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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In 'Domitia,' Sabine Baring-Gould weaves a rich tapestry of historical fiction that explores the life of Domitia Longina, the wife of Emperor Domitian. Set against the backdrop of the Roman Empire during the first century, the narrative is marked by an intricate style that fuses meticulous historical detail with dramatic character development. Baring-Gould's prose captures the complexities of Roman society, power dynamics, and the personal struggles of a woman navigating her position within this tumultuous framework. The book's exploration of gender roles and political intrigue offers insights into the often-overlooked narratives of women in history, positioning Domitia as a multifaceted character shaped by her environment and choices. Sabine Baring-Gould, an English author and folklorist, possessed a keen interest in history and mythology, factors that deeply influenced his literary creations. His diverse background, which included a degree in theology and a lifelong passion for archaeology and folklore, elucidates the breadth of knowledge evident in 'Domitia.' Baring-Gould collected stories and legends throughout his life, aiming to illuminate the ordinary experiences of exceptional figures. This profound understanding of historical context and human emotion informs his portrayal of Domitia, making her story resonate powerfully with modern readers. 'Domitia' is a must-read for those captivated by historical fiction that deftly intertwines personal drama with larger societal themes. Baring-Gould's engaging narrative invites readers to immerse themselves in the ancient world of Rome while prompting reflection on timeless issues of womanhood, power, and resilience. This stirring representation of Domitia is not just a journey into history but an exploration of the human spirit, making it an indispensable addition to any literary collection. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Domitia
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ambition, desire, and conscience converge in Domitia as a brilliant, dangerous court becomes the arena where private choices meet the vast machinery of empire, and a single misstep can redraw the lines of love, duty, and survival.
Domitia is a historical novel by Sabine Baring-Gould, an English clergyman, antiquarian, and prolific Victorian-era novelist. Set in ancient Rome, it unfolds against the political and social pressures of the Flavian age, where spectacle and governance blur. Published toward the end of the nineteenth century, the book reflects the period’s appetite for richly researched historical romance, combining the moral inquiry and narrative breadth characteristic of its time. Baring-Gould’s background in scholarship informs the novel’s atmosphere, but the focus remains consistently on character and situation, offering readers a vivid entry into Rome’s ceremonies, domestic spaces, and whispered corridors of influence.
The premise follows a patrician woman named Domitia as she is drawn into the center of power, where alliances, reputations, and affections are tested by the realities of imperial life. Rather than rushing to sensational incident, the narrative builds its tension through close attention to social maneuvering, carefully staged public spectacle, and the fraught intimacies of elite households. Readers encounter a Rome both alluring and perilous, rendered with descriptive patience and a steady, observant voice. The result is a story that privileges mood and moral texture over shock, inviting reflection on how a person negotiates identity and loyalty in a world ruled by appearances.
Power and performance stand at the heart of the book’s concerns: how does a life lived under watchful eyes remain fully human, and what compromises preserve or erode the self? Domitia explores the strains of gender and agency within a rigid hierarchy, the double edge of privilege, and the seductions of status when safety depends upon favor. It meditates on the distance between public image and private feeling, and on the price of belonging to an empire that promises magnificence while demanding submission. These themes resonate beyond their classical setting, asking readers to consider the ethical costs of ambition and the dignity of resilience.
Baring-Gould’s craft here is notable for its blend of narrative clarity and antiquarian texture. Street scenes, ritual processions, and domestic interiors accumulate detail without overwhelming the forward movement of the story. Legal customs, dress, and social etiquette are evoked to ground the characters’ choices in credible circumstance, while the dialogue retains a measured cadence befitting the milieu. The author draws on the atmosphere of classical historiography without lapsing into pastiche, allowing historical color to deepen, rather than distract from, the characters’ inner lives. This balance gives the book a steady, immersive quality that rewards attentive reading.
For contemporary readers, the experience is one of patient immersion and intellectual engagement. The pacing favors sustained mood over abrupt turns, alternating grand public tableaux with intimate, morally charged encounters. Those who appreciate court intrigue, psychological nuance, and the dramatization of social constraints will find a satisfying combination of romance and reflection. The prose, shaped by late nineteenth-century sensibilities, is formal yet accessible, inviting readers to inhabit the subtleties of speech, gesture, and ceremony. Above all, Domitia offers a panorama in which personal hopes meet institutional power, and where the stakes of each decision are measured in both feeling and fate.
Domitia endures because it illuminates how individuals navigate the pressures of spectacle, rumor, and shifting authority—questions as pertinent now as in antiquity. Without reducing its characters to symbols, the novel shows the human costs of proximity to power and the fragile dignity that persists within elaborate systems of control. It offers historical fiction as moral inquiry: a means to test values, examine complicity, and consider the possibility of integrity in compromised spaces. Readers seeking depth as well as drama will find in Baring-Gould’s work an elegant, considered portrait of a woman and a society negotiating the limits of freedom.
