The Last Days of Pompeii

E >> Edward George Bulwer Lytton >> The Last Days of Pompeii


'An example to our other priesthoods, indeed!--Jupiter's temple wants
reforming sadly,' said Lepidus, who was a great reformer for all but
himself.

'They say that Arbaces the Egyptian has imparted some most solemn
mysteries to the priests of Isis,' observed Sallust. 'He boasts his
descent from the race of Rameses, and declares that in his family the
secrets of remotest antiquity are treasured.'

'He certainly possesses the gift of the evil eye,' said Clodius. 'If I
ever come upon that Medusa front without the previous charm, I am sure
to lose a favorite horse, or throw the canes nine times running.'

'The last would be indeed a miracle!' said Sallust, gravely.

'How mean you, Sallust?' returned the gamester, with a flushed brow.

'I mean, what you would leave me if I played often with you; and that
is--nothing.'

Clodius answered only by a smile of disdain.

'If Arbaces were not so rich,' said Pansa, with a stately air, 'I should
stretch my authority a little, and inquire into the truth of the report
which calls him an astrologer and a sorcerer. Agrippa, when aedile of
Rome, banished all such terrible citizens. But a rich man--it is the
duty of an aedile to protect the rich!'

'What think you of this new sect, which I am told has even a few
proselytes in Pompeii, these followers of the Hebrew God--Christus?'

'Oh, mere speculative visionaries,' said Clodius; 'they have not a
single gentleman amongst them; their proselytes are poor, insignificant,
ignorant people!'

'Who ought, however, to be crucified for their blasphemy,' said Pansa,
with vehemence; 'they deny Venus and Jove! Nazarene is but another name
for atheist. Let me catch them--that's all.'

The second course was gone--the feasters fell back on their
couches--there was a pause while they listened to the soft voices of the
South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucus was the most rapt
and the least inclined to break the silence, but Clodius began already
to think that they wasted time.

'Bene vobis! (Your health!) my Glaucus,' said he, quaffing a cup to each
letter of the Greek's name, with the ease of the practised drinker.
'Will you not be avenged on your ill-fortune of yesterday? See, the dice
court us.'

'As you will,' said Glaucus.

'The dice in summer, and I an aedile!' said Pansa, magisterially; 'it is
against all law.'

'Not in your presence, grave Pansa,' returned Clodius, rattling the dice
in a long box; 'your presence restrains all license: it is not the
thing, but the excess of the thing, that hurts.'

'What wisdom!' muttered the umbra.

'Well, I will look another way,' said the aedile.

'Not yet, good Pansa; let us wait till we have supped,' said Glaucus.

Clodius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with a yawn.

'He gapes to devour the gold,' whispered Lepidus to Sallust, in a
quotation from the Aulularia of Plautus.

'Ah! how well I know these polypi, who hold all they touch,' answered
Sallust, in the same tone, and out of the same play.

The third course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio nuts,
sweetmeats, tarts, and confectionery tortured into a thousand fantastic
and airy shapes, was now placed upon the table; and the ministri, or
attendants, also set there the wine (which had hitherto been handed
round to the guests) in large jugs of glass, each bearing upon it the
schedule of its age and quality.

'Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa,' said Sallust; 'it is excellent.'

'It is not very old,' said Glaucus, 'but it has been made precocious,
like ourselves, by being put to the fire:--the wine to the flames of
Vulcan--we to those of his wife--to whose honour I pour this cup.'

'It is delicate,' said Pansa, 'but there is perhaps the least particle
too much of rosin in its flavor.'

'What a beautiful cup!' cried Clodius, taking up one of transparent
crystal, the handles of which were wrought with gems, and twisted in the
shape of serpents, the favorite fashion at Pompeii.

'This ring,' said Glaucus, taking a costly jewel from the first joint of
his finger and hanging it on the handle, 'gives it a richer show, and
renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, my Clodius, on whom may the
gods bestow health and fortune, long and oft to crown it to the brim!'

