VI
In one of the foul and dirty quarters of the Syrian Seleucia, the portfor Antioch on the shores of the Inner Sea, narrow and tortuous alleysdebouched into a market-place lying along the quays. The sea-horizonwas invisible, so thick was the throng of masts and the tangle ofrigging. The houses were a mass of miserable little shells,whitewashed within and encumbered with furniture. Their fronts weregarnished with tattered carpets, dirty fragments of cloth, andravelled matting. In every nook and hovel and crowded court, alongkennels and gutters of dirty fever-stricken water from laundries andbaths of the poor, there lay seething in its penury and hunger apopulace strangely cosmopolitan.
The sun, after thoroughly baking the earth, had just descended belowthe horizon; wide-winged twilight was settling slowly down; a stiflingheat of dust and fog still weighed on the spirits of the city. Fromthe market square breathed a suffocating atmosphere of flesh andvegetables, becoming rotten through lying all day in the blaze of thesun. Half-naked slaves were carrying bales of merchandise from theships. Their heads were close-shaven; through their rags could be seenhorrible blotches on the skin; and the greater number bore on theirfaces, in brandings by red-hot iron, the Latin letters C. F., that isto say _Cave Furem_ ('ware thief!).
Braziers were being slowly lighted. But notwithstanding the approachof night, traffic and discussion gave no sign of ceasing in thenetwork of alleys. From a neighbouring forge piercing blows of thehammer resounded on bars of iron, and flames shot up the sootydraught-hole. Hard by, slaves of a bakery, naked, covered from head tofoot in flour-dust, and with eyelids inflamed by heat, were puttingloaves into an oven. A shoemaker sat in his open-air stall, amid aninsupportable smell of cobbler's glue and leather, stitching shoes bythe light of a smoky lamp. He was squatting on his heels, and chantingdesert songs at the top of his voice. Two old hags like witches, withhair streaming in the wind, were slowly passing across the littlesquare in front of a row of hovels. They were yelling at each other,wrangling and threatening each other with fists and stones. Thesubject of dispute was the ownership of a cord on which to dry linen.A huckster, from a distant village, was hurrying along to be in timefor the morning market. He was mounted on an old mare, flanked withwicker paniers, each heaped with rotting fish; the fetid smell of hisload made passers-by edge off to a distance. A loutish urchin, withred hair and skin, was solacing his soul by beating on a great pan,while other children, a sickly multitude coming into the world andleaving it by hundreds daily, marched amidst this scene of poverty,grunting like pigs, round the pools of the quay. The water was full oforange-peel and egg-shells. In yet more villainous passages, inhabitedby thieves, the smell of sour wine came from wine-shops, and sailorsfrom every beach of the world marched along arm in arm, shoutingdrunken songs.
Surrounding all that noise, that filth and spilth of human misery,there murmured, sighed, and grumbled, the infinite, distant, andinvisible sea.
Directly over against the subterranean kitchen windows of a Phoeniciandealer, ragged gamblers were playing at knuckle-bones, and gossiping.From the kitchen warm gusts of boiling gravy, game, and spicesascended, greedily snuffed-up, with closed eyes, by the hungrygamesters.
A certain Christian, a dyer of purple, dismissed for theft from a richfactory at Tyre, was murmuring, as he hungrily sucked a mallow-leafthrown away by the cook,--
"And at Antioch, my friends, what's going on there makes one shiver atnights, just to think of it. Why, a few days ago the hungry folk torein pieces the Prefect Theophilus--and for what reason? Nobody knows!When the thing was done they remembered too late that the poor wretchwas a good sort of fellow and a respectable man. I suggested thatperhaps the Emperor had pointed him out for punishment."
A consumptive old man, a very skilful cardsharper, replied--
"I have seen the Caesar, and I like him. Quite young, fair as flax,with a good-natured, fat face. But, as you say, what crimes arecommitted nowadays! what crimes indeed! Why one can't put one's noseoutside the door without danger."
