THE END OF VITELLIUS.
“I never made a greater mistake in my life,” said Longa Duilia, “and I
cannot think how you allowed me to make it.”
“What mistake?” asked the Chaldæan.
“The mistake of inviting the uncle in place of the nephew to my little
supper. As to that supper, I flatter myself it was perfect—so finished in
every detail, as becomes our position; so delicately flavored with
reserve, as became _my_ position as a widow; and you recommended me to
invite Flavius Sabinus, the Præfect,—and now he _has been_. That delicate
little supper thrown away, and my attentions so nicely adjusted to the
circumstances, all that trouble and thought gone for nothing. Do you know
that Flavius Sabinus is now in bits? He has been positively hacked to
pieces. It is not the supper itself I regret, and my best Falernian
wine—but I gave him a gold signet-ring with a cameo, representing Daphne.
It had belonged to my dear Corbulo, and was valuable. But I considered it
as a means to an end. And now—where is that ring? But for your counsel, I
might have invited the nephew.”
“Madam, I counselled aright.”
“You have the face to say that? Do you not know that Sabinus has had his
head struck off, and his body dragged by hooks down the Gemonian stair,
and then positively torn to pieces—but there? Who has got hold of the
ring? I have lost it—through you. _You_ pretend to read the stars and peer
into futurity!”
“Lady, I do see into what is to be, and counsel accordingly.”
“Oh, yes! glimpses as of light in a wood through thick foliage. Plenty of
obscurity, very little light.”
“Madam, consider. Had you not invited the Præfect who has been, you would
not have seen the nephew who is, and who came in at the supper to call his
uncle away. It was thus he arrived at a knowledge of your house, and your
friendly disposition, and thus it was that he was induced to throw himself
on your protection.”
“There is something in that,” observed Duilia. “But how much better had
the invitation been sent to Domitian himself.”
“On the contrary, that would not have been judicious, therefore I did not
recommend it. Had the nephew come here along with his servants,
immediately his escape from the Capitol was discovered, and they were
tortured to disclose his place of concealment, they would have betrayed
this house: but as it has happened they could not suppose he would take
refuge here.”
“There is a good deal in that,” answered Duilia meditatively. “Well, it is
only the ring that I regret. If I had but known—something of
inconsiderable value but showy would have sufficed. Moreover, I might have
done without that dish of British oysters—very expensive, and, as you see,
thrown away. Yet! well, I enjoyed them.”
“Even that ring is not lost.”
“How so?”
“It is on Domitian’s finger.”
“You really say so?”
“When the Præfect bade his nephew and sons attempt to escape from the
Capitol, he recommended the former to engage your protection, and in token
of this, he put the ring that you had given him, on his nephew’s finger,
that he might present it to you—should there be mistrust, in pledge that
he came from Flavius Sabinus. I encountered Domitian in the street, I knew
him and conducted him to your door, and obtained his admission. There was
no necessity for him to show his ring, as I stood sponsor for him.”
“You are a good old creature,” said Duilia, “I withdraw any offensive
expressions I may have used. To gratify you, I will pay that old woman,
Senecio, his wage and bid him pack.”
“Then, madam, my services shall be amply repaid. The man himself is
harmless. Engage him as a clown,—he is consumed with conceit, and so
renders himself a laughing-stock. That is all he is qualified to be.”
“Go—send me Domitia. She has behaved like a fool.”
Shortly after the girl entered the room where was her mother. The latter
at once exclaimed:—
“My dear, the ring is not lost. Domitian has it. By the foresight of the
Gods, Sabinus removed it from his finger, and confided it to his nephew,
before unhappy circumstances arose which might have led to the ring
getting into the hands of any Cyrus or Dromo.”
“Was it to hear this that you sent for me?” asked Domitia sullenly.
“No, it was not. Your conscience must upbraid you. You have acted in an
insensate manner. You have flouted and angered the son of him who
in—perhaps half an hour—will be an Augustus, supreme in the state.”
“Mother, I do not like him.”
“Ye Gods of the Capitol!—confound them, by the way, they are all burnt! O
Tellus and Terminus! Do you suppose we are to see and be courteous only to
those whom we like? What cared I for that paragon of virtue, Flavius
Sabinus, who talked to such an extent that I could not get in a word
edgeways. But I gave him a nice little supper—and oysters from Britain, my
best Falernian, and that ring of your father’s, because I thought he might
be useful. And now Titus Flavius Domitianus is our guest—in hiding till
matters are settled one way or the other—and you insult him to his face.
It is not conduct worthy of your mother. You interfere with my plans.”
“What plans?”
