Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Quo Vadis: a narrative of the time of Nero By: Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) |
---|
![]()
A NARRATIVE OF THE TIME OF NERO by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin TO AUGUSTE COMTE, Of San Francisco, Cal., MY DEAR FRIEND AND CLASSMATE, I BEG TO DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. JEREMIAH CURTIN
INTRODUCTORY IN the trilogy "With Fire and Sword," "The Deluge," and "Pan Michael,"
Sienkiewicz has given pictures of a great and decisive epoch in modern
history. The results of the struggle begun under Bogdan Hmelnitski have
been felt for more than two centuries, and they are growing daily in
importance. The Russia which rose out of that struggle has become a
power not only of European but of world wide significance, and, to all
human seeming, she is yet in an early stage of her career. In "Quo Vadis" the author gives us pictures of opening scenes in the
conflict of moral ideas with the Roman Empire, a conflict from which
Christianity issued as the leading force in history. The Slays are not so well known to Western Europe or to us as they
are sure to be in the near future; hence the trilogy, with all its
popularity and merit, is not appreciated yet as it will be. The conflict described in "Quo Vadis" is of supreme interest to a vast
number of persons reading English; and this book will rouse, I think,
more attention at first than anything written by Sienkiewicz hitherto. JEREMIAH CURTIN ILOM, NORTHERN GUATEMALA, June, 1896 QUO VADIS Quo Vadis A Narrative of the Time of Nero
Chapter I
PETRONIUS woke only about midday, and as usual greatly wearied. The
evening before he had been at one of Nero's feasts, which was prolonged
till late at night. For some time his health had been failing. He said
himself that he woke up benumbed, as it were, and without power of
collecting his thoughts. But the morning bath and careful kneading of
the body by trained slaves hastened gradually the course of his slothful
blood, roused him, quickened him, restored his strength, so that he
issued from the elæothesium, that is, the last division of the bath, as
if he had risen from the dead, with eyes gleaming from wit and gladness,
rejuvenated, filled with life, exquisite, so unapproachable that Otho
himself could not compare with him, and was really that which he had
been called, arbiter elegantiarum. He visited the public baths rarely, only when some rhetor happened there
who roused admiration and who was spoken of in the city, or when in the
ephebias there were combats of exceptional interest. Moreover, he had in
his own "insula" private baths which Celer, the famous contemporary
of Severus, had extended for him, reconstructed and arranged with such
uncommon taste that Nero himself acknowledged their excellence over
those of the Emperor, though the imperial baths were more extensive and
finished with incomparably greater luxury. After that feast, at which he was bored by the jesting of Vatinius with
Nero, Lucan, and Seneca, he took part in a diatribe as to whether woman
has a soul. Rising late, he used, as was his custom, the baths. Two
enormous balneatores laid him on a cypress table covered with snow white
Egyptian byssus, and with hands dipped in perfumed olive oil began to
rub his shapely body; and he waited with closed eyes till the heat
of the laconicum and the heat of their hands passed through him and
expelled weariness. But after a certain time he spoke, and opened his eyes; he inquired
about the weather, and then about gems which the jeweller Idomeneus
had promised to send him for examination that day. It appeared that the
weather was beautiful, with a light breeze from the Alban hills, and
that the gems had not been brought. Petronius closed his eyes again, and
had given command to bear him to the tepidarium, when from behind
the curtain the nomenclator looked in, announcing that young Marcus
Vinicius, recently returned from Asia Minor, had come to visit him. Petronius ordered to admit the guest to the tepidarium, to which he
was borne himself. Vinicius was the son of his oldest sister, who years
before had married Marcus Vinicius, a man of consular dignity from the
time of Tiberius... Continue reading book >>
|
Genres for this book |
---|
Historical Fiction |
History |
Languages |
Religion |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Henryk Sienkiewicz |
Wikipedia – Quo Vadis: a narrative of the time of Nero |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|