On the following morning the frightful news spread like wild-fire through the city that several citizens, some of them men of high position, had been seized at dead of night by the city-prefect and carried off to the state-prisons; while others—and among them the Senators Cornelius Cinna and Marcus Cocceius Nerva—had only escaped sharing their fate by flight.

After Cinna’s rash demonstration, in opposition to the law against the Christians, such proceedings were not considered very astonishing. Nerva, too, had long seemed ripe for destruction, from the point of view of the state-craft of the time. But that a host of individuals who, till now, had been regarded as blamelessly innocent, nay, that such a man as Furius should be apprehended, produced a painful impression on the public mind. Every one, who did not feel himself protected by his modest station and personal insignificance, began to quake, and even the humble population of the Subura seemed to be dragged into sympathy with the anxiety of the higher classes. The cries of the wandering dealers and street pedlars were subdued, and though the cook-shops and barbers’ rooms were crowded, the talk was in low mysterious tones. On every hand suspicious and anxious looks prevailed.What most agitated and puzzled the citizens of Rome, was the fact, that the confessed enemies of Caesar had been able to escape; this revealed a regular and well-organized plot; nay, from the high rank and wide influence of the fugitives, it was almost an open declaration of war. It was self-evident, that Nerva and Cinna would not have retired so promptly into exile, but that they were about to strain every nerve in order to return victorious. Much was said about the connections they both could count upon in the provinces, and particularly in the Gallia Lugdunensis. These allies, judiciously treated, might, in the present state of public feeling as to Domitian’s tyranny, combine for some crushing catastrophe. If no more than two or three legions should raise the standard of revolt, under the guidance of a commander bent on death or success, the Emperor’s rule would be in serious danger, to say the least. Men recalled the days of Nero—how rapidly the flame of revolution had spread in every direction, when the mass of combustibles had been piled sky-high, through many years of misgovernment. The praetorian guard could only be trusted conditionally. Their loyalty was simply a matter of price. As long as they were splendidly paid they would be for Caesar, and this sort of fidelity could easily be corrupted in a single night.

On the other hand the noiselessness, with which the arrests had been managed, and the calm unforced regularity, which prevailed in every department of public life, seemed to guarantee the unwavering stability of the government. The palace was to-day guarded by a single cohort, as usual. The morning audience had been duly crowded. The Senate met at the usual hour, and Domitian joined them, carried to the sitting in his litter, and escorted by only a small portion of the praetorian guard. Races were announced for the following day in the Circus Maximus, and at the same time the Acta Diurna,[64] the official sheet of Rome, formally proclaimed Caesar’s intention of edifying and delighting his beloved Romans, by the celebration of magnificent centennial games, never yet equalled for splendor and variety. In short, within the precincts of the Palatium such security and indifference prevailed as could not fail, if thoroughly carried out, to exert great influence on public feeling. Added to this, a vague report got about that the birds had flown in consequence of a warning, to which the government had been accessory, since Caesar had been willing to avoid the painful necessity of arraigning such men as Cinna, Nerva, and Trajan before the Senate. Thus it was not to Caesar’s dilatoriness or clumsiness that they owed their escape, but to his magnanimity.

Though no such magnanimity had ever before been seen at the palace, this view was warmly encouraged.

Clodianus swore to Caesar by all the gods, that the treason which must evidently have been at work, should be tracked to earth and avenged. The guilty party must be some one in the Emperor’s immediate service. Was Domitian absolutely certain that the tablet, with the list of doomed names, had never been out of his own hands? To this Caesar replied, that he had kept the tablet about his person day and night; but Clodianus reminded him of the hour when he had swooned, throwing out a dark hint which served to cast his suspicion on the physician. Domitian, however, was more inclined to look for the traitor among the employÉs of the city-prefect, than in the palace itself. At any rate, the zeal shown by Clodianus in these circumstances made an admirable impression in his favor. The Emperor began to think he might have been mistaken, and to consider whether the last addition to the list on the tablet should not after all be erased.

