[Ill.u.s.tration: Initial]
I was awakened from my delicious dream by Demetrius, who importuned me to accompany him to Rome, whither he had been despatched by his father on business of extreme importance. This reminded me that a visit to Rome was an essential part of my uncle"s educational programme. I had abandoned philosophy for love, and love cares nothing for thought, except as one mode of expressing the sentiments. My education, therefore, was at a stand-still. I hesitated and shuddered at the idea of leaving the charmed circle in which I stood entranced. I would, perhaps, have neither gratified my friend nor obeyed my uncle, had not Helena carelessly dropped the remark, that no student could truly regard his course of instruction completed until he had visited Rome. To acquire this t.i.tle to perfection in the eyes of Helena, I endured the pangs of parting and the miseries of absence; became a compliant friend and an obedient nephew. I went to Rome.
Rome did not impress me so favorably as Athens. I was fond of art, but cared little for glory. The efforts of man to reproduce the beauties of Nature excited my admiration; his labors to immortalize himself and his deeds excited my contempt. The art of Rome was imported; her glory was self-acquired. I had soon seen all that I cared to see of the imperial city, which Augustus had found of brick and left of marble.
Demetrius had letters to some of the most powerful and influential men in Rome, so that we were soon introduced into the best society there. It was not long before we received an invitation to one of the splendid suppers of Hortensius, the richest man and the greatest epicure in the world. I remembered the conversation of the slave-dealer at Alexandria. I mentally resolved, as we drove through the magnificent arch of his palace gate, that, although I might taste of the nightingales of Hortensius, I certainly would take none of his fish.
"Beware of the fish-ponds," said I, laughingly, to Anthony, who accompanied us as footman.
This palace of Hortensius was an affair of Babylonian magnificence.
Everything about it was of colossal proportions. It was said to have as many chambers as there were days in the year. Hortensius had twelve bed-rooms for himself, each named after one of the months, and gorgeously furnished in a manner to represent the month after which it was named.
There were seven banqueting-halls named after G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses-the dreams rather than the creations of art. This grand structure was burned during the fire in the reign of Nero, and its splendors, no longer to be found anywhere on earth, are already regarded as fabulous.
We supped in the Hall of Apollo.
The company was altogether male, which I did not regret; for I did not wish to see or speak to a woman in the world but Helena or my sisters. It was composed of the magnates, the great stars of Roman society-soldiers, statesmen, senators, governors, etc.-the least of them immeasurably above the two young plebeian students, who, dumbfounded at all they saw, could not but experience a painful sense of their own insignificance.
On my right hand, however, at the table, was a n.o.ble and sedate Roman, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea. He had visited Rome to consult the emperor and the senate about the affairs of his province, and was on the eve of returning. He seemed pleased when he learned that my home was in the neighborhood of Jerusalem; and with great tact and urbanity drew me out of my abstracted mood, dissipated my bashfulness, and engaged me in an animated conversation.
The Hall of Apollo was a miracle of beauty. Its area was immense; its shape, circular. Supported by twenty-four golden columns, the ceiling rose to a vast height, as a blue dome painted to represent the visible heavens.
The sun blazing up through ma.s.ses of dense and crimson clouds; the intensely clear cerulean ether above; the horizon all around pierced by mountain peaks, overhung by rolling vapors of purple and gold, produced an illusion of astonishing power and magnificence.
Every object in the room, the pictures, the statuary, the ba.s.s-reliefs upon the columns, the carvings upon the couches and the gorgeous table, and even the engravings and embossings upon the splendid vases and vessels which adorned it, were all descriptive or symbolical of Apollo, his attributes and achievements. The wonder of the hall, however, was a golden chandelier of incredible size, containing a thousand rose-colored tapers, which lighted the scene with a brilliancy rivaling the day.
I will not attempt to describe the feast, having no particular fondness for epicurism. The bill of fare exceeded anything I had ever imagined.
There was service after service, dessert after dessert, wine after wine, seemingly without end. The meat-courses, lasting about three hours, were presented by handsome boys of every nationality, clad in beautiful livery.
The after-courses, of sweets and luxuries, were brought on by female servants, lovely in person and graceful in manner, revealing by their dress or otherwise every charm of the human body.
When the company was well filled and duly flushed by the delicious wines, the whole western wall of the apartment, by some hidden and admirable mechanism, suddenly opened or changed like a dissolving view, and revealed an interior apartment a little above the level of ours, which looked like a beautiful garden adorned and lighted in a style of Oriental magnificence.
The shrubbery and flowers of this garden were the concentrated beauties of the floral world in all regions, cultivated here by art, and offering an incense of perfume to these Roman rulers, who aspired to conquer not only man but nature. Ivory statues of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, of nymphs and fawns and satyrs, added greatly to the beauty of the scene. But when a dozen dancing-girls alighted as it were from heaven upon this miraculous stage, and whirled among these statues and flowers, less perfect and beautiful than themselves, the fascination, to those who regarded such enchantments, was complete.
"More music! more wine!" cried Hortensius from his purple couch a little elevated above the rest-"the feast of thought ends always in the feast of love."
The banquet progressed with continued variations of stimulus and entertainment. The guests were regaled by invisible music, repeatedly changed, and representing the airs and styles of every nation which had bowed its head to the Roman conqueror. The wine fell fast into golden goblets from vases composed of precious gems. The day dawned. The noise and excitement increased: the conversation degenerated into a babble, and the feast into a debauch; when a most extraordinary incident occurred, changing my uncle"s programme and perhaps my whole fate in the twinkling of an eye.
