by Walter Pater
CHAPTER XII: THE DIVINITY THAT DOTH HEDGE A KING
But ah! Maecenas is yclad in claye, And great Augustus long ygoe is dead, And all the worthies liggen wrapt in lead, That matter made for poets on to playe.+
[188] MARCUS AURELIUS who, though he had little relish for themhimself, had ever been willing to humour the taste of his people formagnificent spectacles, was received back to Rome with the lesserhonours of the Ovation, conceded by the Senate (so great was the publicsense of deliverance) with even more than the laxity which had becomeits habit under imperial rule, for there had been no actual bloodshedin the late achievement. Clad in the civic dress of the chief Romanmagistrate, and with a crown of myrtle upon his head, his colleaguesimilarly attired walking beside him, he passed up to the Capitol onfoot, though in solemn procession along the Sacred Way, to offersacrifice to the national gods. The victim, a goodly sheep, whoseimage we may still see between the pig and the ox of the [189]Suovetaurilia, filleted and stoled almost like some ancient canon ofthe church, on a sculptured fragment in the Forum, was conducted by thepriests, clad in rich white vestments, and bearing their sacredutensils of massive gold, immediately behind a company offlute-players, led by the great choir-master, or conductor, of the day,visibly tetchy or delighted, according as the instruments he ruled withhis tuning-rod, rose, more or less adequately amid the difficulties ofthe way, to the dream of perfect music in the soul within him. Thevast crowd, including the soldiers of the triumphant army, now restoredto wives and children, all alike in holiday whiteness, had left theirhouses early in the fine, dry morning, in a real affection for "thefather of his country," to await the procession, the two princes havingspent the preceding night outside the walls, at the old Villa of theRepublic. Marius, full of curiosity, had taken his position with muchcare; and stood to see the world's masters pass by, at an angle fromwhich he could command the view of a great part of the processionalroute, sprinkled with fine yellow sand, and punctiliously guarded fromprofane footsteps.
The coming of the pageant was announced by the clear sound of theflutes, heard at length above the acclamations of the people--SalveImperator!--Dii te servent!--shouted in regular time, over the hills.It was on the central [190] figure, of course, that the whole attentionof Marius was fixed from the moment when the procession came in sight,preceded by the lictors with gilded fasces, the imperial image-bearers,and the pages carrying lighted torches; a band of knights, among whomwas Cornelius in complete military, array, following. Amply swathedabout in the folds of a richly worked toga, after a manner now longsince become obsolete with meaner persons, Marius beheld a man of aboutfive-and-forty years of age, with prominent eyes--eyes, which althoughdemurely downcast during this essentially religious ceremony, were bynature broadly and benignantly observant. He was still, in the main,as we see him in the busts which represent his gracious and courtlyyouth, when Hadrian had playfully called him, not Verus, after the nameof his father, but Verissimus, for his candour of gaze, and the blandcapacity of the brow, which, below the brown hair, clustering thicklyas of old, shone out low, broad, and clear, and still without a traceof the trouble of his lips. You saw the brow of one who, amid theblindness or perplexity of the people about him, understood all thingsclearly; the dilemma, to which his experience so far had brought him,between Chance with meek resignation, and a Providence with boundlesspossibilities and hope, being for him at least distinctly defined.
That outward serenity, which he valued so [191] highly as a point ofmanner or expression not unworthy the care of a publicminister--outward symbol, it might be thought, of the inward religiousserenity it had been his constant purpose to maintain--was increasedto-day by his sense of the gratitude of his people; that his life hadbeen one of such gifts and blessings as made his person seem in verydeed divine to them. Yet the cloud of some reserved internal sorrow,passing from time to time into an expression of fatigue and effort, ofloneliness amid the shouting multitude, might have been detected thereby the more observant--as if the sagacious hint of one of his officers,"The soldiers can't understand you, they don't know Greek," wereapplicable always to his relationships with other people. The nostrilsand mouth seemed capable almost of peevishness; and Marius noted inthem, as in the hands, and in the spare body generally, what was new tohis experience--something of asceticism, as we say, of a bodilygymnastic, by which, although it told pleasantly in the clear bluehumours of the eye, the flesh had scarcely been an equal gainer withthe spirit. It was hardly the expression of "the healthy mind in thehealthy body," but rather of a sacrifice of the body to the soul, itsneeds and aspirations, that Marius seemed to divine in this assiduousstudent of the Greek sages--a sacrifice, in truth, far beyond thedemands of their very saddest philosophy of life.