Synopsis
Set in first-century Rome, Domitia follows the life of Domitia Longina, daughter of a celebrated general, as she navigates a world shaped by imperial favor and sudden reversals. The narrative opens under Nero, when pageantry and fear coexist, and traces the transfer of power to the Flavian house. Through Domitia's perspective, civic rituals, domestic obligations, and political theater are woven into a continuous view of the capital and its provinces. The book balances public events with private choices, situating a young woman of rank at the intersection of family duty, personal ambition, and the volatile ambitions of men who command the empire.
Born into privilege, Domitia grows up amid her father's campaigns and the court's shifting loyalties, learning early how honor can become peril. Her first experiences of betrothal and marriage reflect the transactional nature of aristocratic unions, where affection is secondary to lineage and alliance. Baring-Gould presents domestic scenes: household management, patronage, and ceremonial obligations that frame her education in influence. At the same time, ominous portents encircle her family, as suspicion from the palace unsettles their security. This duality of refinement and risk establishes the pattern of her youth, preparing her for the complex bargains required when personal allegiance intersects with imperial necessity.
After a year of civil war and contending claimants, a new order emerges under the Flavian dynasty. The novel follows the reconfiguration of Rome's elite as households recalibrate loyalties to Vespasian and his sons. Domitia enters this environment under heightened scrutiny, her connections both an asset and a danger. She encounters a court divided between the pragmatic public face and the private calculations beneath it. Titus represents continuity and public grace; Domitian, younger and more guarded, watches and learns. Domitia's presence, though constrained by decorum, places her close to decisions that will define alliances, reputations, and the expectations placed upon her.
Relationships formed in this climate carry consequences. Domitia's path converges with that of the younger Flavian, and the narrative traces the protocols, negotiations, and ceremonies that accompany a union positioned near power. The novel depicts pageants, triumphs, and architectural projects that broadcast stability, while drawing attention to the private accommodations required of those who sustain that image. Domitia learns the languages of counsel and restraint, balancing candor with caution. Her earlier ties remain a point of tension, producing moments of estrangement and rapprochement. The personal, the political, and the symbolic merge, shaping her identity as public expectations intensify.
As influence concentrates, the tone of governance hardens. Administrative reforms, spectacles, and vigorous building works coexist with heightened surveillance and the spread of informers. Campaigns on distant frontiers send back news of victories and reverses, but the novel's focus remains on the capital, where favors can be bestowed or withdrawn with sudden force. Domitia, positioned to observe the mechanics of patronage, navigates petitions, grievances, and the compromises required to maintain standing. Her interventions are measured, reflecting the limits of counsel in a court wary of dissent. The tension between justice and expedience becomes a recurring theme in her experience.
Alongside politics, the book surveys the era's religious and philosophical currents. Stoic teachers, fashionable cults, and the quiet persistence of emerging Christian communities appear in scenes that test the boundaries of conscience and obedience. Domitia encounters voices urging endurance, mercy, and truth-telling, even when such counsel risks conflict with the state. These encounters remain embedded in daily life: festivals, funerary rites, and charitable acts rather than overt polemic. The spiritual dimension offers an alternative measure of honor, complicating calculations of advantage. Without overt conversion narratives, the text suggests how private convictions can steady or unsettle those who stand near the levers of power.
As years pass, pressures accumulate within the palace and beyond it. Financial strains, legal prosecutions, and the ambitions of courtiers create a climate where rumor carries weight. Domitia's position is repeatedly tested by reversals affecting friends and kin, and by the volatile expectations of public display. Episodes of distance and reconciliation mark her closest relationships, each shaping how she speaks and when she is silent. The narrative emphasizes the cost of visibility, particularly for women whose actions are read as symbols. In this tightening atmosphere, small choices - of patronage, of presence, of speech - take on disproportionate significance and set larger events in motion.
The story gathers toward a confrontation in which loyalty, prudence, and survival are weighed against principle. A network of confidences, grievances, and misread intentions converges, bringing danger into the inner rooms of power. Domitia must choose her course amid conflicting counsels and uncertain outcomes. The novel withholds explicit foretelling, emphasizing instead the dread and resolve that accompany decisive action. Public scenes mirror private reckoning: audiences, edicts, and omens align with whispered warnings. Without detailing the result, the narrative underscores how a single moment can crystallize years of accommodation, setting a path whose consequences are felt beyond the palace walls.
In the closing movement, the book traces the adjustments that follow upheaval, attending to memory, reputation, and the tenuous nature of safety. Domitia's endurance is presented without ornament, as a composite of prudence, restraint, and a guarded hope for stability. Rome itself functions as a character - resilient, layered, and restless - its festivals and forums continuing despite shocks at the center. The synopsis of her journey suggests the novel's core message: the costs and consolations of living near absolute power, and the quiet integrity that can persist beneath spectacle. Without final judgments, the narrative leaves a measured sense of consequence and survival.
Historical Context
Set chiefly in Rome during the Flavian age, the narrative unfolds between the late Neronian years and the fall of Domitian (c. AD 67–96). The city’s physical and political center—the Palatine palace, the Forum, the Senate house, and the Flavian Amphitheatre—frames the action, while distant provinces on the Danube and Rhine supply the pressures that shape court policy. Society is sharply stratified: senators and equestrians jostle with powerful imperial freedmen, while the Praetorian Guard polices access to the emperor. This was a period of restoration after civil war, yet marked by rigid ceremonial, surveillance, and an expanding imperial bureaucracy that penetrated private life and public honor alike.
