Volume I Part 10 (2/2)

He soon exhausted Rome, and travelled to Byzantium, into Egypt, and even as far as India.

There was no luxury, no innocent or criminal pleasure, in which he did not revel; only a well-steeled frame could have borne the adventures, privations, and dissipations of these journeys.

After twelve years of absence, he returned to Rome.

It was said that he would build magnificent edifices. People expected that he would lead a luxurious life in his houses and villas. They were sadly deceived.

Cethegus only built for himself the convenient little house at the foot of the Capitol, which he decorated in the most tasteful manner; and there he lived in populous Rome like a hermit.

He unexpectedly published a description of his travels, characterising the people and countries which he had visited. The book had an unheard-of success. Ca.s.siodorus and Boethius sought his friends.h.i.+p, and the great King invited him to his court.

But on a sudden he disappeared from Rome.

What had happened remained a mystery, in spite of all malicious, curious, or sympathetic inquiries.

People told each other that one morning a poor fisherman had found Cethegus unconscious, almost dead, on the sh.o.r.es of the Tiber, outside the gates of the city.

A few weeks later he again was heard of on the north-east frontier of the kingdom, in the inhospitable regions of the Danube, where a b.l.o.o.d.y war with the Gepidae, Avari, and Sclavonians was raging. There he fought the savage barbarians with death-despising courage, and followed them with a few chosen troops, paid from his private means, into their rocky fortresses, sleeping every night upon the frozen ground. And once, when the Gothic general entrusted to him a larger detachment of troops in order to make an inroad, instead of doing this, he attacked and took Sirmium, the enemy's fortified capital, displaying no less good generals.h.i.+p than courage.

After the conclusion of peace, he travelled into Gaul, Spain, and again to Byzantium; returned thence to Rome, and lived for years in an embittered idleness and retirement, refusing all the military, civil, or scientific offices and honours which Ca.s.siodorus pressed, upon him.

He appeared to take no interest in anything but his studies.

A few years before the period at which our story commences, he had brought with him from Gaul a handsome youth, to whom he showed Rome and Italy, and whom he treated with fatherly love and care. It was said that he would adopt him. As long as his young guest was with him he ceased his lonely life, invited the aristocratic youth of Rome to brilliant feasts in his villas, and, accepting all invitations in return, proved himself the most amiable of guests.

But as soon as he had sent young Julius Monta.n.u.s, with a stately suite of pedagogues, freedmen, and slaves, to the learned schools of Alexandria, he suddenly broke off all social ties, and retired into impenetrable solitude, seemingly at war with G.o.d and the whole world.

Silverius and Rusticiana had, with the greatest difficulty, persuaded him to sacrifice his repose, and join in the conspiracy of the Catacombs. He told them that he only became a patriot from tedium. And, in fact, until the death of the King, he had taken part in the conspiracy--the conduct of which, however, was wholly in his and the archdeacon's hands--almost with dislike.

It was now otherwise.

Until now, the inmost sentiment of his being--the desire to test himself in all possible fields of intellectual effort; to overcome all difficulties; to outdo all rivals; to govern, alone and without resistance, every circle that he entered; and, when he had won the crown of victory, carelessly to cast it aside and seek for new tasks--all this had never permitted him to find full satisfaction in any of his aims.

Art, science, luxury, office, fame. Each of these had charmed him. He had excelled in all to an unusual degree, and yet all had left a void in his soul.

To govern, to be the first, to conquer opposing circ.u.mstances with all his means of superior power and wisdom, and then to rule crouching men with a rod of iron; this, consciously and unconsciously, had always been his aim. In this alone could he find contentment.

Therefore he now breathed proudly and freely. His icy heart glowed at the thought that he ruled over the two great inimical powers of the time, over both Goths and Romans, with a mere glance of his eye; and from this exquisite feeling of mastery, the conviction arose with demonic force, that there remained but one goal for him and his ambition that was worth living for; but one goal, distant as the sun, and out of the reach of every other man. He believed in his descent from Julius Caesar, and felt the blood rush through his veins at the thought--Caesar, Emperor of the West, ruler of the Roman Empire!

A few months ago, when this thought first flashed across his mind--not even a thought, not a wish, only a shadow, a dream--he was startled, and could not help smiling at his own boundless a.s.surance.

_He_, Emperor and regenerator of the Empire! And Italy trembled under the footsteps of three hundred thousand Goths! And the greatest of all barbarian kings, whose fame filled the earth, sat on his powerful throne in Ravenna!

Even if the power of the Goths were broken, the Franks and Byzantines would stretch their greedy hands over the Alps and across the sea to seize the Italian booty. Two great kingdoms against a single man! For, truly, he stood alone amid his people. How well he knew, how utterly he despised his countrymen, the unworthy descendants of great ancestors!

How he laughed at the enthusiasm of a Licinius or a Scaevola, who thought to renew the days of the Republic with these degenerate Romans!

He stood alone.

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