Quintus Claudius, Volume 1. Eckstein Ernst

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СКАЧАТЬ does your bride live in the capital?” asked Aurelius after a pause.

      “At Tibur,” replied Quintus. “Her uncle, Cornelius Cinna, avoids the neighborhood of the court on principle. The fact that Domitia resides here is quite enough to make him hate Baiae – although, as you know, Domitia has long ceased to belong to Caesar’s court.”

      Aurelius was silent. Often had his worldly-wise father warned him never to speak of affairs of state or even of the throne, excepting in the narrowest circle of his most trusted friends; under the reign of terror of Domitian, the most trivial remark might prove fateful to the speaker. The numerous spies, known as delators, who had found their way everywhere, scenting their prey, had undermined all mutual confidence and trust to such an extent that friends feared each other; the patron trembled before his client, and the master before his slave. Although the manner and address of his host invited confidence, caution was always on the safe side, all the more so as the young Roman was evidently an ally of the court party. So the Northman checked the utterance of that fierce patriotism, which the hated name of Domitian had so painfully stirred in his soul. “Unhappy Rome!” thought he: "What can and must become of you, if men like this Quintus have no feeling for your disgrace and needs?”

      The next turn in the path brought them within sight of the little temple; marble steps, half covered with creepers, led through a Corinthian portico into the airy hall within. The panorama from this spot was indeed magnificent; far below lay the blue waters of the bay, with the stupendous bridge of Nero;77 farther away lay Baiae with its thousand palaces and the forest of masts by Puteoli; beyond these, Parthenope, beautiful Surrentum,78 and the shining islands bathed by the boundless sea; the vaporous cloud from Vesuvius hung like a cone of snow in the still blue atmosphere. To the north the horizon was bounded by the bay of Caieta79 the Lucrine lake and the wooded slopes of Cumae. The foreground was no less enchanting; all round the pavilion lay a verdurous and luxuriant wilderness, and hardly a hundred paces from the spot rose the colossal palace of the Empress, shaded by venerable trees. The mysterious silence of noon brooded over the whole landscape; only a faint hum of life came up from the seaport. All else was still, not a living creature seemed to breathe within ear-shot…

      Suddenly a sound came through the air, like a suppressed groan; Aurelius looked round – out there, there where the branches parted in an arch to form a vista down into the valley – there was a white object, something like a human form. The young foreigner involuntarily pointed that way.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