Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
However, many too believe.'
'Probus, we are all ready to be offered up,' the enthusiast rejoined.
'God's mercy to me is beyond all power of mine to describe, in that he
has touched and converted the hearts of every one under my roof. Now if
to this mercy he will but add one more, that we may glorify him by our
death as well as in our life, the cup of his servant will be full and
running over.'
Probus did not choose again to engage with his convert upon that theme,
knowing him to be beyond the reach of influence and control. We could
not but marvel to see to what extent he had infused his own enthusiasm
into his family. His wife indeed and elder daughters would willingly see
him calmer and less violent when abroad, but like him, being by nature
of warm temperament, they are like him Christians warm and zealous
beyond almost any whom I have seen. They are as yet also so recently
transferred from their Heathen to their Christian state, that their
sight is still dazzled, and they see not objects in their true shapes
and proportions. In their joy they seem to others, and perhaps often
are, greatly extravagant in the expression of their feelings and
opinions.
When our temperate repast was ended, Macer again prayed, and we then
separated. Our visit proved wholly ineffectual as to the purpose we had
in view, but by no means so when I consider the acquaintance which it
thus gave me with a family in the very humblest condition, who yet were
holding and equally prizing the same opinions, at which, after so much
research and labor, I had myself arrived. I perceived in this power of
Christianity to adapt itself to minds so different in their slate of
previous preparation, and in their ability to examine and sift a
question which was offered to them; in the facility and quickness with
which it seized both upon the understanding and the affections; in the
deep convictions which it produced of its own truth and excellence, and
the scorn and horror with which it filled the mind for its former
superstitions--I saw in this an element of strength, and of dominion,
such as even I had hardly conceived, and which assures me that this
religion is destined to a universal empire. Not more certainly do all
men need it than they will have it. When in this manner, with everything
against it, in the habits, lives, and prejudices of men--with itself
almost against itself in its strictness and uncompromising morality--it
nevertheless forces its way into minds of every variety of character,
and diffuses wherever it goes the same inward happiness;--its success
under such circumstances is at once an argument for its truth, and an
assurance that it will pause in its progress not till it shall have
subdued the world to its dominion.
Julia was deeply interested in all that I told her of the family of
Macer, and will make them all her special charge. AElia will I hope
become in some capacity a member of our household.
I ought to tell you that we have often of late been at the Gardens,
where we have seen both Livia and Aurelian. Livia is the same, but the
Emperor is changed. A gloomy horror seems to sit upon him, which both
indisposes him to converse as formerly, and others to converse with him.
Especially has he shown himself averse to discussion of any point that
concerns the Christians, at least with me. When I would willingly have
drawn him that way, he has shrunk from it with an expression of
distaste, or with more expressive silence, or the dark language of his
terrific frown. For me however he has no terrors, and I have resolved to
break through all the barriers he chooses to set up around him, and
learn if I can what his feelings and purposes precisely are. One
conversation may reveal them in such a way, as may make it sufficiently
plain what part he means to act, and what measure of truth there may be
in the current rumors; in which, for my own part, I cannot bring myself
to place much reliance. I doubt even concerning the death of Aurelia,
whether, even if it has taken place, it is not to be traced to some
cause other than her religion.
* * * * *
A day has passed. I have seen the Emperor, as I was resolved to do, and
now I no longer doubt what his designs are, nor that they are dark as
they have been represented; yea, and darker, even as night is darker
than day.
Upon reaching the palace, I was told that the Emperor was exercising at
the hippodrome, toward which I then bent my steps. It lies at some
distance from the palace, concealed from it by intervening groves. Soon
as I came in sight of it, I beheld Aurelian upon his favorite horse
running the course as if contending for a prize, plying, the while, the
fierce animal he bestrode with the lash, as if he were some laggard who
needed rousing to his work. Swifter than the wind he flew by me, how
many times I know not, without noting apparently that any one was
present beside the attendant slaves; nor did he cease till the horse,
spent and exhausted, no longer obeyed the will of even the Emperor of
the world. Many a noble charger has he in this manner rode till he has
fallen dead. So long used has this man been to the terrific game of war,
and the scenes and sights which that reveals, stirring to their depths
all the direst passions of our nature, that now, at home and at peace,
life grows stale and flat, and needs the artificial stimulants which
violent and extreme modes of action can alone supply. The death of a
horse on the course, answers now for a legion slain in battle; an
unruly, or disobedient, or idle slave hewn in two, affords the relief
which the execution of prisoners has been accustomed to yield. Weary of
inaction, he pants for the day to arrive when, having completed the
designs he has set on foot in the city, he shall again join the army,
now accumulating in huge masses in Thrace, and once more find himself in
the East, on the way to new conquests and fresh slaughter.
As he threw himself from his horse, now breathing hard and scarcely
supporting himself, the foam rolling from him like snow, he saluted me
in his usual manner.
