They entered the darkness of the side galleries of the arenarium. Hollowed by the ancient Romans, the quarry was large and spacious and descended in steep slopes. It was therefore pierced by numerous galleries, for the use of workmen in transporting the tufa. Juventinus led his companions through the labyrinth and halted at last in front of a shaft from which he lifted the coverlid of wood; the party went cautiously down the damp and slippery steps; at the bottom was a narrow door; Juventinus knocked; the door opened, and a grey-headed monk introduced them into a passage hollowed in harder tufa. The walls on both sides from floor to vaulting were covered with slabs of marble, the seals of tombs in which coffins (loculi) were ranged.
At every step folk carrying lamps came to meet them. By the flickering light Anatolius read with curiosity on one of these stone flags: “Dorotheus, son of Felix, in this place of coolness, light, and peace, reposes” (”requiescit in loco refrigii, luminis, pacis“). On another: “Brethren, disturb not my deep slumber.”
The style of the inscriptions was radiant and happy: “Sophronia, beloved, thou art alive for ever in God” (”Sophronia, dulcis, semper vivis Deo“). And a little farther on: “Sophronia vivis!“ ("Sophronia, thou livest!") as if he who had written these words had at length realised that there was no more death.
Nowhere was it written “He is buried here,” but only “Here is laid for a certain time” (depositus). It seemed as if millions of people, generation upon generation, were lying in this place, not dead, but fallen asleep, all full of mysterious expectation. In the niches lamps were placed. They burned in the close atmosphere with a long steady flame and graceful vases exhaled penetrating odours. Nothing but the faint smell of putrefying bones, which escaped by fissures in the coffins, gave any hint of death.
The passages went down lower and lower, curved as round an amphitheatre; and here and there in the ceiling a large aperture gave light from luminaria opening on the country without.
Sometimes a weak moon-ray passing down the luminaria would strike at the bottom on a slab of marble covered with inscriptions.
At the end of one of these passages they saw a sexton who, chanting gaily, was hollowing the ground with heavy blows of his pick. Several Christians were standing near the principal inspector of the tombs, the fossor. He was very well dressed and had a fat cunning face. The fossor had inherited a right freely to dispose of a gallery of catacombs, and to sell unoccupied sites in his gallery, which was all the more appreciated because in it were buried the relics of St. Laurence. Although rich, the fossor was keenly bargaining, as they came up, with a wealthy and miserly leather-merchant. Arsinoë stopped a moment to hear the discussion.
“And my tomb will be far away from the relics?” the leather-dresser was asking mistrustfully, thinking of the big sum exacted by the fossor.
“No, just six cubits away.”
“Above or beneath?”
“On the right-hand side, sloping down a little. It’s an excellent position; I don’t ask a penny too much. Though you be as sinful as you please, everything will be forgiven. You will go straight into the heavenly kingdom.”
With an expert hand the gravedigger took the measurements for the tomb as a tailor measures for a coat, the leather-dresser insisting that he should have as much room as possible in order to lie in comfort.
An old woman approached the sexton.
“What do you want, mother?”
“Here’s the money—the extra payment!”
“What extra payment?”
“For the right-hand tomb.”
“Ah, I see; you don’t want the crooked one?”
“No; my old bones crack at the very idea of the crooked one.”
In the catacombs, and especially near the relics, so much value was set upon grave-sites that it was necessary to contrive slanting tombs which were leased to the poor.
“God knows how long one will have to wait for the resurrection,” the old woman was explaining; “and if I took a tomb on the slant it would be all very well to begin with, but when I got tired it wouldn’t do at all.”
Anatolius listened in astonishment.
“It is much more curious than the mysteries of Mithra,” he observed to Arsinoë with a languid smile. “Pity that I didn’t know it sooner. I’ve never seen such an amusing cemetery.”
