Chapter 7

So it happened that many soon forgot the unfortunate Britannicus, and some even tried to justify Nero by invoking State necessity. Agrippina alone remained the object of the universal hatred, as the sole cause of so many misfortunes. Implacable enemies, concealed in the shadow, were subtly at work against her; they organised a campaign of absurd calumnies in the Court itself, and it is this campaign from which Tacitus drew his material.

Some wretches finally dared even accuse her of conspiracy against the life of her son. Agrippina, refusing to plead for herself, still weathered the storm, because Nero was afraid of her, and though he tried to escape from her authority, did not dare to initiate any energetic move against her. To engage in a final struggle with so indomitable a woman, another woman was necessary. This woman was Poppæa Sabina, a very handsome and able dame of the great Roman nobility. Poppæa represented Oriental feminism in its most dangerous form: a woman completely demoralised by luxury, elegance, society life, and voluptuousness, who eluded all her duties toward the species in order to enjoy and make others enjoy her beauty.

Corrupted as that age was, Poppæa was more corrupt. As soon as she observed the strong impression she had made on Nero, she conceived the plan of becoming his wife; her beauty would then be admired by the whole Empire, would be surrounded by a luxury for which the means of her husband were not sufficient, and with which no other Roman dame could compete. There was one obstacle--Agrippina.

Agrippina protected Octavia, a true Roman woman, simple and honest: Agrippina would never consent to this absolutely unjustifiable divorce. To force Nero to a decisive move against his mother, Poppæa had her husband sent on some mission to Lusitania and became the mistress of the Emperor. From that point the situation changed. Dominated by Poppæa's influence, Nero found the courage to force Agrippina to abandon his palace and seek refuge in Antony's house; he took from her the privilege of Prætorian guards, which he himself had granted her; he reduced to a minimum the number and time of his visits, and carefully avoided being left alone with her. Agrippina's influence, to the general satisfaction, rapidly declined, while Nero gained every day in popularity. Agrippina, however, was too energetic a woman peaceably to resign herself: she began a violent campaign against the two adulterers, which deeply troubled the public. In Rome, where Augustus had promulgated his stern law against adultery; in Rome, where Augustus himself had been obliged to submit to his own law, when he exiled his daughter and his grand-daughter and almost exterminated the whole family; in Rome, a young man of twenty-two dared all but officially introduce adultery and polygamy into the Palatine! In her struggle against Nero, Agrippina once more stood on tradition: and Nero was afraid.

Poppæa was probably the one who suggested to Nero the idea of killing Agrippina. The idea had been, as it were, floating in the air for a long time, because Agrippina was embarrassing to many persons and interests. It was chiefly the party that wanted to sack the imperial budget, to introduce the finance of great expenditure, which could not tolerate this clever and energetic woman, who was so faithful to the great traditions of Augustus and Tiberius, who could neither be frightened nor corrupted. One should not consider the assassination of Agrippina as a simple personal crime of Nero, as the result of his and Poppæa's quarrels with his mother. This crime, besides personal causes, had a political origin. Nero would never have dared commit such a misdeed, in the eyes of the Roman almost a sacrilege, if he had not been encouraged by Agrippina's unpopularity, by the violent hatred of so many against his mother.

Nero hesitated long; he decided only when his freedman, Anicetus, the commander of the fleet, proposed a plan that seemed to guarantee secrecy for the crime: to have a ship built with a concealed trap. It was the spring of the year 59 A.D.; the Court had moved to Baiæ, on the Gulf of Naples. If Nero succeeded in getting his mother on board the vessel, Anicetus would take upon himself the task of burying quickly below the waves the secret of her death; the people who hated Agrippina would easily be satisfied with the explanations to be given them.

Nero executed his part of the plan in perfect cold-blood. He made believe he had repented and was anxious for a reconciliation with his mother; he invited her to Baiæ and so profusely lavished kindnesses and amiabilities upon her, that Agrippina finally believed in his sincerity.

After spending a few days at Baiæ, Agrippina decided to return to Antium; in a very happy frame of mind and full of hopes that her son would soon show himself to the world the man she had dreamed, the descendant of Drusus, she boarded one evening the fatal ship; Nero had escorted her thither and pressed her to his heart with the most demonstrative tenderness.

A calm night diffused its starry shadows over the quiet sea, which with subdued murmur lulled in their sleep the great summer homes along the shore. The ship departed, carrying toward her sombre destiny Agrippina, absorbed in her smiling dreams. When the moment came and the wrecking machine was set to work, the vessel did not sink as fast as they had hoped: it listed, overturning people and things. Agrippina had time to understand the danger; with admirable presence of mind she jumped overboard and escaped by swimming, while, during the confusion on the boat, the hired murderers killed one of Agrippina's freedwomen, mistaking her for Agrippina herself. The ship finally sank; the murderers also took to the water; everything returned to its wonted calm; the starry night still diffused its silent shadows; the sea still cradled with subdued murmur the homes along the coast--all men slept except one.

