Aurelian or Rome in the Third Century Part 15

But I am detaining you from the company of Demetrius, of which you were always fond. I soon reached his rich establishment, and being a.s.sured that he of Palmyra was within, I entered. First pa.s.sing through many apartments, filled with those who were engaged in some one of the branches of this beautiful art, I came to that which was sacred to the labors of the two brothers, who are employed in the invention of the designs of their several works, in drawing the plans, in preparing the models, and then in overseeing the younger artists at their tasks, themselves performing all the higher and more difficult parts of the labor. Demetrius was working alone at his statue; the room in which he was, being filled either with antiquities in bra.s.s, ivory, silver, or gold, or with finished specimens of his own and his brother's skill, all disposed with the utmost taste, and with all the advantages to be derived from the architecture of the room, from a soft and mellowed light resembling moonlight which came through alabaster windows, from the rich cloths, silks, and other stuffs, variously disposed around, and from the highly ornamented cabinets in which articles of greatest perfection and value were kept and exhibited. Here stood the enthusiast, applying himself so intently to his task, that he neither heard the door of the apartment as it opened, nor the voice of the slave who announced my name. But, in a moment, as he suddenly retreated to a dark recess to observe from that point the effect of his touches as he proceeded, he saw me, and cried out,

'Most glad to greet you here, Piso; your judgment is, at this very point, what I shall be thankful for. Here, if it please you, move to the very spot in which I now am in, and tell me especially this, whether the finger of the right hand should not be turned a line farther toward the left of the figure. The metal is obstinate, but still it can be bent if necessary. Now judge, and speak your judgment frankly, for my sake.'

I sank back into the recess as desired, and considered attentively the whole form, rough now and from the moulds, and receiving the first finis.h.i.+ng touches from the rasp and the chisel. I studied it long and at my leisure, Demetrius employing himself busily about some other matter.

It is a beautiful and n.o.ble figure, worthy any artist's reputation of any age, and of a place in the magnificent temple for which it is designed. So I a.s.sured Demetrius, giving him at length my opinion upon every part. I ended with telling him I did not believe that any effect would be gained by altering the present direction of the finger. It had come perfect from the moulds.

'Is that your honest judgment, Piso? Christians, they say, ever speak the exact truth. Fifty times have I gone where you now are to determine the point. My brother says it is right. But I cannot tell. I have attempted the work in too much haste; but Aurelian thinks, I believe, that a silver man may be made as easily as a flesh one may be unmade.

Rome is not Palmyra, Piso. What a life there for an artist! Calm as a summer sea. Here! by all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses! if one hears of anything but of blood and death! Heads all on where they should be to-day, to-morrow are off. To-day, captives cut up on the altars of some accursed G.o.d, and to-morrow thrown to some savage beast, no better and no worse, for the entertainment of savages worse than either or all. The very boys in the streets talk of little else than of murderous sports of gladiators or wild animals. I swear to you, a man can scarce collect or keep his thoughts here. What's this about the Christians too? I marvel, Piso, to see you here alive! They say you are to be all cut up root and branch. Take my advice, and fly with me back to Palmyra! Not another half year would I pa.s.s among these barbarians for all the patronage of the Emperor, his minions, and the senate at their heels. What say you?'

'No, Demetrius, I cannot go; but I should not blame you for going. Rome is no place, I agree with you, for the life contemplative, or for the pure and innocent labors of art. It is the spot for intense action; but--'

'Suffering you mean--'

'That too, most a.s.suredly, but of action too. It is the great heart of the world.'

'Black as Erebus and night.'

'Yes, but still a great one, which, if it can be once made to beat true, will send its blood, then a pure and life-giving current, to the remotest extremities of the world, which is its body. I hope for the time to come when this will be true. There is more goodness in Rome, Demetrius, than you have heard, or known of. There is a people here worth saving: I, with the other Christians, am set to this work. We must not abandon it.'

"Twill be small comfort though, should you all perish doing it.'

'Our peris.h.i.+ng might be but the means of new and greater mult.i.tudes springing up to finish what we had begun, but left incomplete. There is great life in death. Blood, spilled upon the ground, is a kind of seed that comes up men. Truth is not extinguished by putting out life. It then seems to s.h.i.+ne the more brightly, as if the more to cheer and comfort those who are suffering and dying for it.'

