DION AHDftlE5

A CLASSIC NOVEL

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

Cornell University Library PS 2164.K37D5 1898

Dion and the sibyls :a classic novel.

3 1924 022 063 659

The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.

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DION AND THE SIBYLS

A CLASSIC NOVEL

MILES GERALD KEON

New York, Cincinnati, Chicago

BENZIGKR BROTHERS

PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGES'S MAGAZINE

Entered, according to Act ot Congress, In tne year 1R71, by Lawrence Kehoe^ b the Office of the LibraiUin of Congress, Washii^;ton, D. C.

Transferred to CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOOK CO.

CanmgMtrsuisferted, 18961 « BENZIGER BROTHERS

3

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.

IHon and the Sibyls comes into direct comparison with Ben-Hur. Both get their interest from the com- ing of the Saviour; in both, Rome and Jerusalem are the chief localities.

General Wallace's hero is a Jew; Keon's a young Roman noble. Both plots are fascinating, and the descriptions of historical places and personages bril- liant and scholarly; but Dion is richer in sentiment and sounder in thought.

Dion has passages unsurpassed in our literature. Of wonderful power are: The speech of the gladiator; the demons that served Piso's wife; the taming of the horse in the arena; the symposium before Augustus; the conveyance of the treasure to Germanicus Caesar; the rescue of Agatha from the power of Tiberius; the meeting with Christ and St. John; the dancing of the daughter of Herodias before Herod,

Strangely enough there is a remarkable likeness in the careers of the two authors. Keon, bom in Ireland and educated at Stouyhurst, was a soldier with the French in Algiers, a lawyer, a writer, and in his last years a government official. Wallace was a soldier, afterwards a diplomat, and has become a litterateur.

Ben-Hur lay long months untouched upon the pub- lishers' shelves before men awakened to its beauty and power; and who that has read Dion will say that it has yet received a tithe of its full measure of justice.

DEDICATION.

1 DEDICATE the following work to Edward Bul- wer, Lord Lytton, not only in appreciation of one of the most searching, comprehensive, independ- ent, and indefatigable thinkers, and one of the truest and highest men of genius, of whom it has ever been the lot of his own country and of the English-speaking races to be proud, and the fate of contemporary nations to feel honorably jeal- ous; not only in admiration of a mind which nature made great, and which study has to the last degree cultivated, whose influence and authority have been steadily rising since he first began to labor in literary fields more varied than almost any into which ONE person had previously dared to carry the efforts of the intellect; but still more as an humble token of the grateful love which I feel in return for the faithful and consist- ent friendship and the innumerable services with which a great genius and a great man has hon- ored me during twenty years.

Miles Gerald Keon. Paris, Jan. i8, 1870.

Dion and the Sibyls.

CHAPTER I.

JT was a fair evening in autumn, toward the end of the year eleven of our Lord. Augustus Csesar was a white-haired, olive-complexioned, and somewhat frail-featured, though stately man of more than seventy-three. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the face of the first Napoleon recalled to the minds of antiquaries and students of numismatic re- mains the lineaments engraved upon the extant coins of Augustus. Indeed, at this moment there is in the Vatican a beautiful marble bust in excellent preserva- tion, representing one of these two emperors as he was while yet young ; and this bust almost invariably pro- duces a curious effect upon the stranger who contem- plates it for the first time. " That is certainly a beauti- ful, artistic work," he says, " but the likeness is hardly perfect."

" Likeness of whom ? " replies some Italian friend. " Of the emperor," says the stranger. " Sicuro ! But which emperor ? " asks the Italian, smiling. " Of course, the first," says the visitor. "But that repre-

2 Dion and the Sibyls.

sents Augustus Caisar, not Napoleon Bonaparte," is the answer. Whereupon the stranger, who, a moment before had very justly pronounced the resemblance to Bonaparte to be hardly perfect, exclaims, not less justly, "What an amazing likeness to Napoleon!" That sort of admiring surprise is intelligible. Had the bust been designed as an image of the great modem conqueror, there had been something to censure. But the work which, at one and the same time, delineates the second Caesar, and yet after 1800 years recalls to mind the first Napoleon, has become a curious monu- ment indeed.

The second Roman emperor, however, had not a forehead so broad and commanding nor so marble- smooth as Napoleon's, and the whole countenance, at the time when our narrative begins, offered a more de- cisively aquiline curve, with more numerous and much thinner lines about the mouth. Still, even at the age which he had then reached — in the year eleven of our Lord — he showed traces of that amazing beauty which had enchanted the whole classic world in the days of his youth. Three years more, and his reign and life were to go down in a great, broad, calm, treacherous sunset together.

After the senate had rewarded the histrionic and pure- ly make-believe moderation of its master — and in truth its destroyer — by giving to one who had named himself Princeps the greater name of Augustus, the former title, like a left-off robe, too good to be thrown away, was carefully picked up, brushed into all its gloss, and ap- propriated by a second performer. We allude, of course, to Drusus Tiberius Claudius Nero, the future emperor.

Dion and the Sibyls. 3

best known by his second name of Tiberius. The first and third names had belonged to his brother also. Ti- berius was then " Prince and Caesar," as the new slang of flattery termed him ; he was stepson of Augustus and already adopted heir, solemnly designatus. He was verging upon the close of his fifty-third year of cautious profligacy, clandestine vindictiveness, and strictly-regu- lated vices. History has not accused him of murdering Agrippa Vespasianxis ; but had Agrippa survived, he would have held all Tiberius's present ofiices. ^lius Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guards, was occu- pied in watching the monthly, watching even the daily, decay of strength in the living emperor, and was pan- dering to the passions of his probable successor. Up to this time Sejanus had been, and still was, thus em- ployed. More dangerous hopes had not arisen in his bosom ; he had not yet indulged in the vision of becom- ing master of the known world — a dream which, some twenty years afterward, consigned him to cruel and sud- den destruction. No conspirator, perhaps, ever exer- cised more craft and patience in preparing, or betrayed more stupidity at last in executing, an attempt at trea- son on so great a scale. It was forty-six years since Sallust had expired amid the luxuries which cruelty and rapine accumulated, after profligacy had first brought him acquainted with want.

Ovid had just been sent into exile at Temesvar in Tur- key— ^then called Tomos in Scythia. Cornelius Nepos was ending his days in the personal privacy and literary no- toriety in which he had lived. Virgil had been dead a whole generation; so had Tibullus; Catullus, half a century; Propertius, some twenty years; Horace and

4 Dion and the Sibyls.

Maecenas, about as long. The grateful master of the curiosafelicitas verborum had followed in three weeks to — not the grave, indeed, but — the um, the patron whom he had immortalized in the first of his odes, the first of his epodes, the first of his satires, and the first of his. epistles; and the mighty sovereign upon whose youth- ful court those three characters — a wise, mild, clement, yet firm minister, a glorious epic poet, and an unsur- passed lyrist — have reflected so much and such endur- ing lustre, had faithfully and unceasingly lamented their irreparable loss. Lucius Varius was the fashionable poet, the laureate of the day ; and Maecenas being removed, Tiberius sought to govern indirectly, as minister, all those matters which he did not control directly and im ■ mediately, as one of the two Caesars whom Augustus had appointed. Velleius Paterculus, the cavalry colo- nel, or military tribune (chiUarch), a prosperous and accomplished patrician, was beginning to shine at once in letters and at the court. The grandson of Livia, grandson also of Augustus by his marriage with her, but really grandnephew of that emperor — we mean the son of Antonia, the celebrated Germanicus, second and more worthy bearer of that surname — a youth full of fire and genius, and tingling with noble blood — was pre- paring to atone for the disgraces and to repair the dis- asters which Quintilius Varus, one year before, amidst the uncleared forests of Germany, had brought upon the imperial arms and the Roman name. Germanicus, indeed, was about to fulfill the more important part of a celebrated classic injunction ; he was going to do things worthy to be written, "while the supple courtier of all Caesars, Paterculus, was endeavoring to write somethins

Dion and the Sibyh. 5

worthy to be read." Strabo had not long before com- menced his system of geography, which, for about thirty years yet to come, was to engage his attention and dic- tate his travels. Livy, of the "pictured page," who doubdess may be called, next to Tacitus, the most elo- quent without being set down as quite the most cred- ulous of classic historians — I venture to say so, face Niebuhr — was over sixty-eight years of age, but scarcely looked sixty. He was even then thoroughly and uni- versally appreciated. No man living had received more genuine marks of honor — not even the emperor. His hundred and forty-two books of Roman history had filled the known world with his praises, a glory which length of days allowed him fully to enjoy. Modem readers appreciate and admire the thirty-five books which alone are left, and linger over the beauties, quasi steilis, with which they shine. Yet who knows but these may be among the poorest productions of Livy's genius ? A very simple sum in arithmetic would satisfy an actuary that we must have lost the most valuable emanations of the Paduan's great mind. Given a sal- vage of five-and-thirty out of a himdred and forty-two» and yet the whole of this wreck so marvellous in beau- ty ! surely that which is gone forever must have includ- ed much that is equal, probably something far superior to what time has spared.

There is a curious fact recorded by Pliny the younger, which speaks for itself. A Spaniard of Cadiz had, only some five months before the date of our story, journeyed from the ends of the earth to, Rome merely to obtain a sight of Livy. There were imperial shows in the forum and hippodrome and circus at the time; there were

6 Dion and the Sibyls.

races on foot, and on horseback, and in chariots ; fights there were of all kinds — men against wild animals, men against each other; with the sword, with the deadly cestus; wrestling matches, and the dreadful battles of gladiators, five hundred a side; in short, all the glitter and the glories and the horrors of the old classic arena in its culminating days. There was also a strange new Greek fence, since inherited by Naples, and preserved all through the middle ages down to this hour, with the straight, pliant, three-edged rapier, to witness which even ladies thronged with interest and partisanship. But the Spaniard from Gades (Cervantes might surely have had such an ancestor) asked only to be shown Titus Livius. • Which in yonder group is Livy ? The wayfarer cared for nothing else that Roman civilization or Roman vanity could show him. The great writer was pointed out, and then the traveller, having satisfied the motive which had brought him to Rome, went back to Ostia, where his lugger, if I may so call it, lay (I picture it a kind of " wing-and-wing " rigged vessel) ; and, refusing to profane his eyes with any meaner spec- tacle, set sail again for Spain, where his youth had been illumined with the visions presented to a sympathetic imagination by the most charming of classical histor- ians. The Spaniards from an immemorial age are deemed to have been heroes and appreciators of heroes; and no doubt this literary pilgrim, once more at home, recurred many a time, long pondering, to the glorious deeds of the Fabia Gens.

How many other similar examples Livy may have re- corded for him we modems cannot say. Before his gaze arose the finished column from the fragments

Dion and the Sihyh, 7

whereof we have gathered up some scattered bricks and marbles. Niebuhr had to deal with a ruin, and he who ought to have guessed at and reconstructed the plan of it, has contented himself with trying to demoUsh its form.

Long previously to the date of our tale, Augustus, trembling under the despotism of his wife, Livia, had begun to repeat those lamentations (with which scholars are familiar) for the times when Maecenas had guided his active day, and Virgil and Horace had beguiled his lettered evenings. Virgil, as is well known, had been tormented with asthma, and ought possibly to have lived much longer but for some unrecorded imprudence. Horace, as is likewise well known, had been tormented with sore eyeUds — and with wine ; he was " blear- eyed" (lippus). Augustus, therefore, used to say wittily, as he placed them on each hand of him at the sym- posium, which had been recently borrowed in Italy from the Greeks, but had not yet degenerated into the de- bauchery and extravagance into which they afterward sank more and more deeply during successive reigns, " I sit between sighs and tears." * But he had long lost these so-called sighs and tears at either hand of him. The sighs and tears were now his own.

* In siupiriis stdto et in lachrymis.

CHAPTER II.

)UR chronicle commences in Campania, with the i?^ Tyrrhenian Sea (now the southerly waters of the Gulf of Genoa) on a traveller's left hand if he looks north. It was a fair evening in autumn, as we have remarked, during that age and state of the world the broad outlines of which we have briefly given. Along the Appian, or, as it long afterward came to be also called, the Trajan Way, the queen of roads, a con- veyance drawn by two horses, a carriage of the common hackney description, not unlike one species of the vet- tura used by the modem Italians, was rolling swiftly northward between the stage of Minturnse and the next stage, which was a lonely post-house a few miles south of the interesting town of Formiae — ^not Forum Appii, or the TTiree Taverns, a place more than fifty miles away in the direction of Rome, and upon the same road. Inside the carriage were a lady in middle life, whope face, oj>ce lovely, was .still sweet and charming, and a very pale, beautiful female child, each dressed in a black ricinium,* or mourning robe, drawn over the top of the head. The girl was about twelve years old, or a little more, and seemed to be suffering much and griev- ously. She faced the horses, and on her side sat the lady fanning her and watching her with a look which always spoke love, and now and again anguish. Op- posite to them, with his back to the horses, wearing a sort of dark lacema, or thin, light great coat, of costly

* Cicero, Legg. ii. 23.

8

Dion and the Sibyls. 9

material, but of a fashion which was deemed in Italy at that day either foreign or vulgar, as the case might be, sat a youth of about eighteen. The child was leaning back with her eyes closed. The youth, as he watched her, sighed now and then. At last he put both hands to his face, and, leaning ' his head for- ward, suffered tears to flow silently through his fingers. The lacema which he wore was fastened at the breast by two clasps of silver, and girt round his waist with a broad, brown, sheeny leather belt, stamped and traced after some Asiatic mode. In a loop of this belt, at his left side, was secured within its black scab- bard an unfamiliar, outlandish-looking, long, straight, three-edged sword, which he had pulled round so as to rest the point before his feet, bringing the blade be-^ tween his knees, and the hilt, which was gay with emeralds, in front of his chest.

The Romans still very generally went bare-headed,* even out of doors, except that those who continued to wear the toga drew it over their heads as the weather needed, and those who wore the penula used the hood of it in the same way. But upon the hilt of the sword we have described the youth had flung a deep-rimmed hat, with a flat top, and one black feather at the side, not stuck perpendicularly into the band, but so trained half round it as to produce a reckless, rakish effect, of which the owner was unconscious.

" Agatha," said the lady, in a low, tender voice, the delicate Greek ring of which was full of persuasion, "look up, beloved child! Your brother and I, at least, are left. Think no more of the past. The gods

* Plutarch in FcHnpey. Seneca, Spis. 64.

lo Dion and the Sibyls.

have taken your father, after men had taken his and your inheritance. But our part in life is not yet over. Did not your parents too, in times past — did not we too, I say, lose ours? Did you not know you were probably to live longer than your poor father? Are you not to survive me also ? Perhaps soon."

With a cry of dismay the young girl threw her arms round the lady's neck and sobbed. The other, while she shed tears, exclaimed :

" I thank that unknown power, of whom Dionysius the Athenian, my young countryman, so sublimely speaks, that the child weeps at last! Weep, Agatha, weep; but mourn not mute in the cowardice of de- spair ! Mourn not for yoiu: father in a way unbecom- ing of his child and mine. Mourn not as though in- deed you were not ours. My husband is gone forever, but he went in honor. The courageless grief, that canker without voice or tears, which would slay his child, will not bring back to me the partner of my days, nor to you yoiu- father. We must not dishearten but cheer yoiu: brother Paulus tor the battle which is be- fore him."

" I wish to do so, my mother," said Agatha.

" When I recover my rights," broke in the youth at this point, " my father will come and sit among the lares, round the ever-burning fire in the atrium of our hereditary house, Agatha; and therefore courage ! You are ill; but Charicles, the great physician of Tiberius Caesar, is our countryman, and he will attend you. He can cure almost anything, they say. And if you feel fatigued, no wonder, so help me ! Minime mirum meher- cle ! Have we not travelled without intermission, by

Dion and the Siiyls. 1 1

land and by sea, all the way from Thrace ? But now, one more change of horses brings us to Formise, and then we shall be at our journey's end. Meantime, dear child, look up; see yonder woods, and the garden-like shore."

And having first tried in vain to brighten the horn window at the side of the vehicle (glass was used only in the private carriages of the rich), he stood up, and calling over the hide roof of the carriage, which was open in front — the horses being driven from behind — ^he ordered the coachman to open the panels. The man, evidently a former slave of the family, now their freed- man, quickly obeyed, and descending from his bench, pushed back into grooves contrived to receive them the coarsely-figured and gaudily colored sides of the travelling carruca.

" Is the little one better?" he then cried, with the privi- leged freedom of an old and attached domestic, or of one who, in the far more endearing parlance of classic times, was a faithful familiaris — that is, a member of the family. " Is the little one better ? The dust is laid now, Uttle one; the evening comes ; the light slants ; the sun smiles not higher than yoiurself , instead of burn- ing overhead. See, the beautiful country! See, the sweet land! Let the breeze bring a bloom to your cheeks, as it brings the perfumes to your mouth. Ah ! the little one smiles. Fate is not always angry!"

"Dear old Philip!" said the child; and then, turn- ing to her mother, she added,

" Just now, mother, you waked me from a frightful dream. I thought that the man who has our father's estates was dead ; but he came from the dead, and was

1 2 Dion and the Sibyls.

trying to kill Paulus, my brother there; and for that purpose was striving to wrest the sword from Paulus's hand; and that the man laughed in a hideous manner, and cried out, ' It is with his own sword we will slay him ! Nothing but his own sword !' "

The old freedman turned pale, and muttered some- thing to himself, as he stood by the side of the vehicle; and while he kept the horses steady, with the long reins in his left hand, glanced awfully toward Paulus.

" Brother," continued the child, " I forget that man's name. What is the name ?"

" Never mind the name now," said Paulus ; " a dead person cannot kill a living one ; and that man is not in Italy who will kiU me with my own sword, if I be not asleep. Look at the beautiful land! See, as Philip tells you, the beautiful land where you are going to be so happy."

The river Liris, now the Garigliano, flowed all gold in the western sun ; some dozens of meadows behind them, between rows of linden-trees, oleanders, and pome- granates, with laurel, bay and long bamboo-like reeds of the arundo donax, varying the rich beauty of its banks.* A thin and irregular forest of great contemplative trees ; flowerless and sad beech, cornel, alder, ash, hornbeam, and yew towered over savannahs of scented herbs and glades of many-tinted grasses. Some clumps of chest- nut-trees, hereafter to spread into forests, but then rare, and cultivated as we cultivate oranges and citrons, stood proudly apart. A vegetation which has partly vanished gave its own physical aspect to an Italy the social conditions of which have vanished altogether;

* Daphnones, platanones, et aeria cyparissi-

ZHon and the Sibyls. 13

and were even then passing, and about to pass, through their last appearances. But much also that we in our days have seen, both there and elsewhere, was there then. The flower or blossom of the pomegranate lifted its scarlet light amidst vines and olives; miles of olean- der-trees waved their masses of flame under the tender green filigree of almond groves, and seemed to laugh in scorn at the mourning groups of yew and the bowed head of the dark, widow-like, and inconsolable cypress. All over the lea\ 's of the woods autumn had strewn its innumerable hues. In the west, the sky was hung with those glories which no painter ever reproduced and no poet ever sang; it was one of the sunsets which make all persons of sensibility who contemplate them dumb, by making all that can be said of them worse than useless. A magnificent and enormous villa or country mansion — palace it seemed — showed parts of its walls, glass windows, and Ionic columns, through the woods on the banks of the Liris; and upon the roof of this palace a great company of gilt, tinted, and white statues, much larger than life, in various groups and attitudes, as they conversed, lifted their arms, knelt, prayed, stooped, stood up, threatened, and acted, were glittering above the tree-tops in the many-colored lights of the setting sun.

" Ah ! let us stop ; let us rest a few moments," cried the child, smiling through her tears at the smiles of nature and the enchanting beauty of the scene; " only a few moments under the great trees, mother."

It was a group of chestnuts, a few yards from the side of the road ; and beneath them came to join the highway through the meadows, and vineyards, and

14 Dion and the Sibyls.

forest-land, a broad beaten track from the direction ot the splendid villa that stood on the Liris.

Paulus instandy sprang from the carruca, and, hav- ing first helped his mother to alight, took his sister in his arms and placed her sitting mider the green shade. A Thracian woman, a slave, descended mean time from the box, and the driver drew his vehicle to the side of the highway.

