The three next emperors, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, were the last
princes who had any connection by blood [Footnote: And this was entirely
by the female side. The family descent of the first six Cæsars is so
intricate, that it is rarely understood accurately; so that it may be
well to state it briefly. Augustus was grand nephew to Julius Cæsar,
being the son of his sister's daughter. He was also, by adoption, the
_son_ of Julius. He himself had one child only, viz. the infamous Julia,
who was brought him by his second wife Scribonia; and through this
Julia it was that the three princes, who succeeded to Tiberius, claimed
relationship to Augustus. On that emperor's last marriage with Livia, he
adopted the two sons whom she had borne to her divorced husband. These
two noblemen, who stood in no degree of consanguinity whatever to
Augustus, were Tiberius and Drusus. Tiberius left no children; but
Drusus, the younger of the two brothers, by his marriage with the
younger Antonia, (daughter of Mark Anthony,) had the celebrated
Germanicus, and Claudius, (afterwards emperor.) Germanicus, though
adopted by his uncle Tiberius, and destined to the empire, died
prematurely. But, like Banquo, though he wore no crown, he left
descendants who did. For, by his marriage with Agrippina, a daughter of
Julia's by Agrippa, (and therefore grand-daughter of Augustus,) he had
a large family, of whom one son became the Emperor Caligula; and one
of the daughters, Agrippina the younger, by her marriage with a Roman
nobleman, became the mother of the Emperor Nero. Hence it appears that
Tiberius was uncle to Claudius, Claudius was uncle to Caligula, Caligula
was uncle to Nero. But it is observable, that Nero and Caligula stood
in another degree of consanguinity to each other through their
grandmothers, who were both daughters of Mark Anthony the triumvir; for
the elder Antonia married the grandfather of Nero; the younger Antonia
(as we have stated, above) married Drusus, the grandfather of Caligula;
and again, by these two ladies, they were connected not only with
each other, but also with the Julian house, for the two Antonias were
daughters of Mark Anthony by Octavia, sister to Augustus.] with the
Julian house. In Nero, the sixth emperor, expired the last of the
Cæsars, who was such in reality. These three were also the first in
that long line of monsters, who, at different times, under the title of
Cæsars, dishonored humanity more memorably, than was possible, except in
the cases of those (if any such can be named) who have abused the same
enormous powers in times of the same civility, and in defiance of the
same general illumination. But for them it is a fact, than some crimes,
which now stain the page of history, would have been accounted fabulous
dreams of impure romancers, taxing their extravagant imaginations to
create combinations of wickedness more hideous than civilized men would
tolerate, and more unnatural than the human heart could conceive. Let
us, by way of example, take a short chapter from the diabolic life of
Caligula: In what way did he treat his nearest and tenderest female
connections? His mother had been tortured and murdered by another tyrant
almost as fiendish as himself. She was happily removed from his cruelty.
Disdaining, however, to acknowledge any connection with the blood of
so obscure a man as Agrippa, he publicly gave out that his mother was
indeed the daughter of Julia, but by an incestuous commerce with her
father Augustus. His three sisters he debauched. One died, and her
he canonized; the other two he prostituted to the basest of his own
attendants. Of his wives, it would be hard to say whether they were
first sought and won with more circumstances of injury and outrage, or
dismissed with more insult and levity. The one whom he treated best,
and with most profession of love, and who commonly rode by his side,
equipped with spear and shield, to his military inspections and reviews
of the soldiery, though not particularly beautiful, was exhibited to
his friends at banquets in a state of absolute nudity. His motive for
treating her with so much kindness, was probably that she brought him
a daughter; and her he acknowledged as his own child, from the early
brutality with which she attacked the eyes and cheeks of other infants
who were presented to her as play-fellows. Hence it would appear that
he was aware of his own ferocity, and treated it as a jest. The levity,
indeed, which he mingled with his worst and most inhuman acts, and the
slightness of the occasions upon which he delighted to hang his most
memorable atrocities, aggravated their impression at the time, and must
have contributed greatly to sharpen the sword of vengeance. His palace
happened to be contiguous to the circus. Some seats, it seems, were open
indiscriminately to the public; consequently, the only way in which they
could be appropriated, was by taking possession of them as early as the
midnight preceding any great exhibitions. Once, when it happened that
his sleep was disturbed by such an occasion, he sent in soldiers to
eject them; and with orders so rigorous, as it appeared by the event,
that in this singular tumult, twenty Roman knights, and as many mothers
of families, were cudgelled to death upon the spot, to say nothing of
what the reporter calls "innumeram turbam ceteram."
But this is a trifle to another anecdote reported by the same
authority:--On some occasion it happened that a dearth prevailed, either
generally of cattle, or of such cattle as were used for feeding the wild
beasts reserved for the bloody exhibitions of the amphitheatre. Food
could be had, and perhaps at no very exorbitant price, but on terms
somewhat higher than the ordinary market price. A slight excuse served
with Caligula for acts the most monstrous. Instantly repairing to the
public jails, and causing all the prisoners to pass in review before him
(_custodiarum seriem recognoscens_), he pointed to two bald-headed
men, and ordered that the whole file of intermediate persons should be
marched off to the dens of the wild beasts: "Tell them off," said he,
"from the bald man to the bald man." Yet these were prisoners committed,
not for punishment, but trial. Nor, had it been otherwise, were the
charges against them equal, but running through every gradation of
guilt. But the _elogia_ or records of their commitment, he would not so
much as look at. With such inordinate capacities for cruelty, we cannot
wonder that he should in his common conversation have deplored the
tameness and insipidity of his own times and reign, as likely to be
marked by no wide-spreading calamity." Augustus," said he, "was happy;
for in his reign occurred the slaughter of Varus and his legions.
Tiberius was happy; for in his occurred that glorious fall of the great
amphitheatre at Fidenæ. But for me--alas! alas!" And then he would pray
earnestly for fire or slaughter--pestilence or famine. Famine indeed was
to some extent in his own power; and accordingly, as far as his courage
would carry him, he did occasionally try that mode of tragedy upon the
people of Rome, by shutting up the public granaries against them. As
he blended his mirth and a truculent sense of the humorous with his
cruelties, we cannot wonder that he should soon blend his cruelties with
his ordinary festivities, and that his daily banquets would soon become
insipid without them. Hence he required a daily supply of executions in
his own halls and banqueting rooms; nor was a dinner held to be complete
without such a dessert. Artists were sought out who had dexterity and
strength enough to do what Lucan somewhere calls _ensem rotare_, that
is, to cut off a human head with one whirl of the sword. Even this
became insipid, as wanting one main element of misery to the sufferer,
and an indispensable condiment to the jaded palate of the connoisseur,
viz., a lingering duration. As a pleasant variety, therefore, the
tormentors were introduced with their various instruments of torture;
and many a dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was conducted
in the sacred presence during the emperor's hours of amiable relaxation.
