Book Two

THE YOUNG EMPEROR

I

BEFORE the rostra in the Forum of Caesar was placed a gilded tabernacle, shaped like a small replica of the temple of Jupiter, and within the tabernacle was a bed made of ivory, covered with a cloth of purple and gold. Propped up at the head of the bed was the bloated face of the dead Claudius, heavily made-up by the Imperial Undertakers for exhibition to the crowd—for the funeral of an Emperor was as good as a show.

Standing erect upon the rostrum was Nero, delivering the funeral oration for his adoptive father: “In his sacred person was the wisdom that always triumphed. Moderate in his desires, master of all passions, neglecting his personal happiness for the greatness of Rome, Claudius Caesar deserves to be admitted among the Gods.”

Among the official mourners someone muttered that however wise the old fellow might have been, they would not be now extolling him to the Heavens had he not been such a glutton. A Senator, recognizing in every sentence the pen of Seneca, was shaking his head: “The great Julius Caesar was an admirable orator; Augustus used to speak with ease and elegance; Tiberius was almost pedantic in his language and his love for archaic phrasing; Claudius, when sober, was an erudite, but it is tiresome to hear a young man reciting his harangue like an old actor.”

The enthusiasm of the populace was great. Old Claudius had disgusted Rome. The populace will forgive anything to a sovereign except ridicule; and Claudius had been an object of ridicule, an old man cuckolded by a young wife, a gross buffoon, sleepy and not always clean, a doting old man who would consult the Senate about a new mode of seasoning a sturgeon! The new Emperor was young and smart. Well, we shall sec. In the meantime everybody laughed over Seneca’s pamphlet, Apokolokyntos or the Metamorphosis of the Pumpkin. They said that Seneca had written it in one night; perhaps, said the evil tongues, he wanted to apologize for having had to compose this solemn funeral oration as well. The pamphlet was skittish enough: “His soul went out of his body with a thunder, while in the grumbling of his favour­ite organ he cried ‘Ah... Ah... I think that I have messed myself... ’ After which he rose to Heaven. They went to announce to Jupiter the arrival of this big man. They asked him from which land he came, and he answered with such a thick tongue that no one could understand the language he spoke, for it was certainly neither Greek nor Latin. Jupiter told Hercules to go and seek out the trouble. The god who had conquered so many monsters felt uneasy at the sight of this creature. When he heard his raucous and bellowing voice, he thought it might be a sea monster and for a moment he feared that he would have to add a thirteenth labour to his record. But looking at him more closely he found that, perhaps, it was only a man...”

After the funeral and the lighting of a great pyre in the Campus Martius, Nero said sarcastically: “You see, I can neither ignore the Apokolokyntos nor punish Seneca. In writing it he forgot his duties as newly-appointed First Secretary of State, but in the oration he prepared for me he said all that a perfect Minister should say.”

The accession to the Throne had been a tiresome task. After the Praetorians had acclaimed him Emperor, Nero had to wear the red cloak and the gilt armour and visit the troops in camp, outside the City. The visit was delayed until seven o’clock, for the omens were so disastrous that no earlier time was judged proper. At last, he was carried to the camp, and from it he made a short speech and languidly distributed his gifts to the troops. He was then carried to the Senate House, where he put on the toga and read the Speech from the Throne.

The address, prepared by Seneca, was on noble and traditional lines: “Receiving the duty that Rome places upon me, and of which you, O Conscript Fathers, consider me worthy, I declare that I have not deserved it either by my birth or by my adoption... If my duty obliges me to make decisions, rest assured that in taking them I shall think only of the welfare and happiness of Rome. I know my inexperience, my young age, my ignorance. But surrounded by the wisest of counsellors, I will set myself the noblest of examples... The Emperor will no longer act as advocate in any trial or take sides in any law-suit. He will take care in appointing the judges and magistrates to ensure that the laws are strictly observed. I pledge from this moment an absolute separation between the State and my person. A citizen among the citizens, if I am the first among them, I must also be the most loyal and the most respectful towards Laws and Country. From this day the Senate ceases to be the servant or the instrument of the Imperial will. I reinstate it in the fullness of its ancient privileges.”

The Speech took the Senate by storm. The Imperial clique was delighted; the old die-hards themselves could find nothing but approval. The surrendering of the judicial power was a stroke of genius. If the Emperor was as good as his word it would mean a return to the Age of Augustus. Unanimously the Senate passed a vote of thanks giving their complete approval, and the Lord President, speaking with great emphasis “on behalf of this ancient and august Assembly” begged the Emperor to accept all the honours that had been heaped upon the previous Emperors. Nero accepted them with good grace, but he modestly refused the title of Father of the Country, on account he said, of his youth.

That night Rome talked of nothing else but the Speech from the Throne; the greatest and wisest speech ever heard since the great Augustan days. In the Palace, elated by the news brought in by Ministers and courtiers, Nero chattered with great animation about his determination to restore the liberal government of Augustus. He would no longer judge crimes of lese majesty in a secret Court—indeed, there shall be no more crimes of lese majesty. No longer will the Emperor be ruled by a freedman—and this was a blow to Agrippina, for it was aimed at Pallas her lover. No longer shall Rome have Ministers chosen through intrigues; but they shall be public men supported by public opinion.

Seneca, that very day, had been officially appointed First Secretary of State with duties of Prime Minister, and said: “Nero Caesar, you must indeed revive Augustus’s times! ”

But Gaius Petronius, whose excellent taste in all things was already making the deepest impression upon Nero, smiled suavely: “My lord, the people are never grateful for law and order.”

That same night, after Senators and high officials had departed, Nero detained Petronius in intimate conversation. He did not wish to be alone and he sought the image of his own emotions in the mirror of his more cultivated and more mature friend: “Don’t you think, Petronius, that was rather a stroke of genius to refuse the title of Pater Patriae?”

Petronius looked at this new Caesar with his customary indolence: “My lord, I know that you wish me to retain with you the frankness of former days... It was certainly a proof of good sense to realize that a young man of seventeen could scarcely be father to such an ancient city as our Rome.”

II

Nero was the symbol of his times. The Roman Empire had taken eight centuries to evolve; yet, half a century after reaching the peak it was already declining to its fall.

Julius Caesar had seized power in the year 46 BC and in his short career he set the outposts of the Empire. Caesar’s adoptive son, Octavianus Augustus, in his forty-three years of reign, perfected the Empire and gave to the world a Pax Romana. Less than forty years later, Nero inherited an Empire that was already moving to its doom. Witness the relations of Britain and Rome; Julius Caesar showed the flag in Southern Britain in 55 and again in 54 BC; Claudius sent his General Aulus Plautius to conquer Britain in the year ad 43 and he himself visited the new Province in 44; Nero, in the year 60, after crushing Queen Boadicea’s revolt, will suggest withdrawing from Britain.

In every way the Rome of Nero no longer resembled the Rome of Augustus’s great days. In a short time a profound change had come upon the Roman people. Even before Caesar, the many wars and conquests outside Italy had brought about a new outlook on life. Firstly, with the acquisition of many barbarous Provinces, Rome became industrialized. To make the new industries prosperous, an industrial population had to be created. This, by necessity, brought into the City craftsmen and workers from every land. The population of Rome was therefore re-assessed and divided into urban tribes, composed of freedmen, of foreigners and old Roman citizens enriched by the new trades and commerce. The ancient agrarian tribes were still considered the most honourable and the salt of the Roman people; but only in name. From that time, the population of Rome was made up of a core of genuine Romans and an ever-mounting influx of foreigners and emancipated slaves to whom the freedom of the City was granted.

Pride in their conquests and the increasing splendour of their City soon gave the people of Rome a new attitude to life: it made them consider manual work as unworthy of conquerors and fit only for slaves and subjected peoples. From this to a kind of superior indifference for public affairs the step was a short one. To the debates and agitations of the Forum, the Romans now preferred the lighter and more pleasant things of life. The people nursed the delusion of sharing with the Caesars the Empire of the world. Nothing—they said in their pride— nothing that the world has ever produced is the equal of Rome. To be a Roman citizen was the peak of a man’s aspirations, Civis Romanus sum. This new outlook was fostered by the highest and noblest men of all the Pro­vinces of the Empire, who only aspired to be granted the right of citizenship; for only in Rome did Fortune dis­pense her favours. To Rome flocked the intriguers and the ambitious to exploit the vices of the great and the corruption of the sovereign people.

