Domitia

CHAPTER XXV.
BY A RAZOR

Two days passed, and Domitia remained undisturbed. No tidings reached her from Rome, but to her great relief the Cæsar Domitian did not appear. That a meeting with him must take place, she was aware, but in what manner he would address her, that she could not guess; whether he would take occasion to exhibit ignoble revenge for her treatment of him on the night when he sought refuge in her house, or whether he would approach her as a lover. This the sequel could alone disclose. The second alternative was what she mainly dreaded.

On the third day, hearing a bustle in the hall, and conjecturing that some one had arrived, and that the critical moment had come, Domitia waited in her chamber with beating heart, and long-drawn sighs. When the curtains were sharply withdrawn, to her surprise and delight her mother entered, radiant in her best toilette, her face, as far as could be judged through the paint, wreathed with smiles.

“Well!” said she. – “But first a seat. You sly fox! who would have thought it? But there – I am content. I have sent out no invitations to a little supper, there is now no occasion for it, and one does not care to spend – without an expectation of it leading to results. To look at your face no one would have supposed that depth in you – and to play us all such a trick, poor Lamia and me. It would really make a widow of a week old laugh. Don’t smother me, my dear, and above all, don’t cry – that is to say, if you cry do not let your tears fall on my cheek, you know I am – well – well – it might spoil my complexion.”

“Mother,” gasped the unhappy girl – “O, how can you speak to me in this manner. You know, you must know, I have been carried away against my will. O mother, Lucius does not suppose that – ”

“My dear child, it does not concern me in the least, whether the kitten carried off the rat, or the rat the kitten. Here you are in the rat’s hole, and all you have to look to is to eat your rat and not let the rat eat you.”

“Oh, mother! mother! take me home with you.”

“Domitia, do not be a baby. Of course you cannot return. You have bidden farewell to the household Gods, and renounced the paternal threshold.”

“Mother – I have embraced the gate-posts of the Lamiæ.”

“But the Gods of that family have been unable or unwilling to retain you, they have resigned you to – I cannot say, in conscience, nobler hands, for the Flavian family – well, we know what we know, – but to more powerful hands, that will not let you go. Besides, my dear, I have no wish to have you home again. When a bird has flown, it has said farewell to the nest, to its cracked eggshells and worms, and must find another.”

“Do not be cruel!”

“I am not cruel – but what has happened must be accepted, that is the true philosophy of life, better than all that nonsense declaimed by philosophers.”

“Mother! I will not stay here.”

“Domitia, here you must stay till somebody comes to take you away. Why! as the Gods love me! I expect yet to hear you proclaimed Augusta, and to have to offer incense and to pour a libation on your altar. Think – what an honor to have your wax head among the ancestors, as a divinity to be worshipped – but no – I am wrong there, you would be in the lararium, or set up in the vestibule, a deified ancestress or member of the family is exalted from the atrium to the temple. I really will go out of my way and have a little supper to honor the occasion. I see it all – we shall before long have a college of Flavian priests, and all the whole bundle of mouldy old usurers, and tax-collectors, and their frowsy womankind will be gods, with temples and a cult, and you, my dear! It makes my mouth water.”

“But, mother, why am I carried away?”

“Why! O you jocose little creature, why? because some person I know of has taken a fancy to your monkey ways and baby face.”

“I belong to Lamia. I have been married to him.”

“Oh! that is easily settled. I thank the Immortals, divorce is easily obtained in Rome – with money, influence in Rome – to the end of time, my dear.”

“I do not desire to be divorced – I will not be divorced. I love Lucius and he loves me.”

“You are a child – just away from your dolls, and know nothing of life.”

“But, mother, there are laws. I will throw myself on the protection of the Senate.”

Longa Duilia laughed aloud. “Silly fool! laws bind the subjects and the weak, not princes and the strong. Make your mind up to accept what has happened. It is the work of destiny.”

“It is an infamous crime.”

“My child, do not use such words, what might be crime among common folk is pleasantry among princes. They all do it. It is their right. It is of no avail your attempting resistance. Domitian has taken a fancy to you – he is young, good-looking, Cæsar, all sorts of honors have been heaped on him, and he has but to put out a rake and comb together all the good in the world. And” – she drew nearer to her daughter, – “he may be Emperor some day. Titus has but one lumpy, ugly girl – no son.”

“I care not. I hate him! let me go back to Lamia!”

“That is impossible.”

“Not if I will!”

“You cannot. You would be stayed by the servants here.”

“But you – cannot you help me? O mother, if you have any love for me! For the sake of my dear, dear father!”

“Even if I would, I could not. Why, there is not a court in Rome, not the Senate even can afford you protection and release. The Flavians are up now.”

“I will appeal to Vespasian, to the Emperor!”