The result of these horrid indulgences was exactly what we might
suppose, that even such scenes ceased to irritate the languid appetite,
and yet that without them life was not endurable. Jaded and exhausted as
the sense of pleasure had become in Caligula, still it could be roused
into any activity by nothing short of these murderous luxuries. Hence,
it seems, that he was continually tampering and dallying with the
thought of murder; and like the old Parisian jeweller Cardillac, in
Louis XIV.'s time, who was stung with a perpetual lust for murdering the
possessors of fine diamonds--not so much for the value of the prize (of
which he never hoped to make any use), as from an unconquerable desire
of precipitating himself into the difficulties and hazards of the
murder,--Caligula never failed to experience (and sometimes even to
acknowledge) a secret temptation to any murder which seemed either more
than usually abominable, or more than usually difficult. Thus, when
the two consuls were seated at his table, he burst out into sudden and
profuse laughter; and, upon their courteously requesting to know what
witty and admirable conceit might be the occasion of the imperial
mirth, he frankly owned to them, and doubtless he did not improve their
appetites by this confession, that in fact he was laughing, and that he
could not but laugh, (and then the monster laughed immoderately again,)
at the pleasant thought of seeing them both headless, and that with so
little trouble to himself, (_uno suo nutu_,) he could have both their
throats cut. No doubt he was continually balancing the arguments for and
against such little escapades; nor had any person a reason for security
in the extraordinary obligations, whether of hospitality or of religious
vows, which seemed to lay him under some peculiar restraints in that
case above all others; for such circumstances of peculiarity, by which
the murder would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were but the more
likely to make its fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with
the thoughts of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed
exclusively--his wife Cæsonia; and whilst fondling her, and toying
playfully with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he half
insinuated to her) between the desire of caressing it, which might be
often repeated, and that of cutting it, which could be gratified but
once.
Nero (for as to Claudius, he came too late to the throne to indulge any
propensities of this nature with so little discretion) was but a variety
of the same species. He also was an amateur, and an enthusiastic amateur
of murder. But as this taste, in the most ingenious hands, is limited
and monotonous in its modes of manifestation, it would be tedious to run
through the long Suetonian roll-call of his peccadilloes in this way.
One only we shall cite, to illustrate the amorous delight with which he
pursued any murder which happened to be seasoned highly to his taste
by enormous atrocity, and by almost unconquerable difficulty. It would
really be pleasant, were it not for the revolting consideration of
the persons concerned, and their relation to each other, to watch the
tortuous pursuit of the hunter, and the doubles of the game, in this
obstinate chase. For certain reasons of state, as Nero attempted to
persuade himself, but in reality because no other crime had the same
attractions of unnatural horror about it, he resolved to murder his
mother Agrippina. This being settled, the next thing was to arrange
the mode and the tools. Naturally enough, according to the custom then
prevalent in Rome, he first attempted the thing by poison. The poison
failed: for Agrippina, anticipating tricks of this kind, had armed
her constitution against them, like Mithridates; and daily took potent
antidotes and prophylactics. Or else (which is more probable) the
emperor's agent in such purposes, fearing his sudden repentance and
remorse on first hearing of his mother's death, or possibly even
witnessing her agonies, had composed a poison of inferior strength. This
had certainly occurred in the case of Britannicus, who had thrown off
with ease the first dose administered to him by Nero. Upon which he
had summoned to his presence the woman employed in the affair, and
compelling her by threats to mingle a more powerful potion in his own
presence, had tried it successively upon different animals, until he
was satisfied with its effects; after which, immediately inviting
Britannicus to a banquet, he had finally dispatched him. On Agrippina,
however, no changes in the poison, whether of kind or strength, had
any effect; so that, after various trials, this mode of murder was
abandoned, and the emperor addressed himself to other plans. The first
of these was some curious mechanical device, by which a false ceiling
was to have been suspended by bolts above her bed; and in the middle
of the night, the bolt being suddenly drawn, a vast weight would have
descended with a ruinous destruction to all below. This scheme, however,
taking air from the indiscretion of some amongst the accomplices,
reached the ears of Agrippina; upon which the old lady looked about
her too sharply to leave much hope in that scheme: so _that_ also was
abandoned. Next, he conceived the idea of an artificial ship, which, at
the touch of a few springs, might fall to pieces in deep water. Such
a ship was prepared, and stationed at a suitable point. But the main
difficulty remained, which was to persuade the old lady to go on board.
Not that she knew in this case _who_ had been the ship-builder, for that
would have ruined all; but it seems that she took it ill to be hunted in
this murderous spirit, and was out of humor with her son; besides, that
any proposal coming from him, though previously indifferent to her,
would have instantly become suspected. To meet this difficulty, a sort
of reconciliation was proposed, and a very affectionate message sent,
which had the effect of throwing Agrippina off her guard, and seduced
her to Baiæ for the purpose of joining the emperor's party at a great
banquet held in commemoration of a solemn festival. She came by water
in a sort of light frigate, and was to return in the same way. Meantime
Nero tampered with the commander of her vessel, and prevailed upon him
to wreck it. What was to be done? The great lady was anxious to
return to Rome, and no proper conveyance was at hand. Suddenly it
was suggested, as if by chance, that a ship of the emperor's, new and
properly equipped, was moored at a neighboring station. This was readily
accepted by Agrippina: the emperor accompanied her to the place of
embarkation, took a most tender leave of her, and saw her set sail.
It was necessary that the vessel should get into deep water before the
experiment could be made; and with the utmost agitation this pious son
awaited news of the result. Suddenly a messenger rushed breathless
into his presence, and horrified him by the joyful information that his
august mother had met with an alarming accident; but, by the blessing
of Heaven, had escaped safe and sound, and was now on her road to mingle
congratulations with her affectionate son. The ship, it seems, had done
its office; the mechanism had played admirably; but who can provide for
every thing? The old lady, it turned out, could swim like a duck; and
the whole result had been to refresh her with a little sea-bathing. Here
was worshipful intelligence. Could any man's temper be expected to stand
such continued sieges? Money, and trouble, and infinite contrivance,
wasted upon one old woman, who absolutely would not, upon any terms, be
murdered! Provoking it certainly was; and of a man like Nero it could
not be expected that he should any longer dissemble his disgust, or put
up with such repeated affronts. He rushed upon his simple congratulating
friend, swore that he had come to murder him, and as nobody could have
suborned him but Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant execution.
And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered quietly and in a
civil way, they must expect that such forbearance is not to continue for
ever; and obviously have themselves only to blame for any harshness or
violence which they may have rendered necessary.
It is singular, and shocking at the same time, to mention, that, for
this atrocity, Nero did absolutely receive solemn congratulations from
all orders of men. With such evidences of base servility in the public
mind, and of the utter corruption which they had sustained in their
elementary feelings, it is the less astonishing that he should have
made other experiments upon the public patience, which seem expressly
designed to try how much it would support. Whether he were really the
author of the desolating fire which consumed Rome for six [Footnote:
But a memorial stone, in its inscription, makes the time longer: "Quando
urbs per novem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus."] days and seven
nights, and drove the mass of the people into the tombs and sepulchres
for shelter, is yet a matter of some doubt. But one great presumption
against it, founded on its desperate imprudence, as attacking the people
in their primary comforts, is considerably weakened by the enormous
servility of the Romans in the case just stated: they who could
volunteer congratulations to a son for butchering his mother, (no matter
on what pretended suspicions,) might reasonably be supposed incapable of
any resistance which required courage even in a case of self-defence,
or of just revenge. The direct reasons, however, for implicating him in
this affair, seem at present insufficient. He was displeased, it seems,
with the irregularity and unsightliness of the antique buildings,
and also with the streets, as too narrow and winding, (_angustiis
flexurisque vicorum_.) But in this he did but express what was no
doubt the common judgment of all his contemporaries, who had seen the
beautiful cities of Greece and Asia Minor. The Rome of that time was
in many parts built of wood; and there is much probability that it must
have been a _picturesque_ city, and in parts almost grotesque. But it
is remarkable, and a fact which we have nowhere seen noticed, that the
ancients, whether Greeks or Romans, had no eye for the picturesque; nay,
that it was a sense utterly unawakened amongst them; and that the
very conception of the picturesque, as of a thing distinct from the
beautiful, is not once alluded to through the whole course of ancient
literature, nor would it have been intelligible to any ancient critic;
so that, whatever attraction for the eye might exist in the Rome of
that day, there is little doubt that it was of a kind to be felt only
by modern spectators. Mere dissatisfaction with its external appearance,
which must have been a pretty general sentiment, argued, therefore, no
necessary purpose of destroying it. Certainly it would be a weightier
ground of suspicion, if it were really true, that some of his agents
were detected on the premises of different senators in the act of
applying combustibles to their mansions. But this story wears a very
fabulous air. For why resort to the private dwellings of great men,
where any intruder was sure of attracting notice, when the same effect,
and with the same deadly results, might have been attained quietly and
secretly in so many of the humble Roman _coenacula_?
