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At Antioch the great, the capital of Syria, not far from Syngon, theprincipal street, splendid hot baths, _Thermae_, stood just at themeeting of four roads.
These baths were fashionable and expensive. Crowds of clients used togo there to learn the last gossip of the town. Between the_apodyterium_, the room for undressing, and the _frigidarium_, or roomfor cooling and rest, lay a fine hall with mosaic floor and marblewalls; this was the hot-air bath, the _sudatorium_ or _laconicum_.
From adjoining halls came laughs of the bathers and the noise ofpowerful jets of water falling into huge basins. Naked slaves ranhither and thither, jostling one another and opening jars of perfume.
At Antioch bathing was considered neither as an amusement nor as anecessity, but as the principal charm and most varied art of life. Thecapital of Syria was moreover renowned, the world over, for theabundance, the exquisite taste, and the purity of its waters. A fullbath or a full bucket seemed empty, so transparent were the streamsfrom the aqueducts of Antioch.
Through the warm and milky vapours of the sudatorium could be caughtglimpses of the red and naked bodies of notable citizens. Some werehalf-reclining, others seated. Some were being rubbed over with oil;all, with the utmost solemnity, were talking together, while theyperspired. The beauty of a pair of ancient statues, an Antinous and anAdonis, placed in niches overhead, threw into still greaterprominence the hideousness of the living.
A fat old man came out with a majestic, albeit misshapen, body. He wasthe merchant Bouzaris, whose finger and thumb controlled the whole ofthe corn-markets of Antioch. A sprightly young man was respectfullysupporting him under the arm. Although both were naked, it was easy todistinguish at a glance which was patron and which client.
"Let the vapour be turned on me," commanded Bouzaris, in his hoarsevoice. From the profundity of his tones could be calculated theprodigious number of millions which he commanded on the market.
Two metal taps were turned, and the warm steam, escaping with a hissfrom the vent-hole, enveloped the figure of the merchant in thickmist. He stood in the middle of the white cloud, like some squat andmonstrous god in process of apotheosis, tunding his red and fleshybelly like a drum.
Sitting hard by in a prominent place was Marcus Ausonius, the formerinspector of the guest-house. Huddled up, crouching on his heels bythe massive side of the merchant, the meagre little man resembled afeatherless and shivering chicken.
Julius Mauricus, the scoffer, was there, trying to make his drynervous body perspire. He was lean as a stick.
Garguillus, too, was stretched on the mosaic floor, still well-fed,soft as gelatine, enormous in bulk as the carcass of a slain boar. APaphlagonian slave, panting under the protracted effort, was scrubbingthe blubber of his back with a piece of damp cloth; while the nowwealthy poet, Publius Porphyrius, was staring in a melancholy mannerat his own gouty legs.
"Do you know, my friends?" he asked, "about the letter from the whitebulls to the Roman Emperor?"
"No. Tell it."
"One line only: 'Conquer Persia, and we are doomed!'"
"Is that all?"
"What more was there to say?"
Undulations of laughter heaved the body of Garguillus.
"By Pallas, it's telling and to the point! If the Emperor comes backin triumph from Persia, he'll offer in sacrifice to the Olympians suchmasses of white bulls that these animals will get rarer than the bullApis!... Slave! Rub the small of my back, the small of my back!...harder, harder!"
And, in turning over, his body made the sound, against the mosaicfloor, of a great bundle of wet linen flopped on the ground.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Julius, "they say from the Isle of Taprobane, inthe Indies, they're sending great numbers of very rare white birds andbig wild swans from Scythia. All that for the gods! The Roman Emperoris fattening the Olympians. It's true they have had time to get hungrysince the days of Constantine!"
"The gods guzzle while we starve!" cried Garguillus. "It's now threedays since one has been able to get a decent Colchis pheasant in themarket, or even a tolerably eatable fish."
"He's a greenhorn and an innocent!" remarked the corn-merchant.
Everybody turned round respectfully.
"A greenhorn, I tell you!" resumed Bouzaris. "I say that if youpinched the nose of your Roman Caesar you'd find nothing but milk inhim like a babe of two weeks!... He wanted to lower the price ofbread; forbade us to sell it at the price we set on it! And so hebrought four hundred thousand measures of wheat from Egypt...."
"Well, did you lower the price?"
"Listen! I stirred up the wheat-sellers. We closed the shops. Betterlet our grain rot than give in. So the people ate the Egyptian corn.We won't give him ours. He's made his cake, let him eat it!"
Bouzaris triumphantly clapped his palms on his belly.
"That's enough steam! Now pour!" ordered the merchant.
