ACTÉ, page 14
Paul closed the door upon them saying: “There is a family of slaves whose happiness an Emperor’s family might envy.”
The following night they continued their road and arrived at Fundi; thus Acté, during the whole of this mysterious nocturnal journey, revisited one after the other the places through which she had passed with Nero on his triumphal progress. It was at Fundi that they had been so splendidly received by Galba, the old man to whom the oracles had promised the imperial crown; the sight of him had recalled this prediction to the Emperor, who had forgotten it, thanks to the obscurity of life which the future Caesar studiously affected. The result had been, that no sooner had Nero arrived at Rome, than his first care had been to remove Galba from Italy; the government of Spain had consequently been bestowed on him, and he had set out thither immediately, even more anxious perhaps to get out of reach of the Emperor, than the latter was to place him out of reach of the throne.
Before setting out, Galba had freed the most trusty of his slaves, and it was at the house of one of these freedmen, who had become a convert to the Christian faith, that Silas prepared a lodging for Paul and Acté. This slave had been the gardener of Galba’s orchards, and the day of his enfranchisement had received as a gift the little house which he occupied in his master’s gardens, and from the windows of this humble abode Acté could see by the moon’s clear light the magnificent mansion where she had stayed with Lucius. The first of these two journeys seemed to her like a dream; what strange vicissitudes she had experienced! what illusions, that had once seemed to be within her reach, had now vanished! what sufferings, which at that time she could not believe even to have existed, had since been realised! How everything had changed for her; how those blooming gardens in which she fancied she was still walking were dried up and withered; how in her barren and solitary life her love alone had remained alive, ever fresh, ever the same, ever standing firm like a pyramid in the midst of the desert.
For three days, or rather three nights, more, they continued their road; seeking places of concealment at the approach of daylight and resuming their journey when darkness came on, always preceded by Silas and staying every night with fresh converts, for the Christian faith was already beginning to reckon a large number of adherents, especially among the slaves and the lower orders. At last, on the third day they left Velitrae, that ancient capital of the Volscians, where Coriolanus died and Augustus was born; and just as the moon was rising on the horizon, they reached the summit of the Alban Mount. Silas had remained with them during this stage of their journey, though he walked about three or four hundred yards in advance of them. On reaching the tomb of Ascanius, however, he stopped, and waited until they came up with him, then, stretching out his hand towards the horizon where a multitude of lights were shining and the dull roar of a city could be heard, he pronounced this single word which announced to the old man and the girl that they were nearing their journey’s end:
“Rome!”
Paul fell on his knees, thanking the Lord for having brought him, through so great dangers, to his journey’s end and to the goal which had been promised him.
As for Acté, she leant against the tomb to prevent herself from falling, so sweet and yet so cruel were the memories aroused by the name of the Imperial city, at the spot where she had beheld it for the first time.
“O my father!” said the girl, “I have followed you without asking whither we were bound; but had I known that it was Rome — oh! I do not think I should have had the courage to come.”
“It is not to Rome that we are going,” said the old man, rising; then, as a group of horsemen were approaching along the Appian Way, Silas quitted the road and went off to the right across the plain, followed by Paul and Acté.
They then resumed their journey, keeping between the Latin and the Appian Way, at the same time avoiding following either of the roads that branched off from the first-named, and led, the one to Marina, near the Alban Lake, and the other to the temple of Neptune, near Antium. After walking for two hours and leaving the temple of Fortuna on their right and that of Mercury on their left, they entered the valley of Egeria and followed for some time the banks of the little river Almo, then, turning to the right, and proceeding past masses of rocks that seemed to have been detached from the mountain by some earthquake, they suddenly found themselves at the entrance to a cavern.
Silas plunged at once into this cavern, inviting the travellers in a low tone to follow him; but Acté shuddered involuntarily at the unexpected sight of the dark opening, that resembled the jaws of some monster ready to devour her. Paul felt her arm laid upon his own as though to stop him; he understood the reason of her terror.
“Fear nothing, my daughter,” said he; “the Lord is with us.”
Acté sighed, and cast a last look at the sky studded with stars of which she was about to lose sight, then hurried with Paul beneath the vault of the cavern.
After picking their steps amid a darkness so profound that they were only able to follow Silas by the sound of his voice, the latter stopped at the foot of one of the massive pillars which supported the roof, and striking two stones one against the other, produced some sparks, by means of which he set fire to rag steeped in sulphur; then, drawing forth a torch concealed in a hollow of the rock, he observed: “There is no danger at this hour, and all Nero’s soldiers might be in pursuit of us without discovering us now.”