The great loss on this memorable occasion was in the heraldic and
ancestral honors of the city. Historic Rome then went to wreck for
ever. Then perished the _domus priscorum ducum hostilibus adhuc spoliis
adornatæ_; the "rostral" palace; the mansion of the Pompeys; the
Blenheims and the Strathfieldsays of the Scipios, the Marcelli, the
Paulli, and the Cæsars; then perished the aged trophies from Carthage
and from Gaul; and, in short, as the historian sums up the lamentable
desolation, "_quidquid visendum atque memorabile ex antiquitate
duraverat_." And this of itself might lead one to suspect the emperor's
hand as the original agent; for by no one act was it possible so
entirely and so suddenly to wean the people from their old republican
recollections, and in one week to obliterate the memorials of their
popular forces, and the trophies of many ages. The old people of Rome
were gone; their characteristic dress even was gone; for already in the
time of Augustus they had laid aside the _toga_, and assumed the cheaper
and scantier _pænula_, so that the eye sought in vain for Virgil's
"Romanes rerum dominos gentemque _togatam_."
Why, then, after all the constituents of Roman grandeur had passed away,
should their historical trophies survive, recalling to them the scenes
of departed heroism, in which they had no personal property, and
suggesting to them vain hopes, which for them were never to be other
than chimeras? Even in that sense, therefore, and as a great depository
of heart-stirring historical remembrances, Rome was profitably
destroyed; and in any other sense, whether for health or for the
conveniences of polished life, or for architectural magnificence,
there never was a doubt that the Roman people gained infinitely by this
conflagration. For, like London, it arose from its ashes with a splendor
proportioned to its vast expansion of wealth and population; and marble
took the place of wood. For the moment, however, this event must have
been felt by the people as an overwhelming calamity. And it serves to
illustrate the passive endurance and timidity of the popular temper, and
to what extent it might be provoked with impunity, that in this state
of general irritation and effervescence, Nero absolutely forbade them
to meddle with the ruins of their own dwellings--taking that charge
upon himself, with a view to the vast wealth which he anticipated
from sifting the rubbish. And, as if that mode of plunder were not
sufficient, he exacted compulsory contributions to the rebuilding of the
city so indiscriminately, as to press heavily upon all men's finances;
and thus, in the public account which universally imputed the fire to
him, he was viewed as a twofold robber, who sought to heal one calamity
by the infliction of another and a greater.
The monotony of wickedness and outrage becomes at length fatiguing
to the coarsest and most callous senses; and the historian, even, who
caters professedly for the taste which feeds upon the monstrous and the
hyperbolical, is glad at length to escape from the long evolution of
his insane atrocities, to the striking and truly scenical catastrophe of
retribution which overtook them, and avenged the wrongs of an insulted
world. Perhaps history contains no more impressive scenes than those in
which the justice of Providence at length arrested the monstrous career
of Nero.
It was at Naples, and, by a remarkable fatality, on the very anniversary
of his mother's murder, that he received the first intelligence of the
revolt in Gaul under the Proprætor Vindex. This news for about a week he
treated with levity; and, like Henry VII. of England, who was nettled,
not so much at being proclaimed a rebel, as because he was described
under the slighting denomination of "one Henry Tidder or Tudor," he
complained bitterly that Vindex had mentioned him by his family name of
Ænobarbus, rather than his assumed one of Nero. But much more keenly he
resented the insulting description of himself as a "miserable harper,"
appealing to all about him whether they had ever known a better, and
offering to stake the truth of all the other charges against himself
upon the accuracy of this in particular. So little even in this instance
was he alive to the true point of the insult; not thinking it any
disgrace that a Roman emperor should be chiefly known to the world in
the character of a harper, but only if he should happen to be a bad one.
Even in those days, however, imperfect as were the means of travelling,
rebellion moved somewhat too rapidly to allow any long interval of
security so light-minded as this. One courier followed upon the heels of
another, until he felt the necessity for leaving Naples; and he returned
to Rome, as the historian says, _prætrepidus_; by which word, however,
according to its genuine classical acceptation, we apprehend is not
meant that he was highly alarmed, but only that he was in a great hurry.
That he was not yet under any real alarm (for he trusted in certain
prophecies, which, like those made to the Scottish tyrant "kept the
promise to the ear, but broke it to the sense,") is pretty evident,
from his conduct on reaching the capitol. For, without any appeal to
the senate or the people, but sending out a few summonses to some men of
rank, he held a hasty council, which he speedily dismissed, and occupied
the rest of the day with experiments on certain musical instruments
of recent invention, in which the keys were moved by hydraulic
contrivances. He had come to Rome, it appeared, merely from a sense of
decorum.
Suddenly, however, arrived news, which fell upon him with the force of a
thunderbolt, that the revolt had extended to the Spanish provinces, and
was headed by Galba. He fainted upon hearing this; and falling to the
ground, lay for a long time lifeless, as it seemed, and speechless.
Upon coming to himself again, he tore his robe, struck his forehead, and
exclaimed aloud--that for him all was over. In this agony of mind,
it strikes across the utter darkness of the scene with the sense of a
sudden and cheering flash, recalling to us the possible goodness and
fidelity of human nature--when we read that one humble creature adhered
to him, and, according to her slender means, gave him consolation during
these trying moments; this was the woman who had tended his infant
years; and she now recalled to his remembrance such instances of
former princes in adversity, as appeared fitted to sustain his drooping
spirits. It seems, however, that, according to the general course of
violent emotions, the rebound of high spirits was in proportion to
his first despondency. He omitted nothing of his usual luxury or
self-indulgence, and he even found spirits for going _incognito_ to the
theatre, where he took sufficient interest in the public performances,
to send a message to a favorite actor. At times, even in this hopeless
situation, his native ferocity returned upon him, and he was believed to
have framed plans for removing all his enemies at once--the leaders of
the rebellion, by appointing successors to their offices, and secretly
sending assassins to dispatch their persons; the senate, by poison at a
great banquet; the Gaulish provinces, by delivering them up for pillage
to the army; the city, by again setting it on fire, whilst, at the same
time, a vast number of wild beasts was to have been turned loose upon
the unarmed populace--for the double purpose of destroying them, and
of distracting their attention from the fire. But, as the mood of his
frenzy changed, these sanguinary schemes were abandoned, (not, however,
under any feelings of remorse, but from mere despair of effecting them,)
and on the same day, but after a luxurious dinner, the imperial monster
grew bland and pathetic in his ideas; he would proceed to the rebellious
army; he would present himself unarmed to their view; and would recall
them to their duty by the mere spectacle of his tears. Upon the pathos
with which he would weep he was resolved to rely entirely. And having
received the guilty to his mercy without distinction, upon the following
day he would unite _his_ joy with _their_ joy, and would chant hymns of
victory (_epinicia_)--"which by the way," said he, suddenly, breaking
off to his favorite pursuits, "it is necessary that I should immediately
compose." This caprice vanished like the rest; and he made an effort
to enlist the slaves and citizens into his service, and to raise by
extortion a large military chest. But in the midst of these vascillating
purposes fresh tidings surprised him--other armies had revolted, and the
rebellion was spreading contagiously. This consummation of his alarms
reached him at dinner; and the expressions of his angry fears took even
a scenical air; he tore the dispatches, upset the table, and dashed to
pieces upon the ground two crystal beakers--which had a high value
as works of art, even in the _Aurea Domus_, from the sculptures which
adorned them.