Rome was also crowded with slaves. New trades and industries had created a class of big-business men; and work, in the factories and in the home, was done by slaves. The law was very severe to these underlings; if a slave committed a crime against his master, all the household slaves were punished with death. Quot servi tot hostes, said the law; all who are slaves are enemies of Rome. There was, however, for the slaves a brighter side. Already under Augustus, Dennis of Halicarnassus wrote that it was vice and crimes that gave freedom to a slave. Aristocratic Senators and freshly-knighted millionaires, in the luxury of their mansions and country villas, were in the hands of their clever slaves no less than the Emperor was in the hands of the freedmen he had appointed Secretaries of State. The slaves surrounded their masters with refined attentions and kept from them all minor cares and irri­tations. They carried their masters about the City on elegant litters; they fed them on a cosmopolitan cuisine; they amused them; they provided for their pleasures. The masters were thus free to seek the Emperor’s patronage for their businesses and industries.

The population of Rome had grown immensely. In the first century ad Rome had a population approaching 1,500,000. But it was also immensely changed from former times. There was now a middle-class sandwiched between a new and conspicuous moneyed class and a proletariat that had no other aspiration but to be kept by a Welfare State. Athwart this new society was the old aristocracy, or what remained of it, divided and uncer­tain between the fashionable philosophy of Stoicism and a traditionalism that was totally out of tune, and thirdly, a course of conduct that made a mockery of morals.

The lower classes were a mixture of small plebs quite aptly called humiliores. Their lives were precarious and for small violations of the law they were sent to the mines, whilst for more serious crimes they were put to death on the cross. Above the plebs stood the honestiores, or the bourgeois, who each owned a minimum of 5,000 sesterces, and were precluded from serving the State, but could rise to the Knightly order when their property increased to 400,000 sesterces. They could then hope to catch the Emperor’s eye and obtain a command of some auxiliary troops or a job in the Excise, which was an excellent office for increasing one’s wealth and obtaining a further rise in the world. Above all classes was the Senatorial order, whose members should own at least one million sesterces, and could be appointed to the highest offices. In the Senatorial order money counted far more than virtue.

Over all, higher indeed than all mortals in the whole Empire, was the Prince. By the perpetuation of Julius Caesar’s fiction of being descended from the Gods, the Emperor was the supreme incarnation of Law and Reli­gion. The distance between the Emperor and other men was immeasurable for it was a difference not of station but of nature; the Emperor pertained of the Divine. Because of this, when at Nero’s death the Julian Family died out, the people of Rome discovered that sovereignty was no longer the apanage of a family preordained by Heaven to rule—which was a rude shock, followed, as is every rude shock in history, by a fresh recurrence of civil wars. Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero were Emperors in the name of a divine right; Galba, Otho, Vitellius were merely adventurous Generals who could but pretend to be raised to divinity upon the shields of the Legions that they had commanded. It made all the difference.

Never, before Nero’s times, had Rome taken such a cosmopolitan character; never before had the Roman people been so submerged and changed by the ways and ideas and vices of the foreigners that flocked to the City. It was indeed the case that when episodes of xenophoby occurred, it was the former foreigners themselves who affected a self-preserving traditionalism against new­comers. The benches of the Senate House were filled with Senators who were Roman only in name, for they came from France, Spain, Africa and Asia; a Babel of adventurers who controlled Rome and the Emperor with their suavity and cunning.

But the Emperor stood alone as the supreme and absolute master. It had commenced with Caesar. When Caesar seized power, all the magistratures that the Roman people had evolved during seven centuries for the conduct of the Republic—the Consulate that was the quasi-Royal power of the people; the Tribunes who protected the sovereign rights of the people; the Censors who held a moral authority over all classes and chose the Prince of the Senate who became head and chief of the Roman aristocracy, so important indeed that Caesar himself was content to be called Prince of the Senate; and the Supreme Pontiff who lived in a palace close to the Forum, the Domus Regia—all the ancient and respected magistratures, seemed to disappear when Caesar seized power. He had preserved them, but they were empty names.

Caesar’s genius had been above human laws. Caesar emerged victorious out of a formidable war in the course of which all laws, human and divine, were violated. The care that Caesar took to proclaim that any crime is permissible to gain an Empire left him no alternative but to rest his safety upon absolute power. The Tribunician power gave him the right of grace; the Censorship authorized him to change at his pleasure the citizen’s condition; the Pontificate made him master of everything that pertained to the soul. And the people accepted it; and Senate and people swore into Caesar’s hands their complete loyalty. Each citizen swore to defend with his sword the Divine Julius; and all accepted the hereditary right of sovereignty of the Julian Family. As Caesar had no children, they granted to him the right to name a suc­cessor and pass the Imperial purple to his descendants by adoption. After this the ancient Rome was no more. The Empire that Caesar left at his death was a concentration of power and glory that nothing could efface or diminish, neither revolutions nor the inadequacies of those who came after him; but the will of the Roman people was broken for ever. To the bitter end the pretence was carried on of describing the Orders in Council as issued in the name of the Senate and of the people; but the ancient formula S.P.Q.R.—Senatus Populusque Romanus—became a farce and a mockery, and Augustus, who was a wise and good man, confessed on his deathbed that his long reign had been nothing but a marvel of deceit and hypocrisy.

The strength of Rome and the secret of her greatness had been the capacity to combine in her Constitution two elements of prosperity that seemed to exclude one another —the debates and agitations of the Forum which gave vent and encouragement to individual liberty and the unflinching respect of tradition, the rigid faith in the destinies of Rome, the absolute submission to the family laws. But after the advent of Caesar the old character of the people changed. The glory, the splendours and the abominations of Mount Olympus, home of the Gods, were now attributed to the Palatine Hill where Caesar and his successors reigned and ruled as demi-Gods. The ambitions of men, the prostitution of slaves, the appetites of the masses, all looked to the Palace as the sole fountain of grace and favour. In less than fifty years the most hideous scandals became the normal way of life. A great military man, Antonius Primus, plotted with four Sena­tors to gain possession of the vast estate of old Balbus, and the most eminent names of Rome conspired to forge a new Will. Octavius Sagitta, a Tribune of the people, seduced the Lady Pontia and made her leave her husband, but after the divorce the lady sought a better marriage and jilted her lover. He murdered her. Numantia, repudiated by Silvanus, made him drink a philtre that turned him insane, and he threw his second wife from a window. In the Consular family of Papirius, a mother descended to incest; her son killed himself in shame. The lawyer Silius, who had agreed to defend a client in Court, betrayed him to the other party for a larger fee. Vinius, who one day was to be Minister of State to Galba, the successor of Nero, stole a golden goblet from Claudius’s table; the Emperor, who had the humour of a drunkard, invited him again and made him eat and drink out of earthen vessels to avoid a second theft.

Whilst Augustus had 'been able to contain extravagance and to throw a mantle of decency over the general decline of morals, after him the great and the rich gave free rein to their pleasures and spent their days at the Circus, their nights at orgies. Only money talked; the people’s plaudits went to those who could count their slaves in decuriae like platoons of soldiers. Work was no longer a noble task, for work alone could not bring the wealth that only speculations or the Emperor’s favour could secure. Yet, the vast fortunes of the favourite ones were nothing compared with the incalculable wealth of the Emperor.

The Emperor had at his disposal not only his private estate and all the legacies that were left to him, to ensure a portion for the legitimate heirs; the Emperor possessed immense latifunds as well, especially in Asia and in Africa, which were continuously enlarged by the confiscation pro­nounced by the judges against some unfortunate citizen. The Emperor could treat as his private exchequer the Treasury into which flowed the apportionment of the taxes levied in all the Provinces of the Empire for the upkeep of the Army and Navy. Furthermore, the Emperor could dispose at his pleasure of the revenue from Egypt, which was a private endowment of the Crown, and he could delve into the booty of war: all this without rendering account.

