“This tomb had been constructed for those much older; but Destiny,
under the influence of the country and climate, has smitten a child of
seven years. His parents, his father and mother, have buried him whom
they brought up. Vain are the hopes of men here below.”
It is noticeable that this child bore the name of Ligur, living and
dying among the Ligurians of the coast. Possibly the family had this
native blood in their veins and were not ashamed of it. Another tomb is
all in Latin:—
“Agrippina Pia to the Memory of her Friend Baricbal. He lived forty
years. She who was his heiress has constructed this monument for him
and herself.”
And underneath are a pair of clasped hands.
What was the story? The name Baricbal is Barac Baal, the Blessed of
Baal, the name of a Phœnician. The young heiress undertakes to be
buried in the same tomb with him later. But she was an heiress, and she
was young. I doubt if her resolution held out, and she did not clasp
hands after a year or two with some one else.
The cathedral is not particularly interesting; it is of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. The baptistery is earlier, and sustained by
eight Corinthian columns of granite taken from a Roman building. The
cloisters are good, the arches resting on pairs of columns. Fréjus
has produced some remarkable men. First of all comes Agricola, the
father-in-law of Tacitus, who wrote his life. From that biography we
see what an honourable, true, and in every way upright man an old Roman
could be. Agricola was born in A.D. 37 and died in 93. His life is of
special interest to us, as he spent so much of his time in Britain,
carried the Roman arms into Scotland, and sent an expedition round
the coast and established the fact that Britain was an island. He was
moved to this by the following circumstance. A body of Germans had
been levied on the Rhine and were sent over to serve under Agricola.
But after having murdered a centurion and some soldiers who were
drilling them, they seized on three light vessels and compelled the
captains to go on board with them. One of these, however, escaped to
shore, whereupon these Germans murdered the other two, put to sea,
and sailed away without one of them having any acquaintance with the
sea and the management of ships. They were carried north by winds and
waves, and landed occasionally to obtain water and food and to plunder
the natives. They circumnavigated the north of Scotland, and then
were carried out to sea and suffered terrible privations. They were
driven by starvation to kill and eat the weakest of their number and
to drink their blood. At length they were wrecked on the North German
coast, where they were seized on as pirates, and sold as slaves to the
Romans on the left bank of the Rhine. Here they talked and yarned of
their adventures, and the news reached Agricola; so he fitted out his
expedition and proved the fact that Britain actually was an island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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