_BROTHER AND SISTER_
‘Hopes have precarious life:
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
In vigorous growth, and turned to rottenness;
But faithfulness can feed on suffering
And knows no disappointment.’
GEORGE ELIOT.
Far different was the way in which Britannicus had spent the
memorable evening of Otho’s supper.
He was thrown largely upon himself and his own resources. If Titus
happened to be absent; if Epaphroditus did not chance to bring
with him the quaint boy Epictetus; if the duties of Pudens summoned
him elsewhere, he had few with whom he could converse in his own
apartments. Sometimes Burrus visited him, and was kind; but he could
hardly forgive Burrus for his share in Agrippina’s plot. Seneca
occasionally came to see him, and Seneca felt a genuine wish
to alleviate the boy’s unhappy lot. But Seneca had been Nero’s
supporter, and Britannicus could not quite get over the misgiving
that his fine sentences were insincere. And at last an incident
occurred which made it impossible for him ever to speak to Seneca
without dislike. One day Nero had sent for his brother, and
Britannicus, entering the Emperor’s room before he came in, saw
a copy of[*6] the _Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris_ lying on the
table. Naturally enough he had not heard of this ferocious satire
upon his unhappy father. Attracted by the oddness of the title
‘_Apokolokyntosis_,’ which the librarian had written on the outer
case, he took up the book, and had read the first few columns
when Nero entered. As he read, his soul burned with inexpressible
indignation. His father had received a sumptuous Cæsarean funeral;
he had been deified by the decree of the Senate; a grand temple
had been reared in his honour on the Cœlian hill; priests and
priestesses had been appointed to worship his divinity. He knew very
well that this might be regarded as a conventional officialism; but
that the writer of this book should thus openly laugh in the face
of Rome, her religion, and her Empire; that he should class Claudius
with two miserable idiots like Augurinus and Baba; that he should
brutally ridicule his absence of mind, his slavering lips, his
ungainly aspect, and represent the Olympian deities in consultation
as to whether he was a god, a human being, or a sea-monster--this
seemed to him an act of shameless hypocrisy. He had seen how the
Romans prostrated themselves in the dust before his father in his
lifetime, as it were to lick his sandals; how Seneca himself had
blazoned his earthly godship in paragraphs of sonorous eloquence.
Yet here, on the table of his successor and adopted son, was a satire
replete in every line with enormous slanders. And who could have
written it? Britannicus could think of no one but Seneca; and all
the more since the marks on the manuscript showed that Nero had read
it, and read it with amused appreciation.
When Nero entered he found Britannicus standing by the table
transfixed with anger. His cheeks were crimson with shame and
indignation. Panting with wrath, he was unable even to return the
greeting of Nero, who looked at him with astonishment till he saw the
scroll from which he had been reading. Nero instantly snatched it out
of his hand. He was vexed that the boy had seen it. It had not been
intended for his eyes. But now that the mischief was done he thought
it better to make light of it.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I see that you have been reading that foolish satire.
Don’t be in such a state of mind about it. It is meant for a mere
jest.’
‘A jest!’ exclaimed Britannicus, as soon as he found voice to speak.
‘It is high treason against the religion of Rome, against the majesty
of the Empire.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Nero, with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘If I don’t
mind it, why should you? You are but a boy. Leave such matters to
those who understand them, and know more of the world.’
‘Why do you always treat me as a child?’ asked Britannicus
indignantly. ‘I am nearly fifteen years old. I am older than you
were when my father allowed you to assume the manly toga.’[50]
‘Yes,’ said the Emperor; ‘but there are differences. I am Nero, and
you are--Britannicus. I shall not let you have the manly toga just
yet; the golden bulla and the prætexta suit you a great deal better.’
Britannicus turned away to conceal the emotion which pride forbade
him to show. He was about to leave the audience-room when Nero called
him.
