Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

anCe formed a humorous contrast with the fair delicate complexion
of her youthful charge; uml Adieus never thought that his
little daughter looked lovelier than when she was reclining in
the arms of her ugly nurse. Seiina, therefore knew tin: whole
life of her mistress, and had so great an affection for her, that
she preferred living as a slave with her, than to accept the freedom
proffered her. IJut this affection was almost her only good
quality, for in consequence of her evil dispositions, which increased
with her years, she made herself perfectly insupportable
to her fellow slaves, and was so uncharitable, that she could not
have a servant near her, to whom she did uot speak in confidence
against every other person in the house. In spite of this,
it was to her a matter of the
bear a high character in the
first importance, that slie should
eyes of all. On the other hand,
she was such a hypocrite, that she poured forth her flatteries, not
only on her mistress, but on the very meanest of the slaves.
This cringing character is a quality in the Africans. Though
so old, she daily used a number of superstitious means to pre-
serve her dark beauty, and being ashamed of her short woolly
hair, she concealed it with a handsomely folded turban. As she
had been so long in service, she was able to put by a consider-
abla sum, for she received monthly wages, in six measures of
corn and five florins in money. With her savings she had her
own peculiar way of speculating, and resembled the Indian ant,
which, it is said, collects gold out of the earth. She bought,
from time to time, a cheap slave, made some profit by his labors,
and then disposed of him at a great gain. Her last purchase was
a first-rate gold embroiderer, who cost her but forty florins. She
knew so well how to save her money, that she never, without ab-
solute necessity parted with a farthing. Nevertheless all this
hoarding could secure her, in this life, no further distinctiou
from her fellow slaves, and none after death, save the solitary
privilege of having her body consumed on the pile. But in order
that our gentle readers may not imagine that all Metella's slaves
were like the grey-bearded Bogus or the swarthy Seiina, we will
now say a few words of the gentle Ophue, of whom we have already
spoken, and of Thrax, the dwarf.
Oplme, during the few yeais she had spent in the service of
Metella, had passed through a series of difficulties. At firgt,
she was employed in the lowest manual labor, then she was
raised to the dignity of dusting her lady s sandals. Her next
step in the advancement, was that she learned to work in leather,
so that she could finish off sandals to the perfect satisfaction of
her mistress. With extraordinary facility, she could imitate the
pattern of everything she saw in the way of needlework, and complete
it equal to the original and one had ;
only to give her a sign,
and she brought exactly what was required.
It was irresistibly droll to see her, when chosen to accompany
Metella on a walk. Fearing that her numerous friends would
not observe her in company with her mistress, she bustled along,
fanning her most attentively, then nodding to her friends, first
to the right, then, to the left, so that her perpetual motion would
lead one to suppose that quicksilver ran through her veins.
Thrax. the dwarf, stood in direct opposition to the lively
Ophne. At the age of five, he was purchased by a Greek slave
merchant, and his being extremely small for his years proved his
greatest misfortune. His diminutive size suggested to his master
the idea of training him for a dwarf. For tliis purpose, he
was put in a dwarf -case, as Phinius expresses it, that by constant
pressing and a sparing diet of fruit, he might not exceed the required
height three feet. After having ben trained, he was
offered for sale in the public market place of Athens, where the
good Metella purchased him at a high price, but much more
through pity, than for a household fool. Thrax not being a
dwarf by nature, had not their usual qualities of wit and sar-
casm, but was, on the contrary, a gentle, harmless little fellow.
A smile played round his lips, which kept up a medium between
laughing and crying. In the goodness of his heart, he willingly
allowed each one to make merry at his expense: but at the same
time, although he answered in a friendly manner the questions
put to him, one could see by the tears starting in his ryes, that
hU feelij*s had not been stunted with his growth. Metella, as
/, r it i A 15
.
well as her son, hud always treated him with great kindness, and
any one who ret|iiireil his departure, had only to say something
of the absent I.iieius, whom he tenderly loved, and he would
iiist.-intly disappear and hide either in a corner of the garden, or
somewhere in the house, to give vent to his feelings.
It was useless to talk of freedom, either during the ancient Re-
public, or during the tune Koine, was an empire; but when wo
know that this freedom was built upon
the servitude of the twothirds
of the population, we begin to change our opinion. To
give an instance: Athens in the time of the governor, Demetrius
Phulercus, 300 it. c., had about 21,000 freemen, 10,000 bulf- treemen,
and 400,000 slaves. Therefore there was a glaring dispar-
ity between freemen and slaves. The following is another historical
example, which casts a blemish on the highly-lauded freedom
of ancient Rome. It was a law, that, when a master was
murdered in his own house by one of his slaves, and that the
murderer could not be discovered, all the slaves of the house
had to die. The rich Podanius Secundus of Rome was thus
murdered by one of his slaves, and four hundred were according
to law, put to death. The people objected to its being carried
out, and sought to save the unhappy creatures; but the Emperor
Nero, to whom the shedding of human blood was a pastime, had
the way by which the condemned were to be led tc death, lined
with soldiers; and the cruel sentence was fully enforced. A rcc
ord is still extant, from which we may infer how great the
number of slaves was, which one master could possess. Tho
law strictly forbade that a master, in his last testament, should
grant freedom to more than one hundred of his slaves, if he had
twenty thousand!
" He is a poor man," cries Seneca, " who can
find pleasure in a service of slaves more numerous than the army
of a warlike nation, and in private edifices the circumference of
which exceeds great cities, and when he compares what he already
possesses, with what he still desires to "
have, he is in com-
parison a beggar !
With so immense a number of the oppressed, we need not be
surprised, when the Roman history informs us, that from time
to time they rebelled. For example, the insurrection of the
slaves Eunus and his sixty thousand followers, and later OD that
of Spartacus, who met the Romans in the field with forty thou-
sand. They were conquered, and put to death by the sword, or
crucified by thousands.
Some hundred years later, we hear the rattling chains fall
from the hands of the slave; but who, many will ask, helped
them to war and to freedom Eunus, or Spartacus, or One who
stands higher than all Roman Emperors God?
CHAPTER VIII.
JUSTIN'S APOLOGIA.
It was Metella's birth-day, and all vied with each other in presenting
marks of affection to their good mistress. Graceful
garlands were twined tastefully round the colonnades leading to
the palace. The most beautiful fruits and flowers that field and
garden produced, were brought in ornamental placed
baskets, and
in rich profusion. Some were occupied m strewing leaves
and flowers, while others were mixing perfumed artificials,
procured from the Egyptian florist, with the green garlands.
The newest and best works were exhibited; garments, girdles,
sandal-ties, and fans, all of which were received by the lady,
with great condescension and acknowledgment of th
industry
displayed.
But a present that she found the evening before in her bookcase,
surprised her more than all the rest. It was a roll of
parchment, on which the following
written.
inscription was beautifully
To the Emperor Titus ./Elius Adriamis Antoninus Pius An?
ustus Cmsar; and to Verissimus his son, the philosopher ami
to Lucius the philosopher, son of Cicsar by nature, of Pius by
adoption, a lover of learning; also to the Sacred Senate', and the