John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1600"

Plato - "Laws"

J.M. Barrie - "The Little Minister"

Meriwether Lewis et al - "The Journals of Lewis and Clark"

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Books: Antonina

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Antonina




Amid the confusion of voices around him, that word 'blockade' alone
reached the Pagan's ear. It brought with it a flood of emotions that
overwhelmed him. All that he saw, all that he heard, connected itself
imperceptibly with that expression. a sudden darkness, neither to be
dissipated nor escaped, seemed to obscure his faculties in an instant.
He struggled mechanically through the crowd, descended the steps of the
ramparts, and returned to the solitary spot where he had first beheld
the woman and the child.

The city was blockaded! The Goths were bent then, on obtaining a peace
and not on achieving a conquest! The city was blockaded! It was no
error of the ignorant multitude--he had seen with his own eyes the tents
and positions of the enemy, he had heard the soldiers on the wall
discoursing on the admirable disposition of Alaric's forces, on the
impossibility of obtaining the smallest communication with the
surrounding country, on the vigilant watch that had been set over the
navigation of the Tiber. There was no doubt on the matter--the
barbarians had determined on a blockade!

There was even less uncertainty upon the results which would be produced
by this unimaginable policy of the Goths--the city would be saved! Rome
had not scrupled in former years to purchase the withdrawal of all
enemies from her distant provinces; and now that the very centre of her
glory, the very pinnacle of her declining power, was threatened with
sudden and unexpected ruin, she would lavish on the Goths the treasures
of the whole empire, to bribe them to peace and to tempt them to
retreat. The Senate might possibly delay the necessary concessions,
from hopes of assistance that would never be realised; but sooner or
later the hour of negotiation would arrive; northern rapacity would be
satisfied with southern wealth; and in the very moment when it seemed
inevitable, the ruin from which the Pagan revolution was to derive its
vigorous source, would be diverted from the churches of Rome.

Could the old renown of the Roman name have retained so much of its
ancient influence as to daunt the hardy Goths, after they had so
successfully penetrated the empire as to have reached the walls of its
vaunted capital? Could Alaric have conceived so exaggerated an idea of
the strength of the forces in the city as to despair, with all his
multitudes, of storming it with success? It could not be otherwise! No
other consideration could have induced the barbarian general to abandon
such an achievement as the destruction of Rome. With the chance of an
assault the prospects of Paganism had brightened--with the certainty of
a blockade, they sunk immediately into disheartening gloom!


Filled with these thoughts, Ulpius paced backwards and forwards in his
solitary retreat, utterly abandoned by the exaltation of feeling which
had restored to his faculties in the morning, the long-lost vigour of
their former youth. Once more, he experienced the infirmities of his
age; once more he remembered the miseries that had made his existence
one unending martyrdom; once more he felt the presence of his ambition
within him, like a judgment that he was doomed to welcome, like a curse
that he was created to cherish. To say that his sensations at this
moment were those of the culprit who hears the order for his execution
when he had been assured of a reprieve, is to convey but a faint idea of
the fierce emotions of rage, grief, and despair, that now united to rend
the Pagan's heart.

Overpowered with weariness both of body and mind, he flung himself down
under the shade of some bushes that clothed the base of the wall above
him. As he lay there--so still in his heavy lassitude that life itself
seemed to have left him--one of the long green lizards, common to Italy,
crawled over his shoulder. He seized the animal--doubtful for the
moment whether it might not be of the poisonous species--and examined
it. At the first glance he discovered that it was of the harmless order
of its race, and would have flung it carelessly from him, but for
something in its appearance which, in the wayward irritability of his
present mood, he felt a strange and sudden pleasure in contemplating.

Through its exquisitely marked and transparent skin he could perceive
the action of the creature's heart, and saw that it was beating
violently, in the agony of fear caused to the animal by its imprisonment
in his hand. As he looked on it, and thought how continually a being so
timid must be thwarted in its humble anxieties, in its small efforts, in
its little journeys from one patch of grass to another, by a hundred
obstacles, which, trifles though they might be to animals of a higher
species, were yet of fatal importance to creatures constituted like
itself, he began to find an imperfect, yet remarkable analogy between
his own destiny and that of this small unit of creation. He felt that,
in its petty sphere, the short life of the humble animal before him must
have been the prey of crosses and disappointments, as serious to it, as
the more severed and destructive afflictions of which he, in his
existence, had been the victim; and, as he watched the shadow-like
movement of the little fluttering heart of the lizard, he experienced a
cruel pleasure in perceiving that there were other beings in the
creation, even down to the most insignificant, who inherited a part of
his misery, and suffered a portion of his despair.

