Felicitas: A Tale of the German Migrations: A.D. 476

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER I.

  It was a beautiful evening in June, The sun threw its golden beams fromthe west, from Vindelicia, on the Mercurius Hill, and the modest villawhich crowned it.

  Here and there on the great street a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a yokeof Noric oxen, was returning home at the close of the market-daythrough the west gate of Juvavum, the _Porta Vindelica_. The colonistsand peasants had been selling vegetables, fowls, and pigeons in theForum of Hercules; but the bustle of the street reached the hill onlyas a murmur. Here it was still and quiet; one only heard outside thelow stone wall which surrounded the garden the lively rippling of alittle spring, which at its source was prettily enclosed in marble, andafter it had fed the fountain in the middle, and had wandered throughthe garden in artificially winding rivulets, escaped through a gap inthe wall and hurried down the hill in a stone channel. Close by was thegate entrance, surmounted by a statue of Mercury, but open, withoutdoor or lattice. In the direction of the town, towards the south-east,there lay at the foot of the hill carefully tended vegetable and fruitgardens, meadows with the most succulent verdure, and corn-fields withluxuriant grain, which products the Romans had brought into the land ofthe barbarians.

  Behind the villa, towards the north, fine beech-woods towered andrustled, ascending the mountain slopes; and out of their depths soundedfrom afar the metallic note of the golden oriole.

  It was so beautiful, so peaceful; but from the west--and no less fromthe south-east!--threatening storm-clouds were rising.

  From the entrance a straight path, strewn with white sand, led throughthe wide-spreading garden, between tall ilices and yews, whichaccording to the long ruling fashion had been cut into all kinds ofgeometrical figures--a taste, or rather want of taste, which the Rococodid not invent, but only newly borrowed from the gardens of theImperators.

  Statues were placed at regular intervals in the space between thegarden gate and the entrance to the dwelling-house: nymphs, a Flora, asatyr, a Mercury--bad work in plaster; the stout Crispus made them bythe dozen in his workshop on the Vulcan market-place in Juvavum; and hesold them cheap: for the times were not good for _men_, and were badfor gods and demi-gods; but these were all gifts, for Crispus was thefather's brother of the young householder.

  From the entrance of the garden, echoing from the stone wall of theenclosure, there sounded several strokes of a hammer, only lightly, forthey were given carefully by an artist-hand; they seemed to be the lastimproving, finishing efforts of a master.

  Now the hammerer sprang up; he had been kneeling just within theentrance, near to which, standing upright against each other, were somedozen yet unworked marble slabs, which pointed out the dwelling of astone-mason. He stuck the little hammer into the leather belt whichfastened the skin apron over his blue tunic, shook from a littleoil-flask a few drops on a woollen cloth, rubbed therewith the marbletill it was smooth as a mirror, turned his head aside, as a bird willthat wishes to look closely at anything, and then, nodding wellpleased, read from the slab at the entrance:

  "Yes, yes! here dwells happiness; _my_ happiness, _our_ happiness: solong as my Felicitas dwells here--happy and making happy. Maymisfortune never step over this threshold: banished by the adage, mayevery bad spirit Halt! Now is the house beautifully finished by thisinscription. But where is she, then? She must see it and praise me.Felicitas," cried he, turning towards the house, "come then!"

  He wiped the sweat from his brow, and stood upright--a supple, youthfulform, slender, not above the middle height, not unlike the Mercury ofthe garden, whose proportions Crispus had formed according to oldtradition; dark-brown hair, in short curls, covered almost like a caphis round head; under large eyebrows, two dark eyes laughed pleasantlyon the world; the naked feet and arms showed a fine shape, but littlestrength; only in the right arm powerful muscles raised themselves; thebrown skin apron was sprinkled white with marble dust, he shook it off,and cried again louder, "Felicitas!"