[192] Dignify thyself with modesty and simplicity for thineornaments!--had been ever a maxim with this dainty and high-bred Stoic,who still thought manners a true part of morals, according to the oldsense of the term, and who regrets now and again that he cannot controlhis thoughts equally well with his countenance. That outward composurewas deepened during the solemnities of this day by an air of pontificalabstraction; which, though very far from being pride--nay, a sort ofhumility rather--yet gave, to himself, an air of unapproachableness,and to his whole proceeding, in which every minutest act wasconsidered, the character of a ritual. Certainly, there was nohaughtiness, social, moral, or even philosophic, in Aurelius, who hadrealised, under more trying conditions perhaps than any one before,that no element of humanity could be alien from him. Yet, as he walkedto-day, the centre of ten thousand observers, with eyes discreetlyfixed on the ground, veiling his head at times and muttering veryrapidly the words of the "supplications," there was something manyspectators may have noted as a thing new in their experience, forAurelius, unlike his predecessors, took all this with absoluteseriousness. The doctrine of the sanctity of kings, that, in the wordsof Tacitus, Princes are as Gods--Principes instar deorum esse--seemedto have taken a novel, because a literal, sense. For Aurelius, indeed,the old legend of his descent from Numa, from [193] Numa who had talkedwith the gods, meant much. Attached in very early years to the serviceof the altars, like many another noble youth, he was "observed toperform all his sacerdotal functions with a constancy and exactnessunusual at that age; was soon a master of the sacred music; and had allthe forms and ceremonies by heart." And now, as the emperor, who hadnot only a vague divinity about his person, but was actually the chiefreligious functionary of the state, recited from time to time the formsof invocation, he needed not the help of the prompter, orceremoniarius, who then approached, to assist him by whispering theappointed words in his ear. It was that pontifical abstraction whichthen impressed itself on Marius as the leading outward characteristicof Aurelius; though to him alone, perhaps, in that vast crowd ofobservers, it was no strange thing, but a matter he had understood fromof old.
Some fanciful writers have assigned the origin of these triumphalprocessions to the mythic pomps of Dionysus, after his conquests in theEast; the very word Triumph being, according to this supposition, onlyThriambos-the Dionysiac Hymn. And certainly the younger of the twoimperial "brothers," who, with the effect of a strong contrast, walkedbeside Aurelius, and shared the honours of the day, might well havereminded people of the delicate Greek god of flowers and wine. This[194] new conqueror of the East was now about thirty-six years old, butwith his scrupulous care for all the advantages of his person, and asoft curling beard powdered with gold, looked many years younger. Oneresult of the more genial element in the wisdom of Aurelius had beenthat, amid most difficult circumstances, he had known throughout lifehow to act in union with persons of character very alien from his own;to be more than loyal to the colleague, the younger brother in empire,he had too lightly taken to himself, five years before, then anuncorrupt youth, "skilled in manly exercises and fitted for war." WhenAurelius thanks the gods that a brother had fallen to his lot, whosecharacter was a stimulus to the proper care of his own, one sees thatthis co
uld only have happened in the way of an example, putting him onhis guard against insidious faults. But it is with sincere amiabilitythat the imperial writer, who was indeed little used to be ironical,adds that the lively respect and affection of the junior had often"gladdened" him. To be able to make his use of the flower, when thefruit perhaps was useless or poisonous:--that was one of the practicalsuccesses of his philosophy; and his people noted, with a blessing,"the concord of the two Augusti."
