The time, is the evening of the first day of the Gothic blockade; the
place, is Vetranio's palace at Rome. In one of the private apartments
of his mansion is seated its all-accomplished owner, released at length
from the long sitting convened by the Senate on the occasion of the
unexpected siege of the city. Although the same complete discipline,
the same elegant regularity, and the same luxurious pomp, which
distinguished the senator's abode in times of security, still prevail
over it in the time of imminent danger which now threatens rich and poor
alike in Rome, Vetranio himself appears far from partaking the
tranquility of his patrician household. His manner displays an unusual
sternness, and his face an unwonted displeasure, as he sits, occupied by
his silent reflections and thoroughly unregardful of whatever occurs
around him. Two ladies who are his companions in the apartment, exert
all their blandishments to win him back to hilarity, but in vain. The
services of his expectant musicians are not put into requisition, the
delicacies on his table remain untouched, and even 'the inestimable
kitten of the breed most worshipped by the ancient Egyptians' gambols
unnoticed and unapplauded at his feet. All its wonted philosophical
equanimity has evidently departed, for the time at least, from the
senator's mind.
Silence--hitherto a stranger to the palace apartments--had reigned
uninterruptedly over them for some time, when the freedman Carrio
dissipated Vetranio's meditations, and put the ladies who were with him
to flight, by announcing in an important voice, that the Prefect
Pompeianus desired a private interview with the Senator Vetranio.
The next instant the chief magistrate of Rome entered the apartment. He
was a short, fat, undignified man. Indolence and vacillation were
legibly impressed on his appearance and expression. You saw, in a
moment, that his mind, like a shuttlecock, might be urged in any
direction by the efforts of others, but was utterly incapable of
volition by itself. But once in his life had the Prefect Pompeianus
been known to arrive unaided at a positive determination, and that was
in deciding a fierce argument between a bishop and a general, regarding
the relative merits of two rival rope-dancers of equal renown.
'I have come, my beloved friend,' said the Prefect in agitated tones,
'to ask your opinion, at this period of awful responsibility for us all,
on the plan of operations proposed by the Senate at the sitting of to-
day! But first,' he hastily continued, perceiving with the unerring
instinct of an old gastronome, that the inviting refreshments on
Vetranio's table had remained untouched, 'permit me to fortify my
exhausted energies by a visit to your ever-luxurious board. Alas, my
friend, when I consider the present fearful scarcity of our provision
stores in the city, and the length of time that this accursed blockade
may be expected to last, I am inclined to think that the gods alone know
(I mean St. Peter) how much longer we may be enabled to give occupation
to our digestions and employment to our cooks.
'I have observed,' pursued the Prefect, after an interval, speaking with
his mouth full of stewed peacock; 'I have observed, oh esteemed
colleague! the melancholy of your manner and your absolute silence
during your attendance to-day at our deliberations. Have we, in your
opinion, decided erroneously? It is not impossible! Our confusion at
this unexpected appearance of the barbarians may have blinded our usual
penetration! If by any chance you dissent from our plans, I beseech you
communicate your objections to me without reserve!'
'I dissent from nothing, because I have heard nothing,' replied Vetranio
sullenly. 'I was so occupied by a private matter of importance during
my attendance at the sitting of the Senate, that I was deaf to their
deliberations. I know that we are besieged by the Goths--why are they
not driven from before the walls?'
'Deaf to our deliberations! Drive the Goths from the walls!' repeated
the Prefect faintly. 'Can you think of any private matter at such a
moment as this? Do you know our danger? Do you know that our friends
are so astonished at this frightful calamity, that they move about like
men half awakened from a dream? Have you not seen the streets filled
with terrified and indignant crowds? Have you not mounted the ramparts
and beheld the innumerable multitudes of pitiless Goths surrounding us
on all sides, intercepting our supplies of provisions from the country,
and menacing us with a speedy famine, unless our hoped-for auxiliaries
arrive from Ravenna?'
'I have neither mounted the ramparts, nor viewed with any attention the
crowds in the streets,' replied Vetranio, carelessly.
'But if you have seen nothing yourself, you must have heard what others
saw,' persisted the Prefect; 'you must know at least that the legions we
have in the city are not sufficient to guard more than half the circuit
of the walls. Has no one informed you that if it should please the
leader of the barbarians to change his blockade into an assault, it is
more than probable that we should be unable to repulse him successfully?
