A slave brought your letter this morning from Antium, and since
the Emperor is sending one back to-morrow I take advantage of the
opportunity to obey your behest and to give you the news which you ask
for.
You demand a full account of my new life, and although it is now only
three weeks ago that I arrived, I feel as if many years had passed, so
crowded have they been with incident, experience, and even tragedy. I
will not anticipate, but will begin at the beginning.
As soon as my appointment was settled I was commanded to come to the
Palace and to take up my new duties at once. I arrived early one
morning about three weeks ago. I was shown the room I was to occupy,
and the library where I was to work--which is magnificent--and briefly
instructed in my duties, which are not heavy. I was to have my meals
with the Emperor’s Secretaries.
The first day of my arrival I saw no one, but the second morning, just
after I had settled down to my work--I have two assistants--a man
walked into the library and asked in a hesitating manner for a Greek
dictionary.
“I am sorry to trouble you,” he added, apologetically, “but I am a
wretched speller.”
I became aware--why exactly I cannot tell, since he was dressed in
a loose robe and slippers--that it was the Emperor. He looked at me
furtively, fixing his glance on the edge of my toga, so much so that I
began to think it must be dirty. He is badly made, his head looks as if
it might fall off his shoulders, his features are too big for his face,
and his hand shakes. In spite of all this there is about him a mournful
dignity--an air of intelligence, melancholy, and authority. I gave him
the dictionary and he looked out the word he wanted, but my presence
seemed to embarrass him, and he fumbled, and was a long time before he
could find what he was seeking. At last he found it and returned me the
book with a nervous cough. As he left the room he asked me to dine with
him that night. It would be quite informal, he said, only himself and
the Empress.
I looked forward to the evening with fear and curiosity, and when at
the appointed hour I found myself in the ante-room I was trembling
with nervousness. Presently the Emperor entered the room and said the
Empress would be down directly. He seemed to be as shy as I was myself.
After a prolonged silence he remarked that the month of October, which
had just begun, was the pleasantest month in the year. After this he
bade me be seated, relapsed into silence, and did not seem to notice
my presence. He stared at the ceiling and seemed to be engrossed in
his thoughts. Nearly twenty minutes passed in uncomfortable silence,
and then the Empress entered with a jingle of chains and bangles. She
smiled on me graciously, and we went into the dining room.
I had heard much about the beauty of the Empress, and the accounts
were scarcely exaggerated. Her face was childish and flower-like, her
hair and complexion dazzlingly fair, her smile radiant, her expression
guileless and innocent, and in her brown eyes there danced a bright and
delightful mischief.
We reclined, and course after course of rich and spicy dishes were
brought. We began with sturgeon and fried eels, followed by roast
sucking-pig, wild boar, calf, wild peacock, turkey, and various kinds
of game. The Emperor helped himself copiously and partook twice of
every course. The Empress toyed with her food and sipped a little
boiling water out of a cup. The Emperor did not speak at all, but the
Empress kept up a running conversation on the topics of the day--the
games, the new port of Ostia, the Emperor’s new improved alphabet, and
the progress of the History of Etruria, which he is writing in Greek.
“You will be a great help to him,” she said, talking as if he were not
present. “There is nobody at all literary at Court just now, and he
loves talking about literature. I am so anxious he should go on with
his writing--you must encourage him. I do what I can, but I am not up
to his scholarship and science; I am only an ignorant woman.”
Towards the end of dinner, Britain having been mentioned, the Emperor
discoursed at length on the native religion of that insignificant
island. The people there, he said, held the oak tree in great reverence
and sacrificed to a god who had certain affinities with the Etrurian
Moon-god; he intended to devote a chapter of his Etrurian history to
a comparison between the two religions; and he explained at enormous
length, and with a wealth of illustration which revealed untold
erudition, their likenesses and differences.
The Empress sat in rapt attention, drinking in every word, and when
he had finished she said: “Isn’t he wonderful?” He looked at her and
blushed, as pleased as a child at the praise.
