benhur

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS

Lioraiy

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS BEN-HUR Lewis (Lew) Wallace was born in 1827 in the Midwest state of Indiana. Although largely self-educated, he read widely and was considerably influenced by histories of conquest. He married the poet Susan Elston in 1852. Joining the Indiana militia in 1845, he fought in the Mexican war. Later, in the American Civil War, 1 861-5, he rose to the rank of General. Wallace's peacetime occu- pation had been that of lawyer, and he was appointed to courts which tried war crimes and the conspirators implicated in the assassination of President Lincoln. Returning to private life, he wrote his first novel in 1873. In 1878 Lew Wallace was appointed to the Governorship of the Territory of New Mexico. It was in New Mexico that he wrote Ben-Hur. Its publication in 1880 brought fame and wealth. Wallace returned to Indiana, but the following year he was appointed Minister to Turkey, and he remained abroad until 1885. There he gathered material for a further novel, The Prince of India (1893). He again returned to Indiana but travelled to New York in 1899 to oversee the adaptation of Ben-Hur for the stage. Wallace thereafter worked on his memoirs, completed after his death by his wife and secretary, and died in 1905. David Mayer is Emeritus Professor of Drama at the University of Manchester. His publications include Playing out the Empire: ABen-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films. Critical Anthology (Oxford, 1994). .

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS For almost ioo years Oxford World's Classics have brought Nowreaders closer to the world's great literature. with over joo —titles -from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the —twentieth century's greatest novels the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing. The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers.

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS LEW WALLACE Ben-Hur Edited with an Introduction and Notes by DAVID MAYER OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BRIGHTON BRANCH LIBRARY

Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6dp Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin /badan Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford I mversity Press Editorial matter 8 David Mayer n^.S First published as an Oxford World's Classics paperback tgg8 All rights reserved. \\o part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford I tuversity Press. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Id, IQ88, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Igerny. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent ot the Right* Department. Oxford I mversity Press. at the address above. 'Plus book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not. by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser British Library Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Wallace. Lew, 1827-^05. Ben-Hur / Lew Wallace; edited by David Mayer. (Oxford world's classics) Includes bibliographical references. N — —1. Bible. T. History of Biblical events Fiction 2. Jesus —Christ Fiction. I. Mayer, David II. Title III. Series: Oxford world's classics (Oxford University Press) PS 3134.B4 igg8 8i3'.4~dc2i 97^43^34 ISBN 0-1 g~28jigg-2 Phototypeset by Intype London Ltd. Printed in Great Britain by CCox Wyman Ltd. Reading, Berkshire

CONTENTS vii Introduction xxiv XXV Note on the Text xxvii Select Bibliography i A Chronology of Lew Wallace BEN-HUR 522 Explanatory Notes



INTRODUCTION Few people who know the title Ben-Hur associate it with a novel by General Lewis (known as Lew) Wallace. The repeated impact of no fewer than four motion picture versions and the almost constant presence of a stage adaptation in the popular theatrical repertoire from 1899 to 1920 have done much to obscure the narrative's earliest incarnation as popular literature. None the less, ABen-Hur: Tale of the Christy to give the novel its full title, was unquestionably the most widely read and commercially successful of all nineteenth-century novels and, until the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, the most popular novel of all time. Today that popularity and fame are diminished, and even those who know Ben-Hur*s origins and something of the narrative are at a loss to account for any episode but the chariot race which falls in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Book 5. Yet if this novel were to be published today rather than in 1880, some reviewers would doubtless describe Ben-Hur as a 'road novel', whilst others would identify it as a quest narrative, and in both instances these critics would be on firm ground. It meets the configuration of the road novel as Judah Ben-Hur travels over the Mediterranean world from Jerusalem through the village of Nazareth to the galleys that carry him to shipwreck in the Aegean near Naxos, thence to Rome, Judaea, Syria, back to Jerusalem, and, —finally, Rome Judah's journey intersecting at intervals with that of another wanderer, Jesus. Judah and Jesus are fellow travellers on different roads, but both on journeys of discovery and enlight- — —enment and in Judah's journey redemption, salvation, and ful- filment. American readers in the first decades following publication read Ben-Hur as a journey across time and across geographic bar- riers, acknowledged in the novel's overall structure in which the eight Books generally indicate discrete locales or the passage of time. By contrast, British readers at this time read it as a crossing of the barriers of class and hierarchy, barriers which American readers assumed to be surmountable or permeable. Ben-Hur is equally a quest: Judah seeks to renew friendship with Messala, but that quest becomes, by turns, the pursuit of vengeance

viii Introduction against Messala, liberation, recovery of his identity and his patri- mony, recovery, too, of his mother and sister from prison and disease. It is a quest for love and Judah's need to make the right choice of partner, and, above all, it is a quest for a father. His genetic father, the founder of the house of Hur, long dead, Judah —finds a succession of surrogate temporal fathers Quintus Arrius, —Simonides, Sheikh Ilderim, Balthasar until he is able, through Jesus, to acknowledge his spiritual father. Again his life parallels that of Jesus, as the Christ is also journeying from a temporal surrogate parent to his divine parent. Elsewhere in the novel, models of effective and failed paternity appear. Simonides is a wise and generous father to Esther; Balthasar's wisdom and example cannot influence the duplicitous and ambitious Iras. But the novel is not altogether about intellectual or spiritual questing or growth. Judah is a creature of action, not of reflection or musing, able to do only one thing and to hold only one thought at a time. AThe novel's subtitle, Tale of the Christ, insists that Ben-Hur is also intended as a moral and inspirational narrative as well as an action-quest. Therefore it is important that the narrative fails to end at the point when Judah's urge for revenge has been satisfied. The novel requires three and a fraction more Books (or the play a sixth act) before the reader is allowed a final tableau of a whole and healed family. The healing must be spiritual as well as physical. Ben-Hur also belongs to, and is in some ways typical of, a body of prose and dramatic literature which arose in the nineteenth century, especially in that century's latter decades, which is concerned with describing dissent, division, and ideological and moral contradiction within powerful cultures, notably those of Britain and the United States, and, equally, with describing how these discordant elements can be reconciled without destruction to that society. As both Britain and the United States were actual or emerging imperial cultures, one of the favoured metaphors for such explorations was Imperial Rome and its Empire, and this almost mythic territory became a blank sheet upon which each culture, decade, class, and ideology wrote its own preoccupations, fears, fantasies, urges, and dystopian visions. Writers and dramatists and painters were especially attracted to the Empire in the reigns of the Julio-Claudian emperors Nero and Domitian, who were most directly associated,

— Introduction ix historically and in the popular imagination, with the persecution of Christians. The metaphor and its deployment of values may be briefly described: Rome, with its patrician culture, centralized authority and political power, military successes, Stoicism and self-denial, wealth, elegance, and overarching legal structure, is associated with favourable qualities. In contrast, Rome's decadence, vice, sup- pression of conquered peoples, and persecution of unofficial and subversive religions and doctrines are viewed unfavourably. Dissent is usually represented through characters who are in some sense —alien or disenfranchised by Roman dominance: Greeks intellectual —and cultured; Jews obeying older laws and worshipping a single —deity; females vulnerable, instinctually moral and principled, and protective of familial and domestic mores; working-class men honest, imbued with a work-ethic, and disdainful of excessive luxury and extravagance. Opposed are dominating, self-indulgent, powerful patrician males (some who do not yet know that they are capable of moral acts and higher thoughts); patrician females —cynical, humorous (often equated with cynicism and in Victorian thought cynicism stands in dangerous proximity to atheism), oppor- tunistic, sexually liberated, and predatory; sycophantic slaves, corrupt priests, and dangerously ambitious courtiers. Thus Imperial Roman society contains persons analogous to those who have placed —modern issues the pursuit of limitations to empire, the 'New Woman' and the 'Female Question', emancipation and suffrage, —and even trade unionism on political and social agenda. —Some combination of these characters Roman authorities and —spoilt patricians, females, Jews, Greeks habitually meet in conflict in what became known by the late Victorians as 'toga plays' or 'toga novels'. These generic labels are partly derisive, but they also acknowledge the power and enduring popularity of the genres. The leading toga novels are Edward Bulwer Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), which captures through analogy the temper of and social division in Britain at the time of the First Reform Bill; Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman's Fabiola; or, The Church of the Cata- combs (1854), a novel which sites English Roman Catholics as an embattled minority in mid-Victorian Protestant England; George AJohn Whyte-Melville's The Gladiators: Tale of Rome and jfudea (1863), a novel of sexual and political intrigue which also celebrates

