Domitia

“Come, – Lamia awaits you,” said Domitian.

Then the girl started to her feet.

“He is here! You will be generous, – like a prince!”

“Come with me.”

She now followed with beating heart. Her cheeks were flushed, a sparkle was in her eye, her breath came fast through her nostrils, her teeth were set.

Without were many lictors lining the way, filling the court.

He led into that portion of the villa where were the baths and entered the warm room. There Domitia saw at once Lamia, stripped almost to the skin, held by soldiers of the prince’s guard, his mouth gagged, and a surgeon standing by with a razor.

She would have sprung to him and thrown her arms around him, had she not been restrained.

“Domitia,” said the young Cæsar; “you will see how that to divorce you is in my power, unless you consent to it yourself, and give yourself to me.”

Domitia trembled in every limb. She looked with distended eyes at Lamia, who had no power to speak, save with his eyes, and they were fixed on her.

A large marble bath stood near, and both hot and cold water could be turned on into it.

She knew but too well what the threat was. Seneca had so perished under Nero, – by the cutting of the veins he had bled to death.

Petronius, master of the Revels to the same tyrant, had suffered in the same manner, and as his blood flowed he had mocked and hearkened to ribald verses till the power to listen and to flaunt his indifference were at an end.

And now the second Nero, not yet full blown, but giving earnest of what he would be, was threatening Lamia with the same death. It was not a gradual and painless extinction, but a death of great suffering, for it led to agonizing cramps, knotting the muscles, and contracting the limbs. Domitia knew this – she had heard the dying agonies of Seneca and Petronius described, – and she looked with quivering lips and bloodless cheeks on him whom she loved best – on the only one in the world she loved, threatened with the same awful death.

She would do anything short of taking the Cæsar Domitian as her husband in place of him to whom she was bound by the most sacred ties, – anything short of that to save the life of Lamia.

The struggle in her bosom was terrible; her head spun, she tried to speak but could frame no words.

She sought some guidance in Lamia’s eyes, but her own swam with tears, and she could not read what he would advise.

“My child,” said her mother, “of course it is all very sad, and that sort of thing – but it is and must be so. If a wilful girl will not be brought to reason in any other way – well, it is a pity.”

Domitian turned to Domitia.

“His life is in your power,” said he. “He has insulted me before the Conscript Fathers, and is under arrest. I have brought him hither – to die. But I give his life to you on the one condition that you allow divorce to be pronounced between you and him, and that in his place you accept me.”

Domitia turned her face away.

“So be it,” said he. “Surgeon, open his veins.”

With a slash of the razor across the arm at the fold, an artery was severed, and the black blood spurted forth.

Uttering a cry of horror, Domitia battled with those who held her, to reach and clasp her husband.

“Cut the other arm,” commanded the prince, “then cast him into the bath.”

“I yield,” gasped Domitia, burying her face in her hands and sinking to her knees.

“Then bind up his wound, and let him go!”

“Destiny must be fulfilled,” said Elymas who stood behind. “You were born for the purple.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

INTERMEZZO

The dramatic composer has this great advantage over the novelist, that when he has to allow for a certain amount of time, – it may be for years – to elapse between the parts of his play, he lowers the curtain, the first or second act is concluded, ices, oranges are taken round in the stalls; the orchestra strikes up an overture, the gentlemen retire to the promenade gallery for a cigar, and the ladies discuss their acquaintances, and the toilette of those in the boxes, after having explored the theatre with their glasses.

At Munich and Bayreuth, at the performance of Wagner’s operas, the space allowed between the acts is sufficient for a walk and for a meal. Thus the lapse of time between the parts of a drama is given a real expression, and the minds of those who have followed the first part of the story are prepared to accept a change in the conditions of the performers, such as could be brought about solely by the passage of time.

But a novelist has no such assistance, he is not able to produce such an illusion; even when his story appears in a serial, he is without this advantage, for the movement of his tale, when it is rapid, is artificially delayed by the limitations laid down by the editors of the magazines, and the space allotted to him, and when he does require a pause to allow for the gliding away of a certain number of years, that pause consists of precisely the same number of days as intervened in the serial publication, between chapters in which the action should have been continuous.

