Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
opportunities: and you, Lucius, except he be instantly undeceived, may
be the first to feel his power.'
While she was speaking, Probus, Felix, and others of the principal
Christians of Rome entered the apartment. Their faces and their manner,
and their first words, declared that the same conviction possessed them
as us.
'We are constrained,' said Felix, 'thus with little ceremony, noble
Piso, to intrude upon your privacy But in truth the affair we have come
upon admits not of ceremony or delay.'
'Let there be none then, I pray, and let us hear at once what concerns
us all.'
'It is spread over the city,' replied the bishop, 'that before the sixth
hour edicts are to be issued that will go to the extreme we have
feared--affecting the liberty and life of every Christian in Rome. We
find it hard to believe this, however, as it is in the face of what
Aurelian has most expressly stipulated. It is therefore the wish and
prayer of the Christians that you, being nearer to him than any, should
seek an interview with him, and then serve our cause in such manner and
by such arguments as you best can.'
'This is what we desire, Piso,' said they all.
I replied, that I would immediately perform that which they desired, but
that I would that some other of our number should accompany me.
Whereupon Felix was urged to join me; and consenting, we, at the moment,
departed for the palace of Aurelian.
On arriving at the gardens, it was only by urgency that I obtained
admission to the presence of the Emperor. But upon declaring that I came
upon an errand that nearly concerned himself and Rome, I was ordered to
be brought into his private apartment.
As I entered, Aurelian quickly rose from the table, at which he had been
sitting, on the other side of which sat Fronto. None of the customary
urbanity was visible in his deportment; his countenance was dark and
severe, his reception of me cold and stately, his voice more harsh and
bitter than ever. I could willingly have excused the presence of the
priest.
'Ambassadors,' said Aurelian inclining toward us, 'I may suppose from
the community of Christians.'
'We came at their request,' I replied; 'rumors are abroad through the
city, too confidently reported, and too generally credited to be
regarded as wholly groundless, yet which it is impossible for those who
know Aurelian to believe, asserting that to-day edicts are to be issued
affecting both the liberty and the lives of the Christians--'
'I would, Piso, that rumor were never farther from the truth than in
this.'
'But,' I rejoined, 'has not Aurelian said that he would proceed against
them no further till he had first heard their defence from their own
organs?'
'Is it one party only in human affairs, young Piso,' he sharply
replied,'that must conform to truth and keep inviolate a plighted word?
Is deception no vice when it is a Christian who deceives? I indeed said
that I would hear the Christians, though, when I made that promise, I
also said that 'twould profit them nothing; but I then little knew why
it was that Piso was so urgent.'
'Truth,' I replied, 'cannot be received from some quarters, any more
than sweet and wholesome water through poisoned channels. Even,
Aurelian, if Fronto designed not to mislead, no statement passing
through his lips--if it concerned the Christians--could do so, without
there being added to it, or lost from it, much that properly belonged to
it. I have heard that too, which, I may suppose, has been poured into
the mind of Aurelian, to fill it with a bitterer enmity still toward the
Christians--that the Christians have sought this delay only that they
might use the opportunities thus afforded, to escape from his power--and
that, using them, they have already in the greater part fled from the
capital, leaving to the Emperor but a few old women and children upon
whom to wreak his vengeance. How does passion bring its film over the
clearest mind! How does the eye that will not see, shut out the light
though it be brighter than that of day! It had been wiser in Aurelian,
as well as more merciful, first to have tried the truth of what has thus
been thrust upon his credulity ere he made it a ground of action. True
himself, he suspects not others; but suspicion were sometimes a higher
virtue than frank confidence. Had Aurelian but looked into the streets
of Rome, he could not but have seen the grossness of the lie that has
been palmed upon his too willing ear. Of the seventy thousand Christians
who dwelt in Rome, the same seventy thousand, less by scarce a
seventieth part, are now here within their dwellings waiting the will of
Aurelian. Take this on the word of one whom, in former days at least,
you have found worthy of your trust. Take it on the word of the
venerable head of this community who stands here to confirm it either by
word or oath--and in Rome it needs but to know that Felix, the
Christian, has spoken, to know that truth has spoken too.'
'The noble Piso,' added Felix 'has spoken what all who know aught of the
affairs and condition of the Christians know to be true. There is among
us, great Emperor, too much, rather than too little, of that courage
that meets suffering and death without shrinking. Let your proclamations
this moment be sounded abroad calling upon the Christians to appear for
judgment upon their faith before the tribunals of Rome, and they will
come flocking up as do your Pagan multitudes to the games of the
Flavian.'
While we had been speaking, Fronto sat, inattentive as it seemed to what
was going on. But at these last words he was compelled to give ear, and
did it as a man does who has heard unwelcome truths. As Felix ended, the
Emperor turned toward him without speaking, and without any look of
doubt or passion, waiting for such explanation as he might have to give.
