PETRONIUS was not mistaken. Two days later young Nerva, who had always
been friendly and devoted, sent his freedman to Cumæ with news of what
was happening at the court of Cæsar.
The death of Petronius had been determined. On the morning of the
following day they intended to send him a centurion, with the order
to stop at Cumæ, and wait there for further instructions; the next
messenger, to follow a few days later, was to bring the death sentence.
Petronius heard the news with unruffled calmness.
“Thou wilt take to thy lord,” said he, “one of my vases; say from me
that I thank him with my whole soul, for now I am able to anticipate the
sentence.”
And all at once he began to laugh, like a man who has came upon a
perfect thought, and rejoices in advance at its fulfilment.
That same afternoon his slaves rushed about, inviting the Augustians,
who were staying in Cumæ, and all the ladies, to a magnificent banquet
at the villa of the arbiter.
He wrote that afternoon in the library; next he took a bath, after which
he commanded the vestiplicæ to arrange his dress. Brilliant and stately
as one of the gods, he went to the triclinium, to cast the eye of a
critic on the preparations, and then to the gardens, where youths and
Grecian maidens from the islands were weaving wreaths of roses for the
evening.
Not the least care was visible on his face. The servants only knew that
the feast would be something uncommon, for he had issued a command
to give unusual rewards to those with whom he was satisfied, and
some slight blows to all whose work should not please him, or who had
deserved blame or punishment earlier. To the cithara players and the
singers he had ordered beforehand liberal pay. At last, sitting in the
garden under a beech, through whose leaves the sun-rays marked the earth
with bright spots, he called Eunice.
She came, dressed in white, with a sprig of myrtle in her hair,
beautiful as one of the Graces. He seated her at his side, and, touching
her temple gently with his fingers, he gazed at her with that admiration
with which a critic gazes at a statue from the chisel of a master.
“Eunice,” asked he, “dost thou know that thou art not a slave this long
time?”
She raised to him her calm eyes, as blue as the sky, and denied with a
motion of her head.
“I am thine always,” said she.
“But perhaps thou knowest not,” continued Petronius, “that the villa,
and those slaves twining wreaths here, and all which is in the villa,
with the fields and the herds, are thine henceforward.”
Eunice, when she heard this, drew away from him quickly, and asked in a
voice filled with sudden fear,--
“Why dost thou tell me this?”
Then she approached again, and looked at him, blinking with amazement.
After a while her face became as pale as linen. He smiled, and said only
one word,--
“So!”
A moment of silence followed; merely a slight breeze moved the leaves of
the beech.
Petronius might have thought that before him was a statue cut from white
marble.
“Eunice,” said he, “I wish to die calmly.”
And the maiden, looking at him with a heart-rending smile, whispered,--
“I hear thee.”
In the evening the guests, who had been at feasts given by Petronius
previously, and knew that in comparison with them even Cæsar’s banquets
seemed tiresome and barbarous, began to arrive in numbers. To no one did
it occur, even, that that was to be the last “symposium.” Many knew,
it is true, that the clouds of Cæsar’s anger were hanging over the
exquisite arbiter; but that had happened so often, and Petronius had
been able so often to scatter them by some dexterous act or by a single
bold word, that no one thought really that serious danger threatened
him. His glad face and usual smile, free of care, confirmed all, to the
last man, in that opinion. The beautiful Eunice, to whom he had declared
his wish to die calmly, and for whom every word of his was like an
utterance of fate, had in her features a perfect calmness, and in her
eyes a kind of wonderful radiance, which might have been considered
delight. At the door of the triclinium, youths with hair in golden nets
put wreaths of roses on the heads of the guests, warning them, as the
custom was, to pass the threshold right foot foremost. In the hall there
was a slight odor of violets; the lamps burned in Alexandrian glass of
various colors. At the couches stood Grecian maidens, whose office it
was to moisten the feet of guests with perfumes. At the walls cithara
players and Athenian choristers were waiting for the signal of their
leader.
The table service gleamed with splendor, but that splendor did not
offend or oppress; it seemed a natural development. Joyousness and
freedom spread through the hall with the odor of violets. The guests as
they entered felt that neither threat nor constraint was hanging over
them, as in Cæsar’s house, where a man might forfeit his life for
praises not sufficiently great or sufficiently apposite. At sight of the
lamps, the goblets entwined with ivy, the wine cooling on banks of
snow, and the exquisite dishes, the hearts of the guests became joyous.
