well. Nay, poor lad, I can well do something for thee and never feel the loss. I have more money than I know what to do with, for I can never leave the grove. Take some. dare say you will need it.'

I

He forced into the youth's hands a leather bag, full of silver coins, and turned away. Onesimus stood abashed in the moonlight. Then he burst into tears. He had found pity and magnanimity in the heart of the doomed and murderous fugitive! Was there no hope for such a man? Shall any germ of good in man's soul perish unperfected? Shall generosity and forgiveness pass without their reward? The unexpected mercy extended to him by the grim priest of Virbius, in that dark wood of Nemi, brought a blessing to Onesimus, and as he went back to Dromo's hut, the whole scene the lake, the white mist, the moonlit-silvered foliage, the twinkling of the stars, the song of the nightingale, the silence of the hills-fell with a healing touch on the anguish of his heart.

23

CHAPTER XLII

A MASSACRE OF SLAVES

'Frigidus a rostris manat per compita rumor.'
HOR. Sat. II. vi. 50.

'Servos in numero hominum esse non pateris?'- SEN. Ep. xlvii., ap. Macrob. Sat. i. 11.

ROME was in a state of wild excitement. The city had hardly been more agitated when the news of Caligula's murder had spread among the citizens. The assassination of an emperor was always a possible event. The little human divinity was certain to make so many enemies, and was envied by so many powerful rivals, that the fate of Cæsar after Cæsar made it no more than a nine days' wonder if another fell. But the victim this time was not a Cæsar. It was one of the chief men in the city, a man of consular rank - no less a person than the Præfect of the city, Pedanius Secundus. And the dread news was whispered from mouth to mouth that he had been murdered by one of his own slaves!

The people in the Forum and the Velabrum and the Subura and at Libo's Well, and the merchants at the Janus, and the patricians in their palaces, and the priests in the temples, and the boys of Rome as they played on the steps of the Julian Basilica, were all discussing this sinister event.

Tigellinus and Petronius, and a group of courtiers, were standing together under the porch of the Temple of Castor when the news reached them. They eagerly questioned the

messenger.

'Is it certain that the murderer was a slave?' asked Tigellinus in tones of horror.

He was caught red-handed,' said the messenger. dagger was wrenched from him, dripping with blood. name is Vibius and he does not deny the crime.'

The

His

'And what was his motive?'

for

'Some say that the Præfect had promised him his liberty certain sum of money. The slave pinched himself for years to raise it, and when he brought the money Pedanius broke his bargain.'

The hearers only shrugged their shoulders.

That happens commonly enough,' said Cæcina Tuscus, Nero's foster-brother, who had himself been born a slave.

'It only meant,' said Senecio, that the Præfect had changed his mind.'

'Others say,' continued the man, that Pedanius had a favourite, who had been also a favourite of Vibius, who was driven wildly jealous.'

'The notion of a slave presuming to have a favourite!' lisped the effeminate Quintianus. 'What next?'

'How many slaves had Pedanius?' asked Petronius. 'Four hundred.'

'Is that all?' said Tigellinus. 'It is lucky that he had no more. They will be executed, every one of them that's one comfort. Let us thank the gods for the Silanian law.'

They saw Seneca approaching them; and it was evident that he had heard the news, for his face wore a look of sorrow and alarm.

'How say you, Seneca?' asked Lucan; is the Silanian law to be carried out, and are all Pedanius's four hundred slaves to die?'

'I should hope not,' said the philosopher, indignantly. 'What are we to butcher this multitude, of whom three hundred and ninety-nine are probably innocent? The Silanian law is fit for barbarians. Every good feeling within us abhors the cruel wrong of murdering young and old, innocent and guilty, in one promiscuous massacre.'

But that the Præfect of Rome should be murdered by one of his own slaves!' murinured his hearers.

'By one of his own slaves- but maddened, report says, by an intolerable wrong.'

'Wrong?' answered Vestinus, in surprise. Are not, then, our slaves our chattels? Has a slave rights?'

