_THE MOCKERY OF DEATH_
‘Esse aliquos Manes et subterranea regna
* * * * *
Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur,
Sed tu vera puta.’--JUV. _Sat._ ii. 149-153.
Agrippina had long contrived to secure the absolute devotion of her
slaves, clients, and freedmen. In that vast household of at least
sixteen hundred persons, all courteously treated and liberally paid,
there were many who were ready to go any lengths in support of their
patroness. Among them was the freedman Mnester, who knew but little
of her crimes, but was enthusiastic in her interests. She made
constant use of him on that eventful day.
Among her slaves were some of the Chaldæai and casters of horoscopes,
so common in those times, in whom she placed a superstitious
confidence. Her first care was to consult them, and she determined
to take no overt step until they should announce that the auspicious
hour had come. She then hastened to the chamber where Xenophon still
kept his watch beside the man whom he had murdered. He kept that
watch with perfect indifference. His was a soul entirely cynical and
atheistic; greedy of gain only, case-hardened by crime. The bargain
between him and the Empress was perfectly understood between them.
Enormous wealth would be the price of his silence and success; death
would punish his failure.
There was nothing to be seen but the dead form covered from head to
foot by a purple coverlet.
She pointed to it. ‘He must still be supposed to be alive,’ she said.
‘The Chaldæans say that the omens are still inauspicious. How are we
to keep the secret for some hours longer?’
‘Asclepiades teaches,’ answered the physician, with the scarcely
veiled sneer which marked his tone of voice, ‘how good it is that
the pains of dying men should be dissipated by comedy and song. The
Empress can order some comedians to play in the adjoining chamber.
If they cannot avail the divine Claudius, they will at least serve
to amuse my humble self, and I have now been in this room for many
hours.’
‘Does any one suspect that he is dead?’
‘No, Augusta,’ he answered. ‘To dissipate the too suspicious silence,
I have occasionally made curious sounds, at which I am an adept. They
will delude any chance listener into the belief that my patient is
still alive.’
For a moment her soul was shocked by the suggestion of sending for
the mummers. But she saw that it would help to prevent the truth from
leaking out. For one instant she lifted the purple robe and looked on
the old man of sixty-four, who had thus ended his reign of fourteen
years. She dropped it over the features, which, in the majesty of
death, had lost all their coarseness and imbecility, and showed the
fine lineaments of his ancestors. The moment afterwards she was sorry
that she had done it. That dead face haunted all her after life.
Leaving the chamber without a word, she gave orders that, as the
Emperor was now awake, and had asked for something to amuse him, some
skilled actors of comedy should be sent for to play to him from the
adjoining room. They came and did their best, little knowing that
their coarse jests and riotous fun did but insult the sacred majesty
of death. After an hour or two Xenophon, who had been laughing
uproariously, came out, thanked them in the Emperor’s name, and
dismissed them.
But Agrippina had hastened to one of the audience rooms, in which the
Palace abounded, and sent for Britannicus and Octavia, and for their
half-sister Antonia. She embraced them with effusive fondness. It
was her special object to detain Britannicus in her presence, lest
if but one faithful friend discovered that Claudius was dead, he
might summon the adherents of the young prince, and present him to
the people as the true heir to the throne. With pretext after pretext
she detained him by her side, telling him of the pride and comfort
which she felt in his resemblance to the Emperor, calling him a true
Cæsar, a true Claudius. Again and again she drew him to her knee;
she held him by the hand; she passed her jewelled fingers through his
hair; she amused him with the pretence of constant messages to the
sick-room of his father. And all the while her soul was half-sick
with anxiety, for the Chaldæans still sent to say that the hour was
inauspicious, and she did not fail to observe that the boy, as much
as he dared to show his feelings, saw through her hypocrisy, resented
her caresses. He burned to visit the bedside of his father, and was
bitterly conscious that something was going on of which he and his
sisters were the special victims. For he was a noble and gifted boy.
Something he had of the high bearing of his race, something, too, of
the soft beauty of his mother. His tutor, the grammarian Sosibius,
had done for him all that had been permitted, and though Britannicus
had purposely been kept in the background by the wiles of his
stepmother, the teacher had managed to inspire him with liberal
culture, and to enrich his memory with some grand passages of
verse. Nero was more than three years his senior, and in superficial
qualities and graces outshone him; but keen observers whispered that
though Britannicus could not sing or paint or drive a chariot like
his stepbrother, and was less fascinating in manner and appearance,
he would far surpass Nero in all manly and Roman virtues. The heart
of Octavia was full of unspeakable misgivings. Motherless, unloved,
neglected, she had known no aspect of life except its tragedy, and
none had as yet taught her any possible region in which to look for
comfort under the burden of the intolerable mystery.
The morning hours passed heavily, and Agrippina was almost worn out
by the strain put upon her. In vain she tried to interest Britannicus
in the talking-thrush, which had greatly amused him on previous
occasions. She went so far as to give him her white nightingale,
which was regarded as one of the greatest curiosities in Rome. It
had been bought for a large sum of money, and presented to her.
Pliny, among his researches in natural history, had never heard of
another.[5] At another time Britannicus would have been enraptured
by so interesting and valuable a gift; but now he saw that it was the
object of the Empress simply to detain him and his friends from any
interference with her own designs. He thanked her coldly, and
declined to rob her of a possession which all Rome desired to see.
At last he grew beyond measure impatient. ‘I am certain,’ he said,
‘that my father is very ill, and that he would wish to see me.
Augusta, must I be kept in this room like a child among women? Let
me go to the Emperor.’
‘Wait,’ she said, ‘for a little longer, dear Britannicus. You surely
would not waken the Emperor from the sleep which may prove to be the
saving of his life? It is getting towards noon; you must be hungry.
The slaves shall bring us our _prandium_ here.’
It was said to save time, but Britannicus saw that it would be vain
to escape. The door was beset with soldiers and with the slaves and
freedmen of the Empress. Some great event was evidently at hand. The
halls and corridors were full of hurrying footsteps. Outside they
heard the clang of armed men, who marched down the Vicus Apollinis,
and stopped at the vestibule of the Palace.
Then Pallas entered, and, with a deep obeisance, said, ‘Augusta, I
grieve to be the bearer of evil tidings. The Emperor is dead.’
Octavia burst into a storm of weeping at the terrible intelligence,
for she had been partially deceived by the protestations of
Agrippina. Britannicus sat down and covered his face with his hands.
He had always assumed that he would at least share the throne with
the youth whom Claudius, at the wearying importunities of his mother,
had needlessly adopted, and had repented of having adopted. But
he loved his father, who had always been kind to him, and at that
dreadful moment no selfish thought intruded on his anguish. After the
first burst of sorrow, he got up from his seat, and tenderly clasped
the hand of his sister.
‘Octavia,’ he said, ‘we are orphans now--fatherless, motherless, the
last of our race. We will be true to each other. Take courage. Be
comforted. Antonia,’ he added, gently taking his half-sister by the
hand, ‘I will be a loyal brother to you both.’