Chapter XV…

Chapter XV

EMPEROR AND ÆSTHETE.

‘The skipping king, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burned, carded his state, Mingled his royalty with capering fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns.’

1. Henry IV. iii. 2.

Nero tried to persuade himself that he cared little for such scenes as that which we have witnessed; but in reality they troubled him. It required a strong effort to shake off their effects, and they left his small pleasure-loving nature in a state of tremor and disgust. He longed to escape from them to some complete retirement, where, away from all pomp, he could give himself up, heart and soul, to selfish æstheticism and voluptuous delight.

He had villas at Antium and at Baiæ, but even they were more public than he desired, and he determined to escape from the noise and heat and worry of Rome to an enchanting lodge which had been designed by the architects, Severus and Celer, in one of the wildest gorges of the Simbruine ridge of the Apennines, a little above the modern town of Subiaco. Through this gorge the icy stream of the Anio forces its way, leaping down into the valley beneath in tumultuous cataracts. By damming the river the architects had with consummate taste and skill, caused it to spread into three mountain lakes, three hundred feet above the valley. On either side of the gorge they had built a hunting-lodge half hidden amid the dense foliage, and the two villas--for such they practically were--had been united by a bridge which spanned the abyss with a graceful arch at a stupendous height above the valley. Nature and art combined to make the scene supremely beautiful. The grounds and gardens of the villas spread down to the smiling vale beneath, by walks under overhanging rocks, tapestried with the luxuriant growth of creepers and wild flowers. Underfoot the moss of softest emerald was now variegated with the red autumnal leaves. Where the pure runnels trickled down little gullies of the rocks they were brightened with maidenhair and arborescent ferns. The artificial sheets of water, in which many water-fowl swam undisturbed, were overshadowed by beeches and oaks and golden platanes which late autumn had touched with her fiery finger.

It was an enchanting spot. Gay shallops were always ready on the artificial lakes if any guest cared to row or to plunge in the cool bright water. On the smooth lawn the ‘gemmy peacocks,’ as the Latin poets called them, strutted and displayed their Indian glories, mingled with tame pheasants and partridges. Kids leaped and sported about the rocky slopes. The cushat-doves cooed from the groves, and white pigeons from the dove-cotes would come crowding round for maize-grain at the slightest call. The Rhodian hens clucked contentedly about the farmyard, which was crowded also with geese and guinea-fowls. The long-haired young town-slaves, full of frolic, worked in the garden in mock obedience to the orders of the country bailiff; but the gardener did not attach much importance to their labours, for they were far more intent on pilfering the best fruit they could find in the granaries than on cultivating the soil; and the rustics knew that to offend them was as much as their place was worth.

The lodges themselves made no pretence to the Cæsarean magnificence of the Palace at Rome. But their simplicity did not exclude the exercise of luxurious taste in their construction and adornment. All the rooms were brightened with lovely frescoes painted by the most famous rhyparographists. On the walls of the richer apartments there were orbs of porphyry and lapis lazuli. The impluvium, into which fell the ceaseless plash of a musical fountain, was a basin of Thasian stone, once a rarity even in temples, and the stop which regulated the play of the water was formed into the winged figure of a child moulded in silver. In the centre of the hall, which was tessellated with small pieces of blue and white marble, there was an exquisite copy of the doves of Scopas. Statues by such masters as Myron and Praxiteles stood between the pillars of the peristyle. The windows were filled with glass, and between them were abaci of peacock-marble, supported on the gilded wings of Cupids, and of griffins which looked in opposite directions. On these slabs of marble stood some of the gold and silver plate which Augustus had ordered to be made out of the statuettes of precious metals which had been erected to him by too-adulatory provincials. On other tables of ivory and fragrant woods lay engraved gems and cameos, or curiosities, brought from all lands. The walls of the small but precious library were covered, in imitation of the famous library of Apollo, with medallions of the most famous Greek and Roman authors in repoussé work of gold and silver, or moulded of Corinthian bronze. Poets, historians, jurists, orators were grouped together, and between the groups were framed specimens of the most exquisite palæography.

Nero was going for the first time to take possession of this enchanting retreat, the loveliness of which had kindled the surprise and admiration of the few who had seen it. He started from Rome with a splendid retinue. He himself rode in a light car, inlaid with ivory and silver, and was followed by an army of a thousand slaves and retainers. One of the earliest lessons which he learnt was that his resources were practically boundless, so that from the first he broke out into unheard-of extravagance. His mules were shod with silver. The muleteers were dressed in liveries of Canusian wool, dyed scarlet. The runners in front of his chariot, and the swarthy cohort of outriders from Mazaca in Numidia, selected for their skill in horsemanship, were adorned with bracelets and trappings of gold. The more delicate slaves had their faces covered with masks, or tinged with cosmetics, lest their complexions should suffer from the sunlight. Many of the slaves had no other office than to carry, with due care, the lyres and other musical instruments which were required for the theatrical entertainments.

Agrippina, devoured with chagrin and resentment, had indeed been asked to accompany him, but in a way so insultingly ungracious, that she declined. She dreaded to share with him a place so retired, in which she knew that almost every hour would fill her with disgust and anger. She had chosen instead to go alone to her stately villa at Bauli, on the Campanian shore. There, if she had little else to occupy her time, she could continue her own memoirs, or amuse herself with the lampreys and mullets, which were so tame that they would come at her call, and feed out of her hand. Her husband’s mother, Antonia, had attached earrings to one pet lamprey, so that people used to visit the villa to see it. Agrippina followed her example.

Octavia followed Nero. She had not been suffered to possess any villa which she could call her own, and much as Nero would have liked to leave her behind, he was compelled by public opinion to observe a certain conventional respect for his Empress, the daughter of Claudius. The sedan in which she travelled was carried by eight stalwart Bithynian porters, but she was not honoured with any splendour or observance, and had only a modest retinue out of her six hundred nominal attendants. Still humbler was the following of Britannicus. He had been bidden to come partly because it would have seemed shameful to leave him alone in Rome during an unhealthy season, when even persons of low position were driven into the country by the month in which Libitina claimed her most numerous victims; and also because Nero was glad to keep him in sight. He was happy enough, for Titus was with him, and Pudens was one of the escort; and as Epaphroditus necessarily attended his master, Nero, it was not difficult to get leave for Epictetus to come in his train. The two kind-hearted boys thought that the pale face of the slave-child might gain a touch of rose from the fresh winds of the Apennines.

Very few ladies were invited. It was necessary, indeed, that one or two should accompany Octavia; and Nero, for his own reasons, wished Junia Silana and Calvia Crispinilla to be of the party. These were ladies with whom a young matron like Octavia could scarcely exchange a word, but happily for her, Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian, was asked to accompany the Empress. Vespasian, who had just returned from his proconsulate, had been summoned to have an interview with Nero on the state of affairs in Africa, and to stay for some days. Acte was in the train of Nero, but, though she rarely saw Octavia, the unfortunate Empress little knew that the presence of Domitilla, the only lady to whom she could speak without a shudder, was really due to the private suggestion of the lovely and kind-hearted freedwoman. Flavia Domitilla was of the humblest origin, and her father had occupied no higher office than that of a quæstor’s clerk. That no nobler companion had been sought for her would have been regarded as an insult by any lady of haughty character; but Octavia preferred the society of the honest matron to that of a thousand Crispinillas.

Seneca and Burrus were invited for a brief visit only, and as Nero liked to give a flavour of intellectuality to the society which he gathered round him, Lucan was asked, as the rising poet of the day; and Silius Italicus, as a sort of established poet laureate; and Persius, the young Etrurian knight, who, though but twenty-one years old, was so warmly eulogised by his tutor, Cornutus, that great things were expected of him. None of his satires had yet seen the light, but his head would hardly have been safe if Nero could have read some of the lines locked up in his writing-desk. With these had been also invited C. Plinius Secundus, a wealthy knight, thirty-four years of age, in whose encyclopædic range of knowledge it was hoped that the guests might find an endless fund of amusement and anecdote in their more serious moments.

But while Nero liked to keep up the credit of dabbling in literary pursuits, the choice spirits to whom he looked for his real delight were very different from these graver personages. The fashionable elegance of Otho and the luxurious cynicism of Petronius were indispensable for his amusement. Tigellinus was too intimate to be excluded; and with these came Vatinius, the witty buffoon and cobbler of Beneventum, an informer of the lowest class. This cobbler’s chief recommendations were personal deformity, an outrageous tongue, and an abnormally prominent nose. He avenged himself on society for the wrongs inflicted on him by nature. He rejoiced in the immortality of having given his name to a drinking-cup with a long nozzle, which has preserved his memory in the verse of Juvenal and Martial.

Here Nero enjoyed life to his heart’s content. The happy accident that the villa really consisted of two edifices, separated by the bridge across the glen, enabled him to keep his least welcome guests in the Villa Castor, and his chosen companions in the Villa Pollux.

In the grounds of the Villa Castor, Seneca and Burrus had rooms in which they could transact with their secretaries their ministerial and military business. Pliny could bury himself among the rarer treasures of the library, or amuse his leisure by seeing what further he could learn about the habits of the flamingoes and other foreign birds, which were carefully kept in cages and fed from the hands of the visitors. For Britannicus and Titus, who often asked Persius to be their companion, there was the resource of the tennis-court, the gymnastic room, and rowing, bathing, and fishing in the lakes; and Persius, who had heard all about Epictetus from his young patron, sometimes let the little slave sit at his feet while he read choice passages of old Roman poems in works which had been found for him by the clever librarian.

The meals were held separately in the two villas, though sometimes all the guests were invited to Nero’s table. He varied his amusements in every possible way. Sometimes he would take a long swim in the cold lake; sometimes he would fish with a purple line and a golden hook, though he caught fewer fish in a morning than Britannicus would catch in an hour. He delighted to spend hours at a time with the harpist Terpnos or the singer Diodorus, who trained him how to use what it had become the fashion to describe as his celestial voice.

He soon got tired of the small restraint upon his amusements which resulted from the presence of the graver guests across the bridge. But they helped to form an audience for him in the room which had been fitted up as a theatre. One evening he had been displaying his accomplishments to all the guests at both villas, and had been received by the listening slaves and courtiers with tumults of applause. The others were obliged, or felt themselves obliged, to join in the clapping; but Nero could read in their faces that they were unwilling listeners. Seneca blushed, and his smooth tongue stumbled, as he attempted to express his gratification. Burrus looked on with profound disapproval. A look of involuntary scorn stole over the grave features of Persius, whom Nero already hated, because the young man’s virginal modesty formed such a contrast to his own shamelessness. But, worst of all, the blunt soldier, Vespasian, to the intense amusement of Titus and Britannicus, had first of all begun to nod, and then had fallen asleep with his mouth wide open, and had snored--had actually and audibly snored, so that all the audience heard it, while Nero was chanting his own divine verses with the most bewitching trills of his own divine voice!

Nero, in his rage, half thought of having him arrested on the charge of high treason--an accusation of which the meshes were equally adapted to entangle the most daring criminals and the most trivial offenders. But when he poured out his wrath to Petronius, his elegant friend laughed immoderately, and pacified Nero’s offended vanity by dwelling on Vespasian’s somnolence as a proof of his vulgarity.

‘I suppose, then,’ said Nero, ‘I must say with Horace, “solvuntur risu tabulæ”?’

‘Yes,’ said Petronius, ‘and you may add “tu missus abibis.” Why not make a clean sweep of these dreadful old fogies in the Villa Castor? Pliny has told us all we care to know about flamingoes and lampreys. Seneca’s pomposities grow stale. We have been sufficiently amused for the present by the blushes of Persius, and the good Silius Italicus is as tedious as his own epic. Give them a respectful farewell. Send for Paris the actor, and Aliturus the pantomime, and some of your fairest slaves to wait on us at our choicest banquets. Let us dismiss this humbug of respectability and pluck the blossom of the days.’

The advice fell on congenial ears. It was intimated to the guests in the Villa Castor that they might present their respects to the Emperor, and disperse where they chose. They were not sorry to depart from such dubious neighbours as those in the Villa Pollux. Vespasian and Titus were rudely sent off the next morning, without being permitted to see Nero again. Flavia Domitilla accompanied them, and as the presence of Britannicus was always a trouble to Nero, he was allowed to spend the rest of the autumn in the humble Sabine villa of Vespasian’s family at Phalacrine, near Reate, where he would not only have Titus as a companion, but also his cousins--the two young sons of Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus.

‘Among those dull farmers,’ said Nero, ‘he is not likely to have any nonsense put into his head. Let him eat beans and bacon, and grow as sluggish as his friends.’

To Nero and the fashionable nobles of his time every man was sluggish and plebeian who did not care to season his recreation with a variety of vices.

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Chapter XVI

EVENTS IN THE VILLA POLLUX

‘Who dares, who dares, In purity of manhood stand upright And say “This man’s a flatterer”? If one be, So are they all ... the learned pate Ducks to the golden fool.’

Timon of Athens, iv. 3.

More and more luxurious and irregular became the amusements of the Villa Pollux. Paganism is protected from complete exposure by the enormity of its own vices. To show the divine reformation wrought by Christianity it must suffice that, once for all, the Apostle of the Gentiles seized heathendom by the hair, and branded indelibly on her forehead the stigma of her shame.

Leaving altogether on one side the darker aspects of the life to which Nero and his boon companions now abandoned themselves, neither shall we dwell much upon

‘Their gorgeous gluttonies and sumptuous feasts On citron table and Atlantic stone.’

If the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life could have brought to Nero and Otho any happiness, they might have been happy. They could lift to their lips the cup of pleasure crowned to the brim. They soon found it to be an envenomed goblet, sparkling with the wine of demons. The rage of luxury, the insanity of egotism, the abandonment to every form of self-indulgence, served only to plunge them into deeper lassitude, and, last of all, into more irretrievable disgust. For, though men have bodies, they still are spirits, and when their bodies have command over their spirits, they only become a lower kind of beast.

To Nero, while he was yet a boy, had been offered all that carnal minds think the highest boons. The ancient philosophers used to discuss the question, ‘Whether any one would still remain perfectly virtuous if he were endowed with the ring of Gyges, which had the power to make a man invisible.’ To Nero had been given alike the ring of Gyges and the lamp of Aladdin. While he was still young and beautiful, and not ungifted, all that was fell and foul in the seductions of the Palace and the Amphitheatre assailed his feeble nature. It was hardly strange that his whole being gave way and he became a prodigy of wickedness. At heart, perhaps, he was not essentially worse than thousands of youths have been, but his crimes, unchecked by any limitations of law or of resources, were enacted under the glare of publicity, on the world’s loftiest stage.

Nor must it be forgotten that he saw and enjoyed all the best, the loveliest, the most intoxicating that could be devised by an epoch which strove madly after pleasure. Thus, when Paris and Aliturus came to the villa, the guests saw in those two actors the most perfect grace set off by the highest advantages, and trained for years by the most artistic skill. They represented the finished result of all that the world could produce in seductive art. Such actors, originally selected for their beauty and genius, made it the effort of their lives to express by the poetry of movement every burning passion and soft desire which can agitate the breast. Their rhythmic action, their mute music, their inimitable grace of motion in the dance, brought home to the spectator each scene which they impersonated more powerfully than description, or painting, or sculpture. Carried away by the glamour of involuntary delusion, the gazers seemed to see before them every incident which they chose to represent. Nothing was neglected which seemed likely to add to the pleasure of the audience. The rewards of success were splendid--wealth, popularity, applause from numberless spectators, the passionate admiration of society, the partiality even of emperors and empresses, and all the power which such influence bestowed. A successful mimic actor, when he sprang on the stage in his glittering and close-fitting dress, knew that if he could once exercise on the multitude his potent spell he might easily become the favourite of the rulers of the world, as Bathyllus was of Mæcenas, and Mnester of Caligula, and another Paris was of the Empress Domitia.

Paris was a Greek, and his face was a perfect example of the fine Greek ideal, faultless in its lines and youthful contour. Aliturus was by birth a Jew, and was endowed with the splendid beauty which still makes some young Arabs the types of perfect manhood. Both of them danced after supper on the day which succeeded their arrival, and it was hard to say which of them excelled the other.[37]

First Paris danced, in his fleshings of the softest Canusian wool, dyed a light red. His dress revealed the perfect outline of a figure that united fineness with strength. He represented in pantomimic dance the scene of Achilles in the island of Scyros. He brought every incident and person before their eyes--the virgins as they spun in the palace of their father, Lycomedes; the fair youth concealed as a virgin in the midst of them, and called Pyrrha from his golden locks; the maiden Deidamia, whom he loved; the eager summons of Ulysses at his gate; the ear-shattering trumpet of Diomedes; the presents brought by the disguised ambassadors; the young warrior betraying himself by the eagerness with which he turns from jewels and ornaments to nodding helmet and bright cuirass; the doffing of his feminine apparel; the leaping forth in his gleaming panoply. Nothing could be more marvellous than the whole impersonation. So vivid was the illusion that the guests of Nero could hardly believe that they had seen but one young man before them, and not a company of varied characters.

Yet hardly less subtle was the kindling of the imagination when Aliturus ‘danced,’ as it was called, the ‘Death of Hector’ in the tragic style which had first been introduced by the celebrated Bathyllus of Alexandria. They seemed to see the hero bid farewell to his Andromache, and go bounding forth to meet the foe; to see enacted before them the flight of Hector; the deceitful spectre of Deiphobus; the combat; the dying prophecy; the corpse of the gallant Trojan dragged round the walls of Troy; Priam and Hecuba tearing their grey locks. They seemed to hear the wild wail of Andromache, the tender plaint of Helen, the frenzied utterances of Cassandra; and when the scene ended there was not one of them who was not thrilled through and through with pity, with terror, with admiration.

These scenes were innocent and not ignoble, but softer and more voluptuous impersonations followed; for when another and less known actor named Hylas--painted blue, and dragging a fish’s tail behind him--had acted the part of the sea-god Glaucus, to rest the two chief performers, then Paris set forth the story of Ariadne and Bacchus; and Aliturus sank to yet lower depths in dancing the favourite pantomime of Leda.

Such were among the amusements of Nero’s evenings, and part of the pleasure consisted in knowing that he and his guests were enjoying at their leisure a near view of the unequalled genius which enraptured the shouting myriads of Rome when witnessed from a distance after long hours of waiting to secure a place. Further, they had the advantage of watching the speaking faces of the mimists, which in the theatre were hidden by a mask. It is needless to add that Nero rewarded with immense donations the artists whose skill he so passionately admired. And yet for Paris it had been happier if, instead of dazzling the multitude, he had remained the humble slave of Domitia. For in later days Nero, envying him the tumults of applause he won, tried to emulate his skill. Paris did his best to teach him, but the attempt was hopeless. Nothing could then make the obese form of the Emperor graceful, or his thin legs agile. And since he could not rival him, he made the poor wretch pay the penalty by putting him to death.

But no such dread foreboding was in the happy actor’s mind as he witnessed the spell which he cast over the minds of his audience--and audience it might fitly be called, for the actor had spoken to them in the eloquence of rhythmic gesture.

The conversation turned naturally on the art of dancing.

‘Paris,’ said Petronius, whose æsthetic sympathies had been intensely gratified, ‘I know not whether you missed the usual accompaniments of pipes and flutes, and still more the thundering reverberations of applause from the enraptured myriads, but I never heard you to greater advantage.’

‘Heard me? Saw me, you mean,’ said Paris, with a pleasant smile.

‘No!’ said Petronius, ‘we have heard, not seen, you. You have not spoken a word, but your feet and your hands have surpassed the eloquence even of lips “tinct with Hyblean honeycombs.”’

‘You remind me of what Demetrius the Cynic said to me,’ answered Paris.

‘What was that?’

‘Do not think me vain if I tell the story,’ said the actor. ‘I do not tell it in my own honour, but only for the glory of my art. Demetrius had been railing and snarling at us poor pantomimes, and said that the only pleasure of the spectators was derived, not from our dancing, but from the flutes and songs. I asked him to let me show him a specimen of what I could do.’

‘Happy Demetrius!’ said Lucan.

‘He was fair-minded enough to consent, and I danced to him the story of Mars and Venus. I tried to bring before him their love, their betrayal by Helios, the rage and jealousy of Vulcan, their capture in the golden net, their confusion, the entreaties of Venus, the intercession of the gods. Demetrius was fairly conquered, and he said to me, “Fellow!” (you observe that he was anything but civil!), “I don’t merely see but I hear your acting, and you seem to me to speak with your very hands.”’

‘Well done, Demetrius!’ said Otho. ‘And perhaps you don’t know, Paris, that a Greek writer, Lesbonax, calls you, not philosophers, but cheirosophers--hand-wise.’

‘I can cap your story, Paris,’ said Nero. ‘The other day a barbarian nobleman from Pontus came to me on some foreign business and brought me some splendid presents. When he left I asked him if I could do anything for him. “Yes,” he said. “Will you make me a present of the beautiful dancer whom I saw in the theatre?” That was you, Paris; and of course I told him that you were much too precious to be given away, and that, if I did, we should have Rome in an uproar. “But,” I said, “of what possible use would he be to you?” “He can interpret things without words,” he replied; “and I want some one to explain my wishes to my barbarous neighbours”!’

‘Nobody has said any of these fine things about me,’ remarked Aliturus, ruefully.

‘Well, I will tell you a compliment paid to you, Aliturus,’ said Petronius. ‘Another barbarian, who came to me with a letter of introduction from the Proconsul of Africa, saw you act a scene which involved five impersonations. He was amazed at your versatility. “That man,” he observed, “has but one body, but he has many minds.”’

‘Thank you, kind Petronius!’ said Aliturus.

‘But now tell us,’ asked Nero, ‘whether in acting you really feel the emotions you express.’

‘When the character is new to us we feel them intensely,’ said the Jewish pantomime. ‘Have you never heard, Cæsar, what happened to Pylades, when he played the part of the mad hero of “Ajax”? It seemed as if he really went mad with the hero whom he personated. He sprang on one of the attendants who was beating time to the music, and rent off his robe. The actor who represented the victorious Ulysses stood by him in triumph, and Pylades, tearing a heavy flute from the hands of one of the choraulæ, dealt Ulysses so violent a blow on the head that he broke the flute and would have broken the head too, if the actor had not been protected by his helmet. He even hurled javelins at Augustus himself. The audience in the theatre was so powerfully affected by the passion of the scene that they went mad too, and leapt up from their seats and shouted, and flung off their garments. Finally, Pylades, unconscious of what he was doing, walked down from the stage to the orchestra and took his seat between two Consulars, who were rather alarmed lest Ajax should flagellate them with his scourge as he had been flagellating the cattle which in his madness he took for Greeks.’

