social system so widely different from the modern, the same small causes
that ruffle and interrupt the 'course of love', which operate so
commonly at this day--the same inventive jealousy, the same cunning
slander, the same crafty and fabricated retailings of petty gossip,
which so often now suffice to break the ties of the truest love, and
counteract the tenor of circumstances most apparently propitious. When
the bark sails on over the smoothest wave, the fable tells us of the
diminutive fish that can cling to the keel and arrest its progress: so
is it ever with the great passions of mankind; and we should paint life
but ill if, even in times the most prodigal of romance, and of the
romance of which we most largely avail ourselves, we did not also
describe the mechanism of those trivial and household springs of
mischief which we see every day at work in our chambers and at our
hearths. It is in these, the lesser intrigues of life, that we mostly
find ourselves at home with the past.
Most cunningly had the Egyptian appealed to Ione's ruling foible--most
dexterously had he applied the poisoned dart to her pride. He fancied
he had arrested what he hoped, from the shortness of the time she had
known Glaucus, was, at most, but an incipient fancy; and hastening to
change the subject, he now led her to talk of her brother. Their
conversation did not last long. He left her, resolved not again to
trust so much to absence, but to visit--to watch her--every day.
No sooner had his shadow glided from her presence, than woman's
pride--her sex's dissimulation--deserted his intended victim, and the
haughty Ione burst into passionate tears.
Chapter VII
THE GAY LIFE OF THE POMPEIAN LOUNGER. A MINIATURE LIKENESS OF THE ROMAN
BATHS.
WHEN Glaucus left Ione, he felt as if he trod upon air. In the
interview with which he had just been blessed, he had for the first time
gathered from her distinctly that his love was not unwelcome to, and
would not be unrewarded by, her. This hope filled him with a rapture
for which earth and heaven seemed too narrow to afford a vent.
Unconscious of the sudden enemy he had left behind, and forgetting not
only his taunts but his very existence, Glaucus passed through the gay
streets, repeating to himself, in the wantonness of joy, the music of
the soft air to which Ione had listened with such intentness; and now he
entered the Street of Fortune, with its raised footpath--its houses
painted without, and the open doors admitting the view of the glowing
frescoes within. Each end of the street was adorned with a triumphal
arch: and as Glaucus now came before the Temple of Fortune, the jutting
portico of that beautiful fane (which is supposed to have been built by
one of the family of Cicero, perhaps by the orator himself) imparted a
dignified and venerable feature to a scene otherwise more brilliant than
lofty in its character. That temple was one of the most graceful
specimens of Roman architecture. It was raised on a somewhat lofty
podium; and between two flights of steps ascending to a platform stood
the altar of the goddess. From this platform another flight of broad
stairs led to the portico, from the height of whose fluted columns hung
festoons of the richest flowers. On either side the extremities of the
temple were placed statues of Grecian workmanship; and at a little
distance from the temple rose the triumphal arch crowned with an
equestrian statue of Caligula, which was flanked by trophies of bronze.
In the space before the temple a lively throng were assembled--some
seated on benches and discussing the politics of the empire, some
conversing on the approaching spectacle of the amphitheatre. One knot
of young men were lauding a new beauty, another discussing the merits of
the last play; a third group, more stricken in age, were speculating on
the chance of the trade with Alexandria, and amidst these were many
merchants in the Eastern costume, whose loose and peculiar robes,
painted and gemmed slippers, and composed and serious countenances,
formed a striking contrast to the tunicked forms and animated gestures
of the Italians. For that impatient and lively people had, as now, a
language distinct from speech--a language of signs and motions,
inexpressibly significant and vivacious: their descendants retain it,
and the learned Jorio hath written a most entertaining work upon that
species of hieroglyphical gesticulation.
Sauntering through the crowd, Glaucus soon found himself amidst a group
of his merry and dissipated friends.
'Ah!' said Sallust, 'it is a lustrum since I saw you.'
'And how have you spent the lustrum? What new dishes have you
discovered?'