Events of AD 67–69 define the novel’s backstory. Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo—Domitia Longina’s father—was compelled by Nero to commit suicide at Cenchreae in 67, a shock that haunts his family’s standing. The Year of the Four Emperors (69) followed: Galba, Otho, and Vitellius fell in rapid succession before Vespasian, acclaimed by the eastern legions, secured Rome after the battles of Bedriacum. Domitian, Vespasian’s younger son, emerged as a political actor in these crises. The book connects Domitia to this turbulence through her marriage to Domitian (c. 70/71), after the enforced divorce from her first husband, Lucius Aelius Lamia Plautius Aelianus, dramatizing how civil conflict reordered elite marriages and loyalties.
Domitian’s accession on 13 September 81 inaugurates the climate central to the story. He asserted a sacral autocracy—styled dominus et deus—while completing an ambitious building program: the Palatine palace complex (Domus Augustana), the Stadium of Domitian on the Campus Martius, and the Forum Transitorium (later Forum of Nerva). His administration professionalized finance and justice but relied heavily on delatores (informers) and expanded prosecutions for maiestas (treason). Senators such as Herennius Senecio and Arulenus Rusticus were executed. The novel links its characters’ fates to this machinery: audiences, petitions, and court ceremonies become instruments of favor and fear, and the imperial household’s etiquette masks a pervasive vulnerability to denunciation.
The imperial household’s internal dramas, especially those involving Domitia Longina, are pivotal. After the death of her and Domitian’s infant son (traditionally dated to 83), Domitian reportedly divorced and banished Domitia amid rumors of an affair with the celebrated pantomime Paris, who was executed soon after; she was later recalled. Whether scandal or political maneuver, the episode illustrates how reputation, sexuality, and dynastic succession intersected in palace politics. The book uses these events to examine women’s precarious agency at court: alliances with kin of Corbulo, calculated reconciliations, and the perils of rumor reveal how personal bonds became instruments within the broader economy of imperial power.
Foreign wars provide the regime’s rhythms and rhetoric. Domitian campaigned against the Chatti in Germania (AD 83), adopting the cognomen Germanicus. The Dacian conflict escalated after King Decebalus crossed the Danube (85): the general Cornelius Fuscus was killed in 86, while Tettius Julianus won at Tapae in 88, followed by a controversial subsidy treaty in 89. That same year, the legions of Lucius Antonius Saturninus revolted at Mogontiacum (Mainz) but were swiftly crushed. In the book, triumphs, donatives, and the spectacle of military display filter into courtly life, shaping the emperor’s self-presentation and the anxieties of those—like Domitia—whose status rose and fell with victories, treaties, and mutinies.
Religious and intellectual policies deepen the era’s tensions. Vespasian’s fiscus Iudaicus (from 70) taxed Jews; under Domitian in the 90s, enforcement grew intrusive, with humiliating inspections noted by Suetonius. The emperor exiled Flavia Domitilla (a Flavian relative) to the island of Pontia on charges described as impietas or atheism, which later Christian sources recast as persecution. After 89 and especially in 93, philosophers were expelled; Helvidius Priscus the Younger was executed, and figures like Epictetus lived in exile. The novel mirrors these pressures through scenes of cautious worship, coded speech, and household debates over loyalty to the state cult, showing how fiscal policy and ideology penetrated conscience and family.
The regime ended violently on 18 September 96, when Domitian was assassinated in a palace conspiracy involving the chamberlain Parthenius and the freedman Stephanus. The Senate proclaimed Nerva and enacted damnatio memoriae against Domitian: statues were toppled, names erased, and terror of treason trials was symbolically reversed. Nerva’s coinage advertised libertas publica and relief from abuses of the fiscus Iudaicus. In the book, this transition reframes political risk: beneficiaries of the fallen emperor recalibrate, while those once marginalized cautiously reemerge. Domitia’s survival under the new order allows the narrative to explore memory, erasure, and the contested meaning of loyalty after an autocrat’s downfall.
By embedding court ritual, fiscal exactions, and legal terror in domestic experience, the book functions as a critique of Flavian autocracy. It exposes the dependency of law on imperial will, the corrosive role of informers, and the Senate’s impotence before the Praetorian-backed palace. Gendered vulnerability—seen in Domitia’s banishment and recall—reveals how women’s bodies mediated dynastic politics. The spectacle state, with triumphs and games, is shown to distract from frontier stalemates and internal repression. Religious and philosophical repression underscores the costs of ideological conformity. Through these episodes, the narrative indicts a system that commodifies honor, weaponizes rumor, and subordinates justice to the preservation of power.
Frontispiece; "Rome is boiling over, and will scald many fingers."
Domitia
BOOK I
CHAPTER I. — THE PORT OF CENCHRAEA
Flashes as of lightning shot from each side of a galley as she was being rowed into port. She was a bireme[1], that is to say, had two tiers of oars; and as simultaneously the double sets were lifted, held for a moment suspended, wet with brine, feathered, and again dipped, every single blade gleamed, reflecting the declining western sun, and together formed a flash from each side of the vessel of a sheaf of rays.
