_PERILS OF BRITANNICUS_
‘Cast thine eye
On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;
And, wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper’
SHAKESPEARE, _King John_, iii. 3.
At this time a change came over the fortunes of Onesimus.
Pudens had been dismissed from his post among the _excubitors_ of the
Palace, under the semblance of honourable promotion, but in reality
because Nero was doubly displeased by his fidelity to Britannicus
and by the blow which (as he had accidentally discovered) Pudens
had given him during the nocturnal encounter. But, as he had been
an excubitor for so long, he had been accustomed to keep some of his
armour and a few books in a room in the Palace, and he sent Onesimus
to fetch them.
As he went to this room under the guidance of one of Cæsar’s slaves,
Onesimus heard a low voice singing the burden of one of the Phrygian
songs with which he had been familiar in old days at Thyatira.
He was a creature of impulse, and, without thinking what he was
doing, he took up the refrain of the song.
Immediately the door opened, and a beautiful dark-eyed girl asked in
an agitated voice, and in the dialect of Phrygia, who had taken up
the song.
The sound of his native tongue sent through the heart of Onesimus
that indescribable thrill which we feel when past recollections are
suddenly brought home to us in long-accumulated arrears. Greek had
been spoken in the household of Philemon. He had scarcely heard his
native Phrygian since he had been a free-born child, before he had
incurred the stain of being sold as a slave. He answered in Phrygian
that he had known the song since he was a child at his mother’s knee
in Thyatira.
‘In Thyatira?’ said the girl; then gazing at him long and earnestly,
she flung up her arms and exclaimed, ‘Can this be Onesimus?’
‘Do you know my name, lady?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Look at me,’ she answered. ‘It is twelve years since we met, but do
you not recall--’
He fixed his eyes on her face and said in a troubled voice, ‘You
are like Eunice, the daughter of my mother’s sister, with whom I
was brought up as a child.’
‘Hush!’ she exclaimed; ‘step aside for a moment, Onesimus; I _am_
Eunice, but for many years I have not been known by that name. When
the fortunes of our house were ruined I too was sold as a slave with
you to the purple factory of Lydia; but a freedman of the Emperor
Claudius saw me and brought me to wait upon the Empress Messalina.
He thought my name too fine, and changed it to Acte.’
‘Acte?’ burst out Onesimus; ‘then you are,’--he broke off and
remained silent.
A blush suffused the girl’s cheek. ‘A slave,’ she said, ‘is forced
to do her master’s bidding. Nero loved me sincerely, and I loved him,
and I was ignorant and very young. But it is past. The affections of
Nero are turned elsewhere; yet none can say that I have ever used my
influence for any but kind ends.’
‘I reproached you not, Acte,’ said Onesimus, ‘if I must call you by
your new name. I have far too much wherewith to reproach myself.’
‘Meet me here,’ said Acte, ‘two hours after noon, and you shall tell
me all your story, and how I can help you.’
Onesimus came that afternoon. He and Acte had been like brother and
sister in the house at Thyatira in happier days, and he told her his
sad story and all his sufferings, and how he had been rescued by the
compassion of Pudens, and how, even in the house of Pudens, he had
not shown himself worthy of the centurion’s kindness, and how he
loved Junia--and all his fears and all his hopes.
‘Should you like to be one of Cæsar’s household?’ asked Acte. ‘If so,
I do not doubt that I can get you a place by mentioning your name to
the steward of the Empress.’
For the slave of a poor soldier the offer involved immense promotion
and still larger possibilities. The thought of Junia checked Onesimus
for a moment, but Acte told him that, if he rose in the house of
Cæsar, there lay before him the far nearer chances of emancipation
and riches, so that he would be more likely in due time to make Junia
his own. She did not conceal from him that, in such a community as
the sixteen hundred imperial slaves, the temptations to every form
of wrong-doing were far deadlier than in a humble and more modest
_familia_; but she longed to have near her one whom she could trust
as a brother and a friend. Onesimus had acquired at Thyatira a good
knowledge of all that concerned the purchase and the preservation
of purple. It would not be difficult for Acte, without her name
appearing in the matter, to secure him a place as the purple-keeper
in the household of Octavia. She knew that Parmenio, the _servus a
purpura_, had died recently, and that the qualifications for the post
were a little less common than those which sufficed for the majority
of slaves.