And the handsome curly-headed slave, who resembled Antinous, unsealedover his head a slender amphora containing the costliest Arabiancassia. The aromatics flowed over the red sweating body. Bouzarisspread the thick scented drops over himself with satisfaction, andthen wiped his gross fingers in the golden hair of the slave standingwith bowed head before him.
"Your excellency has quite rightly observed that the Emperor wasnothing more than a greenhorn," said the parasite friend, with aprofound bow. "He has recently published a pamphlet aimed at theinhabitants of Antioch and entitled, _The Beard-hater_, in which, inresponse to the insults of the populace, he says in effect--'You laughat my beard and my coarseness of manners. Laugh as much as you please!I, too, laugh at myself. But I don't want trials, informers, prisons,or punishments!' Now is that worthy of a Roman Emperor? Is itdignified?"
"The Caesar Constantius of pious memory," declared Bouzaris, "can't bespoken of in the same breath with Julian! In his clothes, in hisbearing, one could see at once he was a Caesar. But this one, Godforgive me, is only an abortion of the gods, a lame monkey, abandy-legged bear who hangs about the streets unshaven, uncombed,unwashed, with stains of ink on his fingers. Why it makes me sick tosee him!... Books, learning, philosophy.... Ah, we'll make you paydear for all that! A ruler mustn't laugh with his people! He must keepthem in hand. Once let the people slip, and he'll never get a grip onthem again...."
Then Marcus Ausonius, who up to that time had been mute, murmuredthoughtfully--
"Well, one can forgive most things, but why does he take away the lastremaining joy in life--the circus, and the fights of gladiators? Myfriends, the sight of blood causes, and will always cause, aninexplicable pleasure to man.... 'Tis a sacred and mysteriousenjoyment. There's no gaiety without bloodshed, no greatness on theearth. The smell of blood is the smell of Rome!"
The last scion of the Ausonii glanced naively round at his hearers.Sometimes he looked like a boy, sometimes like an old man. The swollentorso of Garguillus heaved on the floor. Raising his head, he glancedat Ausonius.
"Neatly put. Smell of blood, smell of Rome!... Go on, Marcus, you'reinspired to-day...."
"I say what I feel, my dear fellows. Blood is so pleasant to man thateven the Christians can't do without it. They want to purify the worldthrough bloodshed. Julian is making a great mistake. In taking awaythe circus from the people he's robbing them of their chiefenjoyment, which is naturally sanguinary. The populace would havepardoned almost anything; but it won't pardon that!"
Marcus pronounced the last words solemnly, and then suddenly slipped ahand behind his back and his face beamed.
"Are you perspiring!" asked Garguillus.
"Yes!" answered Ausonius, with a rapturous smile. "Rub, slave, rub!"
He lay down on the couch. The bath-slave fell to kneading the pooranaemic limbs, which had a deadly bluish tint.
From their porphyry niches the figures of ancient time looked downwith scorn through the milky smoke.
Meanwhile at the cross-roads, outside the baths, a crowd wascollecting.
At night Antioch glittered with thousand
s of lights, especially alongthe Syngon, which ran through the city for a distance of twenty-sixstadia, with porticoes and colonnades thronged with shops throughoutits length.
In the crowd, pleasantries about the Emperor ran from mouth to mouth.Street boys rushed about from group to group shouting satiricalditties. An old woman caught one of the little vagabonds, and, liftinghis shirt, administered sound correction with the sole of her sandal.
"Take that! and that! to teach you to sing such disgraceful things!"
The urchin uttered piercing squeals.
Another, clambering on the back of a comrade, drew on the white wallwith a piece of coal a long-bearded goat, crowned with the Imperialdiadem, while a third wrote underneath in big letters, "This is theimpious Julian!" and trying to make his voice formidable yelled--
"The butcher comes With a big, big knife!"
An old man in the long black ecclesiastical habit passing by, halted,listened to the boy, and cast up his eyes to heaven--
"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings proceedeth wisdom! Were wenot better off under Cappa and Khi?"
"What do you mean by Cappa and Khi?"
"Don't you understand? The Greek letter Cappa (_K_) begins the name ofConstantius, and Khi (_X_) is the initial of 'Christ.' I mean by that,that Constantius and Christ did no harm to the inhabitants of Antiochwhile the philosophers...."
"True, true! One was better off under Cappa and Khi!"
A drunken man, overhearing this colloquy, hawked the saying about thestreets, and the pleasantry circulated through Antioch, and beingmanifestly absurd tickled the popular fancy.
A scene of still greater animation might have been witnessed in thetavern situated opposite the baths. This tavern belonged to theArmenian Syrax, who had long ago transferred his commercialundertakings from Caesarea to Antioch. From bulging wine-skins andenormous jars, wine was pouring freely into tin cups. Here, aseverywhere, the conversation turned on the Emperor's doings.