The bireme was approaching the entrance to the harbor of Cenchræa.
The one white sail was filled with what little wind breathed, and it shone against a sapphire sea like a moon.
Now, at a signal the oars ceased to plunge. The sail was furled, and the galley was carried into the harbor between the temple that stood on the northern horn of the mole, and the great brazen statue of Poseidon that occupied a rock in the midst of the entrance, driven forward by the impulse already given her by the muscles of the rowers and the east wind in the sail.
This Cenchræan harbor into which she swept was one of the busiest in the world. Through it as through a tidal sluice rushed the current of trade from the East to the West, and from the Occident to the Orient. It was planted on a bay of the Saronic Gulf, and on the Isthmus of Corinth, at the foot of that lovely range of mountains thrown up by the hand of God to wall off the Peloponnesus as the shrine of intellectual culture and the sanctuary of Liberty.
And a furrow—like an artificial dyke—ran between this range and Hellas proper, a furrow nearly wholly invaded by the sea, but still leaving a strip of land, the Corinthian isthmus, to form a barrier between the Eastern and the Western worlds.
On the platform at the head of a flight of marble steps before a temple of Poseidon, in her open litter, lounged a lady, with the bloom of youth gone from her face, but artificially restored.
She was handsome, with finely moulded features and a delicate white hand, the fingers studded with rings, and a beautiful arm which was exposed whenever any one drew near whose admiration was worth the acquisition. Its charm was enhanced by armlets of gold adorned with cameos.
Her arched brows, dark in color, possibly owed their perfection of turn and their depth of color to dye and the skill of the artist who decorated her every day, but not so the violet-blue of her large eyes, although these also were enhanced in effect by the tinting of the lashes, and a touch of paint applied to their roots.
The lady, whose name was Longa Duilia, was attended by female slaves, who stood behind the litter, and by a freedman, Plancus, who was at her side with a set smile on his waxen face, and who bowed towards the lady every moment to hear her remarks, uttered in a languid tone, and without her troubling to turn her head to address him.
"He will soon be here," said the lady; "the bireme is in the port. I can see the ruffle before her bows as she cuts the water."
"Like the wave in my lady's hair," sighed Plancus.
"Abominable!" exclaimed Duilia, "when the ripple in my hair is natural and abiding, and that in the water is made and disappears."
"Because, Mistress, the wavelets look up, see, and fall back in despair."
"That is better," said the lady.
"And the swelling sail, like your divine bosom, has fallen, as when—— "
"Ugh! I should hope the texture of my skin was not like coarse sail- cloth; get behind me, Plancus. Here, Lucilla, how am I looking? I would have my lord see me to the best advantage."
"Madam," said the female slave, advancing, "the envious sun is about to hide his head in the west. He cannot endure, after having feasted on your beauty, to surrender it to a mortal."
"Is not one eyebrow a trifle higher than the other?" asked Duilia, looking at herself in a hand mirror of polished metal.
"It is indeed so, lady, but has not the Paphian Goddess in the statue of Phidias the same characteristic? Defect it is not, but a token of divinity."
"Ah," said Duilia, "it is hereditary. The Julian race descends from Venus Genetrix, and I have the blood of the immortal ancestress in me."
"Much diluted," muttered Plancus into the breast of his tunic; he was out of humor at the failure of his little simile of the sail.
"By the way," said the lady; "the stay in this place Cenchræa is positively intolerable. No society, only a set of merchants—rich and all that sort of thing—but nobodies. The villa we occupy is undignified and uncomfortable. The noise of the port, the caterwauling of sailors, and the smell of pitch are most distasteful to me. My lord will hardly tarry here?"
"My lord," said the freedman, pushing forward, "he who subdued the Parthians, and chained the Armenians, to whom all Syria bowed, arrives to cast himself at your ladyship's feet, and be led by you as a captive in your triumphal entry into the capital of the world."
"You think so, Plancus." She shook her head, "He is an obstinate man—pig- headed—I—I mean resolute in his own line."
"Madam, I know you to be irresistible."
"Well, I desire to leave this odious place. I have yawned here through three entire months."
"And during these months, the temple of Aphrodite has been deserted, and the approaches grass-grown."
"How would my Lady like to remove to Corinth?" said Lucilla. "The vessel will be taken to Diolcus, and there placed on rollers, to be drawn across the isthmus."
"Oh! Corinth will be noisier than this place, and more vulgar, because more pretentious. Only money-lending Jews there. Besides, I have taken an aversion to the place since the death of my physician. As the Gods love me, I not see the good of a medical attendant who is so ignorant as to allow himself to die, and that at such an inconvenient moment as the present. By the Great Goddess! what impostors there be. To think that for years I committed the care of my precious health to his bungling hands! Plancus, have you secured another? I suffer frightfully at sea."
"A sure token of your divine origin," said the steward. "The Foam-born (Venus) rose out of and left the waves because the motion of them disagreed with her."
"There is a good deal in that," observed Longa Duilia. "Plancus, have you secured another? I positively cannot across Adria without one to hold my head and supply anti—anti—what do you call them?"
