Chapter II
TWO WORTHIES.
IN the earlier times of Rome the priesthood was a profession, not of
lucre but of honour. It was embraced by the noblest citizens--it was
forbidden to the plebeians. Afterwards, and long previous to the
present date, it was equally open to all ranks; at least, that part of
the profession which embraced the flamens, or priests--not of religion
generally but of peculiar gods. Even the priest of Jupiter (the Flamen
Dialis) preceded by a lictor, and entitled by his office to the entrance
of the senate, at first the especial dignitary of the patricians, was
subsequently the choice of the people. The less national and less
honored deities were usually served by plebeian ministers; and many
embraced the profession, as now the Roman Catholic Christians enter the
monastic fraternity, less from the impulse of devotion than the
suggestions of a calculating poverty. Thus Calenus, the priest of Isis,
was of the lowest origin. His relations, though not his parents, were
freedmen. He had received from them a liberal education, and from his
father a small patrimony, which he had soon exhausted. He embraced the
priesthood as a last resource from distress. Whatever the state
emoluments of the sacred profession, which at that time were probably
small, the officers of a popular temple could never complain of the
profits of their calling. There is no profession so lucrative as that
which practises on the superstition of the multitude.
Calenus had but one surviving relative at Pompeii, and that was Burbo.
Various dark and disreputable ties, stronger than those of blood, united
together their hearts and interests; and often the minister of Isis
stole disguised and furtively from the supposed austerity of his
devotions; and gliding through the back door of the retired gladiator, a
man infamous alike by vices and by profession, rejoiced to throw off the
last rag of an hypocrisy which, but for the dictates of avarice, his
ruling passion, would at all time have sat clumsily upon a nature too
brutal for even the mimicry of virtue.
Wrapped in one of those large mantles which came in use among the Romans
in proportion as they dismissed the toga, whose ample folds well
concealed the form, and in which a sort of hood (attached to it)
afforded no less a security to the features, Calenus now sat in the
small and private chamber of the wine-cellar, whence a small passage ran
at once to that back entrance, with which nearly all the houses of
Pompeii were furnished.
Opposite to him sat the sturdy Burbo, carefully counting on a table
between them a little pile of coins which the priest had just poured
from his purse--for purses were as common then as now, with this
difference--they were usually better furnished!
'You see,' said Calenus, that we pay you handsomely, and you ought to
thank me for recommending you to so advantageous a market.'
'I do, my cousin, I do,' replied Burbo, affectionately, as he swept the
coins into a leathern receptacle, which he then deposited in his girdle,
drawing the buckle round his capacious waist more closely than he was
wont to do in the lax hours of his domestic avocations. 'And by Isis,
Pisis, and Nisis, or whatever other gods there may be in Egypt, my
little Nydia is a very Hesperides--a garden of gold to me.'
'She sings well, and plays like a muse,' returned Calenus; 'those are
virtues that he who employs me always pays liberally.'
'He is a god,' cried Burbo, enthusiastically; 'every rich man who is
generous deserves to be worshipped. But come, a cup of wine, old
friend: tell me more about it. What does she do? she is frightened,
talks of her oath, and reveals nothing.'
'Nor will I, by my right hand! I, too, have taken that terrible oath of
secrecy.'
'Oath! what are oaths to men like us?'
'True oaths of a common fashion; but this!'--and the stalwart priest
shuddered as he spoke. 'Yet,' he continued, in emptying a huge cup of
unmixed wine, 'I own to thee, that it is not so much the oath that I
dread as the vengeance of him who proposed it. By the gods! he is a
mighty sorcerer, and could draw my confession from the moon, did I dare
to make it to her. Talk no more of this. By Pollux! wild as those
banquets are which I enjoy with him, I am never quite at my ease there.
I love, my boy, one jolly hour with thee, and one of the plain,
unsophisticated, laughing girls that I meet in this chamber, all
smoke-dried though it be, better than whole nights of those magnificent
debauches.'
'Ho! sayest thou so! To-morrow night, please the gods, we will have
then a snug carousal.'
'With all my heart,' said the priest, rubbing his hands, and drawing
himself nearer to the table.
