_EMPEROR AND ÆSTHETE._
‘The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burned, carded his state,
Mingled his royalty with capering fools,
Had his great name profaned with their scorns.’
1. _Henry IV._ iii. 2.
Nero tried to persuade himself that he cared little for such scenes
as that which we have witnessed; but in reality they troubled him.
It required a strong effort to shake off their effects, and they left
his small pleasure-loving nature in a state of tremor and disgust. He
longed to escape from them to some complete retirement, where, away
from all pomp, he could give himself up, heart and soul, to selfish
æstheticism and voluptuous delight.
He had villas at Antium and at Baiæ, but even they were more public
than he desired, and he determined to escape from the noise and heat
and worry of Rome to an enchanting lodge which had been designed by
the architects, Severus and Celer, in one of the wildest gorges of
the Simbruine ridge of the Apennines, a little above the modern town
of Subiaco. Through this gorge the icy stream of the Anio forces its
way, leaping down into the valley beneath in tumultuous cataracts.
By damming the river the architects had with consummate taste and
skill, caused it to spread into three mountain lakes, three hundred
feet above the valley. On either side of the gorge they had built
a hunting-lodge half hidden amid the dense foliage, and the two
villas--for such they practically were--had been united by a bridge
which spanned the abyss with a graceful arch at a stupendous height
above the valley. Nature and art combined to make the scene supremely
beautiful. The grounds and gardens of the villas spread down to the
smiling vale beneath, by walks under overhanging rocks, tapestried
with the luxuriant growth of creepers and wild flowers. Underfoot
the moss of softest emerald was now variegated with the red autumnal
leaves. Where the pure runnels trickled down little gullies of the
rocks they were brightened with maidenhair and arborescent ferns.
The artificial sheets of water, in which many water-fowl swam
undisturbed, were overshadowed by beeches and oaks and golden
platanes which late autumn had touched with her fiery finger.
It was an enchanting spot. Gay shallops were always ready on the
artificial lakes if any guest cared to row or to plunge in the cool
bright water. On the smooth lawn the ‘gemmy peacocks,’ as the Latin
poets called them, strutted and displayed their Indian glories,
mingled with tame pheasants and partridges. Kids leaped and sported
about the rocky slopes. The cushat-doves cooed from the groves,
and white pigeons from the dove-cotes would come crowding round
for maize-grain at the slightest call. The Rhodian hens clucked
contentedly about the farmyard, which was crowded also with geese
and guinea-fowls. The long-haired young town-slaves, full of frolic,
worked in the garden in mock obedience to the orders of the country
bailiff; but the gardener did not attach much importance to their
labours, for they were far more intent on pilfering the best fruit
they could find in the granaries than on cultivating the soil; and
the rustics knew that to offend them was as much as their place was
worth.
The lodges themselves made no pretence to the Cæsarean magnificence
of the Palace at Rome. But their simplicity did not exclude the
exercise of luxurious taste in their construction and adornment. All
the rooms were brightened with lovely frescoes painted by the most
famous rhyparographists. On the walls of the richer apartments there
were orbs of porphyry and lapis lazuli. The impluvium, into which
fell the ceaseless plash of a musical fountain, was a basin of
Thasian stone, once a rarity even in temples, and the stop which
regulated the play of the water was formed into the winged figure
of a child moulded in silver. In the centre of the hall, which was
tessellated with small pieces of blue and white marble, there was
an exquisite copy of the doves of Scopas. Statues by such masters
as Myron and Praxiteles stood between the pillars of the peristyle.
The windows were filled with glass, and between them were abaci
of peacock-marble, supported on the gilded wings of Cupids, and
of griffins which looked in opposite directions. On these slabs of
marble stood some of the gold and silver plate which Augustus had
ordered to be made out of the statuettes of precious metals which
had been erected to him by too-adulatory provincials. On other
tables of ivory and fragrant woods lay engraved gems and cameos,
or curiosities, brought from all lands. The walls of the small but
precious library were covered, in imitation of the famous library of
Apollo, with medallions of the most famous Greek and Roman authors
in repoussé work of gold and silver, or moulded of Corinthian bronze.
Poets, historians, jurists, orators were grouped together, and
between the groups were framed specimens of the most exquisite
palæography.
Nero was going for the first time to take possession of this
enchanting retreat, the loveliness of which had kindled the surprise
and admiration of the few who had seen it. He started from Rome with
a splendid retinue. He himself rode in a light car, inlaid with ivory
and silver, and was followed by an army of a thousand slaves and
retainers. One of the earliest lessons which he learnt was that his
resources were practically boundless, so that from the first he broke
out into unheard-of extravagance. His mules were shod with silver.
