“Night is the time for care;
Brooding on hours misspent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent,
Like Brutus, midst his slumbering host,
Startled by Cæsar’s stalwart ghost.”
J. MONTGOMERY.
The Emperor of Rome was intensely jealous of the fame of the great Roman
to whom he had given an immense share of power, little indeed inferior
to that formerly granted by the senate to Pompey the Great. He did not
distrust the commander of whose probity he had received so many proofs;
but the splendid career of Domitius Corbulo excited odious comparisons
between the sovereign and his lieutenant. His dislike was well known to
his confidants, and by them was communicated to Arrius Varus, a brave
but unprincipled young man, who, thinking it afforded him an opportunity
of pushing his own fortunes at Corbulo’s expense, secretly accused his
commander of treason, in a letter addressed to the emperor himself.
Nero did not believe the accusation, and he was undecided respecting the
use to which he should put it; for he required the services of his
lieutenant in the East, and had not quite made up his mind to kill the
man whom Tiridates had styled “a most valuable slave.” He resolved to be
guided by circumstances, and contented himself with writing to Domitius
Corbulo a pressing invitation to visit his court at Corinth.[6] With the
profound dissimulation in which Nero was an adept, he informed him of
the accusation made by Varus, assuring him at the same time that he did
not believe in its truth. The apparent frankness and generosity of his
sovereign made the impression he had intended on the honourable mind of
his general, who came to Corinth without the slightest suspicion of any
sinister design entertained by Nero. He was accompanied by a few friends
alone, and without a guard. Among those individuals who were honoured by
his confidence was a military tribune or colonel, named Lucius Claudius,
whose distant relationship to the emperor gave him some importance in
the eyes of the Roman people; a cadet of a house associated by its
greatness or guilt with every page of the republican and imperial
history,—which had given to Rome more consuls, dictators, and censors
than any other line,—which boasted Appius Cæcus, and Nero, the
conqueror of Asdrubal,—and of which also had sprung Appius Claudius the
decemvir, Clodius the demagogue, Tiberius the emperor, Drusus and
Germanicus, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Lucius Claudius had apparently
entered life under peculiarly fortunate circumstances; though the
military tribune did not resemble in character his ambitious ancestral
race. The men we have just cited of the proud Claudian line were before
their times, while he was behind those in which he lived. His noble
temper, frank, generous, fearless, and true, had been formed by his
revered commander, by whom Lucius had been trained to arms; his life had
been passed in the camp, far from the corruption of Nero’s court and
capital. His father was no more, his brother Julius, one of Nero’s
dissipated companions, was with the emperor at Corinth, and his sister
Lucia Claudia was the youngest of the vestal priestesses, but he had not
seen her since the hour in which she was dedicated to Vesta.
Lucius came to Corinth, like his commander, without distrust or
apprehension, for Nero was beloved in the provinces; his guilt, his
licentiousness, were little known on the distant Roman frontier; and
when Corbulo requested an audience of his sovereign, he had employed the
interval in seeking for his brother. Upon learning that Julius Claudius
was in the theatre, witnessing the imperial performance, he had retired
to take the repose his weary frame required.
Nero, when he received intelligence of his lieutenant’s arrival, was
dressed for the stage, in the habit proper to the comic part he was
about to perform. The unsuitableness of his garb to that of a Roman
emperor, about to give audience to the greatest commander of the time,
and the impossibility of denying himself to a man like Domitius Corbulo,
decided the fate of his general. Nero took the easiest way of settling a
difficult point of etiquette, by sending a centurion with the imperial
mandate, commanding his officer to end his days.
Corbulo without a guard or means of defence, received the ungrateful
message with the stoical fortitude of an ancient Roman. “I have deserved
this,” was his brief remark to his friends as he fell upon his sword.
Nero went on the stage to play his part out, and in its comic excitement
forgot the tragedy of which he had made his brave lieutenant the hero.