Onesimus, therefore, grasped at the dazzling bait of better pay
and loftier position. That evening he spoke to Nereus, who, after
consulting Pudens, told him that there would be no difficulty,
whether by exchange or otherwise, in permitting his acceptance of
the offer which had been made to him.
The great men who visited Cæsar looked down upon the hundreds of
slaves who thronged the Palace as beings separated from themselves
by an immeasurable abyss of inferiority; but to the mass of paupers
who formed the chief part of the population servitude to the Emperor
seemed a condition of enviable brilliance. We are told that when
Felicio was promoted to the post of _Cæsar’s_ cobbler, he at once
became a personage of importance, and was flattered on every side.
Onesimus had much the same experience. Among those who knew him
he found that he had risen indefinitely by the exchange which
transferred him to the office of _servus a purpura_ in the household
of Octavia.
He was received into the slaves’ quarters with the showers of
sweetmeats and the other humble festivities which welcomed the
advent of a new slave; and on the evening of his admission Acte
sent for him.
‘Onesimus,’ she said, ‘I have it in my power to befriend you; and if
you will be faithful you may rise to posts of the greatest importance.
But such promotion must depend on your character. May I trust you?’
‘Surely, Acte!’
‘Then let me confide to you a secret of the deepest import. You have
seen the Prince Britannicus?’
‘Yes. He looks a noble boy.’
‘I fear that his life is imperilled--it is not necessary to say by
whom. I could weep when I think of the dangers which threaten him.
Your office will give you opportunities of sometimes seeing him.
It is not possible that I should meet you often; but here is a coin
which has on it the head of Britannicus. If ever I send you one of
these coins, as though I wanted you to purchase something, will you
come to me at once? It will be a sign that he is menaced.’
Onesimus promised; and, in truth, the need for watchfulness was
very pressing; for, on the day which followed the evening of the
Saturnalitian games, Nero, fretting with jealousy and alarm, summoned
Julius Pollio, the tribune on whom had been bestowed the post which
Pudens had occupied, and sent him with a message to Locusta. She was
allowed to move about the Palace, but was under the nominal charge of
the guardsmen.
It might well seem amazing that a youth whose disposition was not
innately cruel, and who a few years before had been a timid, blushing
boy, caring mainly for art and amusement, should have developed, in
so brief a space of time, into the murderer of his brother. But the
effects produced by the vertigo of autocracy on a mean disposition
are rapid as well as terrible. He had soon discovered that it was
in his power to do exactly what he liked; and when he had learnt to
regard himself as a god on earth, to whose wishes every law, divine
and human, must give way, there was no vice of which he did not
rapidly become capable. What was the life of a young boy, who stood
in his way, to one who had unchallenged power over the life and death
of millions of subjects over all the civilised world?
And yet the fate of his predecessors showed him that the pinnacle
of absolute power was a place of constant peril. The loss of empire
would mean inevitably the loss also of life. Was this peevish lad to
be a source of constant danger to the darling of the soldiers, of the
mob, and of the world?
He had no reason to approach Julius Pollio with any of the
circumspection with which Shakespeare represents King John as opening
his designs to Hubert. When, at the suggestion of Tigellinus, he had
appointed Pollio to supersede Pudens, he knew the sort of man whom he
would have at his beck. He simply said to the tribune--
‘I want some poison. Locusta is under your charge. Tell her to
prepare some for me.’ He did not trouble himself to mention the
person for whom the poison was intended.
Locusta was too familiar with her trade to hesitate. Had she not
taught many a guilty wife, in spite of rumour, in spite of the
populace, to bury undetected the blackening body of her husband? Her
fiendish nature rejoiced at the consciousness of secret power. She
supplied Pollio with a poison which was, she assured him, of tried
efficacy, and she again received a large sum of money in reward for
her services. Nero knew that among the wretches by whom his mother
had surrounded Britannicus, and not all of whom had been removed, it
would be easy to find some one who would administer the poison. He
decided that the deed should be done at some private meal, and by the
hands of one of the boy’s tutors, who never thought of shrinking from
the infamy. In that midnight and decadence of a dying Paganism the
crime of ordinary murder was too cheap to excite remorse.