At this moment they heard a slight noise at the door, as of one feeling
the handle. The priest lowered the hood over his head.
'Tush!' whispered the host, 'it is but the blind girl,' as Nydia opened
the door, and entered the apartment.
'Ho! girl, and how durst thou? thou lookest pale--thou hast kept late
revels? No matter, the young must be always the young,' said Burbo,
encouragingly.
The girl made no answer, but she dropped on one of the seats with an air
of lassitude. Her color went and came rapidly: she beat the floor
impatiently with her small feet, then she suddenly raised her face, and
said with a determined voice:
'Master, you may starve me if you will--you may beat me--you may
threaten me with death--but I will go no more to that unholy place!'
'How, fool!' said Burbo, in a savage voice, and his heavy brows met
darkly over his fierce and bloodshot eyes; 'how, rebellious! Take care.'
'I have said it,' said the poor girl, crossing her hands on her breast.
'What! my modest one, sweet vestal, thou wilt go no more! Very well,
thou shalt be carried.'
'I will raise the city with my cries,' said she, passionately; and the
color mounted to her brow.
'We will take care of that too; thou shalt go gagged.'
'Then may the gods help me!' said Nydia, rising; 'I will appeal to the
magistrates.'
'Thine oath remember!' said a hollow voice, as for the first time
Calenus joined in the dialogue.
At these words a trembling shook the frame of the unfortunate girl; she
clasped her hands imploringly. 'Wretch that I am!' she cried, and burst
violently into sobs.
Whether or not it was the sound of that vehement sorrow which brought
the gentle Stratonice to the spot, her grisly form at this moment
appeared in the chamber.
'How now? what hast thou been doing with my slave, brute?' said she,
angrily, to Burbo.
'Be quiet, wife,' said he, in a tone half-sullen, half-timid; 'you want
new girdles and fine clothes, do you? Well then, take care of your
slave, or you may want them long. Voe capiti tuo--vengeance on thy
head, wretched one!'
'What is this?' said the hag, looking from one to the other.
Nydia started as by a sudden impulse from the wall against which she had
leaned: she threw herself at the feet of Stratonice; she embraced her
knees, and looking up at her with those sightless but touching eyes:
'O my mistress!' sobbed she, 'you are a woman--you have had sisters--you
have been young like me, feel for me--save me! I will go to those
horrible feasts no more!'
'Stuff!' said the hag, dragging her up rudely by one of those delicate
hands, fit for no harsher labor than that of weaving the flowers which
made her pleasure or her trade; 'stuff! these fine scruples are not for
slaves.'
'Hark ye,' said Burbo, drawing forth his purse, and chinking its
contents: 'you hear this music, wife; by Pollux! if you do not break in
yon colt with a tight rein, you will hear it no more.'
'The girl is tired,' said Stratonice, nodding to Calenus; 'she will be
more docile when you next want her.'
'You! you! who is here?' cried Nydia, casting her eyes round the
apartment with so fearful and straining a survey, that Calenus rose in
alarm from his seat.
'She must see with those eyes!' muttered he.
'Who is here! Speak, in heaven's name! Ah, if you were blind like me,
you would be less cruel,' said she; and she again burst into tears.
'Take her away,' said Burbo, impatiently; 'I hate these whimperings.'
'Come!' said Stratonice, pushing the poor child by the shoulders. Nydia
drew herself aside, with an air to which resolution gave dignity.
'Hear me,' she said; 'I have served you faithfully--I who was brought
up--Ah! my mother, my poor mother! didst thou dream I should come to
this?' She dashed the tear from her eyes, and proceeded: 'Command me in
aught else, and I will obey; but I tell you now, hard, stern, inexorable
as you are--I tell you that I will go there no more; or, if I am forced
there, that I will implore the mercy of the praetor himself--I have said
it. Hear me, ye gods, I swear!'
The hag's eyes glowed with fire; she seized the child by the hair with
one hand, and raised on high the other--that formidable right hand, the
least blow of which seemed capable to crush the frail and delicate form
that trembled in her grasp. That thought itself appeared to strike her,
for she suspended the blow, changed her purpose, and dragging Nydia to
the wall, seized from a hook a rope, often, alas! applied to a similar
purpose, and the next moment the shrill, the agonized shrieks of the
blind girl, rang piercingly through the house.
