THE exauguration of a Vestal, by which canonical ritual she was formally released from her obligations of chastity and service and became free to go where she liked and to marry or to remain unmarried as she preferred, was a brief and simple ceremony. But it required the presence of all the Vestals, of the major Flamens, of many Pontiffs, of the entire College of Augurs and of the Emperor himself as Pontifex Maximus. Commodus, who was impatient of anything which curtailed the time he might lavish on athletic amusements, arrived precisely at noon, at the very last minute. The moment he had entered the Atrium he hurried the ceremony. It was soon over and Brinnaria no longer a Vestal, but a free woman.
It had been arranged that immediately after her exauguration her successor should be taken as a Vestal there in the Atrium by Commodus himself as Chief Pontiff. Little difficulty had been encountered as to selecting a candidate, since a most suitable child had been offered by her parents, people of xcellent family and of unblemished reputation. Her name was Campia Severina, and she was a small girl, just seven years old, plump, with a round full-moon of a face, a leaden-pasty complexion, and a most un-Roman nose, flat, broad and snub.
Commodus, prompted by Lutorius, droned through the required questions and showed manifest relief when he pronounced the word “Beloved” and the second ceremony was over.
He was, however, not wholly a loutish and unmannerly Emperor, but could be tactful and gracious when his interest was aroused. He took time to speak to each of the Vestals; complimented Terentia on her music and spoke of the Empress’s admiration of her organ-playing, had a brief but kindly commendation for Manlia and Gargilia; praised Numisia highly for her efficient discharge of the duties devolving on her, and condoled with Causidiena on her blindness and feebleness, wording what he said so dexterously that she could not but feel cheered and comforted.
Then, aside from the assemblage of Pontiffs, Augurs, Flamens and the rest, he spoke privately with Brinnaria:
“I’m sorry to lose you,” he said; “I felt comfortable about the Palladium as long as you were a Vestal. Numisia is a woman to be relied on too, and Gargilia and Manlia are capable creatures, but not one of the three is your equal in any respect and they are but three; the others are a corpse, a doll and an infant.
“Understand I’m not growling at your departure, I am trying to convey to you how highly I esteem you. I’ll advertise it to all the world by having you and your husband, the moment you are married, put on the official roster of my personal friends who have the right of access to me at all times and can go in and out of the Palace at their pleasure.
“As to your wedding, I’m sorry I gave you my promise to stay away from it. I think that this recent notion of yours that the marriage of an ex-Vestal is an ill-omened occasion, like a funeral, is morbid and baseless. Every Vestal has a right to leave the order at the end of her term of service and to marry if she pleases. The right is indubitable. Nothing that is right is ill-omened. I think that an ex-Vestal’s wedding ought to be regarded precisely as the wedding of anybody else. The most I’ll concede is, that it might be likened to the wedding of a widow, considering her service as a sort of first marriage. That is my judgment, not merely as a man but as Chief Pontiff.
“My impulse is to revoke my pledge and to do all I can to make your wedding a grand affair. But I’m too good a betting man to break a promise. Besides, though I impugn your arguments as an ex-Vestal, I respect your personal preference for a quiet wedding. I’ll not insist on being invited to the banquet, and, so far from taking part in the procession, I’ll not even peep at it down a side street. I’ll keep inside the Palace.
“But I want you to release me from my promise in one small detail. I want to be present at Vocco’s to see you two break and eat the old-fashioned cake, and I want to be first to sign your marriage register. I promise to leave as soon as I have signed the register.”
Brinnaria, of course, could not but acquiesce.
“Good for you!” said the Emperor, “and thank you too. I’ll keep away from the procession, but that won’t make any difference in the throngs you’ll find along your route. They’ll jam the streets and you’ll have to plough your way through. No Emperor could ever call out more sight-seers than will the wedding of Brinnaria the water-carrier.” He then went out into the street which his escort blocked, and departed, accompanied by his coterie of boxers, wrestlers, swordsmen, jockeys and such-like, convoyed by a large and gorgeous retinue of pages, runners, guards nd lictors.
Immediately after his departure Brinnaria said her farewells and set out for Nemestronia’s.
Next morning, as she descended from her litter at Vocco’s door, a Vestal’s carriage drove up and Gargilia got out.
“You’re surprised to see me at this hour,” she said, “and I don’t wonder.” When they were indoors and seated with Flexinna she explained:
“We have been having a terrible night at the Atrium and the worst sort of luck this morning. That little fool of a Campia is the most complete cry-baby and the most homesick little wretch I ever saw or heard of. She has sobbed herself ill and screamed us all out of a night’s sleep. Terentia and Manlia were up half the night with her and she waked me and Causidiena.
