Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213

CHAPTER IX
STARS IN WATER

As an excuse for not appearing in time at the Agape, Castor had asserted that he had been engaged on his Master’s work elsewhere. That was true. He had been at the house of the timber merchant as we have seen, and he had been detained by Æmilius as he left it. This latter had been lying on his bed resting, whilst his garments were being dried.

He had overheard what had passed in the room of the dying woman.

When the bishop went forth, then Æmilius rose from his bed, cast the ample toga about him, and walked forth. He caught Castor as he descended to the water’s edge to be paddled away.

After a short salutation, the young lawyer said: “A word with you, sir, if your time is as generously to be disposed of to a stranger as it is lavished on the poor and sick.”

“I am at your service,” answered the bishop.

“My name,” said the young man, “is Æmilius Lentulus Varo. My profession is the law. I am not, I believe, unknown in Nemausus, or at Arelate, where also I have an office. But you, sir, may not have heard of me – we have assuredly never met. Your age and gravity of demeanor belong to a social group other than mine. You mix with the wise, the philosophers, and not with such butterflies as myself, who am a ridiculous pleasure seeker – seeking and never finding. If I am not in error, you are Castor Lepidus Villoneos, of an ancient magisterial family in Nemausus and the reputed head of the Christian sect.”

“I am he,” answered the bishop.

“It may appear to you a piece of idle curiosity,” said the young man, “if I put to you certain questions, and esteem it an impertinence, and so send me away empty. But I pray you to afford me – if thy courtesy will suffer it – some information concerning a matter on which I am eager to obtain light. I have been in the apartment adjoining that in which the mother of the hostess lay, and I chanced – the partition being but of plank – to overhear what was said. I confess that I am inquisitive to know something more certain of this philosophy or superstition, than what is commonly reported among the people. On this account, I venture to detain you, as one qualified to satisfy my greed for knowledge.”

“My time is at your disposal.”

“You spoke to the dying woman as though she were about to pass into a new life. Was that a poetic fancy or a philosophic speculation?”

“It was neither, it was a religious conviction. I spoke of what I knew to be true.”

“Knew to be true!” laughed Æmilius. “How so? Have you traveled into the world of spirits, visited the manes, and returned posted up in all particulars concerning them?”

“No. I receive the testimony from One I can trust.”

“One! All men are liars. I knew a fellow who related that he had fallen into an epileptic fit, and that during the fit his spirit had crossed the Styx. But as he had no penny wherewith to pay the fare, I did not believe him. Moreover, he never told the story twice alike, and in other matters was an arrant liar.”

“Whom would you believe?”

“None, nothing save my own experience.”

“Not Him who made and who sustains your existence, my good sir?”

“Yes, if I knew Him and were assured He spoke.”

“That is the assurance I have.”

Æmilius shook his head. “When, how, where, and by whom did He declare to men that there is a life beyond the tomb?”

“The when was in the principate of Tiberius Cæsar, the how was by the mouth of His only-begotten Son, the where was in Palestine.”

The young lawyer laughed. “There is not a greater rogue and liar on the face of the earth than a Jew. I cannot believe in a revelation made elsewhere than at the center of the world, in the city of Rome.”

“Rome is the center of the world to you – but is it so to the infinite God?”

Æmilius shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “I am a lawyer. I ask for evidence. And I would not trust the word of a Jew against that of a common Gaulish peasant.”

“Nor need you. The witness is in yourself.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Have not all men, at all times and everywhere desired to know what is to be their condition after death? Does not every barbarous people harbor the conviction that there is a future life? Do not you civilized Romans, though you have no evidence, act as though there were such a life, and testify thereto on your monumental cenotaphs?”

“I allow all that. But what of it?”

“How comes it that there should be such a conviction based on no grounds whatever, but a vague longing, unless there were such a reality provided for those who have this desire in them? Would the Creator of man mock him? Would He put this hunger into him unless it were to be satisfied? You have eyes that crave for the light, and the light exists that satisfies this longing! You have ears that desire sounds, and the world is full of voices that meet this desire. Where there is a craving there is ever a reality that corresponds with and gives repose to that desire. Look,” said the bishop, and pointed to the water in which were reflected the stars that now began to glitter in the sky. “Do you see all those twinkling points in the still water? They correspond to the living luminaries set above in the vault. You in your soul have these reflections – sometimes seen, sometimes obscured, but ever returning. They answer to realities in the celestial world overhead. The reflections could not be in your nature unless they existed in substance above.”