Ere long, however, his emotions took a sterner and a darker hue. The
sight of the animal wearied him, and he flung it contemptuously aside.
It disappeared in the direction of the ramparts; and almost at the same
moment he heard a slight sound, resembling the falling of several minute
particles of brick or light stone, which seemed to come from the wall
behind him.

That such a noise should proceed from so massive a structure appeared
unaccountable. He rose, and, parting the bushes before him, advanced
close to the surface of the lofty wall. To his astonishment, he found
that the brickwork had in many places so completely mouldered away, that
he could move it easily with his fingers. The cause of the trifling
noise that he had heard was now fully explained: hundreds of lizards
had made their homes between the fissures of the bricks; the animal that
he had permitted to escape had taken refuge in one of these cavities,
and in the hurry of its flight had detached several of the loose
crumbling fragments that surrounded its hiding-place.

No content, however, with the discovery he had already made, he retired
a little, and, looking stedfastly up through some trees which in this
particular place grew at the foot of the wall, he saw that its surface
was pierced in many places by great irregular rifts, some of which
extended nearly to its whole height. In addition to this, he perceived
that the mass of the structure at one particular point, leaned
considerably out of the perpendicular. Astounded at what he beheld, he
took a stick from the ground, and inserting it in one of the lowest and
smallest of the cracks, easily succeeded in forcing it entirely into the
wall, part of which seemed to be hollow, and part composed of the same
rotten brickwork which had at first attracted his attention.


It was now evident that the whole structure, over a breadth of several
yards, had been either weakly and carelessly built, or had at some
former period suffered a sudden and violent shock. He left the stick in
the wall to mark the place; and was about to retire, when he heard the
footstep of the sentinel on the rampart immediately above. Suddenly
cautious, though from what motive he would have been at that moment
hardly able to explain, he remained in the concealment of the trees and
bushes, until the guard had passed onward; then he cautiously emerged
from the place; and, retiring to some distance, fell into a train of
earnest and absorbing thought.

To account to the reader for the phenomenon which now engrossed the
Pagan's attention, it will be necessary to make a brief digression to
the history of the walls of Rome.

The circumference of the first fortifications of the city, built by
Romulus, was thirteen miles. The greater part, however, of this large
area was occupied by fields and gardens, which it was the object of the
founder of the empire to preserve for arable purposes, from the
incursions of the different enemies by whom he was threatened from
without. As Rome gradually increased in size, its walls were
progressively enlarged and altered by subsequent rulers. But it was not
until the reign of the Emperor Aurelian (A.D. 270), that any
extraordinary or important change was effected in the defences of the
city. That potentate commenced the erection of walls, twenty-one miles
in circumference, which were finally completed in the reign of Probus
(A.D. 276), were restored by Belisarius (A.D. 537), and are to be seen
in detached portions, in the fortifications of the modern city, to the
present day.

At the date of our story, then (A.D. 408), the walls remained precisely
as they had been constructed in the reigns of Aurelian and Probus. They
were for the most part made of brick; and in a few places, probably, a
sort of soft sandstone might have been added to the pervading material.
At several points in their circumference, and particularly in the part
behind the Pincian Hill, these walls were built in arches, forming deep
recesses, and occasionally disposed in double rows. The method of
building employed in their erection, was generally that mentioned by
Vitruvius, in whose time it originated, as 'opus reticulatum'.

The 'opus reticulatum' was composed of small bricks (or stones) set
together on their angles, instead of horizontally, and giving the
surface of a wall the appearance of a sort of solid network. This was
considered by some architects of antiquity a perishable mode of
construction; and Vitruvius asserts that some buildings where he had
seen it used, had fallen down. From the imperfect specimens of it which
remain in modern times, it would be difficult to decide upon its merits.
That it was assuredly insufficient to support the weight of the bank of
the Pincian Mount, which rose immediately behind it, in the solitary
spot described some pages back, is still made evident by the appearance
of the wall at that part of the city, which remains in modern times bent
out of the perpendicular, and cracked in some places almost from top to
bottom. This ruin is now known to the present race of Italians, under
the expressive title of 'Il Muro Torto' or, The Crooked Wall.