‘A curious and interesting anecdote, my Aliturus,’ said Petronius; ‘but Paris has not yet told us whether he misses the multitudinous applause of Rome.’

‘All Rome is here,’ said Paris with a bow to the Emperor. ‘We actors need nothing but the sunshine of approval, and did not the sun, even before it rose above the horizon, bathe Nero in its rays?’

‘So my nurses have told me,’ said Nero.

‘Trust an actor to pay a compliment,’ whispered Vatinius to Tigellinus.

‘Or a poet either,’ said Tigellinus, with a glance at Lucan.

‘Or an adventurer and a parasite either,’ returned the irascible Spaniard, who had overheard the innuendo.

‘Now, if I am to be the arbiter elegantiarum, I will allow no quarrels,’ said Petronius. ‘And I at least am grateful to Paris and Aliturus, and mean to show my gratitude by a compliment. Don’t class me among the poets who recite in the dog-days, for my little poem--written while Paris was dancing “Achilles”--is only four lines long. Spare my blushes and let Lucan--as he is a poet--read it.’

‘Don’t let him read it,’ whispered Tigellinus; ‘he will read it badly on purpose.’

But Petronius handed his little waxen tablets to Lucan, who, with a glance of disdain at Tigellinus, read with perfect expression the four celebrated lines:

‘He fights, plays, revels, loves and whirls, and stands, Speaks with mute eloquence and rhythmic hands. Silence is voiceful through each varying part, In each fair feature--’tis the crown of Art.’[38]

A loud exclamation of ‘Euge!’ and ‘Σοφῶς!’ burst from the hearers when Lucan had read these admirable lines; and the two actors repaid the poet by the most gracious of their bows and smiles. Nor did they confine their gratitude to smiles, but gave further specimens of some of the laughable dances which were in vogue, such as ‘the owl’ and ‘the grimace,’ ending with a spectacle at once graceful and innocent--namely, the lovely flower-dance with its refrain of

‘Where are my roses, where my violets, where my parsleys fair?’

They went to bed that night each of them the happy possessor of twelve thousand sesterces. When Agrippina, a month later, heard this, she reproached Nero for his gross extravagance.

‘What did I give them?’ he asked.

‘You paid them twelve thousand sesterces each for a night’s dancing.’

‘Did I?’ said Nero, glad to show his defiance. ‘I never knew before that I was so mean;’ and he immediately ordered the sum to be doubled.

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Chapter XVII

AMUSEMENTS OF AN EMPEROR

Οὐ παύσομαι τὰς Χάριτας Μούσαις συγκαταμιγνύς.

EURIPIDES.

‘Esclave! apporte-moi des roses, Le parfum des roses est doux.’

VICTOR HUGO.

Among the pleasant distractions of the villa, the dilettantism of literature and art were not forgotten. Nero regarded it as one of his serious occupations to practice singing and harp-playing. Afterwards, when his friends gathered round him, they would write verses, or recite, or lounge on purple couches, listening to Epaphroditus as he read to them the last news from the teeming gossip of Rome. Satires and scandalous stories often created a flutter of excitement in the reception-rooms of the capital, and were keenly enjoyed by all, except those, often entirely innocent and worthy persons, who were perfectly defenceless against these calumnies, and felt them like sparks of fire, or poisoned arrows rankling in the flesh.

One morning, when the stay of the courtiers at the villa was drawing to a close, Epaphroditus announced to them that he had a sensation for them of the first magnitude. The trifle which he would read to them was perhaps a little broad in parts, but he was sure that Cæsar would excuse it. It was called, he said, by a curious name, Apokolokyntosis. This was in truth a clever invention of the librarian himself, for he did not venture to mention its real title, which was Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris.

‘Apokolokyntosis?’[*3] asked Nero; ‘why, that means gourdification or pumpkinification! One has heard of deification, but what on earth does “gourdification” mean?’

‘Perhaps, Cæsar, in this instance it means the same thing,’ said Epaphroditus; ‘but have I your permission to read it?’

The guests--Lucan among them--settled themselves in easy positions and listened. The reader had not finished a dozen sentences before they found that they were hearing the most daring and brilliant satire which antiquity had as yet produced.

It was a satire on the death of Claudius, and it was not long before peal after peal of astonished laughter rang from all the group.

It began by a jesting refusal to quote any authority for the events the writer was going to relate. If any one wanted evidence he referred to the senator who had sworn that he had seen Drusilla mounting to heaven, and would be equally ready to swear that he had seen Claudius stalking thitherward with unequal steps along the Appian road, by which Augustus and Tiberius had also gone to heaven.

‘It was late autumn, verging on winter--it was, in fact, October 13. As for the hour, that was uncertain, but might be generally described as noontide, when Claudius was trying to die. Since he found it hard to die, Mercury, who had always admired his learning, began to abuse one of the Fates for keeping him alive for sixty-three years. Why could not she allow the astrologers to be right for once, who had been predicting his demise every month? Yet, no wonder! for how could they cast the horoscope of a man so imperfect that he could hardly be said to have ever been born? “I only meant,” pleads Clotho, “to keep him alive a little longer, till he had made all the rest of the world Roman citizens. But since you order it, he shall die.” Thereupon she opened a casket, and took out three spindles--one on which was wound the life-thread of Claudius, and on the other two those of the two idiots, Augurinus and Baba, both of whom, she said, should die about the same time, that Claudius might have fitting company.

‘She said, and broke short the royal period of stolid life.’ At this point the author bursts into poetry, and describes how Lachesis chooses a thread of gold instead of wool, and joyously weaves a web of surpassing loveliness. The life it represents is to surpass the years of Tithonus and of Nestor. Phœbus comes and cheers her on her task with heavenly song, bidding her weave on.

‘Let him whose thread you are weaving,’ he sings, ‘exceed the space of mortal life, for he is like me in countenance, like me in beauty, and not inferior in song or voice. He shall accord happy times to the weary, and shall burst the silence of the laws, like the rising of the morning or the evening star, or of rosy dawn at sunrise. Such a Cæsar is at hand, such a Nero shall Rome now behold! his bright countenance beams with attempered lustre, and his neck is lovely with its flowing locks!’ So sang Apollo, and Lachesis did even more than he required. Meanwhile, Claudius died while listening to the comedians. Then, after a touch of inconceivable coarseness, the writer adds, ‘What happened on earth I need not tell you, for we none of us forget our own felicity, but I will tell you what happened in heaven.’ Jupiter is informed that a being is approaching who is tall, grey-haired, and looks menacing, because he shakes his head and drags his right foot. He is asked to what country he belongs, and returns an entirely unintelligible answer in no distinguishable dialect. As Hercules is a travelled person, Jupiter sends him to enquire to what class of human beings the new-comer appertains. Hercules had never seen a portent like this, with a voice like that of a sea-monster, and thought that this must be his thirteenth labour; but, on looking, perceived that it was a sort of man, and addressed him in Greek. Claudius answers in Greek, and would have imposed on Hercules, had not Fever, who had accompanied Claudius, said, ‘He is not from Ilium; he is a genuine Gaul, born near Lyons, and, like a true Gaul, he took Rome.’ Claudius got into a rage at this, but no one could comprehend his jargon; he had made a signal that Fever should be decapitated, and one might have thought that all present were his freedmen, for no one cared for what he said. Hercules addresses him in severe tones, and Claudius says, ‘You of all the gods, Hercules, ought to know me and support me, for I sat all July and August listening to lawyers before your temple.’ A discussion follows, and then Jupiter asks the gods how they will vote. Janus thinks there are too many gods already. Godhead has become cheap of late. He votes that no more men shall be made gods. Claudius, however, since he is akin to the divine Augustus, and has himself made Livia a goddess, seems likely to gain the majority of votes; but Augustus rises and pleads against this strange candidate for godship with indignant eloquence. ‘This man,’ he pleads, ‘caused the death of my daughter and my grand-daughter, the two Julias, and my descendant, L. Silanus. Also he has condemned many unheard. Jupiter, who has reigned so many years, has only broken one leg--the leg of Vulcan--and has once hung Juno from heaven: but Claudius, inspired by female jealousies and the intrigues of a varletry of pampered freedmen, has killed his wife, Messalina, and a multitude of others. Who would believe that they were gods, if they made this portent a god? Rather let him be expelled from Olympus within three days.’

Accordingly, Mercury puts a rope round his neck, and drags him towards Tartarus. On the way they meet a vast crowd, who all rejoice except a few lawyers. It was, in fact, the funeral procession of Claudius himself, and he wants to stop and look at it; but Mercury covers him with a veil, that no one may recognize him, and drags him along. Narcissus had preceded him by a shorter route, and Mercury bids the freedman hurry on to announce the advent of Claudius to the shades. Narcissus speedily arrives among them, gouty though he was, since the descent is steep, and shouts in a loud voice, ‘Claudius Cæsar is coming.’ Immediately a crowd of shades shouts out, ‘We have found him; let us rejoice!’ They advance to meet him--among them Messalina and her lover, Mnester the pantomime, and numbers of his kinsmen whom he had put to death. ‘Why, all my friends are here!’ exclaims Claudius, quite pleased. ‘How did you all get here?’ ‘Do you ask us?’ said Pedo Pompeius; ‘you most cruel of men, who killed us all?’ Pedo drags him before the judgment-seat of Æacus, and accuses him on the Cornelian law of having put to death thirty senators, three hundred and fifteen Roman knights, and two hundred and twenty-one other persons. Claudius, terrified, looks round him for an advocate, but does not see one. Publius Petronius wants to plead for him, but is not allowed to do so. He is condemned. Deep silence falls on them all, as they wait to hear his punishment. It is to be as endless as that of Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion; it is to be a toil and a desire futile and frustrate and without end. He is to throw dice forever in a dice-box without a bottom!

No sooner said than done! Claudius began at once to seek the dice, which forever escaped him. Every time he attempted to throw them they slipped through, and the throw, though constantly attempted, could never be performed.

Then all of a sudden appears Caligula, and demands that Claudius should be recognised as his slave. He produces witnesses who swear that they have seen Caligula scourge him and slap him, and beat him. He is assigned to Caligula, who hands him over to his freedman, Menander, to be his legal assessor.

Such was this daring satire, of which we can hardly estimate the audacity and wit--written as it was within a year of events which the Roman Senate and Roman people professed to regard as profoundly solemn.

Nero was convulsed with laughter throughout, and was equally delighted by the insults upon his predecessor and the flattery of himself.

When the speaker’s voice ceased, a burst of applause came from the lips of the hearers; and Lucan turned to the gratified Nero and repeated the lines which described his radiant beauty, his song, and the brilliant prognostications of his coming reign.

‘Yes,’ said Otho; ‘that is true poetry--

‘“Such is our Cæsar; such, O happy Rome, Thy radiant Nero gilds his Palace home; His gentle looks with tempered splendour shine, Round his fair neck his golden tresses twine.”’--

and, in the intimacy of friendship, he ventured to pass his hand over the soft golden hair which flowed over the neck of the proud and happy youth.

‘How witty it is, and how powerful!’ said Petronius. ‘Who could have written it?’

Lucan gave a meaning smile. He had not been dismissed from the Villa Castor with the other guests, because the Emperor, although jealous of him, could not help admiring his fiery, original, and declamatory genius.

‘You smile, Lucan,’ said Otho; ‘surely your uncle Seneca--that grave and stately philosopher--could not have written this sparkling farce?’

‘Seneca?’ said Vestinus; ‘what, he who grovelled at the feet of the freedman Polybius, and told him that the one supreme consolation to him for the loss of his wife would be the divine beneficence of the Pumpkinity whom here he paints as an imbecile slaverer?’

‘I think Seneca deserves to be brought up on a charge of treason, if he really wrote it,’ said Tigellinus.

‘Nonsense, Tigellinus,’ said Petronius; ‘you need not be so sanguinary. The thing is but a jest, after all. On the stage we allow the freest and broadest jokes against the twelve greater gods, and even the Capitoline Jupiter; why should not a wit jest harmlessly upon the deified Claudius, now that he has died of eating a mushroom?’

‘You are right,’ said Nero; ‘the author is too witty to be punished; and now I always call mushrooms “the food of the gods.” But was Seneca the writer?’ he asked, turning to Lucan.

‘I think I may say quite confidently that he was not,’ said Lucan, a little alarmed by the savage remark of Tigellinus. In point of fact, he believed that the brochure had been written by his own father, Marcus Annæus Mela, but he felt it desirable that the secret should be kept.

‘We all know that the Annæi are loyal,’ sneered Tigellinus.

‘As loyal, at any rate, as men who would sell their souls for an aureus,’ answered the Spaniard. He looked full at Tigellinus, who remembered the scene, and put it down in his note-book for the day of vengeance.

But Petronius loved elegance, and did not care for quarrels, and he tried to turn the conversation from unpleasant subjects. ‘Lucan,’ he asked, ‘have you written any verses about Nero? If so, pray let us have the pleasure of hearing them.’

Lucan was far from unwilling to show that he too could flatter, and he recited the lines of colossal adulation from the opening of the ‘Pharsalia.’ Even the civil wars, he sang, with all their slaughter, were not too heavy a price to pay for the blessing of having obtained a Nero; and he begs him to be careful what part of Olympus he chooses for his future residence, lest the burden of his greatness should disturb the equilibrium of the world![39]

Nero had just heard the deification of Claudius torn to shreds with mortal sarcasm, but his own vanity was impervious to any wound, and he eagerly drank in the adulation which--with no more sincerity than that which had been addressed to his predecessor by the Senate and people of Rome--assured him of the honour of plenary divinity among the deities of heaven in whom, nevertheless, he scarcely even affected to believe.

He turned to Petronius and asked him to recite his poem on the Sack of Troy. Petronius did so, and the Emperor listened with eager interest. It was a subject which fascinated him.

‘Ah!’ he said, ‘to see a city in flames--that would be worth living for! I have tried to write something on that subject myself.’

All present, of course, pressed him to favour them with his poem, and after a little feminine show of reluctance, and many protestations of mock modesty, he read them, in an affected voice, some verses which were marked in every phrase by the falsetto of the age. It was evident that they had been painfully elaborated. Indeed, as they looked at the note-book from which the Emperor read they saw that the labor limæ had been by no means wanting. The book, which afterwards fell into the hands of Suetonius, was scratched and scrawled over in every direction, and it showed that many a turn of expression had been altered twenty times before it became tinkling enough and fantastic enough to suit Nero’s taste. It was clear from the tone in which he read them that the most bizarre lines were exactly those that pleased him best, and they were therefore the ones which his flatterers selected for their loudest applause.

‘“Filled the grim horns with Mimallonean buzz”’--

repeated Lucan. ‘How energetic! how picturesque!’

‘He is laughing at you in his sleeve, Cæsar,’ whispered Tigellinus; ‘and he thinks his own most impromptu line far superior.’

Lucan did not overhear the remark, and he proceeded to quote and praise the three lines on the river Tigris, which

‘“Deserts the Persian realms he loved to lave, And to non-seekers shows his sought-for wave.”

Now those lines I feel sure will live.’

‘Of course they will,’ said Tigellinus, ‘long after your poems are forgotten.’

The young poet only shrugged his shoulders, and turned on the adventurer a glance of disdain. Petronius, however, who disliked and despised Tigellinus, was now thoroughly disgusted by his malignity, and did not hesitate to express his contempt. ‘Tigellinus,’ he said. ‘if you are so rude I shall ask Cæsar to dismiss you. What nonsense on your part to pretend to know anything about poetry! You know even less than Calvisius Sabinus, who confounds Achilles with Ulysses, and has bought ten slaves who know all the poets by heart to prompt him when he makes a mistake.’[40]

Tigellinus reddened with anger, but he did not venture to reply.

‘For my part,’ said Senecio, ‘I prefer the line

‘“Thou who didst chine the long-ribb’d Apennine,”

not to speak of the fine effect of the spondaic, there is the daring image.’

‘There is something finer than both,’ said Petronius, and he quoted a line of real beauty which Seneca has preserved for us in his ‘Natural Questions,’ and in which Nero describes the ruffled iridescence of a dove’s neck:

‘Fair Cytherea’s startled doves illume With sheeny lustre every glancing plume.’[41]

‘Many,’ said the polished courtier, ‘have seen the mingled amethyst and emerald on the necks of doves and peacocks, but it has been reserved for Cæsar to describe it.’

Somehow or other, in spite of all they said, Nero was not satisfied. He had an uneasy misgiving that all of them except Petronius--whom he knew to be genuinely good-natured--were only fooling him to the top of his bent. Not that this misgiving at all disturbed his conceit. He was convinced that he was a first-rate poet, as well as a first-rate singer and lyrist, and indeed a first-rate artist in all respects. It was the thing of which he was most proud, and if these people were only pretending to recognise his enormous merits, that was simply the result of their jealousy.

‘Thank you, friends,’ he said. ‘What you say of me, Lucan, is very kind, but’--he felt it necessary to show his superiority by a little criticism--‘I should not recommend you to publish your poem just yet. It is crude in parts. It is too Spanish and provincial. It wants a great deal of polishing before it can reach the æsthetic standard.’

Lucan bowed, and bit his lip. He felt that among these poetasters he was like a Triton among minnows, and his sense of mortification was so bitter that he could not trust himself to speak, lest he should risk his head by insulting Nero to his face.

The group broke up. Only Petronius, Paris, and Tigellinus remained.

‘Petronius,’ said Nero, ‘you are a genuine poet. What do you think of Persius and Lucan as poets?’

‘Lucan is more of a rhetorician than a poet,’ said Petronius, ‘and Persius more of a Stoic pedagogue. Both have merits, but neither of them can say anything simply and naturally. They are laboured, artificial, declamatory, monotonous, and more or less unoriginal. Their “honeyed globules of words” are only a sign of decadence.’[42]

‘And what do you think of my poetry?’ asked the Emperor, sorely thirsting for a compliment.

‘A Cæsar must be supreme in all he does,’ said Petronius, with one of his enigmatical smiles.

He rose, and bowed as he left the room, leaving Nero puzzled and dissatisfied.

‘Oh, Paris!’ exclaimed Nero, flinging his arm round the actor’s neck, ‘you alone are to be envied. You are a supreme artist. No one is jealous of you. When I see you on the stage, moving the people at your will to tears or to laughter, or kindling them to the most delicious emotions--when I hear the roar of applause which greets you as you stand forth in all your grace, and make the huge theatre ring with your fine penetrating voice, I often wish we could change our parts, and I be the actor, and you the Emperor.’

‘You mock a poor mummer, Cæsar,’ said Paris; ‘but if I am to amuse you after the banquet to-night you must let me go and arrange something with Aliturus.’

Nero was left alone with Tigellinus. He yawned wearily. ‘How tedious all life is!’ he said. ‘Well, never mind, there is the banquet of the night to look forward to.’

‘Yes,’ said Tigellinus, ‘and when we are heated with wine we will wander out into the grounds; and in the caves and winding pathways Petronius and Crispinilla have invented a new amusement for you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Do not ask me, Cæsar, and you will all the more enjoy its novelty.’

‘Yes, but our time here is rapidly drawing to a close, and then comes Rome again, and all the boredom of the Senate, and of hearing causes, and entertaining dull people of consequence. And there I must more or less play at propriety.’

‘Why must you, Cæsar? Cannot you do exactly as you like? Who is there to question you?’

‘My mother, Agrippina, if no one else.’

‘You have only one reason to fear the Augusta.’

‘What is that?’

‘Because, Cæsar, as I have already warned you, she is making much of Britannicus. I have reason to believe that she is also plotting to secure the elevation of Rubellius Plautus or Sulla. She is not at all too old to marry either of them, and both of them have imperial blood in their veins.’

‘Rubellius Plautus?’ asked Nero; ‘why, he is a peaceful pedant. And that miserable creature Sulla cares for nothing but his dinner.’

‘We shall see in time,’ said Tigellinus; ‘but meanwhile, so long as Britannicus lives--’

‘Finish your sentence.’

‘So long as Britannicus lives, Nero is not safe.’

Nero sank into a gloomy reverie. He had not suspected that the dark-eyed adventurer had designs as deep as those of Sejanus himself. That guilty and intriguing minister of Tiberius was only a Roman knight, and the whole family of Germanicus, as well as the son and the grandson of Drusus, stood in the direct line of descent as heirs to the throne. Yet he had for years worked on with the deliberate intention of clearing every one of them from his path, and climbing to that throne himself.

Why should not Tigellinus follow a similar[*4] course? He had persuaded Nero that he knew something about soldiership. He had made himself popular among the Prætorian guards. Burrus might be got rid of, and Tigellinus, by pandering to Nero’s worst instincts, encouraging his alarms, and awakening his jealousies, might come to be accepted as an indispensable guardian of his interests, and so be made the Prætorian Præfect. Once let him gain that position, and he might achieve almost anything. Octavia would evidently be childless. Nero was the last of his race. It would be just as well to get rid, beforehand, of all possible rivals to his ambitious designs. Plautus and Sulla might wait, but nothing could be done till Britannicus was put out of the way. It would then be more easy to deal with Agrippina and with Octavia.

So he devised; and the spirits of evil laughed, knowing that he was but paving the road for his own headlong destruction.

But that night no one was gayer and more smiling than he at the soft Ionian festival, where they were waited on by boys robed in white and crowned with roses. It had been spread in the viridarium, a green garden surrounded by trees cut and twisted into quaint shapes of birds and beasts by the ars topiaria. The larger dishes were spread on the marble rim of a fountain, while the smaller ones floated among the water-lilies in vessels made in the shape of birds or fish. By one novel and horrible refinement of luxury, a fish was caught and boiled alive during the feast in a transparent vase, that the guests might watch its dying gleams of ruby and emerald. When the drinking was finished they went into the groves and gardens of the villa, and the surprise which had been prepared for Nero was a loose sylvan pageant. Every grove and cavern and winding walk had been illuminated at twilight by lamps which hung from tree to tree. In the open spaces naiads were bathing in the lake, and leaving trails of light in the water, and uplifting their white arms, which glittered like gold in the moonlight; and youths with torches sprang out of the lurking-places dressed like fauns or satyrs, and danced with maidens in the guise of hamadryads, and crowned the guests with flowers, and led them to new dances and new orgies and new revelries, while their cries and songs woke innumerable echoes, which mocked the insulted majesty of the night.