“There is a score of other things we long after in vain here.”

“What things? I believe I know. Purity, perfection, justice. Well, you do not find them here entire – only in broken glints. But these glints assure you that in their integrity they do exist.”

A boat was propelled through the water. It broke the reflections, that disappeared or were resolved into a very dust of sparkles. As the wavelets subsided, however, the reflections reformed.

Castor walked up and down beside Æmilius in silence for a few turns, then said: —

“The world is full of inequalities and injustices. One man suffers privation, another is gorged. One riots in luxury at the expense of the weak. Is there to be no righting of wrongs? no justice to be ever done? If there be a God over all, He must, if just – and who can conceive of God, save as perfectly just? – He must, I say, deal righteous judgment and smooth out all these creases; and how can he do so, unless there be a condition of existence after death in which the wrongs may be redressed, the evil-doers be punished, and tears be wiped away?”

“There is philosophy in this.”

“Have you not in your conscience a sense of right as distinct from wrong – obscured often, but ever returning – like the reflection of the stars in the water? How comes it there unless there be the verities above? Unless your Maker so made you as to reflect them in your spirit?”

Æmilius said nothing.

“Have you not in you a sense of the sacredness of Truth, and a loathing for falsehood? How comes that, unless implanted in you by your Creator, who is Truth itself?”

“But we know not – in what is of supreme interest to us – in matters connected with the gods, what our duties, what our destiny – what is the Truth.”

“Young man,” said the bishop, “thou art a seeker after the kingdom of Heaven. One word further, and I must leave thee. Granted there are these scintillations within – ”

“Yes, I grant this.”

“And that they be reflections of verities above.”

“Possibly.”

“Whence else come they?”

Æmilius did not, could not answer.

“Then,” said Castor, “is it not antecedently probable that the God who made man, and put into his nature this desire after truth, virtue, holiness, justice, aye, and this hunger after immortality, should reveal to man that without which man is unable to direct his life aright, attain to the perfection of his being, and look beyond death with confidence?”

“If there were but such a revelation!”

“I say – is it conceivable that the Creator should not make it?”

“Thou givest me much food for thought,” said the lawyer.

“Digest it – looking at the reflection of the stars in the water – aye! and recall what is told by Aristotle of Xenophanes, how that casting his eyes upward at the immensity of heaven, he declared The One is God. That conviction, at which the philosopher arrived at the summit of his research, is the starting point of the Christian child. Farewell. We shall meet again. I commend thee to Him who set the stars in heaven above, and the lights in thine own dim soul.”

Then the bishop sought a boat, and was rowed in the direction of the town.

Æmilius remained by the lagoon.

Words such as these he had heard were novel. The thoughts given him to meditate on were so deep and strange that he could not receive them at once.

The night was now quite dark, and the stars shone with a brilliancy to which we are unaccustomed in the North, save on frosty winter nights.

The Milky Way formed a sort of crescent to the north, and enveloped Cassiopeia’s Chair in its nebulous light. To the west blazed Castor and Pollux, and the changing iridescent fire of Algol reflected its varying colors in the water.

Æmilius looked up. What those points of light were, none could say. How was it that they maintained their order of rising and setting? None could answer. Who ruled the planets? That they obeyed a law, was obvious, but by whom was that law imposed?

Æmilius paced quicker, with folded arms and bowed head, looking into the water. The heavens were an unsolved riddle. The earth also was a riddle, without interpretation. Man himself was an enigma, to which there was no solution. Was all in heaven, in earth, to remain thus locked up, unexplained?

How was it that planets and constellations fulfilled the law imposed on them without deviation, and man knew not a law, lived in the midst of a cobweb of guesses, entangling himself in the meshes of vain speculations, and was not shown the commandment he must obey? Why had the Creator implanted in his soul such noble germs, if they were not to fructify – if only to languish for lack of light?

Again he lifted his eyes to the starry vault, and repeated what had been said of Xenophanes, “Gazing on the immensity of heaven, he declared that the One was God.” And then, immediately looking down into the depths of his own heart, he added: “And He is reflected here. Would that I knew Him.”

