Chapter 13

When, after the fall of Brutus and Cassius, there remained none to fight for the commonwealth; when Sextus Pompeius was utterly defeated at Sicily; and Lepidus being deprived of his command, and Mark Antony slain, there remained no leader even to the Julian party but Octavius; having put off the name of triumvir, styling himself Consul, and pretending that all he aimed at was the jurisdiction attached to the tribuneship for the protection of the commons; when he had cajoled the soldiery by donations, the people by distribution of corn, and men in general by the charms of peace, he (Octavius) began by gradations to exalt himself over them; to draw to himself the functions of the senate and of the magistrate, and the framing of the laws; in which he was thwarted by no man: the boldest spirits having fallen in some or other of the regular battles, or by proscription; and the surviving nobility being distinguished by wealth and public honors, according to the measure of their promptness to bondage; and as these innovations had been the cause of aggrandizement to them, preferring the present state of things with safety to the revival of ancient liberty with personal peril. Neither were the provinces averse to that condition of affairs; since they mistrusted the government of the senate and people, on account of the contentions among the great and the avarice of the magistrates: while the protection of the laws was enfeebled and borne down by violence, intrigue, and bribery.

Moreover, Augustus, as supports to his domination, raised his sister's son, Claudius Marcellus,[103] a mere youth, to the dignity of pontiff and curule aedile; aggrandized by two successive consulships Marcus Agrippa,[104] a man meanly born, but an accomplished soldier, and the companion of his victories; and soon, on the death of Marcellus, chose him for his son-in-law. The sons of his wife, Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus, he dignified with the title of Imperator, tho there had been no diminution in the members of his house. For into the family of the Caesars he had already adopted Lucius and Caius, the sons of Agrippa; and tho they had not yet laid aside the puerile garment, vehement had been his ambition to see them declared princes of the Roman youth, and even designed to the consulship; while he affected to decline the honors for them. Upon the decease of Agrippa, they were cut off, either by a death premature but natural, or by the arts of their stepmother Livia; Lucius on his journey to the armies in Spain, Caius on his return from Armenia, ill of a wound: and as Drusus had been long since dead, Tiberius Nero was the only survivor of his stepsons. On him every honor was accumulated (to that quarter all things inclined); he was by Augustus adopted for his son, assumed colleague in the empire, partner in the tribunitian authority, and presented to the several armies; not from the secret machinations of his mother, as heretofore, but at her open suit For over Augustus, now very aged, she had obtained such absolute sway, that he banished into the isle of Planasia his only surviving grandson, Agrippa Posthumus; a person destitute indeed of liberal accomplishments, and a man of clownish brutality with great bodily strength, but convicted of no heinous offense. The emperor, strange to say, set Germanicus, the son of Drusus, over eight legions quartered upon the Rhine, and ordered that he should be engrafted into his family by Tiberius by adoption, tho Tiberius had then a son of his own on the verge of manhood; but the object was that he might stand firm by having many to support and protect him. War at that time there remained none, except that in Germany, kept on foot rather to blot out the disgrace sustained by the loss of Quintilius Varus, with his army, than from any ambition to enlarge the empire, or for any advantage worth contending for. In profound tranquillity were affairs at Rome. The magistrates retained their wonted names; of the Romans, the younger sort had been born since the battle of Actium, and even most of the old during the civil wars: how few were then living who had seen the ancient free state!

The character of the government thus totally changed; no traces were to be found of the spirit of ancient institutions. The system by which every citizen shared in the government being thrown aside, all men regarded the orders of the prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience; nor felt they any anxiety for the present, while Augustus, yet in the vigor of life, maintained the credit of himself and house, and the peace of the state. But when old age had crept over him, and he was sinking under bodily infirmities--when his end was at hand, and thence a new source of hopes and views was presented--some few there were who began to talk idly about the blessings of liberty: many dreaded a civil war--others longed for one; while far the greatest part were occupied in circulating various surmises reflecting upon those who seemed likely to be their masters: "That Agrippa was naturally stern and savage, and exasperated by contumely; and neither in age nor experience equal to a task of such magnitude. Tiberius, indeed, had arrived at fulness of years, and was a distinguished captain, but possest the inveterate and inherent pride of the Claudian family; and many indications of cruel nature escaped him, in spite of all his arts to disguise it; that even from his early infancy he had been trained up in an imperial house; that consulships and triumphs had been accumulated upon him while but a youth. Not even during the years of his abode at Rhodes, where under the plausible name of retirement, he was in fact an exile, did he employ himself otherwise than in meditating future vengeance, studying the arts of simulation, and practising secret and abominable sensualities. That to these considerations was added that of his mother, a woman with the ungovernable spirit peculiar to her sex; that the Romans must be under bondage to a woman, and moreover to two youths, who would meanwhile oppress the state, and, at one time or other, rend it piecemeal."