‘Listen, Britannicus,’ he said. ‘Do not provoke me too far. Do not
forget that I am Emperor. When Tiberius came to the throne there was
a young prince named Agrippa Posthumus. When Gaius came to the throne
there was a young prince named Tiberius Gemellus.’
‘The Emperor Gaius adopted Tiberius Gemellus, and made him Prince of
the Youth,’ said Britannicus; ‘you have never done that for me.’
‘You interrupt me,’ said Nero. ‘Do you happen to remember what became
of those two boys?’
Britannicus remembered only too well. Through the arts of Livia,
Agrippa Posthumus, accused of a ferocious temperament, had been first
banished to the Island Pandataria, then violently murdered. Tiberius
Gemellus had not been murdered, because the news of such a death
would have sounded ill; but he had had the sword placed against his
heart, and had been taught to kill himself, so that his death might
wear the semblance of suicide.
Nero left time for such recollections to pass through his brother’s
mind, and then he slowly added, ‘And now that Nero has come to the
throne, there happens to be a young prince named Britannicus.’
Britannicus shuddered. ‘Do you menace me with murder?’ he asked.
Nero only laughed. ‘What need have I to menace?’ he asked. ‘Do you
not know that I have but to lift a finger, if it so pleases me, and
you die? But don’t be alarmed. It does not please me--at present.’
Britannicus turned very pale. He knew that Nero’s words conveyed
no idle boast. He was but a down-trodden boy--the orphan son
of a murdered mother; of a father foully dealt with, infamously
calumniated. What cared the Roman world whether he perished or not,
or how he perished? He choked down the sob which rose, and left his
brother’s presence in silence; but, as he traversed the long corridor
to the room of Octavia, he could not help asking himself, with dread
forebodings, what would be his fate? Would he be starved, like the
younger Drusus? or poisoned, like the elder? or bidden to end his
own life, like poor young Tiberius Gemellus? or assassinated by
violence, like Agrippa Posthumus? How was he better than they? And if
he perished, who would care to avenge him? But, oh God! if there were
such a God as He in whom the Christians believed, what a world was
this into which he had been plunged! What sin had he or his ancestors
committed, that these hell-dogs of wrong and murder banned his steps
from birth? The old Romans had been strong and noble and simple. Even
in the days of Augustus they could thrill to the lesson of Virgil:
‘Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.’
Whence the present dearth of all nobleness? What creeping paralysis
of immoral apathy had stricken this corrupt and servile aristocracy,
this nerveless and obsequious Senate? From what black pit of Acheron
had surged up the slime of universal corruption which polluted every
class around him with ignoble debaucheries? He saw on every side
of him a remorseless egotism, an unutterable sadness, the fatalism
of infidelity and despair. A poisoning of the blood with physical
and moral madness seemed to have become the heritage of the ruling
Cæsars. Where could he look for relief? Men had ceased to believe in
the gods. The Stoics had nothing better to offer than hard theories
and the possibility of suicide--and what a thing must life be if it
had no more precious privilege than the means of its own agonising
and violent suppression!
Britannicus was intelligent beyond his years, and thoughts like these
chased each other through his mind as he made his way with slow and
painful steps to the rooms of his sister. For an instant the thought
of a rebellion flashed across his mind, but it was at once rejected.
What could he do? He was but a friendless boy. He felt as if he had
heard the sentence of early death; as if his innocence were nothing
to such gods as those whom his childhood had been taught to name; as
if the burden of an intolerable world were altogether too heavy for
him to understand or to bear. And yet he was not unsupported by some
vague hope in the dim, half-explored regions of that new gospel of
which he now had heard.
To Octavia the visits of her brother were almost the only happiness
left. As he entered she dismissed the slaves, for she saw at a glance
that some profound emotion had swept over his mind, and longed to
give him consolation.
