_ LYGIA, in a long letter written hurriedly, took farewell to Vinicius
forever. She knew that no one was permitted to enter the prison,
and that she could see Vinicius only from the arena. She begged
him therefore to discover when the turn of the Mamertine
prisoners would come, and to be at the games, for she wished to
see him once more in life. No fear was evident in her letter. She
wrote that she and the othcrs were longing for the arena, where
they would find liberation from imprisonment. She hoped f or the
coming of Pomponia and Aulus; she entreated that they too be
pres‡nt. Every word of her showed ecstasy, and that separation
from life in which all the prisoners lived, arid at the same time an
unshaken faith that all promises would be fulfilled beyond the
grave.
"Whether Christ," wrote she, "frees me in this life or after death,
He has promised me to thee by the lips of the Apostle; therefore I
am rhine." She implored him not to grieve for her, and not to let
himself be overcome by suffering. For her death was not a
dissolution of marriage. With the confidence of a child she assured
Vinicius that immediately after her suffering in the arena she
would tell Christ that her betrothed Marcus had remained in
Rome, that he was longing for her with his whole heart. 1And she
thought that Christ would permit her soul, perhaps, to return to
him for a moment, to tell him that she was living, that she did not
remember her torments, and that she was happy. Her whole letter
breathed happiness and immense hope. There was only one request
in it connected with affairs of earth, -- that Vinicius should take
her body from the spoliarium and bury it as that of his wife in the
tomb in which he himself would rest sometime.
He read this letter with a suffering spirit, but at the same time it
seemed to him impossible that Lygia should perish under the claws
of wild beasts, and that Christ would not take compassion on her.
But just in that were hidden hope and trust. When he returned
home, he wrote that he would come every day to the walls of the
Tullianum to wait till Christ crushed the walls and restored her. He
commanded her to believe that Christ could give her to him, even
in the Circus; that the great Apostle was imploring Him to do so,
and that the hour of liberation was near. The converted centurion
was to bear this letter to her on the morrow.
But when Vinicius came to the prison next morning, the centurion
left the rank, approached him first, and said, --
"Listen to me, lord. Christ, who enlightened thee, has shown thee
favor. Last night Caesar's freedman and those of the prefect came
to select Christian maidens for disgrace; they inquired for thy
betrothed, but our Lord sent her a fever, of which prisoners are
dying in the Tullianum, and they left her. Last evening she was
unconscious, and blessed be the name of the Redeemer, for the
sickness which has saved her from shame may save her from
death."
Vinicius placed his hand on the soldier's shoulder to guard himself
from falling; but the other continued, --
"Thank the mercy of the Lord! They took and tortured Linus, but,
seeing that he was dying, they surrendered him. They may give her
now to thee, and Christ will give back health to her."
The young tribune stood some time with drooping head; then
raised it and said in a whisper, --
"True, centurion. Christ, who saved her from shame, will save her
from death." And sitting at the wall of the prison till evening, he
returned home te send people for Linus and have him taken to one
of his suburban villas.
But when Petronius had heard everything, he determined to act
also. He had visited the Augusta; now he went to her a second
time. He found her at the bed of little Ruflus. The child with
broken head was struggling in a fever; his mother, with despair
and terror in her heart, was trying to save him, thinking, however,
that if she did save him it might be only to perish soon by a more
dreadful death.
Occupied exclusively with her own suffering, she would not even
hear of Vinicius and Lygia; but Petronius terrified her.
"Thou hart offended," said he to her, "a new, unknown divinity.
Thou, Augusta, art a worshipper, it seems, of the Hebrew Jehovah;
but the Christians maintain that Chrestos is his son. Reflect, then,
if the anger of the father is not pursuing thee. Who knows but it is
their vengeance which has struck thee? Who knows but the life of
Ruflus depends on this, -- how thou wilt act?"
"What dost thou wish me to do?" asked Poppaea, with terror.
"Mollify the offended deities."
"How?"
"Lygia is sick; influence Caesar or Tigellinus to give her to
Vinicius."
"Dost thou think that I can do that?" asked she, in despair.
"Thou canst do something else. If Lygia recovers, she must die. Go
thou to the temple of Vesta, and ask the Virgo magna to happen
near the Tullianum at the moment when they are leading prisoners
out to death, and give command to free that maiden. The chief
vestal will not refuse thee."
"But if Lygia dies of the fever?"
"The Christians say that Christ is vengeful, but just; maybe thou
wilt soften Him by thy wish alone."
"Let Him give me some sign that will heal Ruflus."
Petronius shrugged his shoulders.
"I have not come as His envoy; O divinity, I merely say to thee, Be
on better terms with all the gods, Roman and foreign."
"I will go!" said Poppaea, with a broken voice.
Petronius drew a deep breath. "At last I have done something."
thought he, and returning to Vinicius he said to him, --
"Implore thy God that Lygia die not of the fever, for should she
survive, the chief vestal will give command to free her. The
Augusta herself will ask her to do so."
"Christ will free her," said Vinicius, looking at him with eyes in
which fever was glittering.
Poppaea, who for the recovery of Ruflus was willing to burn
hecatombs to all the gods of the world, went that same evening
through the Forum to the vestals, leaving care over the sick child
to her faithful nurse, Silvia, by whom she herself had been reared.
But on the Palatine sentence had been issued against the child
already; for barely had Poppaea's litter vanished behind the great
gate when two freedmen entered the chamber in which her son
was resting. One of these threw himself on old Silvia and gagged
her; the other, seizing a bronze statue of the Sphinx, stunned the
old woman with the first blow.
Then they approached Ruflus. The little boy, tormented with fever
and insensible, not knowing what was passing around him, smiled
at them, and blinked with his beautiful eyes, as if trying to
recognize the men. Stripping from the nurse her girdle, they put it
around his neck and pulled it. The child called once for his mother,
and died easily. Then they wound him in a sheet, and sitting on
horses which were waiting, hurried to Ostia, where they threw the
body into the sea.
Poppaea, not finding the virgo magna, who with other vestals was
at the house of Vatinius, returned soon to the Palatine. Seeing the
empty bed and the cold body of Silvia, she fainted, and when they
restored her she began to scream; her wild cries were heard all that
night and the day following.
But Caesar commanded her to appear at a feast on the third day;
so, arraying herself in an amethyst-colored tunic, she came and
sat with stony face, golden-haired, silent, wonderful, and as
ominous as an angel of death. _