The Emperor’s household, that Augustus had so anxiously preserved on the traditional style of simplicity and modesty, was now conducted in the manner of an Oriental Satrap. To look after the Emperor’s wardrobe there was a regiment of slaves divided into as many classes as were the varieties of the Emperor’s dresses and uniforms ; for the tunics to be worn within the Palace there were grooms a vests privata; for the dresses to be worn outside, grooms a vests Forense; for the service uniforms, grooms a vests castrense; for the dress-uniforms, grooms a vests triumphale; for the dresses to be worn at the theatre, grooms a vests scenica; for the Circus, grooms a vests gladiatoria... And the vessels for the Emperor’s table were cleaned and looked after by as many squads of servants as there were kinds of vessels; drinking vessels, eating vessels, silver vessels, golden vessels, vessels of rock­crystal, jewelled vessels... His personal jewellery and ornaments were entrusted to special freedmen called liberti ab ornament is, who were divided into keepers of the brooches, a fibulis; keepers of the pearls, a margaritis; and his ablution and toilet was attended to by bath attendants or balneatores; masseurs or aliptae; hairdressers or ornatores; barbers or tonsores. The ceremonial of his receptions and audiences was regulated by a body of gentlemen-in-waiting, the velarii who raised the door­curtain into the Presence Room; the ab admissione who introduced the visitors to the Presence, and the nomenclatores who read out the visitors’ names. For the dining Hall, there was a phalanx of attendants, the fornicarii who looked after the kitchen ranges; the coci or chefs; the pistores or bakers, the libarii and dulciarii or pastry­cooks; then there were the structores or majordomos and butlers responsible for planning the dinners and banquets; the dining-hall footmen or triclinarii; those who carried in the dishes or ministratores, and those who cleared away the plates, or analectae, and the cup-bearers who filled the cups and who varied in importance accordingly as they held the bottle, a lagona, or tendered the cup, a cyatho; and there were the tasters or praegustatores, and the chorists and singer, symphoniaci, and the musicians of the minstrel gallery, and the dancers or saltatrices, and the Court buffoons or moriones, and the dwarfs, nanni, and those charged with keeping the talk going, who were called the fatui.

The person of the Emperor had, perforce, to be surrounded by a pomp that was part of the sacred function of the Divine and August Sovereign. The Emperor was the “master of all things.” He was one of the Gods.

From him descended the happiness of the people. And the populace of Rome, in Nero’s times, had found their happiness in two very material things—the sportula, that was the free distribution of meals provided by the Emperor’s generosity, and the Circus, the free games and entertainment equally provided by the Emperor’s munificence. The famous phrase, panem et circenses, bread and shows, was coined in Nero’s times. Truly it synthesized the spirit and the morals of the times.

III

It is debatable what influence the men nearest to him, guiding him in the first stages of his rule, had over Nero. Certain it was that at the very moment when, thanks to his mother’s deeds and misdeeds, he had mounted the Throne, Nero felt that he needed to be protected from her.

This protection he entrusted to Seneca, who in practice assumed at once the position of Regent, and also to Burrus, who was confirmed as Commander of the Praetorian Guards. Seneca, with cunning, begged to be excused from many of the functions so that he could devote more time to business. He did not dine regularly at the Imperial table nor did he trouble the Emperor at all hours on small routine matters. He also, most tactfully, requested the Emperor not to embrace him in public: that was an understandable sign of respect on the part of a dutiful pupil towards his aged tutor, but his pupil was now the Emperor while he, Seneca, was no longer his tutor but his humble Prime Minister. The Emperor was duly impressed, and Seneca did not allow him to realize that he was merely anxious to escape the suspicion that had blackened Socrates concerning his pupil Alcibiades.

Afranius Burrus, a true soldier, was more direct and to the point. The day after the Speech from the Throne, while Nero was trying to make him agree to some suggestion of his, Burrus answered: “Caesar, when I have expressed an opinion it is of no use to ask me for it again.”

Nevertheless, the first care of Nero as Emperor was to show gratitude to his mother. The very same evening that he received from the Senate the titles of Caesar and Divine, he was asked by the Officer of the Guard the password for the night. With a romantic gesture he replied: “The best of mothers!” The following day Nero asked Seneca whether it would not be proper to give his mother the same honours that were given to the Empress Livia after Augustus’s death. Immediately, at the Prime Minister’s suggestion, the Senate invested Agrippina Priestess of Claudius, and henceforth she went about preceded by two Lictors. Some days later the Senate voted that the sittings be held at least twice a week at the Palace to enable Agrippina to attend: seated behind a curtain, the Empress would be able to hear and see all unseen. A Cohort of Praetorians was granted her as guards to her rooms, the same number as for the Emperor’s apartments, besides the German Guards that were personally attached to the Imperial House. Agrippina kept the Guards as an outward sign of her personal status, and as a special honour to the memory of her father Germanicus.

It was difficult for a young man of seventeen to free himself, all at once, from his mother’s control and authority. Some time later the Ambassadors from Armenia were being received by the Emperor. They were introduced into the Presence Room, where Nero seated upon his chair of office waited to give them an audience.

Behind the Emperor were grouped the Consuls, the most important .Senators, the Generals of the Army and, inconspicuous among the courtiers, the First Secretary of State, Seneca. The Praetorians, with breastplates shining and their halberds topped with tufts of scarlet plumes, were massed upon the steps of the Throne, their faces impressive under the tall helmets. Before Nero, the Ambassadors arrayed in their splendid robes, with brows encased in golden mitres and their arms covered with bracelets, made a deep obeisance.

Suddenly, preceded by her Lictors, Agrippina appeared. Almost hieratic within her veils, she advanced slowly, and without hesitation commenced to mount the steps. There was a shudder of surprise among the Senators. Was Rome going to suffer again the indignity it had endured under Claudius? Was a woman—this woman—coming to share the Throne once more? What would these barbarian envoys think of a woman upon the Throne of Rome?

But from the troubled group of courtiers and officials the little figure of Seneca bent forward and whispered a few words to Nero. The young Emperor rose from his chair, and with the utmost dignity and grace and half a smile upon his lips, like a young Prince who feels the greatest respect for his mother, he advanced towards Agrippina and greeted her deferentially and kindly. Then, he took her arm, and still talking to her with a -gentle smile, he escorted her to the door of the Presence-room. Without haste he resumed his place upon the dais. The honour of Rome was saved. The audience continued.

Concerning this incident Agrippina did not utter a word to her son, but she understood. From that moment she knew that it would be necessary to fight.

IV

On the whole, at this stage, the Throne merely meant to Nero independence and the freedom to enjoy life. Seneca, combining the dual duties of Prime Minister and private Mentor, still wrote the Emperor’s speeches and trained him in deportment for the Senate.

“Nero Caesar is young,” it was often said in the reading-room of the Senate-house, “but his youth will help to give us a better government and more stability than we have had under that dotard Claudius. Besides, he has two excellent Ministers. Seneca will follow our policy and Burrus will control the army.”

Events were proving this forecast right. All was quiet and well ordered at home and throughout the Provinces. The Empire was at its zenith. It covered all the known world, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the western parts of Asia—Spain, France, Switzerland, Southern Germany up to the Rhine, Austria and Hungary, Greece and Mace­donia, the Balkan countries, Asia Minor and all the Near East as far as the Euphrates, the whole of North Africa, Carthage, Numidia, Mauritania, Lybia and Egypt, and it had, under Claudius, occupied the south of Britain and Wales. The Roman world was at peace and the administration of the Dominions was controlled with much care. Any excess of power on the part of the Proconsuls and Governors was promptly checked.

The new Emperor was talking of nothing but peace. He even expressed the intention of withdrawing the troops from the most peaceful Provinces, such as far away Britain, so as to give greater confidence to people at home and abroad, a statement that set the Colonial Office in an uproar. It was all very well, they said to the Prime Minister, to speak of the most peaceful Provinces; but they were peaceful only because the Legions were there! To withdraw the troops would only be to court trouble; perhaps an invasion by unknown peoples. It was absolutely necessary to find an argument that would convince the Emperor.

Seneca hit indeed upon an idea. He submitted to Nero that to withdraw the troops from Britain would detract from the glory of his step-father Claudius who had received the submission of the British tribes. That country was far from conquered yet; such a move might give incentive to the native kings to revolt and the effect upon Northern Gaul, always on the look-out for political trouble, might prove disastrous. Seneca did not disclose that he had vast investments in Britain which were much safer under the protection of the Roman Legions. Nero gave way, and thus both the Colonial Office and the Imperial General Staff were pleased.