The plaudits of his audience were at length over, and Nero, withdrawing
to his dormitory, gave the watchword, and received the report from the
centurion on duty of Corbulo’s death. The last speech of his lieutenant
awakened a throng of conflicting passions in his bosom; he called for
wine and drank deeply to drown remorse, but instead of the oblivion he
sought, he became franticly delirious and rushed forth into the midnight
air, none of his attendants daring to detain or follow their miserable
prince, who, passing through the streets with mad precipitation, never
halted till he found himself near the scene of his labours, the Isthmian
trench. The beauty of the moonlight, the deep stillness of the night,
undisturbed even by a wandering breeze, allayed the fever in the
emperor’s throbbing veins. Thousands were sleeping around him, sleeping
in their chains. He contemplated the toil-worn wretches with feelings of
envy. He gazed intently upon them as they lay fettered in pairs upon the
earth, and as his mind became more calm he examined their features with
curiosity and interest. In sleep the mask, habitual cunning or reserve
wears by day, is thrown off, and the true character may be distinctly
traced. On the brows of the Roman criminals their crimes were legibly
written. Pride, sensuality, rapacity, cunning, and cruelty, marked them
as the outcasts of the corrupt and wicked city, the spiritual Babylon.
The Jewish captives, who were all young and chosen men, bore the
expression of sullen gloom, unsatisfied revenge, defiance, indignation,
and despair; and even in slumber murmured, complained, or acted again
the strife they had maintained so vainly against the Roman arms. One
alone of all these thousands smiled, and he was the noblest and fairest
of them all. From his parted lips a holy strain of melody broke forth,
then died away in imperfect murmurs; but the listening tyrant recognised
in the sleeper the slave whose scornful look had awakened his angry
passions on the day when he opened the trench. Adonijah’s dreams are of
his own land. He is going up to Jerusalem, to keep the feast of the
Passover. His slaughtered brethren are with him, and Tamar, that fair
and virgin sister, that Nazarite dedicated from childhood to the Lord,
is dancing before them with the timbrel in her hand, singing, “I was
glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”
Suddenly, with the capriciousness of fancy, the scene changes. Again he
hears the war-cry of his own people, again hangs upon the flying legions
of Cestius Gailus, captures the idol standard, and calls upon the name
of the Messiah, the promised deliverer of Israel. He comes, the mighty,
the long-expected. The Romans are driven forth from the sacred soil, the
valley of Hamoth Gog is full of slaughter, and Adonijah hails the king
of Judah, the anointed one of the Lord, with holy joy. But swifter than
lightning vanishes the glorious vision from his sight, he awakes, and
finds himself a slave in a foreign land.
He looked around him doubtfully. The land before him is like the garden
of Eden, and the breezes that fan his glowing cheek are fresh and balmy
as those that wander over his beloved Judea. The mountains, whose
summits are gilded in the radiant moonlight, remind him of those that
encompass the holy city. His perception is still visionary and
indistinct, the blue waves on either side the Isthmus, the scene of his
labours, his raven locks wet with the dews of night, appeal to his
scattered senses. The chains upon his free-born limbs sullenly clank as
he rises from the earth, memory resumes her powers, he remembers that he
is a slave.
Despair seizes upon his heart, his thoughts revert to his beloved
sister. He no longer sees her bounding along the rocky heights in all
the beauty of holiness and youthful enthusiasm, her form graceful as the
palm-tree, from which she derives her name, but mentally views her
sinking beneath the cruel sword of the Gentile. Her cry is in his ears,
and again he utters the bitter cry, “O Tamar! O my sister! would to God
that I had died with thee, my sister! Why was I not buried beneath the
ruins of Jotapata? Why am I cast forth like an abominable branch to
wither in this strange land?”
The wretched Hebrew sank upon the ground, wrapped his face in his
garment, and sobbed aloud in the bitterness of his heart.
Though the emperor was ignorant of the language in which these words
were spoken, he knew they were the accents of despair. A few minutes
since he believed himself to be the most wretched man in his wide
dominions, but this slave appeared as miserable, was he as guilty? as
himself; for Nero, burdened with his crimes, felt that utter misery can
only dwell with sin.
He addressed the slave in the Greek language, and bade him declare the
cause of his passionate complaints.
Surprised, and not immediately recognising the emperor, who was still
attired as a comedian, Adonijah unveiled his convulsed features and
replied in the same tongue, one which was familiar to him.
“Why troublest thou me with questions? I was free—I am a slave. I had
kindred ties—I am alone among the thousands of Israel. I had a God, and
he has forsaken me. Whose sorrow can be compared to my sorrow? who among
the children of men can be compared in misery to me?”
