A Thorny Path, Volume 11.

G >> Georg Ebers >> A Thorny Path, Volume 11.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

This eBook was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]

A THORNY PATH

By Georg Ebers

Volume 11.

CHAPTER XXX.

Scarcely had Macrinus closed the door behind him, when Caracalla threw
himself exhausted on the throne, and ordered wine to brought.

The gloomy gaze he bent upon the ground was not affected this time.
The physician noted with anxiety how his master's breast heaved and his
eyelids quivered; but when he offered Caesar a soothing potion, he waved
him away, and commanded him to cease from troubling him.

For all that, he listened a little later to the legate, who brought
the news that the youths of the city assembled on the race-course
were beginning to be impatient. They were singing and applauding
boisterously, and the songs they so loudly insisted on having repeated
would certainly not contain matter flattering to the Romans.

"Leave them alone," answered Caesar, roughly. "Every line is aimed at me
and no other. But the condemned are always allowed their favorite meal
before the last journey. The food they love is venomous satire. Let
them enjoy it to the full once more!--Is it far to Zminis's prison?"

The reply was in the negative; and as Caracalla exclaimed, "So much the
better!" a significant smile played on his lips.

The high-priest of Serapis had looked on in much distress of mind. He,
as the head of the Museum, had set high hopes on the youth who had come
to such a terrible end. If Caesar should carry his threats into
execution, there would be an end to that celebrated home of learning
which, in his opinion, bore such noble fruits of study. And what could
Caracalla mean by his dark saying that the sport and mockery of those
youths below was their last meal? The worst might indeed be expected
from the fearful tyrant who was at once so deeply wounded and so
grievously offended; and the high-priest had already sent messengers--
Greeks of good credit--to warn the insurgent youths in the stadium. But,
as the chief minister of the divinity, he also esteemed it his duty, at
any risk to himself, to warn the despot, whom he saw on the verge of
being carried away to deeds of unparalleled horror. He thought the time
had come, when Caracalla looked up from the brooding reverie into which
he had again sunk, and with an ominous scowl asked Timotheus whether his
wife, under whose protection Melissa had been seen the day before, had
known that the false-hearted girl had given herself to another man while
she feigned love for him.

The high-priest repelled the suspicion with his usual dignity, and went
on to adjure Caesar not to visit on an industrious and dutiful community
the sins of a light-minded girl's base folly and falsehood.

But Caracalla would not suffer him to finish; he wrathfully inquired who
had given him a right to force his advice on Caesar.

On this Timotheus replied, with calm dignity:

"Your own noble words, great Caesar, when, to your honor be it spoken,
you reminded the misguided skeptic of the true meaning of the old gods
and of what is due to them. The god whom I serve, great Caesar, is
second to none: the heavens are his head, the ocean is his body, and the
earth his feet; the sunshine is the light of his all-seeing eye, and
everything which stirs in the heart or brain of man is an emanation of
his divine spirit. Thus he is the all-pervading soul of the universe,
and a portion of that soul dwells in you, in me, in all of us. His power
is greater than any power on earth, and, though a well-grounded wrath and
only too just indignation urge you to exert the power lent you by him--"

"And I will exert it!" Caesar exclaimed with haughty rage. "It reaches
far. I need no help, not even that of your god!"

"That I know," replied Timotheus. "And the god will let those fall into
your hands who have sinned against your sacred majesty. Any punishment,
even the severest, will be pleasing in his sight which you may inflict on
those guilty of high-treason, for you wear the purple as his gift and in
his name; those who insult you sin also against the god. I myself, with
my small power, will help to bring the criminals to justice. But when a
whole population is accused, when it is beyond the power of human justice
to separate the innocent from the guilty, punishment is the prerogative
of the god. He will visit on this city the crimes it has committed
against you; and I implore you, in the name of your noble and admirable
mother--whom it has been my privilege to entertain under this roof, and
who in gratitude for the favors of Serapis--"

"And have I grudged sacrifices?" Caesar broke in. "I have done my
utmost to win the graces of your god--and with what success? Everything
that can most aggrieve the heart of man has befallen me here under his
eyes. I have as much reason to complain of him as to accuse the
reprobate natives of your city. He, no doubt, knows how to be avenged;
the three-headed monster at his feet does not look like a lap-dog. Why,
he would despise me if I should leave the punishment of the criminals to
his tender mercies! Nay, I can do that for myself. Though you have seen
me in many cases show mercy, it has always been for my mother's sake.
You have done well to remind me of her. That lady--she is, I know, a
votary of your god. But to me the Alexandrians have dared to violate the
laws of hospitality; to her they were cordial hosts. I will remember
that in their favor. And if many escape unpunished, I would have the
traitors to know that they owe it to the hospitality shown to my mother
by their parents, or perhaps by themselves."

