A Christian But a Roman

CHAPTER X.

The banquet lasted a long time. True, it was only afternoon out of doors, but any one who did not know that the feast had begun in the morning would have supposed it was already midnight.

Carinus poured the wine that remained in the drinking horn upon the floor, in token that he drank some one's health, and then handed it to Manlius.

"To the health of the beautiful Glyceria!"

"And to yours, Carinus," replied Manlius, giving his own in exchange.

"Manlius," said Carinus, the blood mounting to his face, "do you know that I have already had one husband of Glyceria slain?"

"You did well, Carinus; but for that I could not become the second."

"Do you know why I had him killed?"

"Because he concealed his wife from you. Fool! Have the gods created a sun that some one may take possession of it and allow others no share in its light? Those who snatch a beautiful woman from the world, and then demand that she shall be loved by no one else, are thieves and robbers!"

"It might seem strange to you, Manlius, if I should take you at your word. You must know that I love your wife madly."

"That is your affair, Carinus. I do not keep her locked up. The way to her is open to every one."

"It is easy for you to play the magnanimous. She herself secludes herself sufficiently. While hundreds of thousands of men tremble at a wave of my hand, all my power cannot win the love of this one woman."

"And how Glyceria can love! Ah, Carinus, I know that when, in the evening, the door opens to me which you always find closed, you would joyfully permit me to occupy your throne and reign in your stead so long as you fill my place as bridegroom."

Carinus sprang up as if an electric spark had thrilled him.

"Hecatæa! I will take you at your word! Take my throne, command my slaves, my empire in my name, have my favourites killed, make the lowest in Rome the highest, empty my treasure-houses, and, for all this, merely give me the key of your bridal-chamber."

"The bargain is made; here is my hand. Give me the parchment and stylus. Listen to what I write to Glyceria, and send it to her dwelling: 'Goddess of my love! I shall spend the hours between evening and morning with you. My heart longs for your words of consolation. The cypress-branch has wounded my brow; your rose-wreath may subdue its flames. When the evening star, the lamp of lovers, begins to shine, extinguish yours that, if tears should dim my eyes, you may not see them, but only feel my kisses. Until dawn I shall be with you, and in possession of my happiness. Your languishing husband, Manlius Sinister.' Send this letter by a slave, and put on this ring, which you must show at the door. Then you will be admitted, and Glyceria's women will conduct you where she awaits you."

Carinus listened greedily to every word from Manlius, who coolly handed him the ring and the letter. Trembling in every limb, he could not speak, but motioned to a slave to deliver Manlius' letter to Glyceria.

The courtiers whispered together in astonishment.

"What a fortunate man you are," Ævius whispered in the ear of the new favourite. "Why did not I have the good luck to possess Glyceria's love, that I might cast it from me with the same indifference?"

The slave soon returned with a letter from Glyceria to Manlius.

The latter handed it to the Cæsar:

"It is yours; read it!"

Carinus, with trembling hands, unrolled the parchment; his eyes sparkled as he read:

"Manlius! Your lines quiver in my hand. A thousand emotions are raging in my heart; fear, longing, holy horrour, and wild love. I am under the ban of an irresistible spell. I wish you might not come, but if you do, I shall be unable to resist you. I feel within my breast the power and the desire to destroy the whole world, but at a breath from you all my strength fails; I am nothing more than a weak, loving woman, who loses her reason in her love. Oh, do not come! Glyceria."

"That means: 'Oh, come!'" said Manlius laughing, propping himself carelessly on one elbow upon his couch.

Carinus ordered his lectica to be brought, and had himself lifted into it.

"No man has ever done that," whispered the barber, filled with envy; "given up his own bride to another."

"Meanwhile you are the ruler of Rome," said Carinus to Manlius. "Let the fellow who writes my name come. Whatever you command, I command. Reign over my kingdom."

"And you over my heaven."

The slaves closed the purple curtains of the lectica, raised it on their shoulders, and withdrew with the Cæsar.

The trembling courtiers, with humble faces, gathered around the youth whom the Imperator's crazy whim had made for an hour the master of the world.

