CHAPTER XVI EVENTS IN THE VILLA POLLUX

‘Who dares, who dares,
In purity of manhood stand upright
And say “This man’s a flatterer”? If one be,
So are they all ...
the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool.’

Timon of Athens, iv. 3.

More and more luxurious and irregular became the amusements of the Villa Pollux. Paganism is protected from complete exposure by the enormity of its own vices. To show the divine reformation wrought by Christianity it must suffice that, once for all, the Apostle of the Gentiles seized heathendom by the hair, and branded indelibly on her forehead the stigma of her shame.

Leaving altogether on one side the darker aspects of the life to which Nero and his boon companions now abandoned themselves, neither shall we dwell much upon

‘Their gorgeous gluttonies and sumptuous feasts

On citron table and Atlantic stone.’

If the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life could have brought to Nero and Otho any happiness, they might have been happy. They could lift to their lips the cup of pleasure crowned to the brim. They soon found it to be an envenomed goblet, sparkling with the wine of demons. The rage of luxury, the insanity of egotism, the abandonment to every form of self-indulgence, served only to plunge them into deeper lassitude, and, last of all, into more irretrievable disgust. For, though men have bodies, they still are spirits, and when their bodies have command over their spirits, they only become a lower kind of beast.

To Nero, while he was yet a boy, had been offered all that carnal minds think the highest boons. The ancient philosophers used to discuss the question, ‘Whether any one would still remain perfectly virtuous if he were endowed with the ring of Gyges, which had the power to make a man invisible.’ To Nero had been given alike the ring of Gyges and the lamp of Aladdin. While he was still young and beautiful, and not ungifted, all that was fell and foul in the seductions of the Palace and the Amphitheatre assailed his feeble nature. It was hardly strange that his whole being gave way and he became a prodigy of wickedness. At heart, perhaps, he was not essentially worse than thousands of youths have been, but his crimes, unchecked by any limitations of law or of resources, were enacted under the glare of publicity, on the world’s loftiest stage.

Nor must it be forgotten that he saw and enjoyed all the best, the loveliest, the most intoxicating that could be devised by an epoch which strove madly after pleasure. Thus, when Paris and Aliturus came to the villa, the guests saw in those two actors the most perfect grace set off by the highest advantages, and trained for years by the most artistic skill. They represented the finished result of all that the world could produce in seductive art. Such actors, originally selected for their beauty and genius, made it the effort of their lives to express by the poetry of movement every burning passion and soft desire which can agitate the breast. Their rhythmic action, their mute music, their inimitable grace of motion in the dance, brought home to the spectator each scene which they impersonated more powerfully than description, or painting, or sculpture. Carried away by the glamour of involuntary delusion, the gazers seemed to see before them every incident which they chose to represent. Nothing was neglected which seemed likely to add to the pleasure of the audience. The rewards of success were splendid—wealth, popularity, applause from numberless spectators, the passionate admiration of society, the partiality even of emperors and empresses, and all the power which such influence bestowed. A successful mimic actor, when he sprang on the stage in his glittering and close-fitting dress, knew that if he could once exercise on the multitude his potent spell he might easily become the favourite of the rulers of the world, as Bathyllus was of Mæcenas, and Mnester of Caligula, and another Paris was of the Empress Domitia.

Paris was a Greek, and his face was a perfect example of the fine Greek ideal, faultless in its lines and youthful contour. Aliturus was by birth a Jew, and was endowed with the splendid beauty which still makes some young Arabs the types of perfect manhood. Both of them danced after supper on the day which succeeded their arrival, and it was hard to say which of them excelled the other.37

First Paris danced, in his fleshings of the softest Canusian wool, dyed a light red. His dress revealed the perfect outline of a figure that united fineness with strength. He represented in pantomimic dance the scene of Achilles in the island of Scyros. He brought every incident and person before their eyes—the virgins as they spun in the palace of their father, Lycomedes; the fair youth concealed as a virgin in the midst of them, and called Pyrrha from his golden locks; the maiden Deidamia, whom he loved; the eager summons of Ulysses at his gate; the ear-shattering trumpet of Diomedes; the presents brought by the disguised ambassadors; the young warrior betraying himself by the eagerness with which he turns from jewels and ornaments to nodding helmet and bright cuirass; the doffing of his feminine apparel; the leaping forth in his gleaming panoply. Nothing could be more marvellous than the whole impersonation. So vivid was the illusion that the guests of Nero could hardly believe that they had seen but one young man before them, and not a company of varied characters.