Acté glanced round and could at first distinguish nothing; the torch, still flickering owing to the currents of air from outside, only cast a faint and fitful light upon the surrounding objects, which relapsed again into obscurity before their shape or colour could be distinguished. Gradually, however, the eye grew accustomed to this flickering motion, the flame of the torch burned more strongly, lighting up a wider extent of space, and the travellers could even distinguish the roof of this immense vault. Presently the outer air having ceased to penetrate to the spot where they now were, the light burned steadily and allowed them to see further; sometimes they walked along a confined path as though between two walls, sometimes they came upon a large open space with deep rocky cavities which the light of the torch was unable to penetrate, while it but dimly reflected the angles of the pillars which stood white and motionless as spectres. In this darkling walk, in the sound of their footsteps, which, light as they were, were answered by mournful echoes, in the absence of fresh air — an absence to which her lungs were not yet accustomed — in all this there was something which oppressed Acté’s heart with a sense of sadness. Suddenly she stopped with a shudder, laying one of her hands on Paul’s arm, and pointing with the other to a row of coffins occupying one of the sides of the wall. At the same time could be seen at the furthest end of these dark avenues women passing dressed in white and looking like ghosts; they were carrying torches and all making for a common point of meeting. Presently, as Acté and her companions still advanced, they heard clear strains of music, resembling an angelic chorus, swelling melodiously beneath the resonant arcades. Lamps fixed at intervals to the pillars began to point out the road; the coffins became more frequent, the white-shrouded forms more numerous, the singing more plainly heard, as they approached nearer and nearer to the subterranean city, and as its suburbs began to be populated by the dead and the living. Occasionally they came across roses and other flowers that had fallen from some wreath and were lying scattered on the ground and withering sadly in the absence of sun and air. Acté gathered up these poor flowers, children of the sunny daylight like herself, and astonished like herself at finding themselves buried alive in a tomb; these she fastened together and made into a wan and scentless bouquet, even as out of the relics of a happiness that is past, a man constructs a dim and dreary hope for the future. At last, at a turning of one of the thousand roads of this labyrinth, they discovered a large space where the rocks had been carved into the resemblance of a subterranean basilica, lighted by lamps and torches, in which were assembled a whole population of men, women and children. A body of maidens robed in long white veils were making the vaulted roof resound with the strains which Acté had heard; a priest was advancing through the kneeling assembly and preparing to celebrate the Holy Mysteries, when, just as he reached the altar, he suddenly stopped, and turning to the astonished congregation, exclaimed in tones of awed reverence:
“There is among us one more worthy than I to proclaim to you the Word of God, for he has heard it from the lips of His Son. Approach, Paul, and bless thy brethren.”
The entire congregation, to whom the Apostle had long since promised a visit, prostrated themselves; Acté, heathen though she was, followed their example, and the future martyr ascended the altar-steps.
They were in the Catacombs!
CHAPTER XIII
THE Catacombs constituted an entire city, — a city beneath a city. Earth, nations, and individuals have all a similar existence; the earth has its cataclysms, nations have their revolutions, mankind its diseases; all three have a childhood, a vigorous manhood, and an old age; their ages differ in length, that is all. The first counts by thousands of years, the second by centuries, the last by days. In this term which is granted to them, each has periods of transition during which events hitherto unheard of take place, which events, while connected with the past and preparing for the future, reveal themselves to the investigations of science under the title of natural accidents, while to the eye of faith they shine forth as the dispensations of Providence. Now, Rome had arrived at one of those mysterious epochs, and was beginning to experience those strange convulsions which accompany the birth or the fall of empires; she felt within her the quickening of the unknown progeny to which she was destined to give birth and which already stirred ponderously within her vast womb; she was in the throes of a mortal disease, and, like a person in a fever, who can obtain neither rest nor slumber, she was spending the closing years of her pagan life, now in fits of delirium, now in intervals of prostration. The cause of all this was, as we have said, that, beneath the outward and superficial civilization which moved above the surface, there had slipped in a new principle, subterranean and invisible, bringing with it destruction and reconstruction, death and life, darkness and light. Accordingly there took place every day above her, beneath her and around her, those events which to her blind condition seemed inexplicable, and which her poets recount as prodigies. These consisted of strange subterranean noises which were ascribed to the gods of the nether regions; sudden disappearances of men, women, and entire families; apparitions of people who were thought to be dead, and who emerged suddenly from the realms of shadows to utter denunciations and predictions. The subterranean furnace which heated this immense crucible was boiling within it, like gold and lead, all noble and all base passions; only, the gold was precipitated, while the lead remained on the surface. The Catacombs were the mysterious receptacle in which was collected drop by drop the treasure of the future.