When at last the long meal came to an end the Emperor took us to his
private study and showed me his books, almost all of which, dealt with
history and philosophy. He pulled down many of them from their shelves,
and discoursed learnedly about them, but the Empress always brought
the conversation back to his own writings, and insisted on his reading
out passages of the History of Carthage. (This I had to fetch from the
library.)
“You must read us my favourite bit about the death of Hannibal,” she
said.
The Emperor complied with her wishes, and read out in an expressionless
voice a narrative of the death of the Carthaginian hero, which I
confess was not distinguished either by originality of thought or
elegance of diction. It was, to tell the truth, tedious and interlarded
with many moral reflections of a somewhat trite order on the vanity
of human achievement. But during all the time he read, the Empress
sat opposite him with an expression of rapt interest, and at the more
pathetic passages tears came into her eyes. By the peroration on
Hannibal’s character, which said that he was a great man but a victim
of ambition, and that in contemplating so great an elevation and so
miserable an end man could not fail to be impressed, she was especially
moved. When it was finished she made him repeat some verses which he
had written about the death of Dido. The Emperor showed reluctance to
do this, but she finally persuaded him, saying that people might say
what they liked, but that she greatly preferred his verse to that of
Vergil. It was more human and more manly. In Vergil, she said, there
was always a note of effeminacy. I could not agree with her there,
but her admiration for her husband’s work was deeply touching in its
sincerity.
“If only he had more time to himself,” she said wistfully, “he would
write a magnificent epic--but he is a slave to his duty.”
The Emperor then mentioned that he was starting for Ostia in a few
days. The Empress put on a pained expression, and said it was too cruel
of him not to take her with him. He explained that he would willingly
have done so, but as his time there would be entirely devoted to
formal business he was sure she would be more happy at Rome. She then
asked him if he had any objection to her organizing a little ceremony
for the Festival of Bacchus during his absence. Silius had promised
to help her. They had even thought of performing a little play, quite
privately, of course, in the gardens, just for a few friends.
The Emperor smiled and said he had no objection, only he begged her
to see that etiquette was observed and that the guests should not
be allowed to take any liberties. “The Empress is so good-natured,”
he said, “and people take advantage of her good nature and her high
spirits, and the Romans, especially the matrons, are so spiteful.” He
had, of course, no objection to a little fun, and he wanted her above
all things to enjoy herself.
At that moment Narcissus, the freedman, entered with some papers for
the Emperor to sign. The Emperor glanced through them, signed most of
them, but paused at one.
“I thought,” he said, and then hesitated and coughed, “that we had
settled to pardon them.”
“There was an idea of it at first,” said Narcissus, “but you
afterwards, if you remember, agreed that it was necessary to make an
example in this case.”
“Yes, yes,” answered the Emperor.
“Are you talking of Verus and Antonius?” the Empress broke in. “You
promised me that they would be pardoned.”
“So I did,” said the Emperor, and then, turning to Narcissus, he said:
“I think in this case, in view of the rather exceptional circumstances,
we might strain a point.”
“But they are quite undeserving,” began Narcissus.
“The Emperor has pardoned them,” broke in the Empress, “he told me
so yesterday; let us scratch out their names,” and bending over the
Emperor with a kind and lovely smile, she suited the action to the
word. The Emperor smiled lovingly at her, and Narcissus withdrew,
biting his lips. Soon after that I withdrew also.
The next morning the Emperor started for Ostia. During the week that
followed the Empress visited me frequently in the library, and was
extremely kind; she took an extraordinary interest in my work, and
revealed a wide knowledge of literature. Her criticisms were always
acute. She evidently missed the Emperor very much. The more I saw of
her the more I admired her beauty, her kindness, and her wit, and
the more readily I understood the jealousy she inspired at Rome, a
jealousy which found vent in spiteful gossip and malicious scandal.
