Buch lesen: «Domitia»

BOOK I

CHAPTER I.
THE PORT OF CENCHRÆA

Flashes as of lightning shot from each side of a galley as she was being rowed into port. She was a bireme, that is to say, had two tiers of oars; and as simultaneously the double sets were lifted, held for a moment suspended, wet with brine, feathered, and again dipped, every single blade gleamed, reflecting the declining western sun, and together formed a flash from each side of the vessel of a sheaf of rays.

The bireme was approaching the entrance to the harbor of Cenchræa.

The one white sail was filled with what little wind breathed, and it shone against a sapphire sea like a moon.

Now, at a signal the oars ceased to plunge. The sail was furled, and the galley was carried into the harbor between the temple that stood on the northern horn of the mole, and the great brazen statue of Poseidon that occupied a rock in the midst of the entrance, driven forward by the impulse already given her by the muscles of the rowers and the east wind in the sail.

This Cenchræan harbor into which she swept was one of the busiest in the world. Through it as through a tidal sluice rushed the current of trade from the East to the West, and from the Occident to the Orient. It was planted on a bay of the Saronic Gulf, and on the Isthmus of Corinth, at the foot of that lovely range of mountains thrown up by the hand of God to wall off the Peloponnesus as the shrine of intellectual culture and the sanctuary of Liberty.

And a furrow – like an artificial dyke – ran between this range and Hellas proper, a furrow nearly wholly invaded by the sea, but still leaving a strip of land, the Corinthian isthmus, to form a barrier between the Eastern and the Western worlds.

On the platform at the head of a flight of marble steps before a temple of Poseidon, in her open litter, lounged a lady, with the bloom of youth gone from her face, but artificially restored.

She was handsome, with finely moulded features and a delicate white hand, the fingers studded with rings, and a beautiful arm which was exposed whenever any one drew near whose admiration was worth the acquisition. Its charm was enhanced by armlets of gold adorned with cameos.

Her arched brows, dark in color, possibly owed their perfection of turn and their depth of color to dye and the skill of the artist who decorated her every day, but not so the violet-blue of her large eyes, although these also were enhanced in effect by the tinting of the lashes, and a touch of paint applied to their roots.

The lady, whose name was Longa Duilia, was attended by female slaves, who stood behind the litter, and by a freedman, Plancus, who was at her side with a set smile on his waxen face, and who bowed towards the lady every moment to hear her remarks, uttered in a languid tone, and without her troubling to turn her head to address him.

“He will soon be here,” said the lady; “the bireme is in the port. I can see the ruffle before her bows as she cuts the water.”

“Like the wave in my lady’s hair,” sighed Plancus.

“Abominable!” exclaimed Duilia, “when the ripple in my hair is natural and abiding, and that in the water is made and disappears.”

“Because, Mistress, the wavelets look up, see, and fall back in despair.”

“That is better,” said the lady.

“And the swelling sail, like your divine bosom, has fallen, as when – ”

“Ugh! I should hope the texture of my skin was not like coarse sail-cloth; get behind me, Plancus. Here, Lucilla, how am I looking? I would have my lord see me to the best advantage.”

“Madam,” said the female slave, advancing, “the envious sun is about to hide his head in the west. He cannot endure, after having feasted on your beauty, to surrender it to a mortal.”

“Is not one eyebrow a trifle higher than the other?” asked Duilia, looking at herself in a hand mirror of polished metal.

“It is indeed so, lady, but has not the Paphian Goddess in the statue of Phidias the same characteristic? Defect it is not, but a token of divinity.”

“Ah,” said Duilia, “it is hereditary. The Julian race descends from Venus Genetrix, and I have the blood of the immortal ancestress in me.”

“Much diluted,” muttered Plancus into the breast of his tunic; he was out of humor at the failure of his little simile of the sail.

“By the way,” said the lady; “the stay in this place Cenchræa is positively intolerable. No society, only a set of merchants – rich and all that sort of thing – but nobodies. The villa we occupy is undignified and uncomfortable. The noise of the port, the caterwauling of sailors, and the smell of pitch are most distasteful to me. My lord will hardly tarry here?”

“My lord,” said the freedman, pushing forward, “he who subdued the Parthians, and chained the Armenians, to whom all Syria bowed, arrives to cast himself at your ladyship’s feet, and be led by you as a captive in your triumphal entry into the capital of the world.”

“You think so, Plancus.” She shook her head, “He is an obstinate man – pig-headed – I – I mean resolute in his own line.”

“Madam, I know you to be irresistible.”

“Well, I desire to leave this odious place. I have yawned here through three entire months.”

“And during these months, the temple of Aphrodite has been deserted, and the approaches grass-grown.”

“How would my Lady like to remove to Corinth?” said Lucilla. “The vessel will be taken to Diolcus, and there placed on rollers, to be drawn across the isthmus.”

