Books: Quo Vadis A Narrative of the Time of Nero

H >> Henryk Sienkiewicz >> Quo Vadis A Narrative of the Time of Nero

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Soon dreams came. It seemed to him that he was carrying Lygia in
his arms at night through a strange vineyard. Before him was
Pomponia Graecina lighting the way with a lamp. A voice, as it
were of Petronius called from afar to him, "Turn back!" but he did
not mind the call, and followed Pomponia till they reached a
cottage; at the threshold of the cottage stood Peter. He showed
Peter Lygia, and said, "We are coming from the arena, lord, but we
cannot wake her; wake her thou." "Christ himself will come to
wake her," answered the Apostle.

Then the pictures began to change. Through the dream he saw
Nero, and Poppaea holding in her arms little Ruflus with bleeding
head, which Petronius was washing and he saw Tigellinus
sprinkling ashes on tables covered with costly dishes, and Vitelius
devouring those dishes, while a multitude of other Augustians
were sitting at the feast. He himself was resting near Lygia; but
between the tables walked lions from out whose yellow manes
trickled blood. Lygia begged him to take her away, but so terrible a
weakness had seized him that he could not even move. Then still
greater disorder involved his visions, and finally all fell into
perfect darkness.

He was roused from deep sleep at last by the heat of the sun, and
shouts given forth right there around the place where he was
sitting. Vinicius rubbed his eyes. The street was swarming with
people; but two runners, wearing yellow tunics, pushed aside the
throng with long staffs, crying and making room for a splendid
litter which was carried by four stalwart Egyptian slaves.

In the litter sat a man in white robes, whose face was not easily
seen, for he held close to his eyes a roll of papyrus and was reading
something diligently.

"Make way for the noble Angustian!" cried the runners.

But the street was so crowded that the litter had to wait awhile.
The Augustian put down his roll of papyrus and bent his head,
crying, --

"Push aside those wretches! Make haste!"

Seeing Vinicius suddenly, he drew back his head and raised the
papyrus quickly.

Vinicius drew his hand across his forehead, thinking that he was
dreaming yet.

In the litter was sitting Chio.

Meanwhile the runners had opened the way, and the Egyptians
were ready to move, when the young tribune, who in one moment
understood many things which till then had been
incomprehensible, approached the litter.

"A greeting to thee, O Chio!" said he.

"Young man," answered the Greek, with pride and importance,
endeavoring to give his face an expression of calmness which was
not in his soul, "be greeted, but detain me not, for I am hastening
to my friend, the noble Tigellinus."

Vinicius, grasping the edge of the litter and looking him straight in
the eyes, said with a lowered voice, --

"Didst thou betray Lygia?"

"Colossus of Memnon!" cried Chio, with fear.

But there was no threat in the eyes of Vinicius; hence the old
Greek's alarm vanished quickly. He remembered that he was under
the protection of Tigellinus and of Caesar himself, -- that is, of a
power before which everything trembled, -- that he was
surrounded by sturdy slaves, and that Vinicins stood before him
unarmed, with an emaciated face and body bent by suffering.

At this thought his insolence returned to him. He fixed on Vinicius
his eyes, which were surrounded by red lids, and whispered in
answer, --

"But thou, when I was dying of hunger, didst give command to flog
me." For a moment both were silent; then the dull voice of
Vinicius was heard, --

"I wronged thee, Chio."

The Greek raised his head, and, snapping his fingers which in
Rome was a mark of slight and contempt, said so loudly that all
could hear him, --

"Friend, if thou hast a petition to present, come to my house on the
Esquiline in the morning hour, when I receive guests and clients
after my bath."

And he waved his hand; at that sign the Egyptians raised the litter,
and the slaves, dressed in yellow tunics, began to cry as they
brandished their staffs, --

"Make way for the litter of the noble Chilo Chionides! Make way,
make way!"

Chapter LIV

LYGIA, in a long letter written hurriedly, took farewell to Vinicius
forever. She knew that no one was permitted to enter the prison,
and that she could see Vinicius only from the arena. She begged
him therefore to discover when the turn of the Mamertine
prisoners would come, and to be at the games, for she wished to
see him once more in life. No fear was evident in her letter. She
wrote that she and the othcrs were longing for the arena, where
they would find liberation from imprisonment. She hoped f or the
coming of Pomponia and Aulus; she entreated that they too be
pres‡nt. Every word of her showed ecstasy, and that separation
from life in which all the prisoners lived, arid at the same time an
unshaken faith that all promises would be fulfilled beyond the
grave.

