CHAPTER I.
THE APPIAN WAY.
"ENTRANCE TO A CATACOMB."]
On a bright spring morning in the year of our Lord 303--it was in the"Ides of March," about the middle of the month, but the air was balmy asthat of June in our northern clime--two note-worthy-looking men wereriding along the famous Appian Way, near the city of Rome The elder ofthe two, a man of large size and of mighty thews and sinews, was mountedon a strong and richly-caparisoned horse. He wore the armour of a Romancenturion--a lorica or cuirass, made of plates of bronze, fastened to aflexible body of leather; and cothurni, or a sort of laced boots,leaching to mid-leg. On his back hung his round embossed shield; by hisside, in its sheath, his short, straight sword, and on his head was aburnished helmet, with a sweeping horsehair crest. His face was bronzedwith the sun of many climes. But when, for a moment, he removed hishelmet to cool his brow, one saw that his forehead was high and white.His hair curled close to his head, except where it was worn bare at histemples by the chafing of his helmet, and was already streaked withgrey, although he looked not more than five-and forty years of age. Yetthe eagle glance of his eye was undimmed, and his firm-set muscles, thehaughty expression of his countenance, and the high courage of hisbearing, gave evidence that his natural strength was not abated.
His companion contrasted strongly in every respect. He had a slender,graceful figure, a mobile and expressive face, a mouth of almostfeminine softness and beauty, dark and languishing eyes, and long,flowing hair. He wore a snowy toga, with a brilliant scarlet border ofwhat is still known as "Greek fret;" and over this, fastened by a broochat his throat, a flowing cloak. On his head sat jauntily a soft felthat, not unlike those still worn by the Italian peasantry, and on hisfeet were low-laced shoes or sandals. Instead of a sword, he wore at hisside a metal case for his reed-pen and for a scroll of papyrus. He wasin the bloom and beauty of youth, apparently not more than twenty yearsof age.
The elder of the two was the Roman officer Flaccus Sertorius, acenturion of the 12th Legion, returning with his Greek secretary,Isidorus, from the town of Albano, about seventeen miles from Rome,whither he had been sent on business of state.
"This new edict of the Emperor's," remarked Sertorius to his secretary,with an air of affable condescension, "is likely to give us both workenough to do before long."
"Your Excellency forgets," replied Isidorus, with an obsequiousinclination of the head, "that your humble secretary has not the samemeans of learning affairs of state as his noble master."
"Oh, you Greeks learn everything!" said the centurion, with a rathercontemptuous laugh. "Trust you for that."
"We try to make ourselves useful to our patrons," replied the young man,"and it seems to be a sort of hereditary habit, for my Athenianancestors were proverbial for seeking to know some new thing."
"Yes, new manners, new customs, new religions; why, your very nameindicates your adherence to the new-fangled worship of Isis."
"I hold not altogether that way," replied the youth. "I belong rather tothe eclectic school. My father, Apollodorus, was a priest of Phoebus,and named me, like himself, from the sungod, whom he worshipped; but Ifound the party of Isis fashionable at court, so I even changed my nameand colours to the winning side. When one is at Rome, you know, he mustdo as the Romans do."
"Yes, like the degenerate Romans, who forsake the old gods, under whomthe State was great and virtuous and strong," said the soldier, with anangry gesture. "The more gods, the worse the world becomes. But this newedict will make short work of some of them."
"With the Christians you mean," said the supple Greek. "A mostpernicious sect, that deserve extermination with fire and sword."
"I know little about them," replied Sertorius, with a sneer, "save thatthey have increased prodigiously of late. Even in the army and thepalace are those known to favour their obscene and contemptibledoctrines."
"'Tis whispered that even their sacred highnesses the Empresses Priscaand Valeria are infected with their grovelling superstition," said theGreek secretary. "Certain it is, they seem to avoid being present at thepublic sacrifices, as they used to be. But the evil sect has itsfollowers chiefly among the slaves and vile plebs of the poorestTranstiberine region of Rome."
"What do they worship, anyhow?" asked the centurion, with an air oflanguid curiosity. "They seem to have no temples, nor altars, norsacrifices."
"They have dark and secret and abominable rites," replied the fawningGreek, eager to gratify the curiosity of his patron with popularslanders against the Christians. "'Tis said they worship a low-bornpeasant, who was crucified for sedition. Some say he had an ass'shead,[1] but that, I doubt not, is a vulgar superstition; and one of ourpoets, the admirable Lucian, remarks that their doctrine was brought toRome by a little hook-nosed Jew, named Paulus, who was beheaded by thedivine Nero over yonder near the Ostian gate, beside the pyramid ofCestius, which you may see amongst the cypresses. They have many strangeusages. Their funeral customs, especially, differ very widely from theGreek or Roman ones. They bury the body, with many mysterious rites, invaults or chambers underground, instead of burning it on a funeral pyre.They are rank atheists, refusing to worship the gods, or even to throwso much as a grain of incense on their altar, or place a garland offlowers before their shrines, or even have their images in theirhouses. They are a morose, sullen, and dangerous people, and are said tohold hideous orgies at their secret assemblies underground, where theybanquet on the body of a newly-slain child.[2] See yonder," hecontinued, pointing to a low-browed arch almost concealed by trees in aneighbouring garden, "is the entrance to one of their secret crypts,where they gather to celebrate their abominable rites, surrounded by thebones and ashes of the dead. A vile and craven set of wretches; they arenot fit to live."