"Madam," said the freedman, rubbing his hands together, "I have devoted my energies to your service. I have gone about with a lantern seeking an honest physician. I may not have been as successful as I desired, but I have done my utmost."
"I prithee—have done with this rodomontade and to the point. Have you secured one? As the Gods love me! it is not only one's insides that get upset at sea, but one's outside also becomes so tousled and tumbled—that the repairs- -but never mind about them. Have you engaged a man?"
"Yes, my Lady, I have lighted on one Luke, a physician of Troas; he is desirous of proceeding to Rome, and is willing to undertake the charge of your health, in return for being conveyed to the capital of the world at your charges."
"I make you responsible for his suitability," said Longa Duilia.
"Body of Bacchus!" she exclaimed suddenly, after a pause, "Where is the child?"
"Where is the lady Domitia Longina?" asked Plancus, as he looked about him.
"The lady Domitia, where is she?" asked Lucilla.
"The lady Domitia?"—passed from one to another.
"Where is she? What has become of her? As the Gods love me—you are a pack of fools. The more of you there are, so much the more of folly. You have let her gallop off among the odious sailors, and she will come back rank with pitch. Lucilla, Favonia, Syra, where is she?"
Duilia sat upright on her seat, and her eyes roamed searchingly in every direction.
"I never met with such a child anywhere, it is the Corbulo blood in her, not mine. The Gods forbid! O Morals!"
"Madam," said a slave-girl coming up. "I saw her with Eboracus."
"Well, and where is Eboracus. They are always together. He spoils the child, and she pays him too much consideration. Where are they?"
The slaves, male and female, looked perplexedly in every direction.
"Perhaps," said Plancus, "she has gone to the altar of Poseidon to offer there thanks for the return of her father."
"Poseidon, nonsense! That is not her way. She has been in a fever ever since the vessel has been sighted, her cheeks flaming and in a fidget as if covered with flying ants. Find the girl. If any harm shall have come to her through your neglect, I will have you all flayed—and hang the cost!"
She plucked a bodkin from her dress, and ran it into the shoulder of the slave-woman, Favonia, who stood near her, and made her cry out with pain.
"You are a parcel of idle, empty-headed fools," exclaimed the alarmed and irritated mother, "I will have the child found, and that instantly. You girls, you have been gaping, watching the sailors, and have not had an eye on your young mistress, and no concern for my feelings. There is no more putting anything into your heads than of filling the sieves of the Danaides."
"Madam," said Plancus, for once without a smile on his unctuous face, "you may rest satisfied that no harm has befallen the young lady. So long as Eboracus is with her, she is safe. That Briton worships her. He would suffer himself to be torn limb from limb rather than allow the least ill to come to her."
"Well, well," said the lady impatiently, "we expect all that sort of thing of our slaves."
"Madam, but do we always get it?"
"We! The Gods save me! How you talk. We! We, indeed. Pray what are you to expect anything?"
"The other day, lady," hastily continued the steward eager to allay the ebullition he had provoked. "The other day, Eboracus nigh on killed a man who looked with an insolent leer at his young mistress. He is like a faithful Molossus."
"I do not ask what he is like," retorted the still ruffled lady, "I ask where she is."
Then one of the porters of the palanquin came forward respectfully and said to the steward:—"If it may please you, sir, will you graciously report to my Lady that I observed the young mistress draw Eboracus aside, and whisper to him, as though urging somewhat, and he seemed to demur, but he finally appeared to yield to her persuasions, and they strolled together along the mole."
Longa Duilia overheard this. It was not the etiquette for an underling to address his master or mistress directly unless spoken to.
She said sharply:—"Why did not the fellow mention this before? Give him thirty lashes. Where did they go, did he say?"
"Along the mole."
"Which mole?"
"Madam, Carpentarius is afraid of extending his communication lest he increase the number of his lashes."
"Well, well!" exclaimed the mistress, "We may remit the lashes—let him answer."
"Carpentarius," said the steward, "Her ladyship, out of the superabundance of her compassion, will let you off the thirty lashes, if you say where be Eboracus and the young lady, your mistress Domitia Longina."
"Sir," answered the porter, "that I cannot answer positively; but—unless my eyes deceive me, I see a small boat on the water, within it a rower and a young girl."
"By the Immortal Brothers! he is right," exclaimed Plancus. "See, lady, yonder is a cockle boat, that has been unmoored from the mole, and there be in it a rower, burly, broadbacked, who is certainly the Briton, and in the bow is as it were a silver dove—and that can be none other than your daughter."
"As the Gods love me," gasped Duilia, throwing herself back in the litter; "what indelicacy! It is even so, the child is besotted. She dotes on her father, whom she has not seen since we left Antioch. And she has actually gone to meet him. O Venus Kalypyge! What are we coming to, when children act in this independent, indecent manner. O Times! O Morals!"
CHAPTER II. — AN ILL-OMEN
It was even so.
The young girl had coaxed the big Briton to take her in a boat to the galley, so as to meet and embrace her father, before he came on shore.