Yet how was he to attain the desired knowledge? On all sides were religious quacks offering their nostrums. What guarantee did Christianity offer, that it was other than the wild and empty speculations that swarmed, engaged and disappointed the minds of inquirers?

Unconscious how time passed, Æmilius paced the bank. Then he stood still, looking dreamily over the calm water. A couple of months more and the air would be alive with fire-flies that would cluster on every reed, that would waver in dance above the surface of the lagoon, tens of thousands of drifting stars reflecting themselves in the water, and by their effulgence disturbing the light of the stars also there mirrored.

Thinking of this, Æmilius laughed.

“So is it,” said he, “in the world of philosophic thought and religious aspiration. The air is full of fire-flies. They seem to be brilliant torch-bearers assuring us guidance, but they are only vile grubs, and they float above the festering pool that breeds malarial fevers. Where is the truth, where?”

From the distant city sounded a hideous din, like the bellow of a gigantic bull.

Æmilius laughed bitterly.

“I know what that is, it is the voice of the god – so say the priestesses of Nemausus. It is heard at rare intervals. But the mason who made my baths at Ad Fines, explained it to me. He had been engaged on the temple and saw how a brazen instrument like a shell of many convolutions had been contrived in the walls and concealed, so that one woman’s breath could sound it and produce such a bellow as would shake the city. Bah! one religion is like another, founded on impostures. What are the stars of heaven but fire-flies of a higher order, of superior flight? We follow them and stumble into the mire, and are engulfed in the slough.”

CHAPTER X
LOCUTUS EST!

Every house in Nemausus thrilled with life. Sleep was driven from the drowsiest heads. The tipsy were sobered at once. Those banqueting desisted from conversation. Music was hushed. Men rushed into the street. The beasts in the amphitheater, startled by the strange note, roared and howled. Slowly the chief magistrate rose, sent to summon an edile, and came forth. He was not quick of movement; it took him some time to resolve whether he or his brother magistrate was responsible for order; when he did issue forth, then he found the streets full, and that all men in them were talking excitedly.

The god Nemausus, the archegos, the divine founder and ancestor had spoken. His voice was rarely heard. It was told that before the Cimbri and Teutones had swept over the province, he had shouted. That had been in ages past; of late he had been sparing in the exercise of his voice. He was said to have cried out at the great invasion of the Helvetii, that had been arrested by Julius Cæsar; again to have trumpeted at the outbreak of Civilis and Julius Sabinus, which, however, had never menaced Narbonese Gaul, though at the time the god had called the worst was anticipated. The last time he had been heard was at the revolt of Vindex that preceded the fall of Nero.

Some young skeptics whispered: “By Hercules, the god has a brazen throat.”

“It is his hunting horn that peals to call attention. What he will say will be revealed to the priestess.”

“Or what the priestess wishes to have believed is his message.”

But this incredulous mood was exhibited by very few. None ventured openly to scoff.

“The god hath spoken!” this was the cry through the streets and the forum. Every man asked his fellow what it signified. Some cried out that the prince – the divine Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) – had been assassinated, just as he was about to start from Rome for Gaul. Others that the privileges of the city and colony were going to be abrogated. But one said to his fellow, “I augured ill when we heard that the god had been cheated of his due. No marvel he is out of humor, for Perpetua is esteemed the prettiest virgin in Nemausus.”

“I wonder that the rescue passed off without notice being taken of the affair by the magistrates.”

“Bah! it is the turn of the Petronius Alacinus now, and he will not bestir himself unnecessarily. So long as the public peace be not broken – ”

“But it was – there was a riot, a conflict.”

“A farcical fight with wind-bags. Not a man was hurt, not a drop of blood flowed. The god will not endure to be balked and his sacrifice made into a jest.”

“He is hoarse with rage.”

“What does it all mean?”

Then said a stout man: “My good friend, it means that which always happens when the priesthood is alarmed and considers that its power is menaced – its credit is shaken. It will ask for blood.”

“There has been a great falling off of late in the worshipers of the gods and in attendance at the games.”

“This comes of the spread of the pestilent sect of the Christians. They are the enemies of the human race. They eat little children. The potter Fusius lost his son last week, aged six, and they say it was sacrificed by these sectaries, who stuck needles into it.”

