Quintus Claudius, Volume 1

“A second Sappho!” exclaimed Herodianus, as his master sat speechless. “I can but compare the sweetness of that voice with the luscious Falernian we drank at dinner. That was a nectar worthy of the gods! Besides, indeed – the Hispanian wine – out there, what do you call the place – you know, my lord – what is the name of it – that was delicious too – and seen against the light… What was I saying? I had an aunt, she sang too to the cithara – yes she did, why not? – She was free to do that, of course, quite free to do it – and a very good woman too was old Pris – Pris – Priscilla. Only she could not endure, that any one should talk when she blew the cithara…”

Octavia was frowning; Aurelius had turned crimson and nodded to his Gothic slave, who was standing aside under the arcade. Magus quietly came up to Herodianus and whispered a few words in his ear.

“That shows a profound, a remarkably profound power of observation!” cried the freedman excitedly. “In fact, what does music prove after all? I play the water-organ,89 and – hold me up, Magus. This floor is remarkably slippery for a respectable cavaedium. It might be paved with eels or polished mirrors!”

“You are a very good fellow,” muttered the Goth as he led him slowly away, “but you carry it a little too far…”

“What? Ah! you have no sense of the sublime? You are not a philosopher, but only a – a – a – a man. But, by Pluto! you need not break my arm. I – take care of that, that… Will you let go, you misbegotten villain!”

But the Goth was not to be got rid of; he held the drunken man like an iron vice and so guided him in a tolerably straight course. When they disappeared in the corridor leading to the atrium, Aurelius was anxious to apologize for him, but Octavia laughed it off.

“We are at Baiae,"90 she said, “and Baiae is famous for its worship of Bacchus.”

“It is impossible to be vexed with him,” added Lucilia; “he is so exceedingly funny, and has such a confiding twinkle in his eyes.”

“I am only annoyed,” said Aurelius, “that he should have disturbed us at so delicious a moment. Indeed madam, your voice is enchantment; and what a heavenly melody! who is the musician who composed it?”

“You make me blush,” said Claudia: “I myself put the words to music, and I am delighted that you should like it. Quintus thought it detestable.”

“Nay, nay – ” murmured Quintus.

“Yes indeed!” said the saucy Lucilia. “It was too soft and womanly for your taste.”

“You are misrepresenting me; I only said, that the air did not suit the words. It is a man who is here complaining of the torments of love, while what Claudia sings does not sound like a Thracian winter storm, but like the lamentations of a love-lorn maiden.”

“Nonsense!” laughed Lucilia. “Love is love, just as air is air! whether you breathe it or I, it is all the same.”

“But with this difference, that rather more of it is needed to fill my lungs than yours. However, for aught I care the song is perfect.”

“You are most kind, to be sure! And you may thank the gods that you have nothing to do but to listen to it. I have no doubt, that at the drinking-bouts of some of your boon companions the songs have a more Titanic ring and roar.”

“You little hypocrite! Do you want to play the part now of a female Cato? Why, how often have you confessed to me, that you would give your eyes to be one of such a party if only it were permissible!”

“Mother,” said Lucilia, “do not allow him to make a laughing stock of me in this heartless way. ‘If only I were a man,’ you mean, not ‘if it were permissible.’”

“Very good!” replied Quintus.

Caius Aurelius now expressed a wish to hear Claudia sing a Latin song, and she selected one of which the words were by the much-admired poet Statius,91 who at that time was, with Martial,92 the reigning favorite in the taste of the highest circles. With this the stranger seemed equally delighted.

When Claudia had ended, he himself seized the instrument and plectrum, and with eager enthusiasm in a full, strong voice sang a battle-song. The powerful tones rang through the evening silence like the rush of a mountain torrent. His hearers saw in fancy the swaying struggle – the captain of the legion is in the thick of the fray – “Comrades,” cries one of the combatants, “our chief is in danger! Help! help for our chief! – One last furious onslaught, and the battle is won!”

The two girls shrank closer to each other.

As the notes slowly died away, a figure appeared high above them in the moonlight, leaning over the parapet of the upper story.

“By the gods! my lord!” cried Herodianus, “I am coming! – If only I knew where Magus has hidden my sword! Hold your own, stand steady, and we will beat them yet!”

The party burst out laughing.

“Go to bed, Herodianus!” shouted his master. “You are talking in your dreams!”