Manlius stretched himself comfortably upon the cushions of the imperial couch, sought among the throng of courtiers the man who was trembling most violently, and beckoned to him.

It was Marcius, the barber; by virtue of imperial favour, Præfectus Prætorio.

"You are the commander of the prætorians?" asked Manlius.

"Yes, my imperial master," stammered the barber, rolling his eyes.

Manlius laughed.

"So you really consider me the Cæsar? If I were the Imperator, I would have you beheaded because you mocked at my face; but call me your friend. I know your merits."

"O my Lord!"

"I know, and will reward them. You are accustomed to bleed people, so you will make a good soldier; you are skilled in arranging the hair, which indicates your talent for commander-in-chief; and understand how to pluck out hairs coolly, from which I perceive that you are stern and impartial. I am not satisfied with the leaders of the army in the East, Numerian and Diocletian, and I therefore appoint you general of these troops. You will set out at once for Thrace. Honourable Defraudator! Sign our name to the document."

Marcius's brain fairly reeled under the burden of his new dignities.

The courtiers were rigid with astonishment, and calculated that if Manlius began to reward thus those who had mocked him, he would perhaps raise to the very heavens those who had looked at him with smiles. The appointment was made out. The secretary signed the Cæsar's name, and Marcius, with a very important face, retired at once, carrying his commission.

Urged by envy and jealousy, Ævius pressed forward to Manlius. The latter saw his struggle and beckoned to him.

"You will be Præfectus Prætorio in Marcius's place, and distribute four thousand talents among this valiant band, whose sole duty consists in guarding our person. To be able to reward these men richly continually, we will lessen the numbers of the outside army. Why should we keep foreign countries garrisoned with our legions, pay Roman gold for Roman steel, and give the leaders opportunity to rebel against us? In an hour you will depart for Thrace, bearing our command to Numerian and Diocletian to dismiss half the army at once, and the sum thus saved I place at your free disposal, my noble friends. Write down my words, honourable Defraudator!"

A frantic shout of joy greeted Manlius' speech. The courtiers rushed to him, raised him on their shoulders, and amid the accompaniment of music and thundering cheers, bore him around the room. The fury of intoxication had risen to madness, Senators were no longer to be distinguished from actors, dancers and hetæræ, slaves and bacchantes mingled in the hall, wine flowed from the skins upon the floor, the lamps were extinguished with it, and darkness covered the foul scene.

The only window in the apartment was a round one in the ceiling which admitted the fresh air. When the last lamp was extinguished, the senseless revellers saw with terror that the window above their heads now gave light. What if the sky had kindled into terrible flames to illumine with its awful glare the hell beneath!

The horrible tumult of the orgy ceased as if by magic, and through the doors, suddenly flung wide open, rushed a slave, calling in a trembling voice the message of terror:

"Save yourselves! Rome is burning!"

Through the round window the crimson glow shone like the flames of the Day of Judgment upon the evil beings caught in the midst of their sins.

When Carinus showed the ring, he was conducted without delay to Glyceria's apartments.

The palace already stood wrapped in silence and darkness. Carinus felt rustling garments brush him in the corridors, soft hands guided him and, amid low laughter, led him through quiet rooms until at last he clasped a hand at whose electric pressure his blood began to seethe, and a familiar voice faltered with a tenderness never heard before:

"Manlius! So you came?"

It was Glyceria—cruelly deceived Glyceria.

"I expected you, and yet I hoped you would not come," she whispered softly. "Do you feel the tremour of my hand in your clasp? It is quivering with love and fear. Love robbed me of my senses. One word of tenderness from your lips made my soul your slave—all that, during my whole life, I had concentrated in a single thought, the goal of my longing which I had never hoped to possess, the joy of which I had always dreamed, but never hoped would be mine—I now embrace! I do not understand it. This is not the day or the hour in which we ought to speak of love, but you mentioned it, and can the woman who loves choose the hour for answering the question?"

Carinus stole the caresses of the loving woman.

"Yet, O Manlius! I trembled lest you might come only to mock me, only to play a cruel game with me, obtain the deepest secrets of my heart and then jeer at me for them. No. You cannot do that. You cannot trample in the dust the only feeling which I have kept unsullied amid the ruin of my life. Can you hate me because I love you? And if you hate me, would you not slay, rather than mock me?"