“The result is that Causidiena has had one of her semi-fainting spells and is in her arm-chair for the day, poor Manlia has one of her splitting headaches and Terentia is almost as bad. I never saw the Atrium in such a state. Campia goes to sleep off and on from exhaustion, but she wakes up howling and keeps blubbering and whining and sniveling. I left both Terentia and Manlia in tears. They are so vexed to think that to-morrow they will be entirely well, but for to-day there is absolutely nothing for it but they must both keep abed and in the dark.
“Numisia sent me to tell you that she will be at your wedding, will walk in the procession and will be at the banquet, but that I must be on duty in the Temple. So we’ll just have to have our chat now and when I leave we shall not see each other again for the present.”
As she climbed into her carriage she said:
“I’m sorry you haven’t a bright wedding day.”
“So am I,” said Brinnaria, glancing up at the gray canopy of rainless cloud which hid the sky; “any day is a good day to be married on, but I hoped for sunshine.”
Commodus, faithful to the spirit of his promise, came to Vocco’s house with the smallest possible official retinue. He was in the best humor, affable and genial, and cast no chill of formality over the ceremony. He was the first to set his signature to the marriage register, signing in his sprawling school-boy hand. Then he stood aside and looked on while Flexinna, as matron of honor, led Brinnaria to Almo and joined their right hands, while they seated themselves side by side on the traditional cushioned stools, while the Flamen of Jupiter offered on the house-altar the old-fashioned contract-cake, and said the formal prayers for the happiness of the bride and groom; while the Flamen’s assistant, one of Flexinna’s older boys, carried the cake to Almo and Brinnaria and each broke off a piece and ate it, she uttering the old-time formula:
“Where you are Caius I am Caia.”
Above the voices of the guests Commodus’ could be distinguished shouting with them:
“Good luck! Good luck!”
In the silence that followed he warned:
“Now, no rising, no bowing. I’m not here to spoil this wedding, I came to enjoy it. No bowing, I tell you, no rising. Let me get out like an ordinary man.”
Into the gathering dusk he vanished with his retinue.
As soon as he was gone the arrangement for the procession began, the slaves lit their torches and grouped themselves outside the house-door, the flute players struck up a tune, Flexinna’s thirteen-year-old boy lit his white-thorn torch at the altar-fire, her eleven-year-old and nine-year-old, as pages of honor, caught Brinnaria by the hands and led her out at the door. So led by the two little boys, their brother with the white-thorn torch walking before her, she passed through the streets to Almo’s house, Nemestronia and Flexinna on either side of Almo, close behind her, Vocco and the other guests following.
The people made good the Emperor’s prophecy.
From house-door to house-door the streets were packed with crowds eager to see her pass and loud to acclaim her. Through cheers, good wishes, loud jokes, merry longs and cries of “Talassio! Talassio!” she passed along the upper part of the Fagutal, and past the flank of the Baths of Titus to the Carinae.
Her bridal dress of pearl-gray, with the flame-colored bridal veil, reminded her more than a little of that costume of Flexinna’s which she had worn to Aricia and back, only that was mostly pink, this mostly gray.
She looked well in it and wore the six braids and the headband more naturally than most brides, having been habituated to them for thirty years, since all Vestals always wore the bridal coiffure.
At the doorway of Almo’s house, the bearer of the white-thorn torch halted and faced about inside the door, his two little brothers let go her hands, Almo himself caught her up clear of the pavement and swung her clear of the door-sill. As he held her in the air, nestling to him, she repeated the formula:
“Where you are Caius, I am Caia.”
When he set her down inside the house she was at last a married woman.
She turned and watched the scramble for the white-thorn torch which its bearer first put out and then threw among the crowd after the slaves had also put out their torches.
So watching, Almo’s arm about her, she became aware of a strange something in the look of the crowd and of the street.
“What makes it so light?” she asked Almo. “Why are the tops of their heads all bright that way?”
Lutorius, who was near them, explained:
“There is a big fire somewhere the other side of the Capitol. I noticed it at the top of the street. The Capitol stood out black, the outline of both temples plain as in the daylight, against the red smoke behind it.”
“Send some of the slaves,” said Brinnaria, “to find out where the fire is, and let us lie down to dinner. I’m as hungry as a wolf.” And like a true Roman she began with a trifle of three hard-boiled eggs, merely to take the edge off her appetite.
There were six tables set in Almo’s dining-room and an ample crescent-shaped sofa to each. The sixty guests made the big room buzz with talk and echo with laughter.
Nemestronia called across to Brinnaria:
“Now you have what you’ve always wanted. You’re a married woman at last.”
“And I’ll soon have what I’ve wanted almost as much,” Brinnaria replied.
“What’s that?” several voices called.
“Two desires,” Brinnaria explained, “haunted me all the while I was a Vestal. One was the longing for a horseback ride. I used to revel in galloping bareback. I haven’t been astraddle of a horse for thirty years. It won’t be many days now before I shall enjoy a good canter on a good horse.