Within this one, Anxiety watched: a son was awaiting the news that his mother was dead, and that he was free to celebrate a criminal marriage. The escaped murderers soon brought the news so impatiently expected--but Nero's joy was short. At dawn, a freedman of Agrippina arrived at the Emperor's villa. Agrippina, picked up by a boat, had succeeded in reaching one of her villas near by; she sent the freedman to tell the Emperor about the accident and to assure him of her safety. Agrippina alive! It was like a thunderbolt to Nero, and he lost his head: he saw his mother hurrying on to Rome, denouncing the abominable attempt to Senate and people, rousing against him the Prætorian guard and the legions. Thoroughly frightened, he summoned Seneca and Burrhus and laid before them the terrible situation. It is easy to imagine the shock of the old preceptors. How could he risk such a grave imprudence? And yet there was no time to lose in reproaches. Nero begged for advice: Seneca and Burrhus were silent, but they, also frightened, asked of themselves what Agrippina would do. Would she not provoke a colossal scandal, which would ruin everything? An expedient, the same one, occurred to both of them: but so sinister was the idea that they dared not speak it. This time, however, both the philosopher and the general were deceived as well as Nero: Agrippina had guessed the truth and given up the struggle. What could she, a lone woman do against an Emperor who did not stop even at the plan of murdering his mother? She realised, during that awful night, that only one chance of safety was left to her--to ignore what had taken place; and she sent her freedman with the message that meant forgiveness. But fear kept Nero and his counsellors from understanding; and when they could easily have remedied the preceding mistake, they compromised all by a supreme error. Finally Seneca, the pacificator and humanitarian philosopher, thought he had found the way of making half-openly the only suggestion which seemed wise to him: he turned to Burrhus and asked what might happen, if an order were given the Prætorians to kill Nero's mother. Burrhus understood that his colleague, although the first to give the fatal advice, was trying to shift upon him the much more serious responsibility of carrying it out; since, if they reached the decision of having Agrippina disposed of by the Prætorians, no one but he, the commander of the guard, could utter the order. He therefore protested with the greatest energy that the Prætorians would never lay murderous hands on the daughter of Germanicus. Then he added cogitatively that, if it were thought necessary, Anicetus and his sailors could finish the work already begun. Thus Burrhus gave the same advice as Seneca, but he, like his colleague, meant to pass on to some one else the task of execution. He chose better than Seneca: Anicetus, if Agrippina lived, ran a serious risk of becoming the scapegoat of all this affair. In fact, as soon as Nero gave his assent, Anicetus and a few sailors hastened to the villa of Agrippina and stabbed her.

The crime was abominable. Nero and his circle were so awed by it that they attempted to make the people believe that Agrippina had committed suicide, when her conspiracy against her son's life had been discovered. This was the official version of Agrippina's death, sent by Nero to the Senate. But this audacious mystification had no success. The public divined the truth, and roused by the voice of their age-long instincts, they cried out that the Emperor no less than any peasant of Italy must revere his father and his mother. Through a sudden turn of public feeling, Agrippina, who had been so much hated during her life, became the object of a kind of popular veneration; Nero, on the other hand, and Poppæa inspired a sentiment of profound horror.

If Nero had found the living Agrippina unbearable, he soon realised that his dead mother was much more to be feared. In fact, scared as he was by the popular agitation, not only had he temporarily to give up the plan of divorcing Octavia and marrying Poppæa, but felt obliged to stay several months at Baiæ, not daring to return to Rome. He was, however, no longer a child: he was twenty-three years old and had some talent. Men of intelligence and energy were also not wanting in his _entourage_. The first shock once over, the Emperor and his coterie rallied. The first impression had indeed been disastrous, but had brought about no irreparable consequences--the only consequences that count in politics. One could therefore hope that the public would gradually forget this murder as they had forgotten that of Britannicus. One only needed to help them forget. Nero resolved to give Italy and Rome the administrative revolution that had found in Agrippina so determined an opponent, the easy, splendid, generous government that seemed to suit the popular taste.

