Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (ebook reader macos TXT) 📕
"By the cloud-scattering Zeus!" said Marcus Vinicius, "what a choice thou hast!"
"I prefer choice to numbers," answered Petronius. "My whole 'familia' [household servants] in Rome does not exceed four hundred, and I judge that for personal attendance only upstarts need a greater number of people."
"More beautiful bodies even Bronzebeard does not possess," said Vinicius, distending his nostrils.
"Thou art my relative," answered Petronius, with a certain friend
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“Seek him, and find him for me.”
“I will occupy myself with that,” said Tigellinus.
But Nero spoke further to Vinicius: “I thank thee for having supported
me; I might have broken my head by a fall. On a time thou wert a good
companion, but campaigning and service with Corbulo have made thee wild
in some way; I see thee rarely.
“How is that maiden too narrow in the hips, with whom thou wert in
love,” asked he after a while, “and whom I took from Aulus for thee?”
Vinicius was confused, but Petronius came to his aid at that moment. “I
will lay a wager, lord,” said he, “that he has forgotten. Dost thou see
his confusion? Ask him how many of them there were since that time, and
I will not give assurance of his power to answer. The Vinicius are good
soldiers, but still better gamecocks. They need whole flocks. Punish
him for that, lord, by not inviting him to the feast which Tigellinus
promises to arrange in thy honor on the pond of Agrippa.”
“I will not do that. I trust, Tigellinus, that flocks of beauty will
not be lacking there.”
“Could the Graces be absent where Amor will be present?” answered
Tigellinus.
“Weariness tortures me,” said Nero. “I have remained in Rome at the
will of the goddess, but I cannot endure the city. I will go to Antium.
I am stifled in these narrow streets, amid these tumble-down houses,
amid these alleys. Foul air flies even here to my house and my gardens.
Oh, if an earthquake would destroy Rome, if some angry god would level
it to the earth! I would show how a city should be built, which is the
head of the world and my capital.”
“Cæsar,” answered Tigellinus, “thou sayest, ‘If some angry god would
destroy the city,’—is it so?”
“It is! What then?”
“But art thou not a god?”
Nero waved his hand with an expression of weariness, and said,—“We
shall see thy work on the pond of Agrippa. Afterward I go to Antium.
Ye are all little, hence do not understand that I need immense things.”
Then he closed his eyes, giving to understand in that way that he needed
rest. In fact, the Augustians were beginning to depart. Petronius went
out with Vinicius, and said to him,—“Thou art invited, then, to share
in the amusement. Bronzebeard has renounced the journey, but he will be
madder than ever; he has fixed himself in the city as in his own house.
Try thou, too, to find in these madnesses amusement and forgetfulness.
Well! we have conquered the world, and have a right to amuse ourselves.
Thou, Marcus, art a very comely fellow, and to that I ascribe in part
the weakness which I have for thee. By the Ephesian Diana! if thou
couldst see thy joined brows, and thy face in which the ancient blood of
the Quirites is evident! Others near thee looked like freedmen. True!
were it not for that mad religion, Lygia would be in thy house to-day.
Attempt once more to prove to me that they are not enemies of life and
mankind. They have acted well toward thee, hence thou mayst be grateful
to them; but in thy place I should detest that religion, and seek
pleasure where I could find it. Thou art a comely fellow, I repeat, and
Rome is swarming with divorced women.”
“I wonder only that all this does not torture thee yet?”
“Who has told thee that it does not? It tortures me this long time, but
I am not of thy years. Besides, I have other attachments which are
lacking thee. I love books, thou hast no love for them; I love poetry,
which annoys thee; I love pottery, gems, a multitude of things, at which
thou dost not look; I have a pain in my loins, which thou hast not; and,
finally, I have found Eunice, but thou hast found nothing similar. For
me, it is pleasant in my house, among masterpieces; of thee I can never
make a man of æsthetic feeling. I know that in life I shall never find
anything beyond what I have found; thou thyself knowest not that thou
art hoping yet continually, and seeking. If death were to visit thee,
with all thy courage and sadness, thou wouldst die with astonishment
that it was necessary to leave the world; but I should accept death as a
necessity, with the conviction that there is no fruit in the world which
I have not tasted. I do not hurry, neither shall I loiter; I shall try
merely to be joyful to the end. There are cheerful sceptics in the
world. For me, the Stoics are fools; but stoicism tempers men, at
least, while thy Christians bring sadness into the world, which in life
is the same as rain in nature. Dost thou know what I have learned?
That during the festivities which Tigellinus will arrange at the pond of
Agrippa, there will be lupanaria, and in them women from the first
houses of Rome. Will there be not even one sufficiently beautiful to
console thee? There will be maidens, too, appearing in society for the
first time—as nymphs. Such is our Roman Cæsardom! The air is mild
already; the midday breeze will warm the water and not bring pimples on
naked bodies. And thou, Narcissus, know this, that there will not be
one to refuse thee,—not one, even though she be a vestal virgin.”
Vinicius began to strike his head with his palm, like a man occupied
eternally with one thought.
“I should need luck to find such a one.”