  Then appeared on the threshold of the house a white figure, who,drawing back the dark-yellow curtain, which was fastened to ringsrunning on a bronze rod, was framed like a picture in the two pilastersof the entrance--a quite young girl--or was it a young wife? Yes, shemust be already a wife, this child of hardly seventeen years, for sheis without doubt the mother of the infant which, with her left arm, shenestles to her bosom: only the mother holds a child with suchexpression in the movements and countenance. Two fingers of the righthand, the inner surface turned outwards, the young mother laid on herlips: "Be quiet!" said she, "our child sleeps." And now the hardlyfull-ripe form glided down the four stone steps which led from thehouse into the garden, with the left arm carefully raising the childhigher and pressing it closer, with the right gently lifting the hem ofher plaited robe as high as her well-formed ankles. It was a spectacleof perfect grace: young and childlike, like Raphael's Madonna, but nothumble and at the same time mystically glorious, as the mother of theChrist-child; there was nothing incomprehensible, nothing miraculous,only a noble simplicity and yet royal loftiness in her unconsciousdignity and innocence. There floated, as it were, a sweet-soundingmusic round the figure of this Hebe, every movement being in perfectharmony; wife and yet maiden; entirely human, perfectly at rest andcontented in the love of her young husband and of the child at herbreast. Lovely, touching, and dignified at the same time, in all theperfect beauty of her figure, her face and her complexion so modest,that in her presence, as before a beautiful statue, every wish wassilent.

  She wore no ornament; her light-brown hair, shining with a goldenlustre when the sun kissed it, flowed back in natural waves from theopen, well-formed temples, leaving the rather low forehead free, andwas fastened at her neck in a loose knot. A milk-white robe of thefinest wool, fastened on the left shoulder with a beautifully shaped,but simple silver brooch, hung in folds down to her ankles, showing thepretty red leather sandals; leaving bare the neck and arms, which werestill childlike, but rather too long. The robe was fastened at thewaist with a wide bronze girdle.

  Thus she moved silently down the steps, and approached her husband. Thelong narrow face had that wonderful, almost bluish-white, complexiononly possessed by the daughters of Ionia, and which no noon-tide sun ofthe south can embrown; the eye-brows, in a half-circle, regular as ifdrawn with compasses, might have given to the countenance a lifeless,statuesque appearance, but under the long, slightly curved, blackeye-lashes, the dark-brown gazelle-like eyes, now directed towards herbeloved, shone with a life full of feeling.

  He flew towards her with an elastic step, lifted carefully, tenderly,the sleeping child from her arm, and taking the flat straw lid from histool-basket, he placed the child on it, under the shade of a rose-bush.The evening breeze threw the scented leaves of a full-blown rose on thelittle one: he smiled in his sleep.

  Then the master, winding his arm round the waist of his young wife, ledher to the just completed entrance-slab, and said:

  "Now is the proverb ready, which I have kept hidden from thee till Icould finish it; now read, and know, and feel"--and he kissed hertenderly on the mouth: "Thou--thou thyself art the happiness; _Thou_dwellest here."

  The young wife held her hand before her eyes to protect them from thesun, which now shone in almost horizontal beams through the opengateway; she read and blushed, the colour rose perceptibly in herdelicate white cheeks, her bosom heaved, her heart beat quickly: "OFulvius! thou art good. How thou dost love me! How happy we are!" Andshe laid her two hands and arms on his right shoulder, on the other herbeautiful head.

  He heartily pressed her to himself. "Yes, overflowing, without shadowis our happiness--without measure or end."

  Quickly, with a slight trembling, as if shivering, she raised herself,and looked him anxiously in the face: "O, do not provoke the holy ones.It is whispered," said she, herself whispering, "they are envious." Andshe held her hand before his mouth.

  But he pressed a loud kiss upon the small fingers, and cried: "I am notjealous, I, a _man_--why should the hol
y ones be envious? I do notbelieve that. I do not believe it of the holy ones--nor of the heathengods, if indeed they still have life and power."

  "Speak not of them! They certainly live!--but they are bad spirits, andhe who names them, he calls them near; thus warns the Presbyter of theBasilica."

  "I fear them not. They have protected our ancestors for manygenerations."

  "Yes, but we have turned away from them! They defend us no longer. Onlythe saints are our defenders against the barbarians. Alas! if they camehere, trampled down the flowers in the garden, and carried away ourchild."

  And she knelt down and kissed the little sleeper.

  But the young father laughed. "The Germans, dost thou mean? they stealno children! They have more than they can feed. But it is true----theymay perhaps one day sound out their war-cry before the gates ofJuvavum."

  "Yes, that they may, very soon!" broke in an anxious voice, and the fatCrispus, breathing heavily after his hot walk, entered the garden.

  "Ave, Phidias in plaster," cried Fulvius to him.

  "Welcome, uncle," said Felicitas, giving him her hand.

