The whole audience was covered with snow, and discussed theology; the rabble laughed and quarrelled. The only ones who were protected against the inclemency of the weather were the actors under the canopy. But the damp snow was heavy, and the linen awning presently bent and broke.
Then the whole audience rose and burst into laughter; the actors crept out from under the masses of snow, the doors opened, and all fled except Julian and his philosophers.
As soon as Julian had been elected Emperor, he had sent an ambassador to the Emperor at Byzantium, and now awaited his reply. It was about the time of the winter solstice and the turn of the year. The Christians had, at this period, just begun to celebrate the birth of Christ, and had adopted certain Roman customs from the Saturnalia, the feast in honour of Saturn. Julian, irritated by the challenge of the Nazarenes, began to arm himself for resistance and attack. Now he determined to use his power to give back to heathendom what belonged to it, and to show the Christians whence they had derived their knowledge of the highest things. At the same time he wished to lend heathenism a Christian colouring, so that, at its return, it might be able to conquer everything. The old Temple of Jupiter, on the island in the river, was opened one night, and lights were seen in it. There was also a noise of hammers and saws, mattocks and trowels. This lasted for some time, and people talked about it in the town.
One night in midwinter, Julian sat with Maximus, Priscus, and Eleazar in the Opisthodomos or priests’ room, behind the altar in the Temple of Jupiter. The whole temple was lit up, and the purpose of the improvements which had taken place could be seen. By the colonnade on the left hand was an ambo or pulpit, and under it a confessional; there were also a seven-branched candlestick, a baptismal font, a table with shewbread, and an incense-altar. These represented Julian’s attempt to attach the new doctrine to the old, and to amalgamate heathenism, Christianity, and Judaism. Heliogabalus had indeed attempted the same in his own rough fashion, by introducing Syrian sun-worship into Rome, but he retained all the heathen gods, even the Egyptian ones. Neither Christians, however, nor Jews would have anything to do with it.
Julian did not love the Jews, but his hatred of Christianity was so great that he preferred to help the stiff-necked race in Palestine, in order to rouse them against Christ. For that purpose he had given orders that the Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt, and this was the matter which he wished to discuss with his philosophers and Eleazar. “What is your opinion, then?” he asked, after finishing a long speech on the subject. “Let Maximus speak first.”
“Caesar Augustus,” answered Maximus the mystic, “Jerusalem has been destroyed from the face of the earth, as the prophets foretold, and the Temple cannot be rebuilt.”
“Cannot? It shall be.”
“It cannot! Constantine’s mother, indeed, built a church over the grave of Christ, but the Temple cannot be rebuilt. Since Solomon’s time the history of this city has been a history of successive destructions. Sheshach, the Philistines, Arabs, Syrians, Egyptians, and Chaldaeans, destroyed it in early times. Then came Alexander Ptolemaus, and finally Antiochus Epiphanes, who pulled down the walls and set up an image of Jupiter in the Temple. But now, mark!—sixty-three years before Christ, Jerusalem was conquered by Pompey. What happened in the same year after Christ in the Roman Empire? Pompeii, the town by Naples, named after the conqueror, was destroyed in A.D. 63 by an earthquake. That was the answer, and the Lord of Hosts conquered Jupiter,—Zeus.”
“Listen!” broke in Julian, “I don’t agree with your Pythagorean speculations about numbers. If both events had happened in the year 63 before Christ, then I would be nearly convinced.”
“Wait, then, Caesar, and you will be. After Pompey had conquered Jerusalem, and Cassius had plundered it, Herod rebuilt the city and the Temple. But soon afterwards—i.e. in A.D. 70, Jerusalem was completely destroyed by Titus. Only nine years later Monte Somma began to throw up fire as it had never done before, and by it Pompeii and Herculaneum were both destroyed. Pompeii and Herculaneum were Sodom and Gomorrah, and a temple in Pompeii contained an image of Vespasian, who had laid waste part of Jerusalem before Titus. It disappeared altogether. Do you think perhaps that the Christians set Vesuvius on fire, as Nero believed they had fired Rome in A.D. 64?”
Julian reflected: “There were nine years between,” he said, “but it seems strange.”
“Yes,” answered Maximus, “but precisely in the same year 70, in which Titus destroyed the Temple, the Capitol was burnt.”
“Then it is the gods who are warring, and we are only soldiers,” exclaimed Julian.
Priscus the Sophist, who liked word-encounters, determined to stir up the embers, as they seemed to be expiring: “But Christ has said that one stone shall not remain upon another, and that the Temple shall never be built again.”
“Has Christ said that?” answered Julian. “Very well; then he shall show whether he was a god, for I will build again the Temple of Solomon.”
And turning to Eleazar, he continued, “Do you believe in prodigies?”
“As surely as the Lord lives, as surely as Abraham’s God has brought us out of Egyptian bondage and given us Canaan, so surely will He fulfil the promise, and restore to us land, city, and Temple!”
“May it be with you according to your belief. The Temple shall be built up, even though it be not in three days as the Galilaean thought.”
The winter solstice had come, and the Feast of the Saturnalia commenced in Lutetia. The heathen had always kept the feast in recollection of the legendary Golden Age, which was said to have been under the reign of the good Saturn. Then there was peace upon earth; the lion played with the lamb, the fields brought forth harvests without husbandry, weapons were not forged, for men were good and righteous. This beautiful festival, which had been discontinued by the Romans, had been revived by the Christians, who at Christ’s coming expected a new Golden Age or the Millennium. But now Julian wished to restore to the heathen their privilege, and at the same time to show the Nazarenes whence they had derived their religious usages.