He now prepared for flight; and, sending forward commissioners to
prepare the fleet at Ostia for his reception, he tampered with such
officers of the army as were at hand, to prevail upon them to accompany
his retreat. But all showed themselves indisposed to such schemes, and
some flatly refused. Upon which he turned to other counsels; sometimes
meditating a flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw himself on
the mercy of Galba; sometimes inclining rather to the plan of venturing
into the forum in mourning apparel, begging pardon for his past
offences, and, as a last resource, entreating that he might receive the
appointment of Egyptian prefect. This plan, however, he hesitated to
adopt, from some apprehension that he should be torn to pieces in his
road to the forum; and, at all events, he concluded to postpone it
to the following day. Meantime events were now hurrying to their
catastrophe, which for ever anticipated that intention. His hours were
numbered, and the closing scene was at hand.
In the middle of the night he was aroused from slumber with the
intelligence that the military guard, who did duty at the palace, had
all quited their posts. Upon this the unhappy prince leaped from
his couch, never again to taste the luxury of sleep, and dispatched
messengers to his friends. No answers were returned; and upon that he
went personally with a small retinue to their hotels. But he found their
doors every where closed; and all his importunities could not avail to
extort an answer. Sadly and slowly he returned to his own bedchamber;
but there again he found fresh instances of desertion, which had
occurred during his short absence; the pages of his bedchamber had
fled, carrying with them the coverlids of the imperial bed, which were
probably inwrought with gold, and even a golden box, in which Nero
had on the preceding day deposited poison prepared against the last
extremity. Wounded to the heart by this general desertion, and perhaps
by some special case of ingratitude, such as would probably enough be
signalized in the flight of his personal favorites, he called for
a gladiator of the household to come and dispatch him. But none
appearing,--"What!" said he, "have I neither friend nor foe?" And so
saying, he ran towards the Tiber, with the purpose of drowning himself.
But that paroxysm, like all the rest, proved transient; and he expressed
a wish for some hiding-place, or momentary asylum, in which he might
collect his unsettled spirits, and fortify his wandering resolution.
Such a retreat was offered to him by his _libertus_ Phaon, in his own
rural villa, about four miles distant from Rome. The offer was accepted;
and the emperor, without further preparation than that of throwing over
his person a short mantle of a dusky hue, and enveloping his head and
face in a handkerchief, mounted his horse, and left Rome with four
attendants. It was still night, but probably verging towards the early
dawn; and even at that hour the imperial party met some travellers on
their way to Rome (coming up, no doubt, [Footnote: At this early hour,
witnesses, sureties, &c., and all concerned in the law courts, came up
to Rome from villas, country towns, &c. But no ordinary call existed
to summon travellers in the opposite direction; which accounts for the
comment of the travellers on the errand of Nero and his attendants.]
on law business)--who said, as they passed, "These men are certainly
in chase of Nero." Two other incidents, of an interesting nature, are
recorded of this short but memorable ride; at one point of the road,
the shouts of the soldiery assailed their ears from the neighboring
encampment of Galba. They were probably then getting under arms for
their final march to take possession of the palace. At another point, an
accident occurred of a more unfortunate kind, but so natural and so well
circumstantiated, that it serves to verify the whole narrative; a dead
body was lying on the road, at which the emperor's horse started so
violently as nearly to dismount his rider, and under the difficulty
of the moment compelled him to withdraw the hand which held up the
handkerchief, and suddenly to expose his features. Precisely at this
critical moment it happened that an old half-pay officer passed,
recognised the emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps it was with some
purpose of applying a remedy to this unfortunate rencontre, that the
party dismounted at a point where several roads met, and turned their
horses adrift to graze at will amongst the furze and brambles. Their
own purpose was, to make their way to the back of the villa; but,
to accomplish that, it was necessary that they should first cross
a plantation of reeds, from the peculiar state of which they found
themselves obliged to cover successively each space upon which they
trode with parts of their dress, in order to gain any supportable
footing. In this way, and contending with such hardships, they reached
at length the postern side of the villa. Here we must suppose that
there was no regular ingress; for, after waiting until an entrance was
pierced, it seems that the emperor could avail himself of it in no more
dignified posture, than by creeping through the hole on his hands and
feet, (_quadrupes per angustias receptus_.)
Now, then, after such anxiety, alarm, and hardship, Nero had reached a
quiet rural asylum. But for the unfortunate concurrence of his horse's
alarm with the passing of the soldier, he might perhaps have counted on
a respite of a day or two in this noiseless and obscure abode. But what
a habitation for him who was yet ruler of the world in the eye of law,
and even _de facto_ was so, had any fatal accident befallen his aged
competitor! The room in which (as the one most removed from notice and
suspicion) he had secreted himself, was a cella, or little sleeping
closet of a slave, furnished only with a miserable pallet and a coarse
rug. Here lay the founder and possessor of the Golden House, too happy
if he might hope for the peaceable possession even of this miserable
crypt. But that, he knew too well, was impossible. A rival pretender to
the empire was like the plague of fire--as dangerous in the shape of
a single spark left unextinguished, as in that of a prosperous
conflagration. But a few brief sands yet remained to run in the
emperor's hour-glass; much variety of degradation or suffering seemed
scarcely within the possibilities of his situation, or within the
compass of the time. Yet, as though Providence had decreed that
his humiliation should pass through every shape, and speak by every
expression which came home to his understanding, or was intelligible
to his senses, even in these few moments he was attacked by hunger and
thirst. No other bread could be obtained (or, perhaps, if the emperor's
presence were concealed from the household, it was not safe to raise
suspicion by calling for better) than that which was ordinarily given
to slaves, coarse, black, and, to a palate so luxurious, doubtless
disgusting. This accordingly he rejected; but a little tepid water
he drank. After which, with the haste of one who fears that he may be
prematurely interrupted, but otherwise, with all the reluctance which
we may imagine, and which his streaming tears proclaimed, he addressed
himself to the last labor in which he supposed himself to have any
interest on this earth--that of digging a grave. Measuring a space
adjusted to the proportions of his person, he inquired anxiously for
any loose fragments of marble, such as might suffice to line it. He
requested also to be furnished with wood and water, as the materials
for the last sepulchral rites. And these labors were accompanied, or
continually interrupted by tears and lamentations, or by passionate
ejaculations on the blindness of fortune, in suffering so divine an
artist to be thus violently snatched away, and on the calamitous fate of
musical science, which then stood on the brink of so dire an eclipse. In
these moments he was most truly in an _agony_, according to the original
meaning of that word; for the conflict was great between two master
principles of his nature: on the one hand, he clung with the weakness of
a girl to life, even in that miserable shape to which it had now sunk;
and like the poor malefactor, with whose last struggles Prior has so
atrociously amused himself, "he often took leave, but was loath to
depart." Yet, on the other hand, to resign his life very speedily,
seemed his only chance for escaping the contumelies, perhaps the
tortures, of his enemies; and, above all other considerations, for
making sure of a burial, and possibly of burial rites; to want which, in
the judgment of the ancients, was the last consummation of misery. Thus
occupied, and thus distracted--sternly attracted to the grave by his
creed, hideously repelled by infirmity of nature--he was suddenly
interrupted by a courier with letters for the master of the house;
letters, and from Rome! What was their import? That was soon
told--briefly that Nero was adjudged to be a public enemy by the senate,
and that official orders were issued for apprehending him, in order that
he might be brought to condign punishment according to the method of
ancient precedent. Ancient precedent! _more majorum!_ And how was that?
eagerly demanded the emperor. He was answered--that the state criminal
in such cases was first stripped naked, then impaled as it were between
the prongs of a pitchfork, and in that condition scourged to death.
