CHAPTER XXV
THE SPEAKING OF EUTYCHUS
The imperial ruin drooped in the gilded lectica, now comatose, nowanimate. Under the purple robe the long, old, wasted limbs vibratedand the gems, quivering on the gnarled fingers, scintillatedincessantly. Now that the rich winds from the gardens of Tusculumbreathed on him, he cursed and groped for his mantle; again, when theinimitable sun of the Alban Hills smiled on him, his face purpled withsuffusions of heat. Now that his wrinkled blue lids drooped half-way,Euodus, who walked by his side, told himself that he looked on death;but when the sunken eyes unclosed, he had to say that the will thereinwas immortal.
It was a great, withered, tall, old frame, diseased and fallen intodecay. Life seldom of its own accord clings with tenacity to soancient and utter a ruin. Mind stood in the way of the soul's egressand penned it into its dilapidated shell. It was a habit Caesar's mindhad of blocking people, things and himself. A creature ofcontradicting impulses, affectionate, sensitive, soldierly,immeasurably capable, with harsh standards of uprightness for others,stoic, enduring, ruggedly simple for the time, he was on the other handone of the bloodiest and most unnatural monsters that ever disgracedthe throne of the Caesars. Moody, taciturn, perverse, superstitious,unspeakably sensual and cruel, yet withal an admirer of honor, theinalienable friend of the inalienable servant, he was a Roman emperorin every phase of his many-sided nature. It is not recorded that anyever loved Tiberius; neither is it recorded that any ever failed torespect him.
He was finishing his twenty-fifth year as Emperor of the World, but oflate, Macro's capacities as praetorian prefect had been enlarged tothose of vice-regent, and Caesar returned from Capri, his retreat fromthe trying climate of Rome, only on occasions.
Beside him walked eight praetorian guards, picked, not for appearancebut for age and integrity. There walked Gallus who had followedAugustus, thirty years before; Attius Paulus, who had one hundred andthirty-nine wounds on his huge hulk; Severus Vespasian, who had been asoldier forty years and had twice refused to be retired; Plautius Asperwho had been surnamed Leonidas, because he and a handful had held aGerman defile in the face of a whole barbarian army--and lived torefuse to be knighted. If Caesar spoke to one, the answer came inmonosyllables and with a touch of the helmet. Flattery never passedtheir lips, but if one lent his arm to the tall old emperor it was donewith a rude tenderness that even the most polished courtier could nothave improved. And Tiberius, being blunt and impatient of pretenses,walled himself away from the rest of his following with this bulwark ofdependable ruggedness.
After his lectica came another, borne by four Georgian youths. Withinlounged the latest of Tiberius' favorite ladies, Euodus' daughter, theLady Junia.
They had passed the corner of Cicero's villa when a litter approachedfrom an intersecting avenue and was set down.
A woman stepped out. White her hair, her dress the ancient palla andstola of white and purple, her jewels, amethysts. The rheumy emperorsaw her imperfectly.
"Stop!" he ordered his bearers.
The woman approached and made obeisance.
"Humph! Antonia," he muttered in some disappointment. But he drew hisold frame together and inclined his head respectfully.
"Greeting, sister," he said. "The gods attend thee."
"Thou art good, Augustus. Welcome to Tusculum once more," she replied.She took the hand he extended and raised it to her lips. The old mangazed at her with a wavering eye.
"Come closer. Art so gray?" he asked.
"White, Caesar."
He took the hand from hers and put back the vitta that covered herhair. There were the sorrows of seventy years, in its absolutewhiteness, and the Roman duskiness of skin was brought out verystrongly in contrast. But her eyes were still full and bright, eventender, her thin lips lacking nothing of the color of her youth. Agehad not laid its withering touch on her stature or even on the fullnessof her frame, but the hand, Time's infallible tally, was the worn-outhand of seventy years.
She was the noblest woman of her age, _univira_,--the widow of onehusband, dead in her youth, the mother of statesmen, generals andemperors, a scholar and at one time a diplomat,--in all things, theancient spirit of the First Republic, solitary, rugged, irreproachablein the vicious age of the Caesars.
"Eh! White, wholly white," he assented, running his fingers throughher locks with a movement that was almost tender. "And I am thineelder. Yet," he drew himself up and defiance hardened his face, "I amnot a dead man, Antonia!"
"Nay, who says it, Caesar? And it is not age that hath blanched me. Iwas gray at forty--much more gray than thou art now."
"No, no! Not age! Truly a woman's protest. But then, perchance not.Thy husband's death undid thee. How thou didst love him! Save forthine example I should say that Eros himself is dead!"
After a little he muttered to himself:
"Alas! What a name to conjure death! My son Drusus, thy spouseDrusus, and thy son Drusus, the Germanicus. Dead! All! and in theiryouth. The very name hath a sinister look."
