the persecuted Christians, when taking
+refuge in these dens and caves of the earth. In this very Catacomb of
+Callixtus, such a secret stairway still exists, and is illustrated by
+drawings in his book on this subject. The main entrance was completely
+obstructed and the stairway partially destroyed, so as to prevent
+ingress to the Catacomb, and a narrow stairway was constructed in the
+roof which could only be reached by a moveable ladder, connecting it
+with the floor. By drawing up this ladder pursuit could be easily cut
+off, and escape to a neighbouring _arenarium_ secured. Stores of corn,
+and oil, and wine have been found in these crypts, evidently as a
+provision in time of persecution; frequent wells also occur, amply
+sufficient for the supply of water; and the multitude of lamps which
+have been found would dispel the darkness, while their sudden extinction
+would prove the best concealment from attack by their enemies. Hence the
+Christians were stigmatized as a skulking, darkness-loving race,[55] who
+fled the light of day to burrow like moles in the earth. These
+labyrinths were admirably adapted for eluding pursuit. Familiar with
+their intricacies, and following a well-known clew, the Christian could
+plunge fearlessly into the darkness, where his pursuer would soon be
+inextricably lost.
+
+Such hairbreadth escapes as we have described from the Roman soldiers,
+like sleuth hounds tracking their prey, must have been no uncommon
+events in those troublous times. But sometimes the Christians were
+surprised at their devotions, and their refuge became their sepulchre.
+Such was the tragic fate of Stephen, slain even while ministering at the
+altar; such the event described by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of
+victims were immolated at once by heathen hate; such the peril which
+wrung from a stricken heart the cry, not of anger but of grief, recorded
+on a slab in the Catacombs: _Tempora infausta, quibus inter sacra et
+vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari possimus!_--"Oh! sad times in which,
+among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are not safe." It
+requires no great effort of imagination to conceive of the dangers and
+escapes which must have been frequent episodes in the heroic lives of
+the early soldiers of the cross.
+
+With what emotions must the primitive believers, seeking refuge in these
+crypts, have held their solemn worship and heard the words of life,
+surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what power would come the
+promise of the resurrection of the body, amid the crumbling relics of
+mortality! How fervent their prayers for their companions in
+tribulation, when they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour! Their
+holy ambition was to witness a good confession even unto death. They
+burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs of the faith, the plumeless
+heroes of a nobler chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes
+who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or amid the fiery tortures
+of the stake, not a crown of laurel or of bay, but a crown of life,
+starry and unwithering, that can never pass away. Their humble graves
+are grander monuments than the trophied tombs of Rome's proud conquerors
+upon the Appian Way. Reverently may we mention their names. Lightly may
+we tread beside their ashes.
+
+Though the bodily presence of those conscripts of the tomb no longer
+walked among men, their intrepid spirit animated the heart of each
+member of that little community of persecuted Christians, "of whom the
+world was not worthy; who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in
+dens and caves of the earth, ... being destitute, afflicted,
+tormented."[56]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[55] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio. _Minuc. Felix._
+
+[56] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:--
+    "La terre avail gemi sous le fer des tyrans;
+    Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,
+    Qui dans les noirs detours des grottes reculees
+    Derobaient aux bourreaux leurs tetes mutilees."
+         _Poeme de la Religion Vengee,_ chap. viii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR
+
+
+But what, meantime, had become of the pursuers? Baffled in their effort
+to seize their prey, and fearful of losing their way in this tangled
+labyrinth they had sullenly retreated, tracing their steps by the
+chalk-marks they had made upon the walls. At last, they returned to the
+stairway by which they had entered and so found their way above ground.
+
+"This is no work for soldiers," muttered the disgusted officer, "hunting
+these rats through their underground runs. They are a skulking set of
+vermin."
+
+"What has become of that coward Greek?" asked the second in command. "He
+didn't seem to half like the job."
+
+"Is he not here? Then he must have made his escape," said the Centurion.
+"But if he is caught in that rat-trap, there let him stay. I'll not risk
+a Roman soldier's life to save a craven Greek," and he gave the command
+to march back to the city.
+
+Meanwhile, how fares it with the unhappy Isidorus?
+
+When the soldiers caught sight of the Christians and began their
+pursuit, he had no heart to join in it, and lingered in the vaulted
+chamber where the funeral rites had been interrupted. The first thing
+that caught his eye was the epitaph of the noble Adauctus. With
+quavering voice he read the lines we have already given: "With
+unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having confessed
+Christ, thou dids't seek the celestial realms."
