CHAPTER IV.
THE VILLA IN THE ISLAND.
Count AElius was a man of the best Roman type, a man of "primitive virtue,"as the classical writers would have put it, though this virtue had beensoftened, refined, and purified by civilizing and instructing influences,of which the old Roman heroes--the Fabiuses, the Catos, the Scipios--hadknown nothing. In the antiquity of his lineage there was scarcely a man inthe Empire who could pretend to compare with him. For the most part, theold houses from which had come the Consuls and Dictators of the Republichad died out. The old nobility had gone, and the new nobility had followedit. The great name of Fabius, saved by an accident from extinction, whenits three hundred gallant sons, each of them "fit to command an army,"perished in one day by the craft of the Etruscan foe, had passed away.There was no living representative of the conqueror of Carthage, or of theconqueror of Corinth. Even the _parvenus_ of the Empire had in their turndisappeared. The generals and senators, both of the old Rome and of thenew,(12) bore names which would have sounded strange and barbarous toCicero or even to Tacitus. An AElius then, one who claimed to trace hisdescent to a time even earlier than the legendary age, to a race which wasdomiciled in Italy long before even AEneas had brought thither the gods ofTroy, was an almost singular phenomenon in a generation of new men. Andnothing less than this was the pedigree claimed by the AElii. Theirremotest ancestor--the Count never could hear an allusion to it without asmile--was the famous cannibal king who ruled over the Laestrygones, atribe of Western Italy,(13) and from whose jaws the prudent Ulysses sonarrowly escaped. The pride of ancient descent is not particular as to thecharacter of a progenitor, so he be sufficiently remote; and one branch ofthe AElii had always delighted to recall by their surname their connectionwith this man-eating hero. But the race had not lacked glories of its ownin historical times. They had had soldiers, statesmen, and men of lettersamong them. One of them had been made immortal by the friendship ofHorace. Another, an adopted son, it was true, better known by the famousname of Sejanus, had nearly made himself master of the throne of theCaesars. About a hundred years later this crowning glory of human ambitionhad fallen to it in the person of Hadrian, third in the list of the "fivegood Emperors";(14) though indeed there were purists in the matter ofgenealogy who stoutly denied that this great soldier and scholar had anyof the real AElian blood in him.
The Count's father had held civil office at Carthage, and the young AEliushad there, for a short time, been a pupil of Aurelius Augustinus, thenknown as an eloquent teacher of rhetoric, afterwards to become the mostfamous doctor of the Western Church. But his bent was not for theprofession of the law, and his father, though disappointed at hispreference for a soldier's career, would not stand in his way. His firstexperience of warfare was gained on a day of terrible disaster. Hisfather's influence had secured him a position which seemed in every waydesirable. He was attached to the staff of Trajanus, a general of divisionin the army of the Emperor Valens. By great exertions, travelling nightand day, at the hottest period of the year, the young AElius contrived toreport himself to his commander on the eve of the great battle ofAdrianople. He had borne himself with admirable courage andself-possession during that terrible day, more disastrous to the Romanarms than even Cannae itself. He had helped to carry the wounded Emperor toa cottage near the field of battle, and had barely escaped with his life,cutting his way with desperate resolution through the enemy, when thisplace of refuge was surrounded and burnt by the barbarians. After thisunfortunate beginning he betook himself for a time to the employments ofpeace, obtaining an office under Government at Milan, where he renewed hisacquaintance with his old teacher, Augustine. Then another opening, inwhat was still his favourite profession, presented itself. The youngsoldier's gallant conduct on the disastrous day of Adrianople had not beenforgotten by some who had witnessed it, and when Stilicho, then the risinggeneral of the Empire, was looking about for officers to fill posts uponhis staff, the name of AElius was mentioned to him. Under Stilicho heserved with much distinction, and it was on Stilicho's recommendation thathe was appointed to the post which, when our story opens, he had held fornearly twenty years.
His position during this period had been one of singular difficulty. Thetie between the Empire and Britain was very loose. More than once duringAElius' tenure of office it had seemed to be broken altogether. Pretenderafter pretender had risen against the central power, and had declared hisprovince independent, and himself an Emperor. The Count of the Saxon Shorehad contrived to keep himself neutral, so to speak, during these troubles.His own office, that of defending the eastern and southern shores of theisland against the attacks of the Saxon pirates, he had filled withremarkable vigilance and skill. And the usurpers had been content to leavehim undisturbed. His sailors were profoundly attached to him, and anyattempt to interfere with him would have thrown a considerable weight intothe opposite scale. And he and his work were necessary. Whether Britainwas subject to Rome or independent of it, it was equally important thatits coasts should not be harried by pirates. If AElius would provide forthis--and he did provide for it, with an almost unvarying success--he mightbe left alone, and not required to give in his allegiance to the newclaimant of the throne. This allegiance he never did give in. He wasalways the faithful servant of those who appointed him, and, whoever mighthappen to be the temporary master of Britain, regularly addressed hisdespatches and reports to the central authority in Italy. On the otherhand, he did not feel himself bound to take direct steps towards assertingthat authority in the island. He had to keep the pirates in check, andthat was occupation quite sufficient to keep all his energies employed.Thus, as has been said, he observed a kind of neutrality, always loyal tothe Roman Emperor, but willing to be on friendly terms with the rebelgenerals of Britain as long as they left him alone, let him do his work ofdefending the coast, and did not make any demands upon him which hisconscience would not allow him to satisfy.