'That may, or may not be,' said the artist, 'here and there; but, in my judgment, if this man-slayer, this world-butcher once fastens his clutches upon your tribe, he will leave none to write your story. How many were left in Palmyra?--Just, Piso, resume your point of observation, and judge whether this fold of the drapery were better as it is, or joined to the one under it, an alteration easily made.'

I gave him my opinion, and he went on filing and talking.

'And now, Piso, if I must tell you, I have conceived a liking for you Christians, and it is for this reason partly I would have you set about to escape the evil that is at least threatened. Here is my brother, whose equal the world does not hold, is become a Christian. Then, do you know, here is a family, just in the rear of our shop, of one Macer, a Christian and a preacher, that has won upon us strangely. I see much of them. Some of his boys are in a room below, helping on by their labor the support of their mother and those who are younger, for I trow, Macer himself does little for them, whatever he may be doing for the world at large, or its great heart as you call it. But, what is more still,'

cried he with emphasis, and a jump at the same moment, throwing down his tools, 'do you know the Christians have some sense of what is good in our way? they aspire to the elegant, as well as others who are in better esteem.'

And as he finished, he threw open the doors of a small cabinet, and displayed a row of dishes, cups, and pitchers, of elegant form and workmans.h.i.+p.

'These,' he went on, 'are for the church of Felix, the bishop of the Christians. What they do with them I know not; but, as I was told by the bishop, they have a table or altar of marble, on which, at certain times, they are arranged for some religious rite or other. They are not of gold, as they seem, but of silver gilded. My brother furnished the designs, and put them into the hands of Flaccus, who wrought them.

Neither I nor my brother could labor at them, as you may believe, but it shows a good ambition in the Christians to try for the first skill in Rome or the world,--does it not? They are a promising people.'

Saying which, he closed the doors and flew to his work again.

At the same moment the door of the apartment opened, and the brother Demetrius entered accompanied by Probus. When our greetings were over, Probus said, continuing as it seemed a conversation just broken off,

'I did all I could to prevent it, but the voice of numbers was against me, and of authority too, and, both together, they prevailed. You, I believe, stood neuter, or indeed, I may suppose, knew nothing about the difference?'

'As you suppose,' replied the elder Demetrius, 'I knew nothing of it, but designed the work and have completed it. Here it is.' And going to the same cabinet, again opened the doors and displayed the contents.

Probus surveyed them with a melancholy air, saying, as he did so,

'I could bear that the vessels, used for the purpose to which these are destined, should be made of gold, or even of diamond itself, could mines be found to furnish it, and skill to hollow it out. For, we know, the wine which these shall hold is that which, in the way of symbol, shadows forth the blood of Christ which, by being shed on the cross, purchased for us this Christian truth and hope; and what should be set out with every form of human honor, if not this?'

'I think so,' replied Demetrius; 'to that which we honor and reverence in our hearts we must add the outward sign and testimony; especially moreover if we would affect, in the same way that ours are, the minds of others. Paganism understands this; and it is the pomp and magnificence of her ceremony, the richness of the temple service, the grandeur of her architecture, and the imposing array of her priests in their robes, ministering at the altars or pa.s.sing through the streets in gorgeous procession, with banners, victims, garlands, and music, by which the populace are gained and kept. That must be founded on just principles, men say, on which the great, the learned, and the rich, above all the State itself, are so prompt to lavish so much splendor and wealth.'

'But here is a great danger,' Probus replied. 'This, carried too far, may convert religion into show and ostentation. Form and ceremony, and all that is merely outward and material, may take the place of the moral. Religion may come to be a thing apart by itself, a great act, a tremendous and awful rite, a magnificent and imposing ceremony, instead of what it is in itself, simply a principle of right action toward man and toward G.o.d. This is at present just the character and position of the Roman religion. It is a thing that is to be seen at the temples, but nowhere else; it is a wors.h.i.+p through sacrifices and prayers, and that is all. The wors.h.i.+pper at the temple may be a tyrant at home, a profligate in the city, a bad man everywhere, and yet none the less a true wors.h.i.+pper. May G.o.d save the religion of Christ from such corruption! Yet is the beginning to be discerned. A decline has already begun. Rank and power are already sought with an insane ambition, even by ministers of Christ. They are seeking to transfer to Christianity the same outward splendor, and the same gilded trappings, which, in the rites and ceremonies of the popular faith, they see so to subdue the imagination, and lead men captive. Hence, Piso and Demetrius, the golden chair of Felix, and his robes of audience, on which there is more gold, as I believe, than would gild all these cups and pitchers; hence, too, the finery of the table, the picture behind it, and, in some churches, the statues of Christ, of Paul, and Peter. These golden vessels for the supper of Christ's love, I can forgive--I can welcome them--but in the rest that has come, and is coming, I see signs of danger.'

