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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"He speaks pure truth, by the sacred peplus of Diana," cried
Vestinius. But Barcus turned to Petronius.

"What is thy conclusion?"

"I conclude where ye began, -- there has been enough of
bloodshed."

Tigellinus looked at him jeeringly, -- "Ei! --a little more!"

"If thy head is not sufficient, thou hast another on thy cane," said
Petronius.

Further conversation was interrupted by the coming of Caesar,
who occupied his place in company with Pythagoras. Immediately
after began the representation of "Aureolus," to which not much
attention was paid, for the minds of the audience were fixed on
Chilo. The spectators, familiar with blood and torture, were
bored; they hissed, gave out shouts uncomplimentary to the court,
and demanded the bear scene, which for them was the only thing
of interest. Had it not been for gifts and the hope of seeing Chilo,
the spectacle would not have held the audience.

At last the looked-for moment came. Servants of the Circus
brought in first a wooden cross, so low that a bear standing on his
hind feet might reach the martyr's breast; then two men brought, or
rather dragged in, Chio, for as the bones in his legs were broken,
he was unable to walk alone. They laid him down and nailed him
to the wood so quickly that the curious Augustians had not even a
good look at him, and only after the cross had been fixed in the
place prepared for it did all eyes turn to the victim. But it was a
rare person who could recognize in that naked man the former
Chilo. After the tortures which Tigellinus had commanded, there
was not one drop of blood in his face, and only on his white beard
was evident a red trace left by blood after they had torn his tongue
out. Through the transparent skin it was quite possible to see his
bones. He seemed far older also, almost decrepit, Formerly his
eyes cast glances ever filled with disquiet and ill-will, his watchful
face reflected constant alarm and uncertainty; now his face had an
expression of pain, but it was as mild and calm as faces of the
sleeping or the dead. Perhaps remembrance of that thief on the
cross whom Christ had forgiven lent him confidence; perhaps,
also, he said in his soul to the merciful God,--

"O Lord, I bit like a venomous worm; but all my life I was
unfortunate. I was famishing from hunger, people trampled on me,
beat me, jeered at me. I was poor and very unhappy, and now they
put me to torture and nail me to a cross; but Thou, O Merciful, wilt
not reject me in this hour!" Peace descended evidently into his
crushed heart. No one laughed, for there was in that crucified man
something so calm, he seemed so old, so defenceless, so weak,
calling so much for pity with his lowliness, that each one asked
himself unconsciously how it was possible to torture and nail to
crosses men who would die soon in any case. The crowd was
silent. Among the Augustians Vcstinius, bending to right and left,
whispered in a terrified voice, "See how they die!" Others were
looking for the bear, wishing the spectacle to end at the earliest.

The bear came into the arena at last, and, swaying from side to
side a head which hung low, he looked around from beneath his
forehead, as if thinking of something or seeking something. At last
he saw the cross and the naked body. He approached it, and stood
on his hind legs; but after a moment he dropped again on his
fore-paws, and sitting under the cross began to growl, as if in his
heart of a beast pity for that remnant of a man had made itself
heard.

Cries were heard from Circus slaves urging on the bear, but the
people were silent.

Meanwhile Chilo raised his head with slow motion, and for a time
moved his eyes over the audience. At last his glance rested
somewhere on the highest rows of the amphitheatre; his breast
moved with more life, and something happened which caused
wonder and astonishment. That face became bright with a smile; a
ray of light, as it were, encircled that forehead; his eyes were
uplifted before death, and after a while two great tears which had
risen between the lids flowed slowly down his face.

And he died.

At that same moment a resonant manly voice high up under the
velarium exclaimed, --

"Peace to the martyrs!"

Deep silence reigned in the amphitheatre.

