CHAPTER XV.
THE LECTISTERNIUM
“My dear child,” said Duilia, “I never did a better stroke of policy than that supper a few evenings ago. It went off quite charmingly, without a hitch. I allowed that good Flavius Sabinus to talk; and he is just one of those men who enjoys himself best where he is given full flow for his twaddle. A good, worthy, commonplace man. I doubt if he has push in him, but he is just so situated now that he must go ahead. The news is most encouraging. Mucianus is on his way to Italy at the head of an army. Primus, with his legions, is approaching; he has beaten the troops sent against him, and has sacked Cremona; there are positively none who hold by Vitellius except his brother in Campania, and his German bodyguard. Domitia,” the widow dropped her voice, “we can do better than with that milksop Ælius Lamia.”
“Mother, I will have no other.”
“Then we must push him up into position. But come, my dear, we must show ourselves at the Lectisternia. It will be expected of us, and be setting a good example, and all that sort of thing, and it is positively wicked to mope indoors when we ought to be seen in the streets and the forum. So there, make yourself ready. I am going instantly. I have ordered round the palanquins, and, as you may perceive, I am dressed and my hair done to go out. That supper was quite a success.”
The time was now that of the Saturnalia, lasting seven days, beginning on the 17th December with a strange institution, a banquet of the gods. Usually the several gods had their feasts in their own temples and invited others to them, but on certain solemn occasions all banqueted together in public. The distress, the butcheries, the general confusion caused by the setting up and casting down of emperors – three in ten months – and now, eight months after, a fourth tottering; and every change involving massacre, plunder, disturbance of order; – this had moved the priests to decree a solemn lectisternium and supplication for the restoration of tranquillity and the cessation of civil broil.
The banquet was to take place in the forum.
“You shall come in the lectica (palanquin) with me,” said Duilia. “It will have quite a pathetic aspect – the widow and the orphan together. Besides, I want some one to talk to. What do you think of Flavius Domitianus? A modest lad, to my mind.”
“Shy and clumsy,” observed Domitia. “The sight of him is a horror to me.”
“My dear child, only a fool will take sprats when he can have whitebait. Look out to better yourself.”
“Oh, mother! – what is that?”
“A god going to supper,” said the lady. “We shall see plenty of them presently.”
That which had attracted her daughter’s attention was a bier supported on the shoulders of priests, on which lay a figure dressed handsomely, in the attitude of a man at table, raised on his left elbow that was buried in a pillow, the head erect and the right arm extended, balanced in the air. The body was probably of wood under the drooping drapery, but the face and hands and feet were of wax. In jolting over the pavement, the sleeve had become disarranged, and showed the wooden prop that sustained the waxen right hand. The face was colored, the eyes were of glass, and real hair was affixed to the head; the lower jaw, hung on wires, opened and shut with the jostling. The staring figure swaying on the shoulders of the bearers, had a sufficiently startling effect, sweeping round a corner, wagging its beard, and past the palanquin in which were the ladies.
“A thing like that can’t eat,” said Domitia.
“Oh, my dear child, no. The gods only sniff at the food. After it has been set before them, it is carried away, and the people scramble for it.”
“They are naught but wax and woodwork,” said the girl contemptuously.
“My child, how often have I not had to quote to you that text, ‘It is not well to be overwise about the gods?’ Here we are! What a crowd!”
The forum of Rome, that wondrous basin towered over on one side by the Capitol, inclosed on another by the Palatine, and on the third by the densely packed blocks of houses in the Suburra below the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline Hills, was itself crowded with temples and basilicas, yet not then as dense with monuments as later, when the open spaces were further encroached upon by the Antonines.
“Domitia,” said Longa Duilia, in her ear, “all things are working out excellently. Vitellius is aware that he has no chance, and has been consulting with our cousin in the Temple of Concord yonder, and they have nearly settled between them that Vespasian is to assume the purple without further opposition. Vitellius will retire to some country villa on a handsome annuity. That will prevent more bloodshed and confiscation, and all that sort of thing. It is always advisable to avoid unpleasantnesses if possible. There, child, there are quite a bevy of gods already at table. See that dear old doll, Summanus, without a head – you know it was struck off by lightning in the time of Pyrrhus. It was of clay, and rolled all the way to the Tiber and plopped in. Since then he has been without a head, the darling!”
“How can he either smell or eat, mother?”