While they thus reposed, with no sound about them, as they thought, save the rustle of the leaves, the dis- tant ripple of the waters, and the vehement shrill call of the cicala hidden in the grass near, their destinies were coming. The freedman suddenly held up his hand, and drew their attention by that peculiar soimd through the teeth (si), which in all nations signifies listen /

And, indeed, a distant, dull, vague noise was now heard southward, and seemed to increase and approach along the Appian road. Every eye in our little group of travellers was turned in the direction mentioned, and they could see a white cloud of dust coming swiftly northward. Soon they distinguished the tramp of many horses at the trot. Then, over the top of a hill which had intercepted the view, came the gleam of arms, fill- ing the whole width of the way, and advancing like a torrent of light. The ground trembled; and, headed by a troop or two of Numidian riders, and then a couple of troops of Batavian cavalry, a thousand horse, at least, of the Praetorian Guards, arrayed, as usual, magnificently, swept along in a column two hun- dred deep, with a rattle and ring of metal rising treble upon the ear over the continuous bass of the beating hoofs, as the foam floats above the roll of the waves.

'Dion and the Sibyls. 15

The young girl was at once startled from the sense of sickness and grief, and gazed with big eyes at the pageant. Six hundred yards further on a trumpet-note, clear and long, gave some sudden signal, and the whole body instantly halted. From a detached group in the rear an oflScer now rode toward the front; a loud word or two of command was heard, a sUght movement fol- lowed, and then, as if the column were some monstrous yellow-scaled serpent with an elastic neck and a black head, the swarthy troops which had led the advance wheeled slowly backward, two instead of five abreast, while the main column simultaneously stretched itself forward on a narrower face, and with a deeper file, occupying thus less than half the width of the road, which they had before nearly filled, and extending much further onward. Meantime the squadrons which had led it continued to defile to the rear; and when their last rank had passed the last of those fronting in the opposite direction, they suddenly faced to their own right, and, standing like statues, Uned the way on the side opposite to that where our travellers were reposing, but some forty or fifty yards higher up the road, or more north.

In front of the Une of horsemen, who, after wheeling back, had been thus faced to their own right, or the proper left of the Une of march, was now collected a small group of mounted officers. One of them wore a steel corselet, a casque of the same metal, with a few short black feathers in its crest, and the chlamys, or a better sort of sagum, the scarlet mantle of a military tribune, over a black tunic, upon which two broad red stripes or ribbons were diagonally sewn. This costume

1 6 Dion and the Sibyls.

denoted him one of the Latklavii, or broad-ribboned tribunes ; in other words — although, to judge by the massive gold ring which glittered on the forefinger of his bridle hand, he might have been originally and per- sonally only a knight — he had received either from the emperor, or from one of the two Caesars then govern- ing with and under Augustus, the senatorial rank.

The chlamys was fastened across the top of his chest with a silver clasp, and the tunic a httle lower down with another, both being open below as far as the waist, and disclosing a tight-fitting chain-mail corselet, or shirt of steel rings. The chlamys was otherwise thrown loose over his shoulders, but the tunic was belted round the corselet at his waist by a buflE girdle, wherein hung the intricately-figured brass scabbard of a straight, flat, not very long cut-and-thrust sword, which he now held drawn in his right hand. In his belt were stuck a pair of gloves, which seemed to be made of the same material as the girdle j buffalo-skin greaves on his legs and half -boots completed his dress. He was a handsome man, about five-and-thirty years old, brown hair, an open but thoughtful face and an ob- servant eye. He it was who had ridden to the front and given those orders the execution of which we have noticed. He had now returned, and kept his horse a neck or so behind that of an officer far more splendidly atrired, who seemed to pay no attention whatever to the little operation that had occurred, but, shading his eyes with one hand from the rays of the setting sun, gazed over the fields toward the villa or mansion on the Liris.

He was clad in the paludamentum, the long scarlet cloak of a legatus or general, the borders being deeply

Dion and the Sibyls. 17

fringed with twice-dyed Tynan purple,* the long folds of which flowed over his charger's haunches. This mag- nificent mantle was buckled round the wearer's neck with a jewel. His corselet, unlike that of the colonel or tribune already mentioned, was of plate-steel (instead qA rings), and shone like a looking-glass, except where it was inlaid with broad lines of gold. He wore a chain of twisted gold around his neck, and his belt as well as the hilt of his sword, which remained undrawn by his side in a silver scabbard, glittered with sardonyx and jasper stones. He had no tunic. His gloves happen- ing, like those of his subordinate, to be thrust into the belt round his waist, left visible a pair of hands so white and delicate as to be almost effeminate. His helmet was thin steel, and the crest was surmounted by a pro- fuse plume of scarlet cock's feathers. But perhaps the most curious particular of his costume was a pair of shoes or half -boots of red leather, the points of the toes turned upward. These boots were encrusted with gems, which formed the patrician crescent, or letter C, on the top of each foot, and then wandered into a fanciful tracery of sparkles up the leg. The stirrups, in which his feet rested, were either of gold or gilt.

The coimtenance of this evidently important per- sonage was remarkable. He had regular features, a handsome straight nose, eyes half closed with what seemed at first a languid look, but yet a look which, if observed more closely, was almost startling from the extreme attention it evinced, and from the contrast between such an exjK-ession and the indolent indiffer- ence or superciliousness upon the surface, if I may so

* Tyrta bis fincta, or dibapha. — Pliny,

1 8 Dion and the Sibyls.

say, of the physiognomy. There was something sinister and crael about the mouth. He wore no whiskers or beard, but a black, carefully trimmed mustache.

After a steady gaze across the fields in the direction we have already more than once mentioned, he half turned his head toward the tribune, and at the same time, pointing to our travellers, said something. The tribune, in his turn, addressed the first centurion, an ofiicer whose sword, like that of the legatus, was undrawn, but who carried in his right hand a thin wand made of vine-wood. In an instant this oflScer turned his horse's head and trotted smartly toward our travellers, upon reaching whom he addressed Paulus thus:

" Tell me, I pray you, have you been long here ? "

" Not a quarter of an hour," answered Paulus, won- dering why such a question was asked.

" And have any persons passed into the road by this pathway ? " the centurion then inquired.

" Not since we came," said Paulus.

The officer thanked him and trotted back.

Meanwhile Paulus and his mother and the freedman PhiUp had not been so absorbed in watching the occur- rence and scene just described as to remove their eyes for more than a moment at a time from their dearly- loved charge, the interesting little mourner who had begged to be allowed to rest under the chestnut-trees. It was not so with Agatha herself. The child was at once astonished, bewildered, and enraptured. Had the spectacle and review before her been commanded by some monarch, or rather some magician, on piurpose to snatch her from the possibility of dwelhng longer amidst

Dion and the Sibyls. 19

the gloom, the regrets, and the termors tinder which she had appeared to be sinking, neither the wonder of the spectacle, nor the amenity of the evening when it oc- curred, nor the loveUness of the landscape which formed its theatre, could have been more opportunely com- bined. She had not only never beheld anything so magnificent, but her curiosity was violently aroused.

Paulus exchanged with his mother and the old freed- man a glance of intelUgence and of intense satisfaction, as they both noted the parted lips and dilated eyes with which the child, half an hour ago so alarmingly ill, con- templated t1}e drama at which she was accidentally as- sisting.

" That's a rare doctor," whispered PhiUp, pointing to the general of the Praetorian Guards.

" No doctor," repUed Paulus in the same low tones^ " could have prescribed for our darling better."

^' Paulus," said Agatha, " what are these mighty be- ings ? Are these the genii and the demons of the mis- tressland, the gods of Italy ? "

"They are a handful of Italy's troops, dear," he said.

She looked from her brother to the lady, and then to the freedman, and this last, with a heaUng instinct which would have done honor to Hippocrates, began to stimu- late her interest by the agency of suspense and mystery.

" Master Paulus, and Lady Aglais, and my little one, too," he said, in a most impressive and solemn voice, "these are the genii and these the demons indeed; but I tell you that you have not yet seen all the secret. Something is going to happen. Attend to me well ! You behold a most singular thing ! Are you aware of what

20 Z>w« and the Sibyls.

you behold ? Yonder, Master Paulus, is the allotted portion of horse for more than three legions : ih.^ Justus equitatus, I say, for a Roman army of twenty thousand men. Yes, I attest all the gods," continued Philip in a low voice, but with great earnestness, and glancing from the brother to the sister as if his prospects in life were contingent upon his being believed in this. " I was at the battle of Philippi, and I aver that yonder is more than the right allotment of horse for three legions. Ob- serve the squadrons ; they do not consist of the same arm; and instead of being distributed in bodies of three or four hundred each to a legion, they are all together before you without their legions. Why is that. Master Paulus ? "

" I know not," said Paulus.

" Ah ! " resumed the freedman, " you know not, but you will know presently. Mark that, little Mistress Agatha, and bear in mind that Philip the freedman has said to your brother that he will know all presently."

The child gazed wonderingly at the troops as she heard these mysterious words. " Who are those ? " asked she, pointing to the squadrons of those still ia column. " Who are those in leather jerkins, covered with the iron scales, and riding the large, heavy horses ?"

" Batavians from the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt," answered the freedman, with a mysterious shake of the head.

" And those," pursued she, with increasing interest j " who are those whose faces shine like dusky copper, and whose eyes glitter like the eyes of the wild animals in the arena, when the proconsul of Greece gives the shows ? I mean those who ride the small, long-tailed

IHon and the Sibyls. at

horses without any saddle-cloths, and even without bridles — the soldiers in flowing dress, with rolls of linen round their heads? "

"They are the Niunidians," replied Philip. "Ahl Rome dreaded those horsemen once, when Hannibal the Carthaginian and his motley hordes had their will in these fair plains."

As he spoke a strange movement occurred. The general dismounted, and, giving the bridle of his horse to a soldier, began to walk slowly up and down the side of the road. No sooner had his foot touched the ground than the whole of the Numidian squadron seemed to rise like a covey out of a stubble-field ; with little clang of arms, but with one short, sharp cry, or whoop, it burst from the high road into the meadow land. There the evolutions which they performed seemed at first to be all confusion, only for the fact that, al- though the horsemen had the air of riding capriciously in every direction, crossing, intermingling, separating,, galloping upon opposite curves, and tracing every fig- ure which the whim and fancy of each might dictate^ yet no two of them ever came into collision. Indeed,, fantastic and wild as that rhapsody of manoeuvres into which they had broken appeared to be, some principle which was thoroughly understood by every one of them governed their mazy gallop. It was as acciurate and exact as some stately dance of slaves at the imperial court.

It was, in short, itself a wild dance of the Nu- midian cavalry, in which their reinless horses, guided only by the flashing blades and the voices of their rid- ers, manifested the most vehement spirit and a sort of

23 Dion and the Sibyls.

sympathetic frenzy. These steeds, which never knew the bridle, and went thus mouth-free even into battle — these horses, which their masters turned loose at night into the fields, and which came back bounding and neighing at the first call, were now madly plunging, wheeling, racing and charging, Uke gigantic dogs at sport. Presently they began to play a strange species of leapfrog. A Numidian boy, who carried a trumpet and rode a pony, or at least a horse smaller and lower than the rest of the barbs (" Berber horses"), suddenly halted on the outside of the mad cavalry whirlpool which had been formed, and flung himself flat at full length upon the back of the diminutive animal. Instantly the whirl, as it circled toward him, straightened itself into a column, and every horseman rode full upon the stationary pony, and cleared both steed and rider at a bound, a torrent of cavalry rushing over the obstruction with wild shouts.

" That is Numidian sport. Master Paulus," said the freedman ; " but there is not a rider among them to be compared to yoiuself."

" Certainly I can ride," said the youth, " but I pre- tend not to be superior to these Centaiu:s."

" Are these, then, the Centaurs I have heard of ? " asked Agatha ; " are these the wild powers ? "

The hubbub had prevented her, and all with her, from noticing something. Before an answer could be given, the Numidians had returned to the highway as suddenly as they had quitted it, and the noise of their dance was succeeded by a pause of attention. The gen- eral was again on horseback, and our travellers per- ceived that two litters, one of carved ivory and gold,

Dion and the Siiyls. 23

the other of sculptured bronze, borne on the shoulders of slaves, were beside them.

Two gentlemen on foot had arrived with the litters along the broad pathway already noticed, and a group of attendants at a little distance were following.

This new party were now halting with our travellers be- neath the far-spreading shade of the same trees. In the ivory litter reclined a girl of about seventeen, dressed in a long/a//a of blue silk, a material then only just in- troduced from India, through Arabia and Egypt, and so expensive as to be beyond the reach of any but the richest class. Her hair, which was of a bright gold color, was dressed in the fashionable form of a hel- met, and was inclosed behind in a gauze net. She wore large earrings, of some jewel, a gold chain, in every ring of which was set a gem, and scarlet shoes embroidered with pearls. The lady in the bronze htter was attired in the stola of a matron, with a cyclas, or circular robe, thrown back from the neck, and a tunic of dark purple which descended to her feet. Her brown hair was restrained by bands, vitta, which had an hon- orable significance among the Roman ladies. She seemed somewhat past thirty years of age ; she had a very sweet, calm and matronly air ; her countenance was as beautiful in features and general effect as it was modest in its tone and character.

Her companion,* in the litter of ivory and gold, was not more than half her age, was even more beautiful, with an immense wreath of golden hair, and with large blue eyes, darkening to the likeness of black as she

* Mother of Caligula, andgrandmotherof Nero by her daughter Agrip- piaa Julia.

24 Dion and the Sibyls.

gazed earnestly upon any object. But she had a less gentle expression. Frequently her look was penetrat- ing, brief, impatient, sarcastic, disdainful. She had a bewitching smile, however, and her numerous admirers made Italy echo with their ravings.

Lucius Varius, said the fashionable world, was at that very time engaged upon a kind of Sapphic ode, of which she was to be the subject.

Scarcely had these litters or palanquins arrived and halted, when the general officer dismounted once more, and walked quickly toward the spot with his helmet in his hand. At a few yards' distance he stopped, and first bowed low to the elder of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot, and then, almost entirely disregarding the other gentleman, made an obei- sance not quite so long or so deep to the ladies. The man whom so splendid a personage as the legatus, wear- ing his flaming paludamentum, and at the head of his troops, thus treated with so obsequious a veneration, did not return the salute except by a slight nod and a momentary, absent-minded smile. His gaze had been riveted upon our travellers, and chiefly upon the youth and his young, suffering sister, upon both of whom, after it had quickly taken in Philip the freedman, the Thracian woman, and the Athenian lady, it rested long — ^longest and last upon Agatha.

" Sejanus," said he finally, "who are these?"

" I never saw them until just now, my commander and Caesar; they were here when we halted, and while we waited for our master, the favorite of the gods, these travellers seemed to be resting where you behold them."

Dion and the Sibyls. 25

" As those gods favor me," said the other, " this is a fine yoiith. Can we not edit* him ? And yonder girl — ^have you ever seen, my Sejanus, such eyes ? But she is deadly pale. Are you always thus pale, pretty one, or are you merely ill ? If but ill, as I guess, Charicles, my Greek physician, shall cure you."

Before this man had even spoken, the moment, in- deed, when first his eyes fell upon her, Agatha had sidled close to her mother ; and while he was express- ing himself in that way to Sejanus, she returned his gaze with panic-stricken, dilated eyes, as the South American bird returns that of the reptile; but when he •directly questioned her, she, reaching out her hand to Faulus, clutched his aim with a woman's grasp, and said in an affrighted voice,

" My brother, let us go."

Faulus,, in a manner naturally easy, and marked by the elegance and grace which the athletic training of Athens had given to one so well endowed physically, first, merely saying to the stranger, " I crave your par- don," lifted Agatha with one arm, and placed her in the travelling carriage. Then, while the freedman and the Thracian slave mounted to their bench, he re- turned to where his mother stood, signed to her to follow Agatha, and, seeing her move calmly but quigkly toward the vehicle, he took the broad-rimmed hat from his head, and bowing slowly and lowly to the stranger, said,

" Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my sister is too ill to converse. You rightly

'' To produce a gladiator in the arena was to edit him.

26 Z>ion and the Sibyls.

guessed this; pennit us to take her to her desti- nation."

The man whom he had thus balked, and to whom he now thus spoke, merits a word of description. He ap- peared to be more than fifty years old. The mask of his face and the frame of his head were large, but not fat. His complexion was vivid brick-red all over the cheeks, with a deeper flush in one spot on each side, just below the outer comers of the eyes. The eyes were bloodshot, large, rather prominent, and were closely set together. The nose was large, long, bony, somewhat aquihne. The forehead was not high, not low; it was much developed above the eyes, and it was broad. A deep and perpetual dint just over the nose reached half-way up the forehead. His hair was grizzled and close cut. His lips were full and fleshy, and the mouth was wide; the jaws were large and massive. His face was shaven of all hair. The chin was very handsome and large, and the whole head was set upon a thick, strong throat, not stunted, however, of its proper length. In person this man was far from ungainly, nor yet was he handsome. In carriage and bearing, without much majesty, he had nevertheless something steadfast, weighty, unshrinking, and com- manding. His outer garment, not a toga, was all one color and material; it was a long, thick- wadded silk mantle, of that purple dye which is nearly black — the hue, indeed, of clotted gore under a strong light. He wore gloves, and instead of the usual short sword of the Romans, had a long steel stylus* for writing on wax thrust into a black leathern belt. This instrument

* Plim^, ^pis. iii. 21,

Dion and the Sibyls. 27

seemed to show that he lived much in Rome, where it was not the custom, when otherwise in civilian dress, to go armed.

As the reader will have guessed, this man was to be the next emperor of the Roman world.

" Permit you to take her to her destination ?" he re- peated slowly. " My Greek physician, I tell you, shall cure her. I will give directions about your destination." A slight pause ; then, "Are you a Roman citizen ? "

" I am a Roman knight as well as citizen," an- swered Pauius proudly; "and my family is not only equestrian, but patrician."

" What is your name ?"

" Pauius ^milius Lepidus."

The man in the black or gore-colored purple glanced at Sejanus, who, still unconcerned, stood with his splen- did helmet in the left hand, while he smoothed his mustache with the right; otherwise perfectly still, his handsome face, cruel mouth, and inteUigent eyes all alive with the keenest attention.

" And the destination to which you allude is — ?" pursued the man in black purple.

"Formiae," said Pauius.

"What relation or kinship exists between you and Marcus uEmilius Lepidus, formerly the triumvir, who still enjoys the life which he owes to the clemency of Augustus ?"

Pauius hesitated. When he had given his name, the younger of the two ladies had raised herself suddenly in the litter of ivory and gold, and fastened upon him a searching gaze, which she had not since removed. The other lady had also at that instant looked at him fixedly.

a8 Dion and the Sibyls.

We have already stated that, when Sejanus approached the group, he had not deigned in any very cordial manner to salute or notice the second of the two gentle- men who had accompanied the litters on foot. This gentleman was very sallow, had hollow eyes, and a habit of gnawing his under lip between his teeth. He had unbuckled his sword, and had given it, calling out, "Lygdus, carry this," to a man with an exceedingly sinister and repulsive countenance. The man in ques- tion had now taken a step or two forward, and was standing on the left of Paulus, fronting the Caesar, his shoulders stooping, his neck bent forward, his eyes without any motion of the head rolling incessantly from person to person, and face to face, but at once falling before and avoiding any glance which happened to meet his. He looked askant and furtively at every ob- ject with an eager, unhappy, and malign expression. Paulus did not need to turn his head to feel that this man was now intently peering at him. Behind the two courtly palanquins, and beyond the shade of the trees, was a third litter still more costly, being covered in parts with plate gold. Here sat a woman with a face as white as alabaster, and large, prominent black eyes, watching the scene, and apparently trying to catch every word that was said.

Paulus, as we have observed, hesitated. The train- ing of youth in the days of classic antiquity soon ob- literated the inferiority of unreasoning, nervous shyness. But the strange catechism which Paulus was now undergoing, with all this gaze upon him from so many eyes, began to be a nuisance, and to tell upon a spirit singularly high

Dion and the Sibyls, 29

" Have yoii heard my question ? " inqnired Tiberius.

" I have heard it," replied Paulus ; " and have heard and answered several others, without knowing who he is that asks them. However, the former triumvir, n«w living at Circsei, about forty thousand paces from here, is my father's brother." (Circaei, as the reader knows, is now called Monte Circello, a promontory just oppo- site Gaeta.)

When Paulus had given his last answer, the ladies glanced at each other, and the younger looked long and bard at Tiberius. Getting some momentary signal from him, she threw herself back in her palanquin and smiled meaningly at the stooping, sinister-faced man, who had stationed himself in the manner already mentioned near Paulus's left hand.

" Your father," rejoined Tiberius, after a pause, "was a very distinguished soldier, and, as I always heard, when a boy, he contributed eminently to the victory of PhiUppi. But I knew not that he had children ; and, moreover, was he not slain, pray, at Philippi, toward the end of the battle, which he certainly helped to gain ? "

" I hope," said Paulus, somewhat softened by the praise of his father, " I hope that Augustus supposed him to have died of his wounds, and that it was only under this delusion he gave our estates — which were situated some where in this very province of Campania, with a noble mansion like the castellum upon the river yonder — to that brave and able soldier Agrippa Vespasianus."