In Rome, however, the Emperor was freer to proceed with liberal reforms. To prevent forgeries, a method was invented of having documents bored and run through three times with thread and then sealed. For Wills an innovation was introduced by which the two first pages, with nothing else but the testator’s name upon them, were to be presented blank to those who were to sign them as witnesses, and no one who wrote a Will for another should insert a legacy for himself. It was ordered that litigants should pay a reasonable fee to their lawyers but nothing to the Courts, the charges of which would be borne by the Treasury. The Senate’s dignity was increased by making the Senate a Court of Appeal as high as the appeals to the Emperor. New gymnasia were built for the young people of Rome and the day they were opened the Emperor in person graciously distributed to the sons of Senators and to the younger Knights the oil with which they rubbed their bodies before taking part in the sports. A certain Veiento, charged with having published a libel against some Senators and the College of Priests, was promptly tried and sentenced. And the first time a sentence of death was submitted to the Emperor for endorsement, he cried: “Ah, I wish I did not know how to write!”

In those days of general delight over the new and young Emperor, people in Rome were inclined to magnify everything. The Senate seemed to delight in issuing extraordinary Orders: “Let the people of Rome address tributes of praise to Nero Caesar for eight days! The Emperor shall wear the Triumphal dress for eight continuous days! Let Nero make a glorious entry into the City and ride to the Capitol to receive an ovation! The people of Rome will raise to Nero two statues of solid gold and silver in the temple of Mars, as high as those of the God!”

To cap these honours a further Senatorial Decree ordered that the year shall henceforth be reckoned from December, Nero’s birth-month. He accepted all other honours, but declined the last one. With youthful frank­ness he told Seneca: “I think that a little show of modesty will please the people even more. Besides, the idea of beginning the year from the last month seems rather absurd.” Seneca approved, and felt that his pupil and Emperor had more shrewdness than he imagined. And never one to let an occasion pass, he recited one of his aphorisms: “There is nothing the people love better than a show of modesty and leniency. Let the reins go loose occasionally, and the people will call you a true democrat.”

But with his friend Petronius, Nero regretted that Seneca had made him neglect the studies of the ancient philosophers: “My mother considered philosophy unworthy of a Prince and according to Seneca a Prince should be an opportunist, not a philosopher.”

V

At twenty it is pardonable to be fickle with life and more so with love. Octavia, barely thirteen years old, was a poor companion for a young Emperor a little in­toxicated with the heady wine of success and hankering after aestheticism and art. When his mother Agrippina had decided upon the marriage, Nero had gone through the ceremony almost with repugnance. Octavia was not pretty. She was only very virtuous, and her father Claudius had not brought her up to be particularly brilliant or witty. No one wondered that Nero neglected her. When his friends enquired after the Empress Octavia, he answered that his young wife was like those Generals who having failed to win a full battle received only the insignia of triumph, not a real triumph.

Seneca understood the situation. The cunning Stoic, who had so often written about the sanctity of marital life, realized that Octavia was not the girl to give Nero that sentimental and physical satisfaction to hold an impetuous young man. She was merely an undeveloped child. On the other hand, Seneca could not allow the Emperor to commit the crime of adultery. All Rome would laugh at Seneca’s expense: “The pupil of such a perfect man!”

Seneca decided therefore that there would be no harm if the Emperor, in the secrecy of the Palace, amused him­self with the sweet and delightful Acte. In fact, Acte was Nero’s first love. A freedwoman from Asia, she was of extraordinary beauty and possessed the finest attractions a woman can have for a young lover. She was also modest and chaste, a very rare jewel in Rome.

Fearing the suspicion of Agrippina and anticipating her fury at the thought that another woman might gain a hold upon the Emperor, Seneca, with the full approval of Burrus, induced the wise and grave Annaeus Serenus to declare publicly that Acte was his own mistress. Only a wise and grave man can have no sense of ridicule. In devotion to the Imperial tutor and in loyalty to his Sovereign, Serenus agreed to play this delicate part. To the world it was Serenus who provided Acte with an elegant house and a retinue of attendants.

Agrippina, who guessed the purport of this manoeuvre, said, “It will pass.” But soon Nero spoke of retiring to Rhodes and to a bucolic life with the woman of his heart. Seneca explained to his pupil that there are exalted stations from which one cannot escape. In his abdication Nero would find no safety. The Empire was an in­escapable destiny.

When it was reported to Agrippina that Nero thought of repudiating Octavia and marrying Acte—and some obliging friends, at the prompting of the enamoured Emperor, had already prepared for the charming Acte a genealogical tree showing her to descend from the ancient Kings of Pergamus so that Nero, easily influenced by any­thing theatrical, was saying that it would be marvellous to ally the Julian family with the family that from Troy had given origin to Rome herself, she tackled her son before the whole Court. “See you all,” she said, “the spectacle that my son offers to Rome! The Emperor, trailing like a doting old man at the feet of a former slave, a creature good to give a man an hour of pleasure! But no, she is the official mistress of Caesar. And for all this I took such pains to make my child Domitius the legiti­mate heir of Claudius, and for all this I gave him as a tutor the wisest of men! Now the wise man is choosing for him a concubine and the Emperor is reduced to making love to a freedwoman! Octavia, his proper wife, is neglected and repulsed. And I, Germanicus’s daughter, am insulted, turned out, deprived of my proper status and honours. I am reduced to serve as a screen to the former slave Acte!”

The scene was too long; it was also dangerous. Agrippina believed she would intimidate her son. She only detached him from her for ever.

Some days later Agrippina came to her son and asked for forgiveness. “My son, my words expressed but badly what was in my mind. Yes, I confess, it is very painful to me to see another woman have all the tenderness of my son. A mother finds it difficult to realize that her son is a grown-up man, and that she can no longer fill his days and his mind. But I have thought it over, I have understood. I excuse everything, I only wish to retain your affection. Don’t fear anything from me, my son. Your greatness is the sole aim of my life.”

Nero embraced his mother. Agrippina was waiting for this moment. She knew, she had known it a long time, that her caresses, her perfume, her very presence could be disturbing to her son. She pressed him ardently to her bosom, against her breasts that heaved under her veils.

Nero felt her trembling. She sighed, and as though unable to contain herself, she pressed her mouth to his lips.

Nero felt like the hero in the Greek tragedy; he uttered: “My gratitude, O mother, is more than I can express.” He disengaged himself from the embrace. Agrippina went away, her heart heavy not with shame but with rage and hate.

No sooner had his mother left the room than Nero was seized by fear and regret. Perhaps he had misunderstood his mother? Perhaps she would now take upon him one of her terrible revenges. Full of forebodings he yielded to an impulse of generosity. Locked away in the strong­rooms of the Palace were the jewels and ornaments that the wives of the Caesars had worn. He chose from amongst the treasures a splendid pectoral and a headdress and sent them to his mother.

Agrippina returned the jewels with an explosive message: “Remember that everything you possess actually belongs to me. You are sending me as a gift merely what is mine.”

From this moment Nero accepted the challenge. Suspecting Pallas of inciting Agrippina against Acte, the following day he ordered Pallas to resign from the position of Imperial Treasurer which he still held and to leave the Palace. Pallas had the impertinence to put two conditions—the favour of Agrippina gave him the courage to lift his voice. The conditions were that his financial tenure should go without enquiry and that he should not be considered in debt towards the State.

Nero felt that this insolence was beyond bounds and yet he was only too glad to be rid of the rascal. But he could not resist the amusement of seeing the man make his exit. The deposed Minister quitted the Palace as though he were going on a triumphal expedition. An escort of German Guards walked before him—the personal Guard of Agrippina, then followed Pallas, lying upon a litter which eight Abyssinians carried shoulder high. Behind him was the cortege of his clients and friends, of all those who thought it wise to back Agrippina. Many Greeks and Orientals mingled in the queue, recognizable by their garish dresses, their gilt ornaments and jewels. One would have said that an Asiatic king was descending from the Palace into Rome. “Well,” said Nero with good humour, “our friend Pallas has abdicated...”