He was here interrupted by the arrival of Aristides, who entered in
great haste and apparently pleased excitement. His spies had seized a
malefactor who had affixed an epigram of malignant purport to the statue
of Julia Domna in the Caesareum. The writer was a pupil of the Museum,
and had been taken in the stadium, where he was boasting of his exploit.
A spy, mingling with the crowd, had laid hands on him, and the captain of
the watch had forthwith hurried to the Serapeum to boast of a success
which might confirm him in his yet uncertain position. The rough sketch
of the lines had been found on the culprit, and Aristides held the
tablets on which they were written while Caracalla listened to his
report. Aristides was breathless with eagerness, and Caesar, snatching
the tablets impatiently from his hand, read the following lines:

"Wanton, I say, is this dam of irreconcilable brothers!"
"Mean you Jocasta?"
"Nay, worse--Julia, the wife of Severus."

"The worst of all--but the last!" Caracalla snarled, as, turning pale,
he laid the tablets down. But he almost instantly took them up again,
and handing the malignant and lying effusion to the high-priest, he
exclaimed, with a laugh:

"This seals the warrant! Here is my mother slandered, too! Now, the man
who sues for mercy condemns himself to death!" And, clinching his fist,
he muttered, "And this, too, is from the Museum."

Timotheus, meanwhile, had also read the lines. Even paler than
Caracalla, and fully aware that any further counsel would be thrown away
and only turn the emperor's wrath against himself, he expressed his anger
at this calumny directed against the noblest of women, and by a boy
hardly free from school!

But Caracalla furiously broke in:

"And woe to you if your god refuses me the only thing I crave in return
for so many sacrifices--revenge, complete and sanguinary; atonement from
great and small alike!" But he interrupted himself with the exclamation:
"He grants it! Now for the tool I need."

The tool was ready--Zminis, the Egyptian, answering in every particular
to the image which Caracalla had had in his mind of the instrument who
might execute his most bloodthirsty purpose.

With hair in disorder and a blue-black stubble of beard on his haggard
yellow cheeks, in a dirty gray prison shirt, barefoot, and treading as
silently as Fate when it creeps on a victim, the rascal approached his
sovereign. He stood before Caracalla exactly as the prefect, in a swift
chariot, had brought him out of prison. The white of his long, narrow
eyes, which had so terrified Melissa, had turned yellow, and his glance
was as restless and shifting as that of a hyena. His small head on its
long neck was never for a moment still; the ruthless wretch had sat
waiting day after day in expectation of death, and it was by a miracle
that he found himself once more at the height of his ambition. But when
at last he inquired of Caracalla, in the husky voice which had gained an
added hoarseness from the damp dungeon whence he had been brought, what
his commands were, looking up at him like a starving dog which hopes for
a titbit from his master's hand, even the fratricide, who himself held
the sword sharpened to kill, shuddered at the sight and sound.

But Caesar at once recovered himself, and when he asked the Egyptian:

"Will you undertake to help me, as captain of the night-watch, to punish
the traitors of Alexandria?" the answer was confident:

"What man can do, I can do."

"Good!" replied Caracalla. "But this is not a matter of merely
capturing one or another. Every one--mark me--every one has merited
death who has broken the laws of hospitality, that hospitality which this
lying city offered me. Do you understand? Yes? Well, then, how are we
to detect the guilty? Where are we to find spies and executioners
enough? How can we punish worst those whose wickedness has involved the
rest in guilt, especially the epigramatists of the Museum? How are we to
discover the ringleaders of those who insulted me yesterday in the
Circus, and of those among the youths in the stadium who have dared to
express their vile disapproval by whistling in my very face? What steps
will you take to hinder a single one from escaping? Consider. How is it
to be done so effectually that I may lie down and say 'They have had
their deserts. I am content'?"

The Egyptian's eyes wandered round the floor, but he presently drew
himself up and answered briefly and positively, as though he were issuing
an order to his men:

"Kill them all!"

Caracalla started, and repeated dully, "All?"

"All!" repeated Zminis, with a hideous grin. "The young ones are all
there, safe in the stadium. The men in the Museum fear nothing. Those
who are in the streets can be cut down. Locked doors can be broken in."