The old man shook his unsteady head and knuckled his sunken cheek. Thewidow's saddened face wore also some surprise.
"Canst thou speak of thy son Drusus, now?" she asked. "Not in thesemany years have I heard thee name him."
"No!" he answered shortly. "I speak of dreams; new dreams, which Imean to have the soothsayers interpret."
"Tell me of them, Augustus," she urged.
"There is one, and it comes nightly. It is a Shade from Thanatos,which approacheth. I put the aegis into its dead hands, crown itsdeath-dewed brow, do obeisance before a pale ghost that melts againinto the Shades--and after it passes all Rome, and the Empire of theCaesars."
The widow's eyes showed unutterable sadness, which was unrelieved bytears. The unanointed Caesars that had passed into the Shades hadgathered unto their number no nobler one than the gallant youngGermanicus, and the last remnant of the ancient glory of Rome hadpassed with him. But she put off the encroaching lapse intoretrospection.
"One of the departed cometh to ask that his offspring be thine heir,"she suggested.
The old emperor nodded eagerly. "It may be, it may be," he assented."I have been pondering long upon the matter."
A silence fell and the two gazed absently across the shimmering visionof Rome, below them, three leagues to the west. About them were spreadthe villas of the rich in retreat, the very essence of repose, thebirdsong and the murmur of laurels in the breeze; in the distance wasthe apotheosis of power, but their thoughts overreached the things seenand questioned after things unknown. In their philosophy, life wasall. After it was Shadow, an inevitable obliteration in which the justand the unjust were immersed eternally. But no youth, looking forwardto the long, eventful days to come, experienced the grave wonder thatthese expended on the time after things were expected to end. The aweof the unexplored Hereafter--what a waste of universal, earth-old,intuitive awe, if there be no Hereafter!
Tiberius muttered, as if to himself:
"There is another--yet another dream. I cast dice with Three; threegrisly hags, and I lose, though the tesserae were cogged. But let be,let be; the soothsayers shall read me that one!"
He sat up.
"Came you of a purpose to speak with me, Antonia?" he asked.
"I did," she said, "but it seems that the time is not propitious."
"Any hour is propitious for thee, Antonia."
"Thou art a kind man, Caesar. I came to speak of Agrippa."
"Agrippa!" the emperor exclaimed, a sudden transformation showing inhis voice and manner.
The woman in the litter behind stepped out, but paused withoutadvancing. She made no attempt to conceal her attention to the talkbetween the widow and the emperor.
Antonia studied the face of the old man; it was significant, when,after his lapse into the softened mood of retrospection, he shouldreturn to his old manner. She felt her way.
"Agrippa ceases not to be interesting. Thou and I re
member him as thefaithfulest friend thy son Drusus had; to this day of all who knewDrusus it is only Agrippa who still hath tears for his name."
The emperor's wrinkled mouth was set, his face absolutely withouttelling expression.
"He hath had years of want and humiliation," she continued. "He hathwalked under clouds and suffered from ill report, until he is soulsickof it. Now, the favor of his emperor and the peace of good reputerestored to him, are things that he would not willingly let go from himagain. The inventions of an enemy have risen against him in Rome; evenhath the ill-favored sire of the story been discovered, and Agrippa,conscious of his integrity toward thee, is restive. He wants to beexamined; his innocence proven and thy good will toward him firmlyestablished."
"Well, well!" Tiberius said.
"I shall await your happier mood," she said, gathering her robes abouther.
"Any mood is happy enough for the Jew," was the retort.
Antonia unmistakably eyed the old man.
"Say on, good Antonia," he urged uncomfortably. "I have not forswornjustice."
"Agrippa asks nothing more. His charioteer robbed him, and when he wascaptured and in danger of punishment, he claimed that he hadinformation against Agrippa which concerns thy welfare. It is simply adevice to put off punishment. He hath appealed to thee and thou hastnot yet heard him. The Herod is eager that the matter be settled andbegs that the slave be heard at once."
"Eh! what a fanfare of probity!" the emperor mumbled. "Leave it to aJew to flourish his righteousness. If he is innocent, he can wait; ifhe is guilty, we shall overtake him soon enough. I owe him a sentenceof uncertainty for his slights to my grandson, the little Tiberius."
"And thou hast but this moment said that thou hadst not forswornjustice!" Antonia exclaimed.
"Jupiter, but thou art provoking!" he fumed. "Hither, Euodus!"
Junia made a slight movement as if she meant to step between her fatherand the emperor, but was suddenly reminded of her part. She stoppedagain.
"How my sentimental heart cries out against my obligation to Flaccus!"she said to herself. "Here must I stand idly by, while this newPenelope to a dead Ulysses works the Herod's ruin!"
Euodus bowed beside Caesar.