We may here observe that it is extremely improbable that the existence
of this natural breach in the fortifications of Rome was noticed, or if
noticed, regarded with the slightest anxiety or attention by the
majority of the careless and indolent inhabitants, at the period of the
present romance. It is supposed to have been visible as early as the
time of Aurelian, but is only particularly mentioned by Procopius, an
historian of the sixth century, who relates that Belisarius, in
strengthening the city against a siege of the Goths, attempted to repair
this weak point in the wall, but was hindered in his intended labour by
the devout populace, who declared that it was under the peculiar
protection of St. Peter, and that it would be consequently impious to
meddle with it. The general submitted without remonstrance to the
decision of the inhabitants, and found no cause afterwards to repent of
his facility of compliance; for, to use the translated words of the
writer above-mentioned, 'During the siege neither the enemy nor the
Romans regarded this place.' It is to be supposed that so extraordinary
an event as this, gave the wall that sacred character, which deterred
subsequent rulers from attempting its repair; which permitted it to
remain crooked and rent through the convulsions of the middle ages; and
which still preserves it, to attest the veracity of historians, by
appealing to the antiquarian curiosity of the traveller of modern times.


We now return to Ulpius. It is a peculiarity observable in the
characters of men living under the ascendancy of one ruling idea, that
they intuitively distort whatever attracts their attention in the outer
world, into a connection more or less intimate with the single object of
their mental contemplation. since the time when he had been exiled from
the Temple, the Pagan's faculties had, unconsciously to himself, acted
solely in reference to the daring design which it was the business of
his whole existence to entertain. Influenced, therefore, by this
obliquity of moral feeling, he had scarcely reflected on the discovery
that he had just made at the base of the city wall, ere his mind
instantly reverted to the ambitious meditations which had occupied it in
the morning; and the next moment, the first dawning conception of a bold
and perilous project began to absorb his restless thoughts.

He reflected on the peculiarities and position of the wall before him.
Although the widest and most important of the rents which he had
observed in it, existed too near the rampart to be reached without the
assistance of a ladder, there were others as low as the ground, which he
knew, by the result of the trial he had already made, might be
successfully and immensely widened by the most ordinary exertion and
perseverance. The interior of the wall, if judged by the condition of
the surface, could offer no insuperable obstacles to an attempt at
penetration so partial as to be limited to a height and width of a few
feet. The ramparts, from their position between two guard-houses, would
be unencumbered by an inquisitive populace. The sentinel, within the
limits of whose allotted watch it happened to fall, would, when night
came on, be the only human being likely to pass the spot; and at such an
hour his attention must necessarily be fixed--in the circumstances under
which the city was now placed--on the prospect beyond, rather than on
the ground below and behind him. It seemed, therefore, almost a matter
of certainty, that a cautious man, labouring under cover of the night,
might pursue whatever investigations he pleased at the base of the wall.

He examined the ground where he now stood. Nothing could be more lonely
than its present appearance. The private gardens on the hill above it
shut out all communication from that quarter. It could only be
approached by the foot-path that ran round the Pincian Mount, and along
the base of the walls. In the state of affairs now existing in the
city, it was not probable that any one would seek this solitary place,
whence nothing could be seen, and where little could be heard, in
preference to mixing with the spirit-stirring confusion in the streets,
or observing the Gothic encampment from such positions on the ramparts
as were easily attainable to all. In addition to the secresy offered by
the loneliness of this patch of ground to whatever employments were
undertaken on it, was the further advantage afforded by the trees and
thickets which covered its lower end, and which would effectually screen
an intruder, during the darkness of night, from the most penetrating
observation directed from the wall above.

