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Makers of History
Nero
BY JACOB ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1901
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and fifty-three, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
Copyright, 1881, by BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT, AUSTIN ABBOTT, LYMAN
ABBOTT, and EDWARD ABBOTT.
[Illustration: ENVIRONS OF ROME.]
PREFACE.
In writing the series of historical narratives to which the present
work pertains, it has been the object of the author to furnish to
the reading community of this country an accurate and faithful
account of the lives and actions of the several personages that are
made successively the subjects of the volumes, following precisely
the story which has come down to us from ancient times. The writer
has spared no pains to gain access in all cases to the original
sources of information, and has confined himself strictly to them.
The reader may, therefore, feel assured in perusing any one of these
works, that the interest of it is in no degree indebted to the
invention of the author. No incident, however trivial, is ever added
to the original account, nor are any words even, in any case,
attributed to a speaker without express authority. Whatever of
interest, therefore, these stories may possess, is due solely to the
facts themselves which are recorded in them, and to their being
brought together in a plain, simple, and connected narrative.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. NERO'S MOTHER 13
II. THE ASSASSINATION OF CALIGULA 34
III. THE ACCESSION OF CLAUDIUS 55
IV. THE FATE OF MESSALINA 77
V. THE CHILDHOOD OF NERO 105
VI. NERO AN EMPEROR 124
VII. BRITANNICUS 148
VIII. THE FATE OF AGRIPPINA 172
IX. EXTREME DEPRAVITY 208
X. PISO'S CONSPIRACY 228
XI. THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 250
XII. THE EXPEDITION INTO GREECE 272
XIII. NERO'S END 299
ENGRAVINGS.
PAGE
MAP--ENVIRONS OF ROME _Frontispiece._
ENCAMPMENT OF A ROMAN LEGION 21
CAESONIA 53
DISCOVERY OF CLAUDIUS 64
MESSALINA IN THE GARDEN 89
THE POISONING OF CLAUDIUS 132
THE JEWELRY 156
THE ATTEMPT OF ANICETUS 197
BURNING OF ROME 225
THE KNIFE 244
BRINGING EPICHARIS TO THE TORTURE 253
PHAON AT THE WALL 316
NERO
CHAPTER I.
NERO'S MOTHER.
A.D. 37
Roman country seats.--Antium.--Situation of the promontory of
Antium.--Account of Nero's parentage.--Brazenbeard.--Nero's
father.--Agrippina his mother.--Agrippina's brother Caligula.--Roman
emperors.--Regulations in respect to the Roman armies.--Description
of the Roman armies.--Encampments of the legions.--Their
stations.--Useful functions of the Roman armies.--Effects
produced.--Mode of producing them.--The civil authorities.--The
progress of the military power.--Disposition of men to submit to
established power.--Great capacity of the early emperors.--Roman
armies.--Character of Caligula.--His desperate malignity.--Examples
of his cruelty.--Feeding wild beasts with men.--Branding.--Agrippina
is implicated in a conspiracy.--She is banished with her sister to
Pontia.
In ancient times, when the city of Rome was at the height of its
power and splendor, it was the custom, as it is in fact now with the
inhabitants of wealthy capitals, for the principal families to
possess, in addition to their city residences, rural villas for
summer retreats, which they built in picturesque situations, at a
little distance from the city, sometimes in the interior of the
country, and sometimes upon the sea-shore. There were many
attractive places of resort of this nature in the neighborhood of
Rome. Among them was Antium.
Antium was situated on the sea-coast about thirty miles south of the
Tiber. A bold promontory here projects into the sea, affording from
its declivities the most extended and magnificent views on every
side. On the north, looking from the promontory of Antium, the eye
follows the line of the coast away to the mouth of the Tiber; while,
on the south, the view is terminated, at about the same distance, by
the promontory of Circe, which is the second cape, or promontory,
that marks the shore of Italy in going southward from Rome. Toward
the interior, from Antium, there extends a broad and beautiful
plain, bounded by wooded hills toward the shore, and by ranges of
mountains in the distance beyond. On the southern side of the cape,
and sheltered by it, was a small harbor where vessels from all the
neighboring seas had been accustomed to bring in their cargoes, or
to seek shelter in storms, from time immemorial. In fact, Antium, in
point of antiquity, takes precedence, probably, even of Rome.
