Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome

by Nathan Gallizier

  CHAPTER X

  A SPIRIT PAGEANT

  When, on the day succeeding his appointment Tristan returned to theInn of the Golden Shield he felt as one in a trance. Like a puppet ofFate he had been plunged into the seething maelstrom of feudal Rome.He hardly realized the import of the scene in which he had played soprominent a part. He had acted upon impulse, hardly knowing what it wasall about. Dimly at intervals it flashed through his consciousness,dimly he remembered facing two youths, the one the Senator of Rome--theother the High Priest of Christendom, even though a prisoner in theLateran. Vaguely he recalled the words that had been spoken betweenthem, vaguely he recalled the fact that the Senator of Rome hadcommended him for having saved the city, offering him appointment,holding out honor and preferment, if he would enter his service.Vaguely he remembered bending his knee before the proud son of Maroziaand accepting his good offices.

  In the guest-chamber Tristan found pilgrims from every land assembledround the tables discoursing upon the wonders and perils hidden in thestrange and shifting corridors of Rome. Not a few had witnessed thescene in which he had so conspicuously figured and, upon recognizinghim, regarded him with shy glances, while commenting upon theprevailing state of unrest, the periodical seditions and outbreaks ofthe Romans.

  Tristan listened to the buzz and clamor of their voices, gleaning hereand there some scattered bits of knowledge regarding Roman affairs.

  He could now review more calmly the events of the preceding day.Fortune seemed to have favored him indeed, in that she had led himacross the path of the Senator of Rome.

  Thus Tristan set out once again, to make the rounds of worship andobedience. These absolved, he wandered aimlessly about the great city,losing himself in her ruins and gardens, while he strove in vain totake an interest in what he beheld, rather distracted than amused bythe Babel-like confusion which surrounded him on all sides.

  Nevertheless, once more upon the piazzas and tortuous streets of Rome,his pace quickened. His pulses beat faster. At times he did not feelhis feet upon those stony ways which Peter and Paul had trod, and manyanother who, like himself, had come to Rome to be crucified. Peoplestared at his dark and sombre form as he passed. Now and then he wasretarded by chanting processions, that wound their interminable coilsthrough the tortuous streets, pilgrims from all the world, the variousorders of monks in the habits peculiar to their orders, wine-venders,water-carriers, men-at-arms, sbirri, and men of doubtful calling.Sacred banners floated in the sunlit air and incense curled itsgraceful spiral wreaths into the cloudless Roman ether.

  Surely Rome offered a wide field for ambition. A man might raisehimself to a certain degree by subservience to some powerful prince,but he must continue to serve that prince, or he fell and would neveraspire to independent domination, where hereditary power was recognizedby the people and lay at the foundation of all acknowledged authority.It was only in Central Italy, and especially in Romagna and the Statesof the Church, where a principle antagonistic to all hereditary claimsexisted in the very nature of the Papal power, so that any adventurermight hope, either by his individual genius or courage, or by servicesrendered to those in authority, to raise himself to independent rule orto that station which was only attached to a superior by the thin andworn-out thread of feudal tenure.

  Rome was the field still open to the bold spirit, the keen andclear-seeing mind. Rome was the table on which the boldest player wassure to win the most. With every change of the papacy new combinations,and, consequently, new opportunities must arise. Here a man may, aselsewhere, be required to serve, in order at length to command. But, ifhe did not obtain power at length, it was his fault or Fortune's, andin either event he must abide the consequences.

  Revolving in his mind these matters, and wondering what the days tocome would hold, Tristan permitted himself to wander aimlessly throughthe desolation which arose on all sides about him.

  Passing by the Forum and the Colosseum, ruins piled upon ruins, hewandered past San Gregorio, where, in the garden, lie the remains ofthe Servian Porta Capena, by which St. Paul first entered Rome. The ViaAppia, lined with vineyards and fruit-trees, shedding their blossomson many an ancient tomb, led the solitary pilgrim from the memories ofthe present to the days, when the light of the early Christian Churchburned like a flickering taper hidden low in Roman soil.

  The ground sweeping down on either side in gentle, but well-definedcurves, led the vision over the hills of Rome and into her valleys.Beneath a cloudless, translucent sky the city was caught in bold shaftsof crystal light, revealing her in so strong a relief that it seemedlike a piece of exquisite sculpture.

  Fronting the Coelian, crowned with the temple church of San Stefanoin Rotondo, fringed round with tall and graceful poplars, rose theimmeasurable ruins of Caracalla's Baths, seeming more than ever thework of titans, as Tristan saw them, shrouded in deep shadows abovethe old churches of San Nereo and San Basilio, shining like whitehuts, a stone's throw from the mighty walls. Beyond, as a beacon ofthe Christian world in ages to come, on the site of the ancient Circusof Nero, arose the Basilica of Constantine, still in its pristinesimplicity, ere the genius of Michel Angelo, Bramante and Sangallotransformed it into the magnificence of the present St. Peter's.

  For miles around stretched the Aurelian walls, here fallen in lowruins, there still rising in their proud strength. Weathered to everyshade of red, orange, and palest lemon, they still showed much oftheir ancient beauty near the closed Latin gate. High towers, archedgalleries and battlements cast a broad band of shade upon a line ofpeach trees whose blossoms had opened out to the touch of the summerbreeze.

