Chapter 3

The second serious meal of the day, the coena[82] or supper had begun;
the party had betaken themselves to the cavaedium,[83] where it was
now beginning to grow dusk. This airy colonnade--the handsomest portion
perhaps, of an old Roman house--was here very pleasingly decorated
with flowers and plants of ornamental foliage. The arcades, which
surrounded the open space in the middle, were green with ivy, while
an emerald grass-plot, with cypresses and laurels, magnolias in full
bloom, pomegranates and roses, filled up half the quadrangle. Twelve
statues of bronze gilt served to hold lamps, and a fountain tossed its
sparkling jet as high as the tallest trees.

For some time the party sat chatting in the dusk; then two slaves came
in with torches and lighted the lamps of the twelve statues; two others
lighted up the arcades so that the painted walls and their purplish
backgrounds were visible far across the court-yard. A flute-player from
Cumae now played to them in a tender mode; she stood in the entrance,
dressed in the Greek fashion, with her abundant hair gathered into
a knot and her slender fingers gliding up and down the stops of the
instrument. Her features were sweet and pleasing, her manner soft and
harmonious; only from time to time a strange expression of weariness
and absence of mind passed over her face. When she had done playing,
she was conducted by Baucis to the back gate. She took the piece of
silver which she received in payment with an air of indifference, and
then bent her way down the hill towards Cumae, which already lay in
darkness.

“Allow me to ask,” said Herodianus to Quintus, “what is the name of
this tunefully-gifted damsel?”

“She is called Euterpe, after the muse who presides over her art.”

“Her name is Arachne,” added Lucilia, “but Euterpe sounds more
poetical.”

“Euterpe!” breathed the worthy Herodianus. “Heavenly consonance! Is she
a Greek?”

“She is from Etruria, and was formerly the slave of Marcus Cocceius
Nerva, who freed her. She married in Cumae not long since.”

“As strictly historical as the annals of Tacitus,” laughed Claudia.

“I heard it all from Baucis.”

“Wretched old magpie!” exclaimed Quintus, intentionally raising his
voice. “If she could not gossip, she would lose the breath of life.”

“By all the gods, my lord!” exclaimed Baucis, laying her hands on her
heart, “you are calumniating me greatly--do you grudge me a little
harmless chat? All-merciful Isis! am I to close my lips with wax? No,
by Typhon[84] the cruel! Besides, I must instruct the daughters of the
house; it is for that that I eat the bitter crust of dependence in my
old age. Oh! Baucis knows her duties; have I not taught Claudia to
sing and play the cithara? Have I not taught Lucilia more than a dozen
Egyptian formulas and charms? and now I add to this a little sprinkling
of knowledge of the world and of men--and you call it gossip! You young
men of the present day are polite, I must say!”

“Then you sing to the cithara?”[85] said Aurelius, turning to Claudia.
“Oh, let me, I beg of you, hear one of your songs!”

“With pleasure,” said the girl coloring slightly. “With your
permission, dear mother...?”

“You know my weakness,” replied Octavia. “I am always only too
glad to hear you sing. If our noble guest’s request is not merely
politeness....”

“It is a most heartfelt wish,” cried Aurelius. “Your daughter’s voice
is music when she only speaks--in singing it must be enchanting.”

“I think so too, indeed,” added Herodianus. “Oh, we Northmen are
connoisseurs in music. The Camenae visit other spots than Helicon
and the seven hills of Rome; they have taken Trajectum too under
their protection. Had I but been born in Hellas, where Zeus so
lavishly decked the cornucopia of the arts with such pure and ideal
perfection....”

“Herodianus, you are talking nonsense!” interrupted the young Batavian.
“I am afraid that the old Falernian we drank at dinner, was too strong
for your brain.”

“I beg your pardon! that would be very unlike me. Since Apollo
first laid me in my cradle, temperance has been my most conspicuous
virtue....”

A slave girl had meanwhile brought in the nine-stringed cithara and the
ivory plectrum; Claudia took them from her with some eagerness, put the
ribbon of the lute round her neck and sat upright on her easy-chair.
She turned the pegs here and there to put the instrument in tune,
struck a few chords and runs as a prelude, and began a Greek song--the
delightful Spring-greeting of Ibycus the Sicilian:[86]

“Spring returns, and the gnarled quince[87]
Fed by purling and playful brooks
Decks its boughs with its rosy flowers
Where, beneath in the twilight gloom,
Nymph-like circles of maidens dance;
While the sprays of the budding grape
Hide ’mid shadowy vine leaves.

Ruthless Eros doth disregard
Spring’s sweet tokens and hints of peace.
Down he rushes like winter blasts--
Thracian storms with their searing flash--
Aphrodite’s resistless son
Falls on me in his fury and fire--
Racks my heart with his torments.”

