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.

Cnæus Domitius Corbulo was the greatest general of his time, and he had splendidly served the State.

His sister Cæsonia had been the wife of the mad prince Caligula. She was not beautiful, but her flexible mouth, her tender eyes, the dimples in her cheeks, her exquisite grace of manner and sweetness of expression had not only won the heart of the tyrant, but had enabled her to maintain it.

Once, in an outburst of surprise at himself for loving her, he threatened to put her to the torture to wring from Cæsonia the secret of her hold on his affections. Once, as he caressed her, he broke into hideous laughter, and when asked the reason, said, I have but to speak the word, and this lovely throat would be cut.

Yet this woman loved the maniac, and when he had been murdered in the subterranean gallery leading from the palace to the theatre, she crept to the spot, and was found kneeling by her dead husband with their babe in her arms, sobbing and wiping the blood from his face. The assassins did not spare her. They cut her down and dashed out the brains of the infant against the marble walls.

Corbulo was not only able, he was successful. Under Nero he was engaged in the East against the Parthians, the most redoubted enemies of the empire. He broke their power and sent their king, Tiridates, a suppliant to Rome.

His headquarters had been at Antioch, and there for a while his wife and daughter had resided with him. But after a while, they were sent part way homewards, as Corbulo himself expected his recall.

They had been separated from him for over six months, and had been awaiting his arrival in a villa at Cenchræa, that had been placed at their disposal by a Greek client.

It was customary for those who did not live in Rome but belonged to a province, to place themselves under the patronage of a Roman noble; whereupon ensued an exchange of cards as we should say, but actually of engraved plates or metal fishes on which the date of the agreement was entered as well as the names of the contracting parties. Then, when a provincial desired assistance at the capital, in obtaining redress for a grievance in a lawsuit, or in recovering a debt, his patron attended to his client’s interests, and should he visit Rome received him into his house as an honored guest.

On the other hand, if the patron were on a journey and came to the place where his client could serve him, the latter threw his house open to him, treated him with the most profound respect and accorded to him the largest hospitality. So now the villa of a client had been placed at the disposal of Corbulo and his family, and he occupied it with as little hesitation as though it were his own.

It was a matter of pride to a Roman noble to have a large number of silver engraved plates and fishes suspended in his atrium, announcing to all visitors what an extensive clientèle he had, and the provincial was not less proud to be able to flourish the name of his distinguished patron at the capital.

On the evening following the disembarkation, Corbulo and his wife were seated on a bench enjoying the pleasant air that fanned from the sea; and looking over the terraced garden at their daughter, who was gambolling with a long silky-haired kid from Cilicia, that her father had brought as a present to his child.

She was a lovely girl, aged sixteen, with a remarkably intelligent face, and large, clear, shrewd eyes.

Yet, though lovely, none could say that she was beautiful. Her charm was like that of her aunt, Cæsonia, in grace of form, in changefulness and sweetness of expression, and in the brimming intellect that flashed out of her violet eyes. And now as she played with the kid, her every movement formed an artist’s study, and the simple joy that shone out of her face, and the affection wherewith she glanced at intervals at her father, invested her with a spiritual charm, impossible to be achieved by sculptor with his chisel or by painter with his brush.

The eyes of Domitius Corbulo followed his child, wherever she went, whatever she did. He was a man of somewhat advanced age, shaven, with short shorn hair, marked features, the brow somewhat retreating, but with a firm mouth and strong jaw. Though not handsome, there was refinement in his countenance which gave it a character of nobleness, and the brilliant eye and decision in the countenance inspired universal respect. Every one could see that he was not merely a commander of men in war, but a man of culture in the forum and the academy.

Wife, said he, I pray you desist. It was for this that I sent you back from Antioch. You ever twanged one string, and I felt that your words, if overheard, might endanger us all.

I speak but into thine ear.

A brimming vessel overflows on all sides, said Corbulo.

Ah well! some men make themselves by grasping at what the Gods offer them. Others lose themselves by disregarding the favors extended by the Immortals.

I deny that any such offer was made me, said the general in a tone of annoyance.

What! exclaimed Longa Duilia, art thou so blind as not to see what is obvious to every other eye, that the Roman people are impatient at having a buffoon, a mimic, a fiddler wearing the purple?

Nevertheless, he wears it, by favor of the gods.

For how long? Domitius, believe me. In the heart of every Roman citizen rage is simmering, and the wound of injured pride rankles. He has insulted the majesty of eternal Rome. After having acted the buffoon in Italy, running up and down it like a jester on a tight-rope mouthing at the people, and with his assassins scattered about below to cut them down if they do not applaud—then he comes here also into Greece, to act on stages, race chariots, before Greeks—Greeks of all people! To me this is nothing, for all princes are tyrants more or less, and so long as they do not prick me, I care not. But here it does come close. In every army, in the breast of every soldier, rebellion springs up. Every general is uneasy and looks at the face of every other and asks, Who will draw the sword and make an end of this? O Morals! it makes me mad to see you alone quiescent.

When the Gods will a change, then the change will be granted.

You speak like a philosopher and not a man of action. If you do not draw, others will forestall you, and then—instead of my being up at the top—I shall be down in Nowhere.

Never will I be a traitor to Rome, and go against my oath.

Pshaw! They all do it, so why not you?

Because my conscience will not suffer me.

Conscience! The haruspices have never found it yet. They can discover and read the liver and the kidneys, but no knife has yet laid bare a conscience as big as a bean. You were the darling of the soldiery in Germany. You are still the idol of those who have fought under you in Parthia and Armenia. I am sure I did my best to push your cause. I was gracious to the soldiery—sent tit-bits from the table to the guard. I tipped right and left, till I spent all my pocket-money, and smiled benignantly on all military men till I got a horrible crumple here in my cheek, do you see?

Yes, shocking, said Corbulo, indifferently.

How can you be so provoking! exclaimed Duilia pettishly. Of course there is no wrinkle, there might have been, I did so much smiling. Really, Corbulo, one has to do all the picking—as boys get winkles out of their shells with a pin—to extract a compliment from you. And out comes the pin with nothing at the end. Plancus would not have let that pass.

Do you say that Nero is here?

Yes, here, in Greece; here at our elbow, at Corinth. He has for once got a clever idea into his head and has begun to cut a canal through the isthmus. It has begun with a flourish of trumpets and a dinner and a dramatic exhibition—and then I warrant you it will end.

The Prince at Corinth!

Yes, at Corinth; and you are here with all the wide sea between you and your troops. And docile as a lamb you have come here, and left your vantage ground. What it all means, the Gods know. It is no doing of mine. I warned and exhorted at Antioch, but you might have been born deaf for all the attention you paid to my words.

Never would I raise my sacrilegious hand against Rome—my mother.

Nay—it is Rome that cries out to be rid of a man that makes her the scorn of the world.

She has not spoken. She has not released me of my oath.

Because her mouth is gagged. As the Gods love me, they say that the god Caius (Caligula) named his horse Consul. Rome may have a monkey as her prince and Augustus for aught I care, were it not that by such a chance the handle is offered for you to upset him and seat yourself and me at the head of the universe.

No more of this, said the general. A good soldier obeys his commander. And I have an imperator, he touched his breast; a good conscience, and I go nowhere, undertake nothing which is not ordered by my master there.

Then I wash my hands of the result.

Come hither! Corbulo called, and signed to his daughter who, with a flush of pleasure, left her kid and ran to him.

He took both her hands by the wrists, and holding her before him, panting from play, and with light dancing in her blue eyes, he said, Domitia, I have not said one grave word to thee since we have been together. Yet now will I do this. None can tell what may be the next turn up of the die. And this that I am about to say comes warm and salt from my heart, like the spring hard by, at the Bath of Helene.

And strong, father, said the girl, with flashes in her speaking eyes. So strong is the spring that at once it turns a mill, ere rushing down to find its rest in the sea.

Well, and so may what I say so turn and make thee active, dear child,—active for good, though homely the work may be as that of grinding flour. When you have done a good work, and not wasted the volume of life in froth and cascade, then find rest in the wide sea of——

Of what? sneered Duilia, say it out—of nobody knows what.

That which thou sayest, dearest father, will not sleep in my heart.

Domitia, when we sail at sea, we direct our course by the stars. Without the stars we should not know whither to steer. And the steering of the vessel by the stars, that is seamanship. So in life. There are principles of right and wrong set in the firmament——

A quarter of an hour had elapsed since Corbulo entered the peristyle of the villa, when the young man Lamia came out.

He was still pale as death, and his muscles twitched with strong emotion.

He glanced about him in quest of Longa Duilia, but that lady had retired precipitately to the gynaikonitis, or Lady’s hall, where she had summoned to her a bevy of female slaves and had accumulated about her an apothecary’s shop of restoratives.

Domitia was still in the garden, playing with the kid, and Lamia at once went to her, not speedily, but with repugnance.

She immediately desisted from her play, and smiled at his approach. They were old acquaintances, and had seen much of each other in Syria.

Corbulo had not been proconsul, but legate in the East, and had made Antioch his headquarters. He had been engaged against the Parthians and Armenians for eight years, but the war had been intermittent, and between the campaigns he had returned to Antioch, to the society of his wife and little daughter.

The former, a dashing, vain and ambitious woman, had made a salon there which was frequented by the best society of the province. Corbulo, a quiet, thoughtful and modest man, shrunk from the stir and emptiness of such life, and had found rest and enjoyment in the company of his daughter.

Lamia had served as his secretary and aide-de-camp. He was a youth of much promise, and of singular integrity of mind and purity of morals in a society that was self-seeking, voluptuous, and corrupt.

He belonged to the Ælian gens or clan, but he had been adopted by a Lamia, a member of a family in the same clan, that claimed descent from Lamius, a son of Poseidon, or Neptune, by one of those fictions so dear to the Roman noble houses, and which caused the fabrication of mythical origins, just as the ambition of certain honorable families in England led to the falsification of the Roll of Battle Abbey.

Pliny tells a horrible story of the first Lamia of importance, known to authentic history. He had been an adherent of Cæsar and a friend of Cicero. He was supposed to be dead in the year in which he had been elected prætor, and was placed on the funeral pyre, when consciousness returned, but too late for him to be saved. The flames rose and enveloped him, and he died shrieking and struggling to escape from the bandages that bound him to the bier on which he lay.