— x Introduction ABritish military prowess; General Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur: Tale —of the Christ (1880), which transfers many of the preoccupations of the toga novel to America and which adds some new, specifically AAmerican, concerns; and Henryk Sienkiewicz's ''Quo VadisT: Narrative of the Time of Nero (1896), which attempts to locate emergent Christianity in the context of Roman thought and fin de siecle uncertainties. The American stage's contribution to toga drama is represented in Robert Montgomery Bird's The Gladiator (1831), in Louisa Medina's adaptation of Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1835), and, eventually, in William Young's dramatic adaptation of Ben-Hur (1898). British toga drama is exemplified in Wilson Barrett's The Sign of the Cross (1895), which shares with Wallace's and Sienkiewicz's novels and Young's stage rendering of Ben-Hur phenomenal international popularity which took all three narratives to the silent screen and subsequently into sound motion pictures. In all toga literature there is the threat or the reality of per- secution from Rome; in all toga literature there is conversion to primitive, non-doctrinal Christianity, often hastened through the agency of the innocent moral female (and often, equally, jeopardized —by the immoral advances of the seductive predatory female in Victorian parlance the 'adventuress'). In the virtuous female the Victorians sited heroic discipline needed in such times of chaos to create and maintain the stable secular family (an echo of the Holy Family?) and the proprieties. In much toga literature the final or decisive reckoning takes place in the public arena where famished and maddened wild beasts are to devour dissenters or where gladia- torial competition or a chariot race determines survival or its alternative, unsought martyrdom. Much of what we know of the author Lew Wallace and the background to the creation of Ben-Hur comes from his two-volume autobiography published in 1906, a year after his death. This memoir is written in the third person, which allows events to be described in terms of accomplishments and rewards, but largely —if not altogether removes any display of the author's inner feelings. Wallace never confesses to doubt, dismay, or fear. The memoir, essentially, is a description of Wallace's physical world, an account which takes him from obscurity to renown and wealth, without —measuring the spiritual cost of the journey or apart from

Introduction xi USdescribing his victimization by senior officers trained at the —Military Academy (West Point) describing the emotional wear and tear. In this respect Wallace prepares us for a Judah Ben-Hur who, even at his darkest moments of captivity and enslavement, is not beset by doubt in his righteousness or true faith. Even Judah's conversion to Christianity is comparatively painless, and there is no fretting over the faith he abandons. He is a witness to pain inflicted on others and their redemption and salvation; he is moved by example, not personal experience, and his conversion is a natural outcome of his observations, not the result of a profound intellectual or spiritual struggle. Placed alongside Job's suffering or Othello's captivity and redemption thence, Judah's crises of faith seem modest struggles. As the autobiography relates, authorship was neither the first nor the primary career of Ben-Hur's creator, Lew Wallace, but the experiences of the author and details of his active life are immedi- ately associated with this novel. Born in 1827 into a family of means, he was reared in the Midwestern state of Indiana. When Lew was 9, his father was elected Governor. Although he was often truant from school, young Lew Wallace availed himself of residence in the state's capital to frequent the library. As a teenager he earned pocket money copying county records. When in 1845 war with Mexico was declared, Wallace's romantic adventurism surfaced. Inspired by his reading of Prescott's The Conquest of Mexico, he raised a company of militia, with himself as lieutenant. The company was assigned to the Indiana Infantry Division, and Wallace participated in a skirmish without mishap. Returning, Wallace met and married Susan Elston, a woman with literary tastes and some ability as a poet. In her own right, under the names of Susan Wallace, Susan Arnold, and Susan Elston, she published several commercially successful anthologies of her poetry, adding the phrase 'the patter of little feet' to everyday usage. Her subsequent influence on his writing was acknowledged by Wallace. Moving to his wife's birthplace, Crawfordsville, Indiana, he studied law and was admitted to the Indiana Bar, entered politics as a Democrat, and was elected to the Indiana Senate. He also organized and led a military company, one of the first to be called up when, in 1861, the Southern states rebelled against the Union. Lew Wallace's leadership, concern for his troops, intelligence,

xii Introduction strategic planning, bravery, and foresight contributed to his rapid promotion as an officer in the Union armies. Entering service as a colonel, he attained a generalship and moved from regimental to division, to army-corps commander. His generalship is credited with saving both the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Federal capital, Washington, from capture by Confederate forces. In the latter campaign, substantially outnumbered by the Confederate Army, he led a delaying action until the District of Columbia could be secured. At the Rebellion's end, Wallace served on the courts which tried the conspirators implicated in Abraham Lincoln's assassination and presided at the court which tried Captain Henry Wirz, the Commandant of the Confederates' Andersonville Prison where 13,700 Union prisoners had perished from disease, star- vation, and neglect. It is probable that the account of the suffering of Judah's (unnamed) mother and sister Tirzah in the Tower of Antonia, described in the first two chapters of Book 6, derives from this experience. Wallace then briefly raised and led a mercenary army in Mexico in support of President Benito Juarez, and in 1868 returned to Crawfordsville to practise law, change political party allegiance, and USrun, unsuccessfully, for the Congress. At about the same time, he began to write fiction. His novel The Fair God, an account of the conquest of Mexico derived from his reading of Prescott, his Mexican War experiences, and his post-Rebellion foray into Mexico, was published in 1873 and widely praised. At his home in Indiana, he began a second novel based on the journey of the Magi and the early life of Christ. Wallace had already grasped that he could not fictionalize the birth and boyhood of Jesus nor venture without offence beyond what was stated in the Gospels. Jesus, he came to realize, had to be viewed and described through an intermediary character whose identity and potential for action had not been compromised by scriptural narrative. Wallace had already named the new novel Ben-Hur but he also casually referred to this work- y in-progress as ' the Jewish novel'. About the same time he undertook to write a toga play titled after the emperor Commodus (ad 161-92). This verse tragedy dramatized a fictional slave rebellion and its eventual betrayal by a female character (who prefigures Iras) and suppression by the insane emperor. The American actor-

Introduction xiii manager Lawrence Barrett declined to produce this piece, and it afterward appeared among Wallace's lesser published work. In 1878 Lew Wallace was appointed by President Rutherford Hayes to the Governorship of the Territory of New Mexico. It was his and Susan's experience of the desolate, dangerous, and faction- ridden New Mexican Territory which doubtless helped to shape the content, the textures, and the underlying ideological content of Ben-Hur. The railroad carrying them from Crawfordsville to the Territory ended in south-eastern Colorado, and the remaining journey to Santa Fe, then the capital, required a journey by buck- board over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and northern desert. We see the impact of this journey on his fiction: it is Balthasar's wandering by camel in the Jebel to meet his fellow Magi. Arriving in the crumbling capital abandoned by the Spanish, the Wallaces found in progress a bloody feud, the so-called Lincoln County range-war of 1878-81, which pitted immigrant white ranchers against the native Mexican-Spanish. One of the ranchers' hired combatants, who was said to have personally threatened Wallace, was the outlaw William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney. Adding to the danger, both factions were subject to lethal attacks from Apache Indians descending from the Guadalupe Mountains. Wallace set about ending the feuds, reconciling the disputing parties, and arranging amnesties for those whose crimes excluded murder. His respect and unfeigned admiration for all cultures and his desire to prevent another rebellion characterized his Governorship, and these qualities and wishes find expression in Ben-Hur, imparting to the novel an intentional ambiguity. The New Mexican landscape fuses with the deserts, mountains, and valleys of the Holy Land; the ethnic mixture of arriving Anglo-whites, Mexicans, Spaniards, and Native Americans is translated into the plural cultures of the East and Mediterranean world: Romans, Jews, Syrian Arabs, Egyp- tians, and Greeks. The Judaean desert landscape of Ben-Hur is alternately and both the Holy Land and New Mexico, Roman- occupied Jerusalem and Santa Fe. Rome is at once Rome and its expanding Empire and the United States with faraway Washington indifferently responding to Governor Lew Wallace's pleas for troops, obliging him to be resourceful in seeking solutions and ending conflict. Wallace occupies Grams' and Pontius Pilate's Pro-

