CHAPTER XXXIII

_TITUS AND THE VESTAL_

‘Laudabile est infelicis scire misereri.’--VAL. MAX. v. i. 8.

Cast once more on his own resources, Onesimus tried his chance of

earning a living in the streets. He had a little money in hand, and,

seeing that the street vendors drove a brisker trade in drink than in

anything else, he bought two or three dozen bottles of _posca_, and

sold them at a small profit to the poorer wayfarers. In this, as in

all his adventures, his good looks were of use to him, for men and

women alike were more inclined to buy of a lively and pleasant youth

than of the wandering Jews and beggars who sometimes attempted the

same trade. He began to think that, for the present, he could keep

soul and body together in this way; but he had been rash in choosing

a place so near Rome, and still more rash in discarding his disguise.

For one day, as he was calling out the merits of his wine in his

clear, ringing voice, and making the people laugh with his jokes,

Dama, the steward of the lovely villa which Nero owned at Baiæ,

caught sight of him. The man had often been to the Palace on business

connected with his accounts, and had noticed Onesimus, then dressed

in gay attire and at the zenith of his prosperity, as a youth high in

favour in the imperial household. He had heard from Callicles, Nero’s

dispensator, of the drunken escapade which had put so sudden an end

to his good fortune, and of his subsequent flight from the ergastulum.

Now the flight of any slave, but above all of one of Cæsar’s slaves,

was so capital an offence that Callicles had asked his friend to keep

a good lookout for the recovery of the fugitive. A glance made him

nearly sure of the identity of Onesimus, but to be quite certain

he took out a copy of the reward which had been offered. It ran as

follows:--

‘Wanted, a fugitive slave,

Aged about 17.

Handsome, with dark curly hair,

Named Onesimus.

Any one who will give him up, or indicate

where he may be arrested, shall receive a reward of

a thousand sesterces.’

To be quite sure of his prey, Dama stole away so as to approach

Onesimus from behind, and coming up to him tapped him smartly on

the shoulder and said ‘Onesimus.’

‘Yes?’ said Onesimus with a violent start, taken completely off his

guard.

‘I thought so,’ said Dama, with an unpleasant smile. ‘Come with me,

my gay fugitive. Cæsar can’t possibly spare such a lively and

good-looking slave as you; and I shall be very glad of a thousand

sesterces.’

Onesimus tried to dart away in flight, but the remorseless hand of

Dama clutched his shoulder with too tight a grasp, and with a gesture

of despair he remained silent.

‘Rescue! rescue!’ cried some of the crowd who pitied him, and with

whom he was a favourite; and as no soldiers or police were in sight

one or two stepped forward to give the youth a chance.

‘Rescue?’ said Dama, looking around him with cool contempt. ‘Don’t

you know who I am? Do you dare to interfere with the arrest of a

runaway from Cæsar’s Palace?’

The crowd fell back awe-struck before the awful name of Cæsar, and

Dama despatched a slave to bring fetters from Nero’s villa hard by.

Onesimus was once more a chained criminal with a destiny before him

even more horrible than any of which he had yet been in danger. He

thought of the poor wretch to whom he had given drink as he hung on

his cross. Would that be his own fate of agony now in the flush and

heyday of his youth?

Next morning he was sent off towards Rome. He thought of trying to

communicate with Acte, who had been deeply grieved by losing sight

of him. But this was impossible. There was no one to take any message

for him. He was told that not only Callicles--on whom fell in part

the disgrace of his escape--but Nero himself was bitterly incensed

against him, first, for his unpardonable indiscretion, then for his

flight, and lastly--though this was a secret motive--because it had

come to his ears that Onesimus had been the slave who had defeated

the midnight attempt on the life of Britannicus. Onesimus, when he

had drunk too much Sabine wine, had sometimes forgotten all reticence,

and Nero believed that it was through him that certain dark secrets

of the Palace had come to be whispered among the lower orders of the

Roman population. Acte herself would have been powerless to defend

him. One day Octavia, finding that her purple robes had been looked

after less skilfully than they had been when under his care, had

asked some question about him in the presence of Nero. The Emperor

was angry at the mention of his name. Some slaves had been in the

room on the occasion, and the circumstance had become notorious in

the gossip of the Palace. The unhappy young Phrygian was told that

he would probably be crucified; but if not, he would be tied to the

furca and scourged, perhaps to death, with the horrible thongs.

On his arrival at Rome the order was given. He was to be beaten--

practically to death. In indescribable anguish of soul he spent what

he believed to be his last night on earth.

Next morning the furca--two pieces of wood nailed together in the

shape of the letter Λ--was placed on his neck, his hands were fast

bound to the ends of the wood, and he was led out towards the

Esquiline, where afterwards his corpse would be flung into the

common pit.

He was too much stunned and stupefied even to pray. The iron had

entered deep into his soul. He looked on himself as a lost apostate

who would end a life of miserable failure by entering into the outer

gloom beyond, where he feared that the face of the Saviour of whom

he once had heard would be utterly turned away from him.

But his hour had not yet come.

Stooping under the furca, with his arms already cramped by their

unnatural position, he was led by the slaves and lictors who were

to preside at his execution into the Vicus Tuscus on the way to

the Esquiline. But as they entered the long street a boy who was

strolling towards the Gelotian house caught sight of them, and

no sooner had his quick eye seen them than he took in the whole

situation at a glance.

It was Titus, much sobered from the gay lad he once had been, and

still pale from the illness caused by the sip he had taken of the

poison which had carried off Britannicus. He recognised Onesimus,

and a Palace rumour had that morning made him aware of the Phrygian’s

peril. He looked on the slave-youth as a _protégé_ of his own, for

his admission into the family of Pudens had been mainly due to his

intercession. He also felt grateful to him for his ready services

towards the murdered friend of his youth, and his kindly heart was

filled with pity.

A way of saving him had flashed across his mind, and, bidding his

slaves follow him, he darted off at a pace too swift for Roman

dignity. In an adjoining street he met--as he was well aware that he

should meet--a beautiful and stately lady whom he knew, and who was

very fond of him. It was Lælia, the senior vestal, the Virgo Maxima.

Greeting her with extreme reverence, he yet ventured to make her an

unsuspecting agent in his little plot.

‘Noble Lælia,’ he said, with the charm of manner which few could

resist, and with a ready fertility of invention, ‘I have just seen

in the book-shop of Atrectus, in the Argiletum, just opposite the

Forum of Julius, a charming little copy of Virgil’s Eclogues with

such a good portrait! You promised me a present on my last birthday,

and said I should choose it myself. May I have that book, and will

you come and buy it for me? It is my birthday to-day.’

‘Certainly,’ said the vestal, with a smile. ‘For a boy like you,

so good and steady, I would do much more than that.’ She little

guessed that the birthday was a fib extemporised by Titus for his

own purposes, for his birthday was on December 30.

‘Thanks, dear vestal,’ said Titus. ‘Will you not come by this short

cut?’

He led her by the hand, her lictor following, into the Vicus Tuscus,

which was close by the Argiletum, where he well knew that she would

not fail to meet Onesimus and his escort. As they approached he said:

‘Oh, Lælia, how I should like to have your privilege of saving the

lives of the wretched! See, there is some miserable slave whom they

are taking to scourge or crucify. Will you not intercede for him?’

‘For a poor _furcifer_ like that?’ asked Lælia. ‘Our high privilege

is used for nobles--at the lowest, for freedmen.’

‘Are not slaves men like ourselves?’ he asked. ‘Musonius says so; and

Seneca says so. Look, what a fine youth he is! He looks as if he had

been free-born; and I dare say he has done nothing really wrong.’

Lælia glanced at the pallid, beautiful face of the sufferer. It would

hardly have touched her heart, accustomed as she had been to the

massacres of the arena, to which Nero of late years had invited the

vestal virgins. But there was something in his youth, and something

in the earnest pleading of her favourite Titus--something perhaps

also in the sense of power--which decided her to interfere.

‘Stop!’ she said to the lictors and soldiers, as they bowed

reverently before her majestic presence. ‘By virtue of my office, I

bid you take off that furca, and spare the life of your prisoner.’

‘He is a runaway slave, whom for great misdemeanours the Emperor has

ordered to be scourged,’ said Callicles, stepping forward.

‘Dare you disobey the Virgo Maxima?’ asked Lælia, with flashing eye.

‘Do you think that even the Emperor will insult the majesty of Vesta

and her sacred fire, by questioning the immemorial prerogative of her

eldest vestal? Take off the furca at once!’

The very lictors were overawed by her gesture of command. They

hastily unbound the tired arms of Onesimus, and took the furca off

his neck. What would happen to him he knew not, but he knew that for

the time his life was saved.

‘Thanks, kindest of vestals,’ said Titus, gratefully kissing the

purple hem of her _suffibulum_, and not betraying by look or sign

that Onesimus was known to him. ‘I never saw a vestal exercise her

prerogative before, and I am so glad to have seen it. May Vesta

reward your sleep with her divinest dreams! May Opiconsiva bless

you!’

‘Opiconsiva?’ said the vestal with difficulty suppressing a smile;

‘is the boy laughing at me? What do you know of Opiconsiva?’

‘Not much,’ said Titus, ‘except that she has something to do with

vestals; and if so, Lælia must be very dear to her!’

Onesimus, with his usual quickness, took his cue from the conduct

of Titus. The right of the vestals was well known in Rome, though

it was rarely used, for they were not often seen in the streets. But

it was understood that, in order to be valid, the meeting of vestal

and criminal must be accidental. Lælia would have been seriously

displeased had she known that she was in reality the victim of a

little plot on the part of her boy-friend, and Titus was in some

trepidation till he had hurried the vestal past the prisoner, and

to the choice book-stall which was spread with the purple bindings

of Atrectus. There she not only purchased for him the copy of Virgil,

but, as he had quoted Seneca, she also gave him a radiant little

volume of some of his treatises from the shop of his bookseller,

Dorus, hard by. When she gave him this second gift the delighted

youth felt a little compunction at his manœuvre.

No one knew what he had done; but, when he narrated the incident to

Pudens, the tribune suspected the real state of the case, for the

boy’s eye twinkled suspiciously as he told his little story with the

most innocent candour.

BOOK II

* * * * *

‘_LACHESIS ROTAT!_’

CHAPTER XXXIV

_AN EVIL EPOCH_

‘Inde metus maculat pœnarum præmia vitæ,

Circumretit enim vis atque injuria quemque ...

Nec facile est placidam ac pacatam degere vitam

Qui violat facteis communia federa vitæ.’

LUCRET. _De Rer. Nat._ v. 1151.

The career and character of Nero grew darker every year, for every

year more fully revealed to him the awful absoluteness of his

autocracy. No one dreamed of disputing his will. Every desire,

however frivolous, however shameful, however immense, was instantly

gratified. His Court was prolific of the vilest characters. There was

scarcely a man near his person who did not daily extol his power, his

wit, his accomplishments, his beauty, his divinity. ‘Do you not yet

know that you are Cæsar?’ they whispered to him if he hesitated for a

moment to commit some deadly crime, or plunge into some unheard-of

prodigality.

All things went on much as usual in the corrupt, trembling world of

Rome. To-day some wealthy nobleman would commit suicide, amid the

laudations of his friends, out of utter weariness of life. To-morrow

all Rome would be talking of the trial of some provincial governor

who had gorged himself with the rapine of a wealthy province.

Or everybody would be whispering a series of witty pasquinades,

attributed to Antistius Sosianus or Fabricius Veiento, full of

lacerating innuendoes, aimed now at the Emperor and now at some

prominent senator. Pætus Thrasea and the peril he incurred by his

opposition to the Court furnished a frequent subject of conversation,

both to his Stoic admirers and to the rabble of venal senators, who

cordially hated him. ‘To put Thrasea to death would be to slay virtue

itself,’ said the graver citizens. ‘He is a pompous sham, who wants

taking down,’ said the gilded youth.

