'Never, my brother, never!'
'Dost thou not imagine, according to thy belief, that the evil-doer is
punished hereafter, and the good rewarded?'
'Can you doubt it?'
'Dost thou think, then, that he who is truly good should sacrifice every
selfish interest in his zeal for virtue?'
'He who doth so is the equal of the gods.'
'And thou believest that, according to the purity and courage with which
he thus acts, shall be his portion of bliss beyond the grave?'
'So we are taught to hope.'
'Kiss me, my sister. One question more. Thou art to be wedded to
Glaucus: perchance that marriage may separate us more hopelessly--but
not of this speak I now--thou art to be married to Glaucus--dost thou
love him? Nay, my sister, answer me by words.'
'Yes!' murmured Ione, blushing.
'Dost thou feel that, for his sake, thou couldst renounce pride, brave
dishonour, and incur death? I have heard that when women really love,
it is to that excess.'
'My brother, all this could I do for Glaucus, and feel that it were not
a sacrifice. There is no sacrifice to those who love, in what is borne
for the one we love.'
'Enough! shall woman feel thus for man, and man feel less devotion to
his God?'
He spoke no more. His whole countenance seemed instinct and inspired
with a divine life: his chest swelled proudly; his eyes glowed: on his
forehead was writ the majesty of a man who can dare to be noble! He
turned to meet the eyes of Ione--earnest, wistful, fearful--he kissed
her fondly, strained her warmly to his breast, and in a moment more he
had left the house.
Long did Ione remain in the same place, mute and thoughtful. The
maidens again and again came to warn her of the deepening noon, and her
engagement to Diomed's banquet. At length she woke from her reverie,
and prepared, not with the pride of beauty, but listless and melancholy,
for the festival: one thought alone reconciled her to the promised
visit--she should meet Glaucus--she could confide to him her alarm and
uneasiness for her brother.
Chapter III
A FASHIONABLE PARTY AND A DINNER A LA MODE IN POMPEII.
MEANWHILE Sallust and Glaucus were slowly strolling towards the house of
Diomed. Despite the habits of his life, Sallust was not devoid of many
estimable qualities. He would have been an active friend, a useful
citizen--in short, an excellent man, if he had not taken it into his
head to be a philosopher. Brought up in the schools in which Roman
plagiarism worshipped the echo of Grecian wisdom, he had imbued himself
with those doctrines by which the later Epicureans corrupted the simple
maxims of their great master. He gave himself altogether up to
pleasure, and imagined there was no sage like a boon companion. Still,
however, he had a considerable degree of learning, wit, and good nature;
and the hearty frankness of his very vices seemed like virtue itself
beside the utter corruption of Clodius and the prostrate effeminacy of
Lepidus; and therefore Glaucus liked him the best of his companions; and
he, in turn, appreciating the nobler qualities of the Athenian, loved
him almost as much as a cold muraena, or a bowl of the best Falernian.
'This is a vulgar old fellow, this Diomed,' said Sallust: 'but he has
some good qualities--in his cellar!'
'And some charming ones--in his daughter.'
'True, Glaucus: but you are not much moved by them, methinks. I fancy
Clodius is desirous to be your successor.'
'He is welcome. At the banquet of Julia's beauty, no guest, be sure, is
considered a musca.'
'You are severe: but she has, indeed, something of the Corinthian about
her--they will be well matched, after all! What good-natured fellows we
are to associate with that gambling good-for-nought.'
'Pleasure unites strange varieties,' answered Glaucus. 'He amuses
me...'
'And flatters--but then he pays himself well! He powders his praise
with gold-dust.'
'You often hint that he plays unfairly--think you so really?'
'My dear Glaucus, a Roman noble has his dignity to keep up--dignity is
very expensive--Clodius must cheat like a scoundrel, in order to live
like a gentleman.'
'Ha ha!--well, of late I have renounced the dice. Ah! Sallust, when I
am wedded to Ione, I trust I may yet redeem a youth of follies. We are
both born for better things than those in which we sympathize now--born
to render our worship in nobler temples than the stye of Epicurus.'