XIV Introduction consul's throne, judging, sentencing, making and maintaining peace between volatile factions. Ben-Hur incorporates other contemporary issues. The ' Female Question' and the incipient 'New Woman' are very much on Wal- lace's mind. His deployment of paradigmatic antithetical female characters: the serious, obedient, dutiful, open Esther and the ironic, humorous, wilful, calculating Iras, and the lesser roles of Judah's mother, Tirzah, and Amrah are a partial statement of his views. Additionally, there is Iras' curious tale, told to divert Judah, 'How the Beautiful Came to the Earth', in the fourth chapter of Book 7, which Wallace has titled 'An Evil Influence'. Wallace wrote to Susan, who had left the inhospitable New Mexican Territory for their home in Crawfordsville, that this allegorical fable with its contextual setting expresses his riposte to the 'Female Question'. That may be Lew Wallace's official last word on the Female Ques- tion, but it is difficult to accept that he altogether dislikes Iras, shocking and immodest though her behaviour may be. Esther is almost too good to be appealing; she is certainly too dull to be —good company. Esther is not musical as Iras is, and music was one of the great pleasures of Wallace's life. Ben-Hur is not cerebral. There are no intricate intellectual, moral, or social knots for the reader or characters to untie. Apart from Iras, there are no characters whom we initially misjudge. The novel is epic in scale, but the principal interactions are personal, and Judah's character and actions, or indeed those of other charac- ters, never become metaphors for more abstract concepts or for issues which test the limits of narrative fiction. Rather, Ben-Hur\\ success has been viewed with suspicion and occasional derision. Because the novel is a vivid narrative of adventure, because the various episodes are rich in incidents, because the overall action appears to be led by plot (a villain-led plot at that) rather than —induced by traits of character, and because human as opposed to —divine virtue is so uniformly rewarded and evil identified and punished, Ben-Hur has had its detractors. Theirs is the same derision reserved for stage melodrama (often emanating from persons wholly unfamiliar with the conventions of melodrama), where we may discern an underlying pattern in which the innocent individual, hero or heroine, placed at a disadvantage by the malig- nity of another character whose corrosive wickedness has initially

Introduction xv gone unnoticed, manages to rise above the adverse circumstances where villainy has placed him, recognize and defeat his persecutors, and achieve ultimate happiness. This is the prevailing literary mode, not merely the dominant theatrical form, of the nineteenth century. What Ben-Hur's critics have overlooked is the skill with which Wallace has crafted his novel, creating a structure which allows Judah, not merely a sequence of testing hardships and satisfying triumphs, but carefully contrived spiritual and social growth over nearly two decades. From the point at which Judah, pained by his first reunion with Messala, asks his mother why he, too, cannot behave as a Roman, he is set upon a journey which cannot be hurried. Conversion may be inevitable, but it cannot be premature. It must finally coincide with key moments of scripture, historical accounts and New Testament narrative controlling the novel's overall shape. Wallace writes effective, unornamented prose: his narrative is clear and never obscure; his descriptions of peoples, places, and events are always well researched and add richness to incident and circumstance of thought, but the breadth and weight of his research never intrude into the reader's pleasure. The writer strikes no authorial poses. By the standards of Victorian fiction, his and his characters' displays of sentiment are generally appropriate and, in contrast to other fiction of the period, restrained. There is piety, but it is less cloying and far less evangelical in tone than many contemporary toga novels and plays which are today unreadable and unplayable. In his preparation for Ben-Hur, Wallace drew equally upon years of wide reading and focused research. Thus, in retracing these sources, we have access to his thinking. As with many Americans of his generation, he was closely familiar with both Old and New Testaments and with sections of the Apocrypha. He may have owned a concordance to the Bible. From references to events and locales in the ancient world, it is probable that he had read and kept close at hand Tacitus' Annals and Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It is also likely that Wallace was familiar with G. J. Whyte-Melville's 1867 toga novel AThe Gladiators: Tale of Rome and Jfudea. The chapter in which Judah is lured to the palace of Idernee to be assassinated by pro- fessional pugilists recalls an episode in The Gladiators and confirms Whyte-Melville's influence. Both novels are the works of soldiers.

XVI Introduction Whyte-Melville's novel explores Imperial Roman decadence and —the resistance to Empire from its dominated subjects Britons, Jews, and Christians. But there are differences which delineate Whyte-Melville's Englishness and Wallace's Americanism. In The —Gladiators forces of sexual desire, intrigue, and power typical of —English toga novels and plays attempt, but invariably fail, to over- ride and transgress the barrier of social class. By the novel's end the Zealots' Rebellion against the Roman occupation has failed. There is chaos and carnage, but patrician is still linked to patrician, even in death, and the lesser classes and orders may pair up without damage to the social order. Ben-Hur, by contrast, virtually ignores class except to subjugate all class distinctions to the possession of wealth and the security which prudent and foresighted business —practices including bribes and payment of taxes to official — Acoffers affords the wealthy. telling moment is Judah's dismissal of Iras' attempt at blackmail. No, Judah tells Iras, he will not remit Messala's six talents and add twenty more, this house and the goods and merchandise and the ships and caravans with which Simonides plies his commerce with such princely profits are covered —by imperial safeguards a wise head having found the price of favour, and the Lord Sejanus preferring a reasonable gain in the way of gift to much gain fished from pools of blood and wrong. Here wealth separates from power. They are not identical. Various Mediterranean and Eastern cultures hold wealth. Only the Romans hold power. It is significant that Judah eventually puts his vast wealth, not to the service of a private rebellion and leadership in that rebellion, but to a Christian charitable purpose. If, in contrast to Whyte-Melville, Wallace largely denies chasms between classes except where class inhibits moral and democratic behaviour (as in Judah's imagining of Messala's petition: 'the coun- tenance of the Roman was not that of a mendicant or friend; the sneer was as patrician as ever, and the fine edge of hauteur as flawless and irritating'), he is preoccupied by nationality and race, in part a consequence of his New Mexican experiences. However, Wallace's characters, recognizing the Christ, successfully transcend ethnic differences and progress easily toward reconciliation and accommodation to multiculturalism. Other sources which came to Wallace's hand tell much of the

Introduction xvii author and his time. The reader may be frequently struck by the topographical detail throughout the novel. Wallace's first para- graph describes the sprawl of the Jebel es Zubleh with the exactness of a battle order commanding a defence or an attack on this massif. Detailed and scaled topographical mapping had developed with the battlefield needs of the American Civil War, and Wallace had been among the first tacticians to use scaled maps. Reports of the effec- tiveness of such detailed maps reached Europe, and German mapmaker-publishers began measured surveys, not exclusively for military purposes, but for a new class of library and domestic atlases. Wallace was able to obtain such a German atlas depicting in detail the topographical features, villages, and cities of the Holy Land, and it is often evident that he writes with his atlas open, his eyes measuring distances, estimating elevations, and discerning key landmarks. Elsewhere, Wallace makes repeated use of two references which had recently been added to the small but expanding archaeological libraries. Wallace had managed to obtain and to carry in his baggage to New Mexico two texts which, even today, are useful to archae- ologists and classical scholars. Both, taking their nickname from the Oxford scholar William Smith who first devised these volumes, are informally known as 'Smith's Dictionary', and both were intended to assist serious scholars, not novelists, in their under- standing of an increasingly revealed ancient world. Although the main texts are in English, users of the dictionaries need Latin and Greek vocabularies to search the indexes. Descriptions of excavated sites and artefacts enable Wallace to produce vividly detailed moments in the narrative. In particular, he draws on the second (1848) edition of Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities to stimulate his account of Judah's service in the galley rammed by the Naxian pirates and the chariot race in the Maxentian Circus of Antioch. The plan and disposition of the circus are illustrated on engravings of lamps, mosaics, frescos, jewels, and bronze reliefs depicted in an article which describes a seven-lap race and its probable conduct. Elsewhere in this volume the contestants' char- iots are described. In Smith's two-volume Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography are descriptions of the excavations of the Grove of Daphne and the principal buildings of Antioch, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Rome. And Wallace may have owned and carried