At this name a deep red flush overspread the brow of Tiberius, and Paulus innocently proceeded.

" Certainly, the noble Agrippa, who was to have been Csesar, had he lived, never would have accepted so un-

30 Dion and the Sibyls.

fair a bounty had he known that my father really sur- vived his wounds, but that — despairing of the gene- rosity, or rather despairing of the equity of Augustus — he was living a melancholy, exheredated exile, near that very battlefield of Philippi, in Thrace, where he had fought so well and had been left for dead."

" You dare to term the act of Augustus," slowly said the man in the gore-colored purple cloak, "so unfair a bounty, and Augustus himself ungenerous, or rather unjust ? "

At this terrible rejoinder from such a man, the down- looking person whom we have mentioned passed his right hand stealthily to the hilt of the sword, which he was carrying for his master, and half drew it. Paulus, who for some time had had this person standing at his left, could observe the action without turning his head. He was perfectly aware, moreover, that, should the other draw his weapon upon him, the very act of draw- ing it would itself become a blow, on account of their respective places, whereas to escape it required more distance between them, and to parry it in a regular way would demand quite a different position, besides the needful moment or two for disengaging his own rather long blade. Yet the youth stood completely still; he never even turned his head. However, he just shifted the wide-rimmed hat from his left to his right hand (the hand for the sword) and thereby seemed to be only more encumbered, unprepared, and defenceless than before. His left hand, with the back inward, fell also meantime in an easy and natural way upon the emerald haft of the outlandish-looking three-edged rapier, which, as he played with it, became loose in the scabbard, and came and went some fraction of an inch.

Dion and the Sibyls. 31

" I never tenned him so," said Paulus. " I said not this of Augustus. I am at this moment on my way to Augustus himself, who is, I am told, to be at Formiae with his court for a week or two. 1 must, therefore, again ask your leave, mighty office-bearer, to continue my journey. I know not so much as who you are."

" I am Tiberius Caesar," said the other, bending upon him those closely-set, prominent bloodshot eyes with no very assuring expression. " I am Tiberius Caesar, and you will be pleased to wait one moment before you con- tinue the joimiey in question. The accusation against your father was this : that, after Phib'ppi, he labored for the interests first of Sextus, the son of Pompey, and afterward of Mark Antony, in their respective impious and parricidal struggles ; and the answer to this charge (a charge to which witnesses neither were nor are want- ing) has always been, that it was simply impossible, seeing that Paulus Lepidus, your father, perished at Phi- lippi before the alleged treasons had occurred. Where- fore, as your father had done good service, especially in the great battle where he was thus supposed to have fallen, not only was his intiocence declared certain, but, for his memory's sake, Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir, your uncle, was forgiven. Yet now we learn from you, the son of the accused, that the only defence ever made for him is positively false; that your father, were he still living, would probably merit to be put to death ; and that your uncle, at the same time, is stripped of the one protecting circumstance which has preserved his head. I must order your arrest, and that of all your party, in order that these things may be at least fully in»-BStigated."

32 Dion and the Sibyls.

As this was said, the lady in the litter of ivory and gold contemplated Paulus with that bewitching smile which she was accustomed to bestow upon dying gladi- ators in the hippodrome ; while the other lady gazed at him with a compassionate, forecasting and muse-like look.

" I mean no disrespect whatever to so great a man as you, sir; but I will," said Paulus, " appeal from Tiberius Csesar to Caesar Augustus ; to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

No sooner had he uttered the words, " I appeal from Tiberius," than, before he could finish the sentence, the malign-faced man on his left with great suddenness drew the sword he was carrying for Cneius Piso, and, avail- ing himself of the first natural sweep of the weapon as it left the scabbard, sought to bring the edge of it back- ward across the face of Paulus, exclaiming, while he did so, " Speak you thus to Caesar ? "

Had this man, who was the future assassin of Drusus, and slave to Cneius Piso, who was the future assassin of Germanicus, succeeded in delivering that well-meant stroke, the sentence which our hero was addressing to Tiberius could never have been said out ; but said out, as we see, it was, and said, too, with due propriety of empha- sis, although with a singular accompanying delivery. In fact, though not deigning to look round toward this man, Paulus had been vividly aware of his movements, and, swift as was the attack, the defence was truly electrical Paulus's rapier, the hilt of which, as we have remarked, had been for some time in his left hand, leapt from its sheath, and being first held almost perpendicu- larly for one moment, the point down and the hilt a

Dion and the Sibyls. 33

Ktde higher than his forehead, met the murderous blow at right angles; after which the deUcate long blade flashed upward, with graceful ease but irresistible vio- lence, bearing the assassin's weapon backward upon a small semicircle, and remaining inside of it, or, in other words, nearer to Lygdus's body than Piso's sword, which Lygdus carried. It looked like a mere continuation of this dazzUng parry, but was, in truth, a vigorous deviation from it, which none but a very pliant and powerful wrist could have executed, when the emerald pommel fell like a hammer upon the forehead of Lygdus die slave, whom that disdainful blow stretched at his length upon the ground, motionless, and to all appear- ance dead. As Piso was standing close, the steel guard of the hilt, in passing, tore open his brow and cheek.

The whole occurrence occupied only five or seven sec- onds, and meanwhile the youth finished his sentence with the words already recorded, " From Tiberius Caesar to Csesar Augustus, to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

An exclamation of astonishment, and perhaps some other feeling, escaped from Tiberius. Sejanus smiled ; the woman with the pale face and black eyes, who sat in the unadorned plate-of-gold palanquin, screamed; and the other ladies laughed loudly. Among the Praetorian Guards, who from the road were watching with attention the group where they saw their general and the Caesar, a long, low murmur of approbation ran. At this, Tibe- rius turned and looked steadily and musingly toward them. Paulus, instantly sheathing his weapon, said :

" I ask Caesar's pardon, but there was no time to ob- tain his permission for what I have just done. My head

34 Dion and the Sibyls.

must have been in two pieces had I waited but one mo- ment."

" Just half a moment for each piece," said Tiberius ; "but your left hand seems well able to keep your head. Are you left-handed ? "

" No, great Caesar," said Paulus ; " I am what my Greek teacher of fence used to call two-handed, dima- chcerus ; he tried to make all his pupils so, but my right remains far better than my left."

" Then I should like to see your right thoroughly ex- ercised," said Tiberius.

Paulus heard a sweet voice here say, "As a favor to me, do not order the arrest of this brave youth ; " and, turning, he beheld the beautiful creature in the Utter of ivory and gold plead for him with Tiberius. The large blue eyes, darkening as she supplicated, smote the youth, and he could hardly take away his gaze.

" Young man, go forward with your mother and sister to Formiae, under the charge of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune whom you see yonder upon the road. Remain in Formiae till I give you leave to quit it. Re- port your place of residence to the tribune. Go ! "

The last word was pronounced harshly. Tiberius made a signal with his hand to Paterculus. Then pass- ing his arm through that of Sejanus, and speaking to him in a low tone, he led the general aside into the fields to a little distance; while — with the exception of two mounted troopers (each leading a horse), who remained behind, but considerably out of hearing — ^the Praetorian Guards, the three litters, and the travelling biga began to move toward Formiae, leaving the road to silence and the evening landscape to peace.

CHAPTER III.

JIBERIUS, when all had disappeared along the road, suddenly stopped in his walk.

His companion, toward whom he had turned, did the same, and looked at him with an air of expecta- tion.

" I leave all details to you," said the Csesar ; " but what has to be done is this — that youth, who calls him- self Paulus ^milius Lepidus, must be produced as a gladiator either in the Circus Maximus or the Statilian Amphitheatre,* as the number of victims may dictate. Men of noble birth have been seen ere now upon the sand. We will then make him show against the best swordsmen in the world — against Gauls, Britons, and Cappadocians — what that Greek fence is worth of which he seems a master. The girl, his sister, must be carried off, either beforehand or afterward, as your skill may dictate, and softly and safely lodged at Rome in that two-storied brick house of Cneius Piso and his precious wife, Plancina, which is not known to be mine (I believe and hope, and am given to understand, that it is not known to be theirs either)."

Tiberius paused, and Sejanus, with an intent look, slightly inclined his head. He was a keen man, a subtle man, but not a very profound man. He observed :

" I have heard something of this Greek widow and of her son and daughter. They have (it seems to me as if

* Suetonius, Aag. 39. The forum, where gladiators had often bled, was becoming less and less used for that purpose.

35

36 Dion and the Sibyls.

I had heard this) friends near the person of Augustus, or, at least, in the court. I can easily cause the girl to be so carried oflE that no rumor about the place of her residence will evermore sound among men. But the very mystery of it will sound, and that loudly ; and her mother and brother will never cease to pierce the ears of Augustus with their cries. But, before I say a word more, I wish to know two things — first, whether this youth Paulus is to be included in one of those great shows of gladiators which are rendering you, my Caesar, so beloved by the Roman people ? "

" Am I beloved, think you ? " asked Tiberius.

" The master-passion of the people is for the shows, and, above all, the fights of the amphitheatre," answered Sejanus. "Whoever has, for a hundred years and more, obtained the mastery of the world, has thus won the Romans; each succeeding dictator of the globe, from Caius Marius, and Sylla, and Pompey, and the invinci- ble Caius Julius and Mark Antony, to our present happy Emperor Augustus, has surpassed his predeces- sors in the magnificence of these entertainments given to people, populace, common legionaries, and Praeto- rians; and in exact proportion also, it is remarkable, has each surpassed his forerunners in permanent power, until that power has at last become nearly absolute, nearly unlimited."

"You say true," replied Tiberius; "and I excel all former examples in the extent, splendor, and novelty of my shows. Augustus has abandoned that department; but even when he was courting the Romans he never edited like me. People would now smile at the old- fashioned meanness of the spectacles which he formerly

Dion and the Sibyls. 37

made acceptable to them. He is breaking very fast in health, too, I fear, my Sejanus."

" He is, I fear, drawing toward his end," replied the commander of the Prsetorians.

"As to your question concerning this youth," resumed Tiberius, " my object is partly to add a novel and curi- ous feature to the fight — this strange sword-play. Yet, why should he not afterward be included in some great slaughter-match, three or four hundred a side, care be- ing taken that he should be finished ? We might first pit him fairly against six or a dozen single antagonists in succession. If he conquer them all, it will be unprece- dentedly amusing; the people will be in ecstasies, and then the victor can be made to disappear in the general conflict. I shall thus have the undisturbed management of his sister's education."*

Grave as a statue, Sejanus rephed :

"He is a proud youth, an equestrian, a patrician, son of an eminent warrior, nephew of one who once shared in the government of the whole globe. Well, not being a slave, if he found himself in the arena by virtue of having been violently seized and trepanned, I firmly be- lieve that, either before or after fighting, he would make a speech, appealing to the justice of the emperor and the S)rmpathy of the people, not to say anything about the soldiers. The plan you propose, my Caesar, seems like furnishing him with an immense audience and a gigantic tribunal before which to tell that pathetic story about his father and the battle of Philippi, and those family estates which are now in the possession of the

* It is well known tliat Trajan exhibited shows in which ten thousand gladiators fought, but this monstrous development of cruelty came long after our date.

38 Dion and the Sibyls.

two beautiful ladies whose litters have just preceded us on the road to Formias."

Tiberius smiled, as, with his head bent down, he looked at the speaker, and thus he continued stooping, looking, and smiling for a moment or two, after which he said :

" The Tuscans are subtle, and you are the subtlest of Tuscans ; what is best ? "

Sejanus said : " Let the girl first be carried away; let the mother and brother break their hearts for her; then let the Lanista Thellus, who is not known to be one of your men, but is supposed to hire out his gladiators on his own account, invite the youth to join his familia* or company, and when Paulus refuses, as he will refuse, let Thellus say that he knows money would not bribe Paulus, but that he has seen Paulus's sister; that he can guide him to her, if Paulus consents to fight in the next great forthcoming shows. And, in short, in order to make all this more specious, let Thellus have formed the acquaintance of the half -Greek family, mother, sister, brother, before the girl is abducted, in order that Paulus may think he speaks the truth when afterward saying that he has seen the sister and knows her, and can guide Paulus to where she is detained. If this plan be adopted, Paulus will fight in the arena of his own accord, and will make no speeches, no disturb- ance, but will disappear for ever in a decorous and legiti- mate manner."

" You are a man of immense merit, my Sejanus," re- plied the personage in gore-colored purple, "and I will some day reward you more than I can do while merely the Caesar of an Augustus — ^whom may the gods protect!

• A school of gladiators. Suet. Jul. 26 ; Aug. 42 ; Tacit. Hist. ii. 88.

IHon and the Siiyls. 39

The mother, perhaps, we can let alone, or she could be put on board a corsair as an offering to some god, to procure me good fortune in other things. We shall see. Meanwhile, execute all the rest with as little delay as the order and priority of the several matters, one be- fore the other, will allow, and report to me punctually at every step."

Beckoning to one of the troopers, who approached with the spare horse, Tiberius now mounted. The sol- dier immediately withdrew again, and Tiberius said to the Praetorian commander, " Be upon your guard with Paterculus; he is doubtless devoted to me, but is a squeamish man; clever, indeed, too. Still, there are dever fools, my Sejanus."

Then waving his hand, he rode slowly away, but came to a halt at a distance of twenty paces, and turned his horse's head round. Sejanus strode quickly toward his master.

" You know, of course, that the Germans, encouraged by the slaughter of Varus and his legions, are swarming over the Julian Alps into the northeast of Italy from Illyricimi.* How many legions are there available to meet them ? "

"We have within reach, at this moment, twelve," said Sejanus, " besides my Prastorians."

" Half the present forces of the whole empire," replied the other. " Germanicus is to drive back the barbarians. He will become more popular than ever with the troops generally. But the Praetorians do not care for him, I suppose ? "

*This German expedition took the same direction as tiiat of the Aus- trian armies which endeavored to dislodge Bonaparte from the siege of Mantua, and came pouring down both sides of Lake Garda.

40 Dion and the Sibyls.

" Even the Praetorians revere him," answered Sejanus.

" Why, how so ? They have so little to do with him."

" They know a soldier " began Sejanus.

" And am not I a soldier ? " interrupted his master.

" They love you, too, my Caesar, and dearly."

" Peace ! Tell me exactly. What think the Praeto- rians of Germanicus ? "

" They foolishly think that, since the day when Caius Julius was murdered, no such soldier "

" Enough ! Foolishly, say you ! Remember my in- structions. Vale / " And Tiberius galloped north, his face ablaze with a brick-red flush deeper than ordinary.

CHAPTER IV,

^EJANUS, when left alone, motioned to the two troopers. He who had brought Tiberius his horse rode furiously after the Caesar; the other attended the general, who slowly mounted his own steed, and, pursuing the same direction, began to trot leisurely toward Formias. The sun had gone down; the short twilight had passed away; clouds had gathered, and the moon, not having yet risen, the night was very black. In a few minutes Sejanus slackened his horse's pace from a trot to a walk, and the orderly, as his military attend- ant would in modem times be called, nearly rode against him in the dark. The man made some natural excuse, and fell back again about thirty paces.

Sejanus hardly noticed him.

"At present," he muttered, when again alone, " Tibe- rius, though a Caesar, needs me; Germanicus is Caesar too, and may become emperor. If Germanicus wished it, right or wrong — ^if fer fas et nefas — he would win. He has much of the genius of Caius Julius and his de- fect of overtrustfulness ; but none of his many vices. I doubt if he will ever be emperor; he is too Athenian, and also too honorable, too disinterested. Somehow I feel, too, as if he were going to be assassinated ; he believes readily in men. Tiberius has smaller abilities, worse qualities, and better chances. He will rule the world, and ^lius Sejanus will rule him."

As Sejanus said these things to himself in an indis- tinct murmur, of which none could have heard the pre-

42 Dion and the Sibyls.

cise words, a voice at his elbow astonished him. Said the voice,

" How far is it, illustrious general, to Fonniae ?" The Prastorian chief turned with a start, and saw that the speaker was a mounted traveller, attended by two servants, also on horseback ; but there was so little light that he could not distinguish the stranger's features, nor more of his dress and appointments than that they were not, as it seemed, Itahan.

" About five thousand paces," he answered. " How- ever, there is no inn at Fonniae. Some eight hundred paces from here is a good wayside tavern. But you call me general, for I wear the dress. You do not, however, know me."

" Not know the distinguished chief of the Praetorians? Not know the happy and unhappy, the fortunate and unfortunate Sejanus ?"

" Happy and unhappy," reechoed the latter, " fortu- nate and unfortunate ! What means this jargon ? You could use that language of every mortal. What you say you unsay."

While thus replying, he endeavored to discern the dim features of his new companion.

"Think you so?" said the man. "Then, pray, would it be the same if I were to say, for example, un- happy and happy, unfortunate and fortunate ?" "Yes." "Alas! no."

"What!" said Sejanus. "The happiness is pres- ent, the good fortune is present, but the misfortune and unhappiness are to come. Is this your mean- ing?"

Dion and the Sibyls. 43'

" As I always say what I mean," rejoined the other, *' so I never explain what I say."

"Then at least," observed Sejanus, with great haugh- tiness of tone and manner, " you will be good enough to say who you are. As the Prcetor Peregrinus,* espe- cially charged to look after foreigners, I demand your name. Remember, friend, that six lictors, as well as twenty thousand soldiers, obey Sejanus."

"I am the god Hermes," repUed the other, riding suddenly ahead, followed by both his attendants.

The movement was so imexpected that the figiffe of the stranger had become almost indistinguishable in the obscurity, before Sejanus mrged his fleet Numidian steed forward at a bound in pursuit,

"Take care," sjiid a voice 'in his front, "that your horse do not throw you, impious man !"

At the same time, the Praetorian leader heard some- thing roll upon the paved road, and immediately a vivid flash blazed under his horse's eyes, and a sharp report followed. Nearly thrown, indeed, he was, as the voice had warned him. When he had recovered his balance and quieted the startled beast he was riding, he halted to listen ; but the only soimd he could now hear was that of the mounted trooper trotting after him along the Appian Way. He waited for this man to come up, and inquired what he had observed in the three stran- gers who had previously passed him on the road.

" No stranger," said the man, "had passed him; he had seen no one."

Then Sejanus remembered what he had not at the moment adverted to, that neither when first accosted by

* Cic. Fam. xiii 59 ; Dion, iii 22.

^^ Dion and the Sibyls.

the stranger, nor afterward, while this person with his two attendants rode by his side, nor finally when they all galloped forward and were lost in the darkness, had any clatter of hoofs been audible.

He resumed his journey in silent thought, and soon arrived, without further adventure, at the large and famous post-house, standing in those days f«ur or five miles south of Formiae.

CHAPTER V.

[£ post-house, or mansit^ to which allasion has been made, situated about four or five miles south of Formiae, on the Appian road, was a large, rambling, two-storied brick house, capable of ac- commodating a vast number of travellers. It was not, therefore, merely one of the many relay-houses where the imperial couriers, as well as all who could produce a special warrant for the purpose, from a consul, or a praetor, or even a qusestor, were allowed to obtain a change of horses; still less was it one of the low canal- town taverns, whose keepers Horace abused; but it was a regular country inn, where man and beast found shelter for the small charge of one as, t and good cheer at pro- portionably moderate cost. It was well supplied from its own farmyards, oUve-groves, orchards, vineyards, pastures, and tilled fields, with vegetables, beef, mutton, poultry, geese, ducks, attagens, and other meats; eggs, wine, butter, cheese, milk, honey, bread and fruit; a deUcious plate of fish occasionally, an equally delicious array of quail, produced upon table in a state aromatic and frothy with their own fat juices.

This excellent and celebrated house of entertainment for belated or wayworn travellers, as well as for all who desired a change from the monotony of their usual life, was kept by a remarkably worthy old couple, formerly

* The maHgnant inn-keepers mentioned by Horace (Sat. lib. i., Sat. 5) kept a low class of houses in comparison with this notable hostelry, t Not quite one cent.

4.6 Dion and the Sibyls.

slaves, a freedman and freedwoman of the illustrious yEmilian family. The reader will have noticed that our hero has been called Paulus .^milius Lepidus; that his father had borne the same style; and Uke- wise that his father's brother, the former sovereign magistrate or triumvir in the second and great trium- virate, was named Marcus yEmilius Lepidus. In all these names, that of ^milius occurs ; and jiEmilius was the noblest of the patronymics which once this great family boasted. Now, theirs had been the house in which Crispus and Crispina, the good innkeeper and his wife, at present free and prosperous, had been boy and girl slaves. The wife, indeed, had been nurse to a son of Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir.

