Part 5 (2/2)

”You will never get a sesterce of Cornelia's dowry,” he declared. ”Her uncle Lentulus Crus is head over ears in debt. Nothing can save him, unless--”

”I don't understand you,” said the other.

”Well,” continued Flaccus, ”to be frank; unless there is nothing short of a revolution.”

”Will it come to that?” demanded Drusus.

”Can't say,” replied Flaccus, as if himself perplexed. ”Everybody declares Caesar and Pompeius are dreadfully alienated. Pompeius is joining the Senate. Half the great men of Rome are in debt, as I have cause to know, and unless we have an overturn, with 'clean accounts'

as a result, more than one n.o.ble lord is ruined. I am calling in all my loans, turning everything into cash. Credit is bad--bad. Caesar paid Curio's debts--sixty millions of sesterces.[47] That's why Curio is a Caesarian now. Oh! money is the cause of all these vile political changes! Trouble is coming! Sulla's old throat cuttings will be nothing to it! But don't marry Lentulus's niece!”

[47] I.e. $2,400,000; a sesterce was about 4 cents.

”Well,” said Drusus, when the business was done, and he turned to go, ”I want Cornelia, not her dowry.”

”Strange fellow,” muttered Flaccus, while Drusus started off in his litter. ”I always consider the dowry the princ.i.p.al part of a marriage.”

II

Drusus regained his litter, and ordered his bearers to take him to the house of the Vestals,--back of the Temple of Vesta,--where he wished to see his aunt Fabia and Livia, his little half-sister. The Temple itself--a small, round structure, with columns, a conical roof which was fringed about with dragons and surmounted by a statue--still showed signs of the fire, which, in 210 B.C., would have destroyed it but for thirteen slaves, who won their liberty by checking the blaze.

Tradition had it that here the holy Numa had built the hut which contained the hearth-fire of Rome,--the divine spark which now shed its radiance over the nations. Back of the Temple was the House of the Vestals, a structure with a plain exterior, differing little from the ordinary private dwellings. Here Drusus had his litter set down for a second time, and notified the porter that he would be glad to see his aunt and sister. The young man was ushered into a s.p.a.cious, handsomely furnished and decorated atrium, where were arranged lines of statues of the various _maximae_[48] of the little religious order. A shy young girl with a white dress and fillet, who was reading in the apartment, slipped noiselessly out, as the young man entered; for the novices were kept under strict control, with few liberties, until their elder sisters could trust them in male society. Then there was a rustle of robes and ribbons, and in came a tall, stately lady, also in pure white, and a little girl of about five, who shrank coyly back when Drusus called her his ”Liviola”[49] and tried to catch her in his arms. But the lady embraced him, and kissed him, and asked a thousand things about him, as tenderly as if she had been his mother.

[48] Senior Vestals.

[49] A diminutive of endearment.

Fabia the Vestal was now about thirty-seven years of age. One and thirty years before had the Pontifex Maximus chosen her out--a little girl--to become the priestess of Vesta, the hearth-G.o.ddess, the home-G.o.ddess of Pagan Rome. Fabia had dwelt almost all her life in the house of the Vestals. Her very existence had become identified with the little sisterhood, which she and her five a.s.sociates composed. It was a rather isolated yet singularly pure and peaceful life which she had led. Revolutions might rock the city and Empire; Marians and Sullians contend; Catilina plot ruin and destruction; Clodius and his ruffians terrorize the streets; but the fire of the great hearth-G.o.ddess was never scattered, nor were its gentle ministers molested. Fabia had thus grown to mature womanhood. Ten years she had spent in learning the Temple ritual, ten years in performing the actual duties of the sacred fire and its cultus, ten years in teaching the young novices. And now she was free, if she chose, to leave the Temple service, and even to marry. But Fabia had no intention of taking a step which would tear her from the circle in which she was dearly loved, and which, though permitted by law, would be publicly deplored as an evil omen.

The Vestal's pure simple life had left its impress on her features.

Peace and innocent delight in innocent things shone through her dark eyes and soft, well-rounded face. Her light brown hair was covered and confined by a fillet of white wool.[50] She wore a stola and outer garment of stainless white linen--the perfectly plain badge of her chaste and holy office; while on her small feet were dainty sandals, bound on by thongs of whitened leather. Everything about her dress and features betokened the priestess of a gentle religion.

[50] _Infula_.

When questions and repeated salutations were over, and Livia had ceased to be too afraid of her quite strange brother, Fabia asked what she could do for her nephew. As one of the senior Vestals, her time was quite her own. ”Would he like to have her go out with him to visit friends, or go shopping? Or could she do anything to aid him about ordering frescoers and carpenters for the old Praeneste villa?”

This last was precisely what Drusus had had in mind. And so forth aunt and nephew sallied. Some of the streets they visited were so narrow that they had to send back even their litters; but everywhere the crowds bowed such deference and respect to the Vestal's white robes that their progress was easy. Drusus soon had given his orders to cabinet-makers and selected the frescoer's designs. It remained to purchase Cornelia's slave-boy. He wanted not merely an attractive serving-lad, but one whose intelligence and probity could be relied upon; and in the dealers' stalls not one of the dark orientals, although all had around their necks tablets with long lists of encomiums, promised conscience or character. Drusus visited, several very choice boys that were exhibited in separate rooms, at fancy prices, but none of these pretty Greeks or Asiatics seemed promising.

Deeply disgusted, he led Fabia away from the slave-market.

”I will try to-morrow,” he said, vexed at his defeat. ”I need a new toga. Let us go to the shop on the Clivus Subura.n.u.s; there used to be a good woollen merchant, Lucius Marius, on the way to the Porta Esquilina.”

Accordingly the two went on in the direction indicated; but at the spot where the Clivus Subura.n.u.s was cut by the Vicus Longus, there was so dense a crowd and so loud a hubbub, that their attendants could not clear a way. For a time it was impossible to see what was the matter.

Street gamins were howling, and idle slaves and hucksters were pouring forth volleys of taunts and derision at some luckless wight.

”Away with them! the whip-scoundrel! _Verbero!_”[51] yelled a l.u.s.ty produce-vender. ”Lash him again! Tan his hide for him! Don't you enjoy it? Not accustomed to such rough handling, eh! my pretty sparrow?”

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