They went on into a rather large chamber called the cubicula of consolation. A multitude of small lamps were burning on the walls. The priest was at the evening office, the stone lid of a martyr’s tomb placed under an arched vault (arcosolium) serving as altar. There were many of the faithful in long white robes, every face serenely happy. Myrrha, kneeling with eyes full of love, was gazing at the Good Shepherd pictured on the ceiling of the chamber. In the catacombs early Christian customs had been revived, so that after the liturgy all present, looking on themselves as brothers and sisters, gave each other the kiss of peace. Arsinoë following the general example with a smile kissed Anatolius.
Then all four climbed again toward the upper storeys, whence they could take their way to the secret retreat of Juventinus, an old pagan tomb, a columbarium, lying at some distance from the Appian Way. There, while waiting for the ship which was to take him to Egypt, the land of holy anchorites, he was living hidden from the searches of his mother and of government officials. He lodged with Didimus, a good old man from the Lower Thebaïd, to whom Juventinus gave blind and unquestioning obedience.
Here they found Didimus squatting on his heels, weaving basket-work. The moon-rays, filtering through a narrow opening, glinted on his white hair and long beard. From top to bottom of the walls of the columbarium were little niches like pigeons’ nests, and each of these contained a mortuary urn.
Myrrha, of whom the old man was very fond, kissed his withered hand respectfully, and prayed him to tell her some story about the hermit fathers of the desert. Nothing pleased her better than these wonderful and terrible tales by Didimus.
The company grouped themselves round the white-headed old man, Myrrha watching him with feverish eyes and feeble hands clasped to her heaving breast. Nothing was heard save his voice and the distant hum of Rome, when suddenly, at the inner door communicating with the catacomb, a knock was heard.
Juventinus rose, went to the door and asked, without opening it—
“Who is there?”
No answer came, but a still gentler knock as of entreaty.
With great precaution Juventinus held the door ajar, shuddered and recoiled. A woman of tall stature came into the columbarium. Long white vestments enveloped her and a veil hid her face. Her gait was that of one recovering from an illness or of a very old woman. With a sudden movement she raised the veil and Juventinus cried—
“My mother!”
Didimus rose, a severe expression on his countenance.
The woman threw herself at the feet of her son and kissed them, grey tresses falling dishevelled over her lean and haggard face, which bore traces of high patrician beauty. Juventinus took the head of his mother between his hands and kissed it.
“Juventinus!” the old man called.
The young man made no response.
His mother, as if they had been completely alone, murmured hastily and joyously—
“O my son, I thought I should never see you again; I would have set out for Alexandria—O I would have found you even in the desert! But now all is over, is it not? Tell me that you will not go! Wait until I die! Afterwards do what you will....”
The old man resumed—
“Do you hear me, Juventinus?”
“Old man,” answered the patrician mother, “you will not carry off a son from her that bore him!... Listen, if it must be so, I will deny the faith of my fathers; I will believe in the Crucified!... I will become a nun!”
“Ah, pagan! thou canst not understand the law of Christ. A mother cannot be a nun, nor can a nun be still a mother.”
“I have borne him in anguish; he is mine!”
“It is not the soul, but the bod
y, that you love.”
The patrician woman cast at Didimus a look full of hatred.
“Be then accursed for your lying speeches,” she exclaimed; “accursed, you stealers of children—tempters of the guileless! ye black-robed fearers of the celestial light—slaves of the Crucified! destroyers of all beauty and joy!”
Her face changed; she drew her son yet closer, and said chokingly—
“I know thee, my son! thou wilt not go ... thou canst not....”
Old Didimus, cross in hand, stood at the open door leading to the catacombs. He said solemnly—
“For the last time, and in the name of God, I order you, my son, to follow me and to leave her.”
Then the patrician relaxed her hold of Juventinus, and faltered—
“Then go! Let it be so.... Leave me, if thou canst!”
Tears flowed no longer down her furrowed cheeks; her arms fell rigid, with a heart-broken gesture, to her sides. She waited. All were silent.
“O Lord, help me ... inspire me!” Juventinus prayed in terrible distress.
“He who will follow Me, and will not hate father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, and even his own life, can never be My disciple!”