'But, most excellent Probus,' said the younger Demetrius, 'I like not to hear the arts a.s.sailed and represented dangerous. I have just been telling Piso, that you are a people to be respected, for you were beginning to honor the arts. Yet here now you are denouncing them. But, let me ask, what harm could it do any good man among you, to come and look at this figure of Apollo, or a statue of your Paul or Peter, as you name them--supposing they were just men and benefactors of their race?'

'There ought to be none,' Probus replied. 'It ought to be a source of innocent pleasure, if not of wholesome instruction, to gaze upon the imitated form of a good man--of a reformer, a benefactor, a prophet. But man is so p.r.o.ne to religion,--it is an honorable instinct--that you can scarce place before him an object of reverence but he will straightway wors.h.i.+p it. What were your G.o.ds but once men, first revered, then wors.h.i.+pped, and now their stone images deemed to be the very G.o.ds themselves? Thus the original idea--the effect, we may believe, of an early revelation--of one supreme Deity has been almost lost out of the world. Let the figure of Christ be everywhere set before the people in stone or metal, and, what with the natural tendency of the mind to idolatry, and the force of example in the common religion, I fear it would not be long before he, whom we now revere as a prophet, would soon be wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d; and the disciples whom you have named, in like manner, would no longer be remembered with grat.i.tude and affection as those who devoted their lives to the service of their fellow-men, but be adored as inferior Deities, like your Castor and Pollux. I can conceive that, in the lapse of ages, men shall be so redeemed from the gross conceptions that now inthrall them concerning both G.o.d and his wors.h.i.+p, and so nourished up to a divine strength by the power of truth, they shall be in no danger from such sources; but shall reap all the pleasure and advantage which can be derived from beautiful forms of art and the representation of great and excellent characters, without ever dreaming that any other than the infinite and invisible Spirit of the universe is to be wors.h.i.+pped, or held divine. The religion of Christ will itself, if aught can do it, bring about such a period.'

'That then will be the time for artists to live, next after now,' said Demetrius of Palmyra. 'In the meantime, Probus, if h.e.l.lenism should decline and die, and your strict faith take its place, art will decline and perish. We live chiefly by the G.o.ds and their wors.h.i.+p.'

'If our religion,' replied Probus, 'should suffer injury from its own professors, in the way it has, for a century or two more, it will give occupation enough to artists. Its corruptions will do the same for you that the reign of absolute and perfect truth would.'

'The G.o.ds then grant that the corruptions you speak of may come in season, before I die. I am tired of Jupiters, Mercurys, and Apollos. I have a great fancy to make a statue of Christ. Brother! what think you, should I reach it? Most excellent Probus, should I make you such an one for your private apartments I do not believe you would wors.h.i.+p it, and doubtless it would afford you pleasure. If you will leave a commission for such a work, it shall be set about so soon as this G.o.d of the Emperor's is safe on his pedestal. What think you?'

'I should judge you took me, Demetrius, for the priest of a temple, or a n.o.ble of the land. The price of such a piece of sculpture would swallow up more than all I am worth. Besides, though I might not wors.h.i.+p myself--though I say not but I might--I should give an ill example to others, who, if they furnished themselves or their churches with similar forms, might not have power over themselves, but relapse into the idolatry from which they are but just escaped.'

'All religions, as to their doctrine and precept, are alike to me,'

replied Demetrius, 'only, as a general principle, I should ever prefer that which has the most G.o.ds. Rome shows excellent judgment in adopting all the G.o.ds of the earth, so that if the wors.h.i.+p of one G.o.d will not bring prosperity to the nation, there are others in plenty to try their fortune with again. Never doubt, brother, that it is because you Christians have no G.o.ds, that the populace and others are so hostile to you. Only set up a few images of Christ, and some of the other founders of the religion, and your peace will be made. Otherwise I fear this man-killer will, like some vulture, pounce upon you and tear you piecemeal. What, brother, have you learned of Aurelia?'

'Nothing with certainty. I could find only a confirmation from every mouth, but based on no certain knowledge, of the rumor that reached us early in the morning. But what is so universally reported, generally turns out true. I should, however, if I believed the fact of her imprisonment, doubt the cause. I said that I could conceive of no other cause, and feared that if the fact were so, the religion of Aurelian was the reason of her being so dealt with. It was like Aurelian, if he had resolved upon oppressing the Christians to any extent whatever, that he should begin with those who were nearest to him; first with his own blood, and then with those of his household.'