“Oh! Corinth will be noisier than this place, and more vulgar, because more pretentious. Only money-lending Jews there. Besides, I have taken an aversion to the place since the death of my physician. As the Gods love me, I not see the good of a medical attendant who is so ignorant as to allow himself to die, and that at such an inconvenient moment as the present. By the Great Goddess! what impostors there be. To think that for years I committed the care of my precious health to his bungling hands! Plancus, have you secured another? I suffer frightfully at sea.”

“A sure token of your divine origin,” said the steward. “The Foam-born (Venus) rose out of and left the waves because the motion of them disagreed with her.”

“There is a good deal in that,” observed Longa Duilia. “Plancus, have you secured another? I positively cannot across Adria without one to hold my head and supply anti – anti – what do you call them?”

“Madam,” said the freedman, rubbing his hands together, “I have devoted my energies to your service. I have gone about with a lantern seeking an honest physician. I may not have been as successful as I desired, but I have done my utmost.”

“I prithee – have done with this rodomontade and to the point. Have you secured one? As the Gods love me! it is not only one’s insides that get upset at sea, but one’s outside also becomes so tousled and tumbled – that the repairs – but never mind about them. Have you engaged a man?”

“Yes, my Lady, I have lighted on one Luke, a physician of Troas; he is desirous of proceeding to Rome, and is willing to undertake the charge of your health, in return for being conveyed to the capital of the world at your charges.”

“I make you responsible for his suitability,” said Longa Duilia.

“Body of Bacchus!” she exclaimed suddenly, after a pause, “Where is the child?”

“Where is the lady Domitia Longina?” asked Plancus, as he looked about him.

“The lady Domitia, where is she?” asked Lucilla.

“The lady Domitia?” – passed from one to another.

“Where is she? What has become of her? As the Gods love me – you are a pack of fools. The more of you there are, so much the more of folly. You have let her gallop off among the odious sailors, and she will come back rank with pitch. Lucilla, Favonia, Syra, where is she?”

Duilia sat upright on her seat, and her eyes roamed searchingly in every direction.

“I never met with such a child anywhere, it is the Corbulo blood in her, not mine. The Gods forbid! O Morals!”

“Madam,” said a slave-girl coming up. “I saw her with Eboracus.”

“Well, and where is Eboracus. They are always together. He spoils the child, and she pays him too much consideration. Where are they?”

The slaves, male and female, looked perplexedly in every direction.

“Perhaps,” said Plancus, “she has gone to the altar of Poseidon to offer there thanks for the return of her father.”

“Poseidon, nonsense! That is not her way. She has been in a fever ever since the vessel has been sighted, her cheeks flaming and in a fidget as if covered with flying ants. Find the girl. If any harm shall have come to her through your neglect, I will have you all flayed – and hang the cost!”

She plucked a bodkin from her dress, and ran it into the shoulder of the slave-woman, Favonia, who stood near her, and made her cry out with pain.

“You are a parcel of idle, empty-headed fools,” exclaimed the alarmed and irritated mother, “I will have the child found, and that instantly. You girls, you have been gaping, watching the sailors, and have not had an eye on your young mistress, and no concern for my feelings. There is no more putting anything into your heads than of filling the sieves of the Danaides.”

“Madam,” said Plancus, for once without a smile on his unctuous face, “you may rest satisfied that no harm has befallen the young lady. So long as Eboracus is with her, she is safe. That Briton worships her. He would suffer himself to be torn limb from limb rather than allow the least ill to come to her.”

“Well, well,” said the lady impatiently, “we expect all that sort of thing of our slaves.”

“Madam, but do we always get it?”

“We! The Gods save me! How you talk. We! We, indeed. Pray what are you to expect anything?”

“The other day, lady,” hastily continued the steward eager to allay the ebullition he had provoked. “The other day, Eboracus nigh on killed a man who looked with an insolent leer at his young mistress. He is like a faithful Molossus.”

“I do not ask what he is like,” retorted the still ruffled lady, “I ask where she is.”

Then one of the porters of the palanquin came forward respectfully and said to the steward: – “If it may please you, sir, will you graciously report to my Lady that I observed the young mistress draw Eboracus aside, and whisper to him, as though urging somewhat, and he seemed to demur, but he finally appeared to yield to her persuasions, and they strolled together along the mole.”

Longa Duilia overheard this. It was not the etiquette for an underling to address his master or mistress directly unless spoken to.

She said sharply: – “Why did not the fellow mention this before? Give him thirty lashes. Where did they go, did he say?”

“Along the mole.”

“Which mole?”

“Madam, Carpentarius is afraid of extending his communication lest he increase the number of his lashes.”

“Well, well!” exclaimed the mistress, “We may remit the lashes – let him answer.”