Conversation of various kinds began to buzz, as bees buzz on an apple
tree in blossom. At moments it was interrupted by an outburst of glad
laughter, at moments by murmurs of applause, at moments by a kiss placed
too loudly on some white shoulder.
The guests, while drinking wine, spilled from their goblets a few drops
to the immortal gods, to gain their protection, and their favor for
the host. It mattered not that many of them had no belief in the gods.
Custom and superstition prescribed it. Petronius, inclining near Eunice,
talked of Rome, of the latest divorces, of love affairs, of the races,
of Spiculus, who had become famous recently in the arena, and of the
latest books in the shops of Atractus and the Sozii. When he spilled
wine, he said that he spilled it only in honor of the Lady of Cyprus,
the most ancient divinity and the greatest, the only immortal, enduring,
and ruling one.
His conversation was like sunlight which lights up some new object every
instant, or like the summer breeze which stirs flowers in a garden. At
last he gave a signal to the leader of the music, and at that signal the
citharæ began to sound lightly, and youthful voices accompanied. Then
maidens from Kos, the birthplace of Eunice, danced, and showed their
rosy forms through robes of gauze. Finally, an Egyptian soothsayer told
the guests their future from the movement of rainbow colors in a vessel
of crystal.
When they had enough of these amusements, Petronius rose somewhat on his
Syrian cushion, and said with hesitation,--
“Pardon me, friends, for asking a favor at a feast. Will each man accept
as a gift that goblet from which he first shook wine in honor of the
gods and to my prosperity?”
The goblets of Petronius were gleaming in gold, precious stones, and
the carving of artists; hence, though gift giving was common in Rome,
delight filled every heart. Some thanked him loudly: others said that
Jove had never honored gods with such gifts in Olympus; finally, there
were some who refused to accept, since the gifts surpassed common
estimate.
But he raised aloft the Myrrhene vase, which resembled a rainbow in
brilliancy, and was simply beyond price.
“This,” said he, “is the one out of which I poured in honor of the Lady
of Cyprus. The lips of no man may touch it henceforth, and no hand may
ever pour from it in honor of another divinity.”
He cast the precious vessel to the pavement, which was covered with
lily-colored saffron flowers; and when it was broken into small pieces,
he said, seeing around him astonished faces,--
“My dear friends, be glad and not astonished. Old age and weakness are
sad attendants in the last years of life. But I will give you a good
example and good advice: Ye have the power, as ye see, not to wait for
old age; ye can depart before it comes, as I do.”
“What dost thou wish?” asked a number of voices, with alarm.
“I wish to rejoice, to drink wine, to hear music, to look on those
divine forms which ye see around me, and fall asleep with a garlanded
head. I have taken farewell of Cæsar, and do ye wish to hear what I
wrote him at parting?”
He took from beneath the purple cushion a paper, and read as follows:--
“I know, O Cæsar, that thou art awaiting my arrival with impatience,
that thy true heart of a friend is yearning day and night for me. I
know that thou art ready to cover me with gifts, make me prefect of the
pretorian guards, and command Tigellinus to be that which the gods
made him, a mule-driver in those lands which thou didst inherit after
poisoning Domitius. Pardon me, however, for I swear to thee by Hades,
and by the shades of thy mother, thy wife, thy brother, and Seneca, that
I cannot go to thee. Life is a great treasure. I have taken the most
precious jewels from that treasure, but in life there are many things
which I cannot endure any longer. Do not suppose, I pray, that I am
offended because thou didst kill thy mother, thy wife, and thy brother;
that thou didst burn Rome and send to Erebus all the honest men in thy
dominions. No, grandson of Chronos. Death is the inheritance of man;
from thee other deeds could not have been expected. But to destroy one’s
ear for whole years with thy poetry, to see thy belly of a Domitius
on slim legs whirled about in Pyrrhic dance; to hear thy music, thy
declamation, thy doggerel verses, wretched poet of the suburbs,--is a
thing surpassing my power, and it has roused in me the wish to die. Rome
stuffs its ears when it hears thee; the world reviles thee. I can blush
for thee no longer, and I have no wish to do so. The howls of Cerberus,
though resembling thy music, will be less offensive to me, for I have
never been the friend of Cerberus, and I need not be ashamed of his
howling. Farewell, but make no music; commit murder, but write no
verses; poison people, but dance not; be an incendiary, but play not on
a cithara. This is the wish and the last friendly counsel sent thee by
the--Arbiter Elegantiæ.”