The Catacombs, as everybody knows, were vast disused quarries; the entire city of Rome, with its houses, palaces, theatres, baths, circuses, and aqueducts, had emerged from these quarries, stone by stone. They were the womb which had mothered the city of Romulus and of Scipio; but since the days of Octavius, when marble had superseded stone, these vast galleries had ceased to reverberate to the steps of the workmen. Travertine had become too common, and the Emperors had requisitioned from Babylon her porphyry, from Thebes her granite, from Corinth her brass. The immense caverns which extended beneath Rome had accordingly remained forsaken, deserted and forgotten, until the rise of Christianity slowly and mysteriously re-peopled them; they became at first a temple, then a place of refuge, then a city.
At the time when Acté and the old man descended into them, they were as yet only a hiding-place; slaves, unfortunates, proscribed persons, all such were sure of finding there a refuge, consolation, and a tomb. Accordingly, whole families had taken shelter within their dark recesses, and already the adherents of the new faith were reckoned by thousands; but amid the enormous population that thronged Rome above ground, none had thought of noticing this subterranean infiltration, since it was not so great as to be visible on the surface of society or to reduce to any appreciable extent the level of the population.
It must not, however, be thought that the life of the early Christians was concerned only in withdrawing itself from the persecutions which now began to arise; it associated itself by acts of sympathy, of piety and courage with all the occurrences which threatened such of their brethren as, owing to any necessity, were detained within the walls of the heathen city. Often, when threatened by danger, the neophyte in the upper city perceived some unexpected aid ascending towards him; some unseen trap-door would open beneath his feet and close above his head; the door of his cell would turn mysteriously on its hinges and gaoler and victim would fly together. Or when the blow of wrath had fallen so swiftly that, like the thunderbolt, it had struck instantaneously with the lightning — when the neophyte had become the martyr, whether strangled in the Tullianum, beheaded in the public square, hurled from the height of the Tarpeian rock, or, lastly, crucified on the Esquiline — then, taking advantage of the darkness, cautious old men, or adventurous young ones, sometimes even timid women, climbing the winding pathways up the accursed hill where the bodies of the condemned victims were cast out to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey, carried away these mutilated corpses and bore them with religious care to the Catacombs, where, from being objects of the hatred and execration of their persecutors, they became objects of reverence and adoration for their brethren, who exhorted one another so to live and die, as these chosen ones who had preceded them to heaven had lived and died on earth.
Often it chanced that Death, weary of striking his blows in the upper air, came and chose some victim below in the Catacombs; in this case, it was not merely a mother, or a son, or a wife who bewailed the loss of a relation; it was, as it were, an entire family lamenting a child. The corpse would be wrapped in a shroud; if it were a maiden, she would be covered with roses; if a man, young or old, a palm branch was placed in his hand, and the priest would recite over him the prayers for the dead; then the body would be laid gently in the niche hollowed out beforehand, where it would rest in expectation of the resurrection to eternal life. These were the coffins seen by Acté when she entered for the first time these unknown vaults; at the moment they had inspired her with a profound dread, which was presently converted into sadness. The girl, still a heathen intellectually, but at heart already a Christian, would often remain for whole hours before these tombs where some bereaved mother, wife, or daughter had carved with the point of a knife the name of the beloved one, together with some religious symbol or sacred inscription expressive either of grief or of hope. Upon almost all of them the symbol was a cross, preaching resignation to men by reminding them of the Divine passion; or again, it might be the seven-branched candlestick that used to burn in the temple at Jerusalem, or, perhaps the dove of the Ark, sweet messenger of pity, bringing to earth the olive branch plucked in the gardens of Heaven.