Fronto, instantly re-assuring himself, rose from his seat with the air
of a man who doubts not the soundness of his cause, and feels sure of
the ear of his judge.
'I will not say, great Emperor, that I have not in my ardor made broader
the statements which I have received from others. It is an error quite
possible to have been guilty of. My zeal for the gods is warm and
oft-times outruns the calm dictates of reason. But if what has now been
affirmed as true, be true, it is more I believe than they who so report
can make good--or than others can, be they friends or enemies of this
tribe. Who shall now go out into this wilderness of streets, into the
midst of this countless multitude of citizens and strangers--men of all
religions and all manners--and pick me out the seventy thousand
Christians, and show that all are close at home? Out of the seventy
thousand, is it not palpable that its third or half may have fled, and
yet it shall be in no man's power to make it so appear--to point to the
spot whence they have departed, or to that whither they have gone? But
beside this, I must here and now confess, that it was upon no knowledge
of my own gathered by my own eyes and ears that I based the truth, now
charged as error; but upon what came to me through those in whose word I
have ever placed the most sacred trust, the priests of the temple, and,
more than all, my faithful servant--friend I may call him--Curio, into
whom drops by some miracle all that is strange or new in Rome.'
I said in reply, 'that it were not so difficult perhaps as the priest
has made it seem, to learn what part of the Christians were now in Rome,
and what part were gone. There are among us, Aurelian, in every separate
church, men who discharge duties corresponding to those which Fronto
performs in the Temple of the Sun. We have our priests, and others
subordinate to them, who fill offices of dignity and trust. Beside
these, there are others still, who, for their wealth or their worth, are
known well, not among the Christians only, but the Romans also. Of
these, it were an easy matter to learn, whether or not they are now in
Rome. And if these are here, who, from the posts they fill would be the
first victims, it may be fairly supposed that the humbler sort and less
able to depart--and therefore safer--are also here. Here I stand, and
here stands Felix; we are not among the missing! And we boast not of a
courage greater than may be claimed for the greater part of those to
whom we belong.'
'Great Emperor,' said Fronto, 'I will say no more than this, that in its
whole aspect this bears the same front, as the black aspersions of the
wretch Macer, whose lies, grosser than Cretan ever forged, poured in a
foul and rotten current from his swollen lips; yea, while the hot irons
were tearing out his very heart-strings, did he still belch forth fresh
torrents blacker and fouler as they flowed longer, till death came and
took him to other tortures worse a thousand-fold--the just doom of such
as put false for true. That those were the malignant lies I have said
they are, Aurelian can need no other proof, I hope, than that which has
been already given.'
'I am still, Fronto, as when your witnesses were here before me,
satisfied with your defence. When indeed I doubt the truth of Aurelian,
I may be found to question that of Fronto. Piso--hold! We have heard and
said too much already. Take me not, as if I doubted, more than Fronto,
the word which you have uttered, or that of the venerable Felix. You
have said that which you truly believe. The honor of a Piso has never
been impeached, nor, as I trust, can be. Yet, has there been error, both
here and there, and, I doubt not, is. Let it be thus determined then.
If, upon any, blame shall seem to rest, let it be upon myself. If any
shall be charged with doing to-day what must be undone to-morrow, let
the burden be upon my shoulders. I will therefore recede; the edicts,
which, as you have truly heard, were to-day to have been promulged,
shall sleep at least another day. To-morrow, Piso, at the sixth hour, in
the palace on the Palatine, shall Probus--if such be the pleasure of
the Christians--plead in their behalf. Then and there will I hear what
this faith is, from him, or from whomsoever they shall appoint. And now
no more.'
With these words on the part of Aurelian, our audience closed, and we
turned away--grieving to see that a man like him, otherwise a Titan
every way, should have so surrendered himself into the keeping of
another; yet rejoicing that some of that spirit of justice that once
wholly swayed him still remained, and that our appeal to it had not been
in vain.
To-morrow then, at the sixth hour, will Probus appear before Aurelian.
It is not, Fausta, because I, or any, suppose that Aurelian himself can
be so wrought upon as to change any of his purposes, that we desire this
hearing. He is too far entered into this business--too heartily, and, I
may add, too conscientiously--to be drawn away from it, or diverted from
the great object which he has set up before him. I will not despair,
however, that even he may be softened, and abate somewhat of that raging
thirst for our blood, for the blood of us all, that now seems to madden
him. But, however this may be, upon other minds impressions may be made
that may be of service to us either directly or indirectly. We may
suppose that the hearing of the Christians will be public, that many of
great weight with Aurelian will be there, who never before heard a word
from a Christian's lips, and who know only that we are held as enemies
of the state and its religion. Especially, I doubt not, will many, most
or all, of the Senate be there; and it is to that body I still look,
as, in the last resort, able perhaps to exert a power that may save us
at least from absolute annihilation.
* * * * *
To-day has Probus been heard; and while others sleep, I resume my pen to