The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa

A hundred thousand tongues, whispering and murmuring with Italian volubility, send up a busy hum like that of an enormous beehive into the sunny air. The Flavian amphitheatre, V...

Nerving herself with every consideration that could steel a woman’s heart, Mariamne sought her father’s gardens by the way she had already come. They were deserted now, and the...

Many had been the debauch at which, himself its chief originator and promoter, the tribune had assisted; nor had he escaped the penalties that Nature exacts even from the health...

For three whole days Mariamne had not set eyes on the Briton, so she felt listless and dispirited. Not that she acknowledged, even to herself, the necessity of Esca’s presence,...

It is time to give some account of Esca’s anomalous position in the capital of the world—to explain how the young British noble (for that was indeed the rank he held in his own...

The stars shone brilliantly down on the roofs of the great city—roofs that covered in how various a multitude of hopes, fears, wishes, crimes, joys, study, debaucheries, toil, a...

It was the cool and calming hour of sunset. Esca was strolling quietly homewards after the pursuits of the day. He had emptied a wineskin with Hirpinus; and, resisting that wort...

Under the porch of one of the most luxurious houses in Rome, two men jostled in the dubious light of early morning. Exclamations of impatience were succeeded by a mutual recogni...

Eleazar had resolved to obtain supreme command. In a crisis like the present, no divided authority could be expected to offer a successful resistance. John of Gischala must be r...

The Feast of the Passover was at hand; the feast that was wont to call the children of Israel out of all parts of Syria to worship in the Holy City; the feast that had celebrate...

The dwelling in which the Briton now found himself presented a strange contrast of simplicity and splendour, of wealth and frugality, of obscure poverty and costly refinement. T...

When they sought to leave their place of refuge, Esca and Mariamne found themselves hemmed in and drawn back by the continued tumult that was raging through the surrounding quar...

Up one street, down another, avoiding the main thoroughfares, now rendered impassable by the tumult, his anxious freedmen threaded their way with difficulty in the direction of...

The gladiators were pausing from their toil. Brawny chests heaved and panted, deep voices laughed and swore with returning breath; strong arms looked heavier and stronger as the...

Myrrhina’s voice was at all times pitched in a high key; her accents were very distinct and shrill, admirably adapted for the expression of derision or the conveyance of sarcast...

It was the sound of a chariot, truly enough, that roused the dreamer from his slumbers; but how different the scene on which his drowsy eyes unclosed, from that which fancy had...

“The beccaficoes,” said he, “were a thought over‐seasoned, but the capon’s liver stewed in milk was perfection. Varus, see that it is served again at the imperial table within t...

As he opened his dreamy eyes she started to her feet, for voices now broke in on the silence that had hitherto reigned throughout the household, and the tread of slaves bustling...

Meanwhile the British slave, unconscious that he was already the object of Valeria’s interest and Myrrhina’s admiration, was threading his way through the crowded streets that a...

With attentive ears, and faculties keenly on the stretch, Euchenor, lurking in the corner of the porch, listened to the foregoing conversation. When he gathered that Tiber‐side...

Wounded, vanquished, transferred from his kind master, and farther from liberty than ever, Esca’s was now indeed a pitiable lot. The tribune, entitled by the very terms of his w...

The highest tribunal acknowledged by the Jewish law, taking cognisance of matters especially affecting the religious and political welfare of the nation, essentially impartial i...

A negro boy, the ugliest of his kind, and probably all the more prized for that reason, was shifting uneasily from knee to knee, in an attitude of constraint that showed how lon...

Like other great cities, the poorer quarters of Rome were densely crowded. The patricians, and indeed all the wealthier class, affected rural tastes even in the midst of the cap...

When a woman feels herself scorned, her first impulse seems to be revenge at any price. Some morbid sentiment, which the other sex can hardly fathom, usually prompts her in such...

Ever since the night which changed the imperial master of Rome, Esca had dwelt with Eleazar as if he were a member of the same family and the same creed. Though Mariamne, accord...

The day soon broke in earnest, cold and pale on the towers and pinnacles of the Temple. The lofty dome that had been looming in the sky, grand and grey and indistinct, like the...

John of Gischala would never have obtained the ascendency he enjoyed in Jerusalem, had he not been as well versed in the sinuous arts of intrigue, as in the simpler stratagems o...

Panting like a hunted hind, yet true to the generous blood that flowed in her veins, Mariamne recovered her courage even before her strength. No sooner was the immediate danger...

The commander of the Lost Legion, when he parted with Placidus after the council of war, retired moodily to his tent. He, too, was disappointed and dissatisfied, wearied with th...

But Licinius had an ordeal to go through on the following day, which was especially painful to the kind heart of the Roman general. When the terms of the combat were explained t...

