Читать книгу Valerius. A Roman Story - J. G. Lockhart - Страница 6

Table of Contents

My sleep was sound and sweet; nevertheless, when the morning began to dawn, I was awakened by its first glimmerings, and found that my thoughts became at once too busy to admit of a return to slumber. I therefore arose, and went to walk in an open gallery, with which my chamber was connected. This gallery commanded a prospect of a great part of the city, which at that hour appeared no less tranquil than stately, nothing being in motion except a few small boats gliding here and there upon the river. Neither as yet had any smoke begun to darken the atmosphere; so that all things were seen in a serene and steady light, the shadows falling broadly westward over streets and squares—but pillars, and obelisks, and arches, rising up every where with unsullied magnificence into the bright air of the morning. The numerous poplars and other lofty trees of the gardens, also, seemed to be rejoicing in the hour of dew and silence; so fresh and cheerful was the intermixture of their branches among the piles of white and yellow marble. Near at hand, over the groves of the Philoclean Mansion, I could see the dome of the Pantheon, all burnished with living gold, and the proud colonnades of the Flaminian Circus, [pg 21]loaded with armies of brazen statues. Between these and the river, the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus, and I know not how many temples, were visible. Across a more crowded region, to the westward, my eye ascended to the cliffs and towers of the Capitol; while, still farther removed from me, (although less elevated in natural situation,) the gorgeous mansion of the Emperor was seen, lifted up, like some new and separate city, upon its enormous fabric of arcades. Behind me, the Flavian Amphitheatre, the newest and the most majestic of all Roman edifices, detained the eye for a space from all that lay beyond it—the splendid mass of the Esquiline—and those innumerable aqueducts which lie stretched out, arch after arch, and pillar after pillar, across the surrounding plain.

As I stood upon a projecting balcony, I heard some person stepping softly along the floor, and, being screened by some pillars, looked back into the gallery without subjecting myself to observation in return. The noise, I found, was occasioned by one of the slaves of Licinius, (the same I had remarked over night,) who had an air of anxious vigilance on this occasion, looking about from side to side as if afraid of being detected in some impropriety. I heard him tap at one of the apartments adjoining my own, and young Sextus, opening the door, eagerly asked, “Well, Dromo, good Dromo, what news?—Have you seen or heard any thing of her?—Speak low, I beseech you, and remember that my preceptor is near.” “Which preceptor?” replied Dromo; “count me your best, and I will teach you how to manage all besides.”—“Hush!” whispered the young man; “he may be astir with these eternal parchments.”[pg 22]—“Be easy,” returned the slave; “I have found out facts which will serve to bridle that tongue at any time.”—“Dromo,” said Sextus, “have a care; remember the thong of sleek leather which hangs at the foot of the stair-case; and many is the time I have saved you from it; for which you may, perhaps, have to thank the beauty of her who has rendered you necessary to me, as much as my own good nature. But no more idle words at present—what have you to tell me?”

“I have just been down,” answered he, “to the herb-market. I had made my bargain, and was coming away, when I met one of old Capito’s men, driving an ass laden with articles from the country. So I asked if he was carrying a present to his master’s brother. He said he had brought nothing for Lucius but a letter; and that he believed its purport was to invite the two young ladies, to come out to-day and enjoy the beauty of the season. I no sooner got this information, than I ran hither as swiftly as my legs would carry me. You can easily go out, as if by chance, to pay your respects to the Patrician.”

“Ah, Sempronia!” sighed Sextus, “shall I approach you at last?—What will she think when she sees me there?—Oh, how will she speak to me?”

While he was uttering these words, Dromo suddenly started, and came peeping on tiptoe towards the place where I stood. I stepped from behind my pillar, and said to the astonished youth, “Fear not, Sextus, that I shall intermeddle with your secrets, or make any use of what I have accidentally overheard. But I wish you would satisfy my curiosity, and inform me who is this [pg 23]lady, and what may be the meaning of all this concealment?”