* * * * *

And in those very caves, four hundred years later, there came and lived a boy a little younger than Nero was, and amid the pleasances of the villas, which had fallen to ruin, and in the lonely caverns high up among the hills, he made his solitary home. He had deserted the world, disgusted and disillusioned with the wickedness of Rome. And once, when the passions of the flesh seemed to threaten him, he rushed out of his cave and rolled his naked body on the thorns where now the roses grow. And multitudes were struck by his holiness and self-devotion, and monasteries rose on every crag, and the scene, once desecrated by the enchantments of the sorceress Sense, was purified by the feet of saintly men, and the cavern where young slaves had lurked in the guise of the demons of the Gentiles is now called the Holy Cave.

That boy of fourteen was Benedict. The name of Nero has rotted for more than eighteen centuries, but to this day the memory of St. Benedict is fragrant as his own roses; for

‘Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.’

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XVIII

VESPASIAN’S FARM

‘At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita, Dives opum variarum, at latis otia fundis,

* * * * *

Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somni,

* * * * *

Et patiens operum exiguoque assueta juventus, Sacra Deum, sanctique patres.’

VIRG. Georg. ii. 467.

Octavia was left in the comparative desertion of the Villa Castor, without even the homely companionship of Vespasian’s wife. The respectable guests had departed. There was scarcely a person about her to whom she could speak. As for her young husband, he treated her with habitual neglect and open scorn. His conduct towards her was due partly to the indifference which he had always felt, partly to jealousy--lest he should be thought to owe the Empire to his union with her. He therefore followed his own devices; and she desired no closer intercourse with him, for she shrank from the satyr which lay beneath his superficial graces. She was best pleased that he should be out of her sight. The void of an unloved heart was preferable to the scenes which took place between them when Nero’s worst qualities were evoked by the repulsion which she could not wholly conceal. Accustomed to hourly adulation, it was intolerable to him that from those who constituted his home circle he never received the shadow of a compliment. He was disturbed by the sense that those who knew him most intimately saw through him most completely. His mother did not abstain from telling him what he really was with an almost brutal frankness; his wife seemed to shrink from him as though there were pollution in his touch.

As there was little occasion for him to pay any regard to conventionalities in the retirement of Subiaco, he rarely paid the Empress even a formal visit--rarely even crossed the bridge which divided one villa from the other.

Octavia spent the long hours in loneliness. She sometimes relieved the tedium of her days by sending loving letters to her brother at Phalacrine, and sometimes summoned one of the young slave-maidens to sit and read to her. While Nero associated with the most worthless slaves, Octavia selected for her attendants the girls whose modest demeanour had won her notice, and whom she generally found to be Christians. Christianity, though overwhelmed with slanders, was not yet suppressed by law; and in the lowest ranks of society, where no one cared what religion any one held, the sole reason which induced the slaves to conceal their faith was the ridicule which the acknowledgment of it involved. The cross, which was in those days the gibbet of the vilest malefactors, was to all the world an emblem only of shame and horror. It was a thing scarcely to be mentioned, because its associations of disgrace and agony were so intense as to disturb the equanimity of the luxurious. And when a Christian slave was taunted with the gibe that he worshipped ‘a crucified malefactor,’ how could he explain a truth which was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness?

Octavia, whom sorrow had taught to be kind, was gentle in her demeanour to her slaves. The multitude of girls who waited on a patrician matron had a terrible time of it when their mistresses happened to be in an ill-humour. The gilded boudoirs of the Aventine not unfrequently rang with shrieks. As one entered the stately hall one heard the clanking chain of the ostiarius, who, with his dog and his staff, occupied the little cell by the entrance; and if a visitor came a little too soon for the banquet he might be greeted by the cries which followed the whistling strokes of the scourge, or might meet some slave-girl with dishevelled hair and bleeding cheeks, rushing from the room of a mistress whom she had infuriated by the accidental displacement of a curl. The slaves of Octavia had no such cruelties to dread. Lydus, who kept her chair; Hilara, who arranged her robes; Aurelia, who had charge of her lap-dog; Aponia, who adorned her tresses; Verania, who prepared her sandals, had nothing to fear from her. There was not one of her slaves who did not love the young mistress, whose lot seemed less happy than that of the humblest of them all.

And thus it happened that Tryphæna and others of her slaves were not afraid to speak freely, when she seemed to invite their confidence. From Britannicus she had heard what Pomponia had taught him; she had found from these meek followers of the ‘foreign superstition,’ that their beliefs and practice were inconceivably unlike the caricatures of them which were current among the populace. Because all men hated them, they were accused of hating all men; but Octavia found that love, no less than purity and meekness, was among their most essential duties. She was obliged to exercise the extremest caution in the expression of her own opinions, but she felt an interest deeper than she could express in all that Tryphæna told her of the chief doctrines of Christianity. And though she could scarcely form any judgment on what she heard, she felt a sense of support in truths which, if they did not convince her reason, yet kindled her imagination and touched her heart. One doctrine of the Christians came home to her with quickening power--the doctrine of the life everlasting. In Paganism that doctrine had no practical existence. The poets’ dream of meadows of asphodel and islands of the blest, where Achilles and Tydides unbound the helmets from their shadowy hair, and where the thin eidola of kings and heroes pursued a semblance of their earthly life, had little meaning for her. Like Britannicus, she was fond of reading the best Greek poets. But there was no hopefulness in them. In Pindar she read--

‘By night, by day, The glorious sun Shines equal, where the blest, Their labours done, Repose forever in unbroken rest.’[43]

And in Homer--

‘Thee to the Elysian plain, earth’s farthest end, Where Rhadamanthus dwells the gods shall send; There mortals easiest pass the careless hour, No lingering winter there, nor snow, nor shower; But Ocean ever, to refresh mankind, Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind.’

But she had only to unroll the manuscript a little further, and was chilled to the heart by the answer of Agamemnon to the greeting of Ulysses:--

‘Talk not of reigning in this dolorous gloom, Nor think vain words, he cried, can ease my doom Better by far laboriously to bear A weight of woe, and breathe the vital air, Slave to the meanest hind that begs his bread, Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead!’

And though Cicero had written his Tusculan disputations to prove the doctrine of immortality, had he not, in his letters and speeches, spoken of that doctrine as a mere pleasing speculation, which might be discussed with interest, but which no one practically held? Yet to these good Christians that doctrine was an unshakable conviction, a truth which consoled their heaviest afflictions. To them the eternal, though unseen, was ever present. It was not something future, but a condition of which they breathed the atmosphere both here and now. To them the temporal was the shadowy; the eternal was the only real.

While Octavia was thus silently going through the divine education which was to prepare her for all that was to come, Britannicus was supremely happy in the Sabine farm. Its homeliness and security furnished a delightful contrast to the oppressive splendour of the Palace at Rome. There, in the far wild country, he had none but farm labourers about him, except the members of the Flavian family, who, on the father’s side, rose but little above the country folk. He was as happy as the day was long. He could lay aside all thoughts of rank and state, could dress as he liked, and do as he liked, and roam over the pleasant hills, and fish in the mountain streams, with no chance of meeting any one but simple peasant lads. With Titus and his two cousins, young Flavius Sabinus and Flavius Clemens, he could find sympathy in every mood, whether grave or gay. Titus with his rude health, his sunny geniality, his natural courtesy--a boy ‘tingling with life to the finger tips’--was a friend in whose society it was impossible to be dull. Flavius Clemens was a youth of graver nature. The shadow of far-distant martyrdom, which would dash to the ground his splendid earthly prospects, seemed to play over his early years. He had already been brought into contact with Christian influences, and showed the thoughtfulness, the absence of intriguing ambition, and the dislike to pagan amusements, which stamped him in the vulgar eyes of his contemporaries as a youth of ‘most contemptible indolence.’ A fourth boy was often with them. It was Domitian, the younger brother of Titus, destined hereafter to be the infamy of his race. He was still a child, and a stranger unable to read the mind’s construction in the face would have pronounced that he was the best-looking of the five boys. For his cheeks wore a glow of health as ruddy as his brother’s, and his features were far softer. But it was not a face to trust, and Britannicus, trained in a palace to recognize what was indicated by the expression of every countenance, never felt any liking for the sly younger son of Vespasian.

Vespasian was proud of his farm, and was far more at home there than in the reception-rooms of Nero. He was by no means ashamed of the humility of his origin. As he sat in his little villa, he used to tell people that his ancestor was only one of the Umbrian farmers, who, during the civil war between Marius and Sylla, had settled at Reate and married a Sabine maiden. Amazed indeed would those humble progenitors have been if they had been told that their great-grandson would be an Emperor of Rome! Nothing made him laugh more heartily than the attempt of his flatterers to deduce his genealogy from a companion of Hercules. He had not a single bust or waxen image of any illustrious ancestor to boast of, but was proud that the cities of Asia had reared a statue to his father, Sabinus, with the inscription, ‘To the honest publican.’

He delighted to recall the memories of Cincinnatus and Fabricius and the old dictators, who had been taken from the plough-tail, and to whom their wives had to bring the single toga they possessed in order that they might meet the ambassadors of the Senate when they were summoned to subdue the enemies of Rome. He was never happier than when he took the boys round with him to visit his horses and his cows, and even Domitilla’s hens. He delighted in the rude plenty of the house, the delicious cream, the fresh eggs, the crisp oat-cakes, the beautiful apples at breakfast, the kid and stewed fruits of the midday meal. Any one who watched those rustic meals would little have conjectured that, in that low, unadorned room, with the watch-dogs slumbering before the hearth, they saw before them three emperors, two consuls and a princess. Still less would he have dreamed that one of them only would die peacefully in his bed; that, of those five boys, four would be the victims of murder, and one of martyrdom; and that the younger Domitilla, though she did not share her husband’s martyrdom,[*5] would die in a bleak and lonely island as a confessor of the faith. Our life lies before us, and the mercy of Divine Providence hides its issues in pitchy night.

Vespasian alone of that little company was old enough to feel in all its fulness the blessing of a temporary escape from the horrible world of Rome, which tossed like a troubled sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt. He knew, as those lads could hardly know, that it was a world of insolence and passion, of treachery and intrigue, of ruthless cruelty and unfathomable corruption. He had seen the government of it pass from a madman like Caligula to a half-dazed blunderer like Claudius, and knew that the two had been preceded by a Tiberius, and succeeded by a Nero. One morning, when the weather did not permit them to go out to their usual outdoor sports, the boys had amused themselves with a genealogy of the Cæsars, in which they had become interested in consequence of some questions about the descendants of Augustus. As the blunt soldier looked at them while they bent over the genealogy, he became very thoughtful. For that stem of the Cæsars had something portentous in its characteristics. It was a grim reflex of the times. Here were emperors who had married five or six wives, and empresses who had married four or five husbands, and some of these marriages had been fruitful; and yet the Cæsars were hardly Cæsars at all, but a mixed breed of ancient Claudii, Domitii, Silani, and of modern Octavii and Agrippas. The genealogy showed a confused mass of divorces and adoptions, and neither the men nor the women of the royal house were safe. Many of the women were adulteresses; many of the men were murderers or murdered victims. Out of sixteen empresses, six had been killed and seven divorced. Julia, daughter of Augustus, after three marriages, had been banished by her father for shameless misconduct, and Tiberius had ordered her to be starved to death at Rhegium. Could Augustus have felt no anguish in his proud spirit, when he had to write to a young patrician ‘You have committed an indiscretion in going to visit my daughter at Baiæ’? or when on hearing that Phœbe, Julia’s freedwoman, had hanged herself, he cried ‘Would that I had been the father of that Phœbe’? And, alas! what multitudes of his descendants had equalled Julia alike in misery and shame! Death and infamy had rioted in that deplorable family. Well might Augustus exclaim, in the line of Homer:

‘Would I had died unwed, nor been the father of children!’

When the people demanded the recall of the two Julias, after five or six years of exile, he exclaimed in a burst of indignation and anguish, ‘I wish you similar wives and similar daughters.’ He described his wife Scribonia, his daughter Julia, and his granddaughter Julia the younger as ‘his three cancers.’[44]

But while the boys were eagerly talking together, and discussing those Cæsars, and members of their family, who from the time of Julius Cæsar downward had been deified, Vespasian suddenly grew afraid lest the same thought which struck him should strike them. In those days he did not dream that he too should wear the purple and die the apparent founder of a dynasty. He was not, indeed, unaware of various prognostics which were supposed to portend for him a splendid fate. At Phalacrine, his native hamlet, was an ancient oak sacred to Mars, which had put out a new branch at the birth of each of the three children of his father, Sabinus. The third, which represented himself, grew like a great tree. Sabinus, after consulting an augur, told his mother, Tertulla, that her grandson would become a Cæsar. But Vespasian shared the feelings of the old lady, who had only laughed immoderately at the prophecy, and remarked, ‘How odd it is that I am in my senses, while my son has gone raving mad!’

Seeing that the boys were fascinated by the grandeur of Cæsarism, he rolled up the stemma. ‘Do not be ambitious, lads,’ he said. ‘Could the name of Imperator or the sight of your radiated heads upon a coin, give you more happiness than you are enjoying here and now?’

The advice of Vespasian was perfectly sincere. In his homely way he saw too deeply into the heart of things to care for the outside veneer. It was his mother, Vespasia Polla--the daughter of the military tribune--who, led on by dreams and omens, had forced him into the career of civil honours. His brother obtained the right to wear the laticlave, or broad purple stripe on the toga, and the silver C on the boots, which marked the rank of senator. Vespasian was unwilling to lay aside the narrow stripe, the angusticlave, which showed him to be of equestrian rank. He only yielded to the pressure, and even to the abuse, of his mother, who asked him how long he meant to be the lacquey--the anteambulo--of his brother. He had nearly thrown up his public life in disgust, when during his ædileship Gaius had ordered the soldiers to cover him with mud, and to heap mud into the folds of his embroidered magisterial robe, because he found the roads insufficiently attended to. He had practised the advice he was now giving.

‘My head has been struck on coins,’ said Britannicus, with a sigh; ‘but I can’t say that it has made me much happier.’

‘You are as happy as Nero is,’ said Titus. ‘I am quite sure that all the revels at Subiaco will not be worth the boar-hunt we mean to have to-morrow.’

‘Clemens,’ said Vespasian, ‘Domitilla tells me that yesterday morning you were learning my favourite poem, the “Epode” of Horace about the pleasures of country life, and the lines of Virgil on the same subject. As we have nothing special to do this morning, suppose you repeat the poems to us, while the boys and I make a formido for our next deer-hunt.’

The boys got out the long line of string, and busied themselves with tying to it, at equal distances, the crimson feathers which were to frighten the deer into the nets; while Flavius, standing up, recited feelingly and musically the well-known lines of the Venusian poet, whose Sabine farm lay at no great distance from the place where they were living--

‘Blessed is he--remote as were the mortals Of the first age, from business and its cares-- Who ploughs paternal fields with his own oxen, Free from the bonds of credit or of debt. No soldier he, roused by the savage trumpet, Not his to shudder at the angry sea; His life escapes from the contentious Forum, And shuns the insolent thresholds of the great.’[45]

And when, to the great delight of his uncle, he had finished repeating this poem, he repeated the still finer lines of Virgil, who pronounces ‘Happy above human happiness the husbandmen for whom far beyond the shock of arms earth pours her plenteous sustenance.’[46]

The boys talked together on all sorts of subjects; only if Domitian was with them, they were instinctively careful about what they said. For Domitian could never forget that Britannicus was a prince. If Britannicus became Emperor he might be highly useful in many ways, and it was worth Domitian’s while to insinuate himself into his favour. In this he soon saw that he would fail. The young prince disliked him, and could not entirely conceal his dislike under his habitual courtesy. Domitian then changed his tactics. He would try to be Nero’s friend, and if he could find out anything to the disadvantage of Britannicus, so much the better. He had already attracted the notice of two courtiers--the dissolute Clodius Pollio, who had been a prætor, and the senator Nerva, both of whom stood well with the Emperor. Already this young reprobate had all the baseness of an informer. But in this direction also his little plans were defeated, for in his presence Britannicus was as reticent as to Titus he was unreserved.

Britannicus was to have had a room to himself, in consideration of his exalted rank, but he asked to share the sleeping-room of Titus and Clemens. They went to bed at an early hour, for Vespasian was still a poor man, and oil was expensive. But they often talked together before they fell asleep. Titus would rarely hear a word about the Christians. He declared that they were no better than the worshippers of the dog-headed Anubis, and he appealed to the caricature of the Domus Gelotiana as though it proved the reality of the aspersions against them. He was, however, never tired of talking about the Jews. He had seen Agrippa; he had been dazzled into a boyish love by the rich eastern beauty of Berenice. The dim foreshadowing of the future gave him an intense interest in the nation whose destiny he was to affect so powerfully in after years. Stories of the Jewish Temple seemed to have a fascination for him. But he was as credulous about the Jews as the rest of his race, and believed the vague scandals that they were exiles from Crete, and a nation of lepers, and about Moses and the herd of asses--which afterwards found a place in Tacitus and later historians.

Another subject about which he liked to talk was Stoicism. He thought nothing so grand as the doctrine that the ideal wise man was the most supreme of kings. He was full of high arguments, learnt through Epictetus, to prove that the wise man would be happy even in the bull of Phalaris, and he quoted Lucretius and Virgil to prove that he would be always happy--

‘If to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to feel the lurid flow Of terror, and insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness.’

At all of which propositions Britannicus was inclined to laugh good-naturedly, and to ask--much to the indignation of his friend--if Musonius was happy when he had a bad toothache.

Finding him unsympathetic on the subject of the Christians, Britannicus ceased to speak of them. On the other hand, he soon discovered that Clemens knew more about them than himself.

‘Are you a Christian, Flavius?’ asked Britannicus, when they were alone, after one of these conversations.

‘I have not been baptised,’ he answered. ‘No one is regarded as a full Christian until he has been admitted into their church by baptism.’

‘Baptism? What is that?’

‘It is the washing with pure water,’ said Clemens. ‘Our Roman ceremonies are pompous and cumbersome. It is not so with the Christians. Their symbols are the simplest things in the world. Water, the sign of purification from guilt; bread and wine, the common elements of life, taken in remembrance of Christ who died for them.’

‘And are the elders of these Christians--the presbyters, as they call them--the same sort of persons as our priests?’

‘I should hope not!’ said Clemens. ‘They are simple and blameless men--more like the best of the philosophers, and more consistent, though not so learned.’

The entrance of Domitian--whom they more than suspected of having listened at the door--stopped their conversation. But what Britannicus had heard filled him with deeper interest, and he felt convinced that the Christians were possessors of a secret more precious than any which Seneca or Musonius had ever taught.

But the happy days at the Sabine farm drew to an end. When November was waning to its close it was time to return from humble Phalacrine and its russet hills, to the smoke and wealth and roar of Rome.

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Chapter XIX

OTHO’S SUPPER AND WHAT CAME OF IT

‘Quoi cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella Et puella tenellulis delicatior hædis, Asservanda nigellulis diligentius uvis, Ludere hanc sinit, ut lubet.’

CATULL. Carm. xvii. 14.

We left Onesimus bound hand and foot in his cell, and expecting the severest punishment. His crimes had been heinous, although the thought of escaping detection by slaying Junia had only been a momentary impulse, such as could never have flashed across his mind if it had not been inflamed by the furies of the amphitheatre. As he looked back in his deep misery, he saw how fatally all his misfortunes dated from the self-will with which he had resisted light and knowledge. He might by this time have been good and honoured in the house of Philemon, less a slave than a brother beloved. He might have been enfranchised, and in any case have enjoyed that happy freedom of soul which he had so often witnessed in those whom Christ had made free indeed. And now his place was among the lowest of the low. Nereus had of course reported to Pudens his attempt at theft. Pudens was sorry for the youth, for he had liked him, and saw in him the germs of better things. But such a crime could not be passed over with impunity. Onesimus was doomed to the scourge, as well as to a trinundine[47] of solitude on bread and water, while he remained fettered in his cell.

The imprisonment, the shame, the solitariness which was a cruel trial to one of his quick disposition, were very salutary to him. They checked him in a career which might have ended in speedy shipwreck. And while his heart was sore every kind influence was brought to bear upon him. Pudens visited him and tried to rouse him to penitence and manliness. Nereus awoke in his mind once more the dying embers of his old faith. Above all, Junia came one day to the door of his prison, and spoke a few words of courage and hope, which more than all else made him determined to struggle back to better ways.

His punishment ended, and he was forgiven. He resumed his duties, and took a fresh start, in the hope of better things.

Nero had returned to Rome, and drew still closer his bond of intimacy with Otho. Otho was his evil genius. In vain did Agrippina attempt to keep her son in the paths of outward conformity with the requirements of his position. In vain did Seneca and Burrus remind him of the responsibilities of an Emperor of Rome. Otho became his model, and Otho represented to one half of the Roman population the ideal which they themselves most desired and admired. All the voluptuous æstheticism, all the diseased craving in Nero’s mind for the bizarre, the monstrous, and the impossible; all the ‘opéra bouffe’ elements of his character, with its perverted instincts as of a tenth-rate artist, were strengthened and stimulated by his intercourse with Otho.

As a matter of course, the command of unlimited treasures followed the possession of an unchallenged autocracy. Though there was a theoretical distinction between the public exchequer and the privy purse, there was no real limit between the two. This ‘deified gamin’ had complete command of the resources of Italy and the provinces. Cost was never allowed to stand in the way of his grotesque extravagance. A boy was the lord of the world--a bad boy--who delighted in such monkey-tricks as taking his stand secretly on the summit of the proscenium in the theatre, setting the actors and pantomimes by the ears, and flinging missiles at people’s heads.

Shortly after his return to Rome he gave a banquet, and the chief new feature of the entertainment was that the head of each guest had been sprinkled with precious perfumes. Otho determined that he would not be outdone. He was laden with debts; but what did that matter when he might look forward some day to exhausting some rich province with rapine? He asked Nero to sup with him, and determined that he would set the fashion to imperial magnificence.