Lucius Lamia had been kindly treated by Corbulo, and the young man’s heart had gone out to the venerated general, to whom he looked up as a model of all the old Roman virtues, as well as a man of commanding military genius. The simplicity of the old soldier’s manner and the freshness of his mind had acted as a healthful and bracing breeze upon the youth’s moral character.

It is of no use in the world, Plancus, your attempting to reason me out of a fixed resolve, said the lady Longa Duilia, peevishly. My Corbulo shall not have a shabby funeral.

Madam, I do not suggest that, said the steward humbly, rubbing his hands.

Yes, you do. It is of no good your standing on one leg like a stork. Shabby it must be—no ancestors present. As the Gods love me, you would not have me borrow ancestors of Asclepiades, our client, who has lent us this villa! He may have them or not, that is no concern of mine. Will you have done preening yourself like an old cockroach. I say it would be an indignity to have a funeral for my Corbulo without ancestors. O Times! O Morals! What is the good of having ancestors if you do not use them?

But, Madam, they are in your palace at Rome in the Carinæ—or at the Gabian villa.

And for that reason they are not here. Without the attendance of his forbears, my Corbulo shall not be buried. Besides, who is there to impress here with the solemnity? Only a lot of wretched sailors, ship sutlers, Jew pedlers and petty officials, not worth considering. I have said it.

The day was in decline, and although the season was winter yet the air was not cold. The mountains of Greece lay in the wake like a bank of purple cloud tinged with gold.

On the quarter-deck reposed the corpse, with the feet turned in the direction of the prow; the torches spluttered, and cast off sparks that flew away with the smoke.

On each side were three slave women, detailed to wail, but Longa Duilia had issued instructions that they were not to be noisy in their demonstration so as to disturb or swamp conversation aft.

The undulating lament swerving through semi-tones and demi-semitones, formed a low and sad background to the play of voices on the lower deck, where, sheltered from the wind, the widow reclined on cushions, and her daughter Domitia sat at her side in conversation.

A change had come over the girl, so complete, so radical, that she seemed hardly to be the same person as before her father’s death. This was noticeable as being in appearance and manner,—noticeable even to the slaves, not the most observant in matters that did not particularly concern their comfort and interests. She had been transmuted from a playful child into a sad and serious woman.

The sparkle had left her eyes to make way for an eager, searching fire. The color had left her cheek; and her face had assumed a gloomy expression. The change, in fact, was much like that in a landscape when a sunny May day makes place for one that is overcast and threatening. The natural features are unaltered, but the aspect is wholly different in quality and character.

A mighty sorrow contracting, bruising, oppressing the heart sometimes melts it into a sweetness of patient endurance that inspires pity and love. But grief seemed to have frozen Domitia and not to have dissolved her into tears.

The philosopher approached with solemn stalk, walking on the flat of his soles.

Such men were retained in noble households as family chaplains, to advise, comfort, and exhort. And this man at intervals approached the widow, who on such occasions assumed a woe-begone expression, beat her brow and emitted at intervals long-drawn sighs.

At such times, the Magus, standing near, curled his lip contemptuously, and endeavored by shrugs and sniffs to let the bystanders perceive how little he valued the words of the stoic.

The philosopher Senecio now in formal style addressed the widow, and then turned to harangue the daughter, on the excellence of moderation in grief as in joy, on the beauty of self-control so as to suffer the storms of life to roll over the head with indifference. In this consisted the Highest Good, and to attain to such stolidity was the goal of all virtuous endeavor.

The Imperial galley!

Domitia leaped to her feet. Everything was forgotten in the one thought that before her, on the sea, floated the man who had caused the death of her father.

Lucius I must see——

He drew her forward, but at the same time checked her speech.

Every word dropped is fraught with danger, he said. What know you but that yon physician be a spy?

He is not that, she answered, show him to me—him——

They walked together to the bows.

With the declining of the sun, the light wind had died away, and, although the sea heaved after the recent storm, like the bosom of a sleeping girl, in the stillness of the air, the sail drooped and the ship made no way.

Accordingly the sail was furled, and, by the advice of the mate, the rowers, who had rested during the day, were summoned to their benches and bidden work the oars during the night.

It is well done, said Eboracus in an undertone to the physician; Otherwise there had been the cross for you and me. The thong broke.

I severed it, said Luke.

That I saw, said the slave, I shall report that it yielded. One must obey a master even to the risk of the cross. Did’st see the noble Lamia, how ready he was? He assumed the mask of my dead master and we have slipped by and sent a shiver through the whole company of the Trireme, and the August too, I trow,—for they have thought us the Ship of the Dead.

After a pause he said,—In my home we hold that all souls go to sea in a phantom vessel; and sail away to the West, to the Isles of the Blessed. At night a dark ship with a sail as a thundercloud comes to the shore, and those near can hear the dead in trains go over the beach and enter the ghostly vessel, till she is laden, and then she departs.

The Artemis made her way without disaster to Rhegium, and thence coasted up Italy to the port of Rome. She had gained on the Imperial vessel, that was delayed at Brundusium to collect the scattered fleet. Nero would not land until he reached Neapolis, and then not till all his wreaths and golden apples, as well as his entire wardrobe of costumes and properties had arrived.

Then only did he come ashore, and he did so to commence a triumphal progress through the Peninsula, the like of which was never seen before nor will be seen again.

This was on the 19th March, the anniversary of the murder of his mother. On the same day a letter was put into his hands announcing the revolt of the legions in Gaul and the proclamation of Galba, at that time Governor of Spain.

So engrossed, however, was his mind with preparation for his theatrical procession, that he paid no heed to the news, nor was he roused till he read the address of Vindex, who led the revolt, denouncing him as a miserable fiddler.

This touched him to the quick, and he addressed an indignant despatch to the Senate, demanding that Vindex should be chastised, and appealed to the prizes he had gained as testimony to his musical abilities.

So he started for Rome.

Eighteen hundred and eight heralds strutted before him, bearing in their hands the crowns that had been awarded him and announcing when and how he had succeeded in winning the award.

He entered Rome in this leisurely manner, in a triumphal chariot, wearing a purple robe, embroidered with gold, an olive garland about his head. Beside him a harper struck his instrument and chanted his praises.

The houses were decorated with festoons, the streets were strewn with saffron; singing birds, comfits, flowers were scattered by the people before him. If the Senate expected that now the prince was in Rome, he would attend to business, it was vastly mistaken. His first concern was to arrange for a splendid exhibition in which he might gratify the public with a finished study of his acting and singing.

Solicitude about his triumph, his voice, his reception, had so completely filled the shallow mind of Nero, that he gave no further thought to the vessel that had shot out of the darkness, nearly fouled his galley, and which had been apparently commanded by one of his noblest victims.

Longa Duilia arrived on the Gabian estate, with the corpse of her husband, her daughter, Lucius Lamia, and her entire family, as the company of household slaves was termed, without accident and without deter.

Gabii lay eleven miles from Rome at the foot of one of the spurs of the Alban mountains. The town stood on a small knoll rising out of the Campagna. The stone of which it was built was dark, being a volcanic peperino; it was perhaps one of the least attractive sites for a country residence, which a Roman noble could have selected; but this was not without its advantage, when Emperors acted as did Ahab, and cut off those whose villas and vineyards attracted their covetous eyes.

A lake occupied the crater of an extinct volcano; the water was dark as ink, but this was due rather to the character of the bottom, than to depth, which was inconsiderable.

The villa and its gardens lay by the water’s edge. The old city not flourishing, but maintaining a languid existence, was famous for nothing but a peculiarity in girding the toga adopted by the men, by the dinginess of its building stone, and by its temple of Juno, an object of pilgrimage when the deities of other shrines had proved unwilling or unable to help, a sort of pis-aller of devotion.

Longa Duilia hated the place; it was dull, and she would never have frequented it, had it not been the fashion at the period for all people of good family to affect a love of retirement into the country, and to pretend a taste for simplicity of rural life. Some fine fops had their chambers of poverty to which on occasions they retired, to lie on mats upon the ground, and eat pulse out of common earthenware. Such periods of self-denial added zest to luxury.

Domitia, on the other hand, was attached to the place. It was associated with the innocent pleasures of earliest childhood. Its spring flowers were the loveliest she had ever culled, its June strawberries the most delicious she had ever eaten. And the lake teeming with char gave opportunities for boating and fishing.

Here was the family burial-place; and here Corbulo was to be burnt, and then his ashes collected and consigned to the mausoleum.

Messengers had been sent forth to invite the attendance of all relations, acquaintances and dependents.

The invitation was couched, according to unalterable custom, in antiquated terms, hardly intelligible. When on the day appointed for the ceremony, vast numbers were collected, the funeral procession started.

First went the musicians under the conduct of a Master of the Ceremonies. By law, the number of flautists was limited to ten.

Then followed the professional mourners, hired for the occasion from the temple of Libitina, the priests of which were the licensed undertakers. These mourners chanted the nænia, a lament composed for the purpose of lauding the acts of the deceased and of reciting his honors. When they paused at the conclusion of a strophe, horns and trumpets brayed. Immediately after the wailers walked a train of actors, one of whom was dressed in the insignia of the deceased and wore a mask representing him. He endeavored to mimic each peculiarity of the man he personated, and buffoons around by their antics and jests provoked the spectators to laughter. This farcical exhibition was calculated to moderate the excessive grief superinduced by the lament of the wailers.

Then came the grand procession of the ancestors, especially dear to the heart of the widow. Not only did the effigies of the direct forefathers appear, but all related families trotted out their ancestors, to attend the illustrious dead, so that there cannot have been less than a hundred present.

As already mentioned, the wax masks of the dead of a family ornamented every nobleman’s hall, usually enclosed in boxes with the titles of the defunct inscribed on them in gold characters. These were now produced. The mimes were costumed appropriately, as senators, generals, magistrates, with their attendants, wearing the wax masks, and artificial heads of hair.

The idea represented was that of the ancestors having returned from the land of Shadows to fetch their descendant and accompany him to the nether world. The corpse, that lay on a bier in the hall, was now taken up, and carried forth to a loud cry from all in the house of Vale! Farewell! Fare thee well! Between the lips of the dead man was a coin, placed there as payment of the toll across the River of Death in the ferry-boat of Charon. On each side of the bier walked attendants carrying lighted torches. In ancient times all funerals had been conducted at night. Now the only reminiscence of this custom was in the bearing of lights; but the torches served as well a practical purpose, as they were employed to kindle the pyre.