Carinus silently drew the trembling figure toward him and covered her cheeks and lips with fervent kisses.

Glyceria, in blissful delusion, yielded to his embrace, and in her happiness had almost silenced the warning voice in her heart, when Carinus' cheek suddenly touched hers, and she discovered that his face was beardless.

The most terrible thought darted through Glyceria's brain.

"Ha! Who are you? You are not Manlius. Be accursed! You are Carinus."

And, wresting herself with the strength of despair from the Cæsar's arms, she rushed toward the opposite side of the room and disappeared behind the curtains of the niche which concealed her couch, drawing the heavy folds together and hastily fastening the cords.

"You will not escape me!" shrieked Carinus, dashing in the fury of his passion toward the curtains, and tearing them down, while he tore apart the knot which confined the cords with his teeth.

But these few seconds had sufficed for Glyceria to light a vessel filled with some inflammable fluid and, at the instant Carinus succeeded in forcing the curtains apart, she poured the flaming contents over her couch and, while the blaze caught the light draperies, she herself sprang with a single bound upon the bed, now burning around her, whence like a terrible, destroying vision she shouted to the terror-stricken Augustus:

"Now, come!"

The next moment the hall was wrapped in flames. Like the fiend who gained an entrance into Heaven and was forced to fly thence, Carinus fled from the destroying fire, while Glyceria, seizing a burning coverlet, rushed from room to room, setting fire to each, and, dragging costly garments into the main hall, kindled those too.

In a few minutes the whole palace was in flames and, at the end of an hour, a sea of fire was rolling through Rome.

Carinus had been borne back to his palace senseless.

Glyceria fled that same night to the temple of Cybele.

CHAPTER XI.

"Then let me go to Numerian; if I speak to him, he will be the first to draw his sword against his brother," urged the Senator.

"You cannot see him," replied Aper, placing himself before the entrance to Numerian's tent. "No one except myself is allowed to speak to him during his illness. He even gives his orders to the army through me alone."

Mesembrius sniffed the air suspiciously.

"Why does so strong a smell of musk and amber come from this tent?"

"Why?" repeated Aper, his face blanching. "Why do you desire to know, Senator?"

"What?" retorted Mesembrius; "because you lie, Aper, when you say that Numerian issues his orders through you."

"What? What do you mean?" shouted the soldiers who had gathered around the two.

"I mean that Numerian is no longer living!" cried Mesembrius in ringing tones. "No, no, the strong odour of amber issuing from his tent is only to disguise the scent of corruption, and Aper has long taken advantage of you by issuing orders in Numerian's name."

The soldiers forced their way into Numerian's tent and found the old man's words confirmed. Numerian had lain dead a long time; his body was far advanced in decomposition.

Aper was instantly put in chains by the soldiers on account of this deception; in the afternoon an empty throne was erected in the open fields for the election of a new Imperator.

Mesembrius walked through the ranks of the legions, recommending Diocletian, whom the soldiers fairly forced to take his seat upon the throne.

Then Aper was brought forward.

"I charge you, publicly and plainly," said Mesembrius, "with having murdered Numerian and betrayed us to Carinus."

"And we condemn you," roared the army with one voice.

"And I execute the sentence," said Diocletian, stabbing with his own hand the prisoner sentenced by the troops.

In the midst of this wrathful mood Marcius arrived with the order given to him by Manlius and, without knowing what had happened, he delivered his appointment to the new Cæsar.

"Who is this?" asked Diocletian, turning to Mesembrius.

"The Cæsar's barber."

Diocletian turned smiling to the soldiers.

"Friends! Carinus provided for our beards and sent us a barber with the rank of an Imperator; pray sit down before him and have yourselves shaved. But do you take care not to cut my soldiers' faces, my little friend, for if they should try their big razors on you, you would fare ill."

The soldiers, amid loud shouts of laughter, dragged Marcius off with them, and made him shave their bristling beards.

Scarcely an hour later Ævius arrived with the command to dismiss half the army at once.