'You are too generous, Glaucus,' said the gamester, handing the cup to
his slave; 'but your love gives it a double value.'

'This cup to the Graces!' said Pansa, and he thrice emptied his calix.
The guests followed his example.

'We have appointed no director to the feast,' cried Sallust.

'Let us throw for him, then,' said Clodius, rattling the dice-box.

'Nay,' cried Glaucus, 'no cold and trite director for us: no dictator of
the banquet; no rex convivii. Have not the Romans sworn never to obey a
king? Shall we be less free than your ancestors? Ho! musicians, let us
have the song I composed the other night: it has a verse on this
subject, "The Bacchic hymn of the Hours".'

The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionic air, while the
youngest voice in the band chanted forth, in Greek words, as numbers,
the following strain:--

THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS

I

Through the summer day, through the weary day,
We have glided long;
Ere we speed to the Night through her portals grey,
Hail us with song!--
With song, with song,
With a bright and joyous song;
Such as the Cretan maid,
While the twilight made her bolder,
Woke, high through the ivy shade,
When the wine-god first consoled her.
From the hush'd, low-breathing skies,
Half-shut look'd their starry eyes,
And all around,
With a loving sound,
The AEgean waves were creeping:
On her lap lay the lynx's head;
Wild thyme was her bridal bed;
And aye through each tiny space,
In the green vine's green embrace
The Fauns were slily peeping--
The Fauns, the prying Fauns--
The arch, the laughing Fauns--
The Fauns were slily peeping!

II

Flagging and faint are we
With our ceaseless flight,
And dull shall our journey be
Through the realm of night,
Bathe us, O bathe our weary wings
In the purple wave, as it freshly springs
To your cups from the fount of light--
From the fount of light--from the fount of light,

For there, when the sun has gone down in night,
There in the bowl we find him.
The grape is the well of that summer sun,
Or rather the stream that he gazed upon,
Till he left in truth, like the Thespian youth,
His soul, as he gazed, behind him.

III

A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love,
And a cup to the son of Maia;
And honour with three, the band zone-free,
The band of the bright Aglaia.
But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure
Ye owe to the sister Hours,
No stinted cups, in a formal measure,
The Bromian law makes ours.
He honors us most who gives us most,
And boasts, with a Bacchanal's honest boast,
He never will count the treasure.
Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings,
And plunge us deep in the sparkling springs;
And aye, as we rise with a dripping plume,
We'll scatter the spray round the garland's bloom;
We glow--we glow,
Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave
Bore once with a shout to the crystal cave
The prize of the Mysian Hylas,
Even so--even so,
We have caught the young god in our warm embrace
We hurry him on in our laughing race;
We hurry him on, with a whoop and song,
The cloudy rivers of night along--
Ho, ho!--we have caught thee, Psilas!

The guests applauded loudly. When the poet is your host, his verses are
sure to charm.

'Thoroughly Greek,' said Lepidus: 'the wildness, force, and energy of
that tongue, it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry.'

'It is, indeed, a great contrast,' said Clodius, ironically at heart,
though not in appearance, 'to the old-fashioned and tame simplicity of
that ode of Horace which we heard before. The air is beautifully Ionic:
the word puts me in mind of a toast--Companions, I give you the
beautiful Ione.'

'Ione!--the name is Greek,' said Glaucus, in a soft voice. 'I drink the
health with delight. But who is Ione?'

'Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would deserve ostracism
for your ignorance,' said Lepidus, conceitedly; 'not to know Ione, is
not to know the chief charm of our city.'

'She is of the most rare beauty,' said Pansa; 'and what a voice!'

'She can feed only on nightingales' tongues,' said Clodius.

'Nightingales' tongues!--beautiful thought!' sighed the umbra.

'Enlighten me, I beseech you,' said Glaucus.

'Know then...' began Lepidus.