The Empress, I at once understood, was a creature compact of
kindness, gaiety, and impulse; she could not understand nor brook the
conventions and the hypocrisy of the world. She was a child of nature,
unsophisticated and unspoilt by the artifices of society. This is the
one thing the world can never forgive. When she was pleased she showed
it. Her spirits were unbounded, and she delighted in every kind of
frolic and fun, and was sometimes imprudent in giving rein to her happy
disposition and to the charming gaiety of her nature in public. This
did her harm and gave her enemies a pretext for inventing the wildest
and most absurd calumnies. But when she heard of this she only laughed
and said that the malice of her enemies would only recoil on their own
heads.
Alas! she was grievously mistaken. Her enemies were far more numerous
and more bitter than she supposed; moreover, they resented the
influence she exerted over her husband, just because this influence
was gentle and good. Here are the bare facts of what happened. The
Emperor was still at Ostia. The Empress was celebrating the Festival
of Bacchus in the Palatine Gardens according to the Emperor’s wish.
The feast lasted several days. Silius and Veltius Valens, who are both
skilled at that sort of thing, had arranged an effective amphitheatre,
and there were dances, music, and a whole pageant in honour of Bacchus.
It was a lovely sight.
On the last day of the festival a procession of Bacchanals, clad in
leopard skins and crowned with vine leaves, danced round the altar
playing the double flute. One day on the stage in the amphitheatre
a wine-press was revealed, and a chorus of wine-harvesters led by
the Empress herself trod the grapes. Never had the Empress looked so
beautiful as in this Bacchanal’s dress, and she joined in the fun with
a wild, irresponsible gaiety and enjoyed herself like a child. During
the whole festival, which had lasted a week, she had played a thousand
pranks, and on the first day of the merry-makings Silius had dressed up
as Bacchus, and the Empress as Ariadne, and they acted a play in which
a mock marriage ceremony had been performed--all this in fun, of course.
But there were spies among us, and Narcissus, who was at Ostia,
received daily accounts of what was happening. Skilfully he distorted
the facts and represented what had been a piece of harmless fun as a
scandalous orgy. He said the Empress, clad only in a vine-wreath, had
danced before all Rome, and that she had publicly wedded Silius. He
added a whole list of infamous details which were the fruits of his
jealous fancy; but, worst of all, he accused Silius and the Empress of
conspiracy, and said that they had attempted to bribe the Praetorian
Guards, that they were plotting to kill Claudius and usurp the Throne.
The festival was not over when a slave arrived breathless, and told
us what Narcissus had done. The Emperor, he said, was on his way
home. The Empress knew she must meet him face to face. She also knew
that Narcissus would do everything in his power to prevent it. The
courtiers, scenting the Empress’s overthrow, deserted her, and she set
out on foot to meet the Emperor. But Narcissus prevented the meeting,
and the Empress fled to Lucullus’ Villa, which Valerius Asiaticus had
bequeathed to her.
The Emperor arrived in time for dinner. I was summoned to his table. He
partook heartily of eight courses almost in silence, but seemed gloomy
and depressed. After dinner his spirits rose and he asked whether I
considered that Silius and the Empress had really plotted against
him. I told him the whole truth, and he expressed great annoyance at
Narcissus’ perfidy. He sent a message to say that the Empress was to
return at once--to be judged, he added cunningly, for he did not wish
Narcissus to know that he knew the truth. But Narcissus divined his
peril. He knew that as soon as the Empress returned his doom would be
sealed, and he told the tribune on duty that the Emperor had ordered
Messalina to be killed.
That evening I was bidden to supper; and before we had finished the
Emperor asked why Messalina had not come.
“Messalina,” said Narcissus, “is no more. She perished by her own hand.”
The Emperor made no comment, but told the slave to fill his goblet. He
finished supper in silence.
The next morning the Emperor came into the library. He asked for his
own Carthaginian history, and sat by the window, looking at it without
reading. Then he beckoned to me, and finding the passage on the death
of Hannibal, he pointed to it and tried to say something.
“She”--he began, but two large tears rolled down his cheeks, and he
choked. Since then he has never mentioned Messalina; he works, eats,
and talks like a man whose spirit is elsewhere, or a person who is
walking in his sleep.
Farewell, I can write no more, for I am shattered by this tragedy and
the dreadful end of one of the few really good women I have ever seen.