Horror-struck with this account, he drew forth two poniards, or short
swords, tried their edges, and then, in utter imbecility of purpose,
returned them to their scabbards, alleging that the destined moment had
not yet arrived. Then he called upon Sporus, the infamous partner in
his former excesses, to commence the funeral anthem. Others, again, he
besought to lead the way in dying, and to sustain him by the spectacle
of their example. But this purpose also he dismissed in the very moment
of utterance; and turning away despairingly, he apostrophized himself in
words reproachful or animating, now taxing his nature with infirmity of
purpose, now calling on himself by name, with adjurations to remember
his dignity, and to act worthy of his supreme station: _ou prepei
Neroni_, cried he, _ou prepeu næphein dei en tois toidætois ale, eleire
seauton_--i.e. "Fie, fie, then Nero! such a season calls for perfect
self-possession. Up, then, and rouse thyself to action."
Thus, and in similar efforts to master the weakness of his reluctant
nature--weakness which would extort pity from the severest minds, were
it not from the odious connection which in him it had with cruelty
the most merciless--did this unhappy prince, _jam non salutis spem sed
exitii solatium quærens_, consume the flying moments, until at length
his ears caught the fatal sounds or echoes from a body of horsemen
riding up to the villa. These were the officers charged with his arrest;
and if he should fall into their hands alive, he knew that his last
chance was over for liberating himself, by a Roman death, from the
burthen of ignominious life, and from a lingering torture. He paused
from his restless motions, listened attentively, then repeated a line
from Homer--
Ippon m' ochupodon amphi chtupos ouata ballei
(The resounding tread of swift-footed horses reverberates upon my
ears);--then under some momentary impulse of courage, gained perhaps by
figuring to himself the bloody populace rioting upon his mangled body,
yet even then needing the auxiliary hand and vicarious courage of his
private secretary, the feeble-hearted prince stabbed himself in the
throat. The wound, however, was not such as to cause instant death. He
was still breathing, and not quite speechless, when the centurion who
commanded the party entered the closet; and to this officer, who uttered
a few hollow words of encouragement, he was still able to make a brief
reply. But in the very effort of speaking he expired, and with an
expression of horror impressed upon his stiffened features, which
communicated a sympathetic horror to all beholders.
Such was the too memorable tragedy which closed for ever the brilliant
line of the Julian family, and translated the august title of Cæsar
from its original purpose as a proper name to that of an official
designation. It is the most striking instance upon record of a dramatic
and extreme vengeance overtaking extreme guilt; for, as Nero had
exhausted the utmost possibilities of crime, so it may be affirmed that
he drank off the cup of suffering to the very extremity of what his
peculiar nature allowed. And in no life of so short a duration, have
there ever been crowded equal extremities of gorgeous prosperity and
abject infamy. It may be added, as another striking illustration of the
rapid mutability and revolutionary excesses which belonged to what
has been properly called the Roman _stratocracy_ then disposing of
the world, that within no very great succession of weeks that same
victorious rebel, the Emperor Galba, at whose feet Nero had been
self-immolated, was laid a murdered corpse in the same identical cell
which had witnessed the lingering agonies of his unhappy victim. This
was the act of an emancipated slave, anxious, by a vindictive insult to
the remains of one prince, to place on record his gratitude to another.
"So runs the world away!" And in this striking way is retribution
sometimes dispensed.
In the sixth Cæsar terminated the Julian line. The three next princes in
the succession were personally uninteresting; and, with a slight
reserve in favor of Otho, whose motives for committing suicide (if truly
reported) argue great nobility of mind, [Footnote: We may add that the
unexampled public grief which followed the death of Otho, exceeding
even that which followed the death of Germanicus, and causing several
officers to commit suicide, implies some remarkable goodness in this
Prince, and a very unusual power of conciliating attachment.] were
even brutal in the tenor of their lives and monstrous; besides that the
extreme brevity of their several reigns (all three, taken conjunctly,
having held the supreme power for no more than twelve months and twenty
days) dismisses them from all effectual station or right to a separate
notice in the line of Cæsars. Coming to the tenth in succession,
Vespasian, and his two sons, Titus and Domitian, who make up the list of
the twelve Cæsars, as they are usually called, we find matter for
deeper political meditation and subjects of curious research. But
these emperors would be more properly classed with the five who succeed
them--Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines; after whom comes
the young ruffian, Commodus, another Caligula or Nero, from whose
short and infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the
empire. And this classification would probably have prevailed, had
not the very curious work of Suetonius, whose own life and period of
observation determined the series and cycle of his subjects, led to a
different distribution. But as it is evident that, in the succession of
the first twelve Cæsars, the six latter have no connection whatever by
descent, collaterally, or otherwise, with the six first, it would be a
more logical distribution to combine them according to the fortunes
of the state itself, and the succession of its prosperity through the
several stages of splendor, declension, revival, and final decay. Under
this arrangement, the first seventeen would belong to the first stage;
Commodus would open the second; Aurelian down to Constantine or Julian
would fill the third; and Jovian to Augustulus would bring up the
melancholy rear. Meantime it will be proper, after thus briefly throwing
our eyes over the monstrous atrocities of the early Cæsars, to spend a
few lines in examining their origin, and the circumstances which favored
their growth. For a mere hunter after hidden or forgotten singularities;
a lover on their own account of all strange perversities and freaks
of nature, whether in action, taste, or opinion; for a collector and
amateur of misgrowths and abortions; for a Suetonius, in short, it may
be quite enough to state and to arrange his cabinet of specimens from
the marvellous in human nature. But certainly in modern times, any
historian, however little affecting the praise of a philosophic
investigator, would feel himself called upon to remove a little
the taint of the miraculous and preternatural which adheres to
such anecdotes, by entering into the psychological grounds of their
possibility; whether lying in any peculiarly vicious education, early
familiarity with bad models, corrupting associations, or other plausible
key to effects, which, taken separately, and out of their natural
connection with their explanatory causes, are apt rather to startle and
revolt the feelings of sober thinkers. Except, perhaps, in some chapters
of Italian history, as, for example, among the most profligate of the
Papal houses, and amongst some of the Florentine princes, we find hardly
any parallel to the atrocities of Caligula and Nero; nor indeed was
Tiberius much (if at all) behind them, though otherwise so wary and
cautious in his conduct. The same tenor of licentiousness beyond the
needs of the individual, the same craving after the marvellous and the
stupendous in guilt, is continually emerging in succeeding emperors--in
Vitellius, in Domitian, in Commodus, in Caracalla--every where, in
short, where it was not overruled by one of two causes, either by
original goodness of nature too powerful to be mastered by ordinary
seductions, (and in some cases removed from their influence by an
early apprenticeship to camps,) or by the terrors of an exemplary ruin
immediately preceding. For such a determinate tendency to the enormous
and the anomalous, sufficient causes must exist. What were they?