This enraged the Cæsar and the whole body of troops. To assail their interests so boldly was presumptuous even from the Imperator.

"To the funeral pyre with the messenger and his message!" cried Diocletian, and the poet had already been bound to the huge pile of logs when he sighed bitterly:

"O ye gods, must I, while still living, witness my own apotheosis?"

Diocletian laughed at the idea and ordered the poet to be brought down from the funeral pyre, contenting himself with putting him in the pillory, after which he sent him back to Rome with a message declaring war against Carinus.

The thunderstorm was rising, though as yet it sent forth no lightning.

In Rome it was openly stated that the army sent to the West, filled with mortal hatred of Carinus, had already reached the Ister, only nothing was said of it in the Cæsar's palace. There revelry was perpetual and if, from time to time, any one alluded to Diocletian's approach, he was pitilessly derided.

"Who is this peasant?" asked Manlius. "Who ever heard his name among the patricians of Rome? Who knew his father? His mother, on the contrary, was known by many. She was a slave in the house of Senator Anulinus. Anulinus has a right to demand him as a fruit of his household."

The courtiers laughed at the jest.

"You must know him, Manlius?"

"I have never seen him. I used to be where danger threatened, and I never saw Diocletian. I know him because I was told that he always led the rearguard when we were marching forward, and the vanguard when we were retiring."

Peals of laughter greeted the words.

"And what is the character of his army?" he was asked.

"It is a valiant, obedient body. It has killed three of its Imperators. As for its courage and fearlessness, it is peerless in those qualities, for it retreated from the banks of the Tigris without having seen an enemy. When I tell you that I myself was the greatest hero among them, you can judge of the rest."

"And your news of victories?"

"Were two-thirds inventions. Although we sometimes gained one, we owed it to our superior numbers; but the army must now be greatly reduced by desertion and disease."

This sycophantic nation liked nothing better than to hear the soldiers slandered, and therefore Manlius even slandered himself.

When Diocletian's army approached so close, however, that there could no longer be any doubt as to the danger, the imperial generals urgently pressed the Imperator to prepare for war, and Carinus gathered his troops from the European provinces.

Suddenly the rumour spread that Carinus would command his army in person. He could be seen at two military exercises, the reviews of the troops. Manlius was always at his side, constantly stimulating his vanity or his jealousy by entreating him not to leave the victories to his leaders or commit the course of the campaign to their knowledge and prudence.

"The victorious general is a new foe," Manlius was in the habit of saying, and the Imperator assumed the chief command of the assembled forces, and produced no bad effect mounted on his grey charger and clad in a suit of gold armour, with a purple striped violet mantle floating around his shoulders.

On the day before the departure of the army, the leaders went to all the temples in turn, offering sacrifices everywhere, even on the altars of the Egyptian gods. Manlius assisted in bringing the animals selected for victims to the haruspex.

The populace listened in solemn devotion to the augur's words.

Quaterquartus extended his arms and, with closed eyes, said, in deep tones:

"This battle will ruin the enemy of Rome."

True, he did not say whom he considered the enemy of Rome—whether Diocletian or Carinus.

At last the imperial procession reached Cybele's temple. Amid a deafening uproar of drums and blaring trumpets, the frantic priestesses were dancing in the open portico, stabbing their bodies with knives, muttering with foaming lips incomprehensible words, and whirling around till, overcome by giddiness, they fell to the floor.

Suddenly a shriek, shriller, more terrible than any other sound in this inharmonious uproar, rang above the din; a shriek so piercing, so heart-rending, that every one gazed trembling in the direction of the sound.

A woman's tall figure stood beneath the pillars; a long white mantle, which she clutched with both hands, floated from her head to her feet.

"Woe betide thee, Rome! Woe betide ye, Roman people! Woe betide thee, Imperator of Rome!"

The woman came out into the portico and, as she fixed her cold, expressionless eyes upon the throng, Carinus, seized with horror, grasped the hand of Manlius, who stood by his side.

"That is Glyceria."

Manlius also shrank back in terror.

The madwoman, with the face of a prophetess, stood upon the steps of the temple.

