Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
shall reproduce the very vigor and freshness of its early age. Rome, my
mother, is now but a lifeless trunk--a dead and loathsome corpse--a new
and warmer current must be infused, or it will soon crumble into dust.'
'I grieve, Lucius, to see you lost to the good cause of your country,
and to the altars of her gods; for who can love his country, and deny
the gods who made and preserve it? But then who am I to condemn? When I
see the gods to hurl thunderbolts upon those who flout them, it will be
time enough for us mortals to assume the robes of judgment. I will hope
that farther thought will reclaim you from your truant wanderings.'
Do not imagine, Fausta, that conversations like this have the least
effect to chill the warm affections of Portia towards us both. Nature
has placed within her bosom a central heat, that not only preserves her
own warmth, but diffuses itself upon all who approach her, and changes
their affections into a likeness of her own. We speak of our differing
faiths, but love none the less. When she had paused a moment after
uttering the last words, she again turned her eye upon the statue of
Christ, and, captivated by its wondrous power, she dwelt upon it in a
manner that showed her sensibilities to be greatly moved. At length she
suddenly started, saying:
'If truth and beauty were the same thing, one need but to look upon this
and be a believer. But as in the human form and face, beauty is often
but a lie, covering over a worse deformity than any that ever disfigures
the body, so it may be here. I cannot but admire and love the beauty; it
will be wise, I suppose, not to look farther, lest the dream be
dissolved.'
'Be not afraid of that, dearest mother; I can warrant you against
disappointment. If in that marble you have the form of the outward
beauty, here, in this roll, you will find the inward moral beauty of
which it is the shrine.'
'Nay, nay, Lucius, I look no farther or deeper. I have seen too much
already.'
With these words, she arose, and we accompanied her to the portico,
where we walked, and sat, and talked of you, and Calpurnius, and
Gracchus.
Thus you perceive I have told you first of what chiefly interests
myself: now let me turn to what at this moment more than everything else
fills all heads in Rome--and that is Livia. She is the object of
universal attention, the centre of all honor. It is indescribable, the
sensation her beauty, and now added to that, her magnificence, have made
and still make in Rome. Her imperial bearing would satisfy even you; and
the splendor of her state exceeds all that has been known before. This
you may be surprised to hear, knowing what the principles of Aurelian
have been in such things; how strict he has been himself in a more than
republican simplicity, and how severe upon the extravagances and
luxuries of others, in the laws he has enacted. You must remember his
prohibition of the use of cloth of gold and of silk, among other
things--foolish laws to be suddenly promulged among so vain and corrupt
a population as this of Rome. They have been the ridicule and scorn of
rich and poor alike; of the rich, because they are so easily violated in
private, or evaded by the substitution of one article for another; of
the poor, because, being slaves in spirit, they take a slave's pride in
the trappings and state of their masters; they love not only to feel but
to see their superiority. But since the eastern expedition, the
reduction of Palmyra, and the introduction from abroad of the vast flood
of foreign luxuries which has inundated Rome and Italy itself the
principles and the habits of the Emperor have undergone a mighty
revolution. Now, the richness and costliness of his dress, the splendor
of his equipage, the gorgeousness of his furniture, cannot be made to
come up to the height of his extravagant desires. The silk which he once
denied to the former Empress for a dress, now, variously embroidered,
and of every dye, either hangs in ample folds upon the walls, or
canopies the royal bed, or lends its beauty to the cushioned seats which
everywhere, in every form of luxurious ease, invite to repose. Gold,
too, once prohibited, but now wrought into every kind of cloth, or solid
in shape of dish, or vase, or cup, or spread in sheets over the very
walls and ceilings of the palace, has rendered the traditions of Nero's
house of gold no longer fabulous. The customs of the eastern monarchs
have also elevated or perverted the ambition of Aurelian, and one after
another are taking place of former usages. He is every day more
difficult of access, and surrounds himself, his palaces, and apartments,
by guards and officers of state. In all this, as you will readily
believe, Livia is his willing companion, or rather, I should perhaps
say, his prompting and ruling genius. As without the world at her feet,
it would be impossible for her insane pride to be fully satisfied, so in
all that is now done, the Emperor still lags behind her will. But
beautifully, it can be denied by none, does she become her greatness,
and gives more lustre than she receives, to all around her. Gold is
doubly gold in her presence; and even the diamond sparkles with a new
brilliancy on her brow or sandal.
Livia is, of all women I have ever seen or known; made for a Roman
empress. I used to think so when in Palmyra, and I saw her, so often as
I did, assuming the port and air of imaginary sovereignty. And now that
I behold her filling the very place for which by nature she is most
perfectly fitted, I cannot but confess that she surpasses all I had
imagined, in the genius she displays for her great sphere, both as wife
of Aurelian, and sovereign of Rome. Her intellect shows itself stronger
than I had believed it to be, and secures for her the homage of a class
who could not be subdued by her magnificence, extraordinary as it is.