Before the dead were carried the insignia of his offices, pictures of the battles he had won and statues of the kings and chiefs he had conquered. The corpse was followed by a number of manumitted slaves, all wearing the cap of liberty, in token of their freedom. Finally came the members of the family, friends, retainers, and the sympathizing public.

Longa Duilia and Domitia Longina walked in their proper place, with dishevelled hair, unveiled heads, and in the ricinium or black garment thrown over their tunics; the men all wore the pænula, or short travelling cloak.

The procession advanced into the marketplace of Gabii, where Lucius Lamia ascended the rostrum to pronounce the funeral oration.

Immediately, ivory chairs and inlaid stools were ranged in a crescent before him, and on these the ancestors seated themselves, the bier being placed before them.

The panegyric was addressed to the crowd outside the circle of mimes with wax faces. Lamia had a gift of natural eloquence, his feelings were engaged, but his freedom of speech was hampered by necessity of caution in allusion to the death of Corbulo, lest some word should be let slip which might be caught up and tortured into a treasonable reference to Nero.

According to an Oriental legend, the dominion of Solomon over the spirits resided in the power of his staff on which he stayed himself. So long as he wielded that, none might disobey.

But the Jins sent a white ant up through the floor, that ate out the heart of the rod, so that when he leaned on it, it gave way and resolved itself into a cloud of fine powder. Solomon fell, and his authority was at an end forever.

The termites that consumed the core of the sceptre of Nero were his own vices and follies. Its power was at an end and his fall as sudden as in the case of Solomon, and as unexpected.

In March he was possessed of dominion over the world, and was at the head of incalculable forces. In June all was dissolved in the dust of decay; he was prostrate, helpless, bereft of the shadow of authority, unable to command a single slave. The first token of what was about to take place was this.

In Rome the rabble was kept in good humor by the Cæsars distributing among them bread gratis, and entertaining them with shows free of charge.

During the winter, contrary winds had delayed the corn-ships from Egypt, and the amount of bread distributed was accordingly curtailed. Games were, indeed, promised, but these would serve as condiments to the bread and not as substitutes. Then a vessel arrived in port, and the hungry people believed that she was laden with the wished-for corn. When, however, they learned that her cargo was white sand for strewing the arena at the sports, they broke into a storm of discontent and swept, howling insulting words, under Nero’s windows.

Next day all Rome heard that Galba, at the head of the legions of Spain and Gaul, was marching into Italy, and that none of the troops of Nero sent to guard the frontier of the Alps would draw a sword in his defence.

The prince, now only seriously alarmed, bade his household guard conduct him to Ostia, where he would mount the vessel that had discharged its load of sand, and escape to Egypt. They contemptuously refused, and disbanded. Then, in an agony of fear, Nero left the Palatine, and fled across the river to the Servilian mansion that adjoined the racecourse, to light which he had burned Christians swathed in tarred wraps.

There he found none save his secretary Epaphroditus, whom he had sent there to be chained at the door, and to act as porter because he had offended him. Guards, freedmen, courtiers, actors, all had taken to their heels, but not before they had pillaged the palace.

He wandered about the house, knocking at every door, and nowhere meeting with an answer.

Night by this time had settled in, murk and close, but at intervals electric flashes shivered overhead.

Then suddenly the earth reeled, and there passed a sound as of chariot wheels rolling heavily through the streets; yet the streets were deserted. Trembling, despairing, Nero crouched on his bed, bit his nails till he had gnawed them to the quick, then started up and hunted for his jewel case. He would fly on foot, carrying that, hide in some hovel, till danger was past. But a thievish slave had stolen it.

Sick at heart, picking, then biting at his nails, shrinking with apprehension at the least noise, wrapping a kerchief about a finger where blood came, he looked with dazed eyes at the red flare of the heavenly fires pulsating through his open door.

He heard a step and ran out, to encounter a freedman, Phaon by name, who was coming along the passage, holding aloft a torch, attended by two slaves.

The wretched prince clung to him, and entreated that he might not be left alone; that Phaon would protect him, and contrive a means of escape.

Augustus! answered the freedman, I am not ungrateful for favors shown me, but my assistance at this hour is unavailing. I am but one man, a stranger, a Greek, and all Rome, all Italy, the entire world, have risen against you.

I must fly. They will allow me to earn my livelihood on the stage. Of what value to any man is my life?

My lord, in what value have you held the lives of the thousands that you have taken? Each life cut off has raised against you a hundred enemies. All will pursue, like a pack of hounds baying for the blood of him who murdered their kinsfolk. Even now I passed one—Lucius Ælius Lamia,—and he stayed me to inquire where you might be found. In his hand he held an unsheathed sword.

Nero shrieked out; then looked timidly about him, terrified at the sound of his own voice.

Push, my dear Domitia, Push. Of course. What else would you have, but Push?

But, sweetest mother, that surely cannot give what I ask.

Indeed, my child, it does. It occupies all one’s energies, it exerts all one’s faculties, and it fills the heart.

But—what do you gain?

Gain, child?—everything. The satisfaction of having got further up the ladder; of exciting the envy of your late companions, the admiration of the vulgar, the mistrust of those above you.

Is that worth having?

Of course it is. It is—that very thing you desire, Happiness. It engages all your thoughts, stimulates your abilities. You dress for it; you prepare your table for it, accumulate servants for it, walk, smile, talk, acquire furniture, statuary, bronzes, and so on—for it. It is charming, ravishing. I live for it. I desire nothing better.

But I do, mother. I do not care for this.

The girl spoke with her eyes on a painting on the wall of the atrium that represented a young maiden running in pursuit of a butterfly. Beneath it were the words Ubi Felicitas?

Domitia did not go into the house, as desired, to receive Lamia.

She was well aware that he would come to her into the garden, if she did not present herself within, and she preferred to speak with him away from her mother.

She therefore continued to walk under the vines. She looked up at the sunlight filtering through the broad green flaky shade, with here and there a ray kissing a purple, pendent bunch of grapes.

Then she looked at the dreaming peacock, the sun flashing on its metallic plumage.

No! matter was not evil. Matter, indeed, without life was not even like the statue—for that was a copy of what lived, and failed just in this, that it fell short of life. Domitia felt as though she were touching the edge of a great verity, but had not set her foot upon it. Then she considered what Euphrosyne had said to her, and she to her slave. Wherever the path of duty lay, there violets bloomed and verbena scented the air. Was not life itself, devoid of the knowledge of its purport, and its obligations and its destiny, like matter uninformed by Life? Or if any life entered into it, it was the disintegrating life of decay and decomposition?

She, for her part, had no obligations laid on her. If, however, she were married to Lamia, then at once duties would spring up, and her way would be rosy. Till then her happiness hung in suspense, like that of her mother, during the period of widowhood in which she was expected and required to live in retirement. Out of society, not elbowing and shouldering her way forward—that was a year of blank and of unhappiness to Longa Duilia, in which she found no consolation save in badgering her steward, and in scheming for the future.

Lamia, as Domitia expected he would, came to her under the trellis, and she received him with that dimple in her cheek which gave her expression so much sweetness mingled with pathos,

Lucius, she said, you are good to come. My mother is, oh! so dull, and restless withal.

It is well that she should be away from Rome, my Domitia. I have told her as much. On no account must you leave Gabii. Rome is boiling over, and will scald many fingers. None know who will be up to-morrow, and which down. Galba is dead, almost torn to pieces by those who worshipped him yesterday. Otho is proclaimed by the Senate. Yet there is fresh trouble brewing and threats sound from the provinces. Methinks every general at the head of an army is marching upon Rome to snatch the purple for his own shoulders. Otho has but a poor chance. He can command the prætorians and the household troops—none others. Soldiers that have disbanded themselves and gangs of robbers prowl the streets, waylay men of substance and plunder them, break into houses and strip them of their contents. Murders are frequent. Thus far your palace in the Carinæ is undisturbed.

Lucius and Domitia stepped out of the boat; he moored it to the side, and they walked together to the little temple. This was not one to which a college of priests was attached, nor even an ædiculum, with a guardian who had charge of it, to open it on special festivals; it had been erected by the father of Corbulo in deference to the wish of his wife, who had taken it into her head to become a votary of Isis, this having become a fashionable cult. But on her death the doors had been closed, and it had fallen into neglect, till the return of Longa Duilia from the East with the Chaldee Magus from Antioch. It was now fashionable to dabble in sorcery, and a distinguished lady liked to be able to talk of her Magus, to seek his advice, and, at table, air a superficial familiarity with the stars, and the Powers and Æons, the endless genealogies of emanations from the primæval and eternal Light.

Longa had engaged the Magus when at Antioch, but when somewhat summarily sent to Europe by her husband, she had not taken her Chaldæan magician with her. As, however, she had no wish to appear in Rome without him, she had laid it on her husband when he returned to bring the man with him, and if he did not return himself, to despatch the Magus to her.

Plancus, come hither!

The lady Longa Duilia was in an easy-chair, and a slave-girl, Lucilla, was engaged in driving away the flies that, perhaps attracted by her cosmetics, came towards the lady.

Summer was over, and winter storms were beginning to bluster, and the flies were dull with cold and only maintained alive by the warmth of the chambers, heated by underground stoves, and with pipes to convey the hot air carried through every wall.

Plancus, did you hear me speak?

I am here, my lady, at your service.

Really; you have become torpid like the flies. Has the chill made you deaf as well as sluggish?

My lady, I can always hear when you speak.

Do you mean to imply that I shout like a fishwife?

I mean not that. But when a harp is played, it sets every thread in every other stringed instrument a-chiming; and so is it with me.