She was a peculiarly affectionate child, and jealous to boot. She knew that, so soon as he landed, his whole attention would be engrossed by her very exacting mother, who moreover would keep her in the background, and would chide should the father divert his notice from herself to his child.
She was therefore determined to be the first to salute him, and to receive his endearments, and to lavish on him her affection, unchecked by her mother.
As for the slave, he knew that he would get into trouble if he complied with the girl's request, but he was unable to resist her blandishments.
And now Domitia reached the side of the galley, and a rope was cast to the boat, caught by Eboracus, who shipped his oars, and the little skiff was made fast to the side of the vessel.
The eyes of the father had already recognized his child. Domitia stood in the bows and extended her arms, poised on tiptoe, as if, like a bird about to leap into the air and fly to his embrace.
Domitia extended her arms.
And now he caught her hand, looked into her dancing, twinkling eyes, as drops of the very Ægean[2] itself, set in her sweet face, and in another moment she was clinging round his neck, and sobbing as though her heart would break, yet not with sorrow, but through excess of otherwise inexpressible joy.
For an hour she had him to herself—all to herself—the dear father whom she had not seen for half a year, to tell him how she loved him, to hear about himself, to pour into his ear her story of pleasures and pains, great pleasures and trifling pains.
And yet—no, not wholly uninterrupted was the meeting and sweet converse, for the father said:
"My darling, hast thou no word for Lucius?"
"Lamia! He is here?"
The father, Cnæus Domitius Corbulo, with a smile turned and beckoned.
Then a young man, with pleasant, frank face, came up. He had remained at a distance, when father and daughter met, but had been unable to withdraw his eyes from the happy group.
"Domitia, you have not forgotten your old playmate, have you?"
With a light blush like the tint on the petal of the rose of June, the girl extended her hand.
"Nay, nay!" said Corbulo. "A gentler, kinder greeting, after so long a separation."
Then she held up her modest cheek, and the young man lightly touched it with his lips.
She drew herself away and said:
"You will not be angry if I give all my thoughts and words and looks to my father now. When we come on shore, he will be swallowed up by others."
Lamia stepped back.
"Do not be offended," she said with a smile, and the loveliest, most bewitching dimples came into her cheeks. "I have not indeed been without thought of you, Lucius, but have spun and spun and weaved too, enough to make you a tunic, all with my own hands, and a purple clavus—it nigh ruined me, the dyed Tyrian wool cost(1)—I will not say; but I wove little crossed L's into the texture."
1. Double-dyed Tyrian wool cost over £40 in English money per lb.
"What," said Corbulo. "For Lucius and Longina?"
The girl became crimson.
Lamia came to her succor. "That could not be," said he, "for Longina and Lucius are never across, but alack! Lucius is often so with Lamia, when he has done some stupid thing and he sees a frown on his all but father's face, but hears no word of reproach."
"My boy," said Corbulo, "when a man knows his own faults, then a reprimand is unnecessary, and what is unnecessary is wrong."
Lamia bowed and retired.
And now again father and daughter were alone together in the prow observing the arc of the harbor in which the ship was gliding smoothly.
And now the sailors had out their poles and hooks, and they ran the vessel beside the wharf, and cast out ropes that were made fast to bronze rings in the marble breasting of the quay.
Domitia would at once have drawn her father on shore, but he restrained her.
"Not yet, my daughter," he said; "the goddess must precede thee."
And now ensued a singular formality.
From the bows of the vessel, the captain and steerer took a statuette of Artemis, in bronze, the Ephesian goddess, with female head and numerous breasts, but with the lower limbs swaddled, and the swaddling bands decorated with representations of all kinds of beasts, birds, and fishes.
This image was now conveyed on shore, followed by the passengers and crew.
On the quay stood an altar, upon which charcoal ever burnt, under the charge of a priest who attended to it continuously, and whenever a ship entered the port or was about to leave, added fuel, and raked and blew up the fire.
Simultaneously from a small temple on the quay issued a priest with veiled head, and his attendants came to the altar, cast some grains of incense on the embers, and as the blue fragrant smoke arose and was dissipated by the sea breeze, he said:—
"The Goddess Aphrodite of Corinth salutes her divine sister, the Many- Breasted Artemis of Ephesus, and welcomes her. And she further prays that she may not smite the city or the port with fire, pestilence or earthquake."
Then captain, steerman, pilot and the rest of the company advanced in procession to the temple, and on reaching it offered a handful of sweet gums on an altar there, before the image of the foam-born goddess of Beauty, and said:—
"We who come from the sea, having safely traversed the Ægean, escaped rocks and sand-banks, whirlpools and storms, under the protection of the great goddess of Ephesus, salute in her name the goddess of Beauty, and receive her welcome with thankfulness. And great Artemis beseeches her sister to suffer her and the vessel with passengers and goods and crew, that she conducts and protects, to pass across the isthmus, without let and molestation; and she for her part undertakes to pay the accustomed toll, and the due to the temple of Aphrodite, and that neither the passengers nor the crew shall in any way injure or disturb the inhabitants of Corinth or of the Isthmus."
This ceremony concluded, all were at liberty to disperse; the sailors to attend to the vessel, the slaves of Corbulo to look to and land such of his luggage as he was likely to want, and Corbulo to go to his wife, who had placed herself in an attitude to receive him.
