“Look there, Quintus!” he whispered to his companion.
“That is part of the Empress’s grounds,” replied the Roman.
“But do you see nothing there by the trunk of that plane-tree? About six – eight paces on the other side of the laurel-hedge? Hark! there is that groan again.”
“Pah! Some slave or another who has been flogged. Stephanus, Domitia’s steward, is one of those who know how to make themselves obeyed.”
“But it was such a deep, heartrending sigh!”
“No doubt,” laughed Quintus; “Stephanus is no trifler. Where his lash falls the skin comes off; then he is apt to tie up the men he has flogged in the wood here, where the gnats…”
“Hideous!” cried Aurelius interrupting him. “Let us run down and set the poor wretch free!”
“I will take good care to do nothing of the kind. We have no right in the world to do such a thing.”
“Well, at any rate, I will find out what he has done wrong. His torturer’s brutality makes me hot with indignation!”
So speaking he walked straight down the hill through the brushwood. Quintus followed, not over-pleased at the incident; and he was very near giving vent to his annoyance when a swaying branch hit him sharply on the forehead. But the native courtesy, the urbanity80 or town breeding, which distinguished every Roman, prevailed, and in a few minutes they had reached the laurel-hedge. Quintus was surprised to find himself in front of a tolerably wide gap, which could not have been made by accident; but there the young men paused, for Quintus hesitated to trespass on the Empress’s grounds.
The sight which met his eyes was a common one enough to the blunted nerves of the Roman, but Aurelius was deeply moved. A pale, bearded man,81 young, but with a singularly resolute expression, stood fettered to a wooden post, his back dreadfully lacerated by a stick or lash, while swarms of insects buzzed round his bleeding body.
“Hapless wretch!” cried Aurelius. “What have you done, that you should atone for it so cruelly?”
The slave groaned, glanced up to heaven and said in a choked voice:
“I did my duty.”
“And are men punished in your country for doing their duty?” asked the Batavian frowning, and, unable any longer to control himself, he went straight up to the victim and prepared to release him. The slave’s face lighted up with pleasure.
“I thank you, stranger,” he said with emotion, “but if you were to release me, it would be doing me an ill-turn. Fresh torture would be all that would come of it. Let me be; I have borne the like before now; I have only another hour to hold out. If you feel kindly towards me, go away, leave me! Woe is me if any one sees you here!”
Quintus now came up to him; this really heroic resignation excited his astonishment, nay, his admiration.
“Man,” said he, waving away the swarm of gnats with his hand, “are you a disciple of the Stoa,82 or yourself a demi-god? Who in the world has taught you thus to contemn pain?”
“My lord,” replied the slave, “many better than I have endured greater suffering.” “Greater suffering – yes, but to greater ends. A Regulus, a Scaevola have suffered for their country; but you – a wretched slave, a grain of sand among millions – you, whose sufferings are of no more account than the death of a trapped jackal – where do you find this indomitable courage? What god has endowed you with such superhuman strength?”
A beatific smile stole over the man’s drawn features.
“The one true God,” he replied with fervent emphasis, “who has pity on the feeble; the all-merciful God, who loves the poor and abject.”
A step was heard approaching.
“Leave me here alone!” the slave implored them. “It is the overseer.”
Quintus and Aurelius withdrew silently, but from the top of the copse they could see a hump-backed figure that came muttering and grumbling up to where the slave was bound, released him presently from the stake and led him away into the gardens. For a minute or two longer the young men lingered under the pavilion and then, lost in thought, returned to the house. Their conversation could not be revived.
CHAPTER III
The second serious meal of the day, the coena83 or supper had begun; the party had betaken themselves to the cavaedium,84 where it was now beginning to grow dusk. This airy colonnade – the handsomest portion perhaps, of an old Roman house – was here very pleasingly decorated with flowers and plants of ornamental foliage. The arcades, which surrounded the open space in the middle, were green with ivy, while an emerald grass-plot, with cypresses and laurels, magnolias in full bloom, pomegranates and roses, filled up half the quadrangle. Twelve statues of bronze gilt served to hold lamps, and a fountain tossed its sparkling jet as high as the tallest trees.
For some time the party sat chatting in the dusk; then two slaves came in with torches and lighted the lamps of the twelve statues; two others lighted up the arcades so that the painted walls and their purplish backgrounds were visible far across the court-yard. A flute-player from Cumae now played to them in a tender mode; she stood in the entrance, dressed in the Greek fashion, with her abundant hair gathered into a knot and her slender fingers gliding up and down the stops of the instrument. Her features were sweet and pleasing, her manner soft and harmonious; only from time to time a strange expression of weariness and absence of mind passed over her face. When she had done playing, she was conducted by Baucis to the back gate. She took the piece of silver which she received in payment with an air of indifference, and then bent her way down the hill towards Cumae, which already lay in darkness.
“Allow me to ask,” said Herodianus to Quintus, “what is the name of this tunefully-gifted damsel?”
“She is called Euterpe, after the muse who presides over her art.”
“Her name is Arachne,” added Lucilia, “but Euterpe sounds more poetical.”
“Euterpe!” breathed the worthy Herodianus. “Heavenly consonance! Is she a Greek?”
“She is from Etruria, and was formerly the slave of Marcus Cocceius Nerva, who freed her. She married in Cumae not long since.”
“As strictly historical as the annals of Tacitus,” laughed Claudia.
“I heard it all from Baucis.”
“Wretched old magpie!” exclaimed Quintus, intentionally raising his voice. “If she could not gossip, she would lose the breath of life.”
“By all the gods, my lord!” exclaimed Baucis, laying her hands on her heart, “you are calumniating me greatly – do you grudge me a little harmless chat? All-merciful Isis! am I to close my lips with wax? No, by Typhon85 the cruel! Besides, I must instruct the daughters of the house; it is for that that I eat the bitter crust of dependence in my old age. Oh! Baucis knows her duties; have I not taught Claudia to sing and play the cithara? Have I not taught Lucilia more than a dozen Egyptian formulas and charms? and now I add to this a little sprinkling of knowledge of the world and of men – and you call it gossip! You young men of the present day are polite, I must say!”
"Then you sing to the cithara?"86 said Aurelius, turning to Claudia. “Oh, let me, I beg of you, hear one of your songs!”
“With pleasure,” said the girl coloring slightly. “With