The simile is wiredrawn. What I want you for is—no, I will have no stroking of your face like a cat!—is to go to Rome and see that the palace is made ready to receive us. The stoves must be well heated, and everything properly aired, The country at best of times is tedious; in winter, intolerable. Besides, I have no right to remain here buried. I must consider—Plancus, why are you scratching? I must consider my daughter. She is in a fit of the blues, and has nothing to say to amuse me. You need not blow like a sea-horse, breathe more evenly and equably;—Plancus, you are becoming unendurable. I must not consider my bereaved feelings, but her welfare, her health. The air or the situation of Gabii does not suit her. Rome is an extraordinarily healthy place in winter. I myself am never better anywhere than I am there. I was pretty well at Antioch; there were military there, and I find the soil and climate salubrious where there are military. Plancus?—as the Gods love me, you have been in the stables. I know it by infallible proofs. Stand at a distance, I insist. And, Plancus! you are not showing off conjuring tricks, that you should fold and unfold your hands. You go to Rome and take such of the family with you as are necessary. I am not going to be mewed up here any longer, because my two years of widowhood are not over. You are making faces at me, positively you are, Plancus. Do, I entreat you, look as if you were not a mountebank mouthing at a crowd.

I fly, mistress, as though winged at heel like Mercury.

Much more like Mercury’s tortoise. Send me Claudius Senecio. I must know what ails Domitia. She has the vapors.

I obey, said Plancus,

Am I much worn, Lucilla? asked the lady, as soon as her steward had withdrawn. The laceration of the heart tells on a sensitive nature, and precipitates wrinkles and so on.

Longa Duilia and her entire household had returned to the capital, and were installed in the family mansion in the Carinæ.

Happily, as Corbulo had considered it, this house had escaped in the conflagration of Rome under Nero. This, however, was a matter of some regret to Duilia, who would have preferred to have had it burnt, so that it might have been rebuilt in greater splendor and in newer style.

Nevertheless, although externally dingy, it was a commodious mansion within, and was well furnished, especially with carpets and curtains of Oriental texture, that had been wrought at, or purchased at the bazaars of Antioch and Damascus.

The centre of the house was occupied by the atrium, or hall, open to the sky above the water tank in the midst. On each side at the further end from the entrance extended the wings that contained the family portraits enclosed in gilded boxes or shrines, the doors of which were thrown open on festal occasions. In the centre, between the wings was the tablinum, the reception-room of the house, and on the right side of the entrance was the family money-chest, girded with iron.

My dear child, said Duilia, I never did a better stroke of policy than that supper a few evenings ago. It went off quite charmingly, without a hitch. I allowed that good Flavius Sabinus to talk; and he is just one of those men who enjoys himself best where he is given full flow for his twaddle. A good, worthy, commonplace man. I doubt if he has push in him, but he is just so situated now that he must go ahead. The news is most encouraging. Mucianus is on his way to Italy at the head of an army. Primus, with his legions, is approaching; he has beaten the troops sent against him, and has sacked Cremona; there are positively none who hold by Vitellius except his brother in Campania, and his German bodyguard. Domitia, the widow dropped her voice, we can do better than with that milksop Ælius Lamia.

Mother, I will have no other.

Then we must push him up into position. But come, my dear, we must show ourselves at the Lectisternia. It will be expected of us, and be setting a good example, and all that sort of thing, and it is positively wicked to mope indoors when we ought to be seen in the streets and the forum. So there, make yourself ready. I am going instantly. I have ordered round the palanquins, and, as you may perceive, I am dressed and my hair done to go out. That supper was quite a success.

The time was now that of the Saturnalia, lasting seven days, beginning on the 17th December with a strange institution, a banquet of the gods. Usually the several gods had their feasts in their own temples and invited others to them, but on certain solemn occasions all banqueted together in public. The distress, the butcheries, the general confusion caused by the setting up and casting down of emperors—three in ten months—and now, eight months after, a fourth tottering; and every change involving massacre, plunder, disturbance of order;—this had moved the priests to decree a solemn lectisternium and supplication for the restoration of tranquillity and the cessation of civil broil.

The banquet was to take place in the forum.

You shall come in the lectica (palanquin) with me, said Duilia. It will have quite a pathetic aspect—the widow and the orphan together. Besides, I want some one to talk to. What do you think of Flavius Domitianus? A modest lad, to my mind.

Shy and clumsy, observed Domitia. The sight of him is a horror to me.

My dear child, only a fool will take sprats when he can have whitebait. Look out to better yourself.

Oh, mother!—what is that?

A god going to supper, said the lady. We shall see plenty of them presently.

That which had attracted her daughter’s attention was a bier supported on the shoulders of priests, on which lay a figure dressed handsomely, in the attitude of a man at table, raised on his left elbow that was buried in a pillow, the head erect and the right arm extended, balanced in the air. The body was probably of wood under the drooping drapery, but the face and hands and feet were of wax. In jolting over the pavement, the sleeve had become disarranged, and showed the wooden prop that sustained the waxen right hand. The face was colored, the eyes were of glass, and real hair was affixed to the head; the lower jaw, hung on wires, opened and shut with the jostling. The staring figure swaying on the shoulders of the bearers, had a sufficiently startling effect, sweeping round a corner, wagging its beard, and past the palanquin in which were the ladies.

A thing like that can’t eat, said Domitia.

Oh, my dear child, no. The gods only sniff at the food. After it has been set before them, it is carried away, and the people scramble for it.

They are naught but wax and woodwork, said the girl contemptuously.

My child, how often have I not had to quote to you that text, It is not well to be overwise about the gods? Here we are! What a crowd!

The forum of Rome, that wondrous basin towered over on one side by the Capitol, inclosed on another by the Palatine, and on the third by the densely packed blocks of houses in the Suburra below the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline Hills, was itself crowded with temples and basilicas, yet not then as dense with monuments as later, when the open spaces were further encroached upon by the Antonines.

Domitia, said Longa Duilia, in her ear, all things are working out excellently. Vitellius is aware that he has no chance, and has been consulting with our cousin in the Temple of Concord yonder, and they have nearly settled between them that Vespasian is to assume the purple without further opposition. Vitellius will retire to some country villa on a handsome annuity. That will prevent more bloodshed and confiscation, and all that sort of thing. It is always advisable to avoid unpleasantnesses if possible. There, child, there are quite a bevy of gods already at table. See that dear old doll, Summanus, without a head—you know it was struck off by lightning in the time of Pyrrhus. It was of clay, and rolled all the way to the Tiber and plopped in. Since then he has been without a head, the darling!

How can he either smell or eat, mother?

My child, I don’t ask. It is not well to be overwise about the gods. There go the Arval Brothers with the image of Aca Larentia seated—of course not lying. You will see some venerable curiosities, who put in an appearance on days like this so as not to be wholly forgotten.

The sight presented by the forum was indeed strange. A space had been cleared and shut off from the intrusion of the crowd, and there lay and sat the images at tables that were spread with viands. All were either life-size or larger. Some were skilfully modelled, and wore gorgeous clothing, but others were of the rudest moulding in terra cotta, or carved wood, and evidently of very ancient date, of Etruscan workmanship little influenced by Greek art.

Domitia looked on in astonishment. The populace laughed and commented on the images, without the least reverence; and the priests and their assistants laid the dishes before the puppets, then whisked them off and carried them without the barriers. Thereupon ensued a struggle who should get hold of the savory morsels that were being conveyed from the table of the gods; even the vessels used for the viands and for the wine were snatched at and carried away, and the priests offered no resistance.

Domitia was completely transported out of herself by astonishment at the sight. Every now and then the hum of voices spluttered into a burst of laughter at some ribald joke, and then roared up into a hubbub of sound over the trays of meats and wine that were being fought for.

Already the short winter day was closing in, and torches were being brought forth and stood beside the images. Then the tables were cleared and removed.

A trumpet blast sounded, and instantly the barriers were cast down, and the second act of this extraordinary spectacle ensued. This was the supplication. Instantly the temper of the mob changed from scepticism and mockery to enthusiastic devotion, and those pressed forward to kneel and touch the cushions and drapery on which the gods reposed, and to entreat their assistance, whose lips had but recently uttered a scoff.

Nothing so completely differentiates Christian worship from that of Pagan Rome as the congregational character of the former contrasted with the uncongregational nature of the latter. At the present day in Papal Rome the priests may be seen behind glass doors in little chapels annexed to S. Peter’s and S. Maria Maggiore saying their offices, indifferent to there being no laity present, indeed, with no provision made that they should assist. This is a legacy of Pagan Rome. The sacrifices, the services in the temples and other sanctuaries, were entirely independent of the people, some performed within closed doors. The only popular religious service was the supplication, which took place but occasionally. Then the public streamed to the images of the gods, uttering fervent prayer, chanting hymns, prostrating themselves before the couches, catching at their bed-coverings, esteeming themselves blessed if they could lay their hands on the sacred pillows. But there was no general consent as to which of the gods and goddesses were most potent. Some cried out that Mother Orbona had helped them, others that Fortuna was a jade and promised but performed nothing. One fanatic, in a transport, shrieked that these gods were good for naught, for his part he trusted only in Consus, whose temple was in ruins, whose altar was buried in earth by the circus of Tarquin. But there were others who swept in a strong current towards the couch of Jupiter and of that of Venus. Another strong current, howling ‘Io Saturne! Salve Mater Ops!’ made for the images of the Old God of Time and his divine Mate.

Simultaneously came a cross current of vendors of cakes and toys from the Suburra, regardless of the devotion of the people, careful only to sell their goods—for the Saturnalia was a period at which the children were regaled with gingerbread, and treated to dolls of terra cotta, of ivory and of wood. Hawkers selling pistachio nuts, the cones of the edible pine, men with baked chestnuts, others with trays of Pomponian pears and Mattian apples, vociferating and belauding their wares, increased the clamor.

Whilst this was at its height, down from the Palatine by the New Way came the German Imperial Body-Guard, forcing a passage through the mob, their short swords drawn, bellowing imprecations, whirling their blades, striking with the flat of the steel, threatening to cut down such as impeded their progress.

Some vigiles, or city police, came up. There was no love lost between them and the pampered foreigners employed in the palace, and they opposed the household troops. Remonstrances were employed and cast away. Then a German was struck in the face by a pine cone, another tripped, fell, and a hawker with a barrow-load of dolls, in his eagerness to escape, ran his vehicle over the prostrate guardsman. At once the Germans’ blood was up, they rushed upon the police, and a fray ensued in which now this side, then that, gained advantage. The populace, densely packed, came in for blows and wounds. When a guardsman fell, and they could lay hold of him, he was dragged away, and almost torn to pieces by eager hands stripping him of his splendid uniform.