Having thus sketched the career of the Count, we must now say somethingabout the house, which now--it was early in the afternoon of the dayfollowing the events described in the last chapter--was just coming intosight.
The villa was the Count's private property, and had been purchased by himimmediately on his arrival in the island, for a reason which will be givenhereafter. It was a handsome house, and complete in its way, with all thatwas necessary for a comfortable residence, but not one of the largest ofits kind. Indeed, it may be said that what may be called the "living" partof it was unusually small for the dwelling of so distinguished a person asthe Count. It had been found large enough by its previous owners, men ofmoderate means and, it so happened, of small families; and the Count,feeling that his occupation of it might be terminated at any time, had notcared to add to it. Its situation was remarkably pleasing. Behind it was asheltering range of hills,(15) keeping off the force of the south-westerlywinds, and then richly covered with wood. It was not too near the sea, theRomans not finding that the ceaseless disturbance of rising and fallingtides was an element of pleasure, though they could not get too close totheir own tideless Mediterranean; but it was within an easy distance ofthe Haven.(16) The convenience of this neighbourhood had indeed been oneof the Count's reasons for selecting this spot. But if the harsh, gratingsound of the waves upon the shingle did not reach the ears of the dwellersin the villa, and the force of the sea winds was somewhat broken for themby intervening cliffs, they still enjoyed all the freshness and vitalityof an air that had come across many a league of water. The climate, too,was genial, mild without being too soft, mostly free from damp, though notexempt from occasional mist, seldom troubled by frost or snow, and, on thewhole, not unlike some of the more temperate regions of Italy.
The villa, with its belongings, occupied three sides of a square, orrather rectangle, and was built nearly to the points of the compass. Theeastern side of the square was open, thus giving a prospect seawards. Thewestern contained the principal living rooms. The northern, too, w
aspartly occupied by bed-chambers and sitting-rooms, for which there was noroom in the comparatively small portion which had been originally intendedfor the residence of the owner and his family. Some of the workmenemployed lived in cottages outside the villa enclosure. The southern wasdevoted to storehouses, workshops, and all the miscellaneous buildingswhich made a Roman villa, as far as possible, an establishment complete initself. The open space was occupied by a pretty garden, which will be moreparticularly described hereafter.(17)
The eastward front of the villa was occupied for the greater part of itslength by a colonnade or corridor. A low wall of about four feet in heightseparated this from the garden; above the wall it was open to the air; butan overhanging roof helped greatly to shelter it, while the view into thegarden was unimpeded. The floor was adorned with a handsome tesselatedpavement, the principal device of which was a representation of thefavourite subject of Orpheus attracting beasts and birds by his lyre. Theproprietor from whom the Count had purchased the villa had brought it fromItaly. He was a Christian of artistic tastes, and, like hisfellow-believers, had delighted to trace in the old myth a spiritualmeaning, the power of the teaching of Christ to subdue to the Divineobedience the savage, animal nature of man. He had displaced for it theoriginal design, which, indeed, was nothing better than a commonplacerepresentation of dancing figures which had satisfied the earlier owners.The artist had included among the listeners animals, some of which, as themonkey, the Thracian minstrel could hardly have seen, and, with a certaintouch of humour, he had adorned the monkey's head with a Phrygian cap,like that which Orpheus himself wore, to indicate probably that the monkeyis the caricature of man. The inner wall was ornamented with a bold designof Caesar's first landing in Britain, worked in fresco. Seats and tableswere arranged along it at intervals, and the whole corridor was thus madeto furnish a pleasant promenade in winter and a charming resort when theweather was warm.
At the south end of the corridor was the Count's own apartment, or study,as it would be called in a modern house. One window looked into thecorridor, into which a door also opened; another, which was built out intothe shape of a bow, so as to catch as much of the sun as the aspectallowed, looked into the garden. Part of it was formed of lattices, whichadmitted of being completely closed when the weather required suchprotection; the rest was glazed with glass, which would have seemed roughto the present generation, but was quite as good as most people werecontent to have in their houses fifty years ago. The pavement wastesselated, and presented various designs, a Bacchante, and a pair ofgladiators among them. These, however, were commonly covered with thickwoollen rugs, the villa being chiefly used as a winter residence. TheCount had not forgotten his early studies, and some handsome bookcasescontained his favourite authors, among which were to be found the greatclassic poets of Rome, Tacitus, for whom he had a special regard, somewriters on the military art, Cato and Columella on agriculture, and, notleast honoured, though some, at least, of their contents had but littleinterest for him--for, sincere Christian as he was, he cared little forcontroversy--the numerous treatises of his friend and teacher, Augustine.Behind this room was a simple furnished bed-chamber, showing in an almostbare simplicity the characteristic tastes of a soldier.
