Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER XIII

  _THE ADVENTURES OF A RUNAWAY_

  ??????? ?? ?????????? ??? ??? ????? ????????? ??????????? ??? ????????????.--S. JAC. _Ep._ i. 14.

  ????? ??????? ??? ???????.--ALCIPHR. _Ep._ iii. 38.

  The real history of Onesimus was this. He had been born at Thyatira;his parents had once been in a respectable position, but his fatherhad been unfortunate, and when the boy became an orphan he had sunkso low in the world that, to save him from the pangs of hunger,the creditors sold him as a slave to the purple-factory of whichLydia--who afterwards became St. Paul’s convert at Philippi--waspart-owner. There he had learnt a great deal about the purple-tradeand the best way of folding and keeping purple robes. But he was wildand careless and fond of pleasure, and the head workman, not findinghim profitable or easy to manage, had again offered him for sale. Hewas a quick, good-looking boy, and Philemon, a gentleman of Colossæ,touched with his forlorn look as he stood on the slave-platform(_catasta_) with his feet chalked and a description (_titulus_) roundhis neck, had felt compassion for him and had bought him. Not longafter this, Philemon, with his wife Apphia, his son Archippus, andseveral slaves of their household, had been converted by St. Paul.The Apostle had not, indeed, visited the strange Phrygian city, wherethe Lycus flows under its natural bridges of gleaming travertine;but Philemon and his party had gone down to witness the great Asiangames at Ephesus, and to view the treasures of the famous Temple ofArtemis, which was one of the wonders of the world. There they hadheard Paul preach in the hall of the rhetorician Tyrannus, and, beingof sweet and serious disposition, had been profoundly impressed bythe message of the gospel. The grace of God had taken possession oftheir hearts. They exulted in the purity, the hope, and the gladnessof Christianity, and under the fostering care of Epaphras, to whosecharge St. Paul had entrusted the churches of the Lycian valley, theyhad finally been led to the full acceptance of the gospel, and hadbeen baptised in the waters of their native river.

  Onesimus had not been baptised with them, though he had learntsomething of Christianity as a young catechumen. He had lived indaily contact with these good people from early boyhood, and theyhad treated him with a kindness and consideration which was in markedcontrast to the brutal manner of most Pagans towards the human beingswhom they regarded as chattels of which they were the indefeasibleowners. But Colossæ was a sleepy and decaying city. It offerednone of the pleasures and excitements which Onesimus had tasted atThyatira and Ephesus. He longed to escape from the narrow valley ofthe dull town; to hear in the streets of Ephesus the shrill wail ofthe priests of Cybele; to gaze at the superb Artemisian processions;to sit palpitating with enthusiasm as he watched the chariots dashpast him in wild career in the circus, or the gorgeous spectaclesof the amphitheatre. Above all he sighed and yearned for Rome, forhe had often heard of its glory, its magnificence, its uncheckedindulgencies. He was only a slave--only one of those Phrygian slaves,who were the least esteemed; but he had been free born. The passionsof the Asiatic Greek were strong in him. Other slaves had made theirway--why should not he? He was strong, clever, good-looking--was henot certain to secure some fortune in the world?

  The ‘tempting opportunity’ met the ‘susceptible disposition.’Philemon was engaged in the wool-dyeing which formed the mostprosperous industry of Colossæ, and on a certain day after the greatfair of Laodicea considerable sums were paid to him. He had neverhad any reason to distrust Onesimus, and the youth knew where themoney was kept. One day, when Philemon had been summoned by businessto Hierapolis and was likely to be absent for a week, Onesimusabstracted some of the gold coins--enough, he thought, to take himsafely to Rome if necessary--and absconded to Ephesus. There, for afew days, he enjoyed himself in visiting the marvels and amusementsof the city. But a fair youth, in servile dress, alone, in a crowdedtown, could hardly escape falling among companions of the lowesttype. Fain would they have plunged him into vice and dissipation;but though the runaway was not always truthful, and had fallen intodishonesty, he was far from being depraved. One who had breathed ina pure Christian household the dewy dawn of the Christian faith, andhad watched its purple glow transfiguring the commonest elements oflife, could hardly sink to the depths of Satan in the great welteringsea of heathen wickedness. Fallen as he was, he never wholly lost hisself-respect, and when he had satisfied his first wild impulse helonged to return and plead for forgiveness. After all, how infinitelymore happy had he been in sleepy Colossæ than in tumultuous Ephesus!But for a slave to abscond from a kind master, and in abscondingto steal his master’s gold, was not only a heinous but a capitaloffence. He did not know but what Philemon, good and kind as he was,might still deem it right to uphold the laws of the State, and tohand him over to the magistrates. And then he shuddered to think ofwhat awaited him: what blows, what brandings, what wearing of thefurca, or thrusting into the stocks, or being made to work in themines or the galleys, or among the chained wretches of some publicslave-prison. The soft nature of the Eastern shrank from such horrors,and almost more from the intolerable sense of shame which wouldoverwhelm him when he stood for the first time a convict-fugitivein his master’s house.