But it was impossible that all this should pass unobserved. Acte had
been brought under Christian influences, and was anxious by all means
in her power to atone for the unintended wrong which her beauty had
inflicted upon Octavia. Nero was no longer her lover, though she
still lived in the Palace, and held a high position as one for whom
the Emperor had once conceived so strong an infatuation. She had her
own slaves assigned to her, and of these some were Christians. In
her self-imposed task of watching over the life of Britannicus she
asked them to obtain information of any circumstance that seemed to
threaten him with danger. From them she learnt that Nero had been
closeted with Julius Pollio; that Pollio had paid a visit to Locusta;
and that, when Locusta had sent a small vial to Nero, the Emperor
had summoned to his presence the tutor of Britannicus, who had been
observed to carry away the vial in his closed hand. Her spies further
told her that, by watching and listening, they had ascertained that
the poison was to be given to the son of Claudius, not at supper but
at the light midday meal which he took with Titus. After they had
been enjoying vigorous exercise in the morning the boys usually
showed an excellent appetite.
More than this they could not discover; but this much Acte confided
to Onesimus, and implored him to keep watch, and if possible, devise
some means by which to forewarn Britannicus of his imminent peril.
At first the quick Phrygian youth, who was understood to be under
the patronage of Acte, had been a favourite in the household, and
he found little difficulty in making friends with the cooks and
other slaves who superintended the meals of the imperial family. By
a visit to the kitchen--in which he flattered the cook and his young
assistants by the lively curiosity which he expressed about the
various dishes, and the enthusiasm with which he admired their
skill--he learnt that, as a special treat, a beccafico was to be
sent in for the _prandium_ of Britannicus, and he conjectured that
it would be poisoned. That the cook was innocent of any evil design
he was sure, and he guessed that the fig-pecker would be poisoned by
some slave of higher office about the young prince’s person. But he
knew not how to forewarn the unsuspecting boy. The time was short.
It was not easy to find an excuse by which he--whose duty lay in a
different part of the Palace--could find access to the apartments of
Britannicus. And whom could he warn? There was scarcely an instance
known in which any one had dared to interfere between an emperor and
his victims. In the general paralysis of servility, in the terror
inspired by the little despicable human god, in the indifference to
bloodshed caused by the games of the amphitheatre, why should any one
be troubled by one death the more?
But Onesimus, less familiar with a world so plague-stricken with
torpid corruption, felt in his heart a spring of pity for the doomed
boy. After rejecting plan after plan as impossible, it flashed upon
him that he might get a message conveyed to Titus. He had but a few
minutes left, and Titus could not be found until he and the prince,
still warm and glowing from their game of ball, entered the parlour.
Onesimus grew desperate, and, boldly summoning a young slave, sent
him to Titus with the extemporised message that the centurion Pudens
urgently desired to speak with him.
Titus went into the hall, and recognised Onesimus as the youth whom
his own kindness had first brought under the notice of Pudens. The
Phrygian led him to a remote part of the hall, behind one of the
statues of the Danaides, and whispered to him, ‘Britannicus is in
danger. Let him not touch the bird which has been provided for his
lunch. Oh, stay not to ask me anything,’ he added, when Titus seemed
inclined to question him further; ‘hurry back, if you would save his
life.’
Titus hurried back, but the meal was quite informal, and Britannicus,
hungry with exercise, had already helped himself to the dainty set
before him.
‘Give me some of that fig-pecker,’ said Titus desperately; ‘I am very
fond of those birds; we catch them at Reate.’
Britannicus at once handed the dish to him with a smile. ‘I don’t
know what Epictetus would think,’ he said, ‘of a Stoic who is fond of
dainties.’
‘It is meant exclusively for you, Sir,’ said the _pædagogus_, hastily.
‘I wonder that Titus should be so greedy.’
Titus blushed; but the remark helped him out of a serious difficulty.
He had thought in vain how he could avoid eating the bird which
Onesimus had told him was poisoned.
‘After that remark,’ he answered, ‘of course I cannot touch it.’
‘Then give it back to Britannicus,’ said the tutor.
‘Nay,’ said the prince; ‘if Titus is to be called greedy for liking
it, I must be greedy too. I have had enough. Besides there is a taste
about it which I do not like. Bread and a few olives are more than
enough.’
He pushed away his plate, and when they had risen from the table, he
looked curiously at his friend.
Titus blushed again. ‘I know,’ he whispered, ‘that _you_ will not
think me greedy, Britannicus.’
‘Titus,’ he answered, ‘you know something.’
‘Ask me nothing,’ said Titus; ‘I was only just in time, if, indeed,
I have been in time.’