“He is in Egypt.”

The girl panted and beat her head with her hands.

“Lamia! he shall release me.”

“He needs some one to release him.”

“How so?”

“He insulted Domitian in the Senate House – all because of you, and is under arrest. For less matters, than what he has done, lives have been lost.”

“He will never – no, never!” she could not finish her sentence, her heart was boiling over, and she burst into a paroxysm of sobs.

“The Gods! the Gods help me!” she cried.

“My dear Domitia, you might as well call on the walls to assist you. The Gods! They are just as bad as mortals. You may cry, but they will look between their fingers, accept your prayers and offerings and laugh at you as a fool. Why, as the Gods love me! Does not the family derive from Lamius, and was not he the child of Hercules and Omphale? It was very naughty and shocking, and all that sort of thing – but they all do it, and are not in the least disposed to assist you. On the contrary, they will back up the ravisher.”

“Then I have no help – save in myself. I will never be his.”

“Be advised by me, you foolish child. When you come under a cherry tree you pluck all the ripe fruit; and what you cannot eat yourself you give to your friends. Do you not perceive that having been fortunate enough to catch the fancy of the young Cæsar, you can use this fancy and make large profit out of it? He is already very freely distributing offices to all his friends and such as most grossly flatter him. What may not you obtain for me! That is if I take a liking for any one and wish to marry him, you must positively obtain the proconsulship of Syria or Egypt for him. And as to Lamia, he can be choked off with a prætorship.”

The veil was plucked aside, and Domitian entered.

Longa Duilia rose; not so Domitia Longina.

He stood for a moment looking at the girl.

“Saucy still?” he said.

“Wrathful at this treatment,” she answered, with her eyes on the ground, and her hands clasped. “Because I would have denied to you a suppliant, the hospitality of our house, must I, unsoliciting it, be forced to accept yours?”

“Domitia, has your mother informed you what I have designed for you?”

“I should prefer that you concerned yourself with your prætorial duties.”

Domitian bit his lip. He had been invested with the office of prætor of the city, but in his overweening conceit deemed it unworthy of him to discharge the duties of the office.

“It is my intent, Domitia, to elevate you into the Flavian family.”

“O how gracious!” sneered the girl, – “taken up like Trygdeus.”

“Domitia!” exclaimed her mother, then at once perceiving that the allusion was lost on the uneducated prince, she said: —

“Quite so, on the wings of the Bird of Jove.”⁷

The young man became crimson. He was convinced that there was some bitter sneer in the words of Domitia, and he was ashamed at his inability to comprehend the allusion.

“What I intend for you,” said he, moving from the doorway to where he could observe her face, “what I intend for you is what there is not another woman in Rome who would not give her jewels to obtain.”

“Then I pray you address yourself to them. Pay your debts with their subscriptions, and leave me who am content to be disregarded, in the tranquillity I so love – with my husband, Ælius Lamia.”

“Lamia!” laughed Domitian. “You are to be divorced from him. Your mother is willing.”

“My mother has no more power over me. I am out of the paternal family.”

“You will consent yourself.”

“Who will make me?”

“That will I. It is easy to rend apart – ”

“Any fool can break, not all can bind.”

“Domitia, be advised and do not incense me.”

“I care not for myself. I have but one wish. Let me go. Take, if you will, what is my property, take that of Lamia, but let us retire together to some little farm and be quiet there, drive us, if you will, out of Italy – but do not separate us.”

“You talk at random. Follow me.”

He led the way, stood in the entrance, holding back the curtain, and Duilia drew her daughter from her seat.

“Come, – Lamia awaits you,” said Domitian.

Then the girl started to her feet.

“He is here! You will be generous, – like a prince!”

“Come with me.”

She now followed with beating heart. Her cheeks were flushed, a sparkle was in her eye, her breath came fast through her nostrils, her teeth were set.

Without were many lictors lining the way, filling the court.

He led into that portion of the villa where were the baths and entered the warm room. There Domitia saw at once Lamia, stripped almost to the skin, held by soldiers of the prince’s guard, his mouth gagged, and a surgeon standing by with a razor.

She would have sprung to him and thrown her arms around him, had she not been restrained.

“Domitia,” said the young Cæsar; “you will see how that to divorce you is in my power, unless you consent to it yourself, and give yourself to me.”

Domitia trembled in every limb. She looked with distended eyes at Lamia, who had no power to speak, save with his eyes, and they were fixed on her.

A large marble bath stood near, and both hot and cold water could be turned on into it.

She knew but too well what the threat was. Seneca had so perished under Nero, – by the cutting of the veins he had bled to death.

Petronius, master of the Revels to the same tyrant, had suffered in the same manner, and as his blood flowed he had mocked and hearkened to ribald verses till the power to listen and to flaunt his indifference were at an end.