"Whether Christ," wrote she, "frees me in this life or after death,
He has promised me to thee by the lips of the Apostle; therefore I
am rhine." She implored him not to grieve for her, and not to let
himself be overcome by suffering. For her death was not a
dissolution of marriage. With the confidence of a child she assured
Vinicius that immediately after her suffering in the arena she
would tell Christ that her betrothed Marcus had remained in
Rome, that he was longing for her with his whole heart. 1And she
thought that Christ would permit her soul, perhaps, to return to
him for a moment, to tell him that she was living, that she did not
remember her torments, and that she was happy. Her whole letter
breathed happiness and immense hope. There was only one request
in it connected with affairs of earth, -- that Vinicius should take
her body from the spoliarium and bury it as that of his wife in the
tomb in which he himself would rest sometime.

He read this letter with a suffering spirit, but at the same time it
seemed to him impossible that Lygia should perish under the claws
of wild beasts, and that Christ would not take compassion on her.
But just in that were hidden hope and trust. When he returned
home, he wrote that he would come every day to the walls of the
Tullianum to wait till Christ crushed the walls and restored her. He
commanded her to believe that Christ could give her to him, even
in the Circus; that the great Apostle was imploring Him to do so,
and that the hour of liberation was near. The converted centurion
was to bear this letter to her on the morrow.

But when Vinicius came to the prison next morning, the centurion
left the rank, approached him first, and said, --

"Listen to me, lord. Christ, who enlightened thee, has shown thee
favor. Last night Caesar's freedman and those of the prefect came
to select Christian maidens for disgrace; they inquired for thy
betrothed, but our Lord sent her a fever, of which prisoners are
dying in the Tullianum, and they left her. Last evening she was
unconscious, and blessed be the name of the Redeemer, for the
sickness which has saved her from shame may save her from
death."

Vinicius placed his hand on the soldier's shoulder to guard himself
from falling; but the other continued, --

"Thank the mercy of the Lord! They took and tortured Linus, but,
seeing that he was dying, they surrendered him. They may give her
now to thee, and Christ will give back health to her."

The young tribune stood some time with drooping head; then
raised it and said in a whisper, --

"True, centurion. Christ, who saved her from shame, will save her
from death." And sitting at the wall of the prison till evening, he
returned home te send people for Linus and have him taken to one
of his suburban villas.

But when Petronius had heard everything, he determined to act
also. He had visited the Augusta; now he went to her a second
time. He found her at the bed of little Ruflus. The child with
broken head was struggling in a fever; his mother, with despair
and terror in her heart, was trying to save him, thinking, however,
that if she did save him it might be only to perish soon by a more
dreadful death.

Occupied exclusively with her own suffering, she would not even
hear of Vinicius and Lygia; but Petronius terrified her.

"Thou hart offended," said he to her, "a new, unknown divinity.
Thou, Augusta, art a worshipper, it seems, of the Hebrew Jehovah;
but the Christians maintain that Chrestos is his son. Reflect, then,
if the anger of the father is not pursuing thee. Who knows but it is
their vengeance which has struck thee? Who knows but the life of
Ruflus depends on this, -- how thou wilt act?"

"What dost thou wish me to do?" asked Poppaea, with terror.

"Mollify the offended deities."

"How?"

"Lygia is sick; influence Caesar or Tigellinus to give her to
Vinicius."

"Dost thou think that I can do that?" asked she, in despair.

"Thou canst do something else. If Lygia recovers, she must die. Go
thou to the temple of Vesta, and ask the Virgo magna to happen
near the Tullianum at the moment when they are leading prisoners
out to death, and give command to free that maiden. The chief
vestal will not refuse thee."

"But if Lygia dies of the fever?"

"The Christians say that Christ is vengeful, but just; maybe thou
wilt soften Him by thy wish alone."

"Let Him give me some sign that will heal Ruflus."

Petronius shrugged his shoulders.

"I have not come as His envoy; O divinity, I merely say to thee, Be
on better terms with all the gods, Roman and foreign."

"I will go!" said Poppaea, with a broken voice.

Petronius drew a deep breath. "At last I have done something."
thought he, and returning to Vinicius he said to him, --

"Implore thy God that Lygia die not of the fever, for should she
survive, the chief vestal will give command to free her. The
Augusta herself will ask her to do so."

