The Count of the Saxon Shore; or The Villa in Vectis.

by Alfred John Church

  CHAPTER II.

  AN ELECTION.

  The camp next day was covered with gloom. The soldiers moved silent andwith downcast faces along the avenues, or discharged in a mechanical waytheir routine duties. The guards were turned out, the sentries relieved,and the general order of service maintained without any action on the partof the officers--at least of those who held superior rank. These remainedin the seclusion of their tents; and it may be said that those who wereconscious of being popular were almost as much alarmed as those who knewthat they were disliked. If the latter dreaded the vengeance of those whomthey had offended, the others were scarcely less alarmed by thepossibility of being elected to the perilous dignity which had just provedfatal to Gratianus. The country people, whose presence generally gave anair of cheerfulness and activity to the camp, were too much alarmed tocome. The trading booths inside the gates were empty, and only a very fewstalls were occupied in the market, which was held every day outside them.

  The funeral of the late prince was celebrated with some pomp. The soldiersattended it in crowds, and manifested their grief, and, it would seem,their remorse, by groans and tears. They were ready even to give proofs oftheir repentance by the summary execution of those who had taken an activepart in the bloody deed. But here, one of the centurions, whose cheerful,genial manners made him an unfailing favourite with the men, had thecourage to check them. "No, my men," said he; "we were all mad last night,and we must all take the blame."

  Two days passed without any incident of importance. On the third thequestion of a successor began to be discussed. One of the other garrisonsmight be beforehand with them, and they would have either to accept achief who would owe his best favours to others, or risk their lives in anunprofitable struggle with him. In the afternoon a general assembly of thetroops was held, the officers still holding aloof, though some of themmixed, _incognito_, so to speak, in the crowd.

  Of course, the first difficulty was to find any one who would take thelead. At last the genial centurion, who has been mentioned above as awell-established favourite with the soldiers, was pushed to the front. Hisspeech was short and sensible. "Comrades," he said, "I doubt whether whatI have to say will please you; but I shall say it all the same. You knowthat I always speak my mind. We have not done very well in the new ways.Let us try the old. I propose that we take the oath to Honorius Augustus."

  A deep murmur of discontent ran through the assembly, and showed that thespeaker had presumed at least as far as was safe on his popularity withthe troops.

  "Does Decius," cried a burly German from the crowd--Decius was the name ofthe centurion--"does Decius recommend that we should trust to the mercy ofHonorius? Very good, perhaps, for himself; for the giver of such advicecould scarcely fail of a reward; but for us it means decimation(8) at theleast."

  A shout of applause showed that the speaker had expressed the feelings ofhis audience.

  "I propose that we all take the oath to Decius himself!" said a Batavian;"he is a brave man and an honest, and what do we want more?"

  The good Decius had heard undismayed the angry disapproval which his loyalproposal had called forth; but the mention of his name as a possiblecandidate for the throne overwhelmed him with terror. His jovial face grewpale as death; the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead; hetrembled as he had never trembled in the face of an enemy.

  "Comrades," he stammered, "what have I done that you should treat me thus?If I have offended or injured you, kill me, but not this."

  More than half possessed by a spirit of mischief, the assembly answeredthis piteous appeal by continuous shouts of "Long live the EmperorDecius!"

  The good man grew desperate. He drew his sword from the scabbard, andpointed it at his own heart. "At least," he cried, "you can't forbid methis escape."

  The bystanders wrested the weapon from him; but the joke had gone farenough, and the man was too genuinely popular for the soldiers to allowhim to be tormented beyond endurance. A voice from the crowd shouted,"Long live the Centurion Decius!" to which another answered, "Long liveDecius the subject!" and the worthy man felt that the danger was over.

  A number of candidates, most of whom were probably as little desirous ofthe honour as Decius, were now proposed in succession.

  "I name the Tribune Manilius," said one of the soldiers.

  The name was received with a shout of laughter.

  "Let him learn first to be Emperor at home!" cried a voice from the backof the assembly, a sally which had considerable success, as his wife was awell-known termagant, and his two sons the most frequent inmates of themilitary prison.