A few days later Agrippina created another scene. The dismissal of Pallas had hurt her, in her interests and in her personal pride. Nero was dining privately with a small party of friends, which included the young Prince Britannicus. Suddenly Aggripina entered the dining-hall. At the sight of the Empress-mother all felt uneasy and alarmed. She advanced, with her right arm outstretched in accusation against the Emperor: “My son, you seem to forget Britannicus. Britannicus is no longer a child! He is Claudius’s own son, the real heir to the Throne, which Domitius stole with the help of his mother whom he now so ungratefully insults. Rome shall learn of all this. Let Burrus and Seneca escort me out if they like! The Army shall choose between them and Germanicus’s daughter!”

The scene was so absurd and the purpose so transparent that no one said a word. The servants were astonished and frightened—they knew only too well what fate awaited a slave who heard too much. Agrippina looked round, then she retired like an actress from the stage.

VI

The Emperor was perplexed. Time had come for a decision; and he realized that he must decide alone. Of his two councillors, one was an excellent soldier, honest and loyal but unenterprising; the other, a subtle thinker but far from being a man of action. Yet, time was press­ing, for Agrippina was capable of desperate deeds and Nero felt that even now Agrippina was plotting. That sense of the dramatic upon which his life was hinged, the insistent urge to see himself as a hero in a Greek drama, the identification of the born actor with the character in the play, took hold of him.

Agrippina was his mother, and conflict between mother and son would be the peak of a yet unthinkable tragedy. Much simpler to put aside the instrument of Agrippina’s wrath. The populace hated Agrippina, for she was a notorious character; yet she was the Emperor’s mother. But the palsied Britannicus was almost of no significance.

Young Prince Britannicus was a lean young man, of striking appearance, with a dreamy air and affable manners, and the enchanting grace lent by silence. But he was cursed with epilepsy, the disease of the Caesars.

Britannicus led a retired life. He had no part in public affairs and desired no part in politics. He never attended the Senate, though he belonged to it by right. Whatever he had suffered for the slight that had robbed him of the Throne, he never gave vent to his feelings. His only joy seemed to rest in composing poetry. His intimate friends spoke of Britannicus’s poems as exquisite and original; Lucan called him the poet of the future. Often Britannicus entertained his friends by reciting his verses, in a gentle voice, plucking the strings of a harp with his thin fingers.

Nero had heard him play and chant his poems but once, and that day a bitter jealousy entered his heart. His own poems lacked that captivating novelty of form, nor could he play the harp or the cetra. Yet, many a time he had seen Britannicus overcome by a seizure, his face turn blue, his neck swelling convulsively, frothing at the mouth. Once it happened at a public celebration, and the gathering was immediately dispersed, for such a fit was considered a bad omen. The Romans called epilepsy the sickness of Hercules, and who suffered from it was reputed to be both accursed and prophetic, blessed and damned.

One day, resting with the Emperor in the library where they still had some occasional hours of tuition, Seneca brought up the subject of the reasons of State as justifying extreme deeds by the Sovereign. “Fastigium tuum affixum est” said Seneca. “Your destiny is written in the Heavens. A refulgent light surrounds you as Emperor; all eyes are turned upon you. The more you think you can pass out of your own light and the more you rise upon the horizon ... Political necessities may well impose upon a ruler acts which may revolt his con­science. There is such a thing as historical fatality; the catharsis that brings about the tragedies of real life which will provide sublime themes for poets... Caesar alone can say to himself: Only I can kill a man or save his life without violating the Law.”

Late at night, working at his latest book in his library, the philosopher felt with some satisfaction that he had at last found an apt title for his new treatise. Turning over the pages, he wrote it in a bold hand—De dementia.

VII

Onge the decision was reached and the deed explained to himself in terms of the superior interest of Rome—“the heroic tradition of the great Republican times, when all family feelings were brushed aside in the country’s interests”—the rest was easy. Agrippina herself had shown Nero the way—poison.

The poisoner Locusta was still alive; indeed, Julius Pollio, Tribune of a Cohort of Praetorians, had been set to mount guard over her in her dismal abode; both jailer and protector of the woman who had supplied the poison that had disposed of Claudius.

The “thing” must be carefully planned. The greatest secrecy and dissimulation was necessary so as to avoid Agrippina’s suspicions. The same men that she had placed near Britannicus to protect him were now used as hired assassins.

At a first attempt the agents tried too small a dose. The plot miscarried. Britannicus suffered only a slight indisposition and recovered. Nero took fright: his mother was too deeply versed in the gentle art of poisoning not to grow suspicious over Britannicus’s sickness.

Locusta was therefore sent for. Nero was so excited that he beat the woman with his own hands. The old witch pleaded that she had diluted the strength of the poison to avoid any danger of suspicion.

The following day Locusta set up her laboratory in a closet of the Emperor’s apartments. She promised to produce “something that would act like lightning.” For a few days the Imperial apartments were like an experimental death-chamber. Several poisons were tried upon animals, but they still proved too slow. On the fifth day Locusta announced, “This will do the trick.” The poison was served with some food to a pig, which ate it greedily and dropped dead. Locusta murmured: “It is entirely tasteless.”

That day Nero went into the gardens, still strongly perturbed. But five months he had been on the Throne, yet he had already learned many things. Political necessities, as Seneca put it. And, as Seneca said, the Emperor was above the Law.

He went to look at some new birds in the aviary. They were delightful little birds, sent from some islands off the Lusitanian coast, yellow and tiny, singing away all day long. Nero pushed a finger through the silken net that enclosed the aviary and the birds flew about the cage with a flutter of wings, taking shelter upon the branches of the dwarf trees that grew inside the cage, or clinging to the pale-blue net, the colour of air. One of the birds looked at the Emperor with tiny black eyes, turning its head right and left, and with a swift wing dropped lightly upon his finger. Nero approached his face to the mesh, and the bird chirped against the Emperor’s lips.

It was decided that the poison should be served to Britannicus under the very eyes of the Emperor: no risks this time 1 It was customary for the Imperial family to sit occasionally at the Emperor’s table with the young sons of the Emperor’s personal friends. One of these dinner-parties was arranged: Agrippina herself and Octavia lay on each side of the Emperor upon the same couch.

A large Persian carpet of the most brilliant colours and pleasant designs was spread upon the Imperial couch. At a neighbouring table, below the Imperial couch, sat Britannicus and on his right was Titus, the eldest son of Vespasian, who was already spoken of as a promising young man training to become a valiant General, charming of manner and pleasant of mien.

Agrippina and her son eyed each other suspiciously. The scene recently made by Agrippina was in everybody’s mind. Britannicus, still under doctor’s treatment for his recent indisposition, had to keep to a diet. A special soup was served to him. One of the Imperial tasters placed by Agrippina to watch over him, scalded his tongue in tasting the soup; then the bowl was passed to the Prince.

Britannicus found it too hot and returned it to the servant, who poured some cold broth into it. Britannicus drank it. Had he been an older man, he would have made his attendant taste it a second time; but he was young and had the insouciance of youth. In less than a minute the diners saw Britannicus raise himself on his elbow, transfixed, with one hand pressed to his throat, and then he fell back upon the cushions. He was dead.

A cry of horror filled the room. Titus, out of curiosity, put his lips to the cup; he was ill for several months after­wards. Agrippina looked on, livid with surprise and with terror. From his couch Nero glanced round. “Do not trouble yourselves, my friends. My brother Britannicus, as you all know, is subject to fits... Let him be taken to his rooms. He will soon be better.”

Two African slaves carried the body from the dining-hall. The dinner went on. Agrippina did not say a word, and she thought of the terrible prediction she was told long ago, that her son would be Emperor but would kill his mother. And this, she now thought, was all of her doing. If the Emperor could now say that Britannicus had merely had a fit, it was she who had underlined so much the sad fact that Britannicus suffered from epilepsy. If the Emperor had made use of Locusta, it was she who had first introduced the poisoner.

The dinner went on in the private banqueting-hall where bright lights were reflected in the polished marble and golden panels; an interminable dinner, attended by dancers and mimes and jongleurs. The very entertainment for a party of young people.