xviii Introduction with him other reference sources. It is likely that Sheikh Ilderim's desert encampment and the details of Judah's sojourn at the Sheikh's oasis derives from coloured reproductions of mosaics found in the villa of Pompeianus, Proconsul of Africa, unearthed in the Algerian village of Oued-Atmenia in the 1870s. These drawings, — —exhibited and published in 1878 and expensive to buy illustrate a Moorish horse-breeding establishment of the sort which Ilderim boasts. It is also more than likely that Wallace had seen and had been inspired by the vividly romantic and imaginative late eight- eenth- and early nineteenth-century reconstructions of unearthed palaces and temples drawn and engraved by Karl Jacob Weber and Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Although Wallace has done his research well, he has been neither obsessive nor exacting in using his sources, and in his rendering of key incidents we observe strong concessions to contemporary American tastes. Never is this more evident than in his treatment of Judah's participation in chariot-racing in the Maxentian Circus and in siting some of the novel's action in the Grove of Daphne near Antioch. Tacitus illustrates Nero's degraded morality by recounting the Emperor's efforts to drive chariots in the public arena, an act to which no Roman noble who valued his honour would stoop. By contrast, to the nineteenth-century American gentry and middle class, showing one's skill at driving one's own — —horses was a tolerated indeed an approved recreation. Further, although Gibbon refers to Daphne as 'this sensual paradise' where young women were dissuaded from 'the folly of unseasonable coyness' and Smith unambiguously insists that the Grove of Daphne was a place proverbial (Daphnici mores) throughout the Empire for countenancing all varieties of sexual indulgence, Wallace describes the Grove as a sylvan idyll: the pious inscription of all he beheld, the altars out under the open sky . . . there was peace in the air, and invitation everywhere to come and lie down —and rest. Suddenly a revelation dawned on him the Grove was, in fact a —temple one far-reaching, wall-less temple! Never anything like it! Wallace's language is not that of Rome's castigators, but that of an American Victorian who, much as many thousands of his countrymen answering the call of the 'Great Revival', repaired in congregations to forest and rural campgrounds for days or weeks

Introduction xix of alfresco sermons, hymn-singing, patriotic and inspirationally civic speeches, and 'improving' music, readings, and playlets (and, eventually, films). He is not so much describing ancient pagan pleasures as American summer 'Chautauqua' meetings. The success of Ben-Hur was immediate. Before 1900 it had been reprinted in thirty-six English-language editions. Most of these were straightforward reproductions of the full text, but there were also numerous variants which, in different permutations, featured only key set-piece episodes, notably the sea fight, the chariot race, and meeting of the Magi in the desert, the Journey to Bethlehem, the Nativity, and Crucifixion. Additionally, there were early trans- lations of the novel into Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, and Braille. Ben-Hur was pirated, and other would-be writers came forward to claim authorship. By i960 the number of English-language editions had exceeded sixty, many of these disfiguring abridgements. The subject matter of Ben-Hur made it a favourite prize for Sunday-school attendance and as a reward for other good works. Ben-Hur*s success also made it an immediate choice for dramatic adaptation. Wallace was besieged by theatrical managements and dramatic authors who applied to prepare versions for the stage. In every instance Wallace refused these early requests on the grounds that it was impossible to represent Jesus, a problem intensified by American local ordinances which had been activated in the 1880s to suppress Passion plays and by a British Act of Parliament which forbade the portrayal of a reigning monarch or the representation of deity on the stage. Wallace similarly rejected an elaborate appli- cation by the Hungarian showman Imre Kiralfy to develop a thirty- acre Ben-Hur theme park on New York's Staten Island. These negotiations were complicated by a further turn in Wallace's life. In 1 88 1 he was appointed Minister to Turkey by President James Garfield, and he remained abroad until 1885. Meanwhile, the popularity of Ben-Hur had spawned another phenomenon: chariot racing. In 1886 a racing chariot with a driver in Roman costume was demonstrated at London's Olympia exhi- bition hall and the event illustrated in the Graphic. This depiction

xx Introduction stimulated imitation at the Cirque cPHiver in Paris, the now-several chariots driven by female racers costumed as 'Amazons'. In New York, chariot races were initiated by bored members of fire-fighting companies and National Guard units. Consulting 'Smith's Dic- tionary' for designs for chariots and Roman apparel and using teams of horses accustomed to drawing fire apparatus or artillery caissons, they began races at several tracks within and near Brook- lyn's Coney Island amusement district, and these races were soon incorporated into James Pain's The Last Days of Pompeii, a large- —scale pyrodrama a toga play incorporating a massive display of —fireworks at Pain's outdoor theatre at nearby Manhattan Beach. In 1 893 a Roman chariot race was painted by Alexander von Wagner in a huge panoramic picture which was, in turn, converted into a popular engraving to hang in homes and schoolrooms throughout the Western world. The appeal of the chariot race survives. As recently as 1994 a hotel, entertainment, and gambling complex in Las Vegas was advertising itself with a photograph of a Roman racing chariot and inviting customers to 'Relive the legend'. At some point in the 1890s, the American theatrical managers Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger persuaded Lew Wallace that Ben-Hur might be adapted successfully for the stage and avoid litigation and censorship if the appearances of Jesus were repre- sented not by an actor, but by a beam of intense blue limelight. The script was undertaken by William Young and the musical scoring for the pit orchestra and visible and unseen choruses by Edgar Stillman Kelley. Ben Teal directed this production and most replica and touring productions until 1917. Lew Wallace attended a rehearsal and was photographed inspecting the multiple treadmills and moving backcloths for the fifth-act chariot-race effects. He pronounced himself satisfied. Ben-Hur opened at Manhattan's Broadway Theater on 29 November 1899. Having reassured the Lord Chamberlain, the British censor, that the drama contained no blasphemy, Ben-Hur, with thirty tons of machinery and stage effects, was brought to London's Drury Lane Theatre in April 1902. From the outset, the emphasis was on the spectacular and on the rendering of the extravagant set-piece episodes from the novel. In a prologue and six acts, some scenes almost wordless, the play dramatized the meeting of the Magi, the reunion of Messala with

Introduction xxi the Hur family and the accidental dislodging of the roof-tile, Judah's galley service, the sinking and the sea rescue of Arrius, Simonides' recognition of Judah, revels in the Grove of Daphne, the meeting with Ilderim, Iras' near-seduction of Judah, the chariot race, the leprous women, and Jesus' act of healing at Mount Olivet (in the novel Mount of Offence). These episodes have provided the core of all subsequent dramatizations of Ben-Hur. The stageplay, acknowledging von Wagner's now widely known painting/engraving of a chariot race, incorporated this painting into the design of the fifth-act chariot race and into the advertising poster and programme designs. Meanwhile, Lew and Susan Wallace, enriched by the royalties of Ben-Hur, had returned to their home in Crawfordsville. There Wallace wrote a final novel, The Prince of India (1893), inspired by his travels in Turkey. He worked on his memoirs, completed after his death by his wife and secretary, and died quietly in 1905. Motion pictures had been offering brief filmed dramas from 1898. By the time of Wallace's death, films were being widely exhibited, chiefly in music halls, waxworks, and 'nickelodeon' —theatres all of these venues associated with working-class or 'low' entertainment. The decision, in 1907, of the Kalem Company of New York to produce a filmed version of Ben-Hur was thus to associate the film with these venues and viewers. During December 1907 and early 1908, Kalem filmed a version of Ben-Hur in sixteen episodes, using as backcloths segments of the scenery and, as actors, performers from Pain's Manhattan Beach The Last Days of Pompeii as well as extras hired from New York's Metropolitan Opera. The sea-battle was filmed at the nearby beach; the chariot race, with Pain's scenery carted to the Brighton Beach racetrack, was filmed with chariots from local fire-fighting and artillery companies. Out- raged at the unauthorized use of their property and the apparent debasing of the play and novel by turning it into a 'low' spectacle, Wallace's publishers, Harper and Brothers, and the owners of the dramatic copyright, Klaw and Erlanger, sued Kalem. The case, finally decided in 19 12 in New York's Federal District Court, found for Klaw and Erlanger in a decision which has subsequently been used to uphold intellectual property rights. The Kalem Company was fined a then substantial $25,000, and the film was ordered