"Ah, that's nothing to do with Caesar! it's his wife, Constantia, theold witch, that does it!"
But strange personages came near the knot of talkers and thrustthemselves forward, as if desiring to take part in the conversation.
If the kitchen firelight had been brighter, it would have been noticedthat their faces were begrimed and their clothes fouled and torn likethose of stage-beggars; and notwithstanding their raggedness thehands of these persons were fine and white, and their nails pared andcrimsoned. One of them whispered in his comrade's ear--
"Listen, Agamemnon; here also they're talking about Caesar."
He whom they called Agamemnon appeared to be drunk. He wore a beard,which was too thick and long to be natural, and gave him the aspect ofa fantastic brigand. His eyes were debonair, almost boyish, and of abright blue. His friends frequently pulled him back, muttering--
"Now then be careful!"
The consumptive old man went on in a whining tone--
"Now tell me plainly, my friends, is it just? The price of bread isgoing up every day. People dying like flies. And, suddenly, guess whathappens? Lately a great ship came from Egypt; everybody's happy,thinking that it brings bread. The word goes round that Caesar has madethe ship come to feed the people. And what do you think it was, myfriends? Powder, Alexandrian powder, if you please! a special pinkLibyan powder to rub down the wrestlers!--powder for the Emperor'sgladiators--powder instead of bread!... Eh?... Now is that justice?"
Agamemnon nudged his companion's elbow.
"Ask his name, quick--ask!"
"Gently, wait a bit...."
A leather dresser remarked--
"Here in Seleucia the town is quiet, but up at Antioch there arenothing but traitors, spies, and informers."
The dyer, licking the mallow-leaf for the last time, growled andmumbled--
"Yes, unless God comes down to help us, soon flesh and blood will begoing a deal cheaper than bread and wine!"
The currier, a philosophic tippler, sighed--
"Ah! ah! ah! we're all poor creatures! The gods of Olympus play atball with us! Men weep and the gods laugh!"
The companion of Agamemnon meanwhile had succeeded in joining theconversation, and with nonchalant adroitness acertained the names ofthe talkers. He had intercepted the news, conveyed by the cobbler tothe leather-dresser, about a plot hatched against Caesar's life by thesoldiers of the Pretorian guard. Then, strolling on a few paces, hehad written down the names of the talkers with a jewelled stilus ontablets of soft wax, where many other names were inscribed already. Atthis moment hoarse sounds like the roarings of some subterraneanmonster came from the market square. They were the notes, nowplaintive, now lively, of a hydraulic organ.
At the entrance to a showman's travelling booth, a blind slave, forfour obols a day, was pumping up the water which produced thisextraordinary harmony.
Agamemnon dragged his companion towards the booth, a great tent withblue awnings sprinkled with silver tinsel. A lantern lighted theblack-board on which the order of the programme was chalked up, inSyriac and Greek. An oppressive atmosphere of garlic and lamp-oilprevailed inside, where, beside the organ, there struck up the wailingof two harsh flutes, while a negro, rolling the whites of his eyes,thrummed on an Arab drum. A dancer was skipping to and fro on atight-rope, keeping time to the music with his hands, and singing thelatest street song:
Huc, huc, convenite nunc... Spatolocinaedi! Pedem tendite Cursum addite...
This starveling mountebank was old, impudent, and repulsively cheery.Drops of sweat, mixed with paint, were trickling from his shaven face.His wrinkles, plastered with white lead, looked like the cracks in awall when rain has washed off the lime. When he withdrew, the flutesand the organ ceased, and on the platform a fifteen-year-old girlappeared. She was to perform the _Cordax_, a celebrated licentiousdance adored by the mob. Fathers of the Church might anathematise, andRoman laws interdict this dance, but both did so in vain. Everywherethe Cordax was danced as befo
re by rich and poor, by street-dancers aswell as by wives of senators.
Agamemnon murmured with enthusiasm:
"What a divinely pretty girl!"