'Let me speak,' cried Clodius; 'you drawl out your words as if you spoke
tortoises.'

'And you speak stones,' muttered the coxcomb to himself, as he fell back
disdainfully on his couch.

'Know then, my Glaucus,' said Clodius, 'that Ione is a stranger who has
but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like Sappho, and her songs are
her own composing; and as for the tibia, and the cithara, and the lyre,
I know not in which she most outdoes the Muses. Her beauty is most
dazzling. Her house is perfect; such taste--such gems--such bronzes!
She is rich, and generous as she is rich.'

'Her lovers, of course,' said Glaucus, 'take care that she does not
starve; and money lightly won is always lavishly spent.'

'Her lovers--ah, there is the enigma!--Ione has but one vice--she is
chaste. She has all Pompeii at her feet, and she has no lovers: she will
not even marry.'

'No lovers!' echoed Glaucus.

'No; she has the soul of Vestal with the girdle of Venus.'

'What refined expressions!' said the umbra.

'A miracle!' cried Glaucus. 'Can we not see her?'

'I will take you there this evening, said Clodius; 'meanwhile...' added
he, once more rattling the dice.

'I am yours!' said the complaisant Glaucus. 'Pansa, turn your face!'

Lepidus and Sallust played at odd and even, and the umbra looked on,
while Glaucus and Clodius became gradually absorbed in the chances of
the dice.

'By Pollux!' cried Glaucus, 'this is the second time I have thrown the
caniculae' (the lowest throw).

'Now Venus befriend me!' said Clodius, rattling the box for several
moments. 'O Alma Venus--it is Venus herself!' as he threw the highest
cast, named from that goddess--whom he who wins money, indeed, usually
propitiates!

'Venus is ungrateful to me,' said Glaucus, gaily; 'I have always
sacrificed on her altar.'

'He who plays with Clodius,' whispered Lepidus, 'will soon, like
Plautus's Curculio, put his pallium for the stakes.'

'Poor Glaucus!--he is as blind as Fortune herself,' replied Sallust, in
the same tone.

'I will play no more,' said Glaucus; 'I have lost thirty sestertia.'

'I am sorry...' began Clodius.

'Amiable man!' groaned the umbra.

'Not at all!' exclaimed Glaucus; 'the pleasure I take in your gain
compensates the pain of my loss.'

The conversation now grew general and animated; the wine circulated more
freely; and Ione once more became the subject of eulogy to the guests of
Glaucus.

'Instead of outwatching the stars, let us visit one at whose beauty the
stars grow pale,' said Lepidus.

Clodius, who saw no chance of renewing the dice, seconded the proposal;
and Glaucus, though he civilly pressed his guests to continue the
banquet, could not but let them see that his curiosity had been excited
by the praises of Ione: they therefore resolved to adjourn (all, at
least, but Pansa and the umbra) to the house of the fair Greek. They
drank, therefore, to the health of Glaucus and of Titus--they performed
their last libation--they resumed their slippers--they descended the
stairs--passed the illumined atrium--and walking unbitten over the
fierce dog painted on the threshold, found themselves beneath the light
of the moon just risen, in the lively and still crowded streets of
Pompeii.

They passed the jewellers' quarter, sparkling with lights, caught and
reflected by the gems displayed in the shops, and arrived at last at the
door of Ione. The vestibule blazed with rows of lamps; curtains of
embroidered purple hung on either aperture of the tablinum, whose walls
and mosaic pavement glowed with the richest colors of the artist; and
under the portico which surrounded the odorous viridarium they found
Ione, already surrounded by adoring and applauding guests!

'Did you say she was Athenian?' whispered Glaucus, ere he passed into
the peristyle.

'No, she is from Neapolis.'

'Neapolis!' echoed Glaucus; and at that moment the group, dividing on
either side of Ione, gave to his view that bright, that nymph-like
beauty, which for months had shone down upon the waters of his memory.