But occasionally the memories of her former happiness returned vividly and forcibly to Acté’s heart, and she seemed to see once more the rays of the sunshine and to hear the sounds of earth. At such times she would go and sit in solitude, leaning her back against some massive pillar; and there, shrouded in a long veil, her hands crossed and her face buried in her lap, the passers-by would have taken her for a statue seated on a tomb, had it not been that an occasional sigh was heard escaping from her lips, or a shudder of grief was seen to pass through her whole frame. Then Paul, who alone knew the struggle that was passing in her soul, Paul, who had seen Christ pardon the Magdalene, trusted to time and to God to heal her wound, and, seeing her thus silent and motionless, would say to the purest of the Christian maidens: “Pray for this woman, that the Lord may pardon her, and that she may one day be numbered among yourselves.” The maidens obeyed, and, whether it was that their prayers reached the ear of Heaven, or that tears assuage the bitterness of grief, the young Greek before long joined her young companions with a smile upon her lips and tears in her eyes.
However, while the Christians concealed in the Catacombs were thus spending their lives in acts of love, were making proselytes, and living in an attitude of expectation, affairs overhead were drawing to a crisis. The entire pagan world was reeling like a drunken man, and Nero, prince of the feast and king of the orgy, was surfeiting himself with pleasure, wine and blood. The death of Agrippina had burst the last bond which might have yet held him in check by means of the instinctive reverence of a son for a mother. But the instant that the flame of her funeral-pyre was extinguished, all sense of shame, all warnings of conscience, all remorse seemed to be extinguished along with it. He now wanted to live at Bauli, any noble sentiments he might have ever possessed having been succeeded by fear; and Nero, however great his contempt for men, however great the irreverence he professed for the gods, could not suppose that such a crime as the murder of his mother would not call down upon him the hatred of men and the wrath of gods, Accordingly he remained at a distance from Naples and Rome, awaiting the news brought him by his messengers; but he had been wrong in his doubts as to whether the Senate could sink so low as it actually did, and presently a deputation of patricians and knights arrived for the purpose of congratulating him on having escaped a fresh and unforeseen danger, and of announcing that not only Rome, but all the cities of the empire were thronging the temples with their envoys and testifying by sacrifices to their joy. As for the gods, if we may believe Tacitus, who may possibly have ascribed to them some portion of his own sternness and severity, they were less complaisant; in default of remorse, they visited the parricide with insomnia, and during this insomnia he heard a trumpet blare on the summit of the neighbouring hills, and cries of lamentation, of which no explanation could be given, reached his ears, coming from the direction of his mother’s tomb. In consequence of this he had removed to Naples.
The following night they continued their road and arrived at Fundi; thus Acté, during the whole of this mysterious nocturnal journey, revisited one after the other the places through which she had passed with Nero on his triumphal progress. It was at Fundi that they had been so splendidly received by Galba, the old man to whom the oracles had promised the imperial crown; the sight of him had recalled this prediction to the Emperor, who had forgotten it, thanks to the obscurity of life which the future Caesar studiously affected. The result had been, that no sooner had Nero arrived at Rome, than his first care had been to remove Galba from Italy; the government of Spain had consequently been bestowed on him, and he had set out thither immediately, even more anxious perhaps to get out of reach of the Emperor, than the latter was to place him out of reach of the throne.
Before setting out, Galba had freed the most trusty of his slaves, and it was at the house of one of these freedmen, who had become a convert to the Christian faith, that Silas prepared a lodging for Paul and Acté. This slave had been the gardener of Galba’s orchards, and the day of his enfranchisement had received as a gift the little house which he occupied in his master’s gardens, and from the windows of this humble abode Acté could see by the moon’s clear light the magnificent mansion where she had stayed with Lucius. The first of these two journeys seemed to her like a dream; what strange vicissitudes she had experienced! what illusions, that had once seemed to be within her reach, had now vanished! what sufferings, which at that time she could not believe even to have existed, had since been realised! How everything had changed for her; how those blooming gardens in which she fancied she was still walking were dried up and withered; how in her barren and solitary life her love alone had remained alive, ever fresh, ever the same, ever standing firm like a pyramid in the midst of the desert.
For three days, or rather three nights, more, they continued their road; seeking places of concealment at the approach of daylight and resuming their journey when darkness came on, always preceded by Silas and staying every night with fresh converts, for the Christian faith was already beginning to reckon a large number of adherents, especially among the slaves and the lower orders. At last, on the third day they left Velitrae, that ancient capital of the Volscians, where Coriolanus died and Augustus was born; and just as the moon was rising on the horizon, they reached the summit of the Alban Mount. Silas had remained with them during this stage of their journey, though he walked about three or four hundred yards in advance of them. On reaching the tomb of Ascanius, however, he stopped, and waited until they came up with him, then, stretching out his hand towards the horizon where a multitude of lights were shining and the dull roar of a city could be heard, he pronounced this single word which announced to the old man and the girl that they were nearing their journey’s end:
“Rome!”
