Читать книгу A Struggle for Rome (Vol. 1-3) - Felix Dahn - Страница 14

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The day of the King's death was not only decisive for Cethegus, but also for the conspiracy in the Catacombs, for Italy, and for the Gothic kingdom.

Although the intrigues of the patriots--led by different men, who were not agreed upon the means, nor even upon the aims of their plots--had, till now, made slow and doubtful progress, this state of things was completely altered from the moment when Cethegus took the conduct of affairs into his own strong hands. Only then did the conspiracy become really dangerous to the Goths.

Cethegus untiringly sought to undermine the security of their kingdom. With his great capacity for winning and governing men, and penetrating their motives, he was able daily to increase the number of important members and the means of success. He understood how to avoid the suspicion of the Goths on the one hand, and to prevent any untimely rebellion on the other. For it would have been easy to attack the barbarians in all the towns of the Peninsula on some special day, and to call upon the Byzantines--who had long since been on the watch for such a crisis--to complete the conquest. But in this way the Prefect would not have been able to carry out his secret plans. He would merely have put Byzantine tyranny in the place of Gothic rule. And we know that he had very different intentions. In order to fulfil them, he wished first to create for himself a power in Italy, greater than any other man possessed. Before the foot of a Byzantine was set upon Italian soil, he must become--although in secret--the mightiest man in the country. All must be so prepared that the barbarians should be driven away by Italy itself, that is, by Cethegus, with the least possible help from Byzantium; so that, after the victory, the Emperor could not avoid giving the dominion over the country to its saviour, even if only as a governor. Then he would soon gain time and opportunity to excite the national pride of the Romans against the rule of the "Greek-lings," as they contemptuously called the Byzantines. For, although for two hundred years--since the days of the great Constantine--the glory of the Empire of the world had been removed from widowed Rome to the golden town on the Hellespont, and the sceptre of the sons of Romulus seemed to have passed over to the Greeks; though East and West formed one state of antique culture opposed to the barbarian world; yet even now the Romans hated and despised the Greeks as much as in the days when Flaminius declared humbled Hellas to be a freedman of Rome. The old hate was now increased by envy.

Therefore Cethegus was sure of the enthusiasm and support of all Italy, which, after the removal of the barbarians, would also banish the Byzantines from the country; and the crown of Rome, the crown of the Western Empire, would be his certain reward.

And if he succeeded in exciting the newly-awakened national feeling to an offensive war on the other side of the Alps, when he had again erected the throne of the Roman Empire on the ruins of the Frankish Kingdom at Orleans and Paris, then the attempt would not be too rash once again to subdue the Eastern Empire and continue the Empire of the World in the Eternal City from the point at which Trajan and Hadrian had left it.

In order to reach this distant and shining goal, every step on the dizzy path must be taken with the greatest prudence; any stumble might precipitate him into an abyss. In order to gain his end, Cethegus must first of all make sure of Rome; on Rome alone could his plans be based.

Therefore the new Prefect bestowed the greatest care upon the city that had been entrusted to him. He wished to make Rome, morally and physically, his surety of dominion, belonging alone to him, and not to be wrested from him.

His office gave him the best pretext for carrying out his plans. Was it not the duty of the Præfectus Urbi to care for the well-being of the populace, and for the preservation and security of the city? He understood perfectly well how to use the rights of his office for the furtherance of his own aims. He easily won the sympathies of all ranks; the nobles honoured in him the head of the conspiracy; he governed the clergy through Silverius, who was the right hand of the pope, and, by public opinion, appointed his successor, and who showed to the Prefect a devotion that was even surprising to its object. He gained the common people, not only by occasional gifts of bread, and games in the Circus, but also by promoting great undertakings, which, at the cost of the Gothic Government, provided work and sustenance for thousands.

He persuaded Amalaswintha to give orders that the fortifications of Rome, which had suffered much more since the reign of Honorius from the inroads of time and the selfishness of Roman architects, than from the Visigoths and Vandals, should be quickly and completely restored "to the honour of the Eternal City, and," as she imagined, "for protection against the Byzantines."

Cethegus himself, and, as was afterwards proved by the unsuccessful sieges of the Goths and Byzantines, with great strategic genius, made the plan of the magnificent works. With the greatest zeal he set about the gigantic task of transforming the immense city, with its circumference of many miles, into a stronghold of the first rank. The thousands of workmen, who well knew to whom they owed their well-paid employment, applauded the Prefect whenever he showed himself upon the ramparts, to examine what progress had been made, or excite to new industry, and, sometimes, to put his own hand to the work. And the deceived Princess assigned one million solidi after another for the expenses of fortifications, against which the whole power of her people was shortly to be wrecked and annihilated.

The most important point of these fortifications was the Tomb of Hadrian, known now under the name of Castle St. Angelo. This magnificent edifice, built of blocks of Parian marble, which were laid one upon the other without any uniting cement, lay, at that time, about a stone's-throw from the Aurelian Grate, the flanking walls of which it by far overtopped.

Cethegus had seen at a glance that this incomparably strong building, which until now had been designed for offence against the city, might, by very simple means, be converted into a powerful bulwark of defence for the city; he caused two walls to be built from the Aurelian Grate towards and around the Mausoleum.

And soon the towering marble castle formed an assault-proof rampart for the Aurelian Grate, so much the more because the Tiber formed a natural fosse close before it. On the top of the wall of the Mausoleum stood about three hundred of the most beautiful statues of bronze, marble, and iron, mostly placed there by Hadrian and his successors. Amongst them were that of the Divus Hadrianus; his beautiful favourite Antinous; a Jupiter of Soter; a Pallas "town-protectress;" and many others. Cethegus rejoiced at the fulfilment of his ideas, and became exceedingly fond of this place, where he used to wander every evening with his beloved Rome spread out at his feet, examining the progress of the works. He had even caused a number of beautiful statues from his own villas to be added to those already existing, in order to increase the splendour of his creation.