by F. W. Farrar
CHAPTER XXXIII
_TITUS AND THE VESTAL_
‘Laudabile est infelicis scire misereri.’--VAL. MAX. v. i. 8.
Cast once more on his own resources, Onesimus tried his chance ofearning a living in the streets. He had a little money in hand, and,seeing that the street vendors drove a brisker trade in drink than inanything else, he bought two or three dozen bottles of _posca_, andsold them at a small profit to the poorer wayfarers. In this, as inall his adventures, his good looks were of use to him, for men andwomen alike were more inclined to buy of a lively and pleasant youththan of the wandering Jews and beggars who sometimes attempted thesame trade. He began to think that, for the present, he could keepsoul and body together in this way; but he had been rash in choosinga place so near Rome, and still more rash in discarding his disguise.
For one day, as he was calling out the merits of his wine in hisclear, ringing voice, and making the people laugh with his jokes,Dama, the steward of the lovely villa which Nero owned at Baiæ,caught sight of him. The man had often been to the Palace on businessconnected with his accounts, and had noticed Onesimus, then dressedin gay attire and at the zenith of his prosperity, as a youth high infavour in the imperial household. He had heard from Callicles, Nero’sdispensator, of the drunken escapade which had put so sudden an endto his good fortune, and of his subsequent flight from the ergastulum.Now the flight of any slave, but above all of one of Cæsar’s slaves,was so capital an offence that Callicles had asked his friend to keepa good lookout for the recovery of the fugitive. A glance made himnearly sure of the identity of Onesimus, but to be quite certainhe took out a copy of the reward which had been offered. It ran asfollows:--
‘Wanted, a fugitive slave, Aged about 17. Handsome, with dark curly hair, Named Onesimus. Any one who will give him up, or indicate where he may be arrested, shall receive a reward of a thousand sesterces.’
To be quite sure of his prey, Dama stole away so as to approachOnesimus from behind, and coming up to him tapped him smartly onthe shoulder and said ‘Onesimus.’
‘Yes?’ said Onesimus with a violent start, taken completely off hisguard.
‘I thought so,’ said Dama, with an unpleasant smile. ‘Come with me,my gay fugitive. Cæsar can’t possibly spare such a lively andgood-looking slave as you; and I shall be very glad of a thousandsesterces.’
Onesimus tried to dart away in flight, but the remorseless hand ofDama clutched his shoulder with too tight a grasp, and with a gestureof despair he remained silent.
‘Rescue! rescue!’ cried some of the crowd who pitied him, and withwhom he was a favourite; and as no soldiers or police were in sightone or two stepped forward to give the youth a chance.
‘Rescue?’ said Dama, looking around him with cool contempt. ‘Don’tyou know who I am? Do you dare to interfere with the arrest of arunaway from Cæsar’s Palace?’
The crowd fell back awe-struck before the awful name of Cæsar, andDama despatched a slave to bring fetters from Nero’s villa hard by.Onesimus was once more a chained criminal with a destiny before himeven more horrible than any of which he had yet been in danger. Hethought of the poor wretch to whom he had given drink as he hung onhis cross. Would that be his own fate of agony now in the flush andheyday of his youth?
Next morning he was sent off towards Rome. He thought of trying tocommunicate with Acte, who had been deeply grieved by losing sightof him. But this was impossible. There was no one to take any messagefor him. He was told that not only Callicles--on whom fell in partthe disgrace of his escape--but Nero himself was bitterly incensedagainst him, first, for his unpardonable indiscretion, then for hisflight, and lastly--though this was a secret motive--because it hadcome to his ears that Onesimus had been the slave who had defeatedthe midnight attempt on the life of Britannicus. Onesimus, when hehad drunk too much Sabine wine, had sometimes forgotten all reticence,and Nero believed that it was through him that certain dark secretsof the Palace had come to be whispered among the lower orders of theRoman population. Acte herself would have been powerless to defendhim. One day Octavia, finding that her purple robes had been lookedafter less skilfully than they had been when under his care, hadasked some question about him in the presence of Nero. The Emperorwas angry at the mention of his name. Some slaves had been in theroom on the occasion, and the circumstance had become notorious inthe gossip of the Palace. The unhappy young Phrygian was told thathe would probably be crucified; but if not, he would be tied to thefurca and scourged, perhaps to death, with the horrible thongs.
On his arrival at Rome the order was given. He was to be beaten--practically to death. In indescribable anguish of soul he spent whathe believed to be his last night on earth.
Next morning the furca--two pieces of wood nailed together in theshape of the letter ?--was placed on his neck, his hands were fastbound to the ends of the wood, and he was led out towards theEsquiline, where afterwards his corpse would be flung into thecommon pit.
He was too much stunned and stupefied even to pray. The iron hadentered deep into his soul. He looked on himself as a lost apostatewho would end a life of miserable failure by entering into the outergloom beyond, where he feared that the face of the Saviour of whomhe once had heard would be utterly turned away from him.
But his hour had not yet come.
Stooping under the furca, with his arms already cramped by theirunnatural position, he was led by the slaves and lictors who wereto preside at his execution into the Vicus Tuscus on the way tothe Esquiline. But as they entered the long street a boy who wasstrolling towards the Gelotian house caught sight of them, andno sooner had his quick eye seen them than he took in the wholesituation at a glance.