The Præfect, who was in the Forum, summoned three cohorts to his aid, to drive back the household troops, and in a moment the trough between the hills was converted into a scene of the wildest confusion, some women screaming that they had lost their children, others crying to the gods to help them. Boys had scrambled up the bases of the statues, and one urchin sat with folded legs on the shoulders of Julius Cæsar, hallooing, and occasionally pelting with nuts where they did not fear retaliation.

Hardly had Eboracus conveyed Domitia out of the Forum into a place of safety, than a rush of people down the street threatened to drive him back in the direction whence he had come. The drifting mob, as it cascaded down, cried: The Prætorians are coming from their camp!

It was so. Down the hill by the Tiburtine way marched a compact body of soldiery.

The danger was imminent; Eboracus and his young charge were between two masses of military, entangled in a seething mob of frightened people, mostly of the lowest class.

My lady! said the slave. There is but one thing to be done.

He drew her to a door, knocked, and when a voice asked who demanded admittance, answered,

Open speedily—Paris!

The door was furtively unbarred and opened sufficiently to admit the slave and Domitia, and then hastily bolted and locked again.

Excuse me, dear mistress, said Eboracus. I could do no other. In this insula live the actor Paris and Glyceria. They were both slaves in your household, but were given their freedom by your father, my late master, when he went to the East. They will place themselves at your service, and offer you shelter in their humble dwelling, the first flat on the right.

The house was one of those insulæ, islets of Rome in which great numbers of the lower classes were housed. They consisted in square blocks, built about a court, and ran to the height of seven and even more stories. The several flats were reached by stone stairs that ran from the central yard to the very summit of these barrack-like buildings. They vastly resembled our modern model lodging-houses, with one exception, that they had no exterior windows, or at most only slits looking into the street; doors and windows opened into the central quadrangle. These houses were little towns, occupied by numerous families, each family renting two or more chambers on a flat, and as in a city there are diversities in rank, so was it in these lodging-houses; the most abjectly poor were at the very top, or on the ground floor. The first flat commanded the highest rent, and the price of rooms gradually dwindled, the greater the elevation was. Glass was too great a luxury, far too costly to be employed except by the most wealthy for filling their windows. Even talc was expensive; in its place thin films of agate were sometimes used; but among the poor there was little protection in their dwellings against cold. The doors admitted light and air and cold together, and were always open, except at night, and then a perforation in the wood, or a small window in the wall, too narrow to allow of ingress, served for ventilation.

In a huge block of building like the insula, there were no chimneys. All cooking was done at the hearth in the room that served as kitchen and dining-room, often also as bedroom, and the smoke found its way out at the doorway into the central court.

But, in fact, little cooking of food was done, except the boiling of pulse. The meals of the poor consisted mainly of salads and fruit, with oil in abundance.

Dressed always in wool, in cold weather multiplying their wraps, the Roman citizens felt the cold weather much less than we might suppose possible. In the rain—and in Rome in winter it raineth almost every day—the balconies were crowded, and then the women wove, men tinkered or patched sandals, children romped, boys played marbles and knuckle-bones, and sometimes a minstrel twanged a lyre and the young girls danced to keep themselves warm. There were little braziers, moreover, one on every landing, that were kept alight with charcoal, and here, when the women’s fingers were numb, they were thawed, and children baked chestnuts or roasted apples.

Domitia had never been in one of these blocks of habitations of the lower classes before, and she was surprised. The quadrangle was almost like an amphitheatre, with its tiers of seats for spectators; but here, in place of seats, were balconies, and every balcony was alive with women and children. Men were absent; they had gone out to see the commencement of the Saturnalia, and of women there were few compared to the numbers that usually thronged these balconies.

Eboracus conducted his young mistress up the first flight of steps, and at once a rush of children was made to him to ask for toys and cakes. He brushed them aside, and when the mothers saw by the purple edge to her dress that Domitia belonged to a noble family, they called their youngsters away, and saluted her by raising thumb and forefinger united to the lips.

The slave at once conducted Domitia through a doorway into a little chamber, where burnt a fire of olive sticks, and a lamp was suspended, by the light of which she could see that a sick woman lay on a low bed.

Domitia shrank back; but Eboracus said encouragingly:

Be not afraid, dear young mistress; this is no catching disorder; Glyceria suffers from an accident, and will never be well again. She is the sister of your servant Euphrosyne.

Then, approaching the sick woman, he hastily explained the reason for his taking refuge with his mistress in this humble lodging.

The sick woman turned to Domitia with a sweet smile, and in courteous words entreated her to remain in her chamber so long as was necessary.

My husband, Paris, the actor, is now out; but he will be home shortly, I trust—unless, her face grew paler with sudden dread, some ill have befallen him. Yet I think not that can be, he is a quiet, harmless man.

I thank you, answered Domitia, and took a seat offered her by Eboracus.

She looked attentively at the sick woman’s face. She was no longer young, she had at one time been beautiful, she had large, lustrous dark eyes, and dark hair, but pain and weakness had sharpened her features. Yet there was such gentleness, patience, love in her face, a something which to Domitia was so new, a something so new in that old world, that she could not take her eyes off her, wondering what the fascination was.

Glyceria did not speak again, modestly waiting till the lady of rank chose to address her.

Presently Domitia asked:

Have you been long ill?

A year, lady.

And may I inquire how it came about?

Alas! It is a sad story. My little boy——

You have a son?

I had——

I ask your pardon for the interruption; say on.

My little boy was playing in the street, when a chariot was driven rapidly down the hill, and I saw that he would be under the horses’ feet, so I made a dart to save him.

And then?

I was too late to rescue him, and I fell, and the wheel went over me. I have been unable to rise since.

What! like this for all these months! What say the doctors?

Alack, lady! they give me no hope.

But for how long may this last?

I cannot say.

As the gods love me! if this befell me, I should refuse my food and starve myself to death!

I cannot do that.

What! you lack the resolution?

I can bear what is on me laid by God.

There is no need to endure what can be avoided. I would make short work of it, were this my lot. And your husband?

Eboracus brushed aside some urchins and girls blocking the door, looking in with eager, twinkling eyes at the strange lady and at the set out of dolls on the table.

There passed whispers and nudges from one to another—but all ceased as the British slave put together his hands as a swimmer and plunged through them.

Get away you sprats and gudgeons, said he, good-humoredly.

Then entering, he said to Domitia:

Lady, your mother has reached home in safety. I chanced to run across Amphibolus, sent out in quest of you, and the good-for-naught had turned sulky, because it is the Saturnalia, when, said he, the mistress should do the slave’s bidding. That can be, said he, but at one time in the year, and should not be forgotten. And the lanes are clear of rabble. If Paris here will walk on one side of you and I on the other, it will be well. That rascal Amphibolus I bade wait, but not he, said he, Io Saturne!

I will attend with joy, announced the actor.

Domitia rose to leave, she tendered thanks to Glyceria and took two steps towards the entrance, halted, turned back, and taking the thin hand of the sick woman in hers, somewhat shyly said:

I may come again and see you?

Before Glyceria could reply, so great was her surprise, Domitia was gone.

The streets were nearly empty, they were mere lanes between huge blocks of windowless buildings, towering into the sky, but from the forum could be heard a hubbub of voices, cries, the clash of arms, and anon a cheer.

Presently—Stand aside! said Paris, and there swept down the lane a number of young fellows masked and tricked out in ribbons and scraps of tawdry finery.

I am the king! shouted one, Præfect of the guard, arrest those people. Ha! a woman. She shall be my captive and grace my triumph.

Eboracus administered a blow with his fist, planted between the eyes of the youth in pasteboard armor who came towards his young mistress. The blow sent him flying backwards against the king and upset him on the pavement.

A roar of laughter from his mates, and one shouted,

Hey Tarquinius! thou must e’en fare like the rest, Nero, Galba, Otho—and hem! we know not who else—but down thou art with the others.

Let us go on, said Paris, and without further attempt at molestation from the revellers they pursued their way.

On reaching the palace inhabited by Longa Duilia, a fresh difficulty arose. Eboracus knocked, but there was no porter at the door to answer. He knocked again and continued to rattle against the panels, till at length the bolt was withdrawn, and Euphrosyne with timid face, and holding a lamp appeared in the entrance.

Why have you kept us so long waiting? asked the Briton.

Eboracus, I could not help myself. It is the Saturnalia, and the slaves will do no menial work. They are carousing in the triclinium and, though they heard the rap well enough, none would rise and respond. Then, for very shame I came, for I thought it might be my dear mistress.

As Domitia crossed the atrium, she heard song and laughter and the click of goblets issue from the dining-room. She hurried by and entered her mother’s chamber.

Longa Duilia was in a condition of resentment and irritation.

You have arrived at last! said the lady. I’ll have that British slave’s hide well basted when the Seven Days are over, for disregarding me and considering your safety alone. Body of Bacchus! This time of the Saturnalia is insufferable. Not a servant will do a stroke of work, nor execute a single order. They are all, forsooth, lords and ladies for seven days, and we must wait on them. Well! if it were not an old custom, I’d get up a procession of all the matrons of Rome to entreat the Senate to abolish the usage.

Oh, mother dear, how did you escape?

My child! it was as bad as that bit of storm we had getting out of the Gulf of Corinth, tossed about in my palanquin I hardly knew whether I were thinking with my head or with my toes. But after a while they got me through. Never, never again will I go gadding after the Gods to their Lectisternia. As the Gods love me! this is a topsy-turvy time indeed. At the Saturnalia no strife is permissible, not a lawsuit, all quarrels are supposed to cease, not even a malefactor may be executed, and there are those precious Immortals with their glass eyes, and extended hands snuffing up the fumes of their dinner, and they allow fighting to go on before them, under their immortal noses, and never interfere! But I don’t wonder. There was Summanus, God of the night thunders—and will you believe it, his own head was struck off by the heavenly bolt. Ye Gods! if ye cannot mind your own heads ye are not to be trusted with ours.

The lady was in a condition of towering indignation. She was affronted—she, highborn, with a drop of Julian blood in her, somewhere,—she had been tossed about among the heads and over the shoulders of a dirty, garlic-smelling asafœtida chewing rabble—had been exposed to danger from the swords of the Vigiles on one side, of the Palatine guard on the other. And when finally, she reached home ruffled in garments, her hair in disorder, and her heart beating fast, she found the house in disorder, the slaves in possession keeping high holiday, and disregarding her shrilly uttered, imperiously expressed orders.

