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From The Inns of Greece & Rome, and a history of Hospitality from the Dawn of Time to the Middle Ages, by W. C. Firebaugh, with an Introduction by Wallace Rice and Illustrations by Norman Lindsay, Chicago: Pascal Covici; 1928; pp. 261-271.
THE INNS OF GREECE AND ROME
261During the interminable number of years which comprised the life of the Roman world and through which we have conducted our readers, we have met always the same abuses; whether in tavern, inn, or cabaret, always have the scandalous contraventions of honesty and morality intruded themselves into our speculations and forced themselves upon our notice.
Lechery in silk, lust in rags, vice generally unpunished and always open, and unbridle orgies that transcend belief, infamy and robbery — all these things taken together may be said to have formed an integral part in the calling of the innkeeper.
The spread of Christianity, the invasion by savage barbarians, whose morals were at first purer than the effeminate serfs whom they subjugated, the slow strangulation of internal commerce; these three things may, in the largest sense of the word, be said to have caused innkeepers and innkeeping to decline to a degree which would have scarcely been deemed possible, and forced the refectories of the various religious orders to take upon themselves the duties of a hospitality well-nigh Grecian in its purity and its freedom from self interest.
The innkeepers at Rome during the age of Alexander Severus were engaged in open warfare with the Christians and sought by every means possible to give the death blow to the new religion which seemed designed to destroy their calling by its austere and moral precepts of sobriety. But these precepts were the main factors in the destruction of the inns and innkeepers of the early Middle Ages, and it is scarcely too much to say that such institutions during that period were to be found in numbers only in 262 the great sea-ports and centres of trade, designed upon the one hand to serve the interests of such mariners as were lucky enough to escape the pirates, and on the other to cater to the appetites of such country rustics and louts as were able to run the gauntlet of mediæval highwaymen and assassins on market days and occasions of fêtes and fairs.
We shall bring our account of the inns of Greece and Rome to a close by relating, along with a few other incidents, an early chapter in the history of Augustodunum, now known as Augsburg, and the martyrdom of Affre, its patron saint.
The Rhetians as a people remained unconquered for many years, but we cannot escape the suspicion that that German province had acquired the corruption of Rome before it was subjected by her arms. Vice marching ahead had undermined the barbarian vigor and had prepared its votaries for the sacrifice. One lone tradition has come down to us dealing with this country in the Roman epoch, and that, alas, is a scandalous tradition and deals with the histories of infamous taverns even as we have already dealt; nay more: it shows us an admirable illustration of the power and example exerted by those same precepts of austere and moral sobriety which were the cornerstones of primitive Christianity, ere it had come to purify by fire and sanctify by blood.
Let us then suppose ourselves in the last year of the reign of Galerius, and in the midst of the last persecution brought about to subjugate the Christians. Gaius is vested with the imperial authority of Augsburg, the tribunal before which must appear all those confessing themselves Christians and refusing to sacrifice to false gods. Among the women identified with the cults of shameless divinities which were anathema in the nostrils of the new faith we find the daughter of Hilaria, born, as 263 was her mother, in Cypress. Affre, for that was the name of the future martyr, was, we regret to say, a prostitute. But what of that; what was one to expect of a priestess of Aphrodite?
With the aid of three young women who came, doubtless, either from Cypress or Greece itself, Affre and her mother opened at Augsburg a cabaret on the order of those gay establishments conducted by Thracian girls in Athens, or, a finer comparison still, like those tasteful retreats conducted at Rome and its suburbs by Syrian harp-girls. Hilaria managed the house, Affre and her companions ministered to the wants of the patrons. “Affre,” according to Tirardin, who has been instrumental in preserving this legend in its entirety, “Affre was, I suppose, the Phryne and the Aspasia of the municipality of Augsburg. One may easily conjure up a picture of the opulent young Romans who came to Augsburg in their tour of duty; whether as praetors or in other official capacity, sighing for the flesh-pots of Italy, and looking forward with disgust to a period of barbarous and horrid isolation and dreary boredom. What must have been their surprise at finding in this forbidding province a retreat which would have charmed Cypress and hostesses in whose company Pericles would have been delighted?”
