The Wayward Vestal

June, AD 81: the second year of Caesar Titus

Arriving at a place where moonlit tombs lined the dark highway did not improve Cornelia’s mood. She did not relish having to add malicious spirits to the long list of threats she faced beyond the walls of Rome at night: packs of wolves, rabid dogs, hungry bears, slave catchers, bandits, or worst of all, wandering sex-starved soldiers who would be delighted to find a defenseless woman out here alone. After a long day of determination, denial, and telling herself she wasn’t afraid of the dark, Cornelia was finally sorry she had run away.

More terrified of the living than the dead, Cornelia veered off the road into the sprawling necropolis looking for somewhere to hide until morning. Ten or so yards in from the highway, she came to a round marble tomb that glowed silver-gray in the light of the rising moon and sat on its weathered base. She took off her sandals and rubbed her feet, which burned from walking since early that morning trying to escape Rome and its suburbs. She sighed, took the last gulp from the flask of watery wine she had been surviving on all day, and gazed up at the blanket of stars hoping they were watching over her. The stars had always comforted her, but tonight their dignified silence barely calmed her at all. “Immortal Gods! What in Hades have I done?” she asked the crescent moon hovering over the black horizon, “I should have just let them kill me.” Somewhere out in the darkness, a dog barked, answered by another.

As she leaned back against the cool stone of the tomb staring up at Orion’s belt wondering where she could possibly go tomorrow that would be safe, Cornelia heard a soft murmur drifting in the air. She told herself it was just wind whispering around the tombs and through the trees, but she soon made out a melody, a low chant of some kind punctuated by muted cries of joy or possibly terror and the occasional clapping of hands. Perhaps, she thought, the Manes had left their burial vaults and formed a ghostly chorus to sing songs of breathless spirits. She hoped the tune would disappear into the night, but it kept coming back.

The strange music went on and on, and being an inquisitive person, Cornelia began to wonder who could possibly be out here singing at this time of night. Unable to contain her curiosity a moment longer, she put on her sandals and started creeping toward the music. Cornelia’s shadow slid across the wall of a moon washed mausoleum as she turned a corner onto another deserted cemetery avenue. In the darkness ahead, she noticed a faint light flickering among the boxy tombs, and as she drew closer, she made out the shadows of people flailing their arms and tossing their heads as they danced in the light of what had to be a lamp or small fire. The mysterious revelers were just yards away.

From this close, the melody sounded more menacing than fascinating. She froze. Her heart started to race as nightmarish images, bare knives, slit throats, and pools of ritualistic blood tore through her mind. She recalled that in recent years, cults had emerged in the countryside around Rome. Mysterious, illegal, and violent, they were known to meet in cemeteries. She had heard of bloodletting and torture, of human sacrifice, even. Now desperate to get away, she slowly, carefully, turned around and started tiptoeing in the direction from which she had come.

However, before Cornelia got far, a hand came out of nowhere and grabbed her arm, pulled her around, and propelled her down an alley toward the sound and light. Soon, she was horrified to find herself on the fringes of a gathering of about fifty people dressed in dark cloaks arrayed in ritual formation around the wavering flame of a single lamp. They had no altar, no sacrificial bull or goat, no statues of Gods. Cornelia did not understand. Afraid she might be the night’s sacrifice, she searched the shimmering faces of the strangers around her for any hint of warmth or mercy. Seeing none, she gazed up at the sky seeking comfort from the heavens, but the moon and stars did not console her at all this time.

The fingers around her arm felt rough, suggesting a life of toil, perhaps even of slavery. She looked up at the man holding her. He wore a cheap bronze wrist cuff and a shabby old tunic. She trembled in his grasp, terrified of what such a crude man might do to her. Desperate to free herself, she tried to yank her arm out of his grip, but he held her tight.

Noticing the brief struggle, a skinny old woman wearing a dark hooded cloak came up to them. “And who’s this?” she asked gazing at Cornelia with suspicion, her pale, emaciated face and black eyes softened by the moonlight.

“I caught her over there spying on us,” the man clutching her arm said in a solemn voice.

The woman squinted hard at Cornelia, deepening the wrinkles around her dark eyes. “Were you spying on us?” she asked.

“No.”

