of glass alone admitted the soft and shaded ray; and the compartment in
which one of these casements was placed was adorned with a large relief
of the destruction of the Titans.
In this apartment Fulvius seated himself with a magisterial air, and his
audience gathering round him, encouraged him to commence his recital.
The poet did not require much pressing. He drew forth from his vest a
roll of papyrus, and after hemming three times, as much to command
silence as to clear his voice, he began that wonderful ode, of which, to
the great mortification of the author of this history, no single verse
can be discovered.
By the plaudits he received, it was doubtless worthy of his fame; and
Glaucus was the only listener who did not find it excel the best odes of
Horace.
The poem concluded, those who took only the cold bath began to undress;
they suspended their garments on hooks fastened in the wall, and
receiving, according to their condition, either from their own slaves or
those of the thermae, loose robes in exchange, withdrew into that
graceful circular building which yet exists, to shame the unlaving
posterity of the south.
The more luxurious departed by another door to the tepidarium, a place
which was heated to a voluptuous warmth, partly by a movable fireplace,
principally by a suspended pavement, beneath which was conducted the
caloric of the laconicum.
Here this portion of the intended bathers, after unrobing themselves,
remained for some time enjoying the artificial warmth of the luxurious
air. And this room, as befitted its important rank in the long process
of ablution, was more richly and elaborately decorated than the rest;
the arched roof was beautifully carved and painted; the windows above,
of ground glass, admitted but wandering and uncertain rays; below the
massive cornices were rows of figures in massive and bold relief; the
walls glowed with crimson, the pavement was skillfully tessellated in
white mosaics. Here the habituated bathers, men who bathed seven times
a day, would remain in a state of enervate and speechless lassitude,
either before or (mostly) after the water-bath; and many of these
victims of the pursuit of health turned their listless eyes on the
newcomers, recognizing their friends with a nod, but dreading the
fatigue of conversation.
From this place the party again diverged, according to their several
fancies, some to the sudatorium, which answered the purpose of our
vapor-baths, and thence to the warm-bath itself; those more accustomed
to exercise, and capable of dispensing with so cheap a purchase of
fatigue, resorted at once to the calidarium, or water-bath.
In order to complete this sketch, and give to the reader an adequate
notion of this, the main luxury of the ancients, we will accompany
Lepidus, who regularly underwent the whole process, save only the cold
bath, which had gone lately out of fashion. Being then gradually warmed
in the tepidarium, which has just been described, the delicate steps of
the Pompeian elegant were conducted to the sudatorium. Here let the
reader depict to himself the gradual process of the vapor-bath,
accompanied by an exhalation of spicy perfumes. After our bather had
undergone this operation, he was seized by his slaves, who always
awaited him at the baths, and the dews of heat were removed by a kind of
scraper, which (by the way) a modern traveler has gravely declared to be
used only to remove the dirt, not one particle of which could ever
settle on the polished skin of the practised bather. Thence, somewhat
cooled, he passed into the water-bath, over which fresh perfumes were
profusely scattered, and on emerging from the opposite part of the room,
a cooling shower played over his head and form. Then wrapping himself
in a light robe, he returned once more to the tepidarium, where he found
Glaucus, who had not encountered the sudatorium; and now, the main
delight and extravagance of the bath commenced. Their slaves anointed
the bathers from vials of gold, of alabaster, or of crystal, studded
with profusest gems, and containing the rarest unguents gathered from
all quarters of the world. The number of these smegmata used by the
wealthy would fill a modern volume--especially if the volume were
printed by a fashionable publisher; Amaracinum, Megalium, Nardum--omne
quod exit in um--while soft music played in an adjacent chamber, and
such as used the bath in moderation, refreshed and restored by the
grateful ceremony, conversed with all the zest and freshness of
rejuvenated life.
'Blessed be he who invented baths!' said Glaucus, stretching himself
along one of those bronze seats (then covered with soft cushions) which
the visitor to Pompeii sees at this day in that same tepidarium.