The younger, certainly, possessed in full measure that charm of aconstitutional freshness of aspect which may defy for a long timeextravagant or erring habits of life; a physiognomy, [195]healthy-looking, cleanly, and firm, which seemed unassociable with anyform of self-torment, and made one think of the muzzle of some younghound or roe, such as human beings invariably like to stroke--aphysiognomy, in effect, with all the goodliness of animalism of thefiner sort, though still wholly animal. The charm was that of theblond head, the unshrinking gaze, the warm tints: neither more nor lessthan one may see every English summer, in youth, manly enough, and withthe stuff which makes brave soldiers, in spite of the natural kinshipit seems to have with playthings and gay flowers. But innate in LuciusVerus there was that more than womanly fondness for fond things, whichhad made the atmosphere of the old city of Antioch, heavy withcenturies of voluptuousness, a poison to him: he had come to love hisdelicacies best out of season, and would have gilded the very flowers.But with a wonderful power of self-obliteration, the elder brother atthe capital had directed his procedure successfully, and allowed him,become now also the husband of his daughter Lucilla, the credit of a"Conquest," though Verus had certainly not returned a conqueror overhimself. He had returned, as we know, with the plague in his company,along with many another strange creature of his folly; and when thepeople saw him publicly feeding his favourite horse Fleet with almondsand sweet grapes, wearing the animal's image in gold, and [196] finallybuilding it a tomb, they felt, with some un-sentimental misgiving, thathe might revive the manners of Nero.--What if, in the chances of war,he should survive the protecting genius of that elder brother?
He was all himself to-day: and it was with much wistful curiosity thatMarius regarded him. For Lucius Verus was, indeed, but the highlyexpressive type of a class,--the true son of his father, adopted byHadrian. Lucius Verus the elder, also, had had the like strangecapacity for misusing the adornments of life, with a masterly grace; asif such misusing were, in truth, the quite adequate occupation of anintelligence, powerful, but distorted by cynical philosophy or somedisappointment of the heart. It was almost a sort of genius, of whichthere had been instances in the imperial purple: it was to ascend thethrone, a few years later, in the person of one, now a hopeful littlelad at home in the palace; and it had its following, of course, amongthe wealthy youth at Rome, who concentrated no inconsiderable force ofshrewdness and tact upon minute details of attire and manner, as uponthe one thing needful. Certainly, flowers were pleasant to the eye.Such things had even their sober use, as making the outside of humanlife superficially attractive, and thereby promoting the first stepstowards friendship and social amity. But what precise place couldthere be for Verus and his peculiar charm, [197] in that Wisdom, thatOrder of divine Reason "reaching from end to end, strongly and sweetlydisposing all things," from the vision of which Aurelius came down, sotolerant of persons like him? Into such vision Marius too wascertainly well-fitted to enter, yet, noting the actual perfection ofLucius Verus after his kind, his undeniable achievement of the select,in all minor things, felt, though with some suspicion of himself, thathe entered into, and could understand, this other so dubious sort ofcharacter also. There was a voice in the theory he had brought to Romewith him which whispered "nothing is either great nor small;" as therewere times when he could have thought that, as the "grammarian's" orthe artist's ardour of soul may be satisfied by the perfecting of thetheory of a sentence, or the adjustment of two colours, so his own lifealso might have been fulfilled by an enthusiastic quest afterperfection--say, in the flowering and folding of a toga.
The emperors had burned incense before the image of Jupiter, arrayed inits most gorgeous apparel, amid sudden shouts from the people of SalveImperator! turned now from the living princes to the deity, as theydiscerned his countenance through the great open doors. The imperialbrothers had deposited their crowns of myrtle on the richly embroideredlapcloth of the god; and, with their chosen guests, sat down to apublic feast in the temple [198] itself. There followed what was,after all, the great event of the day:--an appropriate discourse, adiscourse almost wholly de contemptu mundi, delivered in the presenceof the assembled Senate, by the emperor Aurelius, who had thus, oncertain rare occasions, condescended to instruct his people, with thedouble authority of a chief pontiff and a laborious student ofphilosophy. In those lesser honours of the ovation, there had been noattendant slave behind the emperors, to make mock of their effulgenceas they went; and it was as if with the discretion proper to aphilosopher, and in fear of a jealous Nemesis, he had determinedhimself to protest in time against the vanity of all outward success.
