DARKNESS AND DAWN
OR
SCENES IN THE DAYS OF NERO
NINTH ISSUE.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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DARKNESS AND DAWN
OR
SCENES IN THE DAYS OF NERO
An Historic Tale
BY
FREDERIC W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
ARCHDEACON AND CANON OF WESTMINSTER, AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF CHRIST,”
ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1897
_Copyright_, _1891_,
BY F. W. FARRAR
First Edition, September, 1891. Reprinted December, 1891;
January and April, 1892; January and September, 1893;
February, 1895; May, 1896.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
VXORI
DILECTISSIMAE
LIBERORVM PIENTISSIMAE MATRI
LABORUM OMNIUM ET CURARUM PARTICIPI FIDELISSIMAE
HVNC LIBRVM
D. D. D.
FREDERICVS GVILIELMVS FARRAR
Dolce color d’oriental zaffiro,
Che s’accoglieva nel sereno aspetto
Dell’aer puro infino al primo giro,
Agli occhi miei ricomincio diletto,
Tosto ch’io usci fuor dell’aura morta,
Che m’avea contristato gli occhi e’l petto.
DANTE, _Purgatorio_, I. 13-18.
The orient sapphire’s hue of sweetest tone,
Which gathered in the aspect calm and bright
Of that pure air as far as heaven’s first zone,
Now to mine eyes brought back the old delight
Soon as I passed forth from the dead dank air
Which eyes and heart had veiled with saddest night.
PLUMPTRE.
PREFACE
I have endeavoured to choose a title for this book which shall
truly describe its contents. The ‘Darkness’ of which I speak is
the darkness of a decadent Paganism; the ‘Dawn’ is the dawn of
Christianity. Although the story is continuous, I have called it
‘_Scenes_ in the Days of Nero,’ because the outline is determined by
the actual events of Pagan and Christian history, more than by the
fortunes of the characters who are here introduced. In other words,
the fiction is throughout controlled and dominated by historic facts.
The purport of this tale is no less high and serious than that which
I have had in view in every other book which I have written. It
has been the illustration of a supreme and deeply interesting
problem--the causes, namely, why a religion so humble in its origin
and so feeble in its earthly resources as Christianity, won so
majestic a victory over the power, the glory, and the intellect
of the civilised world.
The greater part of the following story has been for some years in
manuscript, and, since it was designed, and nearly completed, several
books have appeared which deal with the same epoch. Some of these I
have not seen. From none of them have I consciously borrowed even the
smallest hint.
Those who are familiar with the literature of the first century will
recognise that even for the minutest allusions and particulars I
have contemporary authority. Expressions and incidents which, to
some, might seem to be startlingly modern, are in reality suggested
by passages in the satirists, epigrammatists, and romancers of
the Empire, or by anecdotes preserved in the grave pages of Seneca
and the elder Pliny. I have, of course, so far assumed the liberty
accorded to writers of historic fiction as occasionally to deviate,
to a small extent, from exact chronology, but such deviations are
very trivial in comparison with those which have been permitted to
others, and especially to the great masters of historic fiction.
All who know most thoroughly the real features of that Pagan darkness
which was deepest before the Christian dawn will see that scarcely
even by the most distant allusion have I referred to some of the
worst features in the life of that day. While I have not extenuated
the realities of cruelty and bloodshed, I have repeatedly softened
down their more terrible incidents and details. To have altered that
aspect of monotonous misery which pained and wearied its ancient
annalist would have been to falsify the real characteristics of the
age with which I had to deal.
The book is not a novel, nor is it to be judged as a novel. The
outline has been imperatively decided for me by the exigencies of
fact, not by the rules of art. I have been compelled to deal with
an epoch which I should never have touched if I had not seen, in the
features which it presented, one main explanation of an historical
event the most sacred and the most interesting on which the mind can
dwell.
The same object has made it inevitable that, at least in passing
glimpses, the figures of several whose names are surrounded with
hallowed associations should appear in these pages. I could not
otherwise bring out the truths which it was my aim to set forth. But
in this matter I do not think that any serious reader will accuse me
of irreverence. Onesimus, Pudens, Claudia, and a few others, must be
regarded as imaginary persons, except in name, but scarcely in one
incident have I touched the Preachers of early Christianity with
the finger of fiction. They were, indeed, men of like passions with
ourselves, and as St. Chrysostom says of St. Paul, ‘Even if he was
Paul, he was yet a man;’ but recognising their sacred dignity, I have
almost entirely confined their words to words of revelation. Even
if I had done more than this, I might plead the grave sanction and
example of Dante, and Milton, and Browning. But the small liberty
which I have dared to use has only been in directions accorded by the
cycle of such early legends as may be considered to be both innocent
and hallowed.