  Beneath Tristan's feet, unknown to him, lay the sepulchral chambers ofpagan patricians, and the winding passage tombs of the Scipios. Out ofthe sunshine of the vineyard Tristan's curiosity led him into the duskof the Columbaria of Pomponius Hylas, full of stucco altar tombs. Hedescended into the lower chambers with arched corridors and vaultedroofs where, in the loculi, stood terra-cotta jars holding the ashesof the freedmen and musicians of Tiberius with their servants, even totheir cook.

  Returning full of wonder to the golden light of day, Tristan retracedhis steps once again over the Appian Way. Passing the ruined Circusof Maxentius, across smooth fields of grass, he saw the fortress tombof Caecilia Metella, set grandly upon the hill. It appeared to breakthrough the sunshine, its marble surface of a soft cream color, lookingmore like the shrine of some immortal goddess of the Campagna than thetomb of a Roman matron.

  And, as he wandered along the Appian Way, past the site of lavapools from Mount Alba, remains of ancient monuments lay thickerby the roadside. Prostrate statues appeared in a setting of wildflowers. Sculptured heads gazed out from half-hidden tombs, while onewatch-tower after another rose out of the undulating expanse of theCampagna.

  To Tristan the memories of an ancient empire which clung to the placeheld but little significance.

  Here emperors had been carried by in their litters to Albano.Victorious generals returning in their chariots from the south, drovebetween these avenues of cypress-guarded tombs to Rome. The body ofthe dead Augustus had been brought with great following from Bovilae tothe Palatine, as before him Sulla had been borne along to Rome amidthe sound of trumpets and tramp of horsemen. Near the fourth milestonestood Seneca's villa, where he received his death warrant from anemissary of Nero, and nearby was that of his wife who, by her owndesire, bravely shared his fate.

  And, last to haunt the Appian Way in the spirit pageant of the GoldenAge, a memory destined to lie dormant till the dawn of the Renaissance,was Paul the Apostle, the tent-maker from Tarsus, who entered Romewhile Nero reigned in the white marble city of Augustus and sufferedmartyrdom for the Faith.

  It was verging towards evening when Tristan's feet again bore him pastthe stupendous ruins of the Colosseum, through the roofless uppergalleries of which streamed the light of the sinking sun.

  After reaching the Forum, almost deserted by this hour, save for a fewbelated ramblers, he seated himself on a ma
rble block and tried tocollect his thoughts, at the same time drinking in the picture whichunrolled itself before his gaze.

  If Rome was indeed, as the chroniclers of the Middle Ages styled her,"Caput Mundi," the Forum was the centre of Rome. From this centreRome threw out and informed her various feelers, farther and fartherradiating in all directions, as she swelled out with greatness, drawingher sustenance first from her sacred hills and groves, then from thevery marbles and granites of the mountains of Asia and Africa, from thelives of all sorts of peoples, races and nations. And like the EmperorConstantine, as we are told by Ammianus Marcellinus, on beholding theForum from the Rostra of Domitian, stood wonder-stricken, so Tristan,even at this period of decay, was amazed at the grandeur of the ruinswhich bore witness to Rome's former greatness.

  The sound of the Angelus, whose silvery chimes permeated the tomb-likestillness, roused Tristan from his reveries.

  He arose and continued upon his way, until he found himself in thesquare fronting the ancient Basilica of Constantine.

  Notwithstanding the fact that it was a Vigil of the Church, popularexhibitions of all sorts were set upon the broad flagstones beforeSt. Peter's. Street dancing girls indulged on every available spot inthose gliding gyrations, so eloquently condemned by the worthy AmmianusMarcellinus of orderly and historical memory. Booths crammed withrelics of doubtful authenticity, baskets filled with fruits or flowers,pictorial representations of certain martyrs of the Church, baskingin haloes of celestial light, tempted in every direction the worldlyand unworldly spectators. Cooks perambulated, their shops upon theirbacks, merchants shouted their wares, wine-sellers taught Bacchanalianphilosophy from the tops of their casks; poets recited spuriouscompositions which they offered for sale; philosophers indulged inargumentations destined to convert the wavering, or to perplex theignorant. Incessant motion and noise seemed to be the sole aim andpurpose of the crowd which thronged the square.

  Nothing could be more picturesque than the distant view of the joyousscene, this Carnival in Midsummer, as it were.

  The deep red rays of the westering sun cast their radiance, partlyfrom behind the Basilica, over the vast multitude in the piazza. Inunrivalled splendor the crimson light tinted the water that purled fromthe fountain of Bishop Symmachus. Its roof of gilded bronze, supportedby six porphyry columns, was enclosed by small marble screens on whichgriffins were carved, its corners ornamented by gilded dolphins andpeacocks in bronze. The water flowed into a square basin from outof a bronze pine cone which may have come from Hadrian's Mausoleum.Bathed in the brilliant glow the smooth porphyry colonnades reflected,chameleon-like, ethereal and varying hues. The white marble statuesbecame suffused with delicate rose, and the trees gleamed in theinnermost of their leafy depths as if steeped in the exhalations of agolden mist.

  Contrasting strangely with the wondrous radiance around it, the bronzepine-tree in the centre of the piazza rose up in gloomy shadow,indefinite and exaggerated. The wide facade of the Basilica cast itsgreat depth of shade into the midst of the light which dominated thescene.

  Tristan stood for a time gazing into the glowing sky, then he slowlymade his way towards the Basilica, the edifice which commemorated theestablishment of Christianity as the state religion of Rome, as in itschanges it has reflected every change wrought in the spirit of the newworship up to the present hour.