Marius the Epicurean — Volume 1

by Walter Pater

  CHAPTER XI: "THE MOST RELIGIOUS CITY IN THE WORLD"

  [172] MARIUS awoke early and passed curiously from room to room, notingfor more careful inspection by and by the rolls of manuscripts. Evengreater than his curiosity in gazing for the first time on this ancientpossession, was his eagerness to look out upon Rome itself, as hepushed back curtain and shutter, and stepped forth in the fresh morningupon one of the many balconies, with an oft-repeated dream realised atlast. He was certainly fortunate in the time of his coming to Rome.That old pagan world, of which Rome was the flower, had reached itsperfection in the things of poetry and art--a perfection whichindicated only too surely the eve of decline. As in some vastintellectual museum, all its manifold products were intact and in theirplaces, and with custodians also still extant, duly qualified toappreciate and explain them. And at no period of history had thematerial Rome itself been better worth seeing--lying there not lessconsummate than that world of [173] pagan intellect which itrepresented in every phase of its darkness and light. The various workof many ages fell here harmoniously together, as yet untouched save bytime, adding the final grace of a rich softness to its complexexpression. Much which spoke of ages earlier than Nero, the greatre-builder, lingered on, antique, quaint, immeasurably venerable, likethe relics of the medieval city in the Paris of Lewis the Fourteenth:the work of Nero's own time had come to have that sort of old world andpicturesque interest which the work of Lewis has for ourselves; whilewithout stretching a parallel too far we might perhaps liken thearchitectural finesses of the archaic Hadrian to the more excellentproducts of our own Gothic revival. The temple of Antoninus andFaustina was still fresh in all the majesty of its closely arrayedcolumns of cipollino; but, on the whole, little had been added underthe late and present emperors, and during fifty years of public quiet,a sober brown and gray had grown apace on things. The gilding on theroof of many a temple had lost its garishness: cornice and capital ofpolished marble shone out with all the crisp freshness of real flowers,amid the already mouldering travertine and brickwork, though the birdshad built freely among them. What Marius then saw was in manyrespects, after all deduction of difference, more like the modern Romethan the enumeration of particular losses [174] might lead us tosuppose; the Renaissance, in its most ambitious mood and with amplestresources, having resumed the ancient classical tradition there, withno break or obstruction, as it had happened, in any very considerablework of the middle age. Immediately before him, on the square, steepheight, where the earliest little old Rome had huddled itself together,arose the palace of the Caesars. Half-veiling the vast substruction ofrough, brown stone--line upon line of successive ages of builders--thetrim, old-fashioned garden walks, under their closely-woven walls ofdark glossy foliage, test of long and careful cultivation, woundgradually, among choice trees, statues and fountains, distinct andsparkling in the full morning sunlight, to the richly tinted mass ofpavilions and corridors above, centering in the lofty, white-marbledwelling-place of Apollo himself.

  How often had Marius looked forward to that first, free wanderingthrough Rome, to which he now went forth with a heat in the townsunshine (like a mist of fine gold-dust spread through the air) to theheight of his desire, making the dun coolness of the narrow streetswelcome enough at intervals. He almost feared, descending the stairhastily, lest some unforeseen accident should snatch the little cup ofenjoyment from him ere he passed the door. In such morning rambles inplaces new to him, [175] life had always seemed to come at its fullest:it was then he could feel his youth, that youth the days of which hehad already begun to count jealously, in entire possession. So thegrave, pensive figure, a figure, be it said nevertheless, fresher farthan often came across it now, moved through the old city towards thelodgings of Cornelius, certainly not by the most direct course, howevereager to rejoin the friend of yesterday.