That son, some years before the date of our narra- tive, had been engaged in a conspiracy against Augus- tus; and the conspiracy having been discovered by Maecenas, the youth had been put to death. Marcus ^milius Lepidus, the father, was exculpated from all knowledge of this attempt on the part of his son, but had ever since hved in profound retirement at a lonely seashore castle some twenty or thirty miles from Cris- pus's inn, near Monte Circello ; a silent, brooding, timid man, no longer very wealthy, entirely without weight in the society which he had abandoned, and without any visible influence in the political world, from which he had fled in some terror and immense disgust.

As Sejanus rode slowly up to the inn-door, a centur- ion came out of the porch with the air of one who had been waiting for him. Saluting the general, this oflSicer said that he had been left behind by Velleius Paterculuy to say that the sister of the youth whom Tiberius ha/'

^tHon and the Sibyls. 47

placed under the charge of Paterculus had fainted on the road; that being unable to proceed, she and her mother had taken a lodging in the inn ; that the youth had at once begged Paterculus ^o allow him to remain instead of proceeding to Fonniae, in order that he might attend to his poor sister, for whose life he was alarmed, giving his promise that he would faithfully report him- self, and not attempt to escape ; that Paterculus consid- ered himself justified, under the circumstances, in acced- ing to so natural a request; consequently, that the young man was now in the inn, along with his mother and sister ; and that he, the centurion, had been ordered to await Sejanus's arrival and inform him of what had occurred, so that he might either confirm his subordi- nate's decision, or repair the mistake, if it was one, and cause the youth to go forward at once to Formise accord- ing to the letter of Tiberius's original command.

" It is well," said Sejanus, after a moment's reflection. " This is not the sort of lad who will break his word. Carthaginians, and rubbish like them, knew long ago how to believe a Roman knight and patrician, and this lad seems to be of the Regulus breed. Does the Caesar himself, however, know of this ? "

" I had no orders to tell him," answered the centur- ion ; " and if I had had, it would have been diiScult ; he passed at full gallop a quarter of an hour ago, his head down, not so much as looking aside."

Sejanus then put the following question with a sneer :

" Has a god, or a stranger with two attendants on horseback, passed this way ?"

" No god, unless he be a god, and he had no attend- ants," said the astonished centurion.

48

Dion and the Sibyls.

" You have not seen three figures on horseback, nor a flash of bluish light ? "

" I certainly thought I saw three figures on horseback, but I cpuld not be sure. It was on the farther side of the way, general, which is broad," continued the man apolo- getically, " and there was no sound of hoofs ; my im- pression, too, was gone in a moment. As to a flash of bluish light, there are several flashes of red and white light inside the inn kitchen, and they make the road outside all the darker ; but there has been no flash in the road."

" Good ! now follow me."

And Sejanus rode on in the direction of Formise, the centurion and the soldier behind him.

CHAPTER VI.

§HE inn, it is well ascertained, never became a conunon institution in classic antiquity. It was utterly unknown in emything like its mod- em shape among the Greeks ; one cause being that the literary Greeks gave less care to their roads and com- munications than the administrating, fighting, conquer- ing, and colonizing Romans always did. Even among the Romans the army trusted to its city-like encamp- ments from stage to stage. Centuries passed away, during which the private traveller found few indeed, and far between, any better public resting-houses along the magnificent and stupendous highways, whose remains we still behold indestructible, from England to Asia Minor, than the half-day relay-posts, or mutationes. At these the wayfarer, by producing* his diploma from the proper authorities, obtained a change of horses.

Travelling, in short, was a thousand-fold less prac- ticed than it is among us ; and those who did travel, or who deemed it likely they ever should, trusted to that hospitality which necessity had made universal, and the poetry of daily life had raised by repute into one of the greatest virtues. Years before any member of your family, supposing you to belong to the age through' which the events of this nanative are carrying and to> carry us, years before any of yoiu- circle quitted your- roof, you knew to what house, to what smoky hearth in, ^^ch foreign land, to what threshold in Spain, Gaul,,

* Fliny, Ep. z. 14, 121. 49

50 Dion and the Sibyls.

Syria, Egypt, Greece, the wanderer would eventually resort. A certain family in each of these and other lands was your hospes, and you were theirs ; and very often you carried round your neck, attached to a gold or silver chain, a bit of elder or oak notched and marked by the natural breakage, the corresponding half of which hung day and night round the neck of some friend living thousands of miles away, beyond rivers, mountains, wild forests, and raging seas. These tokens were the cheap lodging-money of friendship. Very often they were interchanged and put on in boyhood, and not presented till advanced age. He who had thrown the sacred symbol round the curly head of his playmate on the banks of the Tiber, saw an old man with scanty white hair approach him, half a centiuy afterward, at Alexandria, or Numantia, or Athens, and offer him a little bit of wood, the fractures of which were found to fit into those of a similar piece worn upon his own bosom. Or the son brought the father's token ; or a son received what a father had given. And the stranger was forthwith joyfully made welcome, and took rank among dear friends. Forthwith the bath and the supper introduced him to his remote home amid foreign faces. To be once imfaithful to these pledges, was to become irreparably infamous. The caitiff who thus simdered the ties of traditionary and necessity-caused and world-wide kindness, became an object of scorn and reprobation to all. It was enough to mention of him,* tesseram confregit hospitakm (" that man has broken his token-word of hospitality "); with that all was said. Traces of this touching custom appear to survive

•Cic. Qu. Fr. ii. 14 ; Plautus, Poen. v. i, 22, 2, 92, Cist. 2, i, 27.

Dion and the Sibyls. 51

in some of the ceremonials of rustic love, amid many a population ignorant that the ancient Romans ever reigned over Europe,

But if inns, in year eleven, were not what they have been in mediaeval and modem Europe, nevertheless a few existed even then ; and a more notable estab- lishment of this kind never flourished in any part of the Roman empire than that to which our stoiy has now brought us. It was the exception to manners then prevalent, and the presage of manners to come long afterward. It used to be commonly called the Post- House of the Hundredth Milestone, or, more briefly, Crispu^s Inn.

The public-room of this place of entertainment was not unhke the coffee-room of a good modem inn, except that it was necessarily far more full of incident and in- terest, because the ancients were beyond comparison more addicted to living in pubUc than any modem na- tion has ever been.

An Englishman who makes a similar remark of the French, in comparison with his own countrymen, has only to remember that the modem French as much ex- cel the ancient Romans in fondness for retirement and privacy and domestic life as the English believe them- selves to excel the French in the same particular.

An inn did not trouble itself much with the triclinium, a chamber seldom used by its frequenters. Even the manners of the trklinium were out of vogue here.

In Crispus's public-room, for instance, there was one and only one table arranged with couches around it, upon which some three or four customers, while eating and drinking, could recline according to the fashion

53 Dion and the Sibyls.

adopted in the private houses of the rich and noble. All the other tables stood around the walls of the apartment, with benches and settees on each side, offering seats for the guests. The inner seats at these tables were gener- ally preferred, for two reasons : the occupants saw all that passed in the room, and, besides, had the wall, against which they could lean back.

When Velleius Paterculus, having left Tiberius and Sejanus in the meadows near the Liris, took charge of the Praetorian squadrons and of Paulus, he directed a Batavian trooper, to dismount and give his horse to the prisoner. Paulus willingly sprung upon the big Flemish beast and rode by the side of the obliging offi- cer who had given him that conveyance. Thus they proceeded at an easy amble until they reached the post- house, to the porch of which the noise of four thousand hoofs, suddenly approaching along the paved road, had brought a group of curious gazers. Among these was the landlord, Crispus himself.

A halt, as the reader must have inferred from a for- mer incident, was occasioned at the door by the intima- tion conveyed to Paterculus that Paulus's sister had fainted, that she and her mother intended to seek a lodg- ing at the inn, and that the mother and brother of the invalid would both feel grateful to the commanding offi- cer if he could permit Paulus, upon pledging his word not to make any attempt to escape, to remain there with them.

" As to the ladies," said the urbane literary soldier, " I have neither the wish nor any orders to interfere with their movements. But you, young sir, what say you ? Will you give me your word to regard yourself

Dion and the Sily/s. S3

as being in my custody till I expressly release you? Will you promise not to aiire, evadere, excedere, or erufnpere, as our friend Tully said ? "

" Tully ! Who is that ? " asked our hero.

"What, you a half- Greek and not know who Tully was ! Is this the manner in which Greek youths, or at least youths in Greece, are educated ! Is it thus they are taught in Greece, to which we go ourselves for edu- cation ! In that Greece which has forbidden gladiatorial shows, and diminished the training of the body to have more time for that of the intellect ! "

Faulus blushed, seeing he must have betrayed some gross degree of rusticity, and answered :

" I know I am ignorant : I have been so much occu- pied in athletic sports. But I will give you the promise you ask, and keep it most truly and faithfully."

" I will trust you, then. Go a littie, my friend, into the athletic sports of the mind, which are precisely those Greece most cultivates. You are of a great family now fallen down. The muscles of the arm, the strength of the body, a blow from a cestus, never yet raised that kind of burden off the ground. You fence astonishingly well — I noted your parry just now; but the fence of the mind is everything, believe me. By the way, I see the excellent Piso, whom you hammered down after the parry, as one puts a full stop to a pretty sentence, is be- ing carried into this same post-house."

" By your leave, illustrious sir," interposed the inn- keeper, rather nervously, " it is scarcely the custom, is it, to drop guests at Crispus's door, without first asking Crispus has he room for them ? The expected visit of the divine Augustus to the neighboring palace of the

54 Dion and the Sibyls.

most excellent and valiant knight Mamurra, in Formias, has choked and strangled this poor house. There is no place where the multitude of guests can lodge in the town, so they come hither, as to a spot at a con- venient distance. Troops of players, troops of gladia- tors, troops of fort'ine-tellers, troops of geese, pigs, beeves, attagens, alive and dead, night and day, for the last week, with mighty personages from a distance, make the road noisy, I assure you, even after my house is full. I believe they would wish me to put up the very oxen intended for sacrifice."

" Have you no chambers whatever vacant ? " asked Velleius.

" I did not say that, most excellent sir ; vacant is one thing, disengaged is another. I have received an ex- press letter from Brundusium, to say that a certain queen out of the East, with her son and her train, are coming to pay their homage to the emperor ; and here we hav« already the servants of that Jew king, as they say, one King Alexander, who wants his cause to be heard and his title settled by Augustus himself, and I am obliged to listen to loud outcries that he, too, must have apart- ments."

At this moment the travelling carriage carrying poor Agatha and her mother had been drawn nearly opposite to the porch, but a little in rear of the tribune, so as not to interrupt his conversation with the innkeeper. Pater- culus threw a quick glance at the beautiful pallid face of the girl, and the anxious and frightened look of her mother.

" By what you tell me, worthy Crispus," he replied, " you are so far from having your justly celebrated house

Dion and the Sibyls. 55

full, that you are keeping two sets of apartments still vacant, in expectation, first, of some queen from the East, with her son and train, and secondly, of this Jew- ish king, one Alexander. Worthy libertinus,* the fair damsel whom you see so pale, is very sick, and has just swooned away from sheer fatigue. Will you turn such a daughter in such health, with her noble mother, from your door ? A queen can take care of herself, it seems to me. But what will become of these excellent Roman ladies, your own countrywomen, if you now bid them be- gone from yom: threshold ? You have assured me that they can obtain no shelter at all in Formise. Look at the child ! She seems likely to faint again. Are you to let this daughter of a Roman knight die in the fields, in order that you may have room for a barbarian queen ? You have a daughter of/your own, I am told."

"Die!" groaned the innkeeper: "all this did not come into my mind, most illustrious tribune and quaes- tor. Come, little lady, let me help you down. This lady and her daughter, sir, shall have the queen's own ^artments — ^may all the gods destroy me otherwise! Here, Crispina."

Velleius Paterculus smiled, and having whispered some order to a centurion, who remained behind in watch for Sejanus, the tribune waved his hand, crying out vale to idiom it might concern, and rode forward with the Prae- torians at a much smarter pace than they had come.

* Libtrtus, freedman of such or such a family ; libertinus, freedman in gownl, or son of one.

CHAPTER VII.

5EANWHILE the innkeeper's wife, Crispina, had appeared, and had led Aglais and her daughter through the group in the porch into the house, and passing by a little zothecula^ behind the curtain of which they heard the sound of flutes, t as the carvers carved, and many voices, loud and low, denoting the apartment called diaeta or public room of the inn, they soon arrived at the compluvium, an open space or small court, in the middle of which was a cistern, and in the middle of the cistern a splashing foimtain. The cistern was railed by a circular wooden balustrade, against which some creeping plants grew. This cistern was sup- phed from the sky; for the whole space or court in which it lay was open and unroofed. Between the circular wooden balustrade and the walls of the house was, on every side, a large quadrangular walk, lightly graveled, and flashing back, under the lantern which Crispina car- ried, an almost metallic glint and sparkle. Of course this walk presented its quadrangular form on the outer edge, next the house only ; the inside, next the cistern, was rounded away. This quadrangular walk was at one spot diminished in width by a staircase in the open air (but under an awning), which led up to the second story of the large brick building. Around the whole complu- vium, or court, the four inner faces of the inn, which had

* Zothecula, a small apartment,onesideof which was formed by a CUT* tain. Fliny, ]Spis. ii. 17 ; t. 6. Suetonius, Claud. 10. ^Flutes, etc. Juvenal, v. 121 ; xl. 137. 56

ZHoH and the Sibyls. 57

four covered lights in sconces against the walls, were marked at irregular intervals by windows, some of which were mere holes, with trapdoors (in every case open at present) ; others, lattice- work, like what, many centuries later, obtained the name of arabesque-work, having a curtain inside that could be drawn or undrawn. Others again with perforated slides ; others stretched with linen which oil had rendered diaphanous; others fitted with thin scraped horn ; one only, a tolerably large window, with some kind of mineral panes more translucent than transparent.

At the back, or west of the inn, an irregular oblong wing extended, which, of course, could not open upon this court, but had its own means of light and ventila- tion north and south respectively*

Crispus had followed the group of women, and our friend Paulus had followed Crispus. In the compluvium the innkeeper took the lantern from his wife, and begged Aglais and Agatha to follow him up the awning-covef ed staircase. As he began to ascend, it happened that Crispina, looking around, noticed Paulus, who had taken off his broad-rimmed hat, under one of the sconces. No sooner had her eyes rested on him than she started vio- lently and grasped the balustrade as if she would have fallen but for that support.

"Who are you ? " said the woman.

" The brother of that yoimg lady who is ill, and the son of the other lady."

"And you, too, must want lodgings ?"

" Certainly."

The woman seized his arm with a vehement grip and gazed at him.

jg Dion and the Sibyls.

" Are you ill ? " said Paulus, " or— or— out of your mind ? Why do you clutch my arm and look at me in that fashion ? "

" Too young," said she, rather to herself than to him; "besides, I saw the last act with these eyes. Truly this is wonderful."

Then, like one waking from a dream, she added, " Well, if you want lodgings, you shall have them. You shall have the apartments of this king or pretender — the rooms prepared for the Jew Alexander. Come with me at once." And she unfastened the lamp in the nearest sconce and led Paulus up the staircase.

Thus the wanderers, Aglais and her daughter, had the queen's room, with their Thracian slave Melana to wait upon them, while the prisoner Paulus had the king's, to which Crispina herself ordered old Philip, the freedman, to carry his luggage.

A few moments later the innkeeper, who had returned to the more pubUc parts of the house to attend to his usual duties, met Philip laden with parcels in one of the passages, and asked him what he was doing.

" Carrying young Master Paulus's things to his room."

"You can carry," said the innkeeper, "whatever the ladies require to their room ; but your yoimg master has no room at all, my man, in this house. And why? For the same reason that will compel you to sleep in one of the lofts over the stables. There is no space for him in the inn. You must make him as comfortable as you can in the hay, just like yourself."

" Humanity is something," muttered Crispusj " but to make a queen one's enemy on that score, without adding a king, where no humane consideration inter-

Dion and the Sibyls. 59

venes at all, is enough for a poor innkeeper in a single night. These tetrarchs and rich barbarians can do a poor man an ugly turn. Who knows but he might com- plain of my house to the emperor, or to one of the con- suls, or the praetor, or even the quaestor, and presto! everything is seized, and I am banished to the Tauric Chersonese, or to Tomos in Scythia, to drink mare's milk with the poet Ovid.*"

" Go on, freedman, with your luggage," here said a peremptory voice, " and take it whither you have taken the rest."

" And in the name of all the gods, wife," cried Cris- pus, " whither may that be ? "

" Go on, freedman," she repeated ; and then taking her husband aside, she spoke to him in a low tone.

" Have you remarked this youth's face?" she asked; " and have you any idea who he is ? "

" I know not who any of them are," replied Crispus.

" Look at him then ; for here he comes."

Crispus looked, and as he looked his eyes grew big- ger; and again he looked until Paidus noticed it, and smiled.

" Do you know me ? " says he.

" No, illustrious sir."

" Alas ! I am not illustrious, good landlord, but him- gry I am. And 1 believe we all are, except my poor sister, who is not very strong, and for whom, by and by, I should like to procure the advice of a physician."

" The poor young thing," said Crispina, "is only tired

* Something in this language may seem out of keeping, I would therefore remind the reader that the most learned, accomplished, stu- dious, and highly-cultivated minds among the Romans were very fre- quently found in the class of slaves and freedmen.

€o pion and the Sibyls.

with her journey; it is nothing. She will be well to- morrow. Supper you shall have presently in the ante- chamber of your mother's apartments ; and your freed- man and female slave shall be cared for after they have waited upon you."

"All this is easy and shall be seen to forthwith," -added Crispus ; " but the doctor for your dear sister, where shall we find him ? "

" Understand," said Paulus, " my sister is not in im- mediate danger, such as would justify calling in any empiric at once rather than nobody. She has been ail- ing for some time, and it is of no use to send for the first common stupid practitioner that may be in the way. Is there not some famous doctor procurable in Italy ? "

" The most famous in Italy is a Greek physician not five thousand paces from here at this moment," said the landlord. " But he would not come to everybody j he is Tibaius Csesar's own doctor."

" You mean Charicles," replied Paulus. " I almost think he would come ; my mother is a Greek lady, and he will siurely be glad to oblige his countrywoman."

"Then write you a note to him," said Crispina, "and I will send it instantly."

Paulus thanked her, said he would, and withdrew.

When he proposed to his mother to dispatch this mes- sage to Charicles, she hesitated much. Agatha was bet- ter; he found her in comparatively good spirits. It would do to send for the doctor next day. An lu'gent summons conveyed at night to the palace or residence of the Caesar, where Charicles would probably of neces- sity be, would cause Tiberius to inquire into the matter, and would again draw his attention, and draw it still

Dion and the Sibyls. tx

more persistently to them. He had already intimated that he would order his physician to attend Agatha. They did not desire to establish very close relations with the man in black purple.

It is wonderful even how that very intimation from Tiberius had diminished both mother's and daughter's anxiety to consult the celebrated practitioner, to whose advice and assistance they had previously looked for- ward. There were parties in the court and cabals in the political world ; and among them, as it happened, was the Greek faction, at the head of which his ill-wishers alleged Germanicus to be. Graeculus, or Greek cox- comb, was one of the names flung at him as a reproach by his enemies. What the Scotch, and subsequently the Irish interest may have been at various times in modem England, that the Greek interest was then in Roman so- ciety. Of aU men, he who most needed to be cautious and discreet in such a case was an adventurer who. being himself a Greek, owed to his personal merit and abilities the position of emolument and credit which he enjoyed; who was tolerated for his individual qualities as a foreigner, but who, if suspected of using professional opportunities as a political partisan, would be of no service to others, and would merely lose his own advan- tages.

" Let Tiberius send Charicles to us," continued Aglais, " and OTU- countryman and friend may be of service to us, even in the suit which we have to urge at court. But were we now to show the Caesar that we confide in Chaiicles, we should only injure our countryman and not benefit ourselves."

" How injure him ? "

62 Dion and the Siiyls.

" Thus," replied the Greek lady. " If your claim for the restitution of your father's estates be not granted for justice's sake, I must make interest in order that it may be granted for favor's sake. As a Greek I shall be likely to induce no powerful person to take our claims under his protection except Germanicus, the friend of Athenians. Now, it is a fact, which I have learned for certain, that Tiberius hates Germanicus, whom he re- gards as his rival ; and that whoever is patronized by Germanicus, him Tiberius would gladly destroy. Be- hold us in a short while the clients and retainers of this same Germanicus, and let Tiberius then remember that his own physician has been, and continues to be, inti- mate and confidential with this brood of the Germanicus faction. Would not Charicles be damaged, perhaps en- dangered ? But if we wait until the Caesar himself sends us the doctor, as he said he would, we may then gain by it, and our friend not lose."

" Mother, you are indeed Greek," said Paulus, laugh- ing; "and as Agatha is in no actual danger, be it as you say. Do you know, sister, there is nothing the matter with you but fatigue and fright ? I am sure of it. You will recover rapidly now, with rest, peace, and safety."

