Free from the Law


There were not many ships venturing across the Adriatic so close to winter299, but I finally found one that was sailing straight back to Pola and then skirting the coast behind the sheltering islands all the way to Corfu. If the worst came to the worst I knew that we could cross over to the mainland and walk from there. The ship left at mid-day and as it swung out of the harbour and the bow began to rise and fall on the grey, choppy sea I turned and smiled at Cartimandua.

"It's good to be going home!"

She smiled back. "Yes, Arxes. Do you think your parents will be happy to see our son?"

"Don't you worry. Mum will love him and Dad, well, he'll grumble a bit at first but he'll come round."

My delight was short-lived. I nearly tore my hair out with frustration as the captain dallied in every little port on the coast of Dalmatia, doing deals and hunting for passengers. Only Cartimandua's calmness and the antics of my son, who toddled fearlessly about the deck and needed constant watching, kept me sane. Still, we finally reached Corfu and to my relief found a ship bound for Corinth almost immediately. Even though I was a Christian, I found it hard to refrain from uttering a vow of some kind to show my thankfulness when at last the morning sun shone on the temple of Artemis high on the Acro-Corinth.

Cartimandua and I walked up the road from Lecheae, staggering slightly as our feet met the unmoving stones of the pavement after so many days at sea. Cartimandua carried our son on her hip and a slave hired from his master at the port followed with our small bundle of belongings.

"It feels good to be on solid ground again!" I exclaimed.

Cartimandua said nothing, but her smile told me that she agreed. We trudged on a while longer in silence and then Cartimandua gave a cry and pointed.

"Arxes, look! They've gone."

"Who's gone?"

I followed her pointing finger and discovered the answer to my question. We had reached the area of open ground, which was completely bare. The tent and hut erected by Priscilla and Aquila had disappeared.

"Don't tell me Paul has gone!" I exclaimed. "I was hoping that he would baptise me."

Cartimandua reached out with her free hand and linked her fingers in mine. "Don't worry, Arxes. The Christos will arrange it."

"We'll go the back way," I told Cartimandua when we reached the city gate. "I think it would be better if we broke our news to my father in private, so let's keep away from the agora and the shop."

A quarter of an hour later, having successfully avoided anyone who might have recognised us, we stood in the familiar street outside my home. I reached out and rapped on the door.

"Door! Door!"

A moment later Antiochus, looking not a day older than when I last saw him, pulled the door open a crack and glared out with the forbidding frown he keeps for hawkers and beggers. He stared at me for a moment and then flung the door wide.

"Lady! Madam!" he shouted over his shoulder, "The little lord is home! Come in, little lord. Come in."

We barely had time to step through the door before my mother and a flurry of household slaves came running into the hall. Mother threw her arms about me, exclaiming at how I had grown and how brown I was and how healthy I looked. She suddenly froze, staring over my shoulder, and then pushed me away.

"Arxes! Is this child yours?"

"Yes. Isn't he a splendid baby?" I couldn't help grinning.

"Oh, Arxes! How wonderful." Mum advanced on Cartimandua, her arms outstretched to the baby. "Cartimandua, my dear. How well you look. Was it a difficult birth?"

Cartimandua tried to hold out my son to my mother but the little brat hid his face in Cartimandua's shoulder and took his time sizing up the strange woman in front of him before granting her a smile and then impetuously leaping into her arms. Mother, the baby clutched to her breast, led the way into her room and sat down on a bench. I sat down beside her and cleared my throat.

"Mum, there's one thing you should know. I have acknowledged the child as mine and I intend to make him my heir. I regard Cartimandua as my wife, not my slave, and I want her treated as such."

Mother's eyes opened wide, but she smiled at Cartimandua and reached out to draw her to sit down on her other side.

"Arxes, I'm delighted and I am sure we can talk your father round. Cartimandua, dear, I welcome you as a daughter and your child as my grandson. We've always got on well together, dear, and I'm sure we will continue to do so. You see, Arxes," she turned back to me, "your father and I are now Christians, like your girl. I wish that you were too."

"Mother!" I leaped to my feet and hugged her tight. "So am I! All I lack is the initiation, but I haven't worshipped any god except the Christos since my son was born. In fact, if I have your permission, I want to call him Paul, after the man who brought the good news about the Christos to us."

"Arxes, my dear," Mother had her arms around us both while baby Paul crowed and laughed on the floor. "Now we are a Christian family. May the Christos be praised!"

"Amen." Cartimandua and I chorused.

"When did you become Christians?" I asked when mother finally released us.

"Last summer - no, tell a lie - the previous autumn. We had been going along to the Christian assemblies regularly before that, but we couldn't make up our minds until Peter, one of the disciples of the Christos, came to Corinth. Your father questioned him carefully and then declared himself convinced, so we were all baptised."

