“It is a very hard case, as you say, this of your friend the Jew, but I think that I can see my way to helping him. But first tell me, have you any plan of your own?”
“Well,” replied the captain, “I thought of suggesting that he should go with me on my return voyage to Alexandria. I am starting in a few days’ time and he would at least be safe with me.”
“Yes,” said Seneca, “he would be that, but Alexandria is a long way off. If the winds are contrary, it might take you a month, or more than a month, to get there, and a month is a long time for an old man who has been brought very low by wounds. Corinth would be better [90] in every way; it is much nearer, and besides, I could help you, as you will soon see. But first, will he be able to travel when the days of grace are over?”
“It is very unlikely; in fact, the physicians declare that it is impossible.”
“Well, then, we must manage to get leave for him to stay awhile till he can travel safely. I daresay that I shall be able to interest my pupil in him. He is a generous lad, though the gods only know what he will become amongst such surroundings. Put another Cheiron to bring up another Achilles in these days and in Rome, and he would have as big a task as he could possibly manage. But at present, as I say, he is a generous lad. And then there is the Empress. She is generous too. The gods forbid that I should say a word against her; she has always been my very good friend. I certainly should not be here, very possibly I should not be alive, if it had not been for her. Yes, she is generous, but it might be well to reinforce her generosity. Your Manasseh is a very rich man?”
“Yes, very rich, though I don’t know enough about his affairs to fix any figures. But I should certainly say that he is richyes, very rich.”
“Well, it is not a case of money; you would affront her by offering money. But she is a [91] woman, and she can never have jewels enough. Could your Manasseh, think you, gratify her in this respect?”
“Certainly,” replied the Corsican. “I have a standing commission from him to buy what I think fit in this way, and I have had some fine things come my way in Egypt. Some excellent gems come down from the upper country; and then there are some very precious things from the old tombs. Yes, Manasseh has as fine a collection of jewels, I take it, as there is in the world.”
“Yes,” broke in the centurion, “and it is my friend the captain’s doing that he has them now.” And he went on to give a brief account of the narrow escape that the Esquiline shop had had of being plundered of all its treasures.
“Has he a son?” asked Seneca.
“Yes,” replied the Corsican, “and a very shrewd young man too, though not to be compared, in my mind, with his father. His name is Raphael.”
“Well,” said Seneca, “send this Raphael to me. We shall be able, I daresay, to manage something between us. And when the father is recovered enough, he had better go to Corinth. It is an easy journey to Brundisium. From Brundisium he can cross over to Apollonia, and [92] a fast galley will make the passage in four-and-twenty hours, and if he chooses he can travel the rest of the way to Corinth by land. And the reason I say Corinth is this. My brother Gallio is Proconsul of Achaia, and he has his headquarters at Corinth. There isn’t a kinder hearted man in the world, and I know he will do his best for any one whom I may recommend to him. Indeed, he does not want thatit is enough for a man to be unfortunate to have a good claim upon him. I shall see you again, but, as I said, send the son to me.”
Shortly after this the Corsican took his leave, in much better spirits about his patron than he had had when he came.
AN EXILED NATION
[93] NARCISSUS had prophesied only too truly when he had said that there would be shipwrecks in Rome when the decree of banishment was issued. The fourteen days’ grace conceded was by far too short a time. It gave the exiles time to collect and secure personal belongings and portable property generally; but a merchant had very little opportunity of disposing of his warehouse goods, or a dealer of his stock-in-trade. The immediate effect of the decree, with its cruelly short limit of time, was, of course, to shut the market almost completely against Jewish sellers. The conspiracy of buyers holds good for a short time, though it is sure to break down sooner or later. It would infallibly have broken down before the end of six months if so long a period had been conceded. Some buyer would have applied the proverb that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. He would have said to himself, “I may get nothing if I wait till the general [94] scramble at the end; but I may make sure of something now. I shall have to pay for it, it is true, but only half the proper price.” And so he would have gone, stealthily, indeed, not without a certain approving glow of conscience. As it was, it was almost impossible for a Jew to sell anything. Probably the purchasers who thus held back made a mistake. The organizers of the affair never intended to enrich chance comers. The property of the exiles was to go into the public coffers; and a portion did actually reach them; but most of the cargoto go back to Narcissus’s metaphorbecame the spoil of those who had brought about the shipwreck.
