Quo Vadis

“In no house are they treated as at Aulus’s,” interrupted Vinicius.

“Ah! Pomponia mentioned to me some god, who must be one powerful and merciful. Where she has put away all the others is her affair; it is enough that that Logos of hers cannot be very mighty, or rather he must be a very weak god, since he has had only two adherents, – Pomponia and Lygia, – and Ursus in addition. It must be that there are more of those adherents, and that they assisted Lygia.”

“That faith commands forgiveness,” said Vinicius. “At Acte’s I met Pomponia, who said to me: ‘May God forgive thee the evil which thou hast done to us and to Lygia.’”

“Evidently their God is some curator who is very mild. Ha! let him forgive thee, and in sign of forgiveness return thee the maiden.”

“I would offer him a hecatomb to-morrow! I have no wish for food, or the bath, or sleep. I will take a dark lantern and wander through the city. Perhaps I shall find her in disguise. I am sick.”

Petronius looked at him with commiseration. In fact, there was blue under his eyes, his pupils were gleaming with fever, his unshaven beard indicated a dark strip on his firmly outlined jaws, his hair was in disorder, and he was really like a sick man. Iras and the golden-haired Eunice looked at him also with sympathy; but he seemed not to see them, and he and Petronius took no notice whatever of the slave women, just as they would not have noticed dogs moving around them.

“Fever is tormenting thee,” said Petronius.

“It is.”

“Then listen to me. I know not what the doctor has prescribed to thee, but I know how I should act in thy place. Till this lost one is found I should seek in another that which for the moment has gone from me with her. I saw splendid forms at thy villa. Do not contradict me. I know what love is; and I know that when one is desired another cannot take her place. But in a beautiful slave it is possible to find even momentary distraction.”

“I do not need it,” said Vinicius.

But Petronius, who had for him a real weakness, and who wished to soften his pain, began to meditate how he might do so.

“Perhaps thine have not for thee the charm of novelty,” said he, after a while (and here he began to look in turn at Iras and Eunice, and finally he placed his palm on the hip of the golden-haired Eunice). “Look at this grace! for whom some days since Fonteius Capiton the younger offered three wonderful boys from Clazomene. A more beautiful figure than hers even Skopas himself has not chiselled. I myself cannot tell why I have remained indifferent to her thus far, since thoughts of Chrysothemis have not restrained me. Well, I give her to thee; take her for thyself!”

When the golden-haired Eunice heard this, she grew pale in one moment, and, looking with frightened eyes on Vinicius, seemed to wait for his answer without breath in her breast.

But he sprang up suddenly, and, pressing his temples with his hands, said quickly, like a man who is tortured by disease, and will not hear anything, – “No, no! I care not for her! I care not for others! I thank thee, but I do not want her. I will seek that one through the city. Give command to bring me a Gallic cloak with a hood. I will go beyond the Tiber – if I could see even Ursus.”

And he hurried away. Petronius, seeing that he could not remain in one place, did not try to detain him. Taking, however, his refusal as a temporary dislike for all women save Lygia, and not wishing his own magnanimity to go for naught, he said, turning to the slave, – “Eunice, thou wilt bathe and anoint thyself, then dress: after that thou wilt go to the house of Vinicius.”

But she dropped before him on her knees, and with joined palms implored him not to remove her from the house. She would not go to Vinicius, she said. She would rather carry fuel to the hypocaustum in his house than be chief servant in that of Vinicius. She would not, she could not go; and she begged him to have pity on her. Let him give command to flog her daily, only not send her away.

And trembling like a leaf with fear and excitement, she stretched her hands to him, while he listened with amazement. A slave who ventured to beg relief from the fulfilment of a command, who said “I will not and I cannot,” was something so unheard-of in Rome that Petronius could not believe his own ears at first. Finally he frowned. He was too refined to be cruel. His slaves, especially in the department of pleasure, were freer than others, on condition of performing their service in an exemplary manner, and honoring the will of their master, like that of a god. In case they failed in these two respects, he was able not to spare punishment, to which, according to general custom, they were subject. Since, besides this, he could not endure opposition, nor anything which ruffled his calmness, he looked for a while at the kneeling girl, and then said, – “Call Tiresias, and return with him.”

Eunice rose, trembling, with tears in her eyes, and went out; after a time she returned with the chief of the atrium, Tiresias, a Cretan.

