Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale Read online

  CHAPTER I

  _THE SOLILOQUIES OF AGRIPPINA_

  ‘Oramus, cave despuas, ocelle, Ne pœnas Nemesis reposcat a te: Est vehemens Dea; lædere hanc caveto.’

  CATULL. _Carm._ L. 18-20.

  The Palace of the Cæsars was a building of extraordinary spaciousnessand splendour, which had grown with the growing power of the emperors.The state entrance was in the Vicus Apollinis, which led into the ViaSacra. It was an Arch, twenty-nine feet high, surmounted by a statueof Apollo and Diana driving a chariot of four horses, the work ofLysias. Passing the Propylæa the visitor entered the sacred area,paved with white marble and surrounded by fifty-two fluted columnsof Numidian giallo antico, with its soft tints of rose and gold.Between these stood statues of the Danaides, with their fatherDanaus brandishing a naked sword. In the open spaces before themwere the statues of their miserable Egyptian husbands, each reininghis haughty steed. Here, too, among other priceless works of art,stood the famous Hercules of Lysippus, clothed in his lion’s skinand leaning on his club. On one side was the Temple of Apollo, builtof the marble of Luna, designed by Bupalos and Anthermos of Chios.On the top of its pediment was the chariot of Apollo in gilt bronze,and the great bronze valves were encrusted[*1] with ivory bas-reliefsof the triumph over Niobe, and the panic-stricken flight of the Gaulsfrom Delphi. Behind this temple was the shrine of Vesta, and on thewest side the famous Palatine Library, large enough to accommodatethe whole Senate, and divided into two compartments, Greek and Latin.In its vestibule was a bronze statue, fifty feet high, which is saidto have represented Augustus with the attributes of Apollo.[1]

  To the Palace and Propylæa of Augustus, with their open spaces,and shrubs, and flowers, and fountains, Tiberius had added a separatepalace, known as the Domus Tiberiana, which overlooked the Velabrum;and Gaius--more commonly known by his nickname of Caligula--hadfilled with buildings the entire space between the Palace and theForum. He had also purchased the House of Gelotius, and in thathumble annex had delighted to spend nights of riotous orgies withthe grooms and charioteers of his favourite green faction. Sincehis time it had been utilised as a training-school for the imperialpages, whose scribblings, sometimes matter-of-fact, sometimeshumorous and satirical, can still be traced on the fast-crumblingwalls. Vast as was the whole composite structure, it received immenseadditions from the restless extravagance of Nero, Domitian, and lateremperors.

  But if it surpassed all the other buildings of imperial Rome inmagnificence, it surpassed them also in misery and guilt. Here, inthe days of Augustus, the Empress Livia had plotted the murder andremoval of all who stood in the way of her son’s succession. Herein the days of Tiberius the conscious walls had witnessed thedeadly intrigues of Ælius Sejanus. In A.D. 23, that daring andcruel conspirator had secured the poisoning of Drusus, the only sonof Tiberius, by insinuating himself into the affections of Livia,his faithless wife. Here in A.D. 33, the younger Drusus, son of thehero Germanicus, was slowly starved to death by order of Tiberius. Inone of the subterranean vaults he had poured out his mad reproachesagainst the tyrant, had writhed under the savage rebukes of thecenturion, and had been beaten by the brutal slaves who guardedhis dungeon. For nine days he had lingered on, chewing in his agonythe tow with which his mattress was stuffed. Here the young TiberiusGemellus, grandson of Tiberius, piteously ignorant how to killhimself, had been shown how to drive the poniard into his throat bythe tribune sent for that purpose by his cousin and adoptive brother,Caligula. Chamber after chamber in that huge structure had witnessedthe wild and brutal freaks of that madman-emperor and the tortureswhich he inflicted upon nobles and senators, whose mouths he orderedto be gagged with their own bloodstained garments. Here he had beenvisited with the dire vengeance of his crimes; for in the coveredgallery which he had built as a passage between his palace and thetheatre, he had been smitten by the fierce sword of the tribuneCassius Chærea. Hard by--the stains of blood were still upon thewall--his empress, the blue-eyed Cæsonia, had been stabbed in thethroat as she wailed and wept over the dead body of her lord; and herlittle infant, Julia Drusilla, had been dashed against the stones.

  Such was the Palace of pagan Rome in the days of Christ and HisApostles.

