_ PETRONIUS was not mistaken. Two days later young Nerva, who
had always been friendly and devoted, sent his freedman to Cumae
with news of what was happening at the court of Caesar.
The death of Petronius had been determined. On the morning of
the following day they intended to send him a centurion, with the
order to stop at Cumae, and wait there for further instructions; the
next messenger, to follow a few days later, was to bring the death
sentence.
Petronius heard the news with unruffled calmness.
"Thou wilt take to thy lord," said he, "one of my vases; say from
me that I thank him with my whole soul, for now I am able to
anticipate the sentence."
And all at once he began to laugh, like a man who has came upon
a perfect thought, and rejoices in advance at its fulfilment.
That same afternoon his slaves rushed about, inviting the
Augustians, who were staying in Cumae, and all the ladies, to a
magnificent banquet at the villa of the arbiter.
He wrote that afternoon in the library; next he took a bath, after
which he commanded the vestiplicae to arrange his dress. Brilliant
and stately as one of the gods, he went to the triclinium, to cast the
eye of a critic on the preparations, and then to the gardens, where
youths and Grecian maidens from the islands were weaving
wreaths of roses for the evening.
Not the least care was visible on his face. The servants only knew
that the feast would be something uncommon, for he had issued a
command to give unusual rewards to those with whom he was
satisfied, and some slight blows to all whose work should not
please him, or who had deserved blame or punishment earlier. To
the cithara players and the singers he had ordered beforehand
liberal pay. At last, sitting in the garden under a beech, through
whose leaves the sun-rays marked the earth with bright spots, he
called Eunice.
She came, dressed in white, with a sprig of myrtle in her hair,
beautiful as one of the Graces. He seated her at his side, and,
touching her temple gently with his fingers, he gazed at her with
that admiration with which a critic gazes at a statue from the chisel
of a master.
"Eunicc," asked he, "dost thou know that thou art not a slave this
long time?"
She raised to him her calm eyes, as blue as the sky, and denied
with a motion of her head.
"I am thine always," said she.
"But perhaps thou knowest not," continued Petronius, "that the
villa, and those slaves twining wreaths here, and all which is in the
villa, with the fields and the herds, are thine henceforward."
Eunice, when she heard this, drew away from him quickly, and
asked in a voice filled with sudden fear, --
"Why dost thou tell me this?"
Then she approached again, and looked at him, blinking with
amazement. After a while her face became as pale as linen. He
smiled, and said only one word, --
"So!"
A moment of silence followed; merely a slight breeze moved the
leaves of the beech.
Petronius might have thought that before him was a statue cut
from white marble.
"Eunice," said he, "I wish to die calmly."
And the maiden, looking at him with a heart-rending smile,
whispered, --
"I hear thee."
In the evening the guests, who had been at feasts given by
Petronius previously, and knew that in comparison with them even
Caesar's banquets seemed tiresome and barbarous, began to arrive
in numbers. To no one did it occur, even, that that was to be the
last "symposium." Many knew, it is true, that the clouds of
Caesar's anger were hanging over the exquisite arbiter; but that had
happened so often, and Petronius had been able so often to scatter
them by some dexterous act or by a single bold word, that no one
thought really that serious danger threatened him. His glad face
and usual smile, free of care, confirmed all, to the last man, in that
opinion. The beautiful Eunice, to whom he had declared his wish
to die calmly, and for whom every word of his was like an
utterance of fate, had in her features a perfect calmness, and in her
eyes a kind of wonderful radiance, which might have been
considered delight. At the door of the triclinium, youths with hair
in golden nets put wreaths of roses on the heads of the guests,
warning them, as tha custom was, to pass the threshold right foot
foremost. In the hail there was a slight odor of violets; the lamps
burned in Alexandrian glass of various colors. At the couches
stood Grecian maidens, whose office it was to moisten the feet of
guests with perfumes. At the walls cithara players and Athenian
choristers were waiting for the signal of their leader.
The table service gleamed with splendor, but that splendor did not
offend or oppress; it seemed a natural development. Joyousness
and freedom spread through the hall with the odor of violets. The
guests as they entered felt that neither threat nor constraint was
hanging over them, as in Caesar's house, where a man might forfeit
his life for praises not sufficiently great or sufficiently apposite. At
sight of the lamps, the goblets entwined with ivy, the wine cooling
on banks of snow, and the exquisite dishes, the hearts of the guests
became joyous. Conversation of various kinds began to buzz, as
bees buzz on an apple-tree in blossom. At moments it was
interrupted by an outburst of glad laughter, at moments by
munnurs of applause, at moments by a kiss placed too loudly on
some white shoulder.
The guests, while drinking wine, spilled from their goblets a few
drops to the immortal gods, to gain their protection, and their favor
for the host. It mattered not that many of them had no belief in the
gods. Custom and superstition prescribed it. Petronius, inclining
near Eunice, talked of Rome, of the latest divorces, of love affairs,
of the races, of Spiculus, who had become famous recently in the
arena, and of the latest books in the shops of Atractus and the
Sozii. When he spilled wine, he said that he spilled it only in honor
of the Lady of Cyprus, the most ancient divinity and the greatest,
the only immortal, enduring, and ruling one.
His conversation was like sunlight which lights up some new
object every instant, or like the summer breeze which stirs tge
flowers in a garden. At last he gave a signal to the leader of the
music, and at that signal the citharaee began to sound lightly, and
youthful voices accompanied. Then maidens from Kos, the
birthplace of Eunice, danced, and showed their rosy forms through
robes of gauze. Finally, an Egyptian soothsayer told the guests
their future from the movement of rainbow colors in a vessel of
crystal.