“My child, I don’t ask. It is not well to be overwise about the gods. There go the Arval Brothers with the image of Aca Larentia seated – of course not lying. You will see some venerable curiosities, who put in an appearance on days like this so as not to be wholly forgotten.”
The sight presented by the forum was indeed strange. A space had been cleared and shut off from the intrusion of the crowd, and there lay and sat the images at tables that were spread with viands. All were either life-size or larger. Some were skilfully modelled, and wore gorgeous clothing, but others were of the rudest moulding in terra cotta, or carved wood, and evidently of very ancient date, of Etruscan workmanship little influenced by Greek art.
Domitia looked on in astonishment. The populace laughed and commented on the images, without the least reverence; and the priests and their assistants laid the dishes before the puppets, then whisked them off and carried them without the barriers. Thereupon ensued a struggle who should get hold of the savory morsels that were being conveyed from the table of the gods; even the vessels used for the viands and for the wine were snatched at and carried away, and the priests offered no resistance.
Domitia was completely transported out of herself by astonishment at the sight. Every now and then the hum of voices spluttered into a burst of laughter at some ribald joke, and then roared up into a hubbub of sound over the trays of meats and wine that were being fought for.
Already the short winter day was closing in, and torches were being brought forth and stood beside the images. Then the tables were cleared and removed.
A trumpet blast sounded, and instantly the barriers were cast down, and the second act of this extraordinary spectacle ensued. This was the supplication. Instantly the temper of the mob changed from scepticism and mockery to enthusiastic devotion, and those pressed forward to kneel and touch the cushions and drapery on which the gods reposed, and to entreat their assistance, whose lips had but recently uttered a scoff.
Nothing so completely differentiates Christian worship from that of Pagan Rome as the congregational character of the former contrasted with the uncongregational nature of the latter. At the present day in Papal Rome the priests may be seen behind glass doors in little chapels annexed to S. Peter’s and S. Maria Maggiore saying their offices, indifferent to there being no laity present, indeed, with no provision made that they should assist. This is a legacy of Pagan Rome. The sacrifices, the services in the temples and other sanctuaries, were entirely independent of the people, some performed within closed doors. The only popular religious service was the supplication, which took place but occasionally. Then the public streamed to the images of the gods, uttering fervent prayer, chanting hymns, prostrating themselves before the couches, catching at their bed-coverings, esteeming themselves blessed if they could lay their hands on the sacred pillows. But there was no general consent as to which of the gods and goddesses were most potent. Some cried out that Mother Orbona had helped them, others that Fortuna was a jade and promised but performed nothing. One fanatic, in a transport, shrieked that these gods were good for naught, for his part he trusted only in Consus, whose temple was in ruins, whose altar was buried in earth by the circus of Tarquin. But there were others who swept in a strong current towards the couch of Jupiter and of that of Venus. Another strong current, howling ‘Io Saturne! Salve Mater Ops!’ made for the images of the Old God of Time and his divine Mate.
Simultaneously came a cross current of vendors of cakes and toys from the Suburra, regardless of the devotion of the people, careful only to sell their goods – for the Saturnalia was a period at which the children were regaled with gingerbread, and treated to dolls of terra cotta, of ivory and of wood. Hawkers selling pistachio nuts, the cones of the edible pine, men with baked chestnuts, others with trays of Pomponian pears and Mattian apples, vociferating and belauding their wares, increased the clamor.
Whilst this was at its height, down from the Palatine by the New Way came the German Imperial Body-Guard, forcing a passage through the mob, their short swords drawn, bellowing imprecations, whirling their blades, striking with the flat of the steel, threatening to cut down such as impeded their progress.
Some vigiles, or city police, came up. There was no love lost between them and the pampered foreigners employed in the palace, and they opposed the household troops. Remonstrances were employed and cast away. Then a German was struck in the face by a pine cone, another tripped, fell, and a hawker with a barrow-load of dolls, in his eagerness to escape, ran his vehicle over the prostrate guardsman. At once the Germans’ blood was up, they rushed upon the police, and a fray ensued in which now this side, then that, gained advantage. The populace, densely packed, came in for blows and wounds. When a guardsman fell, and they could lay hold of him, he was dragged away, and almost torn to pieces by eager hands stripping him of his splendid uniform.