She took a good look at Cornelia’s flawless face and slender body, both of which made her appear a lot younger than twenty seven, then examined her drab tunic, filthy from her day of walking the streets of Rome and the highway beyond its walls, and scrutinized her messy black hair which stuck out in all directions, touching it briefly. “Did you run away from your master, girl?” she asked.

“Yes,” Cornelia said, realizing her lie was not that far from the truth.

“All souls are welcome here,” the woman said in a kinder tone and walked away, but the man next to her still did not let her go.

The group began to chant to a “holy virgin mother,” and Cornelia realized this had to be the secretive cult of Jesus, the demigod carpenter. Along with the rest of the Jews, these people refused to worship Caesar and the traditional Gods of Rome in their rituals or in their hearts. Just being found with such disloyal zealots could bring a death sentence. She thought that if Caesar Titus were to put aside his general indifference toward religion and, like Caesar Nero before him, have a troop of Praetorian guards raid this gathering this very night he would have them all burned alive or mauled by wild animals in the great new amphitheater by the Forum he had just completed, and she would end up a martyr for a religion she knew or cared nothing about. Terrified at the thought, she looked all around but saw only darkness beyond the glow of the lamp at the center of the group.

The worshipers raised their hands to the sky and prayed: “Father forgive us as we forgive others who sin against us . . . bless us, bless us oh father, your humble servants.” When the prayer ended, they formed a tight circle close to the lamp, and soon a group of men and women dressed in black tunics with big hoods came up holding plates piled high with scraps of bread. “In the name of our Lord” a voice rang out, “let us take of this holy Eucharist.”

Cornelia watched with trepidation. She had heard cultists like these were malicious and unpredictable. Rumor had it they sacrificed children at secret nighttime meetings like this and drained their blood into a goblet to pass around. She tried to get free again, but her captor was just too strong.

The priests began to distribute the bread, and each worshiper took a chunk and a sip of the dark fluid, whatever it was, from a ceramic cup and then all gave thanks by raising their arms again and shouting joyfully up to the stars. One of the priests, a young woman with jet black hair and stunning bright blue eyes, came up and offered Cornelia a lump of bread and a drink from the cup, but her captor blocked it, “not baptized,” he said, and the woman handed the cup to him instead. Cornelia wondered how this man knew whether or not she had been baptized, whatever that meant, but she would not have taken of the cup’s contents anyway. “Is that blood you’re drinking?!” She asked as he took a sip. He did not respond. It had to be.

Once everyone except Cornelia had sampled the offerings, the priests collected the dishes, and everyone let go of hands, blessed each other, and started walking away in all directions. As they disappeared among the mausoleums and the fruit trees, someone extinguished and removed the lamp, leaving Cornelia in the darkness with this strange man not knowing if she should break free of him and run away and take her chances with the spirits of the dead and the drunk soldiers, or stay here and be at his mercy. She eyed the moonlit edge of a cloud, afraid of every possibility.

“Come,” he said, tugging at her arm, “you can’t stay out here.” Desperate to be free of him, she made a great effort to wrench her arm out of his hand and stood back. She refused to follow him anywhere until she knew.

“You can’t stay out here,” he repeated, holding out his hands.

“What were you drinking?” She demanded.

“The blood of Christ.”

“Ahh,” she cried. “So, you Nazarenes do sacrifice children!” He tried to speak, but she did not give him the opportunity. “I cannot imagine what drinking blood has to do with forgiveness.”

“We were drinking wine!” he said.

“Wine?”

“It becomes Christ’s blood when the priests give the blessing, and the bread his body,” he said still eyeing Cornelia’s baffled expression, “by ritual magic.”

Ritual magic was something Cornelia understood well enough, but the sacrificial blood she had always used came from animals raised on sacred farms and anointed by priests in temples, not from grapes grown in a vineyard somewhere. “Does it taste like blood or like wine?” she asked.

“Like wine,” he said, now clearly irritated.

She laughed. “You have a wine and bread God that you eat!” She said and laughed some more, “how strange.”

“No stranger than worshiping lifeless statues,” he said, starting to walk away and motioning for her to follow him.

“True enough,” she replied, still concerned about the fate of her own body and blood.

“Have you a home?” He asked apparently having ignored her conversation with the old woman, “and if so, may I take you there?”