'I have been scientific,' returned Sallust, 'and have made some
experiments in the feeding of lampreys: I confess I despair of bringing
them to the perfection which our Roman ancestors attained.'
'Miserable man! and why?'
'Because,' returned Sallust, with a sigh, 'it is no longer lawful to
give them a slave to eat. I am very often tempted to make away with a
very fat carptor (butler) whom I possess, and pop him slily into the
reservoir. He would give the fish a most oleaginous flavor! But slaves
are not slaves nowadays, and have no sympathy with their masters'
interest--or Davus would destroy himself to oblige me!'
'What news from Rome?' said Lepidus, as he languidly joined the group.
'The emperor has been giving a splendid supper to the senators,'
answered Sallust.
'He is a good creature,' quoth Lepidus; 'they say he never sends a man
away without granting his request.'
'Perhaps he would let me kill a slave for my reservoir?' returned
Sallust, eagerly.
'Not unlikely,' said Glaucus; 'for he who grants a favor to one Roman,
must always do it at the expense of another. Be sure, that for every
smile Titus has caused, a hundred eyes have wept.'
'Long live Titus!' cried Pansa, overhearing the emperor's name, as he
swept patronizingly through the crowd; 'he has promised my brother a
quaestorship, because he had run through his fortune.'
'And wishes now to enrich himself among the people, my Pansa,' said
Glaucus.
'Exactly so,' said Pansa.
'That is putting the people to some use,' said Glaucus.
'To be sure, returned Pansa. 'Well, I must go and look after the
aerarium--it is a little out of repair'; and followed by a long train of
clients, distinguished from the rest of the throng by the togas they
wore (for togas, once the sign of freedom in a citizen, were now the
badge of servility to a patron), the aedile fidgeted fussily away.
'Poor Pansa!' said Lepidus: 'he never has time for pleasure. Thank
Heaven I am not an aedile!'
'Ah, Glaucus! how are you? gay as ever?' said Clodius, joining the
group.
'Are you come to sacrifice to Fortune?' said Sallust.
'I sacrifice to her every night,' returned the gamester.
'I do not doubt it. No man has made more victims!'
'By Hercules, a biting speech!' cried Glaucus, laughing.
'The dog's letter is never out of your mouth, Sallust,' said Clodius,
angrily: 'you are always snarling.'
'I may well have the dog's letter in my mouth, since, whenever I play
with you, I have the dog's throw in my hand,' returned Sallust.
'Hist!' said Glaucus, taking a rose from a flower-girl, who stood
beside.
'The rose is the token of silence,' replied Sallust, 'but I love only to
see it at the supper-table.'
'Talking of that, Diomed gives a grand feast next week,' said Sallust:
'are you invited, Glaucus?'
'Yes, I received an invitation this morning.'
'And I, too,' said Sallust, drawing a square piece of papyrus from his
girdle: 'I see that he asks us an hour earlier than usual: an earnest of
something sumptuous.'
'Oh! he is rich as Croesus,' said Clodius; 'and his bill of fare is as
long as an epic.'
'Well, let us to the baths,' said Glaucus: 'this is the time when all
the world is there; and Fulvius, whom you admire so much, is going to
read us his last ode.'
The young men assented readily to the proposal, and they strolled to the
baths.
Although the public thermae, or baths, were instituted rather for the
poorer citizens than the wealthy (for the last had baths in their own
houses), yet, to the crowds of all ranks who resorted to them, it was a
favorite place for conversation, and for that indolent lounging so dear
to a gay and thoughtless people. The baths at Pompeii differed, of
course, in plan and construction from the vast and complicated thermae
of Rome; and, indeed, it seems that in each city of the empire there was
always some slight modification of arrangement in the general
architecture of the public baths. This mightily puzzles the learned--as
if architects and fashion were not capricious before the nineteenth
century! Our party entered by the principal porch in the Street of
Fortune. At the wing of the portico sat the keeper of the baths, with
his two boxes before him, one for the money he received, one for the
tickets he dispensed. Round the walls of the portico were seats crowded
with persons of all ranks; while others, as the regimen of the
physicians prescribed, were walking briskly to and fro the portico,
stopping every now and then to gaze on the innumerable notices of shows,
games, sales, exhibitions, which were painted or inscribed upon the
walls. The general subject of conversation was, however, the spectacle
announced in the amphitheatre; and each new-comer was fastened upon by a
group eager to know if Pompeii had been so fortunate as to produce some
monstrous criminal, some happy case of sacrilege or of murder, which
would allow the aediles to provide a man for the jaws of the lion: all
other more common exhibitions seemed dull and tame, when compared with
the possibility of this fortunate occurrence.