These words were recited by Didimus, turning for the last time towards Juventinus—
“Remain in the world! Thou hast rejected Christ! Be accursed in this age and in the age to come!”
“No, no! Cast me not out, father! I am on your side. Lord, here am I,” exclaimed Juventinus following his master.
His mother made no arresting movement; not a muscle of her face stirred; but when the noise of his footsteps died away a hoarse sob heaved her breast and she fell into a swoon.
“Open—in the name of the most holy Emperor Constantius!”
It was the summons of soldiery sent by the prefect to hunt the Sabæan rebels, on the denunciation of the patrician mother of Juventinus.
With a powerful lever the soldiers attempted to prise open the door of the columbarium, shaking the edifice on its foundations. The little silver urns vibrated plaintively under the blows. Half of the door gave way.
Anatolius, Myrrha, and Arsinoë rushed into the inner gallery. The Christians hurried along the narrow passages like ants disturbed in their mound, making for all the secret outlets communicating with the quarry. But Arsinoë and Myrrha, unfamiliar with the exact situation of the galleries, lost their way in the labyrinth and at last reached the lowest floor of all at a depth of fifty cubits under ground. It became difficult to breathe; muddy water lay under foot. The flame of the lamps became dim and almost blew out. Putrid miasmas filled the air. Myrrha felt her head swim and gradually lost consciousness.
Anatolius took her in his arms. At every step they feared to encounter the legionaries; all the outlets might be blocked and sealed up; they were running the risk of being buried alive.
At last they heard the voice of Juventinus calling—
“Here! here!”
Bent double, he was carrying the old Didimus on his back.
At the end of a few minutes they reached a secret door opening on the Campagna.
On returning to the house, Arsinoë quickly undressed Myrrha and put her to bed, still in a dead faint. Kneeling by her side the elder sister long kissed and chafed the thin, yellow, and inert hands. A pang of agonising presentiment shot through her heart.
The face of the sleeper bore a strange expression. Never had it reflected so bodiless a charm. All the little body seemed transparent and frail as the sides of an alabaster jar illumined by an inner fire.
* * *
XVIII
Late one evening in a marshy wood not far from the Rhine, between the fortified post, Tres Tabernæ and the Roman town of Argentoratum, conquered a short time previously by the Alemanni, two soldiers who had lost their way were slouching along. One named Aragaris, an awkward and red-headed giant, a Sarmatian in the Roman service; the other Strombix, a lean and frowning little Syrian.
The spaces between the trunks of trees were densely dark. A fine rain was falling through warm air. The birches diffused an odour of damp leaves, and far off a cuckoo was calling.
At every crack of the branches the startled Strombix began to quake and seized the fist of his companion.
“Oh, cousin! cousin!”
He used to call Aragaris cousin, not through blood relationship, but for friendship’s sake. They had been taken into the Roman army from opposite ends of the world. The northern barbarian, a huge guzzler but a chaste liver, despised the voluptuous and timid Syrian who was so frugal in his eating and drinking. But while mocking him he pitied him as a child.
“Cousin!” wailed Strombix.
“Well, what is it? Can’t you be quiet?”
“Are there bears in this wood?”
“Yes!” answered Aragaris sullenly.
“And suppose we met one, eh?”
“We should knock him on the head, sell his skin, and go and drink.”
“And suppose the bear, instead of being killed...”
“Poltroon! it isn’t difficult to see that you’re a Christian!”
“Why must a Christian be a coward?” said Strombix with a vexed air.
“You’ve told me yourself that in your Book it is written whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also.”
“True.”
“Well, I’m right; and if so, to my thinking you mustn’t go to wars; the enemy will strike you on one cheek and you turn him round the other. You’re a set of cowards, I say.”
“The Cæsar Julian’s a Christian, and he isn’t a coward!” retorted Strombix.
“I know, my boy,” continued Aragaris, “that you can pardon enemies when you have to fight them, poor chicken! Your belly is no bigger than my fist. With a clove in it you’re fed up for the whole day; and so your blood is no better than marsh-water!”