One day there arrived at the door of this abandoned retreat two men of forbidding mien and grave countenance. One was the bishop, Narcissus, and the other was his deacon, Felix. They found here a refuge from the persecutors put upon their track by the minister of Galerius; they had seen this hostelry, and not believing it as infamous as it really was, they had entered. Affre received them, “and as the legend had it, believing them to be two travellers inflamed with impure desires, she invited them to supper and prepared everything in the manner usual and convenient to such occasions; but the 264 bishop, when he approached the table, began to pray and sing hymns to the Lord. Affre, stupefied by these words, the like of which she had never heard before, demanded of him who he was, and he apprised her that he was a bishop of the church. Immediately she cast herself at his feet and cried out, “Lord, I am unworthy to receive you, and in all the town there is not a single creature more vile than I. I am not worthy to touch even the hem of your garments.” “Fear nothing,” the bishop responded, “the Saviour was touched by impure hands and remained unstained. Does not the light of the sun shine equally upon sewers and immodest places and is it contaminated thereby? Therefore, my daughter, receive in your soul the light of the faith that you may be purified from all your sins, that you may rejoice to have received me in your house.” “Alas,” responded Affre, “I have committed more sins than I have hairs on my head. How shall I be able to wash away the spots?” “Believe, receive baptism, and you shall be saved,” answered Narcissus. At these words, which promised hope of salvation even in this house of shame, Affre, radiant with joy, called in the young women who lived with her, her companions in luxury, whom she wished also to make her companions in a life of purity. They entered, and viewed with pious respect the holy man in their shrine. “This man who has come among us,” she told them, “is a bishop of the Christians and he has said to me if you will believe in Christ and receive baptism, all your sins shall be forgiven you. What do you think? And the three priestesses, Digna, Eumenia, and Euprepia, responded, “you are our mistress; we have followed you in vice, why should we not follow you to procure pardon for our sins?” And after these words, that night, which as all the others would without doubt have been passed in an orgy, was passed by these repentant daughters in all the fervors of prayer, 265 under the eyes and extended hands of the bishop. The morning came, Affre apprised her mother, Hilaria, of the presence of the holy man, she experienced the charm of his conversation and the old courtesan was filled with grace, and placed all her hopes of heaven in the blessings of the bishop. Not only did she consent to give him sanctuary in a house which she possessed near the inn, but when Affre said to her, “it is well, tonight I will bring you to him,” she cried out full of joy, “bring him immediately lest he refuse what thou askest.”
Thus it was that day, Narcissus, conducted by Affre to the house near the infamous resort which his presence had so miraculously sanctified, was brought in to the presence of Hilaria to whom he brought an equally poignant gladness. The old Cyprian fell at his knees and during three hours, so says the tale, she made the curtain hoops ring with her cries. “I pray you, O Lord, vouchsafe that I shall be purified of my sins.”
Here the legend, as is customary in these sorts of tales, introduces the devil, who is to strive to annul all that the bishop has accomplished and to prevent Narcissus from obtaining such rich prey as the four friends whom he had uplifted in a single night in the inn of Affre, by insinuating the advisability of spending another night alone with the four friends in that retreat of pleasure. Narcissus refused, fearing lest the sinners, with difficulty brought into the faith, should backslide in the hours of darkness devoted ordinarily to impurity, and the demon, vanquished, took his departure.
On the following day Affre, her servants and her mother, were baptized.
But all too soon the soldiers of Gaius surrounded the inn of Affre, seized the new Christian, brought her before the Roman commander who threatened to have her burned to death unless she sacrificed to the gods. She 266 refused, and was taken to an island in the Lech, where, lashed to a stake, she died, praying to her God.
