Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
'Yes, great Emperor, Menestheus. It was thus. When the work he spoke for
was done and fairly delivered to his hands, agreeing to the value of an
obolus and the measure of a hair, with the strict commands he gave,
what does he when he sees it, but fall into a rage and swear that 'tis
not so--that the stuff is poor, the fashion mean and beggarly, the art
slight and imperfect, and that the half of what I charged, which was
five hundred aurelians, was all that I should have, with which, if I
were not content and lisped but a syllable of blame, a dungeon for my
home were the least I might expect; and if my knavery reached the ear of
Aurelian, from which, if I hearkened to him, it should be his care to
keep it, my life were of less value than a fly's. Knowing well the power
of the man, I took the sum he proffered, hoping to make such composition
with my creditors, that I might still pursue my trade, for, O Emperor,
this was my first work, and being young and just venturing forth, I was
dependent upon others. But, with the half price I was allowed to charge,
and was paid, I cannot reimburse them. My name is gone and I am ruined.'
'The half of five hundred--say you--was that the sum, and all the sum he
paid you?'
'It was. And there are here with me those that will attest it.'
'It needs not; for I myself know that from the treasury five hundred
aurelians were drawn, and said, by him, for this work--which well suits
me--to have been duly paid. Let but this be proved, and his life is the
least that it shall cost him. But it must be well proved. Let us now
have thy witnesses.'
Menestheus at this point, ignorant of the charge then making against
him, entered the tent. Appalled by the apparition of the injured man,
and grasping at a glance the truth, all power of concealment was gone,
conscious guilt was written in the color and in every line and feature
of the face.
'Menestheus!' said Aurelian, 'knowest thou this man?'
'He is Virro, an artisan of Rome;' replied the trembling slave.
'And what think you makes him here?'
The Secretary was silent.
'He has come, Menestheus, well stored with proofs, beside those which I
can furnish, of thy guilt. Shall the witnesses be heard? Here they
stand.'
Menestheus replied not. The very faculty of speech had left the
miserable man.
'How is it,' then said Aurelian in his fiercest tones, 'how is it that
again, for these paltry gains, already rolling in wealth--thou wilt
defile thy own soul, and bring public shame upon me too, and Rome! Away
to thy tent! and put in order thine own affairs and mine. Thou hast
lived too long. Soldiers, let him be strongly guarded.--Let Virro now
receive his just dues. Men call me cruel, and well I fear they may; but
unjust, rapacious, never, as I believe. Whom have I wronged, whom
oppressed? The poor of Rome, at least, cannot complain of Aurelian. Is
it not so, sirrah?'
'Rome,' he replied, 'rejoices in the reign of Aurelian. His love of
justice and of the gods, give him a place in every heart.'
Whether Aurelian would have carried into execution the threat, which in
a moment of passion he had passionately uttered, none can tell. All that
can be said is this, that he rarely threatened but he kept his word.
This the secretary knew, and knew therefore, that another day he might
never see. His cunning and his wit now stood him in good stead. A doomed
man--he was a desperate man, and no act then seemed to him a crime, by
which his doom might be averted. Retiring to his tent to fulfil the
commands of the Emperor, he was there left alone, the tent being guarded
without; and then as his brain labored in the invention of some device,
by which he might yet escape the impending death, and save a life
which--his good name being utterly blasted and gone, could have been but
a prolonged shame--he conceived and hatched a plan, in its ingenuity,
its wickedness, and atrocious baseness, of a piece with his whole
character and life. In the handwriting of the Emperor, which he could
perfectly imitate, he drew up a list of some of the chief officers of
the army--by him condemned to death on the following day. This paper, as
he was at about the eleventh hour led guarded to his place of
imprisonment, he dropt at the tent door of one whose name was on it.
It fell into the intended hands; and soon as the friendly night had come
the bloody scroll was borne from tent to tent, stirring up to vengeance
the designated victims. No suspicion of fraud ever crossed their minds;
but amazed at a thirst of blood so insatiable, and which, without cause
assigned, could deliver over to the axe his best and most trusted
friends, Carus, Probus, Mucapor--they doubted whether in truth his
reason were not gone, and deemed it no crime, but their highest duty, to
save themselves by the sacrifice of one who was no longer to be held a
man.