The man who has resolved that he will shake himself free from those human affections and human weaknesses which, like the corporeal necessities of hunger and thirst, seem to hav...

Such beauty as the Jewess’s, although she seldom went abroad, and led as sequestered a life as was compatible with the domestic duties she had to perform, could not pass unnotic...

All eyes were now turned on Eleazar, who sat unmoved in his place, affecting a composure which he was far from feeling. His mind, indeed, was tortured to agony, by the conflict...

Esca, treading on air, hastened from Valeria’s house with the common selfishness of love, ignoring all the pain and disappointment he had left behind him. The young blood course...

But a shout was ringing through the amphitheatre that roused the Jewish maiden effectually to the business of the day. It had begun in some far‐ off corner, with a mere whispere...

The eye of Calchas did indeed brighten, and his colour went and came when food was placed before him in the Roman general’s tent. It was with a strong effort that he controlled...

An hour before sunrise Calchas was stopped by one of the sentinels on the verge of the Roman camp. He had made his escape from the city, as he hoped, without arousing the suspic...

All was in confusion at the palace of the Cæsars. The civil war that had now been raging for several hours in the capital, the tumults that pervaded every quarter of the city, h...

Hippias knew well how to maintain discipline amongst his followers. While he interested himself keenly in their training and personal welfare, he permitted no approach to famili...

Shouting their well‐known war‐cry, and placing himself at the head of that handful of heroes who constituted the remnant of the Lost Legion, Hippias rallied them for one last de...

Thrusting Spado aside without ceremony, and disregarding the eunuch’s expostulations in obedience to the orders he had received, Esca burst through a narrow door, tore down a ve...

The Jewess had indeed but escaped one danger to fall into another. Bold and lawless as were these professional swordsmen, they acknowledged certain rules of their own, which the...

It was not in Esca’s nature to be within hearing of shrewd blows and yet abstain from taking part in the fray. His recent sentiments had indeed undergone a change that would pro...

“The chariot has turned into the Flaminian Way,” said the urchin, running breathlessly back to his mistress. “Oh! so fast! so fast!” and he clapped his little black hands with t...

There is nothing in the history of ancient or modern times that can at all help us to realise the feelings with which the Jews regarded their Temple. To them the sacred building...

Knowing well with whom he was to deal, Placidus had ordered a repast to be prepared for his guests on a scale of magnificence unusual even in his luxurious dwelling. It was advi...

She had known but few moments of happiness, that proud unbending woman, in the course of her artificial life. Now, though remorse was gnawing at her heart, there was such a wild...

Mariamne watched her father for a few impatient minutes, that seemed to lengthen themselves into hours, till she had made sure by his deep respiration that her movements would n...

The man who entered the apartment with the air of one to whom every nook and corner was familiar, must have been fully three‐score years of age, yet his dark eye still glittered...

Mariamne turned from the still insensible form of Calchas to the beautiful face, that even now, though pale from exhaustion and warped with agony, it pained her to see so fair....

Hippias, the fencing‐master, had completed his preparations for the night. With a certain military instinct, as necessary to his profession as to that of the legitimate soldier,...

Dark and stern, in their weird beauty, lower the sad brows of the Queen of Hell. Dear to her are the pomp and power, the shadowy vastness, and the terrible splendour of the neth...

The Tenth Legion, commanded by Licinius and guarding the person of their beloved prince, were advancing steadily upon the Temple. Deeming themselves the flower of the Roman army...

Valeria trembled in every limb; yet should she have remained the calmer of the two, inasmuch as hers could scarcely have been the agitation of surprise. Such a step, indeed, as...

It was customary with the more refined aristocracy of Rome, during the first century of the Empire, to pay great respect to Mercury, the god of invention and intrigue. Not that...

The broken column of one of the buildings destroyed in the great fire of Rome, and not yet restored, was glowing crimson in the setting sun. Beneath its base, the Tiber was glid...

But the young men would hold their hands no longer. Impatient of delay, and encouraged by a sign from their leader, they rushed in upon the prisoners. Esca shielded Mariamne wit...

In a land‐locked bay sheltered by wooded hills, under a calm cloudless sky, and motionless as some sleeping seabird, a galley lay at anchor on the glistening surface of the Medi...

While faith has its martyrs, fanaticism also can boast its soldiers and its champions. Calchas in his bonds was not more in earnest than Eleazar in his breastplate; but the zeal...

EROS CHAP. PAGE I. THE IVORY GATE 1 II. THE MARBLE PORCH 6 III. HERMES 15 IV. APHRODITÉ 20 V. ROME 28 VI. THE WORSHIP OF ISIS 36 VII. TRUTH 46 VIII. THE JEW 55 IX. THE ROMAN 61...

faith, and no slight reproaches to the incredulity of his obdurate countrymen—that generation of whom the greatest authority has said, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will...

20 Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to...