It was a fearful comment on the wretchedness of the times that most

of the prominent thinkers and statesmen looked on self-destruction as

the sole path to freedom, and the best boon of heaven. They thought

it a proof of philosophic heroism when a man died calmly by his own

hand, though the act involves no more courage than the vilest of

mankind can evince. Seneca tells with rapture the story of the death

of Julius Canus. The Emperor Gaius had said to him, after a quarrel,

‘That you may not deceive yourself, I have ordered you to be led

to execution.’ ‘I thank you, excellent prince,’ said Canus. Ten

days passed, and Canus spent them without the smallest sign of

trepidation, awaiting the tyrant’s mandate. When the centurion

arrived at his house with the order that he was to die, he was

playing at draughts. He first counted the pieces, and then said

with a smile to his friend, ‘Mind you don’t claim the victory when

I am dead. You, centurion, will be the witness that I have one piece

more than he has.’ Observing the grief of his friends, he said, ‘Why

are you sad? You are perplexed about the question whether souls are

immortal or not. In a moment or two I shall know. If I can come back

I will tell you.’[70]

The letters, and all the latest writings, of Seneca vibrate with

terror. They are full of the thought of death, and doubtless he lived

with the sense of such grim satisfaction as could be derived from

the thought that if life became too unbearable he could end it. ‘And

death,’ he said to himself, ‘means only “not to be.”’[71]

And all this was felt even in Nero’s ‘golden quinquennium’! Men

boasted of the happiness of the days in which their lot was cast,

but they knew that under their vineyards burnt the fires of a

volcano. Common conversation, home life, dinner parties, literature,

philosophy, virtue, wealth, were all dangerous. Neither retirement

nor obscurity always availed to save a man. The only remedy was to

learn endurance; not to fill too prominent a place; not to display

too much ability; never to speak in public without a digression in

flattery of the Emperor; to pretend cheerfulness though one felt

anguish; and to thank the tyrant for the deadliest injuries, like

the rich knight who thanked Gaius when he had killed his son.

Now and then some painful incident, like the bitumen which floats up

from the Dead Sea depths, showed the foulness which lay beneath the

film of civilisation. Such, for instance, was the fate of Octavius

Sagitta, the tribune of the people, and one of Nero’s intimates, who

was banished for the brutal murder of a married lady who had played

fast and loose with his affections. Such, too, was the savage attack

made upon Seneca in the Senate by the aged informer Publius Suillius,

whose sneers and denunciations caused bitter anguish to the unhappy

philosopher. But Nero recked little of such scenes; and as time went

on, he fell wholly under the influence which, even more than that

of Tigellinus, developed his worst impulses. He became more and more

enslaved by the fatal fascinations of the wife of Otho.

Poppæa had every charm and every gift except that of virtue. From

the moment that she had riveted the wandering fancy of Nero at the

banquet of her husband, she felt sure that her succession to the

splendour of an Augusta was only a matter of time. There were

obstacles in the way. Otho loved her to distraction. Nero still

admired him, and did not think of putting him to death. Nor did

he venture to defy public opinion by taking her from her husband,

as Augustus had taken Livia from the elder Tiberius. Octavia was

Empress, and as the daughter of Claudius, she had a hold on the

affections of the people. As the niece of Germanicus, she was dear

to the soldiers. Her life was blameless, and Agrippina was anxious

to protect her, though she knew that it was impossible to make Nero

a faithful husband. Octavia retained the distinction of a consort,

if she had none of the love which was a wife’s due.

Poppæa determined to surmount these difficulties, and she it was

who gradually goaded her imperial lover to the worst crimes which

disgrace his name. Through two murders and two divorces she waded

her way to a miserable throne.

Her first husband was Rufius Crispinus, by whom she had a son. She

had accepted the advances of Otho, who passed for the finest of the

young Roman aristocrats; but she aimed from the first at becoming

Empress, and it was with this aim that she had flung her spells over

Nero. Her consummate beauty was enhanced by the utmost refinements of

a coquette. She pretended to love Nero passionately for his own sake,

as though she had become enamoured of his personal beauty; yet while

she thus allured his devotion, she carefully checked his advances

with a bewitching semblance of modesty. She played the part of the

honourable Roman matron. She extolled the open-handed liberality

and artistic grace of Otho. She taunted Nero with his love for

a freedwoman like Acte. Above all, she missed no opportunity of

deepening his irritation against his mother. She saw the instinctive

fear of Agrippina which Nero could never quite throw off, and feeling

convinced that so long as the Empress-mother lived she could not

supplant Octavia, she made it her aim to goad Nero to her murder

or banishment. Whenever she saw him most enraptured with her

charms--when his hand wandered to the golden tresses, full of

burning gleams in the sunlight, which Nero had astonished the poets

by describing as ‘amber-hued,’ and which were the despair and envy

of the Roman ladies--she would push his hand aside, and tell him

that she was much happier as the wife of Otho than she could be in a

palace where her lover was still subject to the maternal sway of one

who detested her. Nero became haunted by the fixed impression that he

could never be free and never be happy while Agrippina lived. Poppæa

did not even hesitate to taunt him. ‘You a Cæsar!’ she said. ‘Why,

you are not even a free man! You are still a schoolboy tied to your

mother’s girdle!’

Nero saw but little of Agrippina. She spent much of her time at one

or other of her numerous villas, and rarely occupied the palace of

Antonia at Rome. Yet he felt sure that during her sullen isolation

she had never abandoned her designs. She might seem to be living

in retirement, busy with the improvement of her gardens, or amusing

herself with her talking starlings and nightingales; but he knew her

too well to imagine that she acquiesced in a defeat which she might

yet retrieve. She was but forty-two years old, and in past days

she had shown that she knew how to wait. It was known that she was

writing her own memoirs, and that their scandalous pages abounded in

accusations against others, so dark as to render men more credulous

of the worst accusations which were launched against herself. How

could Nero tell what might be passing between her and Octavia when

they exchanged visits? His timid and conscience-stricken nature often

imagined that she might be intriguing with Faustus Sulla or Rubellius

Plautus, both of whom, like himself, were scions of the imperial

family of the Cæsars. He saw in her the one fatal obstacle to the

fulfilment of his desires.

And she, in those grim years of terror, knew well that Poppæa was

no gentle girl like Acte, but would strive to trample on her rivals

as Agrippina herself had done in former years. The struggle against

Poppæa and her beauty and her ambition would be a struggle of life

and death. And, indeed, the bitterness of death was almost past, for

her son stooped to the most ignoble methods for rendering her life

miserable, and humiliating her even to the dust. At Rome he set on

his emissaries to harass her with lawsuits; and, stooping to yet

more vulgar baseness, he paid the lowest of the populace to annoy her

with coarse jests and infamous reproaches, which they shouted at her

from boat or roadside, when she was resting at her country houses.

An attempt was made to poison her at a banquet given by Otho; but

Agrippina was wary and abstemious. She had watchful slaves and

freedmen near her person, and the attempt failed. Nero persuaded

himself that his mother was watching him like a tiger-cat in act to

spring. It was not only Poppæa who inflamed his hatred. Tigellinus

also had his own designs. He suggested that Otho should first be got

out of the way, and then that the death of Agrippina should leave the

path open for Nero’s union with the siren who had mastered his soul.

Octavia, without Agrippina to help her, was hardly considered in the

light of an obstacle. She could be swept aside with ease.

The first step was soon taken. Otho was sent as governor to

Lusitania. So long as he was there he could not stand in Nero’s

way. The exile cherished his love for Poppæa to the last; and during

his brief spell of empire he induced the Senate to honour her with

statues. But he never saw her more.

One day, as Nero sat, with Tigellinus by his side, looking on at a

sham sea-fight, for the purpose of which the arena had been flooded,

they were struck with one of the novelties which Arruntius Stella,

the president of the games, had devised for the amusement of the

populace. During the fight one of the vessels had been so constructed

as to go to pieces, to pour a number of armed men out of its hold,

and then to be reunited into a trireme as before.

Tigellinus touched the arm of Nero, and Nero, filled with the same

thought, turned to him a glance of intelligence.

‘The sea is a treacherous element,’ said Tigellinus. ‘All sorts of

strange and unaccountable accidents happen at sea.’

‘I wonder who could make me a ship of that kind,’ said the Emperor.

‘Your old tutor, Anicetus. He is at this moment admiral of the

fleet at Misenum. Stella would put at his disposal the artist who

contrived this vessel. One like it could be made in a few weeks,

and magnificently adorned for the use of the Empress.’

‘How could she be induced to go on board?’

‘She is at Antium; you are going to Baiæ. The Feast of Minerva is

coming on. You must be reconciled to her publicly, must invite her

to your villa, and must place the galley at her disposal.’

The sea-fight went on, but it was observed that after the new

contrivance of the mechanical ship, Nero did not pay much attention

to it. He was apparently lost in thought. He was impatiently

revolving in his mind the intolerable conditions by which he was

surrounded. On the one side was his mother, haughty, menacing,

powerful in spite of her dethronement; and, on the other, Poppæa

entangling him in her sorceries, worrying him with importunities,

goading him to matricide with envenomed taunts. And behind them

both stood the spectre of his tormenting conscience, with thrilling

whisper and outstretched hand.

And thus it was that the world went on. In that age morality had

well-nigh vanished because faith was well-nigh dead. Man cannot live

without a conscience or without God. Guilty pleasure is brief-lived,

and afterwards it stingeth like a serpent. It is self-slain by the

Nemesis of satiety. The wickedest age the world has ever seen was

also the most incurably sad.

But for the poor Christians of Rome, though the days were so evil,

life had neither tumult nor terror. They had found that which more

than compensated them for the trials of the world. Their life was

a spiritual life. To them, to live was Christ. They possessed the

strange secret of joy in sorrow, the boast of which upon the lips

of the Stoics was an idle vaunt. That secret lay in a spiritual

conviction, an indomitable faith, above all, in an In-dwelling

Presence which breathed into their souls a peace which the world

could neither give nor take away. The life which was to most of their

contemporaries a tragedy without dignity, or a comedy without humour,

was to them a gift sweet and sacred, a race to be bravely run under

that lucent cloud which shone with the faces of angel witnesses,--a

mystery indeed, yet a mystery luminous with a ray which streamed to

them out of God’s Eternity from the Glory of their Risen Lord.

CHAPTER XXXV

_THE MATRICIDE_

‘It was not in the battle,

No tempest gave the shock;

She sprang no fatal leak,

She ran upon no rock’----

COWPER.

‘Hæc monstra Neroni

Nec jussæ quondam præstiteratis aquæ.’

MART. iv. 63.

Baiæ in the springtide of A.D. 59 must have been as lovely a place

as the world can show. Its blue sky, its soft air, its sparkling sea,

its delightful shore, its dry hard yellow sands and rocks gleaming

in the clear water, its green and wooded heights, combined with

its healing waters and splendid buildings to make it a fairyland of

beauty and enjoyment. Marius, Pompey, Cæsar, had built villas there,

and the whole line of coast to Puteoli had gradually become crowded

with the gay houses of the Roman aristocracy. Temples, and baths,

and theatres, and palaces rose on every side, among groves enriched

with grottoes and blooming like a garden of enchantment with fruits

and flowers. Passing the promontory of Misenum, the traveller first

arrived at the bright town of Baiæ itself, and then at the more

quiet and exclusive Bauli, until he reached the lakes of Lucrine and

Avernus, of which the former had been joined to the sea by a canal,

and protected by the magnificent causeway of Agrippina’s grandfather

Agrippa. Beyond these was Puteoli, with the stately and pillared fane

of Serapis, the ruins of which still attest its former magnificence.

The festive splendour of the lovely and dissolute resort was

heightened by the universal holiday of the Quinquatrus, or Feast

of Minerva. It was kept almost like our Christmastide. All the

boys had five days’ holiday, beginning on March 19, and were at

home from their various schools, adding fresh mirth to the joyous

watering-place. There were exhibitions of wild beasts, and plays,

and poetic and oratorical contests; and on the fifth day of the

festival, which was called the Tubilustrium, all the trumpets were

blown, and the sacred implements of the temples lustrated.