xxii Introduction destroyed. Until recently, it was assumed that all copies had vanished. In 1924-5, Klaw and Erlanger, who had continued to stage productions of Ben-Hur through 1920 and thereby retain dramatic rights, and Henry Wallace, Lew and Susan's only child, who held the rights to the Wallace literary estate, reached an agreement with the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to film Ben-Hur. The film was to have been made in Italy, and, indeed, some footage was shot there, but the process had become so cumbersome and the overall results so disappointingly bad, that production was moved to Hollywood and the film's directorship assigned to Fred Niblo. Again the film followed the set-piece sequence of William Young's stageplay, but with emotional subtlety and grace in charac- terization and a theatrically accomplished rendering of the film's numerous spectacular effects. Ben-Hur\\ screenplay makes no additions or changes to Wallace's plot apart from reducing Iras' role and the influence of Iras on Judah's behaviour. That was a trend to continue. If, after reading the novel, the reader wishes to see a filmed version of Ben-Hur, this 1925 silent version, fully restored by Kevin Brownlow and with a modern score by Carl —Davis, is for its performances, fidelity to Wallace's text, craftsman- —ship, and overall dramatic appeal the preferable choice. Inevitably, there had to be a sound-film and colour version of Ben-Hur. Again, this film was made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, now directed by William Wyler, who had been an assistant on the 1925 silent film. In this 1959 version, more radical surgery was made to Wallace's novel, and the focus of anti-imperialism was, by implication and analogy, directed at the threatening Soviet Empire. One of the film's touches led to the final disappearance of Iras, with Iras' disrupting sexual subversiveness relocated in Messala. Precisely how this subversion was managed is a subject of dispute between one of the film's several screen-writers, the American novelist Gore Vidal, and the film's Judah, Charlton Heston. The result on-screen was a Messala who pursued a homosexual relation- — —ship^ perhaps dating back to their boyhood with Judah and, when thwarted and rejected, became sadistically vengeful. Messala's vil- lainy, effectively enacted by Stephen Boyd, was now more clearly motivated than simple Roman self-importance and prejudice. The oppressive Roman/ Soviet Empire is represented in substantial

Introduction xxiii pageantry, fluttering banners, and a menacing performance by Frank Thring as Pontius Pilate. This Ben-Hur won seven Academy Awards, including those for Best Motion Picture and Best Actor. Occasionally an abbreviated animated cartoon version of Ben-Hur, made in 1988, appears on remote satellite and cable television channels. The novel is richer and far more entertaining than either of these films. Wallace's development of his characters has inevitably provoked questions about whether Ben-Hur is 'serious' literature or is in some way diminished by being described as 'popular literature'. Whether Ben-Hur is 'high literature' is ultimately immaterial. It is a well-written, well-crafted, well-researched tale which has given pleasure and knowledge to generations of readers, and the question of literary status is almost as outmoded as it is snobbish. The editor gratefully acknowledges the help and advice he has received from the following colleagues and friends: Professor Philip Alexander, Philip Cook, Gene Hatcher, Dr Leofranc Holford- Strevens, Richard Lepman, Helen Day Mayer, Katharine and Robert Morsberger, Professor Kenneth Richards, Nancy Moran Sanchez, Dr Frank Scheide, Rabbi Dr Reuven Silverman, John Tenney, and Claudette Williams.

NOTE ON THE TEXT Ben-Hur was first published in 1880 and reprinted frequently there- after. The present edition is set from an unabridged British printing of 1900 (from a copy awarded in 1903 to a Florence Leonard, a 'Collector' for the Wesleyan Methodist Juvenile Home and Foreign Missionary Society).

— SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY As there has been little critical literature on the subject of Ben-Hur, this brief bibliography necessarily lists associated sources. Lew Wallace's life Lew Wallace, Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906). Robert E. Morsberger and Katharine M. Morsberger, Lew Wallace: Militant Romantic (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980). Wallace's principal sources AWilliam Smith, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 2 vols. (London, 1842, 1848). William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, 2 vols. (London, 1854). Modern archaeology of the chariot race and Roman games John Humphrey, Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (London: Batsford, 1986). Daniel P. Mannix, Those About to Die (London: Panther Books, i960). William Young's authorized stage adaptation (i8gg) and the Kalem piracy (1907) David Mayer, Playing out the Empire: Ben-Hur and other Toga Plays and Films (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). Fred Niblo's 192s silent Ben-Hur Video copies of this superb film are available from Warner Home Video. Kevin Brownlow, 'The Heroic Fiasco Ben-Hur* , in The Parade's Gone By (London: Sphere Books, 1968), ch. 36, pp. 431-81. William Wyler's 1959 film Video copies of this Academy Award-winning film are available from MGM/UA Home Video. T. Gene Hatcher, Ben-Hur in Spite of Everything, forthcoming. Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, Biblical Epics: Sacred Narra- tive in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993).

xxvi Select Bibliography Charlton Heston, In the Arena: An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995). AGore Vidal, Palimpsest: Memoir (New York: Random House, 1995). Animated Ben-Hur film, iq88 Emerald City Productions, directed, written, and produced by Al Guest and Jean Mathieson. Other 'Toga' Novels Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii (London, 1834). Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, Fabiola; or, The Church of the Catacombs (London, 1854). AG[eorge] J[ohn] Whyte-Melville, The Gladiators: Tale of Rome and jfudea (London, 1863). Wilson Barrett, The Sign of the Cross (Preston, 1896). Derived from the play by the dramatist and leading actor. AHenryk Sienkiewicz, 'Quo VadisT: Narrative of the Time of Nero (London and Boston, 1896). Lew Wallace /Ben-Hur web site The State Historical Society of Indiana operates a web site from the Wallace Museum in Crawfordsville, Ind. http://www.ihs1830.org/ wallstud.htm

A CHRONOLOGY OF LEW WALLACE 1827 Lewis (Lew) Wallace born in Brookville, Indiana. 1837 Father, David Wallace, elected State Governor. Family moves to Indianapolis. Lew Wallace begins to frequent State House library. 1837-42 Young Wallace attends several schools, acts in plays, attempts an adventure-novel (not published). Comes under the influence of Professor Hoshour, who gives Wallace a lifelong regard for study and careful research. 1842 Attempts to run away from home to join the Texas navy fighting Mexico in support of Texan independence. Apprehended and returned home. Reads Prescott's The Conquest of Mexico. 1844 Political reporter on local newspaper. 1845 Joins local militia company, then raises a company of riflemen for the Indiana regiment sent to the Mexican War. Holds the rank of lieutenant. Participates in one skirmish and becomes embittered at General Zachary Taylor's conduct of campaign. US1846 Leads Indiana campaign against Taylor's successful bid for Presidency. Meets Susan Elston, daughter of wealthy Major Isaac Elston. Admitted to Indiana Bar and opens legal practice. 1852 Marries Susan Elston. 1853 Moves to Crawfordsville, Indiana. Begins work on first novel, The Fair God. Begins to be identified with anti-slavery faction of Democratic Party. The Wallaces' only child, Henry, born. 1856 Organizes local militia company. 1857 Elected to Indiana Legislature. 1 86 1 With onset of American Civil War, Wallace made State Adjutant, charged with raising troops in support of Union. Becomes Colonel of 1 ith Indian Volunteer Regiment. Leads regiment in battle at Bull Run, promoted to Brigadier General and reassigned to command of Indiana Brigade. 1862-3 Participates in campaigns of 'the war in the west' (Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Missouri). Promoted to Major General and com- mands 3rd Indiana Division in Tennessee campaigns. Plays leading role in Battle of Shiloh but is severely criticized for high rate of casualties. Wallace begins a lifelong fight to justify his conduct. 3rd Indiana Division broken up and Wallace reassigned as 'colonel' to an Indiana regiment. Organizes and leads the defence of Cincinnati, Ohio. Briefly assigned to command campaign against Santee