At this, Caesar, who had dropped on to his throne, started to his feet,
flung the wine-cup he held across the room, laughed loudly, and
exclaimed:

"You are the man for me! To work at once! This will be a day!--
Macrinus, Theocritus, Antigonus, we need your troops. Send up the
legates. Those who do not like the taste of blood, may sweeten it with
plunder."

He looked young again, as if relieved from some burden on his mind, and
the thought flashed through his brain whether revenge were not sweeter
than love.

No one spoke. Even Theocritus, on whose lips a word of flattery or
applause was always ready, looked down in his dismay; but Caracalla, in
his frenzy of excitement, heeded nothing.

The hideous suggestion of Zminis seemed to him worthy of his greatness by
its mere enormity. It must be carried out. Ever since he had first
donned the purple he had made it his aim to be feared. If this
tremendous deed were done, he need never frown again at those whom he
wished to terrify.

And then, what a revenge! If Melissa should hear of it, what an effect
it must have on her!

To work, then!

And he added in a gentler tone, as if he had a delightful surprise in
store for some old friend:

"But silence, perfect silence--do you hear?--till all is ready.--You,
Zminis, may begin on the pipers in the stadium and the chatterers in the
Museum. The prize for soldiers and lictors alike lies in the merchants'
chests."

Still no one spoke; and now he observed it. His scheme was too grand for
these feeble spirits. He must teach them to silence their conscience and
the voice of Roman rectitude; he must take on himself the whole
responsibility of this deed, at which the timid quaked. So he drew
himself up to his full height, and, affecting not to see the hesitancy of
his companions, he said, in a tone of cheerful confidence:

"Let each man do his part. All I ask of you is to carry out the sentence
I pronounce as a judge. You know the crime of the citizens of this town,
and, by virtue of the power I exercise over life and death, be it known
to all that I, Caesar, condemn--mark the word, condemn--every free male
of Alexandria, of whatever age or rank, to die by the sword of a Roman
warrior! This is a conquered city, which has forfeited every claim to
quarter. The blood and the treasure of the inhabitants are the prize of
my soldiery. Only"--and he turned to Timotheus--"this house of your god,
which has given me shelter, with the priests and the treasure of great
Serapis, are spared. Now it lies with each of you to show whether or no
he is faithful to me. All of you"--and he addressed his friends--"all
who do me service in avenging me for the audacious insults which have
been offered to your sovereign, are assured of my imperial gratitude."

This declaration was not without effect, and murmurs of applause rose
from the "friends" and favorites, though less enthusiastic than Caracalla
was accustomed to hear. But the feebleness of this demonstration made
him all the prouder of his own undaunted resolve.

Macrinus was one of those who had most loudly approved him, and Caracalla
rejoiced to think that this prudent counselor should advise his drinking
the cup of vengeance to the dregs. Intoxicated already before he had
even sipped it, he called Macrinus and Zminis to his side, and with
glowing looks impressed on them to take particular care that Melissa,
with her father, Alexander, and Diodoros were brought to him alive.

"And remember," he added, "there will be many weeping mothers here by
to-morrow morning; but there is one I must see again, and that not as a
corpse--that bedizened thing in red whom I saw in the Circus--I mean the
wife of Seleukus, of the Kanopic way."

CHAPTER XXXI.

On the wide ascent leading to the Serapeum the praetorians stood awaiting
Caesar's commands. They had not yet formed in rank and file, but were
grouped round the centurion Martialis, who had come to tell them, sadly,
of his removal to Edessa, and to take leave of his comrades. He gave his
hand to each one of them in turn, and received a kindly pressure in
return; for the stubborn fellow, though not of the cleverest, had proved
himself a good soldier, and to many of them a trusty friend. There was
not one who did not regret his going from among them. But Caesar had
spoken, and there was no gainsaying his orders. In the camp, after
service, they might talk the matter over; for the present it were wise
to guard their tongues.

The centurion had just said farewell to the last of his cohort, when the
prefect, with the legate Quintus Flavius Nobilior, who commanded the
legion, and several other higher officers, appeared among them. Macrinus
greeted them briefly, and, instead of having the tuba blown as usual and
letting them fall into their ranks, he told them to gather close round
him, the centurions in front. He then disclosed to them the emperor's
secret orders. Caesar, he began, had long exercised patience and mercy,
but the insolence and malice of the Alexandrians knew no bounds;
therefore, in virtue of his power over life and death, he had pronounced
judgment upon them. To them as being nearest to his person he handed
over the most remunerative part of the work of punishment. Whomsoever
they found on the Kanopic way, the greatest and richest thoroughfare of
the city, they were to cut down as they would the rebellious inhabitants
of a conquered town. Only the women and children and the slaves were to
be spared. If for this task, a hideous one at best, they chose to pay
themselves out of the treasures of the citizens, nobody would blame them.