"Bring me the Jew's slave that hath a charge for me to hear. Bring himhither, and haste!"
The old man turned to Antonia.
"Go tell thy valiant Herod that he shall have justice. Justice! Saythat. It may not please him so much to have that message."
The gilded lectica moved on. The widow went back to her litter and wasborne away. Junia remounted her chair and followed the emperor.
"O lady," she said, looking after Antonia's litter, "it may be verysuperior to live aloof from the world, and ignorant of its intrigues,but it is fatal for thy friends, I observe."
At the brink of a precipitous descent into the valley west of Tusculum,Euodus returned with Eutychus, whom Piso, at Agrippa's defiantinstigation, had been forced to send to Tusculum to be available inevent of Caesar's summons.
Junia looked at Eutychus, livid with fear in the presence of theunspeakable might of the emperor, and held debate with herself. Shehad not agreed that Agrippa should be other than alienated from hiswife. She was human enough not to wish the death of any man to whomshe was indifferent, and for a moment she seemed about to alight fromher chair. Even Flaccus' power over her for the time seemed to loseits effect, for a picture of Marsyas' suffering was a more distinctimage. But one of the causes of Marsyas' concern, nay, the chiefcause--the protection of Lydia to be achieved by the Herod'ssuccess--occurred to her in an evil moment. She turned her face awayfrom the colloquy between Caesar and the charioteer and studied thesummer-green Alban Hills that shouldered the sky behind her.
Eutychus collapsed to his knees at sight of the emperor.
"Speak, slave," Euodus ordered.
"O Caesar," the charioteer panted when his voice would obey him, "once Idrove the Herod and Caligula, the Roman prince, to the Hippodrome inthis place and they talked of the succession. And Herod said that hewished that thou wast dead and Caligula emperor in thy stead."
The emperor's eyes glittered.
"What else?" Euodus demanded.
"Somewhat about the young Prince Tiberius which I did not hear,"Eutychus trembled.
"And what said Caligula to that?"
"That the Herod had his own making and not Caligula's to achieve!"
"A Roman's answer," Junia said to herself.
"Is there nothing more?" the questioner insisted.
"Nothing, lord!"
Euodus bowed to the emperor and waited.
"Give him ten stripes and turn him loose," Tiberius said. Two of thepraetorians led Eutychus away.
"_Eheu_!" Junia sighed. "I could have stared the knave between theeyes and made him discredit himself in a breath! Ai! Owl-faced Lydia!thou art a destroyed peril, but at what a price!"
The bearers stood patiently under the glow of the morning sun, waitingtheir royal burden's humor to go on. But Tiberius shrank into therelaxation of thought. He had outlived every plot to assassinate him;he held in his hands consummate might; he was surely approaching theShades; but the example of his infallible fortune, the fear of hismerciless hand and the fact that he would not stand long in the way ofambitions, had not quieted the fatal tongue which bespoke him evil! Hewas sick of blood and torture, tale-bearing and intrigue, because hewas surfeited with it all. But here, now, was this precarious Herod,barely escaping disaster which had pursued him for twenty years,wishing brutally and incautiously that he might die! Tiberius was at aloss to know what to do with the man. The thought wearied him. Hewished now that he had ordered a hundred stripes for Eutychus insteadof ten. What an officious creature Antonia had become!
Euodus folded his arms and waited; the patricians, approaching inchairs of their own, alighted, bowed, passed out of the path and wentaround, remounted their chairs and disappeared. The birds in the treesabout, hushed by the talk below them, twittered and flew again.Euodus, casting a sidelong glance at the emperor, nodded at the nearestbearer.
"To the palace," he said.
The slaves turned back up the slanting street and the motion of thelectica aroused Tiberius.
"Whither?" he demanded irritably.
"To the palace, Caesar," Euodus answered.
"Did I command thee? To the Hippodrome, slaves!"
The bearers turned once more and began the ticklish descent of thepaved roadway to the valley below, where the Circus of Tusculum wasbuilt.
The huge elliptical structure stood out in the plain, alone and solidexcept for the low, heavy arch of the vomitoria which broke the roundof masonry. The trees about it were dwarfed in contrast, the columnsshrunken, the viae, approaching it from all directions straight asarrows fly, curbed and paved with stone, were as mere taut ribbons.But in the great slope of the Campagna, under the immense and sparklingblue of the Italian sky, it was only a detail in rock.
Rome had long since outgrown her walls and ceased to contemplate themexcept as landmarks and conventionalities, useless but as significantas Caesar's paludamentum. Inns and mile-stones along the viae provedthem once to have been things distinctly suburban, but the city cryingfor room had passed the walls and built its owncharacteristics--temples, tombs, villas, circuses, fora and arches asfar as Tusculum along the roads.