Thanks to jostling by his companions he had reached a place in thefront rank of spectators. The slender bronze body of the Nubian wasonly veiled round the hips by a light and transparent rose-colouredscarf. Her hair was wound on the top of her head in close fine curls,like those of Ethiopian women. Her face was of the severest Egyptiantype, recalling that of the Sphinx.
She began to dance in careless fashion, as if already out-wearied.Above her head she swung heavy steel bells, castanets or"crotals,"--swung them lazily and loosely. But the movements becamemore emphatic, and suddenly under long lashes yellow eyes shone out,clear and bright as the eyes of a leopardess. She straightened herbody. The steel crotals shook with such a challenge in their piercingsound that the crowd shivered and became still. The damsel whirledrapidly, vivid, slender, supple as a serpent; her nostrils dilated, astrange cry came crooning from her throat, and at each sharp movementher brown bosom shook and trembled within its almost invisible meshesof fine green silk.
The crowd howled with enthusiasm. Agamemnon struggled with ragebecause his companions held him back. Suddenly the girl stopped. Aslight shudder ran through her body. Deep silence prevailed. The headof the Nubian was thrown back as if in a rigid swoon, but above it thecrotals still shivered with an extraordinary languor, a dyingvibration, quick and tender as the wing-flutterings of a captivebutterfly. The flashing of the yellow eyes died away, although theeyeball kept its sparkling lights, and the face remained severe; butupon the dark and sensuous lips of that sphinx-like mouth a smiletrembled, faint as the dying sound of the crotals.
The public shouted and applauded so loudly that the blue tent with itsstars and spangles swayed like a sail in a hurricane. The showmanbecame apprehensive lest his booth should collapse. The companions ofAgamemnon at last failed to hold him back; raising the curtain, herushed through the scenes into the part reserved for the dancers andactors. In vain his friends counselled--
"Wait; to-morrow you shall have everything as you wish! now somethingmight...."
Agamemnon interrupted them--
"Not to-morrow; now, at once!"
He approached the owner of the show, the cunning and grey-beardedGreek, Mirmes, and without explanation flung into the skirt of hisrobe a handful of gold pieces.
"Is that dancing-girl your slave?"
"Yes. What does your excellency desire?"
Mirmes, evidently astonished, was staring now at Agamemnon and now atthe gold.
"What's your name, girl?"
"Phyllis."
He bestowed money on her also, without stopping to reckon it.
The Greek murmured some words in the ear of the smiling Phyllis, whotossed up the pieces and threw sparkling glances at Agamemnon. Hesaid--
"Come with me!"
Phyllis threw over her shoulders a dark cloak and glided with him intothe street, asking submissively--
"Whither?"
"I don't know."
"To your house?"
"Impossible. I live at Antioch."
"And as for me, I only arrived in this city this morning. What, then,are we to do?"
"Wait a moment; I saw just now in a lane near this the temple ofPriapus open. Let us go there!"
Phyllis led him on hastily, laughing. The companions of Agamemnondesired to follow him, but he said to them--
"It is unnecessary--remain here."
"Be careful! At any rate take a weapon, the quarter is dangerous..."and drawing from under his dress a dagger with a jewelled hilt, one ofthe friends of Agamemnon respectfully tendered it to him.
Groping at every step into thick darkness, Agamemnon and Phyllis madetheir way up a narrow passage out of the market-place.
"Here! here it is! Fear nothing--go in!"
They found themselves in the vestibule of a little vacant temple, itsancient and massive columns ill-lighted by the flicker of a lamp.
"Push-to the door!" and Phyllis, softly laughing, threw her warm cloakupon the ground. When Agamemnon took her into his arms, it seemed tohim that round his body had coiled some warm lithe snake, with wideand terrifying eyes. At that moment from the interior of the templecame harsh cacklings, and such a gust of beating wings went past thatthe lamp nearly went out. Agamemnon disengaged his arms from Phyllis'waist and stammered--
"What in the world was that?"