+
+"And this was he," he soliloquised, "who gave up name, and fame, and
+fortune, high office, and the favour of the Emperor, and embraced shame,
+and persecution, and a cruel death for conscience sake. How grand he
+was that day when I warned him of the machinations of his foes--so
+undaunted and calm. But grander he is as he lies in the majesty of death
+behind that slab. I felt myself a coward in his living presence then,
+but in the presence of this dead map, I feel a greater coward still. His
+memory haunts, it tortures me, I must away!" and turning from, the
+chamber, he wandered by the dim light of his taper down the grave-lined
+corridor, pausing at times to read their humble inscriptions:--
+
+    Rudely written, but each letter
+    Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,
+    Full of all the tender pathos
+    Of the here and the hereafter.
+
+And their calmness and peacefulness seemed to reproach his
+conscience-smitten and unrestful soul.
+
+Listlessly he turned into another chamber, when, what was it that met
+his startled vision!--
+
+VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
+
+There slept in the sleep of death another victim of his perfidy, one
+whom he had longed to save, one whose beauty had fascinated his
+imagination, whose goodness had touched his heart. Overcome by his
+emotion he flung himself on the ground, and bursting into convulsive
+sobs that shook his frame, he passionately kissed the cold stone slab
+on which was written the much-loved name.
+
+"Would that I, too, slept the sleep of death," he exclaimed; "if I might
+also sleep in peace; if I might seek celestial realms.... So near and
+yet so far ... A great gulf fixed ... Never to see thee more ... in time
+nor in eternity."
+
+Here the drip, drip of water which had infiltrated through the roof and
+fell upon the floor, jarred upon his excited nerves, and suddenly, with
+a hissing splash, fell a great drop on his taper and utterly
+extinguished its light. For a moment, so intense and sudden was the
+darkness, he was almost dazed; but instantly the greatness of his peril
+flashed upon his mind.
+
+"Lost! Lost!" he frantically shrieked. "The outer darkness, the eternal
+wailing while she is in the light of life! Well I remember now the words
+of Primitius, in this very vault, as he spoke of the joys of heaven, the
+pains of hell;" and in the darkness he tried to trace with his finger
+the words, "DORMIT IN PACE"--"Sleeps in peace."
+
+_"Vale! Vale! Eternum Vale!"_ he sobbed, as he kissed once more the
+marble slab, "an everlasting farewell! I must try to find the
+Christians, or the soldiers, or a way of escape from this prison-house
+of graves."
+
+He groped his way to the door of the vault and listened, oh! so
+eagerly--all the faculties of his body and mind seeming concentered in
+his sense of hearing. But "the darkness gave no token and the silence
+was unbroken." Nay, so awful was the stillness that brooded over this
+valley of death, that it seemed as if the motion of the earth on its
+axis must be audible, and the pulses of his temples were to his tortured
+ear like the roaring of the distant sea.
+
+Venturing forth, he groped his way from grave to grave, from vault to
+vault, from corridor to corridor, but no light, no sound, no hope! Ever
+denser seemed the darkness, ever deeper the silence, ever more appalling
+the gloom. For hours he wandered on and on till, faint with hunger,
+parched with thirst, the throbbings, of his heart shaking his unnerved
+frame, he fell into a merciful swoon from which he never awoke.
+Centuries after, an explorer of this vast necropolis found crouching in
+the corner of one of its chambers a fleshless skeleton, and on the tomb
+above he read the words, VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE. Was it accident or
+Providence, or some strange instinct of locality that had brought this
+poor blighted wreck to breathe his latest sigh at the tomb of one whom
+he had so loved and so wronged?
+
+The peasants of the Campagna tell to the present day of certain strange
+sounds heard at midnight from those hollow vaults--at times like the
+hooting of an owl, at times like the wailing of the wind, and at times,
+they whisper with bated breath, like the moaning of a soul in pain. And
+the guides to the Catacombs aver, that ever on the anniversary of the
+martyrdom of Valeria Callirho[e:], sighs and groans echo through the hollow
+vaults--the sighs and groans, tradition whispers, of a wretched apostate
+who in the ages of persecution betrayed the early Christians to a
+martyr's doom.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN COLUMRARIUM
+
+The Columbaria were the Pagan Roman underground sepulchres. In the many
+niche-like dovecots--hence the name were placed the urns containing the
+ashes of the dead whose bodies had been burned on the funeral pile.]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.