  Bent as keenly on seeing as if his first day in Rome were to be alsohis last, the two friends descended along the Vicus Tuscus, with itsrows of incense-stalls, into the Via Nova, where the fashionable peoplewere busy shopping; and Marius saw with much amusement the frizzledheads, then a la mode. A glimpse of the Marmorata, the haven at theriver-side, where specimens of all the precious marbles of the worldwere lying amid great white blocks from the quarries of Luna, took histhoughts for a moment to his distant home. They visited theflower-market, lingering where the coronarii pressed on them the newestspecies, and purchased zinias, now in blossom (like painted flowers,thought Marius), to decorate the folds of their togas. Loitering tothe other side of the Forum, past the great Galen's drug-shop, after aglance at the announcements of new poems on sale attached to thedoorpost of a famous bookseller, they entered the curious [176] libraryof the Temple of Peace, then a favourite resort of literary men, andread, fixed there for all to see, the Diurnal or Gazette of the day,which announced, together with births and deaths, prodigies andaccidents, and much mere matter of business, the date and manner of thephilosophic emperor's joyful return to his people; and, thereafter,with eminent names faintly disguised, what would carry that day's news,in many copies, over the provinces--a certain matter concerning thegreat lady, known to be dear to him, whom he had left at home. It wasa story, with the development of which "society" had indeed for sometime past edified or amused itself, rallying sufficiently from thepanic of a year ago, not only to welcome back its ruler, but also torelish a chronique scandaleuse; and thus, when soon after Marius sawthe world's wonder, he was already acquainted with the suspicions whichhave ever since hung about her name. Twelve o'clock was come beforethey left the Forum, waiting in a little crowd to hear the Accensus,according to old custom, proclaim the hour of noonday, at the momentwhen, from the steps of the Senate-house, the sun could be seenstanding between the Rostra and the Graecostasis. He exerted for thisfunction a strength of voice, which confirmed in Marius a judgment themodern visitor may share with him, that Roman throats and Roman chests,namely, must, in some peculiar way, be differently [177] constructedfrom those of other people. Such judgment indeed he had formed in partthe evening before, noting, as a religious procession passed him, howmuch noise a man and a boy could make, though not without a great dealof real music, of which in truth the Romans were then as everpassionately fond.

  Hence the two friends took their way through the Via Flaminia, almostalong the line of the modern Corso, already bordered with handsomevillas, turning presently to the left, into the Field-of-Mars, stillthe playground of Rome. But the vast public edifices were grown to bealmost continuous over the grassy expanse, represented now only byoccasional open spaces of verdure and wild-flowers. In one of these acrowd was standing, to watch a party of athletes stripped for exercise.Marius had been surprised at the luxurious variety of the litters bornethrough Rome, where no carriage horses were allowed; and just then onefar more sumptuous than the rest, with dainty appointments of ivory andgold, was carried by, all the town pressing with eagerness to get aglimpse of its most beautiful woman, as she passed rapidly. Yes!there, was the wonder of the world--the empress Faustina herself:Marius could distinguish, could distinguish clearly, the well-knownprofile, between the floating purple curtains.

  For indeed all Rome was ready to burst into gaiety again, as it awaitedwith much real [178] affection, hopeful and animated, the return of itsemperor, for whose ovation various adornments were preparing along thestreets through which the imperial procession would pass. He had leftRome just twelve months before, amid immense gloom. The alarm of abarbarian insurrection along the whole line of the Danube had happenedat the moment when Rome was panic-stricken by the great pestilence.

  In fifty years of peace, broken only by that conflict in the East fromwhich Lucius Verus, among other curiosities, brought back the plague,war had come to seem a merely romantic, superannuated incident ofbygone history. And now it was almost upon Italian soil. Terrible werethe reports of the numbers and audacity of the assailants. Aurelius,as yet untried in war, and understood by a few only in the whole scopeof a really great character
, was known to the majority of his subjectsas but a careful administrator, though a student of philosophy,perhaps, as we say, a dilettante. But he was also the visible centreof government, towards whom the hearts of a whole people turned,grateful for fifty years of public happiness--its good genius, its"Antonine"--whose fragile person might be foreseen speedily giving wayunder the trials of military life, with a disaster like that of theslaughter of the legions by Arminius. Prophecies of the world'simpending conflagration were easily credited: "the secular fire" woulddescend from [179] heaven: superstitious fear had even demanded thesacrifice of a human victim.

  Marcus Aurelius, always philosophically considerate of the humours ofother people, exercising also that devout appreciation of everyreligious claim which was one of his characteristic habits, hadinvoked, in aid of the commonwealth, not only all native gods, but allforeign deities as well, however strange.--"Help! Help! in the oceanspace!" A multitude of foreign priests had been welcomed to Rome, withtheir various peculiar religious rites. The sacrifices made on thisoccasion were remembered for centuries; and the starving poor, atleast, found some satisfaction in the flesh of those herds of "whitebulls," which came into the city, day after day, to yield the savour oftheir blood to the gods.