The banqueters were nine in number: Otho and Nero; Petronius, as the ‘arbiter of elegance’; Tigellinus, as the most pliable of parasites; the actor Paris, because of his wit, grace, and beauty; Vatinius, as the most unspeakable of buffoons; Clodius Pollio, an ex-prætor, Pedanius Secundus, the Præfect of the city, and Octavius Sagitta, a tribune of the people, whom Nero liked for their dissolute manners.

Pricelessness and refinement--as refinement was understood by the most effeminate of Roman exquisites--were to be the characteristics of the feast. The dining-room was a model of the latest and most fashionable art. It was not large, but its roof was upheld by alternate columns of the rare marbles of Synnada and Carystus--the former with crimson streaks, the latter green-veined--while the two columns at the entrance showed the golden yellow of the quarries of Numidia, and the fretted roof was richly gilded and varied with arabesques of blue and crimson. The walls were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, alternated with slabs of ivory delicately flushed with rose-colour. The chandeliers were of antique shapes, and further light was given by candelabra of gold. In front of Nero was one of exquisite workmanship, which represented Silenus lying on a rock, with his head leaning against a tree which overshadowed it. The table was of cedar wood, supported by pillars of ivory, and it sparkled with goblets of gold and silver embossed by Mys and Mentor, among which were scattered amber cups, and chrysendeta which were of silver rimmed with gold. The bowls in which the rare wines were mixed were of pure crystal or the rubied glass of Alexandria. Although it was winter, garlands of exotic roses were provided for every guest, and these garlands were fastened to lappets of perfumed silk. None but the most youthful and beautiful of Otho’s slaves--bright Greeks, and dark Egyptians, and fair-haired Germans, in sumptuous dresses, one or two of whom Otho had purchased for no less than eight hundred pounds--were permitted to wait upon the guests.

The supper was no supper of Trimalchio, with its coarse and heavy gluttonies. Everything was delicate and recherché. The oysters were from Richborough; the lampreys from the fishponds of a senator who was said to have flung into them more than one slave who had offended him; the mullet came from Tauromenos; the milk-cheeses from Sarsina; the fruits seemed to have been produced in defiance of the seasons, and the roses were as plentiful as though it were midsummer. There were two tiny dishes which represented the last and most extravagant devices of Roman gourmandise, for one was composed of the tongues of nightingales, the other of the brains of Samian peacocks and African flamingoes, of which the iridescent and crimson feathers adorned the silver plates on which they lay. Sea and land had been swept with mad prodigality to furnish every luxury which money could procure. The wines were of the rarest vintages; and whereas four kinds of wine were thought an extravagance in the days of Julius Cæsar, Otho set eighty different sorts of wine before his guests, besides other kinds of delicate drinks. To relieve the plethora of luxuries the guests sometimes alternated hot burning mushrooms with pieces of ice.

But the most admired invention of extravagance was the one in which Otho had specially designed to outdo the luxury of Cæsar. The Romans were devoted to delicious odours. Nero had ordered perfumes to be sprinkled on the hair of his guests; but after this had been done to those who reclined at Otho’s banquet, the boys who stood behind them took off their loose slippers and bathed their feet also in liquid essences--a device of which, up to this time, the luxury of an Apicius had never dreamed. And while the guests were still admiring this daring innovation, Otho made a sign with his jewelled hand to Polytimus, the chief favourite among his slaves, who immediately turned two taps of ivory and gold, and then, to the soft breathing of flutes, two fountains sprang into the air, from silver basins, and refreshed the banqueters with a fine dew of the most exquisite fragrance.

To those frivolous spirits all this unbridled materialism seemed to be the one thing which raised them nearest to the gods; and they felt a thrill of delight when it was whispered that for that single supper Otho had expended a sum of four million sesterces.[48]

The conversation during the meal was vapid and licentious. Beginning with the weather, it proceeded to discuss the gladiators, actors, dancers, and charioteers. Then it repeated all the most recent pasquinades and coarse jokes which had been attached to the statues in the Forum. Then it turned to scandal, and

‘Raged like a fire among the noblest names, Imputing and polluting,’

until it might have seemed that in all Rome not one man was honest, nor one woman pure. To say such things of many of the leading senators and patricians would have been not far from the truth; but the gossip became far more piquant when it dwelt on the immense usury of Seneca, and gave vent to the worst innuendoes about his private life; or when it tried to blacken with its poisonous breath the fair fame of a Pætus Thrasea or a Helvidius Priscus. Yet another resource was boundless adulation of the Emperor and abuse of every other authority, particularly of the Senate, of which Nero, like Gaius, was intensely jealous. It was on this occasion that Vatinius surpassed himself by the celebrated remark, ‘I hate you, Cæsar, because you are a senator.’ After a time, however, scandal and adulation palled, as did the smart procacity of the young slaves, who were trained to say witty and impudent things. And as by that time the drinking bout had begun, after the healths were finished the guests were amused by the strains of the choraulæ and the dances of Andalusian girls.

Among the amusements which Otho had provided was a ventriloquist, who took off all the chief lawyers of the day in a fashion first set by Mutus, in the reign of Tiberius. But the jaded, rose-crowned guests found that the evening was beginning to drag, and then they took to gambling. Nero caught the epidemic of extravagance, and that night he bet four hundred sesterces, not on each cast only, but on each point of the dice.

It was understood that, though the supper and its concomitant orgies were prolonged for hours, there was to be no deliberate drunkenness. Claudius had habitually indulged in a voracity which, on one occasion, had made him turn aside from his own judgment-seat to intrude himself as a guest at one of the celebrated banquets of the Salian priests, of which the appetising smell had reached him from the Temple of Mars. But by Otho and Petronius such forms of animalism were condemned as betraying a want of æsthetic breeding, and they sought to stimulate the lassitude of satiety by other forms of indulgence. That night they proposed to initiate Nero into a new sensation, by persuading him to join the roysterers who, like the Mohawks in the reign of Queen Anne, went about the streets insulting sober citizens, breaking open shops, and doing all the damage and mischief in their power. It was this which made that evening memorable in Nero’s reign, because it was the first instance of a folly which filled genuine Romans with anger and disdain.

But before we touch on these adventures, another incident must be mentioned, which produced a far deeper effect upon the annals of the world. It was on the evening of that supper that Nero first saw Poppæa Sabina.

Poppæa Sabina, though before her marriage to Otho she had been married to Rufius Crispinus, the Prætorian Præfect of Claudius, and had been the mother of a boy, still retained the youthful and enchanting loveliness which became an Empire’s curse. She was a bride well suited in all respects to the effeminate and reckless Otho. If he paid priceless sums for the perruque which no one could distinguish from his natural hair, and used only the costliest silver mirrors, she equalled his absurdities by having her mules shod with gold, and by keeping five hundred she-asses to supply the milk in which she bathed her entire person, with the object of keeping her beautiful complexion in all its softness of hue and contour. And, when she travelled, the hot sunbeams were never allowed to embrown her cheeks, which she entirely covered with a fine and fragrant unguent.

Otho was sincerely attached to her. He was proud of possessing as his bride the haughtiest, the most sumptuous, and the most entrancingly fair of all the ladies in Rome. Before the death of Rufius Crispinus he had estranged her affections from her husband; and it was more than suspected that her object in accepting Otho had not only been her admiration for his luxurious prodigality, but also an ulterior design of casting her sorcery over the youthful Nero. Otho had often praised her beauty to the Emperor, for it was a boastfulness from which he could not refrain. But he did not wish that Nero should see her. He knew too well the inflammable disposition of the youthful Cæsar, and the soaring ambition of his own unscrupulous consort. In this purpose he had been abetted secretly by Agrippina, who felt an instinctive dread of Poppæa, and who, if the day of her lawless exercise of power had not been ended within two months of her son’s accession, would have made Poppæa undergo the fate which she had already inflicted on Lollia Paulina. By careful contrivance Otho had managed to keep Poppæa at a distance from Nero. The task was easier, because Nero was short-sighted, and Poppæa, either in affectation of modesty, or from thinking that it became her, adopted the fashion of Eastern women, in covering the lower part of her face with a veil when she went forth in public.

But that evening Nero, for the first time, saw her near at hand and face to face, and she had taken care that he should see her in the full lustre of her charms.

Beyond all doubt she was not only dazzlingly beautiful, but also possessed that spell of brilliant and mobile expression, and the consummate skill in swaying the minds of men, which in earlier days had enabled Cleopatra to kindle the love of Julius Cæsar, and to hold empery over the heart of Marcus Antonius. Her features were almost infantile in their winning piquancy, and wore an expression of the most engaging innocence. Her long and gleaming tresses, which almost the first among the ladies of Rome she sprinkled with gold, were not tortured and twisted into strange shapes, but parted in soft, natural waves over her forehead, and flowed with perfect grace over her white neck, setting off the exquisite shape of her head. She was dressed that evening in robes which made up for their apparent simplicity by their priceless value. They were of the most delicate colours and the most exquisite textures. The tunic was of that pale shining gold which the ancients described by the word ‘hyaline’; the stola was of saffron colour. Her dress might have been described in terms like those which the poet applies to his sea-nymph--

‘Her vesture showed the yellow samphire-pod, Her girdle the dove-coloured wave serene;’

and, indeed, the sea-nymph’s robe had already been described by Ovid, speaking of the dress known as undulata--

‘Hic, undas imitatus, habet quoque nomen ab undis, Crediderim nymphas hac ego veste tegi.’

She had divined the reasons which led Otho to prevent her from meeting the Emperor; but she was ambitious of a throne, and, while using neither look nor word which awoke suspicion in her husband’s mind, she smiled to think how vain would be his attempt to set a man’s clumsy diplomacy against a woman’s ready wit.

‘My Otho,’ she had said to him, ‘you are about to entertain the Emperor this evening at a supper such as Rome has not yet seen. The feast which Sestius Gallus gave to Tiberius, the supper which Agrippa the Elder gave to Gaius, and which helped him to a kingdom, were very well in their way; but they were vulgar and incomplete in comparison with that of which your guests will partake to-night.’

‘I know it, Poppæa,’ he said; ‘and though my own taste sets the standard in Rome, I know how much the arrangements of my banquet will owe to the suggestions of my beautiful wife.’

‘And ought not the wife, whom you are pleased to call beautiful, at least to welcome into the house our imperial guest? Will it not be a marked rudeness if the matron of the house has no word wherewith to greet the Cæsar as he steps across her threshold? Will he be content with the croaking “Salve, Cæsar!” of the parrot whom you have hung in his gilded cage at the entrance of the atrium?’

‘Poppæa is lovely,’ said Otho, ‘and Nero is--what he is. Would you endanger the life of the last of the Salvii, merely for the pleasure of letting a short-sighted youth, perhaps a would-be lover, stare at you a little more closely?’

A pout settled on the delicate lips of Poppæa, as she turned away with the remark: ‘I thought, Otho, that I had been to you too faithful a bride to find in you an unreasonable husband. Is there any lady in Rome except myself who would be deemed unworthy to see the Emperor when he sups in her house? Have I deserved that you should cast this slur upon me as though I--I, whose piety is known to all the Romans--were a Julia or an Agr-- I mean, a Messalina?’

Otho tried to bring back her lips to their usual smile, but he did not wish to give way unless he were absolutely obliged to do so. He said:

‘You must not adopt these tragic tones, my sweet Poppæa. This is but a bachelor’s party. You shall meet Nero some day in this house when all the noblest matrons of Rome are with you to sanction your presence, and you shall outshine them all. But there are guests coming to-night whom I should not care for Poppæa to greet, though I have asked them as companions of Nero. Surely you would not demean yourself by speaking to a Vatinius or a Paris, to say nothing of a Tigellinus or a Sagitta.’

‘I need not see or speak to any of the others, Otho,’ said Poppæa; ‘but surely I have a right to ask that when the slave sees the gilded letica with its purple awnings I may for one moment advance across the hall, and tell Nero that Poppæa Sabina greets the friend of her lord, and thanks him for honouring their poor house with his august presence.’

‘Well, Poppæa,’ said Otho, ‘if it must be so it must. You know that I can never resist your lightest petition, and I would rather give up the banquet altogether than see tears in those soft eyes, and that expression of displeasure against Otho on your lips.’

So, when Nero arrived, Poppæa met him, and, brief as was the interview, she had thrown into it all the sorcery of a potent enchantress. A sweet and subtle odour seemed to wrap her round in its seductive atmosphere, and every word and look and gesture, while it was meant to seem exquisitely simple, had been profoundly studied with a view to its effect. Poppæa was well aware that Nero was accustomed to effrontery, and that Acte had won his heart by her maidenly reserve. Nothing, therefore, could have been more sweetly modest than Poppæa’s greeting. Only for one moment had she unveiled her whole face and let the light of her violet eyes flow through his soul. There was one observer who fully understood the pantomime. It was Paris, who read the real motives of Poppæa and was lost in admiration at so superb a specimen of acting. His knowledge of physiognomy, his insight into human nature, his mastery of his art, enabled him to see the truth which Nero did not even suspect, that this lovely lady with the infantile features was ‘a fury with a Grace’s mask.’

She saw that her glance had produced the whole effect which she had intended. Nero was amazed, and for the moment confused. He had never experienced such witchery as this. Acte was modest and beautiful, but to compare Acte with Poppæa was to set a cygnet beside a swan. Poppæa vanished the moment her greeting had been delivered, but Nero stood silent. Almost the first word he said to his host struck like a death-knell on Otho’s heart.

‘Otho,’ he said, ‘how much luckier you are than I am! You have the loveliest and most charming wife in Rome; I have the coldest and least attractive.’

‘Let not Cæsar disparage the sharer of his throne,’ said Otho, concealing under measured phrases his deep alarm. ‘The Empress Octavia is as beautiful as she is noble.’

But Nero could hardly arouse himself to admire and enjoy the best banquet of his reign, until he had called for his tablets, and written on them a message for Poppæa. ‘I am thanking your lovely lady for her entertainment,’ said the Emperor, as he handed his tablets to his freedman Doryphorus, and told him to take them to the lady of the house. But what he had really written was a request that Poppæa would deign to greet him for a moment during some pause in the long feast.

He made the requisite opportunity by saying that he would cool himself in the viridarium, and again he found Poppæa a miracle of reserve and sweetness. From that moment he determined, if it could in any way be compassed, to take her from her husband.

* * * * *

But this, as we have said, was not the only adventure of the evening. When the revel was over, the guests, instead of going home in pompous retinue attended by their slaves, determined to enjoy a frolic in the streets. ‘Flown with insolence and wine,’ they persuaded the Emperor to disguise himself in the dress of a simple burgher and to roam with them along the Velabrum and the Subura and every street in which they were likely to meet returning guests.

They all accompanied him except Vatinius, who was too weak and deformed to suit their purpose. The streets of Rome were dark at night. The expedient of public lamps, or even of lamps hung outside each house, had never occurred to a people that revelled in expensiveness. Hence it was dangerous for unprotected persons to go out at night, and the police had more than they could really do. Nero and his companions were able, with perfect impunity, to insult, annoy and injure group after group of sober or peaceful citizens, whom the exigencies of duty or society had compelled to return to their homes after dark without a slave to bear a lantern or a torch. They enjoyed the novel sensation of terrifying timid women and of throwing harmless passengers into the gutters, indulging in every form of rowdyism which could furnish a moment’s excitement.

The custom of ‘tossing in a blanket’ is not modern but ancient; only that among the ancients a large sagum or war-cloak was used, as our schoolboys use a blanket.[49] That night the party of aristocratic Mohawks caught several poor burghers, and amused themselves with terrifying them almost out of their wits by this boisterous amusement. It needed, however, a spice of cruelty to make it still more piquant; and when they had tossed one of their victims as high as they could they suddenly let go of the sagum, and suffered him to fall, bruised, and often stunned, to the ground, while they made good their escape.

But they were not allowed to have it all their own way. As they were near the Milvian Bridge it happened that Pudens met them. He was accompanied by Onesimus, who carried a lantern of bronze and horn, and by Nereus and Junia, who followed at a little distance. They had been, in considerable secrecy, to a Christian gathering, and were on their way homewards when they met these roving sons of Belial, two of whom also carried lanterns. The stalwart form of Pudens looked sufficiently formidable in the circle of dim light to prevent them from annoying him; but when they caught sight of the veiled figure of Junia they thought that her father Nereus, who was evidently only a slave, would be unable to protect her from their rude familiarities.

‘Ha, maiden!’ exclaimed Otho. ‘What, veiled though it is night? Do you need protection from Cotytto? Come, bring me the lantern here; let us look at a face which will be presumably pretty.’

Junia shrank back, and Otho seized, and was attempting by force to uplift her veil when a blow from the oaken cudgel of Nereus benumbed his arm. But the Emperor, secure in the numbers of his companions, came up to the trembling slave-girl, who little dreamed whose was the hand laid upon her robe.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘when slave-girls are so modest there is nothing so effective for their education as the sagatio. What say you, comrades? It will be a novel excitement to toss a girl.’

‘Brutes!’ said Pudens, ‘whoever you are--brutes and not Romans! Would you insult and injure a modest maiden, slave though she be? Stand back at your peril.’

But Nero, excited with wine, and closely followed by Pollio and Sagitta, was still endeavouring to drag away Junia, who clung convulsively to her father, when a blow from the strong hand of Pudens sent him staggering to the wall. He stumbled over a stone in the street, the mask slipped down from his face, and Pudens saw who it was. The sense of the peril in which he and his slaves were involved, at once flashed upon his mind. There was at least a chance that Nero had not recognised him in the darkness. He hastily whispered to Onesimus to put out his lantern and, if possible, those of their assailants also. The Phrygian rose to the occasion. Springing upon Petronius, he dashed the lantern out of his grasp by the suddenness of his assault, and, whirling his staff into the air, struck with all his force at the hand of Paris, who held the other lantern. The lights were extinguished by the fall of the lanterns, and covering his own under his tunic he called on Pudens and Nereus to follow him closely, and seized Junia by the hand. The by-ways of the streets had become familiar to him, and while the revellers were discomfited, and were absorbed in paying attention to Nero, whose face was bleeding, they all four made their escape, and got home by a more circuitous route.

‘The bucket-men are coming, Emperor,’ said Paris.

None of the party wanted the police to recognise them, or to have the trouble of an explanation which was sure to get talked of to their general discredit, and feeling a little crestfallen, they all hurried off, to a secret entrance of the Palatine.

This was a rough beginning for Nero in his career of a practical joker. But the delights of such adventures were too keen to be foregone. He had not recognised Pudens, who took care not to look too closely at the bruise on Nero’s cheek when he went next morning to the Palace. In general he was safe in attacking small, and feeble parties of citizens; but not long afterwards he received another rebuff from the senator Julius Montanus, whose wife he insulted as they were returning from supper at a friend’s house. Montanus, like Pudens, had recognised the Emperor, but he had not the prudence to conceal his knowledge. Alarmed that he should have struck and wounded the sacrosanct person of a Cæsar, he was unwise enough to apologise. The consequence was natural. Had he held his tongue he might have escaped. Nero did not care to be detected in his escapades, and he ordered Montanus to commit suicide.

Having, however, been hurt more than once in these nocturnal encounters by men who had some courage, he made assurance doubly sure by taking with him some gladiators who were always to be within call if required. He was thus able to continue his pranks with impunity until they, too, lost their novelty, and began to pall upon a mind in which every spark of virility was dead, and which was rapidly degenerating into a mass of sensuous egotism.

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Chapter XX

BROTHER AND SISTER

‘Hopes have precarious life: They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off In vigorous growth, and turned to rottenness; But faithfulness can feed on suffering And knows no disappointment.’

GEORGE ELIOT.

Far different was the way in which Britannicus had spent the memorable evening of Otho’s supper.

He was thrown largely upon himself and his own resources. If Titus happened to be absent; if Epaphroditus did not chance to bring with him the quaint boy Epictetus; if the duties of Pudens summoned him elsewhere, he had few with whom he could converse in his own apartments. Sometimes Burrus visited him, and was kind; but he could hardly forgive Burrus for his share in Agrippina’s plot. Seneca occasionally came to see him, and Seneca felt a genuine wish to alleviate the boy’s unhappy lot. But Seneca had been Nero’s supporter, and Britannicus could not quite get over the misgiving that his fine sentences were insincere. And at last an incident occurred which made it impossible for him ever to speak to Seneca without dislike. One day Nero had sent for his brother, and Britannicus, entering the Emperor’s room before he came in, saw a copy of[*6] the Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris lying on the table. Naturally enough he had not heard of this ferocious satire upon his unhappy father. Attracted by the oddness of the title ‘Apokolokyntosis,’ which the librarian had written on the outer case, he took up the book, and had read the first few columns when Nero entered. As he read, his soul burned with inexpressible indignation. His father had received a sumptuous Cæsarean funeral; he had been deified by the decree of the Senate; a grand temple had been reared in his honour on the Cœlian hill; priests and priestesses had been appointed to worship his divinity. He knew very well that this might be regarded as a conventional officialism; but that the writer of this book should thus openly laugh in the face of Rome, her religion, and her Empire; that he should class Claudius with two miserable idiots like Augurinus and Baba; that he should brutally ridicule his absence of mind, his slavering lips, his ungainly aspect, and represent the Olympian deities in consultation as to whether he was a god, a human being, or a sea-monster--this seemed to him an act of shameless hypocrisy. He had seen how the Romans prostrated themselves in the dust before his father in his lifetime, as it were to lick his sandals; how Seneca himself had blazoned his earthly godship in paragraphs of sonorous eloquence. Yet here, on the table of his successor and adopted son, was a satire replete in every line with enormous slanders. And who could have written it? Britannicus could think of no one but Seneca; and all the more since the marks on the manuscript showed that Nero had read it, and read it with amused appreciation.

When Nero entered he found Britannicus standing by the table transfixed with anger. His cheeks were crimson with shame and indignation. Panting with wrath, he was unable even to return the greeting of Nero, who looked at him with astonishment till he saw the scroll from which he had been reading. Nero instantly snatched it out of his hand. He was vexed that the boy had seen it. It had not been intended for his eyes. But now that the mischief was done he thought it better to make light of it.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I see that you have been reading that foolish satire. Don’t be in such a state of mind about it. It is meant for a mere jest.’

‘A jest!’ exclaimed Britannicus, as soon as he found voice to speak. ‘It is high treason against the religion of Rome, against the majesty of the Empire.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Nero, with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘If I don’t mind it, why should you? You are but a boy. Leave such matters to those who understand them, and know more of the world.’