“Bah! the body was found in the channel of the stream the child had fallen in.”

“I heard it was found half eaten,” said a third.

“Rats, rats,” explained another standing by.

“Well, these Christians refuse to venerate the images of the Augustus, and therefore are foes to the commonwealth. They should be rooted out.”

“You are right there. As to their religious notions – who cares about them? Let them adore what they will – onions like the Egyptians, stars like the Chaldeans, a sword like the Scythians – that is nothing to us; but when they refuse to swear by the Emperor and to offer sacrifice for the welfare of the empire then, I say, they are bad citizens, and should be sent to the lions.”

“The lions,” laughed the stout man, “seem to respond to the voice, which sounded in their ears, ‘Dinner for you, good beasts!’ Well, may we have good sport at the games founded by Domitius Afer. I love to lie in bed when the circius (mistral) howls and the snowflakes fly. Then one feels snug and enjoys the contrast. So in the amphitheater one realizes the blessedness of life when one looks on at wretches in the hug of the bear, or being mumbled by lions, or played with by panthers.”

Perhaps the only man whom the blast did not startle was Tarsius, the inebriated slave, who had been expelled the house of Baudillas, and who was engrossed only with his own wrongs, and who departed swearing that he excommunicated the Church, not the Church him. He muttered threats; he stood haranguing on his own virtues, his piety, his generosity of spirit; he recorded many acts of charity he had done. “And I – I to be turned out! They are a scurvy lot. Not worthy of me. I will start a sect of my own, see if I do not.”

Whilst reeling along, growling, boasting, confiding his wrongs to the walls on each side, he ran against Callipodius just as the words were in his mouth: “I am a better Christian than all of them. I don’t affect sanctimoniousness in aspect, but I am sound, sound in my life – a plain, straight-walking man.”

“Are you so?” asked Callipodius. “Then I wish you would not festoon in such a manner as to lurch against me. You are a Christian. Hard times are coming for such as you.”

“Aye, aye! I am a Christian. I don’t care who knows it. I’m not the man to lapse or buy a libellus,⁵ though they have turned me out.”

Callipodius caught the fellow by the shoulder and shook him.

“Man,” said he. “Ah, a slave! I recognize you. You are of the family of Julius Largus Litomarus, the wool merchant. Come with me. The games are in a few days, and the director of the sports has been complaining that he wanted more prisoners to cast to the beasts. I have you in the nick of time. I heard you with these ears confess yourself to be a Christian, and the sole worthy one in the town. You are the man for us – plump and juicy, flushed with wine. By the heavenly twins, what a morsel you will make for the panthers! Come with me. If you resist I will summon the crowd, then perhaps they will elect to have you crucified. Come quietly, and it shall be panthers, not the cross. I will conduct you direct to the magistrate and denounce you.”

“I pray you! I beseech you! I was talking nonsense. I was enacting a part for the theater. I am no Christian; I was, but I have been turned out, excommunicated. My master and mistress believe, and just to please them and to escape stripes, and get a few favors such as are not granted to the others, I have – you understand.” The slave winked.

Beside Callipodius was a lad bearing a torch. He held it up and the flare fell over the face of the now sobered Tarsius.

“Come with me, fellow,” said Callipodius. “Nothing will save you but perfect obedience and compliance with what I direct. Hark! was not that the howl of the beasts. Mehercule! they snuff you already. My good friend Æmilius Lentulus Varo, the lawyer, will be your patron; a strong man. But you must answer my questions. Do you know the Lady Quincta and her daughter? Quincta is the widow of Harpinius Læto.”

“Aye, aye! the wench was fished out of the pond to-day.”

“That is right. Where are they, do you know their house?”

“Yes, but they are not at home now.”

“Where are they then?”

“Will you denounce them?” asked the slave nervously.

“On the contrary. They are menaced. I seek to save them.”

“Oh! if that be all, I am your man. They are in the mansion of Baudillas, yonder – that is – but mum, I say! I must not speak. They kicked me out, but I am not ungenerous. I will denounce nobody. But if you want to save the ladies, I will help you with alacrity. They charged me with being drunk – not the ladies – the bishop did that – more shame to him. I but rinsed out my mouth with the Ambrussian. Every drop clear as amber. Ah, sir! in your cellar have you – ”

A rush of people up the street shouting, “The will of the god! the will of the god! It is being proclaimed in the forum.”