And now the second Nero, not yet full blown, but giving earnest of what he would be, was threatening Lamia with the same death. It was not a gradual and painless extinction, but a death of great suffering, for it led to agonizing cramps, knotting the muscles, and contracting the limbs. Domitia knew this – she had heard the dying agonies of Seneca and Petronius described, – and she looked with quivering lips and bloodless cheeks on him whom she loved best – on the only one in the world she loved, threatened with the same awful death.

She would do anything short of taking the Cæsar Domitian as her husband in place of him to whom she was bound by the most sacred ties, – anything short of that to save the life of Lamia.

The struggle in her bosom was terrible; her head spun, she tried to speak but could frame no words.

She sought some guidance in Lamia’s eyes, but her own swam with tears, and she could not read what he would advise.

“My child,” said her mother, “of course it is all very sad, and that sort of thing – but it is and must be so. If a wilful girl will not be brought to reason in any other way – well, it is a pity.”

Domitian turned to Domitia.

“His life is in your power,” said he. “He has insulted me before the Conscript Fathers, and is under arrest. I have brought him hither – to die. But I give his life to you on the one condition that you allow divorce to be pronounced between you and him, and that in his place you accept me.”

Domitia turned her face away.

“So be it,” said he. “Surgeon, open his veins.”

With a slash of the razor across the arm at the fold, an artery was severed, and the black blood spurted forth.

Uttering a cry of horror, Domitia battled with those who held her, to reach and clasp her husband.

“Cut the other arm,” commanded the prince, “then cast him into the bath.”

“I yield,” gasped Domitia, burying her face in her hands and sinking to her knees.

“Then bind up his wound, and let him go!”

“Destiny must be fulfilled,” said Elymas who stood behind. “You were born for the purple.”

CHAPTER XXVI.
INTERMEZZO

The dramatic composer has this great advantage over the novelist, that when he has to allow for a certain amount of time, – it may be for years – to elapse between the parts of his play, he lowers the curtain, the first or second act is concluded, ices, oranges are taken round in the stalls; the orchestra strikes up an overture, the gentlemen retire to the promenade gallery for a cigar, and the ladies discuss their acquaintances, and the toilette of those in the boxes, after having explored the theatre with their glasses.

At Munich and Bayreuth, at the performance of Wagner’s operas, the space allowed between the acts is sufficient for a walk and for a meal. Thus the lapse of time between the parts of a drama is given a real expression, and the minds of those who have followed the first part of the story are prepared to accept a change in the conditions of the performers, such as could be brought about solely by the passage of time.

But a novelist has no such assistance, he is not able to produce such an illusion; even when his story appears in a serial, he is without this advantage, for the movement of his tale, when it is rapid, is artificially delayed by the limitations laid down by the editors of the magazines, and the space allotted to him, and when he does require a pause to allow for the gliding away of a certain number of years, that pause consists of precisely the same number of days as intervened in the serial publication, between chapters in which the action should have been continuous.

The writer must, therefore, throw himself on the indulgence of the reader, and plead to be allowed like a Greek chorus to stand forward and narrate what has taken place, during a period of time concerning which he proposes to pass over without detailed account, before he resumes the thread of his narrative.

When Vespasian was hailed Emperor by the troops he was aged sixty-one, and none supposed that his reign would be long. He associated his eldest son Titus with him in government, but would not allow the younger, Domitian, any power.

When the Emperor reached the capital, he learned the misuse Domitian had made of that which he had arrogated to himself, or which had been granted to him by the Senate, in his father’s absence. The old Emperor was vastly displeased at the misconduct of his younger son, and would perhaps have dealt severely with him, had he not been dissuaded from so doing by Titus, who pointed out, that as he himself had no son, in all probability Domitian would at some time succeed to the purple.

The young man, kept in the background, not even allowed the command in any military expedition, carefully watched and restrained from giving vent to his natural disposition, chafed at his enforced inactivity, and at the marked manner in which he was set behind his elder brother, a man who, by the capture of Jerusalem, had gained a name, and had attached the soldiery to him. Domitian was known to the military only by his abortive attempt to pluck the laurels in Germany from the brow of his kinsman Cerealis, for the adornment of his own head.

Domitian was granted none of the titles that indicated association in the Empire. He was not suffered to take part in public affairs. His insolence in neglecting the duties of prætor of the city, as beneath his dignity, was punished in this manner. When Titus celebrated his triumph after the Jewish war, with unusual magnificence, he and his father rode in chariots of state, but Domitian was made to follow on horseback. When Vespasian and his eldest son showed themselves in public, they were carried on thrones, whereas Domitian was made to attend in the rear in a litter.

