Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
high priest of our religion should have taken the part he has. Measures
of moderation and true wisdom, though they might not have obtained for
him so great a name for zeal and love of the gods, nor made so sudden
and deep an impression upon the common mind and heart, would have
secured with greater probability the end at which he has aimed.'
'It is hard.' said I, 'to resist nature, especially so when superstition
comes in to its aid. Aurelian, by nature a savage, is doubly one through
the influence of his religion and the priesthood. Moderation and
humanity are so contrary to every principle of the man and his faith,
that they are not with more reason to be looked for from him than
gentleness in a famished wolf.'
Portia looked as if I had assailed the walls and capitol of Rome.
'I know not, Greek,' she quickly said, 'on what foundation it is you
build so heavy a charge against the time-honored faith of Rome. It has
served Rome well these thousand years, and reared men whose greatness
will dwell in the memory of the world while the world lasts.'
'Great men have been reared in Rome,' I replied; 'it can by none be
denied. But it has been by resisting the influences of their religion,
not by courting them. They have left themselves in this to the safer
tutelage of nature, as have you, lady; and they have escaped the evils,
which the common superstition would have entailed upon them, had they
admitted it to their bosoms. Who can deny that the religion of Rome, so
far as it is a religion for the common people, is based up on the
characters of the gods, as they through history and tradition are held
up to them--especially as they are painted by the poets? Say if there be
any other books of authority on this great theme than the poets? What
book of religious instruction and precept have you, or have you ever
had, corresponding to the volume of the Christians, called their
gospels?'
'We have none,' said Portia, as I paused compelling a rejoinder. 'It is
true, we have but our historians and our poets, with what we find in the
philosophers.'
'And the philosophers,' I replied, 'it will be seen at once can never
be in the hands of the common people. Whence then do they receive their
religious ideas, but from tradition, and the character of the deities of
heaven, as they are set forth in the poets? And if this be so, I need
not ask whether it be possible that the religion of Rome should be any
other than a source of corruption to the people. So far as the gods
should be their models, they can do no otherwise than help to sink their
imitators lower and lower in all filth and vice. Happily for Rome and
the world, lady, men instinctively revolt at such examples, and copy
instead the pattern which their own souls supply. Had the Romans been
all which the imitation of their gods would have made them, this empire
had long ago sunk under the deep pollution. Fronto and Aurelian--the
last at least sincere--aim at a restoration of religion. They would lift
it up to the highest place, and make it the sovereign law of Rome. In
this attempt, they are unconsciously digging away her very foundations;
they are leveling her proud walls with the earth. Suppose Rome were made
what Fronto would have her? Every Roman were then another Fronto--or
another Aurelian. Were that a world to live in? or to endure? These,
lady, are the enemies of Rome, Aurelian and Fronto. The only hope for
Rome lies, in the reception of some such principles as these of the
Christians. Whether true or false, as a revelation from Heaven, they are
in accordance with the best part of our nature, and, once spread abroad
and received, they would tend by a mighty influence to exalt it more and
more. They would descend, as it is of the nature of absolute truth to
do, and lay hold of the humblest and lowest and vilest, and in them
erect their authority, and bring them into the state, in which every
man should be, for the reason that he is a man. Helenism cannot do
this.'
'Notwithstanding what I have heard, Nicomachus, I think you must
yourself be a Christian. But whether you are or not, I grant you to
understand well what religion should be. And I must say that it has ever
been such to me. I, from what I have read of our moralists and
philosophers, and from what I have reflected, have arrived at principles
not very different from such as you have now hinted at--'
'And are those of Fronto or Varus like yours, lady?'
'I fear not,' said Portia.
'Yours then, let me say, are the religion, which you have first found
within your own breast, a gift from the gods, and then by meditation
have confirmed and exalted; theirs, the common faith of Rome. Could your
faith rejoice in or permit the horrors I have this day witnessed and but
now described? Yet of theirs they are the legitimate fruit, the
necessary product.'
'Out of the best,' replied Portia, 'I believe, Nicomachus, may often
come the worst. There is naught so perfect and so wise, but human
passions will mar and pervert it. I should not wonder if, in ages to
come, this peace-loving faith of the Christians, should it survive so
long, should itself come to preside over scenes as full of misery and
guilt as those you have to-day seen in the streets of Rome.'
'It may be,' I rejoined. 'But it is nevertheless our duty, in the
selection of our principles, to take those which are the purest, the
most humane, the most accordant with what is best in us, and the least
liable to perversion and abuse. And whether, if this be just, it be
better that mankind should have presented for their imitation and honor
the character and actions of Jesus Christ, or those of Jupiter "Greatest
and Best," may be left for the simplest to determine.'
Portia is so staunch a Roman, that one cannot doubt that as she was born
and has lived, so she will die--a Roman. And truth to say, were all like
her, there were little room for quarrel with the principles that could
produce such results. But for one such, there are a thousand like Varus,
Fronto, and Aurelian.