Yet hardly less subtle was the kindling of the imagination when Aliturus ‘danced,’ as it was called, the ‘Death of Hector’ in the tragic style which had first been introduced by the celebrated Bathyllus of Alexandria. They seemed to see the hero bid farewell to his Andromache, and go bounding forth to meet the foe; to see enacted before them the flight of Hector; the deceitful spectre of Deiphobus; the combat; the dying prophecy; the corpse of the gallant Trojan dragged round the walls of Troy; Priam and Hecuba tearing their grey locks. They seemed to hear the wild wail of Andromache, the tender plaint of Helen, the frenzied utterances of Cassandra; and when the scene ended there was not one of them who was not thrilled through and through with pity, with terror, with admiration.

These scenes were innocent and not ignoble, but softer and more voluptuous impersonations followed; for when another and less known actor named Hylas—painted blue, and dragging a fish’s tail behind him—had acted the part of the sea-god Glaucus, to rest the two chief performers, then Paris set forth the story of Ariadne and Bacchus; and Aliturus sank to yet lower depths in dancing the favourite pantomime of Leda.

Such were among the amusements of Nero’s evenings, and part of the pleasure consisted in knowing that he and his guests were enjoying at their leisure a near view of the unequalled genius which enraptured the shouting myriads of Rome when witnessed from a distance after long hours of waiting to secure a place. Further, they had the advantage of watching the speaking faces of the mimists, which in the theatre were hidden by a mask. It is needless to add that Nero rewarded with immense donations the artists whose skill he so passionately admired. And yet for Paris it had been happier if, instead of dazzling the multitude, he had remained the humble slave of Domitia. For in later days Nero, envying him the tumults of applause he won, tried to emulate his skill. Paris did his best to teach him, but the attempt was hopeless. Nothing could then make the obese form of the Emperor graceful, or his thin legs agile. And since he could not rival him, he made the poor wretch pay the penalty by putting him to death.

But no such dread foreboding was in the happy actor’s mind as he witnessed the spell which he cast over the minds of his audience—and audience it might fitly be called, for the actor had spoken to them in the eloquence of rhythmic gesture.

The conversation turned naturally on the art of dancing.

‘Paris,’ said Petronius, whose æsthetic sympathies had been intensely gratified, ‘I know not whether you missed the usual accompaniments of pipes and flutes, and still more the thundering reverberations of applause from the enraptured myriads, but I never heard you to greater advantage.’

‘Heard me? Saw me, you mean,’ said Paris, with a pleasant smile.

‘No!’ said Petronius, ‘we have heard, not seen, you. You have not spoken a word, but your feet and your hands have surpassed the eloquence even of lips “tinct with Hyblean honeycombs.”’

‘You remind me of what Demetrius the Cynic said to me,’ answered Paris.

‘What was that?’

‘Do not think me vain if I tell the story,’ said the actor. ‘I do not tell it in my own honour, but only for the glory of my art. Demetrius had been railing and snarling at us poor pantomimes, and said that the only pleasure of the spectators was derived, not from our dancing, but from the flutes and songs. I asked him to let me show him a specimen of what I could do.’

‘Happy Demetrius!’ said Lucan.

‘He was fair-minded enough to consent, and I danced to him the story of Mars and Venus. I tried to bring before him their love, their betrayal by Helios, the rage and jealousy of Vulcan, their capture in the golden net, their confusion, the entreaties of Venus, the intercession of the gods. Demetrius was fairly conquered, and he said to me, “Fellow!” (you observe that he was anything but civil!), “I don’t merely see but I hear your acting, and you seem to me to speak with your very hands.”’

‘Well done, Demetrius!’ said Otho. ‘And perhaps you don’t know, Paris, that a Greek writer, Lesbonax, calls you, not philosophers, but cheirosophers—hand-wise.’