The heathen began to keep the festival in the old way. The shops were closed, and the city decorated, when on the morrow a procession was seen issuing from the Basilica to the market-place. At the head went King Saturn, with his horn of plenty, corn-sheaves, and doves; he was followed by the Virtues, Fortune, Wealth, Peace, Righteousness. Then followed an actor dressed like the Emperor, and by the hand he led a captive, who, in honour of the day, had been freed from his chains. He was followed by citizens who took their slaves by the arm; and these in their turn by women and children, who scattered corn from the sheaves for the sparrows in the street. The procession passed through the streets, and at first pleased the beholders.
Then they entered the temple, where there was a seated image of Jupiter in the apse. It had been cunningly modelled to resemble God the Father, or Moses, as he began to be represented about that time. Near and a little beneath this image stood Orpheus in the character of the Good Shepherd, with a lamb on his shoulders, and carved in relief on the pedestal was to be seen his descent to Hades, from which he returned bringing Diké (Justice),—a play on the name Eurydice. This was a direct hit at the Christians. Before the divine images stood the Jewish shewbread table, with the bread and the wine—a reminder of the source from which the Christians had taken the Eucharist or the Mass. As though by chance, a new-born heathen child was brought and baptized in the font. To the question of one, who had studied his part, whether heathen were baptized, it was answered by one, who also had his role assigned him, that the ancients had always washed their new-born children.
The whole affair was a comedy staged by Julian.
Then Maximus mounted the pulpit, and, in a Neo-platonic discourse, expounded all religious images, symbols, and customs. He also showed that the heathen only worshipped one God, whose many attributes found expression in various personifications. Then he ostensibly defended Christ’s Deity, the Virgin birth, and miracles. “We are,” he said, “all of divine origin, since God has created us, and we are His children. There is nothing remarkable in Christ being born without a father, since the philosopher Plato was also born of a virgin without a father.” In the middle of his discourse he exclaimed: “Miracles! Why should we not believe in miracles, since we believe in Almighty God? His omnipotence signifies that He can suspend the laws of nature which he has established. He who believes not in miracles is therefore an ass.” The discourse was listened to by heathen and Christians. The latter thought that they had never heard anything which so clearly explained mysterious dogmas, and the heathen found that they were one with the Christians. “What, then, stands between us?” exclaimed Maximus, carried away by the sight of the harmony and mutual understanding which prevailed among his audience. “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why, then, strive one against the other? Have we not here to day celebrated the recollection of the better times which have been, and which will surely return, as the light returns with the renewal of the sun—times of reconciliation and peace on earth, when no one will be master and no one slave? Here is neither Jew nor Greek nor Barbarian, but we are all brothers and sisters in one faith. Therefore love one another; reconcile yourselves with God and each other; give each other the kiss of peace; rejoice, perfect yourselves, be of one mind, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.”
The audience was delighted, and with streaming eyes fell in each other’s arms, pressed each other’s hands, and kissed each other’s cheeks.
Then suddenly a row of lights was kindled on the altar; that was part of the ceremonial of the Saturnalia, and signified the return of the sun. This custom was adopted by the Christians in celebrating the Birth of Christ or Christmas.
After this beggars were brought forward, and those of the upper classes washed their feet. Then twelve slaves took their seats at a covered table, while their masters served them. Julian, who, hidden in the Opisthodom, had watched the whole ceremony, secretly rejoiced, because by means of these ancient heathen rites he had entirely defeated the Christians. In them, as he had intended, there was a wordless expression of philanthropy and charity, and both had existed from time immemorial.
Finally, the children were brought forward, and received as presents dolls modelled of wax and clay. The illusion was complete, and the Christians felt as though under an enchanter’s spell. “The heathen are Christians after all!” they exclaimed. “Why, then, strive and quarrel, when we are one?”
There was an overflow of emotion, and the success of the experiment was complete. That was the victory of the first day. When, on the following day, the Christians wished to celebrate their Christmas festival, it necessarily appeared a mere copy of that of the heathen.
The Saturnalia lasted seven days, and Julian, intoxicated with his success, resolved to introduce the whole of the ancient ceremonies in all their terrible splendour. His philosophers warned him, but he did not listen to them any more; he must have his hecatombs; a hundred oxen adorned with garlands were to be slaughtered in the open space before the Temple of Jupiter, as a sacrifice to the ancient gods.
“He is mad!” lamented Eleazar.
“Whom the gods would destroy, they strike with blindness. Now he pulls down, what he had built up.”
It is difficult to explain how the highly cultivated, clever, and aesthetic Julian could conceive the wild idea of reintroducing animal sacrifices. It was really butchery or execution, and neither butchers nor executioners enjoyed much respect in society. It looked as though his hatred of Christ had clouded his understanding, when, arrayed in the garb of a sacrificial priest, he led forth the first ox, with its horns gilded and wearing a white fillet.
After he had kindled incense on the altar, he poured the bowl of wine over the head of the ox, thrust his knife in its throat and turned it round. A shudder ran through the crowd, who remained riveted to their places.
