THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS.
A.D. 65
Epicharis denies all knowledge of the conspiracy.--Seizures and
executions.--General panic.--Death of Piso.--The conspirators
discouraged.--Epicharis at the torture.--Her death.--The conspirators
tried before Nero.--Flavius.--Demeanor of Rufus in the garden.--He is
accused.--Rufus begs for his life.--His execution.--Flavius is
accused.--His desperation.--The execution of Flavius.--The executioner's
fears.--Seneca.--His character and public position.--Evidence against
Seneca.--His journey to Rome.--Seneca arrested.--His defence.--The
officer's report.--Nero decides that Seneca must die.--The death of
Seneca.--Grief and despair of Paulina.--They save Paulina's life.--The
consul Vestinus.--Large force sent to arrest Vestinus.--Vestinus
arrested.--His extraordinary fate.--Nero is pleased.--The guests at
Vestinus's supper.--Appearances of public rejoicing.--Nero grants gifts
to the army.--Nature of despotic government.--Secret of their
power.--Doubt in respect to Piso's conspiracy.
As soon as Nero had obtained all the information which he and his
officers could draw from Scevinus and Natalis, and had sent to all
parts of the city to arrest those whom the forced disclosures of
these witnesses accused, he thought of Epicharis, who, it will be
recollected, had been sent to prison, and who was still in
confinement there. He ordered Epicharis to be told that concealment
was no longer possible,--that Scevinus and Natalis had divulged the
plot in full, and that her only hope lay in amply confessing all
that she knew.
This announcement had no effect upon Epicharis. She refused to admit
that she knew any thing of any conspiracy.
Nero then ordered that she should be put to the torture. The engines
were prepared and she was brought before them. The sight of them
produced no change. She was then placed upon the wheel, and her
frail and delicate limbs were stretched, dislocated, and broken,
until she had endured every form of agony which such engines could
produce. Her constancy remained unshaken to the end. At length, when
she was so much exhausted by her sufferings that she could no longer
feel the pain, she was taken away to be restored by medicaments,
cordials, and rest, in order that she might recover strength to
endure new tortures on the following day.
In the mean time, panic and excitement reigned throughout the city.
Nero doubled his guards; he garrisoned his palace; he brought out
bodies of armed men, and stationed them on the walls of the city and
in the public squares, or marched them to and fro about the streets.
As fast as men were accused they were put to the question, and as
each one saw that the only hope for safety to himself was in freely
denouncing others, the names of supposed confederates were revealed
in great numbers, and as fast as these names were obtained the men
were seized and imprisoned or executed--the innocent and the guilty
together.
On the very first announcement that the plot had been discovered,
those of the conspirators who were still at large made all haste to
the house of Piso. They found him prostrate in consternation and
despair. They urged him immediately to come forth, and to put
himself at the head of an armed force, and fight for his life.
Desperate as such an undertaking might be, no other alternative,
they said, was now left to him. But all was of no avail. The
conspirators could not arouse him to action. They were obliged to
retire and leave him to his fate. He opened the veins in his arm,
and bled to death while the soldiers whom Nero had sent were
breaking into his house to arrest him.
Being thus deprived of their leader, the conspirators gave up all
hope of effecting the revolution, and thought only of the means of
screening themselves from Nero's vengeance.
In the mean time, Epicharis had so far recovered during the night,
that on the following morning it was determined to bring her again
to the torture. She was utterly helpless,--her limbs having been
broken by the execution of the day before. The officers accordingly
put her into a sort of sedan chair, or covered litter, in order that
she might be carried by bearers to the place of torture. She was
borne in this way to the spot, but when the executioners opened the
door of the chair to take her out, they beheld a shocking spectacle.
Their wretched victim had escaped from their power. She was hanging
by the neck, dead. She had contrived to make a noose in one end of
the cincture with which she was girded, and fastening the other end
to some part of the chair within, she had succeeded in bringing the
weight of her body upon the noose around her neck, and had died
without disturbing her bearers as they walked along.
[Illustration: BRINGING EPICHARIS TO THE TORTURE.]