“Then, by to-morrow night, I trust, I shall have had a fine long swim with my husband and six hundred other couples in the big basin of one of the City Baths.
“Words could not tell you how I have longed to go swimming in the public baths with the rest of my kind, as a lady should.”
The messengers returned with the news that the fire had started near the round end of the Flaminian Circus, close to the Temple of Bellona. Before a strong wind it had spread both ways, had caught everything in the north slope of the Capitol between it and Trajan’s Forum: the silver-smiths’ shops were all ablaze; to the south it had crept between the slope of the Capitol and the theatre of Marcellus and was sweeping over the booths of the Vegetable Market.
“It is the biggest fire in our time,” said Lutorius.
“Where will it stop?” queried Numisia.
Both sent their lictors to make further report.
Before the dinner was half over they returned, with messengers from the Atrium. The conflagration was roaring up the Vicus Jugarius and Gargilia was alarmed.
Lutorius and Numisia hastily excused themselves, called for their shoes and went off; he in his litter and she in her carriage.
As Brinnaria was about to cut the wedding cake her former lictor, Barbo, thrust himself into the dining-hall, frantic with concern, and narrated how the fire was beyond any hope of control and was already devouring the Basilica Argentaria and Basilica Julia.
“Lutorius has had the sacred fire carried out of the Temple in a copper pan by Gargilia and Manlia,” he said, “and Terentia and Numisia, with little Campia, were helping Causidiena along the Holy Street. Causidiena had an earthenware casket in her arms. I saw them turn the corner to their right into Pearl-Dealers Lane. They are safe in the Palace by now.”
“Safe in the Palace?” Brinnaria echoed.
“Yes,” Barbo repeated. “Safe in the Palace. They say that the Temple and the Atrium must burn, nothing can save them.”
“The Temple!” cried Brinnana. “Fire! And everybody ill except Gargilia and Numisia! And all they could think of would be saving that dear old blind saint and that contemptible cry-baby. Ten to one they have missed the Palladium and taken one of the dummies by mistake!
“O, Almo, I must go save the Palladium!”
Of course Almo protested.
“Don’t hinder me,” she begged. “Go I must, whether you object or not. We’d never forgive ourselves if to-morrow we learned too late that the Vestals missed the true Palladium in the confusion, whereas I might have saved it if I had tried. They may have taken the real Palladium; I may be too late now to save it if they made a mistake, but I am bound to try.”
He shut his lips, but she read his eyes.
“That is like my hero,” she said. “Patriotism first, self last.
“Barbo,” she called, “run before me and clear the way as if I were still a Vestal. It’s illegal, but it will work.”
She started for the house-door and then paused.
“Have you any fire buckets?” she asked Almo. “Then have two of the slaves each fill a bucket and keep close behind us.”
Amid the prayers and blessings of the wedding-guests, they went out hand in hand, the two slaves with leather water-buckets behind them, Barbo ahead, bellowing:
“Room for Brinnaria Epulonia! Room for Brinnaria Epulonia!” At the street corner, before they started down the slope of the Carinae, they had before them a wide view over the city directly towards the Capitol. Between them and the Capitol Hill they could see the buildings about the Great Forum all one sea of flames.
“The Basilica AEmilia is on fire,” said Brinnaria, “and the Temple of Augustus is just catching. We shall be in time; our Temple won’t catch before we get there.
“Run, let’s run.”
Run they did, the crowds making way at Barbo’s loud adjurations. In their wedding finery, she with her veil wrapped round her head like a market-woman’s shawl, they ran, hand in hand between the great Temple of Venus and Rome, black on their right hand against the reddened clouds, and the vast Colosseum on their left, all orange in the glare, the gilding on its awning poles glimmering.
Up the Sacred Street they passed, running when they could, ploughing through the crowds when the crowd was too thick.
By the time they passed through the Arch of Titus they were running, panting and gasping, through a hail of warm ashes, hot cinders, glowing embers, blazing bits of wood, flaming brands.
At the corner of the Pearl-Dealers Exchange Almo halted, detaining her by her gripped left hand.
“It is no use,” he said; “we are too late. You might pass the portal of the Atrium alive, but you’d never get back alive. And I doubt if you could reach the portal through this heat. You’d scorch to death.”
“I shall reach the portal,” Brinnaria declared, firmly. “But I’m not coming back through it. Listen to me and don’t forget. I’m going to make a dash for the portal. I can reach it, our Temple has not caught yet, the bronze-tile roof will hold the fire off the beams some time. This end of the Temple of Augustus has not blazed yet; I can see the cornice.
“Once inside the Atrium I’ll not try to come back this way, I’ll find the Palladium or make sure it is not there; then I’ll run upstairs to the south-east corner. Those rooms are on a level with the pavement of the New Street.”