  His ill-got money was soon ill-gone. A little of it was lost ingambling; some he had to squander on worthless companions, who triedto insinuate themselves into his favour, or to terrify him with theirsuspicions; the rest was stolen one night in the low lodging whichhe had been obliged to seek. Penniless, and sick at heart, he hurrieddown to the great quay of the city, and offered to work his passageto Italy in a galley. Landed in Italy he had begged his way toRome, and in Rome he had sunk to the wretchedness in which we firstsaw him. No career seemed open to him but a career of vice; nopossibility offered of earning his daily bread but by criminalcourses. He sank back horrified from the rascality which he hadwitnessed on every side, among those who, being past feeling, andhaving their consciences seared as with a hot iron, wrought alluncleanness with greediness. He grew more and more emaciated, moreand more wretched, sleeping under arches or porticoes, and dependingfor his scant supply of polenta on the chance of a farthing flung tohim now and then in scornful alms. The accident which threw him inthe path of Pudens came only just in time to save him from ruin anddespair.

  Nereus, the freedman of Pudens, was not unwilling to get for nothingan active youth who might turn out to be a useful slave; and in thathousehold he once more found kindness and happiness. It is true thatPudens was not yet an open Christian, but several of his slaves were,as Onesimus soon discovered; and he had learnt by experience that,among Christian men and women, he was safe from a thousand miseriesand a thousand temptations. The busy thronging, rushing life of Romedelighted his quick intelligence, and all the more from the contrastit presented to the silent streets of Colossæ, and the narrow valleyof its strange white stream.

  He had several adventures, and such principles of righteousnessas were left to him were severely tried. Some of the young slaveswhom he encountered took him to the theatres, and in the pantomimicdisplays and Atellan fables a cynical shamelessness reigned supreme.To witness the acting of a Paris or an Aliturus was to witnessconsummate human skill and beauty pandering to the lowest instinctsof humanity. Yet Onesimus could not keep away from these scenes,though Stachys and Nereus and Junia and others of the Christianslaves of Pudens did their best, when the chance offered, to savehim from the vortex of such perilous dissipation.

  Still more brutalising, still more destructive of every elementof pureness and kindness were the gladiatorial games. Of these hehad no experience. In the provinces they were comparatively rare,and Philemon had forbidden his slaves ever to be present in theamphitheatre when they were exhibited. Onesimus, who had nothingcruel in his nature, had so far preserved a sort of respect for thewishes of Philemon, that he determined not to witness a gladiatorialshow. When the great day came, all the slaves were talking of theprowess of Gallina and Syrus, two famous gladiators, and of themagnificent number of lions and tigers which were to be exhibited.

  He coul
d not help being interested in a topic which seemed soabsorbing, but he still meant to keep away. Some of his comrades,however, thought that scruples which might suit a Cicero and a Senecawere quite out of place in a Phrygian foot-boy, and seized him inthe street and said, ‘We are going to take you to the amphitheatreby force.’

  ‘It is of no use to take me,’ said Onesimus, repeating a sentimentwhich he had heard from Philemon. ‘I am not going to see finefellows--fine Dacians and Britons--hack one another to pieces toplease a multitude of whom the majority deserve life much less thanthe gladiators themselves.’

  ‘_Di magni, salaputium disertum!_’ exclaimed Lygdus, one of thegay and festal company who belonged to Cæsar’s household. ‘I heardEpictetus say something of the kind, and we all know that the poorlittle fellow is only a small echo of Musonius. But you, Onesimus,cannot pretend to be a philosopher, and instead of talking seditiousnonsense against the majesty of the Roman people, go you shall.’

  ‘Well then, you will have to drag me there by force,’ said Onesimus.

  ‘Never mind; go you shall,’ said Lygdus; and, seizing him by the neckand arms, they hurried him along with them into the top seats setapart for slaves and the proletariat.