They swept round Callipodius and the slave, spinning them, as leaves are spun in a corner by an eddy of wind, then swept forward in the direction of the great square.

“Come aside with me, fellow,” said Callipodius, darting after the slave who was endeavoring to slink away. “What is your name? I know only your face marked by a scar.”

“Tarsius, at your service, sir!”

“Good Tarsius, here is money, and I undertake to furnish you with a bottle of my best old Ambrussian for your private tipple, or to make merry therewith with your friends. Be assured, no harm is meant. The priests of Nemausus seek to recover possession of the lady Perpetua, and it is my aim to smuggle her away to a place of security. Do thou watch the door, and I will run and provide litters and porters. Do thou assure the ladies that the litters are sent to convey them in safety to where they will not be looked for; say thy master’s house. I will answer for the rest. Hast thou access to them?”

“Aye! I know the pass-word. And though I have been expelled, yet in the confusion and alarm I may be suffered again to enter.”

“Very excellent. Thou shalt have thy flask and an ample reward. Say that the litters are sent by thy master, Largus Litomarus.”

“Right, sir! I will do thy bidding.”

Then Callipodius hastened in the direction of the habitation of Æmilius.

Meanwhile the forum filled with people, crowding on one another, all quivering with excitement. Above were the stars. Here and there below, torches. Presently the chief magistrate arrived with his lictors, and a maniple of soldiers to keep order and make a passage through the mob between the Temple of Nemausus and the forum.

Few women were present. Such as were, belonged to the lowest of the people. But there were boys and men, old and young, slaves, artisans, freedmen, and citizens.

Among the ignorant and the native population the old Paganism had a strong hold, and their interests attached a certain number of all classes to it. But the popular Paganism was not a religion affecting the lives by the exercise of moral control. It was devoid of any ethic code. It consisted in a system of sacrifice to obtain a good journey, to ward off fevers, to recover bad debts, to banish blight and mildew. The superstitious lived in terror lest by some ill-considered act, by some neglect, they should incur the wrath of the jealous gods and bring catastrophe on themselves or their town. They were easily excited by alarm, and were unreasonable in their selfish fervor.

Ever in anticipation of some disaster, an earthquake, a murrain, fire or pestilence, they were ready to do whatever they were commanded, so as to avert danger from themselves. The words of the Apostle to the Hebrews describing the Gentiles as being through fear of death all their lifetime subject to bondage, were very true. The ignorant and superstitious may be said to have existed on the verge of a panic, always in terror lest their gods should hurt them, and cringing to them in abject deprecation of evil. It was this fear for themselves and their substance that rendered them cruel.

The procession came from the temple. Torches were borne aloft, a long wavering line of lurid fire, and vessels were carried in which danced lambent flames that threw out odoriferous fumes.

First came the priests; they walked with their heads bowed and their arms folded across their breasts, and with fillets of wool around their heads. Then followed the priestesses shrouded in sable mantles over their white tunics. All moved in silence. A hush fell on the multitude. Nothing was heard in the stillness save the tramp of feet in rhythm. When the procession had reached the forum, the chief priestess ascended the rostrum, and the flambeau-bearers ranged themselves in a half-circle below. She was a tall, splendidly formed woman, with profuse dark hair, an ivory complexion, flashing black eyes under heavy brows.

Suddenly she raised her arms and extended them, letting the black pall drop from her shoulders, and reveal her in a woven silver robe, like a web of moonlight, and with white bare arms. In her right she bore an ivory silver-bound wand with mistletoe bound about it, every berry of translucent stone.

Then amidst dead silence she cried: “The god hath spoken, he who founded this city, from whom are sprung its ancient patrician families, who supplieth you with crystal water from his urn. The holy one demands that she who hath been taken from him be surrendered to him again, and that punishment be inflicted on the Christians who have desecrated his statue. If this, his command, be not fulfilled, then will he withhold the waters, and deliver over the elect city to be a desolation, the haunt of the lizard and the owl and bat. To the lions with the Christians! Locutus est Divus Archegos!”