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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:59:38 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:59:38 -0700 |
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diff --git a/33484-h/33484-h.htm b/33484-h/33484-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46b7da2 --- /dev/null +++ b/33484-h/33484-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8065 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + Valeria, The Martyr of the Catacombs. by W.H. Withrow, D.D. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +p.dropcap:first-letter { + margin-right: 10px; + margin-top: 4px; + font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; + font-size: 400%; + float: left; +} + +hr { + width: 65%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + margin-bottom: 3em; + width: 70%; +} + +td { + vertical-align: bottom; + text-align: left; + +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.bbox { + padding: 1em; + border: solid 2px; + text-align: center; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + +div.captiontitle { + font-weight: bold; + font-variant: small-caps; + margin-bottom: -20px; +} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + margin-bottom: 2em; + text-align: center; + +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poemblock { + margin: auto; width: 27em;} + +.poemblock2 { + margin: auto; width: 22em;} + +div.indent3 {margin-left: 1.5em;} + +div.indent4 { + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + + +.stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<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—At The Martyr's Tomb." /> +<span class="caption">Scene In The Catacombs—At The Martyr'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=""Valeria Sleeps In Peace."" /> +<span class="caption">"Valeria Sleeps In Peace."</span> +</div> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 1.5em">TORONTO: <br /> +WILLIAM BRIGGS. <br />MONTREAL: C.W. COATES. +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—</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,—</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—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."—<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 /> ON THE APPIAN WAY</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER II. <br /> IN CÆSAR'S PALACE</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER III. <br /> EMPRESS AND SLAVE</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IV. <br /> THE IMPERIAL BANQUET</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER V. <br /> THE CHRISTIANS AND THE LIONS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VI. <br /> THE MARTYR'S BURIAL</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VII. <br /> WITH HILARUS, THE FOSSOR</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VIII. <br /> WITH PRIMITIUS, THE PRESBYTER</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IX. <br /> A DIFFICULT QUEST</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER X. <br /> A WICKED PLOT</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XI <br /> THE SLAVE MARKET</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XII. <br /> THE LOST FOUND</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIII. <br /> FATHER AND DAUGHTER</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIV. <br /> "UNSTABLE AS WATER"</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XV. <br /> AT THE BATHS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">124</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVI. <br /> THE GAMING TABLE</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVII. <br /> "IN PERICULIS TUTUS"</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVIII <br /> THE MIDNIGHT PLOT</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIX <br /> 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 /> THE PLOT THICKENS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXI. <br /> A CRIME PREVENTED</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">161</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXII. <br /> THE STORM BURSTS</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIII. <br /> THE MAMERTINE PRISON</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIV. <br /> THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">184</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXV. <br /> A ROMAN HOLIDAY</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">188</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVI <br /> THE MARTYRS CROWNED</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVII. <br /> THE MARTYRS BURIED</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVIII. <br /> THE BETRAYAL—THE PURSUIT</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">215</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIX. <br /> THE DOOM OF THE TRAITOR</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">224</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXX. <br /> FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS—<br /> 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=""Entrance To A Catacomb."" /> +<span class="caption">"Entrance To A Catacomb."</span> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">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.</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—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.'"</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 +—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.</p> + +<p>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:</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.—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.—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—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.</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>—"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—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—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—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>—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,"—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,"—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—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—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—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 <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—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,"—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—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."</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—</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—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.</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—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—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—</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—</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—not to bribe them, for that +is impossible, but to spend in what they call +charity—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 +—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—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>—"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."—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—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.</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—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 <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—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?</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—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—(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."</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—some with the engraved outline of a +dove, or fish, or anchor, or olive branch upon +them—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>—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—</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,—</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—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—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.</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?—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—Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Rome." /> +<span class="caption">Early Christian +Sculpture—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—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—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:—<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:—</p> + +<p class="center">AGNELLVS DEI—PARVM STETIT APVD NOS ET<br /> +PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE.<br /><br /> + +"God's little lamb—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:—</p> + +<p class="center">ANIMA DVLCIS INNOCVA SAPIENS ET PVLCHRA—<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:—</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:—</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:—</p> + +<p class="center">DVLCIS ET INNOCES <i>(sic)</i> HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS<br /> +SOMNO PACIS CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI<br /> +SVSCEPTVS EST,—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—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?'"</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:—</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—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:—</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 +—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,—</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—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—'Little Pig'—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—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."</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:—</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 /> +—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—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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">"Valeria, consort of the co-Emperor Galerius +Cæsar—to Adauctus, Treasurer of the Imperial +Exchequer, greeting:</p> + +<p class="blockquot">"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.</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:—</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—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—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.</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—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—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.</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>—"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—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—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"—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>—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."</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—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—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—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—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—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>—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—Forum and the Palatine. It was a day +of festival—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—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——"</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—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:—</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—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—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—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—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—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."</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—'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.—<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'œuvre</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—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,—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—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—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 <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—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—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.</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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—"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—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—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—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.</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,—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."</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—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—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—the offspring of the +corruption and cruelty of the Empire—parted, +each intent on his purposes of evil.</p> + +<p>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 <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—<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—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.</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—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>—I have spoken—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—<i>Nec unquam +sine cruore humano cœnabat,</i>"<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a>—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—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—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?—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—</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—if it be an accident—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—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—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.</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>—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, "<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—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.</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>—"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."<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—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."<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—<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.—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—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.—<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—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 <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—<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—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 +<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—old +men, weak women, and tender and innocent +children.</p> + +<p>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.</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—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—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>—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—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.</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:—</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—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—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.</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>—Great Cæsars, we who are +about to die salute you."</p> + +<p>First there was a sort of sham battle—<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>—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—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:—</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—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—<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—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—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—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—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>—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—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:—</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—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.</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"—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—encircled +her brow, and a palm branch—the +symbol of the martyr's victory—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>—"Return unto thy rest, +O my soul;" and <i>"Si ambulavero in medio umbræ +mortis, non timebo mala"</i>—"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—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—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:—</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=""VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."" /> +<span class="caption">"VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."</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—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—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:—"<i>Anima +nostra sicut passer erepta est de lagueo +venantium</i>—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>—"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:— +<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—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:—</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!—</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>"—"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—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—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.</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—hence the name—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—TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.</p> + +<p class="dropcap">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.<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—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—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—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>.—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 <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"—<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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALERIA *** + +***** This file should be named 33484-h.htm or 33484-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/8/33484/ + +Produced by Rose Mawhorter (This file was produced from +images generously made available by The Internet +Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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