The captain, at the same time, entered the harbor-master's office to arrange about the crossing of the isthmus, and to settle tolls.
For the vessel was not to make more stay than a few days at the port of Cenchræa. After Longa Duilia was ready, then she and her husband and family were to proceed to Lechæum, the port on the Corinthian Gulf, there to embark for Italy. The vessel would leave the harbor and go to Diolchus, that point of the Isthmus on the east where the neck of land was narrowest. There the ships would be hauled out of the water, placed on rollers, and by means of oxen, assisted by gangs of slaves, would convey the vessel over the land for six miles to the Gulf of Corinth, where again she would be floated.
Immediately behind the Roman general, Corbulo, the father of Domitia, walked two individuals, both wearing long beards, and draped to the feet.
One of these had a characteristically Oriental head. His eyes were set very close together, his nose was aquiline, his tint sallow, his eyebrows heavy and bushy, and his general expression one of cunning and subtlety. His movements were stately.
The other was not so tall. He was clumsy in movement, rugged in feature, with a broken nose, his features distinctly Occidental, as was his bullet head. His hair was sandy, and scant on his crown. He wore a smug, self-complacent expression on his pursed-up lips and had a certain "I am Sir Oracle, let no dog bark" look in his pale eyes.
These two men, walking side by side, eyed each other with ill-concealed dislike and disdain.
The former was a Chaldæan, who was usually called Elymas, but affected in Greek to be named Ascletarion.
The latter was an Italian philosopher who had received his training in Greece at a period when all systems of philosophy were broken up and jostled each other in their common ruin.
No sooner was the ceremony at an end, and Corbulo had hastened from the wharf to meet and embrace his wife, and Lamia had drawn off Domitia for a few words, than these two men left to themselves instinctively turned to launch their venom at each other.
The philosopher, with a toss of his beard, and a lifting of his light eyebrows, and the protrusion of his lower lip said:
"And pray, what has the profundity of Ascletarion alias Elymas beheld in the bottom of that well he terms his soul?"
"He has been able to see what is hidden from the shallowness of Claudius Senecio alias Spermologos(2) over the surface of which shallowness his soul careers like a water spider."
2. The term used of St. Paul by the wise men of Athens. It means a picker up of unconsidered trifles which he strings together into an unintelligible system.
"And that is, O muddiness?"
"Ill-luck, O insipidity."
"Why so?—not, the Gods forfend, that I lay any weight on anything you may say. But I like to hear your vaticinations that I may laugh over them."
"Hear, then. Because a daughter of Earth dared to set foot on the vessel consecrated to and conducted by Artemis before that the tutelary goddess had been welcomed by and had saluted the tutelary deity of the land."
"I despise your prophecies of evil, thou crow."
"Not more than do I thy platitudes, O owl!"
"Hearken to the words of the poet," said the philosopher, and he started quoting the OEdipus Tyrannus: "The Gods know the affairs of mortals. But among men, it is by no means certain that a soothsayer is of more account than myself!" And Senecio snapped his fingers in the face of the Magus.
"Conclude thy quotation," retorted Elymas. "'A man's wisdom may surpass Wisdom itself. Therefore never will I condemn the seer, lest his words prove true.' How like you that?" and he snapped his fingers under the nose of the philosopher.
CHAPTER III. — CORBULO
Cnæus Domitius Corbulo[3] was the greatest general of his time, and he had splendidly served the State.
His sister Cæsonia had been the wife of the mad prince Caligula[4]. She was not beautiful, but her flexible mouth, her tender eyes, the dimples in her cheeks, her exquisite grace of manner and sweetness of expression had not only won the heart of the tyrant, but had enabled her to maintain it.
Once, in an outburst of surprise at himself for loving her, he threatened to put her to the torture to wring from Cæsonia the secret of her hold on his affections. Once, as he caressed her, he broke into hideous laughter, and when asked the reason, said, "I have but to speak the word, and this lovely throat would be cut."
Yet this woman loved the maniac, and when he had been murdered in the subterranean gallery leading from the palace to the theatre, she crept to the spot, and was found kneeling by her dead husband with their babe in her arms, sobbing and wiping the blood from his face. The assassins did not spare her. They cut her down and dashed out the brains of the infant against the marble walls.
Corbulo was not only able, he was successful. Under Nero he was engaged in the East against the Parthians, the most redoubted enemies of the empire. He broke their power and sent their king, Tiridates, a suppliant to Rome.
His headquarters had been at Antioch, and there for a while his wife and daughter had resided with him. But after a while, they were sent part way homewards, as Corbulo himself expected his recall.
They had been separated from him for over six months, and had been awaiting his arrival in a villa at Cenchræa, that had been placed at their disposal by a Greek client.
It was customary for those who did not live in Rome but belonged to a province, to place themselves under the patronage of a Roman noble; whereupon ensued an exchange of "cards" as we should say, but actually of engraved plates or metal fishes on which the date of the agreement was entered as well as the names of the contracting parties. Then, when a provincial desired assistance at the capital, in obtaining redress for a grievance in a lawsuit, or in recovering a debt, his patron attended to his client's interests, and should he visit Rome received him into his house as an honored guest.