“Thou wilt take Eunice,” said Petronius, “and give her five-and-twenty lashes, in such fashion, however, as not to harm her skin.”

When he had said this, he passed into the library, and, sitting down at a table of rose-colored marble, began to work on his “Feast of Trimalchion.” But the flight of Lygia and the illness of the infant Augusta had disturbed his mind so much that he could not work long. That illness, above all, was important. It occurred to Petronius that were Cæsar to believe that Lygia had cast spells on the infant, the responsibility might fall on him also, for the girl had been brought at his request to the palace. But he could reckon on this, that at the first interview with Cæsar he would be able in some way to show the utter absurdity of such an idea; he counted a little, too, on a certain weakness which Poppæa had for him, – a weakness hidden carefully, it is true, but not so carefully that he could not divine it. After a while he shrugged his shoulders at these fears, and decided to go to the triclinium to strengthen himself, and then order the litter to bear him once more to the palace, after that to the Campus Martius, and then to Chrysothemis.

But on the way to the triclinium at the entrance to the corridor assigned to servants, he saw unexpectedly the slender form of Eunice standing, among other slaves, at the wall; and forgetting that he had given Tiresias no order beyond flogging her, he wrinkled his brow again, and looked around for the atriensis. Not seeing him among the servants, he turned to Eunice.

“Hast thou received the lashes?”

She cast herself at his feet a second time, pressed the border of his toga to her lips, and said, – “Oh, yes, lord, I have received them! Oh, yes, lord!” In her voice were heard, as it were, joy and gratitude. It was clear that she looked on the lashes as a substitute for her removal from the house, and that now she might stay there. Petronius, who understood this, wondered at the passionate resistance of the girl; but he was too deeply versed in human nature not to know that love alone could call forth such resistance.

“Dost thou love some one in this house?” asked he.

She raised her blue, tearful eyes to him, and answered, in a voice so low that it was hardly possible to hear her, – “Yes, lord.”

And with those eyes, with that golden hair thrown back, with fear and hope in her face, she was so beautiful, she looked at him so entreatingly, that Petronius, who, as a philosopher, had proclaimed the might of love, and who, as a man of æsthetic nature, had given homage to all beauty, felt for her a certain species of compassion.

“Whom of those dost thou love?” inquired he, indicating the servants with his head.

There was no answer to that question. Eunice inclined her head to his feet and remained motionless.

Petronius looked at the slaves, among whom were beautiful and stately youths. He could read nothing on any face; on the contrary, all had certain strange smiles. He looked then for a while on Eunice lying at his feet, and went in silence to the triclinium.

After he had eaten, he gave command to bear him to the palace, and then to Chrysothemis, with whom he remained till late at night. But when he returned, he gave command to call Tiresias.

“Did Eunice receive the flogging?” inquired he.

“She did, lord. Thou didst not let the skin be cut, however.”

“Did I give no other command touching her?”

“No, lord,” answered the atriensis with alarm.

“That is well. Whom of the slaves does she love?”

“No one, lord.”

“What dost thou know of her?”

Tiresias began to speak in a somewhat uncertain voice:

“At night Eunice never leaves the cubiculum in which she lives with old Acrisiona and Ifida; after thou art dressed she never goes to the bath-rooms. Other slaves ridicule her, and call her Diana.”

“Enough,” said Petronius. “My relative, Vinicius, to whom I offered her to-day, did not accept her; hence she may stay in the house. Thou art free to go.”

“Is it permitted me to speak more of Eunice, lord?”

“I have commanded thee to say all thou knowest.”

“The whole familia are speaking of the flight of the maiden who was to dwell in the house of the noble Vinicius. After thy departure, Eunice came to me and said that she knew a man who could find her.”

“Ah! What kind of man is he?”

“I know not, lord; but I thought that I ought to inform thee of this matter.”

“That is well. Let that man wait to-morrow in my house for the arrival of the tribune, whom thou wilt request in my name to meet me here.”

