Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗

almost every man. Barely a few wounded knelt in

the middle of the arena, and trembling stretched their hands to the

audience with a prayer for mercy. To the victors were given rewards,—

crowns, olive wreaths. And a moment of rest came, which, at command of

the all-powerful Cæsar, was turned into a feast. Perfumes were burned

in vases. Sprinklers scattered saffron and violet rain on the people.

Cooling drinks were served, roasted meats, sweet cakes, wine, olives,

and fruits. The people devoured, talked, and shouted in honor of Cæsar,

to incline him to greater bounteousness. When hunger and thirst had

been satisfied, hundreds of slaves bore around baskets full of gifts,

from which boys, dressed as Cupids, took various objects and threw them

with both hands among the seats. When lottery tickets were distributed,

a battle began. People crowded, threw, trampled one another; cried for

rescue, sprang over rows of seats, stifled one another in the terrible

crush, since whoever got a lucky number might win possibly a house with

a garden, a slave, a splendid dress, or a wild beast which he could sell

to the amphitheatre afterward. For this reason there were such

disorders that frequently the pretorians had to interfere; and after

every distribution they carried out people with broken arms or legs, and

some were even trampled to death in the throng.

 

But the more wealthy took no part in the fight for tesseræ. The

Augustians amused themselves now with the spectacle of Chilo, and with

making sport of his vain efforts to show that he could look at fighting

and blood-spilling as well as any man. But in vain did the unfortunate

Greek wrinkle his brow, gnaw his lips, and squeeze his fists till the

nails entered his palms. His Greek nature and his personal cowardice

were unable to endure such sights. His face grew pale, his forehead was

dotted with drops of sweat, his lips were blue, his eyes turned in, his

teeth began to chatter, and a trembling seized his body. At the end of

the battle he recovered somewhat; but when they attacked him with

tongues, sudden anger seized him, and he defended himself desperately.

 

“Ha, Greek! the sight of torn skin on a man is beyond thy strength!”

said Vatinius, taking him by the beard.

 

Chilo bared his last two yellow teeth at him and answered,—

 

“My father was not a cobbler, so I cannot mend it.”

 

“Macte! habet (Good! he has caught it!)” called a number of voices; but

others jeered on.

 

“He is not to blame that instead of a heart he has a piece of cheese in

his breast,” said Senecio.

 

“Thou art not to blame that instead of a head thou hast a bladder,”

retorted Chilo.

 

“Maybe thou wilt become a gladiator! thou wouldst look well with a net

on the arena.”

 

“If I should catch thee in it, I should catch a stinking hoopoe.”

 

“And how will it be with the Christians?” asked Festus, from Liguria.

“Wouldst thou not like to be a dog and bite them?”

 

“I should not like to be thy brother.”

 

“Thou Mæotian copper-nose!”

 

“Thou Ligurian mule!”

 

“Thy skin is itching, evidently, but I don’t advise thee to ask me to

scratch it.”

 

“Scratch thyself. If thou scratch thy own pimple, thou wilt destroy

what is best in thee.”

 

And in this manner they attacked him. He defended himself venomously,

amid universal laughter. Cæsar, clapping his hands, repeated, “Macte!”

and urged them on. After a while Petronius approached, and, touching

the Greek’s shoulder with his carved ivory cane, said coldly,—

 

“This is well, philosopher; but in one thing thou hast blundered: the

gods created thee a pickpocket, and thou hast become a demon. That is

why thou canst not endure.”

 

The old man looked at him with his red eyes, but this time somehow he

did not find a ready insult. He was silent for a moment; then answered,

as if with a certain effort,—

 

“I shall endure.”

 

Meanwhile the trumpets announced the end of the interval. People began

to leave the passages where they had assembled to straighten their legs

and converse. A general movement set in with the usual dispute about

seats occupied previously. Senators and patricians hastened to their

places. The uproar ceased after a time, and the amphitheatre returned

to order. On the arena a crowd of people appeared whose work was to dig

out here and there lumps of sand formed with stiffened blood.

 

The turn of the Christians was at hand. But since that was a new

spectacle for people, and no one knew how the Christians would bear

themselves, all waited with a certain curiosity. The disposition of the

audience was attentive but unfriendly; they were waiting for uncommon

scenes. Those people who were to appear had burned Rome and its ancient

treasures. They had drunk the blood of infants, and poisoned water;

they had cursed the whole human race, and committed the vilest crimes.

The harshest punishment did not suffice the roused hatred; and if any

fear possessed people’s hearts, it was this: that the torture of the

Christians would not equal the guilt of those ominous criminals.

 

Meanwhile the sun had risen high; its rays, passing through the purple

velarium, had filled the amphitheatre with blood-colored light. The

sand assumed a fiery hue, and in those gleams, in the faces of people,

as well as in the empty arena, which after a time was to be filled with

the torture of people and the rage of savage beasts, there was something

terrible. Death and terror seemed hovering in the air. The throng,

usually gladsome, became moody under the influence of hate and silence.

Faces had a sullen expression.

 

Now the prefect gave a sign. The same old man appeared, dressed as

Charon, who had called the gladiators to death, and, passing with slow

step across the arena amid silence, he struck three times again on the

door.