I shall go to bed, said the lady, I’d lie in bed all these horrible seven days, but that I know no one will bring me my meals. Never mind—when the Saturnalia are over, I shall remember which were insolent and disobliging, and they shall get whippings.

But in the house, on the morrow the condition of affairs was not quite so bad. The servants were alive to the fact that they had liberty for seven days only, and that their mistress had a faculty of remembering and punishing disobedience; not indeed during the holiday period, nor ostensibly because of faults then committed, but by administering double chastisement for light offences committed later.

Some of the slaves, moreover, made no attempt to use their liberty so as to cause inconvenience to their mistress.

But if some sort of order was established within the palace, none reigned without. There civil war raged, at the same time that the citizens observed the festival, and so long as they kept out of the way of the soldiery, it did not much concern them whether the city force or the palace garrison prevailed. Primus, at the head of the Illyrian legions was rapidly advancing on Rome. News had arrived that Spain and Gaul had declared for Vespasian. Britain had renounced allegiance to Vitellius, only Africa still remained faithful.

Next tidings arrived that the army of Vitellius that was at Narnia had surrendered. Thereupon the gross, aged Emperor dressed in black, surrounded by his servants, and carrying his son, still a child, came howling and sobbing from the Palatine through the Forum, to surrender the insignia of Empire into the hands of the Consul, in the Temple of Concord. But the Consul refused to receive them, and then the German guard, having wind of his intention, became clamorous, and cried out for the head of Flavius Sabinus. Vitellius, unable to resign, and incapable of reigning, wandered from one residence to another, asking advice of all his friends as to what he ought to do, but taking none.

Meanwhile the fighting in the streets of Rome had recommenced. Titus Flavius Sabinus, for security escaped into the Capitol, and took with him his sons and daughter, and his nephew Domitian. There he was formally besieged by the Imperial guard; and Sabinus, doubting his ability to hold out long, sent off a despatch to Primus to bid him hasten to his assistance.

Madam! exclaimed Eboracus rushing in, I pray you come on the roof of the house.

What is the matter? Ye Gods! surely Rome is not on fire again!

Madam! The household guard are assaulting the Capitol and have indeed set fire to the houses below, I doubt if the Præfect can hold out till Primus arrives.

Duilia ascended to the flat top of the house. The palace of the family was in the Carinæ, on the slope of the Esquiline hill, hard by the gardens of Nero’s Golden House. Being on high ground it commanded the Forum and the Capitol, and looked over the tops of the vulgar insulæ in the dip of the Suburra.

It was the evening of the second day. Heavy clouds had lowered throughout the hours of daylight and the evening had prematurely closed. There had been desultory fighting all day, but as the night approached a determined set was made by the German guard to capture the Capitol, and the citadel of Rome that adjoined it, connected by only a small neck of hill. They knew that Primus was close at hand, and they were determined not to be caught between a foe before and another behind.

The Capitol is a rocky height rising precipitately above the Forum, and enormous substructures had strengthened it and formed a platform on which rose the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus that stood to Rome almost in the relation that the Temple did to Jerusalem, as the centre of its religious and civil institutions.

It was almost the paladium of the city, the fate of Rome was held to be bound up with its preservation.

And now Domitia and her mother looked on in the gathering darkness at the temple looming out as of gold against the purple black clouds behind, lit with the glare of the flames of the houses below that had been fired by the soldiery.

The roar of conflict came up in waves of sound.

Really, said Duilia, Revolutions are only tolerable when seen from a house-top; that is, to cultivated minds—the common rabble like them.

Shrill above the roar came the scream of a whistle, that a boy was blowing as he went down the street.

Suddenly the clamor boiled up into a mighty spout or geyser of noise, and the reason became manifest in another moment. The whole sky was lit by a sheet of flame of golden yellow. The conflagration had caught an oil merchant’s stores that were planted against the substructures supporting the temple. Columns, shoots of dazzling light rushed up against the rocks and the walls, recoiled, swept against them again, overleaped them and curled like tongues around the temple.

Instantly every sound ceased. The soldiers sheathed their swords. The citizens held their breath. Nothing for a few minutes was audible, save the mutter of the fire.

My lady, said Euphrosyne, coming to the roof, and addressing Longa Duilia, A priest of Jupiter is below, and desires to speak with you.

A priest of Jupiter here! exclaimed Duilia. When his temple is on fire! Bid him be off—but stay. Who let him in?

Lady, the Chaldæan introduced him.

He had no right to do so. Let him entertain him. I desire to see the end. Run. The roof is on fire—the eagles will be down—or melt away.

Lady! the Magian commissioned me to assure you that he bears an important communication.

Say I am engaged.

A minute later, the Chaldæan himself arrived on the housetop and addressed the mistress.

I cannot attend to your abracadabra, said she, in reply to his request to be heard. Look there. The Capitol is in flames, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus blazes. I know what he wants—he has come begging. They all beg. I have no money. I am interested in the fire, the Revolution, and all that sort of thing.

Lady Longa, said Elymas, There are moments that are turning points in every life. A great chance offers. Take it, or put it away forever.

You worry me past endurance. What is it? Look! the flames are licking Jupiter in his chariot.

I never made a greater mistake in my life, said Longa Duilia, and I cannot think how you allowed me to make it.

What mistake? asked the Chaldæan.

The mistake of inviting the uncle in place of the nephew to my little supper. As to that supper, I flatter myself it was perfect—so finished in every detail, as becomes our position; so delicately flavored with reserve, as became my position as a widow; and you recommended me to invite Flavius Sabinus, the Præfect,—and now he has been. That delicate little supper thrown away, and my attentions so nicely adjusted to the circumstances, all that trouble and thought gone for nothing. Do you know that Flavius Sabinus is now in bits? He has been positively hacked to pieces. It is not the supper itself I regret, and my best Falernian wine—but I gave him a gold signet-ring with a cameo, representing Daphne. It had belonged to my dear Corbulo, and was valuable. But I considered it as a means to an end. And now—where is that ring? But for your counsel, I might have invited the nephew.

Madam, I counselled aright.

You have the face to say that? Do you not know that Sabinus has had his head struck off, and his body dragged by hooks down the Gemonian stair, and then positively torn to pieces—but there? Who has got hold of the ring? I have lost it—through you. You pretend to read the stars and peer into futurity!

Lady, I do see into what is to be, and counsel accordingly.

Oh, yes! glimpses as of light in a wood through thick foliage. Plenty of obscurity, very little light.

Madam, consider. Had you not invited the Præfect who has been, you would not have seen the nephew who is, and who came in at the supper to call his uncle away. It was thus he arrived at a knowledge of your house, and your friendly disposition, and thus it was that he was induced to throw himself on your protection.

There is something in that, observed Duilia. But how much better had the invitation been sent to Domitian himself.

On the contrary, that would not have been judicious, therefore I did not recommend it. Had the nephew come here along with his servants, immediately his escape from the Capitol was discovered, and they were tortured to disclose his place of concealment, they would have betrayed this house: but as it has happened they could not suppose he would take refuge here.

There is a good deal in that, answered Duilia meditatively. Well, it is only the ring that I regret. If I had but known—something of inconsiderable value but showy would have sufficed. Moreover, I might have done without that dish of British oysters—very expensive, and, as you see, thrown away. Yet! well, I enjoyed them.

Even that ring is not lost.

The anarchy which had lasted from the 11th June, 68, when Nero perished, came to an end on the 20th December, in the ensuing year. In that terrible year of 69, three emperors had died violent deaths, and Rome had been in a condition of disorder on each occasion, and intermittent violence had lasted all the time. Men now drew a long breath, they were disposed to blot out the memory of those eighteen months of misery and national humiliation, as though it had not been, and to reckon the strong Vespasian as prince next after Nero. Indeed, on the morrow of the death of Vitellius, when the Senate assembled and decreed the honors of the former princes, they recited those of the first Cæsars, but ignored the three last who had perished within a twelvemonth, as though they had never been, and were to be forgotten as an evil dream.

That same day also, Domitian received the title of Cæsar, and was made Prince of the Youths, and Præfect of Rome in the place of his uncle, who had been murdered.

That day, also, Mucianus arrived with the Syrian legions, and with plenitude of authority from Vespasian to act in his name.

To Duilia’s vast delight Domitian did not forget his obligation to her, but paid frequent visits to her house, and it was a matter of pride to her to have his attendant lictors standing outside her door, as in former days.

When he came, she made a point of summoning her daughter, and requiring her to be present during the interview. But she could not make her speak or compel her to graciousness of manner towards the visitor.

The young prince’s eyes watched the girl with question in them, but he addressed all his conversation to the mother.

Longa Duilia did her utmost to disguise her child’s incivility, attributed it to shyness, and used all her blandishments to make a visit to her house agreeable to Domitian.

At length, the irksomeness caused by Domitia’s irresponsive manner seemed to satisfy the mother that she did more harm than good in enforcing her attendance, and she ceased to require the girl to appear.

Some months passed, and Domitia had not given a thought to Glyceria, and her offer to revisit the sick woman, when, all at once, in a fit of weariness with all things that surrounded her, and a sense of incapacity to find enjoyment anywhere, she started from her languor to bid Eboracus go forth, buy honey-cakes and toys, and accompany her on a visit to the Suburra.

As she was on her way, Domitian came by with his lictors and other attendants. Since his elevation from poverty and insignificance to ease and importance, he had acquired a swagger that made his manner more offensive than before in his phase of cubbishness.

He at once addressed her, for though veiled he recognized her.

My dear, said Longa Duilia to her daughter, with wit such as you have, that might be drawn through a needle’s eye, it is positively necessary to have you married as quickly as possible. I can no longer bear the responsibility of one so full of waywardness and humors as yourself.

That, mother, is as Lamia chooses. You know that I can marry only him.

And I do not ask you to take another. I will get it settled forthwith. I’ll see his father by adoption and have the settlements looked to. You are a good match. I presume you are aware of that, and this explains certain poutings and bad temper. Well—reserve them for Lamia, and don’t vex me. I wash my hands of you, when that you are married. A camel carries his own hump, but a man his wife’s humors.