  The broad-brimmed felt hat which he had drawn over his brow to protecthis red, fat, shining, good-humoured face, and his stump nose, from thesun, Crispus threw on his neck, so that it hung by the leather strap onhis broad back. "May Hygeia never leave thee, my daughter; the Gracesnever forsake thee, their fourth sister. Yes, the Germans! A horsemancame last night with secret information for the Tribune. But two hoursafter we knew it all, we, early guests at the Baths of Amphitrite. Therider is a Wascon; no Wascon keeps his mouth closed if you pour winetherein. A battle has been fought at the ford of the Isar: our troopshave fled, the watch-tower of Vada is burnt. The barbarians havecrossed the river."

  "Bah!" laughed Fulvius, "that is yet far away. Go, darling, prepare acooling drink for our uncle--thou knowest what he likes: not too muchwater! And _if_ they come, they will not eat us. They are fierce giantsin battle--children after the victory. Have I not lived months amongthem as their prisoner? I fear nothing from them."

  "Nothing for thyself--but for this sweet wife?"

  Felicitas did not hear this question; she had taken up the child andgone with it into the house.

  Fulvius shook his curly locks. "No! They would do nothing to her, thatis not their custom. Certainly, did I fall, she would not be long lefta widow. But there are people not in the bearskins of the barbarians,who would willingly tear her from the arms of her husband."

  And he seized angrily the hammer in his belt.

  "She must not suspect anything of it, the pure heart!" continued he.

  "Certainly not. But thou must be on the watch. I met the Tribune latelyin the office of the old money-lender."

  "The usurer! the blood-sucker!"

  "I was able, fortunately, to pay him my little debt. The slaveannounced me. I waited behind the curtain: I then heard a deep voicemention thy name--and Felicitas. I entered. The Tribune stood with themoney-dealer. They were quickly silent when they perceived me. And justnow, on the way here, whom should I overtake on the highway? Leo theTribune, and Zeno the money-dealer! The latter pointed with his staffto thy house, the flat roof of which, with its little statues,projected above the trees. I guessed their conversation, and the objectof their journey. Unseen I sprang from the road into the ditch, andhastened by the shorter way, the steep meadow path, to warn thee. Takecare--they will soon be here."

  "Let him only come, the miser! I have earned and carefully put away thesum that I owe him for marble supplied from Aquileia, and for the towntaxes. My other creditors I have asked to wait, or rather promised themhigher interest, and have put all the money together for thisdestroyer. But what does the Tribune want with me? I owe him nothing,except a knife-thrust for the look with which he devoured my preciousone."

  "Be careful! _His_ knife is more powerful: it is the sword; and behindhim stand the wild Mauritanian cavalry, and the Isaurian hirelings,whom we must pay with precious gold to protect us from the barbarians."

  "But who defends us from the defenders? The Emperor in distant Ravenna?He rejoices if the Germans do not cross the Alps; he troubles himselfno more about this land, which has been so long Roman."

  "Except in extortionate taxes, to squeeze out our last blood-drops."

  "Bah! The State taxes! It is many years since they were collected. NoImperial functionary ventures now over the mountains. I stand indeedhere on Imperial soil. But what is the name of the man who is nowEmperor, and to whom this bit of land belongs, of which he has neverheard? Every two years another Emperor is made known to us--but onlythrough the coinage."

  "And that becomes ever worse."

  "It _cannot_ get worse; that is a comfort."

  "A friend tells me that the taxes get more and more intolerable inMediolanum, where there are still bailiffs and soldiers to levy them byforce."

  "And it may be the same with us," laughed the young man. "Who knows howmuch I am already in debt for these two acres of land?"

  "And the roads of the Legions are overgrown with grass and brushwood."

  "And the troops receive no wages."

  "But they pay themselves by plundering the burghers, whom they shoulddefend."

  "And the walls of Juvavum are falling, the moats are dry, the sluicesdestroyed; the rich people go away, there only remain poor wretcheslike ourselves, who cannot leave."

  "I wonder that the money-lender has not long ago moved with his greatgold-bag over the Alps."

  "I would not go, uncle, if I could; and why, indeed, could I not? Myart, my trade will be honoured everywhere, so long as the Romans dwellin stone, not wooden houses, like the Germans. But I am firmly fixed tothis soil. Many, many generations have my fathers dwelt here; they saysince the founding of the colony by the Emperor Hadrian. They havecleared the forests, drained the marshes, made roads, raised fords,laid out house and garden, grafted the rich fruits on the wild appleand pear-trees; the climate itself has become milder. I know Italy, Ihave bought marble in Venetia, but I would rather live here on the oldinheritance of my fathers."