In the mean time the various parties that were accused were seized
in great numbers, and were brought in for trial before a sort of
court-martial which Nero himself, with some of his principal
officers, held for this purpose in the gardens of the palace. The
number of those accused was so large that the avenues to the garden
were blocked up with them, and with the parties of soldiers that
conducted them, and multitudes were detained together at the gates,
in a state, of course, of awful suspense and agitation, waiting
their turns. It happened singularly enough that among those whom
Nero summoned to serve on the tribunal for the trial of the
prisoners were two of the principal conspirators, who had not yet
been accused. These were Subrius Flavius and Fenius Rufus, whom the
reader will perhaps recollect as prominent members of the plot.
Flavius was the man who had once undertaken to kill the emperor in
the streets, and while standing near him at the tribunal, he made
signs to the other conspirators that he was ready to stab him to the
heart now, if they would but say the word. But Rufus restrained
him, anxiously signifying to him that he was by no means to attempt
it. Rufus in fact seems to have been as weak-minded and irresolute
as Flavius was desperate and bold.
In fact although Rufus, when summoned to attend in the garden, for
the trial of the conspirators, did not dare to disobey, he yet found
it very difficult to summon resolution to face the appalling dangers
of his position. He took his place at last among the others, and
with a forced external composure which ill concealed the desperate
agitation and anxiety which reigned in his soul, he gave himself to
the work of trying and condemning his confederates and companions.
For a time no one of them betrayed him. But at length during the
examination of Scevinus, in his solicitude to appear zealous in
Nero's cause he overacted his part, so far as to press Scevinus too
earnestly with his inquiries, until at length Scevinus turned
indignantly toward him saying--
"Why do _you_ ask these questions? No person in Rome knows more
about this conspiracy than you, and if you feel so devoted to this
humane and virtuous prince of yours, show your gratitude by telling
him, yourself, the whole story."
Rufus was perfectly overwhelmed at this sudden charge, and could not
say a word. He attempted to speak, but he faltered and stammered,
and then sank down into his seat, pale and trembling, and covered
with confusion. Nero and the other members of the tribunal were
convinced of his guilt. He was seized and put in irons, and after
the same summary trial to which the rest were subjected, condemned
to die. He begged for his life with the most earnest and piteous
lamentations, but Nero was relentless, and he was immediately
beheaded.
The conspirator Flavius displayed a very different temper. When he
came to be accused, at first he denied the charge, and he appealed
to his whole past character and course of life as proof of his
innocence. Those who had informed against him, however, soon
furnished incontestable evidence of his guilt, and then changing his
ground, he openly acknowledged his share in the conspiracy and
gloried in it even in the presence of Nero himself. When Nero asked
him how he could so violate his oath of allegiance and fidelity as
to conspire against the life of his sovereign, he turned to him with
looks of open and angry defiance and said--
"It was because I hated and detested you, unnatural monster as you
are. There was a time when there was not a soldier in your service
who was more devoted to you than I. But that time has passed. You
have drawn upon yourself the detestation and abhorrence of all
mankind by your cruelties and your crimes. You have murdered your
mother. You have murdered your wife. You are an incendiary. And not
content with perpetrating these enormous atrocities, you have
degraded yourself in the eyes of all Rome to the level of the lowest
mountebank and buffoon, so as to make yourself the object of
contempt as well as abhorrence. I hate and defy you."
Nero was of course astonished and almost confounded at hearing such
words. He had never listened to language like this before. His
astonishment was succeeded by violent rage, and he ordered Flavius
to be led out to immediate execution.
The centurion to whom the execution was committed conducted Flavius
without the city to a field, and then set the soldiers at work to
dig the grave, as was customary at military executions, while he
made the other necessary preparations. The soldiers, in their haste,
shaped the excavation rudely and imperfectly. Flavius ridiculed
their work, asking them, in a tone of contempt, if they considered
that the proper way to dig a military grave. And when at length,
after all the preparations had been made, and the fatal moment had
arrived, the tribune who was in command called upon him to uncover
his neck and stand forth courageously to meet his fate--he replied
by exhorting the officer himself to be resolute and firm. "See,"
said he, "if you can show as much nerve in striking the blow,
as I can in meeting it." To cut down such a man, under such
circumstances, was of course a very dreadful duty, even for a Roman
soldier, and the executioner faltered greatly in the performance of
it. The decapitation should have been effected by a single blow; but
the officer found his strength failing him when he came to strike,
so that a second blow was necessary to complete the severance of the
head from the body. The tribune was afraid that this, when
represented to Nero, might bring him under suspicion, as if it
indicated some shrinking on his part from a prompt and vigorous
action in putting down the conspiracy; and so on his return to Nero
he boasted of his performance as if it had been just as he intended.
