CALLISTA: ^ Glutei cf tl]« Cljir^ C^iititrji BY VERY REV. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D. D., KECTOB OF THE OATHOLIO UNIVERSITY, DUBLIN. Love thy God, and love Him only, And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. In that One Great Spirit meet All things miffhty, grave, and sweet. Vainly strives the soul to mingle With a being of our kind ; Vainly hearts with hearts are twined ; For the deepest still is single. An impalpable resistance Holds like natures still at distance. Mortal ! love that Holy One, Or dwell for aye alone. De Vere D. & J. SADLIER & CO., 161 WILLIAM STREET. boston :— 128 federal street. Montreal: — coe. notek damk & franois xavier 8T8. 1856. ADVERTISEMENT, It is hardly necessary to say that the following Sketch is a simple fiction from beginning to end. It has very little in it of historical truth, even indirectly introduced, though it has not admitted any actual interference with known facts without notice of it. Nor has it any pretensions to an antiquarian character. Yet it has required more reading than may appear at first sight. It is an attempt to imagine and express the feelings and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period to which it belongs ; and it has been under- taken as the nearest approach which the Author could make to a more important work suggested to him from a high ecclesiastical quarter, September 13, 1855. P.S. Since the Volume has been in print, the Author finds that his name has got abroad. This leads him to add, that he wrote great part of Chapters I., IV., and v., and sketched the character and fortunes of Juba, in the early spring of 1848. Having got as far as this, IV ADVEETISEMENT. he stopped from sheer inability to devise personages or incidents. He suddenly resumed the thread of his story shortly after St. Mary Magdalen's day last year, and has been successful so far as this, that he has brought it to an end. "Without being able to lay his finger upon instances in point, he has some misgivings, lest there should be any want of exactness in his minor statements, ■whether of opinion or fact, \Yhich carry with them authority when they bear the name of a writer. Edgbaston, February 8, 1856. ERRATUM. Page 43, lines 2 and 3, for Fabius read Fabian, and throughout the volume. CALLISTA; A SKETCH OF THE THIRD CENTURY. CHAPTEE L In no province of the vast Eoman empire, as it existed in the middle of the third century, did nature wear a richer or a more joyous ^garb than she displayed in Proconsular Africa, a territory of which Carthage was the metropolis, and Sicca might be considered the cen- tre. The latter city, which was the seat of a Eoman colony, lay upon a precipitous or steep bank, which led up along a chain of hills to a mountainous tract in the direction of the north and east. In striking con- trast with this wild and barren region was the view pre- sented by the west and south, where for many miles stretched a smiling champaign, exuberantly wooded, and varied with a thousand hues, till it was terminated at length by the successive tiers of the Atlas, and the dim and fantastic forms of the Numidian mountains. The immediate neighbourhood of the city was occu- pied by gardens, vineyards, cornfields, and meadows, crossed or encircled here by noble avenues of trees or the remains of primeval forests, there by the clus- tering groves which wealth and luxury had created. This spacious plain, though level when compared with the northern heights by which the city was backed, and the peaks and crags which skirted the southern B 2 CALLISTA ; and western horizon, was discovered, as light and shadow travelled with the sun, to be diversified with hill and dale, upland and hollow ; while orange gar- dens, orchards, olive and palm plantations held their ap- propriate sites on the slopes or the bottoms. Through the mass of green, which extended still more thickly from the west round to the north, might be seen at intervals two solid causeways tracking their persever- ing course to the Mediterranean coast, the one to the ancient rival of Eome, the other to Hippo Eegius in Numidia, Tourists might have complained of the absence of water from the scene ; but the native pea- sant would have explained to them that the eye alone had reason to be discontented, and that the thick foliage and the uneven surface did but conceal what mother earth with no niggard bounty supplied. The Bagradas, issuing from the spurs of the Atlas, made up in depth what it wanted in breadth of bed, and ploughed the rich and yielding mould with its rapid stream, till, after passing Sicca in its way, it fell into the sea near Carthage. It was but the largest of a multitude of others, most of them tributaries to it, deepening as much as they increased it. While chan- nels had been cut from the larger rills for the irriga- tion of the open land, brooks, which sprang up in the gravel which lay against the hills, had been artificially banked with cut stones or paved with pebbles ; and, where neither springs nor rivulets were to be found, wells had been dug, sometimes to the vast depth of as much as 200 fathoms, with such effect that the spurt- ing column of water had in some instances drowned the zealous workmen who had been the first to reach it. And, while such were the resources of less favoured localities or seasons, profuse rains descended over the whole region for one half of the year, and the thick summer dews compensated by night for the daily tribute extorted by an African sun. At various distances over the undulating surfiice, and through the woods, were seen the villas and the A SKETCH or THE THIRD CENTURY. 