Chapter IV

THE TEMPLE OF ISIS. ITS PRIEST. THE CHARACTER OF ARBACES DEVELOPS
ITSELF.

THE story returns to the Egyptian. We left Arbaces upon the shores of
the noonday sea, after he had parted from Glaucus and his companion. As
he approached to the more crowded part of the bay, he paused and gazed
upon that animated scene with folded arms, and a bitter smile upon his
dark features.

'Gulls, dupes, fools, that ye are!' muttered he to himself; 'whether
business or pleasure, trade or religion, be your pursuit, you are
equally cheated by the passions that ye should rule! How I could loathe
you, if I did not hate--yes, hate! Greek or Roman, it is from us, from
the dark lore of Egypt, that ye have stolen the fire that gives you
souls. Your knowledge--your poesy--your laws--your arts--your barbarous
mastery of war (all how tame and mutilated, when compared with the vast
original!)--ye have filched, as a slave filches the fragments of the
feast, from us! And now, ye mimics of a mimic!--Romans, forsooth! the
mushroom herd of robbers! ye are our masters! the pyramids look down no
more on the race of Rameses--the eagle cowers over the serpent of the
Nile. Our masters--no, not mine. My soul, by the power of its wisdom,
controls and chains you, though the fetters are unseen. So long as
craft can master force, so long as religion has a cave from which
oracles can dupe mankind, the wise hold an empire over earth. Even from
your vices Arbaces distills his pleasures--pleasures unprofaned by
vulgar eyes--pleasures vast, wealthy, inexhaustible, of which your
enervate minds, in their unimaginative sensuality, cannot conceive or
dream! Plod on, plod on, fools of ambition and of avarice! your petty
thirst for fasces and quaestorships, and all the mummery of servile
power, provokes my laughter and my scorn. My power can extend wherever
man believes. I ride over the souls that the purple veils. Thebes may
fall, Egypt be a name; the world itself furnishes the subjects of
Arbaces.'

Thus saying, the Egyptian moved slowly on; and, entering the town, his
tall figure towered above the crowded throng of the forum, and swept
towards the small but graceful temple consecrated to Isis.

That edifice was then but of recent erection; the ancient temple had
been thrown down in the earthquake sixteen years before, and the new
building had become as much in vogue with the versatile Pompeians as a
new church or a new preacher may be with us. The oracles of the goddess
at Pompeii were indeed remarkable, not more for the mysterious language
in which they were clothed, than for the credit which was attached to
their mandates and predictions. If they were not dictated by a
divinity, they were framed at least by a profound knowledge of mankind;
they applied themselves exactly to the circumstances of individuals, and
made a notable contrast to the vague and loose generalities of their
rival temples. As Arbaces now arrived at the rails which separated the
profane from the sacred place, a crowd, composed of all classes, but
especially of the commercial, collected, breathless and reverential,
before the many altars which rose in the open court. In the walls of
the cella, elevated on seven steps of Parian marble, various statues
stood in niches, and those walls were ornamented with the pomegranate
consecrated to Isis. An oblong pedestal occupied the interior building,
on which stood two statues, one of Isis, and its companion represented
the silent and mystic Orus. But the building contained many other
deities to grace the court of the Egyptian deity: her kindred and
many-titled Bacchus, and the Cyprian Venus, a Grecian disguise for
herself, rising from her bath, and the dog-headed Anubis, and the ox
Apis, and various Egyptian idols of uncouth form and unknown
appellations.

But we must not suppose that among the cities of Magna Graecia, Isis was
worshipped with those forms and ceremonies which were of right her own.
The mongrel and modern nations of the South, with a mingled arrogance
and ignorance, confounded the worships of all climes and ages. And the
profound mysteries of the Nile were degraded by a hundred meretricious
and frivolous admixtures from the creeds of Cephisus and of Tibur. The
temple of Isis in Pompeii was served by Roman and Greek priests,
ignorant alike of the language and the customs of her ancient votaries;
and the descendant of the dread Egyptian kings, beneath the appearance
of reverential awe, secretly laughed to scorn the puny mummeries which
imitated the solemn and typical worship of his burning clime.

