Harper's Young People, May 24, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly

A STORY OF THE COLOSSEUM.

BY MRS. LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY.

In the days of the Emperor Caracalla the Colosseum had ceased to be used for terrible conflicts between man and beast. But the young student Valentinian could not forget that eighty thousand spectators at a time had looked down from its seats, only a few years before, to see Christian martyrs given to the lions to be torn in pieces.

And Valentinian was a Christian. The persecutions had ceased. No more cruel Emperor than Caracalla had ever occupied the throne of Rome; but his cruelty found its victims in his own family and among his political enemies, and the Christians were overlooked and forgotten. Even Caracalla may have been sick of the blood spilled in assassinations, executions, and battle; and so, as a mere change of scene, ordered that the sports at the Colosseum should be of a bloodless character. At any rate, chariot races were now the vogue, the population of Rome were now all "horsy" men, and betting was the popular way of gaining or losing their fortunes.

The Emperor, as reigning over and above all like the air, chose white to mark his horses; the steeds of the soldiers were designated by red badges and trappings--red, the appropriate color of Mars, of blood and flame; the sailors of course chose blue; and the landed proprietors, farmers, citizens, etc., grouped under green. When the enthusiasm extended thus to all classes, it was impossible that Valentinian should not feel it too. He was a soldier's son, and though he felt that it would be a crime even to enter the building in which the martyrs had been murdered, he could not repress a throb of exultation when the scarlet-spangled horses were led out with shoutings as victors in the race.

Valentinian loved a fine horse, and, boy though he was, he owned one that had long been the envy and admiration of the different racing fraternities of Rome. Those who knew the animal's history did not wonder that Valentinian and his mother, the stately lady Placidia, had refused a noble's ransom for the magnificent creature. It was the beginning of the warm season, and Placidia had removed to her summer villa in shady Præneste. Valentinian still remained in Rome to prosecute his studies, but in the cool of the evening the youth would frequently drive out to see his mother, and the horse on every such visit was certain of being decorated with garlands by the fair hand of its mistress. On one of these occasions Rufinus accompanied his friend. Valentinian knew that the visit was not prompted by any fondness for his mother, for the lady Placidia did not regard Rufinus as a sufficiently refined companion for her son, and the dislike was mutual. He gave Rufinus credit for a feeling of good-fellowship toward himself, and for an appreciation of a moonlight ride to Rome. But Rufinus had a deeper motive on this occasion; he had determined to persuade Valentinian to join in the races, and he thought wisely that the long, solitary ride would give him a good opportunity for persuasion. He began skillfully by praising his friend's horse, and then spoke with some surprise of the affection that Placidia lavished upon it.

Valentinian replied that Carus deserved all the love and distinction that he received, for he was indeed a hero; and then he told how as a war-horse he had followed the Roman standards with honor throughout all the late disastrous campaign in Britain, and though he had fled with the legions from the battle on the river Carun, where Fingal and his Caledonian troops sang their exultant chant of victory in the ears of the cowardly Caracalla, it was not his fault, for he was only a horse. When Carus had felt his master, Valentinian's father, fall wounded upon his neck, the feeble hands entwined in his mane, and the warm life-blood bathing his glossy side, the faithful animal, who until then had rushed on inflamed with all the fury of conflict, joined the general retreat, and paced swiftly but carefully from the battle-field. The Captain of the Legion, whose stiffening fingers were tangled in Carus's mane, did not hear the loud boast of the Britons, and when Carus knelt at the door of his tent, and other soldiers of the great "King of the World" (as Ossian calls the Roman Emperor) lifted the rider from the steed, the Roman heart had poured out all its blood on British soil; the brave Centurion was dead.

At the death of his father, the Emperor Severus, Caracalla gave up the war in Britain, and, impatient to assume his new dignities, hurried back to Rome. The war-horse Carus was brought back too, and entered the imperial city marching riderless at the head of its dead master's troop. As the army approached the gates of Rome, the broad imperial highway became more and more crowded. The return of the army was known, and the citizens of Rome, small and great, swarmed out in vehicles, on horses, or on foot, soldiers and slaves, the aristocracy and the beggars, old families of Rome and foreigners.