“Carpentarius,” said the steward, “Her ladyship, out of the superabundance of her compassion, will let you off the thirty lashes, if you say where be Eboracus and the young lady, your mistress Domitia Longina.”

“Sir,” answered the porter, “that I cannot answer positively; but – unless my eyes deceive me, I see a small boat on the water, within it a rower and a young girl.”

“By the Immortal Brothers! he is right,” exclaimed Plancus. “See, lady, yonder is a cockle boat, that has been unmoored from the mole, and there be in it a rower, burly, broadbacked, who is certainly the Briton, and in the bow is as it were a silver dove – and that can be none other than your daughter.”

“As the Gods love me,” gasped Duilia, throwing herself back in the litter; “what indelicacy! It is even so, the child is besotted. She dotes on her father, whom she has not seen since we left Antioch. And she has actually gone to meet him. O Venus Kalypyge! What are we coming to, when children act in this independent, indecent manner. O Times! O Morals!”

CHAPTER II.
AN ILL-OMEN

It was even so.

The young girl had coaxed the big Briton to take her in a boat to the galley, so as to meet and embrace her father, before he came on shore.

She was a peculiarly affectionate child, and jealous to boot. She knew that, so soon as he landed, his whole attention would be engrossed by her very exacting mother, who moreover would keep her in the background, and would chide should the father divert his notice from herself to his child.

She was therefore determined to be the first to salute him, and to receive his endearments, and to lavish on him her affection, unchecked by her mother.

As for the slave, he knew that he would get into trouble if he complied with the girl’s request, but he was unable to resist her blandishments.

And now Domitia reached the side of the galley, and a rope was cast to the boat, caught by Eboracus, who shipped his oars, and the little skiff was made fast to the side of the vessel.

The eyes of the father had already recognized his child. Domitia stood in the bows and extended her arms, poised on tiptoe, as if, like a bird about to leap into the air and fly to his embrace.

And now he caught her hand, looked into her dancing, twinkling eyes, as drops of the very Ægean itself, set in her sweet face, and in another moment she was clinging round his neck, and sobbing as though her heart would break, yet not with sorrow, but through excess of otherwise inexpressible joy.

For an hour she had him to herself – all to herself – the dear father whom she had not seen for half a year, to tell him how she loved him, to hear about himself, to pour into his ear her story of pleasures and pains, great pleasures and trifling pains.

And yet – no, not wholly uninterrupted was the meeting and sweet converse, for the father said:

“My darling, hast thou no word for Lucius?”

“Lamia! He is here?”

The father, Cnæus Domitius Corbulo, with a smile turned and beckoned.

Then a young man, with pleasant, frank face, came up. He had remained at a distance, when father and daughter met, but had been unable to withdraw his eyes from the happy group.

“Domitia, you have not forgotten your old playmate, have you?”

With a light blush like the tint on the petal of the rose of June, the girl extended her hand.

“Nay, nay!” said Corbulo. “A gentler, kinder greeting, after so long a separation.”

Then she held up her modest cheek, and the young man lightly touched it with his lips.

She drew herself away and said:

“You will not be angry if I give all my thoughts and words and looks to my father now. When we come on shore, he will be swallowed up by others.”

Lamia stepped back.

“Do not be offended,” she said with a smile, and the loveliest, most bewitching dimples came into her cheeks. “I have not indeed been without thought of you, Lucius, but have spun and spun and weaved too, enough to make you a tunic, all with my own hands, and a purple clavus– it nigh ruined me, the dyed Tyrian wool cost¹– I will not say; but I wove little crossed L’s into the texture.”

“What,” said Corbulo. “For Lucius and Longina?”

The girl became crimson.

Lamia came to her succor. “That could not be,” said he, “for Longina and Lucius are never across, but alack! Lucius is often so with Lamia, when he has done some stupid thing and he sees a frown on his all but father’s face, but hears no word of reproach.”

“My boy,” said Corbulo, “when a man knows his own faults, then a reprimand is unnecessary, and what is unnecessary is wrong.”

Lamia bowed and retired.

And now again father and daughter were alone together in the prow observing the arc of the harbor in which the ship was gliding smoothly.

And now the sailors had out their poles and hooks, and they ran the vessel beside the wharf, and cast out ropes that were made fast to bronze rings in the marble breasting of the quay.

Domitia would at once have drawn her father on shore, but he restrained her.

“Not yet, my daughter,” he said; “the goddess must precede thee.”

And now ensued a singular formality.

From the bows of the vessel, the captain and steerer took a statuette of Artemis, in bronze, the Ephesian goddess, with female head and numerous breasts, but with the lower limbs swaddled, and the swaddling bands decorated with representations of all kinds of beasts, birds, and fishes.

This image was now conveyed on shore, followed by the passengers and crew.