With this, and such like conversation, I pa.s.sed a pleasant hour at the rooms of Demetrius.

My wish was, as I turned from the apartments of Demetrius, to seek the Emperor or Livia, and learn from them the exact truth concerning the reports current through the city. But, giving way to that weakness which defers to the latest possible moment the confirmation of painful news, and the resolution of doubts which one would rather should remain as doubts than be determined the wrong way, in melancholy mood, I turned and retraced my steps. My melancholy was changed to serious apprehension by all that I observed and heard on my way to the Coelian. As the crowd in this great avenue, the Suburra, pressed by me, it was easy to gather that the Christians had become the universal topic of conversation and dispute. The name of the unhappy Aurelia frequently caught my ear. Threatening and ferocious language dropt from many, who seemed glad that at length an Emperor had arisen who would prove faithful to the inst.i.tutions of the country. I joined a little group of gazers before the window of the rooms of Periander, at which something rare and beautiful is always to be seen, who, I found, were looking intently at a picture, apparently just from the hands of the artist, which represented Rome under the form of a beautiful woman--Livia had served as the model--with a diadem upon her head, and the badges of kingly authority in her hands, and at her side a priest of the Temple of Jupiter, "Greatest and Best", in whose face and form might plainly be traced the cruel features of Fronto. The world was around them. On the lowest earth, with dark shadows settling over them, lay scattered and broken, in dishonor and dust, the emblems of all the religions of the world, their temples fallen and in ruins. Among them, in the front ground of the picture, was the prostrate cross, shattered as if dashed from the church, whose dilapidated walls and wide-spread fragments bore testimony not so much to the wasting power of time as to the rude hand of popular violence; while, rearing themselves up into a higher atmosphere, the temples of the G.o.ds of Rome stood beautiful and perfect, bathed in the glowing light of a morning sun. The allegory was plain and obvious enough. There was little attractive, save the wonderful art with which it was done. This riveted the eye; and that being gained, the bitter and triumphant bigotry of the ideas set forth had time to make its way into the heart of the beholder, and help to change its warm blood to gall. Who but must be won by the form and countenance of the beautiful Livia? and, confounding Rome with her, be inspired with a new devotion to his country, and its religion, and its lovely queen? The work was inflaming and insidious, as it was beautiful. This was seen in what it drew from those among whom I stood.

'By Jupiter!' said one, 'that is well done. They are all down, who can deny it! Those are ruins not to be built up again. Who, I wonder, is the artist? He must be a Roman to the last drop of his blood, and the last hair of his beard.'

'His name is Sporus,' replied his companion, 'as I hear, a kinsman of Fronto, the priest of Apollo.'

'Ah, that's the reason the priest figures here,' cried the first, 'and the Empress too; for they say n.o.body is more at the Gardens than Fronto.

Well, he's just the man for his place. If any man can bring up the temples again, it's he. Religion is no sham at the Temple of the Sun.

The priests are all what they pretend to be. Let others do so, and we shall have as much reason to thank the Emperor for what he has done for the G.o.ds--and so for us all--as for what he has done for the army, the empire, and the city.'

'You say well,' rejoined the other. 'He is for once a man, who, if he will, may make Rome what she was before the empire, a people that honored the G.o.ds. And this picture seems as if it spoke out his very plans, and I should not wonder if it were so.'

'Never doubt it. See, here lies a Temple of Isis flat enough; next to it one of the accursed tribe of Jews. And what ruder pile is that?'

'That must be a Temple of the British wors.h.i.+p, as I think. But the best of all, is this Christian church: see how the wretches fly, while the work goes on! In my notion, this paints what we may soon see.'

'I believe it! The G.o.ds grant it so! Old men, in my judgment, will live to see it all acted out. Do you hear what is said? That Aurelian has put to death his own niece, the princess Aurelia?'

'That's likely enough,' said another, 'no one can doubt it. 'Tis easy news to believe in Rome. But the question is what for?'

'For what else but for her impiety, and her aims to convert Mucapor to her own ways.'

'Well, there is no telling, and it's no great matter; time will show.

Meanwhile, Aurelian forever! He's the man for me!'

'Truly is he,' said one at his side, who had not spoken before, 'for thy life is spent at the amphitheatres, and he is a good caterer for thee, sending in ample supplies of lions and men.'