It was Titus, much sobered from the gay lad he once had been, andstill pale from the illness caused by the sip he had taken of thepoison which had carried off Britannicus. He recognised Onesimus,and a Palace rumour had that morning made him aware of the Phrygian’speril. He looked on the slave-youth as a _protégé_ of his own, forhis admission into the family of Pudens had been mainly due to hisintercession. He also felt grateful to him for his ready servicestowards the murdered friend of his youth, and his kindly heart wasfilled with pity.
A way of saving him had flashed across his mind, and, bidding hisslaves follow him, he darted off at a pace too swift for Romandignity. In an adjoining street he met--as he was well aware that heshould meet--a beautiful and stately lady whom he knew, and who wasvery fond of him. It was Lælia, the senior vestal, the Virgo Maxima.
Greeting her with extreme reverence, he yet ventured to make her anunsuspecting agent in his little plot.
‘Noble Lælia,’ he said, with the charm of manner which few couldresist, and with a ready fertility of invention, ‘I have just seenin the book-shop of Atrectus, in the Argiletum, just opposite theForum of Julius, a charming little copy of Virgil’s Eclogues withsuch a good portrait! You promised me a present on my last birthday,and said I should choose it myself. May I have that book, and willyou come and buy it for me? It is my birthday to-day.’
‘Certainly,’ said the vestal, with a smile. ‘For a boy like you,so good and steady, I would do much more than that.’ She littleguessed that the birthday was a fib extemporised by Titus for hisown purposes, for his birthday was on December 30.
‘Thanks, dear vestal,’ said Titus. ‘Will you not come by this shortcut?’
He led her by the hand, her lictor following, into the Vicus Tuscus,which was close by the Argiletum, where he well knew that she wouldnot fail to meet Onesimus and his escort. As they approached he said:
‘Oh, Lælia, how I should like to have your privilege of saving thelives of the wretched! See, there is some miserable slave whom theyare taking to scourge or crucify. Will you not intercede for him?’
‘For a poor _furcifer_ like that?’ asked Lælia. ‘Our high privilegeis used for nobles--at the lowest, for freedmen.’
‘Are not
slaves men like ourselves?’ he asked. ‘Musonius says so; andSeneca says so. Look, what a fine youth he is! He looks as if he hadbeen free-born; and I dare say he has done nothing really wrong.’
Lælia glanced at the pallid, beautiful face of the sufferer. It wouldhardly have touched her heart, accustomed as she had been to themassacres of the arena, to which Nero of late years had invited thevestal virgins. But there was something in his youth, and somethingin the earnest pleading of her favourite Titus--something perhapsalso in the sense of power--which decided her to interfere.
‘Stop!’ she said to the lictors and soldiers, as they bowedreverently before her majestic presence. ‘By virtue of my office, Ibid you take off that furca, and spare the life of your prisoner.’
‘He is a runaway slave, whom for great misdemeanours the Emperor hasordered to be scourged,’ said Callicles, stepping forward.
‘Dare you disobey the Virgo Maxima?’ asked Lælia, with flashing eye.‘Do you think that even the Emperor will insult the majesty of Vestaand her sacred fire, by questioning the immemorial prerogative of hereldest vestal? Take off the furca at once!’
The very lictors were overawed by her gesture of command. Theyhastily unbound the tired arms of Onesimus, and took the furca offhis neck. What would happen to him he knew not, but he knew that forthe time his life was saved.
‘Thanks, kindest of vestals,’ said Titus, gratefully kissing thepurple hem of her _suffibulum_, and not betraying by look or signthat Onesimus was known to him. ‘I never saw a vestal exercise herprerogative before, and I am so glad to have seen it. May Vestareward your sleep with her divinest dreams! May Opiconsiva blessyou!’
‘Opiconsiva?’ said the vestal with difficulty suppressing a smile;‘is the boy laughing at me? What do you know of Opiconsiva?’
‘Not much,’ said Titus, ‘except that she has something to do withvestals; and if so, Lælia must be very dear to her!’
Onesimus, with his usual quickness, took his cue from the conductof Titus. The right of the vestals was well known in Rome, thoughit was rarely used, for they were not often seen in the streets. Butit was understood that, in order to be valid, the meeting of vestaland criminal must be accidental. Lælia would have been seriouslydispleased had she known that she was in reality the victim of alittle plot on the part of her boy-friend, and Titus was in sometrepidation till he had hurried the vestal past the prisoner, andto the choice book-stall which was spread with the purple bindingsof Atrectus. There she not only purchased for him the copy of Virgil,but, as he had quoted Seneca, she also gave him a radiant littlevolume of some of his treatises from the shop of his bookseller,Dorus, hard by. When she gave him this second gift the delightedyouth felt a little compunction at his manœuvre.
No one knew what he had done; but, when he narrated the incident toPudens, the tribune suspected the real state of the case, for theboy’s eye twinkled suspiciously as he told his little story with themost innocent candour.
BOOK II
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‘_LACHESIS ROTAT!_’