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Updated: August 28, 2024
He sat up, looked about, and smiled defiantly. There were weapons in every table. But birds had been starved in golden cages; not so would he the couches would serve him as battering-rams; and he was strong, and there was such increase of might in rage and despair! Messala himself could not come. He would never walk again; he was a cripple like Simonides; still he could move others.
What shall I be? Dear, good mother, help me to an answer." "Gamaliel has been lecturing today," she said, thoughtfully. "If so, I did not hear him." "Then you have been walking with Simeon, who, they tell me, inherits the genius of his family." "No, I have not seen him. I have been up on the Market-place, not to the Temple. I visited the young Messala."
It seemed scarce an hour ago that the strong hands had torn him from his mother, scarce an hour ago that the Roman had put seal upon the gates of his father's house. He recounted how, in the hopeless misery of the life if such it might be called in the galleys, he had had little else to do, aside from labor, than dream dreams of vengeance, in all of which Messala was the principal.
Just then a procession of slaves filed into the room, some with great jars of wine, others with baskets of fruits and confections, others again with cups and flagons, mostly silver. There was inspiration in the sight. Instantly Messala climbed upon a stool. "Men of the Tiber," he said, in a clear voice, "let us turn this waiting for our chief into a feast of Bacchus. Whom choose ye for master?"
But Messala says that Cassius supped privately with a few of his nearest acquaintance, and appeared thoughtful and silent, contrary to his temper and custom; that after supper he took him earnestly by the hand, and speaking to him, as his manner was when he wished to show affection, in Greek, said, "Bear witness for me, Messala, that I am brought into the same necessity as Pompey the Great was before me, of hazarding the liberty of my country upon one battle; yet ought we to be of courage, relying on our good fortune, which it were unfair to mistrust, though we take evil counsels."
In Asinius Pollio there is much invention, much, according to some, excessive, diligence; but he is so far from the brilliancy and sweetness of Cicero that he might be a generation earlier. But Messala is polished and open, and in a way carries his noble birth into his style of eloquence, but he lacks vigour.
"Tell us more of him perpol! of him who is both Jew and Roman by Phoebus, a combination to make a Centaur lovely! What garments cloth he affect, my Drusus?" "Those of the Jews." "Hearest thou, Caius?" said Messala.
Esther kept her seat; but Iras arose, and gave him a smile and a wave of her fan favors not the less intoxicating to him because we know, O reader, they would have fallen to Messala had he been the victor. The procession was then formed, and, midst the shouting of the multitude which had had its will, passed out of the Gate of Triumph. And the day was over.
Corvinus Messala gloried to have had Cassius for his general: and yet both Pollio and Corvinus became signally powerful in wealth and honours under Augustus. That book of Cicero's, in which he exalted Cato to the skies; what other animadversion did it draw from Caesar the Dictator, than a written reply, in the same style and equality as if before his judges he had made it?
A difference of opinion delayed this, for the consul declared that he should nominate as dictator Marcus Valerius Messala, who then commanded the fleet in Sicily; but the fathers denied that a person could be appointed dictator who was not in the Roman territory, and this was limited by Italy.
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