As after this interview, which was prolonged till the shades of evening
began to fall, I held communion with myself on the way to the quiet
retreats of Tibur, I could not but entertain apprehensions for the
safety of the friends I had just left. I felt that where such men as
Varus and Fronto were at the head of affairs, wielding, almost as they
pleased, the omnipotence of Aurelian, no family nor individual of
whatever name or rank could feel secure of either fortune or life. I had
heard indeed such expressions of regard fall from the Emperor for Piso
and his beautiful wife, that I was sure that if any in Rome might feel
safe, it was they. Yet why should he, who had fallen with fatal violence
upon one of his own household, and such a one as Aurelia, hesitate to
strike the family of Piso, if thereby religion or the state were to be
greatly benefited? I could see a better chance for them only in the
Emperor's early love of Julia, which still seemed to exercise over him a
singular power.
The Queen, I found, upon naming to her the subject of my thoughts, could
entertain none of my apprehensions. It is so difficult for her nature to
admit the faintest purpose of the infliction of wanton suffering, that
she cannot believe it of others. Notwithstanding her experience of the
harsh and cruel spirit of Aurelian, notwithstanding the unnecessary
destruction, for any national or political object, of the multitudes of
Palmyra, still she inclines to confide in him. He has given so many
proofs of regret for that wide ruin, he has suffered so much for
it--especially for his murder of Longinus--in the opinion of all Rome,
and of the highest and best in all nations, that she is persuaded he
will be more cautious than ever whom he assails, and where he scatters
ruin and death. Still, such is her devotion to Julia and her love of
Piso--so entirely is her very life lodged in that of her daughter, that
she resolved to seek the Emperor without delay, and if possible obtain
an assurance of their safety, both from his own arm and that of popular
violence. This I urged upon her with all the freedom I might use; and
not in vain; for the next day, at the gardens of Sallust, she had
repeated interviews with Aurelian--and afterward at her own palace,
whither Aurelian came with Livia, and where, while Livia ranged among
the flowers with Faustula, the Emperor and the Queen held earnest
discourse--not only on the subject which chiefly agitated Zenobia, but
on the general principles on which he was proceeding in this attempted
annihilation of Christianity. Sure I am, that never in the Christian
body itself was there one who pleaded their cause with a more winning
and persuasive eloquence.
LETTER X.
FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.
I write to you, Fausta, by the hands of Vabalathus, who visits Palmyra
on his way to his new kingdom. I trust you will see him. The adversities
of his family and the misfortunes of his country have had most useful
effects upon his character. Though the time has been so short, he has
done much to redeem himself. Always was he, indeed, vastly superior to
his brothers; but now, he is not only that, but very much more.
Qualities have unfolded themselves, and affections and tastes warmed
into life, which we none of us, I believe, so much as suspected the
existence of. Zenobia has come to be devotedly attached to him, and to
repose the same sort of confidence in him as formerly in Julia. All this
makes her the more reluctant to part with him; but, as it is for a
throne, she acquiesces. He carries away from Rome with him one of its
most beautiful and estimable women--the youngest daughter of the
venerable Tacitus--to whom he has just been married. In her you will see
an almost too favorable specimen of Roman women.
Several days have elapsed since I wrote to you, giving an account of the
sufferings and death of the Christian Macer--as I learned them from
those who were present--for a breach of the late edicts, and for
sacrilegiously, as the laws term it, tearing down the parchment
containing them from one of the columns of the capitol. During this
period other horrors of the same kind have been enacted in different
parts of the city. Macer is not the only one who has already paid for
his faith with his life. All the restraints of the law seem to be
withdrawn, not confessedly but virtually, and the Christians in humble
condition--and such for the most part we are--are no longer safe from
violence in the streets of Rome. Although, Fausta, you believe not with
us, you must, scarcely the less for that, pity us in our present
straits. Can the mind picture to itself, in some aspects of the case, a
more miserable lot! Were the times, even at the worst, so full of horror
in Palmyra as now here in Rome? There, if the city were given up to
pillage, the citizen had at least the satisfaction of dying in the
excitement of a contest, and in the defence of himself and his children.
Here the prospect is--the actual scene is almost arrived and
present--that all the Christians of Rome will be given over to the
butchery, first, of the Prefect's court, and others of the same
character, established throughout the city for the express purpose of
trying the Christians--and next, of the mob commissioned with full
powers to search out, find, and slay, all who bear the hated name. The
Christians, it is true, die for a great cause. In that cause they would
rather die than live, if to live, they must sacrifice any of the
interests of truth. But still death is not preferred; much less is
death, in the revolting and agonizing form, which, chiefly, these
voluntary executioners choose, to be viewed in any other light than an
evil too great almost to be endured.