Domitia

A considerable change had come over her face. The expression had altered; it had been full of sweetness, and the muscles had been flexible. Now it was hard-set and stern.

Domitian cursed her for the fascination she still exercised over him. It was perhaps her unyielding temper, her openly expressed scorn, and her biting sarcasms which stung him to maintain his grip on her, knowing that this was to her torture. Yet her beauty exercised over him a hold from which he could not escape. His feelings towards her were a mixture of passionate admiration and savage resentment. From every one else he met with adulation, or at least respect, from her neither. His will was a law to a legion of sycophants, to her it was something she seemed to find a pleasure in defying.

Domitia nursed her resentment, and this soured her nature and reflected itself in her features.

In the long Chiaramonte Gallery of the Vatican Museum is an exquisite and uninjured bust of Domitia Longina as a girl; the face is one that holds the passer-by, it is so sweet, so beautiful, so full of a glorious soul.

In the Florence Gallery is one of the same woman after Domitian had snatched her away from Lamia, and hidden her in his Alban villa. Lovely the face is still, but the beautiful soul has lost its light, the softness has gone out of the face, and the shadow of a darkened life broods over it.

At Albanum the solitary Domitia had the satisfaction of being attended by her servant Euphrosyne, and the faithful Eboracus was also allowed to be there as her minister.

She occasionally visited her mother in Rome, but the chasm between them widened. Duilia could not understand her daughter’s refusal to accept the inevitable and failure to lay hold of her opportunities, and, as she termed it, “eat her rat.” The older Duilia grew, the less inclined she was to acknowledge her age, and the more frivolous and scheming she became. She was never weary of weaving little webs of mystery and of contriving plans; and the initiating of all these was a supper. She was well off, liked ostentation, yet was withal of a frugal mind, and never ordered costly dishes, or broached her best wine without calculation that they would lead to valuable results.

It was possible that Vespasian might have interfered in favor of Domitia, had he been made to understand how strongly she disliked the union, but Domitia herself was never able to obtain an interview with the aged Emperor, and Duilia took pains to assure him that the marriage had been contracted entirely with her approval, that the union with Lamia had been entered on without feeling on either side, in obedience to an expressed wish of Corbulo before his death, and that her daughter was quite content to be released.

The period was not one in which the personal feelings of a girl were counted as deserving of much thought, certainly not of being considered by an Emperor, and Vespasian took no steps to relieve Domitia. Titus was better aware of the facts, and had some notion of the wrench it had been to the young married people, but he was not desirous of having the matter reopened. It would not conduce to the credit of the Flavian house, and that was in his eyes a matter of paramount consideration – as the process of deification of the Flavians had already begun.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I.

AN APPEAL

“What can I do for thee, Domitia?” asked Titus, who was pacing the room; he halted before the young wife of his brother, who was kneeling on the mosaic floor.

She had taken advantage of her introduction into the Imperial palace to make an appeal to Titus, now Emperor. She had not been allowed to appear there during the reign of Vespasian.

Titus was a tall, solidly built man, with the neck of a bull; he had the same vulgarity of aspect that characterized both his father and brother, and which was also conspicuous in his daughter Julia. The whole Flavian family looked, what it was, of ignoble origin, – there was none of the splendid beauty that belonged to Augustus, and to the Claudian family that succeeded. Their features were fleshy and coarse, their movements without grace, their address without dignity.

If they attempted to be gracious, they spoiled the graciousness by clumsiness in the act; if they did a generous thing, it carried its shadow of meanness trailing behind it.

Titus had not borne a good character before his elevation to the purple. He had indulged in coarse vices, had shown himself callous toward human suffering. Yet there was in his muddy nature a spark of good feeling, a desire to do what was right, a rough sense of justice and much family affection.

It was a disappointment to him that he had but one child, a daughter, a gaunt, stupid girl, big-boned, amiable and ugly.

He knew that Domitian, his younger brother, would in all probability succeed him, but he also was childless. Next to him, the nearest of male kin, were the sons of that Flavius Sabinus, who had been butchered by the Vitellians, and their names were Sabinus and Clemens.

The former was much liked by the people, he was an upright grave man. The second was regarded with distrust, as a Christian. It was not the fact of his following a strange religion that gave offence. To that Romans were supremely indifferent, but that which they could not understand and allow was a man withdrawing himself from the public service, the noblest avocation of a man, because he scrupled to worship the image of the Emperor, and to swear by his genius. They regarded this as a mere excuse to cover inertness of character, and ignobility of mind.

For the like reason, Christians could not attend public banquets or go to private entertainments as the homage done to the gods, and the idolatrous offerings associated with them, stood in their way. The profession of Christianity, accordingly, not only debarred from the public service, but interfered with social amenities. Such withdrawal from public social life the Romans could not understand, and they attributed this conduct to a morbid hatred entertained by the Christians for their fellow-men.

The public shows were either brutal or licentious. The Christians equally refused to be present at the gladiatorial combats and at the coarse theatrical representations of broad comedy and low buffoonery. This also was considered as indicative of a gloomy and unamiable spirit.

