Part 5 (1/2)

”Take this wretched boy,” cried Valeria, spurning Agias with her foot; ”take him away. Make an example of him. Take him out beyond the Porta Esquilina and whip him to death. Let me never see him again.”

Pisander sprang up in his corner, quivering with righteous wrath.

”What is this?” he cried. ”The lad is not guilty of any real crime. It would be absurd to punish a horse for an action like his, and a slave is as good as a horse. What philosopher could endure to see such an outrage?”

Valeria was too excited to hear him. Pratinas coolly took the perturbed philosopher round the waist, and by sheer force seated him in a chair.

”My friend,” he said calmly, ”you can only lose your place by interfering; the boy is food for the crows already. Philosophy should teach you to regard little affairs like this unmoved.”

Before Pisander could remonstrate further Alfidius had caught up Agias as if he had been an infant, and carried him, while moaning and pleading, out of the room. Iasus was still trembling. He was not a knave--simply unheroic, and he knew that he had committed the basest of actions. Semiramis and Arsinoe were both very pale, but spoke never a word. Arsinoe looked pityingly after the poor boy, for she had grown very fond of his bright words and obliging manners. For some minutes there was, in fact, perfect silence in the boudoir.

Alfidius carried his victim out into the slaves' quarters in the rear of the house; there he bound his hands and called in the aid of an a.s.sistant to help him execute his mistress's stern mandate.

Agias had been born for far better things than to be a slave. His father had been a cultured Alexandrine Greek, a banker, and had given his young son the beginnings of a good education. But the rascality of a business partner had sent the father to the grave bankrupt, the son to the slave-market to satisfy the creditors. And now Alfidius and his myrmidon bound their captive to a furca, a wooden yoke pa.s.sing down the back of the neck and down each arm. The rude thongs cut the flesh cruelly, and the wretches laughed to see how the delicate boy writhed and faltered under the pain and the load.

”Ah, ha! my fine _Furcifer_,”[45] cried Alfidius, when this work was completed. ”How do you find yourself?”

[45] Furca-bearer, a coa.r.s.e epithet.

”Do you mock at me, you '_three letter man_'?” retorted Agias in grim despair, referring cuttingly to FVR[46] branded on Alfidius's forehead.

[46] Thief. Branding was a common punishment for slaves.

”So you sing, my pretty bird,” laughed the executioner. ”I think you will croak sorrowfully enough before long. Call me '_man of letters_'

if you will; to-night the dogs tear that soft skin of yours, while my hide is sound. Now off for the Porta Esquilina! Trot along with you!”

and he swung his lash over the wretched boy's shoulders.

Agias was led out into the street. He was too pained and numbed to groan, resist, or even think and fear. The thongs might well have been said to press his mind as much as his skin.

Chapter III

The Privilege of a Vestal

I

Drusus started long before daybreak on his journey to Rome; with him went Cappadox, his ever faithful body-servant, and Pausanias, the amiable and cultivated freedman who had been at his elbow ever since he had visited Athens. For a while the young master dozed in his carriage; but, as they whirled over mile after mile of the Campagna, the sun arose; then, when sleep left him, the Roman was all alive to the patriotic reminiscences each scene suggested. Yonder to the far south lay Alba, the old home of the Latins, and a little southward too was the Lake of Regillus, where tradition had it the free Romans won their first victory, and founded the greatness of the Republic. Along the line of the Anio, a few miles north, had marched Hannibal on his mad dash against Rome to save the doomed Capua. And these pictures of brave days, and many another vision like them, welled up in Drusus's mind, and the remembrance of the marble temples of the Greek cities faded from his memory; for, as he told himself, Rome was built of n.o.bler stuff than marble;--she was built of the deeds of men strong and brave, and masters of every hostile fate. And he rejoiced that he could be a Roman, and share in his country's deathless fame, perhaps could win for her new honour,--could be consul, triumphator, and lead his applauding legions up to the temple of Capitoline Jove--another national glory added to so many.

So the vision of the great city of tall ugly tenement houses, basking on her ”Seven Hills,” which only on their summits showed the n.o.bler temples or the dwellings of the great patricians, broke upon him. And it was with eyes a-sparkle with enthusiasm, and a light heart, that he reached the Porta Esquilina, left the carriage for a litter borne by four stout Syrians sent out from the house of his late uncle, and was carried soon into the hubbub of the city streets.

Everywhere was the same crowd; shopping parties were pressing in and out the stores, outrunners and foot-boys were continually colliding.

Drusus's escort could barely win a slow progress for their master.

Once on the Sacred Way the advance was more rapid; although even this famous street was barely twenty-two feet wide from house wall to house wall. Here was the ”Lombard” or ”Wall Street” of antiquity. Here were the offices of the great banking houses and syndicates that held the world in fee. Here centred those busy equites, the capitalists, whose transactions ran out even beyond the lands covered by the eagles, so that while Gaul was yet unconquered, Cicero could boast, ”not a sesterce in Gaul changes hands without being entered in a Roman ledger.” And here were brokers whose clients were kings, and who by their ”influence” almost made peace or war, like modern Rothschilds.

Thither Drusus's litter carried him, for he knew that his first act on coming to Rome to take possession of his uncle's property should be to consult without delay his agent and financial and legal adviser, lest any loophole be left for a disappointed fortune-hunter to contest the will. The bearers put him down before the important firm of Flaccus and Sophus. Out from the open, windowless office ran the senior partner, s.e.xtus Fulvius Flaccus, a stout, comfortable, rosy-faced old eques, who had half Rome as his financial clients, the other half in his debt. Many were his congratulations upon Drusus's manly growth, and many more upon the windfall of Vibula.n.u.s's fortune, which, as he declared, was too securely conveyed to the young man to be open to any legal attack.

But when Drusus intimated that he expected soon to invite the good man to his marriage feast, Flaccus shook his head.