F. W. FARRAR.
CONTENTS
I. THE SOLILOQUIES OF AGRIPPINA
II. AGRIPPINA AND NERO
III. INSTRUMENTA IMPERII
IV. THE CRIME
V. THE MOCKERY OF DEATH
VI. THE ACCESSION OF NERO
VII. SENECA AND HIS FAMILY
VIII. SENECA AND HIS VISITORS
IX. NERO AND HIS COMPANIONS
X. PRINCE BRITANNICUS
XI. ‘A FOREIGN SUPERSTITION’
XII. ONESIMUS
XIII. THE ADVENTURES OF A RUNAWAY
XIV. MOTHER AND SON
XV. EMPEROR AND ÆSTHETE
XVI. EVENTS IN THE VILLA POLLUX
XVII. AMUSEMENTS OF AN EMPEROR
XVIII. VESPASIAN’S FARM
XIX. OTHO’S SUPPER AND WHAT CAME OF IT
XX. BROTHER AND SISTER
XXI. AMONG THE CHRISTIANS
XXII. BRITANNICUS AND HIS SONG
XXIII. PERILS OF BRITANNICUS
XXIV. BRITANNICUS UNDERGOES A NEW EXPERIENCE
XXV. LOCUSTA
XXVI. A BANQUET AND A CONVERSATION
XXVII. DEATH IN THE GOBLET
XXVIII. THE LAST OF THE CLAUDII
XXIX. AGRIPPINA AT BAY
XXX. A PRIVATE TRIAL
XXXI. THE INTERIOR OF A SLAVE-PRISON
XXXII. WANDERINGS OF AN OUTCAST
XXXIII. TITUS AND THE VESTAL
XXXIV. AN EVIL EPOCH
XXXV. THE MATRICIDE
XXXVI. SELF-AVENGED
XXXVII. VICTOR OVER THE PUBLIC SERVITUDE
XXXVIII. THE GLADIATORS’ SCHOOL
XXXIX. THE FIGHT IN THE ARENA
XL. THE SPOLIARIUM
XLI. THE KING OF THE GROVE
XLII. A MASSACRE OF SLAVES
XLIII. A NOTABLE PRISONER
XLIV. A SUPPER AT VESPASIAN’S
XLV. POPPÆA VICTRIX
XLVI. THE DEATH OF OCTAVIA
XLVII. A FETTERED AMBASSADOR
XLVIII. ENSLAVED AND FREE
XLIX. THE DEPTHS OF SATAN
L. A CITY IN FLAMES
LI. AN INFERNAL SUGGESTION
LII. ALITURUS AMONG THE CHRISTIANS
LIII. ‘HE WHO SAW THE APOCALYPSE’
LIV. IN THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE
LV. TWO MARTYRDOMS
LVI. LIVING TORCHES
LVII. A CONSPIRACY AND ITS COLLAPSE
LVIII. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SENECA
LIX. THE AGONY OF AN EMPRESS
LX. THE DOOM OF VIRTUE
LXI. BEFORE THE LION
LXII. NERO IN GREECE
LXIII. MUTTERING THUNDER
LXIV. AT THE THREE FOUNTAINS
LXV. IN THE CLUTCH OF NEMESIS
LXVI. L’ENVOI
FOOTNOTES
NOTES
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
BOOK I
* * * * *
‘_CLOTHO FERT FUSUM_’
CHAPTER I
_THE SOLILOQUIES OF AGRIPPINA_
‘Oramus, cave despuas, ocelle,
Ne pœnas Nemesis reposcat a te:
Est vehemens Dea; lædere hanc caveto.’
CATULL. _Carm._ L. 18-20.
The Palace of the Cæsars was a building of extraordinary spaciousness
and splendour, which had grown with the growing power of the emperors.
