_DEATH IN THE GOBLET_
‘Fratrum, conjugum, parentum neces, alia solita parentibus
ausi.’--TAC. _Hist._ v. 3.
A cry rang through the banquet-room!
It was the cry of Titus. Every guest started as if a thunderbolt had
fallen. In that guilty time, when obscene wings flapped about so many
gilded roofs, when the sword dangled by a hair over so many noble
heads, when foes cut throats by a whisper, when any day might expose
a man to denunciation for imaginary crimes by one of the slaves
whom he regarded as his natural enemies, any sudden movement, any
unexpected event, was enough to drive the blood from the blanching
cheek. But when such a cry--so wild, so startling--rang over the
tumultuous sounds of an imperial banquet, they knew not whether the
very earth was not about to open beneath their feet.
What had happened?
Britannicus, as we have said, was in no alarm that evening. Of all
times and places it seemed the least likely to attempt his poisoning.
The fact that at this feast he had his appointed _prægustator_, and
that two deaths would terribly reveal a crime, was, he thought, a
sufficient safeguard.
But these were the very reasons why Tigellinus had arranged that
Nero’s desire for his brother’s murder should be carried out that
night. He fancied that no one would suspect Nero of choosing a scene
of such festive splendour and unusual publicity for a crime so dark.
The ingenuity of wickedness easily got over the difficulty about
the _prægustator_. This man was one of the smooth, civil, plausible
wretches who abounded at that epoch. He was a Greek slave named
Syneros, trained in the worst vices and ready to sell his soul at any
time for a few sestertia. He handed to Britannicus a myrrhine goblet
filled with some mulled Falernian, which he tasted first. It had been
purposely made so hot that no one could drink it. The prince gave
it back, and told Syneros to put some cold water to it. The slave
did so, and into that cold water--which he had hidden in a vial of
Alexandrian glass behind one of the coolers full of snow--had been
already dropped the deadly potion which Locusta had given to Nero.
Britannicus drank it unsuspectingly, and Titus had taken it up and
drunk a little, when his eye caught sight of Britannicus, and with
the cry which had alarmed those three hundred guests he had dropped
the myrrhine vase, crashing it to shivers on the mosaic floor.
For Britannicus had scarcely finished his draught when with one
wild look he clutched the arm of Titus, and then, half supported
by Clemens, sank speechless and breathless from his seat. It seemed
as if in one instant the swift poison had pervaded all his limbs.
His last conscious thought had been for another. Titus remembered
with undying gratitude, that the clutch upon his arm had saved his
life. He felt sure that with one and the same flash of intuition
Britannicus had recognised that the draught was poisoned, and had
tried to prevent Titus from drinking it.
But when the guests turned their eyes to the table where the young
prince was sitting they saw the terror-stricken look on the faces
of Titus and the other boys, and Flavius Clemens supporting in his
arms the white and convulsed form of the son of Claudius. At that
spectacle many of them leapt from their couches, and even began to
fly in different directions. Who could tell what charges of plots
might be founded on such an incident, and who might be involved in
them? But those who were more familiar with the mysteries of the
Court, though they had started to their feet, stood rooted in their
places with their eyes fixed on Nero, waiting for some sign to guide
or reassure them.
And then Nero showed the consummate coolness of villainy which
could hardly have been expected from so young a murderer. He was
short-sighted, but he could very well guess what had happened,
and he had his little speech ready prepared. Indeed, he had been
repeating it over to himself while he vainly endeavoured to get up
a conversation with his mother or his wife. Putting his emerald to
his eye,[63] he raised himself on one elbow from his soft mass of
cushions, and said, amid the dead silence--
‘Oh, I see what is the matter. My brother Britannicus, poor boy,
has been afflicted from childhood with the comitial disease. His
epileptic fit will soon be over, and all his senses will return. Pray
resume your places, my friends. Do not let the mirth of the banquet
be disturbed by this little accident.’
Agrippina was in a ferment of alarm. She could scarcely believe her
ears. That ready lie about the epilepsy! She knew--and many of the
guests knew--that Britannicus was a fine strong lad, who had never
had an epileptic attack in his life. One thing only could have
happened. Britannicus, in whom rested the last hopes of her vengeance
and her ambition, must have been poisoned by his brother. Infernal
gods! was it possible? Could this have been the deed of that youth
whom it seemed but yesterday that she had clasped to her bosom as a
lovely, rosy, smiling child? Panic, consternation seized her. ‘How
long,’ she thought, ‘will he abstain from the prophesied murder
of me, his mother?’ She panted; she shuddered in every limb; she
required all her efforts not to faint; she grew white and red by
turns, and those who were watching her saw the cup of wine which
she seized shake so violently in her trembling hand that she spilled
half its contents over her bosom.
‘She, at least, is as innocent of this as Octavia herself,’ whispered
Seneca to Burrus. ‘But, oh! horror! where will these things end?’
Octavia looked as though she had been turned to marble. She spoke no
word; she made no sign. Agrippina had tried in vain to prevent her
speaking countenance from betraying the violence of her emotions; but
Octavia, young as she still was, and little more than a child, had
been taught from her earliest years to hide her emotions under a mask
of impassibility; and, indeed, the blow which had thus fallen upon
her was beyond her power to realise. The awful grief struck her dumb.
One shrinking motion, one stifled scream, and she reclined there
as though she were dead--as pale and as motionless, seeing nothing,
hearing nothing, conscious of nothing, her white cheek looking all
the more ghastly from the crimson roses which circled her dark
tresses and fell twining over her fair neck.
But how should the mirth of the banquet be resumed? The stereotyped
smile on the features of Seneca looked like a grin of anguish.
The brow of Pætus Thrasea was dark as a thunder-cloud. Clemens
and several of the prince’s boyish friends were weeping audibly
and uncontrollably, while Titus, already feeling ill as well as
terrified, was sobbing with his head on the table. Nero himself in
vain attempted a fitful hilarity, which could wake no echo among
guests of whom many--
‘Like the Ithacensian suitors of old time,
Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips,
And knew not what they meant.’
So dense a cloud fell over their minds that it was a relief to all
when, without waiting for the termination of the banquet, Nero
dismissed his guests, availing himself of the excuse that the
comitial disease had always been regarded as an evil omen, and that,
though he hoped his brother’s attack would prove but slight, he saw
how deeply it had affected the spirits of his friends.
They had come to that superb feast in pride and gaiety; they hurried
home in horror and alarm.