+
+
+It remains only to trace briefly the fate of the unfortunate Empress
+Valeria--less happy than her lowly namesake, the martyr of the
+Catacombs--and the doom of the persecuting tyrants. In the violent and
+bloody deaths, often more terrible than those which they inflicted on
+the Christians, which overtook, with scarce an exception, these enemies
+of the Church of God, the early believers recognized a divine
+retribution no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of the Pagan
+mythology.[56]
+
+Diocletian, smitten by a mental malady, abandoned the throne of the
+world for the solitude of his palace on the Illyrian shores of the
+Adriatic, where tradition avers that he died by his own hand.
+
+A still more dreadful doom befell the fierce persecutor, Galerius.
+Consumed by the same loathsome and incurable disease which is recorded
+to have smitten his great rivals in bloodshed, Herod the Great and
+Philip II., from his dying couch he implored the prayers of the
+Christians, and, stung by remorse for his cruelties, commanded the
+surcease of their long and bitter persecution.
+
+The Empress Valeria, his widow, by her beauty had the ill fortune to
+attract the regards of his successor in persecution, the Emperor
+Maximin. Spurning his suit with the scorn becoming a pure and
+high-souled woman, at once the daughter and widow of an Emperor, she
+encountered his deadly hate. Her estates were confiscated, her trusted
+servants tortured, and her dearest friends put to death.
+
+"The Empress herself," says Gibbon, "together with her mother, Prisca,
+was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from
+place to place, before they were confined to a sequestered village in
+the deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the
+provinces of the East, which during thirty years, had respected their
+august dignity." On the death of Maximin, Valeria escaped from exile and
+repaired in disguise to the court of his successor, Licinius, hoping for
+more humane treatment. But these hopes, to use again the language of
+Gibbon, "were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and the bloody
+execution which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced
+her that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than
+himself. Valeria consulted her safety by hasty flight, and, still
+accompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months
+through the provinces in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at
+length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death
+was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded and their bodies
+thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; but
+their grief and indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a military
+guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of
+Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we cannot discover their
+crimes."[58]
+
+At length, on the triumph of the British-born Emperor, Constantine, over
+his rivals for the throne of the world, like the trump of Jubilee, the
+edict of the toleration of Christianity, pealed through the land. It
+penetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine, the Catacombs' dim
+labyrinth, and from their sombre depths, vast processions of "noble
+wrestlers for religion," thronged to the long-forsaken churches, with
+grateful songs of praise to God.
+
+Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. It
+emerged from the concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine of
+imperial favour. Constantine, himself, proclaimed to eager thousands the
+New Evangel--the most august lay preacher the Church has ever known. The
+legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates the
+wondrous transformation of society. These Christian brothers, taking
+shelter in a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to the
+legend, after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianity
+everywhere dominant, and a Christian Emperor on the throne of the
+C[ae]sars.[59] The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quickly
+irradiated the world. With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, in
+the highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung. The
+enemies of God were as though they had not been.[60] The Lord brought up
+the vine of Christianity from a far country, and cast out the heathen,
+and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of the
+C[ae]sars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land.
+The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the pagan
+flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove, Rome, which
+had dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at its chariot wheels,
+at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus. The old
+faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars of
+midnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook their ancient
+seats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in the grove of
+Daphne. The naiads bathed not in Scamander's stream nor Simois, nor the
+nereids in the waters of the bright [AE]gean Sea. The nymphs and dryads
+ceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oriads walked no more in light
+on Ida's lofty top.
+
+    O ye vain false gods of Hellas!
+    Ye are vanished evermore!
+
+Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the
+empire, its influence had been felt permeating the entire community.
+Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative
+element--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of
+anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle
+previously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but by
+love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith
+amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reeking
+abominations of a sensual age.
+
+We should do scant justice to the blameless character, simple dignity,
+and moral purity of the primitive Christians, if we forgot the
+thoroughly effete and corrupt society by which they were surrounded. It
+would seem almost impossible for the Christian graces to grow in such a
+foetid atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing in virgin purity
+from the muddy ooze, they are more lovely by contrast with the
+surrounding pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre, breathing
+their fragrance amid scenes of corruption and death, are these holy
+characters, fragrant with the breath of heaven amid the social
+rottenness and moral death of their foul environment.
