CHAPTER XVII.
CHRISTIANOS AD LEONES.
By the time that they had got round again to the unlucky baker's, the mobhad been swollen to a size which even the area of the Forum would notcontain, and it filled the adjacent streets. And by the same time it hadcome home to its leaders, and, indeed, to every one who used his reason atall, that it was very far from certain that there were any Christians inSicca, and if so, still very far from easy to say where they were. And thedifficulty was of so practical a character as to keep them inactive forthe space of several hours. Meanwhile their passions were excited to theboiling point by the very presence of the difficulty, as men go mad ofthirst when water is denied them. At length, after a long season of suchviolent commotion, such restless pain, such curses, shrieks, andblasphemies, such bootless gesticulations, such aimless contests with eachother, that they seemed to be already inmates of the prison beneath, theyset off in a blind way to make the circuit of the city as before they hadparaded round the Forum, still in the knight-errant line, looking out forwhat might turn up where they were sure of nothing, and relieving theintense irritation of their passions by locomotion, if nothing moresubstantial was offered to them.
It was an awful day for the respectable inhabitants of the place; worsethan anything that even the most timid of them had anticipated, when theyhad showed their jealousy of a popular movement against the proscribedreligion; for the stimulus of famine and pestilence was added to hatred ofChristianity, in that unreasoning multitude. The magistrates shutthemselves up in dismay; the small body of Roman soldiery reserved theirstrength for the defence of themselves; and the poor wretches, not a few,who had fallen from the faith, and offered sacrifice, hung out from theirdoors sinful heathen symbols, to avert a storm against which apostasy wasno sufficient safeguard. In this conduct the Gnostics and other sectariesimitated them, while the Tertullianists took a more manly part, fromprinciple or pride.
It would require the brazen voice which Homer speaks of, or the magic penof Sir Walter, to catalogue and to picture, as far as it is lawful to doeither, the figures and groups of that most miserable procession. As itwent forward it gained a variety and strength, which the circuit of theForum could not furnish. The more respectable religious establishmentsshut their gates, and would have nothing to do with it. The priests ofJupiter, the educational establishments of the Temple of Mercury, theTemple of the Genius of Rome near the Capitol, the hierophants of Isis,the Minerva, the Juno, the Esculapius, viewed the popular rising withterror and disgust; but these were not the popular worships. The vasthomestead of Astarte, which in the number and vowed profligacy of itsinhabitants rivalled the vaults upon the Forum; the old rites, many anddiversified, if separately obscure, which came from Punic times; the newimportations from Syria and Phrygia, and a number of other haunts andschools of depravity and crime, did their part in swelling or givingcharacter to the concourse. The hungry and idle rabble, the filthy beggarswho fed on the offal of the sacrifices, the drivers and slaughterers ofthe beasts sacrificed; the tumblers and mountebanks who amused the gapingmarket-people; dancers, singers, pipers from low taverns anddrinking-houses; infamous creatures, young and old, men and boys, halfnaked and not half sober; brutal blacks, the aboriginal race of the Atlas,with their appetites written on their skulls and features; Canaanites, asthey called themselves, from the coast; the wild beast-keepers from theamphitheatre; troops of labourers from the fields, to whom the epidemicwas a time of Saturnalia; and the degraded company, alas! how numerous andhow pitiable, who took their nightly stand in long succession at the doorsof their several cells in the deep galleries under the Thermae; all these,and many others, had their part and place in the procession. There youmight see the devilish emblems of idolatry borne aloft by wretches fromthe great Punic Temple, while frantic forms, ragged and famished, wastedand shameless, leapt and pranced around them. There too was a choir ofBacchanals, ready at a moment with songs as noisy as they wereunutterable. And there was the priest of the Punic Saturn, thechild-devourer, a sort of Moloch, to whom the martyrdom of Christians wasa sacred rite; he and all his attendants in fiery-coloured garments, asbecame a sanguinary religion. And there, moreover, was a band of fanatics,devotees of Cybele or of the Syrian goddess, if indeed the two rites weredistinct. They were bedizened with ribbons and rags of various colours,and smeared over with paint. They had long hair like women, and turbans ontheir heads. They pushed their way to the head of the procession, beingquite worthy of the post of honour, and, seizing the baker's ass, puttheir goddess on the back of it. Some of them were playing the fife,others clashing cymbals, others danced, others yelled, others rolled theirheads, and others flogged themselves. Such was the character of thefrenzied host, which progressed slowly through the streets, while everynow and then, when there was an interval in the hubbub, the words"Christianos ad leones" were thundered out by some ruffian voice, and athousand others fiercely responded.
Still no Christian was forthcoming; and it was plain that the rage of themultitude must be discharged in other quarters, if the difficultycontinued in satisfying it. At length some one recollected the site of theChristian chapel, when it existed; thither went the multitude, andeffected an entrance without delay. It had long been turned to otherpurposes, and was now a store of casks and leather bottles. The miserablesacristan had long given up any practical observance of his faith, andremained on the spot a keeper of the premises for the trader who ownedthem. They found him, and dragged him into the street, and brought himforward to the ass, and to the idol on its back, and bade him worship theone and the other. The poor wretch obeyed; he worshipped the ass, heworshipped the idol, and he worshipped the genius of the emperor; but hispersecutors wanted blood; they would not submit to be cheated of theirdraught; so when they had made him do whatever they exacted, they flunghim under the feet of the multitude, who, as they passed on, soon trod alllife and breath out of him, and sent him to the powers below, to whom hehad just before been making his profession.