The Præfect, who was in the Forum, summoned three cohorts to his aid, to drive back the household troops, and in a moment the trough between the hills was converted into a scene of the wildest confusion, some women screaming that they had lost their children, others crying to the gods to help them. Boys had scrambled up the bases of the statues, and one urchin sat with folded legs on the shoulders of Julius Cæsar, hallooing, and occasionally pelting with nuts where they did not fear retaliation.
The vendors of cakes and toys cursed as their trays were upset, or their barrows clashed. Men fought each other, for no other reason than that the soldiers were engaged, and they were unable to keep their itching hands off each other.
Down a stair from the palace came the Emperor Vitellius, carried on the shoulders of soldiers, while slaves bore flambeaux before him.
He was seen to gesticulate, but in the uproar none heard what he said.
Meanwhile, the priests were endeavoring to remove the gods, and met with the greatest difficulty. Some frantic women clung to the images and refused to allow them to be taken away. Some of the figures had been upset, and the servants of the temples to which they belonged made rings about them with interlaced arms, to protect them from being trampled under foot. Jupiter Capitolinus had been injured and lost his nose.
A priest with the help of a torch, was melting the wax and fastening it on again, whilst the guard of the temple kept off the rabble.
The currents of human beings, driven by diverse passions, jostled, broke across each other, resolved themselves into swirls of living men and women carried off their feet.
The litter of the lady Duilia and her daughter tossed like a boat in a whirlpool, and the widow shrieked with terror.
Then two powerful arms were thrust within the curtains of the palanquin, and the slave Eboracus laid hold of Domitia, and said: —
“There is no safety here. Trust me. I will battle through with you. Come on my arm. Fear not.”
“Save me! Me, also!” screamed Duilia, “I shall be thrown out, trodden under foot! O my wig! My wig!”
But Eboracus, regardless of the widow, holding his young mistress on his left arm, with the right armed with a cudgel, which he whirled like a flail, and with which, without compunction he broke down all opposition, drove, battered his way through the throng where most dense, across the currents most violent, and did not stay till he had reached a comparatively unobstructed spot, in one of the narrow lanes between the Fish Market and the Hostilian Court.
CHAPTER XVI.
IN THE HOUSE OF THE ACTOR
Hardly had Eboracus conveyed Domitia out of the Forum into a place of safety, than a rush of people down the street threatened to drive him back in the direction whence he had come. The drifting mob, as it cascaded down, cried: “The Prætorians are coming from their camp!”
It was so. Down the hill by the Tiburtine way marched a compact body of soldiery.
The danger was imminent; Eboracus and his young charge were between two masses of military, entangled in a seething mob of frightened people, mostly of the lowest class.
“My lady!” said the slave. “There is but one thing to be done.”
He drew her to a door, knocked, and when a voice asked who demanded admittance, answered,
“Open speedily – Paris!”
The door was furtively unbarred and opened sufficiently to admit the slave and Domitia, and then hastily bolted and locked again.
“Excuse me, dear mistress,” said Eboracus. “I could do no other. In this insula live the actor Paris and Glyceria. They were both slaves in your household, but were given their freedom by your father, my late master, when he went to the East. They will place themselves at your service, and offer you shelter in their humble dwelling, the first flat on the right.”
The house was one of those insulæ, islets of Rome in which great numbers of the lower classes were housed. They consisted in square blocks, built about a court, and ran to the height of seven and even more stories. The several flats were reached by stone stairs that ran from the central yard to the very summit of these barrack-like buildings. They vastly resembled our modern model lodging-houses, with one exception, that they had no exterior windows, or at most only slits looking into the street; doors and windows opened into the central quadrangle. These houses were little towns, occupied by numerous families, each family renting two or more chambers on a flat, and as in a city there are diversities in rank, so was it in these lodging-houses; the most abjectly poor were at the very top, or on the ground floor. The first flat commanded the highest rent, and the price of rooms gradually dwindled, the greater the elevation was. Glass was too great a luxury, far too costly to be employed except by the most wealthy for filling their windows. Even talc was expensive; in its place thin films of agate were sometimes used; but among the poor there was little protection in their dwellings against cold. The doors admitted light and air and cold together, and were always open, except at night, and then a perforation in the wood, or a small window in the wall, too narrow to allow of ingress, served for ventilation.
In a huge block of building like the insula, there were no chimneys. All cooking was done at the hearth in the room that served as kitchen and dining-room, often also as bedroom, and the smoke found its way out at the doorway into the central court.