The Senate was assembled to hear the emperor's discourse in the vasthall of the Curia Julia. A crowd of high-bred youths idled around, oron the steps before the doors, with the marvellous toilets Marius hadnoticed in the Via Nova; in attendance, as usual, to learn byobservation the minute points of senatorial procedure. Marius hadalready some acquaintance with them, and passing on found himselfsuddenly in the presence of what was still the most august assembly theworld had seen. Under Aurelius, ever full of veneration for thisancient traditional guardian of public religion, the Senate hadrecovered all its old dignity and independence. Among its members many[199] hundreds in number, visibly the most distinguished of them all,Marius noted the great sophists or rhetoricians of the day, in alltheir magnificence. The antique character of their attire, and theancient mode of wearing it, still surviving with them, added to theimposing character of their persons, while they sat, with their stavesof ivory in their hands, on their curule chairs--almost the exactpattern of the chair still in use in the Roman church when a Bishoppontificates at the divine offices--"tranquil and unmoved, with amajesty that seemed divine," as Marius thought, like the old Gaul ofthe Invasion. The rays of the early November sunset slanted full uponthe audience, and made it necessary for the officers of the Court todraw the purple curtains over the windows, adding to the solemnity ofthe scene. In the depth of those warm shadows, surrounded by herladies, the empress Faustina was seated to listen. The beautiful Greekstatue of Victory, which since the days of Augustus had presided overthe assemblies of the Senate, had been brought into the hall, andplaced near the chair of the emperor; who, after rising to perform abrief sacrificial service in its honour, bowing reverently to theassembled fathers left and right, took his seat and began to speak.
There was a certain melancholy grandeur in the very simplicity ortriteness of the theme: as it were the very quintessence of all the old[200] Roman epitaphs, of all that was monumental in that city of tombs,layer upon layer of dead things and people. As if in the very fervourof disillusion, he seemed to be composing--Hosper epigraphas chrononkai holon ethnon+--the sepulchral titles of ages and whole peoples;nay! the very epitaph of the living Rome itself. The grandeur of theruins of Rome,--heroism in ruin: it was under the influence of animaginative anticipation of this, that he appeared to be speaking. Andthough the impression of the actual greatness of Rome on that day wasbut enhanced by the strain of contempt, falling with an accent ofpathetic conviction from the emperor himself, and gaining from hispontifical pretensions the authority of a religious intimation, yet thecurious interest of the discourse lay in this, that Marius, for one, ashe listened, seemed to forsee a grass-grown Forum, the broken ways ofthe Capitol, and the Palatine hill itself in humble occupation. Thatimpression connected itself with what he had already noted of an actualchange even then coming over Italian scenery. Throughout, he couldtrace something of a humour into which Stoicism at all times tends
tofall, the tendency to cry, Abase yourselves! There was here the almostinhuman impassibility of one who had thought too closely on theparadoxical aspect of the love of posthumous fame. With the asceticpride which lurks under all Platonism, [201] resultant from itsopposition of the seen to the unseen, as falsehood to truth--theimperial Stoic, like his true descendant, the hermit of the middle age,was ready, in no friendly humour, to mock, there in its narrow bed, thecorpse which had made so much of itself in life. Marius could butcontrast all that with his own Cyrenaic eagerness, just then, to tasteand see and touch; reflecting on the opposite issues deducible from thesame text. "The world, within me and without, flows away like ariver," he had said; "therefore let me make the most of what is hereand now."--"The world and the thinker upon it, are consumed like aflame," said Aurelius, "therefore will I turn away my eyes from vanity:renounce: withdraw myself alike from all affections." He seemedtacitly to claim as a sort of personal dignity, that he was veryfamiliarly versed in this view of things, and could discern adeath's-head everywhere. Now and again Marius was reminded of thesaying that "with the Stoics all people are the vulgar savethemselves;" and at times the orator seemed to have forgotten hisaudience, and to be speaking only to himself.