Painfully the army forced its way through the surging crowd, attending Caracalla, who so little deserved this enthusiastic welcome, to the porch of the imperial palace "the house of Cæsar." Then the cohorts, with the exception of the imperial body-guard, returned to the great Prætorium camp outside, the city walls. One knight, a member of the Equites that the master of Carus had so lately commanded, led the Centurion's horse to the aristocratic street of the Carinæ, which ran along the slope of the Esquiline Hill, until he reached a house whose portal was decorated with laurel, and where, from the swarms of entering guests, pastry-cooks, and musicians, one might judge a feast was in progress. As the knight paused at the door, a boy bounded into the street, and sprang upon the back of the war-horse, lavishing upon the noble creature the most eager caresses. At the same moment a stately Roman matron appeared at the door, and greeted the knight, while a glad eager light shone in her eyes.

"Welcome, my good Galerius," said the lady. "Where is my husband? Is he detained at the palace with the young Emperor?"

"Nay, madam," replied the knight, gravely, "thy husband was happy in knowing no Emperor but Severus."

Then the unhappy lady knew that her husband would never come to the welcoming feast which she had prepared, and the young Valentinian slipped from his father's horse to hide the tears which would come, but which he as a Roman felt were womanish and shameful.

Rufinus, though a mere cub of a young man, with very little susceptibility, seemed touched by this story. "Where did your father get Carus?" he asked. "He is certainly not of the common Italian breed, neither does he resemble the light, swift African barbs."

"No," replied Valentinian. "He is a much heavier and more powerful animal. My father captured him from a Goth at the battle of Lyons, where his own horse had been killed under him. Some of our Roman jockeys affect to despise the Gothic horses as big and lumpish, but they are swift."

"They are the best horses for chariots," replied Rufinus. "The Equites have one set of four which they will enter for the next race. They are black as night, like Carus there, and are, so far as I know, the only other Gothic horses in Rome. How fine they will look in their red trappings! They are sure of winning. I have invested all my ready money in bets, and I shall quadruple them all."

A few days later the following note was handed to Valentinian:

"LOVED VALENTINIAN,--I am ruined. The races are lost beforehand. One of the Gothic horses has fallen lame. The team is pledged for the race; we can only supply its place with a Roman beast, for we know not of another Gothic horse to be obtained in Rome, and there is no time to send to the provinces, else would we do it, for the entire military order are interested; some, like myself, have staked their all, and now see ruin stare them in the face. We have sent in a petition, through the Empress Julia, to have the races postponed until we can obtain another horse from Gaul, but there is very little hope.

"_Later._--The Emperor has refused to postpone the races; he sees here an opportunity to curb the rising power of the army, which he has long feared. If many are in my desperate condition, the tyrant may tremble. Does he not know that in Rome it is the army that creates or dethrones the Emperor? Meantime I am lost. Farewell. Thy frantic

"RUFINUS."

A wave of pity swept across Valentinian's compassionate heart, and he sat down to write a hopeful, encouraging letter to Rufinus. When he had finished it, a sentence from a letter written to the Roman and other Churches, when persecution had scattered the members of the first Christian Church at Jerusalem, flashed through his mind: "If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful, what doth it profit?" Valentinian pushed the letter from him impatiently. How could he give Rufinus the things which were needful? He could not pay his betting debts and those of the whole army. "What am I to do?" he asked aloud, and as an answer a gentle neigh floated up from Carus's stable. If he lent his horse to the military club, the reds would probably gain the race. What could be plainer? He would have nothing to do with bets and bribes; he would not even see the race; surely every brotherly and Christian instinct called upon him to rescue his friend's honor and fortune, and that of the class to which his father had belonged. Was it because he was so very sure of his duty that he did not drive out and consult his mother? Perhaps, instead, it was a haunting suspicion that she might not consider this a call of duty. He gave himself no time to doubt, or even to think, but went at once to the Prætorian Prefect with his offer.

Carus was accepted, the Prefect in his first burst of gratitude offering Valentinian an important post in the army. This the youth declined; his education had another aim, and he knew that it would break his mother's heart to see him a soldier.

The morning of the races dawned at last. Valentinian had determined not to attend them, and when Rufinus came with a band of gay young knights, he refused to see them. From his window he could see the populace flocking toward the Colosseum; and finding at last that he could not read, he determined to take a walk to the suburbs. As he passed over the Palatine Hill, he turned to enjoy the beautiful prospect--"with palaces adorned, porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts, statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs." Alas! the most prominent object of all was the "gladiators' bloody circus," just at the foot of the hill; and forgetting all his resolutions, he hurried to it, and entered among the last.

He was so late that he could not find a seat in the circle near the front, where he properly belonged, and he mounted to the upper tiers, where he sat, crowded by such companions as beggars and slaves. He looked for the first time upon the place where so many martyrs had poured out their lives for their faith. He could just make out the openings, closed with gratings, through which the wild beasts had been admitted.