'A fair and fortunate day to you, Piso! And what may be the news in the
city? I have rode fast and far, but have heard nothing. I come back
empty as I went out, save the heat which I have put into my veins. This
horse is he I was seen upon from the walls of Palmyra by your and other
traitor eyes. But for first passing through the better part of my leg
and then the saddle, the arrow that hit me then had been the death of
him. But death is not for him, nor he for death; he and his rider are
something alike, and will long be so, if auguries ever speak truth. And
if there be not truth in auguries, Piso, where is it to be found among
mortals? These three mornings have I rode him to see if in this manner
he could be destroyed, but thou seest how it issues; I should destroy
myself before him. But what, I say, is the news? How does the lady
Julia? and the Queen?'
Replying first to these last inquiries, I then said that there was
little news I believed in the city. The only thing, perhaps, that could
be treated as news, was the general uneasiness of the Christians.
'Ah! They are uneasy? By the gods, not wholly without reason. Were it
not for them I had now been, not here chafing my horse and myself on a
hippodrome, but tearing up instead the hard sands of the Syrian deserts.
They weigh upon me like a nightmare! They are a visible curse of the
gods upon the state--but, being seen, it can be removed. I reckon not
you among this tribe, Piso, when I speak of them. What purpose is
imputed?'
'Rumor varies. No distinct purpose is named, but rather a general one of
abridging some of their liberties--suppressing their worship, and
silencing their priests.'
'Goes it no further?'
'Not with many; for the people are still willing to believe that
Aurelian will inflict no needless suffering. They see you great in war,
severe in the chastisement of the enemies of the state, and just in the
punishment inflicted upon domestic rebels; and they conceive that in
regard to this simple people you will not go beyond the rigor I have
just named.'
'Truly they give me credit,' replied Aurelian, 'for what I scarcely
deserve. But an Emperor can never hear the truth. Piso! they will find
themselves deceived. One or the other must fall--Helenism or
Christianity! I knew not, till my late return from the East, the ravages
made by this modern superstition, not only throughout Rome, but the
world. In this direction I have for many years been blind. I have had
eyes only for the distant enemies of my country, and the glories of the
battle-field. But now, upon resting here a space in the heart of the
empire, I find that heart eaten out and gone; the religion of ancient
Rome, which was its very life, decaying, and almost dead, through the
rank growth of this overshadowing poison-tree that has shot up at its
side. It must be cut up by the roots--the branches hewn away--the leaves
stripped and scattered to the winds--nay, the very least fibre that
lurks below the surface with life in it, must be wrenched out and
consumed. We must do thus by the Christians and their faith, or they
will do so by us.'
'I am hardly willing,' I replied, 'to believe what I have heard; nor
will I believe it. It were an act, so mad and unwise, as well as so
cruel, that I will not believe it though coming from the lips of
Aurelian!'
'It is true, Piso, as the light of yonder sun! But if thou wilt not
believe, wait a day or two and proof enough shall thou have--proof that
shall cure thy infidelity in a river of Christian blood.'
'Still, Aurelian,' I answered. 'I believe not: nor will, till that
river shall run down before my eyes red and thick as the Orontes!'
'How, Piso, is this? I thought you knew me!'
'In part I am sure I do. I know you neither to be a madman nor a fool,
both which in one would you be to attempt what you have now threatened.'
'Young Piso, you are bold!'
'I make no boast of courage,' I replied; 'I know that in familiar speech
with Aurelian, I need not fear him. Surely you would not converse on
such a subject with a slave or a flatterer. A Piso can be neither. I can
speak, or I can be silent; but if I speak--'
'Say on, say on, in the name of the gods!'
'What I would say to Aurelian then is this, that slaughter as he may,
the Christians cannot be exterminated; that though he decimated, first
Rome and then the empire, there would still be left a seed that would
spring up and bear its proper harvest. Nay, Aurelian, though you halved
the empire, you could not win your game. The Christians are more than
you deem them.'
'Be it so,' replied the Emperor; 'nevertheless I will try. But they are
not so many as you rate them at, neither by a direct nor an indirect
enumeration.'
'Let that pass, then,' I answered. 'Let them be a half, a quarter, a
tenth part of what I believe them to be, it will be the same; they
cannot be exterminated. Soon as the work of death is done, that of life
will begin again, and the growth will be the more rank for the blood
spilled around. Outside of the tenth part, Aurelian, that now openly
professes this new religion, there lies another equal number of those
who do not openly profess it, but do so either secretly, or else view it
with favor and with the desire to accept it. Your violence, inflicted
upon the open believers, reaches not them, for they are an invisible
multitude; but no sooner has it fallen and done its work of ruin, than
this other multitude slowly reveals itself, and stands forth heirs and
professors of the persecuted faith, and ready, like those who went
before them, to live for it and die for it.'
'What you say may be so,' answered Aurelian; 'I had thought not of it.