"I made the traitor die twice," said he, "by taking two blows to
dispatch him."
But perhaps the most melancholy of all the results of this most
unfortunate conspiracy, was the fate of Seneca. Seneca, it will be
remembered, had been Nero's instructor and guardian in former years,
and subsequently one of his chief ministers of state. He was now
almost seventy years of age, and besides the veneration in which he
was held on this account, and the respect that was paid to the
exalted position which he had occupied for so long a period, he was
very highly esteemed for his intellectual endowments and for his
private character. His numerous writings, in fact, had acquired for
him an extensive literary fame.
But Nero hated him. He had long wished him out of the way. It was
currently reported, and generally believed, that he had attempted to
poison him. However this may be, he certainly desired to find some
occasion of proceeding against him, and such an occasion was
furnished by the developments connected with this conspiracy.
Natalis, in the course of his testimony, said that he supposed that
Seneca was concerned in the plot, for he recollected that he was
once sent to him, while he was confined to his house by illness,
with a message from Piso. The message was, that Piso had repeatedly
called at his, that is, Seneca's house, but had been unable to
obtain admittance. The answer which Seneca had returned was, that
the reason why he had not received visitors was, that the state of
his health was very infirm, but that he entertained none but
friendly feelings toward Piso, and wished him prosperity and
success.
Nero determined to consider this as proof that Seneca was privy to
the conspiracy, and that he secretly abetted it. At least he
determined, for a first step, to send an officer with a band of
armed men to arrest him, and to lay the crime to his charge. Seneca
was not in the city at this time. He had been absent in Campania,
which was a beautiful rural region, south of Rome, back from
Misenum. He was, however, that very day on his return to Rome, and
Silvanus, the officer whom Nero sent to him, met him on the way, at
a villa which he possessed a few miles from Rome. The name of this
villa was Nomentanum.[C] Seneca had stopped at the villa to spend
the night, and was seated at the table with Paulina his wife, when
Silvanus and his troop arrived.
[Footnote C: See map. Frontispiece.]
The soldiers surrounded the house, so as to prevent all possibility
of escape, and posted sentinels at the doors. Silvanus and some of
his associates then went in, and entering the hall where Seneca was
at supper, they informed him for what purpose they were come.
Silvanus repeated what Natalis had testified in respect to the
messages which had passed between Seneca and Piso. Seneca admitted
that the statement was true, but he declared that the word which he
had sent to Piso was only an ordinary message of civility and
friendliness; it meant nothing more. Finding that no farther
explanation could be obtained, Silvanus left Seneca in his villa,
with a strong guard posted around the house, and returned to Rome to
report to Nero.
When Nero had heard the report, he asked Silvanus whether Seneca
appeared sufficiently terrified by the accusation to make it
probable that he would destroy himself that night.[D] Silvanus
answered no. "He displayed," said he, "no marks of fear. There was
no agitation, no sign of regret, no token of sorrow. His words and
looks bespoke a mind calm, confident and firm."
[Footnote D: It seems to have been considered by public men in those
days, that to resolve on self-destruction was a much more honorable
course to pursue in an extreme emergency like this, than to wait to
be condemned and executed by the officers of the law. The attempt to
frighten a man into the act of killing himself was accordingly _one_
of the various modes which a tyrant might resort to, to remove those
who were obnoxious to him.]
"Go to him," rejoined Nero, "and tell him that he must make up his
mind to die."
Silvanus was thunderstruck at receiving this order. He could not
believe it possible that Nero would really put to death a man so
venerable in years and wisdom, who had been to him all his life, in
the place of a father. Instead of proceeding directly to Seneca's
house he went to consult with the captain of the guard, who, though
really one of the conspirators, had not yet been accused, and was
still at liberty, though trembling with apprehension at the
imminence of his danger. The captain, after hearing the case, said
that nothing was to be done but to deliver the message. Silvanus
then went to Seneca's villa, but not being able to endure the
thought of being himself the bearer of such tidings, sent in a
centurion with the message.