The envious, ambitious young prince, under this treatment was driven to wear a mask, and he affected a love of literature, and indifference to the affairs of state. Titus, who knew less of him than his father, was deceived, but Vespasian was too well aware of the radically evil heart of his younger son to trust him in any way.

Domitia was unable to escape from compulsary association with this imperial cub. Vespasian was unwilling to undo the past, and have the scandal raked up again, and public attention called to it. The minds of the volatile Romans had forgotten the circumstances and were occupied with new matters of gossip. Domitian married Domitia Longina, and the old Emperor after some consideration concluded that she should remain his wife.

But the relations between her and the prince were strained. She hated him for what he had done, and she made no attempt to affect a liking she did not feel.

Lamia remained unmarried; he had cared for no other woman, and he felt that there was not to be found one who could ever be to him what he had hoped Domitia would have proved.

Once Titus asked him his reason for not marrying.

“Why do you inquire?” said Lamia, with a bitter smile, “do you also wish to carry off my wife?”

On the death of the old Emperor, Titus succeeded without any difficulties being raised. His father had already associated him in the Empire and had gradually transferred the conduct of affairs to his hands.

Hitherto the brothers had lived on very good terms with each other, at all events in appearance, and Domitian had been sufficiently prudent to veil his jealousy of Titus, who had shown himself kindly disposed towards his younger brother.

On the accession of Titus, Domitian hoped to be associated with him in government in the same manner as Titus had been with his father. In this he was disappointed, his disappointment got the better of his prudence, and he declared that his brother had falsified the will of Vespasian, who had divided the power equally between them.

On the first day of his reign, Titus designated Domitian as his successor, but he allowed him no independent power; and the young prince at once involved himself in intrigues and sought to rouse the troops to revolt, and to proclaim him in place of Titus.

The condition of Domitia would have been more intolerable than it was, but that Vespasian, up to his death, retained his younger son about his person, in Rome, and it was but rarely that the prince was able to escape to his villa, at Albanum, where Domitia remained in seclusion. And his visits there were not only few and far between, but also brief.

He was in bad humor when there, at liberty to vent his irritation at the manner in which he was treated by his father, and the behavior towards him of Domitia was not calculated to dispel his vapors.

A considerable change had come over her face. The expression had altered; it had been full of sweetness, and the muscles had been flexible. Now it was hard-set and stern.

Domitian cursed her for the fascination she still exercised over him. It was perhaps her unyielding temper, her openly expressed scorn, and her biting sarcasms which stung him to maintain his grip on her, knowing that this was to her torture. Yet her beauty exercised over him a hold from which he could not escape. His feelings towards her were a mixture of passionate admiration and savage resentment. From every one else he met with adulation, or at least respect, from her neither. His will was a law to a legion of sycophants, to her it was something she seemed to find a pleasure in defying.

Domitia nursed her resentment, and this soured her nature and reflected itself in her features.

In the long Chiaramonte Gallery of the Vatican Museum is an exquisite and uninjured bust of Domitia Longina as a girl; the face is one that holds the passer-by, it is so sweet, so beautiful, so full of a glorious soul.

In the Florence Gallery is one of the same woman after Domitian had snatched her away from Lamia, and hidden her in his Alban villa. Lovely the face is still, but the beautiful soul has lost its light, the softness has gone out of the face, and the shadow of a darkened life broods over it.

At Albanum the solitary Domitia had the satisfaction of being attended by her servant Euphrosyne, and the faithful Eboracus was also allowed to be there as her minister.

She occasionally visited her mother in Rome, but the chasm between them widened. Duilia could not understand her daughter’s refusal to accept the inevitable and failure to lay hold of her opportunities, and, as she termed it, “eat her rat.” The older Duilia grew, the less inclined she was to acknowledge her age, and the more frivolous and scheming she became. She was never weary of weaving little webs of mystery and of contriving plans; and the initiating of all these was a supper. She was well off, liked ostentation, yet was withal of a frugal mind, and never ordered costly dishes, or broached her best wine without calculation that they would lead to valuable results.

It was possible that Vespasian might have interfered in favor of Domitia, had he been made to understand how strongly she disliked the union, but Domitia herself was never able to obtain an interview with the aged Emperor, and Duilia took pains to assure him that the marriage had been contracted entirely with her approval, that the union with Lamia had been entered on without feeling on either side, in obedience to an expressed wish of Corbulo before his death, and that her daughter was quite content to be released.

The period was not one in which the personal feelings of a girl were counted as deserving of much thought, certainly not of being considered by an Emperor, and Vespasian took no steps to relieve Domitia. Titus was better aware of the facts, and had some notion of the wrench it had been to the young married people, but he was not desirous of having the matter reopened. It would not conduce to the credit of the Flavian house, and that was in his eyes a matter of paramount consideration – as the process of deification of the Flavians had already begun.