While the public mind was agitated by these and similar discussions, the illness of Augustus grew daily more serious, and some suspected nefarious practises on the part of his wife. For some months before, a rumor had gone abroad that Augustus, having singled out a few to whom he communicated his purpose, had taken Fabius Maximus for his only companion, had sailed over to the island of Planasia, to visit Agrippa; that many tears were shed on both sides, many tokens of mutual tenderness shown, and hopes from thence conceived that the youth would be restored to the household gods of his grandfather. That Maximus had disclosed this to Martia, his wife--she to Livia; and that the emperor was informed of it: and that Maximus, not long after, dying (it is doubtful whether naturally or by means sought for the purpose), Martia was observed, in her lamentations at his funeral, to upbraid herself as the cause of her husband's destruction. Howsoever that matter might have been, Tiberius was scarce entered Illyrium when he was summoned by a letter from his mother, forwarded with speed, nor is it fully known whether, at his return to Nola,[105] he found Augustus yet breathing, or already lifeless. For Livia had carefully beset the palace, and all the avenues to it, with vigilant guards; and favorable bulletins were from time to time given out, until, the provisions which the conjuncture required being completed, in one and the same moment were published the departure of Augustus, and the accession of Tiberius.

II

THE FUNERAL OF GERMANICUS[106]

(19 A.D.)

Agrippina,[107] continuing her course without the least intermission through all the perils and rigors of a sea-voyage in the winter, arrived at the island Corcyra, situated over against the shores of Calabria. Unable to moderate her grief, and impatient from inexperience of affliction, she spent a few days there to tranquillize her troubled spirit; when, on hearing of her arrival, all the intimate friends of her family, and most of the officers who had served under Germanicus, with a number of strangers from the neighboring municipal towns, some thinking it due as a mark of respect to the prince, but the greater part carried along with the current, rushed to the city of Brundusium, the readiest port in her way, and the safest landing. As soon as the fleet appeared in the deep, instantly were filled, not the port alone and adjacent parts of the sea, but the walls and roofs, and wherever the most distant prospect could be obtained, with a sorrowing multitude, earnestly asking each other "whether they should receive her on landing in silence, or with some expression of feeling?" Nor was it clearly determined what course would be most suitable to the occasion, when the fleet came slowly in, not as usual in sprightly trim, but all wearing the impress of sadness. When she descended from the ship, accompanied by her two infants,[108] and bearing in her hand the funeral urn, her eyes fixt stedfastly upon the earth, one simultaneous groan burst from the whole assemblage; nor could you distinguish relations from strangers, nor the wailings of men from those of women; nor could any difference be discerned, except that those who came to meet her, in the vehemence of recent grief, surpassed the attendants of Agrippina, who were exhausted with continued mourning.

Tiberius had dispatched two praetorian cohorts, with directions that the magistrates of Calabria, with Apulians and Campanians, should pay their last offices of respect to the memory of his son; upon the shoulders, therefore, of the tribunes and centurions his ashes were borne; before them were carried the ensigns unadorned, and the fasces reversed. As they passed through the colonies, the populace in black, the knights in their purple robes, burned precious raiment, perfumes, and whatever else is used in funeral solemnities, according to the ability of the place; even they whose cities lay remote from the route, came forth, offered victims, and erected altars to the gods of the departed, and with tears and ejaculations testified their sorrow. Drusus came as far as Terracina, with Claudius the brother of Germanicus, and those of his children who had been left at Rome.[109] The Consuls, Marcus Valerius and Marcus Aurelius[110] (for they had now entered upon their office), the senate, and great part of the people, filled the road--a scattered procession, each walking and expressing his grief as inclination led him; in sooth, flattery was an utter stranger here, for all knew how real was the joy, how hollow the grief, of Tiberius for the death of Germanicus.

Tiberius and Livia[111] avoided appearing abroad--public lamentation they thought below their dignity--or perhaps they apprehended that if their countenances were examined by all eyes their hypocrisy would be detected. That Antonia, mother to the deceased, bore any part in the funeral, I do not find either in the historians or in the journals, tho, besides Agrippina and Drusus, and Claudius, his other relations are likewise there recorded by name; whether by sickness she was prevented, or whether her soul, vanquished by sorrow, could not bear to go through the representation of such an over-powering calamity. I would rather believe her constrained by Tiberius and Livia, who left not the palace, that they might seem to grieve alike and that the grandmother and uncle might appear to have followed her example in staying at home.