But as the blood spirted around, and the Emperor opened the quivering body of the animal in order to take an augury from its entrails, a cry rose which ended in an uproar, and all fled. The word “Apostate!” for the first time struck his ear. That was the signal of his defeat, and, as the animals were released by those who held them, they fled away through the streets of the town.
The Emperor, in his white robe sprinkled with blood, had to return alone to his palace, while Christians and heathen alike shouted their disapprobation.
“See the butcher!” they cried; “Apostate! Renegade! Madman!”
When Julian came to his palace, he looked as though petrified; but, without changing his clothes, he sat down to the table and wrote an edict against the Christians, in which they were forbidden to study, and to fill offices of State. That was his first step.
In the evening of the same day Julian received a letter: it was from the Emperor Constantius in Byzantium, who did not acknowledge his election to the imperial throne, and threatened to bring an army against him in Gaul. This was quite unexpected, and Julian left Lutetia in order to march against his cousin. As he went towards the East, he felt as though he were going to his death. But the first throw of the dice of destiny was a lucky one for him. Constantius died on the march, and Julian was left sole Emperor. This he took for a sign that the gods were on his side, and he proceeded on his campaign feeling that he was supported by the higher powers. But it was only the last jest of his gods.
It is related that before his last march against the Persians, he wished to ascertain his destiny, and had a woman’s body cut open in order to take an augury from the entrails. But that may be untrue, as is also the case with the conflicting reports of his death, which happened soon after. One thing, however, is certain; the “Galilaean” conquered Zeus, who rose no more.
It is also a fact, confirmed by Christian, Jewish, and heathen writers, that the Temple of Jerusalem was never built again, for as the foundation was about to be laid, fire broke out of the ground accompanied by an earthquake. The same earthquake also destroyed Delphi, “the centre of the earth,” and the focus of the religious and political life of Greece.
ATTILA
With the demise of Constantine the Great, Greece, Rome, and Palestine had ceased to exist. Civilisation had passed Eastward, for Constantinople was the metropolis of Europe; and from the East, Rome, Spain, Gaul, and Germany were governed by satraps with various titles. It seemed as though the vitality of Europe had been quenched, and as though Rome had been buried, but it was only apparently so. History did not proceed in a straight line, but took circuitous paths, and therefore development seemed to be in disorder and astray. But it was not really so.
Christianity, which was about to penetrate the West, had sprung from the East, and so ancient Byzantium formed a transition stage. In Rome, which had been left to itself, for its governors dwelt in Milan and Ravenna, a new spiritual world-power was springing up, which was silently forging a new imperial crown, in order to give it to the worthiest when the time was fulfilled. The advent of this heir had already been announced by Tacitus—a new race from the North, healthy, honest, good-humoured. These were the Germans, who were to hold the Empire for a thousand years from 800 to 1815. Already, at the commencement of the fifth century, the West Goths had captured Rome, but again withdrawn; other German races had overrun Spain, Gaul, and Britain, but none of them had taken firm root in Italy. Then an entirely new race appeared upon the scene, whose origin was unknown, and the promise of possessing the land which had been given to the Germans seemed to have been revoked, for the Huns finally settled in Hungary, and exacted tribute from all the nations in the world. Round a wooden castle and a few barracks on the river Theiss, there collected a crowd of Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Germans of all kinds to do homage before a throne on which sat a savage who resembled a lump of flesh.
In the year 453 A.D. this King, after many adventures, wished to celebrate one of his numerous marriages. He had summoned the chief men of all Europe—summoned—for a King does not invite. So they came riding from North, South, East, and West.
From the west, along the bank of the Danube, just below the place where the river makes a curve at the modern Gran, came two men riding at the head of a caravan. For several days they had followed the picturesque banks of the green river, with its bulrushes and willows, and its swarms of wild duck and herons. Now they were about to leave the cool shades of the forest region, and turn eastward towards the salt desert, which stretched to the banks of the yellow Theiss.
One leader of the caravan was a well-known Roman, called Orestes; the other was Rugier, also called Edeko. He was a chief from the shores of the Baltic Sea, and had been compelled to follow Attila.
The two leaders had hitherto spoken little together, for they mistrusted each other. But as they emerged on the wide plain, which opened out as clear and bright as the surface of the sea, they seemed themselves to grow cheerful, and to lay aside all mistrust.
“Why are you going to the marriage?” asked Orestes.
“Because I cannot remain away,” answered Edeko.
“Just like myself.”
“And the Bride—the Burgundian did not dare to say ‘no’ either?”
“She? Yes, she would have dared to.”
“Then she loved this savage?”
“I did not say that.”
“Perhaps she hates him, then? A new Judith for this Holofernes?”
“Who knows? The Burgundians do not love the Huns since they pillaged Worms in their last raid.”
“Still it is incomprehensible how he recovered from his defeat on the Catalaunian Plain.”
“Everything is incomprehensible that has to do with this man, if he is a man at all.”
“You are right. He is said to have succeeded his father’s brother, Rua, of whom we know nothing; he has murdered his brother Bleda. For twenty years we have had him held over us like an iron rod, and yet lately, when he was before Rome, he turned back.”
“But he has promised his soldiers to give them Rome some day.”
“Why did he spare Rome?”
“No one knows. No one knows anything about this man, and he himself seems to be ignorant about himself. He comes from the East, he says; that is all. People say the Huns are the offspring of witches and demons in the wilderness. If anyone asks Attila what he wants, and who he is, he answers, ‘The Scourge of God.’ He founds no kingdom, builds no city, but rules over all kingdoms and destroys all cities.”