“Ah, cousin! cousin!” observed Strombix reproachfully, “why did you talk about food? Now I’ve got another gnawing ache in my stomach. Give me a little garlic! There’s some left in your bag.”
“If I give you what there’s left we shall both starve to-morrow in this forest!”
“Ah, but if you don’t give me some now, I shall fall from weakness and you will be obliged to carry me.”
“Well, stuff and swill, dog!”
“And a little bread too,” begged Strombix.
Aragaris gave him, with an oath, his last ration of biscuit. He himself had eaten overnight enough for two days, of fat pork and bean pottage.
“Attention! Hark!” he said halting. “There’s a trumpet! We’re not far from the camp. We must steer round to the north.... I don’t mind bears,” added Aragaris thoughtfully, “but that centurion...”
The soldiers had nicknamed this hated centurion “Cedo Alteram,” because he used to cry out gleefully every time he broke the rod with which he was striking a delinquent, Cedo alteram! that is to say, “Give us another!”
“I’m certain,” said the barbarian—"I’ll wager that Cedo Alteram will tan my back as a tanner whacks a bullock’s hide. It’s abominable, my friend, abominable.”
The worthy pair were now stragglers behind the army, because Aragaris according to his custom had got dead drunk in a plundered village and Strombix had been thrashed. The little Syrian had made a fruitless attempt to obtain the favours of a handsome Frankish girl. This sixteen-year-old-beauty, daughter of a barbarian killed in the fight, had administered to him two such blows that he had fallen on his back and had then fairly stamped upon him.
“She wasn’t a girl but a devil,” declared Strombix. “I hardly took hold of her and she nearly broke every rib in my body.”
The note of the trumpet became more and more distinct. Aragaris, sniffing the wind like a blood-hound, noticed the smell of smoke; the bivouacs must be but a short way off.
The night became pitch dark. They could hardly make out the road; the path was lost in marshes in which they leapt from tussock to tussoc
k. Fog began to rise. Suddenly from a great yew, with branches from which moss hung like long grey beards, something fled away with a harsh cry. Strombix crouched down with fear. It was a black cock.
They finally lost their bearings. Strombix climbed a tree.
“The bivouacs lie northwards—not far off. There’s a wide river below.”
“The Rhine, the Rhine!” exclaimed Aragaris. “Now go ahead!”
They slid down through the birches and aspen trees a hundred years old.
“Cousin, I’m drowning!” yelled Strombix. “Somebody’s hauling me by the feet!”
“Where are you?”
With great difficulty Aragaris extricated him, and, swearing, took him on his shoulders. Under his feet the Sarmatian felt the stems of faggots laid down by the Romans. This causeway of faggot work led to the great road hewn not long before through the forest by the army of Severus, Julian’s general. The barbarians, according to their custom, had blocked and encumbered the track with enormous trunks of trees. These trunks had to be clambered over. Sometimes rotten, moss-covered, and crumbling under foot, and sometimes hard and slippery with rain, they made the march most difficult; and it was by roads like these, always in fear of an attack, that the army of about thirteen thousand men had to move. That army every Imperial general except Severus had traitorously abandoned.
Strombix was cursing his comrade—
“I won’t go a step farther, heathen! I’d rather lie down on the dead leaves and die; at least I should not see your damned visage—huh! Unbeliever! It’s easy to see that you don’t wear the cross! Is it a Christian’s business to drag along a road like this, and what are we pushing on to? The rods of the centurion. I won’t go a step farther.”
Aragaris hauled him on by main force, and, when the road became more practicable, carried shoulder-high the whimsical companion who kept abusing and pummelling him all the time and shortly fell soundly asleep on those mighty pagan shoulders.
At midnight they reached the gates of the Roman camp. Everything was still. The drawbridge had long been raised. The friends had to sleep in the wood near the hinder gate, usually called the Decumanal.
The Death of the Gods Page 14