xxviii A Chronology of Lew Wallace Indians in Minnesota, but, having made political enemies in the military, is sent home to await assignment. 1864 President Lincoln recalls Wallace. Assigned to keep civil order during elections in border state of Maryland. Is active in defence of Washington against a Confederate surprise attack led by General Jubal Early. Praised for his bravery, resourcefulness, and skill. 1865 Sits as a member of the military court trying persons accused of conspiring in Lincoln's assassination. Presides at the trial of Captain Henry Wirz, commander of the Confederates' Andersonville Prison. Briefly leads detachment of troops to Mexico in support of President Benito Juarez. 1867-72 Returns to Crawfordsville, joins Republican Party, resumes USlegal practice, and runs for Congress. Also resumes writing. Attempts plays (not performed). Toga play Commodus privately printed. Resumes work on The Fair God. 1873 The Fair God published. 1874-7 Begins work on a novel about 'a Jewish boy whom I have got into terrible trouble'. Lecture tour to speak about Mexico and to read from The Fair God. 1878-80 Appointed to the Governorship of the Territory of New Mexico. Travels to Santa Fe, where he completes Ben-Hur. A1880 Ben-Hur: Tale of the Christ published. Wallace returns to Craw- fordsville. 1 88 1-5 President Garfield, an ardent admirer of Ben-Hur, appoints Wallace Minister to Turkey. In the Middle East gathers material for The Prince of India. 1885-93 The Wallaces return to Crawfordsville. Lectures, writes, dabbles in State politics. Continues to seek vindication for his conduct at Shiloh. 1893 The Prince of India published. Begins work on his memoirs. 1899 Harpers, publishers of Ben-Hur, agree to negotiations with Klaw and Erlanger management for a stage adaptation. Wallace accepts William Young's adaptation and travels to New York to view prep- arations for the first performance. Ben-Hur enters the theatrical repertoire and is performed in excess of 6,000 times in North America until 1920, earning Klaw and Erlanger $10,000,000. Wal- lace's royalty share is $650,000. 1902 Ben-Hur is performed in London. 1905 Wallace dies in Crawfordsville. 1906 Lew Wallace: An Autobiography completed by Susan Wallace. Pub- lished. 1907 Susan Wallace dies. First film adaptation by the Kalem Company

A Chronology of Lew Wallace xxix is opposed by the Wallace estate and Klaw and Erlanger. The film is suppressed and ordered to be destroyed. Fortunately, this order is not fulfilled. Kalem is fined.



BEN-HUR A Tale of the Christ Learn of the philosophers always to look for natural causes in all extraordinary events and when such natural causes are wanting, recur to God. (Count de Gabalis)*

But this repetition of the old story is just the fairest charm of domestic discourse. If we can often repeat to ourselves sweet thoughts without ennui, why shall not another be suffered to awaken them within us still oftener? (Jean Paul F. Richter, Hesperus)* See how from far upon the eastern road The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet, But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began; The winds with wonder whist Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. (Milton, Christ's Nativity: The Hymn)*

TO THE WIFE OF MY YOUTH



CONTENTS 9 13 BOOK FIRST 17 20 I. IN THE DESERT 24 II. THE THREE STRANGERS 32 HI. GASPAR THE GREEK 35 IV. MELCHIOR 40 V. BALTHASAR 45 VI. THE JOPPA MARKET 53 Vn. THE PEOPLE OF JERUSALEM 54 Vm. JOSEPH AND MARY 60 K. AT BETHLEHEM 63 X. THE RAY FROM HEAVEN 73 XI. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST XB. THE ARRIVAL OF THE MAGI 76 Xm. HEROD AND THE MAGI 79 XIV. THE CHILD CHRIST 88 93 BOOK SECOND 99 106 I. ROME AND JUDEA Il8 II. MESSALA AND JUDAH in. judah's home 122 iv. judah's mother 128 134 V. A WOMAN OF ISRAEL 142 148 VI. THE ACCIDENT 1 54 VH. THE PRISONER BOOK THIRD I. QUINTUS ARRIUS II. THE ROMAN GALLEY m. THE GALLEY SLAVE IV. A GLEAM OF HOPE V. THE SEA FIGHT VI. FREE AND ADOPTED

Contents l6o 164 BOOK FOURTH 1 67 175 I. AT ANTIOCH 182 n. IN SEARCH 188 in. DISAPPOINTED 194 IV. THE STORY OF SIMONIDES 199 V. EXPLORING 206 VI. RECOLLECTION 212 218 VII. A NEW COMPANION 227 236 VIII. BY THE FOUNTAIN 244 IX. VENGEANCE PLANNED 248 X. THE ORCHARD OF PALMS 253 XI. malluch's REPORT 260 XII. A ROMAN REVEL 266 XIH. IN AN ARAB HOME 271 277 xrv. ilderim's supper 289 290 xv. ben-hur's wonder 296 300 xvi. balthasar's teaching 306 316 XVn. A REVERIE 320 324 BOOK FIFTH 330 336 I. GRATUS WARNED 343 351 H. PREPARATION 353 III. ON THE LAKE IV. THE LETTER INTERCEPTED V. BEN-HUR READS THE LETTER VI. A SUMMONS VII. ACKNOWLEDGED Vin. THE PROMISED KINGDOM DC. BEN-HUR'S DECISION X. THE PROGRAMME XI. THE BETS XII. THE CIRCUS XIII. THE START xrv. the race XV. AN INVITATION XVI. ENTRAPPED

Contents 7 BOOK SIXTH 364 371 I. THE PRISONERS 381 II. THE LEPERS 386 392 in. THE OLD HOME 399 IV. A TRIAL OF LOVE 4IO v. amrah's fidelity 413 VI. THE CHAMPION 418 425 BOOK SEVENTH 434 I. THE HERALD 443 451 II. A SURPRISE 457 465 IE. IMMORTALITY 472 IV. AN EVIL INFLUENCE 476 V. THE HERALD AND HIS KING 486 489 BOOK EIGHTH 495 504 i. anticipation 517 11. ben-hur's relation in. GLAD TIDINGS IV. HEALED V. TO JERUSALEM VI. UNMASKED VH. DISAPPOINTMENT Vm. BETRAYAL K. NEAR THE END X. THE END XI. THE CATACOMB



BOOK FIRST IN THE DESERT The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north. Standing on its red-and-white cliffs, and looking off under the path of the rising sun, one sees only the Desert of Arabia, where the east winds, so hateful to the vine-growers of Jericho, have kept their playgrounds since the beginning. Its feet are well covered by sands tossed from the Euphrates, there to lie; for the mountain is a wall to the pasture- —lands of Moab and Ammon on the west lands which else had been of the desert a part. The Arab has impressed his language upon everything south and east of Judea; so, in his tongue, the old Jebel is the parent of —numberless wadies which, intersecting the Roman road now a dim suggestion of what once it was, a dusty path for Syrian pilgrims —to and from Mecca run their furrows, deepening as they go, to pass the torrents of the rainy season into the Jordan, or their last —receptacle, the Dead Sea. Out of one of these wadies or, more particularly, out of that one which rises at the extreme end of the Jebel, and, extending east of north, becomes at length the bed of —the Jabbok River a traveller passed, going to the table-lands of the desert.* To this person the attention of the reader is first besought. Judged by his appearance, he was quite forty-five years old. His beard, once of the deepest black, flowing broadly over his breast, was streaked with white. His face was brown as a parched coffee- berry, and so hidden by a red kufiyeh (as the kerchief of the head is at this day called by the children of the desert) as to be but in Nowpart visible. and then he raised his eyes, and they were large and dark. He was clad in the flowing garments so universal in the East; but their style may not be described more particularly, for he sat under a miniature tent, and rode a great white dromedary.