  When once there, Onesimus had not the wisdom to behave as youngAlypius did three centuries later, and to close his eyes. On thecontrary, he caught fire, almost from the first moment, with the wildexcitement, and returned home paganised in every fibre of his beingby the horrid voluptuous maddening scene which he had witnessed--inwhich he had taken part. All that was sweet and pure and tender inthe lessons which he had learnt in the house of Philemon seemed tohave been swept away for the time in that crimson tide of blood, inthat demoniac spectacle of strong men sacrificed as on a Moloch-altarfor the amusement of the idle populace. The more splendid the agilityof the nets-man, the more brawny the muscles of the Samnite, themore dazzling the sweep of the mirmillo’s steel, the more vivid wasthe excitement of watching the glazing eye and ebbing life. It wasthrilling to see the supreme moments and most unfathomed mysteriesof existence turned into the spectacle of a holiday; and even to helpin deciding by the movement of a thumb whether some blue-eyed Germanfrom the Teutobergian forests should live or die. What wonder was itthat waves of emotion swept over the assembled multitude as the gustsof a summer tempest sweep over the waving corn? What wonder thatthe hearts of thousands, as though they were the heart of one man,throbbed together in fierce sympathy, and became like a wild Æolianharp, of which the strings were beaten into murmurs or shrieks orsobs by some intermittent hurricane? In the concentrated passionof those hours, when every pulse leapt and tingled with excitement,the youth seemed to live through years in moments; his whole beingpalpitated with a delicious horror, which annihilated all theordinary interests of life. Here, for the mere dissipation of time,the most consummate tragedies were enacted as part of a scenicdisplay. The spasms of anguish and the heroism of endurance werebut the passing incidents of a gymnastic show.

  When Onesimus returned to his cell that night he was a changedbeing. For a long time he could not sleep, and when he did sleepthe tumult of the arena still rolled through his troubled dreams.His fellow-slaves, long familiar with such games, were amused to hearhim start up from his pallet with shouts of _Habet! Occide! Verbera!_and all the wild cries of the amphitheatre, and from these bloodshotdreams he would awake panting as from a nightmare, while the chant ofthe gladiators, _Ave, Cæsar! Morituri te salutamus_, still woke itssolemn echoes in his ears.

  All life looked stale and dull to the Phrygian slave when the glowof an Italian morning entering his cell aroused him to the duties ofthe day. Slaves, even in a humble home like that of Pudens, were sonumerous as to make those duties inconceivably light. For the greaterpart of the day his time was his own, for all he had to do was towait on Pudens when he went out, carrying anything which his mastermight require. But henceforth his thoughts were day-dreams, and,when not engaged in work, he found nothing to do but to join inthe gossip of his fellow-slaves. Their talk turned usually on threesubjects--their masters, and all the low society slanders of thecity; the delights of the taverns; the merits of rival gladiators andcharioteers, whose names were on every lip. Such conversation led ofcourse to incessant betting, and many a slave lost the whole amountof his savings again and again by backing the merits of a Pacideianusor a Spicillus; or by running up too long scores at the cook-shop(_popina_) to which his fellow-slaves resorted; or by trying to winthe affections of some favourite female flute-player from Syria orSpain.

  Gambling, too, was the incessant diversion of these idle hordes. The_familia_ of Pudens only consisted of the modest number of thirty,but the slave population of Rome was of colossal magnitude, and therewas a terrible free-masonry among the members of this wretched andcorrupted class. The companions of Onesimus were not chiefly tobe found in the household to which he belonged, but among the lewdidlers whom he picked up as acquaintances in every street. With thesehe played at dice, and sauntered about, and jested, and drank, andsquabbled, and betted, until he was on the high road towards beingas low a specimen of the slave-world as any of them all--a beautifulhuman soul caught in the snare of the devil, lured by the glitteringbait of vice, to be dragged forth soon to die lacerated and gaspingupon the shore.

  Hitherto a very little had sufficed him, but now he began to needmoney--money for gambling, money for the taverns, money to spend inthe same sins and follies in which the slaves about him spent theirdays. He could indeed have gained it, had he sunk so low, in athousand nefarious ways; and, gifted as he was with a quick andsupple intelligence, as well as with no small share of the beautyof his race, he might have run away once more, or have secured hispurchase into many a pagan household, where he might have become thepampered favourite of some luxurious master. Such, in such a city asRome, would have been the certain fate of any youth like him, had itnot been for the truths which he had heard from Epaphras in the houseof Philemon. When he was most willing to forget those holy lessonsthey still hung about him and gave him checks. The grace of God stilllived as a faint spark, not wholly quenched, under the whiteningembers of his life. He could not forget that what were now hispleasures had once been pains, and sometimes amid the stiflingatmosphere of a dissipation which rapidly tended to becomepleasureless, his soul seemed to ‘gasp among the shallows,’ soreathirst for purer air.