Chapter VIII

AFTER the spectacle in Caesar's gardens the prisons were emptied
considerably. It is true that victims suspected of the Oriental
superstition were seized yet and imprisoned, but pursuit brought in
fewer and fewer persons, -- barely enough for coming exhibitions,
which were to follow quickly. People were sated with blood; they
showed growing weariness, and increasing alarm because of the
unparalleled conduct of the condemned. Fears like those of the
superstitious Vestinius seized thousands of people. Among the
crowds tales more and more wonderful were related of the
vengefulness of the Christian God. Prison typhus, which had
spread through the city, increased the general dread. The number
of funerals was evident, and it was repeated from ear to ear that
fresh piacula were needed to mollify the unknown god. Offerings
were made in the temples to Jove and Libitina. At last, in spite of
every effort of Tigellinus and his assistants, the opinion kept
spreading that the city had been burned at command of Caesar, and
that the Christians were suffering innocently.

But for this very reason Nero and Tigellinus were untiring in
persecution. To calm the multitude, fresh orders were issued to
distribute wheat, wine, and olives. To relieve owners, new rules
were published to facilitate the building of houses; and others
touching width of streets and materials to be used in building so as
to avoid fires in future. Caesar himself attended sessions of the
Senate, and counselled with the "fathers" on the good of the people
and the city; but not a shadow of favor fell on the doomed. The
ruler of the world was anxious, above all, to fix in people's minds a
conviction that such merciless punishments could strike only the
guilty. In the Senate no voice was heard on behalf of the
Christians, for no one wished to offend Caesar; and besides, those
who looked farther into the future insisted that the foundations of
Roman rule could not stand against the new faith.

The dead and the dying were given to their relatives, as Roman
law took no vengeance on the dead. Vinicius received a certain
solace from the thought that if Lygia died he would bury her in his
family tomb, and rest near her. At that time he had no hope of
rescuing her; half separated from life, he was himself wholly
absorbed in Christ, and dreamed no longer of any union except an
eternal one. His faith had become simply boundless; for it eternity
seemed something incomparably truer and more real than the
fleeting life which he had lived up to that time. His heart was
overflowing with concentrated enthusiasm. Though yet alive, he
had changed into a being almost immaterial, which desiring
complete liberation for itself desired it also for another. He
imagined that when free he and Lygia would each take the other's
hand and go to heaven, where Christ would bless them, and let
them live in light as peaceful and boundless as the light of dawn.
He merely implored Christ to spare Lygia the torments of the
Circus, and let her fall asleep calmly in prison; he felt with
perfect certainty that he himself would die at the same time. In
view of the sea of blood which had been shed, he did not even
think it permitted to hope that she alone would be spared. He had
heard from Peter and Paul that they, too, must die as martyrs. The
sight of Chilo on the cross had convinced him that even a martyr's
death could be sweet; hence he wished it for Lygia and himself as
the change of an evil, sad, and oppressive fate for a better.

At times he bad a foretaste of life beyond the grave. That sadness
which hung over the souls of both was losing its former burning
bitterness, and changing gradually into a kind of trans-terrestrial,
calm abandon to the will of God. Vinicius, who formerly had
toiled against the current, had struggled and tortured himself,
yielded now to the stream, believing that it would bear him to
eternal calm. He divined, too, that Lygia, as well as he, was
preparing for death, -- that, in spite of the prison walls separating
them, they were advancing together; and he smiled at that thought
as at happiness.

In fact, they were advancing with as much agreement as if they had
exchanged thoughts every day for a long time. Neither had Lygia
any desire, any hope, save the hope of a life beyond the grave.
Death was presented to her not only as a liberation from the
terrible walls of the prison, from the hands of Caesar and
Tigellinus, -- not only as liberation, but as the hour of her marriage
to Vinicius. In view of this unshaken certainty, all else lost
importance. After death would come her happiness, which was
even earthly, so that she waited for it also as a betrothed waits for
the wedding-day.