Reflecting thus, he doubted not that a cunning and determined man might
with impunity so far widen any one of the inferior breaches in the lower
part of the wall as to make a cavity (large enough to admit a human
figure) that should pierce to its outer surface, and afford that liberty
of departing from the city and penetrating the Gothic camp which the
closed gates now denied to all the inhabitants alike. To discover the
practicability of such an attempt as this was, to a mind filled with
such aspirations as the Pagan's, to determine irrevocably on its
immediate execution. He resolved as soon as night approached to begin
his labours on the wall; to seek--if the breach were made good, and the
darkness favoured him--the tent of Alaric; and once arrived there, to
acquaint the Gothic King with the weakness of the materials for defence
within the city, and dilapidated condition of the fortifications below
the Pincian Mount, insisting, as the condition of his treachery, on an
assurance from the barbarian leader (which he doubted not would be
gladly and instantly accorded) of the destruction of the Christian
churches, the pillage of the Christian possessions, and the massacre of
the Christian priests.


He retired cautiously from the lonely place that had now become the
centre of his new hopes; and entering the streets of the city, proceeded
to provide himself with an instrument that would facilitate his
approaching labours, and food that would give him strength to prosecute
his intended efforts, unthreatened by the hindrance of fatigue. As he
thought on the daring treachery of his project, his morning's exultation
began to return to him again. All his previous attempts to organise the
restoration of Paganism sunk into sudden insignificance before his
present design. His defence of the Temple of Serapis, his conspiracy at
Alexandria, his intrigue with Vetranio, were the efforts of a man; but
this projected destruction of the priests, the churches, and the
treasures of a whole city, through the agency of a mighty army, moved by
the unaided machinations of a single individual, would be the dazzling
achievement of a god!

The hours loitered slowly onward. The sun waned in the gorgeous heaven,
and set, surrounded by red and murky clouds. Then came silence and
darkness. The Gothic watch-fires flamed one by one into the dusky air.
The guards were doubled at the different posts. The populace were
driven from the ramparts, and the fortifications of the great city
echoed to no sound now but the tramp of the restless sentinel, or the
clash of arms from the distant guard-houses that dotted the long line of
the lofty walls.

It was then that Ulpius, passing cautiously along the least-frequented
streets, gained unnoticed the place of his destination. A thick vapour
lay over the lonely and marshy spot. Nothing was now visible from it
but the dim, uncertain outline of the palaces above, and the mass, so
sunk in obscurity that it looked like a dark layer of mist itself, of
the rifted fortifications. A smile of exultation passed over the
Pagan's countenance, as he perceived the shrouding and welcome thickness
of the atmosphere. Groping his way softly through the thickets, he
arrived at the base of the wall. For some time he passed slowly along
it, feeling the width of the different rents wherever he could stretch
his hand. At length he paused at one more extensive than the rest, drew
from its concealment in his garments a thick bar of iron sharpened at
one end, and began to labour at the breach.

Chance had led him to the place best adapted to his purpose. The ground
he stood on was only encumbered close to the wall by rank weeds and low
thickets, and was principally composed of damp, soft turf. The bricks,
therefore, as he carefully detached them, made no greater noise in
falling than the slight rustling caused by their sudden contact with the
boughs through which they descended. Insignificant as this sound was,
it aroused the apprehension of the wary Pagan. He laid down his iron
bar, and removed the thickets by dragging them up, or breaking them at
the roots, until he had cleared a space of some feet in extent before
the base of the wall. He then returned to his toilsome task, and with
hands bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the thorns he had grasped in
removing the thickets continued his labour at the brick-work. He
pursued his employment with perfect impunity; the darkness covered him
from observation; no one disturbed him by approaching the solitary scene
of his operations; and of the two sentinels who were placed near the
part of the wall which was the centre of all his exertions, one remained
motionless at the most distant extremity of his post, and the other
paced restlessly backwards and forwards on the rampart, singing a wild,
rambling son about war, and women, and wine, which, whatever liberty it
might allow to his organs of perception, effectually hindered the
vigilant exercise of his faculties of hearing.