'Alas!' returned Sallust, in rather a melancholy tone, 'what do we know
more than this--life is short--beyond the grave all is dark? There is no
wisdom like that which says "enjoy".'
'By Bacchus! I doubt sometimes if we do enjoy the utmost of which life
is capable.'
'I am a moderate man,' returned Sallust, 'and do not ask "the utmost".
We are like malefactors, and intoxicate ourselves with wine and myrrh,
as we stand on the brink of death; but, if we did not do so, the abyss
would look very disagreeable. I own that I was inclined to be gloomy
until I took so heartily to drinking--that is a new life, my Glaucus.'
'Yes! but it brings us next morning to a new death.'
'Why, the next morning is unpleasant, I own; but, then, if it were not
so, one would never be inclined to read. I study betimes--because, by
the gods! I am generally unfit for anything else till noon.'
'Fie, Scythian!'
'Pshaw! the fate of Pentheus to him who denies Bacchus.'
'Well, Sallust, with all your faults, you are the best profligate I ever
met: and verily, if I were in danger of life, you are the only man in
all Italy who would stretch out a finger to save me.'
'Perhaps I should not, if it were in the middle of supper. But, in
truth, we Italians are fearfully selfish.'
'So are all men who are not free,' said Glaucus, with a sigh. 'Freedom
alone makes men sacrifice to each other.'
'Freedom, then, must be a very fatiguing thing to an Epicurean,'
answered Sallust. 'But here we are at our host's.'
As Diomed's villa is one of the most considerable in point of size of
any yet discovered at Pompeii, and is, moreover, built much according to
the specific instructions for a suburban villa laid down by the Roman
architect, it may not be uninteresting briefly to describe the plan of
the apartments through which our visitors passed.
They entered, then, by the same small vestibule at which we have before
been presented to the aged Medon, and passed at once into a colonnade,
technically termed the peristyle; for the main difference between the
suburban villa and the town mansion consisted in placing, in the first,
the said colonnade in exactly the same place as that which in the town
mansion was occupied by the atrium. In the centre of the peristyle was
an open court, which contained the impluvium.
From this peristyle descended a staircase to the offices; another narrow
passage on the opposite side communicated with a garden; various small
apartments surrounded the colonnade, appropriated probably to country
visitors. Another door to the left on entering communicated with a
small triangular portico, which belonged to the baths; and behind was
the wardrobe, in which were kept the vests of the holiday suits of the
slaves, and, perhaps, of the master. Seventeen centuries afterwards
were found those relics of ancient finery calcined and crumbling: kept
longer, alas! than their thrifty lord foresaw.
Return we to the peristyle, and endeavor now to present to the reader a
coup d'oeil of the whole suite of apartments, which immediately
stretched before the steps of the visitors.
Let him then first imagine the columns of the portico, hung with
festoons of flowers; the columns themselves in the lower part painted
red, and the walls around glowing with various frescoes; then, looking
beyond a curtain, three parts drawn aside, the eye caught the tablinum
or saloon (which was closed at will by glazed doors, now slid back into
the walls). On either side of this tablinum were small rooms, one of
which was a kind of cabinet of gems; and these apartments, as well as
the tablinum, communicated with a long gallery, which opened at either
end upon terraces; and between the terraces, and communicating with the
central part of the gallery, was a hall, in which the banquet was that
day prepared. All these apartments, though almost on a level with the
street, were one story above the garden; and the terraces communicating
with the gallery were continued into corridors, raised above the pillars
which, to the right and left, skirted the garden below.
Beneath, and on a level with the garden, ran the apartments we have
already described as chiefly appropriated to Julia.
In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his guests.
The merchant affected greatly the man of letters, and, therefore, he
also affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid particular
attention to Glaucus.
'You will see, my friend,' said he, with a wave of his hand, 'that I am
a little classical here--a little Cecropian--eh? The hall in which we
shall sup is borrowed from the Greeks. It is an OEcus Cyzicene. Noble
Sallust, they have not, I am told, this sort of apartment in Rome.'