  "But if the barbarians come, wilt thou then also?"----

  "Stay! I have my own thoughts about that. For us unimportant people itis better under the barbarians than"----

  "Say not, than under the Emperor. Thou art a Roman!"

  The stout Crispus said this very gravely, but the other laughed; thegood uncle but little resembled a Roman hero. His neighbours declaredthat he modelled his statues of Bacchus from his own figure.

  "Half-blood! My mother was a Noric Celt. Induciomara! That does notsound much of the Quirinal."

  "And we do not stand under the Emperor, but under his hangman servants,Exchequer officials, and under the murderous fist of the Moorish andIsaurian troops. If I must serve barbarians, I prefer the Germans."

  "But they are heathen."

  "In part. A hundred and fifty years ago so were we all. My grandfathersacrificed secretly to Jupiter. And there are also Christians amongthem."

  "Arians! heretics! worse than heathen, says the Holy Church."

  "A few decades past our emperors were also heretics. And the Germansask no one what he believes; but how heavily did our fathers suffer, iftheir faith did not exactly agree with that of the ruling emperor!"

  "You take too lenient a view of the coming of the barbarians. They haveset fire to many towns."

  "Yes; but stone does not burn. The Romans quickly fit new timbers inthe undestroyed walls. Then no German settles in a town. They pasturetheir herds on the land; it is the peasant in his farm who suffers fromthem. They take from him a third of his fields and pasturage. But theland profits thereby. It is now sadly dispeopled; nowhere is there afree peasant on a free soil. For the masters, whom they never see, whocarouse in Naples or Byzantium, _slaves_ cultivate the ground, orrather they do _not_ cultivate it, they only work enough to keep themfrom starving. If they gained more the slave-master would take it fromthem. But it is different with plough and sickle, when hundreds o
fGermans press into the country, each with innumerable white-headedchildren. For so many children as _these_ people have, I could not haveimagined over the whole earth!--And in a few years the grown-up sonbuilds his own wooden house in the cleared forest or the drained swamp.They swarm over the furrows like ants, and they soon throw away theirold wooden plough-shares and copy the iron shares of the colonists, andin a few years the land bears so much more than formerly, that itrichly feeds both conquerors and conquered."

  "Yes, yes," nodded Crispus, "we have seen all that in the frontierlands, where they have settled. If the sons become too numerous theycast lots, and the third part, that draws the lot to migrate, wanderson wherever hawk or wolf directs; but never back, never towards thenorth!" sighed Crispus, "so they press ever nearer to us."----

  "But they leave us our laws, our language, our God, our Basilica, anddemand much, much less in tribute than the slave-master of the landlordor the tax-gatherer of the Emperor."

  "It is well that Severus does not hear you, the old _armaturarummagister_ in Juvavum; he would"----

  "Yes, he thinks we have yet the old times, and there are still livingthe old Romans as in the days of that tamer of the Germans, the EmperorProbus, of whose race he counts himself. But by the saints he ismistaken. Why should I be over zealous for the Emperor? He, thisEmperor, certainly shows no zeal for me; in strong Ravenna he sits andinvents new taxes, and new punishments for those who pay no taxes,because they have nothing."

  "The old Severus has long been drilling volunteers to lead against thebarbarians, in case they should roam this way. I have been there a fewdays, painfully carrying spear and shield in this heat. I have neverseen thee, so much younger and stronger, on our '_Campus Martius_,' asthey call it."

  Fulvius laughed. "I have no need, uncle; I have learnt to use arms longenough while a prisoner with the Germans, and if the town and one's ownhearth must be defended I shall not be wanting--for honour's sake! notthat I think we shall do much; for, believe me, if they seriouslyintend to come, that is, if they _must_ because they _need_ our acres,then Severus will not keep them back with his old-fashioned generalshipand his new-fashioned 'Legions of the Capitol of Juvavum,' under thegolden eagle which he has presented to them. Nor the Tribune eitherwith his cavalry from Africa and his mercenaries from Isauria. Butlook! Philemon, the slave, is beckoning; I see the drinking-cup shiningon the seat in the little porch--the table is ready. Now drink of ourrough Raeter-wine; Augustus long ago knew how to value it, and it hasbeen already a year in the cellar since the pack-mule brought it herefrom the Tyrol. Let us look at Felicitas and the child at her breast,and forget emperors and barbarians."