Here Dromo, perceiving that his young master was a good deal confused, came forward and said, “From observing your looks last night, when I was making a handle of yon barbarian to torture our friend of the porch, I think you are a good-natured person, who would not willingly bring any of us into trouble. The truth is, that Licinius wishes my young master here to marry a certain lady, who has already had wet eyes over the ashes of a first husband; but who is of noble birth, and very rich. Now Sextus, being only eighteen, does not like this great lady so well as she likes him; and has, in fact, lost his heart elsewhere.”—“Dromo,” answered I, taking young Sextus by the hand as I spoke, “this is a pretty common sort of story; but I shall take no side till I have seen both of the ladies; and the sooner your ingenuity can bring that about, the more shall I be beholden to you.”—“We shall try,” replied the slave, observing that I had overcome the reluctance of the lover; “but in the meantime I observe that the clients are beginning to assemble in the porch, to await the forthcoming of Licinius. Go, therefore, and get some breakfast, for, by and by, you will both be expected to accompany the Senator to the Forum, to hear him plead; which, between ourselves, will be a six hours’ job for you, unless you manage matters dexterously.”

This hint produced a visible effect on Sextus; but we went down together immediately to an apartment, where some bread and grapes were prepared for us; and there, with much ingenuousness, he opened his [pg 24]heart to me. But what surprised me most of all, was to hear, that although he had been enamoured of Sempronia for several months, and was well acquainted with several of her relations, he had never yet seen her, except at certain places of public resort, nor enjoyed any opportunity of making known his passion.

While I was expressing my astonishment at this circumstance, we were interrupted by Xerophrastes, who came to inform us that Licinius, having already descended into the hall, was about to issue forth, and desirous of my company, if no other occupation detained me. We accordingly followed the philosopher, and found his patron where he had indicated, pacing to and fro, in the highest state of excitation, like a generous steed about to scour the field of battle. The waxen effigies of his ancestors stood at one end of the hall, some of them defaced with age; and upon these he frequently fixed his ardent eyes. Seeing me enter, he immediately cried out, “Come hither, young friend, and I shall presently conduct you to a scene worthy, above all others, of the curiosity of a stranger.”

With this, arranging his gown, and putting himself into a dignified attitude, he ordered the porter, who stood chained by the door, to throw wide its massy valves; which being done, the litigants and consulters, who were without, received the orator with acclamations, and surrounded him on all sides. Some of the poorer ones, I observed kissing the hem of his garment, and dodging wistfully at his elbows, without ever attracting a word or look from him; while those of a higher class came forward more familiarly, seeking to impress particular circumstances upon his memory, and [pg 25]paying him compliments on the appearance he had made the day before in the Centumviral Court. Encircled by this motley group, he walked towards the great Forum, followed at a little distance by Sextus, the preceptor, myself, and some freedmen of his household. In moving on, we passed, by accident, the door of another great pleader, by name Bruttianus, who stood there attended in a similar manner. When he perceived Licinius, this man took from his door-post a green palm-branch, and waved it towards us in a vaunting manner; but our friend, saluting him courteously, cried out, with his sharp and cutting voice, “We shall try it again.” Whereon Xerophrastes, immediately stepping up to his patron, began thus, “How this vain-glorious person exposes himself!—he is certainly a weak man; and his tones, by Hermes, are more detestable than those of an African fowl.”—At which words, Sextus tipped me the wink; but I did not observe that Licinius was at all displeased with them. Yet, soon after, Bruttianus having overtaken us, the processions were joined, and the two pleaders walked the rest of the way together in a loving manner, exchanging complimentary speeches; to which Xerophrastes listened with edifying gravity of visage.

At length we entered that venerable space, every yard of whose surface is consecrated to the peculiar memory of some great incident in the history of Rome. Young Sextus allowed me to contemplate for some time, with silent wonder, the memorable objects which conspired to the decoration of this remarkable place; but after the first gaze of astonishment was satisfied, proceeded to point out, in order, the names and uses of [pg 26]the principal structures which rose on every side over its porticos—above all, of its sublime temples—into whose cool and shady recesses the eye could here and there penetrate through the open valves. Nor did the ancient rostrum from which Tully had declaimed, escape our observation—nor within its guarding rail of silver, the rising shoots of the old mysterious fig-tree of Romulus—nor the rich tesselated pavement which covered the spot that had once yawned an abyss before the steady eye of Curtius—nor the resplendent Milliary pillar which marked the centre of the place. In a word, had the gathering crowds permitted, I could have willingly spent many hours in listening to the explanation of such magnificent objects; but these, and the elevated voice of Licinius, who was just beginning his harangue, soon compelled me to attend to things of another description.