In the first place, we may observe that the people of Rome in that
age were generally more corrupt by many degrees than has been usually
supposed possible. The effect of revolutionary times, to relax all modes
of moral obligation, and to unsettle the moral sense, has been well and
philosophically stated by Mr. Coleridge; but that would hardly account
for the utter licentiousness and depravity of Imperial Rome. Looking
back to Republican Rome, and considering the state of public morals but
fifty years before the emperors, we can with difficulty believe that
the descendants of a people so severe in their habits could thus rapidly
degenerate, and that a populace, once so hardy and masculine, should
assume the manners which we might expect in the debauchees of Daphne
(the infamous suburb of Antioch) or of Canopus, into which settled the
very lees and dregs of the vicious Alexandria. Such extreme changes
would falsify all that we know of human nature; we might _à priori_
pronounce them impossible; and in fact, upon searching history, we find
other modes of solving the difficulty. In reality, the citizens of Rome
were at this time a new race, brought together from every quarter of
the world, but especially from Asia. So vast a proportion of the ancient
citizens had been cut off by the sword, and partly to conceal this waste
of population, but much more by way of cheaply requiting services, or of
showing favor, or of acquiring influence, slaves had been emancipated
in such great multitudes, and afterwards invested with all the rights
of citizens, that, in a single generation, Rome became almost transmuted
into a baser metal; the progeny of those whom the last generation had
purchased from the slave merchants. These people derived their stock
chiefly from Cappadocia, Pontus, &c., and the other populous regions of
Asia Minor; and hence the taint of Asiatic luxury and depravity, which
was so conspicuous to all the Romans of the old republican severity.
Juvenal is to be understood more literally than is sometimes supposed,
when he complains that long before his time the Orontes (that river
which washed the infamous capital of Syria) had mingled its impure
waters with those of the Tiber. And a little before him, Lucan speaks
with mere historic gravity when he says--
------"Vivant Galatæque Syrique
Cappadoces, Gallique, extremique orbis Iberi,
Armenii, Cilices: _nam post civilia bella
Hic Populus Romanus erit_."
[Footnote: Blackwell, in his Court of Augustus, vol. i. p. 382, when
noticing these lines upon occasion of the murder of Cicero, in the final
proscription under the last triumvirate, comments thus: "Those of the
greatest and truly Roman spirit had been murdered in the field by
Julius Cæsar; the rest were now massacred in the city by his son and
successors; in their room came Syrians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, and
other enfranchised slaves from the conquered nations;"--"these in half
a century had sunk so low, that Tiberius pronounced her very senators to
be _homines ad sermtutem natos_, men born to be slaves."]
Probably in the time of Nero, not one man in six was of pure Roman
descent. [Footnote: Suetonius indeed pretends that Augustus, personally
at least, struggled against this ruinous practice--thinking it a matter
of the highest moment, "Sincerum atque ab omni colluvione peregrini et
servilis sanguinis incorruptum servare populum." And Horace is ready
with his flatteries on the same topic, lib. 3, Od. 6. But the facts
are against them; for the question is not what Augustus did in his
own person, (which at most could not operate very widely except by the
example,) but what he permitted to be done. Now there was a practice
familiar to those times; that when a congiary or any other popular
liberality was announced, multitudes were enfranchised by avaricious
masters in order to make them capable of the bounty, (as citizens,) and
yet under the condition of transferring to their emancipators whatsoever
they should receive; _ina ton dæmosios d domenon siton lambanontes
chata mæna--pherosi tois dedochasi tæn eleutherian_ says Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, in order that after receiving the corn given publicly
in every month, they might carry it to those who had bestowed upon them
their freedom. In a case, then, where an extensive practice of this
kind was exposed to Augustus, and publicly reproved by him, how did he
proceed? Did he reject the new-made citizens? No; he contented himself
with diminishing the proportion originally destined for each, so that
the same absolute sum being distributed among a number increased by the
whole amount of the new enrolments, of necessity the relative sum for
each separately was so much less. But this was a remedy applied only
to the pecuniary fraud as it would have affected himself. The permanent
mischief to the state went unredressed.] And the consequences were
suitable. Scarcely a family has come down to our knowledge that could
not in one generation enumerate a long catalogue of divorces within its
own contracted circle. Every man had married a series of wives; every
woman a series of husbands. Even in the palace of Augustus, who wished
to be viewed as an _exemplar_ or ideal model of domestic purity, every
principal member of his family was tainted in that way; himself in a
manner and a degree infamous even at that time. [Footnote: Part of the
story is well known, but not the whole. Tiberius Nero, a promising young
nobleman, had recently married a very splendid beauty. Unfortunately for
him, at the marriage of Octavia (sister to Augustus) with Mark Anthony,
he allowed his young wife, then about eighteen, to attend upon the
bride. Augustus was deeply and suddenly fascinated by her charms, and
without further scruple sent a message to Nero--intimating that he was
in love with his wife, and would thank him to resign her. The other,
thinking it vain, in those days of lawless proscription, to contest a
point of this nature with one who commanded twelve legions, obeyed the
requisition. Upon some motive, now unknown, he was persuaded even to
degrade himself farther; for he actually officiated at the marriage
in character of father, and gave away the young beauty to his rival,
although at that time six months advanced in pregnancy by himself. These
humiliating concessions were extorted from him, and yielded (probably
at the instigation of friends) in order to save his life. In the sequel
they had the very opposite result; for he died soon after, and it is
reasonably supposed of grief and mortification. At the marriage feast,
an incident occurred which threw the whole company into confusion: A
little boy, roving from couch to couch among the guests, came at length
to that in which Livia (the bride) was lying by the side of Augustus,
on which he cried out aloud,--"Lady, what are you doing here? You
are mistaken--this is not your husband--he is there," (pointing to
Tiberius,) "go, go--rise, lady, and recline beside _him_."] For the
first 400 years of Rome, not one divorce had been granted or asked,
although the statute which allowed of this indulgence had always been
in force. But in the age succeeding to the civil wars men and women
"married," says one author, "with a view to divorce, and divorced
in order to marry. Many of these changes happened within the year,
especially if the lady had a large fortune, which always went with her,
and procured her choice of transient husbands." And, "can one imagine,"
asks the same writer, "that the fair one, who changed her husband every
quarter, strictly kept her matrimonial faith all the three months?" Thus
the very fountain of all the "household charities" and household
virtues was polluted. And after that we need little wonder at the
assassinations, poisonings, and forging of wills, which then laid waste
the domestic life of the Romans.
2. A second source of the universal depravity was the growing inefficacy
of the public religion; and this arose from its disproportion and
inadequacy to the intellectual advances of the nation. _Religion_, in
its very etymology, has been held to imply a _religatio_, that is, a
reiterated or secondary obligation of morals; a sanction supplementary
to that of the conscience. Now, for a rude and uncultivated people, the
Pagan mythology might not be too gross to discharge the main functions
of a useful religion. So long as the understanding could submit to the
fables of the Pagan creed, so long it was possible that the hopes and
fears built upon that creed might be practically efficient on men's
lives and intentions. But when the foundation gave way, the whole
superstructure of necessity fell to the ground. Those who were obliged
to reject the ridiculous legends which invested the whole of their
Pantheon, together with the fabulous adjudgers of future punishments,
could not but dismiss the punishments, which were, in fact, as
laughable, and as obviously the fictions of human ingenuity, as their
dispensers. In short, the civilized part of the world in those days
lay in this dreadful condition; their intellect had far outgrown their
religion; the disproportions between the two were at length become
monstrous; and as yet no purer or more elevated faith was prepared
for their acceptance. The case was as shocking as if, with our present
intellectual needs, we should be unhappy enough to have no creed on
which to rest the burden of our final hopes and fears, of our moral
obligations, and of our consolations in misery, except the fairy
mythology of our nurses. The condition of a people so situated, of a
people under the calamity of having outgrown its religious faith, has
never been sufficiently considered. It is probable that such a
condition has never existed before or since that era of the world. The
consequences to Rome were--that the reasoning and disputatious part of
her population took refuge from the painful state of doubt in Atheism;
amongst the thoughtless and irreflective the consequences were chiefly
felt in their morals, which were thus sapped in their foundation.
