Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale
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CHAPTER XLIII
_A NOTABLE PRISONER_
‘He that hath light within his own clear breast, May sit i’ the centre, and enjoy bright day; But he that hath a dark soul, and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon.’
MILTON, _Comus_.
A Roman centurion, whose armour gleamed in the sun, was walking atthe head of the decuria of soldiers, several of whom were attachedby a loose coupling chain to the arms of various prisoners. Thespectacle was common enough, and in the varied turmoil of theprincipal thoroughfare, with the stream of travellers which swept toand fro about the capital of the world, there was nothing in it toattract notice. But the interest felt in one of the prisoners hadinduced a throng of people--mostly foreigners, slaves, and artisans--to go and meet him.
Titus recognised in the centurion an old friend. ‘Ha, Julius!’ hecried; ‘so you have returned from Cæsarea. You will have long storiesto tell us about those curious and turbulent Jews. Will you sup withmy father to-night? You will be welcome.’
‘Yes!’ said Julius, ‘gladly, for I am tired with a long day’s march.’
‘You know our frugal ways. You will have to recline on couches madeonly by Archias, and sup mainly on vegetables off earthenware plates,’said Titus laughing, and quoting Horace.
‘It will be a supper of the gods after our fare in the nights anddays of storm on the Adramyttian ship off Clauda and Malta,’ saidJulius. ‘But I must hurry on now to hand over my prisoners to thePrætorian Præfect.’
‘Who are your prisoners?’
‘They are of the ordinary sort except one. He is the strangest,bravest, wisest man I ever met; and yet he is a fanatical Jew--oneof this new sect which the mob calls Christians.’
‘Which is he?’
Julius pointed to a prisoner chained to the foremost soldier, oneither side of whom nearly all the visitors were grouped, listeningeagerly to every word he uttered, and showing him every sign of loveand reverence. He was a man with the aquiline nose and features ofhis race, somewhat bent, somewhat short of stature, evidently fromhis gestures a man of nervous and emotional temperament. His hairhad grown grey in long years of hardship. Many a care and peril andanxiety had driven its ploughshare across his brow. His cheeks weresunken, and the eyes, though bright, were disfigured by ophthalmia.He was evidently short-sighted, but as he turned his fixed andearnest look now on one, now on another of his companions, theexpression of his deeply-marked face was so translucent with somedivine light within, that those who once saw him felt compelled tolook long on a countenance of no ordinary type of nobleness.
Titus gazed at him. Nothing could be more unlike the worn and wearyJew who had been buffeted by so many storms and escaped from so manyterrific perils, than was the athletic young Roman, with his shortfair hair which curled round a face ruddy in its prime of youth andhealth. In the prisoner’s aspect there was none of the Roman dignitywhich marked the look and bearing of Pætus Thrasea; none of the manlyindependence which looked the whole world in the face from the eyesof Cornutus or Musonius Rufus; none certainly of the rich Easternbeauty which marked Aliturus or the Herodian princes. Yet Titus ashe watched him was, for a moment, too much astonished to speak.
‘He looks all you say of him,’ he murmured. ‘Who is he?’
‘His name is Paulus of Tarsus. He is evidently a great leader amongthese Christians.’
Hitherto Onesimus, absorbed in his own sad reflections, had neitherheeded the throng, nor attended to the conversation between Titus andJulius. But suddenly he caught the name, and looked up with a hastyglance.
He saw before him not a few of the Christian community of Rome. Manyof them were known to him. Nereus was there and Junia; and from thehousehold of Cæsar he recognised Tryphæna and Tryphosa and Herodion;and there were Linus, and Cletus, and the soldiers Urban andCelsus, and Claudia Dicæosyne, wife of a freedman of Narcissus,and Andronicus, and Alexander, and Rufus, sons of Simon of Cyrenewho had borne Christ’s cross, and many more.
In a single glance he took in the presence of these, and a senseof danger flashed across him, lest any one of them, perhaps a falsebrother, should penetrate his disguise as Titus had done. But itwas not at them that he looked. His whole being was absorbed in thegaze which he fixed on him whom he had always heard spoken of as theApostle Paulus.