'Whether he were Hercules or Bacchus, he deserved deification.'
'But tell me,' said a corpulent citizen, who was groaning and wheezing
under the operation of being rubbed down, 'tell me, O Glaucus!--evil
chance to thy hands, O slave! why so rough?--tell me--ugh--ugh!--are the
baths at Rome really so magnificent?' Glaucus turned, and recognized
Diomed, though not without some difficulty, so red and so inflamed were
the good man's cheeks by the sudatory and the scraping he had so lately
undergone. 'I fancy they must be a great deal finer than these. Eh?'
Suppressing a smile, Glaucus replied:
'Imagine all Pompeii converted into baths, and you will then form a
notion of the size of the imperial thermae of Rome. But a notion of the
size only. Imagine every entertainment for mind and body--enumerate all
the gymnastic games our fathers invented--repeat all the books Italy and
Greece have produced--suppose places for all these games, admirers for
all these works--add to this, baths of the vastest size, the most
complicated construction--intersperse the whole with gardens, with
theatres, with porticoes, with schools--suppose, in one word, a city of
the gods, composed but of palaces and public edifices, and you may form
some faint idea of the glories of the great baths of Rome.'
'By Hercules!' said Diomed, opening his eyes, 'why, it would take a
man's whole life to bathe!'
'At Rome, it often does so,' replied Glaucus, gravely. 'There are many
who live only at the baths. They repair there the first hour in which
the doors are opened, and remain till that in which the doors are
closed. They seem as if they knew nothing of the rest of Rome, as if
they despised all other existence.'
'By Pollux! you amaze me.'
'Even those who bathe only thrice a day contrive to consume their lives
in this occupation. They take their exercise in the tennis-court or the
porticoes, to prepare them for the first bath; they lounge into the
theatre, to refresh themselves after it. They take their prandium under
the trees, and think over their second bath. By the time it is prepared,
the prandium is digested. From the second bath they stroll into one of
the peristyles, to hear some new poet recite: or into the library, to
sleep over an old one. Then comes the supper, which they still consider
but a part of the bath: and then a third time they bathe again, as the
best place to converse with their friends.'
'Per Hercle! but we have their imitators at Pompeii.'
'Yes, and without their excuse. The magnificent voluptuaries of the
Roman baths are happy: they see nothing but gorgeousness and splendor;
they visit not the squalid parts of the city; they know not that there
is poverty in the world. All Nature smiles for them, and her only frown
is the last one which sends them to bathe in Cocytus. Believe me, they
are your only true philosophers.'
While Glaucus was thus conversing, Lepidus, with closed eyes and scarce
perceptible breath, was undergoing all the mystic operations, not one of
which he ever suffered his attendants to omit. After the perfumes and
the unguents, they scattered over him the luxurious powder which
prevented any further accession of heat: and this being rubbed away by
the smooth surface of the pumice, he began to indue, not the garments he
had put off, but those more festive ones termed 'the synthesis', with
which the Romans marked their respect for the coming ceremony of supper,
if rather, from its hour (three o'clock in our measurement of time), it
might not be more fitly denominated dinner. This done, he at length
opened his eyes and gave signs of returning life.
At the same time, too, Sallust betokened by a long yawn the evidence of
existence.
'It is supper time,' said the epicure; 'you, Glaucus and Lepidus, come
and sup with me.'
'Recollect you are all three engaged to my house next week,' cried
Diomed, who was mightily proud of the acquaintance of men of fashion.
'Ah, ah! we recollect,' said Sallust; 'the seat of memory, my Diomed, is
certainly in the stomach.'
Passing now once again into the cooler air, and so into the street, our
gallants of that day concluded the ceremony of a Pompeian bath.
Chapter VIII
ARBACES COGS HIS DICE WITH PLEASURE AND WINS THE GAME.