Paul fell on his knees, thanking the Lord for having brought him, through so great dangers, to his journey’s end and to the goal which had been promised him.
As for Acté, she leant against the tomb to prevent herself from falling, so sweet and yet so cruel were the memories aroused by the name of the Imperial city, at the spot where she had beheld it for the first time.
“O my father!” said the girl, “I have followed you without asking whither we were bound; but had I known that it was Rome — oh! I do not think I should have had the courage to come.”
“It is not to Rome that we are going,” said the old man, rising; then, as a group of horsemen were approaching along the Appian Way, Silas quitted the road and went off to the right across the plain, followed by Paul and Acté.
They then resumed their journey, keeping between the Latin and the Appian Way, at the same time avoiding following either of the roads that branched off from the first-named, and led, the one to Marina, near the Alban Lake, and the other to the temple of Neptune, near Antium. After walking for two hours and leaving the temple of Fortuna on their right and that of Mercury on their left, they entered the valley of Egeria and followed for some time the banks of the little river Almo, then, turning to the right, and proceeding past masses of rocks that seemed to have been detached from the mountain by some earthquake, they suddenly found themselves at the entrance to a cavern.
Silas plunged at once into this cavern, inviting the travellers in a low tone to follow him; but Acté shuddered involuntarily at the unexpected sight of the dark opening, that resembled the jaws of some monster ready to devour her. Paul felt her arm laid upon his own as though to stop him; he understood the reason of her terror.
“Fear nothing, my daughter,” said he; “the Lord is with us.”
Acté sighed, and cast a last look at the sky studded with stars of which she was about to lose sight, then hurried with Paul beneath the vault of the cavern.
After picking their steps amid a darkness so profound that they were only able to follow Silas by the sound of his voice, the latter stopped at the foot of one of the massive pillars which supported the roof, and striking two stones one against the other, produced some sparks, by means of which he set fire to rag steeped in sulphur; then, drawing forth a torch concealed in a hollow of the rock, he observed: “There is no danger at this hour, and all Nero’s soldiers might be in pursuit of us without discovering us now.”
Acté glanced round and could at first distinguish nothing; the torch, still flickering owing to the currents of air from outside, only cast a faint and fitful light upon the surrounding objects, which relapsed again into obscurity before their shape or colour could be distinguished. Gradually, however, the eye grew accustomed to this flickering motion, the flame of the torch burned more strongly, lighting up a wider extent of space, and the travellers could even distinguish the roof of this immense vault. Presently the outer air having ceased to penetrate to the spot where they now were, the light burned steadily and allowed them to see further; sometimes they walked along a confined path as though between two walls, sometimes they came upon a large open space with deep rocky cavities which the light of the torch was unable to penetrate, while it but dimly reflected the angles of the pillars which stood white and motionless as spectres. In this darkling walk, in the sound of their footsteps, which, light as they were, were answered by mournful echoes, in the absence of fresh air — an absence to which her lungs were not yet accustomed — in all this there was something which oppressed Acté’s heart with a sense of sadness. Suddenly she stopped with a shudder, laying one of her hands on Paul’s arm, and pointing with the other to a row of coffins occupying one of the sides of the wall. At the same time could be seen at the furthest end of these dark avenues women passing dressed in white and looking like ghosts; they were carrying torches and all making for a common point of meeting. Presently, as Acté and her companions still advanced, they heard clear strains of music, resembling an angelic chorus, swelling melodiously beneath the resonant arcades. Lamps fixed at intervals to the pillars began to point out the road; the coffins became more frequent, the white-shrouded forms more numerous, the singing more plainly heard, as they approached nearer and nearer to the subterranean city, and as its suburbs began to be populated by the dead and the living. Occasionally they came across roses and other flowers that had fallen from some wreath and were lying scattered on the ground and withering sadly in the absence of sun and air. Acté gathered up these poor flowers, children of the sunny daylight like herself, and astonished like herself at finding themselves buried alive in a tomb; these she fastened together and made into a wan and scentless bouquet, even as out of the relics of a happiness that is past, a man constructs a dim and dreary hope for the future. At last, at a turning of one of the thousand roads of this labyrinth, they discovered a large space where the rocks had been carved into the resemblance of a subterranean basilica, lighted by lamps and torches, in which were assembled a whole population of men, women and children. A body of maidens robed in long white veils were making the vaulted roof resound with the strains which Acté had heard; a priest was advancing through the kneeling assembly and preparing to celebrate the Holy Mysteries, when, just as he reached the altar, he suddenly stopped, and turning to the astonished congregation, exclaimed in tones of awed reverence:
“There is among us one more worthy than I to proclaim to you the Word of God, for he has heard it from the lips of His Son. Approach, Paul, and bless thy brethren.”