Ranged now on either side the steps was the sacrificial crowd, arrayed
in white garments, while at the summit stood two of the inferior
priests, the one holding a palm branch, the other a slender sheaf of
corn. In the narrow passage in front thronged the bystanders.

'And what,' whispered Arbaces to one of the bystanders, who was a
merchant engaged in the Alexandrian trade, which trade had probably
first introduced in Pompeii the worship of the Egyptian goddess--'what
occasion now assembles you before the altars of the venerable Isis? It
seems, by the white robes of the group before me, that a sacrifice is to
be rendered; and by the assembly of the priests, that ye are prepared
for some oracle. To what question is it to vouchsafe a reply?'

'We are merchants,' replied the bystander (who was no other than Diomed)
in the same voice, 'who seek to know the fate of our vessels, which sail
for Alexandria to-morrow. We are about to offer up a sacrifice and
implore an answer from the goddess. I am not one of those who have
petitioned the priest to sacrifice, as you may see by my dress, but I
have some interest in the success of the fleet--by Jupiter! yes. I have
a pretty trade, else how could I live in these hard times?

The Egyptian replied gravely--'That though Isis was properly the goddess
of agriculture, she was no less the patron of commerce.' Then turning
his head towards the east, Arbaces seemed absorbed in silent prayer.

And now in the centre of the steps appeared a priest robed in white from
head to foot, the veil parting over the crown; two new priests relieved
those hitherto stationed at either corner, being naked half-way down to
the breast, and covered, for the rest, in white and loose robes. At the
same time, seated at the bottom of the steps, a priest commenced a
solemn air upon a long wind-instrument of music. Half-way down the
steps stood another flamen, holding in one hand the votive wreath, in
the other a white wand; while, adding to the picturesque scene of that
eastern ceremony, the stately ibis (bird sacred to the Egyptian worship)
looked mutely down from the wall upon the rite, or stalked beside the
altar at the base of the steps.

At that altar now stood the sacrificial flamen.

The countenance of Arbaces seemed to lose all its rigid calm while the
aruspices inspected the entrails, and to be intent in pious anxiety--to
rejoice and brighten as the signs were declared favorable, and the fire
began bright and clearly to consume the sacred portion of the victim
amidst odorous of myrrh and frankincense. It was then that a dead
silence fell over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering round
the cella, another priest, naked save by a cincture round the middle,
rushed forward, and dancing with wild gestures, implored an answer from
the goddess. He ceased at last in exhaustion, and a low murmuring noise
was heard within the body of the statue: thrice the head moved, and the
lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic words:

There are waves like chargers that meet and glow,
There are graves ready wrought in the rocks below,
On the brow of the future the dangers lour,
But blest are your barks in the fearful hour.

The voice ceased--the crowd breathed more freely--the merchants looked
at each other. 'Nothing can be more plain,' murmured Diomed; 'there is
to be a storm at sea, as there very often is at the beginning of autumn,
but our vessels are to be saved. O beneficent Isis!'

'Lauded eternally be the goddess!' said the merchants: 'what can be less
equivocal than her prediction?'

Raising one hand in sign of silence to the people, for the rites of Isis
enjoined what to the lively Pompeians was an impossible suspense from
the use of the vocal organs, the chief priest poured his libation on the
altar, and after a short concluding prayer the ceremony was over, and
the congregation dismissed. Still, however, as the crowd dispersed
themselves here and there, the Egyptian lingered by the railing, and
when the space became tolerably cleared, one of the priests, approaching
it, saluted him with great appearance of friendly familiarity.

