A Thorny Path [Per Aspera], Complete — Part 92

“But he,” the girl eagerly put in, “was a great man.”

Melissa’s tearful eyes showed the warm sympathy she felt, as she asked:

“But how could it have happened that you were not ransomed by your relations? Your father was, no doubt, a Roman citizen; and the law--”

“The law forbids that such a one should be sold into slavery,” Andreas broke in, “and yet the authorities of Rome left him in misery--left--”

At this, her large, gentle eyes flashed with indignation, and, stirred to the depths of her nature, she exclaimed:

“How was such horrible injustice possible? Oh, let me hear. You know how truly I love you, and no one can hear you.”

The wind had risen, the waves splashed noisily against the broad boat, and the song of the slaves, as they plied their oars, would have drowned a stronger voice than the freedman’s; so he sat down by her side to do her bidding.

And the tale he had to tell was sad indeed.

His father had been of knightly rank, and in the reign of Marcus Aurelius he had been in the service of Avidius Cassius, his fellow-countryman, the illustrious governor of Asia as ‘procurator ab epistolis’. As holding this high post, he found himself involved in the conspiracy of Avidius against the emperor. After the assassination of his patron, who had already been proclaimed emperor by the troops, Andreas’s father had been deprived of his offices, his citizenship, and his honors; his possessions were confiscated, and he was exiled to the island of Anaphe. It was to Caesar’s clemency that he owed his life.

On their voyage into exile the father and son fell into the hands of Syrian pirates, and were sold in the slave-market of Alexandria to two separate masters. Andreas was bought by a tavern-keeper; the procurator, whose name as a slave was Smaragdus, by the father of Polybius; and this worthy man soon learned to value his servant so highly, that he purchased the son also, and restored him to his father. Thus they were once more united.

Every attempt of the man who had once held so proud a position to get his release, by an act of the senate, proved vain. It was with a broken heart and enfeebled health that he did his duty to his master and to his only child. He pined in torments of melancholy, till Christianity opened new happiness to him, and revived hope brought him back from the very brink of despair; and, even as a slave, he found the highest of all dignities--that, namely, which a Christian derives from his faith.