  It might well have seemed, even to the most callous worshipper ofthe old gods, that a dark spirit was walking in that house; that thephantoms of the unavenged dead haunted it; that ghostly footfallsglided through its midnight corridors; and that in hidden corners thelonely wanderer might come on some figure ‘weeping tears of blood,’which vanished with ‘hollow shriek’ before the presence of theinnocent.

  No such feelings of dread disturbed the thoughts of the EmpressAgrippina on a certain September evening, A.D. 54. The world wasat her feet. Her brave and good father, Germanicus, her chaste andvirtuous mother, the elder Agrippina, had been the idols alike of theRoman soldiers and the Roman people. She was the great-granddaughterof the Emperor Augustus; the granddaughter of the victorious Agrippa;the great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius; the sister of the EmperorGaius: and now at last her unwearied intrigues had made her the sixthwife of her uncle, the Emperor Claudius. Not content with such nearbonds to so many of those who were honoured as gods on earth, did shenot mean that her boy also--her darling Nero--should ere long mountthe throne of the Cæsars, and that she herself should govern formany a long year in his name, as she now governed in the name of herhusband Claudius? Her ancestress Livia, the stately wife of Augustus,had received the imperial title of Augusta, but not until herhusband’s death; Agrippina had received it, and with it every honourwhich a servile Senate could devise, in her early prime. Had she notsat on a throne, in unwonted splendour, by the side of her weak andprematurely aged husband at the reception of foreign ambassadors? Wasshe not privileged, alone of Roman princesses, to ride in a chariotto the Capitol? Was not her fine head and lovely face stamped onthousands of coins and medals? Had she not shown, in contrast to herpredecessor, the beautiful and abandoned Messalina, how dignifiedcould be a matron’s rule?

  Yes, the world was at her feet; and by every glance and every gestureshe showed her consciousness of a grandeur such as no woman hadhitherto attained. Her agents and spies were numberless. The Courtwas with her, for in the days of Claudius the Court meant theall-powerful freedmen, who impudently ruled and pillaged theirfeeble master; and if she could not seduce the stolid fidelity ofhis secretary Narcissus, she had not disdained to stoop to the stillmore powerful Pallas. The people were with her, for she was the solesurviving child of the prince whom they had regarded with extravagantaffection. The intellect of Rome was on her side, for Seneca, alwaysamong her favourites, had been recalled by her influence from hisbanishment in feverous Corsica, and, holding the high position oftutor to her son, was devoted to her cause. The Prætorian guards wereon her side, for Burrus, their bold and honest commander, owed hisoffice to her request. The power of gold was hers, for her coffershad been filled to bursting by an immeasurable rapacity. The powerof fascination was hers, for few of those whom she wished to entanglewere able to resist her spells. Above all she could rely absolutelyupon herself. Undaunted as her mother, the elder Agrippina; popularas her father, the adored Germanicus; brilliant and audacious asher grandmother, Julia, the unhappy daughter of Augustus; fullof masculine energy and aptitude for business as her grandfatherAgrippa--who else could show such gifts or command such resources?--But she had not yet drunk to the dregs the cup of ambition whichshe had long ago lifted to her eager lips.

  She was sitting on a low broad-backed seat, enriched with gildingand ivory, in the gorgeous room which was set aside for her specialuse. It was decorated with every resource of art, and the autumnalsunlight which was falling through its warm and perfumed air glintedon statuettes of gold and silver, on marble bas-reliefs of exquisitefancy, and on walls which glowed with painted peacocks, winged genii,and graceful arabesques.

  Her face was the index of a soul which only used the meaner passionsas aids to the gratification of the grander ambition
s. No one whosaw her, as she leant back in her easy half-recumbent attitude, couldhave doubted that he was in the presence of a lady born to rule, andin whose veins flowed the noblest blood of the most ancient familiesof Rome. She was thirty-seven years old, but was still in the zenithof her imperious charms, and her figure had lost none of the smoothand rounded contour of youth. Her features were small and delicate,the forehead well shaped, the eyes singularly bright, and of a lightblue, under finely marked eyebrows. Her nose was slightly aquiline,the mouth small and red and beautiful, while the slight protrusionof the upper lip gave to it an expression of decided energy. Her hairwas wavy, and fell in multitudes of small curls over her forehead andcheeks, but was confined at the back of the head in a golden net fromwhich a lappet embroidered with pearls and sapphires fell upon herneck, half concealed by one soft and glowing tress.