The little Syrian soldier Strombix, the same who had taken part inJulian's campaign against the barbarians in Gaul, was distinguishinghimself by special eloquence. By his side lolled the faithful giant,his friend, the Sarmatian, Aragaris. Strombix felt as happy as a fishin water; he loved risings and rebellions better than anything in theworld.
He was preparing to make a speech. An old rag-picker had just broughtin a sensational piece of news--
"We're all doomed!... The Lord's hand is heavy on us.... Yesterday aneighbour of mine told me something which at first I refused tobelieve!"
"Tell us, good woman!"
"Well, it was at Gaza. The Pagans seized a convent. They made the nunscome out. They tied them to gallows in the market-place, beat 'em todeath, and after rolling their warm bodies, all hacked to pieces, ingrains of barley, threw 'em to the swine!"
"I saw myself," added a young weaver, "a Pagan at Hieropolis, who waseating the liver of a deacon!"
"What an abomination!" murmured the auditors crossing themselves.
With the help of Aragaris, Strombix clambered on to a table, which wasstill sticky with the spilth of wine, and striking an oratoricalattitude, addressed the crowd, while Aragaris proudly contemplated hisfriend.
"Citizens," began Strombix; "how long shall we wait before we rebel?Don't you know that Julian has sworn, if he returns a conqueror fromPersia, to gather together the holy defenders of the Church and throwthem to beasts in the amphitheatre? To turn the porticoes of basilicasinto granaries, and the churches into stables...."
A hump-backed old man, livid with fear, tumbled over on the tavernfloor. It was the husband of the rag-picker, himself a glass-blower.Rising, he slapped his thigh despairingly, stared at the company, andfaltered--
"Ah, what a situation!... And there are two hundred corpses in thewells and the aqueducts!"
"Where? What corpses?"
"Hush!... Hush!" murmured the glass-blower.
"They say that the renegade has long taken his auguries from theintestines of living men; and all this for his war against thePersians and his victory over the Christians!"
Overcome with satisfaction he muttered under his breath--
"Why, in the cellars of the palace at Antioch they've discoveredchests full of human bones ... and in the city of Karra, near Edessa,the Christians have found, in a subterranean temple, the corpse of awoman hanging by her hair with her body slit open.... Julian wanted toinspect the liver of an infant for his cursed war."
"Eh? Gluturius! Is it true that human bones are found in the sewers?_You_ ought to know!" said a shoemaker, a confirmed sceptic.
Gluturius, the scavenger, who stood near the door, not venturing inbecause he smelt badly, being thus addressed, began, according to hiscustom, to smile and to blink his inflamed eyelids:
"No, worthy friends," he answered humbly. "Newborn infants aresometimes found there, or skeletons of asses and camels, but I neveryet saw a corpse of man or woman."
When Strombix resumed his speech, the scavenger listened religiously,rubbing his bare leg against the door post.
"Brother men," cried the orator, with fiery indignation, "let us berevenged! Let us die like ancient Romans!"
"No use bursting _your_ lungs," grumbled the shoemaker. "When we getto that stage, you'll be the first to turn tail and let the othersdie!"
"You're a set of cowards," chimed in a painted woman, dressed in apoor and tawdry dress. She was a street-walker, nicknamed by heradmirers the She-wolf. "Do you know," she went on wrathfully, "whatthe holy martyrs Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tertian replied to theirexecutioners?"
"No, She-wolf, tell us."
"Well, I've heard. At Myrrha, in Phrygia, three young men, Macedonius,Theodulus, and Tertian, had burst into a Greek temple by night, andsmashed the idols to the glory of God. The proconsul Amachius had themseized, stretched them on dripping-pans, and ordered fires to belighted under them. The three martyrs said: 'If you want to tastecooked flesh, Amachius, turn us over on the other side, that we maynot be served up to you half-cooked!' and all three laughed and spatin the face of the proconsul. And everybody saw an angel come down outof heaven with three crowns! _You_ wouldn't have spoken so! You're toofearful for your skins.... It's heart-breaking, just to look at you!"
The She-wolf turned away in disgust.
Cries rose from the street.
"Perhaps they're breaking up idols?" suggested the shoemakerpleasantly.
"Forward, citizens! Follow me!" shouted Strombix, waving his arms; buthe slipped on the table, and would have fallen had not Aragaris caughthim.
Everybody rushed to the door. An enormous crowd was advancing down theprincipal street and, filling the narrow cross-roads, brought upbefore the baths.
"Old Pamva! Old Pamva!" the idlers were shouting. "He's come from thedesert to help the people; to pull down the great, and to save thehumble and poor!"
The Death of the Gods Page 34