He began by organising among the _jeunesse dorée_ of Rome the "festivals of youth." In these true demonstrations against the old aristocratic education, now in the house of one and then in the garden of another, the young patricians met under the Emperor's directions. They sang, recited, and danced, displaying all the tendencies that tradition held unworthy of a Roman nobleman. Later, Nero built in the Vatican fields a private stadium, where he amused himself with driving, and invited his friends to join him. He surrounded himself with poets, musicians, singers; enormously increased the budget of popular festivals; planned and started immense constructions; introduced into all parts of the administration a new spirit of carelessness and ease. Not only the sumptuary laws, but all laws commanding the fulfilment of human duties toward the species, such as the great laws of Augustus on marriage and adultery, were no longer applied; the surveillance of the Senate over the governors, that of the governors over the cities, slackened. In Rome, in all Italy, in the provinces, the treasuries of the Republic, the possessions and the funds of the cities, were robbed. In the midst of this unbridled plundering, which appeared to make every man rich quickly, and without work, a delirium of luxury and pleasure reigned: in Rome especially, people lived in a continuous orgy; the nobility answered in crowds the invitations of Nero; the Senate, the great houses, where the conquerors of the world had been born, swarmed with young athletes and drivers, who had no other ambition but that of adding the prize of a race to the war trophies of their ancestors; the imperial palace was invaded by a noisy horde of zitherists, actors, jockeys, athletes, among whom Burrhus and, still more, Seneca, were beginning to feel most ill at ease.

Agrippina's death, even though it had yet deferred Nero's marrying Poppæa, had made possible the change in the government that a part of the people wished. We owe to this new principle the immense ruins of ancient Rome; but this fact does not authorise us to consider it a Roman principle: it was, instead, a principle of Oriental civilisation which had forced itself upon the Roman traditions after a long and painful effort. The revolution, however, had been long preparing and corresponded to the popular aspirations. It would, therefore, have redounded to the advantage of the Emperor, who had dared to break loose from a superannuated tradition, had not Agrippina's spectre still haunted Rome. To their honour be it said, the people of Rome and Italy had not yet become so corrupted by Oriental civilisation as to forget parricide in a few festivals.

The party of tradition, though weakened, existed. They began a brave fight against Nero, using the assassination of Agrippina as the adverse party had exploited the antifeminist prejudices of the masses against Agrippina herself. They denounced the parricide to the people, in order to attack the champion of Orientalism and irritate against him the indifferent mass, which, not understanding the great struggle between the Orient and Rome, remained unstirred. Hoping the excitement of spirit had somewhat subsided, Nero had finally carried out his old plan of divorcing Octavia and marrying Poppæa; but the divorce caused great popular demonstrations in Rome in favour of the abused wife and against the intruder.

Moreover, thanks to his extravagance, Nero made things very easy for his enemies, the defenders of tradition. His habits of dissipation exaggerated all the faults of his character, chiefly his morbid need of showing himself off, of defying the public, their prejudices, their opinions. It is difficult to discern how much is true and how much is false in the hideous stories of debauchery handed down to us by the ancient writers, particularly Suetonius.

Although one might believe--and I believe it for my part--that there is a great deal of exaggeration in such tales, it is certain that Nero's personality played too conspicuous a part in his administrative revolution. Ready as the people were to admire a more generous and luxurious government than that of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius, they still liked to look to the chief of State as to a man of gravity and austerity, who let others amuse themselves, though he himself be bored. The vain and bizarre young man, who was always the guest of honour at his own _fêtes_, who never hesitated to satisfy his most extravagant caprices, who spent so much money to divert himself, shocked the last republican susceptibilities of Italy. The wise felt alarmed: with such expenses, would it not all end in bankruptcy? For all these causes, they soon began to reproach Nero for his prodigality, although the people enjoyed it, just as they had been malcontent with Tiberius for his parsimony. His caprices, ever stranger, little by little roused even that part of the public which was not fanatically attached to tradition. At that time Nero developed his foolish vanity of actor, his caprice for the theatre, which soon was to become an all-absorbing mania. The chief of the Empire, the heir of Julius Cæsar, dreamed of nothing else than descending from the height of human grandeur to the scene of a theatre, to experience before the public the sensations of those players whom the Roman nobility had always regarded as instruments of infamous pleasure!

Disgusted with Nero's mismanagement and follies, Seneca took the death of Burrhus as an opportunity to retire. Then Nero, freed from the last person who still retained any influence over him, gave himself up entirely to the insane swirl of his caprices. He ended one day by presenting himself in the theatre of Naples. Naples was yet then a Greek city. Nero had chosen it for this reason; he was applauded with frenzy. But the Italians of the other cities protested: the chief of the Empire appearing in a theatre, his hand on the zither and not on the sword! Imagine what would be the impression if some day a sovereign went on the stage of the _folies Bergères_ as a "number" for a sleight-of-hand performance!

Public attention, however, was turned from this immense scandal by a frightful calamity--the famous conflagration of Rome, which began the nineteenth of July of the year 64 and devastated almost all quarters of the city for ten days. What was the cause of the great disaster? This very obscure point has much interested historians, who have tried in vain to throw light on the subject. As far as I am concerned, I by no means exclude the hypothesis that the fire might have been accidental. But when they are crushed under the weight of a great misfortune, men always feel sure that they are the victims of human wickedness: a sad proof of their distrust in their fellow men. The plebs, reduced to utter misery by the disaster, began to murmur that mysterious people had been seen hurrying through the different quarters, kindling the fire and cumbering the work of help; these incendiaries must have been sent by some one in power--by whom?