"You've spoken to Peter!" I exclaimed. "What was he like? What did he tell you?"

I had to wait for my answer as young Paul started to cry and the two women fussed around him, feeding, cleaning and talking baby talk. When he was settled at last, mother told us all about Peter's visit and the wonderful things he had to tell of the three years he spent with the Christos.

"Now," I said when mother had finished. "What can you tell me about Lucius? I assume he has arrived already."

Mother's face clouded. "Yes he has and Arxes, you'll never guess what he has done."

I groaned. "I'm afraid I can guess. Mysticus?"

"Yes." Mother's voice took on a harsher tone. "I wish you would go round and speak to him, Arxes. He won't listen to any of us, but he might listen to you."

"I'll go at once," I said, standing up. "Oh, Cartimandua, come here."

I took her hand and led her out to the hall. I pointed to the wooden notice on the wall beside the door.

"See that? Well, it doesn't apply to you any more. Antiochus, Cartimandua has my permission to come and go as she pleases. I've decided to make her my wife."

I expect Antiochus disapproved - there's no one so conservative and class conscious as an old slave of the family - but fortunately for him he was too surprised to make any comment. I put on my shoes and strode off down the street.

Lucius himself came to the door when I knocked and greeted me as warmly as I could have wished.

"Arxes! Come in! When did you arrive? Did you get my message? Where's Cartimandua? How's your son?"

"Hey, one at a time!" I laughed, coming into the house and taking off my shoes. "Where's your doorman?"

"In bed," Lucius said shortly.

"Sick?"

"I'll say!" Lucius' face was grim. "I'm sick of him muttering and begging the gods to be merciful every time he sees my wife. I gave him such a thrashing yesterday that I doubt he'll leave his bed before tomorrow."

"Ah," I coughed nervously. "Actually, Lucius old friend, I came straight round as soon as I heard about it. How can you expect to escape the wrath of the gods if you commit such a crime as this?"

"The gods?" Lucius face looked twisted. "Do you believe in the gods, Arxes?"

"Well, no." I blushed. "Actually, I am now a Christian, like Cartimandua."

"Yes," Lucius stared at me intently. "The Christos. Do you remember what Paul said one of those Sabbaths before we left? He said that the Christos has abolished all laws. Those who worship Him are free, they are not bound by the old conventions and regulations. The only requirement is to love one another. All I'm doing is being obedient to that requirement!"

"Yes, but did he mean the laws of morality?"

"What's moral?" Lucias raised his eyebrows. "Who can tell what is good and what is bad? Even an action that seems to be wrong can turn out to be ordained by the gods - I mean, by God - to bring about good300 ."

"But what about other people?" I protested. "Surely you care what people say about you?"

"What do people say?" Lucius gave a short laugh. "What did people say when Seleucus gave his own wife to his son?301 What's good enough for a king is good enough for a commoner, especially when he's a Roman. Come on, Arxes. Worse things than this happen every day in Rome."

"What about the Christians?" I persisted. "Do they approve of what you have done?"

Lucius shrugged and threw himself into a chair. "Opinion is divided. A few think I've done something dreadful; the others - younger ones mainly, I grant you - say that I'm a hero for flouting the stale conventions of society302. They agree with me that the Christos has set us free from this old morality and brought us to a new one where all that matters is to show love to one another."

"What about the girl herself? What does she say?"

Lucius tipped his head back and shouted. "Mysticus! Come here a moment."

It was the first time I had really seen Mysticus and as Lucius introduced us I examined her carefully. Her curly black hair framed a face like a statue of Aphrodite, large black eyes, full red lips and a complexion the goddess herself might have envied. I didn't blame Lucius for being in love with such a beauty. For her part, the girl seemed, if not desperately in love then at least quite content with her new husband. She sat down beside him and snuggled up to him affectionately.

"Are you answered?" Lucius enquired. "The attractions of widowhood are few, aren't they, my love? and Mysticus is as happy with me as she could be if she were married off to anyone else. Look at it from her point of view: as my father's wife she is quite wealthy and you don't suppose that her father would let her stay unmarried? He'd sell her off to whoever he thought would bring the greatest advantage to himself, probably to another old man. So you see, there's the added benefit that this way I preserve my father's property and my inheritance from any fortune-hunting suitor who might try to chisel me out of what is mine. Of course her father grumbles, but he'll come round eventually. I'm my father's heir and money talks, you know."

I threw up my hands. "Lucius, I don't know what to say. I can't help feeling that it's wrong and that somehow Paul didn't mean quite what you think he did when he spoke like that about law, but there you are. He's gone and I guess the fuss will die down in a short while. Good luck to you, I say."