"Christ will free her," said Vinicius, looking at him with eyes in
which fever was glittering.

Poppaea, who for the recovery of Ruflus was willing to burn
hecatombs to all the gods of the world, went that same evening
through the Forum to the vestals, leaving care over the sick child
to her faithful nurse, Silvia, by whom she herself had been reared.

But on the Palatine sentence had been issued against the child
already; for barely had Poppaea's litter vanished behind the great
gate when two freedmen entered the chamber in which her son
was resting. One of these threw himself on old Silvia and gagged
her; the other, seizing a bronze statue of the Sphinx, stunned the
old woman with the first blow.

Then they approached Ruflus. The little boy, tormented with fever
and insensible, not knowing what was passing around him, smiled
at them, and blinked with his beautiful eyes, as if trying to
recognize the men. Stripping from the nurse her girdle, they put it
around his neck and pulled it. The child called once for his mother,
and died easily. Then they wound him in a sheet, and sitting on
horses which were waiting, hurried to Ostia, where they threw the
body into the sea.

Poppaea, not finding the virgo magna, who with other vestals was
at the house of Vatinius, returned soon to the Palatine. Seeing the
empty bed and the cold body of Silvia, she fainted, and when they
restored her she began to scream; her wild cries were heard all that
night and the day following.

But Caesar commanded her to appear at a feast on the third day;
so, arraying herself in an amethyst-colored tunic, she came and
sat with stony face, golden-haired, silent, wonderful, and as
ominous as an angel of death.

Chapter LV

BEFORE the Flavii had reared the Colosseum, amphitheatres in
Rome were built of wood mainly; for that reason nearly all of them
had burned during the fire. But Nero, for the celebration of the
promised games, had given command to build several, and among
them a gigantic one, for which they began, immediately after the
fire was extinguished, to bring by sea and the Tiber great trunks of
trees cut on the slopes of Atlas; for the games were to surpass all
previous ones in splendor and the number of victims.

Large spaces were given therefore for people and for animals.
Thousands of mechanics worked at the structure night and day.
They built and ornamented without rest. Wonders were told
concerning pillars inlaid with bronze, amber, ivory, mother of
pearl, and transmarmne tortoise-shells. Canals filled with ice-cold
water from the mountains and running along the seats were to keep
an agreeable coolness in the building, even during the greatest
heat. A gigantic purple velarium gave shelter from the rays of the
sun. Among the rows of seats were disposed vessels for the
burning of Arabian perfumes; above them were fixed instruments
to sprinkle the spectators with dew of saffron and verbena. The
renowned builders Severus and Celer put forth all their skill to
construct an amphitheatre at once incomparable and fitted for such
a number of the curious as none of those known before had been
able to accommodate.

Hence, the day when the ludus matutinus was to begin, throngs of
the populace were awaiting from daylight the opening of the gates,
listening with delight to the roars of lions, the hoarse growls of
panthers, and the howls of dogs. The beasts had not been fed for
two days, but pieces of bloody flesh had been pushed before them
to rouse their rage and hunger all the more. At times such a storm
of wild voices was raised that people standing before the Circus
could not converse, and the most sensitive grew pale from fear.

With the rising of the sun were intoned in the enclosure of the
Circus hymns resonant but calm. The people heard these with
amazement, and said one to another, "The Christians! the
Christians!" In fact, many detachments of Christians had been
brought to the amphitheatre that night, and not from one place, as
planned at first, but a few from each prison. It was known in the
crowd that the spectacles would continue through weeks and
months, but they doubted that it would be possible to finish in a
single day those Christians who had been intended for that one
occasion. The voices of men, women, and children singing the
morning hymn were so numerous that spectators of experience
asserted that even if one or two hundred persons were sent out at
once, the beasts would grow tired, become sated, and not tear all
to pieces before evening. Others declared that an excessive number
of victims in the arena would divert attention, and not give a
chance to enjoy the spectacle properly.

As the moment drew near for opening the vomitoria, or passages
which led to the interior, people grew animated and joyous; they
discussed and disputed about various things touching the
spectacle. Parties were formed praising the greater efficiency of
lions or tigers in tearing. Here and there bets were made. Others
however talked about gladiators who were to appear in the arena
earlier than the Christians; and again there were parties, some in
favor of Samnites, others of Gauls, others of Mirmillons, others of
Thracians, others of the retiarii.