  She sat there deep in thought, and her mind was not occupied withthe exquisite image of herself reflected from the silver mirror whichhung bright and large upon the wall before her. Her expression wasthat which she wears in her bust in the Capitol--the expression ofone who is anxious, and waits. One sandalled foot rested on the ankleof the other, and her fair hands were lightly folded on her robe.That robe was the long _stola_ worn by noble matrons. It swept downto her feet and its sleeves reached to the elbows, where they werefastened by brooches of priceless onyx, leaving bare the rest of hershapely arms. Two large pearls were in her ears, but she had laidaside her other ornaments. On a little marble abacus beside her layher many-jewelled rings, her superb armlets set with rubies, and the_murenula_--a necklace of linked and flexile gold glittering withgems--which had encircled her neck at the banquet from which she justhad risen. Her attitude was one of rest; but there was no rest in thebosom which rose and fell unequally with her varying moods--no restin the countenance with its look of proud and sleepless determination.She was alone, but a frequent and impatient glance showed that sheexpected some one to enter. She had dismissed her slaves, and wasdevoting her whole soul to the absorbing design for which at thatmoment she lived, and in the accomplishment of which she persuadedherself that she was ready to die. That design was the elevation ofher Nero, at the first possible moment, to the throne whose dizzysteps were so slippery with blood.

  In the achievement of her purpose no question of right and wrong fora moment troubled her. Guilt hid no horror for that fair woman. Shehad long determined that neither the stings of conscience nor thefear of peril should stop her haughty course. To her, as to most ofthe women of high rank in the Rome of the Empire, crime was nothingfrom which to shrink, and virtue was but an empty name. Philosophersshe knew talked of virtue. It was interesting to hear Seneca descantupon it, as she had sometimes heard him do to her boy, while shesat in an adjoining room only separated from them by an embroideredcurtain. But she had long ago convinced herself that this was finetalk, and nothing more. Priests pretended to worship the gods; butwhat were the gods? Had not the Senate made her ancestor Augustusa god, and Tiberius, and her mad brother Caligula, and his littlemurdered baby, the child of Cæsonia, which had delighted its fatherby its propensity to scratch? If such beings were gods, to whomincense was burned and altars smoked, assuredly she need not greatlytrouble herself about the inhabitants of Olympus.

  Nemesis? Was there such a thing as Nemesis? Did a Presence stalkbehind the guilty, with leaden pace, with feet shod in wool, whichsooner or later overtook them--which cast its dark shadow at lastbeyond their footsteps--which gradually came up to them, laid itshand upon their shoulders, clutched them, looked them in the face,drove into their heads the adamantine nail whose blow was death?For a few moments her countenance was troubled; but it was not longbefore she had driven away the gloomy thought with a disdainful smile.It was true that there had been calamity enough in the bloodstainedannals of her kinsfolk: calamity all the more deadly in proportion totheir awful growth in power and wealth. Her thoughts reverted to thestory of her nearest relatives. She thought of the days of Tiberius,when men scarcely dared to speak above a whisper, and when murderlurked at the entrance of every noble home. Her uncles Gaius andLucius Cæsar had died in the prime of their age. Had they beenpoisoned by Sejanus? Her other uncle, the young Agrippa Posthumus--born after the death of his father, Agrippa--had been killed in amad struggle with the centurion whom Livia had sent to murder him inhis lonely exile. Her mother had been cruelly murdered; her aunt, theyounger Julia, had died in disgrace and exile on a wretched islet.Her two brothers, Nero and Drusus, had come to miserable ends inthe flower of their days. Her third brother, the Emperor Caligula,had been assassinated by conspirators. The two Julias, her sisterand her cousin, had fallen victims to the jealous fury of the EmpressMessalina. The name of her sister Drusilla had been already stainedwith a thousand shames. She was the sole survivor of a family ofsix princes and princesses, all of whom, in spite of all the favoursof fortune, had come, in the bloom of life, to violent and shamefulends. She had herself been banished by her brother to the islandof Pontia, and had been made to carry on her journey, in her bosom,the inurned ashes of her brother-in-law, Lepidus, with whom, as withothers, her name had been dishonourably involved. She had alreadybeen twice a widow, and the world said that she had poisoned hersecond husband, Crispus Passienus. What did she care what the worldsaid? But even if she had poisoned that old and wealthy orator--whatthen? His wealth had been and would be very useful to her. Sincethat day her fortunes had been golden. She had been recalled fromher dreary banishment. Her soul had been as glowing iron in the flameof adversity; but the day of her adversity had passed. When the timewas ripe she had made her magnificent way in the Court of her uncleClaudius until she became his wife, and had swept all her rivals outof her path by her brilliant beauty and triumphant intrigues.