A loud cheer followed these orders, and many an eye gleamed brighter.
Even the coolest among them seemed to see a broad, deep pool of blood
into which he need only dip his hand and bring out something worth the
catching. And the fish that were to be had there were not miserable
carp, but heavy gold and silver vessels, and coins and magnificent
ornaments. Macrinus then proceeded to inform the higher and lower
officers of the course of action he had agreed upon with the emperor and
Zminis. Seven trumpet-blasts from the terrace of the Serapeum would give
the signal for the attack to begin. Then they were to advance, maniple
on maniple; but they were not required to keep their ranks--each man had
his own work to do. The legion was to assemble again at sunset at the
Gate of the Sun, at the eastern end of the road, after having swept it
from end to end.

By order of the emperor, each man, however, must be particularly careful
whom he cut down in any hiding-place, for Caesar wished to give the
following Alexandrians--who had sinned most flagrantly against him--the
benefit of a trial, and they must therefore be taken alive. He then
named the gem-cutter Heron, his son Alexander, and his daughter Melissa,
the Alexandrian senator Polybius, his son Diodoros, and the wife of
Seleukus.

He described them as well as he was able. For each one Caesar promised
a reward of three thousand drachmas, and for Heron's daughter twice as
much, but only on condition of their being delivered up unhurt.
It would therefore be to their own advantage to keep their eyes open in
the houses, and to be cautious. Whoever should take the daughter of the
gem-cutter--and he described Melissa once more--would render a special
service to Caesar and might reckon on promotion.

The centurion Julius Martialis stayed to hear the end of this discourse,
and then hurriedly departed. He felt just as he had done in the war with
the Alemanni when a red-haired German had dealt him a blow on the helmet
with his club. His head whirled and swam as it did then--only to-day
blood-red lights danced before his eyes instead of deep blue and gold.
It was some time before he could collect his thoughts to any purpose; but
when he did, he clinched his fists as he recalled Caesar's malignant
cruelty in forcing him away from his family.

Presently his large mouth widened into a satisfied smile. He was no
longer in that company, and need take no part in the horrid butchery.
In any other place he would no doubt have joined in it like the rest,
glad of the rich booty; but here, in his own home, where his mother and
wife and child dwelt, it seemed a monstrous and accursed deed. Besides
the gemcutter's family, in whom Martialis took no interest, Caesar seemed
to have a special grudge against the lady Berenike, whose husband
Seleukus had been master to the centurion's father; nay, his own
wife was still in the service of the merchant.

Not being skilled in any trade, he had entered the army early. As
Evocatus he had married the daughter of a free gardener of Seleukus, and
when he was ordered to Rome to join the praetorians his wife had obtained
the post of superintendent of the merchant's villa at Kanopus. For this
they had to thank the kindness of the lady Berenike and her now dead
daughter Korinna; and he was honestly grateful to the wife of Seleukus,
for, as his wife was established in the villa, he could leave her without
anxiety and go with the army wherever it was ordered.

Having by this time reached the Kanopic street on his way to his family,
he perceived the statues of Hermes and Demeter which stood on each side
of the entrance to the merchant's house, and his slow mind recapitulated
the long list of benefits he had received from Seleukus and his wife; a
secret voice urged upon him that it was his duty to warn them.

He owed nothing to Caesar, that crafty butcher, who out of pure malice
could deprive an honest soldier of his only joy in life and cheat him of
half his pay--for the praetorians had twice the wages of the other
troops; and if he only knew some handicraft, he would throw away his
sword today.

Here, at least, he could interfere with Caesar's ruthless schemes,
besides doing his benefactors a good turn. He therefore entered the
house of the merchant, instead of pursuing on his homeward way.

He was well known, and the mistress of the house was at once apprised
of his arrival.

All the lower apartments were empty, the soldiers who had been quartered
in them having joined the others at the Serapeum.

But what had happened to the exquisite garden in the impluvium? What
hideous traces showed where the soldiers had camped, and, drunk with
their host's costly wine, had given free play to their reckless spirits!

The velvet lawn looked like a stable-floor; the rare shrubs had been
denuded of their flowers and branches. Blackened patches on the mosaic
pavement showed where fires had been kindled; the colonnades were turned
into drying-grounds for the soldiers' linen, and a rope on which hung
some newly washed clothes was wound at one end round the neck of a Venus
from the hand of Praxiteles, and at the other round the lyre of an Apollo
fashioned in marble by Bryaxis. Some Indian shrubs, of which his father-
in-law had been very proud, were trampled underfoot; and in the great
banqueting-hall, which had served as sleeping-room for a hundred
praetorians, costly cushions and draperies were strewn, torn from the
couches and walls to make their beds more comfortable.