“Apollo be praised then!” stuttered the other, “but I heard you with my own ears, shouting desperately for help.” And with these words he withdrew from the parapet, still muttering and fighting the air with his arms; and Lucilia declared that she should positively die of laughing if this extraordinary sleep-walker went through any farther adventures. The moon was already high in the sky, when the party separated. Quintus led his visitor to the strangers’ rooms, wished him goodnight, and went to his own cubiculum93 where his slaves stood yawning as they waited for him. For a time, however, he paced his room in meditation; then pausing in his walk, he looked undecidedly through the open doorway and asked: “What is the hour?”

“It wants half an hour of midnight,” replied Blepyrus, his body-servant.

“Very good – I do not want to sleep yet. Open the window; the air here is suffocating. Blepyrus, give me my dagger.”

“The Syrian dagger?”

“A useless question – when do I ever use any other?”

“Here, my lord,” said Blepyrus, taking the dagger out of a closet in the wall.

“It is only as a precaution. Lately all sorts of wild rabble have haunted Baiae and the neighborhood. I am going to take a walk for an hour or so,” and he went to the door. “But mind,” he added, “this late expedition is a secret.”

The slaves bowed.

“You know us, my lord!” they said with one accord.

Quintus went out again into the arcades. The colonnaded court lay white and dream-like in the moonshine, the shadows of the statues fell blackly sharp on the dewy grass-plot and the chequered outlines of the mosaic pavement. Quintus hastened noiselessly to the postern-gate, which led from the peristyle into the park; he pushed back the bolt and was out on the terrace. Complete silence reigned around; only the very tops of the trees bent to the soft night-breeze. Quintus looked down upon Baiae. Here and there a light twinkled in the harbor; otherwise it was like a city of the dead. Then he looked down the black darkness of the shrubbery paths into the wilderness and seemed to waver, but he drew a little letter out of the belt of his tunic and studied it, meditating.

“In fact,” said he to himself, “the whole affair wears the aspect of a mad adventure; it would not be the first time that malice had assumed such a disguise! But no! Such a scheme would be too clumsy; what warranty would the traitor have, that I should come alone? Besides, if I have any knowledge of love-intrigue, these lines were undoubtedly written by a woman’s hand.”

He opened the note,94 which was written on pale yellow Alexandrian paper with the finest ink. The red silk that tied it was sealed with yellow wax, and bore the impression of a finely-cut intaglio. The handwriting betrayed practice, and the whole thing looked as if it had come from the hands of a cultivated and distinguished fine lady. The contents answered to this supposition; the style was marked by aristocratic affectations and rhetorical grace, while it revealed that vein of eager, jealous passion, which stamps the Roman woman to this day.

“There is no doubt about it,” muttered Quintus, when he had once more carefully examined every detail. “This is in hot earnest, and she commands me to meet her with the assurance of a goddess. And with all her domineering confidence, what sweet coaxing – what inviting tenderness! It would be treason to the divine influences of Venus to hesitate. Nay, fair unknown! – for you must surely be fair – beautiful as the goddess whose inspiration fires your blood! Nothing but beauty can give a woman courage to write such words as these!”

He replaced the note in his bosom and took the same path that he had trodden a few hours since with Aurelius; listening sharply on each side as he got farther into the thicket, and keeping his hand on his dagger, he slowly mounted the hill. All nature seemed to be sleeping, and the distant cry of a night-bird sounded as if in a dream. Before long he had reached the spot where the path turned off to the pavilion. The little temple stood out in the moonlight as sharply as by day against the dark-blue sky, like an erection of gleaming silver and snow; the light seemed to ripple on the marble like living, translucent dew – and, in the middle, the goddess sat enthroned! – a tall form robed in white, her face veiled, motionless as though indeed a statue. Quintus paused for an instant; then he mounted to the top and said bowing low:

“Unknown one, I greet thee!”

“And I thee, Quintus Claudius!” answered a voice that was tremulous with agitation.

“You, madam, have commanded, and I, Quintus Claudius, have obeyed. Now, will you not reveal the secret I am burning to discover?”

The veiled lady took the young man gently by the hand and drew him tenderly to a seat.

“My secret!” she repeated with a sigh. “Can you not guess it? Quintus, divinest, most adorable Quintus – I love you!”

“Your favors confound me!” said Quintus in the tone of a man to whom such phrases were familiar. His unknown companion threw her arms round him, leaned her head on his shoulder, and burst into tears.

“Oh, happy, intoxicating hour!” she breathed in a rapturous undertone. “You, the noblest of men, my idol, whom I have thought of so long, watched with such eager eyes —you, Quintus, mine – mine at last! It is too much happiness!”

Quintus, under the stormy fervor of this declaration, felt an uneasy mistrust which he tried in vain to repress. This despotic “mine – mine” gave him a sensation as of the grip of a siren. He involuntarily rose.