Clodianus detected this revulsion of feeling with the eye of a clairvoyant, and it gave him extreme satisfaction, for it opened out the prospect for certain schemes, though he was not clear himself yet as to the details. When the pressure of business should allow him leisure, he would go to the villa on the road to Praeneste, intending to settle and confirm these details in concert with Stephanus.

In the course of the afternoon it was reported that Caius Aurelius, too, was one of the fugitives. Baucis brought this news to the high-priest’s house, when she returned from market in the Field of Mars.

Not long before Claudia had received a note from Aurelius. It was dated the day before, and had been written before their last meeting. It contained the explanation, that Aurelius had thrown in his lot with those who were scheming and hoping for liberty. Their schemes had been betrayed. He was flying now like a criminal, but he hoped, ere long, to return and find Rome free and happy.

Claudia had escaped with this letter to her own room, she knew only too well all it implied. She fancied she could already hear her father’s verdict, for his tenderness to his child must now inevitably give way to the inexorable severity of a state-official and Caesar’s faithful adherent.

The rest of the family had meanwhile rushed into agitated discussion of this utterly unexpected departure. They were sitting in one of the larger rooms opening out of the court-yard, not far from the very spot where Aurelius, the night before, had torn himself from his Claudia. Quintus and Cornelia were present, as well as the parents and Lucilia. They had waited till long past midnight for Cinna’s return, and had then parted in the utmost anxiety, for Aurelius’ hasty visit, and the mysterious warning he had written, left them to surmise the worst. Thus they met at an early hour at the high-priest’s house, whither each had come hoping for news and good counsel. Titus Claudius had, in fact, been informed of all that was known by Parthenius, and actually before he was up. He received Cornelia, who was in the highest excitement, with a mixture of severity and sympathy.

“I do not know all the motives,” he said solemnly, “that may have led to these measures on Caesar’s part. But so much as this seems to me certain: that this step was prompted by necessity for the preservation of the State. As an officer of State myself, and as the father of your betrothed husband, I can only advise you—and I mean it well—to have nothing farther to do with a proscribed man. I promise you I will do my best to induce Caesar to give up all farther pursuit of the fugitives, and to consider banishment from the Empire, or perhaps only from Italy, as sufficient punishment.”So spoke Titus Claudius, and then no more was said about Cinna. In the discussion as to Aurelius, Cornelia could take part more calmly than the others. Her pride had been roused by the Flamen’s speech, and when this was the case, she was mistress of herself in all respects.

When Claudia, having recovered such composure as she could, returned to the sitting-room, a single timid glance at her father’s careworn face showed her, that his mind was already made up on the matter. His features revealed all the keen struggle and pain it cost him to inflict suffering on his daughter under the irresistible stress of circumstances; but, at the same time, she saw with perfect certainty that nothing—absolutely nothing—could change his idea of the necessity. His eye, which he kept calmly and immovably fixed on her, was so eloquent, that her cheek tingled, and she could hardly control herself so as not to throw herself sobbing into Lucilia’s arms.

“Forget that you ever loved such a man as Aurelius!” was what that sad gaze said to her. “I might have condescended to set aside the glory of my many centuries of ancestors and the dignity of my house, but never my honor as a guardian of the State. I might have sacrificed my pride—but not my duty. I could have borne to give my daughter to a youth of no renown, a mere provincial of obscure origin, hard as that would have been—but to a traitor! No, not if he wore the purple. Caius Aurelius is dead—dead to you, to me, to his country!”

The only person, who in this depressing atmosphere did not lose her good spirits was Lucilia.

“Who knows how all this hangs together?” she said consolingly. “Has not Sextus Furius been arrested? He surely is the very incarnation of peaceful civic virtue. Some low informer has slandered him secretly, and it is the same, I make no doubt, with Aurelius. I can quite understand, that he should have no fancy to exchange his pretty villa for a residence in a state-prison. But his innocence may yet come to light.”

“Nay,” said the Flamen, “only those who are conscious flee. The man, who knows that he is falsely accused, stays where he is to justify himself.”

“I should think so indeed!” exclaimed Lucilia. “As if no innocent man had ever been condemned! I may say honestly, I should have done the same in his place. It is particularly unpleasant to watch a game, where one is oneself the stake played for. Only let us set to work at once to get at the bottom of the matter. If Aurelius were in truth a rebel, would not the chamberlain have mentioned him to you this morning, when he told you the names of those who had escaped and those who had been arrested?”