In the dense darkness white forms were slipping by them like so manyghosts. Thoroughly frightened, Agamemnon crossed himself.
"What is it? May the Holy Cross protect us!"
Something stoutly nipped his leg. He yelled with pain and fear, butseizing one of his unknown enemies by the throat, he poignardedanother. Deafening cries arose, followed by squeals and repeatedbattlings of wings. The lamp flickered for the last time, and Phylliscried, laughing--
"They are the ganders! the holy ganders of Priapus! What a crime youhave committed!"
Pale and trembling, the conqueror stood holding in one hand the bloodydagger and in the other two slain ganders. A crowd carrying torchesburst with shouts into the temple, led by Scabra, the old priestess ofPriapus. This dame had been peacefully supping in a neighbouringtavern when the trumpeting of the ganders had raised the alarm.Gathering a train of nocturnal prowlers she had rushed to the rescue.Hook-nosed, with unkempt grey hair, and eyes blazing like two steelpoints, the old priestess looked nothing less than a fury. Sheshouted--
"Help! help! The temples are desecrated, and the holy ganders ofPriapus slain! And see here, here are the foul Christians!"
Phyllis fled, enveloping her face in the cloak, while the crowddragged off Agamemnon, so cleanly taken aback that he never thought ofrelaxing his grip upon the ganders.
Scabra sent for the clerks of the market, the agoranomes. But withevery moment the crowd grew larger, and Agamemnon's companions ran tosupport him. It was too late. From dens, wine-shops, alley stalls, aworld of loiterers rushed up, attracted by the noise. All faces worethe expression of gleeful curiosity peculiar to idlers. The blacksmithappeared with hammer over his shoulder; the two old women hadforgotten their quarrel; the floury baker jostled the lame cobbler,and behind them came the genial red-headed boy, shouting, and beatingon his pan, as if calling to arms.
Meantime Scabra continued screaming, her nails fixed in the clothes ofAgamemnon--
"Ah, just wait! wait a minute! let me get at that cursed beard ofyours! I wont leave a hair in it! Out, carrion! food for crows! Andyou aren't worth the rope you will cost, thief!"
Finally the sleepy guardians of the market appeared; persons ofcurious demeanour, themselves liker common rogues than keepers of thepeace.
Such a deafening din of laughs, oaths, and screams now ensued thatnobody was audible. One shouted, "He's an assassin!" another, "Athief!" a third, "Let's burn him!"
Suddenly above the hubbub rang out the masterful voice of a tawnyhalf-naked giant, the attendant in a public bath, an individual with ademagogue's gift for oratory:
"Citizens, listen to me, and mark what I say! I've long been watchingthis rascal and his companions! They are writing down our names! Theyare Caesar's spies!"
Scabra, at last putting her threat into execution, seized Agamemnon'sbeard in one hand and his tresses in the other. He strove to repulseher, but she pulled with might and main, and to the general surpriseblack hair and beard both remained in the hands of the old woman, whostumbled and fell. Instead of Agamemnon, an athletic young man withfair curling hair and short beard stood before the people.
In its astonishment, the crowd was momentarily silenced; but the voiceof the bath-slave was soon heard clamouring anew:
"See, citizens, they are disguised informers!"
Somebody cried out--
"Strike him! Knock him down!"
The crowd became tumultuous. Stones were thrown; the sham beggars ofAgamemnon's company encircled him with drawn swords. At the firststroke the lu
ckless leather-dresser was killed, and fell in a pool ofblood. The red-headed boy was trampled under foot, and all faces werebecoming ferocious, when at this juncture ten enormous Paphlagonianslaves bearing on their shoulders a purple litter impatiently thrusttheir way through the crowd.
"Saved!" cried the fair-haired young man, and vaulted into the litterwith one of his fellows.