io Ben-Hur It may be doubted if the people of the West ever overcome the impression made upon them by the first view of a camel equipped and loaded for the desert. Custom, so fatal to other novelties, affects this feeling but little. At the end of long journeys with caravans, after years of residence with the Bedawin, the Western-born, wher- ever they may be, will stop and wait the passing of the stately brute. The charm is not in the figure, which not even love can make beautiful; nor in the movement, the noiseless stepping, or the broad careen. As is the kindness of the sea to a ship, so is that of the desert to its creature. It clothes him with all its mysteries; in such manner, too, that while we are looking at him we are thinking of them: therein is the wonder. The animal which now came out of the wady might well have claimed the customary homage. Its colour and height; its breadth of foot; its bulk of body, not fat, but overlaid with muscle; its long, slender neck, of swan-like curvature; the head, wide between the eyes, and tapering to a muzzle which a lady's bracelet might have almost clasped; its motion, step —long and elastic, tread sure and soundless all certified its Syrian blood, old as the days of Cyrus, and absolutely priceless. There was the usual bridle, covering the forehead with scarlet fringe, and garnishing the throat with pendent brazen chains, each ending with a tinkling silver bell; but to the bridle there was neither rein for the rider nor strap for a driver. The furniture perched on the back was an invention which with any other people than of the East would have made the inventor renowned. It consisted of two wooden boxes, scarce four feet in length, balanced so that one hung at each side; the inner space, softly lined and carpeted, was arranged to allow the master to sit or lie half reclined; over it all was stretched a green awning. Broad back and breast straps, and girths, secured with countless knots and ties, held the device in place. In such manner the ingenious sons of Cush had contrived to make comfort- able the sunburnt ways of the wilderness, along which lay their duty as often as their pleasure. When the dromedary lifted itself out of the last break of the wady, the traveller had passed the boundary of El Belka, the ancient Ammon. It was morning time. Before him was the sun, half cur- tained in fleecy mist; before him also spread the desert; not the realm of drifting sands, which was farther on, but the region where the herbage began to dwarf; where the surface is strewn with

1 In the Desert 1 boulders of granite, and grey and brown stones, interspersed with languishing acacias and tufts of camel-grass. The oak, bramble, and arbutus lay behind, as if they had come to a line, looked over into the well-less waste, and crouched with fear. And now there was an end of path or road. More than ever the camel seemed insensibly driven; it lengthened and quickened its pace, its head pointed straight towards the horizon; through the wide nostrils it drank the wind in great draughts. The litter swayed, and rose and fell like a boat in the waves. Dried leaves in occasional beds rustled underfoot. Sometimes a perfume like absinthe sweet- ened all the air. Lark and chat and rock-swallow leaped to wing, and white partridges ran whistling and clucking out of the way. More rarely a fox or a hyena quickened his gallop, to study the intruders at a safe distance. Off to the right rose the hills of the Jebel, the pearl-grey veil resting upon them changing momen- tarily into a purple which the sun would make matchless a little later. Over their highest peaks a vulture sailed on broad wings into widening circles. But of all these things the tenant under the green tent saw nothing, or, at least, made no sign of recognition. His eyes were fixed and dreamy. The going of the man, like that of the animal, was as one being led. For two hours the dromedary swung forward, keeping the trot steadily and the line due east. In that time the traveller never Onchanged his position, nor looked to the right or left. the desert, distance is not measured by miles or leagues, but by the saat, or hour, and the manzil, or halt: three and a half leagues fill the former, fifteen or twenty-five the latter; but they are the rates for the common camel. A carrier of the genuine Syrian stock can make three leagues easily. At full speed he overtakes the ordinary winds. As one of the results of the rapid advance, the face of the landscape underwent a change. The Jebel stretched along the western horizon, Alike a pale-blue ribbon. tell, or hummock of clay and cemented Nowsand, arose here and there. and then basaltic stones lifted their round crowns, outposts of the mountain against the forces of the plain; all else, however, was sand, sometimes smooth as the beaten beach, then heaped in rolling ridges; here chopped waves, there long swells. So, too, the condition of the atmosphere changed. The sun, high risen, had drunk his fill of dew and mist, and warmed the breeze that kissed the wanderer under the awning; far

— 12 Ben-Hur and near he was tinting the earth with faint milk-whiteness, and shimmering all the sky. Two hours more passed without rest or deviation from the course. Vegetation entirely ceased. The sand, so crusted on the surface that it broke into rattling flakes at every step, held undisputed sway. The Jebel was out of view, and there was no landmark visible. The shadow that before followed had now shifted to the north, and was keeping even race with the objects which cast it; and as there was no sign of halting, the conduct of the traveller became each moment more strange. No one, be it remembered, seeks the desert for a pleasure- ground. Life and business traverse it by paths along which the bones of things dead are strewn as so many blazons. Such are the roads from well to well, from pasture to pasture. The heart of the most veteran sheik beats quicker when he finds himself alone in the pathless tracts. So the man with whom we are dealing could not have been in search of pleasure; neither was his manner that of a fugitive: not once did he look behind him. In such situations fear and curiosity are the most common sensations; he was not moved by them. When men are lonely, they stoop to any com- panionship; the dog becomes a comrade, the horse a friend, and it is no shame to shower them with caresses and speeches of love. The camel received no such token, not a touch, not a word. Exactly at noon the dromedary, of its own will, stopped, and uttered the cry or moan, peculiarly piteous, by which its kind always protest against an overload, and sometimes crave attention and rest. The master thereupon bestirred himself, waking, as it were, from sleep. He threw the curtains of the houdah up, looked at the sun, surveyed the country on every side long and carefully, as if to identify an appointed place. Satisfied with the inspection, he drew a deep breath and nodded, much as to say 'At last, at last!' A moment after, he crossed his hands upon his breast, bowed his head, and prayed silently. The pious duty done, he prepared to dismount. From his throat proceeded the sound heard doubtless —by the favourite camels of Job Ikh! ikh! the signal to kneel. Slowly the animal obeyed, grunting the while. The rider then put his foot upon the slender neck, and stepped upon the sand.

The Three Strangers 13 II THE THREE STRANGERS The man as now revealed was of admirable proportions, not so tall as powerful. Loosening the silken rope which held the kufiyeh on his head, he brushed the fringed folds back until his face was —bare a strong face, almost negro in colour; yet the low, broad forehead, aquiline nose, the outer corners of the eyes turned slightly upward, the hair profuse, straight, harsh, of metallic lustre, and falling to the shoulder in many plaits, were signs of origin imposs- ible to disguise. So looked the Pharaohs and the later Ptolemies; so looked Mizraim, father of the Egyptian race. He wore the kamis, a white cotton shirt, tight-sleeved, open in front, extending to the ankles and embroidered down the collar and breast, over which was thrown a brown woollen cloak, now, as in all probability it was then, called the aba, an outer garment with long skirt and short sleeves, lined inside with stuff of mixed cotton and silk, edged all round with a margin of clouded yellow. His feet were protected by sandals, Aattached by thongs of soft leather. sash held the kamis to his waist. What was very noticeable, considering he was alone, and that the desert was the haunt of leopards and lions, and men quite as wild, he carried no arms, not even the crooked stick used for guiding camels; wherefore we may at least infer his errand peaceful, and that he was either uncommonly bold or under extraordinary protection. The traveller's limbs were numb, for the ride had been long and wearisome; so he rubbed his hands and stamped his feet, and walked round the faithful servant, whose lustrous eyes were closing in calm content with the cud he had already found. Often, while making the circuit, he paused, and, shading his eyes with his hands, exam- ined the desert to the extremest verge of vision; and always, when the survey was ended, his face clouded with disappointment, slight, but enough to advise a shrewd spectator that he was there expecting company, if not by appointment; at the same time, the spectator would have been conscious of a sharpening of the curiosity to learn what the business could be that required transaction in a place so far from civilized abode. However disappointed, there could be little doubt of the

14 Ben-Hur stranger's confidence in the coming of the expected company. In token thereof, he went first to the litter, and, from the cot or box opposite the one he had occupied in coming, produced a sponge and a small gurglet of water, with which he washed the eyes, face, and nostrils of the camel; that done, from the same depository he drew a circular cloth, red-and-white-striped, a bundle of rods, and a stout cane. The latter, after some manipulation, proved to be a cunning device of lesser joints, one within another, which, when united together, formed a centre pole higher than his head. When the pole was planted, and the rods set around it, he spread the —cloth over them, and was literally at home a home much smaller than the habitations of emir and sheik, yet their counterpart in all other respects. From the litter again he brought a carpet or square rug, and covered the floor of the tent on the side from the sun. That done, he went out, and once more, and with greater care and more eager eyes, swept the encircling country. Except a distant jackal, galloping across the plain, and an eagle flying towards the Gulf of Akaba, the waste below, like the blue above it, was lifeless. He turned to the camel, saying low, and in a tongue strange to Othe desert, 'We are far from home, racer with the swiftest —winds we are far from home, but God is with us. Let us be patient.' Then he took some beans from a pocket in the saddle, and put them in a bag made to hang below the animal's nose; and when he saw the relish with which the good servant took to the food, he turned and again scanned the world of sand, dim with the glow of the vertical sun. 'They will come,' he said calmly. 'He that led me is leading them. I will make ready.' From the pouches which lined the interior of the cot, and from a willow basket which was part of its furniture, he brought forth materials for a meal: platters close-woven of the fibres of palms; wine in small gurglets of skin; mutton dried and smoked; stoneless shatni, or Syrian pomegranates; dates of El Shelebi, wondrous rich, and grown in the nakhil, or palm orchards, of Central Arabia; cheese, like David's 'slices of milk'; and leavened bread from the —city bakery all which he carried and set upon the carpet under the tent. As the final preparation, about the provisions he laid three pieces of silk cloth, used among refined people of the East to cover