When they had enough of these amusements, Petronius rose
somewhat on his Syrian cushion, and said with hesitation, --
"Pardon me, friends, for asking a favor at a feast. Will each man
accept as a gift that goblet from which he first shook wine in honor
of the gods and to my prosperity?"
The goblets of Petronius were gleaming in gold, precious stones,
anti the carving of artists; hence, though gift giving was common
in Rome, delight filled every heart. Some thanked him loudly:
others said that Jove had never honored gods with such gifts in
Olympus; finally, there were some who refused to accept, since the
gifts surpassed common estimate.
But he raised aloft the Myrrhene vase, which resembled a rainbow
in brilliancy, and was simply beyond price.
"This," said he, "is the one out of which I poured in honor of the
Lady of Cyprus. The lips of no man may touch it henceforth, and
no hand may ever pour from it in honor of another divinity."
He cast the precious vessel to the pavement, which was covered
with lily-colored saffron flowers; and when it was broken into
small pieces, he said, seeing around him astonished faces, --
"My dear friends, be glad and not astonished. Old age and
weakness are sad attendants in the last years of life. But I will give
you a good example and good advice: Ye have the power, as ye
see, not to wait for old age; ye can depart before it comes, as I do."
"What dost thou wish?" asked a number of voices, with alarm.
"I wish to rejoice, to drink wine, to hear music, to look on those
divine forms which ye see around me, and fall asleep with a
garlanded head. I have taken farewell of Caesar, and do ye wish to
hear what I wrote him at parting?"
He took from beneath the purple cushion a paper, and read as
follows: --
"I know, O Caesar, that thou art awaiting my arrival with
impatience, that thy true heart of a friend is yearning day and
night for me. I know that thou art ready to cover me with gifts,
make me prefect of the pretorian guards, and command Tigellinus
to be that which the gods made him, a mule-driver in those lands
which thou didst inherit after poisoning Domitius. Pardon me,
liowever, for I swear to thee by Hades, and by the shades of thy
mother, thy wife, thy brother, and Seneca, that I cannot go to
thee. Life is a great treasure. I have taken the most precious jewels
from that treasure, but in life there are many things which I cannot
endure any longer. Do not suppose, I pray, that I am offended
because thou didst kill thy mother, thy wife, and thy brother; that
thou didst burn Rome and send to Erebus all the honest men in thy
dominions. No, grandson of Chronos. Death is the inheritance of
man; from thee other deeds could not have been expected. But to
destroy one's ear for whole years with thy poetry, to see thy belly
of a Domitius on slim legs whirled about in Pyrrhic dance; to hear
thy music, thy declamation, thy doggerel verses, wretched poet of
the suburbs, -- is a thing surpassing my power, and it has roused in
me the wish to die. Rome stuffs its ears when it hears thee; the
world reviles thee. I can blush for thee no longer, and I have no
wish to do so. The howls of Cerberus, though resembling
thy music, will be less offensive to me, for I have never been the
friend of Cerberus, and I need not be ashamed of his howling.
Farewell, but make no music; commit murder, but write no verses;
poison people, but dance not; be an incendiary, but play not on a
cithara. This is the wish and the last friendly counsel sent thee by
the -- Arbiter Elegantiae."
The guests were terrified, for they knew that the loss of dominion
would have been less cruel to Nero than this blow. They
understood, too, that the man who had written that paper must die;
and at the same time pale fear flew over them because they had
heard such a paper.
But Petronius laughed with sincere and gladsome joy, as if it were
a question of the most innocent joke; then he cast his eyes on all
present, and said, --
"Be joyous, and drive away fear. No one need boast that he heard
this letter. I will boast of it only to Charon when I am crossing in
the boat with him."
He beckoned then to the Greek physician, and stretched out his
arm. The skilled Greek in the twinkle of an eye opened the vein at
the bend of the arm. Blood spurted on the cushion, and covered
Eunice, who, supporting the head of Petronius, bent over him and
said, --
"Didst thou think that I would leave thee? If the gods gave me
immortality, and Caesar gave me power over the earth, I would
follow thee still."
Petronius smiled, raised himself a little, touched her lips with his,
and said, --
"Come with me."
She stretched her rosy arm to the physician, and after a while her
blood began to mingle and be lost in his blood.
Then he gave a signal to the leader of the music, and again the
voices and cithariae were heard. They sang "Harmodius"; next the
song of Anacreon resounded, -- that song in which he complained
that on a time he had found Aphrodite's boy chilled and weeping
under trees; that he brought him in, warmed him, dried his wings,
and the ungrateful child pierced his heart with an arrow, -- from
that moment peace had deserted the poet.
Petronius and Eunice, resting against each other, beautiful as two
divinities, listened, smiling and growing pale. At the end of the
song Petronius gave directions to serve more wine and food; then
he conversed with the guests sitting near him of trifling but
pleasant things, such as are mentioned usually at feasts. Finally, he
called to the Greek to bind his arm for a moment; for he said that
sleep was tormenting him, and he wanted to yield himself to
Hypnos before Thanatos put him to sleep forever.
In fact, he fell asleep. When he woke, the head of Eunice was lying
on his breast like a white flower. He placed it on the pillow to look
at it once more. After that his veins were opened again.
At his signal the singers raised the song of Anacreon anew, and the
citharae accompanied them so softly as not to drown a word.
Petronius grew paler and paler; but when the last sound had
ceased, he turned to his guests again and said,--
"Friends, confess that with us perishes --"
But he had not power to finish; his arm with its last movement
embraced Eunice, his head fell on the pillow, and he died.
The guests looking at those two white forms, which resembled two
wonderful statues, understood well that with them perished all that
was left to their world at that time, -- poetry and beauty. _