Within one of the proud ranges of arcade, on the side nearest to the Capitoline stairs, a majestic Patrician had already taken his seat on an elevated tribunal—his assessors being arranged on a lower bench by his side, and the orators and clients congregated beneath. When I heard the clear and harmonious periods of my kinsman; when I observed with what apparent simplicity he laid his foundations in a few plain facts and propositions; with what admirable art he upreared from these a superstructure of conclusions, equally easy as unexpected; when he had conducted us to the end of his argument, and closed with a burst of passionate eloquence, in which he seemed to leave even himself behind him, I could not but feel as if I had now for the first time contemplated the practised strength of [pg 27]intellect. Yet I have lived to discover that the talent which so greatly excited my wonder is often possessed from nature, or acquired through practice, in a measure which at that time would have afforded me scarcely inferior delight, by men of no extraordinary rank.

The keen and lively gestures of the fervid Licinius, whose soul seemed to speak out of every finger he moved, and who appeared to be altogether immersed in the cause he pleaded, were succeeded by the solemn and somewhat pompous stateliness of Bruttianus, who made a brief pause between every two sentences, as if he were apprehensive that the mind of the judge could not keep pace with the stream of his illustrations, and looked round ever and anon upon the spectators with a placid and assured smile, rather, as it seemed to me, to signify his approbation of their taste in applauding him, than his own pleasure in their applauses. Nevertheless, he also was a splendid speaker, and his affectation displeased the more, because it was evidently unworthy of his understanding. While he was speaking, I observed that the Stoic preceptor was frequently shifting his place among the crowd, and muttering every where expressions of high contempt. But this did not disgust me so much as the fixed attitude of ecstasy in which he listened to the discourse of his own patron, and the pretended involuntary exclamations of his delight. “Oh, admirable cadence!” he would say, “I feel as if I were draining a honey-comb. Oh, harmonious man, where have I, or any other person here, sucked in such sweetness!” These absurd phrases, however, were caught up forthwith, and repeated by the numerous young men who hung upon the skirts of [pg 28]the orator, and seemed, indeed, to be drinking in nectar from the speech, if one might judge from their countenances. From their taking notes in their tablets from time to time, and from the knowing looks they assumed at the commencement of every new chain of argument, I guessed that these might be embryo jurisconsults, preparing themselves by their attendance for future exertions of the same species; and, indeed, when I listened to their conversation at the close of every speech, I thought I could perceive in their tones and accents, studied mimicry of the natural peculiarities of Licinius, Bruttianus, and the other orators. Altogether, the scene was as full of amusement as of novelty, and I could willingly have remained to the end of the discussion. But my eyes chanced to fall upon young Sextus, and I could not but see that his mind was occupied in matters remote from the business of the Forum. He stood with his arms folded in his gown, and his eyes fixed upon the ground, only lifting them up from time to time with an impatient air towards a side entrance, or to observe by the shadows on the porticos what progress the sun was making.

Perceiving, at length, that Xerophrastes had his back turned to us, and that his father was engaged with his tablets, he plucked me by the sleeve. I understood his meaning, and followed him quickly through the crowd; nor did we look back till we had left the noise of the Forensic assembly entirely behind us. “I am depriving you,” he said, “of no great gratification, for that old creature is, indeed, possessed of much natural shrewdness, but he is bitter from observing that his reputation is rather eclipsed by younger people, and looks like [pg 29]some worn-out and discarded cat, grinning from the top of the wall at the dalliance of some sleeker rival. You could find no delight in the angry sneerings of such an envious person; and his age would prevent you, at the same time, from willingly giving way to contemptuous emotions. I will be your guide to the villa. But if any questions be asked on our return, you can say I was anxious to shew you something of the other regions of the city.”

He hurried me through noble streets, and past innumerable edifices, before each of which I would gladly have paused. Nevertheless, seeing him wrapped up in anxious thoughts, I did not oppose myself to his inclinations; and ere long, having passed the Hill of Gardens, I found that we had gained the eastern limit of the city.