And that immense current of faith, which swept away from life
and bore beyond the grave thousands of those first confessors, bore
away Ursus also. Neither had he in his heart been resigned to
Lygia's death; but when day after day through the prison walls
came news of what was happening in the amphitheatres and the
gardens, when death seemed the common, inevitable lot of all
Christians and also their good, higher than all mortal conceptions
of happiness, he did not dare to pray to Christ to deprive Lygia of
that happiness or to delay it for long years. In his simple barbarian
soul he thought, besides, that more of those heavenly delights
would belong to the daughter of the Lygian chief, that she would
have more of them than would a whole crowd of simple ones to
whom he himself belonged, and that in eternal glory she would sit
nearer to the "Lamb" than would others. He had heard, it is true,
that before God men are equal; but a conviction was lingering at
the bottom of his soul that the daughter of a leader, and besides of
a leader of all the Lygians, was not the same as the first slave one
might meet. He hoped also that Christ would let him continue to
serve her. His one secret wish was to die on a cross as the "Lamb"
died. But this seemed a happiness so great that he hardly dared to
pray for it, though he knew that in Rome even the worst criminals
were crucified. He thought that surely he would be condemned to
die under the teeth of wild beasts; and this was his one sorrow.
From childhood he had lived in impassable forests, amid continual
hunts, in which, thanks to his superhuman strength, he was famous
among the Lygians even before he had grown to manhood. This,
occupation had become for him so agreeable that later, when in
Rome, and forced to live without hunting, he went to vivaria and
amphitheatres just to look at beasts known and unknown to him.
The sight of these always roused in the man an irresistible desire
for struggle and killing; so now he feared in his soul that on
meeting them in the amphitheatre he would be attacked by
thoughts unworthy of a Christian, whose duty it was to die piously
and patiently. But in this he committed himself to Christ, and
found other and more agreeable thoughts to comfort him. Hearing
that the "Lamb" had declared war against the powers of hell and
evil spirits with which the Christian faith connected all pagan
divinities, he thought that in this war he might serve the "Lamb"
greatly, and serve better than others, for he could not help
believing that his soul was stronger than the souls of other martyrs.
Finally, he prayed whole days, rendered service to prisoners,
helped overseers, and comforted his queen, who complained at
times that in her short life she had not been able to do so many
good deeds as the renowned Tabitha of whom Peter the Apostle
had told her. Even the prison guards, who feared the terrible
strength of this giant, since neither bars nor chains could restrain
it,'came to love him at last for his mildness. Amazed at his good
temper,'aethey asked more than once what its cause was. He spoke
with such firm certainty of the life waiting after death for him, that
they listened with surprise, seeing for the first time that happiness
might penetrate a dungeon which; sunlight could not reach. And
when he urged them to believe in the "Lamb," it occurred to more
than one of those people that his own service was the service of a
slave, his own life the life of an unfortunate; and he fell to thinking
over his evil fate, the only end to which was death.

But death brought new fear, and promised nothing beyond; while
that giant and that maiden, who was like a flower cast on the straw
of the prison, went toward it with delight, as toward the gates of
happiness.

Chapter LXIV

ONE evening Scevinus, a Senator, visited Petronius and began a
long conversation, touching the grievous times in which they were
living, and also touching Caesar. He spoke so openly that
Petronius, though his friend, began to be cautious. Scevinus
complained that the world was living madly and unjustly, that all
must end in some catastrophe more dreadful still than the burning
of Rome. He said that even Augustians were dissatisfied; that
Fenius Rufus, second prefect of the pretorians, endured with the
greatest effort the vile orders of Tigellinus; and that all Seneca's
relatives were driven to extremes by Caesar's conduct as well
toward his old master as toward Lucan. Finally, he began to hint of
the dissatisfaction of the people, and even of the pretorians, the
greater part of whom had been won by Fenius Rufus.
+
"Why dost thou say this?" inquired Petronius.

"Out of care for Caesar," said Scevinus. "I have a distant relative
among the pretorians, also Scevinus; through him I know what
takes place in the camp. Disaffection is growing there also;
Caligula, knowest thou, was mad too, and see what happened.
Cassius Chaerea appeared. That was a dreadful deed, and surely
there is no one among us to praise it; still Chaaerea freed the world
of a monster."