The beauty and the salubrity of Antium made it a very attractive
place of summer resort for the people of Rome; and in process of
time, when the city attained to an advanced stage of opulence and
luxury, the Roman noblemen built villas there, choosing situations,
in some instances, upon the natural terraces and esplanades of the
promontory, which looked off over the sea, and in others cool and
secluded retreats in the valleys, on the land. It was in one of
these villas that Nero was born.
Nero's father belonged to a family which had enjoyed for several
generations a considerable degree of distinction among the Roman
nobility, though known by a somewhat whimsical name. The family name
was Brazenbeard, or, to speak more exactly, it was Ahenobarbus,
which is the Latin equivalent for that word. It is a question
somewhat difficult to decide, whether in speaking of Nero's father
at the present time, and in the English tongue, we should make use
of the actual Latin name, or translate the word and employ the
English representative of it; that is, whether we shall call him
Ahenobarbus or Brazenbeard. The former seems to be more in harmony
with our ideas of the dignity of Roman history; while the latter,
though less elegant, conveys probably to our minds a more exact idea
of the import and expression of the name as it sounded in the ears
of the Roman community. The name certainly was not an attractive
one, though the family had contrived to dignify it some degree by
assigning to it a preternatural origin. There was a tradition that
in ancient times a prophet appeared to one of the ancestors of the
line, and after foretelling certain extraordinary events which were
to occur at some future period, stroked down the beard of his
auditor with his hand, and changed it to the color of brass, in
miraculous attestation of the divine authority of the message. The
man received the name of Brazenbeard in consequence, and he and his
descendants ever afterward retained it.
The family of the Brazenbeards was one of high rank and distinction,
though at the time of Nero's birth it was, like most of the other
prominent Roman families, extremely profligate and corrupt. Nero's
father, especially, was a very bad man. He was accused of the very
worst of crimes, and he led a life of constant remorse and terror.
His wife, Agrippina, Nero's mother, was as wicked as he; and it is
said that when the messenger came to him to announce the birth of
his child, the hero of this narrative, he uttered some exclamation
of ill-humor and contempt, and said that whatever came from him and
Agrippina could not but be fraught with ruin to Rome.
The rank and station of Agrippina in Roman society was even higher
than that of her husband. She was the sister of the emperor. The
name of the emperor, her brother, was Caligula. He was the third in
the series of Roman emperors, Augustus Caesar, the successor of
Julius Caesar, having been the first. The term emperor, however, had
a very different meaning in those days, from its present import. It
seems to denote now a sovereign ruler, who exercises officially a
general jurisdiction which extends over the whole government of the
state. In the days of the Romans it included, in theory at least,
only _military_ command. The word was _imperator_, which meant
_commander_; and the station which it denoted was simply that of
general-in-chief over the military forces of the republic.
In the early periods of the Roman history, every possible precaution
was taken to keep the military power in a condition of very strict
subordination to the authority of the civil magistrate and of law.
Very stringent regulations were adopted to secure this end. No
portion of the army, except such small detachments as were required
for preserving order within the walls, was allowed to approach the
city. Great commanders, in returning from their victorious
campaigns, were obliged to halt and encamp at some distance from the
gates, and there await the orders of the Roman Senate. The _Senate_
was, in theory, the great repository of political power. This Senate
was not, however, as the word might seem in modern times to denote,
a well-defined and compact body of legislators, designated
individually to the office, but rather a class of hereditary nobles,
very numerous, and deriving their power from immemorial usage, and
from that strange and unaccountable feeling of deference and awe
with which the mass of mankind always look up to an established, and
especially an ancient, aristocracy. The Senate were accustomed to
convene at stated times, in assemblages which were, sometimes,
conducted with a proper degree of formality and order, and sometimes
on the other hand, exhibited scenes of great tumult and confusion.