  In spite of all this, the legions had but followed their standardsdespondently. But prestige, personal prestige, the name of "Emperor,"still had its magic power over the nations. The mere approach of theRoman army made an impression on the barbarians. Aurelius and hiscolleague had scarcely reached Aquileia when a deputation arrived toask for peace. And now the two imperial "brothers" were returning homeat leisure; were waiting, indeed, at a villa outside the walls, tillthe capital had made ready to receive them. But although Rome was thusin genial reaction, with much relief, [180] and hopefulness against thewinter, facing itself industriously in damask of red and gold, thosetwo enemies were still unmistakably extant: the barbarian army of theDanube was but over-awed for a season; and the plague, as we saw whenMarius was on his way to Rome, was not to depart till it had done alarge part in the formation of the melancholy picturesque of modernItaly--till it had made, or prepared for the making of the RomanCampagna. The old, unaffected, really pagan, peace or gaiety, ofAntoninus Pius--that genuine though unconscious humanist--was gone forever. And again and again, throughout this day of varied observation,Marius had been reminded, above all else, that he was not merely in"the most religious city of the world," as one had said, but that Romewas become the romantic home of the wildest superstition. Suchsuperstition presented itself almost as religious mania in many anincident of his long ramble,--incidents to which he gave his fullattention, though contending in some measure with a reluctance on thepart of his companion, the motive of which he did not understand tilllong afterwards. Marius certainly did not allow this reluctance todeter his own curiosity. Had he not come to Rome partly under poeticvocation, to receive all those things, the very impress of life itself,upon the visual, the imaginative, organ, as upon a mirror; to reflectthem; to transmute them [181] into golden words? He must observe thatstrange medley of superstition, that centuries' growth, layer uponlayer, of the curiosities of religion (one faith jostling another outof place) at least for its picturesque interest, and as an indifferentoutsider might, not too deeply concerned in the question which, if anyof them, was to be the survivor.

  Superficially, at least, the Roman religion, allying itself with muchdiplomatic economy to possible rivals, was in possession, as a vast andcomplex system of usage, intertwining itself with every detail ofpublic and private life, attractively enough for those who had but "thehistoric temper," and a taste for the past, however much a Lucian mightdepreciate it. Roman religion, as Marius knew, had, indeed, beenalways something to be done, rather than something to be thought, orbelieved, or loved; something to be done in minutely detailed manner,at a particular time and place, correctness in which had long been amatter of laborious learning with a whole school of ritualists--asalso, now and again, a matter of heroic sacrifice with certainexceptionally devout souls, as when Caius Fabius Dorso, with his lifein his hand, succeeded in passing the sentinels of the invading Gaulsto perform a sacrifice on the Quirinal, and, thanks to the divineprotection, had returned in safety. So jealous was the distinctionbetween sacred and profane, that, in the matter [182] of the "regardingof days," it had made more than half the year a holiday. Aurelius had,indeed, ordained that there should be no more than a hundred andthirty-five festival days in the year; but in other respects he hadfollowed in the steps of his predecessor, Antoninus Pius--commendedespecially for his "religion," his conspicuous devotion to its publicceremonies--and whose coins are remarkable for their reference to theoldest and most hieratic types of Roman mythology. Aurelius hadsucceeded in more than healing the old feud between philosophy andreligion, displaying himself, in singular combination, as at once themost zealous of philosophers and the most devout of polytheists, andlending himself, with an air of conviction, to all the pageantries ofpublic worship. To his pious recognition of that one orderly spirit,which, according to the doctrine of the Stoics, diffuses itself throughthe world, and animates it--a recognition taking the form, with him, ofa constant effort towards inward likeness thereto, in the harmoniousorder of his own soul--he had added a warm personal devotion towardsthe whole multitude of the old national gods, and a great many newforeign ones besides, by him, at least, not ignobly conceived. If thecomparison may be reverently made, there was something here of themethod by which the catholic church has added the cultus of the saintsto its worship of the one Divine Being.

  [183] And to the view of the majority, though the emperor, as thepersonal centre of religion, entertained the hope of converting hispeople to philosophic faith, and had even pronounced certain publicdiscourses for their instruction in it, that polytheistic devotion washis most striking feature. Philosophers, indeed, had, for the mostpart, thought with Seneca, "that a man need not lift his hands toheaven, nor ask the sacristan's leave to put his mouth to the ear of animage, that his prayers might be heard the better."--Marcus Aurelius,"a master in Israel," knew all that well enough. Yet his outwarddevotion was much more than a concession to popular sentiment, or amere result of that sense of fellow-citizenship with others, which hadmade him again and again, under most difficult circumstances, anexcellent comrade. Those others, too!--amid all their ignorances, whatwere they but instruments in the administration of the Divine Reason,"from end to end sweetly and strongly disposing all things"? Meantime"Philosophy" itself had assumed much of what we conceive to be thereligious character. It had even cultivated the habit, the power, of"spiritual direction"; the troubled soul making recourse in its hour ofdestitution, or amid the distractions of the world, to this or thatdirector--philosopho suo--who could really best understand it.