The muleteers were dressed in liveries of Canusian wool, dyed
scarlet. The runners in front of his chariot, and the swarthy cohort
of outriders from Mazaca in Numidia, selected for their skill in
horsemanship, were adorned with bracelets and trappings of gold.
The more delicate slaves had their faces covered with masks, or
tinged with cosmetics, lest their complexions should suffer from the
sunlight. Many of the slaves had no other office than to carry, with
due care, the lyres and other musical instruments which were required
for the theatrical entertainments.
Agrippina, devoured with chagrin and resentment, had indeed been
asked to accompany him, but in a way so insultingly ungracious, that
she declined. She dreaded to share with him a place so retired, in
which she knew that almost every hour would fill her with disgust
and anger. She had chosen instead to go alone to her stately villa
at Bauli, on the Campanian shore. There, if she had little else to
occupy her time, she could continue her own memoirs, or amuse herself
with the lampreys and mullets, which were so tame that they would
come at her call, and feed out of her hand. Her husband’s mother,
Antonia, had attached earrings to one pet lamprey, so that people
used to visit the villa to see it. Agrippina followed her example.
Octavia followed Nero. She had not been suffered to possess any
villa which she could call her own, and much as Nero would have
liked to leave her behind, he was compelled by public opinion to
observe a certain conventional respect for his Empress, the daughter
of Claudius. The sedan in which she travelled was carried by eight
stalwart Bithynian porters, but she was not honoured with any
splendour or observance, and had only a modest retinue out of her
six hundred nominal attendants. Still humbler was the following
of Britannicus. He had been bidden to come partly because it would
have seemed shameful to leave him alone in Rome during an unhealthy
season, when even persons of low position were driven into the
country by the month in which Libitina claimed her most numerous
victims; and also because Nero was glad to keep him in sight. He
was happy enough, for Titus was with him, and Pudens was one of the
escort; and as Epaphroditus necessarily attended his master, Nero,
it was not difficult to get leave for Epictetus to come in his
train. The two kind-hearted boys thought that the pale face of the
slave-child might gain a touch of rose from the fresh winds of the
Apennines.
Very few ladies were invited. It was necessary, indeed, that one or
two should accompany Octavia; and Nero, for his own reasons, wished
Junia Silana and Calvia Crispinilla to be of the party. These were
ladies with whom a young matron like Octavia could scarcely exchange
a word, but happily for her, Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian,
was asked to accompany the Empress. Vespasian, who had just returned
from his proconsulate, had been summoned to have an interview with
Nero on the state of affairs in Africa, and to stay for some days.
Acte was in the train of Nero, but, though she rarely saw Octavia,
the unfortunate Empress little knew that the presence of Domitilla,
the only lady to whom she could speak without a shudder, was
really due to the private suggestion of the lovely and kind-hearted
freedwoman. Flavia Domitilla was of the humblest origin, and her
father had occupied no higher office than that of a quæstor’s clerk.
That no nobler companion had been sought for her would have been
regarded as an insult by any lady of haughty character; but Octavia
preferred the society of the honest matron to that of a thousand
Crispinillas.
Seneca and Burrus were invited for a brief visit only, and as Nero
liked to give a flavour of intellectuality to the society which he
gathered round him, Lucan was asked, as the rising poet of the day;
and Silius Italicus, as a sort of established poet laureate; and
Persius, the young Etrurian knight, who, though but twenty-one years
old, was so warmly eulogised by his tutor, Cornutus, that great
things were expected of him. None of his satires had yet seen the
light, but his head would hardly have been safe if Nero could have
read some of the lines locked up in his writing-desk. With these had
been also invited C. Plinius Secundus, a wealthy knight, thirty-four
years of age, in whose encyclopædic range of knowledge it was hoped
that the guests might find an endless fund of amusement and anecdote
in their more serious moments.
But while Nero liked to keep up the credit of dabbling in literary
pursuits, the choice spirits to whom he looked for his real delight
were very different from these graver personages. The fashionable
elegance of Otho and the luxurious cynicism of Petronius were
indispensable for his amusement. Tigellinus was too intimate to be
excluded; and with these came Vatinius, the witty buffoon and cobbler
of Beneventum, an informer of the lowest class. This cobbler’s chief
recommendations were personal deformity, an outrageous tongue, and
an abnormally prominent nose. He avenged himself on society for the
wrongs inflicted on him by nature. He rejoiced in the immortality of
having given his name to a drinking-cup with a long nozzle, which has
preserved his memory in the verse of Juvenal and Martial.