By this time Nero had accustomed himself to the thought of getting

rid of his mother by treacherous violence. His five years of empire

had inspired him with audacity and confidence. His passion for Poppæa

burned with ever fiercer flame. His hatred for Agrippina, as the

main obstacle in the path of his desires, grew daily more sullen;

and Poppæa had aroused his fears by persuading him that his mother

was plotting against his life. Since poison had failed, and he

shrank from using the dagger, he had determined to follow the deadly

suggestion of Tigellinus, and to make it appear that the Augusta had

perished in an accident at sea.

To prepare the way for his purpose, he began to express his

determination to be reconciled with his mother. ‘The anger of

parents,’ he said, ‘must be cheerfully borne. It is my duty as a

son to soothe my mother’s irritation. I long to be on good terms

with her once more.’ Again and again he repeated these sentiments

to various persons, and he took care that they should reach the ears

of his mother. Octavia herself, grateful for the efforts of Agrippina

on her behalf, told the Augusta that Nero’s feelings seemed to

be undergoing a change, and that perhaps he would restore to

her, spontaneously, her former honours. The hope kindled by this

intelligence fell on the last days of the Empress-mother like a ray

of cruel sunshine out of the thunder-clouds which had so long been

gathering around her. It was natural that in her misery she should be

credulous of good tidings, and perhaps her heart was softened to her

son by the fact that she was now living in the villa at Antium where

she had given him birth, and in which nearly every room recalled the

memories of his childish brightness, and the winning trustfulness

of a heart as yet unstained, of a beauty as yet unshadowed by evil

secrets and base desires. The villa was full of splendour. The Apollo

Belvedere and the Fighting Gladiator were but two of the many statues

which adorned it. But what was art, what was splendour to a mind

diseased? She found more happiness in the tame birds which would

settle on her finger, and the yellow brown-marbled lampreys which

came to feed out of her hand.

On March 18, the day before the Feast of Minerva began, her heart

throbbed with pleasure to receive a delightful letter from her

son. Couched in the most loving terms, it conveyed to her a genial

invitation to come to him at Baiæ, and there to spend, in due

mirth and feast, the first day of the festival. ‘Fancy that I am a

schoolboy once more,’ wrote Nero, ‘and that you, my loving mother,

are welcoming me home for my holidays.’ How could Agrippina help

indulging the hope that better days had at last begun to dawn? The

next morning, gladder than she had ever been since her husband’s

murder, she made her way through the grounds of her villa to the

little haven where was moored the Liburnian galley which she used

for excursions along the shore.

Agrippina thought that Nature had never looked lovelier as she glided

over the flashing waves, and her stalwart rowers in gay liveries,

‘Bending to their oars with splash and strain,

Made white with foam the green and purple sea.’

They had hardly rounded Cape Misenum when they met the imperial yacht

in which Nero had sailed to meet her. He came on board her galley,

warmly embraced her, and accompanied her to the landing-stage of her

villa at Bauli, where he bade her farewell, saying that they would

meet again in the evening. ‘And look, mother,’ he said, ‘I have

provided that you shall be conducted to Baiæ with proper splendour.’

He pointed to a yacht anchored under the trees of her villa, manned

with the imperial marines, and superb with fluttering pennons and

decorations of gilding and vermilion. It was more splendid than

any to which she had been accustomed in the days when, as the sole

Augusta and as all-powerful with Claudius, she wielded the resources

of the Empire. This yacht, he told her, was to be rowed in front

of her Liburnian, and to announce her arrival. There it lay, making

a lovely show, and casting its bright broken reflection on the

dancing sunlit waters. She was delighted, for she loved magnificence,

both for its own sake and for the impression which it makes on the

multitude; and she took this as an omen that Nero would restore

to her the body-guard of Germans and the escort of Prætorians the

withdrawal of which had cut her most deeply to the heart.

As Agrippina rested after her voyage, she prepared to array herself

in her richest and most jewelled robes. She was full of bright

anticipations, and thought that now the tortures of the last five

years were at an end. The whole world had turned for her to thorns;

would some new rose-bud now unfold itself among them? Hardly! It was

the custom of ladies on the first day of the Quinquatrus to consult

astrologers and fortune-tellers, and the answers of those whom

Agrippina consulted that day were far from encouraging. And a

disagreeable incident occurred during the morning. While she was

being dressed, the message was brought her that, in the concourse of

vessels which had attended the Emperor, one of them had accidentally

crashed into her own galley, and so broken its sides that it was

temporarily unfit for service; happily, however, she could now sail

on board the bright vessel which had been sent to wait upon her.

Little did the unhappy woman know that all this had been pre-arranged,

and that the chief reason why Nero had sailed to meet her was in

order to make the disabling of her galley wear the aspect of a

colourable accident!

But she felt an unaccountable unwillingness to go on board the

untried vessel. She had heard mysterious hints of danger, too

impalpable to be understood, but sufficient to awaken a dim

suspicion. Her astrologer, whom she again consulted, vaguely

indicated that a storm might arise, and it might be as well for

her to go to Baiæ by the road. These faint surmises were emphasised

by the arbitrary foreboding of her own heart, which every now and

then seemed to pause in its beating, and to chill her happiness with

the suspense of the unknown. In vain she tried to dispel these vague

spiritual fears. At the last moment she ordered her litter to be

prepared, and, making some excuse about the better protection of her

robes, had herself conveyed to Baiæ by land.

She was received with open arms from the moment that, with queenly

step, she descended from her litter. The guests, and the many slaves,

all in their finest array, were grouped around the entrance, and

broke into a respectful murmur of greeting and applause as the gleam

of the westering sun flashed on the diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires

which encircled her neck and arms and thickly encrusted the broidery

of her inner robe. The assembled nobles and courtiers bowed low, the

attendants almost prostrated themselves as she advanced towards her

son. He seemed to be in his brightest mood of hilarity and affection.

He welcomed her with playful sentences and attractive tenderness. He

himself conducted her to the banquet, which, to add to its delight,

was spread in a room where the couches were so arranged that each

guest could have a full view on one side of that ‘golden shore of

happy Venus,’ proud with the gifts of nature and of art; and, on

the other side, of the river with its painted shallops and merry

holiday-makers. No refinement of luxury or beauty was lacking to the

banquet. Nero assured her--but she knew that no one could believe

a word he said--he had himself caught the fish by a line from the

window beneath which the sea-waves flowed. Then there were plates of

melimela, sweet as honeycombs, glowing rosily from their baskets of

silver filagree, and olives from Picenum, and cinnamon from the shop

of Niceros in Rome, which was so choice that, as he solemnly assured

his wealthy purchasers, it could only be procured from the nest of

the Phœnix.

Nero insisted that Agrippina should occupy the seat of honour at the

table above himself. When she gently remonstrated, he said, ‘To whom

is the precedence due but to the mother who gave me both my life and

my Empire?’ Never had he seemed to her to shine with more princely

charm than at that entertainment! He exerted himself to display all

his geniality and all his accomplishments. He bade her look at the

sea, and quoted some lines of young Martial to her:

‘The wavelets wake from their purple sleep,

The soft breeze ruffles the dimpling deep,

Gently the painted shallops glide,

Borne by the breeze o’er the rippling tide.’

Sometimes he entered with grave dignity upon questions of State,

which he respectfully submitted to her maturer judgment; at other

times, dropping the tone of confidential inquiry, he plunged into

almost boyish gaiety, and interchanged witticisms with the younger

nobles to beguile her into laughter. His conduct was a consummate

piece of acting, which would not have disgraced Paris or Aliturus,

and Agrippina fell into the snare. At first the shadowy foreboding

flitted every now and then across her soul, but now she dismissed it.

Surely all those blandishments were sincere! After all, was not she

his mother? was not he her son? What was more natural than such a

reconciliation between two who were so dear to each other? The hours

sped by almost unnoticed, and the exhilaration of the rich wine of

which, on an occasion so joyful, she freely partook, added to the

hope and bliss which for four weary summers had been strangers to

her heart.

But at last it was time to leave, for the banquet and its amusements

had prolonged themselves far into the evening. Even Nero, frivolous,

corrupt, abandoned as he was, felt the awful solemnity of the moment

when he would for the last time behold in life the mother to whom he

owed so immense a debt. He strained her again and again to his heart;

he gazed long and earnestly into the eyes which were so soon to be

closed forever; he covered her hands and her cheeks and even her eyes

with his passionate kisses. Almost he wished that the terrible deed

had never been contemplated, that the sham reconciliation had indeed

been real. ‘Farewell, dear mother,’ he said, almost with a sob, which

came easily to a nature so superficially emotional. ‘Take care of

your health for my sake.’ And then, handing her to the charge of

Anicetus, he turned hastily away.

With deep obeisances, but with a smile in his evil eye, the admiral,

who had once been a slave, conducted her on board the fatal ship,

along the planks which had been covered with purple for her proud

footsteps. He led her to the stern, where a canopy of purple silk,

fringed with golden broiderings, overshadowed the sumptuous couch on

which she was now glad to rest. There were but two attendants with

her, her lady-in-waiting, Acerronia Polla, and Crepereius Gallus.

Little did those three dream that it was to be their last night on

earth!

The night was as enchanting as only a night of the spring on the

shores of Italy can be. Overhead, in the deep blue vault, numberless

stars seemed to hang like golden cressets, raining their large lustre

over that unequalled scene. Beneath the rhythmic strokes of the

rowers the sea flashed into brighter phosphorescence in the shadow

of the boat, and the waves rolled away in molten gold. From the

near coast, as they steered northwards, the air seemed to come laden

with the perfume of flowers from the gardens and blossoming trees.

Countless spectators watched the gilded barque, and their torches

glimmered along the crowded sands, and the music of their gay songs

and serenades came to the happy voyagers. The balm and peacefulness

and beauty of the night seemed to set its seal on the reunion of

hearts too long divided, and for that hour of blessedness it almost

seemed worth while to have lived.

Acerronia, bending over the feet of the Empress as she reclined on

the couch, was congratulating her with all her heart on the warmth

with which she had been received, and was indulging in a hundred

flattering auguries of the future. Surely Agrippina would now be

restored to her full honours as Augusta! Once more she would have

her home in the Palace of the Cæsars, and ride in a carriage to the

capital, and be surrounded by her tall and glittering body-guard!

‘He kissed your _eyes_, Augusta,’ said Acerronia, ‘as though he would

embrace your very soul.’[72] To Agrippina also at that moment

‘Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.’

Crepereius stood near them, only joining in the conversation by an

occasional word of congratulation, but enjoying with the two ladies

the happy events of the day and the splendour of the balmy night.

Suddenly a whistle was heard from near the prow, where Anicetus was

standing. The whistle was followed by a frightful crash. The gay

canopy over the Empress had been weighted with lead, and so contrived

that by the pulling of a rope it could be freed from its supports.

Down it rushed upon the heads of the unsuspecting victims. Crepereius,

who was standing up, was instantly crushed to death; but not so the

two ladies. They were protected by the side of the boat and of the

couch on which the Empress was resting. Half stunned by the terrible

accident, they had scarcely realised what had occurred before they

saw the galley in a state of indescribable confusion. Only a few

of the sailors shared the hideous secret with Anicetus; and as the

machinery had failed to act--for the loosing of the canopy ought to

have been accompanied by the dissolution of the vessel--they rushed

to the larboard in order to upset the boat by their weight. Those who

had not been warned of the intended murder rushed to the starboard to

prevent an accident. Fierce cries and discordant commands sounded on

every side. Half wild with selfish terror, Acerronia struggled from

the débris of the canopy and screamed out, ‘I am the Empress; help

the mother of the Cæsar.’ A shower of fierce blows, dealt on her

head with oars and boat-hooks, was the answer to her cry and the

punishment of her faithlessness. In a moment she too lay outstretched

in death. Agrippina was sobered by peril from the fumes of the

Falernian of which she had plentifully partaken, and was enabled,

by her familiarity with guilty plots, to take in at a glance the

significance of the scene. She kept perfect silence. The murder

of Acerronia showed her that it was her own life which was being

deliberately attempted under pretence of a shipwreck; but she clung

fiercely to that life, horrible as it had become, and little as she

could now hope ultimately to escape the machinations of her son.