The state entrance was in the Vicus Apollinis, which led into the Via
Sacra. It was an Arch, twenty-nine feet high, surmounted by a statue
of Apollo and Diana driving a chariot of four horses, the work of
Lysias. Passing the Propylæa the visitor entered the sacred area,
paved with white marble and surrounded by fifty-two fluted columns
of Numidian giallo antico, with its soft tints of rose and gold.
Between these stood statues of the Danaides, with their father
Danaus brandishing a naked sword. In the open spaces before them
were the statues of their miserable Egyptian husbands, each reining
his haughty steed. Here, too, among other priceless works of art,
stood the famous Hercules of Lysippus, clothed in his lion’s skin
and leaning on his club. On one side was the Temple of Apollo, built
of the marble of Luna, designed by Bupalos and Anthermos of Chios.
On the top of its pediment was the chariot of Apollo in gilt bronze,
and the great bronze valves were encrusted[*1] with ivory bas-reliefs
of the triumph over Niobe, and the panic-stricken flight of the Gauls
from Delphi. Behind this temple was the shrine of Vesta, and on the
west side the famous Palatine Library, large enough to accommodate
the whole Senate, and divided into two compartments, Greek and Latin.
In its vestibule was a bronze statue, fifty feet high, which is said
to have represented Augustus with the attributes of Apollo.[1]
To the Palace and Propylæa of Augustus, with their open spaces,
and shrubs, and flowers, and fountains, Tiberius had added a separate
palace, known as the Domus Tiberiana, which overlooked the Velabrum;
and Gaius--more commonly known by his nickname of Caligula--had
filled with buildings the entire space between the Palace and the
Forum. He had also purchased the House of Gelotius, and in that
humble annex had delighted to spend nights of riotous orgies with
the grooms and charioteers of his favourite green faction. Since
his time it had been utilised as a training-school for the imperial
pages, whose scribblings, sometimes matter-of-fact, sometimes
humorous and satirical, can still be traced on the fast-crumbling
walls. Vast as was the whole composite structure, it received immense
additions from the restless extravagance of Nero, Domitian, and later
emperors.
But if it surpassed all the other buildings of imperial Rome in
magnificence, it surpassed them also in misery and guilt. Here, in
the days of Augustus, the Empress Livia had plotted the murder and
removal of all who stood in the way of her son’s succession. Here
in the days of Tiberius the conscious walls had witnessed the
deadly intrigues of Ælius Sejanus. In A.D. 23, that daring and
cruel conspirator had secured the poisoning of Drusus, the only son
of Tiberius, by insinuating himself into the affections of Livia,
his faithless wife. Here in A.D. 33, the younger Drusus, son of the
hero Germanicus, was slowly starved to death by order of Tiberius. In
one of the subterranean vaults he had poured out his mad reproaches
against the tyrant, had writhed under the savage rebukes of the
centurion, and had been beaten by the brutal slaves who guarded
his dungeon. For nine days he had lingered on, chewing in his agony
the tow with which his mattress was stuffed. Here the young Tiberius
Gemellus, grandson of Tiberius, piteously ignorant how to kill
himself, had been shown how to drive the poniard into his throat by
the tribune sent for that purpose by his cousin and adoptive brother,
Caligula. Chamber after chamber in that huge structure had witnessed
the wild and brutal freaks of that madman-emperor and the tortures
which he inflicted upon nobles and senators, whose mouths he ordered
to be gagged with their own bloodstained garments. Here he had been
visited with the dire vengeance of his crimes; for in the covered
gallery which he had built as a passage between his palace and the
theatre, he had been smitten by the fierce sword of the tribune
Cassius Chærea. Hard by--the stains of blood were still upon the
wall--his empress, the blue-eyed Cæsonia, had been stabbed in the
throat as she wailed and wept over the dead body of her lord; and her
little infant, Julia Drusilla, had been dashed against the stones.
Such was the Palace of pagan Rome in the days of Christ and His
Apostles.
It might well have seemed, even to the most callous worshipper of
the old gods, that a dark spirit was walking in that house; that the
phantoms of the unavenged dead haunted it; that ghostly footfalls
glided through its midnight corridors; and that in hidden corners the
lonely wanderer might come on some figure ‘weeping tears of blood,’
which vanished with ‘hollow shriek’ before the presence of the
innocent.