The atriensis bowed and went out. But Petronius began to think of Eunice. At first it seemed clear to him that the young slave wished Vinicius to find Lygia for this reason only, that she would not be forced from his house. Afterward, however, it occurred to him that the man whom Eunice was pushing forward might be her lover, and all at once that thought seemed to him disagreeable. There was, it is true, a simple way of learning the truth, for it was enough to summon Eunice; but the hour was late, Petronius felt tired after his long visit with Chrysothemis, and was in a hurry to sleep. But on the way to the cubiculum he remembered – it is unknown why – that he had noticed wrinkles, that day, in the corners of Chrysothemis’s eyes. He thought, also, that her beauty was more celebrated in Rome than it deserved; and that Fonteius Capiton, who had offered him three boys from Clazomene for Eunice, wanted to buy her too cheaply.

Chapter XIII

NEXT morning, Petronius had barely finished dressing in the unctorium when Vinicius came, called by Tiresias. He knew that no news had come from the gates. This information, instead of comforting him, as a proof that Lygia was still in Rome, weighed him down still more, for he began to think that Ursus might have conducted her out of the city immediately after her seizure, and hence before Petronius’s slaves had begun to keep watch at the gates. It is true that in autumn, when the days become shorter, the gates are closed rather early; but it is true, also, that they are opened for persons going out, and the number of these is considerable. It was possible, also, to pass the walls by other ways, well known, for instance, to slaves who wish to escape from the city. Vinicius had sent out his people to all roads leading to the provinces, to watchmen in the smaller towns, proclaiming a pair of fugitive slaves, with a detailed description of Ursus and Lygia, coupled with the offer of a reward for seizing them. But it was doubtful whether that pursuit would reach the fugitives; and even should it reach them, whether the local authorities would feel justified in making the arrest at the private instance of Vinicius, without the support of a pretor. Indeed, there had not been time to obtain such support. Vinicius himself, disguised as a slave, had sought Lygia the whole day before, through every corner of the city, but had been unable to find the least indication or trace of her. He had seen Aulus’s servants, it is true; but they seemed to be seeking something also, and that confirmed him in the belief that it was not Aulus who had intercepted the maiden, and that the old general did not know what had happened to her.

When Tiresias announced to him, then, that there was a man who would undertake to find Lygia, he hurried with all speed to the house of Petronius; and barely had he finished saluting his uncle, when he inquired for the man.

“We shall see him at once, Eunice knows him,” said Petronius. “She will come this moment to arrange the folds of my toga, and will give nearer information concerning him.”

“Oh! she whom thou hadst the wish to bestow on me yesterday?”

“The one whom thou didst reject; for which I am grateful, for she is the best vestiplica in the whole city.”

In fact, the vestiplica came in before he had finished speaking, and taking the toga, laid on a chair inlaid with pearl, she opened the garment to throw it on Petronius’s shoulder. Her face was clear and calm; joy was in her eyes.

Petronius looked at her. She seemed to him very beautiful. After a while, when she had covered him with the toga, she began to arrange it, bending at times to lengthen the folds. He noticed that her arms had a marvellous pale rose-color, and her bosom and shoulders the transparent reflections of pearl or alabaster.

“Eunice,” said he, “has the man come to Tiresias whom thou didst mention yesterday?”

“He has, lord.”

“What is his name?”

“Chilo Chilonides.”

“Who is he?”

“A physician, a sage, a soothsayer, who knows how to read people’s fates and predict the future.”

“Has he predicted the future to thee?”

Eunice was covered with a blush which gave a rosy color to her ears and her neck even.

“Yes, lord.”

“What has he predicted?”

“That pain and happiness would meet me.”

“Pain met thee yesterday at the hands of Tiresias; hence happiness also should come.”

“It has come, lord, already.”

“What?”

“I remain,” said she in a whisper.

Petronius put his hand on her golden head.

“Thou hast arranged the folds well to-day, and I am satisfied with thee, Eunice.”

Under that touch her eyes were mist-covered in one instant from happiness, and her bosom began to heave quickly.

Petronius and Vinicius passed into the atrium, where Chilo Chilonides was waiting. When he saw them, he made a low bow. A smile came to the lips of Petronius at thought of his suspicion of yesterday, that this man might be Eunice’s lover. The man who was standing before him could not be any one’s lover. In that marvellous figure there was something both foul and ridiculous. He was not old; in his dirty beard and curly locks a gray hair shone here and there. He had a lank stomach and stooping shoulders, so that at the first cast of the eye he appeared to be hunchbacked; above that hump rose a large head, with the face of a monkey and also of a fox; the eye was penetrating. His yellowish complexion was varied with pimples; and his nose, covered with them completely, might indicate too great a love for the bottle. His neglected apparel, composed of a dark tunic of goat’s wool and a mantle of similar material with holes in it, showed real or simulated poverty. At sight of him, Homer’s Thersites came to the mind of Petronius. Hence, answering with a wave of the hand to his bow, he said, —

“A greeting, divine Thersites! How are the lumps which Ulysses gave thee at Troy, and what is he doing himself in the Elysian Fields?”