“And who did this for thee, if not the Christians? But people whose
standard is a cross cannot be different. Listen to me: Greece was
beautiful, and created wisdom; we created power; and what, to thy
thinking, can this teaching create? If thou know, explain; for, by
Pollux! I cannot divine it.”
“Thou art afraid, it seems, lest I become a Christian,” said Vinicius,
shrugging his shoulders.
“I am afraid that thou hast spoiled life for thyself. If thou canst not
be a Grecian, be a Roman; possess and enjoy. Our madnesses have a
certain sense, for there is in them a kind of thought of our own. I
despise Bronzebeard, because he is a Greek buffoon. If he held himself
a Roman, I should recognize that he was right in permitting himself
madness. Promise me that if thou find some Christian on returning home,
thou wilt show thy tongue to him. If he be Glaucus the physician, he
will not wonder.—Till we meet on the pond of Agrippa.”
PRETORIANS surrounded the groves on the banks of the pond of Agrippa,
lest over-numerous throngs of spectators might annoy Cæsar and his
guests; though it was said that everything in Rome distinguished for
wealth, beauty, or intellect was present at that feast, which had no
equal in the history of the city. Tigellinus wished to recompense Cæsar
for the deferred journey to Achæa, to surpass all who had ever feasted
Nero, and prove that no man could entertain as he could. With this
object in view, while with Cæsar in Naples, and later in Beneventum, he
had made preparations and sent orders to bring from the remotest regions
of the earth beasts, birds, rare fish, and plants, not omitting vessels
and cloths, which were to enhance the splendor of the feast. The
revenues of whole provinces went to satisfy mad projects; but the
powerful favorite had no need to hesitate. His influence grew daily.
Tigellinus was not dearer than others to Nero yet, perhaps, but he was
becoming more and more indispensable. Petronius surpassed him
infinitely in polish, intellect, wit; in conversation he knew better how
to amuse Cæsar: but to his misfortune he surpassed in conversation Cæsar
himself, hence he roused his jealousy; moreover he could not be an
obedient instrument in everything, and Cæsar feared his opinion when
there were questions in matters of taste. But before Tigellinus, Nero
never felt any restraint. The very title, Arbiter Elegantiarum, which
had been given to Petronius, annoyed Nero’s vanity, for who had the
right to bear that title but himself? Tigellinus had sense enough to
know his own deficiencies; and seeing that he could not compete with
Petronius, Lucan, or others distinguished by birth, talents, or
learning, he resolved to extinguish them by the suppleness of his
services, and above all by such a magnificence that the imagination of
Nero himself would be struck by it. He had arranged to give the feast
on a gigantic raft, framed of gilded timbers. The borders of this raft
were decked with splendid shells found in the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean, shells brilliant with the colors of pearls and the rainbow. The
banks of the pond were covered with groups of palm, with groves of
lotus, and blooming roses. In the midst of these were hidden fountains
of perfumed water, statues of gods and goddesses, and gold or silver
cages filled with birds of various colors. In the centre of the raft
rose an immense tent, or rather, not to hide the feasters, only the roof
of a tent, made of Syrian purple, resting on silver columns; under it
were gleaming, like suns, tables prepared for the guests, loaded with
Alexandrian glass, crystal, and vessels simply beyond price,—the
plunder of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. The raft, which because of
plants accumulated on it had the appearance of an island and a garden,
was joined by cords of gold and purple to boats shaped like fish, swans,
mews, and flamingoes, in which sat at painted oars naked rowers of both
sexes, with forms and features of marvellous beauty, their hair dressed
in Oriental fashion, or gathered in golden nets. When Nero arrived at
the main raft with Poppæa and the Augustians, and sat beneath the purple
tent-roof, the oars struck the water, the boats moved, the golden cords
stretched, and the raft with the feast and the guests began to move and
describe circles on the pond. Other boats surrounded it, and other
smaller rafts, filled with women playing on citharæ and harps, women
whose rosy bodies on the blue background of the sky and the water and in
the reflections from golden instruments seemed to absorb that blue and
those reflections, and to change and bloom like flowers.
From the groves at the banks, from fantastic buildings reared for that
day and hidden among thickets, were heard music and song. The
neighborhood resounded, the groves resounded; echoes bore around the
voices of horns and trumpets. Cæsar himself, with Poppæa on one side of
him, and Pythagoras on the other, was amazed; and more especially when
among the boats young slave maidens appeared as sirens, and were covered
with green network in imitation of scales, he did not spare praises on
Tigellinus. But he looked at Petronius from habit, wishing to learn the
opinion of the “arbiter,” who seemed indifferent for a long time, and
only when questioned outright, answered,—“I judge, lord, that ten
thousand naked maidens make less impression than one.”
But the “floating feast” pleased Cæsar, for it was something new.
Besides, such exquisite dishes were served that the imagination of
Apicius would have failed at sight of them, and wines of so many kinds
that Otho, who used to serve eighty, would have hidden under water with
shame, could he have witnessed the luxury of that feast. Besides women,
the Augustians sat down at the table, among whom Vinicius excelled all
with his beauty. Formerly his figure and face indicated too clearly the
soldier by profession; now mental suffering and the physical pain
through which he had passed
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