“Parthenius was in a desperate hurry. He only mentioned the worst, the ringleaders. It may be indeed, that Aurelius has been led away....”

“You see!” cried Lucilia, “and those who have been misled must be forgiven.”

“Forgiven!” echoed Cornelia. “Those may accept forgiveness who choose!”

“Oh, you, with your everlasting Roman pride! That was all very well under a Republic. For my part, sooner than wander about the world an outcast and in misery, I would admit what a fool I had been. You must progress as the times advance. The Empire is firmly established once and for all....”“You are wasting your breath, in trying to make a jest of what is grave earnest,” said the high-priest. “I have been greatly deceived in this Aurelius. I took him to be frank and trustworthy, a man of character....”

“Father!” cried Claudia, trembling from head to foot, “I will not bear to hear you speak so of the man, whom I regard as the noblest and truest on earth.”

“What, daughter? Even now, after his flight as a criminal?”

“Even now.”

Quintus and Cornelia looked inquiringly, first at the priest, and then at the girl.

“Why should I conceal it?” cried Claudia. “You may hear me say it—and all the world may know it—I love him, he is mine now and forever!”

“Poor child!” said her father, and Lucilia went up to her and led her out of the room. In the solitude of her own room the strength, that had kept her blood at boiling point, gave way entirely. She flung herself into her sister’s arms, and cried long and bitterly.

The high-priest too retired, and shut himself up in his study till dinner-time. The information brought him by Parthenius, and the flight of Cinna and Aurelius more particularly, had been a great shock to him. And then the sight of the young creature, who stood up so bravely for her love—and yet—he could not hesitate—who must give it up forever. That had been a dagger-thrust in his heart. He struggled for firmness, for cold and stern resolve. He told himself that true kindness, in this case, lay in severity and outward hardness; every sign of wavering, every expression of tender impulse, would only make the inevitable harder for his child to bear. The human heart can better endure the sudden extinction of its happiness than its slow decline, fanned by the breath of a faint hope which is too weak to revive the flame of life, and yet too strong to allow it to die out.

For many hours this man, who was usually so prompt and decisive, sat bent over his table as if in a trance. If Sextus Furius had not been one of the victims of this nocturnal raid, Titus Claudius would, even now, have arranged his daughter’s betrothal to this suitor before the week was out. The very cruelty of such a proceeding seemed to him wholesome and bracing. But, as it was, Furius too—for some unimaginable reason—was an inmate of the Mamertine prisons. What was to be done? He considered the possibilities of a journey, and remembered that Quintus, the year before, had expressed a purpose some day to pass a few months at Athens. The house of Claudia had many illustrious friends in the Attic capital, who would have welcomed the brother and sister with the greatest pleasure, and have treated them as lovingly and as liberally as their own. But the plan was rejected as soon as it was made. The unfavorable season was at hand; the south-westerly gale, which a few days since had swept over the whole coast of Latium and Campania, had devastated the country south of Antium. Sea-voyages were at an end for the season; no one would venture out to sea but under pressing necessity.

Finally, the priest came to the conclusion, that Claudia would best and soonest get over her grief in her parent’s house and the old familiar habits of her daily life; he, therefore, decided on leaving the poor child in peace, when once he had explicitly impressed on her that Aurelius was lost to her forever, and then tacitly treating the matter as settled once for all.The whole family eat their meal in conscious silence: Quintus and Cornelia remained as guests. Claudia begged to be excused; she would join them later, in the sitting-room.