The guests were terrified, for they knew that the loss of dominion would
have been less cruel to Nero than this blow. They understood, too, that
the man who had written that paper must die; and at the same time pale
fear flew over them because they had heard such a paper.
But Petronius laughed with sincere and gladsome joy, as if it were
a question of the most innocent joke; then he cast his eyes on all
present, and said,--
“Be joyous, and drive away fear. No one need boast that he heard this
letter. I will boast of it only to Charon when I am crossing in the boat
with him.”
He beckoned then to the Greek physician, and stretched out his arm. The
skilled Greek in the twinkle of an eye opened the vein at the bend
of the arm. Blood spurted on the cushion, and covered Eunice, who,
supporting the head of Petronius, bent over him and said,--
“Didst thou think that I would leave thee? If the gods gave me
immortality, and Cæsar gave me power over the earth, I would follow thee
still.”
Petronius smiled, raised himself a little, touched her lips with his,
and said,--
“Come with me.”
She stretched her rosy arm to the physician, and after a while her blood
began to mingle and be lost in his blood.
Then he gave a signal to the leader of the music, and again the voices
and cithariæ were heard. They sang “Harmodius”; next the song of
Anacreon resounded,--that song in which he complained that on a time
he had found Aphrodite’s boy chilled and weeping under trees; that he
brought him in, warmed him, dried his wings, and the ungrateful child
pierced his heart with an arrow,--from that moment peace had deserted
the poet.
Petronius and Eunice, resting against each other, beautiful as two
divinities, listened, smiling and growing pale. At the end of the song
Petronius gave directions to serve more wine and food; then he conversed
with the guests sitting near him of trifling but pleasant things, such
as are mentioned usually at feasts. Finally, he called to the Greek to
bind his arm for a moment; for he said that sleep was tormenting him,
and he wanted to yield himself to Hypnos before Thanatos put him to
sleep forever.
In fact, he fell asleep. When he woke, the head of Eunice was lying on
his breast like a white flower. He placed it on the pillow to look at it
once more. After that his veins were opened again.
At his signal the singers raised the song of Anacreon anew, and the
citharæ accompanied them so softly as not to drown a word. Petronius
grew paler and paler; but when the last sound had ceased, he turned to
his guests again and said,
“Friends, confess that with us perishes--”
But he had not power to finish; his arm with its last movement embraced
Eunice, his head fell on the pillow, and he died.
The guests looking at those two white forms, which resembled two
wonderful statues, understood well that with them perished all that was
left to their world at that time,--poetry and beauty.
EPILOGUE
AT first the revolt of the Gallic legions under Vindex did not seem very
serious. Cæsar was only in his thirty-first year, and no one was bold
enough to hope that the world could be freed so soon from the nightmare
which was stifling it. Men remembered that revolts had occurred
more than once among the legions,--they had occurred in previous
reigns,--revolts, however, which passed without involving a change of
government; as during the reign of Tiberius, Drusus put down the
revolt of the Pannonian legions. “Who,” said the people, “can take the
government after Nero, since all the descendants of the divine Augustus
have perished?” Others, looking at the Colossus, imagined him a
Hercules, and thought that no force could break such power. There were
those even who since he went to Achæa were sorry for him, because
Helius and Polythetes, to whom he left the government of Rome and Italy,
governed more murderously than he had.
No one was sure of life or property. Law ceased to protect. Human
dignity and virtue had perished, family bonds existed no longer, and
degraded hearts did not even dare to admit hope. From Greece came
accounts of the incomparable triumphs of Cæsar, of the thousands of
crowns which he had won, the thousands of competitors whom he had
vanquished. The world seemed to be one orgy of buffoonery and blood; but
at the same time the opinion was fixed that virtue and deeds of dignity
had ceased, that the time of dancing and music, of profligacy, of blood,
had come, and that life must flow on for the future in that way. Cæsar
himself, to whom rebellion opened the road to new robberies, was not
concerned much about the revolt of the legions and Vindex; he even
expressed his delight on that subject frequently. He did not wish to
leave Achæa even; and only when Helius informed him that further delay
might cause the loss of dominion did he move to Naples.
There he played and sang, neglecting news of events of growing danger.
In vain did Tigellinus explain to him that former rebellions of legions
had no leaders, while at the head of affairs this time was a man
descended from the ancient kings of Gaul and Aquitania, a famous and
tried soldier. “Here,” answered Nero, “the Greeks listen to me,--the
Greeks, who alone know how to listen, and who alone are worthy of my
song.” He said that his first duty was art and glory. But when at last
the news came that Vindex had proclaimed him a wretched artist, he
sprang up and moved toward Rome. The wounds inflicted by Petronius, and
healed by his stay in Greece, opened in his heart anew, and he wished to
seek retribution from the Senate for such unheard-of injustice.