"Is thy meaning as follows: 'I do not praise Chaerea, but he was a
perfect man, and would that the gods had given us as many such as
possible'?" inquired Petronius.

But Scevinus changed the conversation, and began all at once to
praise Piso, exalting his family, his nobility of mind, his
attachment to his wife, and, finally, his intellect, his calmness, and
his wonderful gift of winning people.

"Caesar is childless," said he, "and all see his successor in Piso.
Doubtless, too, every man would help him with whole soul to gain
power. Fenius Rufus loves him; the relatives of Annzus are
devoted to him altogether. Plautius Lateranus and Tullius Senecio
would spring into fire for him; as would Natalis, and Subrius
Flavius, and Sulpicius Asper, and Afranius Quinetianus, and even
Vestinius."

"From this last man not much will result to Piso," replied
Petronius. "Vestinius is afraid of his own shadow."

"Vestinius fears dreams and spirits," answered Scevinus, "but he is
a practical man, whom people wish wisely to make consul. That in
his soul he is opposed to persecuting Christians, thou shouldst not
take ill of him, for it concerns thee too that this madness should
cease."

"Not me, but Vinicius," answered Petronius. "Out of concern for
Vinicius,

I should like to save a certain maiden; but I cannot, for I have
fallen out of favor with Ahenobarbus."

"How is that? Dost thou not notice that Caesar is approaching thee
again, and beginning to talk with thee? And I will tell thee why. He
is preparing again for Achaea, where he is to sing songs in Greek
of his own composition. He is burning for that journey; but also he
trembles at thought of the cynical genius of the Greeks. He
imagines that either the greatest triumph may meet him or the
greatest failure. He needs good counsel, and he knows that no one
can give it better than thou. This is why thou art returning to
favor."

"Lucan might take my place."

"Bronzebeard hates Lucan, and in his soul has written down death
for the poet. He is merely seeking a pretext, f or he seeks pretexts
always."

"By Castor!" said Petronius, "that may be. But I might have still
another way for a quick return to favor."

"What?"

"To repeat to Bronzebeard what thou hast told me just now."

"I have said nothing!" cried Scevinus, with alarm.

Petronius placed his hand upon the Senator's shoulder. "Thou hast
called Caesar a madman, thou hast foreseen the heirship of Piso,
and hast said, 'Lucan understands that there is need to hasten.'
What wouldst thou hasten, carissime?"

Scevinus grew pale, and for a moment each looked into the eyes
of the other.

"Thou wilt not repeat!"

"By the hips of Kypris, I will not! How well thou knowest me! No;
I will not repeat. I have heard nothing, and, moreover, I wish to
hear nothing. Dost understand? Life is too short to make any
undertaking worth the while. I beg thee only to visit Tigellinus
to-day, and talk with him as long as thou hast with me of whatever
may please thee."

"Why?"

"So that should Tigellinus ever say to me, 'Scevinus was with thee,'
I might answer, 'He was with thee, too, that very day.'"

Scevinus, when he heard this, broke the ivory cane which he had in
his hand, and said, -- "May the evil fall on this stick! I shall be with
Tigellinus to-day, and later at Nerva's feast. Thou, too, wilt be
there? In every case till we meet in the amphitheatre, where the
last of the Christians will appear the day after tomorrow. Till we
meet!"

"After to-morrow!" repeated Petronius, when alone. "There is no
time to lose. Ahenobarbus will need me really in Achaea; hence he
may count with me."

And he determined to try the last means.

In fact, at Nerva's feast Caesar himself asked that Petronius recline
oaeposite, for he wished to speak with the arbiter about Achaea
and the cities in which he might appear with hopes of the greatest
success. He cared most for the Athenians, whom he feared. Other
Augustians listened to this conversation with attention, so as to
seize crumbs of the arbiter's opinions, and give them out later on
as their own.

"It seems to me that I have not lived up to this time," said Nero,
"and that my birth will come only in Greece."