Britannicus was silent. He suspected that some attempt had been
made upon his life, and that it had been partially frustrated by the
faithfulness of his friend. He had no doubt on the subject, when,
a little later, he was seized with violent pains. Happily, however,
he had scarcely more than tasted of the beccafico, and in the fit of
sickness which followed, nature came to his relief. His recovery was
aided by the pure and glowing state of his health. After a few hours
of excruciating agony he sank into a long refreshing sleep.
He woke in the twilight, to find himself lying on a couch, while
Octavia and Titus, sitting on either side of him, were rubbing his
cold hands.
‘Where am I?’ he asked. ‘Oh, I remember!’ And he said no more; but
he took the hand of Titus, and drew his sister near to him and kissed
her.
The hearts of all three were too full for words, but as they sat
there a message came that the Augusta was coming to visit them.
Agrippina was of course admitted, and left her attendants at the
door. As the lovely haughty lady entered, they could not help
observing, even by the dim light of the two silver lamps which
had just been lit, that a change had passed over her features, and
that she had been weeping. Haughty they still were, but wrath and
disappointment and failure, purchased at the cost of crime, had
stamped them with an expression of agony, as though she wore the
brand of Cain. When she heard of the sudden illness of Britannicus,
she divined its cause too well. While her power was waning so
rapidly, she had been no longer able to maintain the elaborate system
of espionage which had helped her when she was Empress; but she, too,
was aware that Pollio had visited Locusta, and the misgiving had
seized her that the poison might be meant for herself. That it turned
out to be for Britannicus was hardly less appalling to her. She felt
that her imprudence had made Nero jealous of him, and that his death
would deprive her of her last resource. She rejoiced, therefore,
unfeignedly at the boy’s recovery, and when she visited him he saw
that, for the first time, she spoke with genuine kindness to Octavia,
and that her expressions of pity and condolence to himself were
sincere. There was no feigning in the hot teardrops which fell on
his cheek when she kissed him, and as he lay there, weak and pale,
she felt, with deepening remorse for the wrongs which she had
inflicted on him, that he did not shrink from her embrace.
Nero, too, sent messages of enquiry to ‘his beloved brother’ by his
freedman, Claudius Etruscus. As he heard them, the old spirit of
Britannicus flashed out.
‘Tell Cæsar,’ he said, ‘that this time his poi--’
Before the word could be spoken, Titus with hasty gesture placed his
hand over his friend’s mouth, and Agrippina, knowing well that every
syllable would be reported, and interpreted in the most malignant
manner, turned her queenly head to the freedman who had brought the
message.
‘Tell the Emperor that his brother is much better, but is still
light-headed. Claudius Etruscus,’ she said, ‘you pass for an honest
man. I pray you, do not mention to Nero anything which Britannicus
has spoken in his delirium.’
Etruscus bent low, and, touched by passing pity at the scene which
he had witnessed, he determined to abstain from reporting what he had
heard. ‘The Augusta,’ he said, ‘has always been kind to me. Her wish
shall be obeyed.’
But Nero was restless and anxious, and was pacing to and fro like a
caged wild beast. The thought of plots and perils haunted him. That
morning, as he passed along the covered way which led from the Palace
into the theatre, he had seen the red stain of the blood of Caligula
on the walls--a red stain which could not be washed out--and felt
a spasm of suffocation as if a dagger were at his throat. He was
frightened to hear from Etruscus that Agrippina was with his brother.
Were they conspiring to bring about a revolution? He would himself
go and see.
He had been drinking, and as he entered took no notice of Titus or
of Octavia. To Agrippina he only vouchsafed a cold salute, and she,
dreading another scene in the presence of witnesses, rose and left
the chamber. He took the cold hand of Britannicus in his own hot and
feverish grasp, and a pang of hatred shot through him as he felt it
shrink at his touch. The boy was propped up on his couch with pillows,
and a hectic spot burned on each of his pallid cheeks; but his eyes
were filled with strange light, and, as he fixed them on the face of
Nero, they seemed to read his inmost soul.
Nero averted his glance. He dared not look upon his victim. Indeed,
under that steady gaze, the consciousness of his crime brought the
tell-tale crimson over his face. He was not yet too far gone to
blush, though the days were rapidly approaching in which he would
wear a front of brass.
He muttered some hypocritical words of condolence, which rang false
and were overdone. Britannicus spoke not.
Octavia said, ‘Pardon his silence, Nero; he is too weak to thank you.’
‘I did not ask _you_ to interfere,’ answered Nero brutally.
‘I give you such thanks as are due,’ said Britannicus in a faint
voice; but he tried to withdraw his hand from Nero’s grasp.
