Adonijah: A Tale of the Jewish Dispersion.Strickland, Jane Margaret
History
Adonijah: A Tale of the Jewish Dispersion.
Strickland, Jane Margaret
Jerusalem -- History -- Fiction; Jerusalem -- History -- Siege, 70 A.D. -- Fiction; Jews -- Fiction
Sabinus employed himself in making preparations for the funeral rites of
his friend and patron, while Lucius Claudius, with Roman fortitude,
forbade his countenance to wear the guise of grief; but, following his
effeminate brother’s advice, engaged a passage in a merchant-ship for
himself and his followers to Italy.
The shades of evening had long descended on the wooded heights of Mount
Cithæron, whose rugged brow cast a deep lengthened shadow on the plain.
The moon-beams slept upon the deep blue waves that washed the Isthmus,
while the stately city, with its Acropolis rising like a majestic crown
above it, looked, as it shone in the lunar ray, like an enchanted place
called up by magic from the deep rather than the abode of man. The vivid
flame that suddenly shot up along the shore, casting the figures moving
solemnly around it in deep shadow, might have suggested the idea of
magic rites. But the forms that paced about that blazing pile were
engaged in no unholy practices. Theirs was the hallowed office of
rendering the last honours to the remains of Corbulo, previously to
their quitting these fatal shores.
Long, long did those faithful friends and followers gaze upon the
features of the illustrious dead, before the hand of Lucius Claudius
fired the pile. With wonder Adonijah contemplated the lofty lineaments
and singularly grand figure of the murdered Roman of whose fame and
virtue he had heard so much; for Domitius Corbulo soared in stature as
much beyond all other Romans of his day, as he exceeded them in glory.
The manly eyes of Lucius Claudius overflowed with tears, but tears soon
dried up by the hope of vengeance. Each of that mourning group, dipping
their hands in the streaming blood of Corbulo, swore to revenge his
death on Nero, or perish in the attempt. The pile was fired; and Lucius
Claudius and Sabinus watched the dissolution of the form they loved,
gathered up the ashes in an urn, and, deeply sorrowing, bore them on
board the vessel hired to convey them to Italy.
Adonijah beheld the classic shores of Greece receding from his sight
with the indifference of one to whom all countries could only offer
variety in bondage. The apathy of slavery began to steal over him; and
it was not till the emotions of the long-absent Romans grew apparent as
they approached the coast of Italy, that the remembrance that he was an
exile from his own country returned in all its bitterness to his soul.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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