3 Bamlets of that happy land. It was an age when the pride of architecture had been indulged to the full ; edifices, public and private, mansions and temples, ran off far away from each market-town or borough, as from a centre, some of stone or marble, but most of them of that composite of fine earth, rammed tight by means of frames, for which the Saracens were afterwards famous, and of which specimens remain to this day, as hard in surface, as sharp at the angles, as when they first were finished. Every here and there, on hill or crag, crowned with basilicas and temples, radiant in the sun, might be seen the cities of the province or of its neigh- bourhood, Thibursicumbur, Thugga, Laribus, Siguessa, Sufetula, and many others ; while in the far distance, on an elevated table-land under the Atlas, might be discerned the Colonia Scillitana, famous about fifty years before the date of which we write for the mar- tyrdom of Speratus and his companions, who were beheaded at the order of the proconsul for refusing to swear by the genius of Eome and the emperor. If the spectator now takes his stand, not in Sicca itself, but about a quarter of a mile to the south-east, on the hill or knoll on which was placed the cottage of Agellius, the city itself will enter into the picture. Its name. Sicca Yeneria, if it be derived from the Succoth- benoth, or " tents of the daughters," mentioned by the inspired writer as an object of pagan worship in Samaria, shows that it owed its foundation to the Phcenician colonists of the country. At any rate the Punic deities retained their hold upon the place ; the temples of the Tyrian Hercules and of Saturn, the scene of annual human sacrifices, were conspicuous in its outline, though these and all other religious build- ings in it looked small beside the mysterious antique shrine devoted to the sensual rites of the Syrian A-starte. Public baths and a theatre, a capitol, imita- tive of Home, a gymnasium, tlie long outline of a por- tico, an equestrian statue in brass of the Emperor Severus, were grouped together above the streets of B 2 4 CALLISTA-, a city, wliicli, narrow and winding, ran up and down across the hill. In its centre an extraordinary spring threw up incessantly several tons of water every minute, and was inclosed by the superstitious grati- tude of the inhabitants with the peristylium of a sacred place. At the extreme back, towards the north, which could not be seen from the point of view where we last stationed ourselves, there was a sheer descent of rock, bestowing on the city, when it was seen at a distance on the Mediterranean side, the same bold and striking appearance which attaches to Castro Gio- vanni, the ancient Enna, in the heart of Sicily. And now, withdrawing our eyes from the pano- rama, whether in its distant or nearer objects, if we would at length contemplate the spot itself from which we have been last surveying it, we shall find almost as much to repay attention, and to elicit admiration. "We stand in the midst of a farm of some wealthy pro- prietor, consisting of a number of fields and gardens, separated from each other by hedges of cactus or the aloe. At the foot of the hill, which sloped down on the side furthest from Sicca to one of the tributaries of the rich and turbid river of which we have spoken, a large yard or garden, intersected with a hundred arti- ficial rills, was devoted to the cultivation of the beau- tiful and odoriferous Mennah. A thick grove of palms seemed to triumph in the refreshment of the water's side, and lifted up their thankful boughs towards hea- ven. The barley harvest in the fields which lay higher up the hill was over, or at least was finishing ; and all that remained of the crop was the incessant and im- portunate chirping of the cicadce, and the rude booths of reeds and bulrushes, now left to wither, in which the peasant boys found shelter from the sun, while in an earlier month they frightened from the grain the myriads of linnets, goldfinches, and other small birds who, as in other countries, contested with the human proprietor the possession of it. On the south-western slope lies a neat and carefully dressed vineyard, the A SKETCH or THE THIRD CENTTJET. 5 vine-stakes of which, dwarfish as they are, already east long shadows on the eastern side. Slaves are scattered over it, testifying to the scorching power of the sun by their broad petasus, and to its oppressive heat by the scanty suhligarium which reached from the belt or girdle to the knees. They are engaged in cutting off' useless twigs to which the last showers of spring have given birth, and are twisting those which promise fruit into positions where they will be safe both from the breeze and from the sun. Every thing gives token of that gracious and happy season which the great Latin poets have hymned in their beautiful but heathen strains ; when, after the heavy rains, and raw mists, and piercing winds, and fitful sun-gleams of a long six months, the mighty mother manifests herself anew, and pours out the resources of her innermost being for the life and enjoyment of every portion of the vast whole ; — or, to apply the lines of a modern bard, " When the bare earth, till now Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned, Brings forth the tender grass, whose verdure clads Her universal face with pleasant green ; Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flower, Opening their various colours, and make gay Her bosom, swelling sweet ; and, these scarce blown, Forth flourishes the clustering vine, forth creeps The swelling gourd, up stands the corny reed Embattled in her fields, and the humble shrub, And bush with frizzled hair implicit ; last Rise, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gem Their blossoms ; with high woods the hills are crowned ; With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side ; With borders long the rivers ; that earth now Seems like to heaven, a seat where gods might dwell, Or wander with delight, and love to haunt Her sacred shades." A snatch from some old Greek chant, with some- thing of plaintiveness in the tone, issues from the thicket just across the mule-path, cut deep in the earth, which reaches from the city gate to the stream- let ; and a youth, who had the appearance of the 6 CALLISTA ; assistant bailiff or procurator of tlie farm leaped from it, and went over to the labourers, ^Yho were busy ■with the vines. His eyes and hair and the cast of his features spoke of Europe ; his manner had something of shyness and reserve, rather than of rusticity ; and he wore a simple red tunic with half sleeves, descend- ing to the knee, and tightened round him by a belt. His legs and feet were protected by boots w-hich came half up his calf. He addressed one of the slaves, and his voice was gentle and cheerful. " Ah, Sansar !" he cried, " I don't like your way of managing these branches so well as my own ; but it is a difficult thing to move an old fellow like you. You never fasten together the shoots which you don't cut off; they are flying about quite wild, and the first ox that passes through the field next month for the ploughing will break them off." He spoke in Latin ; the man understood it, and answered him in the same language, though with de- viations from purity of accent and syntax, not without parallel in the talkee-talkee of the AYest Indian negro. " Ay, ay, master," he said, " ay, ay ; but it's all a mistake to use the plough at all. The fork does the work much better, and no fear for the grape. I hide the tendril under the leaf against the sun, which is the only enemy we have to consider." "Ah! but the fork does not raise so much dust as the plough and the heavy cattle which draw it," re- turned Agellius ; " and the said dust does more for the protection of the tendril than the shade of the leaf." " But those huge beasts," relorted the slave, "turn up great ridges, and destroy the yard." " It's no good arguing with an old vinedresser, who had formed his theory before I was born," said Agel- lius good-humouredly ; and he passed on into a garden beyond. Here were other indications of the happy month through which the year was now travelling. The A SKETCH OP THE TKTRB CENTURY. 7 garden, so to call it, was a space of several acres in extent ; it was one large bed of roses, and preparation was making for extracting their essence, for which various parts of that coantry are to this day cele- brated. Here was another set of labourers, and a man of middle age was surveying them at his leisure. His business-like, severe, and off-hand manner be- spoke the villicus or bailiff himself. " Always here," said he, "as if you were a slave, not a Eoman, my good fellow ; yet slaves have their Saturnalia; always serving, not worshipping the all- bounteous and ail-blessed. Why are yoa not taking holiday in the town ?" " Why should I, sir ?" asked Agellius ; " don't you recollect old Hienipsal's saying about ' one foot in the slipper, and one in the shoe,' Nothing would be done well if I were a town-goer. You engaged me, I suppose, to be here, not there." "Ah!" answered he, "but at this season the empire, the genius of Eome, the customs of the coun- try, demand it, and above all the great goddess Astarte, and her genial, jocund month. ' Parturit almus ager ;' you know the verse; do not be out of tune with nature, nor clash and jar with the great system of the universe." A cloud of confusion, or of distress, passed over Agelhus's face. He seemed as if he wished to speak ; at length he merely said, " It's a fault on the right side in a servant, I suppose." " I know the way of your people," Yitricus replied, " Corybantians, Phrygians, Jews, what do you call yourselves? There are so many fantastic religious now-a-days. Hang yourself outright at your house- door, if you are tired of living, — and you are a sensible fellow. How^ can any man, whose head sits right upon his shoulders, say that life is worth having, and not worth enjoying?" " I am a quiet being," answered Agellius, "I like 8 CALLISTA ; the-countrj, which you think so tame, and care little for tlie flaimtiDg town. Tastes differ." " Town ! you need not go to Sicca," answered the bailiff, " all Sicca is out of town. It has poured into the fields, and groves, and river side. Lift up your eyes, man alive, open your ears, and let pleasure flow in. Be passive under the sweet breath of the goddess, and she will fill you with ecstasy." It was as Vitricus had said ; the solemn feast-days of Astarte were in course of celebration ; of Astarte, the well-known divinity of Carthage and its dependent cities, whom Helio