The writer must, therefore, throw himself on the indulgence of the reader, and plead to be allowed like a Greek chorus to stand forward and narrate what has taken place, during a period of time concerning which he proposes to pass over without detailed account, before he resumes the thread of his narrative.

When Vespasian was hailed Emperor by the troops he was aged sixty-one, and none supposed that his reign would be long. He associated his eldest son Titus with him in government, but would not allow the younger, Domitian, any power.

When the Emperor reached the capital, he learned the misuse Domitian had made of that which he had arrogated to himself, or which had been granted to him by the Senate, in his father’s absence. The old Emperor was vastly displeased at the misconduct of his younger son, and would perhaps have dealt severely with him, had he not been dissuaded from so doing by Titus, who pointed out, that as he himself had no son, in all probability Domitian would at some time succeed to the purple.

The young man, kept in the background, not even allowed the command in any military expedition, carefully watched and restrained from giving vent to his natural disposition, chafed at his enforced inactivity, and at the marked manner in which he was set behind his elder brother, a man who, by the capture of Jerusalem, had gained a name, and had attached the soldiery to him. Domitian was known to the military only by his abortive attempt to pluck the laurels in Germany from the brow of his kinsman Cerealis, for the adornment of his own head.

Domitian was granted none of the titles that indicated association in the Empire. He was not suffered to take part in public affairs. His insolence in neglecting the duties of prætor of the city, as beneath his dignity, was punished in this manner. When Titus celebrated his triumph after the Jewish war, with unusual magnificence, he and his father rode in chariots of state, but Domitian was made to follow on horseback. When Vespasian and his eldest son showed themselves in public, they were carried on thrones, whereas Domitian was made to attend in the rear in a litter.

The envious, ambitious young prince, under this treatment was driven to wear a mask, and he affected a love of literature, and indifference to the affairs of state. Titus, who knew less of him than his father, was deceived, but Vespasian was too well aware of the radically evil heart of his younger son to trust him in any way.

Domitia was unable to escape from compulsary association with this imperial cub. Vespasian was unwilling to undo the past, and have the scandal raked up again, and public attention called to it. The minds of the volatile Romans had forgotten the circumstances and were occupied with new matters of gossip. Domitian married Domitia Longina, and the old Emperor after some consideration concluded that she should remain his wife.

But the relations between her and the prince were strained. She hated him for what he had done, and she made no attempt to affect a liking she did not feel.

Lamia remained unmarried; he had cared for no other woman, and he felt that there was not to be found one who could ever be to him what he had hoped Domitia would have proved.

Once Titus asked him his reason for not marrying.

“Why do you inquire?” said Lamia, with a bitter smile, “do you also wish to carry off my wife?”

On the death of the old Emperor, Titus succeeded without any difficulties being raised. His father had already associated him in the Empire and had gradually transferred the conduct of affairs to his hands.

Hitherto the brothers had lived on very good terms with each other, at all events in appearance, and Domitian had been sufficiently prudent to veil his jealousy of Titus, who had shown himself kindly disposed towards his younger brother.

On the accession of Titus, Domitian hoped to be associated with him in government in the same manner as Titus had been with his father. In this he was disappointed, his disappointment got the better of his prudence, and he declared that his brother had falsified the will of Vespasian, who had divided the power equally between them.

On the first day of his reign, Titus designated Domitian as his successor, but he allowed him no independent power; and the young prince at once involved himself in intrigues and sought to rouse the troops to revolt, and to proclaim him in place of Titus.

The condition of Domitia would have been more intolerable than it was, but that Vespasian, up to his death, retained his younger son about his person, in Rome, and it was but rarely that the prince was able to escape to his villa, at Albanum, where Domitia remained in seclusion. And his visits there were not only few and far between, but also brief.

He was in bad humor when there, at liberty to vent his irritation at the manner in which he was treated by his father, and the behavior towards him of Domitia was not calculated to dispel his vapors.