On the other hand, if the patron were on a journey and came to the place where his client could serve him, the latter threw his house open to him, treated him with the most profound respect and accorded to him the largest hospitality. So now the villa of a client had been placed at the disposal of Corbulo and his family, and he occupied it with as little hesitation as though it were his own.
It was a matter of pride to a Roman noble to have a large number of silver engraved plates and fishes suspended in his atrium, announcing to all visitors what an extensive clientèle he had, and the provincial was not less proud to be able to flourish the name of his distinguished patron at the capital.
On the evening following the disembarkation, Corbulo and his wife were seated on a bench enjoying the pleasant air that fanned from the sea; and looking over the terraced garden at their daughter, who was gambolling with a long silky-haired kid from Cilicia, that her father had brought as a present to his child.
She was a lovely girl, aged sixteen, with a remarkably intelligent face, and large, clear, shrewd eyes.
Yet, though lovely, none could say that she was beautiful. Her charm was like that of her aunt, Cæsonia, in grace of form, in changefulness and sweetness of expression, and in the brimming intellect that flashed out of her violet eyes. And now as she played with the kid, her every movement formed an artist's study, and the simple joy that shone out of her face, and the affection wherewith she glanced at intervals at her father, invested her with a spiritual charm, impossible to be achieved by sculptor with his chisel or by painter with his brush.
The eyes of Domitius Corbulo followed his child, wherever she went, whatever she did. He was a man of somewhat advanced age, shaven, with short shorn hair, marked features, the brow somewhat retreating, but with a firm mouth and strong jaw. Though not handsome, there was refinement in his countenance which gave it a character of nobleness, and the brilliant eye and decision in the countenance inspired universal respect. Every one could see that he was not merely a commander of men in war, but a man of culture in the forum and the academy.
"Wife," said he, "I pray you desist. It was for this that I sent you back from Antioch. You ever twanged one string, and I felt that your words, if overheard, might endanger us all."
"I speak but into thine ear."
"A brimming vessel overflows on all sides[1q]," said Corbulo.
"Ah well! some men make themselves by grasping at what the Gods offer them. Others lose themselves by disregarding the favors extended by the Immortals."
"I deny that any such offer was made me," said the general in a tone of annoyance.
"What!" exclaimed Longa Duilia, "art thou so blind as not to see what is obvious to every other eye, that the Roman people are impatient at having a buffoon, a mimic, a fiddler wearing the purple?"
"Nevertheless, he wears it, by favor of the gods."
"For how long? Domitius, believe me. In the heart of every Roman citizen rage is simmering, and the wound of injured pride rankles. He has insulted the majesty of eternal Rome. After having acted the buffoon in Italy, running up and down it like a jester on a tight-rope mouthing at the people, and with his assassins scattered about below to cut them down if they do not applaud—then he comes here also into Greece, to act on stages, race chariots, before Greeks— Greeks of all people! To me this is nothing, for all princes are tyrants more or less, and so long as they do not prick me, I care not. But here it does come close. In every army, in the breast of every soldier, rebellion springs up. Every general is uneasy and looks at the face of every other and asks, Who will draw the sword and make an end of this? O Morals! it makes me mad to see you alone quiescent."
"When the Gods will a change, then the change will be granted."
"You speak like a philosopher and not a man of action. If you do not draw, others will forestall you, and then—instead of my being up at the top—I shall be down in Nowhere."
"Never will I be a traitor to Rome, and go against my oath."
"Pshaw! They all do it, so why not you?"
"Because my conscience will not suffer me."
"Conscience! The haruspices have never found it yet. They can discover and read the liver and the kidneys, but no knife has yet laid bare a conscience as big as a bean. You were the darling of the soldiery in Germany. You are still the idol of those who have fought under you in Parthia and Armenia. I am sure I did my best to push your cause. I was gracious to the soldiery—sent tit- bits from the table to the guard. I tipped right and left, till I spent all my pocket-money, and smiled benignantly on all military men till I got a horrible crumple here in my cheek, do you see?"
"Yes, shocking," said Corbulo, indifferently.
"How can you be so provoking!" exclaimed Duilia pettishly. "Of course there is no wrinkle, there might have been, I did so much smiling. Really, Corbulo, one has to do all the picking—as boys get winkles out of their shells with a pin—to extract a compliment from you. And out comes the pin with nothing at the end. Plancus would not have let that pass."
"Do you say that Nero is here?"
"Yes, here, in Greece; here at our elbow, at Corinth. He has for once got a clever idea into his head and has begun to cut a canal through the isthmus. It has begun with a flourish of trumpets and a dinner and a dramatic exhibition- -and then I warrant you it will end."
"The Prince at Corinth!"
"Yes, at Corinth; and you are here with all the wide sea between you and your troops. And docile as a lamb you have come here, and left your vantage ground. What it all means, the Gods know. It is no doing of mine. I warned and exhorted at Antioch, but you might have been born deaf for all the attention you paid to my words."
"Never would I raise my sacrilegious hand against Rome—my mother."