“My good fortune takes my breath away!” he said in flattering accents; doubly flattering to atone for the hasty impulse by which he had stood up. “But now grant my bold desire, and let me see your face. Let me know who it is, that vouchsafes me such unparalleled favors.”

“You cannot guess?” she whispered reproachfully. “And yet it is said, that the eyes of love are keen. Quintus, my beloved, Fate denies us all open and unchecked happiness; it is in secret only that your lips may ever meet mine. But you know that true love mocks at obstacles – nay more, the flowers that blossom in the very valley of death are those that smell sweetest.”

Quintus drew back a step.

“Once more,” he insisted, “tell me who you are?”

The tall figure raised a beautiful arm, that shone like Parian marble in the moonlight, and slowly lifted her veil.

“The Empress!"95 cried Quintus dismayed.

“Not ‘the Empress’ to you, my Quintus – to you Domitia, hapless, devoted Domitia, who could die of love at your feet.”

Quintus stood immovable.

“Fear nothing,” she said smiling. “No listener is near to desecrate the perfect bliss of this moonlit night.”

“Fear?” retorted Quintus. “I am not a girl, to go into fits in a thunder-storm. What I resolve on I carry out to the end, though the end be death! Besides, I know full well, that your favors bloom in secret places – as silent and as harmless as the roses in a private garden.”

Domitia turned pale.

“And what do you mean by that?” she asked shuddering.

“You live far away from Caesar, your husband; you are served by spies; your palace is a labyrinth with a hundred impenetrable chambers…”

“Indeed!” said Domitia, controlling her excitement. “But still, I saw you start. What dismayed you so much, if it was not the suspicion of danger?”

“You know,” answered the young man hesitating, “that I am one of those who are ranked as Caesar’s friends.96 A friend – though merely an official friend – cannot betray the man he is bound to defend.”

Domitia laughed loudly.

“Fine speeches, on my word!” she exclaimed scornfully. “Friendship, for the executioner who cuts your head off! Fidelity to a bloodthirsty ruffian! No, Quintus – I know better. You are staunch, but not from fidelity – from prudence!”

Quintus struck his breast proudly with his hand.

“You force me,” he said, “to speak the truth, in spite of my desire to spare you. You must know then, that Quintus Claudius thinks better of himself than to stoop to be the successor of an actor!”

“Mad fool! what are you saying…”

“What I was bound to say. You thought I was afraid; I am only proud. No, and if you were Cypris97 in person I should disdain you no less, in spite of every charm. Never will I touch the lips, that have been kissed by a buffoon – a slave."98

Domitia did not stir; she seemed paralyzed by the fury of this attack. – At last, however, she rose.

“You are very right, Quintus,” she said. “It was too much to expect. Go and sleep, and dream of your wedding. But the gods, you know, are envious. They often grant us joys in our dreams and deny the reality. But now, before you go, kneel to the Empress!” and as she spoke a stiletto flashed ominously in her hand. Quintus, however, had with equal swiftness drawn his dagger.

“Fair and gently!” he said drawing back. “The honor of being stabbed by the fair hand of Domitia is a temptation no doubt…” She colored and dropped the weapon.

“Leave me!” she said, going to lean against the balustrade. “I do not know what I am doing; my brain is reeling. Forgive me – forgive me!” Quintus made no reply, and casting a glance of furious hatred at him she hurried down the steps, glided through the gap in the brushwood into the deserted park, and vanished among the shrubs.

Quintus stood looking after her.

“One foe the more!” said he to himself. “Well, what does it matter? Either to be made an end of by the knife of an assassin – or to live on, my very soul sickened with it all… Pah!”

And he made his way homewards, singing a Greek drinking-song as he went.