The violence of the poison had made large black spots on Britannicus’s face. The face had to be smeared with creams and cosmetics so that the spots might not be seen upon the pyre. And the body was hurriedly cremated in the Campus Martius. Everything had been carefully arranged.

It was one of those terrible nights of heavy southern rains. Between lightning and crashes of thunder, the rumour spread rapidly through the great city: “Britannicus has been murdered!” Crowds of silent people wrapped in dark cloaks stood in the Campus Martius in spite of the storm, when a band of soldiers, carrying torches, came to collect the ashes of the young Prince who had borne such a famous military name. The crowd felt that within the Palace, high up on the Palatine Hill, tragedies unfolded with all the terror of a Greek drama. Here and there among the crowd someone spoke in a quiet, sedate voice: “Dear people of Rome, there are things one must understand... A throne cannot be shared! It was unavoidable that one of them should die—the Gods have made their choice.”

In a comer of the vast Fields some barbarians whispered together, in the vernacular of the Suburra. Suddenly someone got upon a pillar and uttered strange words: “Babylon shall fall! She will fall, this City that is keeping all others in bonds! He who adores the beast shall suffer the flames and the sulphur, before the Angels and before the Lamb! And the flames of his torments will burn in the centuries of centuries, per saecula saeculorum”

A patrol of Guards approached: “Keep moving, you there! ” The man got down from his pillar. The crowd pulled their hoods further down over their eyes. “Some more Eastern cranks,” muttered the Officer of the Guard; and with his men he continued his round.

VIII

“From Petronius to his friend Marcus Valerius, greetings.

“Strange things are happening in Rome. Since Britannicus’s death our Divine Nero Caesar is undergoing a great change. Perhaps you have not read in the Gazette the explanation that Nero Caesar published two days after the ‘thing’. I will quote for your edification a few lines only: ‘I was looking forward to the privilege of sharing with my beloved brother the burden of power. The Gods have decided otherwise. They have condemned me to rule the Empire alone. I can look for comfort only in your support and that of the Senate. Do not refuse it to me and grant me this consoling hope, that in my present grief, in this solitude which makes me the only surviving descendant of a family destined to rule, I shall at least know the sweetness of being for ever loved by you.

“Knowing only too well the hand that wrote this trash, one cannot even say that it is Seneca at his best. In the banqueting-halls it was judged embarrassing; in the taverns, so my barber informed me, it was considered too false.

“But now the Divine has invented a new form of self­expression. You know our Rome has some very lurid districts, alleys where the dregs of the Mediterranean ports live, the scum of the African shores, of Spain, of Greece, gladiators in search of a job, deserters from the army, absconders from the law. Streets that at night are far from safe. Well, now the rumour goes that at night through these narrow lanes a band of young men are roaming. They go about escorted by hefty and armed slaves. Their amusement is to push about the citizens who are returning home after a supper-party. The greatest fun is to kiss the ladies and throw the men into the sewer. Occasionally they break open a shop. Usually the fun ends in some brothel or a tavern, where girls are provided, and the party plays tableaux vivants. One night they bumped into Senator Montanus, who gave our Divine a black eye. Afterwards someone told Montanus that he had thrashed the Emperor; and the old fool was stupid enough to write to Nero Caesar and beg to be excused. No one wondered when we read in the Gazette that Senator Montanus had committed suicide.

“Now, however, our Divine goes out with an escort of Guards, a thing that makes General Burrus grumble that the Guards should not see with their own eyes how the Emperor amuses himself. But Nero Caesar calls it ‘high spirits.’ By the way, a few weeks ago he went to visit his aunt Domitia, who was very ill. You know that the old girl is very rich. She was greatly touched by the honour, and caressing her nephew’s chin she said: ‘When I see that beard shaved, I will be glad to die.’ He turned to his friends: ‘As soon as I go out I shall go to the guests. Very witty!

“I think the truth of it all is that our Nero Caesar on suffering from ennui. And Seneca, alas, is not the most entertaining of counsellors. What he needs is a woman’s love. And sweet Acte is already on the wane.

“Keep well, and do send me a pot of your honey, flavoured of azaleas.”

IX

It was at this time that Nero met Poppaea. Or, as Seneca would have said, it was his Daimon that put Poppaea into his life.

Her real name was Lollia Poppaea, daughter of Lollius, who had been a friend of the dreadful Sejanus, the evil spirit of Emperor Tiberius. Her mother, Poppaea Sabina, had been considered the most beautiful woman of her days. She died in the reign of Claudius, owing to the jealousy of Messalina. Quite young her daughter married Crispinus, a wealthy Knight, who was Praefect of the Praetorian Cohort, and upon her marriage she discarded her paternal name of Lollia to assume the name of her maternal grandfather, Sabinus, a Consular personage who had been decorated with the Triumphal insignia.

Poppaea was the most famous beauty of her day. Perfectly educated, her intelligence added grace to her conversation and manners. She possessed the fascination of those women whose charm comes from their seriousness, from a touch of melancholy in their appearance, an air of modesty and reserve. Whenever Poppaea went to the theatre or walked under the arcades of the Campus taverns, that was the fashionable promenade at sunset, false, covered her face with a veil.

“Moreover, Poppaea was blonde, and in Rome a real blonde was a rare flower. Her hair added to her appearance a suavity, a delicacy of tones. Poppaea appeared in public but rarely, gliding amongst the men almost without noticing them, radiating modesty. She was indeed ravishing, bewitching. In Court circles it was whispered that Poppaea had a price, like anyone else—but a very high one.

When Nero met Poppaea for the first time, she had recently married Salvius Otho, a rich and brilliant young man, with that touch of refined elegance that to the Emperor represented the ideal of a fashionable man. Was Otho’s marriage only a feint in a big game in which Nero would be the pawn?

It was remarked at the Palace that after his marriage Otho came to Court without his beautiful wife. The Emperor, piqued, asked him why he did not bring the lady to Court. Poppaea was thus introduced to the Emperor. And Nero fell madly in love with Poppaea.

Wealthy and fastidious, Otho surrounded Poppaea with every luxury. Poppaea appeared to Nero in the setting of a splendid house, surrounded by exquisite refinements, decked with pearls and gems; she could almost say that the Empire could add nothing to her happiness. When Salvius Otho was asked to dine at the Palace, instead of keeping late hours as it was the rule, he left quite early “to go back to his adorable wife.” Other day he showed Nero how to perfume his feet before lying on the dining couch. Another time, Nero sprinkled some precious per­fume on Otho’s gown. The billowing day, Otho had the honour of entertaining the Emperor and when the guests entered his dining-hall, this same perfume, poured from silver sprinklers, fell like a dewy rain upon them and on the marble floor.

One night Nero ordered his litter to carry him to Otho’s house quite unexpectedly, and begged his friend to let him see Poppaea; only to see her. But Otho laughed and advised the Emperor to return to bed. It was a small episode, so understandable in a young man...

All the Court now knew that the Emperor was madly in love. In love in a way that he had never been before. He had believed that Poppaea would give herself to him, but Poppaea had remained calm and distant. One day Nero caught Poppaea’s eyes looking intently at him, and suddenly averting her glance. He was thrilled, and he spoke to her like any young man who is in love. “If you refuse me your love, the Empire itself will be for me an intolerable burden!” Poppaea waited long before answering. At last she looked at him with eyes filled with tears: “My Lord, I am a married woman; my husband is young and noble. Were I an ambitious woman, the splendour of your love would make me forget my duties. But I cannot chase away my lawful husband.”

A few days later the Court was politely agog. Otho had fallen in disgrace, but the merciful and generous Emperor was dispatching him as Governor of the Lusitanian Province—leaving his wife behind. Poppaea was installed in an official residence.

But she did not bring Nero joy and cheer, only plaintive reproaches and regrets. She was nothing but an official mistress; the Emperor was like a little boy under the wing of his mother; Poppaea might one day be chased out of the Palace; if the Emperor could not bring himself to give her the rank she deserved, why did he not send her back to her husband? She sighed; then she added: “The Emperor must at least save her from the hate and vengeance of Agrippina.”