"Thou wilt be born to new glory and immortality," answered
Petronius.

"I trust that this is true, and that Apollo will not seem jealous. If I
return in triumph, I will offer him such a hecatomb as no god has
had so far."

Scevinus fell to repeating the lines of Horace: --

"Sic te diva potens Cypri,
Sic fratres Helenae, lucida sidera,
Ventorumque regat Pater--"

"The vessel is ready at Naples," said Caesar. "I should like to go
even tomorrow."

At this Petronius rose, and, looking straight into Nero's eyes,
said,--

"Permit me, O divinity, to celebrate a wedding-feast, to which I
shall invite thee before others."

"A wedding-feast! What wedding-feast?" inquired Nero.

"That of Vinicius with thy hostage the daughter of the Lygian king.
She is in prison at present, it is true; but as a hostage she is not
subject to imprisonment, and, secondly, thou thyself hast permitted
Vinicius to marry her; and as thy sentences, like those of Zeus, are
unchangeable, thou wilt give command to free her from prison,
and I will give her to thy favorite."

The cool blood and calm self-possession with which Petronius
spoke disturbed Nero, who was disturbed whenever any one spoke
in that fashion to him.

"I know," said he, dropping his eyes. "I have thought of her and of
that giant who killed Croton."

"In that case both are saved," answered Petronius, calmly.

But Tigellinus came to the aid of his master: "She is in prison by
the will of Caesar; thou thyself hast said, O Petronius, that his
sentences are unchangeable."

All present, knowing the history of Vinicius and Lygia, understood
perfectly what the question was; hence they were silent, curious as
to the end of the conversation.

"She is in prison against the will of Caesar and through thy error,
through thy ignorance of the law of nations," said Petronius, with
emphasis. "Thou art a naive man, Tigellinus; but even thou wilt
not assert that she burnt Rome, and if thou wert to do so, Caesar
would not believe thee."

But Nero had recovered and begun to half close his near-sighted
eyes with an expression of indescribable malice.

"Petronius is right," said he, after a while.

Tigellinus looked at him with amazement.

"Petronius is right," repeated Nero; "to-morrow the gates of the
prison will be open to her, and of the marriage feast we will speak
the day after at the amphitheatre."

"I have lost again," thought Petronius.

When he had returned home, he was so certain that the end of
Lygia's life had come that he sent a trusty freedman to the
amphitheatre to bargain with the chief of the spoliarium for the
delivery of her body, since he wished to give it to Vinicius.

Chapter LXV

Evening exhibitions, rare up to that period and given only
exceptionally, became common in Nero's time, both in the Circus
and amphitheatre. The Augustians liked them, frequently because
they were followed by feasts and drinking-bouts which lasted till
daylight. Though the people were sated already with
blood-spilling, still, when the news went forth that the end of the
games was approaching, and that the last of the Christians were to
die at an evening spectacle, a countless audience assembled in the
amphitheatre. The Augustians came to a man, for they understood
that it would not be a common spectacle; they knew that Caesar
had determined to make for himself a tragedy out of the suffering
of Vinicius. Tigellinus had kept secret the kind of punishment
intended for the betrothed of the young tribune; but that merely
roused general curiosity. Those who had seen Lygia at the house of
Plautius told wonders of her beauty. Others were occupied above
all with the question, would they see her really on the arena that
day; for many of those who had heard the answer given Petronius
and Nerva by Caesar explained it in two ways: some supposed
simply that Nero would give or perhaps had given the maiden to
Vinicius; they remembered that she was a hostage, hence free to
worship whatever divinities she liked, and that the law of nations
did not permit her punishment.