The loss as usual fell more heavily on the poor than on the rich. Great firms such as that over which Manasseh presided had taken precautions against such emergencies. They made a point of having a Gentile partner, who, being exempt from the action of the decree, took up the character of sole owner. Of course there was considerable risk of loss. The Gentile partner was not always an honest man. And there remained the great personal inconvenience, though always mitigated, as every trouble on earth is mitigated, by the possession of money. The poorer Jews had no such alleviation of their lot; the small tradesman lost his capital, the artisan lost his [95] employment. The Jewish race is patient and tenacious of life beyond all others, with a quite unparalleled power of recovery; all the same it suffered a great blow, and the misery endured by individual members of it was past all reckoning. And there were not a few cases in which others who could have had no share in the supposed misdeeds of the people suffered along with it.
Aquila had of course to close his factory. He did his best to lighten the blow to his workmen. He had a branch establishment at Brundisium, and to this he transferred as much of his business and as many of his hands as was possible. At present the decree of banishment did not extend beyond Rome and its environs, and the provincial towns were comparatively unaffected by the hostile feeling that was so strong in the capital. Those who could not be thus provided for, Aquila helped liberally with money for their journey. Do what he could there was much suffering to which he could not minister; but he made the lot of many much more endurable than it would otherwise have been, and Priscilla, it need hardly be said, did all that could be done to second his efforts.
One great calamity, however, they could do little or nothing to mitigate, and that was the calamity which their departure brought on their [96] neighbours. A Roman poet, who was certainly not harder of heart then the average of his fellow citizens, counted it among the blessings of a countryman’s life that he had not to feel the pang of pity for the poor. This was a blessing which Aquila and his highborn wife did not covet. The new sense of the brotherhood of man which the Christian faith had brought with it had touched them and made them active in works of charity, the works which are almost a matter of course in modern life, but were a novelty in the ancient world. The Jew had always been generous to his own countrymen, and certainly not less charitable than others to the stranger, but Aquila and his helpmeet set no limitations to their bounty. No Gentile workmen were employed, it is true, in the factory, not on account of any exclusive feeling in Aquilahe had mastered with marvellous promptitude the lesson that in the Master there was neither Jew nor Greekbut because he felt himself bound to respect the convictions of his countrymen. He hoped that they would reach a better frame of mind in the future; meanwhile he had to recognize facts. But outdoor work was largely done by Roman hands, and these brought him into contact with the poverty and suffering of the neighbourhood. There was not a case of [97] destitution or sickness in the thickly populated quarter in which the factory stood of which he and his wife were unaware. Their visits were received at first with astonishment and even suspicion. “What do these rich people want of us?” was the question which many of them asked, and to which no answer could be imagined. A century before it might have been thought that Aquila was canvassing for some public office, some post, honourable and lucrative, which could be gained by popular election. But popular election had by this time become the merest show. The Emperor appointed to every office, and a handful of idlers who had nothing better to do with their time, assembled in the field of Mars, the scene of the stormy conflicts of old, to hear the names of his nominees. And then at last it dawned upon the people that these newcomers simply desired to help them. The notion was so new that it came upon them almost like a shock. The poor of our own day look upon such offices as their due; anyhow they are common enough to excite no surprise. It is impossible to imagine what a passion of gratitude was kindled in the sick or poverty-stricken dwellers in the Suburra, for that, the meanest region of Rome, was the quarter in which Aquila and his wife exercised their labour of love. They prostrated [98] themselves before them, kissed the hem of their garments, and addressed them in language of adoration which, to the Jew at least, seemed almost shocking. And now when the news went through the quarter that its benefactors were to be driven from among them the excitement was intense. If Aquila had had anything of the turbulent spirit which was common among his countrymen he might have raised a riot, almost an insurrection. As it was, he did his best to comfort and calm. He and his wife would not forget them. Perhaps they might be permitted to return. Meanwhile they had left something in trustworthy hands for the relief of pressing needs.