  She thought of some of those rivals, and as she thought of them anevil smile lighted up her beautiful features.

  Messalina, her predecessor--did not everything seem to be in herfavour? Claudius had doted on her; she fooled him to the top of hisbent. She had borne him two fair children, and the emperor lovedthem. Who could help loving the reserved but noble Britannicus, thegentle and innocent Octavia? No doubt Messalina had felt certain thather boy should succeed his father. But how badly she had managed! Howsilly had been her preference for pleasure over ambition! How easilyAgrippina had contrived that, without her taking any overt sharein the catastrophe, Messalina should destroy herself by her ownshamelessness, and perish, while still little more than girl, bythe sword of the executioner, in a pre-eminence of shame!

  And Lollia Paulina? What might she not have done with her enormousriches? Agrippina could recall her--not at one of the great Courtgatherings, but at an ordinary marriage supper, in which she hadappeared in a dress embroidered from head to foot with alternaterows of pearls and emeralds, with emeralds in her hair, emeralds ofdeepest lustre on her fingers, a carcanet of emeralds--the finestRome had ever seen--around her neck. Yet this was not her best dress,and her jewels were said to be worth eighty millions of sesterces.[2]She remembered with what a stately step, with what a haughtycountenance the great heiress, who had for a short time been Empressas wife of Caligula, passed among the ranks of dazzled courtiers,with the revenues of a province upon her robes. Well, she had daredto be a competitor with Agrippina for the hand of Claudius. Itrequired no small skill to avert the deeply seated Roman prejudiceagainst the union of an uncle with his niece; yet Agrippina had won--thanks to the freedman Pallas, and to other things. She procured thebanishment of Lollia, and soon afterwards a tribune was sent and shewas bidden to kill herself. The countenance of the thinker darkenedfor a moment as she remembered the evening when the tribune hadreturned, and had taken out of its casket the terrible proof thather vengeance was accomplished. How unlike was that ghastly relicto the head whose dark locks had been wreathed with emeralds!

  And Domitia Lepida, her sister-in-law, the mother of the EmpressMessalina, the aunt of her son Nero, the former wife of her ownhusband, Crispus Passienus? She was wealthy as herself, b
eautiful asherself, noble as herself, unscrupulous as herself. She might havebeen a powerful ally, but how dared she to compete for the affectionsof Nero? How dared she to be indulgent when Agrippina was severe? Theboy had been brought up in her house when his father was dead and hismother an exile. His chances had seemed very small then, and Lepidahad so shamefully neglected him that his only tutors were a barberand a dancer. But now that he held the glorious position of Prince ofthe Roman Youth; now that he wore the manly toga, while Britannicusonly stood in humble boy’s dress--the embroidered robe, and thegolden bulla round his neck to avert the evil eye; now that it seemedprobable to all that Nero, the adopted son of Claudius, would be thefuture Emperor instead of Britannicus, his real son, it was all verywell for Domitia to fondle and pamper him. It was a hard matter toget rid of Lepida, for Narcissus, the faithful guardian of Claudius,had opposed the attempt to get her put to death. Nevertheless,Agrippina seldom failed in her purposes; and as for Lepida andNarcissus--their turn might come!

  She could only recall one insult which she had not avenged. Thesenator Galba was rich, and was said by the astrologers to have animperial nativity. She had therefore made love to him so openly thathis mother, Livia Ocellina, had once slapped her in the face. Ifshe had not made Galba and his virago-mother feel the weight of hervengeance, it was only because they were too insignificant to be anylonger worthy of her attention. She was too proud to take revengeon minor opposition. The eagle, she thought, does not trouble itselfabout the mole.

  Enough! Her thoughts were getting too agitated! She must go step bystep; but who would dare to say that she would not succeed? The witand purpose of a woman against the world! ‘Yes, Nero, my Nero, thoushalt be Emperor yet! Thou shalt rule the world, and I have alwaysruled thee, and will rule thee still. Thy weak nature is undermy dominance; and I, whose heart is hard as the diamond, shall beEmpress of the world. Nemesis--if there be a Nemesis--must bide hertime.’

  She murmured the words in a low tone to herself; but at this pointher reverie was broken.