A strange rumour circulated: Nero himself had ordered the city to be burned, in order to enjoy a unique sight, to get an idea of the fire of Troy, to have the glory of rebuilding Rome on a more magnificent scale. The accusation seems to me absurd. Nero was a criminal, but he was not a fool to the point of provoking the wrath of the whole people for so light a motive, especially after Agrippina's death. Tacitus himself, in spite of his hatred of all Cæsar's family and his readiness to make them responsible for the most serious crimes, does not venture to express belief in this story--sufficient proof that he considers it absurd and unlikely. Nevertheless, the hatred that surrounded Nero and Poppæa made every one, not only among the ignorant populace, but also among the higher classes, accept it readily. It was soon the general opinion that Nero had accomplished what Brennus and Catiline's conspirators could not do. Was a more horrible monster ever seen? Parricide, actor, incendiary!

The traditionalist party, the opposition, the unsatisfied, exploited without scruple this popular attitude, and Nero, responsible for a sufficient number of actual crimes, found himself accused also of an imaginary one. He was so frightened that he decided to give the clamouring people a victim, some one on whom Rome could avenge its sorrow. An inquiry into the causes of the conflagration was ordered. The inquest came to a strange conclusion. The fire had been started by a small religious sect, recently imported from the Orient, a sect whose name most people then learned for the first time: the Christians.

How did the Roman authorities come to such a conclusion? That is one of the greatest mysteries of universal history, and no one will ever be able to clear it. If the explanation of the disaster as accepted by the people was absurd, the official explanation was still more so. The Christian community of Rome, the pretended volcano of civil hatred, which had poured forth the destructive fire over the great metropolis, was a small and peaceful congregation of pious idealists.

A great and simple man, Paul of Tarsus, had taken up again among them the great work in which Augustus and Tiberius had failed: he aimed at the remaking of popular conscience, but used means until then unknown in the Græco-Latin civilisation. Not in the name of the ancestors, of the traditions, of ideals of political power, did he seek to persuade men to work, to refrain from vice, to live honestly and simply; but in the name of a single God, whom man had in the beginning offended through his pride, in the name of the Son of God, who had taken human form and volunteered to die as a criminal on the cross, to appease the Father's wrath against the rebellious creature. On the Græco-Roman idea of duty, Paul grafted the Christian idea of sin. Doubtless the new theology must have seemed at first obscure to Greeks and Romans; but Paul put into it that new spirit, mutual love, which the dry Latin soul had hardly ever known, and he vivified it with the example of an obscure life of sacrifice.

Paul was born of a noble Hebrew family of Tarsus, and was a man of high culture. He had, to use a modern expression, simplified himself, renounced his position in a time when few could resist the passion for luxury, and taken up a trade for his living; with the scanty profit from his work as a tent-maker, alone and on foot he made measureless journeys through the Empire, everywhere preaching the redemption of man. Finally, after numberless adventures and perils, he had come to Rome and had, in the great city frenzied by the delirium of luxury and pleasure, repeated to the poor, who alone were willing to hear him: "Be chaste and pure, do not deceive each other, love one another, help one another, love God."

If Nero had known the little society of pious idealists, he surely would have hated it, but for other motives than the imaginary accusations of his police. In this story St. Paul is exactly the antithesis of Nero. The latter represents the atrocious selfishness of rich, peaceful, highly civilised epochs; the former, the ardent moral idealism which tries to react against the cardinal vices of power and wealth through universal self-sacrifice and asceticism. Neither of these men is to be comprehended without the other, because the moral doctrine of Paul is partly a reaction against, the violent folly for which Nero stood the symbol; but it certainly was not philosophical considerations of this kind that led the Roman authorities to rage against the Christians. The problem, I repeat, is insoluble. However this may be, the Christians were declared responsible for the fire; a great number were taken into custody, sentenced to death, executed in different ways, during the festivals that Nero offered to the people to appease them. Possibly Paul himself was one of the victims of this persecution.

This diversion, however, was of no use. The conflagration definitely ruined Nero. With the conflagration begins the third period of his life, which lasts four years. It is characterised by absurd exaggerations of all kinds, which hastened the inevitable catastrophe. One grandiose idea dominates it: the idea of building on the ruins a new Rome, immense and magnificent, a true metropolis for the Empire. In order to carry out this plan, Nero did not economise; he began to spend in it the moneys laid aside to pay the legions. The people of Italy, however, and even of Rome, which grew rich on these public expenditures, did not show themselves thankful for this immense architectural effort. Every one was sure that the new city would be worse than the old one!

Nero himself, exasperated by this invincible hate, exhausted by his own excesses, lost what reason he had still left, and his government degenerated into a complete tyranny, suspicious, violent, and cruel.