Part 60 (1/2)
Pratinas was on his knees before Caesar. The h.e.l.lene was again eloquent--eloquent as never before. In the hour of extremity his sophistry and his rhetoric did not leave him. His ant.i.theses, epigrams, well-rounded maxims, figures of speech, never were at a better command. For a time, charmed by the flow of his own language, he gathered strength and confidence, and launched out into bolder flights of subtly wrought rhetoric. He excused, explained away each fault, vivified and magnified a hundred non-existent virtues, reared a splendid word-fabric in praise of clemency. To what end? Before him sat Caesar, and Drusus, and a dozen Romans more, who, with cold, unmoved Italian faces, listened to his artificial eloquence, and gave no sign of pity. And as he went on, the sense of his hopeless position overcame the wretched man, and his skill began to leave him. He became thick and confused of speech; his periods tripped; his thought moved backward. Then his supple tongue failed him utterly, and, in cries and incoherent groans, he pleaded for the right to exist.
”Man,” said the Imperator, when the storm of prayers and moans was over, ”you conspired against Quintus Drusus, my friend. You failed--that is forgiven. You conspired, I have cause to believe, against Pompeius, my enemy, but a Roman--that is unproved, and therefore forgiven. You conspired with Pothinus against me--that was an offence touching me alone, and so that, too, may be forgiven. But to the prayers of a father you had wronged, you answered so that you might gloat over his pain. Therefore you shall die and not live. Take him away, guards, and strike off his head, for his body is too vile to nail to any cross.”
The face of the Greek was livid. He raised his manacled hands, and strained at the irons in sheer despair. The soldiers caught him roughly to hale him away.
”Mercy! kyrios! kyrios!” he shrieked. ”Spare me the torments of Hades!
The Furies will pursue me forever! Pity! Mercy!”
Cornelia had reentered the room, and saw this last scene.
”When my uncle and Ahen.o.barbus were nigh their deaths,” she said stingingly, ”this man observed that often, in times of mortal peril, skeptics call on the G.o.ds.”
”The rule is proved,” said Caesar, casting a cynical smile after the soldiers with their victim. ”All men need G.o.ds, either to wors.h.i.+p when they live, or to dread when they die.”
Chapter XXV
Calm after Storm
I
Like all human things, the war ended. The Alexandrians might rage and dash their numbers against the palace walls. Ganymed and young Ptolemaeus, who had gone out to him, pressed the siege, but all in vain. And help came to the hard-pressed Romans at last. Mithridates, a faithful va.s.sal king, advanced his army over Syria, and came down into the Delta, sweeping all before him. Then Caesar effected a junction with the forces of his ally, and there was one pitched battle on the banks of the Nile, where Ptolemaeus was defeated, and drowned in his flight. Less than a month later Alexandria capitulated, and saw the hated consular insignia again within her gates. There was work to do in Egypt, and Caesar--just named dictator at Rome and consul for five years--devoted himself to the task of reform and reorganization.
Cleopatra was to be set back upon her throne, and her younger brother, another Ptolemaeus, was to be her colleague. So out of war came peace, and the great Imperator gave laws to yet another kingdom.
But before Caesar sailed away to chastise Pharnaces of Pontus, and close up his work in the East, ere returning to break down the stand of the desperate Pompeians in Africa, there was joy and high festival in the palace of Alexandria; and all the n.o.ble and great of the capital were at the feast,--the wedding feast of Cornelia and the favourite staff officer of the Imperator. The soft warm air of the Egyptian springtime blew over the festoons of flowers and over the carpets of blossoms; never before was the music more sweet and joyous.
And overhead hung the great light-laden dome of the glowing azure, where the storks were drifting northward with the northward march of the sun.
And they sang the bridal hymns, both Greek and Latin, and cried ”Hymen” and ”Talasio”; and when evening came,
”The torches tossed their tresses of flame,”
as said the marriage song of Catullus; and underneath the yellow veil of the bride gleamed forth the great diamond necklace, the gift of Cleopatra, which once had been the joy of some Persian princess before the Greeks took the h.o.a.rd at Persepolis.
Agias was there; and Cleomenes and his daughters; and Demetrius, with Artemisia, the most beautiful of girls,--as Cornelia was the fairest of women,--clinging fondly to her father's side. So there was joy that day and night at the Alexandrian palace. And on the next morning the fleet trireme was ready which Demetrius had provided to bear Drusus and Cornelia and Fabia back to Italy. Many were the partings at the royal quay, and Agias wept when he said farewell to his late patron and patroness; but he had some comfort, for his cousin (who had arranged with Cleomenes that, since his freebooting days were happily over, the two should join in a partners.h.i.+p for the India trade) had made him a promise to be fulfilled in due course of time--for Artemisia was still very young.