‘Why do you always treat me as a child?’ asked Britannicus indignantly. ‘I am nearly fifteen years old. I am older than you were when my father allowed you to assume the manly toga.’[50]

‘Yes,’ said the Emperor; ‘but there are differences. I am Nero, and you are--Britannicus. I shall not let you have the manly toga just yet; the golden bulla and the prætexta suit you a great deal better.’

Britannicus turned away to conceal the emotion which pride forbade him to show. He was about to leave the audience-room when Nero called him.

‘Listen, Britannicus,’ he said. ‘Do not provoke me too far. Do not forget that I am Emperor. When Tiberius came to the throne there was a young prince named Agrippa Posthumus. When Gaius came to the throne there was a young prince named Tiberius Gemellus.’

‘The Emperor Gaius adopted Tiberius Gemellus, and made him Prince of the Youth,’ said Britannicus; ‘you have never done that for me.’

‘You interrupt me,’ said Nero. ‘Do you happen to remember what became of those two boys?’

Britannicus remembered only too well. Through the arts of Livia, Agrippa Posthumus, accused of a ferocious temperament, had been first banished to the Island Pandataria, then violently murdered. Tiberius Gemellus had not been murdered, because the news of such a death would have sounded ill; but he had had the sword placed against his heart, and had been taught to kill himself, so that his death might wear the semblance of suicide.

Nero left time for such recollections to pass through his brother’s mind, and then he slowly added, ‘And now that Nero has come to the throne, there happens to be a young prince named Britannicus.’

Britannicus shuddered. ‘Do you menace me with murder?’ he asked.

Nero only laughed. ‘What need have I to menace?’ he asked. ‘Do you not know that I have but to lift a finger, if it so pleases me, and you die? But don’t be alarmed. It does not please me--at present.’

Britannicus turned very pale. He knew that Nero’s words conveyed no idle boast. He was but a down-trodden boy--the orphan son of a murdered mother; of a father foully dealt with, infamously calumniated. What cared the Roman world whether he perished or not, or how he perished? He choked down the sob which rose, and left his brother’s presence in silence; but, as he traversed the long corridor to the room of Octavia, he could not help asking himself, with dread forebodings, what would be his fate? Would he be starved, like the younger Drusus? or poisoned, like the elder? or bidden to end his own life, like poor young Tiberius Gemellus? or assassinated by violence, like Agrippa Posthumus? How was he better than they? And if he perished, who would care to avenge him? But, oh God! if there were such a God as He in whom the Christians believed, what a world was this into which he had been plunged! What sin had he or his ancestors committed, that these hell-dogs of wrong and murder banned his steps from birth? The old Romans had been strong and noble and simple. Even in the days of Augustus they could thrill to the lesson of Virgil:

‘Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.’

Whence the present dearth of all nobleness? What creeping paralysis of immoral apathy had stricken this corrupt and servile aristocracy, this nerveless and obsequious Senate? From what black pit of Acheron had surged up the slime of universal corruption which polluted every class around him with ignoble debaucheries? He saw on every side of him a remorseless egotism, an unutterable sadness, the fatalism of infidelity and despair. A poisoning of the blood with physical and moral madness seemed to have become the heritage of the ruling Cæsars. Where could he look for relief? Men had ceased to believe in the gods. The Stoics had nothing better to offer than hard theories and the possibility of suicide--and what a thing must life be if it had no more precious privilege than the means of its own agonising and violent suppression!

Britannicus was intelligent beyond his years, and thoughts like these chased each other through his mind as he made his way with slow and painful steps to the rooms of his sister. For an instant the thought of a rebellion flashed across his mind, but it was at once rejected. What could he do? He was but a friendless boy. He felt as if he had heard the sentence of early death; as if his innocence were nothing to such gods as those whom his childhood had been taught to name; as if the burden of an intolerable world were altogether too heavy for him to understand or to bear. And yet he was not unsupported by some vague hope in the dim, half-explored regions of that new gospel of which he now had heard.

To Octavia the visits of her brother were almost the only happiness left. As he entered she dismissed the slaves, for she saw at a glance that some profound emotion had swept over his mind, and longed to give him consolation.

In their forlornness the brother and sister always tried to spare each other any needless pang. Octavia had never hinted to Britannicus that Nero’s base hand had often been lifted to strike her. She did not tell him that on that morning he had seized her by the hair, and in the frenzy of his rage had almost strangled her. Nor would he tell her about the infamous attack on their father’s memory which he had seen on Nero’s table. He little dreamt that she knew of it already, nay, even that, with coarse malice, Nero had shown it to her, and read passages aloud in her tortured hearing on purpose to humiliate and trouble her. Still less would he reveal the threat which seemed to give fresh significance to the feline gleam which he had caught a few days before in the eyes of the horrible Locusta.

Yet by secret intuition each of them divined something of what was in the heart of the other.

When Britannicus entered he found his sister gazing with a sad smile at a gold coin of the island of Teos, which lay on the palm of her hand.

‘What amuses you in that coin?’ he asked.

‘Look at it,’ she said, pointing to the inscription Θεὰν Ὀκταβίαν-- ‘the goddess Octavia.’[51] ‘I was thinking, Britannicus, that if the other goddesses are as little happy as I am, I should prefer to be a mortal!’

Her brother smiled too, but remained silent. He dreaded to deepen her sorrow.

‘Have you nothing to tell me, Britannicus?’ she asked. ‘What is it which makes you so much sadder than your wont?’

‘Nothing that I can tell you,’ he answered. ‘But oh, Octavia, what thoughts strike you when you look round upon this Palace and society? Is there no such thing as virtue?’ he asked impetuously. ‘The Romans used to honour it. Who cares for virtue now, except one or two philosophers ? and--’

‘Speak on, Britannicus,’ she said. ‘Agrippina is less our enemy than she was. She has withdrawn her spies. We are not worth the hatred of any one else. Of the slaves who chiefly wait on me, most are faithful, and some are Christians.’

‘You have guessed my meaning, Octavia. Of the men and women around us, how very few there are, except the Christians, who are pure and good. How comes it?’

‘Their strange faith sustains them.’

‘But does it not seem inconceivable that the gods--or that God, if there be but one, should have revealed the truth to barbarian Jews?’

‘I don’t know, Britannicus. Who is the most virtuous person you know--I mean, excepting the Christians?’

‘Have we met any--except perhaps Persius and my Titus? and--well, perhaps the most virtuous of all is that little slave, Epictetus.’

‘Yet Epictetus is a Phrygian, and a slave, and deformed, and lame. And as for the Jews, you know that your friend Titus thinks them the most interesting people in the world; and it is whispered that some of the noblest ladies in Rome--Otho’s wife among them--have secretly embraced Judaism.’

‘Poppæa does little credit to their religion if all be true that is said of her. But Pomponia is a Christian, and Claudia, the fairest maiden in Rome. Whether they hold truth or falsehood I know not, but if religion has anything to do with goodness there seems to be no religion like theirs.’

‘Britannicus,’ she answered, ‘like you, I am deeply interested in all that Pomponia has told me; but I will tell you what has struck me most. Nero, and Seneca, and Agrippina, and all the rest of them, are full of misery and despair, though they are rich, and praised, and powerful; but these Christians, on the other hand, are paupers, hated, persecuted--and yet happy. It is that which amazes me most of all.’

Britannicus sighed. ‘Octavia,’ he said, ‘I would gladly know more of this foreign superstition, which makes men good amid wickedness, and joyful amid afflictions; which makes women like Pomponia, and girls like Claudia, and boys like Flavius Clemens.’

‘Let us, then, sup to-night with Pomponia,’ said Octavia. ‘She knows that I am lonely, and she has told me that her old general and herself will always delight to see us, if I will come without state and share their simplicity. Nero sups to-night with Otho. No one will prevent us from going together to the house of one whose loyalty is so little suspected as that of Aulus Plautius.’

And thus it was that while Nero revelled, and drank, and made the streets of his capital unsafe with riot and assault, Britannicus was present at the first Christian assembly which he had ever witnessed.

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Chapter XXI

AMONG THE CHRISTIANS

Αὐτίκα οἱ εἰς Χριστὸν πεπιστευκότες χρηστοί τέ εἰσι καὶ λέγονται.--CLEM. ALEX. Strom. ii. 4.

Aulus Plautius, without any pretence to be a philosopher or a republican, prided himself on retaining the antique fashion of Roman simplicity. His house was in every way a contrast to that of Otho. It excited the laughter of the dandies of the new school, with its old rude statuary, its hard couches, its plain tables, its floor of simple black and white marble, the limited number of faithful and sober slaves, among whom but few were Greeks, and not one resembled the pampered pages who were the pride of more modern establishments. The whole service of the house was modest and yet stately; and the conqueror of Britain, so far from blushing at the moderate fortune and Roman surroundings which showed that he at least had not plundered the provinces which he had governed, was, on the contrary, pleased that men should see this example of honesty and justice.

Pudens was in command of the escort of the Empress; and it was on his return from the Palace to his own house that the rencontre with Nero occurred which has been already narrated. Caractacus, too, and Claudia were present, though the guests were few; and young Flavius Clemens had been invited to meet the children of Claudius. After the modest supper was over, the Empress and her brother enjoyed a conversation with their noble hostess, and learnt from her that in one of the outer offices of the house of Plautius the Christian assembly was that night to be held. It would have been too dangerous for Octavia to be present, but Pomponia had many Christian slaves and some freedmen who shared her secret, and were men and women of unquestioned fidelity. Britannicus had now heard from her a great deal about the elementary doctrines of the new faith. There seemed to be no reason why she should any longer refuse his desire to be an eye-witness of Christian worship. She had spoken on the subject to Linus, the bishop of the Gentile community; and, without revealing any name, had told him that a young stranger, for whom she could vouch as one who would not be guilty of any treachery, would be entrusted with the watchword, and would be present at the evening prayers. Flavius Clemens was also to be present as a companion to Britannicus. Pomponia’s own son, a bright boy, named Aulus Plautius after his father, had not yet been taught any of the truths of Christianity. His mother had trained him in all high and noble things; but the general, who knew that she had ‘taken up unusual religious views,’ had laid on her his injunctions not to teach them without his permission to their son.

So retired had been the life of the young prince, and so intentional the seclusion in which he had been brought up, that few knew him by sight. But to prevent the danger of his being recognised by any chance informer, Pomponia so altered his appearance that even Octavia might have failed to recognise him. The Flavian boy was at that time a person of little or no importance, and it was not necessary that he should be disguised. Pomponius, who stayed with the Empress, entrusted Britannicus to the charge of Pudens, who, though not yet baptised, was now a recognised catechumen. He had been at Christian gatherings before, and was all the more glad to go this evening, because Claudia also was to be present, in whom the soul of the centurion was more and more bound up. But to avoid all possibility of suspicion he placed his faithful Nereus in charge of the young stranger, while he himself stood a little apart, and watched.

The heart of the noble boy beat fast as he entered that unwonted scene. The room in which the Christians met was a large granary in which Plautius stored the corn which came from his Sicilian estates. It was as well lighted as circumstances admitted, but chiefly by the torches and lanterns of those who had come from all parts of the city to be present at this winter evening assembly.

Britannicus was astonished at their numbers. He was quite unaware that a religion so strange--a religion of yesterday, whose founder had perished in Palestine little more than twenty years before-- already numbered such a multitude of adherents in the imperial city. Clemens whispered to him that this was but one congregation, and represented only a fraction of the entire number of believers in Rome, who formed a multitude which no single room could have accommodated. He told him, further, that though the Jewish and the Roman--or, as they call them, the Gentile--converts formed a common brotherhood, only separated from each other by a few national observances, they usually worshipped at Rome in separate communities.

If Britannicus was surprised by the numbers of the Christians, he was still more surprised by their countenances. The majority were slaves, whose native home was Greece or Asia. Their faces bore the stamp which had been fixed on them by years of toil and hardship; but even on the worn features of the aged there was something of the splendour and surprise of the divine secret. The young prince saw that they were in possession of something more divine than the world could understand. For the first time he beheld not one or two only, but a blessed company of faithful people who had felt the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

The children also filled him with admiration. He had seen lovely slaves in multitudes; there were throngs of them in the Palace and in the houses of men like Otho and Petronius. But their beauty was the beauty of the flesh alone. How little did it resemble the sweet and sacred innocence which brightened the eyes of these boys and girls who had been brought up in the shelter of Christian homes!

But he was struck most of all with the youths. How many Roman youths had he seen who had been trained in wealthy households, in whom had been fostered from childhood every evil impulse of pride and passion! He daily saw the young men who were the special favourites of his brother Nero. Many of them had inherited the haughty beauty of patrician generations; but luxury and wine had left their marks upon them, and if they had been set side by side with these, whose features glowed with health and purity and self-control, how would the pallid faces of those dandies have looked like a fulfilment of the forebodings which even Horace had expressed!

Nothing could have been more simple than the order of worship. The Christians had ended the Agape, the common meal of brotherly love, consisting of bread and fish and wine. They had exchanged the kiss of peace. The tables had now been removed by the young and smiling acolytes, and the seats arranged in front of the low wooden desk at which Linus and the elders and deacons stood. They had no distinctive dress, but wore the ordinary tunic or cloak of daily life, though evidently the best and neatest that they could procure. In such a community, so poor, so despised, there could be no pomp of ritual, but the lack of it was more than compensated by the reverent demeanour which made each Christian feel that, for the time being, this poor granary was the house of God and the gate of heaven. They knelt or stood in prayer as though the mud floor were sacred as the rocks of Sinai, and every look and gesture was happy as of those who felt that not only angels and archangels were among them, but the invisible presence of their Lord Himself.

First they prayed;--and Britannicus had never before heard real prayers. But here were men and women, the young and the old, to whom prayer evidently meant direct communion with the Infinite and the Unseen; to whom the solitude of private supplication, and the community of worship, were alike admissions into the audience-chamber of the Divine. Never had he heard such outpourings of the soul, in all the rapture of trust, to a Heavenly Father. How different seemed such intercourse with the Eternal from the vague conventional aspirations of the Stoics towards an incomprehensible Soul of the Universe, which had no heart for pity and no arm to save!

But a new and yet more powerful sensation was kindled in his mind, when at the close of the prayers they sang a hymn. It was a hymn to Christ, beginning--

‘Faithful the saying, Great the mystery--Christ! Manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit; Seen of angels; Preached among the nations; Believed on in the world; Received up in glory!’

Britannicus listened entranced to the mingled voices as they rose and fell in exquisite cadence. He had heard in theatres all the most famous singers of Rome; he had heard the chosen youths and the maidens chanting in the temple processions; he had heard the wailing over the dead, and the Thalassio-chorus of the bridal song. But he had heard nothing which distantly resembled this melody and harmony of voices wedded to holy thoughts; and, although there were no instruments, the ‘angelical soft trembling voices’ seemed to him like echoes from some new and purer region of existence. He rejoiced, therefore, when they began yet another hymn, of which the first verse was--

‘Awake thee, O thou sleeper, And from the dead arise, And Christ shall dawn upon thee, To light thy slumbering eyes.’[52]

When the hymn was over they sat down, and Linus rose to speak to them a few words of exhortation. He reminded them that they had been called from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. He told them that they had fled to the rock of Christ amid a weltering sea of human wickedness, and though the darkness was around them he bade them to walk in the light, since they were the children of light. Many of them had lived of old in the vices and sins of heathendom, but they were washed, they were justified, they were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of their God. Were not their bodies temples of the Holy Ghost which dwelt in them, except they were reprobates? Since, then, they were in the Spirit, let them bring forth the fruits of the Spirit--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, goodness, charity-- against which there was no law. The world was passing away and the fashion of it; their own lives were but as the withering grass and the fading flower; and was not the day of the Lord at hand? Would He not speedily return to judge His people? Would not that day come as a thief in the night, and how should they stand its probatory fire unless they were safe in the love of their Redeeming Lord?

So far had he proceeded when a mighty answering ‘MARANATHA’ of the deeply-moved assembly smote the air, and immediately afterwards Britannicus stood transfixed and thrilled to the very depths of his whole being.

For now a voice such as he had never heard--a sound unearthly and unaccountable--seemed not only to strike his ears but to grasp his very heart. It was awful in its range, its tone, its modulations, its startling, penetrating, appalling power; and although he was unable to understand its utterance, it seemed to convey the loftiest eloquence of religious transport, thrilling with rapture and conviction. And, in a moment or two, other voices joined it. The words they spoke were exalted, intense, impassioned, full of mystic significance. They did not speak in their ordinary familiar tongue, but in what seemed to be as it were the essence and idea of all languages, though none could tell whether it was Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or Persian. It resembled now one and now the other, as some overpowering and unconscious impulse of the moment might direct. The burden of the thoughts of the speakers seemed to be the ejaculation of ecstasy, of amazement, of thanksgiving, of supplication, of passionate dithyramb or psalm. They spoke not to each other, or to the congregation, but seemed to be addressing their inspired soliloquy to God. And among these strange sounds of many voices, all raised in sweet accord of entranced devotion, there were some which no one could rightly interpret. The other voices seemed to interpret themselves. They needed no translation into significant language, but spontaneously awoke in the hearts of the hearers the echo of the impulse from which they sprang. There were others which rang on the air more sharply, more tumultuously, like the clang of a cymbal or the booming of hollow brass, and they conveyed no meaning to any but the speakers, who, in producing these barbarous tones, felt carried out of themselves. But there was no disorderly tumult in the various voices. They were reverberations of one and the same supernatural ecstasy--echoes awakened in different consciousnesses by one and the same intense emotion.

Britannicus had heard the Glossolalia--the gift of the tongue. He had been a witness of the Pentecostal marvel, a phenomenon which heathendom had never known.

Nor had he only heard it, or witnessed it. For as the voices began to grow fainter, as the whole assembly sat listening in the hush of awful expectation, the young prince himself felt as if a spirit passed before him, and the hair of his flesh stood up; he felt as if a Power and a Presence stronger than his own dominated his being; annihilated his inmost self; dealt with him as a player does who sweeps the strings of an instrument into concord or discord at his will. He felt ashamed of the impulse; he felt terrified by it; but it breathed all over and around and through him, like the mighty wind; it filled his soul as with ethereal fire; it seemed to inspire, to uplift, to dilate his very soul; and finally it swept him onward as with numberless rushings of congregated wings. The passion within him was burning into irresistible utterance, and, in another moment, through that humble throng of Christians would have rung in impassioned music the young voice of the last of the Claudii pouring forth things unutterable, had not the struggle ended by his uttering one cry, and then sinking into a faint. Before that unwonted cry from the voice of a boy the assembly sank into silence, and after two or three moments the impulse left him. Panting, unconscious, not knowing where he was, or whether he had spoken or not, or how to explain or account for the heart-shaking inspiration which had seemed to carry him out of himself beyond all mountain barriers and over unfathomable seas, the boy sank back into the arms of Pudens, who, alarmed and amazed and half ashamed, had sprung forward to catch him as he fell.

As he seemed to be in a swoon, one of the young acolytes came to him, and gently bathed his face with cold water. And meanwhile as the hour was late, and they all had to get home in safety through the dark streets and lanes through which they had come--some of them from considerable distances--Linus rose, and with uplifted hand dismissed the congregation with the words of blessing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Pudens and Nereus carried back the still half-unconscious boy into the house of Pomponia, where his sister awaited him. Octavia was alarmed at the wildness of his look, but the fresh air had already revived him. ‘I am quite well,’ he said, as the Empress bent anxiously over him, ‘but I am tired, and should like to be silent. Let us go home, Octavia.’

‘The escort is waiting,’ said Pudens.

So they bade farewell to Pomponia, and the soldiers saw them safely to the Palace.

When they had started, Claudia said: ‘Oh, Pomponia, while he was at the gathering the Power came upon him; he seemed scarcely able to resist it; but for his fainting I believe that he would have spoken with the tongue!’

Pomponia clasped her hands, and bowed her head in silent prayer.

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Chapter XXII

BRITANNICUS AND HIS SONG

‘Even then The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats, Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture.’

SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline, iii. 3.

Nero was chary of showing his bruised face. He daily smeared it with the juice of an herb called thapsia from the island of Thapsos where it was found, and with a mixture of wax and frankincense, but it retained for some days the marks of the buffet which he had received from the arm of Pudens. From Octavia he did not care to conceal either that or any other disgrace. He had reduced his unhappy girl-bride to such a condition that she dared ask him no question. From Agrippina he would gladly have concealed it, but he had been unable as yet to break the habit of paying her a daily visit. Intensely miserable was that visit to them both, and, except when Nero chose to bring his friends and attendants with him, the salutations often ended with the stormiest scenes.

They did on this occasion.

The Augusta at once noticed the bruise on Nero’s cheek, and she was perfectly aware of the cause of it; for she had not sunk so completely out of the old habits of power as not to have spies in her pay who kept her well informed of the Emperor’s proceedings.

Supremely wretched, but even in her wretchedness agitated by the furies of pride and passion, she had scarcely received his cold kiss when she began to taunt her son.

‘Cæsar looks gallantly to-day,’ she said; ‘for all the world like some clumsy gladiator who has been hit while practising with wooden foils.’

Nero maintained a sulky silence.

She added: ‘No doubt it is as worthy of a Roman Emperor to roam about at night and join in street brawls with slaves as it is for him to sing, and write verses, and dance on the stage.’

‘How do you know that I have roamed the streets?’

Unwittingly she had betrayed herself, but in an instant she recovered from her confusion.

‘What Otho and your other boon companions do--such as they are--is notorious; and when Cæsar has a black eye the event is hard to account for in any ordinary way.’

‘Say rather that your spies have told you about it,’ said Nero.

‘And if they have,’ she said defiantly--‘what then?’

‘Why this,’ he answered; ‘that, as I have told you before, I am Emperor, and mean to be Emperor; and if you do not choose to be taught it by fair means, by all the gods, you shall be taught it by foul.’

‘By all the gods?’ said Agrippina, repeating his oath. ‘Are you not afraid of their wrath?’

Nero smiled a peculiar smile. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Why should I fear gods when I can make them myself?’[53]

Agrippina was stung by the sense of her impotence, and maddened by the shipwreck of her ambition; but she was too proud and fierce to abandon the contest.

