Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
hardened as a millstone against all who come to thee for good, how shalt
thou be redeemed? where is the power to save thee?'
'It is in thee!' said Julia. 'It is thy blood, Probus, and that of these
multitudes who suffer with thee, that shall have power to redeem Rome
and the world. The blood of Jesus, first shed, startled the world in its
slumbers of sin and death. Thine is needed now to sound another alarm,
and rouse it yet once more. And even again and again may the same
sacrifice be to be offered up.'
'True, lady,' said Probus; 'it is so. And it is of that I should think.
Those for whom I die should fill my thoughts, rather than any concern
for my own happiness. If I might but be the instrument, by my death, of
opening the eyes of this great people to their errors and their guilt, I
should meet death with gratitude and joy.'
With this and such like conversation, Fausta, did we fill up a long
interview with Probus. As we rose from our seats to take leave of him,
not doubting that we then saw him and spoke to him for the last time, he
yielded to the force of nature and wept. But this was but for a moment.
Quickly restored to himself--if indeed when shedding those tears he were
not more truly himself--he bade us farewell, saying with firmness and
cheerfulness as he did so,
'Notwithstanding, Piso, the darkness of this hour and of all the outward
prospect, it is bright within. Farewell!--to meet as I trust in Heaven!'
We returned to the Coelian.
* * * * *
When I parted from Probus, at the close of this interview, it was in the
belief that I should never see him more. But I was once again in his
dungeon, and then heard from him what I will now repeat to you. It was
thus.
Not long after we had withdrawn from his cell on our first visit,
Probus, as was his wont when alone, sat reading by that dim and
imperfect light which the jailer had provided him. He presently closed
the volume and laid it away. While he then sat musing, and thinking of
the morrow, and of the fate which then probably awaited him, the door of
his cell slowly opened. He looked, expecting to see his usual visitant
the jailer, but it was a form very different from his. The door closed,
and the figure advanced to where Probus sat. The gown in which it was
enveloped was then let fall, and the Prefect stood before the Christian.
'Varus!' said Probus. 'Do I see aright?'
'It is Varus,' replied the Prefect. 'And your friend.'
'I would, now at least, be at friendship with all the world,' responded
Probus.
'Yet,' said Varus, 'your friends must be few, that you should be left in
this place of horror, alone, to meet your fate.'
'I have no friend powerful enough, on earth at least, to cope with the
omnipotence of Aurelian,' replied Probus.
'Thy friends, Christian, are more, and more potent than thou dreamest
of. As I said to thee before, even Aurelian esteems thee.'
'Strange, that, if he esteems me, as thou sayest, he should thrust me
within the lions' den, with prospect of no escape but into their jaws.
And can I suppose that his esteem is worth much to me who crowds his
prisons with those who are nearest to me, reserving them there for a
death the most cruel and abhorred?'
'He may esteem thee, Probus, and not thy faith. 'Tis so with me. I like
not thy faith, but truly do I say it, I like thee, and would fain serve
and save thee. Nay, 'tis thy firmness and thy zeal in the cause thou
hast espoused that wins me. I honor those virtues. But, Probus, in thee
they are dangerous ones. The same qualities in a worthier cause would
make thee great. That which thou hast linked thyself to, Christian, is a
downward and a dying one. Its doom is sealed. The word of Aurelian is
gone forth, and, before the Ides, the blood of every Christian in Rome
shall flow--and not in Rome only, but throughout the empire. The forces
are now disposing over the whole of this vast realm, which, at a sign
from the great Head, shall fall upon this miserable people, and their
very name shall vanish from the earth. It is vain to contend. It is but
the struggling of a man with the will and the arm of Jove--'
'Varus!--' Probus began.
'Nay,' said the Prefect, 'listen first. This faith of thine, Christian,
which can thus easily be destroyed, cannot be that divine and holy thing
thou deemest it. So judges Porphyrius, and all of highest mark here in
Rome. It is not to be thought of one moment as possible, that what a God
made known to man for truth, he should afterward leave defenceless, to
be trodden to the dust, and its ministers and disciples persecuted,
tormented, and exterminated by human force. Christian, thou hast been
deceived--and all thy fellows are in the like delusion. Do thou then
save both thyself and them. It is in thy power to stop all this effusion
of blood, and restore unity and peace to an empire now torn and bleeding
in every part.'
'And how, Varus--seeing thou wouldst that I should hear all--how shall
it be done?'
'Embrace, Probus, the faith of Rome--the faith of thy father, venerable
for piety as for years--the faith of centuries, and of millions of our
great progenitors and thou art safe, and all thine are safe.'
Probus was silent.