3. A third cause, which from the first had exercised a most baleful
influence upon the arts and upon literature in Rome, had by this time
matured its disastrous tendencies towards the extinction of the moral
sensibilities. This was the circus, and the whole machinery, form and
substance, of the Circensian shows. Why had tragedy no existence as a
part of the Roman literature? Because--and _that_ was a reason which
would have sufficed to stifle all the dramatic genius of Greece and
England--there was too much tragedy in the shape of gross reality,
almost daily before their eyes. The amphitheatre extinguished the
theatre. How was it possible that the fine and intellectual griefs of
the drama should win their way to hearts seared and rendered callous
by the continual exhibition of scenes the most hideous, in which human
blood was poured out like water, and a human life sacrificed at any
moment either to caprice in the populace, or to a strife of rivalry
between the _ayes_ and the _noes_, or as the penalty for any trifling
instance of awkwardness in the performer himself? Even the more innocent
exhibitions, in which brutes only were the sufferers, could not but be
mortal to all the finer sensibilities. Five thousand wild animals, torn
from their native abodes in the wilderness or forest, were often turned
out to be hunted, or for mutual slaughter, in the course of a single
exhibition of this nature; and it sometimes happened, (a fact which of
itself proclaims the course of the public propensities,) that the person
at whose expense the shows were exhibited, by way of paying special
court to the people and meriting their favor, in the way most
conspicuously open to him, issued orders that all, without a solitary
exception, should be slaughtered. He made it known, as the very highest
gratification which the case allowed, that (in the language of our
modern auctioneers) the whole, "without reserve," should perish before
their eyes. Even such spectacles must have hardened the heart, and
blunted the more delicate sensibilities; but these would soon cease to
stimulate the pampered and exhausted sense. From the combats of tigers
or leopards, in which the passions could only be gathered indirectly,
and by way of inference from the motions, the transition must have been
almost inevitable to those of men, whose nobler and more varied passions
spoke directly, and by the intelligible language of the eye, to human
spectators; and from the frequent contemplation of these authorized
murders, in which a whole people, women [Footnote: Augustus, indeed,
strove to exclude the women from one part of the circension spectacles;
and what was that? Simply from the sight of the _Athletæ_, as being
naked. But that they should witness the pangs of the dying gladiators,
he deemed quite allowable. The smooth barbarian considered; that a
license of the first sort offended against decorum, whilst the other
violated only the sanctities of the human heart, and the whole sexual
character of women. It is our opinion, that to the brutalizing effect of
these exhibitions we are to ascribe not only the early extinction of the
Roman drama, but generally the inferiority of Rome to Greece in every
department of the fine arts. The fine temper of Roman sensibility, which
no culture could have brought to the level of the Grecian, was
thus dulled for _every_ application.] as much as men, and children
intermingled with both, looked on with leisurely indifference, with
anxious expectation, or with rapturous delight, whilst below them were
passing the direct sufferings of humanity, and not seldom its dying
pangs, it was impossible to expect a result different from that
which did in fact take place,--universal hardness of heart, obdurate
depravity, and a twofold degradation of human nature, which acted
simultaneously upon the two pillars of morality, (which are otherwise
not often assailed together,) of natural sensibility in the first place,
and, in the second, of conscientious principle.
4. But these were circumstances which applied to the whole population
indiscriminately. Superadded to these, in the case of the emperor, and
affecting _him_ exclusively, was this prodigious disadvantage--that
ancient reverence for the immediate witnesses of his actions, and for
the people and senate who would under other circumstances have exercised
the old functions of the censor, was, as to the emperor, pretty nearly
obliterated. The very title of _imperator_, from which we have derived
our modern one of _emperor_, proclaims the nature of the government, and
the tenure of that office. It was purely a government by the sword, or
permanent _stratocracy_ having a movable head. Never was there a people
who inquired so impertinently as the Romans into the domestic conduct
of each private citizen. No rank escaped this jealous vigilance; and
private liberty, even in the most indifferent circumstances of taste or
expense, was sacrificed to this inquisitorial rigor of _surveillance_
exercised on behalf of the State, sometimes by erroneous patriotism, too
often by malice in disguise. To this spirit the highest public officers
were obliged to bow; the consuls, not less than others. And even the
occasional dictator, if by law irresponsible, acted nevertheless as one
who knew that any change which depressed his party, might eventually
abrogate his privilege. For the first time in the person of an imperator
was seen a supreme autocrat, who had virtually and effectively all the
irresponsibility which the law assigned, and the origin of his office
presumed. Satisfied to know that he possessed such power, Augustus,
as much from natural taste as policy, was glad to dissemble it, and by
every means to withdraw it from public notice. But he had passed his
youth as citizen of a republic; and in the state of transition to
autocracy, in his office of triumvir, had experimentally known the
perils of rivalship, and the pains of foreign control, too feelingly
to provoke unnecessarily any sleeping embers of the republican spirit.
Tiberius, though familiar from his infancy with the servile homage of a
court, was yet modified by the popular temper of Augustus; and he came
late to the throne. Caligula was the first prince on whom the entire
effect of his political situation was allowed to operate; and the
natural results were seen--he was the first absolute monster. He must
early have seen the realities of his position, and from what quarter it
was that any cloud could arise to menace his security. To the senate or
people any respect which he might think proper to pay, must have been
imputed by all parties to the lingering superstitions of custom, to
involuntary habit, to court dissimulation, or to the decencies of
external form, and the prescriptive reverence of ancient names. But
neither senate nor people could enforce their claims, whatever they
might happen to be. Their sanction and ratifying vote might be worth
having, as consecrating what was already secure, and conciliating the
scruples of the weak to the absolute decision of the strong. But their
resistance, as an original movement, was so wholly without hope, that
they were never weak enough to threaten it.
The army was the true successor to their places, being the _ultimate_
depository of power. Yet, as the army was necessarily subdivided, as the
shifting circumstances upon every frontier were continually varying the
strength of the several divisions as to numbers and state of discipline,
one part might be balanced against the other by an imperator standing
in the centre of the whole. The rigor of the military _sacramentum_, or
oath of allegiance, made it dangerous to offer the first overtures to
rebellion; and the money, which the soldiers were continually depositing
in the bank, placed at the foot of their military standards, if
sometimes turned against the emperor, was also liable to be sequestrated
in his favor. There were then, in fact, two great forces in the
government acting in and by each other--the Stratocracy, and the
Autocracy. Each needed the other; each stood in awe of each. But, as
regarded all other forces in the empire, constitutional or irregular,
popular or senatorial, neither had any thing to fear. Under any ordinary
circumstances, therefore, considering the hazards of a rebellion, the
emperor was substantially liberated from all control. Vexations or
outrages upon the populace were not such to the army. It was but rarely
that the soldier participated in the emotions of the citizen. And thus,
being effectually without check, the most vicious of the Cæsars went on
without fear, presuming upon the weakness of one part of his subjects,
and the indifference of the other, until he was tempted onwards to
atrocities, which armed against him the common feelings of human
nature, and all mankind, as it were, rose in a body with one voice, and
apparently with one heart, united by mere force of indignant sympathy,
to put him down, and "abate" him as a monster. But, until he brought
matters to this extremity, Cæsar had no cause to fear. Nor was it at all
certain, in any one instance, where this exemplary chastisement overtook
him, that the apparent unanimity of the actors went further than the
_practical_ conclusion of "abating" the imperial nuisance, or that their
indignation had settled upon the same offences. In general the army
measured the guilt by the public scandal, rather than by its moral
atrocity; and Cæsar suffered perhaps in every case, not so much because
he had violated his duties, as because he had dishonored his office.