She hesitated, “no, not anymore.”

“I’ll take you to mine then.”

Not knowing what else to do, she followed him across the field and then down a long avenue of tombs.

They soon came to a noisy street crowded by poorly dressed people and domesticated animals lit only by the moon, a few scattered torches, and dim light filtering out from eateries, wine bars, and brothels. “By Castor! I never even left the city!” Cornelia shouted to herself realizing she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up looping back into Rome’s suburbs. The streets were crowded even this late, with the poor pulling, pushing, and carrying their burdens. The place reminded her of a time when she had passed through a neighborhood much like this as a girl, and her mother had asked why “these people” always had to have “such horrendous posture,” as six slaves rushed them in their litter toward a better part of town. “Good posture doesn’t cost anything.”

In the faint glow of the street, she finally got a good look at the man leading her and was surprised to see that his curly brown hair and beard were not as wild and choppy as she had imagined they would be. The yellow light accented his prominent cheekbones, slightly hooked nose, and dark eyes. Despite the coarse hands and the cheap clothes, she found his face, and especially his eyes, captivating. They reminded her of the face and mysterious eyes of a statue of the Egyptian God Osiris one of her father’s friends had imported to decorate his courtyard. The strange old statue had always entranced her with its perfect posture, its other worldliness, and a gaze that saw beyond this life. When she saw it, she would imagine her Egyptian mother’s ancestors worshiping this strange God back through the generations to the very beginning of time.

Her captor’s eyes seemed to see beyond his low station in life. With light wrinkles on his forehead, faint circles under his eyes, and a few grey hairs, she now figured he had to be a few years older than her, probably in his early thirties. Without perfumes or ointments, he smelled like the raggedy men who hung around the Forum begging for alms, playing flutes, and looking for work, contradicting but not subduing the nobility of his face.

“My name is Cornelia,” she said, but he did not respond.

Among the tunic-wearing Roman plebeians and slaves, Cornelia saw black-skinned Ethiopians in bright kilts, white-skinned Germanic tribespeople with their blonde hair twisted into a big knot on top, and brown-skinned Arabians wearing long robes with colorful embroidery on their belts and sleeves. She had heard people were coming to Rome from all over the world looking for a better life or being forced here as slaves but had never imagined there could be so many of them.

A heavy cart hauling about twenty chained pale slaves came lumbering across her path. Its load of recent captives wore remnants of their native costumes: scraps of fur, ripped shawls, and odd leather leggings. They seemed more stunned than afraid. Their matted, mostly blonde hair looked like dirty straw.

A blonde girl chained to the back of the cart, probably about ten years old stared down at Cornelia with wide bright blue eyes like a captured wild animal, and her bruised, sorrowful face betrayed the horrors of capture and a rough journey from her distant northern home. They smelled like a combination of latrine and sacrificed goat. Cornelia held her nose and looked away wondering how anyone could stand to live under such circumstances.

Cornelia and her new companion tramped on and on, dodging squeaking carts and sullen old women, bleating goats and squalling babies, as they delved ever farther into this district of ugly stucco apartments and rough wine bars. The smell of frying fish, underarms, and urine saturated the thick smoke that hung in the air.

“Where is this house of yours?” she asked annoyed at having to walk so far without knowing where she was going or how much longer it would take to get there. “Soon,” he said, but they continued tromping down one dirty street after another, on and on and on. She stepped around the worst piles of filth, which her companion seemed less determined to avoid. A woman shouted from a third story window and poured the contents of a chamber pot into the street which landed just a yard from her bare shins. Cornelia had never dreamed anywhere could be this vile.

“Here,” he finally said and led her through a narrow archway and down a tight alley. She could not see where she was stepping and was forced to climb over unseen mounds of dirt or garbage with blind faith in the stranger leading her. They turned, he opened a door into more blackness, the door soon squeaked closed behind them, and after a number of flint strikes, he lit a clay lamp exposing a small room with a disturbingly low ceiling. She grew even more uneasy. This was the worst of domiciles, by far the humblest place she had ever seen with an uneven dirt floor and moldy plaster walls. The apartment smelled of soot and mildew. She wondered if he intended to imprison her here in this awful room and glanced along the walls searching for chains or shackles. In a neighborhood such as this, no one would care even if they did hear her screams.