'Aurelian bids me say,' continued the Prefect, 'that doing this, there
is not a wish of thy heart, for thyself, or for those who are dear to
thee, but it shall be granted. Wealth, more than miser ever craved,
office and place lower but little than Aurelian's own, shall be thine--'
'Varus! if there is within thee the least touch of humanity, cease! Thy
words have sunk into these dead walls as far as into me; yet have they
entered far enough to have wounded the soul through and through. Not,
Varus, though to all thou hast said and promised thou shouldst add Rome
itself and the empire, and still to that the subject kingdoms of the
East and West, with their treasures, and the world itself, would I prove
false to myself, my faith, and my God. Nor canst thou think me base
enough for such a deed. This is no great virtue in me, Varus. I hold it
not such; nor may you. Go through the secret chambers of these prisons
with the same rich bribe upon thy tongue, and not one so fallen wouldst
thou find that he would hear thee through as I have done. Varus, thou
knowest not what a Christian is! Thou canst not conceive how little a
thing life is in his regard set by the side of truth. I grieve that ever
I should have been so esteemed by thee as to warrant the proffers thou
hast made. This injures more and deeper than these bonds, or than all
thine array of engines or of beasts.'
'Be not the fool and madman,' said the Prefect, 'to cast away from thee
the mercy I have brought. Except on the terms I have now named, I say
there is hope neither for thee, nor for one of this faith in Rome, how
ever high their name or rank.'
'That can make no change in my resolve, Varus.'
'Consider, Probus, well. As by thy renunciation thou couldst save
thyself, I now tell thee that the lives of those whom thou holdest
nearest, hang also upon thy word. Assent to what I have offered, and
Piso and Julia live! Reject it, and they die!'
Varus paused; but Probus spoke not. He went on.
'Christian, are not these dear to thee? Demetrius too, and Felix? Where
are the mercies of thy boasted faith, if thy heart is left thus hard?
Truly thou mightest as well have lived and died a Pagan.'
'Again I say, Varus, thou knowest not what a Christian is. We put truth
before life; and if by but a word that should deny the truth in Christ,
or any jot or tittle of it, I could save the life of Piso, Julia, Felix,
Demetrius, nay, and all in Rome who hold this faith, my tongue should be
torn from my mouth before that word should be spoken. And so wouldst
thou find every Christian here in Rome. Why then urge me more? Did Macer
hear thee?'
'I hold thee, Probus, a wiser man than he. All Rome knew him mad. Cast
not away thy life. Live, and tomorrow's sun shall see thee First in
Rome!'
'Varus! why is this urgency? Think me not a fool and blind. Thou
knowest, and Fronto and Aurelian know, that one apostate would weigh
more for your bad cause than a thousand headless trunks; and so with
cruel and insulting craft you weave your snares and pile to Heaven your
golden bribes. Begone, Varus, and say to Aurelian, if in truth he sent
thee on thy shameful errand, that, in the Fabrician prison, in the same
dungeon where he cast Probus the Christian, there still lives Probus the
Roman, who reveres what _he_ once revered and loved, truth, and whom his
bribes cannot turn from his integrity.'
'Die then, idiot, in thy integrity! Thou hast thrown scorn upon one, who
has power and the will to pay it back in a coin it may little please
thee to take it in. If there be one torment, Galilean, sharper than
another, it shall be thine tomorrow; and for one moment that Macer
passed upon my irons, there shall be hours for thee. Not till the flesh
be peeled inch by inch from thy bones, and thy vitals look through thy
ribs, and thy brain boil in its hot case, and each particular nerve be
stretched till it break, shall thy life be suffered to depart. Then,
what the tormentors shall have left, the dogs of the streets shall
devour. Now, Christian, let us see if thy God, beholding thy distress,
will pity and deliver thee.'
Saying these words, his countenance transformed by passion to that of a
demon, he turned and left the cell.
Never, Fausta, I feel assured, did Aurelian commission Varus with such
an errand. Fallen though he be, he has not yet fallen to that lowest
deep. Varus doubtless hoped to prevail over Probus by his base
proposals, and by such triumph raise his fortunes yet higher with
Aurelian. It was a game worth playing--so he judged, and perhaps
wisely--and worth a risk. For doubtless one apostate of the rank of
Probus would have been of more avail to them, as Probus said to him,
than a thousand slain. For nothing do the judges so weary themselves,
and exhaust their powers of persuasion, as to induce the Christians who
are brought before them to renounce their faith. So desirous are they
of this, that they have caused, in many instances, those who were no
Christians to be presented at their tribunals, who have then, after
being threatened with torture and death, renounced a faith which they
never professed. Once and again has this farce been acted before the
Roman people. Their real triumphs of this sort have as yet been very
few; and the sensation which they produced was swallowed up and lost in
the glory--in the eyes even of the strangers who are in Rome--which has
crowned us in the steadfast courage with which our people have remained
quietly in their homes, throughout all this dreadful preparation, and
then, when the hour of trial drew nigh, and they were placed at the bar
of the judge, and were accused of their religion, confessed the charge,
boasted of it, and then took their way to the prison, from which, they
well knew, death only would deliver them.
* * * * *
That, Fausta, which we have long feared and looked for, has come to
pass, and Probus, our more than friend, our benefactor, and almost our
parent, is, by the Emperor, condemned to death; not, as from the words
of Varus it might be supposed, to the same torments as those to which
Macer was made subject; but to be thrown to the beasts in the Flavian, a
death more merciful than that, but yet full of horror. How is it that,
in the Roman, mercy seems dead, and the human nature, which he received
from the gods, changed to that of the most savage beast!
Livia has been with us; and here, with us, would she now gladly remain.
It is impossible, she says, for us to conceive the height of the frenzy