At the other end of the corridor was a door leading to the principalchamber in this part of the villa. This measured altogether close uponforty feet in length, but it was divided, or rather could be divided, intotwo by columns which stood about halfway down its longer sides, andbetween which a curtain could be hung. When the chamber was occupied insummer it might be used as a whole; in the winter the smaller part, whichlooked out into the garden, could be shut off from the rest by drawing thecurtain, and so made a comfortable room, warmed from below by hot air fromthe furnace, which had been constructed at the western end of the northernwing of the villa. Much artistic skill had been expended on the pavementsof the apartment, and the smaller chamber was very richly decorated inthis way. In the middle was a large head of Medusa, and the rest wasfilled with beautifully-worked scenes illustrating the pleasures of apastoral life. It was the custom of the Count's family to use the largerportion of the whole chamber as a dining-room, the smaller as a ladies'boudoir. On the rare occasion of some large entertainment being given, thewhole was thrown into one.
The ladies of the family, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, had theirown apartments at the western end of the north wing, part of which wasshut off for their occupation and for their immediate attendants. Acovered way connected this with the portion occupied by the Count.
It would be needless to describe the rest of the villa. It was like thehouses of its kind, houses which the Romans erected wherever they went inas close an imitation as they could make of what they were accustomed toat home.
The garden, however, must not be wholly passed over. Spacious and handsomeas it was, it in part presented a stiff and unnatural appearance, looking,in fact, somewhat theatrical, as contrasted with the pastoral sunniness ofthe landscape. A Roman gardener had been brought from Rome--one skilled inall the arts of his craft. It was he who had terraced the slope with somuch regularity, had planted stiff box hedges--and, above all, it was histaste which led him to cut and train box and laburnum shrubs intofantastic imitations of other forms. The poor trees were forced to abandontheir own natural shapes, and to pose as vases, geometrical figures, andanimals of various kinds. There was even a ship of box surrounded by abroad channel of water, so that the spectator, making large demands on hisimagination, might imagine that the little mock vessel was moored on astill sheet of water. Among the box trees were stone fountains badlycopied from classic models. But these had not remained in their barecrudity. The loving British ivy had crept close around them, and added agrace which the sculptor had failed to give. The Roman gardener would haveliked to banish this intruder, or to at least train it into the positionsprescribed by horticultural rules, but he had been bidden to let it run atits own sweet will; and so it had, and had flourished, well nursed by thesoft and humid atmosphere.
Scattered at regular intervals through the green were flower-beds stockedwith plants, which were either native to the island, or had been broughthither with great care from the capital. There were roses in severalvarieties, strange-shaped orchids, which had been found growing wild atlower levels of the island, and adopted into this civilized garden toornament it with their unique beauty. Gay geraniums and other flowers madethroughout the summer bright patches of colour in striking contrast to thedark green.
These beds were enclosed by borders. Between these enclosures werecuriously-cut letters of growing box, which perpetuated--at least for thelife-time of the shrub--the gardener's own name or that of his master, orclassic titles, to serve as designations for certain portions of theplace. In the midst of the garden several luxuriant oaks and graceful elmshad been allowed to retain in their native freedom the shapes into whichthey had been growing for so many years. They cast wide shadows, and gavea softened aspect to the unnatural shapes of the trained growths.
Beyond the floral division of the garden was another enclosure for pearand apple trees. They stood on a green sward, soft as velvet, and of adeeper hue than Italian suns permit to the grass on which they smile.Here, too, were foreign embellishments. The monotony of the uniform rowsof fruit trees was varied by pyramids of box, and the whole orchard wassurrounded by a belt of plane trees.
A circle of oaks had been left at the summit of one of the terraces. Thickhedges were planted between the trees, making a dense wall, in whichopenings were cut for the view, so that the vista was visible, like apicture set in a dark frame. This green room, roofed by the sky, was pavedwith a mosaic of the bright coloured chalk from the cliffs at the westernend of the island, and contained an oblong basin of water shaped like atable. The water flowed through so gently that the surface always seemedat rest, and yet never grew warm. Couches were placed at this fountaintable, and from time to time repasts were served here, certain viandsbeing placed in dishes shaped like swans or boa
ts, which floatedgracefully on the watery surface. The more solid meats were placed on thebroad marble edges of the basin.
This sylvan retreat seemed made for a meeting of naiads and nereids. Inshort, the spot was so sheltered, the outlook over sea and land both nearand across the strait so fair, that one could well believe even Pliny'sfamed Tuscan garden, which may have suggested some features of thisBritish one, was not more happily placed.
The Count of the Saxon Shore; or The Villa in Vectis. Page 6