They are captivated by the brilliancy of her wit, set off by her
unequalled beauty, and, for a woman, by her rare attainments, and hover
around her as some superior being. Then for the mass of our rich and
noble, her ostentatious state and imperial presence are all that they
can appreciate, all they ask for, and more than enough to enslave them,
not only to her reasonable will, but to all her most tyrannical and
whimsical caprices. She understands already perfectly the people she is
among; and through her quick sagacity, has already risen to a power
greater than woman ever before held in Rome.
We see her often--often as ever--and when we see her, enjoy her as well.
For with all her ambition of petty rule and imposing state, she
possesses and retains a goodness of heart, that endears her to all, in
spite of her follies. Julia is still her beloved Julia, and I her good
friend Lucius; but it is to Zenobia that she attaches herself most
closely; and from her she draws most largely of the kind of inspiration
which she covets. It is to her, too, I believe, that we may trace much
of the admirable wisdom--for such it must be allowed to be--with which
Livia adorns the throne of the world.
Her residence, when Aurelian is absent from the city, is near us in the
palace upon the Palatine; but when he is here, it is more remote, in the
enchanted gardens of Sallust. This spot, first ennobled by the presence
of the great historian, to whose hand and eye of taste the chief
beauties of the scene are to be traced, then afterward selected by
Vespasian as an imperial villa, is now lately become the chosen retreat
of Aurelian. It has indeed lost a part of its charms since it has been
embraced, by the extension of the new walls, within the limits of the
city; but enough remain to justify abundantly the preference of a line
of emperors. It is there that we see Livia most as we have been used to
do, and where are forcibly brought to our minds the hours passed by us
so instructively in the gardens of Zenobia. Often Aurelian is of our
company, and throws the light of his strong intellect upon whatever
subject it is we discuss. He cannot, however, on such occasions,
thoroughly tame to the tone of gentle society, his imperious and almost
rude nature. The peasant of Pannonia will sometimes break through, and
usurp the place of emperor; but it is only for a moment; for it is
pleasing to note how the presence of Livia quickly restores him to
himself; when, with more grace than one would look for, he acknowledges
his fault, ascribing it sportively to the fogs of the German marshes. It
amuses us to observe the power which the polished manners and courtly
ways of Livia exercise over Aurelian, whose ambition seems now as
violently bent upon subduing the world by the displays of taste, grace,
and magnificence, as it once was to do it--and is still indeed--by force
of arms. Having astonished mankind in one way, he would astonish them
again in quite another; and to this later task his whole nature is
consecrated with as entire a devotion as ever it was to the other. Livia
is in all these things his model and guide; and never did soldier learn
to catch, from the least motion or sign of the general, his will, than
does he, to the same end, study the countenance and the voice of the
Empress. Yet is there, as you will believe knowing the character of
Aurelian as well as you do, nothing mean nor servile in this. He is ever
himself, and beneath this transparent surface, artificially assumed, you
behold, feature for feature, the lineaments of the fierce soldier
glaring forth in all their native wildness and ferocity. Yet we are
happy that there exists any charm potent enough to calm, but for hours
or days, a nature so stern and cruel as to cause perpetual fears for the
violences in which at any moment it may break out. The late slaughter in
the very streets of Rome, when the Coelian ran with the blood of
fifteen thousand Romans, butchered within sight of their own homes, with
the succeeding executions, naturally fill us with apprehensions for the
future. We call him generous, and magnanimous, and so he is, compared
with former tyrants who have polluted the throne--Tiberius, Commodus, or
Maximin; but what title has he to that praise, when tried by the
standard which our own reason supplies of those great virtues? I confess
it was not always so. His severity was formerly ever on the side of
justice; it was indignation at crime or baseness which sometimes brought
upon him the charge of cruelty--never the wanton infliction of suffering
and death. But it certainly is not so now. A slight cause now rouses
his sleeping passions to a sudden fury, often fatal to the first object
that comes in his way. But enough of this.
Do not forget to tell me again of the Old Hermit of the mountains, and
that you have visited him--if indeed he be yet among the living.
Even with your lively imagination, Fausta, you can hardly form an idea
of the sensation which my open assertion of Christian principles and
assumption of the Christian name has made in Rome. I intended when I sat
down to speak only of this, but see how I have been led away! My letters
will be for the most part confined, I fear, to the subjects which
engross both myself and Julia most--such as relate to the condition and
prospects of the new religion, and to the part which we take in the
revolution which is going on. Not that I shall be speechless upon other
and inferior topics, but that upon this of Christianity I shall be
garrulous and overflowing. I believe that in doing this, I shall consult
your preferences as well as my own. I know you to be desirous of
principles better than any which as yet you have been able to discover,
and that you will gladly learn whatever I may have it in my power to
teach you from this quarter. But all the teaching I shall attempt will
be to narrate events as they occur, and state facts as they arise, and