'For my part,' said one jolly-looking man, who was a goldsmith, 'I think
the emperor, if he is as good as they say, might have sent us a Jew.'
'Why not take one of the new sect of Nazarenes?' said a philosopher. 'I
am not cruel: but an atheist, one who denies Jupiter himself, deserves
no mercy.'
'I care not how many gods a man likes to believe in,' said the
goldsmith; 'but to deny all gods is something monstrous.'
'Yet I fancy,' said Glaucus, 'that these people are not absolutely
atheists. I am told that they believe in a God--nay, in a future state.'
'Quite a mistake, my dear Glaucus,' said the philosopher. 'I have
conferred with them--they laughed in my face when I talked of Pluto and
Hades.'
'O ye gods!' exclaimed the goldsmith, in horror; 'are there any of these
wretches in Pompeii?'
'I know there are a few: but they meet so privately that it is
impossible to discover who they are.'
As Glaucus turned away, a sculptor, who was a great enthusiast in his
art, looked after him admiringly.
'Ah!' said he, 'if we could get him on the arena--there would be a model
for you! What limbs! what a head! he ought to have been a gladiator! A
subject--a subject--worthy of our art! Why don't they give him to the
lion?'
Meanwhile Fulvius, the Roman poet, whom his contemporaries declared
immortal, and who, but for this history, would never have been heard of
in our neglectful age, came eagerly up to Glaucus. 'Oh, my Athenian, my
Glaucus, you have come to hear my ode! That is indeed an honour; you, a
Greek--to whom the very language of common life is poetry. How I thank
you. It is but a trifle; but if I secure your approbation, perhaps I may
get an introduction to Titus. Oh, Glaucus! a poet without a patron is
an amphora without a label; the wine may be good, but nobody will laud
it! And what says Pythagoras?--"Frankincense to the gods, but praise to
man." A patron, then, is the poet's priest: he procures him the incense,
and obtains him his believers.'
'But all Pompeii is your patron, and every portico an altar in your
praise.'
'Ah! the poor Pompeians are very civil--they love to honour merit. But
they are only the inhabitants of a petty town--spero meliora! Shall we
within?'
'Certainly; we lose time till we hear your poem.'
At this instant there was a rush of some twenty persons from the baths
into the portico; and a slave stationed at the door of a small corridor
now admitted the poet, Glaucus, Clodius, and a troop of the bard's other
friends, into the passage.
'A poor place this, compared with the Roman thermae!' said Lepidus,
disdainfully.
'Yet is there some taste in the ceiling,' said Glaucus, who was in a
mood to be pleased with everything; pointing to the stars which studded
the roof.
Lepidus shrugged his shoulders, but was too languid to reply.
They now entered a somewhat spacious chamber, which served for the
purposes of the apodyterium (that is, a place where the bathers prepared
themselves for their luxurious ablutions). The vaulted ceiling was
raised from a cornice, glowingly colored with motley and grotesque
paintings; the ceiling itself was paneled in white compartments bordered
with rich crimson; the unsullied and shining floor was paved with white
mosaics, and along the walls were ranged benches for the accommodation
of the loiterers. This chamber did not possess the numerous and
spacious windows which Vitruvius attributes to his more magnificent
frigidarium. The Pompeians, as all the southern Italians, were fond of
banishing the light of their sultry skies, and combined in their
voluptuous associations the idea of luxury with darkness. Two windows