“To return to his bride: she is called Ildico; is she then a Christian?”
“What does Attila care? He has no religion.”
“He must have one if he calls himself ‘the Scourge of God,’ and declares that he has found the War-God’s sword.”
“But he is indifferent as regards forms of religion. His chief minister, Onegesius, is a Greek and a Christian.”
“What an extraordinary man he is to settle down here in a salt-plain instead of taking up his abode in Byzantium or in Rome.”
“That is because it resembles his far Eastern plains—the same soil, the same plants and birds; he feels at home here.”
They became silent, as the sun rose and the heat increased. The low-growing tamarisk, wormwood, and soda-bushes afforded no shade. Wild fowl and larks were the only creatures that inhabited the waste. The herds of cattle, goats, and swine had disappeared, for Attila’s army of half a million had eaten them up, and his horses had not left a single edible blade of grass.
At noon the caravan came suddenly to a halt, for on the eastern horizon there was visible a town with towers and pinnacles, on the other side of a blue lake. “Are we there?” asked Edeko. “Impossible; it is still twenty miles, or three days’ journey.”
But the city was in sight, and the caravan quickened its pace. After half an hour the town appeared no nearer, but seemed, on the contrary, to grow more distant, to dwindle in size, and to sink out of sight. After another half hour, it had disappeared, and the blue lake also.
“They can practise enchantment,” said the Roman, “but that goes beyond everything.”
“It is the Fata Morgana, or the mirage,” explained the guide.
As the evening came on, the caravan halted in order to rest for the night.
On the stretch of land between Bodrog and Theiss, Attila had his standing camp, for it could not be called a town. The palace was of wood, painted in glaring colours, and resembled an enormous tent, whose style was probably borrowed from China, the land of silk. The women’s house, which was set up near it, had a somewhat different form, which might have been brought by the Goths from the North, or even from Byzantium, for the house was ornamented with round wooden arches. The fittings seemed to have been stolen from all nations and lands; there were quantities of gold and silver, silk and satin curtains, Roman furniture and Grecian vessels, weapons from Gaul, and Gothic textile fabrics. It resembled a robber’s abode, and such in fact it was.
Behind the palace enclosure began the camp, with its smoke-grimed tents. A vast number of horse-dealers and horse-thieves swarmed in the streets, and there were as many horses as men there. Without the camp there grazed herds of swine, sheep, goats, and cattle—living provision for this enormous horde of men, who could only devour and destroy, but could not produce anything.
Now, on the morning of Attila’s wedding day, there were moving about in this camp thousands of little men with crooked legs and broad shoulders, clothed in rat-skins and with rags tied round their calves. They looked out of their tents with curiosity, when strangers who had been invited to the marriage feast came riding up from the plain.
In the first street of tents, Attila’s son and successor, Ellak, met the principal guests; he bade them welcome through an interpreter, and led them into the guest-house.
“Is that a prince, and are those men?” said Orestes to Edeko.
“That is a horse-dealer, and the rest are rats,” answered Edeko. “They are monsters and demons, vampires, created from dreams of intoxication. They have no faces; their eyes are holes; their voice is a rattle; their nose is that of a death’s-head; and their ears are pot-handles.”
“You speak truly, and it is from these half-naked savages, who have no armour and no shield, that the Roman legions have fled. They are goblins, who have been able to ‘materialise’ themselves.”
“They will not conquer the world.”
“At any rate not in this year.”
Then they followed Prince Ellak, who had heard and understood every word, although he pretended not to know their language.
In the women’s house sat Attila’s favourite, Cercas, and sewed the bridal veil. Ildico, the beautiful Burgundian, stood at the window lost in thought and absent-minded. She had seen in Worms the hero before whom the world trembled, and she had really been captivated by the little man’s majestic bearing. Herself fond of power, and self-willed, she had been enticed by the prospect of sharing power with the man before whom all and everything bowed; therefore she had given him her hand.
But she had had no correct comprehension of the manners and customs of the Huns, and had therefore imagined that her position as wife and Queen would be quite otherwise than it proved to be. Only this morning she had learnt that she could not appear at all at the marriage feast, nor share the throne, but would simply remain shut up with the other women in the women’s house.
Cercas, the favourite, had explained all this with malicious joy to her rival, and the haughty Ildico was on the point of forming a resolution. She had no friends in the palace, and could not approach the foreign princes.
Cercas was sewing, and accompanied her work with a melancholy song from her home in the far East. Ildico seemed to have collected her thoughts: “Can you lend me a needle?” she said, “I want to sew.”
Cercas gave her a needle, but it was too small; she asked for a larger one, and chose the largest of all. She hid it in her bosom, and did not sew.
At that moment there appeared in the doorway a creature so abominably ugly and of such a malicious aspect, that Ildico thought he was a demon. He was as jet-black as a negro from tropical Africa, and his head seemed to rest on his stomach, for he had no chest. He was a dwarf and humpback; his name was Hamilcar, and he was Attila’s court-fool.