CHAPTER IV

Next morning Quintus was up long before the sun, while in the atrium the slaves were still busy cleaning the walls and the mosaic pavement, so he lingered for a while in the peristyle. His eye dreamily watched the soft swaying of the trees in melancholy relief against the blue-green sky; light fleecy clouds floated in the transparent air, and here and there above his head a star still twinkled fitfully. Quintus sat on a bench with his head thrown back, for he was tired and over-excited; an unwonted restlessness had brought him out of bed. How calm and pure was this early gloaming! In Rome, so thought Quintus, there was something uncanny and dreary in the early morning – the grey of dawn came as the closing effect of a wild night of revelry. Here, on the hills of Baiae, the stars winked like kindly eyes and the twilight soothed the spirit! And yet, no; for here too was the great capital; here too were storms and unrest. Rome, that monstrous polypus, stretched its greedy arms out to the uttermost ends of the world, and even into the calmest and most peaceful solitudes. Even here, by the sea, wantonness had spread its glittering snares; here too duty and truth were forsworn, and intrigue and inhumanity held their orgies. Quintus thought of the tortured slave… That pale and pain-stricken face had sunk deep into his soul; strangely enough! for his eye had long been accustomed to such sights of anguish and horror. The bloody contests of gladiators had never roused him to any other interest than that in a public entertainment. But this particular picture forced itself on his memory, though – from the point of view of any Roman of distinction – it had no interesting features whatever, for of what account in the Roman Empire was a slave? And especially in the sight of Quintus, rich, handsome and brilliant? It was in short most strange – but that white, bearded face, with its lofty, unflinching expression never faded from his memory, and his inward eye found it impossible not to gaze upon it. Then, suddenly another figure stood side by side with it: The white-armed Cypris Domitia, the passion-stirred Empress. Here were pain, misery, silent abnegation – there were feverish desires and passions, reckless, greedy, all-absorbing selfishness… By the gods – there they stood before him – the slave and the imperial woman – both so distinct that he could have touched them as it seemed. – The slave had broken his bonds and put out his hand with a smile of beatitude, while the woman shrank away and her white arms writhed like snakes of marble. She threw herself on the earth, and her fair gold hair fell loose over the bleeding feet of the slave…

Quintus started up, the murmur of the fountain had lulled him to sleep, and now, as he rubbed his hand across his eyes, a woman’s figure was in fact before him, not so stately and tall as the moonlighted Domitia, but as fresh and sweet as a rose.

“Lucilia! Up so early?”

“I could not sleep and stole away softly from Claudia’s side. She is still asleep, for she came to bed very late. But you, my respected friend – what has brought you out before daybreak? You, the latest sleeper of all the sons of Rome?”

“I was just like you. I think the strong liquor we drank at supper last night…”

“A vain excuse,” said Lucilia. “When ever did good wine rob you of a night’s rest? Sooner could I believe that you were thinking of Cornelia!”

“What should make you think that?”

“Well, it is a natural inference. For what else are you her betrothed? To be sure you do not play the part with much zeal.”

“How so?”

“Well, do you not go to see Lycoris just as much now as ever you did?”

“Pah!”

“‘Pah!’ What need have you to say ‘Pah!’ in that way? Is that right? Is that horrid, shameless creature, who seems to turn all the men’s heads, a fit companion for a man who is betrothed? I know you love Cornelia – but this is a spiteful world, and supposing Cornelia were to learn…”

“Well, and if she did?” said Quintus smiling. “Is it a crime to frequent gay society, to see a few leaps and turns of Gades dancers and to eat stewed muraenae?99 Is there anything atrocious in fireworks or flute-playing?”

“How eloquent you can be! You might almost make black seem white. But I abide by my words; it is most unbecoming, and if you would but hear reason you would give this woman up.”

“But pray believe me, there never was a pretty girl for whom I cared less than for Lycoris.”

“Indeed! and that is why you are as constantly in her house as a client in that of his patron."100

“The comparison is not flattering.”

“But exact. Why should you frequent her house so constantly, if you are so indifferent to her?”

“Child, you do not understand such matters. Her house is the centre of all the wit and talent in Rome. Everything that is interesting or remarkable meets there; it is in her rooms that Martial101 utters his most pregnant jests, and Statius reads his finest verses. Everyone who lays any claim to talent or wit, whether statesmen or courtiers, knights or senators, uses the atrium of Lycoris as a rendezvous. Last autumn I even met Asprenas102 the consul there. Where such men as these are to be seen, Quintus Claudius, at three and twenty, may certainly be allowed to go.”

“Quite the contrary,” cried Lucilia. “If you had grey hair, like Nonius Asprenas, I would not waste words on the matter. But as it is, the Gaulish Circe will end by falling in love with you, and then you will be past praying for.” Quintus looked gaily at the girl’s smiling, mocking face.

“You mean just the reverse,” he said. “For I know you regard me as far from dangerous. Well! I can bear even that blow.”

“That is your new mood! There is no touching you in any way. If you had only half as much constancy of mind as Aurelius!”

“Ah! you like him then?”

“Particularly. Do you know it would be delightful if he could remain here a little longer – I mean for six or eight days. Then he could travel with us to Rome.”

“Indeed?” said Quintus significantly.

“Now, what are you thinking of?”

“I? of nothing at all.”

“Go, there is no doing anything with you. Do not you see that I only meant, the long days of travelling all by ourselves – Claudia turns over a book, and you, you old lazy-bones, lie on a couch like an invalid – I find it desperately dull. A travelling companion seems to me to be the most desirable thing in the world – or do you dislike Caius Aurelius?”