"Art thou in love with men's praises, get thee into the very soul ofthem, and see!--see what judges they be, even in those matters whichconcern themselves. Wouldst thou have their praise after death,bethink thee, that they who shall come hereafter, and with whom thou[202] wouldst survive by thy great name, will be but as these, whomhere thou hast found so hard to live with. For of a truth, the soul ofhim who is aflutter upon renown after death, presents not this arightto itself, that of all whose memory he would have each one willlikewise very quickly depart, until memory herself be put out, as shejourneys on by means of such as are themselves on the wing but for awhile, and are extinguished in their turn.--Making so much of thosethou wilt never see! It is as if thou wouldst have had those who werebefore thee discourse fair things concerning thee.
"To him, indeed, whose wit hath been whetted by true doctrine, thatwell-worn sentence of Homer sufficeth, to guard him against regret andfear.--
Like the race of leaves The race of man is:--
The wind in autumn strows The earth with old leaves: then the spring the woods with new endows.+
Leaves! little leaves!--thy children, thy flatterers, thine enemies!Leaves in the wind, those who would devote thee to darkness, who scornor miscall thee here, even as they also whose great fame shall outlastthem. For all these, and the like of them, are born indeed in thespring season--Earos epigignetai hore+: and soon a wind hath scatteredthem, and thereafter the [203] wood peopleth itself again with anothergeneration of leaves. And what is common to all of them is but thelittleness of their lives: and yet wouldst thou love and hate, as ifthese things should continue for ever. In a little while thine eyesalso will be closed, and he on whom thou perchance hast leaned thyselfbe himself a burden upon another.
"Bethink thee often of the swiftness with which the things that are, orare even now coming to be, are swept past thee: that the very substanceof them is but the perpetual motion of water: that there is almostnothing which continueth: of that bottomless depth of time, so close atthy side. Folly! to be lifted up, or sorrowful, or anxious, by reasonof things like these! Think of infinite matter, and thy portion--howtiny a particle, of it! of infinite time, and thine own brief pointthere; of destiny, and the jot thou art in it; and yield thyselfreadily to the wheel of Clotho, to spin of thee what web she will.
"As one casting a ball from his hand, the nature of things hath had itsaim with every man, not as to the ending only, but the first beginningof his course, and passage thither. And hath the ball any profit ofits rising, or loss as it descendeth again, or in its fall? or thebubble, as it groweth or breaketh on the air? or the flame of the lamp,from the beginning to the end of its brief story?
[204] "All but at this present that future is, in which nature, whodisposeth all things in order, will transform whatsoever thou nowseest, fashioning from its substance somewhat else, and therefromsomewhat else in its turn, lest the world grow old. We are such stuffas dreams are made of--disturbing dreams. Awake, then! and see thydream as it is, in comparison with that erewhile it seemed to thee.
"And for me, especially, it were well to mind those many mutations ofempire in time past; therein peeping also upon the future, which mustneeds be of like species with what hath been, continuing ever withinthe rhythm and number of things which really are; so that in fortyyears one may note of man and of his ways little less than in athousand. Ah! from this higher place, look we down upon theship-wrecks and the calm! Consider, for example, how the world went,under the emperor Vespasian. They are married and given in marriage,they breed children; love hath its way with them; they heap up richesfor others or for themselves; they are murmuring at things as then theyare; they are seeking for great place; crafty, flattering, suspicious,waiting upon the death of others:--festivals, business, war, sickness,dissolution: and now their whole life is no longer anywhere at all.Pass on to the reign of Trajan: all things continue the same: and thatlife also is no longer anywhere at all. [205] Ah! but look again, andconsider, one after another, as it were the sepulchral inscriptions ofall peoples and times, according to one pattern.--What multitudes,after their utmost striving--a little afterwards! were dissolved againinto their dust.
"Think again of life as it was far off in the ancient world; as it mustbe when we shall be gone; as it is now among the wild heathen. How manyhave never heard your names and mine, or will soon forget them! Howsoon may those who shout my name to-day begin to revile it, becauseglory, and the memory of men, and all things beside, are but vanity--asand-heap under the senseless wind, the barking of dogs, thequarrelling of children, weeping incontinently upon their laughter.