" Mother," says Agatha, smiling, "we have forgotten, amid all this consultation about my health, to tell brother the curious discovery I have just made."

" True," said Aglais ; " yoiu: sister has explored a very odd fact indeed."

"Why, brother," says Agatha, " we found you in this, large sitting-room when we entered, though we had left you below-stairs, near the cistern,"

Dion and the Sibyls. 63

" Found me ? " said Paulus.

"Yes," added his mother; " found you concealed in this room by Tiberius."

" Concealed by Tiberius ? "

" I will not leave you in suspense any longer," said the young girl, laughing. " Look here." And she led him to a table, behind the bench on wliich she had been sitting, and directed his attention to a bust, or rather a head of Tiberius, modeled or moulded in some sort of pottery.

" That" said she, "when I first sat down, stood upon yonder table opposite to us. I recognized the face of the man who had spoken to me under the chestnut-trees, just before you assisted me back to the carriage. I ab- hor the wicked countenance ; and not choosing to let it stare at me like a dream where it was, I rose and went to remove it to the stand where you now see it, behind my bench. Well, only think ! I took it, so, with my hands, one imder each ear, and lifted it; when, lo! it came away, and left your own dear face looking at us, thus ! "

As she spoke, she again lifted the terra cotta face, and beneath it a much smaller and more elegant piece of sculpture in white marble was disclosed, presenting the lineaments and image of Paulus himself. He started, and then his sister replaced the mask of Tiberius with a laugh.

" Was I not speaking true when I said that Tiberius had concealed you here ? " said his mother.

" The Caesar, very true, has me in his head, and well secured," said Paulus.

At that moment the door opened, and Crispina en-

64 Dion and the Sibyls.

fered to ask whether the letter for the physician was ready. They told her they had changed their minds, and would not, at least that night, send any letter, Agatha felt and looked so much better.

" Then I will at once order your supper to be brought," said Crispina; "and as you are evidently people of dis- tinction, would you like music while the meats are carved ? "

" Certainly not," said the Greek lady. " Nor a carver either, mother," interposed Agatha; and, turning to the hostess, she begged that they might be treated as quietly and let alone as much as it was possible.

" That is indeed our desire," said the Greek lady. " In that case," repUed the hostess, " my own daugh- ter, Benigna, shall attend to you. Nobody shall trouble you. You are in the rear or west wing of the hotise, far away from all the noise of our customers, who are sometimes, I confess, sufficiently uproarious. But Cris- pus is not afraid of them. When to-morrow's sun rises, you will be glad to find what a beautiful country extends beneath your windows, even to the waters of the Tyr- rhenian Sea. You will behold, first, a garden and bee- hive ; beyond these are orchards ; beyond them, fields of husbandry and pleasant pasture-lands, with not a human figure to h^ seen except knots and dots of work- people, a few shepherds, and perhaps an angler amusing himself on the banks of the Liris in the distance."

" Oh ! " said Agatha, " I wish soon to go to sleep, that we may set out quickly toward that beautiful coun- try to-morrow morning."

" Would you not like a little bit of something very

Dion and the Sibyls. 65

nice for supper first, my precious litde lady ? " quoth the good hostess ; " and that will make you sleep all the better, and from the moment when you close your pretty eyes in rest and comfort under poor Crispina's roof, to the moment when you open them upon those lovely scenes, you won't be able to count one, two, three — but just only one — and presto ! there's to-morrow morning for you."

Agatha declared that this was very nice; and that supper woidd be nice; and that everything was comfort-, able — ^the rooms particularly so.

" Then a delicious little supper shall be got ready at once," said Crispina. " I'll call my brisk Benigna to help me."

Before quitting the room, however, the landlady, whose glance had rested chiefly upon Paulus during the conversation, threw up her hands a little way. She then composed herself, and, addressing Aglais, asked :

"What names, lady, shall I put down in my book ?"

" I will tell you when you return," replied Aglais; and the landlady retired.

CHAPTER VIII.

?ET us show her the marble likeness," suggested Paulus, in an eager whisper, with the air of a child devising mischief.

While they were discussing this topic, a gentle knock was heard at the door, and then a very pretty girl of about fifteen, with an open, sweet countenance, and a remarkably modest, cheerful bearing, presented herself, with a sort of tray, with various articles for supper ar- ranged thereon.

" May I come in ? I am Benigna," said the girl, courtesying.

" Come in, Benigna," said the lady.

"Come in," added Agatha, in Latin, but by no means with so good an accent as her mother's. " You seem like your name ; you seem to be Benigna."

The girl looked. at the beautiful child with a sweet, grateful smile, and immediately proceeded to prepare a table and three covers for supper.

" Do you know Greek ? "* asked Aglais.

" No, lady," repUed the daughter of the house. " My father is quite a scholar. He was one of the secretary slaves in the great house before he got his freedom, and my mother has learnt much from him ; but I have been brought up to help mother in the inn, and never had time to learn high things."

* Greek, we may observe, was to the Romans of tbat age about as familiar as, and far more necessary than, French is to us. It was the vehicle of all philosophy, and the condition of sU higher education. The fashionable Romans used Greek phrases in conversation through vanity.

66

Dion and the Sibyls. 67

Agatha clapped her hands, and exclaimed :

" Then I'll talk my bad Latin to Benigna, and she shall make it good."

The girl paused in her operations at the table, and said:

" I thought Latin came naturally to one, like the rain, and that it was Greek which had to be worked out, and made, just as wine is."

The landlady, carrying various articles, entered as her daughter uttered this valuable observation, and she joined heartily in the laugh with which it was greeted. Be- nigna gazed around a moment in amazement, and then resumed her work, laughing through sympathy, but very red from the forehead to the dimples round her pretty mouth.

The supper-table was soon ready.

Paulus, at whom the hostess had frequently looked wistfully, now remarked that they all felt much gratitude for the kindness they were receiving, and never could forget it, Crispina, who was going out at the moment, did not reply, but lingered with her hand upon the door ; the other hand she passed once across her eyes.

Then the Greek lady observed :

" Good hostess, these are the apartments you intended for some barbarian queen, I believe ? "

" Yes, my lady ; for Queen Berenice, daughter-in-law of King Herod the Idumsean, called Herod the Great, with her son Herod Agrippa, a wild youth, I under- stand, about eighteen years old, and her daughter Herodias."

" I heard the tribune quasstor, who commands the Praetorians, plead for us with your husband," continued

68 Dion and the Sibyls.

Aglaisj "and I suppose that the quaestor's generous eloquence is the cause of our being received into your house at all. But this does not account for your extra- ordinary kindness to us. We expected to be barely tol- erated as inconvenient and unwelcome guests, who kept better customers away."

" Inconvenient and unwelcome ! " said Crispina, who seemed ready to cry, as, looking around the little group, her glance rested again upon Paulus,

"Whereas," resumed Aglais, "you treat my dear chil- dren as if you were their mother. Why are we so for- tunate as to find these feelings in a stranger ? "

The hostess paused a moment. " Honored lady," said she, " the reason is that I once was the nurse of a youth whom I loved as if he were my own child ; and it seemed to me as if I saw my brave, beautiful, affec- tionate nursling again when I saw your son ; but so long a time had passed, I nearly fell with fright and astonish- ment."

Agatha went to the bust of Tiberius, lifted it, and, pointing to the marble image, said in a low, tender voice,

" You nursed him ? "

A little cry of dismay escaped the lips of oiu: hostess.

" No one ever thought of looking beneath," said she. " My daughter and I arrange and dust the room. I must remove my poor boy's image. He is indeed for- gotten by most people nowj but it might harm us, and alas ! alas ! could not help him, if this silent face, that never smiles at me, never talks to me any more, were to be discovered. Do not speak of this to anybody, I beg of you, good lady, and my pretty one. You will not?" added she, smiling, but with tears in her eyes, as she

Dion and the Siiylt. £9.

looked at Paulus. " I feel as though I had reared you." They said they would take care not to allude to the subject at all, except among themselves, and then Aglais remarked :

" You speak in sorrow of the youth whom you nursed. Is he then dead ? "

" £Aeu / lady, he is dead nearly twenty years ; but he was just about your son's age when they put him to death."

" Put him to death ? Why was he put to death, and by whom ? " asked Aglais.

" Hush ! Maecenas and the emperor ordered it to be done. Oh! do take care. The whole world swarms with spies, and you may be siu^e an inn is not free from them. Things have been more quiet of late years. When I was young, I felt as if my head was but glued to my shoulders, and would fall off every day. As for Crispus, did I not make him cautious how he spake ? "

" But your foster-son ? "

" Ah, poor boy ! Poor young knight I He was mad about the ancient Roman Uberdes; a great student, always reading Tully."

" Was that his crime ? " demanded Aglais.

The hostess wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her stola manicata, and said, in a tone little above a whisper, looking round timidly, and closing the door fast,

" Why, Augustus came suddenly one day into a tri- elinium, where he caught a nephew of his trying to hide under a cushion some book he had been reading. Au- gustus took the book, and found that it was one of TuHy's. The nephew thought he was lost, remember- ing that it was Augustus who had given up Cicero to

^o Dion and the Sibyls.

Mark Antony to be murdered. There the emperor stood, fastened to the page, and continued reading and reading till at last he heaved a great breath, and, rolling up the book on its roller, laid it softly down and said, * A great mind, a very great mind, my nephew ; ' and so he left the room."

"Then it was not your foster-son's admiration of Cicero that caused his death ? "

" My foster-son was not Augustus's nephew, you see ; but eheu / how different a case ! — the nephew of a for- mer rival of Augustus, Nor used the emperor's nephew to talk as my poor child would talk. My foster-son used to say that for Augustus to have given up Tully, hjs friend and benefactor, to be murdered by Mark Antony, in order that he, Augustus, might be allowed to murder somebody else, and then to discover that neither he nor the himian race could enjoy justice, nor see peace, nor have safety, till this very same Antony should be himself destroyed, was not a pretty tale. Cicero had sided against and had resisted Julius Caesar; yet Julius had given back his life to a man of whom Rome and the civilized world were proud. The same Tully had sided with, not against, Augustus, and had been the making of him ; yet the life which a noble enemy had spared and left shining like a star, a base friend stole, and suffered to be quenched; and this for the sake of a monster who, for the sake of mankind, had to be very soon himself destroyed. This was not a nica tale, my poor Paulus used to say."

" Nor was it ; but your Paulus ? " cried Aglais. The travellers all held their brea^ in surprise and suspense.

" Yes."

Dion and the Sibyls. "jj

"What! the youth whom that bust represents, aad whom Augustus put to death, was called Paulus ? "

"Yes. They said he had engaged in some conspir- acy, the foolish dear! But now, lady, I have been led, bit by bit, into many disclosures, and I beseech you — "

" Fear not," interrupted Aglais; " I cannot but cherish a fellow-feeling with you ; for, although I have something to ask of the emperor, it is justice only. 1, too, look back to experiences which are akin to yours. My son yonder, whom the marble image of your foster- son strikingly resembles, bears the same name, Paulus ; and the name of his father was that which headed the first list of those who, the Triumvirate agreed, should die."

" Permit me, now, to ask once more who you are, lady ? " said Crispina. " I know well the names upon that list"

" My husband," replied the Greek widow, " was brother of the triumvir Lepidus."

" The tritunvir was our master," answered the land- lady; "and alas! it is too true that he, the triumvir, was timid and weak, and his son, about whose image you have asked me, knew not, poor youth, when he so bitterly blamed Augustus for sacrificing TuUy to Mark Antony, that his own father had given up a brother — that brother whom you married — ^in the same terrible days, and just in the same kind of way."

" Whose bust, then, do you say is this which is so Uke my son ?" asked Aglais.

" The bust of your son's first cousin, lady. My fos- ter-son's father was your husband's brother."

"No wonder," cried Agatha, "that my brother should be like his own first cousin ! "

•J 2 Dion and the Sibyls.

" No," said Aglais ; " but it is as surprising as it is fortunate that we should have come to this house, and have fallen among kind persons disposed to be friends, like our hostess, her good husband, and little Benigna yonder."

"There is nothing which my husband and I would not do," said Crispina, " for the welfare of all belong- ing to the great ^milian family, in whose service we both were born and spent our childhood; the family which gave us ova freedom in youth, and our launch in life as a married couple. As for me, you know now how I must feel when I look upon the face of your son."

A pause ensued, and then Aglais said :

" Your former master, the triumvir, wrote to my hus- band asking forgiveness for having consented to let his name appear in the list of the proscribed, and explain- ing how he got it erased. Therefore, let not that sub- ject trouble you."

" I happen, on my side, to know for a fact," answered the hostess, " that the one circumstance to which you refer has been the great remorse of the triumvir's life. The old man still mumbles and maunders, complaining that he never received a reply to that letter. He would die happy if he could but see you, and learn that all had been forgiven."

Before Aglais had time to make any answer, the land- lord appeared, carrying a small cadus, or cask, marked in large black letters —

L. CARNIFICIO

S. POMPEIO

COS.

Dion and the Sihyk. 73

Benigna had previously set upon a separate table, according to custom, fruits, and fictile or earthem cups.

"I thought so!" cried good Crispus. "Women (excuse me, lady, I mean my wife and daughter) will jabber and cackle even when ladies may be tired, and, as I sincerely hope, hungry. Do, Crispina, let me see the ladies and this young knight enjoy their little sup- per. This Alban wine, my lady, is nearly fifty years old, I do assure you; look at the Consul's name on the cask. Benigna, young as she is, might drink ten cyathi of it without hurt. By the by, I have forgotten the measiure. Run, Benigna, and fetch a cyathus (a ladle-cup) to help out the wine."

" Jabber and cackle ! " said the hostess. " Crispus, this lady is the widow, and these are the son and daughter of Paulus .^milius Lepidus."

The landlord, in the full career of his own jabber, was stricken mute for a moment. He gazed at each of our three travellers in turn, looking very fixedly at Paulus. At last he said,

"This, then, accounts for the wonderful likeness. My lady, I will never take one brass coin from you or yours ; not an as, so help me ! You must conunand in this house. Do not think otherwise."

And, apparently to prevent Aglais from answering him, he drew his wife hastily out of the room, and closed the door.

Benigna was left behind, and, with winning smiles and a flutter of attentions, the young girl now placed the chairs, and began to cackle, as Crispus would have expre^ed himself, and to entreat the wanderers to take that refreshment of which they stood so much in need.

74 Dion and the Sibyls,

They all had the delicate and graceful tact to feel that compliance with the kindness which they had so prov- identially found was the only way to return it which they at present possessed.

It is historical to add that appetite gave the same advice. Their hunger was as keen as their tact. Dur- ing supper the mother and son spoke little ; but Agatha, both during the repast and for some time afterward, kept up a brisk conversation with Benigna, for whom the child had taken an inexpressible liking, and from whom she drew, with unconscious adroitness, the fact that she was engaged to be married. That sudden affection of sympathy which knit the soul of David to that of Jonathan seemed to have bound these two together. The landlady's considerate daughter at length advised Agatha to defer further communications until she should have a good night's rest. Paulus seconded the recommendation, and left his mother and sister with their Greek slave Melena and with Benigna, and retired to his own bedroom. This chamber over- looked the inner court, whence the incessant plash of the fountain was heard soothingly through his lattice window, the horn slide of which he left open. The bedroom of the ladies, on the other hand, overlooked the garden and beehives, to which Crispina had alluded. The sitting apartments, opening into each other, in one of which they had supped, stood between; all these rooms being situated in the projecting west wing, which they entirely filled.

Thus closed the day which had carried to their desti- nation the travellers from Thrace.

CHAPTER IX.

iEXT moming, when they met at breakfast {Jen- taculutn), there was a marvellous improve- ment in Agatha's looks. She had been the earliest out of bed ; had seen from her window, under a brilliant sundiine, the beautiful landscape unroll itself in the various forms which the landlady had truly though inadequately described j and she then had run down into the garden.

In due time — that is, very soon afterward — she had been chased by the bees, had fled, screaming and laugh- ing, with the hood of her ricinium drawn completely over the head by way of helmet against the terrible darts of her indignant pursuers, and had been received in the arms of Benigna, who had heard the cry of distress and had flown to the rescue, brandishing a long, reedy brush,^ like the mosquito brushes of modem times. Rallying in a bower of trellis-work covered with ivy, whence a wooden staircase led up to the first floor of the house, by way of a landing or platform, over which rose another bower clad in die same ivy mantle — facing round, I say, upon her enemy at the foot of this stair- case, she had soon ventured once more into the garden with Benigna, and the two girls, jabbering and cackling much, had gathered a large nosegay of autumnal flow- ers. With this booty, which Benigna had made so big that Agatha could hardly hold it in her small and elegant hands, the latter damsel had returned to the bower, had seated herself upon a bench, and had begun to sort the

75

^6 Dion and the Sihyti,

flowers in the relative positions which best showed their tints. Here she rehed upon gradation, there upon con- trast Her delicate Greek taste in the performance of this task drew exclamations of delight from Benigna.

•' There! " the innkeeper's daughter would cry ; " how pretty ! That is the way ! That so, and then that, and that ! They look quite different now 1 Exactly ! I never imagined it ! "

When Agatha had finished the arrangement to her own satisfaction, an exploit which was nimbly achieved, " Now, Benigna," said she, with her pretty foreign accent, " sit down here ; just do, and tell me all about everything."

Benigna stared, and Agatha proceeded :

" So you are engaged to become the wife of a very good and handsome youth, who in himself is everything that can be admired, except that, poor young man ! he is not very courageous, I understood you to say. Now, that is not his fault, I suppose. How can he help feel- ing afraid if he does feel afraid ? "

At this moment the voice of Crispina was heard call- ing her daughter to help in preparing the breakfast, and Benigna, whom Agatha's last words had thrown into some confusion, as the same topic had done the previous evening, made an excuse and ran away with the light of roses vivid in her cheeks.

Agatha remained and looked out upon the garden, and beyond it upon the sweet country, with its varied beauty. She remained listening peacefully and dreamily to the hum of bees, the twittering of birds, tke voices and footsteps in the inn, and inhaling the perfumes of the nosegay which she had arranged, and the cool

J}ion and the Sibyls. 77

freshness of that pleasant morning hour, when the sun behind her and behind the house was throwing ihe shadows of buildings, sheds, trees, and cattle in long lines towards the Tyrrhenian Sea. While thus calmly resting, admiring, and musing, a lady in a dark robe, with a very pallid face, and large black eyes, stood suddenly in the doorway of the bower, and blocked out the lovely prospect. The stranger smiled, and, holding out a bunch of flowers, said,

" My pretty young lady, I see that the offering I have been culling for you has lost its value. You are rich already. May I sit down in this pleasant shady place a moment to rest ? "

" Yes, you may, certainly," said Agatha.

" I suppose," resumed the stranger, " that you belong to this house, my little friend ? I am a stranger, and merely lodging "

"We are lodging, too, and strangers," answered Agatha.

" From your accent," continued the other, " I judge you to be Greek."

" Mother is," replied Agatha ; " but brother calls him- self a Roman knight, and even noble."

" I knew it! " cried the lady; " you have it written in your countenance. I, too, am a noble lady; my name is Plancina. Have you ever seen Rome ? "

" Never."

" Ah ! how you will be enchanted. You must come to see me, I have a house in Rome; such a pretty house, full of such curious things ! Ah ! when you see Rome, you will hold your breath with wonder and delight. I will make you so happy when yoa come ta see me in my pretty house."

•jB Dion and the Sibyls,

" You are a very kind, good lady, I should think," quoth Agatha, looking up from her flowers, and gazing long at the pallid face and the large black eyes ; " and if we go to Rome, I and my mother will visit you, per- haps."

" My house is among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said the lady. " Remember two things — Viminal Hill, with its beeches and its willows, and the Calpurnian House, where the Piso family have lived for generations. My husband, Piso, has had great losses at dice. I am rich enough to spend a fortune every year for half a century, and we have still at our house all the pleasures that can be thought of. What pains I will take to amuse you ! You cannot conceive the splendors, dresses, games, sports, shows, and beau- ties of Rome; the theatres, the circus, the combats, the great wild beasts of all sorts from all countries, the dances "

As she pronounced the word " dances," a youthful male voice was heard at a little distance, sa5ring : "While they change horses here, we will stretch our limbs by a stroll in the garden behind the inn. Make haste, worthy innkeeper ; order your servants to be brisk."

And almost at the same moment a brilliantl} beauti- ful, dark, eastern-looking girl, in a Syrian costume, appeared at the entrance of the bower. Behind her came sauntering the youth whose voice had been heard. He was of about Paulus's age, had an olive complexion, was sumptuously dressed, and exhibited a strong family likeness in face to the girl. Last followed a woman in middle life, appareled in costly robes suited to travel, haughty, languid, and scornful of mien.