The day on which his remains were deposited in the tomb of Augustus, at one time exhibited the silence of perfect desolation; at another, the uproar of vociferous lamentation; the streets of the city were crowded, one general blaze of torches glared throughout the Campus Martius; there the soldiers under arms, the magistrates without the insignia of office, and the people ranged according to their tribes, passionately exclaimed, "that the commonwealth was utterly lost, that henceforth there remained no hope," so openly and so boldly that you would have believed they had forgotten those who ruled over them. But nothing pierced Tiberius more deeply than the warm interest excited in favor of Agrippina, while they gave her such titles as "the ornament of her country, the only blood of Augustus, an unparalleled example of primitive virtue"; and, looking up to heaven and the gods, they implored "the preservation of her issue, and that they might outlive their oppressors."

There were those who missed the pomp of a public funeral, and compared with this the superior honors and magnificence displayed by Augustus in that of Drusus, the father of Germanicus; observing, "that he himself had traveled, in the depth of winter, as far as Ticinus, and, continuing by the corpse, had with it entered the city; around his bier were crowded the images of the Claudii and Julii; he was mourned in the forum; his encomium pronounced on the rostra; all the honors invented by our ancestors, or added by their posterity, were heaped upon him. But to Germanicus were denied the ordinary solemnities, and such as were due to every distinguished Roman. Certainly his corpse was burned in a foreign country because of the long journey, in such a manner as it was, but afterward it was but just to have compensated the scantiness of the first ceremony by the increased solemnity of the last; his brother met him but one day's journey, his uncle not, even at the gate. Where were those observances of the ancients, the effigies of the dead laid in state on a bed, hymns composed in memory of departed virtue, with encomiums and tears? Where at least the ceremonial of sorrow?"

All this was known to Tiberius, and to suppress the reflections of the populace, he admonished them in an edict, "that many illustrious Romans had died for the commonwealth, but none so universally and vehemently regretted; and that it was to the honor of himself and all others, if bounds were observed. The same things which became private families and small states, became not princes and an imperial people; that it was not unseemly to lament in the first transport of sorrow, nay, relief was afforded by weeping, but it was now time to recover and compose their minds. Thus the deified Julius, upon the loss of an only daughter;[112] thus the deified Augustus, upon the premature death of his grandsons, had both concealed their sorrow. More ancient examples were unnecessary; how often had the Roman people sustained with equanimity the slaughter of their armies, the death of their generals, and entire destruction of illustrious families--princes were mortal, the commonwealth was eternal--they should therefore resume their customary vocations." And because the spectacle of the Megalesian games was at hand, he added, "that they should even lay aside their grief for amusements."

The vacation ended, public affairs were resumed; Drusus departed for the army in Illyricum, the minds of all men impatiently looking for vengeance upon Piso; and amidst many complaints, that while he was roaming at large through the delightful regions of Asia and Greece, he was undermining by contemptuous and artful delay the evidences of his crimes; for it was generally known that Martina, that notorious trafficker in sorceries, and sent, as I have above related, by Cneius Sentius to Rome, had died suddenly at Brundusium; that poison lay concealed in a knot of her hair.

III

THE DEATH OF SENECA[113]

(65 A.D.)

The next death added by Nero was that of Plautius Lateranus, consul elect; and with such precipitation, that he would not allow him to embrace his children, nor the usual brief interval to choose his mode of death. He was dragged to the place allotted for the execution of slaves, and there, by the hand of Statius the tribune, slaughtered. In his death he maintained the most invincible silence, not charging his executioner with participation in the design for which he suffered. The destruction of Seneca followed, to the infinite joy of the prince; not because he had ascertained that he was a party to the conspiracy, but that he might assail him with the sword, since poison had failed: for Natalis only had named him; and his disclosure amounted but to this, "that he had been sent by Piso[114] to visit Seneca, then indisposed, to complain that he was refused admittance; and to represent, that it would be better if they maintained their friendship by intercourse: that to this Seneca replied, that talking to each other and frequent interviews were to the service of neither; but upon the safety of Piso his own security rested." Granius Silvanus, tribune of a pretorian cohort, was ordered to represent this to Seneca, and to demand of him, "whether he admitted the words of Natalis, and his own answers." Seneca had that very day, either from chance or design, returned from Campania, and rested at a villa of his, four miles from Rome: thither arrived the tribune toward evening, and beset the villa with his men; and then, as he sat at table with Pauline his wife, and two friends, delivered his orders from the emperor.

Seneca replied, "that Natalis had in truth been sent to him, and in the name of Piso complained, that he was debarred from visiting him; and that he had excused himself on the score of illness and his love of retirement; but he had no motive to declare that he preferred the safety of a private man to his own security; nor was his disposition prone to flattery; as no man better knew than Nero, who had experienced more frequent proofs of the freedom than the servility of Seneca."