X

There were people at Court who said that Poppaea had some Jewish blood. Sure it was that in the secrecy of her rooms Poppaea was superstitiously toying with the religious practices of the Jews who lived across the River. It was quite fashionable among the ladies of Rome to take an interest in the rites of the Jews, who professed to believe in an invisible God. Without bothering to investigate what was really meant by it, the Roman ladies were drawn by the mystical inquietude of the Jews, by their belief in eternity, their certainty that one day a Messiah would come to deliver the world. Poppaea did not under­stand what the world wanted to be delivered from, but the fervour of her Jewish friends found a response in her temperament, even in her silences, that aura of mystery that exercised such an ascendancy over her Imperial lover. She almost felt that her new religious practices increased her power and influence upon the Emperor.

But Poppaea’s real religion was her own beauty. No other woman ever carried so far the cult of her body. Out of her porphyry bath, Poppaea contemplated in the long mirrors of polished silver the image of her body that had the milky whiteness of the Parian marble. She took care to preserve that exquisite whiteness with baths of asses milk. In a special stabularium, at the farther end of the Palace grounds, were kept four hundred asses, which supplied the milk for Poppaea’s morning bath.

Whenever she travelled, the four hundred asses made the journey in advance of her train.

From her husband Otho (who was bald and wore false hair so cleverly mingled with his own that the fact was not discovered till his death) Poppaea had learned to cover her face at night with a mask of paste that pro­tected it from the ill-effects of fresh air. She used a thick cream, similar to the grease-paint used nowadays by actors in their make-up, and with this cream mixed with fine powder her masseuse made a kind of porcelain layer over her face. When she was not attending Palace functions or going out, she kept this mask on all day, and when she took it off, her face, of a resplendent whiteness, seemed to blush deliciously at the lightest emotion.

For her hands she used crocodile mucus which made them soft and white. After her bath her slaves dried her body with swans’ down, which seemed to cover it with a fine dust, and they stroked her tongue with flat ivory sticks to make it soft and velvety.

Then she abandoned her body to the hands of her personal attendants, who vied with one another with the cares of her person. Her numerous slaves were divided into classes, according to their specialities; the African masseuses who kept her body firm and supple; the hair­dressers and perfumers from Cyprus; the dressmakers and dressers from Alexandria; those who had the keeping of her gowns and jewels in perfumed boxes; others who were expert in lacing her sandals and shoes. In the vast dressing-room the supervisors of each service stood aside, vigilant and guiding while their mistress, wrapped in a dressing-gown and seated at the mirror, studied every curl of her hair or a new inclination of the head.

Poppaea knew that she had the most beautiful hair in the whole of Rome. It was as warm and brilliant as amber. Many ladies of Rome, envious of her golden head, used a powder of saffron, a German soap and some oils and brilliantines of which Martial and Ovid have preserved the recipes. In his poems Nero sang of Poppaea’s hair, which he called “hair of amber”; and the illusion was complete when the Tuscan perfumers supplied Poppaea with a new oil made from ambergris, which exhaled a most suave fragrance. Poppaea wore her hair all around her brow and as far as the rosy shells of her ears in three rings of small curls, made with a heated iron curler, alike and symmetrical, while the rest, drawn back and rolled over her slender nape, was held in position by little chains and rings of gold. Narrow white ribbons, embroidered with precious stones, were occasionally used to tie the chignon. At times she used hairpins adorned with pearls, or single pins fashioned like javelins. Her jewellers always chose for her pearls from the Red Sea because of their marvellous and unsurpassed whiteness. At her ears she wore drop ear-rings made of three diamonds, whose tinkling at each little movement of her head seemed to play an accompaniment to her speech.

A dark-headed girl from Samos knelt at her feet fixing the low shoes of Sycione, made of soft white kid, with soles of thin golden leaf, which enhanced with their metallic tap-tap the elegance of Poppaea’s steps upon the marble floors. The small slippers enclosed her feet like a modem court-shoe, and were embroidered with pearls and held over the instep by straps of gold cord and silk. A clip, shaped like an eagle, or a crescent, was occasionally used in place of straps.

Before putting on the shoes, the maid enveloped Poppaea’s feet and legs, as far as the knees, into narrow­bands of the finest linen, which were held tight by garters as rich as diadems. Then, another maid passed upon her head the first tunic, of fine linen; but before the tunic, an embroidered corsage was adjusted over her breasts, a kind of brassiere made of strong cloth of wool mixed with gold and silk, that came from the East. This corsage was the most brilliant part of a lady’s dress, at times it was as jewelled as a pectoral; and the stole, or long robe which was worn unfastened over this corsage, was so draped as to show the corsage, although the stole was held at the waist by a jewelled belt. The throat and the right arm were left bare, adorned with necklaces and many bracelets.

Dreaming of the Throne and a power that she could conquer only with her beauty, Poppaea neglected nothing that could charm Nero. She knew by heart the third Canto of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, and her womanly instinct added a thousand counsels to those of that poetic master. Much better than the poet, she knew that there was everything to be gained by making a lover wait. She knew how to push a rival into the shadow; she knew that Nature should be improved upon. She practised the art of deportment and walking under the portico of the Theatre of Pompey, she perfected the artifice of adding attraction to a fault, she knew how to put a spark of femininity and levity into her smile. Poppaea was the first woman in Rome to wear clothes of pure silk, and the only one to enwrap her head with long veils.

She spent hours at the mirror, studying herself critically, considering those gestures which she felt could be improved. She watched the fluttering of her eyelashes and the trembling of her body, and every movement of her limbs. She had acquired by practice the capacity to put on whatever expression she desired.

The greatest charm of her face was in the delicate fascinating nose, and the changeable expression, almost elusive; a face that could be girlish and petulant, or severe and passionate. Around her nostrils there were a few pale freckles that gave her smile an intriguing air. Her mother had taught her to be sparing with the rouge pot and she swallowed some drops prepared for her by a Syrian slave, that acted as a stimulant and lent her freshness and vivacity. And to sweeten her breath she chewed pastilles made of myrtle.

She had a delightful laugh, a thing that can hold a fascination and be communicative of joy and cheerfulness. She spoke Greek beautifully, a language that was very fashionable and sounded so much lighter and appealing than the more solemn Latin.

She had developed her coquetry to the point of returning to the natural modesty of woman, because she knew that modesty, albeit an assumed virtue, is the most provocative of charms.

XI

Nothing prompts an enamoured man to action more than a blow to his vanity. The sadness assumed by Poppaea was in itself enough to hurt Nero, for what greater prize could a woman demand than to possess his heart? But relentlessly Poppaea reiterated her reproach, “You are not really the Emperor; the real ruler of Rome is your mother. You think that you have confined her to her house, but her house is more important than the Palace. All decisions of real importance bear the stamp of her authority. The Praetors, the Aediles, the Tribunes, the more important Senators, all hasten to her, not to you. And she has amassed an enormous fortune; her gold pieces talk for her everywhere. I get news and gossip from every side. I hear things that would never reach your ear. Do you know what the people call you? They call you ‘Empress Nero.’ And they call your mother ‘Agrippina, Emperor of Rome’

Another day she put on the table a gold coin, a bright new one and flicked it with a little gesture of contempt. Nero looked at her, already frowning in expectation of the bitter remark that was sure to come. And come it did. The coin glittered on the marble table, showing, beautifully minted, the proud head of Agrippina. With a touch of her fingers Poppaea turned it on the other side: “And what is this?” she said with a hiss of venom in her voice. “What is this head of an overgrown boy described as Nero Caesar? Who has authorized the design of this coin that to the end of the earth will convey the impression of a Diarchy or, worse still, of an Imperial Matriarchate?”

Nero was dumbfounded. He answered: “I am an artist, that is all I care.”

Poppaea smiled: “And your mother saves you the trouble of being the Emperor. That’s all. And she takes great care to remind the people not that she is Nero’s mother, but that she is Germanicus’s daughter. That still counts for a lot. More than your poetry.”

Thus the poison of envy bit into Nero’s heart, adding to the torments of passion. What shall he do to satisfy this woman? Lurid thoughts traversed his mind. He thought of sudden illness, of fatal accidents that can free one from a person who has become a bad dream. He imagined himself repudiating Octavia, marrying Poppaea, giving the people a great banquet and feast, the crowd acclaiming him and his new Empress... But Agrippina was there, the living obstacle between himself and Poppaea. And Nero discovered that he hated his mother.