Used to the sights of war as he was, the soldier ground his teeth with
wrath at this scene. As long as he could remember, he had looked upon
everything here with reverence and awe; and to think that his comrades
had destroyed it all made his blood boil.

As he approached the women's apartments he took fright. How was he to
disclose to his mistress what threatened her?

But it must be done; so he followed the waiting-maid Johanna, who led him
to her lady's livingroom.

In it sat the Christian steward Johannes, with writing tablets and
scrolls of papyrus, working in the service of his patroness. She herself
was with the wounded Aurelius; and Martialis, on hearing this, begged to
be admitted to her.

Berenike was in the act of renewing the wounded soldier's bandages, and
when the centurion saw how cruelly disfigured was the handsome, blooming
face of the young tribune, to whom he was heartily attached, the tears
rose to his eyes. The matron observed it, and witnessed with much
surprise the affectionate greeting between the young noble and the plain
soldier.

The centurion greeted her respectfully; but it was not till Nernesianus
asked him how it was that the troops had been called to arms at this
hour, that Martialis plucked up courage and begged the lady of the house
to grant him an interview.

But Berenike had still to wash and bandage the wounds of her patient--
a task which she always performed herself and with the greatest care;
she therefore promised the soldier to be at his disposal in half an hour.

"Then it will be too late!" burst from the lips of the centurion; then
she knew, by his voice and the terror-stricken aspect of the man whom she
had known so long, that he meant to warn her, and there was but one from
whom the danger could come.

"Caesar?" she asked. "He is sending out his creatures to murder me?"

The imperious gaze of Berenike's large eyes so overpowered the simple
soldier as to render him speechless for a while. But Caesar had
threatened his mistress's life--he must collect himself, and thus he
managed to stammer:

"No, lady, no! He will not have you killed assuredly not! On the
contrary-they are to let you live when they cut down the others!"

"Cut down!" cried Apollinaris, raising himself up and staring horrified
at this messenger of terror; but his brother laid his hand upon the
centurion's broad shoulder, and, shaking him vigorously, commanded him as
his tribune to speak out.

The soldier, ever accustomed to obey, and only too anxious that his
warning should not come too late, disclosed in hurried words what he had
learned from the prefect. The brothers interrupted him from time to time
with some exclamation of horror or disgust, but Berenike remained silent
till Martialis stopped with a deep breath.

Then the lady gave a shrill laugh, and as the others looked at her in
amazement she said coolly "You men will wade through blood and shame with
that reprobate, if he but orders you to do so. I am only a woman, and
yet I will show him that there are limits even to his malignity."

She remained for a few moments lost in thought, and then ordered the
centurion to go and find out where her husband was.

Martialis obeyed at once, and no sooner was the door closed behind him
than she turned to the two brothers, and addressing herself first to one
and then to the other with equal vehemence, she cried "Who is right now?
Of all the villains who have brought shame upon the throne and name of
mighty Caesar, this is the most dastardly. He has written plainly enough
upon Apollinaris's face how much he values a brave soldier, the son of a
noble house. And you, Nemesianus--are you not also an Aurelius? You say
so; and yet, had he not chanced to let you care for your brother, you
would at this moment be wandering through the city like a mad dog, biting
all who crossed your path. Why do you not speak? Why not tell me once
more, Nemesianus, that a soldier must obey his commander blindly?--And
you, Apollinaris, will you dare still to assert that the hand with which
Caesar tore your face was guided only by righteous indignation at an
insult offered to an innocent maiden? Have you the courage to excuse the
murders by Caracalla of his own wife, and many other noble women, by his
anxiety for the safety of throne and state? I, too, am a woman, and may
hold up my head with the best; but what have I to do with the state or
with the throne? My eye met his, and from that moment the fiend was my
deadly enemy. A quick death at the hands of one of his soldiers seemed
too good for the woman he hated. Wild beasts were to tear me to pieces
before his eyes. Is that not sufficient for you? Put every abomination
together, everything unworthy of an honorable man and abhorrent to the
gods, and you have the man whom you so willingly obey. I am only the
wife of a citizen. But were I the widow of a noble Aurelian and your
mother--" Here Apollinaris, whose wounds were beginning to burn again,
broke in: "She would have counseled us to leave revenge to the gods. He
is Caesar!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5