"This hasteth to be; that other to have been: of that which now comethto be, even now somewhat hath been extinguished. And wilt thou makethy treasure of any one of these things? It were as if one set hislove upon the swallow, as it passeth out of sight through the air!
"Bethink thee often, in all contentions public and private, of thosewhom men have remembered by reason of their anger and vehementspirit--those famous rages, and the occasions of them--the greatfortunes, and misfortunes, of men's strife of old. What are they allnow, and the dust of their battles? Dust [206] and ashes indeed; afable, a mythus, or not so much as that. Yes! keep those before thineeyes who took this or that, the like of which happeneth to thee, sohardly; were so querulous, so agitated. And where again are they?Wouldst thou have it not otherwise with thee?
Consider how quickly all things vanish away--their bodily structureinto the general substance; the very memory of them into that greatgulf and abysm of past thoughts. Ah! 'tis on a tiny space of earththou art creeping through life--a pigmy soul carrying a dead body toits grave.
"Let death put thee upon the consideration both of thy body and thysoul: what an atom of all matter hath been distributed to thee; what alittle particle of the universal mind. Turn thy body about, andconsider what thing it is, and that which old age, and lust, and thelanguor of disease can make of it. Or come to its substantial andcausal qualities, its very type: contemplate that in itself, apart fromthe accidents of matter, and then measure also the span of time forwhich the nature of things, at the longest, will maintain that specialtype. Nay! in the very principles and first constituents of thingscorruption hath its part--so much dust, humour, stench, and scraps ofbone! Consider that thy marbles are but the earth's callosities, thygold and silver its faeces; this silken robe but a worm's bedding, andthy [207] purple an unclean fish. Ah! and thy life's breath is nototherwise, as it passeth out of matters like these, into the like ofthem again.
"For the one soul in things, taking matter like wax in the hands,moulds and remoulds--how hastily!--beast, and plant, and the babe, inturn: and that which dieth hath not slipped
out of the order of nature,but, remaining therein, hath also its changes there, disparting intothose elements of which nature herself, and thou too, art compacted.She changes without murmuring. The oaken chest falls to pieces with nomore complaining than when the carpenter fitted it together. If onetold thee certainly that on the morrow thou shouldst die, or at thefurthest on the day after, it would be no great matter to thee to dieon the day after to-morrow, rather than to-morrow. Strive to think ita thing no greater that thou wilt die--not to-morrow, but a year, ortwo years, or ten years from to-day.
"I find that all things are now as they were in the days of our buriedancestors--all things sordid in their elements, trite by long usage,and yet ephemeral. How ridiculous, then, how like a countryman intown, is he, who wonders at aught. Doth the sameness, the repetitionof the public shows, weary thee? Even so doth that likeness of eventsin the spectacle of the world. And so must it be with thee to the end.For the wheel of the world hath ever the same [208] motion, upward anddownward, from generation to generation. When, when, shall time giveplace to eternity?
"If there be things which trouble thee thou canst put them away,inasmuch as they have their being but in thine own notion concerningthem. Consider what death is, and how, if one does but detach from itthe appearances, the notions, that hang about it, resting the eye uponit as in itself it really is, it must be thought of but as an effect ofnature, and that man but a child whom an effect of nature shallaffright. Nay! not function and effect of nature, only; but a thingprofitable also to herself.
"To cease from action--the ending of thine effort to think and do:there is no evil in that. Turn thy thought to the ages of man's life,boyhood, youth, maturity, old age: the change in every one of thesealso is a dying, but evil nowhere. Thou climbedst into the ship, thouhast made thy voyage and touched the shore. Go forth now! Be it intosome other life: the divine breath is everywhere, even there. Be itinto forgetfulness for ever; at least thou wilt rest from the beatingof sensible images upon thee, from the passions which pluck thee thisway and that like an unfeeling toy, from those long marches of theintellect, from thy toilsome ministry to the flesh.
"Art thou yet more than dust and ashes and bare bone--a name only, ornot so much as [209] that, which, also, is but whispering and aresonance, kept alive from mouth to mouth of dying abjects who havehardly known themselves; how much less thee, dead so long ago!