But, in fact, little cooking of food was done, except the boiling of pulse. The meals of the poor consisted mainly of salads and fruit, with oil in abundance.
Dressed always in wool, in cold weather multiplying their wraps, the Roman citizens felt the cold weather much less than we might suppose possible. In the rain – and in Rome in winter it raineth almost every day – the balconies were crowded, and then the women wove, men tinkered or patched sandals, children romped, boys played marbles and knuckle-bones, and sometimes a minstrel twanged a lyre and the young girls danced to keep themselves warm. There were little braziers, moreover, one on every landing, that were kept alight with charcoal, and here, when the women’s fingers were numb, they were thawed, and children baked chestnuts or roasted apples.
Domitia had never been in one of these blocks of habitations of the lower classes before, and she was surprised. The quadrangle was almost like an amphitheatre, with its tiers of seats for spectators; but here, in place of seats, were balconies, and every balcony was alive with women and children. Men were absent; they had gone out to see the commencement of the Saturnalia, and of women there were few compared to the numbers that usually thronged these balconies.
Eboracus conducted his young mistress up the first flight of steps, and at once a rush of children was made to him to ask for toys and cakes. He brushed them aside, and when the mothers saw by the purple edge to her dress that Domitia belonged to a noble family, they called their youngsters away, and saluted her by raising thumb and forefinger united to the lips.
The slave at once conducted Domitia through a doorway into a little chamber, where burnt a fire of olive sticks, and a lamp was suspended, by the light of which she could see that a sick woman lay on a low bed.
Domitia shrank back; but Eboracus said encouragingly:
“Be not afraid, dear young mistress; this is no catching disorder; Glyceria suffers from an accident, and will never be well again. She is the sister of your servant Euphrosyne.”
Then, approaching the sick woman, he hastily explained the reason for his taking refuge with his mistress in this humble lodging.
The sick woman turned to Domitia with a sweet smile, and in courteous words entreated her to remain in her chamber so long as was necessary.
“My husband, Paris, the actor, is now out; but he will be home shortly, I trust – unless,” her face grew paler with sudden dread, “some ill have befallen him. Yet I think not that can be, he is a quiet, harmless man.”
“I thank you,” answered Domitia, and took a seat offered her by Eboracus.
She looked attentively at the sick woman’s face. She was no longer young, she had at one time been beautiful, she had large, lustrous dark eyes, and dark hair, but pain and weakness had sharpened her features. Yet there was such gentleness, patience, love in her face, a something which to Domitia was so new, a something so new in that old world, that she could not take her eyes off her, wondering what the fascination was.
Glyceria did not speak again, modestly waiting till the lady of rank chose to address her.
Presently Domitia asked:
“Have you been long ill?”
“A year, lady.”
“And may I inquire how it came about?”
“Alas! It is a sad story. My little boy – ”
“You have a son?”
“I had – ”
“I ask your pardon for the interruption; say on.”
“My little boy was playing in the street, when a chariot was driven rapidly down the hill, and I saw that he would be under the horses’ feet, so I made a dart to save him.”
“And then?”
“I was too late to rescue him, and I fell, and the wheel went over me. I have been unable to rise since.”
“What! like this for all these months! What say the doctors?”
“Alack, lady! they give me no hope.”
“But for how long may this last?”
“I cannot say.”
“As the gods love me! if this befell me, I should refuse my food and starve myself to death!”
“I cannot do that.”
“What! you lack the resolution?”
“I can bear what is on me laid by God.”
“There is no need to endure what can be avoided. I would make short work of it, were this my lot. And your husband?”
“He is here.”
Through the door came the actor, a handsome man, of Greek type, with a package in his arms. He would have walked straight to his wife, but had to turn at the door and drive off a clamorous pack of urchins who had pursued him, believing that he was laden with toys.
“There, Glyceria!” he exclaimed joyously; “they are all for you. There is such a riot and disturbance and such a crush in the street, that I had hard work to push through. I misdoubt me some are broken.”
“Oh, Paris! do you not observe?”
“What? I see nothing but thy sweet face?”
“Our dear master’s daughter, the lady Domitia Longina.”
The actor turned sharply, and was covered with confusion at the unexpected sight, and almost let his parcel fall.