Their power, however, whether regularly or irregularly exercised,
was supreme. They issued edicts, they enacted laws, they allotted
provinces, they made peace, and they declared war. The armies, and
the generals who commanded them, were the _agents_ employed to do
their bidding.
The Roman armies consisted of vast bodies of men which, when not in
actual service, were established in permanent encampments in various
parts of the empire, wherever it was deemed necessary that troops
should be stationed. These great bodies of troops were the
celebrated Roman legions, and they were renowned throughout the
world for their discipline, their admirable organization, the
celerity of their movements, and for the indomitable courage and
energy of the men. Each legion constituted, in fact, a separate and
independent community. Its camp was its city. Its general was its
king. In time of war it moved, of course, from place to place, as
the exigencies of the service required; but in time of peace it
established itself with great formality in a spacious and permanent
encampment, which was laid out with great regularity, and fortified
with ramparts and fosses. Within the confines of the camp the tents
were arranged in rows, with broad spaces for streets between them;
and in a central position, before a space which served the purpose
of a public square, the rich and ornamented pavilions of the
commander and chief, and of the other generals, rose above the rest,
like the public edifices of a city. The encampment of a Roman legion
was, in fact, an extended and populous city, only that the dwellings
consisted of tents instead of being formed of solid and permanent
structures of wood or stone.
[Illustration: ENCAMPMENT OF A ROMAN LEGION.]
Roman legions were encamped in this way in various places throughout
the empire, wherever the Senate thought proper to station them.
There were some in Syria and the East; some in Italy; some on the
banks of the Rhine; and it was through the instrumentality of the
vast force thus organized, that the Romans held the whole European
world under their sway. The troops were satisfied to yield
submission to the orders of their commanders, since they received
through them in return, an abundant supply of food and clothing, and
lived, ordinarily, lives of ease and indulgence. In consideration of
this, they were willing to march from place to place wherever they
were ordered, and to fight any enemy when brought into the field.
The commanders obtained food and clothing for them by means of the
tribute which they exacted from conquered provinces, and from the
plunder of sacked cities, in times of actual war. These armies were
naturally interested in preserving order and maintaining in general
the authority of law, throughout the communities which they
controlled; for without law and order the industrial pursuits of men
could not go on, and of course they were well aware that if in any
country production were to cease, tribute must soon cease too. In
reading history we find, indeed, it must be confessed, that a
fearful proportion of the narrative which describes the achievements
of ancient armies, is occupied with detailing deeds of violence,
rapine, and crime; but we must not infer from this that the
influence of these vast organizations was wholly evil. Such extended
and heterogeneous masses of population as those which were spread
over Europe and Asia, in the days of the Romans, could be kept
subject to the necessary restraints of social order only by some
very powerful instrumentality. The legions organized by the Roman
Senate, and stationed here and there throughout the extended
territory, constituted this instrumentality. But still, during far
the greater portion of the time the power which a legion wielded was
power in repose. It accomplished its end by its simple presence, and
by the sentiment of awe which its presence inspired; and the nations
and tribes within the circle of its influence lived in peace, and
pursued their industrial occupations without molestation, protected
by the consciousness which everywhere pervaded the minds of men,
that the Roman power was at hand. The legion hovered, as it were,
like a dark cloud in their horizon, silent and in repose; but
containing, as they well knew, the latent elements of thunder, which
might at any time burst upon their heads. Thus, in its ordinary
operation, its influence was good. Occasionally and incidentally
periods of commotion would occur, when its action was violent,
cruel, and mercilessly evil. Unfortunately, however, for the credit
of the system in the opinion of mankind in subsequent ages, there
was in the good which it effected nothing to narrate; while every
deed of violence and crime which was perpetrated by its agency,
furnished materials for an entertaining and exciting story. The
good which was accomplished extended perhaps through a long, but
monotonous period of quiescence and repose. The evil was brief, but
was attended with a rapid succession of events, and varied by
innumerable incidents; so that the historian was accustomed to pass
lightly over the one, with a few indifferent words of cold
description, while he employed all the force of his genius in
amplifying and adorning the narratives which commemorated the other.