In those days the court-fool was generally not a wit, but a naive blockhead, who believed all that was said, and was therefore a butt for jests. He only placed a letter in Cercas’ hand, and disappeared. When Cercas had read the letter, she changed colour and seemed to become a different being. Overcome with rage, she could not speak, but sang,
“Ildico, you have found a friend,” she said at last. “You have a friend here in the room, here at the window, here on your breast.” And she threw herself on the Burgundian maiden’s breast, weeping and laughing alternately. “Give me your needle—your fine beautiful needle; I will thread it. No! I will sharpen it on steel; no, I will dip it in my perfume-flask, my own special little perfume flask, and then together we will sew up the Tiger’s mouth, so that he can bite no more!”
“Let me read your letter,” Ildico interrupted.
“You cannot. I will tell you what it says. He, our master, woos again for the hand of the daughter of the Emperor Valens—Honoria, and this time he has vowed to burn us all;—that he calls giving us an honourable burial.”
Ildico reached out her hand as an answer, “Very well, to-night. A single needle-prick will deprive the world of its ruler!”
Edeko and Orestes had thoroughly rested from their journey in the guest-house. At noon, when they wished to go out, they found the door bolted.
“Are we prisoners? Have we fallen into a trap?” asked the Roman.
“We have not had any food either,” answered Edeko.
Then two voices were heard without: “We will strangle them; that is the simplest way.”
“I think we had better set the house on fire; the tall one is strong.”
“And they thought we did not understand their language.”
The two prisoners, whose consciences were uneasy, were alarmed, and believed that their end was near. Then a small trap-door opened in the wall, and the fool Hamilcar showed his hideous head.
“Whether you are the devil or not,” exclaimed the Roman, “answer us some questions.”
“Speak, sirs,” said the negro.
“Are we prisoners, or why cannot we see your King?”
Prince Ellak’s head appeared at the trap-door.
“You will first see the King this evening at the feast,” said the Prince, with a malicious grimace.
“Are we to fast till then?”
“We call it so, and do it always when we have a feast before us, in order to be able to eat more.”
“Cannot we at any rate go out?”
“No,” answered the Prince with the horse-dealerlike face. “One must conform to the custom of the country.” So saying, he closed the trap-door.
“Do you think we shall get away alive?” asked Edeko.
“Who knows? Attila is composed of treachery. You do not know that once he wrote two letters, one to Dieterich, King of the West Goths, asking for an alliance against the Romans as the common enemy; and on the same day he wrote a similar letter to the Romans, in which he proposed an alliance against the West Goths. The deceit was discovered, and Attila fell between two stools.”
“He seems to be immortal, otherwise he would have been killed in battle, as he always goes at the head of his army.”
Until evening the travelling companions remained incarcerated. At last the door was opened, and a master of the ceremonies led them into the hall where the great feast was to take place. Here there were countless seats and tables covered with the most costly cloths and drinking vessels of gold and silver. The guests were assembled, but the two travellers saw no faces that they knew; they looked in vain for the bridegroom and the bride. As they were conducted to their places, a low murmur broke out among the guests, who talked in an undertone, and asked where the great King would show himself.
Orestes and Edeko cast their eyes over the walls and ceiling without being able to see where the wonder would happen, for the childish and cunning Huns used to amuse their guests with surprises and practical jokes.
Suddenly the whole assembly stood up. The curtain which covered the wall in the background was drawn aside, and on a platform sat a little insignificant-looking man, with a table before him and a sofa beside him. On the table stood a wooden goblet. He sat quite motionless, without even moving his eyelids. Somewhat lower than he stood his chief Minister, the Greek Onegesius. He kept his eyes unwaveringly fixed on his master, who seemed to be able to converse with him through his eyes.
Attila remained in the same attitude, his legs crossed, and his right hand on the table. He gave no greeting, neither did he answer any.
“He does not see us! He only shows himself!” whispered Orestes. “He sees well!”
Onegesius received a command from the despot’s eye, and lifted his staff. A poet stepped forward with an instrument that resembled a harp and a drum combined. After he had struck the strings, and beaten the drum, he began to recite. It was a song celebrating all Attila’s feats in terms of strong exaggeration, and it would have been endless, if the assembly had not taken up the refrain and struck with their short swords on the table. The poet represented Attila’s defeat on the Catalaunian Plain as an honourable but indecisive battle. After the guests had for some time contemplated the insignificant-looking hero in his simple brown leather dress, they both felt the same irresistible reverence that all did who saw him.
There was something more than vanity in this self-conscious calm; this visible contempt for all and everything. He kept his side-face turned to the guests, and only his Minister could catch his eye.
When the panegyric was at an end, Attila raised his goblet, and, without drinking to anyone, sipped it. That was, however, the signal for a drinking orgy, and the wine was poured into gold and silver goblets, which had to be emptied at a draught, for Attila liked to see those around him intoxicated, while he remained sober.
After they had drunk for a while, the negro Hamilcar came forward and performed feats of jugglery. Then the great King rose, turned his back to the assembly, and laid down on the sofa. But in each of his movements there was majesty, and as he lay there thinking, his knees drawn up, his hands under his neck, and his eyes directed towards the ceiling, he was still imposing.
“But what about the bride and the marriage?” Orestes asked one of the Huns.
“We do not even mention our wives,” he answered, “how, then, should we show them?”
The drinking continued, but no food was placed before the guests. At intervals the whole assembly sang, and beat upon the tables.