Are you still deaf to our deliberations, when your palace may to-morrow
be burnt over your head, when we may be staved to death, when we may be
doomed to eternal dishonour by being driven to conclude a peace? Deaf
to our deliberations, when such an unimaginable calamity as this
invasion has fallen like a thunderbolt under our very walls! You amaze
me! You overwhelm me! You horrify me!'
And in the excess of his astonishment the bewildered Prefect actually
abandoned his stewed peacock, and advanced, wine-cup in hand, to obtain
a nearer view of the features of his imperturbable host.
'If we are not strong enough to drive the Goths out of Italy,' rejoined
Vetranio coolly, 'you and the Senate know that we are rich enough to
bribe them to depart to the remotest confines of the empire. If we have
not swords enough to fight, we have gold and silver enough to pay.'
'You are jesting! Remember our honour and the auxiliaries we still hope
for from Ravenna,' said the Prefect reprovingly.
'Honour has lost the signification now, that it had in the time of the
Caesars,' retorted the Senator. 'Our fighting days are over. We have
had heroes enough for our reputation. As for the auxiliaries you still
hope for, you will have none! While the Emperor is safe in Ravenna, he
will care nothing for the worst extremities that can be suffered by the
people of Rome.'
'But you forget your duties,' urged the astonished Pompeianus, turning
from rebuke to expostulation. 'You forget that it is a time when all
private interests must be abandoned! You forget that I have come here
to ask your advice, that I am bewildered by a thousand projects, forced
on me from all sides, for ruling the city successfully during the
blockade; that I look to you, as a friend and a man of reputation, to
aid me in deciding on a choice out of the varied counsels submitted to
me in the Senate to-day.'
'Write down the advice of each senator on a separate strip of vellum;
shake all the strips together in an urn; and then, let the first you
take out by chance, be your guide to govern by in the present condition
of the city!' said Vetranio with a sneer.
'Oh friend, friend! it is cruel to jest with me thus!' cried the
Prefect, in tones of lament; 'Would you really persuade me that you are
ignorant that what sentinels we have, are doubled already on the walls?
Would you attempt to declare seriously to me, that you never heard the
project of Saturninus for reducing imperceptibly the diurnal allowance
of provisions? Or the recommendation of Emilianus, that the people
should be kept from thinking on the dangers and extremities which now
threaten them, by being provided incessantly with public amusements at
the theatres and hippodromes? Do you really mean that you are
indifferent to the horrors of our present situation? By the souls of
the Apostles, Vetranio, I begin to think that you do not believe in the
Goths!'
'I have already told you that private affairs occupy me at present, to
the exclusion of public,' said Vetranio impatiently. 'Debate as you
choose--approve what projects you will--I withdraw myself from
interference in your deliberations!'
'This,' murmured the repulsed Prefect in soliloquy, as he mechanically
resumed his place at the refreshment table, 'this is the very end and
climax of all calamities! Now, when advice and assistance are more
precious than jewels in my estimation, I receive neither! I gain from
none, the wise and saving counsels which, as chief magistrate of this
Imperial City, it is my right to demand from all; and the man on whom I
most depended is the man who fails me most! Yet hear me, oh Vetranio,
once again,' he continued, addressing the Senator, 'if our perils beyond
the walls affect you not, there is a weighty matter that has been
settled within them, which must move you. After you had quitted the
Senate, Serena, the widow of Stilicho, was accused, as her husband was
accused before her, of secret and treasonable correspondence with the
Goths; and has been condemned, as her husband was condemned, to suffer
the penalty of death. I myself discerned no evidence to convict her;
but the populace cried out, in universal frenzy, that she was guilty,
that she should die; and that the barbarians, when they heard of the
punishment inflicted on their secret adherent, would retire in dismay
from Rome. This also was a moot point of argument, on which I vainly
endeavoured to decide; but the Senate and the people were wiser than I;
and Serena was condemned to be strangled to-morrow by the public
executioner. She was a woman of good report before this time, and is
the adopted mother of the Emperor. It is now doubted by many whether
Stilicho, her husband, was ever guilty of the correspondence with the
Goths, of which he was accused; and I, on my part, doubt much that
Serena has deserved the punishment of death at our hands. I beseech
you, Vetranio, let me be enlightened by your opinion on this one point
at least!'