'Oh!' replied Sallust, with a half smile; 'you Pompeians combine all
that is most eligible in Greece and in Rome; may you, Diomed, combine
the viands as well as the architecture!'
'You shall see--you shall see, my Sallust,' replied the merchant. 'We
have a taste at Pompeii, and we have also money.'
'They are two excellent things,' replied Sallust. 'But, behold, the
lady Julia!'
The main difference, as I have before remarked, in the manner of life
observed among the Athenians and Romans, was, that with the first, the
modest women rarely or never took part in entertainments; with the
latter, they were the common ornaments of the banquet; but when they
were present at the feast, it usually terminated at an early hour.
Magnificently robed in white, interwoven with pearls and threads of
gold, the handsome Julia entered the apartment.
Scarcely had she received the salutation of the two guests, ere Pansa
and his wife, Lepidus, Clodius, and the Roman senator, entered almost
simultaneously; then came the widow Fulvia; then the poet Fulvius, like
to the widow in name if in nothing else; the warrior from Herculaneum,
accompanied by his umbra, next stalked in; afterwards, the less eminent
of the guests. Ione yet tarried.
It was the mode among the courteous ancients to flatter whenever it was
in their power: accordingly it was a sign of ill-breeding to seat
themselves immediately on entering the house of their host. After
performing the salutation, which was usually accomplished by the same
cordial shake of the right hand which we ourselves retain, and
sometimes, by the yet more familiar embrace, they spent several minutes
in surveying the apartment, and admiring the bronzes, the pictures, or
the furniture, with which it was adorned--a mode very impolite according
to our refined English notions, which place good breeding in
indifference. We would not for the world express much admiration of
another man's house, for fear it should be thought we had never seen
anything so fine before!
'A beautiful statue this of Bacchus!' said the Roman senator.
'A mere trifle!' replied Diomed.
'What charming paintings!' said Fulvia.
'Mere trifles!' answered the owner.
'Exquisite candelabra!' cried the warrior.
'Exquisite!' echoed his umbra.
'Trifles! trifles!' reiterated the merchant.
Meanwhile, Glaucus found himself by one of the windows of the gallery,
which communicated with the terraces, and the fair Julia by his side.
'Is it an Athenian virtue, Glaucus,' said the merchant's daughter, 'to
shun those whom we once sought?'
'Fair Julia--no!'
'Yet methinks, it is one of the qualities of Glaucus.'
'Glaucus never shuns a friend!' replied the Greek, with some emphasis on
the last word.
'May Julia rank among the number of his friends?'
'It would be an honour to the emperor to find a friend in one so
lovely.'
'You evade my question,' returned the enamoured Julia. 'But tell me, is
it true that you admire the Neapolitan Ione?'
'Does not beauty constrain our admiration?'
'Ah! subtle Greek, still do you fly the meaning of my words. But say,
shall Julia be indeed your friend?'
'If she will so favor me, blessed be the gods! The day in which I am
thus honored shall be ever marked in white.'
'Yet, even while you speak, your eye is resting--your color comes and
goes--you move away involuntarily--you are impatient to join Ione!'
For at that moment Ione had entered, and Glaucus had indeed betrayed the
emotion noticed by the jealous beauty.
'Can admiration to one woman make me unworthy the friendship of another?
Sanction not so, O Julia the libels of the poets on your sex!'
'Well, you are right--or I will learn to think so. Glaucus, yet one
moment! You are to wed Ione; is it not so?'
'If the Fates permit, such is my blessed hope.'
'Accept, then, from me, in token of our new friendship, a present for
your bride. Nay, it is the custom of friends, you know, always to
present to bride and bridegroom some such little marks of their esteem
and favoring wishes.'
'Julia! I cannot refuse any token of friendship from one like you. I
will accept the gift as an omen from Fortune herself.'
'Then, after the feast, when the guests retire, you will descend with me
to my apartment, and receive it from my hands. Remember!' said Julia,