“Oh no. If only his trireme had wheels and could travel over land.”

“His ship will take care of itself. He can come with us in the travelling chariot, and then he will be able to see part of the Appian way.103 It is a thousand times more interesting than a sea-voyage. – Now, do it to please me and turn the conversation on the subject at dinner to-day.”

“If you like,” said Quintus.

A slave now appeared on the threshold of the passage, which led from the peristyle to the atrium.

“My lord,” he said: “Letters have arrived from Rome – and for you too, Madam…”

“Then bring them out here.”

They were three very dissimilar letters, that Blepyrus handed to the two young people. Lucilia’s was from the high-priest of Jupiter; Titus Claudius Mucianus wrote as follows to his adopted daughter:

“Health and Blessings!104 I promised you lately, through Octavia, your excellent mother, that my next letter should be addressed to you, my dear daughter. I know that you value such proofs of my fatherly remembrance, and I am glad that it should be so. However, what I have to write does not concern you alone, my sweet Lucilia, but all of you. The preparations for the magnificent Centennial Festival,105 which the Emperor Domitian – as you know – proposes to hold in the course of next year, have so completely taken up my time during the last few weeks, that I am sorely in need of the rest and comfort of regular family life. In addition to this, political disturbances of all kinds have occurred. Caesar has sent for me six times to Albanum,106 and I assure you it has been incessant travelling to and fro. The matter is an open secret; all Rome is discussing the decrees from the Palatine107 against the Nazarenes.108 You may remember that superstitious sect of whom Baucis spoke to you – a revolutionary faction, who, a score or so of years since, stirred up the whole city and gave occasion for the stern enactments of the divine Nero? Now again they are stirring up revolt as if they were mad; they are shaking the very foundations of society, and threaten to overturn all that we have till now held most sacred. I must be silent as to personal affairs; enough to say that I am weary and overwrought, and that my heart longs to see you all again. I beg you therefore to make ready to start and return as soon as possible to the City of the Seven Hills. Your mother is now tolerably well again – thanks to all-merciful Jupiter – and Quintus will not be vexed to learn that Cornelia is now staying in Rome again. People are quitting their country homes somewhat early this year; it is long since I have passed the month of September so endurably. I shall expect you then, at latest, by Tuesday in next week. Allowing three days for the journey, I thus give you two days to prepare for it.

“Pray greet your mother and your sister lovingly from me. This letter will, I hope, find you all in perfect health. I, for my part, am quite well.

“Written at Rome, on the 11th September, in the year 848 after the building of the city.”

The second letter was from Cornelia, Quintus’ betrothed, and ran as follows:

“Cornelia embraces her dear Quintus a thousand times. Here I am in Rome again, my beloved! My term of banishment to that odious desert at Tibur is ended. But, woe is me! Rome is dead and deserted too since you, my treasure, my idol, linger still far from the Seven Hills! Oh! how glad I am to hear from your father, that he is recalling you from Baiae sooner than was intended. Oh! Quintus, if you felt only one thousandth part of what I feel, you would fly on the wings of the storm to the arms of your love-sick Cornelia. The days at Tibur were more dreary than ever. My uncle seemed to me so depressed and tormented by gloomy thoughts. To crown my misery, old Cocceius Nerva109 must come and pay us a visit of eight mortal days. I shall never forget that week as long as I live! You know that when those two old men sit together, the house is as silent as a tomb; every one goes about on tiptoe. This Cocceius Nerva has the worst effect on my uncle. Only fancy what happened on the day when he left. My uncle had accompanied him to his chariot, and when he came back into the house he happened to pass my room, where Chloe was just putting some fresh roses into my hair. When he saw this, he fell into an indescribable fit of rage. ‘You old fool!’ he exclaimed pushing my good Chloe aside: ‘Have you women nothing to think of but finery? Do you deck yourselves out like beasts for sacrifice? Away with your rubbish! the house of Cornelius Cinna is no place for roses!’ And then he turned upon me in a tone which expressed volumes – ‘Wait a while!’ he said. ‘You will soon be able to do whatever pleases your fancy!’ You understand Quintus, he meant to refer to you. His words cut me to the heart, for I have known a long time that my uncle is not pleased at our connection. If my blessed mother had not made him swear, on her deathbed, that he would leave my choice perfectly free, who knows what might not have happened. Nevertheless, it is always a fresh pang to me when I see how he cherishes a bitter feeling against you – for, in spite of everything, I respect and love him.