Taking advantage of the confusion and the darkness, she dropped

herself unobserved into the sea. She was a good swimmer, and boldly

struck out for the land; though she then first became conscious that

during the scuffle she had received a wound in the shoulder, either

from the falling canopy or from the oar of one of the conspirators.

Every stroke was painful; she was weighted by her heavy robes, and

she doubted whether her strength would hold out; but still she swam

for the land with all her remaining force. Surely the silent stars

had never looked down on a stranger scene! Here was a matron who

but recently had swayed the world, a half-deified Empress, the

great-granddaughter of Augustus, the daughter of Germanicus, the

wife and priestess of one deified Emperor, and the mother of the

reigning Cæsar, swimming for her life in the jewelled robes which she

had worn at the imperial banquet--swimming for her life in the dark

waves, which became phosphorescent at every stroke, and thus trying

to escape to land from the gilded barge which had been murderously

wrecked by the contrivance of her son!

It happened that Pudens as one of the officers in charge of the

Prætorian escort, was spending his holiday at Baiæ, and had asked

Titus to accompany him. King Caractacus and Claudia were also there,

and had accepted the invitation of Pudens to join him and their young

favourite Titus for a moonlight sail on one of the scores of painted

shallops in which the visitors to the watering-place were enjoying

the beauty of the night. The youth’s eyes had been following the gay

vessel which bore Agrippina to Bauli. He saw that there had been some

strange disaster; he had heard the crash of the falling canopy, and

the discordant tumult of cries and groans which followed. He had seen

a splash in the water, and observed the golden divided ripple behind

some one who was evidently swimming to escape. He instantly steered

the pleasure-boat toward the swimmer, as did some fishermen in

another vessel who, then as now, were plying their trade by night.

The unhappy Empress first reached the boat of Pudens, and the

centurion stretched out his strong arm to rescue her. As she grasped

it the light of a torch upheld by Titus shone on his face, and she

recognised the young friend of Britannicus. He, too, by the same

light caught the flash of her jewels, and saw who she was.

‘Immortal gods!’ he exclaimed, ‘it is the Empress Agrippina!’

Claudia at once pressed to her side. Her face was deadly pale, and

the blood of Acerronia had left on it some ghastly spots of crimson.

The sleeve of her robe was stained with blood from the wound[*11] in

her shoulder. She was almost too exhausted to speak, but she faintly

whispered, ‘Hush! Do not mention my name. Let me be unknown.’

They laid her on the cushioned seat, and Claudia, sitting beside her,

clasped her hand, wrung the sea-water from the folds of her dripping

robe, tenderly parted the wet disordered tresses which clung about

her face, and covered her with a mantle, while, at her request,

they rowed her towards the Lucrine lake and the landing-place of

her villa. Titus bade the fisher-boat accompany them, for their own

little pinnace was overloaded. When they touched the land he offered

to run up to the villa and order her slaves to bring a litter for

their mistress. The Empress, however, entreated them not to wait, but

to carry her as best they could, for she was too weak to walk. A rude

litter was hastily constructed from a bench of the fishing-boat, and

in this humble and pathetic guise the Augusta was carried by Pudens

and Titus into the hall of her house, where a group of wondering and

terrified slaves awaited her.

The news had spread like wildfire among the thousands of idlers who

were promenading on the shore, and tumult reigned among them. What

did it mean? The night was absolutely calm. There were no rocks in

the bay. No collision had occurred. That there could have been a real

shipwreck was impossible. The gods themselves, by the exceptional

calmness of sea and air, seemed to have interfered to expose the

hypocritical pretence of any accident. But if there could have been

no accident, what was it that had happened? What were they to do?

They were in wild excitement. All along the shore of the bay were

crowds of men and women, who had streamed out of the villas at the

news of some variously reported disaster. No one knew the real facts

of the case. The strangest tales were repeated from mouth to mouth,

and on all sides were heard agitated questions and startling but

discordant answers. The sea-road and the sands and the causeway

of the Lucrine lake glimmered with countless torches, which flowed

now in one direction, now in another, like streams of fire. The one

steady report was that the Empress had been shipwrecked, and was

in danger of her life; and the one object was to get a share in

the credit of saving her. The piers and boats were crowded with an

impatient throng. Some stood at the very edge of the summer waves;

others waded neck deep into the warm and glowing water, and stood

with outstretched hands staring over the sea to catch sight of any

floating form. Amid the confusion, the little pleasure-boat of Pudens

was seen rippling its golden path toward Baiæ from the landing-stage

of Agrippina’s villa, and was instantly surrounded by throngs of

eager questioners. In answer to the confused inquiries, Pudens and

Titus said that undoubtedly the splendid state galley had, in some

way or other, been shipwrecked, but that the Empress-mother had

escaped by swimming, and was now safe at her own villa.

As the news spread among the multitudes, they streamed off to the

villa at Bauli to convey their congratulations and to surround

the house and gardens with applauding cries. Most of them felt

an agreeable sensation in the fact that a first-rate incident had

occurred to break the monotony of idleness and vulgar dissipation.

But Agrippina was lying in her chamber, shivering, agitated, with

aching body and despairing soul. The undaunted woman had betrayed to

her slaves and household no sign that she was aware of what had been

intended. She only told them that her galley had been shipwrecked,

and her life marvellously preserved. She expressed her deep regret

at the loss of her friends Acerronia and Crepereius, and ordered the

will of the former to be produced, and all her effects sealed. Not

till then did she withdraw into privacy, to meditate on what she

should do. All was too plain now! She understood that sugared letter

which had summoned her from Antium! She understood why her son had

sailed to Cape Misenum to meet her; why her own galley had been

purposely run into; why the gorgeous state-barge had been pressed

upon her acceptance! She saw through the exquisite banquet, the

hypocritical caresses, the murder so deliberately and diabolically

planned.... Alas! alas!

Revenge, the appeal to force, was out of the question. She was ill

and miserable, and felt drained of all her energies. The crowd buzzed

and shouted outside; but she gauged too well their cowardly and

vacillating nature to rely on any protection from them. She knew that

at the sight of a dozen soldiers they would be scattered like the

chaff. And who would strike a blow for her? Not the mob, for she was

universally hated; not the nobles or the Senate, for they loved her

not, and were in any case too selfish, too servile, and too much

steeped in dissolute luxury to lift a hand on her behalf. Would the

Prætorians rise at her bidding? It was more than doubtful, and if

they would, she was at Bauli and they at Rome.

But one thistledown of hope remained to bear the weight of her ruined

fortunes. Was it possible that, at the last moment, her son would

relent? Those farewell embraces seemed to express something genuine.

Perhaps when he found that he had, in spite of himself, escaped the

guilt of actual matricide, he might come to a better mind. The gods

had offered him one more opportunity for repentance: would he embrace

it? Yes; she came to the decision that her best course was to feign

ignorance of the design of which she had been the victim, and to

trust to the reawakenment of filial affection in Nero’s mind.

She summoned to her presence her freedman Lucius Agerinus.

‘Go to the Emperor,’ she said, ‘and tell him that, by the merciful

protection of the gods, his mother has been saved from a terrible

disaster. Anxious as he must naturally be about my safety, ask him

not to cherish any solicitude, but to postpone for the present the

visit which he will wish to pay me. I am greatly in need of rest.’

Agerinus set out, little foreseeing that he too was potentially a

murdered man. Agrippina--ill, disenchanted, utterly weary of the

world--once more lay on her couch, with throbbing brows and lacerated

soul, a prey to unspeakable anguish. A single slave-maiden was her

attendant; a single golden lamp shed its dim light from its marble

stand over her room. In her utmost need there was not one to whom she

could speak, or in whom she could confide. Oh, how she longed for one

hour of Pomponia’s company, for one whisper of the consolation which

had once fallen for a moment like the dew upon her soul! But Baiæ was

the last place where Pomponia would be likely to be found.

The slave-girl, withdrawn into the shadow, and engaged in spinning

wool, looked up furtively again and again at the face of the Empress,

who was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to notice her. The girl

saw passion after passion chase each other like dark clouds across

Agrippina’s face. At one moment the clenched hand, the quivering

nostril, the flashing glance, showed that the thought of possible

vengeance was passing through her soul. Then for a moment a

softer expression would smooth her features, as she dreamed of the

possibility of her son’s remorse. Then terror would express itself

on her features as she recognised the frightfulness of her position.

Last of all, an infinite languor seemed to droop through her whole

being, as she resigned herself to sullen despair.

In those dark uncertain hours she realised all the error and

infatuation of her life. Impunity, after so many crimes? Impunity,

when the menacing spectres of perjury and adultery and murder kept

starting upon her out of the darkness? Crispus Passienus poisoned;

Lucius Silanus hounded to death by lying informers; his murdered

brother Junius; her husband Claudius--were they all to be unavenged?

Had the gods no thunderbolts? Had the guilty ever escaped them? Had

Tiberius died in peace after his atrocities and crimes? Had Gaius

died in peace amid the tears of his beloved? Had Messalina escaped

the consequences of her debaucheries and murders? Did not the

violated laws of heaven put into the hand of their transgressors

their whips of flame? And as she began to realise that Retribution

dogs guilt like its own inevitable shadow, the line of the old Greek

poet rang ominously in her memory:--

‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind

exceeding small.

Though in patience long He waiteth, with exactness grinds

He all.’

And, all the while, the nightingales in the gardens of her villa were

pealing forth their ecstasy, and the stars shone, and the soft wind

breathed of perfume.

CHAPTER XXXVI

_SELF-AVENGED_

‘Sua quemque fraus, suum facinus, suum scelus, sua audacia,

de sanitate ac mente deturbat. Hæ sunt impiorum furiæ,

hæ flammæ, hæ faces.’--CIC. _In Pisonem_, xx. 46.

Nero, in a mood of fearful restlessness, awaited news of the issue of

his design. Long ere this he ought to have received the intelligence

which would relieve his life of a great burden. Hardly for a moment

did the enormity of the crime he was committing press upon a soul

given up to shameful self-indulgence. He only yearned to be rid of a

figure which frightened him, and checked the rushing chariot-wheels

of his passions. Once free from his mother and her threats, he would

marry Poppæa and give himself up to whatever his heart desired. Too

uneasy to sleep, too much occupied with anxiety to follow his usual

pleasures, he talked to Tigellinus, who alone was with him, pacing up

and down the hall of his villa, tossing down goblet after goblet of

wine, and trying to conjure before his imagination the scene which

was being enacted. Surely it could not fail! And, if it succeeded,

the dead tell no tales, and the sea-waves would keep the secret!

Every one had seen the warmth of his attention to his mother, and

the affectionate tenderness with which he had bidden her farewell.

What remained but publicly to deplore with tears the sad bereavement

which had been inflicted on his youth by the treachery of winds and

waves, and then to decree to his mother’s memory the temples and the

altars which would be ostentatious proofs of his filial regard?

But how was it that no news had reached him? Three or four hours

had passed. By this time the deed must have been done. Something had

happened--so much was certain; for though he dared not send out to

inquire, as though he suspected that anything was wrong, yet from

the balcony he saw the torches moving in hurried streams hither and

thither, and he could hear the distant cries of excitement and alarm.

A messenger was announced.

‘Who is it?’ asked Nero anxiously.

‘The centurion Pudens,’ said the slave; ‘and he is accompanied by

Titus Flavius.’

Nero started at the name, for it recalled the night of the murder of

Britannicus.

‘What do they want?’

‘They have important tidings, which they will tell to Cæsar’s ears

alone.’

‘Admit them. See that the guard is on duty close at hand.’