  "I name the Centurion Pisinna."

  "Very good, if he does not pledge the purple," for Pisinna was notoriouslyimpecunious.

  "I name the Tribune Cetronius."

  "Very good as Emperor of the baggage-guard." Cetronius had, to say theleast, no high reputation for personal courage, and was supposed to preferthe least exposed parts on the field.

  A number of other names were mentioned only to be dismissed with more orless contumely. Tired of this sport--for it really was nothing more--thecrowd cried out for a speech from a well-known orator of the camp, whosefluency, not unmixed with shrewdness and humour, had gained him aconsiderable reputation among his comrades.

  "Comrades," he began, "if you have not yet found a candidate worthy ofyour suffrages, it is not because such do not exist among you. Can it bebelieved that Britain is less worthy to produce the Emperor than Gaul, orSpain, or Thrace, or even the effeminate Syria? Was it not from Britainthat there came forth the greatest of the successors of Augustus, theSecond Romulus, Flavius Aurelius Constantinus?"(9)

  The orator was not permitted to proceed any further. The name Constantinusran like an electric shock through the whole assembly, and a thousandvoices took up the cry, "Long live Constantinus, Emperor Augustus!" whileall eyes were turned to one of the back rows of the meeting, where asoldier who happened to bear that name was standing. Some of his comradescaught him by the arm, hurried him to the front, and from thence on to thehustings. He was greeted with a perfect uproar of applause, partly, ofcourse, ironical, but partly the expression of a genuine feeling that theright man had been found, and found by some sort of Divine assistance. Thesoldiers were, as has been said, a strange medley of men, scarcely able tounderstand each other, and alike only in being savage, ignorant, andsuperstitious. They had been unlucky in choosing for themselves, and nowit might be well to have the choice made for them. And at least the newman had a name which all of them knew and reverenced, as far as theyreverenced anything.

  Constantine elected Emperor.]

  Whether he had anything but a name might have seemed perhaps somewhatdoubtful. He had reached middle age, for he had two sons already grown up,but had never risen above the rank of a private soldier. It might be said,perhaps, that he had shown some ability in thus avoiding promotion--notalways a desirable thing in troublous times; but there was the fact thathe was nearly fifty years of age, and was not even a deputy-centurion. Onthe other hand, he was a respectable man, ignorant indeed, for, like mostof his comrades, he could neither read nor write, but with a certainpractical shrewdness, so good-humoured that he had never made an enemy,known to be remarkably brave, a great athlete in his youth, and still of astrength beyond the average.

  His sudden and strange elevation did not seem to throw him in the leastoff his balance. He had been perfectly content to go without promotion,and now he seemed equally content to receive the highest promotion of all.He stood calmly facing the excited mob, as unmoved as if he had been aprivate soldier on the parade ground. A slight flush, indeed, might havebeen seen to mount to his face when the cloak of imperial purple wasthrown over his shoulders, and the peaked diadem put upon his head. Hemust have been less than man not to have felt some thrill either of fearor pride at the touch of what had brought two of his comrades to theirgraves within the space of less than half a year; but he showe
d no othersign of emotion.

  The officers, seeing the turn things had taken, had now come to the front,and the senior tribune, taking the new Emperor by the hand, led him to theedge of the hustings, and said, "Comrades, I present to you AureliusConstantinus, chosen by the providence of God and the choice of the armyto be Emperor of Britain and the West. The Blessed and Undivided Trinityorder it for the best." A ringing shout of approval went up in response.The tribunes then took the oath of allegiance to the new Emperor inperson. These again administered it to the centurions, and the centurionsswore in great batches of the soldiers. The new-made prince meanwhilestood unmoved, it might almost be said insensible, so strange was hiscomposure in the face of his sudden elevation. All that he said--theresult, it seemed, of a whisper from one of his sons--were a few words,which, however, had all the success of a most eloquent oration.

  "Comrades, I promise you a donative(10) within the space of a month."

  The assembly broke up in great good-humour, and the newly-made Emperor,attended by the officers, went to take possession of headquarters.