Their next adventure was with a Tertullianist, who stationed himself athis shop-door, displayed the sign of the cross, and walking leisurelyforward, seized the idol on the ass's back, broke it over his knee, andflung the portions into the crowd. For a few minutes they stared on himwith astonishment, then some women fell upon him with their nails andteeth, and tore the poor fanatic till he fell bleeding and lifeless uponthe ground.
In the higher and better part of the city, which they now approached,lived the widow of a Duumvir, who in his day had made a bold profession ofChristianity. The well connected lady was a Christian also, and wassheltered by her great friends from the persecution. She was bringing up afamily in great privacy, and with straitened means, and with as muchreligious strictness as was possible under the circumstances of the place.She kept them from all bad sights and bad company, was careful as to thecharacter of the slaves she placed about them, and taught them all sheknew of her religion, which was quite sufficient for their salvation. Theyhad all been baptized, some by herself in default of the proper minister,and, as far as they could show at their tender ages, which lay betweenthirteen and seven, the three girls and the two boys were advancing in thelove of truth and sanctity. Her husband, some years back, when presidingin the Forum, had punished with just severity an act of ungrateful fraud;and the perpetrator had always cherished a malignant hatred of him andhis. The moment of gratifying it had now arrived, and he pointed out tothe infuriated rabble the secluded mansion where the Christian householddwelt. He could not offer to them a more acceptable service, and thelady's modest apartment was soon swarming with enemies of her God and Hisfollowers. In spite of her heartrending cries and supplications, herchildren were seized, and when the youngest boy clung to her, the motherwas thrown senseless upon the pavement. The whole five were carried off intriumph; it was the greatest success of the day. There was some hesitationhow to dispose of them; at last the girls were handed over to thepriestesses of Astarte, and the boys
to the loathsome votaries of Cybele.
Revenge upon Christians was the motive principle of the riot; but theprospect of plunder stimulated numbers, and here Christians could notminister to their desires. They began the day by the attack upon theprovision-shop, and now they had reached the aristocratic quarter of thecity, and they gazed with envy and cupidity at the noble mansions whichoccupied it. They began to shout out, "Bread, bread!" while they utteredthreats against the Christians; they violently beat at the closed gates,and looked about for means of scaling the high walls which defended themin front. The cravings of famished men soon take form and organization;they began to ask relief from house to house. Nothing came amiss; andloaves, figs, grapes, wine, found their way into the hands and mouths ofthose who were the least exhausted and the least enfeebled. A second lineof fierce supplicants succeeded to the first; and it was plain that,unless some diversion were effected, the respectable quarter of Sicca hadfound a worse enemy than the locust.
The houses of the government _susceptor_, or tax collector, of the_tabularius_ or registrar, of the _defensor_ or city counsel, and one ortwo others, had already been the scene of collisions between the domesticslaves and the multitude, when a demand was made upon the household ofanother of the Curia, who held the office of Flamen Dialis. He was awealthy, easy-going man, generally popular, with no appetite forpersecution at all, but still no desire to be persecuted. He had more thantolerated the Christians, and had at this time a Christian among hisslaves. This was a Greek, a splendid cook and perfumer, and he would nothave lost him for a large sum of money. However, life and limb were nearerto him even than his dinner, and a Jonah must be cast overboard to savethe ship. In trepidation, yet with greater satisfaction, hisfellow-domestics thrust the poor helpless man out of the house, andsecured the door behind him. He was a man of middle age, of a graveaspect, and he looked silently and calmly upon the infuriated and yellingmultitude, who were swarming up the hill about him, and swelling thenumber of his persecutors. What had been his prospects, had he remained inhis earthly master's service? his fill of meat and drink while he wasstrong and skilful, the stocks or scourge if he ever failed to please him,and the old age and death of the worn-out hack who once has caracoled inthe procession, or snorted at the coming fight. What are his prospectsnow? a moment's agony, a martyr's death, and the everlasting beatificvision of Him for whom he died. The multitude cry out, "To the ass or tothe lion!" worship the ass, or fight the lion. He was dragged to the ass'shead and commanded to kneel down before the irrational beast. In thecourse of a minute he had lifted up his eyes to heaven, had signed himselfwith the cross, had confessed his Saviour, and had been torn to pieces bythe multitude. They anticipated the lion of the amphitheatre.
A lull followed, sure to be succeeded by a fresh storm. Not everyhousehold had a Christian cook to make a victim of. Plunder, riot, andoutrage were becoming the order of the day; successive messengers weresent up in breathless haste to the capitol and the camp for aid, but theRomans returned for answer that they had enough to do in defending thegovernment buildings and offices. They suggested measures, however, forputting the mob on a false scent, or involving them in some difficult ortedious enterprise, which would give the authorities time fordeliberation, and for taking the rioters at disadvantage. If themagistrates could get them out of the city, it would be a great point;they could then shut the gates upon them, and deal with them as theywould. In that case, too, the insurgents would straggle, and divide, andthen they might be disposed of in detail. They were showing symptoms ofreturning fury, when a voice suddenly cried out, "Agellius the Christian!Agellius the sorcerer! Agellius to the lions! To the farm of Varius--to thecottage of Agellius--to the south-west gate!" A sudden yell burst forthfrom the vast multitude when the voice ceased. The impulse had been givenas at the first; the tide of human beings ebbed and retreated, and,licking the base of the hill, rushed vehemently on one side, and roaredlike a torrent towards the south-west. Juba, thy prophecy is soon to befulfilled! The locusts will bring more harm on thy brother's home thanimperial edict or local magistrate. The decline of day will hardly preventthe visitation.
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