Thus, violent and oppressive as the military rulers were, by whom in
ancient times the world was governed, they were less essentially and
continuously violent and oppressive than the general tenor of
history makes them seem; and their crimes were, in some degree at
least, compensated for and redeemed, by the really useful function
which they generally fulfilled, of restraining and repressing all
disorder and violence except their own.
The Roman legions, in particular, were for many centuries kept in
tolerable subjection to the civil authorities of the capitol; but
they were growing stronger and stronger all the time, and becoming
more and more conscious of their strength. Every new commander who
acquired renown by his victories, added greatly to the importance
and influence of the army in its political relations. The great
Julius Caesar, in the course of his foreign conquests, and of his
protracted and terrible wars with Pompey, and with his other rivals,
made enormous strides in this direction. Every time that he returned
to Rome at the head of his victorious legions, he overawed the
capitol more and more. Octavius Caesar, the successor of Julius,
known generally in history by the name of Augustus, completed what
his uncle had begun. He made the military authority, though still
nominally and in form subordinate, in reality paramount and supreme.
The Senate, indeed, continued to assemble, and to exercise its usual
functions. Consuls and other civil magistrates were chosen, and
invested with the insignia of supreme command; and the customary
forms and usages of civil administration, in which the subordination
of the military to the civil power was fully recognized, were all
continued. Still, the actual authority of the civil government was
wholly overawed and overpowered; and the haughty _imperator_
dictated to the Senate, and directed the administration, just as he
pleased.
It required great genius in the commanders to bring up the army to
this position of ascendency and power; but once up, it sustained
itself there, without the necessity of ability of any kind, or of
any lofty qualities whatever, in those subsequently placed at the
head. In fact, the reader of history has often occasion to be
perfectly amazed at the lengths to which human endurance will go,
when a governmental power of any kind is once established, in
tolerating imbecility and folly in the individual representatives of
it. It seems to be immaterial whether the dominant power assumes the
form of a dynasty of kings, a class of hereditary nobles, or a line
of military generals. It requires genius and statesmanship to
instate it, but, once instated, no degree of stupidity, folly or
crime in those who wield it, seems sufficient to exhaust the spirit
of submission with which man always bows to established power--a
spirit of submission which is so universal, and so patient and
enduring, and which so transcends all the bounds of expediency and
of reason, as to seem like a blind instinct implanted in the very
soul of man by the Author of his being--a constituent and essential
part of his nature as a gregarious animal. In fact, without some
such instinct, it would seem impossible that those extended
communities could be formed and sustained, without which man, if he
could exist at all, could certainly never fully develop his
capacities and powers.
However this may be in theory, it is certain in fact, that the work
of bringing up the military power of ancient Rome to its condition
of supremacy over all the civil functions of government, was the
work of men of the most exalted capacities and powers. Marius and
Sylla, Pompey and Caesar, Antony and Augustus, evinced, in all their
deeds, a high degree of sagacity, energy, and greatness of soul.
Mankind, though they may condemn their vices and crimes, will never
cease to admire the grandeur of their ambition, and the
magnificence, comprehensiveness, and efficiency of their plans of
action. The whole known world was the theater of their contests, and
the armies which they organized and disciplined, and which they
succeeded at length in bringing under the control of one central and
consolidated command, formed the most extended and imposing
military power that the world had ever seen. It was not only vast in
extent, but permanent and self-sustaining in character. A wide and
complicated, but most effectual system was adopted for maintaining
it. Its discipline was perfect. Its organization was complete. It
was equally trained to remain quietly at home in its city-like
encampments, in time of peace, or to march, or bivouac, or fight, in
time of war. Such a system could be formed only by men possessed of
mental powers of the highest character; but, once formed, it could
afterward sustain itself; and not only so, but it was found capable
of holding up, by its own inherent power, the most imbecile and
incompetent men, as the nominal rulers of it.