Eboracus explained the circumstances. Then Paris expressed his happiness, and the pride he felt in being honored by the visit under his humble ceiling, of the lady, the daughter of the good and beloved master who had given him and Glyceria their freedom.
“Go forth, Eboracus,” said Domitia, “and I prithee learn how it has fared with my mother. Bring me word speedily, if thou canst.”
When the slave had withdrawn, she addressed Paris and Glyceria.
“I beseech you, suffer me to remain here in quiet, and concern not yourselves about me. I have been alarmed, and this has shaken me. I would fain rest in this seat and not speak. Go on with what ye have to say and do, and consider me not. So will you best please me.”
The actor was somewhat constrained at first, but after a little while overcame his reserve. He drew a low table beside his wife’s couch, and, stooping on one knee, began to unlade his bundle. He set out a number of terra cotta figures on the table, representing cocks and hens, pigs, horses, cows and men; some infinitely comical; at them Glyceria laughed.
Then, as she put forth a thin white hand to take up one of the quaintest images, Domitia noticed that Paris laid hold of it, and pressed it to his lips.
A lump rose in the girl’s throat.
“No,” thought she; “if I had one so to love me and consider me, though I were sick and in pain, I would not shorten my days. I would live to enjoy his love.”
Then again, falling into further musing, she said to herself:
“In time to come, if it chance that I become ill, will my Lamia be to me as is this actor to his poor wife? Will he think of and care for me? But – and if evil were to befall him, would not I minister to him, care for him night and day, and seek to relieve his sorrow? Would I grow indifferent when he most needed me? Then why think that he should become cold and neglect me? Are women more inclined to be true than men? – Yet see this actor – this Paris. By the Gods! Is Lamia like to be a more ignoble man than a poor freedman that gains his living on the stage? – I should even be happy serving him sick and suffering. Happy in doing my duty.”
And still musing, she said on to herself:
“Duty! Yes, I should find content and rest of mind in that; but to what would it all lead? Only to a heap of dust in the end. His light would be extinguished, and then I, having nothing else to live for, would die also – by mine own hand: – there is nothing beyond. It all leads to an ash-heap.”
Glyceria, observing the girl’s fixed eye, thought it was looking inquiringly at her, and said in her gentle voice that vibrated with the tremulousness given by suffering:
“Ah, lady! the neighbors and their children are very kind. There is more of goodness and piety in the world than you would suppose, seeing men and women only in an amphitheatre. I can do but very little. One boy fetches me water – that is Bibulus, and my Paris has bought him this little horseman – and Torquata, a little girl, daughter of a cobbler, she sweeps the floor; and Dosithea, that is a good widow’s child; she does other neighborly acts for me; – and they thrust me on my bed to the side of the hearth, and bring me such things as I need, that I may prepare the meals for my husband. And Claudia, the wife of a seller of nets, she makes my bed for me; but all the shopping is done for me by Paris, and I warrant you, lady, he is quite knowing, and can haggle over a fish or a turnip with a market-woman like any housewife.”
“He is very good to you,” said Domitia.
Then Paris turned, and, putting his hand on his wife’s mouth, said:
“Lady! you can little know what a wife my Glyceria is to me. I had rather for my own sake have her thus than hale as of old. Somehow, sorrow and pain draw hearts together wondrously.”
“He is good,” said Glyceria, twisting her mouth from his covering hand. “We have had a hard year; on account of the troubles, there has been little desire among the people for the theatre, and he has earned but a trifle. I have cost him much in physicians that have done me no good, yet he never grumbles, he is always cheerful, always tender-hearted and loving.”
“Hush, wife!” said Paris. “The lady desires rest. Keep silence.”
Then again Domitia fell a-musing, and the player and his wife whispered to each other about the destination of the several toys.
Somehow she had hitherto not thought of the classes of men and women below her station as having like feelings, like longings, like natures to her own. They had been to her as puppets, even as those clay figures ranged on the table, mostly grotesque. Now that great pulse of love that throbs through the world of humanity made itself felt, it was as though scales fell from her eyes, and the puppets became beings of flesh and blood to be considered, capable of happiness and of suffering, of virtue as well as of vice.
“I have a little lamp here – with a fish —the fish on it,” said Paris in a whisper. “It is for Luke, the Physician.”
“What!” exclaimed Domitia, starting from her reverie, “you know him? We had a talk once, and it was broken off and never concluded. I would hear the end of what he was saying – some day.”