When they rose from table, Lucilia, Octavia, and the betrothed couple went to walk up and down the peristyle, and Titus Claudius went to his daughter’s room. It was not without an uneasy feeling about his heart, that he desired the slave-girl who sat outside the door to raise the curtain, and he felt sad enough as he entered the room, which was one of the prettiest and pleasantest in the house. Claudia had made it a charming retreat for her studies and favorite pursuits. To the right lay the apartment she shared with Lucilia; but here she alone was mistress, and everything in the room seemed to have taken the stamp of her individuality. The unpretentious and tasteful furniture seemed to proclaim her frank simplicity. On the wall hung her gilt cithara with its red ribbon, the confidant of her hopes and dreams. There lay her favorite authors neatly arranged in ivory cases,[65] the Greeks to the left, the Latins to the right—above all Homer, Sophocles, and the odes of Sappho. There were a few costly vases of sardonyx, statuettes in Parian marble, and in a purple-lined niche a head of Jupiter, copied from the world-famed work of Phidias.[66] There were too a silver-mounted spindle and a small hand-loom, besides all sorts of toys and baubles, such as young people were wont to give and receive during the Saturnalia. In short, the pretty bower betrayed itself in every detail as the retreat of a bright-natured, busy and happy girl.

And now?

But what was the priest’s surprise when, instead of the crushed and weeping child he expected to meet, Claudia came towards him with gentle pride, grave, but mistress of herself, calm and almost radiant with a half-sad, but half-happy confidence.

In the silence of her chamber Claudia had thought out the course of events and the issues they must lead to; she had questioned her own heart, and taken stock of her duties. The tangle had come straight, light had dawned in the darkness. It was useless to weep and puzzle herself over what could not be altered; it mattered not now to wonder whether Aurelius had acted wisely in taking part in the rash attempt of the conspirators. Nay, the right or wrong of the attempt itself was of secondary importance. One thing only Claudia was sure of: she loved him, and she was pledged to him. This had sealed her fate. As soon as this certainty stood forth clear and confessed in the midst of her sorrow, her peace of mind returned as if sent from heaven. She knew now how she must act, come what might now or in the future; she saw the goal towards which her whole existence strove, and she could wait in all submission, till the gods might point out a way in which she could walk. But that she would never look aside from that goal, that no power on earth could tear that love from her heart—that was as clear to her as her belief in love itself. Every blow, which could now fall on this hapless heart, would be the inevitable dealing of Fate, which neither gods nor men could evade. Claudia still hoped for some happy issue, even with her father; for the hopefulness of love is inexhaustible. But, if Fate would have it otherwise, it was quite clear to her that the issue must be worked out without her father—nay, if it came to the worst, against her father; and the sense of this possibility gave a melancholy undercurrent to her confident resolve.

Titus Claudius misunderstood the signs of her face and manner; her calm decisiveness he took for the submission of an obedient daughter; her silent melancholy for the anguish of resignation. He went up to Claudia with an impulse of deep tenderness, took her in his arms, kissed her, and loaded her with tender commendation; she, ashamed and feeling almost guilty, submitted to his embrace. Then she raised her eyes in tearful entreaty to his face.

“Let us speak no more of all this,” she said in a low voice. “Time will show, whether he is guilty or not. You shall never hear a word of murmur from me. I will command myself; I will be just what I have always been—a little graver perhaps, but not lackadaisical and pining. Only never speak of him, do not speak harshly of him! I cannot bear it, Father!”

“You are my own good, wise child,” whispered Claudius, holding her more closely in his arms. “I know you by this for my own flesh and blood. May Jupiter, in his goodness, give you strength to cast this luckless love out of your heart. I know, my child, we Claudians have a deep heart, and what has once sunk to the bottom there is apt to strike deep root in the soil. But nature has also given us a strong will, and a defiant spirit that fears no struggle. If you ever feel too miserable, if the fight is too much for you, then fly for rest to your father’s heart, Claudia, and do not forget, that every grief that troubles yours I feel two-fold and three-fold in my own.” Claudia wept aloud; overcome by her grief, she clung to that loving father’s sheltering arms. Then, collecting all her firmness, she freed herself, looked up with a smile, and said, as she dried her tears:

“Now—I am myself again. Go to the others, pray, Father, and I will follow immediately.”

The Flamen left the room. Claudia threw herself on her knees, and after kissing the spot on the rug where he had stood, threw up her arms and her slender figure in passionate prayer to the gods.“Do not crush me, Immortals, if I am sinning!” she whispered with trembling lips. “For you know, ye all-merciful and all-wise, that I cannot help it.”