"When thou lookest upon a wise man, a lawyer, a captain of war, thinkupon another gone. When thou seest thine own face in the glass, callup there before thee one of thine ancestors--one of those old Caesars.Lo! everywhere, thy double before thee! Thereon, let the thought occurto thee: And where are they? anywhere at all, for ever? And thou,thyself--how long? Art thou blind to that thou art--thy matter, howtemporal; and thy function, the nature of thy business? Yet tarry, atleast, till thou hast assimilated even these things to thine own properessence, as a quick fire turneth into heat and light whatsoever be castupon it.
"As words once in use are antiquated to us, so is it with the namesthat were once on all men's lips: Camillus, Volesus, Leonnatus: then,in a little while, Scipio and Cato, and then Augustus, and thenHadrian, and then Antoninus Pius. How many great physicians who liftedwise brows at other men's sick-beds, have sickened and died! Those wiseChaldeans, who foretold, as a great matter, another man's last hour,have themselves been taken by surprise. Ay! and all those others, intheir pleasant places: those who doated on a Capreae like [210]Tiberius, on their gardens, on the baths: Pythagoras and Socrates, whoreasoned so closely upon immortality: Alexander, who used the lives ofothers as though his own should last for ever--he and his mule-driveralike now!--one upon another. Well-nigh the whole court of Antoninusis extinct. Panthea and Pergamus sit no longer beside the sepulchre oftheir lord. The watchers over Hadrian's dust have slipped from hissepulchre.--It were jesting to stay longer. Did they sit there still,would the dead feel it? or feeling it, be glad? or glad, hold thosewatchers for ever? The time must come when they too shall be aged menand aged women, and decease, and fail from their places; and what shiftwere there then for imperial service? This too is but the breath ofthe tomb, and a skinful of dead men's blood.
"Think again of those inscriptions, which belong not to one soul only,but to whole families: Eschatos tou idiou genous:+ He was the last ofhis race. Nay! of the burial of whole cities: Helice, Pompeii: ofothers, whose very burial place is unknown.
"Thou hast been a citizen in this wide city. Count not for how long,nor repine; since that which sends thee hence is no unrighteous judge,no tyrant, but Nature, who brought thee hither; as when a player leavesthe stage at the bidding of the conductor who hired him. Sayest thou,'I have not played five acts'? True! but in [211] human life, threeacts only make sometimes an entire play. That is the composer'sbusiness, not thine. Withdraw thyself with a good will; for that toohath, perchance, a good will which dismisseth thee from thy part."
The discourse ended almost in darkness, the evening having set insomewhat suddenly, with a heavy fall of snow. The torches, made readyto do him a useless honour, were of real service now, as the emperorwas solemnly conducted home; one man rapidly catching light fromanother--a long stream of moving lights across the white Forum, up thegreat stairs, to the palace. And, in effect, that night winter began,the hardest that had been known for a lifetime. The wolves came fromthe mountains; and, led by the carrion scent, devoured the dead bodieswhich had been hastily buried during the plague, and, emboldened bytheir meal, crept, before the short day was well past, over the wallsof the farmyards of the Campagna. The eagles were seen driving theflocks of smaller birds across the dusky sky. Only, in the city itselfthe winter was all the brighter for the contrast, among those who couldpay for light and warmth. The habit-makers made a great sale of thespoil of all such furry creatures as had escaped wolves and eagles, forpresents at the Saturnalia; and at no time had the winter roses fromCarthage seemed more lustrously yellow and red.
NOTES
188. +Spenser, Shepheardes Calendar, October, 61-66.
200. +Transliteration: Hosper epigraphas chronon kai holon ethnon.Pater's Translation: "the sepulchral titles of ages and whole peoples."
202. +Homer, Iliad VI.146-48.
202. +Transliteration: Earos epigignetai hore. Translation: "born inspringtime." Homer, Iliad VI.147.
210. +Transliteration: Eschatos tou idiou genous. Translation: "He wasthe last of his race."