No such feelings of dread disturbed the thoughts of the Empress
Agrippina on a certain September evening, A.D. 54. The world was
at her feet. Her brave and good father, Germanicus, her chaste and
virtuous mother, the elder Agrippina, had been the idols alike of the
Roman soldiers and the Roman people. She was the great-granddaughter
of the Emperor Augustus; the granddaughter of the victorious Agrippa;
the great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius; the sister of the Emperor
Gaius: and now at last her unwearied intrigues had made her the sixth
wife of her uncle, the Emperor Claudius. Not content with such near
bonds to so many of those who were honoured as gods on earth, did she
not mean that her boy also--her darling Nero--should ere long mount
the throne of the Cæsars, and that she herself should govern for
many a long year in his name, as she now governed in the name of her
husband Claudius? Her ancestress Livia, the stately wife of Augustus,
had received the imperial title of Augusta, but not until her
husband’s death; Agrippina had received it, and with it every honour
which a servile Senate could devise, in her early prime. Had she not
sat on a throne, in unwonted splendour, by the side of her weak and
prematurely aged husband at the reception of foreign ambassadors? Was
she not privileged, alone of Roman princesses, to ride in a chariot
to the Capitol? Was not her fine head and lovely face stamped on
thousands of coins and medals? Had she not shown, in contrast to her
predecessor, the beautiful and abandoned Messalina, how dignified
could be a matron’s rule?
Yes, the world was at her feet; and by every glance and every gesture
she showed her consciousness of a grandeur such as no woman had
hitherto attained. Her agents and spies were numberless. The Court
was with her, for in the days of Claudius the Court meant the
all-powerful freedmen, who impudently ruled and pillaged their
feeble master; and if she could not seduce the stolid fidelity of
his secretary Narcissus, she had not disdained to stoop to the still
more powerful Pallas. The people were with her, for she was the sole
surviving child of the prince whom they had regarded with extravagant
affection. The intellect of Rome was on her side, for Seneca, always
among her favourites, had been recalled by her influence from his
banishment in feverous Corsica, and, holding the high position of
tutor to her son, was devoted to her cause. The Prætorian guards were
on her side, for Burrus, their bold and honest commander, owed his
office to her request. The power of gold was hers, for her coffers
had been filled to bursting by an immeasurable rapacity. The power
of fascination was hers, for few of those whom she wished to entangle
were able to resist her spells. Above all she could rely absolutely
upon herself. Undaunted as her mother, the elder Agrippina; popular
as her father, the adored Germanicus; brilliant and audacious as
her grandmother, Julia, the unhappy daughter of Augustus; full
of masculine energy and aptitude for business as her grandfather
Agrippa--who else could show such gifts or command such resources?
--But she had not yet drunk to the dregs the cup of ambition which
she had long ago lifted to her eager lips.
She was sitting on a low broad-backed seat, enriched with gilding
and ivory, in the gorgeous room which was set aside for her special
use. It was decorated with every resource of art, and the autumnal
sunlight which was falling through its warm and perfumed air glinted
on statuettes of gold and silver, on marble bas-reliefs of exquisite
fancy, and on walls which glowed with painted peacocks, winged genii,
and graceful arabesques.
Her face was the index of a soul which only used the meaner passions
as aids to the gratification of the grander ambitions. No one who
saw her, as she leant back in her easy half-recumbent attitude, could
have doubted that he was in the presence of a lady born to rule, and
in whose veins flowed the noblest blood of the most ancient families
of Rome. She was thirty-seven years old, but was still in the zenith
of her imperious charms, and her figure had lost none of the smooth
and rounded contour of youth. Her features were small and delicate,
the forehead well shaped, the eyes singularly bright, and of a light
blue, under finely marked eyebrows. Her nose was slightly aquiline,
the mouth small and red and beautiful, while the slight protrusion
of the upper lip gave to it an expression of decided energy. Her hair
was wavy, and fell in multitudes of small curls over her forehead and
cheeks, but was confined at the back of the head in a golden net from
which a lappet embroidered with pearls and sapphires fell upon her
neck, half concealed by one soft and glowing tress.
She sat there deep in thought, and her mind was not occupied with
the exquisite image of herself reflected from the silver mirror which
hung bright and large upon the wall before her. Her expression was
that which she wears in her bust in the Capitol--the expression of
one who is anxious, and waits. One sandalled foot rested on the ankle
of the other, and her fair hands were lightly folded on her robe.