'He has the rights of a human being,' answered Seneca. Are not our slaves of the same flesh and blood as we? Has not a slave feelings? Has not a slave passions?' 'Yes; very bad passions,' said young Vedius Pollio.

Do they stand alone in that respect?' asked Seneca, fixing a keen look on him. 'Do masters never show bad passions?' Every one understood the allusion, for in the days of Augustus the young man's ancestor, Vedius Pollio, had ordered a slave to be flung into the fish-pond to feed the lampreys, merely because he fell and broke a crystal vase. Augustus, who was dining with Pollio that day, was so indignant that he ordered the slave to be set free, and every crystal vase in the house to be broken.

'Seneca will begin to think himself mistaken if I say that I agree with him,' said Petronius. Nevertheless, I do. I cannot bear to enter a friend's house and hear it clanking with chains and ringing with yells, like an ergastulum.'

'Petronius is the soul of good nature,' said Cassius Longinus; but I pity Rome if those maudlin views prevail.'

'Yes,' echoed the fierce Cingonius Varro; so many slaves so many foes. We nobles live all our lives in a sort of beleaguered garrison. If the Senate does not do its duty, I shall emigrate.'

'Who makes our slaves our foes?' answered Seneca. Mine are not. Most of them are faithful to me. They are my humble friends. I believe they love me. I know that many of them would die for me. We become slaves ourselves because we have so many.'

us.

Tush!' said Scævinus. These sentimentalities will ruin Why, some of us have a thousand slaves, and some of us have more. We don't know their names, and have to keep a nomenclator to tell us. Galba is the only person I know who keeps up the ridiculous old fashion of all the slaves and freedmen coming in twice daily, to say "Good morning" and "Good evening." Are we to waste our time in trying to curry favour with them? I rule mine by the lash and the chain and the torture. Ha! Pudens, my grave newly-wedded primipilar; here will be some work for you.'

'Never!' said Pudens. I would rather resign my commission than carry out the Silanian law and superintend the slaughter of the innocent.'

6

And you, my young Titus?' asked Petronius.

I hear

you are going soon to see some military service. Do you think that your step-mother Canis and the boy Domitian will be able to keep your slaves in order?'

'We have but few, Petronius,' said Titus; but they love us. When I was ill, all the familia were as tender in their attentions as if they had been brothers.'

'Like to like,' whispered Tigellinus. He is half of slaveorigin himself.'

And what may your origin be?' asked Vestinus, to whom the remark had been made, and who loathed Tigellinus.

The rumour had spread that all the slaves of Pedanius were to be executed, and the attitude of the people grew very threatening. Many of them had been slaves themselves, and many of them lived in intimacy with the slave population, which immensely outnumbered the freedmen. Familiar with the insolence and the exactions of the wealthy, they assembled in throngs and demanded that there should be a trial, and that the innocent should be spared. Their language became so menacing that the Senate was hastily convened. It was hoped by all the more just and kind of the senators that mild counsels would prevail, and the Silanian decree be repealed or modified. They pointed out that the extreme rarity of the crime showed that the peril was not great; that, in this particular instance, Pedanius, besides being a merciless master, had provoked his own fate; that there was not a tittle of evidence to prove the complicity of the familia in this deed of isolated vengeance; that it would be monstrous to kill innocent boys and girls, and faithful men and women, for one madman's crime. But the Senate was carried away partly by the selfish fears of many of its members, and partly by the impassioned speech of Cassius Longinus. An eminent jurist, a conservative who considered the traditions of the past incomparably superior to the wisdom of the present, a man of great wealth, high rank, and a certain Roman integrity, he rose in his place, and threw the weight of his influence into the scale of the old pagan ruthlessness.

'Often have I been present, Conscript Fathers,' he said, 'at meetings of the Senate in which I have only protested by my silence against the innovations which are almost invariably for the worse. I did not wish you to think that I was unduly biassed by my personal studies, nor did I wish to weaken such weight as I may possess by too frequent and fruitless interpositions. But to-day the commonwealth demands my undivided efforts. A consular of