In their forlornness the brother and sister always tried to spare
each other any needless pang. Octavia had never hinted to Britannicus
that Nero’s base hand had often been lifted to strike her. She did
not tell him that on that morning he had seized her by the hair, and
in the frenzy of his rage had almost strangled her. Nor would he tell
her about the infamous attack on their father’s memory which he had
seen on Nero’s table. He little dreamt that she knew of it already,
nay, even that, with coarse malice, Nero had shown it to her, and
read passages aloud in her tortured hearing on purpose to humiliate
and trouble her. Still less would he reveal the threat which seemed
to give fresh significance to the feline gleam which he had caught a
few days before in the eyes of the horrible Locusta.
Yet by secret intuition each of them divined something of what was in
the heart of the other.
When Britannicus entered he found his sister gazing with a sad smile
at a gold coin of the island of Teos, which lay on the palm of her
hand.
‘What amuses you in that coin?’ he asked.
‘Look at it,’ she said, pointing to the inscription Θεὰν Ὀκταβίαν--
‘the _goddess_ Octavia.’[51] ‘I was thinking, Britannicus, that if
the other goddesses are as little happy as I am, I should prefer to
be a mortal!’
Her brother smiled too, but remained silent. He dreaded to deepen her
sorrow.
‘Have you nothing to tell me, Britannicus?’ she asked. ‘What is it
which makes you so much sadder than your wont?’
‘Nothing that I _can_ tell you,’ he answered. ‘But oh, Octavia, what
thoughts strike you when you look round upon this Palace and society?
Is there no such thing as virtue?’ he asked impetuously. ‘The Romans
used to honour it. Who cares for virtue now, except one or two
philosophers ? and--’
‘Speak on, Britannicus,’ she said. ‘Agrippina is less our enemy than
she was. She has withdrawn her spies. We are not worth the hatred
of any one else. Of the slaves who chiefly wait on me, most are
faithful, and some are Christians.’
‘You have guessed my meaning, Octavia. Of the men and women around
us, how very few there are, except the Christians, who are pure and
good. How comes it?’
‘Their strange faith sustains them.’
‘But does it not seem inconceivable that the gods--or that God, if
there be but one, should have revealed the truth to barbarian Jews?’
‘I don’t know, Britannicus. Who is the most virtuous person you
know--I mean, excepting the Christians?’
‘Have we met any--except perhaps Persius and my Titus? and--well,
perhaps the most virtuous of all is that little slave, Epictetus.’
‘Yet Epictetus is a Phrygian, and a slave, and deformed, and lame.
And as for the Jews, you know that your friend Titus thinks them the
most interesting people in the world; and it is whispered that some
of the noblest ladies in Rome--Otho’s wife among them--have secretly
embraced Judaism.’
‘Poppæa does little credit to their religion if all be true that is
said of her. But Pomponia is a Christian, and Claudia, the fairest
maiden in Rome. Whether they hold truth or falsehood I know not, but
if religion has anything to do with goodness there seems to be no
religion like theirs.’
‘Britannicus,’ she answered, ‘like you, I am deeply interested in
all that Pomponia has told me; but I will tell you what has struck
me most. Nero, and Seneca, and Agrippina, and all the rest of them,
are full of misery and despair, though they are rich, and praised,
and powerful; but these Christians, on the other hand, are paupers,
hated, persecuted--and yet happy. It is that which amazes me most of
all.’
Britannicus sighed. ‘Octavia,’ he said, ‘I would gladly know more of
this foreign superstition, which makes men good amid wickedness, and
joyful amid afflictions; which makes women like Pomponia, and girls
like Claudia, and boys like Flavius Clemens.’
‘Let us, then, sup to-night with Pomponia,’ said Octavia. ‘She
knows that I am lonely, and she has told me that her old general and
herself will always delight to see us, if I will come without state
and share their simplicity. Nero sups to-night with Otho. No one will
prevent us from going together to the house of one whose loyalty is
so little suspected as that of Aulus Plautius.’
And thus it was that while Nero revelled, and drank, and made the
streets of his capital unsafe with riot and assault, Britannicus was
present at the first Christian assembly which he had ever witnessed.