Pudens and the youth were ushered into Nero’s presence, and, in

answer to his agitated inquiries, told him all that had occurred, and

how they had helped to rescue the Empress as she was saving herself

by swimming. They were dismissed, each with a handsome gift; and

scarcely had they left the room when Nero, pale as death, and with

a heart which throbbed with painful palpitations, flung himself on

a couch and turned a terrified look on his accomplice.

‘The plan has been bungled,’ he said. ‘I am ruined. My mother has

been wounded. She knows all.’

Tigellinus feared that in his terror he would swoon away, and

sprinkled his face with water.

‘What will she do?’ asked Nero in a faint voice. ‘Will she arm her

slaves to attack and murder me? Will she rouse the soldiers? Will

she go to Rome and accuse me of matricide before the Senate and the

people?’

The older and robuster villany of Tigellinus was not terrified by

these alarms; but he too saw that the situation was serious, and did

not know what to advise.

Nero, shaking with alarm, sent messengers in fiery haste for Burrus

and Seneca, both of whom had come from Rome to Baiæ at his request to

attend upon him during the Quinquatrus. They were roused from their

beds at the dead of night, and hurried to Nero’s villa. He told them

that, after his mother had left him, her vessel had been wrecked, and

that she had swam to land with no worse hurt than a slight wound; but

he added, ‘She suspects that I have attempted her life: and how am I

to escape her vengeance?’

Burrus and Seneca stood silent and thunderstricken. They were

innocent of the vile attempt. Dim rumours of some grave crime which

was in contemplation had indeed reached them; and in Nero’s court

everything seemed credible. The murder had been the design of the

execrable Anicetus and the yet more execrable Tigellinus, and had

only been revealed to kindred spirits such as Poppæa. But they at

once saw through the story which Nero told them, in which he had

indeed betrayed himself.

It was a moment of anguish and of degradation for them both. The

blunt, honest soldier was thinking of his happier youth, in which

virtue was not compelled to breathe so contaminated an atmosphere. He

was secretly cursing the day on which ambition had led him to espouse

the cause of Nero, and so to be dragged into loathed complicity with

so many crimes.

And through the heart of Seneca there shot a pang of yet keener

agony. He a philosopher; he a Stoic; he a writer of so many

high-soaring moral truths; he so superior to the vile and vulgar

standard of his age--to what had he now sunk! Was this corrupt

fratricide--this would-be murderer of his mother--the timid boy

who, little more than five years before, had been entrusted to his

tutelage? And was he now called upon to advise the most feasible way

in which a matricide could be accomplished? Was he, of all men, to

be the Pylades to _this_ viler Orestes? Was it to the edge of such

a precipice that he had been led by the devious ways of a selfish

ambition?

A nobler path was open to him had he desired it. Why should he not

have urged Nero to visit his mother, to expostulate with her if need

be, to be reconciled with her in reality? Might he not have told him

that, if Agrippina were really conspiring, it would be better for

him to run that risk than to stain his hands in a mother’s blood?

Titus was not a professed philosopher like Seneca, yet Titus rose

spontaneously to that height of virtue in later years. He knew that

his brother Domitian was working in secret as his deadly enemy,

yet he only took him gently aside, and entreated him to behave more

worthily of a brother. And when he saw that his entreaty had failed,

he did indeed weep as he sat at the games, but he would not shed his

brother’s blood.

Alas! the conscience of Seneca did not suggest to him this means

by which he could extricate himself. That Agrippina was, at such a

crisis, preparing to rebel against her son he did not believe; but

might she not--so whispered to him once more the demon of concession

--might she not become dangerous hereafter? In other words, must he

not help the Emperor to accomplish his fell purpose? The silence

became intolerable.

At last Seneca turned his troubled eyes on Burrus, as though to

inquire whether it would be safe to command the execution of

Agrippina by the Prætorians.

Burrus understood his look and bluntly replied that such a thing was

not to be thought of. The Prætorians would never lift a hand against

the daughter of Germanicus. The same thought had been in his mind as

in that of Seneca, though he had blushed to give it utterance. But

now that he saw the drift of his colleague’s purpose, he gulped down

his scruples, and said with sullen brevity, ‘Let Anicetus complete

what he has begun.’

Anicetus had been on board the deceitful vessel, and, on the failure

of the device, had made his way with all speed in a rowing boat to

the Emperor’s villa. He entered at the moment when Burrus spoke. Nero

turned on him a look of rage, and, walking up to him, stammered into

his ear the threat that his life should pay the penalty of his clumsy

failure.

‘Be calm, Cæsar,’ he replied in a whisper; ‘your wish shall still be

accomplished. Only give me your authority to end the business.’

Anicetus hated Agrippina for private reasons, and he knew that,

if she were not put to death, she would demand vengeance upon him,

since the treachery on board the vessel could not have been effected

without his cognizance. ‘Leave it in my hands,’ he said. ‘If Seneca

and Burrus are too timid to strike a blow for their Emperor, at least

Anicetus will not shrink.’

‘Thanks, Anicetus,’ said Nero, changing his mood. ‘To-day, for the

first time, I feel secure. Now I begin to recognise that I am indeed

Emperor. And a freedman is the author of the boon!’

He frowned at his two ministers to reprove their backwardness in

murder, and effusively grasped the hand of the admiral. Burrus, as

he looked at his scowling countenance, felt a fresh pang of remorse

that he had ever deserted the cause of Britannicus. Seneca said to

his agonised conscience, ‘If one would be the friend of a tyrant,

one must not only wink at crimes, but commit them without a moment’s

hesitation, however heinous they may be.’

While Anicetus was hastily suggesting the steps to be taken,

the announcement came that one of Agrippina’s attendants--Lucius

Agerinus--was waiting outside with a verbal message from the Augusta.

Before he was admitted Nero whispered something to Anicetus. ‘Yes,

yes,’ said the admiral, ‘the plan is excellent.’

Both Seneca and Burrus were amazed and shocked at the stupid and

shameless comedy which was then enacted before their eyes. Agerinus

had hardly begun to deliver his message when Nero, stepping up to

him, dropped a sword at his feet. It fell with a clang on the white

and purple mosaic, and instantly Nero and Anicetus began to clamour,

‘Murder! treason! murder! he has been sent by Agrippina to stab the

Emperor!’

At this shout the body-guard came running in, and Agerinus was loaded

with chains. Anicetus now had the excuse he needed. He summoned a

band of soldiers and marines, and, accompanied by Herculeius, one

of his naval captains, and Obaritus, an officer of the marines, he

made his way to the villa at Bauli, giving out that he was ordered

to execute Agrippina, who had just been detected in an attempt to

assassinate her son.

They found the precincts of the villa thronged by a curious crowd.

These they drove away, and surrounded the grounds with guards. The

slaves dispersed in all directions. Agrippina was still in her dimly

lighted room, growing momently more alarmed because Agerinus did not

return and she received no message from Nero. Nearer and nearer came

the tread of feet till they heard the soldiers enter the atrium.

There followed a brief altercation as the murderers scattered the

few faithful attendants who would still have guarded the door of

the chamber. The slave-girl rose to fly.

‘Dost thou also desert me?’ said the Empress bitterly.

But the girl’s figure had scarcely disappeared when the door was

rudely burst open, and she saw the cruel face of her enemy Anicetus,

who held his drawn sword in his hand.

For a moment they stopped before her imperious gesture.

‘If you have come from my son to inquire after my health,’ she said,

‘tell him that I am better. If you have come to commit a crime, I

will not believe that you have his authority.’

‘We have his authority,’ said Anicetus. ‘Behold his signet-ring!’

They advanced upon her. She sprang from her couch and stood erect.

Then the brutal Herculeius struck her a blow on the head with his

baton, and Anicetus aimed his sword at her breast. She avoided the

stroke, and, rending her tunic, ‘Strike here,’ she said, pointing to

her womb; ‘it bore a monster!’

She fell, stricken down, and thrust through with many deadly wounds.

Thus ended that career of wickedness and splendour. Almost from the

day which consummated her many crimes she heard behind her the fatal

footstep of the avenger. Her murder of Claudius had placed the diadem

upon the brow of her own murderer. For that young murderer she had

felt the frantic love of a tigress for the cub which she licks and

fondles. And now the tiger-whelp had shown the nature which it

inherited.

* * * * *

When Nero received the news that his mother was dead, he would not

trust to any testimony. With wild haste and utmost secrecy he went

to the villa at Bauli. With trembling hand he drew the winding-sheet

from the face, and gazed on the corpse. The colour fled from his

cheeks; but after a moment or two he grew bolder. The matricide

was still the æsthete. ‘I did not know,’ he said, ‘that I had so

beautiful a mother.’ Then he hurried back.

That same night they carried her corpse to the funeral pyre. It was

laid upon a couch from her banquet-hall, for lack of a regular bier.

Hurried and scant and humble were her obsequies. Her ashes were laid

in a mean grave near the road to Misenum, where the villa of the

dictator Cæsar crowned an eminence which commanded a wide view of

the gulf.

During the remaining ten years of her son’s reign, the site of her

sepulchre was left unhonoured and no mound was raised above her ashes.

But the spot was not forgotten, and to this day the peasant points

to the Sepolcro d’ Agrippina. One instance of faithfulness gave a

yet more pathetic interest to the spot where so many lofty hopes were

quenched in blood. Before the pyre was kindled, Mnester, her loyal

freedman, stabbed himself over her corpse. He would not survive a

mistress who, whatever had been her crimes, had been kind to him,

and whom he loved.

What pathos is there in the fact that even the worst and most

criminal of human souls have rarely died entirely unloved! Even a

Marat, even a Robespierre, even a Borgia, even an Agrippina, found

at least one to mourn when they were dead.

CHAPTER XXXVII

_VICTOR OVER THE PUBLIC SERVITUDE_

‘Palliduamque visa

Matris lampade respicis Neronem.’

STAT. _Sylv._ II. vii. 118.

‘Prima est hæc ultio, quod se

Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.’

JUV. _Sat._ xiii. 2.

There is a marvellous force of illumination in a great crime, but

it is the lurid illumination of the lightning-flash, revealing to

the lost Alpine wanderer the precipices which yawn on every side of

him. While the murder was yet to do, Nero could talk of it lightly

and eagerly among the accomplices who were in the secret. To the

irresponsible Emperor of the world it did not seem so great a matter

to order the murder of a mother. But when the deed was done, when

he had got back to his Baian villa, when the pale face flecked with

crimson bloodstains came hauntingly back upon his memory, a horror

of great darkness fell upon him. Then first he realised the atrocious

magnitude of his crime, and every moment there rang in his ears a

damning accusation. The very birds of the air seemed to flit away

from him, twittering ‘Matricide! matricide!’ He drank more Falernian

from the glittering table, on which yet lay the remains of the

banquet, but it seemed as if all his senses were too preternaturally

acute with horror to be dulled by wine. He lay down to sleep, but

strange sounds seemed to be creeping through the dead stillness of

the night, which made him shudder with alarm. If he closed his eyes,

there flashed at once upon them the pale face, the firm-set lips, the

splashes of blood. The dead eyes of his mother seemed to open upon

him with a gleam of vengeance. Till that night he had never known

what it was to dream. He started up with a shriek and summoned his

attendants round him, and paced up and down in a frenzy of delirium,

declaring that when the dawn came he would certainly be slain. They

persuaded him to lie down again, but scarcely had he dropped into an

uneasy sleep when it seemed to him as though he saw the three Furies

sweeping down upon him with the blue snakes gleaming in their hair

and the torches shaken in their hands, while his mother, who pointed

them to him, shrieked aloud, ‘Ho! murderer of thy mother! no sleep

henceforth for thee!’

Leaping once more from that couch of agony, he sat mute, and

trembling in every limb, his clenched hands buried in his hair,

waiting in anguish the break of day. When the first beam of dawn

lit the east, it showed a youth whose pallid features were haggard

with agonies of fear.

If there had been a spark of nobleness in the Roman world, the

indignation of a people’s moral sense might have sprung to arms

and smitten the tyrant while he was yet red-handed from his crime.