Dion and the Sibyls. 79

Flancina and Agatha looked up and surveyed the newcomers. The brilliant damsel remained at the entrance o£ the bower examining its occupants with a hardy, unabashed glance j whereupon Plancina, after a moment's pause, occasioned by the interruption, re- simied and concluded her sentence thus :

"No, you can form no idea of the gayeties of Rome; the games, the shows, the theatres, the glories, the pleasures, the jests, the dances,"

" But all your good dances come from foreign land? — from the East, indeed," interrupted the damsel, nod- ding her head repeatedly and sneeringly; "you mus» admit that."

" Not all our good aXone," answered Plancina sternly, noticing that the woman in middle life smiled approv- ingly at the girl who had obtruded the remark ; " not all our good alone, but all. The office of the outside world is to try to amuse Rome."

" And what is Rome's office ? " asked the damsel.

" To be amused by them, if she can," answered the Roman.

" Come away, Herodias," said the haughty, languid, and scornful-looking woman; and the two strolled down the middle walk of the garden. The youth who had come with them lingered a moment or two behind, standing in the middle of the gravel-walk and gazing straight into the bower, while he flirted a sort of horse- whip around the heads of one or two tall flowers which were growing outside along the border of the walk.

Plancina looked steadily at him, and he at her. The lad withdrew after a few moments, without a change of feature.

So Dion and the Sibyls.

" What starers ! " muttered Agatha.

" They have a talent for it, indeed," said Plancina. " A hardy family, putting one thing with another. I think I know who they are. The mother, if she were the mother, called the daughter, if she were the daugh- ter, Herodias. My husband thinks of going to Syria, and, indeed, Tiberius has offered him the procuratorship of Judea; but he would not condescend to go in any smaller capacity than as prefect of Syria. An acquaint- ance of ours, young Pontius Pilate, wants to get the procuratorship. The minor office would be a great thing for him. But my husband, Piso of the Calpumi- ans, cannot stoop to that. I may meet yonder family again."

"Those people are looking back," observed Agatha, who had paid very little attention to her companion's speech.

Plancina rose, and, going to the entrance of the bower, honored the strangers with a steady glance. The scornful-looking foreign woman in sumptuous ap- parel met it for a moment, and then turned away. Her son and daughter turned away at the same time.

" Ah ! they are gone," murmured Agatha ; " they do not like you to gaze so at them."

" It is but a Roman," returned Plancina, " looking at barbarians. They always shrink in that curious manner. And why this Greek lunacy ? " muttered she ; " and why this Attic mania ? "

" Attic what ? " asked the half-Greek girl.

" Nothing, my dear," replied Plancina ; " only you are not Greek, you know; your father's race and the name you bear settle that question ; your very mother is

Dion and the Sibyls. 8r

now, and has long since become, a Roman citizen; you must always prefer Rome to Greece ; never forget that rule, or you and yours will perish."

Agatha opened wide the ingenuous young eyes, and seemed to be most seriously alarmed.

Plancina smoothed her pale brows, which had beeit frowning ; and continued with a stem smile :

" I am only giving you a friend's warning. Your mother and brother have a suit to urge at court. There exists a pestilent Greek faction which are all doomed to destruction ; tell your mother that you must all beware of being mixed up with them, and you will escape their perdition. A Greek, like your mother, with something to ask, is peculiarly liable to make the mistake of seek- ing Greek friends. If she do, she is utterly lost, however powerful may seem the prince who patronizes the accursed cabal."

Agatha shrank and trembled, murmuring like an echo Plancina's last adjective — exitiabilis.

" Do not stare at me so, my little dear," continued Plancina. "There is the Prince Germanicus. Only for him — everybody knows it, and everybody says it; the thing is no secret — Piso, my husband, would be now prefect of Syria; and like Crispus Sallus, when I was a little girl, would have recovered ten times the for- tune out of which he has been cheated at dice, I am called a rash, violent, and an imtamable woman. The moment, however, that anybody gives you any informa- tion about court parties and political factions, every thing I am saying will be mentioned. I do not hide my disgust. Foreign barbarians of all sorts swarm; they creep through postern doors; they privately influ-

82 Dion and the Sibyls.

ence all the destinies of that world of which Romans have the name publicly of being masters. We are trodden under the feet of Greeks, Jews and Chaldeans; the first beat us by genius, by eloquence, and artistic skill; by general intellectual force and subtlety; the second by superstition-inspired obstinacy, by incredi- ble and imspeakable importunity, by steadfastness in sordid servility, by sorcery, divination, necromancy, and delusion; not all delusion, I grant you; for I my- self have seen the demons of Thrasyllus, the Babylonish Greek."

"What!" cried Agatha, "seen demons? And what does a Babylonish Greek mean ? "

"A Greek initiated in the Babylonish mysteries."

" And who is Thrasyllus ? "

"A magician."

"What is that?"

" A man who calls demons and spirits of the air, as you would call your pet birds, and they come to him."

" May the unknown God love me ! " cried Agatha, shuddering. " What are the demons like? "

" Not like our sculptures, believe me," answered Plan- cina. "I dare not tell you; I have seen what no words can say."

She paused, shrugged her shoulders and then added :

" Some forms were like the human, with red fire in the veins instead of blood, and white fire in the bones instead of marrow; eyes they possessed that had no comfort in them. They had the air of being utterly without interest in anything, only that their eyes were filled with fear; yet it seemed to me with knowledge, too; unspeakable fear, immense knowledge; wells and

Dion and the Sibyls. 83

pools they appeared, full of fear and knowledge. When they glanced upon you, there were pale rays of hatred strangely combined with an expression of indifference, fear, knowledge, and hatred. If you looked at the eyes, when they looked not at you, you saw nothing but an expression of fear and knowledge ; but when they did look at you, you saw fear, knowledge, and hatred too. All these faces mocked without smiling and scoffed without enjoyment. Something, I thought, was drip- ping down the wan cheeks, and there was a look of fixed surprise long ago, of long-past astonishment — the trace left, and the feeling gone. The emotion of bound- less amazement had once been there; the signs of it were left all over the countenance, but, if I may so speak, petrified — an immedicable scar, an ineffaceable vestige. The character of the countenance was that of a dead astonishment — the astonishment was dead : it was no longer an active sentiment. It had been some boundless wonder; the greatest which that crea- ture had ever experienced; and the event which had caused it had apparently been the most serious which that being had ever known."

" What a truly tremendous description 1 " exclaimed Agatha.

The other made no reply; and before any further conversation could occiu: between them, a young man, in the dark-brown habiliments of a slave, entered the garden from the inn, and after a hasty glance in various directions, approached the bower. His features were very good ; he was well made, of a pleasing address, and had a look of uncommon intelligence. He possessed, in a small degree, and a humble way, that undefinable

84 Dion and the Sibyls.

air of elegance which mental culture sheds over the countenance ; but with this advantage he betrayed cer- tain symptoms of awkwardness and timidity. Standing I at a little distance from the door of the arbor, he made 'a low bow to Plancina, and said he was the bearer of ^ome commands.

" Commands from whom ? " she demanded.

He answered, bowing low again, by merely stating that his name was Claudius.

Plancina instantly rose and took leave of Agatha, en- joining her not to forget the warnings and counsels she had given. Agatha then saw her hastily reenter the hotel, followed by the handsome slave. Thereupon, buoyantly recovering her spirits, which the presence and the words of this woman had depressed, she ascended the staircase to the landing overhead, where she was joined by her mother from the room within.

Agatha immediately told Aglais everything which had passed between her and Plancina.

" I don't think, my dear child, we shall be likely to trouble her in her nice house among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said Aglais; and as Paulus now came out upon the landing, a second edition of the narrative was produced for his informa- tion.

" Germanicus," said he, " is more like the last of the Romans than in any sense reprehensible or degenerate in his tastes. His love for Greece and his admiration for Athens are an honor to his understanding. They are nothing else. This has nothing to do with prefer- ring barbarians and barbarous influences. My educa- tion, edepol ! has to be completed ; but I am educated

Dion and the Sibyh, 8$

enough to know that Rome goes for schooling to Greece as much as ever she did. Was not Julius Caesar himself what they call a Graculus ? I rather think he was even deeper than Germanicusin Greek lore; but, there- fore, all the more fitted for Roman command. The Romans continued to be barbarians long after the Greeks had become the teachers of the world ; and were it not for Greece, they would be barbarians still. As for warning us not to dare to make friends for ourselves of this person or that, or of any who appreciate intellect — for this means to appreciate Greeks — ^it is like warning us ta remain friendless, in order that we may the more easily be crushed. It is the wolf's advice to the sheep, to send away her dogs j but I am more dog than that myself^ This pale, beetle-browed lady ought to have enjoined those to be timid who know how. Dare do this ! Dare do that ! For my part, I am not afraid to do anything that I think right."

His mother pressed Paulus's hand affectionately, and his sister's high spirit, which had cowered under the dreadful conversation of Flancina, shone in her eyes 35. she smiled at him.

CHAPTER X.

5EANWHILE, in the large room within, break fast had been prepared for the wanderers on a table drawn opposite to and near the open folding-doors of the arbor where they were conversing ; and the landlady now summoned them to partake of that repast.

After breakfast, at which Crispina herself waited on them, Agatha asked where Benigna was.

The landlady smiled, and stated that a friend of her daughter's had called, and was doubtless detaining her, but she would go at once and bring the girl.

"On no account," interposed Aglais; "Benigna, I dare say, will unfold to my daughter all about it by and by. Unless you have some pressing business to take you immediately away, will you kindly inform us of the news, if there be any, and let us sit in the arbor while you tell us ? "

Accordingly they went into the bower on the landing overlooking the garden, and Crispina told them the news.

In the first place, she told them that the emperor's expected visit to Formiae was delayed on account of the state of his health. It was now thought he would not arrive for two or three days more, whereas he was to have entered Formiae that very morning. Crispina added that it would not surprise her if he did not come for a week yet

In the second place, Queen Berenice with her son,

86

Dion and the Sibyls. 87

Herod Agrippa, and her daughter Herodias, who were to have occupied those very apartments, had arrived at the inn, but had now gone forward,

" Mother," said Agatha, " those must have been the persons who, an hour ago, looked into the arbor below this one, when that pale woman was talking to me. The elder called the younger Herodias."

"The same," continued the landlady. " Finding that they cannot be accommodated in my house, young Herod has proposed to proceed with all their train to Formiae, where — royal though they be — they will be nobody's guests ; and as there is not a place of public entertainment in that town, and the weather is delight- ful, he says they will pitch two or three tents, and one splendid pavilion of silk, on the verge of the green space outside of Formiae, where the games are to be held."

" Only fancy !" cried Agatha, clapping her little hands.

Thirdly, Crispina told them, with fifty gossiping de- tails, that the entertainments to be given in honor of the emperor and the opulent knight Mamurra, from whom the town took its name, would be stupendous. Formiae, we may mention, was frequently called Mamurrarum, or, urbs Mamurrana, from the colonel or chiliarch Ma- murra. This gentleman had devoted his boyhood and youth to the cause of Julius Caesar, and afterward of Augustus in the civil wars; had gained considerable military reputation, and, above all, had amassed enor- mous wealth.

He had long since returned to his native Formiae, where he had built a superb palace of marble, good enough for an emperor. In that palace the emperor was now to be his guest. He and Agrippa Vipsanius,

88 Dion and the Sibyls.

the founder of the Pantheon, had long befwe been among those by whom, in comphance with the often- announced wish of Augustus, not pecuharly addressed to them, but generally to all his wealthy countrymen, Augustus had expended incalculable sums in adorning Rome with public edifices, for which costly materials, and the science and taste of the best architects, had alike been employed. As Augustus himself said (for himself), " They had found it of bricks, and were leav- ing it of marble."

" I have read verses by Catullus upon this knight Mamurra," said Aglais.

" So you have, my lady," replied Crispina. " Well, he has just knocked up a circus in the fields adjoining Formise, and is preparing to exhibit magnificent shows to his neighbors and to all comers, in honor of the em- peror's visit to the town of the Mamurras and the Ma- murran palace. Tiberius Caesar, who is also to be the knight's guest, promises to use this same circus, and to give entertainments of his own there, and Germanicus Caesar, before marching north to fight the Germans, and drive them out of north-eastern Italy) is to review at Formiae the troops destined for that expedition, as well asthe great bulk of the Praetorian Guards under Seja- nus. The guards are uncertain what portion of them the Caesar may take with him northward."

" Mother, we shall see the shows, we shall see the shows ! " cried Agatha.

" Oh! and I am so slow. There is another ingredi- ent yet in my wallet of tidings," exclaimed Crispina ; " and only think of my almost forgetting to remember it."

" Remember not to forget it," said the Greek girl.

Dion and the Siiyis. 89

holding up her finger with an admonishing and censo- rious look at the landlady. " What is this particular which you have, after all, not forgotten to remember ? '*

" My charming little lady, it is a particular which concerns the land of your mother, and the people of Greece ; for seldom, say they, has that land or people sent to Rome anybody like him."

" You accused yourself of being slow ; but now you gallop. Like whom?"

" Like this noble young Athenian."

" Galloping still faster," rejoined Agatha.

" What noble young Athenian ? "

" This Athenian, gifted as his countryman Alcibiades, eloquent as our own Tully, acute and profound as Aris- totle, honorable as Fabricius, truthful as Regulus,and O ladies ! with all these other excellencies, beautiful as a poem, a picture, a statue, or a dream ! "

" There's a description !" quoth Agatha, laughing.

" More eloquent than precise, I think," said Paulus.

" Yet sufficiently precise," added Aglais, " to leave us in no doubt at all who is meant by it. It must be young Dionysius, it must be Dion."

" That is the very name ! " exclaimed the hostess.

" My mother knows him," said Paulus. " My sister and I have often heard of him; so have thousands ; but we have not seen him. It is he who carried away all the honors of the great Lyceum at Athens on the left bank of the Ilissus."

"The right bank, brother," said Agatha; "don't you remember, the day we embarked at the Piraeus somebody showed it to us, just opposite Diana Aegrota, which is on the left bank ? "

go Dion and the Sibyls.

*' It is all the same," said Paulus,

" Mother, just tell Paulus if left and right are all the same," said Agatha. " That is like Paulus. They are not the same; they never were the same."

" All the ladies at the Mamurran palace," resiuned the hostess, " make toilets against him."

" Toils, you mean," said Paulus.

" Yes, toils," continued the hostess. " They are in- tended as toils for him; they are great toils and labors for the poor girls ; the ornatrius and they are toilets for the fair dames themselves."

" It is all the same," again quoth Paulus.

" And how do these toilets prosper against Dionysius the Athenian ? "

" They tell me he is not aware of the admiration he excites — is totally indifferent to it."

" Base, miserable youth ! " cried Paulus, laughing. " These Roman dames and damsels ought to pimish him."

" You mean by letting him alone ? " asked the land- lady.

" No; that would kill him," returned Paulus with a sneer, " being what he is."

" Then how punish him ? " asked she.

" By pursuing him with their blandishments," an- swered Paulus ; " that is, if they can muster sufficient ferocity. But I fear the women are too kind here in Italy, I am told that even in the midst of the most furious passions, and while the deadUest agonies are felt by others around them, their natural sweetness is so invincible that they smile and send soft glances to and fro ; they look more bewitching at misery (such is their

Dion and the Sibyls, 91

goodness) than when they see no suffering at all. Yes, indeed ! and as the gladiators fight, they have a lovely smile for each gash ; and when the gladiator dies, their eyes glisten enchantingly. We have not these enter- tainments in Greece, and the Greek Dion must soon feel the superiority of the Roman to the Greek woman. Pity is a beautiful quality in a woman ; and the Greek ladies do not seek the same frequent opportunities of exercis- ing it as the Italian ladies possess, and, eheu / enjoy."

" Is Paulus bitter ? " asked Aglais. " Is Paulus witty?"

"Talking of wit, my lady," pursued the hostess, " none but our dear old Plautus could have matched this young Athenian, as Antistius Labio, the great author of five hundred volumes, has found to his cost."

" Labio ! Why, that must be the son of one of those who murdered Caesar," exclaimed Paulus. " My father met his father foot to foot at the battle of Philippi ; but he escaped, and slew himself when Brutus did so."

" That was, indeed, this man's father," said Crispina. " The son is a very clever man, and a most successful practitioner in the law courts. Wishing to mortify Dio- nysius, he said in his presence, at a review of the troops at Formise, yesterday, that he was grateful to the gods he had not been bom at Athens, and was no Greek — not he !

" ' The Athenians also entertain,' replied Dionysius, ' the idea which you have just expressed.'

" ' What idea ? ' asked Antistius Labio.

" 'That their gods watch over them,' replied Dionysius. " Ah, my lady ! you should have heard the laughter at Labio; the very centurions turned away to conceal their

^2 Dion and the Sibyls.

grins. Some one high at court then took the Athe- nian's arm on one side, and Titus Livius's on the other, and walked off with them. Labio did not say a word."

" Pray, can you tell us, good Crispina, whether Ger- manicus Caesar is to be a guest of the knight Mamurra ? " asked Paulus.

The landlady said she believed he would be for a day or two, and that she thought it was even he who had taken Dion's and Livy's arm, and walked with them apart.

" It is some time," said Aglais, " since Catxillus indited those epigrammatic verses against the hospitable and opulent knight. This Mamurra must be very old."

" Yet, my lady,'' replied Crispina, " he has a ruddy face, a clear complexion, and downright black eye- brows."

" There is a wash called lixirium," said Aglais with ■a meaning smile.

"Ah! but," cried Crispina, laughing with no less knowing a look, " that makes the hair yellow ; and the brows of the knight are as black as the jet ornaments in your daughter's hair."

"You can tell us, no doubt," said Paulus, "who those ladies must be that came with Tiberius Caesar yesterday from that splendid mansion on the Liris. They were in beautiful litters ; one of sculptured bronze, the other of ivory, embossed with gold reliefs."

" I know who they are, of course," said the landlady; " they are half-sisters, the daughters of the late renowned warrior and statesman, the builder of the Pantheon, Agrippa Vipsanius, but by different mothers. One of them was the wife of Tiberius Caesar."

Dion and the Sityls, 93

" Was! " exclaimed Paulus; " why, she's not a ghost ? "

" She is, nevertheless ; her husband has another wife," laid the landlady ; adding, in a low voice, " a precious one, too ; the emperor has required him to marry the august Julia."

"The august!" murmured Aglais contemptuously, with a shrug of the shoulders ; " getting old, too."

" I am sure," resumed the landlady, " no one can describe the relationships of that family. Agrippa Vip- sanius, you must know, married three times. His sec- ond wife was Marcella, daughter of Augustus's sister, Octavia; and this Marcella became the mother of the elder of the two ladies whom you saw. Well, while this Marcella was still living, but after she had had a daughter called Vipsania, Augustus made Agrippa put her away to many, mind you, this very same august Julia, Augustus's own daughter, and therefore Marcella's first cousin. This Julia, who had just become a widow, having lost her first husband Marcellus, is the mother of the other lady whom you saw, who is called Julia Agrippina, and who thus came into the world the sec- ond cousin of her own half-sister. Well, Agrippa, the father of both girls, leaving the august Julia a widow for die second time, Tiberius Caesar marries Agrippa's eldest daughter Vipsania, and has a son by her, called Drusus ; and now, while Vipsania is still living, Augus- tus makes Tiberius put her away to marry the aforesaid august Julia, the mother of the younger daughter, Julia Agrippina, who is Tiberius's first and likewise second cousin."

" I can hardly follow you in the labyrinth," said Aglais.

" No one can, my lady, except those who make a

Q4 Dion and the Sibyls.

study of it," said the landlady, laughing; "but it's all true. JuUa, Augustus's daughter, is the wife of the father of both of these girls, first cousin to the eldest of them, mother and cousin-in-law of the younger, and has now also been made wife to the husband of the elder, her own first cousin, and become the sister-in-law of her own daughter and cousin-in-law to the younger."

" Medius fidius .'" cried Paulus, staring stupidly, " what a tremendous twisted knot ! Julia's daughter, half-sister, and second cousin is put away, that the half- sister's husband may marry the half-sister's stepmother and second cousin, or something like that."

" Or something like that," continued Crispina; " but there is no end to it. Tiberius Caesar is now father-in- law and brother-in-law to one woman, and the husband and stepfather-in-law to another, while the mother of the younger half-sister becomes the sister-in-law of her own daughter."