‘If you do not fear any gods,’ she said, ‘you shall fear me. Britannicus has nearly arrived at the age of manhood. He is the son of Claudius; you are not. But for me he would have been Emperor; by my aid he may yet sit upon his father’s throne. Then once more Rome shall see a man ruling her, and not a singer and a dandy.’

Nero, filled with fury, clenched his fist, and strode forward as though he would strike her.

She sprang up with flashing eyes. ‘Would you dare to strike me?’ she shrieked. ‘By heavens, if you did, I would that moment stab you to the heart.’

At the word she drew from her robe a dagger which she always carried there, and raised it in her right hand, while her bosom heaved with passion.

Nero sprang back, but Agrippina, as though in the revulsion of disdain, dropped the dagger at her feet.

‘You would make a fine tragedian, mother,’ said Nero, with a bitter sneer.

The excess of Agrippina’s rage seemed to stifle her. ‘One hope, at least, the gods have left me,’ she gasped forth, as soon as she could find voice to speak. ‘Britannicus yet lives; I will take him with me to the Prætorian camp. I will see whether the soldiers will listen to the daughter of Germanicus, or to Burrus with his mutilated hand and Seneca with his professorial tongue.’

‘I am tired of all this,’ answered Nero. ‘Only remember that some day you may provoke me too far. There are such persons as informers; there is such a law as that of læsa majestas.’

He left her, as he almost always left her now, in angry displeasure, but he did not seriously fear her threats. He had been trained to think himself incomparably superior to Britannicus. Agrippina herself had encouraged the widespread scandal that it was one thing to be a son of Messalina, and quite another to be a son of Claudius. Besides, he traced no steady ambition in the boy. So long as he was left to amuse himself with Titus, he gave hardly any trouble, nor had he, so far as Nero knew, a single partisan who could for a moment withstand the combined authority and popularity of such men as Seneca and the Prætorian Præfect. Still he disliked being threatened so constantly with the claims of the son of Claudius. Tigellinus was always hissing his name in his ears, and Agrippina blazoning him as a resource wherewith to secure her vengeance. If Britannicus were not so insignificant, it might be well to put him out of the way.

A few days afterwards, when his face had nearly resumed its ordinary hue, he determined to celebrate the Saturnalia with a party mainly composed of youthful nobles.

Otho of course was there, and the guests whom he had invited to the villa in the Apennines. Among the others were Nerva, now a young man of twenty-three, and Vespasian, with his two sons, Titus and Domitian, who, with a few other boys, were asked to meet Britannicus. Piso Licinianus, a youth of seventeen, of high lineage and blameless manners, was of a very different stamp from Nero’s favourite companions, but Nero chose to pay him the compliment of commanding his presence. Among the elder guests of the miscellaneous party were invited Galba, a man in the prime of life, who since his return from Africa had been living in retirement, and Vitellius, who, though only forty, had been already infamous under four emperors, and who rose to the highest position in spite of the fact that he was notorious for gluttony alone.

A curious incident occurred at the beginning of the banquet. Among the crowded slaves who waited on the guests was a Christian who, like Agabus and the daughters of Philip, possessed in a high degree that peculiar gift of prophecy which is known as second sight. His name was Herodion; and Apelles, one of his fellow-slaves in Cæsar’s household, in pointing out the guests, mentioned the rumour that Nerva’s horoscope had been cast by an astrologer, who had predicted that he should succeed to the Empire; and that Augustus had laid his hands on the head of Galba when he was a boy, and had said to him, ‘Thou too, my child, shalt have a taste of empire.’

‘I do not believe in horoscopes,’ said Herodion.

‘Not believe in the Chaldæans?’ replied the other. ‘Ah, I remember, thou art one of those Christians, who worship--well, never mind. But canst thou deny that the prognostications of our augurs, and the answers of our oracles, often come true?’

‘They do,’ said Herodion. ‘We believe that the demons have such power sometimes permitted them. There was, for instance, a maid with the spirit of Python at Philippi, whose fame has even reached to Rome. But--’ and here he paused long, and gazed with earnest and troubled countenance on the assembled guests.

‘What is it?’ asked Apelles.

‘Apelles,’ answered Herodion, ‘thou art honest, and lovest me. Dare I tell thee that as I gaze on these guests I seem to see them as through a mist of blood?’

‘Thou art safe with me,’ answered Apelles. ‘Should I be likely to betray the kind sharer of my cell, who nursed me last year through that long and terrible fever?’

But Herodion sank into silence, though his glance grew more and more troubled as he looked around him. Whatever it may have been granted him to see or to divine, he spoke no more. But among those guests there were no less than eight future emperors--Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, then a little child, who was led in by a slave; and six of these, as well as Nero and Britannicus, and Piso Licinianus, were destined to violent deaths. Apelles recalled the scene years afterwards, when he too had become a convert to Christianity.

The joyous licence of the Saturnalia put an end to all stiffness of ceremonial. The banquet was gay and mirthful, and as so many youths and boys were present the amusements were purposely kept free from such scenes as disgraced the suppers at Subiaco and the palace of Otho. It was agreed that the younger guests should cast lots which should be the king of the feast. Nero threw the Venus-throw of four sixes, and was accordingly elected with acclamation to the mirthful office. The rex ruled with undisputed sway, and all were obliged to obey his bidding. Good taste and natural kindness usually prevented him from any flagrant abuse of his office.

While the staid elders looked on with smiles, Nero and the younger part of the company amused themselves with various games.

‘And now,’ said the Emperor, ‘you must all obey your symposiarch, and I am going to tell you each in turn what to do.’

Otho was bidden to take off his garland, and place it on the head of the person whom he loved best; and of course he placed it on the head of Nero.

Lucan, as he was fond of stories, was bidden to tell a complete story in one minute; and with surprising readiness he quoted the two Greek lines--

‘A, finding some gold, left a rope on the ground; B, missing his gold, used the rope which he found.’[54]

‘Piso Licinianus, you are to pay me the highest compliment you can.’

Piso was no flatterer, and did not like the command, but after a moment’s hesitation he quoted Horace’s lines--

‘How great thy debt to Nero’s race, O Rome, let red Metaurus say, Slain Hasdrubal, and Victory’s grace, First granted on that glorious day.’

‘That is a compliment to my ancestors, not to me,’ said Nero; ‘but I will let you off, for, though I am Rex, I am not Tyrannus.’

‘Now, Petronius, you are a poet, so I am going to give you a hard command. I will give you five minutes, and you are to produce a line which shall read the same backwards and forwards.’

‘Impossible, Cæsar,’ said Petronius.

‘Nevertheless, I require the impossibility, or you will have to drink by way of fine at least nine cyathi of neat Falernian.’

With humble apologies, Petronius seized his tablets, and before the five minutes had expired he read the line--

‘Roma tibi subito motibus ibit Amor.’

‘Your line is not Latin, and does not make sense,’ said Nero. ‘I should have told you to make me a compliment instead of our grave Licinianus. But now, Senecio, I order you to quote the epitaph which best expresses your view of life.’

Senecio obeyed, and his selection was very characteristic.

It was--

‘Eat, drink, enjoy thyself: the rest is nothing.’[55]

‘What would our small Epictetus say to that?’ whispered Titus in the ear of Britannicus.

Other guests achieved the tasks appointed them with more or less success, and they awaited with some curiosity the injunction which Nero would lay on Britannicus. Britannicus did not feel much anxiety about it, for he supposed it would be of the same playful and frivolous character as the rest. He did not imagine that his brother would single him out at a genial gathering to put upon him a public insult by ordering him to do anything which would cause a blush. He was therefore struck with amazement when Nero said:

‘And now, Britannicus, get up, walk into the middle of the room, and there sing us a song.’

A low and scarcely audible murmur of disapproval ran round the room. As it was the Saturnalitian festival, the slaves were not only present as spectators of these social games, but were allowed by custom to indulge in an almost unlimited licence of satire even against their masters. But that a prince of the blood should be called upon to sing--to sing in public, before a number of noble Romans, and even in the presence of slaves, was regarded as an indignity of the deadliest description. It was a violation of immemorial custom. It was a demand entirely outrageous. The hot blood rushed to the cheeks of Britannicus, and suffused his brow and neck. An indignant refusal sprang to his lips. If Pudens had been near he would at least have glanced at him to see what he would advise; but, to his deep grief, Pudens had been removed to a post in the camp, and his place had been taken by a tribune named Julius Pollio, whom Britannicus distrusted at a glance. The pause was becoming seriously awkward, and many of the guests betrayed uneasiness, when Britannicus heard Titus, who sat next to him, whisper in a low voice, ‘It is a shame; but you had better try, for fear worse should happen.’

Then Britannicus summoned up all his courage and all his dignity. He rose and walked with a firm step into the middle of the triclinium, asked the harpist Terpnos, whom he saw standing near with his harp in his hand, to give him a note, and in a voice sweet and clear began to sing one of the finest choruses from the ‘Andromache’ of the old Roman poet, Ennius. It described the ruin of the House of Priam. ‘I have seen,’ says Andromache, the captive wife of Hector, ‘the palace with its roof embossed and fretted with gold and ivory, and all its lofty portals, wrapped in conflagration. I have seen Priam slain with violence, and the altar of Jove incarnadined with blood. What protection shall I seek? Whither shall I fly? What shall be my place of exile? Robbed of citadel and city, whither shall I fare? Shattered and scattered are the altars of my home and native land! The shrines are calcined by flame; scorched are their lofty walls, and warped their beams of fir by the strong heat.’[56]

Nero listened in astonishment and alarm. The strain which the boy had chosen for his song was conceived in the grandest and most heroic style of the old Roman poetry, and was incomparably nobler and manlier than the conceits and tintinnabulations which were in modern vogue. The taste, the knowledge, the readiness, shown in the selection of such a strain were remarkable. And was this Britannicus who sang? Nero was always displaying and boasting of his divine voice, but it was harsh as a crow’s in comparison with the ringing notes of his modest brother. And then the meaning of the song? Was it not aimed at Nero and his usurpation? Did it not show decisively the thoughts which were filling the soul of the dispossessed prince, and his clear consciousness that he had been robbed of his hereditary rights?

But there was something worse than this. For by the time that Britannicus had ended his song, the brief winter twilight had nearly ended, and the banqueting-room lay deep in shadow. It was too dark to distinguish individual faces, and this fact, together with the liberty of the jocund season, made those present less careful to conceal their thoughts. No sooner had the voice of Britannicus ceased than a murmur of spontaneous applause arose on every side, and not only of applause, but of pity and favour. Nero had meant to humiliate his brother: but, on the contrary, his brother had so behaved under trying circumstances as to win all hearts!

Jealousy, rage, hatred, swept in turbulent gusts across the Emperor’s soul. He would have liked to strike Britannicus, to scourge those insolent guests. But he did not dare to take any overt step, for there had been no overt offence. Britannicus had been bidden to obey the festive order of the King of the Feast, and he had accomplished the behest as the others had done, in a way which kindled admiration. To act as if the chorus from Ennius had been aimed at himself would have been to betray uneasiness and confess wrongdoing.

He could not, however, conceal, and took no pains to conceal, his petulant spleen. Praise of another was poison to Nero. That the merit of any one else should be admitted seemed like a reflection on himself. ‘They call Britannicus as good as me!’ was a thought which filled his little soul with spite and wrath.

‘This is poor stuff,’ he said, in high dudgeon, pretending to yawn in the most insulting way he could. ‘Who would have expected mock heroics at the Saturnalia?’ Then he rose, and said, with a slight wave of the hand, ‘I am tired of this. I bid farewell to the guests. You may go without ceremony.’

Every one felt that the Emperor’s ill-humour had thrown a deadly chill over the gladdest night of the year. With mutual glancings, and slight shrugs of the shoulder, and almost imperceptible liftings of the eyebrow, they departed. Only Tigellinus remained.

‘What does Cæsar think of Britannicus now?’ he asked in malignant triumph.

‘I think,’ said Nero, savagely, ‘that swans sing sweetest before they die.’

‘Ah-h!’ said the base plotter; and he knew that now the first step in the Sejanus-course of his ambition was accomplished.

But Britannicus went straight from the supper to the rooms of his sister. Octavia sat there in the old Roman fashion of matronly simplicity. She was spinning wool at her distaff, and with kind heart she often gave what she spun to the children of her slaves. And while she spun, a maiden was reading to her.

It was the Christian girl Tryphæna. Usually she read from the Roman poets, and Octavia was never tired of hearing the finer odes of Horace, or the Æneid and Bucolics of Virgil. Sometimes she listened to the history of Livy, and to the treatises of Seneca, which she liked better than their author. But this evening Tryphæna--between whom and her young mistress there was a confidence akin to affection --had timidly asked ‘whether she might read a Christian writing.’ She knew that the Empress had been interested in the Christians by the conversation of Pomponia, and she was anxious to show how shamefully her brethren and sisters in the faith were misrepresented and slandered.

She drew forth from her bosom a manuscript, which had been lent her as a precious favour by the Christian Presbyter Cletus. It was a copy of a general letter of the Apostle Peter, which had been written to encourage the struggling Christian communities. It was not the letter which we now know as the First Epistle of St. Peter, which was written perhaps ten years later, but one of those circular addresses which touched, as did so many of the Epistles, upon the same universal duties, and used in many passages the same form of words. She had read the beautiful passage about obeying the ordinances of man for the Lord’s sake, and putting to silence by well-doing the ignorance of foolish men. And pausing there, she asked ‘whether Octavia was interested in it, and whether she should continue.’

‘Yes, Tryphæna,’ she said, ‘continue this strange letter. How different it is from the treatise of Seneca which you were reading to me the other day! There rings through it I know not what accent of elevation and sincerity.’

The girl then read the noble advice to slaves, and Octavia no longer wondered that Christian slaves so invariably deserved the comprehensive epithet of frugi. How well would it be if the worthless multitude of the slave population--the cunning veteratores, the impudent vernæ, the abject copreæ, the pampered minions of luxury, the frivolous Greeklings--could act in the spirit of such exhortations!

Then she read the duty of husbands towards their wives, and of wives towards their husbands. Octavia bowed her head. She thought of all the numberless divorces; of the ladies who reckoned their years by the number of their husbands; of the scandals caused by the women who stooped to court gladiators and charioteers; of the fires of hell which Nero’s unfaithfulness had kindled on her own hearth. She could think of the home of Pætus Thrasea as happy; but scarcely of another except that of Pomponia--and Pomponia was a Christian.

Tryphæna had just begun the following passage:--

‘Finally, be ye all like-minded--’

when Britannicus entered. He did not know what was being read, and Octavia put her finger on her lip, and made a sign to him to sit down and listen.

The slave-girl continued--

‘Finally, be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded; not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For,

He that would love life, And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips that they speak no guile: And let him turn away from evil, and do good; Let him seek peace, and pursue it.’

Britannicus listened in astonishment. ‘Who wrote those noble words?’ he asked. ‘It cannot be Chrysippus; the Greek is too modern, and too unpolished. Is this some new philosopher? Has something been recently published by Cornutus or Musonius?’

‘Perhaps you will see, if Tryphæna reads a little further,’ said the Empress.

The slave-girl continued--

‘And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good? But if ye suffer for the sake of righteousness, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled; but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord--’

‘It is a Christian writing!’ exclaimed the boy, in a low voice; and when he again caught the thread of the exhortation, Tryphæna was reading--

‘For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing rather than for evil-doing; because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.’

‘Go, Tryphæna,’ said Octavia, deeply moved. ‘I would talk with my brother alone.’

‘A Christian writing!’ said Britannicus again, as the slave-girl quietly glided out of the room. ‘Who wrote it?’

‘Tryphæna says it is part of a letter written to Christians, who are scattered everywhere, by a fisherman, Peter of Galilee, who, she says, was one of the apostles of Christus.’

‘Octavia,’ said Britannicus, ‘I feel as if voices out of heaven were calling me. I feel as if this unknown Christus were drawing me irresistibly to Himself. It is a message to me--and a message before my death.’

‘Your death, Britannicus?’ said the Empress, starting, and turning pale. ‘Oh, withdraw those ill-omened words.’

‘Do not fear omens, Octavia. But you must hear what has happened to me.’

‘You have been at the Saturnalitian feast, and you are soon to lay aside the golden ball and the embroidered toga,’ said Octavia, proudly; ‘and very well you will look in your new manly toga and the purple tunic underneath it.’

‘Yes, but it reminds me of Homer. It is a “purple death,” as Alexander the Great called it.’

‘Why are your thoughts so full of gloom?’ asked his sister, pushing back the hair from his forehead, and looking into his face.

He told her all that had happened that night. She saw the fatal significance of what had occurred.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, sobbing, ‘the gods are too cruel. What have we done that they should thus afflict our innocence? I lift up my hands against them.’

‘Hush, Octavia! All these ridiculous and polluted deities--who believes in them any longer? But they represent the Divine, and what the Divine does must be for some good end, and we must breast the storm like Romans and like rulers, if we cannot reach the peace of which this poor Christian fisherman has written.’

‘Our mother disgraced and slain; our father murdered; ourselves surrounded with perils; Nero on the throne. Oh, Britannicus! wherein have we offended?’

‘We have not offended, my Octavia. The good suffer as well as the bad. The good are often made better by their sufferings.’

‘Oh, my brother! my brother!’ sobbed Octavia. ‘I will not spare you. I cannot part from you. I have no one left but you. You shall not, you must not, die.’

He gently disengaged the arms of his sister from his neck, and kissed her cheek.

‘I must not linger here any longer to-night,’ he said. ‘Farewell; not, I trust, forever, though I see that Nero has dismissed our friend Pudens, and put an ill-looking stranger in his place. But, Octavia, something--some voice like that of a god within me--tells me that it will be happier to die than to live.’

* * * * *

That evening, when Tigellinus left him, Nero first realised, with a start of horror, that he was on the eve of a fearful crime. By a rare accident he was alone. One of the reasons why he knew so little of himself was that he scarcely ever endured a moment’s solitude. From the time that he awoke in the morning till the latest hour of his nightly revels, he was surrounded by flatterers and favourites, by dissolute young nobles or adoring slaves. It was only for an occasional hour or two of state business that he saw any person of dignity or moral worth. This evening he would have been encircled by his usual throng of idlers if he had not broken up the banquet in anger long before the expected time.

He was alone, and his thoughts naturally reverted to the song of Britannicus, and to his own fierce mortification. The words ‘=He shall die!=’ broke from his lips. But at that moment, looking up, his glance was arrested by two busts of white marble, standing out from the wall on pedestals of porphyry. He remembered the day on which they had been placed there by the orders of Claudius, in whose private tablinum he chanced to be sitting. One was a beautiful likeness of Britannicus at the age of six years. The other was a bust of himself in the happy and radiant days of his early boyhood, before guilt had clouded his brow and stained his heart.

He rose and stood before the bust of Britannicus. For some years they had been inmates of the same palace. They had been playmates, and at first, before the development of Agrippina’s darker plots, there had been between them some shadow of affection. Nero had always felt that there was a winning charm about the character and bearing of his adoptive brother. Anger and jealousy whispered, ‘Kill him;’ conscience pleaded, ‘Dip not your young hands in blood. There has been enough of crime already. You know how Claudius died, and who was his murderess, and for whose gain. Let it suffice. Britannicus is no conspirator. It is not too late, even yet, to make him your friend.’

He turned to his own bust. It represented a face fairer, more joyous, more mobile than that of the son of Claudius. ‘I was a very pretty child,’ said Nero, and then gazed earnestly into the mirror which hung between the busts. It showed him a face, of which the features were the same, but of which the expression was changed, and on which many a bad passion, recklessly indulged, had already stamped its debasing seal.

‘Ye gods! how altered I am!’ he murmured; and he hid his face in his hands, as though to shut out the image in the mirror.

And then his dark hour came upon him. The paths of virtue which he had abandoned looked enchantingly beautiful to him. He saw them, and pined his loss. Was amendment hopeless? Might he not dismiss his evil friends, send Tigellinus to an island, banish Poppæa from his thoughts, return to the neglected Octavia, abandon his vicious courses, live like a true Roman? Was he about to develop into a Tiberius or a Caligula--he who had hated not long ago to sign the death-warrant of a criminal? Should history record of him hereafter that he had dyed the commencement of his power with the indelible crimson of a brother’s blood?

‘I am a tyrant and a murderer,’ he cried. ‘I am falling, falling headlong. Cannot I check myself in this career? Ye gods! ye gods!’

Whom had he to help him to choose the difficult course? Who would encourage him to turn his back on his past self? The philosophers, he felt, despised him. He could recall the cold, disapproving glances of Musonius, and Cornutus, and Demetrius the Cynic, on the rare occasions when he had seen them. And as for Seneca, of what use would it be to send for him? ‘I have learnt to distrust Seneca,’ he said to himself. ‘He might have advised me better than he did in the matter of Acte.’

But the powers of evil never lightly resign a soul in which they have once planted their throne, and they took care to bring back upon Nero’s heart a great flood of jealousy, suspicion, and dislike. And as he gave himself up to these ill-feelings, he began to feel how disagreeable it would be to grow up year by year with such a youth as Britannicus beside him. It would be impossible to keep him in leading-strings, or to thrust him wholly into the background. What if the virtues of Britannicus should only throw into relief the vices of Nero? ‘No,’ he said; ‘Britannicus must die.’

So Nero deliberately chose the evil and refused the good, and the narrow wicket-gate of repentance was closed behind him, and the enemies of his soul flung wide open before him the portals of crime, and the wild steeds of his passions, as they sprang forth on their down-hillward path, soon flung from his seat the charioteer who had seemed inclined for one brief instant to tighten the reins and check their headlong speed.

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Chapter XXIII

PERILS OF BRITANNICUS

‘Cast thine eye On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend, He is a very serpent in my way; And, wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread, He lies before me. Dost thou understand me? Thou art his keeper’

SHAKESPEARE, King John, iii. 3.

At this time a change came over the fortunes of Onesimus.

Pudens had been dismissed from his post among the excubitors of the Palace, under the semblance of honourable promotion, but in reality because Nero was doubly displeased by his fidelity to Britannicus and by the blow which (as he had accidentally discovered) Pudens had given him during the nocturnal encounter. But, as he had been an excubitor for so long, he had been accustomed to keep some of his armour and a few books in a room in the Palace, and he sent Onesimus to fetch them.