On the road he saw a group cast in bronze, representing a Gallic warrior
as overcome by a Roman knight; he considered that a good omen, and
thenceforward, if he mentioned the rebellious legions and Vindex, it was
only to ridicule them. His entrance to the city surpassed all that had
been witnessed earlier. He entered in the chariot used by Augustus in
his triumph. One arch of the Circus was destroyed to give a road to the
procession. The Senate, knights, and innumerable throngs of people went
forth to meet him. The walls trembled from shouts of “Hail, Augustus!
Hail, Hercules! Hail, divinity, the incomparable, the Olympian, the
Pythian, the immortal!” Behind him were borne the crowns, the names
of cities in which he had triumphed; and on tablets were inscribed
the names of the masters whom he had vanquished. Nero himself was
intoxicated with delight, and with emotion he asked the Augustians who
stood around him, “What was the triumph of Julius compared with this?”
The idea that any mortal should dare to raise a hand on such a demigod
did not enter his head. He felt himself really Olympian, and therefore
safe. The excitement and the madness of the crowd roused his own
madness. In fact, it might seem in the day of that triumph that not
merely Cæsar and the city, but the world, had lost its senses.
Through the flowers and the piles of wreaths no one could see the
precipice. Still that same evening columns and walls of temples were
covered with inscriptions, describing Nero’s crimes, threatening him
with coming vengeance, and ridiculing him as an artist. From mouth to
mouth went the phrase, “He sang till he roused the Gauls.” Alarming news
made the rounds of the city, and reached enormous measures. Alarm seized
the Augustians. People, uncertain of the future, dazed not express hopes
or wishes; they hardly dared to feel or think.
But he went on living only in the theatre and music. Instruments newly
invented occupied him, and a new water-organ, of which trials were made
on the Palatine. With childish mind, incapable of plan or action, he
imagined that he could ward off danger by promises of spectacles and
theatrical exhibitions reaching far into the future, Persons nearest
him, seeing that instead of providing means and an army, he was merely
searching for expressions to depict the danger graphically, began to
lose their heads. Others thought that he was simply deafening himself
and others with quotations, while in his soul he was alarmed and
terrified. In fact, his acts became feverish. Every day a thousand new
plans flew through his head. At times he sprang up to rush out against
danger; gave command to pack up his lutes and citharæ, to arm the young
slave women as Amazons, and lead the legions to the East. Again he
thought to finish the rebellion of the Gallic legions, not with war, but
with song; and his soul laughed at the spectacle which was to follow
his conquest of the soldiers by song. The legionaries would surround
him with tears in their eyes; he would sing to them an epinicium, after
which the golden epoch would begin for him and for Rome. At one time he
called for blood; at another he declared that he would be satisfied
with governing in Egypt. He recalled the prediction which promised
him lordship in Jerusalem, and he was moved by the thought that as
a wandering minstrel he would earn his daily bread,--that cities and
countries would honor in him, not Cæsar, the lord of the earth, but a
poet whose like the world had not produced before. And so he struggled,
raged, played, sang, changed his plan, changed his quotations, changed
his life and the world into a dream absurd, fantastic, dreadful, into an
uproarious hunt composed of unnatural expressions, bad verses, groans,
tears, and blood; but meanwhile the cloud in the west was increasing and
thickening every day. The measure was exceeded; the insane comedy was
nearing its end.
When news that Galba and Spain had joined the uprising came to his ears,
he fell into rage and madness. He broke goblets, overturned the table at
a feast, and issued orders which neither Helius nor Tigeliinus himself
dared to execute. To kill Gauls resident in Rome, fire the city a second
time, let out the wild beasts, and transfer the capital to Alexandria
seemed to him great, astonishing, and easy. But the days of his dominion
had passed, and even those who shared in his former crimes began to look
on him as a madman.
The death of Vindex, and disagreement in the revolting legions seemed,
however, to turn the scale to his side. Again new feasts, new triumphs,
and new sentences were issued in Rome, till a certain night when a
messenger rushed up on a foaming horse, with the news that in the city
itself the soldiers had raised the standard of revolt, and proclaimed
Galba Cæsar.