At this moment Agatha, who was opposite the outer door of the embowered landing, leading down by a flight of stairs into the garden, through the other arbor before mentioned, suddenly exclaimed : " There's Be- nigna walking in the garden with a man ! "

They all looked, and saw Benigna and a young man, wearing a brown txmic and sUppers, in a distant alley of fig-trees, talking earnestly as they strolled together. Crispina smiled and said : " I must reaUy tell you that my Benigna's betrothed lover came here unexpectedly at daybreak. He has obtained a week's hoUday, and will spend it, he vows, in the inn. We have had to use some skill, I promise you, in finding room for him. He is to sleep in a big trunk with the lid off, stowed away

Dion and the Sibyls. 95

in the angle of a corridor behind a curtain. He is a very good and well-instructed youth, knows Greek, and is severely worked as one of the secretaries of Tiberius Caesar, whose slave he is, as I think Benigna has men- tioned to my little Lady Agatha yonder."

"When is the maniage of dear Benigna to take place ? " asked Agatha.

" Of course the poor young man," replied Crispina, " cannot marry until he gets his freedom. Whenever Tiberius Csesar allows him to shave his head, and put on the cap* of liberty, we shall have a merry wedding."

"What sort of master is Tiberius Caesar?" asked Faulus.

The landlady said she was thankful she did not per- sonally know him; but she had never heard any com- plaint of him made by Claudius, her future son-in-law,

" Your future son-in-law, Claudius ! " exclaimed Agatha, in amazement. " Then it was your future son-in-law who had something to say to that Dame Plancina, with the pale face and black eyebrows ? "

" Not that I know of, my little lady," returned the hostess.

"Ah! but he had though," persisted Agatha. " He came to the arbor door, and distinctly stated, with a low bow, that he had commands for that lady; and then she said from whom; and he said, • my name is Claudius; ' that is what he said; and then she jumped up in a remarkable fluster and went into the house, and he followed her. But then why she should jump up in a fluster, because a slave said his name was Claudius, I can't imagine," concluded Agatha, pondering.

♦Pileus.

9 6 Dion and the Sibyls,

The hostess looked surprised.

" I think it could not be because a slave's name was Claudius," she said; "nor do I understand it."

" Is that your demon-seeing dame, Agatha ? " asked Paulus, stretching himself; "for I have a notion that when I parried the fellow's blow who wanted to cut me doAvn in so cowardly a fashion, you know "

" Yes."

"There was a female scream; do you remember it ? "

"Yes."

" Well, I have been thinking the woman who screamed was a woman whom your description of that fierce dame in the arbor exactly fits. If so, she was in the train of Tiberius, and of those ladies of whom our good hostess has just given us such an interesting genealogical and matrimonial account."

" Then perhaps the commands for Plancina were from Tiberius Caesar," quoth Agatha.

Crispina shook her head, but appeared a little serious. A short silence followed. Paulus broke it by asking the landlady to get a letter forwarded for him to the mili- tary tribune, Velleius Paterculus, at Formiae. " I wish," he said, " to take advantage of the delay in the emperor's visit, and to see the country, to fish in the river, to move about far and near; provided Paterculus, to whom I have given a promise to report myself, has no objection."

The hostess brought him some liviana, or second-class paj)er, the best she had, some cuttle-fish ink, and a reed pen, told him to write his letter, and undertook to trans- mit it at once by a runner belonging to the hostelry. She then left the room.

CHAPTER XL

JHE letter was sent, and in the course of the fore- noon the tabellarius, or letter-carrier of the inn, returned from Formise. Crispina brought him to Paulus, who was in an avenue of the garden watching some players as they contested a game of quoits or discus. This avenue connected the garden proper with the open country westward, terminating in a cross hedge of myrtle, through which a little wicket or trellis gate opened. " The man has brought no let- ter back," the hostler said, signing at the same time to the messenger to deliver the particulars of his errand.

He had found the tribune, he said, and had given him the letter and asked for an answer. The tribune was at the moment inspecting a body of troops. He read the note, however, and immediately took out of his belt both his stylus sxiA pugillaria, or hand-tablets, when the Praetorian prefect Sejanus, happening to pass, entered into conversation with him, and the messenger then saw Velleius Paterculus hand to Sejanus Paulus's letter. After reading it, the general gave it back, said some- thing in Greek, and went away. The tribune thereupon told the bearer that he would send an answer during the day by a messenger of his own. Paulus thanked the man, who then withdrew.

Our hero, who had prepared his fishing-tackle, a por- tion of which he had in his hand, remarked that it was vexatious to lose so fine and favorable a day. " More- over, why should I be a prisoner ? " he suddenly ex-

97

9 8 Dion and the Sibyls.

claimed. " I have a triple right to my personal liberty, as Roman citizen, knight, and noble. And what have I done to forfeit it? What have I done except parry the blow of an assassin whom I neither injured nor pro- voked ? "

" Hush ! " murmured Crispina; and just then Cneius Piso, having a bandage round his head, and leaning on the arm of Plancina, was seen passing into the inn be- fore them from another part of the garden.

The landlady stood still a moment, till the two figures had disappeared, when she said, with a slight motion of the thumb in the direction of Piso, " He reports himself quite well now, except for a headache. He and his lady leave us in an hour for Rome, and I hope I may say both vale and salve. You ask what you have done. Have you not come to Italy to claim rights which are indisputable ? "

" Is that reason ? "

" It is a thousand reasons, and another thousand, too. Alas! do not deceive yourself, as your namesake and cousin did, about the character of the world."

At the door of the inn they separated, she to attend to the multifarious business of her household and he to loiter purposelessly. After a little reflection, he went quite through the house by the inner court, and the central corridor beyond it, and looked into the pub- lic-room. At one table a couple of centurions sat playing dice with the tesserce, and shouting the names of half-a-dozen gods and goddesses as their luck fli^c- tuated. At another table a powerfully-built, dark, middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard streaked with gray, upon whom Asiatic slaves waited, was taking

Dion and the Sibyls. 99

a traveller's repast, his slaves helping him to costly wine, which he drank with a grimace of dissatisfaction, but in formidable quantities. Other groups were dotted round the large apartment. In order not to draw need- less notice, for all eyes turned to him for a moment, ex- cept those of the two dice-throwing and bellowing cen- turions, Paulus seated himself behind an unoccupied table near the door. While idly watching the scenes around him, he thought he heard his name pronounced in the passage outside. He listened, but the noise in the room made him uncertain, and the voice outside was already less audible, as of one who had passed the door whUe speaking.

Presently he heard, in a much louder tone, the words, " Why, it is not our carriage, after all. Let us return and wait where we can sit down." And the speaker again passed the public-room, coming back, apparently from the porch.

Paulus happened to be sitting close to the door, which was open ; a curtain, as was common, hanging over the entrance. This time, in spite of the noise in the room, a word or two, and a name, though not his own, struck him. He fancied some one said, " No harm to her ; but still, not the brother — ^the sister, my trusty Claudius."

Where had Paulus heard those tones before ? In it- self, what he had overheard was a suflSciently harmless fragment of a sentence. Nevertheless, Paulus rose, left his table, lifted aside the door-curtain, and went into the corridor, where he saw Cneius Piso and Plancina, with their backs to him, walking toward the end of the pas- sage opposite the porch, but he nearly stumbled against

IQO Dion and the Sibyls.

a young man going the other way. This person, who was good-looking, in both senses of the word, wore the sober-colored tunic,* the long hair, and the slip- pers of a slave. He had in his right hand a stylus; in his left, tablets of citron-wood, opened and covered with blue wax, on which he was reading, with his head bent, some note which he had made there.

" It is my fault, noble sir," said he ; "I was stooping over these and did not observe you ; I beg you to par- don my awkwardness." And he bowed with an air of humility.

" It is I, rather, who am to blame," said Paulvis, scan- ning steadily the features of the slave, who had made his apology with a look of alarm, and in exaggerated accents of deprecation.

Shortly after this incident, while Paulus was leaning dreamily over the balustrade of the inn's central court, and watching the fountain there, he was struck heavily on the shoulder from, behind by an open hand. Turning round slowly, he beheld a man in the very prime of life, who was entirely a stranger to him.

" I was told I should find you here, excellent sir," said the stranger.

Paulus took in at a glance his dress and general ap- pearance. He had a thick brown beard, neatly trimmed, and open, daring, large blue eyes, in which there was nothing whatever sullen or morose ; yet a sort of wildness and fierceness, with a slight but constant gleam of vigilance, if not subtlety. On the whole, his face was handsome; it was conspicuously manful, and, perhaps, somewhat obdurate and pitiless.

Dion and the Sibyls. loi

His stature was good without being very lofty. He had broad shoulders, rather long, sinewy arms, a deep chest, and, altogether, a figure and person not lacking any token of agility, but more indicative of huge strength.

He wore sandals, the laces of which crossed each other up his mighty legs, which were otherwise bare, and a white woollen tunic covered his shoulders, and was belted round his waist.

" And who told you that you would find me here ? " asked Paulus ; " for a few minutes <ago I did not know I should find myself here."

" There goes the youth who told me," answered the other pointing, and at the same moment Paulus saw the slave, against whom he had walked in the passage, cross on tiptoe an angle of the courtyard, and vanish though a door on the opposite side.

" Claudius," continued the stranger, " is an acquaint- ance of mine, and chancing to meet him as I entered the hostelry, I asked for you."

" And pray who are you, and what do you want with me ? " asked Paulus, after the slave, who must, he now felt sure, be the Claudius to whom Benigna was be- trothed, had disappeared.

" Who am I ? " returned the stranger ; " a good many people know my name and my person, too. But that matters not for the present. Your second question is more immediately important. ' What do I want with you ? * To dehver to you a letter; nothing more. Un- derstanding that I meant to stroll out in this direction, the distinguished tribune, Velleius Paterculus, requested me to hand you this."

102 Dion and the Sibyls.

And he produced from a fold in the breast of his white woollen tunic a letter, having a written address on one side, and a thread round its four ends, which thread was knotted on the side opposite to that bearing the superscription. The knot was secured by a waxen seal, upon which the scholarly writer had, in imitation of the deceased minister Maecenas, impressed the engraving of a frog.

Paulus opened it and read what follows :

" To the noble Paulus ^miUus Lepidus, the younger, Velleius Paterculus sends greeting :

" Go where you like, amuse yourself as you like, do as you like — fish, ride, walk, read, play, sing — provided you sleep each night at the Post House of the Hun- dredth Milestone, under the excellent Crispina's roof. Be careful of your health and welfare."

" So far so good," said Paulus ; " I am a prisoner, indeed, but with a tolerably long lether, at least. I am much obliged to you for bringing me the letter."

" Imprisonment ! " observed the other, " I have heard a knot of centurions, and also soldiers unnum- bered, talk of your imprisonment, and of the blow with which it seems to be connected. You are a favorite, without knowing it, among the troops at Formiae. One fierce fellow swore, by quite a crowd of gods, that your blow deser\'ed to have freed a slave, instead of enslav- ing a knight ; that is, to have freed you had you been a slave, instead of enslaving you, who are already a knight."

" I feel grateful to the soldiers," said Paulus. " You are doubtless an officer— -a centurion, perhaps ? "

" Well, they do speak freely," replied the stranger,

Dion and the Sibyls. 103

" and so do I ; therefore you have made a fair guess ; but you are wrong."

" Ah ! well," said Paulus ; " thanks for your trouble, and farewell. I must go."

" One word," persisted the other. "I am a famous man, though you do not seem to know it. The con- queror in thirty-nine single combats at Rome, all of them mortal, and all against the best gladiators that ever fought in circus or in forum, stands before you. At present I am no longer obliged to fight in person. I keep the most invincible familia of gladiators that Rome has known. You are aware of the change of morals and fashions ; you are aware that even a senator has been seen in the arena. Some day an emperor will descend into our lists.* Join my family, my school ; I am Thellus, the lanista."

" What ! " cried Paulus, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashing. " In Greece, where I have been bred, gladiatorial shows are not so much as allowed by law, even though the gladiators should be all slaves j and because some senator has forgotten the respect due to the senate and to himself, and has no sense either of de- cency or humanity, you dare to propose to me, the nephew of a triumvir, the son of an honorable and famous soldier — ^to me, the last of the .^Emilians, to descend as a gladiator into the arena, and to join your ^:i\.oo\, mehercle / of uneducated, base-born, and mer- cenary cutthroats ! "

The lanista was so astounded by this unexpected burst of lofty indignation, and felt himself thrust morally to such a sudden distance from the stripling, at least in

* This really happened in the course of time.

104 Dion and the Sibyls,

the appearance of things, that he uttered not one word for several instants. He glared in speechless fury at the speaker, and when at length he found voice and ideas he said :

" Do you know that I could take you in these un^ armed hands, and tear you limb from Umb where you stand, as you would rend a chicken — do you know that ? "

" I do not," said Paulus, in slow and significant ac- cents, facing round at the same time upon the lanista with deliberate steadiness, and looking him fixedly in the face ; " but if you even could, it would suit my humor better to be murdered where I am by a gladiator than to be one."

" By the Capitoline Jove ! " cried Thellus, after another long, doubtful pause, laughing vehemently. "When I place your skill of fence, about which I have heard a particular account, by the side of your high spirit, you really do make my mouth water to number you among my pupils. I have not a man in xa^familia whom you would not, when a little addition to your years shall have perfected your bodily vigor, stretch upon the sand in ten minutes. But what mean you, after all ? You do not wish to hurt my feelings, because I make you a friendly offer in the best shape that my un- lucky destiny and state of life afford me the means of doing ? Do you, then, so utterly despise the gladiator ? Have you reflected on it so deeply ? Who, neverthe- less, displays in a greater degree many of the severest and highest virtues? Do you despise the man who despises Ufe itself, when compared with honor in the only form in which honoris for him accessible ? Answer

Dion and the Sibyls. 105

that Do you despise abstemiousness, fortitude, self- control, self-sacrifice, chastity, courage, endurance ? Answer that. Who is more dauntless in the combat, more sublimely unruffled when defeated, more invincibly silent under the agony of a violent death, accompanied by the hootings of pitiless derision, and whose derision, whose mockery, is the last sound in his ears ? Let that pass.

" But who pays a dearer price for the applause of his fellow-men when it is his ? Who serves them more desperately in the way in which they desire to be, and will needs be, served ? Who gives them the safe and cruel pleasures they demand more ungrudgingly, or un- der such awful conditions ? Who comes forward to be mangled and destroyed with a more smiling face, or a more indifferent mien ? Who spiurns ease, and sloth, and pleasure, and pain, and the sweet things of life, and the bitter things of death, in order to show what man- hood can dare and what manfulness can do, and in order to be thoroughly the man to the last, with the same constant and unconquerable mind, as the very gladiator whom you thus insult ? Women can often show heroism in pain while shrinking from danger; and, on the other hand, amidst the general excitement and the contagious enthusiasm of an army in battle, to fight pretty well, and then to howl without restraint in the surgeon's hands, is the property of nearly all men. Some who face danger badly endure anguish well ; and many, again, who cannot support pain will confront danger. But if you wish to name him who does both in perfec- tion, and who practices that perfection habitually, you will name the gladiator. Nor is it pain of body alone,

io6 Dion and the Sibyls.

nor loss of life alone, which his calling trains him to undergo with alacrity. Are you sure that our motives are simply and solely that grovelling lust of gain which I you imply ? Mercenary you dare to term us ? Mer- ,cenary! The gambler is mercenary. Is the gladiator I like your high-bom voluntary gambler? Is the gladia- ftor deaf to praise ? Indifferent to admiration ? Reck- less of your sympathy? Is he without other men's human ties and affections, as the gambler is ? Has the gladiator no parents whom he feeds with that blood which flows from his gashes ? No wife whom he is all the time protecting with that lacerated and fearless breast ? No children whom his toils, efforts, and suffer- ings are keeping out of degradation, out of want, and out of that very arena which he treads with a spirit that nothing can subdue, in order that those whom he loves may never enter it ? "

While Thellus thus thundered with increasing and in- creasing vehemence, the clear-faced youth whom he ad- dressed, and who had confronted his words of menace without any emotion except that of instinctive and set- tled defiance, was and appeared to be overwhelmed. Had Paulus been struck bodily, he could not have felt anything like the pain he suffered. The words of the gladiator smote the lad full to the heart, like stones shot from a catapult.

Thellus gazed thoughtfully at him during the pause which ensued, and then resumed by exclaiming :

" Mercenary ! that is, he takes pay. Does the author take pay ? answer that. Do the lawyer and soldier take pay ? Does the magistrate take pay ? Does, or does not, the emperor takepay ? Does the vestal virgin herself take

Dion and the Sibyls. 107

pay? If the gladiator did, and suffered, and was all he does, all he suffers, all he is, in mere sport, and at his own personal expense, I suppose you would respect him. But I, Thellus — I, the gladiator — I, the lanista — would scorn him, and spurn him, and spit upon him. Blame the community who go to these sports, and sit in shame- less safety ; blame the hundreds of thousands who suc- ceed other hundreds of thousands to applaud us when we kill our beloved comrades, and at the same time, to howl and hoot over those same brave friends whom we kill; blame those who, having cheered us when we slew our faithful companions, yell at us in our own turn when we are slain j blame men for taking us when we are Uttle children, and rearing us expressly to be fit for nothing else; blame men for taking the little ones of captured warriors who have in vain defended their native lands against the discipline and skill of Rome ; blame men for mingling these poor infants in one college with the foundlings and the slaves to whom law and posi- tive necessity bequeath but one lot in this Uf e ; blame those who thus provide for the deadly arena. Blame your customs, blame your laws, blame your tyrannous institutions, against which the simpUcity and trustfulness of boyish years can neither physically nor mentally struggle; blame, above all, your fine dames, more de- graded— ay, far more degraded and more abased than the famishing prostitutes who must perish of starvation or be what they are ; blame your fine dames, I say, who when, like the august Julia, they import the thick silks of India, are not satisfied till they pick them thin and transparent, before wearing them, lest their garments should conceal their shame ; and thus attired, pampered

io8 Dion and the Sibyls.

with delicacies, gorged with food, heated with wine, surfeited with every luxury, reeking and horrible, know not what else to do to beguile the languid interx^als of systematic wickedness than to come to the arena and indulge in sweet emotions over the valiant and virtuous fathers of homes and hopes of f amiUes, who perish there in torture and in ignominy for their pleasure.''

" O, God ! " cried young Paulus.

" Well may you,'' cried Thellus, " be filled with hor- ror. Ah ! then^ when will a god descend from heaven, and give us a new world ? I have one child in my home, a sweet, peaceful, natural-hearted, conscience- governed, loving little daughter. Her mother has gone away from me forever to some world beyond death where more justice and more mercy prevail. The day when I lost her I had to fight in the arena. Eheu! She was anxious for me, she could not control her sus- pense ; she saw the execrable Tiberius. Bah ! do you think I'm afraid to speak ? Of what should I be afraid? Thellus has been at the funeral of fear ; yes, this many a day," continued Thellus, raising his voice, "she came to the Statilian amphitheatre against my express command; she saw the execrable Tiberius, contrary to every custom, after I had been victor in four fatal encounters, when I was worn out with fatigue, order me to meet a fresh antagonist ; and, looking up among the hundred thousand spectators, I beheld the sweet, loving face ; I beheld the clasj^ed and convulsive fingers. But, lo, who came forth to fight against me ? Whom had the accursed man provided as my next antagonist ? Her only brother, poor Statius, whom Tiberius knew to be a gladiator, and whom he had thus selected for the

JiHon and the Sibyls. 109

more refined excitement of the spectators to fight against Thellus; but, above all, for his own more refined enjoy- ment, for the monster had tried and found my poor Alba incorruptible; and this was his revenge against a wretched gladiator and his faithful wife. Statius was no match for me ; I tried to disarm him ; after a while I succeeded, wounding him at the same time slightly. He fell and his blood colored the sand. I looked to the people; they looked to Tiberius, waiting for the sign of mercy or execution. I was resolved in any case not to be the slayer of Statius.

" The prince turned up his thumb, to intimate that I was to kill my wounded opponent. The amphitheatre then rang with a woman's scream, and the people, with one impulse, turned down their hands. I bore Statius in my own arms out of the arena; but when I reached home, I found my wife was near childbirth, deliri- ous, and raving against me as the murderer of her brother. She died so, in my arms and in her brother's. She left me my poor little Prudentia, who is dearer to me than all this globe."

After taking breath, he added, quoting Paulus's words :

" But we are a gang of base-bom, uneducated, and mercenary cutthroats."

" Oh ! forgive, forgive, forgive my words," exclaimed Paulus, stretching out both hands toward the gladiator.

Thellus took those hands and said :

" Why, I love you, lad. I love you like a son. I am not high-bom enough to be father to the like of you ; but it is not forbidden me to love a noble yoath who hates baseness and is ignorant of fear. I'll tell you

no Dion and the Sibyls.

more; but first answer me — are you of opinion, from what has passed between us, that Thellus is an unedu- cated man ? "

" I am afraid that you are better educated than I am."

