Volume I Part 10 (1/2)
”What then? Freedom would have conquered!”
”Folly would have conquered!” broke out Cethegus in a thundering voice, which startled his accusers. ”Well for us that your hands were bound; you would have strangled Hope for ever. Look here, and thank me upon your knees!”
He took some records from another casket, and gave them to his astonished companions.
”There; read! The enemy had been warned, and had thrown the noose round the neck of Rome in a masterly manner. If I had not acted as I did, Earl Witichis would be standing at this moment before the Salarian Gate in the north with ten thousand Goths; to-morrow young Totila would have blockaded the mouth of the Tiber on the south with the fleet from Neapolis; and Duke Thulun would have been approaching the Tomb of Hadrian and the Aurelian Gate from the west, with twenty thousand men.
If, this morning early, you had touched a hair of a Goth's head, what would have happened?”
Silverius breathed again. The others were ashamed and silent. But Licinius took heart.
”We should have defied the Goths behind our walls,” he said, with a toss of his handsome head.
”Yes, when these walls are restored as I will restore them--for eternity, my Licinius: as they are now--not for a day.”
”Then we had died as free citizens,” said Scaevola.
”You might have done that in the Curie three hours ago,” laughed Cethegus, shrugging his shoulders.
Silverius stepped forward with open arms, as if to embrace him--Cethegus drew back.
”You have saved us all, you have saved Church and fatherland! I never doubted you!” exclaimed the priest.
But Licinius grasped the hand of the Prefect, who willingly abandoned it to him.
”I _did_ doubt you,” he said with charming frankness. ”Forgive me, you great Roman! This sword, with which I would have penetrated into your very heart, is henceforward at your service. And when the day of freedom dawns, then no consul, then _salve_, Dictator Cethegus!”
He hurried out with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. The Prefect cast a satisfied glance after him.
”Dictator, yes; but only until the Republic is in full security,” said the jurist, and followed Licinius.
”To be sure,” said Cethegus, with a smile; ”then we will wake up Camillus and Brutus, and take up the Republic from the point at which they left it a thousand years ago. Is it not so, Silverius?”
”Prefect of Rome,” said the priest, ”you know that I was ambitious to conduct the affairs of the fatherland as well as of the Church. After this, I am so no more. You shall lead, I will follow. Swear to me only one thing: the freedom of the Roman Church--free choice of a Pope.”
”Certainly,” said Cethegus; ”but first Silverius must have become Pope.
So be it.”
The priest departed with a smile upon his lips, but with a weight upon his mind.
”Go,” said Cethegus, after a pause, looking in the direction taken by his three visitors. ”You will never overthrow a tyrant--you need one!”
This day and hour were decisive for Cethegus. Almost against his will, he was driven by circ.u.mstances to entertain new views, feelings, and plans, which he had never, until now, put to himself so clearly, or confessed to be more than mere dreams. He acknowledged that at this moment he was sole master of the situation. He had the two great parties of the period--the Gothic Government and its enemies--completely in his power. And the princ.i.p.al motive-power in the heart of this powerful man, which he had for years thought paralysed, was suddenly aroused to the greatest activity. The unlimited desire--yes, the necessity--to _govern_, made itself all at once serviceable to all the powers of his rich nature, and excited them to violent emotion.
Cornelius Cethegus Caesarius was the descendant of an old and immensely rich family, whose ancestor had founded the splendour of his house as a general and statesman under Caesar during the civil wars; it was even rumoured that he was the son of the great Dictator.
Our hero had received from nature various talents and violent pa.s.sions, and his immense riches gave him the means to develop the first and satisfy the last to the fullest extent. He had received the most careful education that was then possible for a young Roman n.o.ble. He practised the fine arts under the best teachers; he studied law, history, and philosophy in the famous schools of Berytus, Alexandria, and Athens with brilliant success. But all this did not satisfy him. He felt the breath of decay in all the art and science of his time. In particular, his study of philosophy had only the effect of destroying the last traces of belief in his soul, without affording him any results. When he returned home from his studies, his father, according to the custom of the time, introduced him to political life, and his brilliant talents raised him quickly from office to office.
But all at once he abandoned his career. As soon as he had made himself master of the affairs of state, he would no longer be a wheel in the great machine of a kingdom from which freedom was excluded, and which, besides, was subject to a barbarian King.
His father died, and Cethegus, being now his own master and possessor of an immense fortune, rushed into the vortex of life, enjoyment, and luxury with all the pa.s.sion of his nature.