Early in the morning larger or smaller detachments of gladiators
began to arrive at the amphitheatre under the lead of masters,
called lanistiae. Not wishing to be wearied too soon, they entered
unarmed, often entirely naked, often with green boughs in their
hands, or crowned with flowers, young, beautiful, in the light of
morning, and full of life. Their bodies, shining from olive oil, were
strong as if chiselled from marble; they roused to delight people
who loved shapely forms. Many were known personally, and from
moment to nioment were heard: "A greeting, Furnius! A greeting,
Leo! A greeting, Maximus! A greeting, Diomed!" Young maidens
raised to them eyes full of admiration; they, selecting the maiden
most beautiful, answered with jests, as if no care weighed on them,
sending kisses, or exclaiming, "Embrace me before death does!"
Then they vanished in the gates, through which many of them were
never to come forth again.

New arrivals drew away the attention of the throngs. Behind the
gladiators came mastigophori; that is, men armed with scourges,
whose office it was to lash and urge forward combatants. Next
mules drew, in the direction of the spoliarium, whole rows of
vehicles on which were piled wooden coffins. People were
diverted at sight of this, inferring from the number of coffins the
greatness of the spectacle. Now marched in men who were to kill
the wounded; these were dressed so that each resembled Charon or
Mercury. Next came those who looked after order in the Circus,
and assigned places; after that slaves to bear around food and
refreshments; finally, pretorians, whom every Caesar had always at
hand in the amphitheatre.

At last the vomitoria were opened, and crowds rushed to the
centre. But such was the number of those assembled that they
flowed in and flowed in for hours, till it was a marvel that the
Circus could hold such a countless multitude. The roars of wild
beasts, catching the exhalations of people, grew louder. While
taking their places, the spectators made an uproar like the sea in
time of storm.

Finally, the prefect of the city came, surrounded by guards; and
after him, in unbroken line, appeared the litters of senators,
consuls, pretors, ediles, officials of the government and the palace,
of pretorian officers, patricians, and exquisite ladies. Some litters
were preceded by lictors bearing maces in bundles of rods; others
by crowds of slaves. In the sun gleamed the gilding of the litters,
the white and varied colored stuffs, feathers, earrings, jewels, steel
of the maces. From the Circus came shouts with which the people
greeted great dignitaries. Small divisions of pretorians arrived
from time to time.

The priests of various temples came somewhat later; only after
them were brought in the sacred virgins of Vesta, preceded by
lictors.

To begin the spectacle, they were waiting now only for Caesar,
who, unwilling to expose the people to over-long waiting, and
wishing to win them by promptness, came soon, in company with
the Augusta and Augustians.

Petronius arrived among the Augustians, having Vinicius in his
litter. The latter knew that Lygia was sick and unconscious; but as
access to the prison had been forbidden most strictly during the
preceding days, and as the former guards had been replaced by
new ones who were not permitted to speak with the jailers or even
to communicate the least information to those who came to inquire
about prisoners, he was not even sure that she was not among the
victims intended for the first day of spectacles. They might send
out even a sick woman for the lions, though she were unconscious.
But since the victims were to be sewed up in skins of wild beasts
and sent to the arena in crowds, no spectator could be certain that
one more or less might not be among them, and no man could
recognize any one. The jailers and all the servants of the
amphitheatre had been bribed, and a bargain made with the
beast-keepers to hide Lygia in some dark corner, and give her at
night into the hands of a confidant of Vinicius, who would take her
at once to the Alban Hills. Petronius, admitted to the secret,
advised Vinicius to go with him openly to the amphitheatre, and
after he had entered to disappear in the throng and hurry to the
vaults, where, to avoid possible mistake, he was to point out Lygia
to the guards personally.

The guards admitted him through a small door by which they came
out themselves. One of these, named Cyrus, led him at once to the
Christians. On the way he said, --

"I know not, lord, that thou wilt find what thou art seeking. We
inquired for a maiden named Lygia, but no one gave us answer; it
may be, though, that they do not trust us."

"Are there many?" asked Vinicius.

"Many, lord, had to wait till to-morrow."

"Are there sick ones among them?"

"There were none who could not stand."