As he went to this room under the guidance of one of Cæsar’s slaves, Onesimus heard a low voice singing the burden of one of the Phrygian songs with which he had been familiar in old days at Thyatira.

He was a creature of impulse, and, without thinking what he was doing, he took up the refrain of the song.

Immediately the door opened, and a beautiful dark-eyed girl asked in an agitated voice, and in the dialect of Phrygia, who had taken up the song.

The sound of his native tongue sent through the heart of Onesimus that indescribable thrill which we feel when past recollections are suddenly brought home to us in long-accumulated arrears. Greek had been spoken in the household of Philemon. He had scarcely heard his native Phrygian since he had been a free-born child, before he had incurred the stain of being sold as a slave. He answered in Phrygian that he had known the song since he was a child at his mother’s knee in Thyatira.

‘In Thyatira?’ said the girl; then gazing at him long and earnestly, she flung up her arms and exclaimed, ‘Can this be Onesimus?’

‘Do you know my name, lady?’ he asked in surprise.

‘Look at me,’ she answered. ‘It is twelve years since we met, but do you not recall--’

He fixed his eyes on her face and said in a troubled voice, ‘You are like Eunice, the daughter of my mother’s sister, with whom I was brought up as a child.’

‘Hush!’ she exclaimed; ‘step aside for a moment, Onesimus; I am Eunice, but for many years I have not been known by that name. When the fortunes of our house were ruined I too was sold as a slave with you to the purple factory of Lydia; but a freedman of the Emperor Claudius saw me and brought me to wait upon the Empress Messalina. He thought my name too fine, and changed it to Acte.’

‘Acte?’ burst out Onesimus; ‘then you are,’--he broke off and remained silent.

A blush suffused the girl’s cheek. ‘A slave,’ she said, ‘is forced to do her master’s bidding. Nero loved me sincerely, and I loved him, and I was ignorant and very young. But it is past. The affections of Nero are turned elsewhere; yet none can say that I have ever used my influence for any but kind ends.’

‘I reproached you not, Acte,’ said Onesimus, ‘if I must call you by your new name. I have far too much wherewith to reproach myself.’

‘Meet me here,’ said Acte, ‘two hours after noon, and you shall tell me all your story, and how I can help you.’

Onesimus came that afternoon. He and Acte had been like brother and sister in the house at Thyatira in happier days, and he told her his sad story and all his sufferings, and how he had been rescued by the compassion of Pudens, and how, even in the house of Pudens, he had not shown himself worthy of the centurion’s kindness, and how he loved Junia--and all his fears and all his hopes.

‘Should you like to be one of Cæsar’s household?’ asked Acte. ‘If so, I do not doubt that I can get you a place by mentioning your name to the steward of the Empress.’

For the slave of a poor soldier the offer involved immense promotion and still larger possibilities. The thought of Junia checked Onesimus for a moment, but Acte told him that, if he rose in the house of Cæsar, there lay before him the far nearer chances of emancipation and riches, so that he would be more likely in due time to make Junia his own. She did not conceal from him that, in such a community as the sixteen hundred imperial slaves, the temptations to every form of wrong-doing were far deadlier than in a humble and more modest familia; but she longed to have near her one whom she could trust as a brother and a friend. Onesimus had acquired at Thyatira a good knowledge of all that concerned the purchase and the preservation of purple. It would not be difficult for Acte, without her name appearing in the matter, to secure him a place as the purple-keeper in the household of Octavia. She knew that Parmenio, the servus a purpura, had died recently, and that the qualifications for the post were a little less common than those which sufficed for the majority of slaves.

Onesimus, therefore, grasped at the dazzling bait of better pay and loftier position. That evening he spoke to Nereus, who, after consulting Pudens, told him that there would be no difficulty, whether by exchange or otherwise, in permitting his acceptance of the offer which had been made to him.

The great men who visited Cæsar looked down upon the hundreds of slaves who thronged the Palace as beings separated from themselves by an immeasurable abyss of inferiority; but to the mass of paupers who formed the chief part of the population servitude to the Emperor seemed a condition of enviable brilliance. We are told that when Felicio was promoted to the post of Cæsar’s cobbler, he at once became a personage of importance, and was flattered on every side. Onesimus had much the same experience. Among those who knew him he found that he had risen indefinitely by the exchange which transferred him to the office of servus a purpura in the household of Octavia.

He was received into the slaves’ quarters with the showers of sweetmeats and the other humble festivities which welcomed the advent of a new slave; and on the evening of his admission Acte sent for him.

‘Onesimus,’ she said, ‘I have it in my power to befriend you; and if you will be faithful you may rise to posts of the greatest importance. But such promotion must depend on your character. May I trust you?’

‘Surely, Acte!’

‘Then let me confide to you a secret of the deepest import. You have seen the Prince Britannicus?’

‘Yes. He looks a noble boy.’

‘I fear that his life is imperilled--it is not necessary to say by whom. I could weep when I think of the dangers which threaten him. Your office will give you opportunities of sometimes seeing him. It is not possible that I should meet you often; but here is a coin which has on it the head of Britannicus. If ever I send you one of these coins, as though I wanted you to purchase something, will you come to me at once? It will be a sign that he is menaced.’

Onesimus promised; and, in truth, the need for watchfulness was very pressing; for, on the day which followed the evening of the Saturnalitian games, Nero, fretting with jealousy and alarm, summoned Julius Pollio, the tribune on whom had been bestowed the post which Pudens had occupied, and sent him with a message to Locusta. She was allowed to move about the Palace, but was under the nominal charge of the guardsmen.

It might well seem amazing that a youth whose disposition was not innately cruel, and who a few years before had been a timid, blushing boy, caring mainly for art and amusement, should have developed, in so brief a space of time, into the murderer of his brother. But the effects produced by the vertigo of autocracy on a mean disposition are rapid as well as terrible. He had soon discovered that it was in his power to do exactly what he liked; and when he had learnt to regard himself as a god on earth, to whose wishes every law, divine and human, must give way, there was no vice of which he did not rapidly become capable. What was the life of a young boy, who stood in his way, to one who had unchallenged power over the life and death of millions of subjects over all the civilised world?

And yet the fate of his predecessors showed him that the pinnacle of absolute power was a place of constant peril. The loss of empire would mean inevitably the loss also of life. Was this peevish lad to be a source of constant danger to the darling of the soldiers, of the mob, and of the world?

He had no reason to approach Julius Pollio with any of the circumspection with which Shakespeare represents King John as opening his designs to Hubert. When, at the suggestion of Tigellinus, he had appointed Pollio to supersede Pudens, he knew the sort of man whom he would have at his beck. He simply said to the tribune--

‘I want some poison. Locusta is under your charge. Tell her to prepare some for me.’ He did not trouble himself to mention the person for whom the poison was intended.

Locusta was too familiar with her trade to hesitate. Had she not taught many a guilty wife, in spite of rumour, in spite of the populace, to bury undetected the blackening body of her husband? Her fiendish nature rejoiced at the consciousness of secret power. She supplied Pollio with a poison which was, she assured him, of tried efficacy, and she again received a large sum of money in reward for her services. Nero knew that among the wretches by whom his mother had surrounded Britannicus, and not all of whom had been removed, it would be easy to find some one who would administer the poison. He decided that the deed should be done at some private meal, and by the hands of one of the boy’s tutors, who never thought of shrinking from the infamy. In that midnight and decadence of a dying Paganism the crime of ordinary murder was too cheap to excite remorse.

But it was impossible that all this should pass unobserved. Acte had been brought under Christian influences, and was anxious by all means in her power to atone for the unintended wrong which her beauty had inflicted upon Octavia. Nero was no longer her lover, though she still lived in the Palace, and held a high position as one for whom the Emperor had once conceived so strong an infatuation. She had her own slaves assigned to her, and of these some were Christians. In her self-imposed task of watching over the life of Britannicus she asked them to obtain information of any circumstance that seemed to threaten him with danger. From them she learnt that Nero had been closeted with Julius Pollio; that Pollio had paid a visit to Locusta; and that, when Locusta had sent a small vial to Nero, the Emperor had summoned to his presence the tutor of Britannicus, who had been observed to carry away the vial in his closed hand. Her spies further told her that, by watching and listening, they had ascertained that the poison was to be given to the son of Claudius, not at supper but at the light midday meal which he took with Titus. After they had been enjoying vigorous exercise in the morning the boys usually showed an excellent appetite.

More than this they could not discover; but this much Acte confided to Onesimus, and implored him to keep watch, and if possible, devise some means by which to forewarn Britannicus of his imminent peril.

At first the quick Phrygian youth, who was understood to be under the patronage of Acte, had been a favourite in the household, and he found little difficulty in making friends with the cooks and other slaves who superintended the meals of the imperial family. By a visit to the kitchen--in which he flattered the cook and his young assistants by the lively curiosity which he expressed about the various dishes, and the enthusiasm with which he admired their skill--he learnt that, as a special treat, a beccafico was to be sent in for the prandium of Britannicus, and he conjectured that it would be poisoned. That the cook was innocent of any evil design he was sure, and he guessed that the fig-pecker would be poisoned by some slave of higher office about the young prince’s person. But he knew not how to forewarn the unsuspecting boy. The time was short. It was not easy to find an excuse by which he--whose duty lay in a different part of the Palace--could find access to the apartments of Britannicus. And whom could he warn? There was scarcely an instance known in which any one had dared to interfere between an emperor and his victims. In the general paralysis of servility, in the terror inspired by the little despicable human god, in the indifference to bloodshed caused by the games of the amphitheatre, why should any one be troubled by one death the more?

But Onesimus, less familiar with a world so plague-stricken with torpid corruption, felt in his heart a spring of pity for the doomed boy. After rejecting plan after plan as impossible, it flashed upon him that he might get a message conveyed to Titus. He had but a few minutes left, and Titus could not be found until he and the prince, still warm and glowing from their game of ball, entered the parlour. Onesimus grew desperate, and, boldly summoning a young slave, sent him to Titus with the extemporised message that the centurion Pudens urgently desired to speak with him.

Titus went into the hall, and recognised Onesimus as the youth whom his own kindness had first brought under the notice of Pudens. The Phrygian led him to a remote part of the hall, behind one of the statues of the Danaides, and whispered to him, ‘Britannicus is in danger. Let him not touch the bird which has been provided for his lunch. Oh, stay not to ask me anything,’ he added, when Titus seemed inclined to question him further; ‘hurry back, if you would save his life.’

Titus hurried back, but the meal was quite informal, and Britannicus, hungry with exercise, had already helped himself to the dainty set before him.

‘Give me some of that fig-pecker,’ said Titus desperately; ‘I am very fond of those birds; we catch them at Reate.’

Britannicus at once handed the dish to him with a smile. ‘I don’t know what Epictetus would think,’ he said, ‘of a Stoic who is fond of dainties.’

‘It is meant exclusively for you, Sir,’ said the pædagogus, hastily. ‘I wonder that Titus should be so greedy.’

Titus blushed; but the remark helped him out of a serious difficulty. He had thought in vain how he could avoid eating the bird which Onesimus had told him was poisoned.

‘After that remark,’ he answered, ‘of course I cannot touch it.’

‘Then give it back to Britannicus,’ said the tutor.

‘Nay,’ said the prince; ‘if Titus is to be called greedy for liking it, I must be greedy too. I have had enough. Besides there is a taste about it which I do not like. Bread and a few olives are more than enough.’

He pushed away his plate, and when they had risen from the table, he looked curiously at his friend.

Titus blushed again. ‘I know,’ he whispered, ‘that you will not think me greedy, Britannicus.’

‘Titus,’ he answered, ‘you know something.’

‘Ask me nothing,’ said Titus; ‘I was only just in time, if, indeed, I have been in time.’

Britannicus was silent. He suspected that some attempt had been made upon his life, and that it had been partially frustrated by the faithfulness of his friend. He had no doubt on the subject, when, a little later, he was seized with violent pains. Happily, however, he had scarcely more than tasted of the beccafico, and in the fit of sickness which followed, nature came to his relief. His recovery was aided by the pure and glowing state of his health. After a few hours of excruciating agony he sank into a long refreshing sleep.

He woke in the twilight, to find himself lying on a couch, while Octavia and Titus, sitting on either side of him, were rubbing his cold hands.

‘Where am I?’ he asked. ‘Oh, I remember!’ And he said no more; but he took the hand of Titus, and drew his sister near to him and kissed her.

The hearts of all three were too full for words, but as they sat there a message came that the Augusta was coming to visit them.

Agrippina was of course admitted, and left her attendants at the door. As the lovely haughty lady entered, they could not help observing, even by the dim light of the two silver lamps which had just been lit, that a change had passed over her features, and that she had been weeping. Haughty they still were, but wrath and disappointment and failure, purchased at the cost of crime, had stamped them with an expression of agony, as though she wore the brand of Cain. When she heard of the sudden illness of Britannicus, she divined its cause too well. While her power was waning so rapidly, she had been no longer able to maintain the elaborate system of espionage which had helped her when she was Empress; but she, too, was aware that Pollio had visited Locusta, and the misgiving had seized her that the poison might be meant for herself. That it turned out to be for Britannicus was hardly less appalling to her. She felt that her imprudence had made Nero jealous of him, and that his death would deprive her of her last resource. She rejoiced, therefore, unfeignedly at the boy’s recovery, and when she visited him he saw that, for the first time, she spoke with genuine kindness to Octavia, and that her expressions of pity and condolence to himself were sincere. There was no feigning in the hot teardrops which fell on his cheek when she kissed him, and as he lay there, weak and pale, she felt, with deepening remorse for the wrongs which she had inflicted on him, that he did not shrink from her embrace.

Nero, too, sent messages of enquiry to ‘his beloved brother’ by his freedman, Claudius Etruscus. As he heard them, the old spirit of Britannicus flashed out.

‘Tell Cæsar,’ he said, ‘that this time his poi--’

Before the word could be spoken, Titus with hasty gesture placed his hand over his friend’s mouth, and Agrippina, knowing well that every syllable would be reported, and interpreted in the most malignant manner, turned her queenly head to the freedman who had brought the message.

‘Tell the Emperor that his brother is much better, but is still light-headed. Claudius Etruscus,’ she said, ‘you pass for an honest man. I pray you, do not mention to Nero anything which Britannicus has spoken in his delirium.’

Etruscus bent low, and, touched by passing pity at the scene which he had witnessed, he determined to abstain from reporting what he had heard. ‘The Augusta,’ he said, ‘has always been kind to me. Her wish shall be obeyed.’

But Nero was restless and anxious, and was pacing to and fro like a caged wild beast. The thought of plots and perils haunted him. That morning, as he passed along the covered way which led from the Palace into the theatre, he had seen the red stain of the blood of Caligula on the walls--a red stain which could not be washed out--and felt a spasm of suffocation as if a dagger were at his throat. He was frightened to hear from Etruscus that Agrippina was with his brother. Were they conspiring to bring about a revolution? He would himself go and see.

He had been drinking, and as he entered took no notice of Titus or of Octavia. To Agrippina he only vouchsafed a cold salute, and she, dreading another scene in the presence of witnesses, rose and left the chamber. He took the cold hand of Britannicus in his own hot and feverish grasp, and a pang of hatred shot through him as he felt it shrink at his touch. The boy was propped up on his couch with pillows, and a hectic spot burned on each of his pallid cheeks; but his eyes were filled with strange light, and, as he fixed them on the face of Nero, they seemed to read his inmost soul.

Nero averted his glance. He dared not look upon his victim. Indeed, under that steady gaze, the consciousness of his crime brought the tell-tale crimson over his face. He was not yet too far gone to blush, though the days were rapidly approaching in which he would wear a front of brass.

He muttered some hypocritical words of condolence, which rang false and were overdone. Britannicus spoke not.

Octavia said, ‘Pardon his silence, Nero; he is too weak to thank you.’

‘I did not ask you to interfere,’ answered Nero brutally.

‘I give you such thanks as are due,’ said Britannicus in a faint voice; but he tried to withdraw his hand from Nero’s grasp.

Nero rose in a towering passion. ‘I came to inquire about your illness. You meet me with scowls and ingratitude,’ he said, flinging away the hand of Britannicus. ‘If you do not choose to behave as a brother, I will make you feel that you are a subject. Octavia and Titus, you may retire.’

‘Oh, do not leave me alone. I am very ill,’ pleaded the poor prince. ‘Indeed, indeed I cannot be left alone.’

The terrible thought which had flashed through the mind of Nero--the thought that, if left alone, the boy might be killed that night--had woke its reflection in the mind of Britannicus. But Nero strode angrily out of the room, and neither repeated nor withdrew his command.

‘May the spirits of all the good protect thee!’ said Octavia, as she fondly kissed her brother. ‘I dare not stay; it might be the worse for thee if I did.’

‘But I will stay, Empress,’ said Titus, ‘and I will do my best for him.’

When the young Empress had withdrawn, Titus beckoned to her faithful freedwoman Pythias, and told her to send for Onesimus. He came, and Titus, after slipping into his hand an aureus, which the Empress had left for him as a reward for his faithful warning, begged him to be on the alert, and to return in an hour. The Phrygian went to Acte, and told her all that had occurred. She kept him near at hand, and in a short time informed him that two of Nero’s worst creatures --Tigellinus and Doryphorus--were closeted with the Emperor, and that there was too much reason to fear that some deadly measure would be attempted that evening.

Such was indeed the case. For now, to the joy of Tigellinus, Nero had openly declared that Britannicus must be swept out of his path; had even admitted to him that poison had been attempted, and had failed.

‘How soon do you wish the deed to be done?’ asked the wicked adventurer.

‘If we are to prevent some accursed plot,’ said Nero, ‘it cannot be too soon.’

‘To-night?’

‘To-night, if you will,’ answered Nero, ‘but it must be secret. There must be no scandal. A story must be trumped up. The Augusta must be deceived. Octavia must be deceived. None of his adherents must know of it, unless they can be trusted to hold their tongues.’

‘Nearly all the people about him are in our pay,’ said Tigellinus. ‘I think it can be done.’

That night no soldier was on guard near the room of Britannicus, and Titus regarded this as a fatal sign. When he received from Onesimus the intelligence which Acte had given him, he said that he would draw his own bed across the door of the Prince’s room inside, so that none could enter without his knowledge. He asked Onesimus to keep watch in concealment outside, and make a noise if any one should approach.

‘I can imitate exactly the bark of the Empress’s lap-dog,’ said Onesimus, ‘for Aponia, who has charge of it, often lets me tease it. If I make this noise in the quiet of the night it is sure to set other dogs barking, and then I will spring out of my hiding-place as if the sound had awoke me.’

Proud of the confidence reposed in him, proud to be the guard of a Cæsar’s life, Onesimus put on a black lacerna, shrouded himself in a dark corner, hidden behind the shield of an Amazon. The Palace sank to deep silence, broken only by the faint, distant tramp of the sentinel who kept watch outside the passage which led to the cubiculum of the Emperor.

About an hour after midnight he heard a stealthy footstep approaching, and saw the occasional gleam of a lantern which was hidden under the cloak of the murderer. Breathless with anxiety, he watched and listened. The slave came near to the room of Britannicus. Noiselessly he placed his lantern on the floor, then he drew a large dagger, and Onesimus saw its blade flash in the light as the wretch examined it. One instant more and his hand was thrusting an oiled key into the lock.

Then it was that Onesimus gave a short, sharp sound like the bark of a pet dog. The murderer started violently. Onesimus repeated the sound, which was immediately taken up by a dog which belonged to one of the freedwomen. Hesitating no longer, he leapt out of his shelter with the challenge, ‘Who goes there?’ and at the same moment Titus, who had slept in his clothes, unfastened the door, and sprang in front of it with a sword in his hand.

Without staying an instant longer the murderer dashed down his lantern and fled, for slaves and freedmen were heard stirring on every side. Onesimus did not attempt to pursue him, but quietly slipped back to his own cell. He knew that for that night the dark plot was frustrated and Britannicus was safe.

To the slaves whom the noise had disturbed Titus only said that he had been troubled by the nightmare, and bade them return to sleep. But not a few of them shrewdly suspected that they had not been told the whole truth.

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Chapter XXIV

BRITANNICUS UNDERGOES A NEW EXPERIENCE

‘For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear--believe the aged friend-- Is just a chance of the prize of learning love; How love might be, hath been indeed, and is; And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost Such prize, despite the envy of the world.’

BROWNING, A Death in the Desert.

It was New Year’s Day in Rome. The day was kept as a universal holiday. Everybody aimed at cheerfulness, and abstained from any word of evil omen. Quarrels were suspended; calumny was hushed. Fires were kindled on every side, and fed with scented woods and leaves of odorous saffron. The gilded fretwork of every temple-roof glimmered with twinkling reflections of the sacred flames. All the people were clad in white, and went in procession to the Capitol. The lictors were provided with new fasces; the magistrates were clad in new purple, and assumed, for the first time, their curule chairs of ivory. The white oxen of Clitumnus were led for sacrifice to the altar of Jupiter, their necks wreathed with garlands. Friends exchanged presents, which, even when they were of trifling value, yet served to show that they had not forgotten to express their love. Among presents from Octavia, and Titus, and Pudens, and Pomponia, and other friends, Britannicus, who had now recovered, was greeted by Epictetus with the customary gift of gilded dates--called strenæ, whence the French étrennes--and a little honey in its snowy comb. These the poor lame boy had bought, with such copper coins as he had been able to save, at the little market for such trifles near the Porta Mugionis; and he had not forgotten to bring a few sprigs of vervain, good-naturedly given to him as an augury of blessing by one of the priests at the half-forgotten shrine of Vacuna, on the Sacred Way. But Britannicus had received more splendid presents than these. Agrippina had given him a double-branched silver candelabrum, up the shaft of which crept a wild-cat towards two unsuspecting birds perched on either dish above. But when he showed it to Octavia she shuddered. To her fancy it seemed as if Nero were the wild-cat, and herself and her brother the harmless birds.

Never had Britannicus and Octavia been more sad than in the days which followed Nero’s frustrated plots to assassinate his brother. They knew that further attempts would not be long delayed. On February 13 Britannicus would be fifteen years old, and it would be impossible to withhold from him the manly toga. But he felt sure that the sword was dangling by a hair over his neck, and that he would not long be suffered to live.