"Woe to those born on Roman soil, the children who must atone for the sins of the fathers, and the fathers upon whom the curse of their children falls. O Roma! The stars of ruin will appear in thy sky, and the earth will tremble beneath thee! Horror will dwell within thy walls, and peace will remain far distant. Foes will trample thee under their feet, foreign nations will show thee thy banners which they have wrested from thee, thou wilt beseech Barbarian enemies to grant thee the bare gift of life, and thy greatest foes will dwell within thy walls, for they are thine own emperors! The air, corrupted by the curses uttered, will bring the plague upon ye, miserable mortals! Those whom famine spares will perish in battle; those whom the sea rejects the earth will swallow! O Rome, thou queen of nations, thou wilt be orphaned; thou wilt vanish like the star that falls into the waves; nothing will be left of thee save the memory of thy sins, and the grass which will grow over thy palaces; even thy gods will disappear from thy temples so that, in thy despair, thou canst pray to no one!"

A tribune bent forward to kiss the maniac's hand, and ask in a timid voice:

"What result dost thou predict for the battle to which Carinus is just marching?"

Glyceria heard the question, and looked gloomily at the soldiers.

"Fear nothing! Destroy, set brother against brother, whoever may conquer—Rome has lost. If Carinus is victor, he will uproot half Rome; if Diocletian conquers, he will destroy the other half, and both are well deserved. March to battle, mad nation; shed thy blood, kill thy sons, let them die in tortures and remain unburied. When their souls flutter away in the autumn mist, they will be forgotten. Men, behold your wives clasped in the arms of others, your houses burned, your children dragged to slavery, and know that there is no world where ye can find compensation. Go! Die accursed and despairing!"

Amid terrible convulsions, she sank down on the steps of the temple and, with outstretched arms, cursed the Roman people even while her lips were almost incapable of speech.

"Take back your curse!" shouted the flamen Dialis, rushing up to her and seizing her hand.

With her last strength Glyceria raised herself, her eyes rolled wildly over the throng and, once more summoning all the bitterness of her heart, she raised both hands and extending them over the multitude shrieked:

"Be accursed!"

With these words she fell back lifeless, her staring eyes, even in death, fixed upon Manlius.

CHAPTER XII.

"Make the necessary arrangements yourself," said Carinus.

"Forward with the reserve, tribunes!" shouted Manlius. "The foreign legions must be sacrificed; let them be hewn down, and then on with the Triarians. Send against the Phrygian cavalry the German bands, who must hamstring the horses with their long swords. Let no one remain here. March forward with all your men. I alone can guard the Cæsar."

The result of these orders was an immediate change in the tide of battle. Diocletian perceived that a skilled commander, who knew the weaknesses of his army, was opposing him; he hastily gave the signal for retreat to save his force from destruction.

Standing in the entrance of his tent Carinus watched the progress of the conflict. His troops were everywhere driving the enemy before them, his cavalry was pressing onward.

The flush of triumph glowed upon his face, every feature was radiant with the pride of victory, his heart throbbed with joy.

"I have conquered!" he exclaimed, wild with delight, clapping his hands.

"But I, too, have conquered," said a bitter, terrible voice behind him, and the Cæsar felt an iron hand seize his arm and drag him into the tent.

Carinus, startled, glanced back and saw the gloomy face of Manlius, who was crushing his arm with one hand, and in the other held a drawn sword.

"What do you want?" asked the Imperator in alarm.

"Do you remember, Carinus, the girl who killed herself before your eyes to escape your embrace? That girl was my promised wife. Do you know what I want now?"

"Manlius, you are jesting. What do you want of me? Why do you terrify me?"

"I could have killed you often when, overpowered by drunkenness, you lay in a sound sleep, in the intoxication of your crimes, but I wished to await the moment when you were happy, when you had reached the summit of your renown, before I slew you."

"Mercy! Help!"

"No one can hear your call; the shouts of joy drown your whimpering. Do you hear the cries of triumph and the glorification of your name rising on all sides? Do you hear the universal cheer: 'Long live Carinus?'—Now, die, Carinus!"

The next moment another horseman rode among the exulting troops; his right hand waved a lance from whose point gazed down the head of the conquering Imperator.

The victorious troops surrendered to Diocletian.