After the noon of this day the army had made a short but quick march to
Heraclea. Aurelian--the tents being pitched--the watch set--the
soldiers, weary with their march, asleep--himself tired with the day's
duty--sat with folded arms, having just ungirded and thrown from him his
sword. His last attendant was then dismissed, who, passing from the tent
door, encountered the conspirators as they rushed in, and was by them
hewn to the ground. Aurelian, at that sound, sprang to his feet. But
alone, with the swords of twenty of his bravest generals at his
breast--and what could he do? One fell at the first sweep of his arm;
but, ere he could recover himself--the twenty seemed to have sheathed
their weapons in his body. Still he fought, but not a word did he utter
till the dagger of Mucapor, raised aloft, was plunged into his breast,
with the words,
'This Aurelia sends!'
'Mucapor!' he then exclaimed as he sank to the ground, 'canst thou stab
Aurelian?' Then turning toward the others, who stood looking upon their
work, he said, 'Why, soldiers and friends, is this? Hold, Mucapor, leave
in thy sword, lest life go too quick; I would speak a word--' and he
seized the wrist of Mucapor and held it even then with an iron grasp. He
then added, 'Romans! you have been deceived! You are all my friends, and
have ever been. Never more than now--' His voice fell.
Probus then reaching forward, cried out, unfolding at the same moment
the bloody list,
'See here, tyrant! are these thy friends?'
The eyes of Aurelian, waking up at those words with all the intentness
of life, sought the fatal scroll and sharply scanned it--then closing
again, he at the same moment drew out the sword of Mucapor, saying as he
did so,
''Tis the hand of Menestheus--not mine. You have been deceived.' With
that he fell backwards and expired.
Those miserable men then looking upon one another--the truth flashed
upon them; and they knew that to save the life of that mean and abject
spirit they there stood together murderers of the benefactor of many of
them--the friend of all--of a General and Emperor whom, with all his
faults, Rome would mourn as one who had crowned with a new glory her
Seven Hills. How did they then accuse themselves for their unreasonable
haste--their blind credulity! How did they bewail the cruel blows which
had thus deprived them of one, whom they greatly feared indeed, but whom
also they greatly loved! above all, one whom, as their master in that
art which in every age has claimed the admiration of the world, they
looked up to as a very god! Some reproached themselves; some, others;
some threw themselves upon the body of Aurelian in the wildness of their
remorse and grief; and all swore vengeance upon the miscreant who had
betrayed them.
Thus perished the great Aurelian--for great he truly was, as the world
has ever estimated greatness. When the news of his assassination reached
Rome, the first sensation was that of escape, relief, deliverance; with
the Christians, and all who favored them, though not of their faith, it
was undissembled joy. The streets presented the appearances which
accompany an occasion of general rejoicing. Life seemed all at once more
secure. Another bloody tyrant was dead, by the violence which he had
meted out to so many others, and they were glad. But with another part
of the Roman people it was far otherwise. They lamented him as the
greatest soldier Rome had known since Caesar; as the restorer of the
empire; as the stern but needful reformer of a corrupt and degenerate
age; as one who to the army had been more than another Vespasian; who,
as a prince, if sometimes severe, was always just, generous, and
magnanimous. These were they, who, caring more for the dead than for the
living, will remember concerning them only that which is good. They
recounted his virtues and his claims to admiration--which were
unquestionable and great--and forgot, as if they had never been, his
deeds of cruelty, and the wide and wanton slaughter of thousands and
hundreds of thousands, which will ever stamp him as one destitute of
humanity, and whose almost only title to the name of man was, that he
was in the shape of one. For how can the possession of a few of those
captivating qualities, which so commonly accompany the possession of
great power, atone for the rivers of blood which flowed wherever he
wound his way?
* * * * *
I have now ended what I proposed to myself. I have arranged and
connected some of the letters of Lucius Manlius Piso, having selected
chiefly those which related to the affairs of the Christians and their
sufferings during the last days of Aurelian's reign. Those days were
happily few. And when they were passed, I deemed that never again, so
fast did the world appear to grow wiser and better could the same
horrors be repeated. But it was not so; and under Diocletian I beheld
that work in a manner perfected, which Aurelian did but begin. I have
outlived the horrors of those times, and at length, under the powerful
protection of the great Constantine, behold this much-persecuted faith
secure. In this I sincerely rejoice, for it is Christianity alone, of
all the religions of the world, to which may be safely intrusted the
destinies of mankind.
END.