There were indeed heathen men who loathed the frightful butchery in the arena, such was the Emperor Tiberius, – and Pliny in his letters shows us that to some men of his time they were disgusting, but nevertheless they attended these exhibitions, as a public duty, and contented themselves with expressing objection to them privately. The objection was founded on taste, not principle, and therefore called for no public expression of reprobation.

Clemens was quite out of the question as a successor. If he was too full of scruple to take a prætorship, he was certainly unfit to be an emperor. Not so Flavius Sabinus his elder brother. Him accordingly, Domitian looked upon with jealousy.

“What can I do for thee?” again asked Titus, and his heavy face assumed a kindly expression; “my child, I know that thou hast had trouble and art mated to a fellow with a gloomy, uncertain humor; but what has been done cannot be undone – ”

“Pardon me,” interrupted Domitia, “it is that I desire; let me be separated from him. I never, never desired to leave my true husband, Lamia, I was snatched away by violence – let me go back.”

“What! to Lamia! That will hardly do. Would he have thee?”

“Tainted by union with Domitian, perhaps not!” exclaimed Domitia fiercely. “Right indeed – he would not.”

“Nay, nay,” said Titus, his brow clouding, “such a word as that is impious, and in another would be treason. Domitia, you have a bitter tongue. I have heard my brother say as much. But I cannot think that Lamia would dare to receive thee again after having been the wife of a Flavian prince.”

Domitia’s lip curled, but she said nothing. These upstart Flavians made a brag of their consequence.

“Then,” said she, “let me go to my old home at Gabii. I have lived in seclusion enough at Albanum to find Gabii in the current of life – and my mother and her many friends will come there anon. Let me go. Let there be a divorce – and I will go home and paddle on the lake and pick flowers and seek to be heard of no more.”

“It would not do for you and Lamia to be married again. It would be a political error; it might be dangerous to us Flavians.”

“I should have supposed, in your brand-new divinity that a poor mouse like myself could not have scratched away any of the newly-laid-on gold leaf.”

“Domitia,” said Titus, who had resumed his walk, “be careful how you let that tongue act – it is a file, it has already removed some of the gilding.”

A smile broke out on his face at first inclined to darken.

“There! There!” said he, laughing; “I am not a fool. I know well enough what we were, as I feel what we have become. Caligula threw mud, the mud of Rome, into the lap of my grandfather, because he had not seen to the efficient scouring of the streets. It was ominous – the soil of Rome has been taken away from the divine race of Julius – and has been cast into the lap of us money-lenders, pettyfogging attorneys of Reate. Well! the Gods willed it, Domitia – it is necessary for us to make a display.”

“Push, as my mother would say.”

“Well – push – as you will it. But, understand, Domitia, though I am not ignorant of all this, I don’t like to have it thrown in my teeth; and my brother is more sensitive to this than myself. Domitia, I will do this for you. I will send for him, and see if I can induce him to part from you. I mistrust me,” – Titus smiled, looked at Domitia, with one finger stroked her cheek, and said, – “By the Gods! I do not wonder at it. I would be torn by wild horses myself rather than abandon you, had I been so fortunate – ”

“Sire, so wicked – ”

“Well, well! you must excuse Domitian. Love, they say, rules even the Gods, and is stronger than wine to turn men’s heads.”

He clapped his hands. A slave appeared. “Send hither the Cæsar,” he ordered. The slave bowed and withdrew.

Domitian entered next moment. He must have been waiting in an adjoining apartment.

“Come hither, brother,” said Titus. “I have a suppliant at my feet, and what suppose you has been her petition?”

Domitian looked down. He had a pouting disdainful lip, a dogged brow, and eyes in which never did a sparkle flash; but his face flushed readily, not with modesty, but shyness or anger.

“Brother,” said Domitian, “I know well enough at what she drives. From the moment, the first moment I knew her, she has treated me to quip and jibe and has sought to keep me at a distance. I know not whether she use a love-philtre so as to hold me? I know not if it be her very treatment of me which makes me love her the more. Love her! It is but the turning of a hair whether I love or hate her most. I know what is her petition without being told, and I say – I refuse consent.”

“Listen to what I have to propose,” said Titus, “and do not blurt out your family quarrels before I speak about them. It is not I only, but all Rome, that knows that your life together is not that of Venus’s doves. It is unpleasant to me, it detracts from the dignity of the Flavian family” – he glanced aside at his sister-in-law, and his lips quivered, “that this cat-and-dog existence should become the gossip of every noble house, and a matter of tittle-tattle in every wine-shop. Make an end to it and repudiate her.”

Domitian kept his eyes on the floor. Domitia looked at him for his answer with eagerness. He turned on her with a vulgar laugh and said: —

“Vixen! I see thee – naught would give thee greater joy than for me to assent. I should see thee skip for gladness of heart, as I have never seen thee move thy little feet since thou hast been with me! I should hear thee laugh – and I have heard no sound save flout from thee as yet. I should see a sun dance in thine eyes, that perpetually lower or are veiled in tears. Is it not so?” – He paused and looked at her with truculence in his face – “and therefore, for that alone, I will not consent.”

“Listen further to me, Domitian,” said Titus; “I have a proposition to make. Separate from Domitia, send her back – ”

“What, into the arms of Lamia?”