“Noble lord,” answered Chilo Chilonides, “Ulysses, the wisest of the dead, sends a greeting through me to Petronius, the wisest of the living, and the request to cover my lumps with a new mantle.”

“By Hecate Triformis!” exclaimed Petronius, “the answer deserves a new mantle.”

But further conversation was interrupted by the impatient Vinicius, who inquired directly, – “Dost thou know clearly what thou art undertaking?”

“When two households in two lordly mansions speak of naught else, and when half Rome is repeating the news, it is not difficult to know,” answered Chilo. “The night before last a maiden named Lygia, but specially Callina, and reared in the house of Aulus Plautius, was intercepted. Thy slaves were conducting her, O lord, from Cæsar’s palace to thy ‘insula,’ and I undertake to find her in the city, or, if she has left the city – which is little likely – to indicate to thee, noble tribune, whither she has fled and where she has hidden.”

“That is well,” said Vinicius, who was pleased with the precision of the answer. “What means hast thou to do this?”

Chilo smiled cunningly. “Thou hast the means, lord; I have the wit only.”

Petronius smiled also, for he was perfectly satisfied with his guest.

“That man can find the maiden,” thought he. Meanwhile Vinicius wrinkled his joined brows, and said, – “Wretch, in case thou deceive me for gain, I will give command to beat thee with clubs.”

“I am a philosopher, lord, and a philosopher cannot be greedy of gain, especially of such as thou hast just offered magnanimously.”

“Oh, art thou a philosopher?” inquired Petronius. “Eunice told me that thou art a physician and a soothsayer. Whence knowest thou Eunice?”

“She came to me for aid, for my fame struck her ears.”

“What aid did she want?”

“Aid in love, lord. She wanted to be cured of unrequited love.”

“Didst thou cure her?”

“I did more, lord. I gave her an amulet which secures mutuality. In Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, is a temple, O lord, in which is preserved a zone of Venus. I gave her two threads from that zone, enclosed in an almond shell.”

“And didst thou make her pay well for them?”

“One can never pay enough for mutuality, and I, who lack two fingers on my right hand, am collecting money to buy a slave copyist to write down my thoughts, and preserve my wisdom for mankind.”

“Of what school art thou, divine sage?”

“I am a Cynic, lord, because I wear a tattered mantle; I am a Stoic, because I bear poverty patiently; I am a Peripatetic, for, not owning a litter, I go on foot from one wine-shop to another, and on the way teach those who promise to pay for a pitcher of wine.”

“And at the pitcher thou dost become a rhetor?”

“Heraclitus declares that ‘all is fluid,’ and canst thou deny, lord, that wine is fluid?”

“And he declared that fire is a divinity; divinity, therefore, is blushing in thy nose.”

“But the divine Diogenes from Apollonia declared that air is the essence of things, and the warmer the air the more perfect the beings it makes, and from the warmest come the souls of sages. And since the autumns are cold, a genuine sage should warm his soul with wine; and wouldst thou hinder, O lord, a pitcher of even the stuff produced in Capua or Telesia from bearing heat to all the bones of a perishable human body?”

“Chilo Chilonides, where is thy birthplace?”

“On the Euxine Pontus. I come from Mesembria.”

“Oh, Chilo, thou art great!”

“And unrecognized,” said the sage, pensively.

But Vinicius was impatient again. In view of the hope which had gleamed before him, he wished Chilo to set out at once on his work; hence the whole conversation seemed to him simply a vain loss of time, and he was angry at Petronius.

“When wilt thou begin the search?” asked he, turning to the Greek.

“I have begun it already,” answered Chilo. “And since I am here, and answering thy affable question, I am searching yet. Only have confidence, honored tribune, and know that if thou wert to lose the string of thy sandal I should find it, or him who picked it up on the street.”

“Hast thou been employed in similar services?” asked Petronius.