Seneca received it with calm composure, and immediately made
preparations for terminating his life. His wife Paulina insisted on
sharing his fate. He gathered his friends around him to give them
his parting counsels and bid them farewell, and ordered his servants
to make the necessary preparations for opening his veins. Then
ensued one of those sad and awful scenes of mourning and death, with
which the page of ancient history is so often darkened--forming
pictures, as they do, too shocking to be exhibited in full detail.
The calm composure of Seneca, was contrasted on the one hand with
the bitter anguish and loud lamentations of his domestics and
friends, and on the other with Paulina's mute despair. When the
veins were opened, the blood at first would not flow, and various
artificial means were resorted to, to accelerate the extinction of
life; at last, however, Seneca ceased to breathe. The domestics of
the family then begged and entreated the soldiers with many tears,
that they might be allowed to save Paulina if it were not too late.
The soldiers consented; so the women bound up her wounds, as she lay
insensible and helpless before them, and thus stopping the farther
effusion of blood, they watched over her with assiduous care, in
hopes to restore her. They succeeded. They brought her back to life,
or rather to a semblance of life; for she never really recovered so
as to be herself again, during the few lonely and desolate years
through which she afterward lingered.
There was another Roman citizen of the highest rank who fell an
innocent victim to the angry passions which the discovery of this
plot awakened in Nero's mind. It was the consul Vestinus. Vestinus
was a man of great loftiness of character, and had never evinced
that pliancy of temper, and that submissiveness to the imperial
will, which Nero required. His position, too, as consul, which was
the highest civil office in the commonwealth, gave him a vast
influence over the people of Rome, so that Nero feared as well as
hated him. In fact, so great was his independence of character, and
his intractability, as it was sometimes called, that the
conspirators, after mature deliberation, had concluded not to
propose to him to engage in the plot. But, though he was thus
innocent, Nero did not certainly know the fact, and, at any rate,
such an opportunity to effect the destruction of a hated rival, was
too good to be lost. Very soon, therefore, after the disclosure of
the conspiracy had been made, Nero sent a tribune, at the head of
five hundred men, to arrest the consul.
This large force was designated for the service, partly because,--on
account of the high rank and office of the accused,--Nero did not
know what means of resistance the consul might be able to command,
and partly because his house, which was situated in the most public
part of the city, overlooking the Forum, was in itself a sort of
citadel, of which the various officers of Vestinus's household, and
his numerous retainers, constituted a sort of garrison. It happened
that, at the time when Nero sent his troop to make the arrest,
Vestinus was entertaining a large party of friends at supper. The
festivities were suddenly interrupted, and the whole company were
thrown into a state of the most frightful excitement and confusion,
by the sudden onset of this large body of armed men, who besieged
the doors, blocked up all the avenues of approach, and, surrounding
and guarding the house on every side, shut all the inmates in, as if
they were investing the castle of an enemy. Certain soldiers of the
guard were then sent in to Vestinus in the banqueting-room, to
inform him that the tribune wished to speak with him on important
business.
The consul knew the character of Nero, and the feelings which the
tyrant entertained toward him too well, and saw too clearly the
advantage which the discovery of the conspiracy gave to Nero, not to
perceive at once that his fate was sealed; and the action which he
took in this frightful emergency comported well with his
insubmissive and intractable character. Instead of obeying the
summons of the tribune, he repaired immediately to a private
apartment, summoned his physician, directed a bath to be prepared,
ordered the physician to open his veins, lay down in the bath to
promote the flowing of the blood, and in a few minutes ceased to
breathe.
The announcement of the consul's death, when it came to be reported
to Nero, of course gave him great satisfaction. He continued the
guards, however, still about the house, keeping the guests
imprisoned in the banqueting-room for many hours. Of course, during
all this time, the minds of these guests were in a state of extreme
distress and apprehension, inasmuch as every one of them must
necessarily have felt in immediate danger. When the anxiety and
agitation which they felt, was reported to Nero, he was greatly
entertained by it, and said that they were paying for their consular
supper. He kept them in this state of suspense until nearly morning,
and then ordered the guards to be withdrawn.