  But he resisted these retarding influences, and by fiercer draughtsof excitement strove to dispel the pleadings of the still smallvoice.

  It was not long before he felt hard pressed, for he had gambled awaythe little he had earned.

  He had stolen before--he would steal again.

  The slaves of Pudens were mostly of a simpler and more faithful classthan those of the more luxurious houses. There was no need for Pudensto take great precautions about the safety of his money. Most of itwas safe in the hands of his banker (_mensarius_), but sums whichto a slave would seem considerable were locked up in a chest underthe charge of Nereus. Nereus, as we have already mentioned, was aChristian, and Onesimus, until he had begun to degenerate, had feltwarmly drawn towards his daughter Junia. He thought, too, that thesimple maiden was not wholly indifferent to him. But Nereus hadwatched his career, and as it became too probable that the Phrygianwould sink into worthlessness, he had taken care that Onesimus andhis daughter should scarcely ever meet.

  But when, as in every Roman house, a multitude live in a confinedspace, the whole ways of the house become known to all, and Onesimusknew the place where Nereus kept the ready money of his master. Hewatched his opportunity when all but a few members of the householdwere absent to witness a festival, from which he had purposelyabsented himself on a plea of sickness. The only persons left athome were Nereus and others who, being Christians, avoided givingthe smallest sanction to pagan ceremonies. The house was still asthe grave in the noontide, when the youth glided into the cell ofthe sleeping Nereus, and deftly abstracted from his tunic the keywhich he wanted. Armed with this, he slipped into the _tablinum_,or pri
vate room, of Pudens--whom he knew to be on duty at thePalace--and had already opened the casket in which he kept hismoney, when he was startled by a low voice and a gliding footstep.

  He had not been unobserved. Nereus was too faithful, and too muchaware of the dishonesty of the unhappy class to which he belonged,to leave his master’s interests unprotected. He had directed hisdaughter always to be watchful at the hour when he knew that a theftwas most feasible. Junia, from the apartments of the female slaves,on the other side of the house, had heard some one moving stealthilyalong the passage. Hidden behind a statue, she had observed a slavestealing into her father’s cell, had followed lightly, and with apang of shame had seen the youth of whom she had thought as a lovermake his way noiselessly to the room of his master.

  She followed him to the entrance; she saw him open the casket; andshe grew almost sick with terror when she thought of the frightfulpunishment--possibly even crucifixion itself--which might follow thecrime he was on the eve of committing. She would fain have stoppedhim, but did not dare to enter the chamber; and, meanwhile, for somereason the youth was lingering.

  He was lingering because there rang in his ear a voiceless memoryof words which Epaphras had quoted as a message of Paul of Tarsus.The still voice said to him: ‘Let him that stole steal no more; butrather let him labour, working with his hands.’

  He was trying to suppress the mutiny of ‘the blushing shamefastspirit’ within him, as he thought of the games and the dice-box andthe Subura, when he was thrilled through and through by a terrifiedand scarcely audible whisper of his name--

  ‘Onesimus!’

  He turned round, and with nervous haste relocking the casket, hurriedinto the passage. There, with head bowed over her hands, he saw thefigure of a young girl. For one instant she raised her face as hecame out, and he exclaimed--‘Junia!’

  She raised her hand with a warning gesture, put her finger to herlips, and vanished. She fled towards the garden behind the farthestprecincts of the house, and he overtook her in a walk sheltered fromview by a trellis covered with the leaves of a spreading vine.

  ‘Junia,’ he said, flinging himself on his knees, ‘will you betray me?’

  The girl stood pale and trembling. ‘Onesimus,’ she said, ‘I concealnothing from my father.’

  ‘From your father? Oh, Junia, he would drag me before Pudens. Wouldyou see me beaten, perhaps to death, with the leaded thongs? Wouldyou hear me shriek under the horrible _scutica_? Could you bear tosee the crows tearing my flesh as I hung on the cross?’