+
+It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to portray, the abominable
+pollutions of the times. "Society," says Gibbon, "was a rotten, aimless
+chaos of sensuality." It was a boiling Acheron of seething passions,
+unhallowed lusts, and tiger thirst for blood, such as never provoked
+the wrath of Heaven since God drowned the world with water, or destroyed
+the Cities of the Plain by fire. Only those who have visited the secret
+museum of Naples, or that house which no woman may enter at Pompeii, and
+whose paintings no pen may describe; or, who are familiar with the
+scathing denunciations of popular vices by the Roman satirists and
+moralists and by the Christian Fathers, can conceive the appalling
+depravity of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Church
+among this very people, hints at some features of their exceeding
+wickedness. It was to shame even to speak of the things which were done
+by them, but which gifted poets employed their wit to celebrate. A
+brutalized monster was deified as God, received divine homage,[61] and
+beheld all the world at his feet, and the nations trembled at his nod,
+while the multitude wallowed in a sty of sensuality.
+
+Christianity was to be the new Hercules to cleanse this worse than
+Augean pollution. The pure morals and holy lives of the believers were a
+perpetual testimony against abounding iniquity, and a living proof of
+the regenerating power and transforming grace of God. For they
+themselves, as one of their apologists asserts, "had been reclaimed
+from ten thousand vices;" and the Apostle, describing some of the vilest
+characters, exclaims, "such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are
+sanctified." They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from the
+pollutions of the age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth," the
+sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.
+
+Thus amid idolatrous usages and unspeakable moral degradation the
+Christians lived, a holy nation, a peculiar people. "We alone are
+without crime," says Tertullian; "no Christian suffers but for his
+religion." "Your prisons are full," says Minutius Felix, "but they
+contain not one Christian." And these holy lives were an argument which
+even the heathen could not gainsay. The ethics of paganism were the
+speculations of the cultivated few who aspired to the character of
+philosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a system of practical duty
+affecting the daily life of the most lowly and unlettered. "Philosophy,"
+says Lecky, "may dignify, but is impotent to regenerate man; it may
+cultivate virtue, but cannot restrain vice." But Christianity introduced
+a new sense of sin and of holiness, of everlasting reward and of endless
+condemnation. It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ in the
+heart, inflaming all its affections. It transformed the character from
+icy stoicism or epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculating
+self-abnegation and devotion.
+
+This divine principle developed a new instinct of philanthropy in the
+soul. A feeling of common brotherhood knit the hearts of the believers
+together. To love a slave! to love an enemy! was accounted the
+impossible among the heathen; yet this incredible virtue they beheld
+every day among the Christians. "This surprised them beyond measure,"
+says Tertullian, "that one man should die for another." Hence, in the
+Christian inscriptions no word of bitterness, even toward their
+persecutors, is to be found. Sweet peace, the peace of God that passeth
+all understanding, breathes on every side.
+
+One of the most striking results of the new spirit of philanthropy which
+Christianity introduced is seen in the copious charity of the primitive
+Church. Amid the ruins of ancient palaces and temples, theatres and
+baths, there are none of any house of mercy. Charity among the pagans,
+was at best, a fitful and capricious fancy. Among the Christians it was
+a vast and vigorous organization and was cultivated with noble
+enthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of Rome, with its fierce
+oppressions and inhuman wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for the
+Christ-like ministrations of love and pity. There were Christian slaves
+to succour, exposed to unutterable indignities and cruel punishment,
+even unto crucifixion for conscience' sake. There were often martyrs'
+pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by the
+nameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised and
+broken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcast
+babes to pluck from death. There were a thousand forms of suffering and
+sorrow to relieve; and the ever-present thought of Him who came, not to
+be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for
+many, was an inspiration to heroic sacrifice and self-denial. And
+doubtless the religion of mercy won its way to many a stony pagan heart
+by the winsome spell of the saintly charities and heavenly benedictions
+of the persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has since covered
+the earth with its institutions of mercy, and with a passionate zeal has
+sought out the woes of raan in every land, in order to their relief.
+
+In the primitive Church voluntary collections[62] were regularly made
+for the poor, the aged, the sick, the brethren in bonds, and for the
+burial of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred, and all usury
+forbidden. Many gave all their goods to feed the poor. "Our charity
+dispenses more in the streets," says Tertullian to the heathen, "than
+your religion in your temples." He upbraids them for offering to the
+gods only the worn-out and useless, such as is given to dogs. "How
+monstrous is it," exclaims the Alexandrian Clement, "to live in luxury
+while so many are in want." "As you would receive, show mercy," says
+Chrysostom; "make God your debtor that you may receive again with
+usury." The Church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained three thousand
+widows and virgins, besides the sick and the poor. Under the persecuting
+Decius the widows and the infirm under the care of the Church at Rome
+were fifteen hundred. "Behold the treasures of the Church," said St.