“But,” Almo interrupted, “there isn’t an opening towards the New Street. The outer wall of the Atrium towards the Palace is all blank wall to the cornice, not even a ventilation hole anywhere.”
“I know,” she rebuked him; “keep still and listen. I’ll run into the third room from the corner. All that end of the Atrium is of brick and cement, not a beam anywhere and the ceilings are vaulted; the fire will be a long time reaching me there. You go up Pearl Dealers’ Lane to the corner of the New Street. From the corner measure thirty-eight feet along the New Street. At that point have a hole smashed through the wall. There are hordes of firemen about with their axes, sledge-hammers and pick-axes. They’ll hack a hole through for you in no time. The wall is thin there; we had a temporary door made there three years ago for the plumbers when they were putting in the new bath-rooms.
“Now, every moment is precious. Hold my hand and help me to make my dash for the portal, but drop my hand and turn back at the portal; no man may enter the Atrium, except a Pontiff or a workman. When I squeeze your fingers, drop my hand and make your dash back.
“Don’t try to check me, husband; self last and patriotism first, for every Roman of us all. We have waited thirty years for each other and we’ve hardly had time for three kisses yet. But if we must lose each other to save Rome, then we must.
“If I fail, good-bye!” Then she turned and called the trembling slaves to come nearer.
She ordered:
“Dash that water over us, one over him, one over me. Don’t waste any, pour it on our heads. Now go where you please!”
Dripping, hand in hand, they ran over the cinder-strewn pavement, under the rain of blazing fragments, up the Sacred Street, between the furnace-hot walls.
Under the long arcade they were safe.
At its further end she had to face a dash of some ten yards through the blazing brands, the very air seeming on fire.
“I’m afraid!” she cried. “Be brave, Almo, and give me courage!” Her fingers pressed his, their hands parted.
Her hands over her face she dashed forward.
He saw her vanish through the portal.
He ran back.
Inside the Atrium Brinnaria turned to her right, passed through a small door, traversed four dark rooms and groped, kneeling on the floor.
Her fingers found five earthenware caskets in a row.
Swiftly she felt them.
The third she opened.
Carefully she fingered the statuette inside, running the tips of her finger-ends along the carved folds of the gown, over the helmet, over the fingers clasping the spear.
With the statuette in her hands she stood up. Tearing off her veil she wrapped the statuette in it.
Back she went to the peristyle, and ran round it to her right. Under the roof of the colonnade she was safe from the rain of brands, but even in there the heat was appalling. She felt as if the very marble columns must crumble beside her as she ran.
At the far corner of the courtyard she dashed through a door and ran up two flights of stairs; a short flight in front of her, and a longer flight to her left from the landing of the first. At the top of the stairs she passed through four rooms. In the fifth, lighted from behind her through a door by an orange glow from the glare of the conflagration, she sank down on the floor against its farther wall.
Almost at once she was on her feet, recoiling from the wall. It quivered with the shock of blows from the outside.
A shower of plaster and bits of brick stung her face and spattered all over her.
She saw the point of a pick-axe shine an instant in the fire-glare.
“I’m here,” she called. “I’m safe. Take your time. It’s not hot in here yet.” The excited blows thudded on the wall. The sledges broke a hole as big as her head, four times as big as her head.
“Take your time!” she repeated. “There is no hurry now.” Soon she could see the torches outside, the faces of the firemen, Almo’s face.
“No!” she said, “I won’t be dragged through a crevice. There is plenty of time. Dig that hole bigger!” When it was large enough to suit her she bade her rescuers back away.
“No man must touch what I carry,” she warned.
Outside, in Almo’s arms, she was hurried through winding alleys, up narrow stone stairways, to the Palace.
At the end of a deep, dark passageway between high walls Lutorius, with some of the Emperor’s aides, was waiting for them at a small door. He guided them to where they were eagerly expected. As they threaded the corridors, they heard, at first far off, then closer and closer, the sound of a child wailing, bawling, blubbering. Even in the Palace, Campia was an irrepressible cry-baby.
In the chapel of the Statue of Victory they found the Vestals, the Empress and the Emperor.
“I’ve got it safe,” Brinnaria proclaimed.
“I’m a frightful-looking bride,” she added, “wet as a drowned pup, scorched all over, all my hair burnt off; I must look a guy.”
“Never mind that,” said Commodus; “you can’t get home to-night, the conflagration is still spreading. I doubt if the firemen can save the Colosseum. It would take you till daylight to work your way round the districts which are in confusion. You’ll sleep here. I’ve had Trajan’s own private suite made ready for you two, as soon as the first messenger told me of your gallantry. You’ll find an army of maids and such waiting for you. Go make yourselves comfortable.
“The bedroom of Rome’s greatest Emperor is none too good for you. Nothing is too good for you, Brinnaria.
“You’ve saved the Palladium, and me, and the Empire and the Republic and Rome.”
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