While the noise and excitement were at their height, the hall suddenly filled with smoke, and the building was in flames. All started up, shouted and sought to flee, but Attila’s Minister struck with his staff on the table, and the assembly broke into laughter. It was a jest for the occasion, and only some waggon-loads of hay had been kindled outside. When quiet had been restored, Attila was no more to be seen, for he had left the hall by a secret door. And now began the feast, which lasted till morning.
When the sun rose, Orestes was still sitting and drinking with an Avar chief. The condition of the hall was indescribable, and most of the guests were dancing outside round the fire.
“This is a wedding-feast indeed!” said Orestes. “We shall not quickly forget it. But I would gladly have spoken with the wonderful man. Can one not do that?”
“No,” answered the Avar; “he only speaks in case of need. ‘What is the use of standing,’ he asks, ‘and deceiving one another?’ He is a wise man, and not without traces of kindness and humanity. He allows no unnecessary bloodshed, does not avenge himself on a defeated foe, and is ready to forgive.”
“Has he any religion? Does he fear death?”
“He believes on his sword and his mission, and death is for him only the door to his real home. Therefore he lives here below, as though he were a guest or traveller.”
“Quite like the Christians, then?”
“It is remarkable that in Rome he received respect from Pope Leo—What’s the matter now?”
Outside there was a shouting which at first seemed to issue from the palace, but soon spread itself over the camp. Half a million of men were howling, and it sounded like weeping.
The guests hurried out, and saw all the Huns dancing, cutting their faces with knives, and shouting unintelligible words. Edeko came up and pulled Orestes away through the crowds. “Attila is dead! May Jesus Christ be praised!”
“Dead? That is Ildico’s doing!”
“No! she sat by the corpse, veiled and weeping.”
“Yes, it is she.”
“Yes, but these savages are too proud to believe that Attila could be killed by a human being!”
“How fortunate for us!”
“Quick to Rome with the news. The fortune of the man who first brings it is made.”
Orestes and Edeko departed the same morning. They never forgot this wedding which had brought them together.
Later on they renewed their acquaintance, under other and still more striking circumstances. For the son of Edeko was Odovacer, who defeated the son of Orestes, who was no other than the last Emperor Romulus Augustus. Strangely enough his name was Romulus, as was that of Rome’s first King, and Augustus, as was that of the first Emperor. After his deposition, he closed his life with a pension of six thousand gold pieces, in a Campanian villa, which had formerly belonged to Lucullus.
THE SERVANT OF SERVANTS
Rome had become a provincial town and a dependency of Byzantium. It was governed by an Exarch in Ravenna, but often abandoned to its fate when the barbarians from the north amused themselves from time to time by raiding and pillaging it. For three hundred years no Emperor had visited Rome, and the former queen of the world lay despised in rubbish and ruin. But presently people began to collect and piece together the ruins of temples and palaces, and build churches out of them. Five hundred years after the death of Nero, an already ancient church of St. Peter stood in the middle of the tyrant’s circus, where the martyrs had suffered death. There were at least seven other churches in different parts of the town, and the Bishop of Rome dwelt in the Lateran Palace, near the church of the same name. There were also convents, and on the Appian Way stood the St. Andrew’s Convent, close to the Church of the Cross, which was built at the entrance to the catacombs.
About two o’clock one summer morning, all the fathers and brothers had risen, and read or sung early mass in the chancel. Afterwards the Abbot had gone into the garden in order to reflect. It was still dark, but the stars shone between the olive and orange trees, and the flowers swayed in the gentle breeze of the dawn.
The Abbot, a man of about fifty, strolled up and down in a covered arbour-walk, and every time he reached the south end he remained standing, in order to contemplate a marble tablet, erected by the side of other tablets. It stood over his future grave, which was by the side of the abbots who had already been buried. His name and the year of his birth were engraved upon the marble, while a space was left for the date of his death.
“O Lord, how long wilt Thou forget me?” he sighed, as he turned round again. After he had thus continued walking till daybreak, he sat down in an arbour, in order to write something in a book which he took out of his pocket. The noise of awaking life in the city did not disturb him—nothing disturbed the white-haired man of fifty who had already been two hours on his legs without eating anything. Church bells rang, carts rattled, and the rushing of the Tiber could be heard through all other noises. But the old man continued to write, while his wrinkled face was faintly lit up by the red of dawn. At last steps were heard on the gravel-path; a novice entered the arbour, and placed a bowl of bread and milk by the Abbot. The latter started, as though he had been recalled from far away, and exclaimed, “Leave me in peace!” The novice remained standing, frightened and troubled. Then a little bird, which had been sitting in the arbour, struck up its song. The Abbot looked up, his countenance cleared, he cast a glance on the bowl of milk which he eagerly seized, and was in the act of raising it to his mouth, but, as he noticed the youth’s troubled aspect, he stopped. “Forgive my anger,” he said, “but I was far away. As a penance, I do this!”
He was about to pour the milk on the ground, but in order that it might not be wasted, he poured it on the roots of a reddish-yellow lily that stood in one of the border-beds. As the novice gave no sign of going, the Abbot asked, “You wish to speak with me? Speak!”
“Holy Father.”
“I am not holy; One is holy, the Lord your God in heaven! If you have a complaint, make it.”
“I was a rich youth, who went and sold all that he had.”
“I also did that when I was young, and then built seven convents, but have not regretted it. What have you against it? Why do you complain?”
The youth was silent.
“Is it about the food? There is a famine round us, and we must share with the poor.”