“During all this, Digna, Eumenia, and Euprepia, who had been slaves, sinners even as she, and baptized with her by the holy bishop Narcissus, were down at the river. They passed over the island and found the corpse of the holy Affre unmutilated. A boy who was with them recrossed the river by swimming and carried the news to Hilaria, the mother of the martyr. She went at night with the priests of God, took up the body and interred it two miles from the town in a sepulchre which she had built for herself and hers. Gaius, who had been apprised of this, sent her a messenger with orders to persuade her to sacrifice if it should be possible; if not to slay her in the same sepulchre. The soldiers, after having employed in vain promises, and threats, and finding them firm in refusing the sacrifice, filled the sepulchre with fagots and dry pine cones, set the afire, and departed. Therefore the same day which saw the holy Affre canonized, witnessed also the martyrdom of her mother and her three servants,” as Fleury has related.
A little after this same epoch in which the martyrdom of the holy Affre, hotel hostess and courtesan, prepared the way by her pious example for the conversion of the German provinces, there was born and grew up in a little inn in Sicily a holy woman who was able more than any other to serve the cause of the faith and to open the road even to the imperial throne. I refer to the holy Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. She was born in the third century in the village of Drepanum, a village which Justinian in memory of her so richly embellished and which he called Helenopolus. Her father was an innkeeper. Some historians, by no means satisfied with so humble an origin for the mother of the first Christian emperor, have attempted to cloud the issue and to secure 267 for Helena a more noble parentage, but the birth of Helena in the little inn at Drepanum cannot be disputed, as it has been established by the evidence of Orosius, who wrote in good faith, and thanks also to Entropius, who though less explicit, has remarked that Constantine the Great was born of a very obscure marriage contracted by Constantius ex obscuriore matrimonio. After them Gibbon has confirmed what we have said of the origin of Helena: “We are obliged to confess that Helena was the daughter of an innkeeper,” and he adds in a note, “it is indeed probable enough that Helena’s father kept an inn at Drepanum and that Constantius might lodge there when he returned from a Persian embassy in the reign of Aurelius.”
In discussing the decline of innkeeping, and the change which the rites of hospitality underwent, as a necessary corollary, we must give some consideration to one of the most curious social conditions with which the world has ever been confronted. On the one hand, we have the movement of the Christian revolution, operating in favor of liberty, enfranchising poverty, and extending the protection of the laws to it; on the other, the political chaos brought about by barbarian invasions, operating to install new authority, the parents, as it were, of a new slavery. It was not a case of action followed by the inevitable reaction, for the two contrary movements were simultaneous, and the singular combination born of that contradiction has never been thoroughly studied and understood by historians. The masters of Rome became the slaves of the conquerors; the classes who had known nothing but slavery passed under the authority of new masters, and the ancient slaves of the Germans and the Goths attached themselves to the destiny of their latest owners. Priests of the church, stationed at the furthest borders of the two states, conquering and conquered alike, 268 slave and mistress, owner and serf, formed an immeasurable complication which did much to bring on the era which we call that of the Middle Ages, and formed the cornerstone upon which feudalism rested. The various degrees of servitude produced in their turn divers degrees of vassalage. So difficult was it to annihilate slavery, an institution having its deepest roots in the faith and manners of the conquering nations and in the laws of the peoples conquered, that the very monasteries themselves were slaves, in the larger meaning of the term.