Domitia was sufficiently acquainted with her mother’s elasticity of spirit and fertility of invention to be satisfied that she had a motive for pressing on her marriage, and what that motive was seemed obvious. But it was one that distressed her greatly.

My dearest mother, she said timidly, I hope—I mean, since you are so good as not to urge me further to break my engagement with Lamia, that you have not set your mind—I mean your heart——

At the earliest rays of dawn the auguries were taken, not as of old by the flight of birds, but by inspection of the liver and heart of a sheep, that was slaughtered for the purpose by the Aruspices, and this done they came to the palace of Duilia, bearing the skin of the sheep, to announce that the portents were favorable, in fact, were of extraordinarily good promise.

That is as I hoped, said Longa Duilia, and that will counteract and bring to naught the disastrous tokens of the wreath. Why, by Venus’s girdle, the girl has not been able to get her hands white yet. The stain of that nefast herb is on them still. But—ah! here she comes in her flame-colored veil. By the Body of Bacchus! after all it means no ill, for do not her hands agree in hue with her head-gear?Our word nuptial comes from the veil wherewith the bride’s head was covered.

Domitia had laid aside her maidenly dress, the toga prætextata woven with horizontal stripes, for the dress of a married woman, the toga recta, with vertical stripes. About her waist was a woollen girdle fastened in a peculiar manner, with the so-called knot of Hercules, that was regarded as a charm against the evil eye, and was also employed in binding up wounds and fractured bones. The girl’s dress, as well as a net of red silk threads in which her hair had been tied up on the previous day, had been offered on the altars of the ancestral deities worshipped in the house.

Her hair had been divided that morning, not by a comb, but by the head of a lance, into six tresses that were plaited with colored ribbons. And about her head, beneath the veil, was the virgin’s wreath woven out of the flowers she had herself picked—but the ill-omened cypress and the blood distilling androsœmum had been omitted.

And now with pipes and cymbals came the bridegroom attended by all his friends, to fetch the bride home. The house door was decorated with laurels, and incense smoked on the domestic altars, in the vestibule, and in the atrium. The boxes that contained the ancestral wax masks were open, and each face was wreathed about with flowers. Green lines connecting the boxes united all to one trunk forming a family tree. The household gods were not ignored, lamps burned before them, flowers adorned their heads, and cakes and wine were placed on shelves below them.

Slaves ran to and fro, and ran against each other. Ten witnesses, kinsmen of the bride and bridegroom, assembled to take cognizance of the marriage contract. Two seats were introduced into the hall, and the legs bound together, and over both was spread the skin of the sheep slaughtered that morning for the auspices.

Then bride and bridegroom were seated on these stools, the marriage contract was read aloud, and they received the salutations of their friends. The pronuba, a married female relative united their hands, and that accomplished, the bridegroom rose, and attended by the friends and kinsfolk of both parties, departed for the Temple of Jupiter, where the flamen Dialis offered sacrifice to the gods of marriage, to Jupiter, Juno, Tellus, and the old Latin half-forgotten deities of Picumnus and Pilumnus.

Whilst the sacred sacrifice was being performed, in the house of the bride all was being made ready for the wedding or meal after midday.

The bride was now esteemed to have passed out of the family of her father into that of her husband, his gods would be her gods, his house her house, his name hers. In signification of this the formula was used by her, Since thou art Caius, I am Caia. At a remote period it would have been Since thou art Lucius I am Lucia, and she would have lost her name of Domitia. But this was no longer customary, only the liturgical form of surrender was employed.

It was past noon when the procession returned, swelled by more friends and by all well-wishers, and as it entered the house, with a shiver Domitia observed the glowing face and water-blue eyes of the young prince, attended by his lictors. She caught his glance, but he dropped his eyes the moment they encountered hers, and she saw his cheeks pucker, as though with laughter. But she had no time to give thought to him; she was required to acknowledge the felicitations of the visitors, and to entreat them to partake of the hospitality of the hour, and to offer a pinch of incense and a libation to her happiness.

The supper was lengthy—many partook and came in relays, so that the entire afternoon was consumed by it. To the relief of Domitia, the prince Domitian had withdrawn. As each left the table he saluted the bride with the exclamation, Feliciter.

A rumor, none knew from whom it arose, spread rapidly in whispers, sending a quiver of alarm, distress, pity, through the entire wedding party, reaching last of all him most concerned.

None dared breathe in his ear what all feared; but none would separate till it was surely ascertained whether what was surmised was a fact or not.

The slaves knew it and looked wistfully at Lamia.

He was engaged in making trifling presents to the many guests and well-wishers, moving from one to another, attended by slaves with trays piled up with gifts.

Eboracus burst on him, through the throng, forgetting, in his agitation and fear, the diffidence that belonged to his position.

Sir! Where is the mistress?

Lamia, without looking at him, or desisting from what he was about, answered:

Within, being freed from her veil and bridal ornaments.

Sir! Lucius! she has been stolen from you! she has been carried away.

Lamia stood as one petrified.

How dare you utter such a jest?

Sleep-drunk, with clouded brain, eyes that saw as in a dream, feet that moved involuntarily, Domitia descended from the litter and tottered in at a doorway when informed that she had reached her destination.

Where that was she did not care, whose house this was mattered nothing to her in her then condition of weariness.

Female slaves bearing lights received her and directed her steps to a chamber where they would have divested her of her garments and put her to bed, had she not refused their assistance, thrown herself on the couch and in a moment fallen fast asleep.

The slaves looked at each other, whispered, and resolved not to torment by rousing her; they accordingly drew the heavy curtains of the doorway and left her to her slumbers.

But weary though Domitia was, her sleep was not dreamless, the song of a thousand nightingales that made the night musical reached her ears and penetrated the doorways of her troubled brain and wove fantasies; the ever-present sense of fear, not dissipated by slumber, weighed on her and gave sombre color to her dreams; the motion of the palanquin had communicated itself in her fancy, to the bed, and that tossed and swayed under her. Her weary feet seemed stung and burnt as though they had been held too close to the fire. Now she saw Lamia’s face, and then it was withdrawn; now her mother seemed to be calling to her from an ever-increasing distance.

Yet troubled though her sleep was, it afforded her brain some rest, and she woke in the morning at a later hour than usual, when by the strip of warm light below the curtains she was made aware that the sun had risen.

She started from sleep, passed her hand across her face, pressed her brows, stepped to the doorway, pushed the curtains aside and looked out into a little atrium, in which plashed a fountain, and where stood boxes of myrtles in full flower, steeping the atmosphere with fragrance.

At once two female servants came to her, bowed low and desired permission to assist in dressing her.

With some hesitation she consented.

Where am I? she asked.

By the lake of Alba, answered a dark-faced servant with hard lustrous eyes, and in a foreign dialect.

In whose house?

The slaves looked at each other, and made no reply.

Again she put the question.

Lady, we are forbidden to say, answered one of the slaves.

At Alba? muttered Domitia.

Then, as the woman divested her of her tunic, something fell from her bosom on the mosaic floor. The maid stooped, picked it up and handed it to Domitia, who turned it in her palm and looked at it, at first without comprehension. Then she recollected what this was—the amulet given her by Glyceria. It was a red cornelian fish pierced at one end and a fine gold ring inserted in the hole, so that the stone might be suspended.

Domitia was not in a condition of mind to pay attention to the ornament, but she bade one of the servants thread a piece of silk through the ring that she might wear the amulet about her neck, and then she allowed herself to be conducted to the bath.

With suspicious eyes the girl observed everything. She was obviously in a country villa belonging to some Roman noble, and that villa beside the Alban Lake.

The Ælii Lamiæ had no country-house at this place, of that she was aware. She had heard some of the friends of her mother speak of the beauties of the Alban Lake, and then her mother had lamented that the family estate lay by the Gabian puddle. But she could not recall that any one of them had a villa there.

When she left the bath she walked out of the doorway through the vestibule and stood on the terrace.

Below was the sombre lake, almost circular, with the rolling woods of oak and beech flowing down the slopes to the very water’s edge, here and there the green covering interrupted by precipitous crags of tuffa. Yonder was the great ridge on which gleamed white the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the central shrine of the Latin races, the great pilgrimage place to which the country people turned in every distress.

She had not previously seen the Alban Lake, although Gabii had been her residence for some months, and that was seated on a low spur of the mountains, in the crater of one of which slept this tranquil and lovely sheet of water. But she knew enough about it by hearsay to be sure that she was not misinformed by the slaves as to where she now was. She certainly was beside that lake, near which once stretched Alba Longa, the cradle of the Roman race—a race of shepherds driven from its first seat by volcanic fires, to settle beside the Tiber on the Palatine Hill.

That road along which she had been conveyed during the night was the great Appian Way. It could have been none other, and that led, as she was aware, along the spurs of the Alban mountains.

She walked the terrace, her brow moist with anxious thought.

Why had she been carried off?

By whom had she been swept as by a hurricane from her husband’s side?

A sense of numbness was on her brain still, caused by the shock. To Lucius Lamia her heart had turned with the reverence she had borne to her father, with the sweetness and glow of girlish love for one who would be linked with her by a still nearer tie. She could not realize that she was parted from Lamia finally, irrevocably. She was in a waking dream: a dream of great horror, but yet a dream that would roll away and reality would return. She would wake from it in the arms of her dear husband, looking into his eyes, clinging to his heart, hearing his words soothing her mind, allaying her terrors.

If at this time she could have conceived that to be possible which nevertheless was to take place, she would have run to the lake and plunged into its blue waters.

Singularly enough no thought of the vision in the temple of Isis recurred to her. Possibly she was in too stunned a condition of mind; possibly the effects of the narcotic still hung about her, like the vapors that trail along the landscape after a storm of rain at the break of the weather. No thought of hers connected this outrage with Domitian. This was due to the impression produced in her by conversation with her mother, who, she believed, was designing to secure Domitian for herself.

Moreover, the young prince had never shown her any favor. He had studiously neglected her, that he might address himself to Duilia. He had taunted her, sneered at her, but never spoken to her words that might be construed as a declaration of love. She recalled how she had urged her mother to expel him from the house when he sought refuge there; how she had sought to thrust him forth to certain death, to deny him the rights of hospitality. Such was enough to provoke resentment, not to awaken love. Her mother, on the other hand, had bound him to her by the tie of gratitude, for she had saved him at that time of extreme peril.