"They are not all cravens; to that I can bear witness," interruptedSertorius. "I knew a fellow in my own company--Lannus was his name--who,his comrades said, was a Christian. He was the bravest and steadiestfellow in the legion;--saved my life once in Libya;--rushed between meand a lion, which sprang from a thicket as I stopped to let my horsedrink at a stream--as it might be the Anio, there. The lion's fangs metin his arm, but he never winced. He may believe what he pleases for me.I like not this blood-hound business of hunting down honest men becausethey worship gods of their own. But the Emperor's edict is written, asyou may say, with the point of a dagger--'The Christian religion musteverywhere be destroyed.'"
"And quite right, too, your Excellency," said the soft-smiling Greek."They are seditious conspirators, the enemies of C[ae]sar and of Rome."
"A Roman soldier does not need to learn of thee, hungry Greekling,"[3]exclaimed the centurion, haughtily, "what is his duty to his country!"
"True, most noble sir," faltered the discomfited secretary, yet with avindictive glance from his treacherous eyes. "Your Excellency is alwaysright."
For a time they rode on in silence, the secretary falling obsequiously alittle to the rear. It was now high noon, and the crowd and bustle onthe Appian Way redoubled. This Queen of Roads[4] ran straight as anarrow up-hill and down from Rome to Capua and Brundisium, a distance ofover three hundred miles. Though then nearly six hundred years old, itwas as firm as the day it was laid, and after the lapse of fifteenhundred years more, during which "the Goth, the Christian, Time, War,Flood and Fire," have devastated the land, its firm lava pavement ofbroad basaltic slabs seems as enduring as ever. On every side rolled theundulating Campagna, now a scene of melancholy desolation, thencultivated like a garden, abounding in villas and mansions whose marblecolumns gleamed snowy white through the luxuriant foliage of theirembosoming myrtle and laurel groves. On either side of the road were thestately tombs of Rome's mighty dead-her pr[ae]tors, proconsuls, andsenators some, like the mausoleum of C[ae]cilia Metella,[5] rising like asolid fortress; others were like little wayside altars, but all weresurrounded by an elegantly kept green sward, adorned with parterres offlowers. Their ruins now rise like stranded wrecks above the sea ofverdure of the tomb-abounding plain.
On every side are tombs--tombsabove and tombs below--the graves of contending races, the sepulchres ofvanished generations. Across the vast field of view stretched, supportedhigh in air on hundreds of arches, like a Titan procession, the MarcianAqueduct, erected B.C. 146, which after two thousand years brings to thecity of Rome an abundant supply of the purest water from the far distantAlban Mountains, which present to our gaze to-day the same serratedoutline and lovely play of colour that delighted the eyes of Horace andCicero.
As they drew nearer the gates of the city, it became difficult to threadtheir way through the throngs of eager travellers--gay lectic[ae] orsilken-curtained carriages and flashing chariots, conveying fashionableladies and the gilded gallants of the city to the elegant villas withoutthe walls--processions of consuls and proconsuls with their guards, andcrowds of peasants bringing in the panniers of their patient donkeysfruits, vegetables, and even snow from the distant Soracte, protectedfrom the heat by a straw matting--just as they do in Italy to-day. Thebusy scene is vividly described in the graphic lines of Milton:
"What conflux issuing forth or entering in; Pr[ae]tors, proconsuls to their provinces Hasting, or on return, in robes of state; Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power, Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings; Or embassies from regions far remote, In various habits on the Appian Road."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I have myself seen in the museum of the _Collegio Romano_ at Rome, arude caricature which had been scratched upon the wall of the barracksof Nero's palace, representing a man with an ass's head upon a cross,and beneath it the inscription, _"Alexomenos sebete Theon"_ "Alexomenosworships his God." Evidently some Roman soldier had scratched this in anidle hour in derision of the worship of our Lord by his Christianfellow-soldier. Tertullian also refers to the same calumny; and Lucian,a pagan writer, speaks of our Lord as "a crucified impostor." It isalmost impossible for us to conceive the contempt and detestation inwhich crucifixion was held by the Romans. It was a punishment reservedfor the worst of felons, or the vilest of slaves.--ED.
[2] All these calumnies, and others still worse, are recorded by paganwriters concerning the early Christians. Their celebration of the Lord'sSupper in the private meetings became the ground of the last-mentioneddistorted accusation.--ED.
[3] "Graeculus esuriens," the term applied by Juvenal to those foreignadventurers who sought to worm their way into the employment andconfidence of great Roman houses.
[4] _Regina Viarum_, as the Romans called it.
[5] It is a circular structure sixty-five feet in diameter, built upon asquare base of still larger size. After two thousand years it stilldefies the gnawing tooth of Time.
Valeria, the Martyr of the Catacombs: A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome Page 3