Yes, there he stood; his face thinner and more worn than of old, hishair now almost white with an age which was reckoned less by yearsthan by labours and sorrows; but otherwise just as he was whenPhilemon had gone from Colossæ and taken with him his boy-slave tolisten to the words of impassioned reasoning and burning inspirationwhich Paul poured forth at Ephesus in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.What a flood of memories surged over the young Phrygian’s soul ashe saw him! As though his life, since then, had been written inlightning, he thought in one instant of that long tale of shame andsorrow--from the theft at Colossæ to the wanderings with the priestsof the Syrian goddess, the gladiators’ school, the attempted murderat Aricia. It all flashed upon his recollection, and he felt as ifhe could sink to the earth for shame. His first impulse was to springforward and cast himself at the Apostle’s feet. But he heard Juliussay that they had halted too long, and that he must press forwardwith his charge. The word ‘Forward, soldiers!’ was given, andOnesimus hid himself behind a tomb, only rejoining Titus when theChristians had passed by. Titus seemed lost in thought, but as theywere near Pomponia’s house, he said:
‘Onesimus, did you see that prisoner?’
‘Yes. And I saw him when I was a boy in Ephesus.’
‘I know _men_ when I see them,’ said Titus. ‘He is a man,’ and thenhe repeated the Greek line--
‘How gracious a thing is a man, if he be but a man.’[86]
‘He is a Jew; he is small and bent; he is ugly; yet somehow hisugliness is more beautiful tenfold than the beauty of Paris orTigellinus.’
‘You should hear him speak!’ said Onesimus.
Titus shrugged his shoulders. ‘A Christian!’ he said; ‘a worshipperof a Jew whom they tell me Pilatus crucified! And yet,’ he added,‘there is something more in these Christians than I can fathom.Britannicus was very much struck by them, and I believe Pomponia isa Christian. She told me once that “no weapon forged against theseChristians prospers.” Pilatus, they say, came to a bad end.’
‘What happened to him?’ asked Onesimus.
‘They say he became a haunted man. His wife Claudia Procula turnedChristian. He was banished to Helvetia and there committed suicide;and his ghost haunts a bare mountain, and is forever wringing andwashing its hands. But I believe it is all nonsense,’ said Titus;‘and here we are at Pomponia’s house.’
They found the gracious noble lady with her boy by her side in theperistyle tending her flowers among her doves, which were so tamethat they would perch on her head and shoulder, and coo softly, asthey suffered both her and the young Aulus to smooth their plumage.
‘Bathed in such hues as when the peacock’s neck Assumes its brightest tint of amethyst Embathed in emerald glory.’
The heart of Pomponia was open to every kind impulse, and as therewas little difficulty in finding room for another slave in the amplepalace of a Roman noble like Aulus Plautius, Onesimus, saved oncemore from ruin and destitution, slept that night in the cell of anew master.
Meanwhile Julius and his prisoner had proceeded on their way. Leavingthe Circus Maximus on their left, and going along the Vicus Tuscus,amid temples and statues and arches of triumph, they passed thePrætorian Camp, built by Sejanus, near the Nomentan Road, and reachedthe Excubitorium and the barracks of that section of the Prætorianswhose turn it was to keep guard over the person of the Emperor.Here the centurion found Burrus, and in consigning to his charge theprisoner who had appealed unto Cæsar, handed to him at the same timesome letters respecting him from Felix Festus, and King Agrippa.Burrus read them with interest.
‘This is a remarkable prisoner
,’ he said. ‘The Jews accuse him ofsedition and profanity; but they have sent neither evidence norwitnesses.’
‘We passed through a fearful storm off Crete,’ said Julius, ‘and wereshipwrecked at Malta. I hear rumours that another large vessel, whichsailed soon after us from Cæsarea, with many Jews on board, founderedat sea. I expect that some of the accusers of Paulus perished withher.’
‘Well, if so, his case will be delayed. He is innocent, I suppose?’
‘Perfectly innocent, I am certain. Christian as he is, it is such menwhom the gods love. We all of us should have perished at sea but forhis wisdom and good sense, and if we had listened to his advice weshould not have been wrecked at all.’
‘Ha!’ said Burrus; ‘he shall be well treated.’ He called to aPrætorian and said: ‘The prisoner in the outer room may hire alodging for himself. He will, of course, be in custody. The menmust take their turns to be chained to him; but mark--choose out thekindest and most honest men for the work, and let them understandthat I order him to be as gently dealt with as can be, consistentlywith his security.’
That night the dream of the life of Paul of Tarsus was accomplished;he was sleeping in Rome. He was an ambassador, though an ambassadorin bonds.