Here Nero enjoyed life to his heart’s content. The happy accident
that the villa really consisted of two edifices, separated by the
bridge across the glen, enabled him to keep his least welcome guests
in the Villa Castor, and his chosen companions in the Villa Pollux.
In the grounds of the Villa Castor, Seneca and Burrus had rooms in
which they could transact with their secretaries their ministerial
and military business. Pliny could bury himself among the rarer
treasures of the library, or amuse his leisure by seeing what further
he could learn about the habits of the flamingoes and other foreign
birds, which were carefully kept in cages and fed from the hands of
the visitors. For Britannicus and Titus, who often asked Persius to
be their companion, there was the resource of the tennis-court, the
gymnastic room, and rowing, bathing, and fishing in the lakes; and
Persius, who had heard all about Epictetus from his young patron,
sometimes let the little slave sit at his feet while he read choice
passages of old Roman poems in works which had been found for him by
the clever librarian.
The meals were held separately in the two villas, though sometimes
all the guests were invited to Nero’s table. He varied his amusements
in every possible way. Sometimes he would take a long swim in the
cold lake; sometimes he would fish with a purple line and a golden
hook, though he caught fewer fish in a morning than Britannicus would
catch in an hour. He delighted to spend hours at a time with the
harpist Terpnos or the singer Diodorus, who trained him how to use
what it had become the fashion to describe as his celestial voice.
He soon got tired of the small restraint upon his amusements which
resulted from the presence of the graver guests across the bridge.
But they helped to form an audience for him in the room which had
been fitted up as a theatre. One evening he had been displaying
his accomplishments to all the guests at both villas, and had been
received by the listening slaves and courtiers with tumults of
applause. The others were obliged, or felt themselves obliged, to
join in the clapping; but Nero could read in their faces that they
were unwilling listeners. Seneca blushed, and his smooth tongue
stumbled, as he attempted to express his gratification. Burrus looked
on with profound disapproval. A look of involuntary scorn stole
over the grave features of Persius, whom Nero already hated, because
the young man’s virginal modesty formed such a contrast to his own
shamelessness. But, worst of all, the blunt soldier, Vespasian, to
the intense amusement of Titus and Britannicus, had first of all
begun to nod, and then had fallen asleep with his mouth wide open,
and had snored--had actually and audibly snored, so that all the
audience heard it, while Nero was chanting his own divine verses
with the most bewitching trills of his own divine voice!
Nero, in his rage, half thought of having him arrested on the charge
of high treason--an accusation of which the meshes were equally
adapted to entangle the most daring criminals and the most trivial
offenders. But when he poured out his wrath to Petronius, his elegant
friend laughed immoderately, and pacified Nero’s offended vanity by
dwelling on Vespasian’s somnolence as a proof of his vulgarity.
‘I suppose, then,’ said Nero, ‘I must say with Horace, “_solvuntur
risu tabulæ_”?’
‘Yes,’ said Petronius, ‘and you may add “_tu missus abibis_.” Why not
make a clean sweep of these dreadful old fogies in the Villa Castor?
Pliny has told us all we care to know about flamingoes and lampreys.
Seneca’s pomposities grow stale. We have been sufficiently amused for
the present by the blushes of Persius, and the good Silius Italicus
is as tedious as his own epic. Give them a respectful farewell. Send
for Paris the actor, and Aliturus the pantomime, and some of your
fairest slaves to wait on us at our choicest banquets. Let us dismiss
this humbug of respectability and pluck the blossom of the days.’
The advice fell on congenial ears. It was intimated to the guests
in the Villa Castor that they might present their respects to the
Emperor, and disperse where they chose. They were not sorry to depart
from such dubious neighbours as those in the Villa Pollux. Vespasian
and Titus were rudely sent off the next morning, without being
permitted to see Nero again. Flavia Domitilla accompanied them, and
as the presence of Britannicus was always a trouble to Nero, he was
allowed to spend the rest of the autumn in the humble Sabine villa of
Vespasian’s family at Phalacrine, near Reate, where he would not only
have Titus as a companion, but also his cousins--the two young sons
of Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus.
‘Among those dull farmers,’ said Nero, ‘he is not likely to have any
nonsense put into his head. Let him eat beans and bacon, and grow as
sluggish as his friends.’
To Nero and the fashionable nobles of his time every man was sluggish
and plebeian who did not care to season his recreation with a variety
of vices.