Uncertainty, waiting, and curiosity had mastered all spectators.
Caesar arrived earlier than usual; and immediately at his coming
people whispered that something uncommon would happen, for
besides Tigellinus and Vatinius, Caesar had with him Cassius, a
centurion of enormous size and gigantic strength, whom he
summoned only when he wished to have a defender at his side, --
for example, when he desired night expeditions to the Subura,
where he arranged the amusement called "sagatio," which
consisted in tossing on a soldier's mantle maidens met on the way.
It was noted also that certain precautions had been taken in the
amphitheatre itself. The pretorian guards were increased;
command over them was held, not by a centurion, but by the
tribune Subrius Flavius, known hitherto for blind attachment to
Nero. It was understood, then, that Caesar wished in every case to
guard himself against an outburst of despair from Vinicius, and
curiosity rose all the more.

Every eye was turned with strained gaze to the place where the
unfortunate lover was sitting. He was exceedingly pale, and his
forehead was covered with drops of sweat; he was in as much
doubt as were other spectators, but alarmed to the lowest depth of
his soul. Petronius knew not what would happen; he was silent,
except that, while turning from Nerva, he asked Vinicius whether
he was ready for everything, and next, whether he would remain at
the spectacle. To both questions Vinicius answered "Yes," but a
shudder passed through his whole body; he divined that Petronius
did not ask without reason. For some time he had lived with only
half his life, --he had sunk in death, and reconciled himself to
Lygia's death, since for both it was to be liberation and marriage;
but he learned now that it was one thing to think of the last
moment when it was distant as of a quiet dropping asleep, and
another to look at the torment of a person dearer to one than life.
All sufferings endured formerly rose in him anew. Despair, which
had been set at rest, began again to cry in his soul; the former
desire to save Lygia at any price seized him anew. Beginning with
the morning, he had tried to go to the cunicula to be sure that she
was there; but the pretorians watched every entrance, and orders
were so strict that the soldiers, even those whom he knew, would
not be softened by prayers or gold. It seemed to the tribune that
uncertainty would kill him before he should see the spectacle.
Somewhere at the bottom of his heart the hope was still throbbing,
that perhaps Lygia was not in the amphitheatre, that his fears were
groundless. At times he seized on this hope with all his strength.
He said in his soul that Christ might take her to Himself out of the
prison, but could not permit her torture in the Circus. Formerly he
was resigned to the divine will in everything; now, when repulsed
from the doors of the cunicula, he returned to his place in the
amphitheatre, and when he learned, from the curious glances
turned on him, that the most dreadful suppositions might be true,
he began to implore in his soul with passionateness almost
approaching a threat. "Thou canttae" raepcatcd he, clenching his
fists convulsively, "Thou canst!" Hitherto he had not supposed that
that moment when present would be so terrible. Now, without
clear consciousness of what was happening in his mind, he had the
feeling that if he should see Lygia tortured, his love for God would
be turned to hatred, and his faith to despair. But he was amazed at
the feeling, for he feared to offend Christ, whom he was imploring
for mercy and miracles. He implored no longer for her life; he
wished merely that she should die before they brought her to the
arena, and from the abyss of his pain he repeated in spirt-: "Do not
refuse even this, and I will love Thee still more than hitherto." And
then his thoughts raged as a sea torn by a whirlwind. A desire for
blood and vengeance was roused in him. He was seized by a mad
wish to rush at Nero and stifle him there in presence of all the
spectators; but he felt that desire to be a new offence against
Christ, and a breach of His command. To his head flew at times
flashes of hope that everything before which his soul was
trembling would be turned aside by an almighty and merciful
hand; but they were quenched at once, as if in measureless sorrow
that He who could destroy that Circus with one word and save
Lygia had abandoned her, though she trusted in Him and loved
Him with all the strength of her pure heart. And he thought,
moreover, that she was lying there in that dark place, weak,
defenceless, deserted, abandoned to the whim or disfavor of brutal
guards, drawing her last breath, perhaps, while he had to wait,
helpless, in that dreadful amphitheatre, without knowing what
torture was prepared for her, or what he would witness in a
moment. Finally, as a man falling over a precipice grasps at
everything which grows on the edge of it, so did he grasp with both
hands at the thought that faith of itself could save her. That one
method remained! Peter had said that faith could move the earth to
its foundations.