+Lawrence pointing to the aged and poor, when the heathen prefect came to
+confiscate its wealth. The Church in Carthage sent a sum equal to four
+thousand dollars to ransom Christian captives in Numidia. St. Ambrose
+sold the sacred vessels of the Church of Milan to rescue prisoners from
+the Goths, esteeming it their truest consecration to the service of
+God. "Better clothe the Christ," says living temples of Jerome, "than
+adorn the temples of stone." "God has no need of plates and dishes,"
+said Acacius, Bishop of Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number of
+poor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus of Nola sold the treasures
+of his beautiful church, and, it is said, even sold himself into African
+slavery. The Christian traveller was hospitably entertained by the
+faithful; and before the close of the fourth century asylums were
+provided for the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian persecution,
+when the streets of Carthage were strewn with the dying and the dead,
+the Christians, with the scars of recent torture and imprisonment upon
+them, exhibited the nobility of a gospel revenge in their care for their
+fever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the martyrdom of Christian
+charity, even more glorious than that they had escaped. In the plague of
+Alexandria, six hundred _parabolani_ periled their lives to succour the
+dying and bury the dead. Julian urged the pagan priests to imitate the
+virtues of the lowly Christians.
+
+Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human life. The exposure of
+infants was a fearfully prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato and
+Aristotle permitted. We have had evidences of the tender charity of the
+Christians in rescuing these foundlings from death, or from a fate more
+dreadful still--a life of infamy. Christianity also emphatically
+affirmed the Almighty's "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," which crime the
+pagans had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a patient
+endurance of suffering, like Job's, exhibited a loftier courage than
+Cato's renunciation of life.
+
+We have thus seen from the testimony of the Catacombs, the immense
+superiority, in all the elements of true dignity and excellence, of
+primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it was
+surrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals of
+mankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it had
+fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations of
+life, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown.
+Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became infected in the days
+of its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity was
+infinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave a
+sacredness before unconceived to human life. It averted the sword from
+the throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from
+exposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threw
+the [ae]gis of its protection over the slave and the oppressed, raising
+them from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and the
+fellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity it
+yearned over the suffering and the sorrowing everywhere, and created a
+vast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the world
+had before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holy
+Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of the
+Divine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the
+world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakable
+pollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and made
+possible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poets
+pictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco,
+written in blood, and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgment
+seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experience
+has shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer and
+loftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance of
+form, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions
+of the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism,
+polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, and
+pathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. It
+taught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the supreme
+majesty of gentleness and truth.
+
+    NOTE.--The entire subject of Christian evidences from the
+    Catacombs, which has been so cursorily glanced at in the
+    foregoing pages, is treated with great fullness of detail and
+    copious pictorial illustration in a work by the writer, "The
+    Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony Relative to Primitive
+    Christianity." Cr. 8vo, 560 pp., 136 engravings. New York:
+    Phillips & Hunt. Price $2.50. It discusses at length the
+    structure, origin, and history of the Catacombs; their art and
+    symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology,
+    ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and
+    Christian Life and Character in the early ages. The gradual
+    corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist
+    errors, as the _cultus_ of Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers
+    of the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory,
+    the celibacy of the clergy rite of monastic orders, and other
+    allied subjects are fully treated.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[57] See Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum, Passim_; Eusebius _Hist.
+Ecclec._ viii, 17; ix. 9, 10; Tertullian _ad Scap._, c. 3.
+
+[58] Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim mensibus plebeio
+cultu pervagata.... Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
+Lactantius _De Mart. Persec._ Cap. 51.
+
+[59] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive the
+possibility of this event "Sed et C[ae]sares credidissent super Christo,"
+he exclaims, "si aut C[ae]sares non essent seculo necessario, aut si et
+Christiani potuissent esse C[ae]sares." _Apol._, c. 21.
+
+[60] Literally, "They are no more because they never were." Eusebius
+applies, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration of the
+exiled Jews from Babylon (Psa. lxxx; xcviii;) to the condition of
+Christianity in his day. The above citations are given in his very
+words.
+
+[61] While yet alive, Domitian was called, "our Lord and God"--_Dominus
+et Deus noster._
+
+[62] Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert _Tertul Apol._ c. 39.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Valeria, by William Henry Withrow
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