The classes with whom we are especially concerned in our researches, the innkeeping and tavern-keeping classes, had, notwithstanding their infamy, come to play a major part and exert a powerful influence in prolonging the existence of pagan rites, and in aiding in their celebration, and the determined opposition which Christianity encountered amongst the slaves and the vilest of the rabble, may be accounted for by this fact. The tavern-keepers acted as the trusted agents for pagan cults and their establishments became the refuge of believers in the older religions. In fact, these Roman hosts were the born enemies of Christian austerity, they were the priests and ministers of the gods of gluttony. They saw themselves menaced in their vital interests by a religion which enjoined abstinence and fasting upon their best customers. Paganism, with its sensual divinities, its orgies, its sacrificial feasts, its libations in temple or tomb, was the only religion which they could embrace to their advantage, and, in defense of it, they were prepared to devote themselves, soul and body. Not only did they profit from the debaucheries which they furthered, but the sacrifices were also highly advantageous to them. The popa, as we have already had occasion to remark, was always predacious, and generally an innkeeper. We ought not, therefore, manifest surprise when we find a man of such keen 269 intellect and convenient principles, for the interests involved in this double calling required both, turning a cold shoulder to the compliments of the first Christians. He would be among the last to hold friendly intercourse with a sect whose purpose was to crush paganism, and, in crushing it, to annul his usefulness to society.
As we have said above, open warfare between the Christians and the innkeepers was waged under Alexander Severus, and the Christians were so weak in influence at court and in the means of defense that only with difficulty could they resist the vile mob of roisterers gathered against them. The cause of this crucial difficulty was a piece of land which they had taken possession of for the purpose of building a church. The corporation of innkeepers laid claim to this land, on what titles we do not know. The affair attracted much attention on account of the malignant and animated clamors of the tavern-keepers, to which, without doubt, the Christians opposed a countenance grave but firm. The case came at last before the tribunal of the emperor. Luckily for the Christians it was Alexander Severus, the first prince whose heart had ever opened itself to the sentiments of Christianity other than to malign and curse them. Lampridius, his biographer, has reported the trial.
“The Christians had taken possession of a site which, in former times, had been public; the innkeepers laid claim to it, and the decision of Alexander Severus was that it would be better in every way to consecrate the site to the cult of some god than to let it fall into the hands of the tavern-keepers.”
Having thus gained their cause, through the impartial judgment of the emperor, the Christians were left in possession of the disputed property and proceeded to build their church. Thus was the first church built in Rome. It was erected on ground which, up to that time, 270 had been used by tavern-keepers and claimed by them; a tradition little in keeping with a foundation so pious.
The good fathers of the church waxed bitter and eloquent on the subjects of inns and taverns, but they still would have us believe that the early progress of Christianity brought about the downfall of the debauchery, of the divinities dedicated to libertinage and orgy, and that chastity and the symbol of the Virgin took their place. One may well believe that primitive Christianity was, if anything, a true forerunner of socialism, a precursor of a sort of communism spreading to branches through the inferior classes of the Roman world, and coming finally to dominate them. And why not? Was not its chief appeal directed at the social strata which have from the beginning of organized society formed the real basis of power? In a remarkable passage in the “Destruction of Paganism” the learned author has this to say: “One may repeat habitually that Christianity was the religion of the plebes, the poor, the sad. In fact, it was the refuge universal in its scope of all those suffering from the imperfect organization of Roman society; and that which was true of that epoch was not less so in the fourth century for, as Jerome remarks, “The church of Christ is a congregation of the plebes.”
The growth of the new sect was rapid, but its members could with difficulty reconcile themselves to the necessities of military life, and the dissensions with which the Empire was divided reached their climax under Julian, the Apostate. The social cosmos, distracted with class hatreds and religious dogmas, became gradually less and less able to contend on equal terms with the savage barbarian hosts of the north, and when we reach the age of Arcadius and Honorius, we find Italy overrun with the hordes of Aleric, and a great official, Rutilius Numatianus, to visit his paternal estates in Gaul, was forced to 271 make the trip by boat, as the country had been so ravaged and devastated that there were no inns left in the north of Italy. Commerce and trade languished and finally ceased almost altogether; travel was dangerous and was only undertaken under the most pressing necessity; and the religious monasteries were forced to take upon themselves the burden of hospitality, a burden not destined to be lifted permanently until the rise of guilds, and the necessity of marketing their products had revitalized the inert intelligence of baronial and municipal authority. Then mine host comes again into his own, and may his just reward be out of all proportion to his virtues.
[THE END]
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