  And it had been in vain that the old, grave [184] and discreet religionof Rome had set itself, according to its proper genius, to prevent orsubdue all trouble and disturbance in men's souls. In religion, as inother matters, plebeians, as such, had a taste for movement, forrevolution; and it had been ever in the most populous quarters thatreligious changes began. To the apparatus of foreign religion, aboveall, recourse had been made in times of public disquietude or suddenterror; and in those great religious celebrations, before hisproceeding against the barbarians, Aurelius had even restored thesolemnities of Isis, prohibited in the capital since the time ofAugustus, making no secret of his worship of that goddess, though hertemple had been actually destroyed by authority in the reign ofTiberius. Her singular and in many ways beautiful ritual was nowpopular in Rome. And then--what the enthusiasm of the swarmingplebeian quarters had initiated, was sure to be adopted, sooner orlater, by women of fashion. A blending of all the religions of theancient world had been accomplished. The new gods had arrived, hadbeen welcomed, and found their places; though, certainly, with no realsecurity, in any adequate ideal of the divine nature itself in thebackground of men's minds, that the presence of the new-comer should beedify
ing, or even refining. High and low addressed themselves to alldeities alike without scruple; confusing them together when theyprayed, and in the old, [185] authorised, threefold veneration of theirvisible images, by flowers, incense, and ceremonial lights--thosebeautiful usages, which the church, in her way through the world, evermaking spoil of the world's goods for the better uses of the humanspirit, took up and sanctified in her service.

  And certainly "the most religious city in the world" took no care toveil its devotion, however fantastic. The humblest house had itslittle chapel or shrine, its image and lamp; while almost every oneseemed to exercise some religious function and responsibility.Colleges, composed for the most part of slaves and of the poor,provided for the service of the Compitalian Lares--the gods whopresided, respectively, over the several quarters of the city. In onestreet, Marius witnessed an incident of the festival of the patrondeity of that neighbourhood, the way being strewn with box, the housestricked out gaily in such poor finery as they possessed, while theancient idol was borne through it in procession, arrayed in gaudyattire the worse for wear. Numerous religious clubs had their statedanniversaries, on which the members issued with much ceremony fromtheir guild-hall, or schola, and traversed the thoroughfares of Rome,preceded, like the confraternities of the present day, by their sacredbanners, to offer sacrifice before some famous image. Black with theperpetual smoke of lamps and incense, oftenest old and [186] ugly,perhaps on that account the more likely to listen to the desires of thesuffering--had not those sacred effigies sometimes given sensibletokens that they were aware? The image of the Fortune ofWomen--Fortuna Muliebris, in the Latin Way, had spoken (not once only)and declared; Bene me, Matronae! vidistis riteque dedicastis! TheApollo of Cumae had wept during three whole nights and days. Theimages in the temple of Juno Sospita had been seen to sweat. Nay!there was blood--divine blood--in the hearts of some of them: theimages in the Grove of Feronia had sweated blood!

  From one and all Cornelius had turned away: like the "atheist" of whomApuleius tells he had never once raised hand to lip in passing image orsanctuary, and had parted from Marius finally when the latterdetermined to enter the crowded doorway of a temple, on their returninto the Forum, below the Palatine hill, where the mothers werepressing in, with a multitude of every sort of children, to touch thelightning-struck image of the wolf-nurse of Romulus--so tender tolittle ones!--just discernible in its dark shrine, amid a blaze oflights. Marius gazed after his companion of the day, as he mounted thesteps to his lodging, singing to himself, as it seemed. Marius failedprecisely to catch the words.

  And, as the rich, fresh evening came on, there was heard all over Rome,far above a whisper, [187] the whole town seeming hushed to catch itdistinctly, the lively, reckless call to "play," from the sons anddaughters of foolishness, to those in whom their life was stillgreen--Donec virenti canities abest!--Donec virenti canities abest!+Marius could hardly doubt how Cornelius would have taken the call. Andas for himself, slight as was the burden of positive moral obligationwith which he had entered Rome, it was to no wasteful and vagrantaffections, such as these, that his Epicureanism had committed him.

  NOTES

  187. +Horace, Odes I.ix.17. Translation: "So long as youth is freshand age is far away."