The Paphlagonians hoisted the pair on their shoulders and set off atsharp run. The infuriated crowd were making as if to dash in pursuit,with intent to stone them, when somebody called out--
"Citizens, don't you see that it is Caesar himself--Gallus Caesar!"
The mob halted, paralysed by fear, and the purple litter, swaying onthe shoulders of the slaves like a skiff in a heavy sea, vanished intothe darkness up the street.
* * * * *
Six years had elapsed since the incarceration of Julian and of Gallusin the Cappadocian fortress of Macellum. Constantius had restored themto favour. Julian, then twenty years old, was sent to Constantinople,and given leave to travel in Asia Minor. Gallus, the Emperor had namedto be his co-regent, with the title of Caesar. Nevertheless thisunlooked-for favour was no valid earnest of good-will. Constantiusloved to destroy his enemies after having lulled away mistrust by adisplay of exuberant affection.
"Well, Glycon, Constantia may beg me as much as she likes, in future,to go out in false hair! But it's all over for me! I've done with it!"
"We warned your Majesty that it was dangerous."
But Caesar, stretched on the soft cushions of the litter, had alreadyforgotten his alarm, and cried, laughing--
"Glycon! Glycon! _did_ you see the old woman rolling on the groundwith my beard?"
When they arrived at the palace Caesar ordered--
"Quick! Let me have a perfumed bath and supper. The walk has famishedme."
A courier came near holding a letter.
"What is it, Norban? No, no, we will have business to-morrow morning."
"Let the magnanimity of Caesar pardon me! It is an important messagesent direct from the camp of the Emperor Constantius."
"From Constantius? Give it me."
Gallus broke the seal of the missive, read, and grew pale. His kneesgave way--he would have almost fallen without the support of hiscourtiers.
Constantius, in exquisite and flattering terms, invited histenderly-loved cousin to come to Milan. At the same time the Emperorsummoned the two legions lodged at Antioch, the only bodyguard left toGallus. Constantius designed thus to leave him defenceless and drawhis rival into the snare. When Gallus had recovered presence of mindhe murmured weakly--
"Call my wife!"
"Your Majesty's Imperial consort has just set out for Antioch."
"What! She knows nothing of this?"
"No."
"My God, my God! What is to be done? What can be done without her?Tell the envoy of the Emperor--No, say nothing to him--I scarcelyknow--How is it possible to arrive at a decision alone? Send a swiftpost to Constantia.... Say that Caesar begs her to return! My God, whatis to be done?"
He paced up and down distractedly, now hiding his face in his hands,now nervously twisting his fair beard and repeating, "No, no, nothingin the world will induce me to go. I would rather die! Ah! I knowConstantius!"
Another messenger came up, a scroll in his hand.
"From the spouse of Caesar! Her Highness in leaving begged you to signthis as soon as possible."
"What! Another sentence of death?... Clement of Alexandria ... this isreally too much. Three a day...."
"Caesar, it was your consort's desire."
"Well, well, what matters it? Nothing! Where's the pen? Nothingmatters now! But why has she gone away? How can I get out of thispretty pass single-handed?"
And having signed the death-warrant he fixed those charming andlistless blue eyes upon the servants.
"The bath is ready, sire, and the supper will be served after it."
"The supper? I'm hungry no longer. But what dish is there?"
"Truffles from Africa."
"Fresh gathered?"
"They arrived this morning."
"Would n't it be better to raise an army, eh? What do you say, myfriends? I feel so overwhelmed.... Truffles, you say? I was thinkingabout truffles only this afternoon."
The agitation of his countenance gave way to the airiest of smiles.Before plunging into the water, which was made milky and iridescent bythe infusion of perfumes, Gallus waved his hand lightly:
"Pooh! the great thing is not to think! God have mercy on us all!...Perhaps after all Constantia will smooth over the matter...."
And his chubby face suddenly lighted while he plunged with glee intothe scented water. He called out gaily--
"Tell the head cook to add a dressing of red pepper to the truffles!"
The Death of the Gods Page 7