Nero was asleep when the messenger came; but when he woke he called in
vain for the night-guard, which watched at the entrance to his chambers.
The palace was empty. Slaves were plundering in the most distant corners
that which could be taken most quickly. But the sight of Nero frightened
them; he wandered alone through the palace, filling it with cries of
despair and fear.
At last his freedmen, Phaon, Sporus, and Epaphroditus, came to his
rescue. They wished him to flee, and said that there was no time to be
lost; but he deceived himself still. If he should dress in mourning and
speak to the Senate, would it resist his prayers and eloquence? If he
should use all his eloquence, his rhetoric and skill of an actor, would
any one on earth have power to resist him? Would they not give him even
the prefecture of Egypt?
The freedmen, accustomed to flatter, had not the boldness yet to refuse
him directly; they only warned him that before he could reach the Forum
the people would tear him to pieces, and declared that if he did not
mount his horse immediately, they too would desert him.
Phaon offered refuge in his villa outside the Nomentan Gate. After a
while they mounted horses, and, covering Nero’s head with a mantle, they
galloped off toward the edge of the city. The night was growing pale.
But on the streets there was a movement which showed the exceptional
nature of the time. Soldiers, now singly and now in small groups, were
scattered through the city. Not far from the camp Cæsar’s horse sprang
aside suddenly at sight of a corpse. The mantle slipped from his head;
a soldier recognized Nero, and, confused by the unexpected meeting,
gave the military salute. While passing the pretorian camp, they heard
thundering shouts in honor of Galba. Nero understood at last that the
hour of death was near. Terror and reproaches of conscience seized him.
He declared that he saw darkness in front of him in the form of a black
cloud. From that cloud came forth faces in which he saw his mother, his
wife, and his brother. His teeth were chattering from fright; still his
soul of a comedian found a kind of charm in the horror of the moment.
To be absolute lord of the earth and lose all things, seemed to him the
height of tragedy; and faithful to himself, he played the first role to
the end. A fever for quotations took possession of him, and a passionate
wish that those present should preserve them for posterity. At moments
he said that he wished to die, and called for Spiculus, the most skilled
of all gladiators in killing. At moments he declaimed, “Mother, wife,
father, call me to death!” Flashes of hope rose in him, however, from
time to time,--hope vain and childish. He knew that he was going to
death, and still he did not believe it.
They found the Nomentan Gate open. Going farther, they passed near
Ostrianum, where Peter had taught and baptized. At daybreak they reached
Phaon’s villa.
There the freedmen hid from him no longer the fact that it was time to
die. He gave command then to dig a grave, and lay on the ground so that
they might take accurate measurement. At sight of the earth thrown
up, however, terror seized him. His fat face became pale, and on his
forehead sweat stood like drops of dew in the morning. He delayed. In a
voice at once abject and theatrical, he declared that the hour had not
come yet; then he began again to quote. At last he begged them to
burn his body. “What an artist is perishing!” repeated he, as if in
amazement.
Meanwhile Phaon’s messenger arrived with the announcement that the
Senate had issued the sentence that the “parricide” was to be punished
according to ancient custom.
“What is the ancient custom?” asked Nero, with whitened lips.
“They will fix thy neck in a fork, flog thee to death, and hurl thy body
into the Tiber,” answered Epaphroditus, abruptly.
Nero drew aside the robe from his breast.
“It is time, then!” said he, looking into the sky. And he repeated once
more, “What an artist is perishing!”
At that moment the tramp of a horse was heard. That was the centurion
coming with soldiers for the head of Ahenobarbus.
“Hurry!” cried the freedmen.
Nero placed the knife to his neck, but pushed it only timidly. It was
clear that he would never have courage to thrust it in. Epaphroditus
pushed his hand suddenly,--the knife sank to the handle. Nero’s eyes
turned in his head, terrible, immense, frightened.
“I bring thee life!” cried the centurion, entering.
“Too late!” said Nero, with a hoarse voice; then he added,--
“Here is faithfulness!”
In a twinkle death seized his head. Blood from his heavy neck gushed in
a dark stream on the flowers of the garden. His legs kicked the ground,
and he died.
On the morrow the faithful Acte wrapped his body in costly stuffs, and
burned him on a pile filled with perfumes.
And so Nero passed, as a whirlwind, as a storm, as a fire, as war or
death passes; but the basilica of Peter rules till now, from the Vatican
heights, the city, and the world.
Near the ancient Porta Capena stands to this day a little chapel with
the inscription, somewhat worn: Quo Vadis, Domine?