That robe was the long _stola_ worn by noble matrons. It swept down
to her feet and its sleeves reached to the elbows, where they were
fastened by brooches of priceless onyx, leaving bare the rest of her
shapely arms. Two large pearls were in her ears, but she had laid
aside her other ornaments. On a little marble abacus beside her lay
her many-jewelled rings, her superb armlets set with rubies, and the
_murenula_--a necklace of linked and flexile gold glittering with
gems--which had encircled her neck at the banquet from which she just
had risen. Her attitude was one of rest; but there was no rest in the
bosom which rose and fell unequally with her varying moods--no rest
in the countenance with its look of proud and sleepless determination.
She was alone, but a frequent and impatient glance showed that she
expected some one to enter. She had dismissed her slaves, and was
devoting her whole soul to the absorbing design for which at that
moment she lived, and in the accomplishment of which she persuaded
herself that she was ready to die. That design was the elevation of
her Nero, at the first possible moment, to the throne whose dizzy
steps were so slippery with blood.
In the achievement of her purpose no question of right and wrong for
a moment troubled her. Guilt hid no horror for that fair woman. She
had long determined that neither the stings of conscience nor the
fear of peril should stop her haughty course. To her, as to most of
the women of high rank in the Rome of the Empire, crime was nothing
from which to shrink, and virtue was but an empty name. Philosophers
she knew talked of virtue. It was interesting to hear Seneca descant
upon it, as she had sometimes heard him do to her boy, while she
sat in an adjoining room only separated from them by an embroidered
curtain. But she had long ago convinced herself that this was fine
talk, and nothing more. Priests pretended to worship the gods; but
what were the gods? Had not the Senate made her ancestor Augustus
a god, and Tiberius, and her mad brother Caligula, and his little
murdered baby, the child of Cæsonia, which had delighted its father
by its propensity to scratch? If such beings were gods, to whom
incense was burned and altars smoked, assuredly she need not greatly
trouble herself about the inhabitants of Olympus.
Nemesis? Was there such a thing as Nemesis? Did a Presence stalk
behind the guilty, with leaden pace, with feet shod in wool, which
sooner or later overtook them--which cast its dark shadow at last
beyond their footsteps--which gradually came up to them, laid its
hand upon their shoulders, clutched them, looked them in the face,
drove into their heads the adamantine nail whose blow was death?
For a few moments her countenance was troubled; but it was not long
before she had driven away the gloomy thought with a disdainful smile.
It was true that there had been calamity enough in the bloodstained
annals of her kinsfolk: calamity all the more deadly in proportion to
their awful growth in power and wealth. Her thoughts reverted to the
story of her nearest relatives. She thought of the days of Tiberius,
when men scarcely dared to speak above a whisper, and when murder
lurked at the entrance of every noble home. Her uncles Gaius and
Lucius Cæsar had died in the prime of their age. Had they been
poisoned by Sejanus? Her other uncle, the young Agrippa Posthumus
--born after the death of his father, Agrippa--had been killed in a
mad struggle with the centurion whom Livia had sent to murder him in
his lonely exile. Her mother had been cruelly murdered; her aunt, the
younger Julia, had died in disgrace and exile on a wretched islet.
Her two brothers, Nero and Drusus, had come to miserable ends in
the flower of their days. Her third brother, the Emperor Caligula,
had been assassinated by conspirators. The two Julias, her sister
and her cousin, had fallen victims to the jealous fury of the Empress
Messalina. The name of her sister Drusilla had been already stained
with a thousand shames. She was the sole survivor of a family of
six princes and princesses, all of whom, in spite of all the favours
of fortune, had come, in the bloom of life, to violent and shameful
ends. She had herself been banished by her brother to the island
of Pontia, and had been made to carry on her journey, in her bosom,
the inurned ashes of her brother-in-law, Lepidus, with whom, as with
others, her name had been dishonourably involved. She had already
been twice a widow, and the world said that she had poisoned her
second husband, Crispus Passienus. What did she care what the world
said? But even if she had poisoned that old and wealthy orator--what
then? His wealth had been and would be very useful to her. Since
that day her fortunes had been golden. She had been recalled from
her dreary banishment. Her soul had been as glowing iron in the flame
of adversity; but the day of her adversity had passed. When the time
was ripe she had made her magnificent way in the Court of her uncle
Claudius until she became his wife, and had swept all her rivals out
of her path by her brilliant beauty and triumphant intrigues.