A wild scornful laugh broke upon the ear of Adonijah, who started upon
his feet and gazed upon the figure, doubtful whether the being before
him was of earthly mould or one of those evil spirits who were believed
to haunt unfrequented places. In breaking the ground groans were said to
have been heard, and blood had been seen to issue as from fresh wounds,
and apparitions had warned the workmen to forbear. Superstitious
feelings crept over the bold spirit of Adonijah; he pronounced the name
of God and looked once more upon the countenance of the emperor. The
wild expression of derision was gone, despair alone pervaded it. The
features, the brow, were beautiful, but it was beauty stained with sin;
the lineaments were youthful, though marked with an age of crime; the
sneer on the lip bespoke scorn of himself and all mankind, but the eye
was cruel, and expressed lawless power rather than princely majesty;
although, degraded as he was, there was still an air that showed he had
been accustomed to command. In this second glance Adonijah recognised
the master of the Roman world.
“Is this all thy sum of care, and darest thou claim from Nero the
supremacy of sorrow?” continued the prince. “Slave, thou art happier in
thy chains than Cæsar on his throne! Dost thou see the dagger of the
assassin lurking under the garments of every person who approaches thee?
Art thou loathed by those who flatter thee, and secretly cursed by those
who bend the knee before thee? Hast thou plunged in all riot, known all
vice, revelled in all luxury, and only found satiety and loathing? Hast
thou found pleasure weariness, happiness a chimera, and virtue an empty
name? Speak, audacious slave.”
“Not so, Cæsar, for all the commandments of my God I have kept unbroken
from my youth,” returned the self-righteous Hebrew. “Happiness dwells
not with excess, for as Solomon saith, ‘Better is the wise poor man than
the son of a king that doeth evil.’ Thou art wretched because thou art
guilty.”
“Once, once I was innocent,” groaned the emperor; “years of sin have not
effaced the recollection of that blessed time. No indignant phantom then
banished slumber from my pillow, for I was guiltless in those happy
hours. Then came ambition, and I grasped the imperial sceptre, and
stained my hands with blood, innocent blood. My mother, my wife, my
kindred, all perished. Rome was laid in ashes, but not by me; but the
Christians died to remove from me the imputation of that crime. Hark!
hear you not those cries? See you not a ghostly train approaching?” The
eyes of the horror-stricken emperor fearfully expanded, he grasped the
arm of the slave, muttering, “’Tis Agrippina, ’tis my mother; the
scorpion-whip is in her hand, she comes, she comes to torture me.
Octavia, gentle Octavia, stay her relentless hand. Mother, spare your
wretched son. I did not bid them slay thee; it was the men you gave me
for my guides that urged me to that crime.” Cold drops stood on the brow
of the emperor, the muscles of his throat worked frightfully, and while
he leaned against the person of Adonijah for support, the Hebrew felt
the agonized and audible pulsation of his heart thrill through his own
nerves. From this momentary trance of horror the terrors of conscience
again awakened Nero. “Thou, too,” shrieked he—“thou, too, Corbulo—dost
thou pursue me?” Then, with a cry of horror that dispelled slumber from
every weary eye, he fled in frantic haste from the new phantom his
delirious horror had created.
“This is the hand of God,” said Adonijah, turning his eyes on the
awakened thousands, amongst whom he might have vainly sought for guilt
or woe like Nero’s. Even his own misery was nothing in comparison to the
terrors that haunted the bosom of the master of the world.
The murmured inquiry that passed along that chained host was like the
sound of many waters, but died away instantly into such stillness that
the murmur of the waves might be distinctly heard on either shore. The
strangely mingled multitude, composed of every creed and nation, looked
anxiously around, then pointing to the earth, from whose inmost cavities
they superstitiously imagined these shrieks had issued, sank down upon
her bosom to sleep and dream of home. Adonijah alone knew the cries came
from the tortured spirit of the mighty potentate who ruled the kingdoms
of the world, and he remained awake. He had lost his partner in
misfortune by death, and no unhappy countryman shared his chain—a
circumstance that left him more liberty than those whose deep slumbers
he vainly envied.
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[6] See Appendix, Note IV.