Brick after brick yielded to the vigorous and well-timed efforts of
Ulpius. He had already made a cavity, in an oblique direction, large
enough to creep through, and was preparing to penetrate still further,
when a portion of the rotten material of the interior of the wall
suddenly yielded in a mass to a chance pressure of his iron bar, and
slowly sunk down inwards into a bed which, judging by such faint sounds
as were audible at the moment, must have been partly water, and partly
marshy earth and rotten brick-work. After having first listened, to be
sure that the slight noise caused by this event had not reached the ears
or excited the suspicions of the careless sentinels, Ulpius crept into
the cavity he had made, groping his way with his bar, until he reached
the brink of a chasm, the depth of which he could not probe, and the
breadth of which he could not ascertain.


He lingered irresolute; the darkness around him was impenetrable; he
could feel toads and noisome animals crawling over his limbs. The damp
atmosphere of the place began to thrill through him to his very bones;
his whole frame trembled under the excess of his past exertions. Without
light, he could neither attempt to proceed, nor hope to discover the
size and extent of the chasm which he had partially laid open. The mist
was fast vanishing as the night advanced: it was necessary to arrive at
a resolution ere it would be too late.

He crept out of the cavity. Just as he had gained the open air, the
sentinel halted over the very spot where the Pagan stood, and paused
suddenly in his song. There was an instant's interval of silence,
during which the inmost soul of Ulpius quailed beneath an apprehension
as vivid, as that which had throbbed in the heart of the despised
lizard, whose flight had guided him to his discovery at the wall. Soon,
however, he heard the voice of the soldier calling cheerfully to his
fellow sentinel, 'Comrade, do you see the moon? She is rising to cheer
our watch!'

Nothing had been discovered!--he was still safe! But if he stayed at
the cavity till the mists faded before the moonlight, could he be
certain of preserving his security? He felt that he could not!

What mattered a night more or a night less, to such a project as his?
Months might elapse before the Goths retired from the walls. It was
better to suffer delay than to risk discovery. He determined to leave
the place, and to return on the following night provided with a lantern,
the light of which he would conceal until he entered the cavity. Once
there, it could not be perceived by the sentinels above--it would guide
him through all obstacles, preserve him through all dangers. Massive as
it was, he felt convinced that the interior of the wall was in as
ruinous a condition as the outside. Caution and perseverance were
sufficient of themselves to insure to his efforts the speediest and
completest success.

He waited until the sentinel had again betaken himself to the furthest
limits of his watch, and then softly gathering up the brushwood that lay
round him, he concealed with it the mouth of the cavity in the outer
wall, and the fragments of brick-work that had fallen on the turf
beneath. This done, he again listened, to assure himself that he had
been unobserved; then, stepping with the utmost caution, he departed by
the path that led round the slope of the Pincian Hill.

'Strength--patience--and to-morrow night!' muttered the Pagan to
himself, as he entered the streets, and congregated once more with the
citizens of Rome.


CHAPTER 11. GOISVINTHA'S RETURN.

It was morning. The sun had risen, but his beams were partially
obscured by thick heavy clouds, which scowled already over the
struggling brightness of the eastern horizon. The bustle and animation
of the new day gradually overspread the Gothic encampment in all
directions. The only tent whose curtain remained still closed, and
round which no busy crowds congregated in discussion or mingled in
labour, was that of Hermanric. By the dying embers of his watchfire
stood the young chieftain, with two warriors, to whom he appeared to be
giving some hurried directions. His countenance expressed emotions of
anxiety and discontent, which, though partially repressed while he was
in the presence of his companions, became thoroughly visible, not only
in his features, but in his manner, when they left him to watch alone
before his tent.


For some time he walked regularly backwards and forwards, looking
anxiously down the westward lines of the encampment, and occasionally
whispering to himself a hasty exclamation of doubt and impatience. With
the first breath of the new morning, the delighting meditations which
had occupied him by his watchfire during the darkness of the night had
begun to subside. And now, as the hour of her expected return gradually
approached, the image of Goisvintha banished from his mind whatever
remained of those peaceful and happy contemplation in which he had
hitherto been absorbed. The more he thought on his fatal promise--on
the nation of Antonina--on his duties to the army and the people to whom
he belonged, the more doubtful appeared to him his chance of permanently
protecting the young Roman without risking his degradation as a Goth,
and his ruin as a warrior; and the more sternly and ominously ran in his
ears the unassailable truth of Goisvintha's parting taunt--'You must
remember your promise, you cannot save her if you would!'