It is, therefore, in the total absence of the checks which have almost
universally existed to control other despots, under some indirect shape,
even where none was provided by the laws, that we must seek for the
main peculiarity affecting the condition of the Roman Cæsar, which
peculiarity it was, superadded to the other three, that finally made
those three operative in their fullest extent. It is in the perfection
of the stratocracy that we must look for the key to the excesses of the
autocrat. Even in the bloody despotisms of the Barbary States, there has
always existed in the religious prejudices of the people, which could
not be violated with safety, one check more upon the caprices of the
despot than was found at Rome. Upon the whole, therefore, what affects
us on the first reading as a prodigy or anomaly in the frantic outrages
of the early Cæsars--falls within the natural bounds of intelligible
human nature, when we state the case considerately. Surrounded by a
population which had not only gone through a most vicious and corrupting
discipline, and had been utterly ruined by the license of revolutionary
times, and the bloodiest proscriptions, but had even been extensively
changed in its very elements, and from the descendants of Romulus had
been transmuted into an Asiatic mob;--starting from this point, and
considering as the second feature of the case, that this transfigured
people, _morally_ so degenerate, were carried, however, by the progress
of civilization to a certain intellectual altitude, which the popular
religion had not strength to ascend--but from inherent disproportion
remained at the base of the general civilization, incapable of
accompanying the other elements in their advance;--thirdly, that this
polished condition of society, which should naturally with the evils of
a luxurious repose have counted upon its pacific benefits, had yet, by
means of its circus and its gladiatorial contests, applied a constant
irritation, and a system of provocations to the appetites for blood,
such as in all other nations are connected with the rudest stages of
society, and with the most barbarous modes of warfare, nor even in such
circumstances without many palliatives wanting to the spectators of the
circus;--combining these considerations, we have already a key to the
enormities and hideous excesses of the Roman Imperator. The hot blood
which excites, and the adventurous courage which accompanies, the
excesses of sanguinary warfare, presuppose a condition of the moral
nature not to be compared for malignity and baleful tendency to the
cool and cowardly spirit of amateurship, in which the Roman (perhaps
an effeminate Asiatic) sat looking down upon the bravest of men,
(Thracians, or other Europeans,) mangling each other for his recreation.
When, lastly, from such a population, and thus disciplined from
his nursery days, we suppose the case of one individual selected,
privileged, and raised to a conscious irresponsibility, except at
the bar of one extra-judicial tribunal, not easily irritated, and
notoriously to be propitiated by other means than those of upright
or impartial conduct, we lay together the elements of a situation too
trying for poor human nature, and fitted only to the faculties of an
angel or a demon; of an angel, if we suppose him to resist its
full temptations; of a demon, if we suppose him to use its total
opportunities. Thus interpreted and solved, Caligula and Nero become
ordinary men.
But, finally, what if, after all, the worst of the Cæsars, and those
in particular, were entitled to the benefit of a still shorter and more
conclusive apology? What if, in a true medical sense, they were insane?
It is certain that a vein of madness ran in the family; and anecdotes
are recorded of the three worst, which go far to establish it as a fact,
and others which would imply it as symptoms--preceding or accompanying.
As belonging to the former class, take the following story: At midnight
an elderly gentleman suddenly sends round a message to a select party
of noblemen, rouses them out of bed, and summons them instantly to his
palace. Trembling for their lives from the suddenness of the summons,
and from the unseasonable hour, and scarcely doubting that by
some anonymous _delator_ they have been implicated as parties to a
conspiracy, they hurry to the palace--are received in portentous silence
by the ushers and pages in attendance--are conducted to a saloon, where
(as in every where else) the silence of night prevails, united with the
silence of fear and whispering expectation. All are seated--all look at
each other in ominous anxiety. Which is accuser? Which is the accused?
On whom shall their suspicion settle--on whom their pity? All are
silent--almost speechless--and even the current of their thoughts is
frost-bound by fear. Suddenly the sound of a fiddle or a viol is caught
from a distance--it swells upon the ear--steps approach--and in
another moment in rushes the elderly gentleman, grave and gloomy as his
audience, but capering about in a frenzy of excitement. For half an
hour he continues to perform all possible evolutions of caprioles,
pirouettes, and other extravagant feats of activity, accompanying
himself on the fiddle; and, at length, not having once looked at
his guests, the elderly gentleman whirls out of the room in the same
transport of emotion with which he entered it; the panic-struck visitors
are requested by a slave to consider themselves as dismissed: they
retire; resume their couches:--the nocturnal pageant has "dislimned" and
vanished; and on the following morning, were it not for their concurring
testimonies, all would be disposed to take this interruption of their
sleep for one of its most fantastic dreams. The elderly gentleman, who
figured in this delirious _pas seul_--who was he? He was Tiberius Cæsar,
king of kings, and lord of the terraqueous globe. Would a British jury
demand better evidence than this of a disturbed intellect in any formal
process _de lunatico inquirendo_? For Caligula, again, the evidence of
symptoms is still plainer. He knew his own defect; and purposed going
through a course of hellebore. Sleeplessness, one of the commonest
indications of lunacy, haunted him in an excess rarely recorded.
[Footnote: No fiction of romance presents so awful a picture of the
ideal tyrant as that of Caligula by Suetonius. His palace--radiant with
purple and gold, but murder every where lurking beneath flowers; his
smiles and echoing laughter--masking (yet hardly meant to mask) his
foul treachery of heart; his hideous and tumultuous dreams--his baffled
sleep--and his sleepless nights--compose the picture of an Æschylus.
What a master's sketch lies in these few lines: "Incitabatur insomnio
maxime; neque enim plus tribus horis nocturnis quiescebat; ac ne his
placida quiete, at pavida miris rerum imaginibus: ut qui inter ceteras
pelagi quondam speciem colloquentem secum videre visus sit. Ideoque
magna parte noctis, vigilse cubandique tsedio, nunc toro residens, nunc
per longissimas porticus vagus, invocare identidem atque exspectare
lucem consueverat:"--i. e., But, above all, he was tormented with
nervous irritation, by sleeplessness; for he enjoyed not more than three
hours of nocturnal repose; nor these even in pure untroubled rest, but
agitated by phantasmata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon
one occasion he fancied that he saw the sea, under some definite
impersonation, conversing with himself. Hence it was, and from this
incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of lying awake, that he had
fallen into habits of ranging all the night long through the palace,
sometimes throwing himself on a couch, sometimes wandering along the
vast corridors, watching for the earliest dawn, and anxiously invoking
its approach.] The same, or similar facts, might be brought forward on
behalf of Nero. And thus these unfortunate princes, who have so long
(and with so little investigation of their cases) passed for monsters or
for demoniac counterfeits of men, would at length be brought back within
the fold of humanity, as objects rather of pity than of abhorrence,
would be reconciled to our indulgent feelings, and, at the same time,
made intelligible to our understandings.