A great clamor was heard outside of the door nearest Hortensius. Loud and angry voices, the rapid tread of many feet, curses, groans, shrieks, indicated the approach of some dreadful storm. It was a thunderbolt in a clear sky. All sprang to their feet and advanced toward the sounds, when the door was burst open with violence, and my servant Anthony rushed in, foaming at the mouth, bleeding profusely from several wounds and flourishing an immense knife over his head.
"I will kill him if I die for it!" he shouted, glaring fiercely on the brilliant crowd before him, and endeavoring to single out the object of his hate.
"What does all this mean, Anthony?" I exclaimed, leaping forward and seizing him by the throat.
"I have saved him from the fish-pond," he answered sternly, pointing to the naked form of a poor negro, whom the domestics had at last succeeded in hurling to the floor, and who had followed Anthony, defending him from his pursuers.
"And why did you not fly? madman!" I exclaimed, "why did you come here?"
"Oh! death was inevitable," he answered, in a tone of desperation, "and I determined first to kill the vile despot, the author of these cruelties."
"Slave! barbarian!" echoed from all parts of the hall.
"Slave I am: barbarian I may be!" shouted Anthony defiantly; "but in my country they do not feed fishes with men."
The crowd had stood back a little while we were speaking: but now there was a sudden rush upon us in front and rear. I was pushed forcibly aside, and Anthony was borne down, disarmed and bound with his fellow-prisoner, whose rescue had caused this great excitement.
"Throw the old one to the fishes immediately," cried Hortensius in a loud and cruel tone. "Bind this young villain by the pond and guard him till I come. I will cut him up, strip by strip, with my own hands."
A murmur of approbation ran through the a.s.sembly. Thrusting the bystanders away, I confronted Hortensius face to face.
"O most n.o.ble Roman," I exclaimed, "pardon something in this poor man to the spirit of liberty. He was born free, a prince in his little realm; and like you, he has been a brave soldier. Misfortune in war, not crime, has enslaved him. He is honest, faithful and n.o.ble. It was a fierce and glorious love of his own race which has fired him to this rash deed. His sublime self-sacrifice, his desperate courage surely deserve a better fate at the hands of a Roman and a soldier. Spare him and forgive him!"
It would be difficult to describe the fierce and haughty stare which Hortensius and his n.o.ble guests fixed upon me during this little speech.
They wondered at my folly, my stupidity, my audacity. To plead for a black slave who had drawn his knife against a Roman senator! To accord the spirit of liberty to such vermin of the earth! To speak of them as brave, faithful, n.o.ble, glorious, sublime! They were stupefied at the novelty and heresy of such ideas. I was certainly either a fool or a madman.
Hortensius, lowering his voice and infusing into it a little suavity,-for he suddenly remembered that I was his guest,-exclaimed:
"The proper discipline of my palace, young man, demands the immediate death of this would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. I will replace your servant with a better."
"That is beyond your power," I replied impetuously; "your whole household would not replace him. I am indebted to his brother for my sister"s life and honor. I am bound to this man"s flesh and blood as if they were my own. I cannot, I will not desert him in his extremity."
There were loud exclamations of surprise, contempt and disapproval. Many, however, were silent, touched perhaps by a latent magnanimity.
"What will you do?" exclaimed a haughty old Roman in a most provoking tone.
"Do?" said I rashly, striking my hand upon the hilt of my dagger, "do?-I will defend him: I will die with him."
This caused a great uproar in the a.s.sembly. Loud cries of
"Away with him! out with him!"
"Insult a Roman senator!"
"Abettor of slaves and a.s.sa.s.sins!"
"Insurrectionist! Madman! Idiot!"
"Down with the base Judean!"
resounded through the splendid Hall of Apollo. My friend Demetrius, who had hitherto stood near me, now slipped into the crowd and disappeared.
Having defied the supreme power of the place, I would probably have shared the fate of the wretched Ethiopian, had not a.s.sistance come to me from an unexpected quarter.
Pontius Pilate stepped between Hortensius and myself, and waving his hand with great dignity and grace, requested silence.
"Pardon, dear friends and most n.o.ble senators! pardon the wine which has made this rash youth forget both reason and duty. He is a subject of mine, being a native and resident of my province. I claim jurisdiction over him, and will punish him as he deserves. He is from this moment a prisoner in charge of my retinue. He shall be carried back to his native village, disarmed, bound and disgraced, so that all Judean youths may know what folly it is to insult a Roman senator."
There was a strong murmur of approbation throughout the a.s.sembly, and Hortensius nodded approval.
Pilate continued:
"I would not say a word to save this African from the death he so richly merits, were it not for one dark suspicion which crosses my mind and which will not permit me to be silent. I suspect this infuriate wretch to be a madman; and the insane, you know, are under the protection of the G.o.ds and, sacred from the fangs of the law. Permit me to convey this slave also in irons to Judea. I will have his case carefully studied by my own physician. If the G.o.ds have smitten him in their wisdom, let him go free as our laws direct. If he exhibits enough reason to be held responsible, I will have him driven into the dreadful desert beyond the Salt Sea, and sentence him to a perpetual exile in its awful solitudes. If he is ever discovered west of the river Jordan, his punishment shall be death, without question or delay."