On the quay stood an altar, upon which charcoal ever burnt, under the charge of a priest who attended to it continuously, and whenever a ship entered the port or was about to leave, added fuel, and raked and blew up the fire.

Simultaneously from a small temple on the quay issued a priest with veiled head, and his attendants came to the altar, cast some grains of incense on the embers, and as the blue fragrant smoke arose and was dissipated by the sea breeze, he said: —

“The Goddess Aphrodite of Corinth salutes her divine sister, the Many-Breasted Artemis of Ephesus, and welcomes her. And she further prays that she may not smite the city or the port with fire, pestilence or earthquake.”

Then captain, steerman, pilot and the rest of the company advanced in procession to the temple, and on reaching it offered a handful of sweet gums on an altar there, before the image of the foam-born goddess of Beauty, and said: —

“We who come from the sea, having safely traversed the Ægean, escaped rocks and sand-banks, whirlpools and storms, under the protection of the great goddess of Ephesus, salute in her name the goddess of Beauty, and receive her welcome with thankfulness. And great Artemis beseeches her sister to suffer her and the vessel with passengers and goods and crew, that she conducts and protects, to pass across the isthmus, without let and molestation; and she for her part undertakes to pay the accustomed toll, and the due to the temple of Aphrodite, and that neither the passengers nor the crew shall in any way injure or disturb the inhabitants of Corinth or of the Isthmus.”

This ceremony concluded, all were at liberty to disperse; the sailors to attend to the vessel, the slaves of Corbulo to look to and land such of his luggage as he was likely to want, and Corbulo to go to his wife, who had placed herself in an attitude to receive him.

The captain, at the same time, entered the harbor-master’s office to arrange about the crossing of the isthmus, and to settle tolls.

For the vessel was not to make more stay than a few days at the port of Cenchræa. After Longa Duilia was ready, then she and her husband and family were to proceed to Lechæum, the port on the Corinthian Gulf, there to embark for Italy. The vessel would leave the harbor and go to Diolchus, that point of the Isthmus on the east where the neck of land was narrowest. There the ships would be hauled out of the water, placed on rollers, and by means of oxen, assisted by gangs of slaves, would convey the vessel over the land for six miles to the Gulf of Corinth, where again she would be floated.

Immediately behind the Roman general, Corbulo, the father of Domitia, walked two individuals, both wearing long beards, and draped to the feet.

One of these had a characteristically Oriental head. His eyes were set very close together, his nose was aquiline, his tint sallow, his eyebrows heavy and bushy, and his general expression one of cunning and subtlety. His movements were stately.

The other was not so tall. He was clumsy in movement, rugged in feature, with a broken nose, his features distinctly Occidental, as was his bullet head. His hair was sandy, and scant on his crown. He wore a smug, self-complacent expression on his pursed-up lips and had a certain “I am Sir Oracle, let no dog bark” look in his pale eyes.

These two men, walking side by side, eyed each other with ill-concealed dislike and disdain.

The former was a Chaldæan, who was usually called Elymas, but affected in Greek to be named Ascletarion.

The latter was an Italian philosopher who had received his training in Greece at a period when all systems of philosophy were broken up and jostled each other in their common ruin.

No sooner was the ceremony at an end, and Corbulo had hastened from the wharf to meet and embrace his wife, and Lamia had drawn off Domitia for a few words, than these two men left to themselves instinctively turned to launch their venom at each other.

The philosopher, with a toss of his beard, and a lifting of his light eyebrows, and the protrusion of his lower lip said:

“And pray, what has the profundity of Ascletarion alias Elymas beheld in the bottom of that well he terms his soul?”

“He has been able to see what is hidden from the shallowness of Claudius Senecio alias Spermologos² over the surface of which shallowness his soul careers like a water spider.”

“And that is, O muddiness?”

“Ill-luck, O insipidity.”

“Why so? – not, the Gods forfend, that I lay any weight on anything you may say. But I like to hear your vaticinations that I may laugh over them.”

“Hear, then. Because a daughter of Earth dared to set foot on the vessel consecrated to and conducted by Artemis before that the tutelary goddess had been welcomed by and had saluted the tutelary deity of the land.”

“I despise your prophecies of evil, thou crow.”

“Not more than do I thy platitudes, O owl!”

“Hearken to the words of the poet,” said the philosopher, and he started quoting the Œdipus Tyrannus: “The Gods know the affairs of mortals. But among men, it is by no means certain that a soothsayer is of more account than myself!” And Senecio snapped his fingers in the face of the Magus.

“Conclude thy quotation,” retorted Elymas. “ ‘A man’s wisdom may surpass Wisdom itself. Therefore never will I condemn the seer, lest his words prove true.’ How like you that?” and he snapped his fingers under the nose of the philosopher.