Caligula, for example, the brother of Agrippina, and the reigning
emperor at the time of Nero's birth, was a man wholly unfit to
exercise any high command. He was elevated to the post by the
influence of the army, simply because he was the most prominent man
among those who had hereditary claims to the succession, and was
thus the man whom the army could most easily place in the office of
chieftain, and retain most securely there. His life, however, in the
lofty station to which accident thus raised him, was one of
continual folly, vice and crime. He lived generally at Rome, where
he expended the immense revenues that were at his command in the
most wanton and senseless extravagance. In the earlier part of his
career the object of much of his extravagance was the gratification
of the people; but after a time he began to seek only gratifications
for himself, and at length he evinced the most wanton spirit of
malignity and cruelty toward others. He seemed at last actually to
hate the whole human species, and to take pleasure in teasing and
tormenting men, whenever an occasion of any kind occurred to afford
him the opportunity. They were accustomed in those days to have
spectacles and shows in vast amphitheaters which were covered, when
the sun was hot, with awnings. Sometimes when an amphitheater was
crowded with spectators, and the heat of the sun was unusually
powerful, Caligula would order the awnings to be removed and the
doors to be kept closed so as to prevent the egress of the people;
and then he would amuse himself with the indications of discomfort
and suffering which so crowded a concourse in such an exposure would
necessarily exhibit. He kept wild animals for the combats which took
place in these amphitheaters, and when it was difficult to procure
the flesh of sheep and oxen for them, he would feed them with men,
throwing into their dens for this purpose criminals and captives.
Some persons who offended him, he ordered to be branded in the face
with hot irons, by which means they were not only subjected to cruel
torture at the time, but were frightfully disfigured for life.
Sometimes when the sons of noble or distinguished men displeased
him, or when under the influence of his caprice or malignity he
conceived some feeling of hatred toward them, he would order them to
be publicly executed, and he would require their parents to be
present and witness the scene. At one time after such an execution
he required the wretched father of his victim to come and sup with
him at his palace; and while at supper he talked with his guest all
the time, in a light, and jocular, and mirthful manner, in order to
trifle with and insult the mental anguish of the sufferer. At
another time when he had commanded a distinguished senator to be
present at the execution of his son, the senator said that he would
go, in obedience to the emperor's orders, but humbly asked
permission to shut his eyes at the moment of the execution, that he
might be spared the dreadful anguish of witnessing the dying
struggles of his son. The emperor in reply immediately condemned the
father to death for daring to make so audacious a proposal.
Of course the connection of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, with such
a sovereign as this, while it gave her a very high social position
in the Roman community, could not contribute much to her happiness.
In fact all who were connected with Caligula in any way lived in
continual terror, for so wanton and capricious was his cruelty, that
all who were liable to come under his notice at all were in constant
danger. Agrippina herself at one time incurred her brother's
displeasure, though she was fortunate enough to escape with her
life. Caligula discovered, or pretended to discover, a conspiracy
against him, and he accused Agrippina and another of his sisters
named Livilla of being implicated in it. Caligula sent a soldier to
the leader of the conspiracy to cut off his head, and then he
banished his sisters from Rome and shut them up in the island of
Pontia, telling them when they went away, to beware, for he had
swords for them as well as islands, in case of need.
At length Caligula's terrible tyranny was brought to a sudden end by
his assassination; and Agrippina, in consequence of this event was
not only released from her thraldom but raised to a still higher
eminence than she had enjoyed before. The circumstances connected
with these events will be related in the next chapter.