Seeing the dark slave girl, Domitia signed to her to approach, and asked:

Where are some of my family? Is not Euphrosyne here—or Eboracus?

Lady—none came with you save the servants of our master.

And he?

Madam, I may not say.

There is that Magus, Elymas; send him to me.

After some delay the sorcerer appeared, and approached, bowed and stood silent with hands crossed on his breast.

Two days passed, and Domitia remained undisturbed. No tidings reached her from Rome, but to her great relief the Cæsar Domitian did not appear. That a meeting with him must take place, she was aware, but in what manner he would address her, that she could not guess; whether he would take occasion to exhibit ignoble revenge for her treatment of him on the night when he sought refuge in her house, or whether he would approach her as a lover. This the sequel could alone disclose. The second alternative was what she mainly dreaded.

On the third day, hearing a bustle in the hall, and conjecturing that some one had arrived, and that the critical moment had come, Domitia waited in her chamber with beating heart, and long-drawn sighs. When the curtains were sharply withdrawn, to her surprise and delight her mother entered, radiant in her best toilette, her face, as far as could be judged through the paint, wreathed with smiles.

Well! said she.—But first a seat. You sly fox! who would have thought it? But there—I am content. I have sent out no invitations to a little supper, there is now no occasion for it, and one does not care to spend—without an expectation of it leading to results. To look at your face no one would have supposed that depth in you—and to play us all such a trick, poor Lamia and me. It would really make a widow of a week old laugh. Don’t smother me, my dear, and above all, don’t cry—that is to say, if you cry do not let your tears fall on my cheek, you know I am—well—well—it might spoil my complexion.

Mother, gasped the unhappy girl—O, how can you speak to me in this manner. You know, you must know, I have been carried away against my will. O mother, Lucius does not suppose that——

My dear child, it does not concern me in the least, whether the kitten carried off the rat, or the rat the kitten. Here you are in the rat’s hole, and all you have to look to is to eat your rat and not let the rat eat you.

Oh, mother! mother! take me home with you.

Domitia, do not be a baby. Of course you cannot return. You have bidden farewell to the household Gods, and renounced the paternal threshold.

Mother—I have embraced the gate-posts of the Lamiæ.

But the Gods of that family have been unable or unwilling to retain you, they have resigned you to—I cannot say, in conscience, nobler hands, for the Flavian family—well, we know what we know,—but to more powerful hands, that will not let you go. Besides, my dear, I have no wish to have you home again. When a bird has flown, it has said farewell to the nest, to its cracked eggshells and worms, and must find another.

Do not be cruel!

I am not cruel—but what has happened must be accepted, that is the true philosophy of life, better than all that nonsense declaimed by philosophers.

The dramatic composer has this great advantage over the novelist, that when he has to allow for a certain amount of time,—it may be for years—to elapse between the parts of his play, he lowers the curtain, the first or second act is concluded, ices, oranges are taken round in the stalls; the orchestra strikes up an overture, the gentlemen retire to the promenade gallery for a cigar, and the ladies discuss their acquaintances, and the toilette of those in the boxes, after having explored the theatre with their glasses.

At Munich and Bayreuth, at the performance of Wagner’s operas, the space allowed between the acts is sufficient for a walk and for a meal. Thus the lapse of time between the parts of a drama is given a real expression, and the minds of those who have followed the first part of the story are prepared to accept a change in the conditions of the performers, such as could be brought about solely by the passage of time.

But a novelist has no such assistance, he is not able to produce such an illusion; even when his story appears in a serial, he is without this advantage, for the movement of his tale, when it is rapid, is artificially delayed by the limitations laid down by the editors of the magazines, and the space allotted to him, and when he does require a pause to allow for the gliding away of a certain number of years, that pause consists of precisely the same number of days as intervened in the serial publication, between chapters in which the action should have been continuous.

The writer must, therefore, throw himself on the indulgence of the reader, and plead to be allowed like a Greek chorus to stand forward and narrate what has taken place, during a period of time concerning which he proposes to pass over without detailed account, before he resumes the thread of his narrative.

When Vespasian was hailed Emperor by the troops he was aged sixty-one, and none supposed that his reign would be long. He associated his eldest son Titus with him in government, but would not allow the younger, Domitian, any power.

When the Emperor reached the capital, he learned the misuse Domitian had made of that which he had arrogated to himself, or which had been granted to him by the Senate, in his father’s absence. The old Emperor was vastly displeased at the misconduct of his younger son, and would perhaps have dealt severely with him, had he not been dissuaded from so doing by Titus, who pointed out, that as he himself had no son, in all probability Domitian would at some time succeed to the purple.

The young man, kept in the background, not even allowed the command in any military expedition, carefully watched and restrained from giving vent to his natural disposition, chafed at his enforced inactivity, and at the marked manner in which he was set behind his elder brother, a man who, by the capture of Jerusalem, had gained a name, and had attached the soldiery to him. Domitian was known to the military only by his abortive attempt to pluck the laurels in Germany from the brow of his kinsman Cerealis, for the adornment of his own head.

Domitian was granted none of the titles that indicated association in the Empire. He was not suffered to take part in public affairs. His insolence in neglecting the duties of prætor of the city, as beneath his dignity, was punished in this manner. When Titus celebrated his triumph after the Jewish war, with unusual magnificence, he and his father rode in chariots of state, but Domitian was made to follow on horseback. When Vespasian and his eldest son showed themselves in public, they were carried on thrones, whereas Domitian was made to attend in the rear in a litter.

The envious, ambitious young prince, under this treatment was driven to wear a mask, and he affected a love of literature, and indifference to the affairs of state. Titus, who knew less of him than his father, was deceived, but Vespasian was too well aware of the radically evil heart of his younger son to trust him in any way.

Domitia was unable to escape from compulsary association with this imperial cub. Vespasian was unwilling to undo the past, and have the scandal raked up again, and public attention called to it. The minds of the volatile Romans had forgotten the circumstances and were occupied with new matters of gossip. Domitian married Domitia Longina, and the old Emperor after some consideration concluded that she should remain his wife.

But the relations between her and the prince were strained. She hated him for what he had done, and she made no attempt to affect a liking she did not feel.

Lamia remained unmarried; he had cared for no other woman, and he felt that there was not to be found one who could ever be to him what he had hoped Domitia would have proved.

Once Titus asked him his reason for not marrying.

Why do you inquire? said Lamia, with a bitter smile, do you also wish to carry off my wife?

On the death of the old Emperor, Titus succeeded without any difficulties being raised. His father had already associated him in the Empire and had gradually transferred the conduct of affairs to his hands.

Hitherto the brothers had lived on very good terms with each other, at all events in appearance, and Domitian had been sufficiently prudent to veil his jealousy of Titus, who had shown himself kindly disposed towards his younger brother.

On the accession of Titus, Domitian hoped to be associated with him in government in the same manner as Titus had been with his father. In this he was disappointed, his disappointment got the better of his prudence, and he declared that his brother had falsified the will of Vespasian, who had divided the power equally between them.

On the first day of his reign, Titus designated Domitian as his successor, but he allowed him no independent power; and the young prince at once involved himself in intrigues and sought to rouse the troops to revolt, and to proclaim him in place of Titus.

The condition of Domitia would have been more intolerable than it was, but that Vespasian, up to his death, retained his younger son about his person, in Rome, and it was but rarely that the prince was able to escape to his villa, at Albanum, where Domitia remained in seclusion. And his visits there were not only few and far between, but also brief.

He was in bad humor when there, at liberty to vent his irritation at the manner in which he was treated by his father, and the behavior towards him of Domitia was not calculated to dispel his vapors.

A considerable change had come over her face. The expression had altered; it had been full of sweetness, and the muscles had been flexible. Now it was hard-set and stern.

Domitian cursed her for the fascination she still exercised over him. It was perhaps her unyielding temper, her openly expressed scorn, and her biting sarcasms which stung him to maintain his grip on her, knowing that this was to her torture. Yet her beauty exercised over him a hold from which he could not escape. His feelings towards her were a mixture of passionate admiration and savage resentment. From every one else he met with adulation, or at least respect, from her neither. His will was a law to a legion of sycophants, to her it was something she seemed to find a pleasure in defying.

Domitia nursed her resentment, and this soured her nature and reflected itself in her features.

In the long Chiaramonte Gallery of the Vatican Museum is an exquisite and uninjured bust of Domitia Longina as a girl; the face is one that holds the passer-by, it is so sweet, so beautiful, so full of a glorious soul.

In the Florence Gallery is one of the same woman after Domitian had snatched her away from Lamia, and hidden her in his Alban villa. Lovely the face is still, but the beautiful soul has lost its light, the softness has gone out of the face, and the shadow of a darkened life broods over it.

At Albanum the solitary Domitia had the satisfaction of being attended by her servant Euphrosyne, and the faithful Eboracus was also allowed to be there as her minister.

She occasionally visited her mother in Rome, but the chasm between them widened. Duilia could not understand her daughter’s refusal to accept the inevitable and failure to lay hold of her opportunities, and, as she termed it, eat her rat. The older Duilia grew, the less inclined she was to acknowledge her age, and the more frivolous and scheming she became. She was never weary of weaving little webs of mystery and of contriving plans; and the initiating of all these was a supper. She was well off, liked ostentation, yet was withal of a frugal mind, and never ordered costly dishes, or broached her best wine without calculation that they would lead to valuable results.

It was possible that Vespasian might have interfered in favor of Domitia, had he been made to understand how strongly she disliked the union, but Domitia herself was never able to obtain an interview with the aged Emperor, and Duilia took pains to assure him that the marriage had been contracted entirely with her approval, that the union with Lamia had been entered on without feeling on either side, in obedience to an expressed wish of Corbulo before his death, and that her daughter was quite content to be released.

The period was not one in which the personal feelings of a girl were counted as deserving of much thought, certainly not of being considered by an Emperor, and Vespasian took no steps to relieve Domitia. Titus was better aware of the facts, and had some notion of the wrench it had been to the young married people, but he was not desirous of having the matter reopened. It would not conduce to the credit of the Flavian house, and that was in his eyes a matter of paramount consideration—as the process of deification of the Flavians had already begun.