Chapter III
GLAUCUS MAKES A PURCHASE THAT AFTERWARDS COSTS HIM DEAR.
'HOLLA, my brave fellows!' said Lepidus, stooping his head as he entered
the low doorway of the house of Burbo. 'We have come to see which of
you most honors your lanista.' The gladiators rose from the table in
respect to three gallants known to be among the gayest and richest
youths of Pompeii, and whose voices were therefore the dispensers of
amphitheatrical reputation.
'What fine animals!' said Clodius to Glaucus: 'worthy to be gladiators!'
'It is a pity they are not warriors,' returned Glaucus.
A singular thing it was to see the dainty and fastidious Lepidus, whom
in a banquet a ray of daylight seemed to blind--whom in the bath a
breeze of air seemed to blast--in whom Nature seemed twisted and
perverted from every natural impulse, and curdled into one dubious thing
of effeminacy and art--a singular thing was it to see this Lepidus, now
all eagerness, and energy, and life, patting the vast shoulders of the
gladiators with a blanched and girlish hand, feeling with a mincing
gripe their great brawn and iron muscles, all lost in calculating
admiration at that manhood which he had spent his life in carefully
banishing from himself.
So have we seen at this day the beardless flutterers of the saloons of
London thronging round the heroes of the Fives-court--so have we seen
them admire, and gaze, and calculate a bet--so have we seen them meet
together, in ludicrous yet in melancholy assemblage, the two extremes of
civilized society--the patrons of pleasure and its slaves--vilest of all
slaves--at once ferocious and mercenary; male prostitutes, who sell
their strength as women their beauty; beasts in act, but baser than
beasts in motive, for the last, at least, do not mangle themselves for
money!
'Ha! Niger, how will you fight?' said Lepidus: 'and with whom?'
'Sporus challenges me,' said the grim giant; 'we shall fight to the
death, I hope.'
'Ah! to be sure,' grunted Sporus, with a twinkle of his small eye.
'He takes the sword, I the net and the trident: it will be rare sport. I
hope the survivor will have enough to keep up the dignity of the crown.'
'Never fear, we'll fill the purse, my Hector,' said Clodius:
'let me see--you fight against Niger? Glaucus, a bet--I back Niger.'
'I told you so,' cried Niger exultingly. 'The noble Clodius knows me;
count yourself dead already, my Sporus.'
Clodius took out his tablet. 'A bet--ten sestertia. What say you?'
'So be it,' said Glaucus. 'But whom have we here? I never saw this
hero before'; and he glanced at Lydon, whose limbs were slighter than
those of his companions, and who had something of grace, and something
even of nobleness, in his face, which his profession had not yet wholly
destroyed.
'It is Lydon, a youngster, practised only with the wooden sword as yet,'
answered Niger, condescendingly. 'But he has the true blood in him, and
has challenged Tetraides.'
'He challenged me,' said Lydon: 'I accept the offer.'
'And how do you fight?' asked Lepidus. 'Chut, my boy, wait a while
before you contend with Tetraides.' Lydon smiled disdainfully.
'Is he a citizen or a slave?' said Clodius.
'A citizen--we are all citizens here,' quoth Niger.
'Stretch out your arm, my Lydon,' said Lepidus, with the air of a
connoisseur.
The gladiator, with a significant glance at his companions, extended an
arm which, if not so huge in its girth as those of his comrades, was so
firm in its muscles, so beautifully symmetrical in its proportions, that
the three visitors uttered simultaneously an admiring exclamation.
'Well, man, what is your weapon?' said Clodius, tablet in hand.
'We are to fight first with the cestus; afterwards, if both survive,
with swords,' returned Tetraides, sharply, and with an envious scowl.
'With the cestus!' cried Glaucus; 'there you are wrong, Lydon; the
cestus is the Greek fashion: I know it well. You should have encouraged
flesh for that contest: you are far too thin for it--avoid the cestus.'