Nero rose in a towering passion. ‘I came to inquire about your
illness. You meet me with scowls and ingratitude,’ he said, flinging
away the hand of Britannicus. ‘If you do not choose to behave as a
brother, I will make you feel that you are a subject. Octavia and
Titus, you may retire.’
‘Oh, do not leave me alone. I am very ill,’ pleaded the poor prince.
‘Indeed, indeed I cannot be left alone.’
The terrible thought which had flashed through the mind of Nero--the
thought that, if left alone, the boy might be killed that night--had
woke its reflection in the mind of Britannicus. But Nero strode
angrily out of the room, and neither repeated nor withdrew his
command.
‘May the spirits of all the good protect thee!’ said Octavia, as she
fondly kissed her brother. ‘I dare not stay; it might be the worse
for thee if I did.’
‘But I will stay, Empress,’ said Titus, ‘and I will do my best for
him.’
When the young Empress had withdrawn, Titus beckoned to her faithful
freedwoman Pythias, and told her to send for Onesimus. He came, and
Titus, after slipping into his hand an aureus, which the Empress had
left for him as a reward for his faithful warning, begged him to be
on the alert, and to return in an hour. The Phrygian went to Acte,
and told her all that had occurred. She kept him near at hand, and
in a short time informed him that two of Nero’s worst creatures
--Tigellinus and Doryphorus--were closeted with the Emperor, and
that there was too much reason to fear that some deadly measure would
be attempted that evening.
Such was indeed the case. For now, to the joy of Tigellinus, Nero had
openly declared that Britannicus must be swept out of his path; had
even admitted to him that poison had been attempted, and had failed.
‘How soon do you wish the deed to be done?’ asked the wicked
adventurer.
‘If we are to prevent some accursed plot,’ said Nero, ‘it cannot be
too soon.’
‘To-night?’
‘To-night, if you will,’ answered Nero, ‘but it must be secret. There
must be no scandal. A story must be trumped up. The Augusta must be
deceived. Octavia must be deceived. None of his adherents must know
of it, unless they can be trusted to hold their tongues.’
‘Nearly all the people about him are in our pay,’ said Tigellinus.
‘I think it can be done.’
That night no soldier was on guard near the room of Britannicus, and
Titus regarded this as a fatal sign. When he received from Onesimus
the intelligence which Acte had given him, he said that he would draw
his own bed across the door of the Prince’s room inside, so that none
could enter without his knowledge. He asked Onesimus to keep watch in
concealment outside, and make a noise if any one should approach.
‘I can imitate exactly the bark of the Empress’s lap-dog,’ said
Onesimus, ‘for Aponia, who has charge of it, often lets me tease it.
If I make this noise in the quiet of the night it is sure to set
other dogs barking, and then I will spring out of my hiding-place as
if the sound had awoke me.’
Proud of the confidence reposed in him, proud to be the guard of a
Cæsar’s life, Onesimus put on a black lacerna, shrouded himself in
a dark corner, hidden behind the shield of an Amazon. The Palace
sank to deep silence, broken only by the faint, distant tramp of
the sentinel who kept watch outside the passage which led to the
cubiculum of the Emperor.
About an hour after midnight he heard a stealthy footstep
approaching, and saw the occasional gleam of a lantern which was
hidden under the cloak of the murderer. Breathless with anxiety, he
watched and listened. The slave came near to the room of Britannicus.
Noiselessly he placed his lantern on the floor, then he drew a large
dagger, and Onesimus saw its blade flash in the light as the wretch
examined it. One instant more and his hand was thrusting an oiled key
into the lock.
Then it was that Onesimus gave a short, sharp sound like the bark
of a pet dog. The murderer started violently. Onesimus repeated the
sound, which was immediately taken up by a dog which belonged to one
of the freedwomen. Hesitating no longer, he leapt out of his shelter
with the challenge, ‘Who goes there?’ and at the same moment Titus,
who had slept in his clothes, unfastened the door, and sprang in
front of it with a sword in his hand.
Without staying an instant longer the murderer dashed down his
lantern and fled, for slaves and freedmen were heard stirring on
every side. Onesimus did not attempt to pursue him, but quietly
slipped back to his own cell. He knew that for that night the dark
plot was frustrated and Britannicus was safe.
To the slaves whom the noise had disturbed Titus only said that he
had been troubled by the nightmare, and bade them return to sleep.
But not a few of them shrewdly suspected that they had not been told
the whole truth.