299 Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were not entirely at home on the sea. In Plautus' play The Rope (p. 109) Labrax gives voice to the typical Roman attitude. (Granted that he has just survived a shipwreck, which is enough to sour anyone's attitude.)

Labrax: Anyone looking for wrack and ruin, he'll get it quick enough if he puts his body and soul into Neptune's hands. Have anything to do with that old sod and he'll send you home in this state. . . . I wish Neptune would provide something more than a cold plunge. I can't get warm even with my clothes on, after a visit to his bath-house. . . . Well, it's no use standing here wet and woebegone. I might as well go into the temple and sleep off the night's carouse - a thicker night than I bargained for! Old Neptune must have thought we needed an infusion of brine, like Greek wines, or a dose of salts to purge our bellies. A little more of his hospitality and we should have been under the table. As it is, we've just managed to stagger home."

Julius Caesar was greatly admired for his daring in venturing to cross the Adriatic in winter. Somewhat breathlessly, Plutarch in The Fall of the Roman Republic, tells us that "With 600 picked cavalry and five legions he hurried by forced marches past the rest of his army and put to sea at the time of the winter solstice at the beginning of January. This month corresponds nearly enough to the Greek Poseideon." (p. 280) Return

300 When Paul spoke about doing evil that good might come, he was doubtless referring to the common idea that what might seem to be evil could, in fact, be productive of good. Plutarch, in his essay On God's Slowness to Punish alluded to this philosophical belief. "What follows from this? There is nothing odd in a farmer not cutting down the prickly asparagus plant unless he has gathered the edible root, or in the Libyans not burning their shrubs until they have collected the ladanum from them. So why should there be anything odd in God not destroying the root of a famous royal line, even though the root may in itself be useless and off-putting, until it has produced its proper fruit? It is preferable for the Phocians to have lost ten thousand of Iphitus' cows and horses and for even more gold and silver to have been taken from Delphi, than for Odysseus, Asclepius and all the other men of virtue and vast altruism who came from bad and useless stock not to have been born." (p. 262) Return

301 When Paul declared that such a deed had never been so much as mentioned among the Gentiles he was being either ignorant or rhetorical. Plutarch, in The Age of Alexander, tells how Seleucus, Alexander's general, married Stratonice, daughter of Demetrius. Stratonice was only a girl, though old enough to have born a child to her husband. Antiochus, Seleucus' son, fell in love with his step-mother, a fact which was discerned by his physician Erasistratus.

"Erasistratus saw the difficulty of revealing a secret of this nature to Seleucus, but still, trusting in the king's affection for his son, he ventured to tell him one day that love was the disorder from which Antiochus was suffering, a love that could neither be satisfied nor cured. 'How is it incurable?' the king asked him in astonishment. 'Because,' Erasistratus replied, 'he is in love with my wife.' 'Well then, Erasistratus,' said the king, 'since you are my son's friend, could you not give up your wife and let him marry her, especially when you see that he is my only son, the only anchor of our troubled dynasty and this is the only means of saving him?' 'You are his father,' the physician answered, 'would you do such a thing if Antiochus were in love with Stratonice?' 'My friend,' replied Seleucus, 'I only wish that someone, whether a god or a man, could turn this passion of his towards her. I should be happy to give up my kingdom if only I could save Antiochus.'

"Seleucus uttered these words with deep emotion and wept as he spoke, and thereupon the physician clasped him by the hand and said, 'Then you have no need of Erasistratus: you, sire, are a father, a husband and a king, and you are also the best physician for your own household.' After this Seleucus summoned the people to meet in full assembly and announced that it was his will and pleasure that Antiochus should marry Stratonice and that they should be proclaimed King and Queen of all Upper Asia. He believed, he said, that his son, who had always been accustomed to obey his father, would not oppose his desire and that if his wife should be unwilling to take this extraordinary step, he would appeal to his friends to persuade her to accept as just and honourable whatever seemed right to the king and advantageous to the kingdom. This is how Antiochus came to be married to Stratonice, so we are told."

(p. 368) Return

302 This could be taken to extremes. Eusebius, in his History of the Church, records a tale about the deacon Nicolaus. "This man, we are told, had an attractive young wife. After the Saviour's ascension the apostles accused him of jealousy, so he brought his wife forward and said that anyone who wished might have her. This action, we are told, followed from the injunction 'the flesh must be treated with contempt'; and by following example and precept crudely and unquestioningly the members of the sect do in fact practise utter promiscuity. But my own information is that Nicolaus had no relations with any woman but his wife; and that, of his children, his daughters remained unmarried till the end of their days and his son's chastity was never in doubt. Such being the case, his bringing the wife whom he loved so jealously into the midst of the apostles was the renunciation of desire and it was mastery of the pleasures so eagerly sought that taught him the rule 'treat the flesh with contempt'." (p. 92) Return