“But Egypt,” interposed Aristo, “if old Herodotus speaks true, scarcely had a beginning. Up and up, [pg 48]the higher you go, the more dynasties of Egyptian kings do you find. And we hear strange reports of the nations in the far east, beyond the Ganges.”
“But I tell you, man,” rejoined Cornelius, “Rome is a city of kings. That one city, in this one year, has as many kings at once as those of all the kings of all the dynasties of Egypt put together. Sesostris, and the rest of them, what are they to imperators, prefects, proconsuls, vicarii, and rationales? Look back at Lucullus, Cæsar, Pompey, Sylla, Titus, Trajan. What’s old Cheops’ pyramid to the Flavian amphitheatre? What is the many-gated Thebes to Nero’s golden house, while it was? What the grandest palace of Sesostris or Ptolemy but a second-rate villa of any one of ten thousand Roman citizens? Our houses stand on acres of ground, they ascend as high as the Tower of Babylon; they swarm with columns like a forest; they pullulate into statues and pictures. The walls, pavements, and ceilings are dazzling from the lustre of the rarest marble, red and yellow, green and mottled. Fountains of perfumed water shoot aloft from the floor, and fish swim in rocky channels round about the room, waiting to be caught and killed for the banquet. We dine; and we feast on the head of the ostrich, the brains of the peacock, the liver of the bream, the milk of the murena, and the tongue of the flamingo. A flight of doves, nightingales, beccaficoes are concentrated into one dish. On great occasions we eat a phœnix. Our saucepans are of silver, our dishes of gold, our vases of onyx, and our cups of [pg 49]precious stones. Hangings and carpets of Tyrian purple are around us and beneath us, and we lie on ivory couches. The choicest wines of Greece and Italy crown our goblets, and exotic flowers crown our heads. In come troops of dancers from Lydia, or pantomimes from Alexandria, to entertain both eye and mind; or our noble dames and maidens take a place at our tables; they wash in asses’ milk, they dress by mirrors as large as fish-ponds, and they glitter from head to foot with combs, brooches, necklaces, collars, ear-rings, armlets, bracelets, finger-rings, girdles, stomachers, and anklets, all of diamond and emerald. Our slaves may be counted by thousands, and they come from all parts of the world. Everything rare and precious is brought to Rome: the gum of Arabia, the nard of Assyria, the papyrus of Egypt, the citron-wood of Mauretania, the bronze of Ægina, the pearls of Britain, the cloth of gold of Phrygia, the fine webs of Cos, the embroidery of Babylon, the silks of Persia, the lion-skins of Getulia, the wool of Miletus, the plaids of Gaul. Thus we live, an imperial people, who do nothing but enjoy themselves and keep festival the whole year; and at length we die—and then we burn: we burn—in stacks of cinnamon and cassia, and in shrouds of asbestos, making emphatically a good end of it. Such are we Romans, a great people. Why, we are honoured wherever we go. There’s my master, there’s myself; as we came here from Italy, I protest we were nearly worshipped as demi-gods.”
[pg 50]
“And perhaps some fine morning,” said Aristo, “Rome herself will burn in cinnamon and cassia, and in all her burnished Corinthian brass and scarlet bravery, the old mother following her children to the funeral pyre. One has heard something of Babylon, and its drained moat, and the soldiers of the Persian.”
A pause occurred in the conversation as one of Jucundus’s slaves entered with fresh wine, larger goblets, and a vase of snow from the Atlas.
[pg 51]
CHAPTER VI.
GOTHS AND CHRISTIANS.
Cornelius was full of his subject, and did not attend to the Greek. “The wild-beasts hunts,” he continued, “ah, those hunts during the games, Aristo! they were a spectacle for the gods. Twenty-two elephants, ten panthers, ten hyænas (by-the-bye, a new beast, not strange, however, to you here, I suppose), ten camelopards, a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros—I can’t go through the list. Fancy the circus planted throughout for the occasion, and turned into a park, and then another set of wild animals, Getes and Sarmatians, Celts and Goths, sent in against them, to hunt down, capture and kill them, or to be killed themselves.”
“Ah, the Goths!” answered Aristo; “those fellows give you trouble, though, now and then. Perhaps they will give you more. There is a report in the prætorium to-day that they have crossed the Danube.”
“Yes, they will give us trouble,” said Cornelius, drily; “they have given us trouble, and they will give us more. The Samnites gave us trouble, and [pg 52]our friends of Carthage here, and Jugurtha, and Mithridates; trouble, yes, that is the long and the short of it; they will give us trouble. Is trouble a new thing to Rome?” he asked, stretching out his arm, as if he were making a speech after dinner, and giving a toast.
“The Goths give trouble, and take a bribe,” retorted Aristo; “this is what trouble means in their case: it’s a troublesome fellow who hammers at our door till we pay his reckoning. It is troublesome to raise the means to buy them off. And the example of these troublesome savages is catching; it was lately rumoured that the Carpians had been asking the same terms for keeping quiet.”
“It would ill become the majesty of Rome to soil her fingers with the blood of such vermin,” said Cornelius; “she ignores them.”
“And therefore she most majestically bleeds us instead,” answered Aristo, “that she may have treasure to give them. We are not so troublesome as they; the more’s the pity. No offence to you, however, or to the emperor, or to great Rome, Cornelius. We are over our cups; it’s only a game of politics, you know, like chess or the cottabus. Maro bids you ‘parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos;’ but you have changed your manners. You coax the Goths and bully the poor African.”
“Africa can show fight, too,” interposed Jucundus, who had been calmly listening and enjoying his own wine; “witness Thysdrus. That was giving every [pg 53]rapacious Quæstor a lesson that he may go too far, and find a dagger when he demands a purse.”
He was alluding to the revolt of Africa, which led to the downfall of the tyrant Maximin and the exaltation of the Gordians, when the native landlords armed their peasantry, killed the imperial officer, and raised the standard of rebellion in the neighbouring town from impatience of exactions under which they suffered.
“No offence, I say, Cornelius, no offence to eternal Rome,” said Aristo, “but you have explained to us why you weigh so heavy on us. I’ve always heard it was a fortune at Rome for a man to have found out a new tax. Vespasian did his best; but now you tax our smoke, and our very shadow; and Pescennius threatened to tax the air we breathe. We’ll play at riddles, and you shall solve the following:—Say who is she that eats her own limbs, and grows eternal upon them? Ah, the Goths will take the measure of her eternity!”
“The Goths!” said Jucundus, who was warming into conversational life, “the Goths! no fear of the Goths; but,” and he nodded significantly, “look at home; we have more to fear indoors than abroad.”
“He means the prætorians,” said Cornelius to Aristo, condescendingly; “I grant you that there have been several untoward affairs; we have had our problem, but it’s a thing of the past, it never can come again. I venture to say that the power of the prætorians is at an end. That murder of the two emperors [pg 54]the other day was the worst job they ever did; it has turned the public opinion of the whole world against them. I have no fear of the prætorians.”
“I don’t mean prætorians more than Goths,” said Jucundus; “no, give me the old weapons, the old maxims of Rome, and I defy the scythe of Saturn. Do the soldiers march under the old ensign? do they swear by the old gods? do they interchange the good old signals and watchwords? do they worship the fortune of Rome; then I say we are safe. But do we take to new ways? do we trifle with religion? do we make light of Jupiter, Mars, Romulus, the augurs, and the ancilia? then I say, not all our shows and games, our elephants,