CHAPTER XIV.

"UNSTABLE AS WATER."

It was with feelings highly elated at his successful achievement, which presaged still further advancement, that Isidorus sought his lodgings. On the way he met many late revellers returning from the festival, "flown with insolence and wine," and making night hideous with their riot. Among them, his garments dishevelled, and a withering garland falling from his brow, was an old acquaintance, Calphurnius, the son of the Perfect, who with maudlin affection embraced him and exclaimed:--

"Friend of my soul, where hast thou hidden thyself? Our wine parties lack half their zest, since thou hast turned anchorite. Come, pledge our ancient friendship in a goblet of Falernian. The wine shop of Turbo, the ex-gladiator, is near at hand."

"You have not turned Christian, have you?" hiccoughed the drunken reveller; "no offence, but I heard you had, you know."

Isidorus gave a start. Were his visits to the Catacomb known to this fashionable fop? Were they a matter of sport to him and his boon companions? Was he to be laughed out of his nascent convictions by these empty-headed idlers? No, he determined. He despised the whole crew. But he was not the stuff out of which martyrs are made, and he lacked the courage to confess to this gilded butterfly, his as yet faltering feeling towards Christianity.

"Who says I am?" he asked, anxious to test his knowledge on the subject.

"Who says so? I don't know. Why everybody," was the rather vague reply.

"You don't know what you are talking about, man," said the Greek, with a forced laugh. "Go home and sleep off your carouse."

"All right. I told them so. The Christians, indeed, the vermin! Come to the Baths of Caracalla at noon to-morrow and I'll tell you all about it."

Isidorus went to his lodgings and retired to his couch, but not to slumber. He was like a boat drifting rudderless upon the sea, the sport of every wind that blew. He had no strength of will, no fixedness of purpose, no depth of conviction. His susceptible disposition was easily moved to generous impulses and even to noble aspirations, yet he had no moral firmness. He is portrayed to the life by the words of the great Teacher, "He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the Word, and anon, with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word, bye-and-bye he is offended."

"Did his boon companions," he questioned, "suspect that any serious convictions had penetrated beneath his light and careless exterior?" All his good resolutions had begun like wax in a furnace to melt and give way at the sneer and jeer of the shallow fool from whom he had just parted--a creature whom in his inmost heart he despised. Strange contradiction of human nature! Like the epicurean poet, he saw and approved the better way and yet he followed the worse.[32] He seemed to gain in the few casual words he had heard, a glimpse of the possibilities of persecution which menaced him if faithful to his convictions, and he had act moral fibre enough to encounter them. And yet his conscience stung and tortured him as he tossed upon his restless couch. Toward morning he fell asleep and it was broad day when he awoke. His reflections were as different from those with which he fell asleep as the brilliant daylight was from the gloomy shadows of night. The air was full of the busy hum of life. Water sellers and fruit pedlers and the like were crying "_Aqua Gelata_" "Fresh Figs," and "White wine and red." Cohorts of soldiers were clattering in squadrons, through the streets, the sunlight glittering on their spearpoints and on the bosses of their shields and armour. Jet black Nubian slaves, clad in snowy white, were bearing in gold-adorned _lecticæ_ or palanquins, proud patrician dames, robed in saffron and purple, to visit the shops of the jewellers and silk mercers. Senators and civic officials were flocking to the Forum with their murmuring crowd of clients. Gilded youths were hastening to the schools of the rhetoricians or of the gladiators, both alike deemed necessary instructors of these pinks of fashion. The streets and squares were a perfect kaleidoscope of colour and movement--an eddying throng, on business or on pleasure bent.

The stir and animation of the scene dispelled all serious thoughts from the mind of the frivolous Greek. He plunged like a strong swimmer into the stream of eager busy life surging through the streets. He was one of the gayest of the gay, ready with his laugh and joke as he met his youthful comrades.

"Ho, Rufus, whither away in such mad haste," he cried as he saw a young officer of the 12th Legion dashing past in his chariot, driving with admirable skill two milk-white steeds through the crowded streets.

"Oh! are you there? Where have you hidden yourself for the last month?" exclaimed Rufus, as he sharply reined up his steeds. "To the Baths of Caracalla; will you go?"

"Yes, very gladly," said Isidorus, stepping upon the low platform of the open bronze chariot. "I have been beyond the Po, on a special service--a barbarous region. No baths, circus, or games like those of Rome."

"There is but one Rome," said the fiery young Hotspur, "but I am beginning to hate it. I am fairly rusting with idleness and long for active service--whether amid Libyian sands or Pannonian forests, I care not."

"It seems to me," replied the effeminate Greek, "that I could console myself with your horses and chariot--the coursers of Achilles were not more swift--and with the delights which Rome and its fair dames are eager to lavish on that favourite of fortune, Ligurius Rufus."

"_Vanitas vanitatis_," yawned the youth. "Life is a tremendous bore. I was made for action, for conquest, for state craft; but under this despotism of the Cæsars, we are all slaves together. You and I fare a little better than that Nubian porter yonder, that is all."

"Yet you seem to bear your bondage very comfortably," laughed the light-hearted Greek, "and had I your fortune, so would I."

"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be golden," ejaculated the soldier, lashing his steeds into swifter flight, as if to give vent to his nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to forget that I am a slave. Lost a hundred thousand sesterces at dice last night. The empire is hurrying to chaos. There are no paths of honour and ambition open to a man. One must crouch like a hound or crawl like a serpent to win advancement in the state. I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day are an effete and worn out race. The rude Dacians beyond the Tiber possess more of the hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic than the craven creatures who crawl about the feet of the modern Colossi, who bestride the world and are worshipped almost as gods. And unless Rome mends her ways they will be the masters of the Empire yet."

"One would think you were Cato the Censor," laughed the Greek. "For my part, I think the best philosophy is that of my wise countryman, Epicurus--'to take the times as they come, and make the most of them.' But here we are at the Thermæ."

Giving his horses to one of the innumerable grooms belonging to the establishment, Rufus and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Video, proboque meliora, Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._