And thus, in the dawn of youth, he found himself in a situation so terrible that it has shaken the fortitude of many a full-grown man. Even the iron nerves of Cromwell were affected by the daily danger of assassination; and now Britannicus never sat down to a meal without dread of treachery, and never went to bed without a misgiving as to whether that sleep would not be his last. From the latter terror Titus relieved him as much as he could, by nightly drawing his own couch across the door. Onesimus had told Titus that if any deed of darkness were in immediate contemplation he would be almost sure to hear of it from Acte. Yet, in spite of all, the poor boy’s mind might have been unhinged by the secret and manifold dangers with which the hatred of the Emperor surrounded him, had it not been for the lessons which he had heard from the humble followers of the gospel. Never could he forget the awful expansion and dilatation of spirit which had accompanied the emotion he had experienced at the Christian gathering. At that moment he had felt a foretaste of immortality.

And, happily for the Empress and himself, there remained one more transcendent experience before the fall of the thunderbolt which separated them from each other.

The Ides of January were kept as a festival to Jupiter, and the next day was also the anniversary on which Octavianus had been saluted by the title of Augustus. The day was therefore observed with various ceremonies, and, as they were chiefly of a public character, it was easier for the children of Claudius to move about with less observation than usual. They had long desired to hear the words of one who had seen Jesus, and on the morning of January 14 a letter reached Octavia from Pomponia, conveying a cautious intimation that now their wish could be granted. Their young companion Flavius Clemens was to visit the Palace in the afternoon, and after they had supped with Aulus Plautius they were to arrange the way in which the rest of the evening should be spent.

When the supper was over, the two boys, Clemens and Britannicus, disguised in the dress of humble slaves, went with Pudens down the Velabrum and along the bank of the Tiber, which they crossed by the island and the Fabrician and Cestian bridges. The region in which they found themselves was poor and squalid, and was largely inhabited by Jews. The Jewish and Gentile Christians at this early period worshipped in separate communities, but they met together on so great an occasion as the visit of an Apostle. But the laws about assemblies and foreign superstitions were a two-edged sword which might easily be wielded with fatal effect, and it was desirable for the Christians to hold their gatherings with as little publicity as possible, in order to escape the hatred both of Jews and Pagans. This meeting, therefore, was to be held at a remote spot in the hollow of one of the arenariæ, or sand-pits, and those who attended it were to use one or other of the Christian watchwords. They were to approach the place in scattered groups and from different directions, while scouts were stationed in the neighbourhood to give instant signal of approaching danger.

Using these precautions, Britannicus and his attendants found themselves among the latest arrivals at the rendezvous. The winter darkness, deepened by the overhanging sides of the tufa quarry, rendered it necessary to have a few lights, but most of the assembled Christians extinguished or concealed their lamps. The dimness, the silence, the starry sky which overhung them, the strained expectation, the signs of intense devotion, made the scene overwhelming in its solemnity. At last a little group of the chief Christian presbyters, headed by Linus, was seen to approach. They passed under the shadow of the cliffs, and emerged before the table, on which one or two lamps were burning. Then the presbyters divided to the right and left hand, and the light fell full on the face and figure of one man who stepped a pace or two to the front.

He was dressed, as was not unusual at Rome, in Eastern costume. He was a man a little past the prime of life. The hair which escaped from under his turban was already sprinkled with grey. His dark eyes seemed to be lighted from within by a spiritual fire; his figure was commanding, his attitude full of dignity. His face was a perfect oval, and the features were of the finest type of Eastern manhood. When once you had gazed upon him it seemed impossible to take the eyes from a countenance so perfect in its light and spiritual beauty--a countenance in which a fiery vehemence was exquisitely tempered by a pathetic tenderness. His whole appearance was magnetic. It seemed to flash into all around him its own nobleness, and to kindle there that flame of love to God and man which burnt on the altar of his own heart. That such a soul should be convinced of a truth seemed alone sufficient to convince others. That such lips should testify to a fact rendered all disbelief of the fact impossible to those who once fell under his influence. That such a man could be the herald of a new religion seemed like a certain pledge that the faith which he held must sooner or later overcome the world.

In his aspect was something indescribably different from that worn by the noblest philosophers of Rome. On all sides, in the Roman amphitheatre and in the Roman streets, you saw faces which were cruel, and proud, and seamed with every evil passion; faces cunning, and sly, and leering, and degraded; the slavish faces of those who were slaves in soul, and the ignoble faces of those whom an ignoble society had cowed by its terror and degraded by its vice. Even in the Senate you saw noble lineaments on which servility, and care, and a life spent under tyrants and in households where every slave might be a potential enemy, had impressed the stamp of gloom and fear. But in the face of this Apostle there was softness as well as strength, and hope as well as courage. His eyes shone with a joy which seemed to brighten in the midst of affliction, as the stars brighten in the deepening twilight.

As he entered the whole assembly rose to their feet by a spontaneous movement of reverence, and then no less spontaneously some of those present fell upon their knees. But instantly his voice was heard, as, in an accent of command, almost of sternness, he bade them rise.

‘Rise,’ he said, ‘brethren and saints. What homage is this? We are men of like passions with yourselves. I do not mistake your feelings. Ye think that such reverence must be due to a disciple whom, unworthy as he was, yet Jesus loved. But know ye not that every true saint among you is nearer to Him now by His Spirit than it was possible for us to be in the days of His flesh? Has not our brother Paul taught you in his preaching that your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in you, except ye be reprobate?’

Then Linus rose and said, ‘Let us kneel and thank God in prayer that He has suffered an Apostle of His Son to visit us, and then we will join in a common hymn.’

When the simple prayer was over they united their voices in that earliest Christian hymn which has been happily preserved for us by Clement of Alexandria. They began in accents soft and sweet and low--

‘Shepherd of sheep that own Their Master on the throne, Stir up Thy children weak With guileless lips to speak, In hymn and song, Thy praise, Guide of their infant ways.’

Then the strain swelled louder--

‘O King of saints, O Lord, Mighty, all-conquering Word; Son of the highest God, Wielding His wisdom’s rod; Our stay when cares annoy, Giver of endless joy; Of all our mortal race Saviour, of boundless grace, O Jesus, hear!’[57]

They knelt down once more, and the strain of thanksgiving rose among them, with no confusion in its blended utterance, as they responded to the words of their bishop. And when the voices ceased Nereus, the slave of Pudens, said, after a brief pause, ‘O that John of Bethsaida would tell us first of that Resurrection whereof he is one of the appointed witnesses!’

John rose, and gave them the narrative which long years after he embodied in his Gospel.

He told them of the startling words of Mary of Magdala on that first glad Easter morning; and how he himself and Peter ran together to the empty tomb, ere yet they knew the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead.

He told them of the vision of angels which appeared in the tomb to Mary, and how Jesus had spoken to her in the garden.

He told of the appearance to the Ten, and the words of peace; and again, on the next Sunday, to the Eleven, when He convinced the doubting Thomas, and bade him to be not faithless, but believing.

He told them of the appearance on the shore of the misty silver sea, and of His last behest to Simon Peter; and he corrected the false impression as to what had been said concerning himself, which had not been, as had been mistakenly reported, that he should not die, but ‘If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?’

And as he spoke these words, in a voice which rose like a divine melody, the attention grew more and more rapt, and, as he ended, the awful, penetrating, thrilling sound of the tongue began to be heard. But John checked it by a gentle lifting of his hand, and Linus said, ‘Let the spirits of the prophets be subject to the prophets. Let us rather hear the witness of the Lord.’

Then Hermas, slave of Pedanius Secundus, the City Prætor, rose, and asked, ‘What meant the Lord by those words, “that he tarry till I come”? When should be the day of His coming?’

‘That question we also asked,’ said John, ‘before His death; and though He spake of signs of the times, like the redness and lowering of the sky, yet He added to us, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man--no, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.”’

‘And are there no signs of the time now?’ asked Linus.

‘There are many,’ he answered, ‘by which we may know that the coming of the Lord is even at the door. I have walked through this Babylon, and have seen all the splendour of her merchandise, as of Tyrus in old days, and amid it all--slaves and souls of men. Yea, and as I have witnessed all the cruelty and all the vileness, like the scum of that seething caldron which the prophet saw of old, I feel compelled to ask with him, “Shall I not judge for these things?” saith the Lord; “shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” Yea, sometimes a voice seems to ring within me which says, “Woe, woe! to the dwellers upon earth!” The great tribulation must come of which the Lord spake and the Antichrist must be revealed, and God must accomplish the number of the elect.’

‘The night is drawing in, O brother, revered in the Lord,’ said Linus; ‘and it were well that we should speedily separate to our homes. But ere we part give to us one word of exhortation of how we are to save ourselves from this untoward generation.’

The Apostle raised his hands towards heaven, and his eye seemed to be lit with heavenly ecstasy as he answered in this brief exhortation: ‘My children, love one another. Love is the fulfilling of the law. There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.’

When he had thus exhorted them they broke out with passionate jubilance in the hymn--

‘Fisher of men, the blest, Out of the world’s unrest, Out of sin’s troubled sea Taking us, Lord, to Thee, With choicest fish, good store, Drawing thy nets to shore,

‘Lead us, O Shepherd true; Thy mystic sheep, we sue! O path where Christ hath trod, O way that leads to God, O Word, abiding aye, O endless Light on high, O glorious Life of all That on their Maker call, Christ Jesus, hear.’

All present knelt in prayer, ending with the united utterance of the words that the Lord had taught; and the great Amen rose like the low sound of distant thunder. Then the Apostle raised his hands and blessed them. Again the Amen and the solemn Maranatha rolled through the air like the sound of mighty waters, and after a moment of deep stillness the assembly peaceably departed.

Britannicus and his attendants, wishing to avoid notice, waited for a time, until the twinkling streams of light from the torches and lanterns carried by the worshippers grew fainter and more scattered. Hence it happened that they were left the last in the arenaria, except the little group of deacons and presbyters who stood round John of Bethsaida. The young prince had been deeply moved by the look and by the words of the Beloved Disciple. He wished to see him nearer, and whispered to Pudens not to go until he had passed them, for never yet had he seen so glorious a specimen of lofty and holy manhood.

But the boy’s heart thrilled with strange emotion as the Apostle paused on his way, and, standing before the little group, fixed his eyes upon his face, approached him, and softly laid his hand upon his shoulder.

He motioned to all except Flavius Clemens to stand aside, and he was left speaking to the two youths.

‘My sons,’ he asked, ‘do ye believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?’

The youths were silent, till Britannicus, who felt in his heart the confidence of an exceeding peace, said--

‘My father, I know not. All that you have said to us is beautiful as a song of heaven. It stirs my heart; it seems to give wings to my spirit; but I know too little, and all is yet too strange.’

‘My son,’ said the Apostle, ‘go in peace. It is given me to know who thou art; thy slave’s attire does not conceal thee from me. Nay, start not; none else shall know. But the seed hath been sown in thy young heart; it shall blossom and bear fruit in a life beyond. For there is a baptism, not of water only, but of blood. Would to God that thou mightest remain for the furtherance of the kingdom of His Son; but it may not be. And my message to thee is, “Be strong, and He shall comfort thine heart, and put thou thy trust in the Lord.”’

He laid his right hand gently on the young prince’s head and blessed him, and his whole soul seemed to thrill under that holy touch.

‘And hast thou no word for me, my father?’ said Flavius Clemens.

The Apostle turned towards him, and kindly laying his left hand on the boy’s dark curls, he said--

‘I say to thee, as the Lord said to another, “And thou too, my son, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and wentest whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” Thy life shall be prolonged, and thou shalt rise to great things; but thy heart shall be the Lord’s, and many a year hence thou too shalt be His witness. One of you shall see my face no more, but the Angel of His Presence bless you both.’

He spoke, and passed out of their sight into the gloom, leaving in their hearts a sound as of angelic music, a light as of purple wings. Neither of them spoke, or could speak. In silence and haste they made their way back over the dark flowing river to the house of Aulus Plautius. Flavius was conducted home by faithful Christian slaves, while the escort of the Empress accompanied her and her brother to the Palace, which still rang with sounds of revelry. And that night Titus wondered at the radiant serenity of the countenance of his friend, and Britannicus slept as sweetly as a child; and as he slumbered the spirits of the blessed dead seemed to keep guard over him, and he smiled to hear strange snatches of immortal melody.

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Chapter XXV

LOCUSTA.

‘Circe inter vernas nota Neronis.’--TURNUS, Fr.

Nero had been angered beyond measure by the failure of both his attempts upon the life of his brother, but he had also been a little terrified. A feeling of the eternal sanctity of the moral law had scarcely ever found a place in his slight and frivolous mind; but he was by no means free from superstition. He did not believe seriously in the gods; but he believed more or less in omens, and for a time he wavered in the dreadful purpose of committing his earliest unpardonable crime.

But he could not waver long. Britannicus was rapidly approaching his fifteenth year. It was evident that he was also developing new powers. He was already nearly as tall as Nero, and while Nero’s early beauty was beginning to fade the face of Britannicus became constantly nobler. All this Nero observed with deepening rancour, and to this was added a secret terror. He began to fear lest the Prætorians should find out their mistake in rejecting this princely boy for one who, in spite of his small accomplishments, was so far his inferior. He never visited Agrippina without noticing that in some way she regarded Britannicus, if not as the mainstay of her hopes, at least as the ultimate resource of her vengeance and despair.

But it was Sophonius Tigellinus who had the chief hand in goading Nero to the final consummation of his guilt. The Emperor was not by nature sanguinary; his cruelty was only developed amid the rank growth of his other vices.

He was planning with Tigellinus a banquet of unusual splendour which was to be held at the Feralia--the Roman All Souls’ Day, a festival in honour of the dead--on February 7.

‘You will have to give another banquet, Cæsar,’ said Tigellinus, ‘on the Ides (February 13).’

‘Why?’

‘Because that day is the fifteenth birthday of Britannicus; and I presume that then you will let him assume the manly toga.’

‘You are always dragging in the name of Britannicus,’ said Nero. ‘I hate it, and I hate him.’

‘On the contrary,’ said the Prætorian; ‘I should say that you love him very much. Who can tell how soon he may be your successor?’

‘My successor?’ answered Nero, scowling. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I meant no offence, Cæsar,’ said Tigellinus; ‘forgive the faithfulness of a friend and an honest soldier who loves you. Do you not see what a fine young fellow Britannicus is growing? Octavia brings you no children. He must in any case succeed you.’

Nero paced the room, as he always did when he felt agitated; and, after leaving his remarks to work, Tigellinus added--

‘Besides it is not easy to divine the plans of the Augusta, with whom at present you are on such bad terms?’

Nero strode up and down with still more passion, and Tigellinus continued at intervals to heap fuel on the flames of his fury.

‘You heard the murmurs of applause which greeted his insolent song the other night?’

Nero nodded.

‘Do you think that the Prætorians are absolutely loyal to you? I have heard them talking about Britannicus among themselves. Pudens, I know, is a favourite officer of theirs, and he adores Britannicus. Supposing it came to civil war, do you think that you would be quite sure to win?’

Nero still said nothing.

‘Why not put an end to the difficulty? Rome is sick at the thought of another civil war. Every one would be glad if you put your brother out of the way. And really, why should you hesitate? You have attempted it twice already, only you have been unlucky.’

By this time the subtle tempter had worked the Emperor into a frenzy of wrath and fear. The crime had long been assuming shape in his mind, and in point of fact he had already incurred its guilt.

‘It shall be done on the Ides,’ he said. ‘Send Julius Pollio to me.’

Tigellinus struck while the iron was hot, and the tribune was in attendance before Nero’s rage had had time to cool.

‘Bring Locusta here at once,’ he said.

The tribune executed the command, and Locusta’s green eye gleamed even more balefully than was its wont when the tribune ushered her into the Emperor’s chamber.

But Nero received them both with a burst of petulant anger.

‘You have failed me!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are traitors, both of you. While you are taking measures to shield yourselves you leave me obnoxious to the worst perils. I told you to provide me with a sure poison.’

‘We were but anxious to avert suspicion, Emperor,’ said Locusta, in the soft tones which involuntarily reminded the hearer of a serpent’s hiss. ‘You know there is a Julian law against murder and poisoning.’

The anger of Nero showed itself in mean, ignoble ways, and, like a bad boy in a passion, he was not ashamed to strike Locusta in the face.

‘Don’t talk of the Julian law to me, woman,’ he said; ‘as if I was afraid of the laws! Make me a poison which shall work like a dagger-stab, or you shall be ordered off for execution to-morrow on the old charges.’

Locusta shrank from his blow, and for one instant glared at him as though she would have liked to poison him. But she knew his power, and felt sure of his rewards; so she merely said--

‘Britannicus is such a strong, healthy boy, that the task is less easy. But Cæsar shall have his wish. I have a poison here which will do the work.’

‘Try it, then, on some animal,’ he said.

‘I dare say the tribune could procure me a kid,’ said Locusta.

A slave was despatched to find a kid, and when the bounding, playful creature was brought Locusta dropped some of the poison on a piece of bread dipped in milk.

The kid ate the bread and milk, and frisked no more but lay down and curled up its limbs, which quivered with convulsive twitchings.

‘Leave the poison to work,’ she said, ‘and if Cæsar will summon me an hour hence the kid will be dead.’

An hour later she was summoned. The kid lay on the ground, feeble and with glazing eyes; but it was not dead, and Nero was in the worst of humours. He pointed to the little creature and said--

‘Woman, you are trifling with me! Add henbane, or hemlock, or any other infernal thing you like, to your accursed poison. It must be made stronger.’

Locusta dropped other ingredients into the phial, and another animal was sent for. The slave brought a little pig. Some of the poison was sprinkled on a leaf of lettuce. The creature ate it, and in a few moments died in spasms.

‘That will do,’ said Nero, flinging to the woman a purse of gold. ‘If all goes as I desire, you shall have ample recompense. But breathe one syllable about this matter, and you shall die under the scourge.’

She went, leaving the phial in his hands. He struck a silver bell, and ordered Tigellinus to be summoned.

‘I have decided,’ he said to the Prætorian. ‘Britannicus shall die.’

‘You will deserve the title of “father of your country,” which you so modestly rejected,’ said Tigellinus. ‘Augustus received that title on the Nones of February, more than eighty years ago; doubtless the Senate will confer it upon you soon after the Ides.’

‘But how is the deed to be done?’ asked Nero gloomily. ‘I shrink from the business even if it be necessary.’

‘What are you afraid of, Cæsar?’

‘The voice of the people. It can shake the throne of the greatest.’

‘How will the people know anything about it?’

‘Britannicus has a prægustator, just as I and Agrippina have. If that wretch is poisoned too, every one will know what has taken place.’

‘His prægustator is--?’

‘A freedman named Syneros.’

‘In your pay, of course?’

Nero nodded.

‘And you can trust him?’

Nero nodded again.

‘Then leave the rest to me,’ said Tigellinus, ‘and do not trouble yourself any further in the matter. If I have your orders, regard the deed as done.’

‘I give no orders,’ said Nero; ‘but here is Locusta’s poison.’

* * * * *

Glad of her success in having twice saved the life of Britannicus, Acte was more than ever determined to be a watchful guardian over him. She was feverishly anxious to ascertain every plot formed against him, and had gone so far as to take a step of extreme peril. She had heard that, in the reign of Tiberius, when evidence had been wanted against the Consular Sabinus, three persons of no less rank than senator had concealed themselves in the roof, and looked down through Judas-holes, to report his conversation. Might she not use for good the devices which had been perverted to such deadly ends? At any rate she would try. She ascertained from Tigellinus that Nero had been amusing himself by trying the efficacy of certain poisons, and he mentioned this in answer to Acte’s inquiries as to the reason why his slaves had carried a dead kid out of Nero’s room.

But Acte learnt more by her other devices. The rooms which she occupied happened to adjoin the apartment assigned to Tigellinus; and by pretending a desire for some small repairs she had ordered the marble panelling of her room to be removed in one corner, and a cupboard to be constructed behind it. A person concealed in this recess could, by the aid of a few holes perforated in the walls, hear what was going on in the room of Tigellinus. Then she sent to Onesimus the coin on which was the head of Britannicus, and when he came to her room she concealed him in the recess, and he overheard enough to make him suspect that Britannicus was to be poisoned a week later.

The information was vague, and to act upon it was perilous; but Acte told Onesimus to inform Titus, and then to use their combined wit to defeat, at all costs, the wicked plan.

And this Onesimus meant to do, and might have done but for his own misconduct.

He was weak in character, and if he had gone astray in the safe obscurity of the house of Pudens he was liable to far worse temptations in the familia of the Palace. All his old companions cringed to the handsome slave of Octavia, who might rise, as others had done, to be an all-powerful freedman. With his youth, his quickness, his good looks, who could tell whether he might not even become a favourite of Cæsar himself, and have untold influence and power? Onesimus found himself the centre of flattering attention in the slave world both of the Palace and the city. He began to think himself a person of importance. Was he not under the immediate patronage of Acte, and, in order to avoid scandal, had it not even been necessary to make it known that he was her kinsman and foster-brother, brought up under the same roof?

Onesimus was too unstable to withstand the combined temptations by which he was surrounded. The image of Junia might have acted as an amulet, but he scarcely ever got an opportunity of seeing her, for Nereus looked upon him with anything but favour. He kept aloof from Christians, for he never heard them mentioned except with contempt and hatred, and he liked the atmosphere of compliment and pleasure. Slaves naturally imitate the vices of their masters, and the wicked world of the aristocracy was reflected in darker colours in the wicked world of servile myriads. Flinging all that he had learnt of morals to the winds, betting, gambling, frequenting the lewdest shows of the theatre and the most sanguinary spectacles of the games, and forever haunting the cook-shops, the taverns, and the =Subura=, he spent his almost unlimited leisure in that vicious idleness above which only the best slaves had strength to rise.

And so it happened that at the time when he ought to have been most on the alert he got entangled in a low dispute at a drinking bout, and returned to the Palace not only wounded and smeared with blood, but also in a state of shameful intoxication. In this guise Nero had seen him, and, without even knowing his name, or anything about him, had furiously ordered him to be taken to his steward, Callicles, for severe punishment. He had again been scourged, put into fetters, thrust into a prison, and fed on bread and water. This disgrace was concealed from Acte, and while she was relying upon his quick intelligence to convey a warning to Britannicus, and to devise means of frustrating the plot of Tigellinus, Onesimus lay sick, and shamed, and fettered in a prison among the lowest of offending slaves.

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