Claudia ceased; the accompaniment on the cithara died away in soft
full chords. Caius Aurelius sat spellbound. Never had he dreamed of
the daughters of the fever-tossed metropolis as so simple, so natural,
so genuine and genial. The strain almost resembled, in coy tenderness,
those northern love-songs which he had been wont to hear from the lips
of Gothic and Ampsivaric maidens. In those, to be sure, a vein of
rebellion and melancholy ran through the melody and pierced through the
charm, while in this all was perfect harmony, exquisite contentment--an
intoxicating concord of joy, youth and love. In this he heard the
echo of the smiling waves below, of the glistening leaves, and of
heart-stirring spring airs.

“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,[88] 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,”[89] 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,[90] who at that time was, with Martial,[91] 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 cubiculum[92] 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,[93] 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!”[94] 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.[95] 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 Cypris[96] 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.”[97]

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] COENA. The second and last principal meal after the day’s work
was over. Under the emperors the coena began about half-past
two o’clock in the afternoon, in winter probably somewhat
later. It corresponded in its relation to the other hours of
the day, to the “dîner” of the French, for the Romans were
early risers, and even among the aristocratic classes day
began at sunrise.

[83] CAVAEDIUM or peristyle was the name given to the second
court-yard of the Roman house, which was connected with the
first or atrium by one or two corridors. The dining-room, as
well as the study of the master of the house, were in the
cavaedium. The space between the latter and the atrium, called
the tablinum, contained the family papers; it was the business
office.

[84] TYPHON. The evil genius who killed Osiris. (See note 32, vol.
1.) The Greeks regarded him as a monster of original evil, the
personification of the Simoom and other destructive hot winds,
or of the primeval force of volcanoes.

[85] CITHARA (κιθάρα). A favorite musical instrument. The strings,
usually of gut, were sounded by means of a _plectrum_ (πλῆκτρον)
of wood, ivory, or metal. Music was as common an accomplishment
among ladies of rank then as now, and they often composed both
the words and airs of their songs. Statius tells us that his
step-daughter did so, and Pliny the younger says the same of his
third wife.

[86] IBYCUS OF RHEGION in Lower Italy (B.C. 528). A distinguished
lyric poet, who is the hero of a well-known poem by Schiller.
Few of his numerous lyric compositions remain to us. We here
give a translation of Emanuel Geibel’s admirable German
version of his Spring-greeting. (_Classisches Liederbuch_, p.
44.)

[87] QUINCE. Cydonia is the modern botanical name of the quince,
called by the Greeks and Romans the Cydonian apple, after
Cydonia, in the island of Crete.

[88] WATER-ORGAN (_Hydraulus_, ὕδραυλος). A musical instrument
mentioned by Cicero, Seneca and others. Ammianus observes:
“Water-organs and lyres are made so large, that they might be
mistaken for coaches.”

[89] BAIAE was considered from ancient times friendly to Bacchus.
(Sen. _Ep._ 51).

[90] STATIUS.--P. Papinius Statius, born in Naples, A.D. 45, and
died A.D. 96, was a lyric and epic poet, often artificial in
style, but possessed of a brilliant imagination. His principal
works are the epic poem “Thebais,” in which he treats of the
battle of the sons of Oedipus before Thebes, and the Silvae
(woods), a collection of short poems. He also commenced an
epic poem “Achilleis.”

[91] MARTIAL. (See note 100, vol. 1.)

[92] CUBICULUM. A sleeping-room. The _cubicula_ were located in the
atrium, peristyle, and upper stories.

[93] NOTE. The Romans wrote their letters either on wax-tablets,
(See note 10, vol. 1.) or on paper (_papyrus_, _carta_), using
in the former case the stylus, in the latter a reed-pen and
Indian ink. When the letter was finished, the wax-tablets
were laid one above the other, and the papyrus folded several
times. A string was then wound around the whole and the ends
sealed.

[94] THE EMPRESS DOMITIA. The emperor’s wife was Domitia Longina,
the daughter of Corbulo, and formerly the wife of Aelius
Lamia, (Suet. _Dom._ 1).

[95] CAESAR’S FRIENDS. Among the “friends (_amici_) of the
emperor,” were included those persons, who not only regularly
shared the social pleasures of the sovereign, but were
invited to consult with him on all important government
business. Within this group of friends there were of course
inner, outer, and outermost circles. Quintus, who had little
intercourse with the court, can only be included in the
outermost circle of all, and even there more on account of his
father, who was one of the emperor’s most intimate “friends,”
than by virtue of his own relations with the palace. He of
course had a right to appear at court, like all persons of
his rank, even without a special “relation of friendship” to
the emperor. When inner and outer _circles_ of friends are
mentioned, this must not be confounded with the different
_classes_ of friends. Belonging to the first or second class
implied a distinction of _rank_. Of course, in this sense,
Quintus could only be numbered among the first class (_primi
amici_).

[96] CYPRIS. A name given to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, from
the island of Cyprus, the principal seat of her worship.

[97] A SLAVE. Domitia had been the mistress of Paris, a slave and
actor. When Domitian discovered it, he wished to sentence the
empress to death, but at the intercession of Ursus, changed
the decree to exile. Paris was massacred in the open street.
(See Dio Cass. LXVII 3; Suet. _Dom._ 3.) Quintus calls Paris
a buffoon out of contempt, for the profession of “player” was
regarded by the ancient Romans as degrading.