When this answer was by the tribune reported to Nero, in presence of Poppaea[115] and Tigellinus, who composed the cabinet council, the raging tyrant asked, whether Seneca meditated a voluntary death? the tribune averred "that he had manifested no symptoms of fear; and neither in his words nor looks did he detect any indication of regret." He was therefore commanded to return, and tell him he was doomed to die. Fabius Rusticus writes, "that the tribune did not return by the road he went, but turning off went to Fenius, captain of the guards, and stating to him the emperor's orders, asked whether he should obey him; and was by him admonished to execute them"; thus displaying that want of spirit which by some fatality prevailed universally; for Silvanus too was one of the conspirators, and yet was contributing to multiply the atrocities he had conspired to avenge. He avoided, however, seeing and speaking to Seneca; but sent in a centurion to apprize him of his final doom.

Seneca undismayed, called for tables to make his will; and, as this was prohibited by the centurion, turning to his friends, he told them, "that since he was debarred from requiting their services, he bequeathed them that which alone was now left him, but which yet was the fairest legacy he had to leave them--the example of his life: and if they kept it in view, they would reap the fame due to honorable acquirements and inviolable friendship." At the same time he endeavored to repress their tears and restore their fortitude, now by soothing language, and now in a more animated strain and in a tone of rebuke, asking them, "where were the precepts of philosophy? where the rules of conduct under impending evils, studied for so many years? For who was unapprized of the ferocious disposition of Nero? Nor could anything else be expected after he had murdered his mother and brother than that he should proceed to destroy his nursing father and preceptor."

After these and similar reasonings addrest to the company in general, he embraced his wife; and after a brief but vigorous effort to get the better of the apprehensions that prest upon him at that moment, he besought and implored her "to refrain from surrendering herself to endless grief; but endeavor to mitigate her regret for her husband by means of those honorable consolations which she would experience in the contemplation of his virtuous life." Paulina, on the contrary, urged her purpose to die with him, and called for the hand of the executioner. When Seneca, unwilling to impede her glory, and also from affection, as he was anxious not to leave one who was dear to him above everything, exposed to the hard usage of the world, thus addrest her: "I had pointed out to you how to soften the ills of life; but you prefer the renown of dying: I will not envy you the honor of the example. Tho both display the same unflinching fortitude in encountering death; still the glory of your exit will be superior to mine." After this, both had the veins of their arms opened with the same stroke. As the blood flowed slowly from the aged body of Seneca, attenuated as it was too by scanty sustenance, he had the veins of his legs and hams also cut; and unable to bear up under the excessive torture, lest by his own sufferings he should overpower the resolution of his wife, and by witnessing her anguish be betrayed into impatience himself, he advised her to retire into another chamber. His eloquence continued to flow during the latest moments of his existence, and summoning his secretaries, he dictated many things, which, as they have been published in his own words, I forbear to exhibit in other language.

IV

THE BURNING OF ROME BY ORDER OF NERO[116]

(64 A.D.)

There followed a dreadful disaster; whether fortuitously, or by the wicked contrivance of the prince[117] is not determined, for both are asserted by historians: but of all the calamities which ever befell this city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible and severe. It broke out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to mounts Palatine and Coelius; where, by reason of shops in which were kept such goods as minister aliment to fire, the moment it commenced it acquired strength, and being accelerated by the wind, it spread at once through the whole extent of the Circus: for neither were the houses secured by enclosures, nor the temples environed with walls, nor was there any other obstacle to intercept its progress; but the flame, spreading every way impetuously, invaded first the lower regions of the city, then mounted to the higher; then again ravaging the lower, it baffled every effort to extinguish it, by the rapidity of its destructive course, and from the liability of the city to conflagration, in consequence of the narrow and intricate alleys, and the irregularity of the streets in ancient Rome.[118] Add to this, the wailings of terrified women, the infirm condition of the aged, and the helplessness of childhood: such as strove to provide for themselves, and those who labored to assist others; these dragging the feeble, those waiting for them; some hurrying, others lingering; altogether created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment: and while they looked back upon the danger in their rear, they often found themselves beset before, and on their sides: or if they had escaped into the quarters adjoining, these too were already seized by the devouring flames; even the parts which they believed remote and exempt, were found to be in the same distress. At last, not knowing what to shun, or where to seek sanctuary, they crowded the streets, and lay along in the open fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations, whom they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to perish in them, tho they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any man offer to check the fire: so repeated were the menaces of many who forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw firebrands, with loud declarations "that they had one who authorized them"; whether they did it that they might plunder with the less restraint, or in consequence of orders given.