She thought of some of those rivals, and as she thought of them an
evil smile lighted up her beautiful features.
Messalina, her predecessor--did not everything seem to be in her
favour? Claudius had doted on her; she fooled him to the top of his
bent. She had borne him two fair children, and the emperor loved
them. Who could help loving the reserved but noble Britannicus, the
gentle and innocent Octavia? No doubt Messalina had felt certain that
her boy should succeed his father. But how badly she had managed! How
silly had been her preference for pleasure over ambition! How easily
Agrippina had contrived that, without her taking any overt share
in the catastrophe, Messalina should destroy herself by her own
shamelessness, and perish, while still little more than girl, by
the sword of the executioner, in a pre-eminence of shame!
And Lollia Paulina? What might she not have done with her enormous
riches? Agrippina could recall her--not at one of the great Court
gatherings, but at an ordinary marriage supper, in which she had
appeared in a dress embroidered from head to foot with alternate
rows of pearls and emeralds, with emeralds in her hair, emeralds of
deepest lustre on her fingers, a carcanet of emeralds--the finest
Rome had ever seen--around her neck. Yet this was not her best dress,
and her jewels were said to be worth eighty millions of sesterces.[2]
She remembered with what a stately step, with what a haughty
countenance the great heiress, who had for a short time been Empress
as wife of Caligula, passed among the ranks of dazzled courtiers,
with the revenues of a province upon her robes. Well, she had dared
to be a competitor with Agrippina for the hand of Claudius. It
required no small skill to avert the deeply seated Roman prejudice
against the union of an uncle with his niece; yet Agrippina had won
--thanks to the freedman Pallas, and to other things. She procured the
banishment of Lollia, and soon afterwards a tribune was sent and she
was bidden to kill herself. The countenance of the thinker darkened
for a moment as she remembered the evening when the tribune had
returned, and had taken out of its casket the terrible proof that
her vengeance was accomplished. How unlike was that ghastly relic
to the head whose dark locks had been wreathed with emeralds!
And Domitia Lepida, her sister-in-law, the mother of the Empress
Messalina, the aunt of her son Nero, the former wife of her own
husband, Crispus Passienus? She was wealthy as herself, beautiful as
herself, noble as herself, unscrupulous as herself. She might have
been a powerful ally, but how dared she to compete for the affections
of Nero? How dared she to be indulgent when Agrippina was severe? The
boy had been brought up in her house when his father was dead and his
mother an exile. His chances had seemed very small then, and Lepida
had so shamefully neglected him that his only tutors were a barber
and a dancer. But now that he held the glorious position of Prince of
the Roman Youth; now that he wore the manly toga, while Britannicus
only stood in humble boy’s dress--the embroidered robe, and the
golden bulla round his neck to avert the evil eye; now that it seemed
probable to all that Nero, the adopted son of Claudius, would be the
future Emperor instead of Britannicus, his real son, it was all very
well for Domitia to fondle and pamper him. It was a hard matter to
get rid of Lepida, for Narcissus, the faithful guardian of Claudius,
had opposed the attempt to get her put to death. Nevertheless,
Agrippina seldom failed in her purposes; and as for Lepida and
Narcissus--their turn might come!
She could only recall one insult which she had not avenged. The
senator Galba was rich, and was said by the astrologers to have an
imperial nativity. She had therefore made love to him so openly that
his mother, Livia Ocellina, had once slapped her in the face. If
she had not made Galba and his virago-mother feel the weight of her
vengeance, it was only because they were too insignificant to be any
longer worthy of her attention. She was too proud to take revenge
on minor opposition. The eagle, she thought, does not trouble itself
about the mole.
Enough! Her thoughts were getting too agitated! She must go step by
step; but who would dare to say that she would not succeed? The wit
and purpose of a woman against the world! ‘Yes, Nero, my Nero, thou
shalt be Emperor yet! Thou shalt rule the world, and I have always
ruled thee, and will rule thee still. Thy weak nature is under
my dominance; and I, whose heart is hard as the diamond, shall be
Empress of the world. Nemesis--if there be a Nemesis--must bide her
time.’
She murmured the words in a low tone to herself; but at this point
her reverie was broken.