The entire congregation, to whom the Apostle had long since promised a visit, prostrated themselves; Acté, heathen though she was, followed their example, and the future martyr ascended the altar-steps.
They were in the Catacombs!
CHAPTER XIII
THE Catacombs constituted an entire city, — a city beneath a city. Earth, nations, and individuals have all a similar existence; the earth has its cataclysms, nations have their revolutions, mankind its diseases; all three have a childhood, a vigorous manhood, and an old age; their ages differ in length, that is all. The first counts by thousands of years, the second by centuries, the last by days. In this term which is granted to them, each has periods of transition during which events hitherto unheard of take place, which events, while connected with the past and preparing for the future, reveal themselves to the investigations of science under the title of natural accidents, while to the eye of faith they shine forth as the dispensations of Providence. Now, Rome had arrived at one of those mysterious epochs, and was beginning to experience those strange convulsions which accompany the birth or the fall of empires; she felt within her the quickening of the unknown progeny to which she was destined to give birth and which already stirred ponderously within her vast womb; she was in the throes of a mortal disease, and, like a person in a fever, who can obtain neither rest nor slumber, she was spending the closing years of her pagan life, now in fits of delirium, now in intervals of prostration. The cause of all this was, as we have said, that, beneath the outward and superficial civilization which moved above the surface, there had slipped in a new principle, subterranean and invisible, bringing with it destruction and reconstruction, death and life, darkness and light. Accordingly there took place every day above her, beneath her and around her, those events which to her blind condition seemed inexplicable, and which her poets recount as prodigies. These consisted of strange subterranean noises which were ascribed to the gods of the nether regions; sudden disappearances of men, women, and entire families; apparitions of people who were thought to be dead, and who emerged suddenly from the realms of shadows to utter denunciations and predictions. The subterranean furnace which heated this immense crucible was boiling within it, like gold and lead, all noble and all base passions; only, the gold was precipitated, while the lead remained on the surface. The Catacombs were the mysterious receptacle in which was collected drop by drop the treasure of the future.
The Catacombs, as everybody knows, were vast disused quarries; the entire city of Rome, with its houses, palaces, theatres, baths, circuses, and aqueducts, had emerged from these quarries, stone by stone. They were the womb which had mothered the city of Romulus and of Scipio; but since the days of Octavius, when marble had superseded stone, these vast galleries had ceased to reverberate to the steps of the workmen. Travertine had become too common, and the Emperors had requisitioned from Babylon her porphyry, from Thebes her granite, from Corinth her brass. The immense caverns which extended beneath Rome had accordingly remained forsaken, deserted and forgotten, until the rise of Christianity slowly and mysteriously re-peopled them; they became at first a temple, then a place of refuge, then a city.
At the time when Acté and the old man descended into them, they were as yet only a hiding-place; slaves, unfortunates, proscribed persons, all such were sure of finding there a refuge, consolation, and a tomb. Accordingly, whole families had taken shelter within their dark recesses, and already the adherents of the new faith were reckoned by thousands; but amid the enormous population that thronged Rome above ground, none had thought of noticing this subterranean infiltration, since it was not so great as to be visible on the surface of society or to reduce to any appreciable extent the level of the population.
It must not, however, be thought that the life of the early Christians was concerned only in withdrawing itself from the persecutions which now began to arise; it associated itself by acts of sympathy, of piety and courage with all the occurrences which threatened such of their brethren as, owing to any necessity, were detained within the walls of the heathen city. Often, when threatened by danger, the neophyte in the upper city perceived some unexpected aid ascending towards him; some unseen trap-door would open beneath his feet and close above his head; the door of his cell would turn mysteriously on its hinges and gaoler and victim would fly together. Or when the blow of wrath had fallen so swiftly that, like the thunderbolt, it had struck instantaneously with the lightning — when the neophyte had become the martyr, whether strangled in the Tullianum, beheaded in the public square, hurled from the height of the Tarpeian rock, or, lastly, crucified on the Esquiline — then, taking advantage of the darkness, cautious old men, or adventurous young ones, sometimes even timid women, climbing the winding pathways up the accursed hill where the bodies of the condemned victims were cast out to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey, carried away these mutilated corpses and bore them with religious care to the Catacombs, where, from being objects of the hatred and execration of their persecutors, they became objects of reverence and adoration for their brethren, who exhorted one another so to live and die, as these chosen ones who had preceded them to heaven had lived and died on earth.