— The Three Strangers 15 —the knees of guests while at table a circumstance significant of the number of persons who were to partake of his entertainment the number he was awaiting. All was now ready. He stepped out: lo! in the east a dark speck on the face of the desert. He stood as if rooted to the ground; his eyes dilated; his flesh crept chilly, as if touched by something supernatural. The speck grew; became large as a hand; at length Aassumed defined proportions. little later, full into view swung a duplication of his own dromedary, tall and white, and bearing a houdah, the travelling litter of Hindostan. Then the Egyptian crossed his hands upon his breast, and looked to heaven. 'God only is great!' he exclaimed, his eyes full of tears, his soul in awe. —The stranger drew high at last stopped. Then, he, too, seemed just waking. He beheld the kneeling camel, the tent, and the man standing prayerfully at the door. He crossed his hands, bent his head, and prayed silently; after which, in a little while, he stepped from his camel's neck to the sand, and advanced towards the Egyptian, as did the Egyptian towards him. A moment they looked —at each other; then they embraced that is, each threw his right arm over the other's shoulder, and the left round the side, placing his chin first upon the left, then upon the right breast. O'Peace be with thee, servant of the true God!' the stranger said. O —'And to thee, brother of the true faith! to thee peace and welcome,' the Egyptian replied, with fervour. The new-comer was tall and gaunt, with lean face, sunken eyes, white hair and beard, and a complexion between the hue of cin- namon and bronze. He, too, was unarmed. His costume was Hindostani; over the skull-cap a shawl was wound in great folds, forming a turban; his body garments were in the style of the Egyptian's, except that the aba was shorter, exposing wide flowing breeches gathered at the ankles. In place of sandals, his feet were clad in half-slippers of red leather, pointed at the toes. Save the slippers, the costume from head to foot was of white linen. The air of the man was high, stately, severe. Visvamitra, the greatest of the ascetic heroes of the Iliad of the East, had in him a perfect representative. He might have been called a Life drenched with the —wisdom of Brahma Devotion Incarnate. Only in his eyes was there

6 1 Ben-Hur proof of humanity; when he lifted his face from the Egyptian's breast, they were glistening with tears. 'God only is great!' he exclaimed, when the embrace was finished. 'And blessed are they that serve Him!' the Egyptian answered, wondering at the paraphrase of his own exclamation. 'But let us wait,' he added, 'let us wait; for see, the other comes yonder!' They looked to the north, where, already plain to view, a third camel, of the whiteness of the others, came careening like a ship. —They waited, standing together waited until the new-comer arrived, dismounted, and advanced towards them. O'Peace to you, my brother!' he said, while embracing the Hindoo. And the Hindoo answered, 'God's will be done!' The last comer was all unlike his friends; his frame was slighter; his complexion white; a mass of waving light hair was a perfect crown for his small but beautiful head; the warmth of his dark- blue eyes certified a delicate mind, and a cordial, brave nature. He was bare-headed and unarmed. Under the folds of the Tyrian blanket which he wore with unconscious grace appeared a tunic, short-sleeved and low-necked, gathered to the waist by a band, and reaching nearly to the knee; leaving the neck, arms, and legs bare. Sandals guarded his feet. Fifty years, probably more, had spent themselves upon him, with no other effect, apparently, than to tinge his demeanour with gravity and temper his words with fore- thought. The physical organization and the brightness of soul were untouched. No need to tell the student from what kindred he was sprung; if he came not himself from the groves of Athene,* his ancestry did. When his arms fell from the Egyptian, the latter said with a tremulous voice, 'The Spirit brought me first; wherefore I know myself chosen to be the servant of my brethren. The tent is set, and the bread is ready for the breaking. Let me perform my office.' Taking each by the hand, he led them within, and removed their sandals and washed their feet, and he poured water upon their hands, and dried them with napkins. Then, when he had laved his own hands, he said, 'Let us take care of ourselves, brethren, as our service requires, and eat, that we may be strong for what remains of the day's duty. While we

Gaspar the Greek 17 eat, we will each learn who the others are, and whence they come, and how they are called.' He took them to the repast, and seated them so that they faced each other. Simultaneously their heads bent forward, their hands crossed upon their breasts, and, speaking together, they said aloud this simple grace: — —'Father of all God! what we have here is of Thee; take our thanks and bless us, that we may continue to do Thy will.' With the last word they raised their eyes, and looked at each other in wonder. Each had spoken in a language never before heard by the others; yet each understood perfectly what was said. Their souls thrilled with divine emotion; for by the miracle they recog- nized the Divine Presence. Ill GASPAR THE GREEK To speak in the style of the period, the meeting just described took place in the year of Rome 747.* The month was December, and winter reigned over all the regions east of the Mediterranean. Such as ride upon the desert in this season go not far until smitten with a keen appetite. The company under the little tent were not exceptions to the rule. They were hungry, and ate heartily; and, after the wine, they talked. 'To a wayfarer in a strange land nothing is so sweet as to hear his name on the tongue of a friend,' said the Egyptian, who assumed to be president of the repast. 'Before us lie many days of com- panionship. It is time we knew each other. So, if it be agreeable, he who came last shall be first to speak.' Then, slowly at first, like one watchful of himself, the Greek began: my'What I have to tell, brethren, is so strange that I hardly know where to begin or what I may with propriety speak. I do not yet understand myself. The most I am sure of is that I am doing a Master's will, and that the service is a constant ecstasy. When I think of the purpose I am sent to fulfil, there is in me a joy so inexpressible that I know the will is God's.'

8— 1 Ben-Hur The good man paused, unable to proceed, while the others, in sympathy with his feelings, dropped their gaze. Tar to the west of this,' he began again, 'there is a land which may never be forgotten; if only because the world is too much its debtor, and because the indebtedness is for things that bring to men their purest pleasures. I will say nothing of the arts, nothing Oof philosophy, of eloquence, of poetry, of war; my brethren, hers is the glory which must shine for ever in perfected letters, by which He we go to find and proclaim will be made known to all the earth. The land I speak of is Greece. I am Gaspar, son of Cleanthes the Athenian. 'My people,' he continued, 'were given wholly to study, and from them I derived the same passion. It happens that two of our philosophers, the very greatest of the many, teach, one the doctrine of a Soul in every man, and its Immortality: the other the doctrine of One God, infinitely just. From the multitude of subjects about which the schools were disputing, I separated them, as alone worth the labour of solution; for I thought there was a relation between God and the soul as yet unknown. On this theme the mind can reason to a point, a dead, impassable wall; arrived there, all that remains is to stand and cry aloud for help. So I did; but no voice came to me over the wall. In despair I tore myself from the cities and the schools.' At these words a grave smile of approval lighted the gaunt face of the Hindoo. —'In the northern part of my country in Thessaly,' the Greek proceeded to say, 'there is a mountain famous as the home of the gods, where Theus,* whom my countrymen believe supreme, has his abode; Olympus is its name. Thither I betook myself. I found a cave in a hill where the mountain, coming from the west, bends to the south-east; there I dwelt, giving myself up to meditation no, I gave myself up to waiting for what every breath was a prayer for revelation. Believing in God, invisible yet supreme, I also believed it possible so to yearn for Him with all my soul that He would take compassion and give me answer.' —'And He did He did!' exclaimed the Hindoo, lifting his hands from the silken cloth upon his lap. 'Hear me, brethren,' said the Greek, calming himself with an effort. 'The door of my hermitage looks over an arm of the sea,