Nothing was farther from the general intention. The universal

desire was to ‘skin and film the ulcerous place’ with adulation and

hypocrisy. Men, not naturally evil or case-hardened, were carried

away by the tide of complaisance to the imperial murderer. As though

to leave no chance for any feelings of penitence to work, all classes

began to flood him with congratulations. The fears which at the

moment he half mistook for remorse vanished like the early dew, for

society seized upon the convention that Agrippina, detected in a plot

against the life of her son, had been justly executed. The tribunes

and centurions of the Prætorians, Burrus at their head, came to

Nero that morning, poured their felicitations upon him, pressed

his hands, expressed their effusive joy that he had escaped from so

sudden a peril created by his mother’s crime. His friends crowded to

the temples to thank the gods for his safety. There was scarcely a

town of Campania which did not express its joy by sending deputations

and offering victims. Distant provinces caught the infection, and

Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul surpassed all the rest by the fulsome

entreaty which they sent by their ambassador, Julius Africanus, ‘that

Nero would endure his felicity with fortitude!’ Certainly it did not

seem as if there were much cause for fear! In a few days Nero became

an adept at the counter-hypocrisy with which he feigned to weep over

the fate of his mother, and to be grieved by his own deliverance!

But places cannot change their aspect as do the looks of men. From

the windows and gardens of Nero’s villa were always visible the

sea which he had attempted to pollute, the long line of shore which

he had stained with a mother’s blood. The aspect of nature in that

lovely spot had lost its fascination. It seemed to be eloquent with

mute reproach. And what were those sounds which assailed his ears at

the dead of night? What meant that blast of a solitary trumpet, blown

by no earthly breath, from the promontory of Misenum? What meant

those ghostly wailings which seemed to shriek around his mother’s

grave? He could not endure this haunted place. He fled to Naples.

From thence he despatched to the Senate a letter, of which the

conceits betrayed, alas! the hand of Seneca. ‘As yet,’ he wrote, ‘I

cannot believe, I do not rejoice, that I am safe.’ Men of letters

admired the euphuistic phrases and despised their author. The

letter did not mention any details, but left it to be inferred that

Agrippina, detected in an attempt to murder her son, had committed

suicide. And then with unmanly malignity it dwelt on the long

catalogue of her crimes--her bitter enmities, her immense ambition,

her unscrupulous intrigues. To her it attributed all the cruelties

of the reign of Claudius, and it ended by saying that her death was

a public blessing. The more cynical of the senators laughed at the

absurdities of this missive, for it narrated Agrippina’s shipwreck

as though it had been accidental, and tried to gain credence for the

gross absurdity that a woman barely saved from drowning had chosen

the moment of her rescue to send off to murder her only son in the

midst of his fleets and cohorts!

But though men shook their heads at Seneca, they plunged no less

emulously into the vortex of criminal adulation. Public thanksgivings

were decreed to all the gods; annual games at the Quinquatrus; a

golden statue to Minerva in the senate-house, with a statue of the

Emperor beside it. The birthday of Agrippina was pronounced accursed.

Such abject servility was too much for the haughty spirit of Pætus

Thrasea. He rose from his seat and left the senate-house in silence,

and a blush rose to the cheek of not a few who did not dare to follow

him.

Yet, after all, Nero was so timid that six months elapsed before he

ventured once more to face the people of his capital. An eclipse of

the sun had happened during the thanksgiving decreed by the Senate.

Fourteen regions of the city had been struck by lightning. Would

these portents of heaven awaken the tardy indignation of men? Every

piece of news, however trivial, frightened him. He was told the

ridiculous story that a woman had given birth to a snake. Was that

meant by the gods, if there were any, for a scornful symbol of

himself? There were hours in which it seemed to him as if the Empire

itself would be a poor price for the purchase of one day of the

innocence which he had so frightfully sacrificed.

But the foul creatures who swarmed about him assured him with the

effrontery of experienced villany that he need not be in the least

anxious as to the obsequiousness of the Senate and the zeal of the

people.

‘You will find yourself more popular than before,’ they said. ‘Every

one detested Agrippina. Go to Rome with confidence, and you will see

that you are as much adored as ever.’

They were right in their conjectures. Even Nero was amazed at the

_abandon_ of welcome, the delirium of ostentatious applause with

which he was received, while his hands were still red-wet with his

mother’s blood. The people thronged forth by their tribes to greet

him. The senators were in festal array. They were surrounded by

their wives and children. Stages had been built all along the road,

in which the spectators had purchased their places to look on as at

a triumph. Incense burned in the streets; the shouts of myriads of

voices rent the air. Rome received him not as a murderer, but rather

as a great conqueror or a human god. And he, as he rode in his gilded

chariot through those serried files of cheering flatterers, proudly

upheld his head, tossed back the curls from his forehead, smiled, and

bent low, and, accepting these greetings as a tribute to his merits,

drowned deep within his heart all sense of shame. With long retinue

and dazzling pomp he visited the Capitol, gave thanks to Jupiter,

best and greatest, and returned to the Palace ‘a victor over the

public servitude.’

Yet even so he could not escape. He dared not be left alone. The

manes of his mother haunted him by day and by night. In vain he

practised the old expiatory rites to rid himself of the menacing

phantom. On the night of May 13, two months after Agrippina’s death,

he determined to go through the mummery of the Lemuralia, which

some of his credulous advisers had told him would be efficacious.

At midnight, amid the dead silence, he stole with naked feet to

the water of the fountain in the atrium, and there, trembling with

excitement, washed his hands thrice. Then with his thumb and finger,

he filled his mouth with nine black beans, and, full of superstitious

horror, flung them one by one behind him over his shoulder, saying

each time, ‘With these beans redeem me and mine.’ Arrived at his

chamber he again dipped his hands in water, and beat a great brazen

gong to terrify the pursuing ghost.[73] Then he turned round,

and peered with a frightened glance into the darkness; and as

he peered--was even this expiation all in vain?--what were those

glimmering lights? What was that white and wavy form? A shriek

rang through the villa, and Nero sank fainting into the arms of the

timid minions who had awaited the result of the expiation and rushed

forward at his cry.

The following year, when he had returned to the city, he repeated

this antiquated rite, and he commanded the vestals to bear him

specially in mind when, on the Ides of May, they flung from the

Sublician Bridge into the Tiber the thirty little figures called

_argei_, made of bulrushes, which were supposed to be in lieu of

human sacrifices.

Then he tried yet further forms of magic and yet darker rites of

propitiation to the infernal powers, in which it was whispered

that human blood--the blood of murdered infants--formed part of the

instruments of sorcery. But he could learn no secrets of the future;

he could evoke no powers who could ward away that white menacing

spectre which gleamed upon him if at any moment he found himself

alone in the hours of night.

Nero became a haunted man. The whole earth seemed to him to be ‘made

of glass’ to reveal his turpitude. He knew in his miserable heart

that the very street boys of Rome--the ragged urchins of the slaves

and gladiators--were aware of the crime which he had committed. Kind

friends kept him informed, under pretence of officious indignation,

that one night an infant had been found exposed in the Forum with

a scrap of parchment round its neck, on which was written, ‘_I

expose you, lest you should murder your mother_;’ and that, another

night, a sack had been hung round the neck of his statue as though to

threaten him with the old weird punishment of parricides. Once, when

he was looking on at one of the rude plays known as Atellane, the

actor Datus had to pronounce the line,

‘Good health to you, father; good health to you, mother;’

and, with the swift inimitable gestures of which the quick Italian

people never missed the significance, he managed to indicate Claudius

dying of poison and Agrippina swimming for her life. The populace

roared out its applause at an illusion so managed that it could

hardly be resented; and once again, when coming to the line,

‘Death drags you by the foot.’

Datus indicated Nero’s hatred to the Senate by pointing significantly

to Nero at the word ‘_death_’ and to the senatorial seats as he

emphasized the word ‘_you_.’

But Nero was liable to insults still more direct. Could he not read

with his own eyes the _graffito_ scrawled upon every blank space of

wall in Rome: ‘_Nero, Orestes, Alcmæon, matricidæ_’? He could not

detect or punish these anonymous scrawlers, but he would have liked

to punish men of rank, whom he well knew to have written stinging

satires against him, branding him with every kind of infamy.

Two resources alone were adequate to dissipate the terrors of

his conscience--the intoxication of promiscuous applause and the

self-abandonment to a sensuality which grew ever more shameless as

the restraints of Agrippina’s authority and Seneca’s influence were

removed.

Nero had long delighted to sing to the harp at his own banquets

in citharœdic array. To the old Roman dignity such conduct seemed

unspeakably degrading in the Emperor of the legions. Yet Nero

divulged his shame to the world by having himself represented in

statues and on coins in the dress of a harpist, his lips open as

though in the act of song, his lyre half supported on a baldric

embossed with gems, his tunic falling in variegated folds to his

feet, and his arms covered by the chlamys, while with his delicate

left hand he twanged the strings, and with his right struck them with

the golden plectrum. The pains which he took to preserve his voice,

which after all was dull and harsh, were almost incredible. Following

the advice of every quack who chose to pass himself off as an expert,

he used to walk about with his thick neck encircled in a puffy

handkerchief, to sleep with a plate of lead on his chest, and to

live for a month at a time on peas cooked in oil.

To give him more opportunities for display he instituted the

Juvenalia to celebrate his arrival at full manhood, as marked by the

shaving of his beard. His first beard was deposited in a box of gold,

adorned with costly pearls, and he dedicated it to the Capitoline

Jupiter. But even this event in his life was accompanied by a crime.

Shortly before he laid aside his beard he paid a visit to his aunt

Domitia, who was ill.

Laying her hand on the soft down, she said to him in her blandishing

way, ‘As soon as I have received this, I am ready to die.’

Nero turned round to the loose comrades who usually attended him and

whispered, with a coarse jest, ‘Then I will shave it off at once.’

From that sick-bed Domitia, who was almost the last of Nero’s living

relatives, never rose again. The Roman world suspected foul play on

the part of the physicians at Nero’s order. Certain it is that he

seized all her ample possessions, and suppressed her will.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

_THE GLADIATORS’ SCHOOL_

‘Commorabor inter homicidas, inclusus turpiore custodia

et sordido cellarum situ.’ ‘In ludo fui, qua pœna nullam

graviorem scelera noverunt, cujus ad comparationem

ergastulum leve est.’--QUINCTILIAN.

Although the intervention of the vestal and the kindly ruse of Pudens

had saved the life of Onesimus, his condition was far from enviable.

He was once more--now for the third time in his life--in overwhelming

disgrace. It is true that all the legal customs were observed, in a

house controlled by that respect for archæology which the fashion had

been set by Augustus. The chains were taken off his limbs and flung

out of the court through the impluvium. None the less he felt that

he was marked and shunned. One day, after his escape, Nero passed him

in one of the corridors, and, struck by the appearance of a handsome

youth, beckoned him to approach. He came forward trembling, and the

Emperor, peering into his face, recognised the purple-keeper of

Octavia. Inspired by sudden disgust at the memories thus called to

his recollection, he summoned his dispensator Callicles into his

presence, and ordered him to get rid of ‘that worthless Phrygian.’

‘Shall I put him in prison, or have him sent again to the ergastulum

at Antium?’ asked Callicles.

‘Neither,’ said Nero. ‘The City Prætor, Pedanius Secundus, is about

to give some votive games of beasts and gladiators. Make a present to

him of this youth.’

Onesimus heard the words, and his heart sank within him. But

resistance was useless. On his way he passed the door of Acte’s

apartments, and not without peril ventured to sing a few notes of

the old Thyatiran ballad which had first attracted her notice. She

heard it, and came out.

‘That youth comes from my native land,’ she said to the dispensator.

‘Step back a few paces and let me have a word with him.’

Callicles would hardly have granted the favour to any one else,

but every one loved Acte, and he only said, ‘If Nero should come?’...

‘I will hold you clear,’ said Acte.

Onesimus, overcome with shame, knelt on one knee, kissed the fringe

of her robe, and whispered, ‘Oh, Acte, I am condemned to be a

gladiator.’