“My dear child, Vespasian is old—about sixty I think, and has but two
sons, of whom Domitian is the youngest. The elder, Titus Flavius Sabinus
Vespasianus has but a daughter. Do you not see? Do you not smell?”
“I do neither, mother.”
“More the pity. You sadly take after your father, who had no ambition.
Give the old fellow ten years before he becomes a god; the eldest son, if
the worst comes, may succeed and be Augustus for another ten, and
then,—the second son, Domitian, will be prince. My dear, what
opportunities! What gorgeous opportunities!”
“Opportunities for what?”
“For push, my dear, push to the purple. Your dear father, ah, well! We are
not all made of the same clay.”
“Mother, that is precisely what fills me with dread. He will then be the
eighth, for these adventurers of a few months do not count,—the new Nero.”
“But consider—the purple. My dear, do you remember how Valeria caught the
dictator Sulla. She sat behind him in the theatre, and picked some flue
off his toga. He turned round and caught her doing it. ‘Sir,’ said she, ‘I
am but endeavoring to get to myself some of the luck that adheres to you!’
I could have loved that woman. It was so happy, so neat. That bit of wool
drew Sulla and the Dictatorship to her. You, what a blunderer you are. You
have offended Domitian, who may some day be greater than was Sulla, when
you had it in your power by a word, a look, a dimpled smile, to win him,
and with him the purple.”
“Mother, I do not covet it. You forget—I am promised to Lucius Ælius
Lamia.”
“Oh! Lamia! He could be bought off with a proconsulship.”
“I do not desire to be separated from him. I love him, and have loved him
since we were children together.”
“Well, you have done for your chances. If I surmise aright, the young man
entertains a great grudge against you.”
At that moment Eboracus came in.
“Madam,” said he, “the Illyrian legions have entered the city, under
Primus, and there is fighting in the streets. The people on the housetops
cheer on this side or that, as though they were at a show of gladiators.”
“Well—those things happen. We shall know for certain which shall be
uppermost, and if fate favors Vitellius—Then, daughter, I shall not
scruple to give the young man up.”
The condition of the capital was frightful. Vitellius had called in levies
from the country to support him, and the prætorian soldiers stood firm.
But many men of direction were with the partisans of Vespasian, who
advanced steadily over the bodies of the troops opposing them. Fifty
thousand persons lost their lives in these eventful days of the
Saturnalia.
The legions under Primus succeeded in recapturing the Capitol, which was
still smoking, and pushed forward into the Forum.
Meanwhile, Vitellius, in the Palatine palace, a prey to irresolution, had
filled himself with wine, and then fled along with his cook and pastrycook
to his wife’s house on the Aventine. Then deceived by a false report that
his troops were successful, he returned to the Palatine, and found it
deserted, but a roar of voices rose from the Forum below, and from the
Capitol the cries of the legionaries were wafted towards him along with
the smoke.
He hastened to collect all the gold he could lay his hands on, stuffed it
into his cincture, assumed an old ragged suit, and then again attempted to
escape; but now he found every avenue blocked. Filled with terror he
crawled into the dog-kennel where the hounds, resenting the intrusion,
fell on him and bit his neck and hands and legs. But now Vespasian’s
soldiery invaded the palace, and a tribune, Julius Placidius, discovering
the bloated, bleeding wretch, drew him out by the foot, and he came forth
thus, his hands full of dirty straw, and strands adhering to his hair and
garments. A howling rabble at once surrounded him, leaping, jeering,
throwing mud and stones; a few soldiers succeeded in surrounding him. His
hands were bound behind his back, and a rope passed about his neck. Thus
he was dragged through the streets an object of insult to the people. Some
struck him in the face, some plucked out his hair. In the Forum the rabble
were breaking his statues and dragging them about. One ruffian thrust a
pike under the unfortunate prince’s chin and bade him hold up his head.
Then said Vitellius:—
“Thou, who thus addressest me—a tribune thou art, remember I was once thy
commander!”
Thereupon a German soldier, desirous of shortening his misery, struck him
down with a blow of his sword, and in so doing cut off the ear of the
tribune who had insulted the fallen Emperor.
At once the body of the prince, from whom the life was not sped, was
dragged to the Gemonian stair, a flight of steps down which the corpses of
malefactors were flung, and there he was despatched with daggers.
Longa Duilia had been kept well informed as to all that took place.
No sooner was she assured that Vitellius was dead, than she rushed into
the apartment given up to Domitian.
“Salve, Cæsar! As the Gods love me, I am the first to so salute you, son
of the Augustus! Oh, I am so happy! And it might have been otherwise, but
_you_ they never would have reached save over my body.”