Often it chanced that Death, weary of striking his blows in the upper air, came and chose some victim below in the Catacombs; in this case, it was not merely a mother, or a son, or a wife who bewailed the loss of a relation; it was, as it were, an entire family lamenting a child. The corpse would be wrapped in a shroud; if it were a maiden, she would be covered with roses; if a man, young or old, a palm branch was placed in his hand, and the priest would recite over him the prayers for the dead; then the body would be laid gently in the niche hollowed out beforehand, where it would rest in expectation of the resurrection to eternal life. These were the coffins seen by Acté when she entered for the first time these unknown vaults; at the moment they had inspired her with a profound dread, which was presently converted into sadness. The girl, still a heathen intellectually, but at heart already a Christian, would often remain for whole hours before these tombs where some bereaved mother, wife, or daughter had carved with the point of a knife the name of the beloved one, together with some religious symbol or sacred inscription expressive either of grief or of hope. Upon almost all of them the symbol was a cross, preaching resignation to men by reminding them of the Divine passion; or again, it might be the seven-branched candlestick that used to burn in the temple at Jerusalem, or, perhaps the dove of the Ark, sweet messenger of pity, bringing to earth the olive branch plucked in the gardens of Heaven.
But occasionally the memories of her former happiness returned vividly and forcibly to Acté’s heart, and she seemed to see once more the rays of the sunshine and to hear the sounds of earth. At such times she would go and sit in solitude, leaning her back against some massive pillar; and there, shrouded in a long veil, her hands crossed and her face buried in her lap, the passers-by would have taken her for a statue seated on a tomb, had it not been that an occasional sigh was heard escaping from her lips, or a shudder of grief was seen to pass through her whole frame. Then Paul, who alone knew the struggle that was passing in her soul, Paul, who had seen Christ pardon the Magdalene, trusted to time and to God to heal her wound, and, seeing her thus silent and motionless, would say to the purest of the Christian maidens: “Pray for this woman, that the Lord may pardon her, and that she may one day be numbered among yourselves.” The maidens obeyed, and, whether it was that their prayers reached the ear of Heaven, or that tears assuage the bitterness of grief, the young Greek before long joined her young companions with a smile upon her lips and tears in her eyes.
However, while the Christians concealed in the Catacombs were thus spending their lives in acts of love, were making proselytes, and living in an attitude of expectation, affairs overhead were drawing to a crisis. The entire pagan world was reeling like a drunken man, and Nero, prince of the feast and king of the orgy, was surfeiting himself with pleasure, wine and blood. The death of Agrippina had burst the last bond which might have yet held him in check by means of the instinctive reverence of a son for a mother. But the instant that the flame of her funeral-pyre was extinguished, all sense of shame, all warnings of conscience, all remorse seemed to be extinguished along with it. He now wanted to live at Bauli, any noble sentiments he might have ever possessed having been succeeded by fear; and Nero, however great his contempt for men, however great the irreverence he professed for the gods, could not suppose that such a crime as the murder of his mother would not call down upon him the hatred of men and the wrath of gods, Accordingly he remained at a distance from Naples and Rome, awaiting the news brought him by his messengers; but he had been wrong in his doubts as to whether the Senate could sink so low as it actually did, and presently a deputation of patricians and knights arrived for the purpose of congratulating him on having escaped a fresh and unforeseen danger, and of announcing that not only Rome, but all the cities of the empire were thronging the temples with their envoys and testifying by sacrifices to their joy. As for the gods, if we may believe Tacitus, who may possibly have ascribed to them some portion of his own sternness and severity, they were less complaisant; in default of remorse, they visited the parricide with insomnia, and during this insomnia he heard a trumpet blare on the summit of the neighbouring hills, and cries of lamentation, of which no explanation could be given, reached his ears, coming from the direction of his mother’s tomb. In consequence of this he had removed to Naples.
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