Lovelier beyond comparison than Rome's loveliest spots, it was smallwonder that to fill their Augustan lungs with the freshness of theCampagna, the idle were borne out of the contained airs of the city,which were of such seasonal peculiarities that temples in propitiationof Mephitis and the goddess Febris had been erected.
So daily groups of patricians collected at the Hippodrome of Tusculum,with laughter and badinage, the flashing of jewels and the glitteringof cars, the flutter of lustrous silks and the tossing of feathers, tospend the bright hours of the day watching the races that proceeded inthe arena below.
The races had not begun
, the crowds had not assembled. The gildedlectica was borne through the tunnel-like entrance up the stairs, notto the amphitheater but to the arena. Slaves with blanketed horses andclusters of betting patricians were here and there over the sandedellipse within. The bustle of preparation slackened at the approach ofthe august visitor.
The eyes of the emperor opened and closed dully. Nothing was here tointerest a man worn out with seventy years of change and excitement.Nothing new could have aroused him, for his attention rebelled againstthe call.
Presently, during one of the intervals that his eyes were open, he saw,within touch of his hand, Agrippa and Caligula side by side, talking toa gladiator. The emperor scowled and looked away. The bearers ploddedon, rounded the upper end of the ellipse and, passing down the side,neared the mouth of the cunicula.
Agrippa and Caligula had moved from their position and were there, witha notary taking down the terms of a wager.
Apart from them stood a small but important man, frowning over a waxentablet which a slave had cringingly handed him.
Tiberius looked at him, then at Agrippa. His brows lowered more, thistime with irritation. It seemed that action had been formulated bycircumstance and that the emperor was not to avoid a tiresomeprosecution.
He put out his hand as the bearers bore him by and it touched the Romanon the shoulder. The man turned on his heel, but seeing who was nearbowed profoundly. If he meant to speak to the emperor he was not givenopportunity.
"Bind that man, Macro," Caesar said, nodding at Agrippa.
The lectica moved on. As it passed up the opposite side Macro crossedto it and, puzzled and disturbed, bowed again.
"Caesar's pardon, but whom am I to bind?" he questioned.
"That man," Tiberius replied irritably, pointing to the Herod.
"Agrippa!" the astonished prefect exclaimed.
"I have said."
The lectica went on, up and around the curve of the ellipse, and backagain to the cunicula. The few within the walls of the Hippodrome hadgathered there in an interested and excited group. In the center stoodAgrippa with manacles on his wrists and ankles. The charm and sparklein his atmosphere were gone; even as Tiberius looked, he saw the cold,evil, vengeful countenance of the Asmonean Slave, the Terror of theOrient, Herod the Great, appear, like a face putting off a mask, behindthe graceful features of his grandson. Tiberius was grimly satisfied;he felt the first interest in the arrest; he was always by choice apreferrer of noble game.
On either side of the prisoner stood a Roman soldier; aloof and passivewas Macro, but the earth had apparently opened and swallowed Caligula.
As the lectica approached, the crowd gave way and his captors permittedAgrippa to come nearer the emperor.
"At Caesar's command, I am arrested," he said evenly. "Will Caesar grantme the prisoner's privilege and tell me why?"
"Thy charioteer hath spoken, Agrippa," was the response. "The slaveswears that on such and such a day he drove thee and Caligula to thisplace. Instead of horses you talked of kings, instead of bets, thesuccession. And thou madest moan that I was not dead so that Caligulacould reign in my place!"
The jaws of many round about relaxed in horror. Agrippa's muscles madean involuntary start, but his face retained its calm. But the emperorcaught the start.
"Forgot that unctuous bit of tittle-tattle when thou didst make Antoniabearer of thy boasts, eh?" he piped.
"My words have been distorted," Agrippa spoke, though he seemed to hatehimself for offering a defense.
"Ah-r-r! Wilt thou snivel and deny?" Tiberius snarled.
The prince's manacled hands clenched and a glimmer of hate showed inhis eyes. Caesar nodded; that was better.
The prince's manacled hands clenched]
"Agrippa, the king-maker!" he went on, "late mendicant from Judea; heirpresumptive to the ax! Eh? Take him away! Macro, come thou to thepalace to-night, and I'll deliver sentence!"
The gilded lectica moved on.
Twenty minutes later, Marsyas, white to the lips, his eyes enlarged anddangerous, sprang from a clump of myrtle by the roadside, after thelitter had passed up toward Tusculum and, thrusting a hand into Junia'schair, seized her arm.
"See that Tiberius forgets his audience with Macro to-night," he saidto her. "See that he yearns after Capri, and returns to-morrow--orthou bringest upon me the pain of killing."
Terrified for the first time in her life, Junia shrank under thecrushing grip.
"Him or me!" she told herself. "I promise!" she whispered to Marsyas."But acquit me of blame. What could I do?"
"I have shown thee, now!" he said intensely, and was gone.
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