" In any case," replied Thellus,, " I am ready to con- fess that the qualities and virtues exercised by gladia- tors are exercised for a wrong purpose, and in a wrong way. But, tell me, why is bread made ? You will not say because bakers bake it. That would be a girl's answer ; it would be saying that a thing is because it is, or is made because it is made. Why is it made ? Because it is wanted. Would bakers bake it if nobody ate it ? If nobody wanted to live in a house, would masons build any ? or would there even be any masons ? You could not, I grant, have music if there were no musicians, if none wanted music. It is the gladiator, unquestionably, who does the fighting in the arena ; but if none wanted the fighting, you would have no gladia- tors. I have told you how we are trepanned in helpless infancy ; and not only reared, prepared, and fitted for this calling, but hopelessly unfitted for every other. We supply the spectacle — but who desires the spectacle ? It is not we ; we are the only sufferers by it ; we detest it. But -v^hatever in so dreadful and wicked a pastime can be noble, courageous, unselfish, heroic, we the same, we the victims, give and exhibit ; and all the selfishness of it, all that is cowardly in it, all that is cruel, base, despicable, execrable, and accursed, sits on the benches, and applauds or yells in the wedges ;* this you, you, who go thither, and bring thither us, your victims, this you

* Juvenal, vi. 6i.

Dion and the Sibyls.

Ill

produce, this is your contribution to it. Ours is honor, valor, skill, and dauntless death; yours, inhumanity, cowardice, baseness, luxurious ease, and a safe, lazy, and besotted life."

" It is true," said Paulus. " Hideous are the pleas- ures, detestable the glories of this gigantic empire ; but unless, as you say, a God himself were to come down from heaven, how will it ever be reformed ?"

" How, indeed ? " answered Thellus.

Little did they dream who a certain child in Syria was, who had then entered his eleventh year I

CHAPTER XII.

SHORT silence fpllowed the concurring excla- mations of Thellus and our hero, recorded in the last chapter; and then the lanista said :

"Before I leave you, I will speak one word which came of the chance of uttering while I brought you that letter, but which I would not have pronounced had I found you to be a person of a different sort. You are really Tiberius's prisoner, remember, although it is to Velleius Paterculus you have given your parole. I know, by personal experience and much observation, the men and the things of which you, on the other hand, can have only a suspicion. Now, I conjecture, it is hardly for your own sake that you are in custody. Be- ware of what may happen to those dear to you, and, as they have given no parole, send them to some place of safety, some secret place. There is no place safe in itself in the known world. Roman Uberty is no more ; secrecy is the sole safety remaining. Vale.'''

With these words the lanista departed, leaving our young friend buried in thought. As he left the court of the impluvixmi to seek his mother, he remarked that Claudius had returned thither, and was occupied in watering some flowers in pots at the opposite angle. " I wonder," thought he, " can that fellow have over- heard Thellus?"

Other and more important matters, however, were destined to invite his attention. We have said enough to justify us in passing over with a few words every in-

Dion and the Sibyls, 113

terval void of more than ordinary daily occurrences of the age and land. What has been related and described will sufficiently enable a reader of intelligence to realize the sort of Ufe which lay before Paulus, his mother, and Agatha during the next few days passed by them to- gether at the inn of the Hundredth Milestone.

Of course, Paulus detailed to his mother what he had observed or heard, especially Thellus's warning. Fur- ther, he propounded thereon his own conclusions. The family thought it well to summon Crispina and Crispus to a council; and it was finally resolved that Aglais should at once write to her brother-in-law, Marcus. ^milius Lepidus, the ex-triumvir, and ask a temporary home under his roof for herself and Agatha, with their female slave Melena. Old Philip and Paulus could re- main at the inn for some time longer. Aglais, Paulus, and the worthy couple who kept the inn consulted together,^ carrying their conferences rather far into the night, when the business of the hostelry was over, upon the question^ what would be the best course to pursue should the- triumvir, from timidity or any other motive, refuse- shelter to his brother's widow and child? During these conferences Agatha and Benigna went to sit apart, each engaged in some kind of needlework.

It did not seem to the httle council probable that. Lepidus would refuse the request submitted to him, and if he acceded to it, Crispina assured Aglais that the castle of Lepidus at Monte Circello, covering both the simimit and the base of a clifE upon the edge of the sea, was sufficiently capacious, intricate, and labyrinthine to conceal a good part of a Roman legion in complete security.

114 Dion and the Sibyls.

Moreover, it had escapes both by land and by water; nor cotdd any one approach it without being visible to the inmates for miles. " Considering," reasoned Cris- pina, " that there is no pretext for ostensibly demanding the surrender of the ladies, who have not committed any offence, and are not, or at all events are not sup- posed to be, under any supervision, this retreat will afford all the security that can be desired. But Master Paulus must never go near you when once you leave this roof."

Aglais admitted the wisdom of the suggestion. A letter, a simple, elegant, and affecting composition, was written by her, and intrusted to Crispus for transmission. However, as it was the unanimous opinion of all con- cerned that the family ought not to be detected in any communication with Lepidus, or even suspected of any, it was necessary for Crispus to observe great caution in forwarding the document. Several days, therefore, passed away before an opportunity was presented of sending a person who would neither be observed in going nor missed when gone, and who could at the same time be implicitly trusted; none but old Philip could be found.

Crispus had been on the point of employing Claudius for the purpose, when Crispina resolutely stopped him. " I have a high opinion of that youth," said she, " or I would not consent that Benigna should many him ; but at present he is a slave, and a slave of the very person against whom we are guarding. Moreover, Claudius is young and very timid; he has his way to make, and all his hopes are dependent on this tyr — I mean the prince. I do not wish even Benigna to know anything about

Dion and the Sibyls. 115

the present business. The more honest any young people are, the more they betray themselves, if cross- questioned about matters which they know, but have been told to conceal. If they know nothing, why, they can tell nothing, and moreover none can punish or blame them for not telhng.

" A silent tongue, husband, like mine, and a simple heart like yours, make safe necks. There, go about your business."

During the delay and suspense which necessarily fol- lowed, Paulus fished and took long walks through that beautiful country, many aspects of which, already de- scribed by us, as they then were, h^ve forever disap- peared. He used to take with him something to eat in the middle of the day, but always returned toward even- ing in time to join the last light repast of his mother and sister. Each evening saw them reassembled. Four taU, exquisitely tapering poles, springing from firm ped- estals, supported four little scallop-shaped lamps at the four comers of their table. The supper was often enriched by Paulus with some delicious fresh-water fish of his own catching. Benigna waited upon them, and, being invariably engaged by Agatha in lively conversa- tion, amused and interested the circle by her mingled simplicity, good feeling, and cleverness. After supper, Agatha would insist that Benigna should stay with them awhile, and they either all strolled through the garden, whence perfumes strong as incense rose in the dewy air, or they sat conversing in the bower which overlooked it. Then after awhile Crispina would ascend the gar- den-stairs to their landing; and while she inquired how they all were, and told them any news she might have

ii6 Dion and the Silyls.

gathered, Benigna would steal silently down to say good-night, as Agatha declared, to some figure who was dimly discernible standing not far away among the myrtles, and apparently contemplating the starry heavens. Such was their quiet life, such the tenor of those fleeting days.

One evening — the sweet evening of a magnificent autumn day — Paulus was returning across the country, with a rod and line, from a distant excursion upon the banks of the Liris. The spot which he had chosen that day for fishing, was a deep, clear, silent pool, formed by a bend of the river. A clump of shadowy chestnuts and hornbeam grew nigh, and the water was pierced by the deep reflections of a row of stately poplars, which mounted guard upon its margin. There seated, his back supported against one of the trees, watching the float of his line as it quivered upon the surface of the beautiful stream, he heard no sound but the ripple of the little waves lapping on the reeds, the twittering of birds and the hum of insects. There, with a mind attuned by the peaceful beauties of the solitary scene, he had traversed a thousand considerations. He thought of the many characters with whom he had so suddenly been brought into more or less intercoiu^e or contact. He thought much of Thellus, and of his poor Alba, so cruelly sacrificed. He was puzzled by Claudius. He mused about Sejanus, about Tiberius, about Velleius Paterculus, about the two beautiful ladies in the litters; he thought of the third gold-looking palanquin and its pallid odcupant ; of the haughty and violent, yet, as it seemed, servile patrician and senator, who had at- tempted suddenly to kill him, out of zeal for Caesar ; of

Dion and the Sibyls. iif

the singular reverse which had awaited the attempt ; of Queen Berenice, and Herod Agrippa, and Herodias;, of the various unexpected incidents and circumstances, which had followed. He thought of his uncle Lepidus, of the fate, whatever it might be, now to attend his. mother, his sister, and himself. He revolved the means of establishing his rights and his claims. Ought he at once to employ some able orator and advocate, and ta appeal to the tribunals of justice ? Should he rather seek a hearing from the emperor in person, and, if so, how was this to be managed ?

From recollections and calculations, the spirit of hig pastime and the genius of the place bore him away and lured him into the realm of daydreams, vague and far- wandering-! Upstream, about a mile from where he was sitting, towered high a splendid mansion. On its. roof glittered its company of gilt and colored statues,, conversing and acting above the top of a wood.

In that mansion his forefathers had lived.

On one of the streams lay ancient Latium, where he sat, teeming with traditions — a monster or a demigod ia every tree, rock, and river ; the cradle of the Roman race, the seed and germ of outspreading conquest and, universal empire. On the opposite banks was-uriroUed, far to the south, the Cainpanian landscape, where. Hannibal, the most terrible of Romish enemies and rivals, had enervated his victorious legions, and lost the chances of that ultimate success which would have changed the destinies of mankind.

Suddenly, among the statues on the roof, Paulus be- held, not bigger than children by comparison, moving, figures of men and ladies in dazzling attire. He per-

ii8 Dion and the Sibyls.

ceived that salutations were exchanged, groups formed and groups dispersed. Happening, the next moment, to cast his eye over the landscape, he saw in the dis- tance some horsemen galloping toward the house, through the trees in the distance. Losing sight of them behind intervening clumps of oleander, myrtle, and other shrubs, he turned once more to watch the groups upon the roof. In a short time new figures seemed to arrive, around whom all the others gathered with the attitude and air of listening.

Paulus felt as if he was assisting at a drama. A moment later the roof was deserted by its living visitors, the statues remained alone and silent, gesticulating and flashing in the sun. Tidings must have come. Some- thing must have happened, thought Paulus ; and, as the day was already declining, he gathered up his fishing tackle and wended homeward. On the way he met a man in hide sandals, carrying a large staff and piked with iron. It was a shepherd, of whom he asked whether there was anything new. " Have you not heard ? " said the man; "the flocks will fetch a better price — the emperor has come to Formise.''

Full of this intelligence, and anxious at once to con- sult Aglais whether, before Augustus should leave the neighborhood, he ought not to endeavor by all means now to obtain a hearing from him, Paulus mended his pace; but while he thought he might be the bearer of news, some news awaited him. He passed through the httle western trellis-gate into the quoit-alley, and so by the garden toward the house. A couple of female slaves, who were talking and laughing about something like the impudence of a slave, and depend on it a love-

Dion and the Sibyh. iig

letter it is, but it's Greek, which seemed to afford them much amxisement, stood at the door of the lower arbor, which inclosed the foot of the stairs leading up to the landing of his mother's apartments. Noticing him, they hastily went about their business in different direc- tions, and he ran up the stairs, and found his mother and sister talking in low tones, just inside the open door of the upper arbor in the large sitting-room, which, as the reader knows, was also the room where they took their meals.

"lam glad you have returned, Paulus," said his mother. " Look at this ; yoiu: sister found it about half an hour ago on the landing in the arbor."

And Aglais handed him a piece of paper, on which was written, in a clear and elegant hand, in Greek :

" When power and craft hover in the air as hawks, let the ortolans and ground-doves hide"

Our hero read the words, turned the paper over, read the words again, and said, " I don't see the meaning of this. It is some scrap of a schoolboy's theme, per- haps."

" Schoolboys do not often write such a hand," said Aglais ; " nor is the paper a scrap torn off — -iX is a com- plete leaf. And, again, why should it be found upon our landing ? "

" What schoolboys could come up our stairs ? There are none in the inn, are there ? Have you been in all day ? " asked Paulus.

"No; we were returning from a walk across the fields to see the place near Cicero's villa of Formianum, where the assassins overtook him, and as Agatha, who ran upstairs before me, reached the landing, she ob-

120 Dion Mid the Sibyls.

served something white on the ground, and picked it up> It was that paper. Some stranger must have been up- stairs while we were away."

" Crispus or Crispina would not have said this to us by means of an anonymous writing. They have givea us the same warning without disguise, personally."

" But they spoke only according to their own opinion," returned Paulus. " Coming from some one else, the same advice acquires yet greater importance. Some unknown person bears witness of the danger which our host and hostess merely suspect, and at which Thellus, the lanista, hinted, as perhaps impending, but which even he did not afiSrm to be a reaUty."

" That is," added Paulus, " if this bit of paper has been intended for us — I mean for you and for Agatha, because I am not a groxmd-dove."

" Well, I do not see," said the lady, musing, " what more we can do for the moment. Our trusty Philip is on the way with my letter to your uncle; he may be by this time on the way back. Till he returns, what can we do ? "

" I know not," said Paulus. " Have you asked Cris- pina about this paper?"

" We waited first to consult you," said Aglais; "and," added Agatha, "there is another singular thing — we have not seen Benigna all day, who was so regular in attending upon us. The hostess told us that Benigna was suffering with a bad headache ; and when I wanted to go and tend her, Crispina hindered me, sapng she had lain down and was trying to sleep."

"What about the lover?" inquired Paulus — "the slave Claudius ? "

Dion and the Sibyls. i3i

" He has gone away all of a sudden, though his holi- ■day has not expired. I really suspect that Benigna and he must have had a quarrel, and that this is why he has left the place, and why Benigna is so ill."

The clepsydra, or waterclock, on the floor in a comer, showed that it was now past the time when their even- ing repast was usually prepared. They were wondering at the delay; when Crispus, first knocking at the door which led from the passage, entered. He seemed alarmed. They put various questions to him which the circumstances rendered natural, showing him the paper that had been dropped on the landing. He said that he thought he could make a pretty good surmise about that matter; but inasmuch as Benigna, who had been crying out her httle heart, was much better, and had de- clared she would come herself when they had supped, and tell them everything, he would prefer to leave the recital to her, if they would permit him.

Meantime, he confirmed the news that the emperor had arrived at the neighboring town, that the festivities had begun at the Mamurran palace, and that in a day or two the public part of the entertainments, the shows and battles of the circus, which woidd last for several successive mornings and evenings, would be opened. He said it was usual to publish a sort of promissory plan of these entertainments ; and he expected to re- ceive, through the kindness of a friend at court (a slave), some copies of the dociunent early next morning, when he would hasten to place it in their hands. While thus speaking to them with an air of affected cheerfulness, he laid the table for supper. Actuated by a curiosity in which a good deal of uneasiness was mingled, since

122 Dion and the Sibyls.

he would not himself tell them all they desired to know, they requested him to go and send Benigna as soon as possible; and when at last he retired with this injunc- tion, they took their supper in unbroken silence.

Benigna came. The secret was disclosed, and it turned slow-growing apprehension into present and serious alarm.

" What ! Claudius a spy ! The spy of Tiberius set as a sort of secret sentry over us ! Who would have thought it?"

Benigna, turning very red and very pale by turns, had related what she had learnt, and how she had acted. Little knowing either the secret ties between her mother and this half-Greek family, or the interest and affection she had herself conceived for them, her lover had told her that she might help most materially in a business of moment intrusted to him by his master ; adding that, if he gave the Caesar satisfaction in this, he should at once obtain his hberty, and then they might be married. She answered that he must know how ready she was to further his plans, and bade him explain himself, in order that she might learn how to afford him immedi- ately the service which he required. But no sooner had she understood what were his master's commands, than she was filled with consternation. She informed him that her father and mother would submit to death rather than betray the last scions of the ^mihan race, and that she herself would spurn all the orders of Tiberius before she would hurt a hair of their heads. She men- tioned, with a little sob, that she had further informed Claudius that she never would espouse a man capable of plotting mischief against them. Upon this announce-

Dion and the Sibyls. 123

ment Claudius had behaved in a way " worthy of any thing." He there and then took an oath to renounce the mission he had undertaken. He had neither known its objects nor suspected its villainy. But Benigna, whose mind he thus relieved, he filled with a new anxiety by expressing his conviction that Tiberius Caesar would forthwith destroy him. However, of this he had now gone to take his chance.

" Did Claudius," asked Paulus, " intend to tell the Ceesar that he disapproved of the service upon which he had been sent, and would not help to execute it ? "

" No, sir," said Benigna. " We were a long time con- sulting what he should, what he could say. He is very timid ; it is his only fault. He is going to throw all the blame upon me, and thus he will mention that I, that he, that we were going to be married, and that, in order the more effectually to watch the movements of ladies to whom he personally could get no access under this roof, the bright notion had occurred to him to enlist my services, so as to render it impossible that these ladies should escape him, or that their movements should re- main unknown; when lo! unfortunately for his plan, he finds I love these ladies too well to play the spy upon them ; that I refused, and even threatened, if he did not retire from his sentry-box forthwith, not only to break off my nuptial engagement with him, but to divulge to the family that they were the objects of espial."

" Which you have done," said Aglais, " even though he has compUed with your demands."

Poor Benigna smiled. " Yes," said she, " I was bent upon that the instant I knew ; but what my dear, un- fortunate Claudius had to say to Tiberius Caesar was the

124 Dion and the Sibyls.

point. The Caesar is not to be told everything. My head is bursting to think what will happen."

Here she broke into a fit of crying. They all, except Paulus, tried to comfort her. He had started to his feet when he first understood the one fact, that this young girl had sacrificed not only her matrimonial hopes, but the very safety of her lover himself, to the claims of honor and the laws of friendship. He was now pacing the width of the room in long strides with an abstracted air, from which he awaked every now and then to contemplate with a thoughtfid look the anguish and terror depicted in the innocent face of the innkeeper's little daughter.

At last he stopped and said to her:

" Of what are you afraid ? "

" The anger of that dreadful man."

" What dreadful man ? "

She answered, with a couple of sobs, " The august, red-faced, big, divine beast."

" But neither you nor your lover have done anything unlawful, anything wrong."

" That is no security," said poor Benigna, shaking hei head and wringing her hands.

" That ought to be a seciuity," said Aglais ; adding in a mutter, " but often is a danger."

" It is not even allowed by people that it ought to be a security," returned the girl.

" Until it is so allowed, and so practised, too, the earth will resemble Tartarus rather than the Elysian Fields," said Aglais with energy.

Benigna began to cry amid her sympathetic audience, £nd said :

Dion and the Sibyls. 125

" It was so like the Elysian Fi-fields yesterday, and now it is like Tar- tartarus I They will kill him."

" For supper, do you mean ? " asked Paulus, laying his powerful, white, long-fingered hand upon Benigna's head, while Agatha embraced her. " But then, how will they cook him? How ought a Claudius to be cooked ? "

The young girl looked up wistfully through her tears, and said :

" You do know that awful, divine man ! "

" I think I half suspect him," answered Paulus. " But the red-faced, big, divine beast, as you call him, will reward Claudius, instead of being angry with him, and this I will show you clearly. Was it not a proof both of zeal and of prudence, on Claudius's part, in the ser* vice of his master, to endeavor to enlist your assistance ? And again, upon finding, contrary to all likelihood — as Tiberius himself will admit, and would be the first to contend — that you preferred virtue, and truth, and honor, and good faith, to your own manifest and im- mediate interests, and to success in love — upon finding this, extraprdinary and unlikely fact occurring, was it not clearly the duty of Claudius to his master to hasten away at once and tell him the precise turn which events had taken ? Now, what else has been his conduct, young damsel ? What, except exactly all this^ has Claudius done? Will he not, then, be rewarded by his master, instead of being eaten for supper? "

" Ah, noble sir ! " cried Benigna with clasped hands. " what wisdom and what beautiful language the gods have given you ! This must be what people call Greek philosophy, expounded with Attic taste."

CHAPTER XIII.

I, EXT morning at breakfast, Paulus announced that he had resolved to go to Formise and seek an audience of the emperor himself.

"How will you get one?" asked Aglais; "and if you get one, what good will it do you? "

" It will depend upon circumstances," he replied? " for, whether I fail to get speech of the emperor, or, succeeding in that, fail to get justice from him, process of law remains equally open, and so does process of in- terest. Both means are, I suppose, always doubtful, and generally dilatory. I spoil no chance by trying a sudden and direct method of recovering our family rights; while if I succeed, which is just possible, I shall save a world of trouble and suspense."

After some discussion, his mother yielded to her son's impetuous representations, more with the view of un- deceiving him, and reconciling him to other proceed- ings, than