“Not only that, venerable father, but the whole way of living here does not accomplish what it is intended to do.”
“Say on.”
“The scanty food does not subdue the flesh, for as I go about hungry the whole day, I involuntarily think only about eating—in church, during prayer, in solitude. The small amount of sleep makes me sleepy the whole day, and I go to sleep in the chancel. Desires, which I had not known before, are aroused by suppression; when I see wine, I feel a real longing to get vital warmth into my body.”
“Then go and ask a brother to scourge you till you swim in your blood, then you will feel the vital warmth return.”
“I have done that, but the blows only waken new desires.”
“Read St. Augustine.”
“I have done that. But the worst of all is the dirt. If I could bathe.
“Are you dirty? That betokens inward defilement. I never bathe, but my body is always clean. But I have noticed, as soon as my thoughts become impure, the body becomes impure! What do you think, then, will do you good? You do not wish to marry. Tertullian says marriage and fornication are the same. And St. Jerome is of opinion that it is better to burn than to marry.”
“But St. Paul.”
“Let St. Paul alone! But what do you want to do?”
“I cannot remain here, for I think that desires can only be extinguished by being satisfied.”
“Servant of Satan! Do you not know that desires never can be satisfied? You were once with your parents. You ate as much as you liked in the morning. Well! Were you not hungry again by noon? Certainly. So you cannot really satisfy yourself by eating! Now I will tell you one thing. You are a child of the world; you don’t belong here; therefore go in peace! Eat of the swine’s husks which do not satisfy; but when you are sick of them, you will be welcome here again. The father’s house always stands open for the prodigal son.”
The youth did not go, but burst into tears.
“No,” he said, “I cannot return to the world, for I hate it and it hates me, but here I perish.”
The Abbot rose and embraced him. “Poor child! Such is the world, such is life; but if it is so, and if you see that it is so, the only thing left is to live it; and count it a point of honour to live till death comes and liberates us.”
“No! I want to die now,” sobbed the youth.
“We may not do that, my son”; the words escaped from the old man. “If you knew ... if you knew....”
But he restrained himself: “What shall we do, then? Go to Father Martin and have some food, and a glass of wine, but only one; then go and have a good long sleep. Sleep for a day or two. Then come, that I may see you. Go now—but wait a minute—you must have a dispensation from me.”
He sat down and wrote something on a page which he had torn out of the book. Armed with this permission, the youth departed, looking, however, somewhat hesitatingly and abashed.
The Abbot remained sitting, but did not begin to write again. Instead of that, he commenced crumbling the bread and strewing the crumbs on the table. Immediately a little bird came and picked one up; then there followed several, who settled on the old man’s hand, arms, and shoulders. A spray of vine hung from the roof of the arbour and swayed gently in the wind. Its ring-like tendrils felt about in the air for a support. The Abbot was amused, and placed his finger jestingly into one of the rings: “Come, little thing! here is your support!”
The tendril seemed to hear him, immediately curled round his finger, and formed a ring.
“Shall I get the ring?” jested the old man. “Perhaps I shall be a bishop. God deliver me!”
The Dean appeared in the door of the arbour. “Do I disturb you, brother?”
“No, not at all! I am only sitting here and playing.”
“Birds and flowers! White lilies too? I have never seen such before.”
“White? Just now they were reddish-yellow! Where do you see them?”
“There!”
The Abbot looked down on the ground where he had poured his milk, and behold! there were only white lilies, without a single yellow one. He did not venture to speak about it, for one cannot speak of such things; but he smiled to himself, and saw a token of grace in it.
“Well, Dean, how goes it in the city?”
“The Tiber is sinking.”
“God be praised; but the whole of Trastevere has been ruined by the flood. I really wish that a great flood would come and drown us all—the whole human race—and very likely it will come some day.”
“Still as hopeless as ever!”
“No, not without hope, but for that world, not for this. Christ says it Himself in the Apocalypse: here is nothing on which one can build; for the best that we have enjoyed was but trouble and misery.”
“Not so, brother.”
“You can flourish in mud, but that I have never done. And it seems as though one were compelled to wade in it with both feet. Did I not begin in my youth to preserve my soul by withdrawing from the world? Then I was compelled to go out into it, thrust into the confusion by force. They made me Prefect of the city. I wished to live in the service of the Lord, and had to distribute eatables for the poor, procure beds for the hospitals, look after drains and water-pipes. The burden of the day’s task hindered my thoughts from rising, and I sank in the swamp of material things—sank so deep that I believed I should never rise again.”
“But the people blessed you.”
“Hush! And I—I who had never worn a sword—had to collect soldiers and march to the field. When I was six years old Rome was pillaged by Totila the Goth, and so ravaged that only five hundred Romans remained. When I was seven years old, there came Belisarius—when I was twelve, Narses. Then I was sent as ambassador to Constantinople—I who hated travelling and publicity. All that I hate, I have been obliged to accept. Now I am tired, and would like to go to rest. I sit here and wait, for my grave to open.”
“Do you remember what Virgil says in the Georgics regarding the labour of the husbandman?”
“No, I hate the heathen.”
“Wait! He says these words of wisdom: ‘If Zeus sends bad weather, mice and vermin, it is to stimulate the husbandman’s energy, and call forth his inventive capacity.’ Misfortune comes to help the world forward.”