The Prefect waited anxiously for an answer, but Vetranio neither looked
at him nor replied. It was evident that the Senator had not listened to
a word that he had said!
This reception of his final appeal for assistance, produced the effect
on the petitioner, which it was perhaps designed to convey--the Prefect
Pompeianus quitted the room in despair.
He had not long departed, when Carrio again entered the apartment, and
addressed his master thus:
'It is grievous for me, revered patron, to disclose it to you, but your
slaves have returned unsuccessful from the search!'
'Give the description of the girl to a fresh division of them, and let
them continue their efforts throughout the night, not only in the
streets, but in all the houses of public entertainment in the city. She
must be in Rome, and she must be found!' said the senator gloomily.
Carrio bowed profoundly, and was about to depart, when he was arrested
at the door by his master's voice.
'If an old man, calling himself Numerian, should desire to see me,' said
Vetranio, 'admit him instantly.'
'She had quitted the room but a short time when I attempted to reclaim
her,' pursued the senator, speaking to himself; 'and yet when I gained
the open air, she was nowhere to be seen! She must have mingled
unintentionally with the crowds whom the Goths drove into the city, and
thus have eluded my observation! So young and so innocent! She must be
found! She must be found!'
He paused, once more engrossed in deep and melancholy thought. After a
long interval, he was roused form his abstraction by the sound of
footsteps on the marble floor. He looked up. The door had been opened
without his perceiving it, and an old man was advancing with slow and
trembling steps towards his silken couch. It was the bereaved and
broken-hearted Numerian.
'Where is she? Is she found?' asked the father, gazing anxiously round
the room, as if he had expected to see his daughter there.
'My slaves still search for her,' said Vetranio, mournfully.
'Ah, woe--woe--woe! How I wronged her! How I wronged her!' cried the
old man, turning to depart.
'Listen to me ere you go,' said Vetranio, gently detaining him. 'I have
done you a great wrong, but I will yet atone for it by finding for you
your child! While there were women who would have triumphed in my
admiration, I should not have attempted to deprive you of your daughter!
Remember when you recover her--and you shall recover her--that from the
time when I first decoyed her into listening to my lute, to the night
when your traitorous servant led me to her bed-chamber, she has been
innocent in this ill-considered matter. I alone have been guilty! She
was scarcely awakened when you discovered her in my arms, and my entry
into her chamber, was as little expected by her, as it was by you. I
was bewildered by the fumes of wine and the astonishment of your sudden
appearance, or I should have rescued her from your anger, ere it was too
late! The events which have passed this morning, confused though they
were, have yet convinced me that I had mistaken you both. I now know
that your child was too pure to be an object fitted for my pursuit; and
I believe that in secluding her as you did, however ill-advised you
might appear, you were honest in your design! Never in my pursuit of
pleasure did I commit so fatal an error, as when I entered the doors of
your house!'
In pronouncing these words, Vetranio but gave expression to the
sentiments by which they were really inspired. As we have before
observed, profligate as he was by thoughtlessness of character and
license of social position, he was neither heartless nor criminal by
nature. Fathers had stormed, but his generosity had hitherto invariably
pacified them. Daughters had wept, but had found consolation on all
previous occasions in the splendour of his palace and the amiability of
his disposition. In attempting, therefore, the abduction of Antonina,
though he had prepared for unusual obstacles, he had expected no worse
results of his new conquest, than those that had followed, as yet, his
gallantries that were past. But, when--in the solitude of his own home,
and in the complete possession of his faculties--he recalled all the
circumstances of his attempt, from the time when he had stolen on the
girl's slumbers, to the moment when she had fled from the house; when he
remembered the stern concentrated anger of Numerian, and the agony and
despair of Antonina; when he thought on the spirit-broken repentance of
the deceived father, and the fatal departure of the injured daughter, he
felt as a man who had not merely committed an indiscretion, but had been
guilty of a crime; he became convinced that he had incurred the fearful
responsibility of destroying the happiness of a parent who was really
virtuous, and a child who was truly innocent. To a man, the business of
whose whole life was to procure for himself a heritage of unalloyed
pleasure, whose sole occupation was to pamper that refined sensuality
which the habits of a life had made the very material of his heart, by
diffusing luxury and awakening smiles wherever he turned his steps, the
mere mental disquietude attending the ill-success of his intrusion into
Numerian's dwelling, was as painful in its influence, as the bitterest
remorse that could have afflicted a more highly-principled mind. He
now, therefore, instituted the search after Antonina, and expressed his
contrition to her father, from a genuine persuasion that nothing but the
completest atonement for the error he had committed, could restore to
him that luxurious tranquility, the loss of which had, as he had himself
expressed it, rendered him deaf to the deliberations of the Senate, and
regardless of the invasion of the Goths.