The countenance of the priest was remarkably unprepossessing--his shaven
skull was so low and narrow in the front as nearly to approach to the
conformation of that of an African savage, save only towards the
temples, where, in that organ styled acquisitiveness by the pupils of a
science modern in name, but best practically known (as their sculpture
teaches us) amongst the ancients, two huge and almost preternatural
protuberances yet more distorted the unshapely head--around the brows
the skin was puckered into a web of deep and intricate wrinkles--the
eyes, dark and small, rolled in a muddy and yellow orbit--the nose,
short yet coarse, was distended at the nostrils like a satyr's--and the
thick but pallid lips, the high cheek-bones, the livid and motley hues
that struggled through the parchment skin, completed a countenance which
none could behold without repugnance, and few without terror and
distrust: whatever the wishes of the mind, the animal frame was well
fitted to execute them; the wiry muscles of the throat, the broad chest,
the nervous hands and lean gaunt arms, which were bared above the elbow,
betokened a form capable alike of great active exertion and passive
endurance.

'Calenus,' said the Egyptian to this fascinating flamen, 'you have
improved the voice of the statue much by attending to my suggestion; and
your verses are excellent. Always prophesy good fortune, unless there
is an absolute impossibility of its fulfilment.'

'Besides,' added Calenus, 'if the storm does come, and if it does
overwhelm the accursed ships, have we not prophesied it? and are the
barks not blest to be at rest?--for rest prays the mariner in the AEgean
sea, or at least so says Horace--can the mariner be more at rest in the
sea than when he is at the bottom of it?'

'Right, my Calenus; I wish Apaecides would take a lesson from your
wisdom. But I desire to confer with you relative to him and to other
matters: you can admit me into one of your less sacred apartments?'

'Assuredly,' replied the priest, leading the way to one of the small
chambers which surrounded the open gate. Here they seated themselves
before a small table spread with dishes containing fruit and eggs, and
various cold meats, with vases of excellent wine, of which while the
companions partook, a curtain, drawn across the entrance opening to the
court, concealed them from view, but admonished them by the thinness of
the partition to speak low, or to speak no secrets: they chose the
former alternative.

'Thou knowest,' said Arbaces, in a voice that scarcely stirred the air,
so soft and inward was its sound, 'that it has ever been my maxim to
attach myself to the young. From their flexile and unformed minds I can
carve out my fittest tools. I weave--I warp--I mould them at my will.
Of the men I make merely followers or servants; of the women...'

'Mistresses,' said Calenus, as a livid grin distorted his ungainly
features.

'Yes, I do not disguise it: woman is the main object, the great
appetite, of my soul. As you feed the victim for the slaughter, I love
to rear the votaries of my pleasure. I love to train, to ripen their
minds--to unfold the sweet blossom of their hidden passions, in order to
prepare the fruit to my taste. I loathe your ready-made and ripened
courtesans; it is in the soft and unconscious progress of innocence to
desire that I find the true charm of love; it is thus that I defy
satiety; and by contemplating the freshness of others, I sustain the
freshness of my own sensations. From the young hearts of my victims I
draw the ingredients of the caldron in which I re-youth myself. But
enough of this: to the subject before us. You know, then, that in
Neapolis some time since I encountered Ione and Apaecides, brother and
sister, the children of Athenians who had settled at Neapolis. The death
of their parents, who knew and esteemed me, constituted me their
guardian. I was not unmindful of the trust. The youth, docile and mild,
yielded readily to the impression I sought to stamp upon him. Next to
woman, I love the old recollections of my ancestral land; I love to keep
alive--to propagate on distant shores (which her colonies perchance yet
people) her dark and mystic creeds. It may be, that it pleases me to
delude mankind, while I thus serve the deities. To Apaecides I taught
the solemn faith of Isis. I unfolded to him something of those sublime
allegories which are couched beneath her worship. I excited in a soul
peculiarly alive to religious fervor that enthusiasm which imagination
begets on faith. I have placed him amongst you: he is one of you.'