 

Throughout the amphitheatre was heard the deep murmur,—

 

“The Christians! the Christians!”

 

The iron gratings creaked; through the dark openings were heard the

usual cries of the scourgers, “To the sand!” and in one moment the arena

was peopled with crowds as it were of satyrs covered with skins. All

ran quickly, somewhat feverishly, and, reaching the middle of the

circle, they knelt one by another with raised heads. The spectators,

judging this to be a prayer for pity, and enraged by such cowardice,

began to stamp, whistle, throw empty wine-vessels, bones from which the

flesh had been eaten, and shout, “The beasts! the beasts!” But all at

once something unexpected took place. From out the shaggy assembly

singing voices were raised, and then sounded that hynm heard for the

first time in a Roman amphitheatre, “Christus regnat!” [“Christ

reigns!”]

 

Astonishment seized the spectators. The condemned sang with eyes raised

to the velarium. The audience saw faces pale, but as it were inspired.

All understood that those people were not asking for mercy, and that

they seemed not to see the Circus, the audience, the Senate, or Cæsar.

“Christus regnat!” rose ever louder, and in the seats, far up to the

highest, among the rows of spectators, more than one asked himself the

question, “What is happening, and who is that Christus who reigns in the

mouths of those people who are about to die?” But meanwhile a new

grating was opened, and into the arena rushed, with mad speed and

barking, whole packs of dogs,—gigantic, yellow Molossians from the

Peloponnesus, pied dogs from the Pyrenees, and wolf-like hounds from

Hibernia, purposely famished; their sides lank, and their eyes

bloodshot. Their howls and whines filled the amphitheatre. When the

Christians had finished their hymn, they remained kneeling, motionless,

as if petrified, merely repeating in one groaning chorus, “Pro Christo!

Pro Christo!” The dogs, catching the odor of people under the skins of

beasts, and surprised by their silence, did not rush on them at once.

Some stood against the walls of the boxes, as if wishing to go among the

spectators; others ran around barking furiously, as though chasing some

unseen beast. The people were angry. A thousand voices began to call;

some howled like wild beasts; some barked like dogs; others urged them

on in every language. The amphitheatre was trembling from uproar. The

excited dogs began to run to the kneeling people, then to draw back,

snapping their teeth, till at last one of the Molossians drove his teeth

into the shoulder of a woman kneeling in front, and dragged her under

him.

 

Tens of dogs rushed into the crowd now, as if to break through it. The

audience ceased to howl, so as to look with greater attention. Amidst

the howling and whining were heard yet plaintive voices of men and

women: “Pro Christo! Pro Christo!” but on the arena were formed

quivering masses of the bodies of dogs and people. Blood flowed in

streams from the torn bodies. Dogs dragged from each other the bloody

limbs of people. The odor of blood and torn entrails was stronger than

Arabian perfumes, and filled the whole Circus.

 

At last only here and there were visible single kneeling forms, which

were soon covered by moving squirming masses.

 

Vinicius, who at the moment when the Christians ran in, stood up and

turned so as to indicate to the quarryman, as he had promised, the

direction in which the Apostle was hidden among the people of Petronius,

sat down again, and with the face of a dead man continued to look with

glassy eyes on the ghastly spectacle. At first fear that the quarryman

might have been mistaken, and that perchance Lygia was among the

victims, benumbed him completely; but when he heard the voices, “Pro

Christo!” when he saw the torture of so many victims who, in dying,

confessed their faith and their God, another feeling possessed him,

piercing him like the most dreadful pain, but irresistible. That

feeling was this,—if Christ Himself died in torment, if thousands are

perishing for Him now, if a sea of blood is poured forth, one drop more

signifies nothing, and it is a sin even to ask for mercy. That thought

came to him from the arena, penetrated him with the groans of the dying,

with the odor of their blood. But still he prayed and repeated with

parched lips, “O Christ! O Christ! and Thy Apostle prayed for her!”

Then he forgot himself, lost consciousness of where he was. It seemed

to him that blood on the arena was rising and rising, that it was coming

up and flowing out of the Circus over all Rome. For the rest he heard

nothing, neither the howling of dogs nor the uproar of the people nor

the voices of the Augustians, who began all at once to cry,—

 

“Chilo has fainted!”

 

“Chilo has fainted!” said Petronius, turning toward the Greek.

 

And he had fainted really; he sat there white as linen, his head fallen

back, his mouth wide open, like that of a corpse.

 

At that same moment they were urging into the arena new victims, sewed

up in skins.

 

These knelt immediately, like those who had gone before; but the weary

dogs would not rend them. Barely a few threw themselves on to those

kneeling nearest; but others lay down, and, raising their bloody jaws,

began to scratch their sides and yawn heavily.

 

Then the audience, disturbed in spirit, but drunk with blood and wild,

began to cry with hoarse voices,—

 

“The lions! the lions! Let out the lions!”

 

The lions were to be kept for the next day; but in the amphitheatres the

people imposed their will on every one, even on Cæsar. Caligula alone,

insolent and changeable in