THE evening darkened over the restless city as Apaecides took his way to
the house of the Egyptian. He avoided the more lighted and populous
streets; and as he strode onward with his head buried in his bosom, and
his arms folded within his robe, there was something startling in the
contrast, which his solemn mien and wasted form presented to the
thoughtless brows and animated air of those who occasionally crossed his
path.
At length, however, a man of a more sober and staid demeanor, and who
had twice passed him with a curious but doubting look, touched him on
the shoulder.
'Apaecides!' said he, and he made a rapid sign with his hands: it was
the sign of the cross.
'Well, Nazarene,' replied the priest, and his face grew paler; 'what
wouldst thou?'
'Nay,' returned the stranger, 'I would not interrupt thy meditations;
but the last time we met, I seemed not to be so unwelcome.'
'You are not unwelcome, Olinthus; but I am sad and weary: nor am I able
this evening to discuss with you those themes which are most acceptable
to you.'
'O backward of heart!' said Olinthus, with bitter fervor; and art thou
sad and weary, and wilt thou turn from the very springs that refresh and
heal?'
'O earth!' cried the young priest, striking his breast passionately,
'from what regions shall my eyes open to the true Olympus, where thy
gods really dwell? Am I to believe with this man, that none whom for so
many centuries my fathers worshipped have a being or a name? Am I to
break down, as something blasphemous and profane, the very altars which
I have deemed most sacred? or am I to think with Arbaces--what?' He
paused, and strode rapidly away in the impatience of a man who strives
to get rid of himself. But the Nazarene was one of those hardy,
vigorous, and enthusiastic men, by whom God in all times has worked the
revolutions of earth, and those, above all, in the establishment and in
the reformation of His own religion--men who were formed to convert,
because formed to endure. It is men of this mould whom nothing
discourages, nothing dismays; in the fervor of belief they are inspired
and they inspire. Their reason first kindles their passion, but the
passion is the instrument they use; they force themselves into men's
hearts, while they appear only to appeal to their judgment. Nothing is
so contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the tale of
Orpheus--it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of
sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
Olinthus did not then suffer Apaecides thus easily to escape him. He
overtook and addressed him thus:
'I do not wonder, Apaecides, that I distress you; that I shake all the
elements of your mind: that you are lost in doubt; that you drift here
and there in the vast ocean of uncertain and benighted thought. I
wonder not at this, but bear with me a little; watch and pray--the
darkness shall vanish, the storm sleep, and God Himself, as He came of
yore on the seas of Samaria, shall walk over the lulled billows, to the
delivery of your soul. Ours is a religion jealous in its demands, but
how infinitely prodigal in its gifts! It troubles you for an hour, it
repays you by immortality.'
'Such promises,' said Apaecides, sullenly, 'are the tricks by which man
is ever gulled. Oh, glorious were the promises which led me to the
shrine of Isis!'
'But,' answered the Nazarene, 'ask thy reason, can that religion be
sound which outrages all morality? You are told to worship your gods.
What are those gods, even according to yourselves? What their actions,
what their attributes? Are they not all represented to you as the
blackest of criminals? yet you are asked to serve them as the holiest of
divinities. Jupiter himself is a parricide and an adulterer. What are
the meaner deities but imitators of his vices? You are told not to
murder, but you worship murderers; you are told not to commit adultery,
and you make your prayers to an adulterer! Oh! what is this but a
mockery of the holiest part of man's nature, which is faith? Turn now
to the God, the one, the true God, to whose shrine I would lead you. If
He seem to you too sublime, two shadowy, for those human associations,
those touching connections between Creator and creature, to which the
weak heart clings--contemplate Him in His Son, who put on mortality like
ourselves. His mortality is not indeed declared, like that of your
fabled gods, by the vices of our nature, but by the practice of all its
virtues. In Him are united the austerest morals with the tenderest
affections. If He were but a mere man, He had been worthy to become a
god. You honour Socrates--he has his sect, his disciples, his schools.
But what are the doubtful virtues of the Athenian, to the bright, the