‘In which school?’

‘Under Rutulus, the trainer of Pedanius Secundus--the cruellest man

in Rome.’

He told her something of his story, and she saw that to help him

was beyond her power. All she could do was to slip into his hand her

own purse, and to tell him that if ever the day came when she could

befriend him she would do her utmost. More she dared not say, for the

suspicious eyes of Callicles were upon her, and she had to repress

the emotion which agitated her frame.

In the school of Rutulus, Onesimus experienced a phase of misery

even deeper than in the slave-prison of Antium. Once more he was the

companion of felons of every dye and fugitives of every nationality.

Every day came the severe drill, the coarse food which was worse than

hunger, the odious society of hardened ruffians, the recounting of

the brutal tragedies with which they were familiar. Among them all he

found but one whose society he could tolerate. He was a dark-haired,

blue-eyed Briton, young like himself, but in all other respects

unlike him. For Æquoreus, as they called him, was full of manly pride

and hardihood, and had none of the subtle softness of the Asiatic

in his temperament. He had been reduced to his hard lot for no other

crime than the outburst of a passionate independence. He had been

brought over with Caractacus, as one of the Britons pre-eminent

in stature and beauty to grace the ovation of Claudius and Aulus

Plautius. He had not been treated cruelly, for the admiration

inspired by the dauntless bearing of the British king had secured

protection to his countrymen; but Glanydon--to give him his Silurian

name--loathed the effeminate luxuries of Rome, and, forgetting that

he was a captive, had once struck in the face a Prætorian officer

who insulted him. For this offence he had been first scourged and

then handed over to the master of the gladiators. It was ordered

that he should fight, as soon as he was trained, in some great

display. Onesimus saw that the young Briton shared his own disgust

at the orgies of ribald talk in which their fellows indulged. The two

had no other friends, and they were drawn together for mutual defence

against the rude horse-play of their comrades. Glanydon was one of

the class of gladiators called Samnites, who fought in heavy armour,

while, after various trials, the trainer (_lanista_) decided that

the exceptional activity of Onesimus marked him out for the work of

a net-thrower (_retiarius_). Their training had to be hurried on at

the utmost speed, for the games were to take place within a month.

The other gladiators sometimes talked of their lot with pretended

rapture. They spoke of the liberal supply of food, of the presents

sent them, of the favour with which they were regarded by fair

ladies--even by the wives and daughters of great patricians--of

the fame they acquired, so that their prowess and the comparison

of their merits was one of the commonest topics of talk at Roman

dinner-parties. They boasted of the delight of seeing their

likenesses painted in red on the play-bills; of the shouts with

which a favourite fighter was welcomed; of the yell of applause which

greeted them when they had performed a gallant feat; of the chance

of retiring with wreaths and gifts and money, when they had earned

by their intrepidity the wooden foil.[74]

‘Poor wretches,’ said Onesimus to Glanydon; ‘they do not talk of the

panic which sometimes seizes them, and how they are howled at when,

in ignominious defeat, they fly to the end of the arena to beg for

their lives; how, when they see overwhelming odds against them and

grim death staring them in the face, they are still driven into

the fight with cracking scourges and plates of iron heated red hot;

nor--but what is the use of talking of all this, Glanydon? you know

it all better than I do.’

‘Brutal, bloody, slaves and women, are these Romans,’ cried Glanydon.

‘The Druids of my native land served the gods with cruel rites, but

they did not play with death as though it were a pretty toy, as these

weaklings do. And to think that by arms and discipline they conquered

my countrymen! Oh, for one hour again under Caradoc or under Boudicca!

I would never leave another field alive.’

‘You do not, then, fear death?’ said Onesimus.

‘Why should I? What has life for me? The maiden I loved is in her

hut on my Silurian hills. I shall never see her more, nor set foot

on those purple mist-clad mountains. I shall be butchered to amuse

these swine. Death! No,’ he said, while he indignantly dashed away

the tear which had burst forth at the thought of his home--‘I do not

fear death, but I hate to die thus.’

‘Did your Druids think that death ended all?’

Glanydon turned his blue eyes on the speaker. ‘I do not think they

did. There were mysteries which they hid from us. But’....

With amazement Onesimus saw him sketch in the dust the helmet of

a mirmillo, of which the crest was a dolphin. The Phrygian said

nothing, but scratched in the dust the same symbol. Glanydon started

up and seized his hand. ‘A Christian?’ he asked in amazement; ‘and

yet here?’

‘You too are here,’ said Onesimus, hanging his head.

‘Ah, yes!’ said the Briton; ‘but surely for no crime. What could I do

but strike a wretch viler than a worm? Nor have I been illuminated--

my teacher would not baptise me till he could see proof that I had

controlled the fierce outbursts of passion.’

‘Your teacher?’

‘There came from Jerusalem an old white-haired man. They called him

Joseph. He had seen the Christ; he had buried Him in his own tomb.

--But you, Onesimus?’

‘I am no better than a renegade. My own follies have brought me here.

There is no more hope for me. Ask me no more.’

‘Do you fear death?’ asked the Briton. ‘If so, I pity your lot.’

‘The gods--or God if there be but one God--cannot be _worse_ than

men,’ answered Onesimus gloomily.

Glanydon was silent. After a pause, he said, ‘I am a rude barbarian,

as they call me here; yet he who taught me spoke much of “love for

all and hope for all.”’

Onesimus sat with bowed head, and the Briton was moved. ‘We are

brothers,’ he said. ‘Even in this hell we can love one another.’

But one sickening thought was in the breasts of both of them.

They had sat side by side in daily intercourse; their common

friendlessness, their common sympathies, had thrown them together

in the closest bonds, and those bonds had been strengthened by the

discovery that both had been taught at least the rudiments of a holy

faith. But the day of the games was rapidly approaching, and the

chances of the lot, or the caprice of the Prætor, might easily cause

them to be pitted against each other. It was horrible to think that

either of them might be compelled to drive sword or dagger into the

throat or heart of his friend.

‘Supposing that we are matched together?’ said Glanydon, the evening

before the display.

‘Then we must fight,’ said Onesimus. ‘Have we not taken the oath “to

be bound, to be burned, to be scourged, to be slain,” or do anything

else that is required of us as legitimate gladiators, giving up alike

our souls and our bodies?’[75]

‘Which of us will win?’ asked Glanydon, with a sad smile.

‘You,’ said the Phrygian. ‘You are stronger than I am, and taller.’

‘Yes, but you are quicker and more active, and you can’t tell how I

hate that net of yours. I know you will catch me in it--’

‘If I do, you will still have fought so well that the people will all

turn down their thumbs, and you will be spared. A tall fine fellow

like you is just the gladiator whom the Roman ladies like to look at,

and they won’t have you killed in your first fight. But as for me--a

mere Phrygian slave!--Yes, Glanydon, to-morrow your short sword will

perhaps be red with my blood.’

‘Never!’ said Glanydon. ‘I will fight because I must, and will do my

best; and when my blood is up I might kill you or any other opponent

in the blind heat of the combat; but as for slaughtering in cold

blood I could not do it--least of all could I murder the friend I

love.’

‘You won’t be able to help yourself, Glanydon. And we netsmen (worse

luck!) have our faces uncovered. Many of the spectators, like the

late “divine” Claudius, as they call him, like to see us killed,

because our dying expression is not concealed by a helmet.’

‘But why should we not both escape?’ asked the Briton. ‘Perhaps

before this time to-morrow we may each be the happy possessor of

the ivory ticket with “_Sp._”[76] upon it, or even of the palm and

the foil. Who knows but what by our bravery we may be _rude donati_?’

‘Don’t you know, then, that to-morrow’s games will very likely be

_sine missione_? We must either die or kill.’

The Briton had not been aware of it. He sank into gloomy silence.

Onesimus gently laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and said,

‘Well, perhaps, like Priscus and Verrus, we may both be victors and

both vanquished. _Pugnavere pares, succubuere pares._’

Glanydon shook his head. He said, ‘Let us talk no more, or we shall

both be unmanned. Life--death--to-morrow; the _rudis_ or the stab?

Which shall it be?’

‘It is in God’s hands,’ said Onesimus, ‘if what we have been taught

is true.’

With that awful issue before them, overshadowed by misgivings and

almost with despair, finding life horrible, yet shrinking from the

death which neither of them dared to regard with full Christian hope,

the two youths lay down on their pallets. Before they closed their

eyes in sleep, each of them had breathed some sort of unuttered cry

into the dim unknown.

CHAPTER XXXIX

_THE FIGHT IN THE ARENA_

‘Quid vesani sibi vult ars impia ludi?

Quid mortes juvenum? quid sanguine parta voluptas?’

PRUDENTIUS.

‘Mera homicidia sunt.’--SENECA, _Ep._ 7.

The morning broke in cloudless splendour. Long before the dawn

thousands of the Roman populace had thronged into the amphitheatre

to secure the best places. The City Præfect was known to be a man of

taste and a favourite of Nero, and the Emperor himself was certain to

grace the display with his idolised presence. The pairs of gladiators

were not numerous, nor were there many wild beasts; but everything

was to be choice of its kind, and it was rumoured that some beautiful

foreign youths were to make their first appearance as fighters.

About eleven o’clock the rays of the sun became too strong for

comfort, and a huge awning, decorated with gay streamers, was drawn

over the audience by gilded cords.

By this time the amphitheatre, except the seats reserved for

distinguished persons, was thronged from the lowest seats to the

topmost ambulatory, where stood a dense array of slaves and of the

lowest proletariat. They did not get tired of waiting, for the scene

was one of continual bustle and brightness, as group after group

of burghers, in their best array, took their seats with their wives

and families. Any well-known patrician or senator was greeted with

applause or with hisses. The buzz of general conversation sometimes

rose into a roar of laughter, and sometimes sank into a hush of

expectancy. Little incidents kept occurring every moment. Interlopers

tried to thrust themselves into the fourteen rows of seats which were

set apart for the knights, and an altercation often ensued between

the seat-keeper, Oceanus, and these impostors. Now the people laughed

at the unceremonious way in which he shook one of them who, to escape

notice, had pretended to be asleep. They were still more amused when

the impatient official turned out a finely dressed personage who

protested that he was a knight, but unluckily dropped in the scuffle

a large key, which showed him to be a slave.

At last the shouting of the multitude who thronged about the

principal entrance announced the arrival of the Præfect. Amid the

acclamations of the populace, the magnificent procession by which

Pedanius was accompanied passed round the arena to the reserved

seats. Pedanius was scarcely seated, when the Emperor, surrounded

by a group of his most brilliant courtiers, took his place in the

imperial box. As the roar of applause continued, he rose again

and again with his hand on his heart, to bow and cringe before the

public--_omnia serviliter pro imperio_. For the mob of Rome was at

once his master and his slave, and was as ready at slight excuse

to burst into open menaces as into blasphemous adulation. Nero was

as well aware as Tiberius that ‘he was only holding a wolf by the

ears;’ and he often quoted the saying of that keen observer, that

few realised ‘what a monster Empire was.’

Then Pedanius rose in his seat and flung down the scarlet napkin

which was the signal that the sports were to begin.