  ‘Pudens is just and kind,’ she said, faintly, ‘he never inflicts uponhis slaves such horrors as these.’

  ‘No,’ answered Onesimus, bitterly; ‘it would suffice to send me,chained, to work in some sunless pit to the music of clanking fetters.It would suffice to brand three letters on my forehead, and turn meinto the world to starve as a spectacle of shame.’

  ‘Onesimus,’ she said, ‘would God I could--’ She stopped, confusedand terrified, for she did not know that Onesimus had ever heard thetruths of Christianity.

  ‘Junia,’ he exclaimed, ‘you are a Christian; so am I’--and he markedon the gravel the monogram of Christ.

  ‘Alas!’ she answered, ‘a Christian you cannot be. It seems that youhave heard of Jesus; but Christians cannot steal, and cannot live asyou have been living. Christians are innocent.’

  ‘Then you will betray me? Ah! but if you do, you are in my power.Christianity is a foreign superstition. The City Prætor--’

  ‘Base,’ she answered, ‘and baser than I thought. Know you not’--anda light came into her eye, and a glow over all her face--‘that aChristian can suffer? that even a Christian slave-girl does not fearat all to die?’

  He thought that she had never looked so beautiful--so like one ofthe angels of whom he had heard in the gatherings at Colossæ. Butthe sight of the gladiators hacking each other to pieces had inuredhim to cruelty and blood--had filled him with fierce egotism, andindifference to human life. A horrible thought suddenly leapt uponhim as with a tiger’s leap. Why not get rid of the sole witness ofhis crime?

  ‘Then you will betray me to chains, to branding, to the scourge, tothe cross?’ he asked, fiercely.

  Weeping, hiding her face in her hands, she said: ‘What duty tells me,I must do. I must tell my father.’

  In an instant the devil had Onesimus in his grip. He thrust his righthand into his bosom, where he had purposely concealed a dagger.

  ‘Then die!’ he exclaimed, seizing her with his left hand, while thesteel gleamed in the sun.

  The girl moved not; but his own shriek startled the air, as he felta hand come down on his shoulder with the grasp of a vice. The daggerwas wrenched out of his hand; he was whirled round, the blow of apowerful fist stretched him on the path, and a foot which seemed asif it would crush out his life was placed upon his breast.

  ‘Oh, father, spare him!’ said Junia.

  Nereus still kept his foot on the prostrate youth, still held thedagger in his hand; his eyes still flashed, his whole frame wasdilated with righteous indignation. He had misunderstood the meaningof the scene.

  ‘Explain!’ he said. ‘Junia! You here alone with Onesimus in thevine-walk, at the lonely noon! How did he inveigle you here? Did hedare to insult you?’

  The girl had risen; and while Onesimus lay on the ground, stunnedwith the violence of his fall, she told her father all that hadhappened.

  Nereus spurned the youth with his foot.

  ‘And I once thought,’ he said, ‘that he was a secret Christian! Ionce thought that some day he might be worthy to be the husband ofmy Junia! A thief! a would-be murderer! This comes of harbouring astrange Phrygian in an honest household.’

  ‘Father, forgive him!’ said Junia. ‘Are not we forgiven?’

  ‘The wrong to me--the threat against the life of the child I love--yes, that might be forgiven,’ said Nereus; ‘forgiven if repentedof. But how can I do otherwise than tell Pudens? How can I keep thisyouth a member of the household?’

  And again, moved by strong passion, he spurned him with his foot.

  ‘Is there one house in Rome, father,’ she said, ‘in which there arenot thieves? in which there are not men--aye, and women too--whosteal, and would murder if they could? Is he worse than thousandswhom yet we do not see chained in the prisons or rotting on thecrosses? And have we not all sinned? and did not Jesus say, “Forgiveone another your trespasses”?’

  A half-suppressed groan from Onesimus stopped the conversation.

  ‘I know not what to do,’ said Nereus. ‘Go back, my child, to yourcell and to your distaff. I will see you soon. And you,’ he said,‘thrice-wretched boy, come with me.’

  He dragged Onesimus from the ground, and was in such a transport ofwrath that he could not refrain from shaking him by the shoulderswith the roughest and most contemptuous violence, before he thrusthim into the house, and into the cell which had been assigned tohim. Then, calling two of his fellow-slaves, Stachys and Amplias,Christians like himself, whom he could implicitly trust, he bade thembind Onesimus hand and foot, and leave him, not unwatched, till heshould have time to consider his case.