Cyrus opened a door and entered as it were an enormous chamber,
but low and dark, for the light came in only through grated
openings which separated it from the arena. At first Vinicius could
see nothing; he heard only the murmur of voices in the room, and
the shouts of people in the amphitheatre. But after a time, when his
eyes had grown used to the gloom, he saw crowds of strange
beings, resembling wolves and bears. Those were Christians sewed
up in skins of beasts. Some of them were standing; others were
kneeling in prayer. Here and there one might divine by the long
hair flowing over the skin that the victim was a woman. Women,
looking like wolves, carried in their arms children sewed up in
equally shaggy coverings. But from beneath the skins appeared
bright faces and eyes which in the darkness gleamed with delight
and feverishness. It was evident that the greater number of those
people were mastered by one thought, exclusive and beyond the
earth, -- a thought which during life made them indifferent to
everything which happened around them and which could meet
them. Some, when asked by Vinicius about Lygia, looked at him
with eyes as if roused from sleep, without answering his questions;
others smiled at him, placing a finger on their lips or pointing to
the iron grating through which bright streaks of light entered. But
here and there children were crying, frightened by the roaring of
beasts, the howling of dogs, the uproar of people, and the forms of
their own parents who looked like wild beasts. Vinicius as he
walked by the side of Cyrus looked into faces, searched, inquired,
at times stumbled against bodies of people who had fainted from
the crowd, the stifling air, the heat, and pushed farther into the
dark depth of the room, which seemed to be as spacious as a whole
amphitheatre.

But he stopped on a sudden, for he seemed to hear near the grating
a voice known to him. He listened for a while, turned, and,
pushing through the crowd, went near. Light fell on the face of the
speaker, and Vinicius recognized under the skin of a wolf the
emaciated and implacable countenance of Crispus.

"Mourn for your sins!" exclaimed Crispus, "for the moment is
near. But whoso thinks by death itself to redeem his sins commits
a fresh sin, and will be hurled into endless fire. With every sin
committed in life ye have renewed the Lord's suffering; how dare
ye think that that life which awaits you will redeem this one?
To-day the just and the sinner will die the same death; but the Lord
will find His own. Woe to you, the claws of the lions will rend
your bodies; but not your sins, nor your reckoning with God. The
Lord showed mercy sufficient when He let Himself be nailed to the
cross; but thenceforth He will be only the judge, who will leave no
fault unpunished. Whoso among you has thought to extinguish his
sins by suffering, has blasphemed against God's justice, and will
sink all the dccpcr. Mercy is at an end, and the hour of God's wrath
has come. Soon ye will stand before the awful Judge in whose
presence the good will hardly be justified. Bewail your sins, for the
jaws of hell are open; woe to you, husbands and wives; woe to
you, parents and children."

And stretching forth his bony hands, he shook them above the bent
heads; he was unterrifled and implacable even in the presence of
death, to which in a while all those doomed peopic wcre to go.
After his words, were heard voices:

"We bewail our sins!" Then came silence, and only the cry of
children was audible, and the beating of hands against breasts.

The blood of Vinicius stiffened in his veins. He, who had placed
all his hope in the mercy of Christ, heard now that the day of wrath
had come, and that even death in the arena would not obtain
mercy. Through his head shot, it is true, the thought, clear and
swift as lightning, that Peter would have spoken otherwise to those
about to die. Still those terrible words of Crispus filled with
fanaticism that dark chamber with its grating, beyond which was
the field of torture. The nearness of that torture, and the throng of
victims arrayed for death already, filled his soul with fear and
terror. All this seemed to him dreadful, and a hundred times more
ghastly than the bloodiest battle in which he had ever taken part.
The odor and heat began to stifle him; cold sweat came out on his
forehead. He was seized by fear that he would faint like those
against whose bodies he had stumbled while searching in the depth
of the apartment; so when he remembered that they might open the
grating any moment, he began to call Lygia and Ursus aloud, in the
hope that, if not they, some one knowing them would answer.

In fact, some man, clothed as a bear, pulled his toga, and said, --

"Lord, they remained in prison. I was the last one brought our; I
saw her sick on the couch."

"Who art thou?" inquired Viniciug.

"The quarryman in whose hut the Apostle baptized thee, lord. They
imprisoned me three days ago, and to-day I die."

Vinicius was relieved. When entering, he had wished to find
Lygia; now he was ready to thank Christ that she was not there,
and to see in that a sign of mercy. Meanwhile the quarryman
pulled his toga again, and said, --