The Greek raised his eyes. “To-day men esteem virtue and wisdom too low, for a philosopher not to be forced to seek other means of living.”

“What are thy means?”

“To know everything, and to serve those with news who are in need of it.”

“And who pay for it?”

“Ah, lord, I need to buy a copyist. Otherwise my wisdom will perish with me.”

“If thou hast not collected enough yet to buy a sound mantle, thy services cannot be very famous.”

“Modesty hinders me. But remember, lord, that to-day there are not such benefactors as were numerous formerly; and for whom it was as pleasant to cover service with gold as to swallow an oyster from Puteoli. No; my services are not small, but the gratitude of mankind is small. At times, when a valued slave escapes, who will find him, if not the only son of my father? When on the walls there are inscriptions against the divine Poppæa, who will indicate those who composed them? Who will discover at the book-stalls verses against Cæsar? Who will declare what is said in the houses of knights and senators? Who will carry letters which the writers will not intrust to slaves? Who will listen to news at the doors of barbers? For whom have wine-shops and bake-shops no secret? In whom do slaves trust? Who can see through every house, from the atrium to the garden? Who knows every street, every alley and hiding-place? Who knows what they say in the baths, in the Circus, in the markets, in the fencing-schools, in slave-dealers’ sheds, and even in the arenas?”

“By the gods! enough, noble sage!” cried Petronius; “we are drowning in thy services, thy virtue, thy wisdom, and thy eloquence. Enough! We wanted to know who thou art, and we know!”

But Vinicius was glad, for he thought that this man, like a hound, once put on the trail, would not stop till he had found out the hiding-place.

“Well,” said he, “dost thou need indications?”

“I need arms.”

“Of what kind?” asked Vinicius, with astonishment.

The Greek stretched out one hand; with the other he made the gesture of counting money.

“Such are the times, lord,” said he, with a sigh.

“Thou wilt be the ass, then,” said Petronius, “to win the fortress with bags of gold?”

“I am only a poor philosopher,” answered Chilo, with humility; “ye have the gold.”

Vinicius tossed him a purse, which the Greek caught in the air, though two fingers were lacking on his right hand.

He raised his head then, and said: “I know more than thou thinkest. I have not come empty-handed. I know that Aulus did not intercept the maiden, for I have spoken with his slaves. I know that she is not on the Palatine, for all are occupied with the infant Augusta; and perhaps I may even divine why ye prefer to search for the maiden with my help rather than that of the city guards and Cæsar’s soldiers. I know that her escape was effected by a servant, – a slave coming from the same country as she. He could not find assistance among slaves, for slaves all stand together, and would not act against thy slaves. Only a co-religionist would help him.”

“Dost hear, Vinicius?” broke in Petronius. “Have I not said the same, word for word, to thee?”

“That is an honor for me,” said Chilo. “The maiden, lord,” continued he, turning again to Vinicius, “worships beyond a doubt the same divinity as that most virtuous of Roman ladies, that genuine matron, Pomponia. I have heard this, too, that Pomponia was tried in her own house for worshipping some kind of foreign god, but I could not learn from her slaves what god that is, or what his worshippers are called. If I could learn that, I should go to them, become the most devoted among them, and gain their confidence. But thou, lord, who hast passed, as I know too, a number of days in the house of the noble Aulus, canst thou not give me some information thereon?”

“I cannot,” said Vinicius.

“Ye have asked me long about various things, noble lords, and I have answered the questions; permit me now to give one. Hast thou not seen, honored tribune, some statuette, some offering, some token, some amulet on Pomponia or thy divine Lygia? Hast thou not seen them making signs to each other, intelligible to them alone?”

“Signs? Wait! Yes; I saw once that Lygia made a fish on the sand.”

“A fish? A-a! O-o-o! Did she do that once, or a number of times?”

“Only once.”

“And art thou certain, lord, that she outlined a fish? O-o?”

“Yes,” answered Vinicius, with roused curiosity. “Dost thou divine what that means?”

“Do I divine!” exclaimed Chilo. And bowing in sign of farewell, he added: “May Fortune scatter on you both equally all gifts, worthy lords!”

“Give command to bring thee a mantle,” said Petronius to him at parting.

“Ulysses gives thee thanks for Thersites,” said the Greek; and bowing a second time, he walked out.