“The world goes backward towards its overthrow and its damnation. For five hundred years we have awaited the Redemption, but we have only seen one wild race come after another, to murder and pillage. Do you see any reason in all this sowing without reaping?”
“Blasphemer! Yes, I see how green harvests are ploughed up to fertilise the soil.”
“Dragon’s-seed and hell’s harvest. No—now I go into my grave, and close the door behind me; I have a right to rest after a life so full of trouble and work.”
“The bell is ringing for prime.”
“Jam moesta quiesce querela.”
The Tiber had overflowed Rome, and destroyed quite a quarter of it, but spared the convent of St. Andrew. The Abbot sat again one morning in his garden and wrote, but in such a position that he could see his grave when he looked up from his work. Deep in his writing, he did not hear what was happening around him. But he saw that the flowers in the beds began to shake like reeds, frogs jumped about at his feet, and there was a smell of dampness that was at the same time mouldy and poisonous.
He continued to write, but his eye, although intent on the passage of his pen over the paper, noticed something dark that moved on the ground, spread itself like a black carpet, and came nearer. Suddenly his feet were wet, and a deathlike chill crept up his legs. Then he awoke and understood. The Tiber had risen, and he was driven out of his last refuge. “I will not go,” he cried, as the alarm-bell sounded, and the monks fled.
He went to his cell in the upper story, firmly resolved not to flee. He would not go out into the world again, but would die here. The flood which he had prayed for, had come. But he had a spiritual conflict and agony of prayer in his cell: “Lord, why dost thou punish the innocent? Why dost thou chastise Thy friends and let Thy foes flourish? For five hundred years Thou hast avenged Thyself on Thy children for the misdeeds of their fathers! If that is not enough, then destroy us all at once!”
The water rose and lapped against the walls; the garden was destroyed, and the Abbot’s grave filled with water, but he remained where he was. At one time he sang hymns of praise, then he raged; then he prayed for pardon, and raged again.
After that he set himself to write at the great work which should make him immortal,—his “Magna Moralia.” It was now noon, but he felt no hunger, for by practice he had learned to fast for three days together. During the afternoon, a noise at the window made him look up from his book. There lay a boat, and in it sat the novice Augustinus. The extraordinary, almost comic, aspect of things, elicited a smile from him, and, remembering his conversation with the youth, he asked through the open window, “Well, did you get the wine and good food, you glutton?”
“No, venerable Father; I did not want it when I could have it, and then the temptation was over. But now I have to speak of something else. The plague has broken out, and people are dying like flies.”
“The plague too! Oh Lord, how long wilt Thou altogether forget us! The plague too!”
Then he rose. “Everyone to his post! Let us do our duty! Bless the Lord, and die!” The Abbot stepped out of his window into the boat, and left his sinking ship.
The Tiber sank to its level again, but left behind snakes, fishes, and frogs, which died and infected the air. The people had fled to the hills; on the Palatine Hill they had made a hospital out of a church. Here the Abbot of the St. Andrew’s Convent walked about, gave drink to the sick, and spoke comfort to the dying. “Why do you fear death, children?” he said. “Fear life, for that is the real death.” He seemed to be quite in his element here, showed a calm, cheerful temper, and sought to decipher on the faces of the dead, “whether they were happy on the other side.”
Death would have nothing to do with him. Often he went to the other hills, and walked about among the sick and dying, so that the people began to think that he was an immortal who had come down to comfort them. The older ones remembered him as Prefect, when he defended the city against the Goths, Vandals, and Longobards, and his fame continually grew.
The pestilence raged, and the number of the dead increased, so that the corpses could no longer be buried. All occupations ceased, and the peasants brought no more food into the city. There was a famine. The Abbot of the St. Andrew’s Convent, Gregory, lost courage, and wanted to abandon all, “I cannot fight against God, and if it be His will that Rome perish, it is godless to wish to prevent it.” In the midst of this tribulation, Pelagius II, the Bishop or Pope of Rome, as he was afterwards called, died. The people with one voice clamoured for the Abbot Gregory to succeed him. But, like King Saul and the Emperor Julian, he hid himself. He fled from the town to a hermit’s grotto in the Sabine Mountains. But the people came, brought him out, and led him back to Rome, where he was consecrated as Gregory I. For thirteen years Gregory ruled over the former queen city of the world. He was Governor, for the Exarch of Ravenna existed no more, having been driven away by the Longobards. He asked help from the Emperor in Byzantium, but obtained none. He was thrown upon his own resources, and succeeded by the power of his eloquence in disarming King Agilulf, who threatened Rome.
But he was also Bishop, and as such had to govern all the churches of the West. He succeeded in bringing them to abandon Arianism and to accept a single creed, which became the universal or “catholic” confession of faith.
To the heathen of England he sent the former novice Augustine, who had quickly overcome his initiatory difficulties. The little “glutton” ended as Archbishop of Canterbury.
The former retiring and life-weary Abbot had with great effect developed the necessary strength for his duties. The high post to which he had been summoned called out his capacities. He had time for great and small things alike. He reformed the liturgy, wrote letters, composed books, arranged church music. His manner of life, however, was as simple as before. From his cell in the Lateran Palace, he ruled over souls from the Highlands of Scotland to the Pillars of Hercules. His empire was as great as the Caesars’, though his legions were only pen and ink. It was the beginning of the Kingdom of Christ, but it was a spiritual empire, and Gregory was the ruler.