The opening amusements were harmless and curious. First a number

of German aurochs were led round the circus. They had been trained

to stand still while boys hung from their huge horns, or danced

and fenced standing on their broad backs. A tiger was guided by

its keeper with a chain of flowers. Four chariots swept past in

succession, the first drawn by leopards with gay silken harness,

the second by stags champing golden bits, the third by shaggy bisons,

the fourth by four camels who amused the people by their expression

of supercilious disapproval. Then an elephant performed some clumsy

dances under the bidding of its black keeper. Next a winged boy

led in a wild boar by a purple halter. Last of all, a tame lion was

introduced, which, to the delight of the shouting populace, dandled

a hare in its paws without hurting it, and then suffered its keeper

to put his head and his hand in its open mouth. But at this point a

frightful tragedy occurred. Wherever the dazzling white sand of the

arena chanced to have been disturbed or stained, it was raked smooth,

and fresh sand sprinkled, by boys dressed as Cupids with glittering

wings. One of these boys, presuming on the lion’s tameness, hit

it rather sharply with his rake. The royal brute had been already

excited by hearing the howling of the animals of all sorts with

which the _vivarium_ was crowded, as well as by the shouts of the

spectators, and its keeper had stupidly neglected to notice the signs

of its rising rage. But when the sharp edge of the rake struck it,

the lion’s mane bristled, and with a terrific snarl he first laid

the poor lad dead with one stroke of his paw, and then sprang with a

mighty bound upon a second lad, on whose quivering limbs he fleshed

his claws and teeth.[77] A cry of horror and alarm rose from the

people, and those who sat just above the level of the amphitheatre

started up in terror, for they were only protected from the wild

beasts by rails, which had been finished off with amber and silver,

but did not look very strong. The brute, which had thus shown ‘a wild

trick of its ancestors,’ was soon overpowered, for the keeper was

skilled in the use of the lasso. But this incident did but whet

the appetite of the spectators for blood. They shouted to Pedanius

to begin the _venatio_ and the wild-beast fights which formed the

morning show. No expense had been spared to sate the insatiable

cruelty of the mob. For an hour or two longer they were gratified

with a prodigality of anguish. Ostriches and giraffes were chased

round and round, and shot to death with arrows. Wild beasts fought

with tame beasts and with wild beasts, and beasts with men. Bears,

lions, and tigers were worried and hacked by armed _bestiarii_, and

sometimes a _bestiarius_ in his turn lay rolling on the sand, crushed

by a bear or torn by the fierce struggles of a panther. Lastly,

some unskilled, defenceless criminals were turned loose into the

amphitheatre amid a fresh batch of animals, infuriated by hunger

and mad with excitement. None of the poor weaponless wretches--_sine

armis, sine arte, seminudi_--could stand up for a moment against

the bear’s hug or the tiger’s leaps. They stood in attitudes of

despairing stupefaction, watching the horrible rolling gait of the

bears, or the crouching of the tigers as they glared on them with

yellow eyeballs and bristling manes, lashing their haunches with

their tails, and at last, with a hoarse carnivorous roar, curving

their backs for the final spring. The _venatio_ degenerated into a

mere butchery meant to fill up the time.[78]

All this was regarded as child’s play in comparison with the luxury

of courage, skill, and massacre which was expected in the afternoon;

but it was already too much for one of the spectators. This was

the philosophic thaumaturge Apollonius of Tyana, who happened to be

paying a brief visit to Pætus Thrasea. Thrasea had been compelled to

be present, because he knew that everything which he did or failed to

do was watched with deadly suspicion; and Apollonius had accompanied

his host from a desire to see the strange animals which were to be

exhibited. At first he had looked on with real delight and interest;

but when he saw the noble creatures wantonly killed, his Greek

instinct for the beautiful was disgusted. He had been shocked by

the callousness with which the vast audience had recovered from its

momentary fright when the two poor boys had been slain by the lions;

but when he saw them shouting with delight while the arena was wet

with the blood of mangled men and tortured beasts, he turned his back

on the amphitheatre with disdain and horror, and whispered in the ear

of his companion, ‘Rome is a Bacchante rolling in blood and mud.’

Of all these scenes Onesimus and Glanydon had been spectators;

and such spectacles were little calculated to dispel the gloom of

dreadful anticipation which hung over the coming afternoon. They

had marched in the procession of gladiators which formed part of

the opening pomp, and from behind a lattice-work of one of the

dressing-rooms they could see all that was going on. But now the rays

of the early summer were pouring a dazzling flood of warmth and light

which penetrated even through the awning. The vast audience required

a little rest. The awning was sprinkled with perfumes. Saffron-water

fell in a delicate dew upon the hot and tired multitude. The passages

between the seats were flushed with pure cold water. Refreshments

and baskets of fruit were freely handed about, and while they were

enjoying the light mid-day meal every one chatted freely with his

neighbour.

‘Who are those in the _podium_ with the Emperor?’ asked a provincial

from Gaul of the young Spaniard who sat beside him.

‘Don’t you know?’ said Martial, for he it was. ‘That well-dressed,

handsome, smiling man is Petronius. The tall senator with the

intellectual face is Seneca. He is a countryman of whom I am proud.’

‘Seneca!’ said the provincial; ‘the greatest man of his age! Only to

think that I have seen Seneca!’

Martial only smiled. Such enthusiasm was refreshing.

‘The young man with black hair who sits just behind him with a frown

on his forehead is his nephew Lucan, the poet. The king in purple

robe is Herod Agrippa II., with his lovely sister Berenice by his

side. Just watch the flash of that diamond on her neck. That splendid

fellow with fair hair, all smiles, who has grace and beauty in every

movement, is the actor Paris, and beside him is his friend and rival,

Aliturus. The exquisite, who looks as if he would be paralyzed by the

weight of his own rings, is Senecio.’

‘And that lady with her face half veiled, so that you only catch a

glimpse now and then of her loveliness?’

‘That is Poppæa, Otho’s wife. No wonder Nero loves her better than

that pale sad lady who sits among the six vestals.’

‘Yet she, too, is young and beautiful. Who is she?’

‘The Empress.’

‘Octavia, the daughter of Claudius? May the gods bless her!’

The provincial gazed long at Octavia.

‘But now tell me,’ he continued, ‘who is that purpureal personage,

with large rings, scarlet boots, and a very white forehead?’

Martial laughed aloud. ‘His forehead may well be white,’ he said. ‘Do

you know what it is made of?’

‘Made of?’ asked the young Gaul in astonishment.

‘Yes. It is made of sticking-plaster! If you took it off, what do you

think you would see under it?’

‘His skin, I suppose.’

‘His skin, yes! But with three letters on it.’

‘What three letters?’

‘_O Simplicitas!_’ said Martial; ‘the three letters F. U. R.’

‘Is he a thief?’ asked the Gaul. ‘Then why do they let him sit there

among the knights?’

‘Because his thieving has made him rich,’ answered Martial.

‘But his riches don’t make him honest; and every one seems to be

treating him with great respect.’

Martial laughed long and loud. ‘_O Sapientia!_’ he exclaimed, ‘_O

Innocentia!_ From what new Atlantis do you come? Don’t you know that

at Rome the rule always is “Riches first, virtue next”?’

‘If that be the rule at Rome,’ said the other, ‘I should prefer to

live at Ulubræ or at Venta Belgarum.’

But Martial had no more time to listen to a morality so refreshingly

unsophisticated. ‘Hush!’ he said. ‘They are going to scatter down the

presents and the lottery tickets on us.’

First came a shower of countless coins of thin metal, every one

of which was stamped with a wanton image. Then all kinds of little

presents like those exchanged at the Saturnalia. The audience did

not exert themselves to catch these, but it was very different when

handfuls of lottery tickets were flung among them. For these they

scrambled wildly, and with many a curse and blow; for he who secured

one might find himself the happy possessor of a slave, a statue, a

fine vase, a rare foreign bird, a suit of armour, a Molossian dog, a

Spanish horse, or even a villa; although the mystery which the number

concealed could not be made known till he presented the ticket the

next day.

But by this time the attendants with rakes were scraping the surface

of the arena smooth, and sprinkling it afresh with dazzling white

sand brought in ship-loads from Africa, to hide the crimson stains of

the life-blood of animals and men. For now was to begin the splendid

exhibition of strength and skill and pluck, and the awful pageantry

of death, under that blue sky, under that gleaming sunlight; and men

and women were preparing themselves to be thrilled with sanguinary

and voluptuous excitement which would make the blood course through

their veins like fire. Most of the gladiators were men of approved

prowess, stalwart and well known; and from the senators’ seats to

the topmost gallery bets were being freely laid on their chances

of victory, and on those who should be left dead at evening,

indifferent forever to those wild shouts. The only two who were not

_spectati_--the only two tiros who were to make their appearance--

were the young British captive and the young Phrygian slave.

The long defiant blast of a trumpet smote the air; the folding doors

of the main entrance were flung open, and, headed by their trainer,

the gladiators in a body marched in proud procession and with firm

steps to the space beneath the podium, on which stood the gilded

chair of the Emperor. They were only sixty in number, but had been

selected for their skill and physique, and belonged to various

classes of gladiators. They were clad in glittering array--their

helmets, their shields, and even their greaves, richly embossed and

gilded.

And none were more curiously scanned than Onesimus, who walked

last of the net-throwers, and Glanydon, who closed the file of the

Samnites. It was impossible not to observe the towering stature and

herculean mould of the Briton, the lithe and sinewy frame of the

dark-eyed Asiatic. Then the Prætor once more flung down the napkin,

in sign that the fighting should begin. Grouped under the Emperor’s

seat, they all uplifted to him their right hands and chanted in

monotone their sublime greeting: ‘Hail, Cæsar! we who are about to

die salute thee!’

Nero flung them a careless glance, and scarcely broke the animated

conversation which he was holding with Petronius.

Before the hard fighting began there was some preliminary skirmishing

among all the gladiators, with blunt weapons, merely to display

their skill; and a pair of _andabatæ_ amused the people by their

difficulties in fighting practically blindfold, for their loose

helmets had no eyelet-holes.

Then the trumpet blew once more, and a herald cried out, ‘Lay aside

your blunt swords and fight with sharp swords;’ and Pedanius examined

the weapons to see that they were duly sharp. The display began with

the contests of the horsemen and the charioteers (_essedarii_).

It was not long before two of the chariots were broken, and their

wounded occupants flung down under the hoofs of their own plunging

horses.

Next, two horsemen, both of them popular favourites, of well-tried

prowess and well-matched strength, rode out on white horses to fight

each other in mortal conflict. Hippias wore a short mantle of blue,

and rode from the east side of the arena; Aruns, in a red mantle,

rode from the western side. Both wore on their heads golden helmets,

and military standards were carried before them.[79] The combat

between them was long and fierce, for each knew that it was to be

his last. They charged each other furiously, raining on heads and

shoulders a tempest of blows, till, after a tremendous bout, Aruns

thrust his spear through a joint in the armour of Hippias, and the

stream of crimson blood which followed was greeted by the roar of

‘Habet!’ from eighty thousand throats. The rider fell lifeless. He

required no finishing stroke, and the mob cried, ‘Peractum est!’

(‘There’s an end of him!’) This contest had excited much interest

from the fame of the fighters, and large sums of money changed hands

on the result. One of the senators, named Cæcina, had hit on an

ingenious way of telling his distant friends whether they had lost or

gained. Since Hippias was in blue, and Aruns in red, he had carried

with him into the amphitheatre a number of swallows in two cages, of

which some were painted blue and some red; and, since Aruns had slain

his adversary, he let loose those which were painted red.[80]

After this the other mounted gladiators joined combat. In a very

short time nearly all were wounded, and three acknowledged their

defeat. Dropping their swords or javelins, they upheld their clenched

hands with one finger extended to plead for mercy. The plea was vain.

No handkerchief was waved in sign of mercy, and, standing over them,

the victors callously drove their swords into the throats of their

defeated comrades. The poor conquered fighters did not shrink. They

looked up at the shouting populace with something of disdain on their

faces, as though to prove that they thought nothing of death, and did

not wish to be pitied. To see that none were shamming dead, a figure

entered disguised as Charon, who smote them with his hammer; but the

work of the sword had been done too faithfully--he only smote the

corpses of the slain.[81]

By this time the whole atmosphere of the place seemed to reek with

the suffocating fumes of blood, which acted like intoxication on

the brutalised passions of the multitude. They awaited with savage

eagerness the next combat, which was to be the main show of the

afternoon. Twelve Samnites and mirmillos were to be matched against

as many net-throwers and chasers; and the contest was all the more

thrilling because the latter were very lightly clad, so that every

wound and gash was visible in all its horror on their naked limbs,

while the unhelmed faces showed every triumphant or agonised

expression which swept across them in that stormy scene.