‘I can cap your story, Paris,’ said Nero. ‘The other day a barbarian nobleman from Pontus came to me on some foreign business and brought me some splendid presents. When he left I asked him if I could do anything for him. “Yes,” he said. “Will you make me a present of the beautiful dancer whom I saw in the theatre?” That was you, Paris; and of course I told him that you were much too precious to be given away, and that, if I did, we should have Rome in an uproar. “But,” I said, “of what possible use would he be to you?” “He can interpret things without words,” he replied; “and I want some one to explain my wishes to my barbarous neighbours”!’

‘Nobody has said any of these fine things about me,’ remarked Aliturus, ruefully.

‘Well, I will tell you a compliment paid to you, Aliturus,’ said Petronius. ‘Another barbarian, who came to me with a letter of introduction from the Proconsul of Africa, saw you act a scene which involved five impersonations. He was amazed at your versatility. “That man,” he observed, “has but one body, but he has many minds.”’

‘Thank you, kind Petronius!’ said Aliturus.

‘But now tell us,’ asked Nero, ‘whether in acting you really feel the emotions you express.’

‘When the character is new to us we feel them intensely,’ said the Jewish pantomime. ‘Have you never heard, Cæsar, what happened to Pylades, when he played the part of the mad hero of “Ajax”? It seemed as if he really went mad with the hero whom he personated. He sprang on one of the attendants who was beating time to the music, and rent off his robe. The actor who represented the victorious Ulysses stood by him in triumph, and Pylades, tearing a heavy flute from the hands of one of the choraulæ, dealt Ulysses so violent a blow on the head that he broke the flute and would have broken the head too, if the actor had not been protected by his helmet. He even hurled javelins at Augustus himself. The audience in the theatre was so powerfully affected by the passion of the scene that they went mad too, and leapt up from their seats and shouted, and flung off their garments. Finally, Pylades, unconscious of what he was doing, walked down from the stage to the orchestra and took his seat between two Consulars, who were rather alarmed lest Ajax should flagellate them with his scourge as he had been flagellating the cattle which in his madness he took for Greeks.’

‘A curious and interesting anecdote, my Aliturus,’ said Petronius; ‘but Paris has not yet told us whether he misses the multitudinous applause of Rome.’

‘All Rome is here,’ said Paris with a bow to the Emperor. ‘We actors need nothing but the sunshine of approval, and did not the sun, even before it rose above the horizon, bathe Nero in its rays?’

‘So my nurses have told me,’ said Nero.

‘Trust an actor to pay a compliment,’ whispered Vatinius to Tigellinus.

‘Or a poet either,’ said Tigellinus, with a glance at Lucan.

‘Or an adventurer and a parasite either,’ returned the irascible Spaniard, who had overheard the innuendo.

‘Now, if I am to be the arbiter elegantiarum, I will allow no quarrels,’ said Petronius. ‘And I at least am grateful to Paris and Aliturus, and mean to show my gratitude by a compliment. Don’t class me among the poets who recite in the dog-days, for my little poem—written while Paris was dancing “Achilles”—is only four lines long. Spare my blushes and let Lucan—as he is a poet—read it.’

‘Don’t let him read it,’ whispered Tigellinus; ‘he will read it badly on purpose.’

But Petronius handed his little waxen tablets to Lucan, who, with a glance of disdain at Tigellinus, read with perfect expression the four celebrated lines:

‘He fights, plays, revels, loves and whirls, and stands,

Speaks with mute eloquence and rhythmic hands.

Silence is voiceful through each varying part,

In each fair feature—’tis the crown of Art.’38

A loud exclamation of ‘Euge!’ and ‘Σοφῶς!’ burst from the hearers when Lucan had read these admirable lines; and the two actors repaid the poet by the most gracious of their bows and smiles. Nor did they confine their gratitude to smiles, but gave further specimens of some of the laughable dances which were in vogue, such as ‘the owl’ and ‘the grimace,’ ending with a spectacle at once graceful and innocent—namely, the lovely flower-dance with its refrain of

‘Where are my roses, where my violets, where my parsleys fair?’

They went to bed that night each of them the happy possessor of twelve thousand sesterces. When Agrippina, a month later, heard this, she reproached Nero for his gross extravagance.

‘What did I give them?’ he asked.

‘You paid them twelve thousand sesterces each for a night’s dancing.’

‘Did I?’ said Nero, glad to show his defiance. ‘I never knew before that I was so mean;’ and he immediately ordered the sum to be doubled.