'Tell me,' he continued, after a pause, 'whither has Ulpius betaken
himself? It is necessary that he should be discovered. He may
enlighten us upon the place of Antonina's retreat. He shall be secured
and questioned.'
'He left me suddenly; I saw him as I stood at the window, mix with the
multitude in the street, but I know not whither he is gone,' replied
Numerian; and a tremor passed over his whole frame as he spoke of the
remorseless Pagan.
Again there was a short silence. The grief of the broken-spirited
father, possessed in its humility and despair, a voice of rebuke, before
which the senator, careless and profligate as he was, instinctively
quailed. For some time he endeavoured in vain to combat the silencing
and reproving influence, exerted over him by the very presence of the
sorrowing man whom he had so fatally wronged. At length, after an
interval, he recovered self-possession enough to address to Numerian
some further expressions of consolation and hope; but he spoke to ears
that listened not. The father had relapsed into his mournful
abstraction; and when the senator paused, he merely muttered to
himself--'She is lost! Alas, she is lost for ever!'
'No, she is not lost for ever,' cried Vetranio, warmly. 'I have wealth
and power enough to cause her to be sought for to the ends of the earth!
Ulpius shall be secured and questioned--imprisoned, tortured, if it is
necessary. Your daughter shall be recovered. Nothing is impossible to
a senator of Rome!'
'I knew not that I loved her, until the morning when I wronged and
banished her!' continued the old man, still speaking to himself. 'I
have lost all traces of my parents and my brother--my wife is parted
from me for ever--I have nothing left but Antonina; and now too she is
gone! Even my ambition, that I once thought my all in all, is no
comfort to my soul; for I loved it--alas! unconsciously loved it--
through the being of my child! I destroyed her lute--I thought her
shameless--I drove her from my doors! Oh, how I wronged her!--how I
wronged her!'
'Remain here, and repose yourself in one of the sleeping apartments,
until my slaves return in the morning. You will then hear without delay
of the result of their search to-night,' said Vetranio, in kindly and
compassionate tones.
'It grows dark--dark!' groaned the father, tottering towards the door;
'but that is nothing; daylight itself now looks darkness to me! I must
go: I have duties at the chapel to perform. Night is repose for you--
for me, it is tribulation and prayer!'
He departed as he spoke. Slowly he paced along the streets that led to
his chapel, glancing with penetrating eye at each inhabitant of the
besieged city who passed him on his way. With some difficulty he
arrived at his destination; for Rome was still thronged with armed men
hurrying backwards and forwards, and with crowds of disorderly citizens
pouring forth, wherever there was space enough for them to assemble.
The report of the affliction that had befallen him had already gone
abroad among his hearers, and they whispered anxiously to each other as
he entered the plain, dimly-lighted chapel, and slowly mounted the
pulpit to open the service, by reading the chapter in the Bible which
had been appointed for perusal that night, and which happened to be the
fifth of the Gospel of St. Mark. His voice trembled, his face was
ghastly pale, and his hands shook perceptibly as he began; but he read
on, in low, broken tones, and with evident pain and difficulty, until he
came to the verse containing these words: 'My little daughter lieth at
the point of death.' Here he stopped suddenly, endeavoured vainly for a
few minutes to proceed, and then, covering his face with his hands, sank
down in the pulpit and sobbed aloud. His sorrowing and startled audience
immediately gathered round him, raised him in their arms, and prepared
to conduct him to his own abode. When, however, they had gained the
door of the chapel, he desired them gently, to leave him and return to
the performance of the service among themselves. Ever implicitly
obedient to his slightest wishes, the persons of his little assembly,
moved to tears by the sight of their teacher's suffering, obeyed him, by
retiring silently to their former places. As soon as he found that he
was alone, he passed the door; and whispering to himself, 'I must join
those who seek her! I must aid them myself in the search!'--he mingled
once more with the disorderly citizens who thronged the darkened
streets.