The number of victims who were sacrificed to Nero's resentment in
consequence of this conspiracy, was very large; so that the streets
were filled with executions and with funeral processions for many
days. Universal grief and panic prevailed, and yet no one dared to
manifest the slightest indications of sorrow or of fear. The people
supposed that pity for the sufferers, or anxiety for themselves,
would be interpreted as proofs that they had been concerned in the
conspiracy; for multitudes of those who had been put to death, were
condemned on pretexts and pretended proofs of the most frivolous
character. Every one, therefore, even of those whose nearest and
dearest friends had been killed, was compelled to assume all the
appearances of extravagant joy that so wicked a plot against the
life of so wise and excellent a prince, had been exposed, and the
guilty devisers of it brought to punishment. Parents whose sons had
been slain, and wives and children who had lost their husbands and
fathers, were thus compelled to unite in the congratulations and
expressions of joy which were everywhere addressed to the emperor.
Processions were formed, addresses were made, sacrifices were
offered, games, spectacles, and illuminations without number were
celebrated, to testify to the general rejoicing; and thus the city
presented all the outward appearances of universal gladness and joy,
while, in truth, the hearts of men were everywhere overwhelmed with
anxiety, grief, and fear.
When at length a sufficient number of the citizens of Rome had been
destroyed, Nero assembled the army, and after making an address to
the troops on the subject of the conspiracy, and on his happy escape
from the danger, he divided an immense sum of money from the public
treasury among the soldiers, so as to give a very considerable
largess to each man. He also distributed among them a vast amount of
provisions from the public granaries. This act, and the connection
between Nero and the troops which it illustrates, explain what would
otherwise seem an inscrutable mystery, namely, how it can be
possible for one man to bring the immense population of such an
empire as that of ancient Rome so entirely under his power, that any
number of the most prominent and influential of the citizens shall
be seized and beheaded, or thrust through the heart with swords and
daggers at a word or a nod from him. The explanation is, _the army_.
Give to the single tyrant one or two hundred thousand desperadoes,
well banded together, and completely armed, under a compact between
them by which he says, "Help me to control, to domineer over, and to
plunder the industrial classes of society, and I will give you a
large share of the spoil," and the work is very easy. The
governments that have existed in the world have generally been
formed on this plan. They have been simply vast armies authorized to
collect their own pay by the systematic plunder of the millions
whose peaceful industry feeds and clothes the world. The remedy
which mankind is now beginning to discover and apply is equally
simple. The millions who do the work are learning to keep the arms
in their own hands, and to forbid the banding together of masses of
troops for the purpose of exalting pride and cruelty to a position
of absolute and irresponsible power.
In Nero's case, so great was the awe which the terrible power of the
Roman legions inspired, that even the Senate bowed humbly before it,
and joined in the general adulation of the hated tyrant. They
decreed oblations and public thanksgivings; they erected new temples
to express their gratitude to the gods for so signal a deliverance;
they instituted new games and festivities to express the general
joy, and erected statues and monuments in honor of those who had
contributed to the discovery of the plot. The knife or dagger which
Milichus had produced as the one by which Nero was to have been
slain, was preserved as a sacred relic. A suitable inscription was
placed upon it, and it was deposited, with all solemnity, in one of
the temples of the city, there to remain a memorial of the event for
all future generations. In a word, the tyrant's escape from death
called forth all the outward manifestations of joy which could have
been deserved by the greatest public benefactor.
And yet, notwithstanding all this, such was the estimate which
public sentiment really entertained of the true character of Nero,
that it was considered extremely doubtful at the time, and has, in
fact, been so considered ever since, whether there ever was any
conspiracy at all. It was very extensively believed that the whole
pretended discovery of the plot was an ingenious device on the part
of Nero, to furnish him with plausible pretexts for destroying a
great number of men who were personally obnoxious to him. And were
it not almost impossible to believe that such monstrous wickedness
and tyranny as that of Nero could riot so long over Romans without
arousing them to some desperate attempts to destroy him, we might
ourselves adopt this view, and suppose that this celebrated plot was
wholly a fabrication.