One day, when Agrippina spoke again of quitting the capital, Nero answered that perhaps it would be an excellent idea. “What am I doing in Rome nowadays?” she said plaintively to her son. “In the Palace in which I alone have made you Emperor, upon the Throne where you fill the place that I alone have given you, a concubine plays the role of Empress. Far away from Rome I shall try to forget your ingratitude.”

Twenty-four hours later Agrippina left Rome for Anzio. Overjoyed, Nero told Poppaea that no longer would the Empress stand between them. Poppaea replied: “A mere departure does not change anything.” And her lovely features were drawn and sad, and there were tears in her eyes.

That night Nero felt that Agrippina must disappear. He could think of nothing else.

He was afraid to share with anyone the dark plans maturing in his mind. The thought of them filled him with horror. For he loved his mother, even when he hated her; maybe he loved her even now. He recalled how, in the last three years, she had tried to awaken in him a monstrous desire—by surprise, by insidious approaches. Why did Fate pursue him with this Oedipus’s and Orestes’s destiny?

Yet, such a dark deed must be shared with accomplices. One was Tigellinus.

Tophonius Tigellinus was a lecherous man, as lewd of mind as he was in taste and manners. No one knew for a certainty what father he came from, nor did Tigellinus boast of any ancestry. All that was known about him was that, in his youth, Tigellinus had become rich by disposing of three wealthy uncles. As a young man Tigellinus had one day surprised Agrippina: some said that she had tried his prowess in bed. Caligula exiled him to Calabria. But while in exile, he invested his uncles’ money wisely. On his estates he bred horses. Instinc­tively his horses had turned their heads towards Rome. One day their master arrived in Rome and set up as a horse-dealer for the races, and Nero, who was fond of horses and always on the look-out for first-class thorough­breds, had come to know him well.

The other accomplice was Anicetus, Nero’s former tutor, who was discarded by Agrippina to make place for Seneca. Now Anicetus had risen to the command of the Misenum’s Fleet. He was that kind of man who stops at nothing, and’ he had an old account to square with Agrippina.

No one told Poppaea, but she divined it from the first. She told Nero that she was sure he would give her the greatest proof of his love. And she suggested poison: “It is the surest and the simplest way. And,” she added with sweetness, “the least painful. Also, it can appear accidental.”

But Nero was frightened. One could risk poison upon an old man, or an invalid. But a poison was not always sure to work on a vigorous person, and for many years Agrippina had accustomed her body to the strongest poisons. The conspirators would risk making fools of themselves.

A dagger? Anicetus shook his head: “Do not spill blood. To use a dagger is to spread the cry of murder.” And then, Anicetus expounded a beautiful stratagem. Was he not the Praefect of the Fleet? He knew therefore all the dangers of the seas. “Supposing something happened to a ship, far enough from the shore, say that a bulkhead gave way; it would be the end. Imagine a journey at night, the sky is starry and the wind is sweet, then something unforeseen happens, the ship is sinking, the illustrious passenger disappears before help can come...”

“By Jove! ” cried Nero. “It sounds like a naumachy!” The idea was no longer frightening nor terrifying. It seemed a play, or like being at the Circus. There was no longer any murder, only an accident, just a planned accident ... Who would talk of the vengeful Furies or use big solemn words?

XII

Agrippina had gone to her villa at Anzio, that was white and elegant, perched on the very tip of the promontory, like a galleon with all sails set to the wind. The terraced gardens, with their porticoes shaded by rambling roses, were a delight. Resting her head against the cool marble of a pillar, Agrippina thought of Rome across the bay, imagined the busy crowds in the markets, the jostling in the Forum, centre of the world. The Palace and its gardens, symbol of all that was now denied to her for ever. She did not regret her lost power, her Lictors, her chariot that was like a Goddess’s, her invisible presence that was felt even in the Senate, all the honours that no other woman had ever attained. What she grieved for most deeply was to have been banished by her son. It seemed but yesterday that he was looking upon her adoringly. A Chaldean magician, who had studied her horoscope in the skies, had not long ago foretold her that an extraordinary event was upon her, “the stars,” he said, “disclosed no more.” What, she thought, could be more extraordinary than this message from her son regretting her exile and calling her again to his side?

For it was of no use to live in Rome, in the house of Antonia, not far from the Palace and yet so far away from it, and be surrounded by an army of spies who reported her every movement to the Emperor and to Poppaea, “that woman.” She too had her agents, who mingled with the Emperor’s Court. In fact, the two parties spied on each other. But she knew that now all her efforts were fruitless. Britannicus’s death had been a great shock for her, almost an admonition. She knew she was marked. She felt that “that woman” was bent on getting rid of her. Since Britannicus had died she had thought of using Octavia as a tie with the Opposition party, but Octavia was such a silly girl! She knew that, prompted by “ that woman,” her son had entirely escaped from her own control. And now there was this letter inviting her to join the Emperor at Baiae, to celebrate with her son the holy days of Minerva and “renew the affection that should never have been endangered.”

When Agrippina disembarked on the shore at Cape Misenum from the bireme that had brought her from Anzio, a small group of courtiers came forward to greet her. She recognized Seneca, Burrus, Anicetus, Tigellinus. In front of them, all alone, Nero was running towards the shore—just like a boy. Agrippina threw herself into her son’s arms, and he kissed her, murmuring the words that once were so often upon his lips: “The best of mothers!”

The sun was setting in the opalescent sky. The surf gently washed the beach. The hills along the bay had a benign undulation. It was such a joy to be again with the gay Court. Nero offered to escort his mother as far as the white pavilion assigned to her, so white among the dark trunks of the Mediterranean pines. A litter was waiting to take them. They lay down, leaning on the silken cushions, chatting pleasantly. A cortege was formed. The peasants and the fishermen bowed respectfully, the Guards stood at attention, gaping upon the Imperial demi-gods. In the golden dust raised by the bearers’ feet they reached Baiae, where supper was waiting.

Two days soon passed full of pleasure and joys. Now the fateful ship was again crossing the bay. Agrippina lay upon a couch, in the cabin that had been prepared for her on the forecastle. Travelling with her were her lady-in-waiting, the Lady Acerronia, and her bailiff and treasurer Crepereius Gallus. Agrippina lay without speaking, her mind filled with the beatitude of this renewed life. When they had parted, her son had kissed her bosom, “the breasts that suckled me.” Now the ship glided silently, its sails full of wind, the oars cutting the water rhythmically, each stroke punctuated by the voice of the officer marking the time. From the shore floated the perfume of the fields and of the forest of pines.

Suddenly a sinister crash occurred overhead. Agrippina sat up on her couch. The roof of the cabin thundered down; masses of lead followed with a thud. Crepereius, hit on the head, fell down dead. The Lady Acerronia ran out shouting for help. But Agrippina, merely grazed on the left shoulder, moved out silently, hiding behind a big coil of ropes. From her hiding-place she saw all the oarsmen, at a signal, rush to one side of the ship, which heaved steeply, almost capsizing. A few sailors, caught unaware, swore loudly and disappeared overboard. Astern, Agrippina caught sight of Acerronia beating the air with her arms, and then dropping into the depths below. With the suppleness of a cat, Agrippina bent low, ran between the abandoned oars, and let her­self down the side of the ship. She was a splendid swimmer, and the shore was not far away. She heard Acerronia cry: “Help! Help! I am the Empress!” Two sailors threw her a rope, and then, the moment her head was level with them, knocked her savagely with an oar and let the body drop back into the sea. Agrippina put her head under water, and raising it only to take breath, swam vigorously towards the shore.

At Baiae the Emperor was sitting up. With him were Seneca, Burrus and Anicetus. The freedman was lying upon a bed, glancing now and then at a clepsidra which was slowly marking the time, and plucking a garland of roses which he pressed nonchalantly to his nostrils.

Upon his couch lay Nero, pale and restless. Now and then he rose, and walked up and down, pressing his white hands upon his breast. Seneca gazed at the floor, with a frown upon his brow. Neither he nor Burrus had been told, but Seneca guessed that the Dowager-Empress had left on a fateful journey.

Two hours passed, and Anicetus still plucked roses and threw them down. The Emperor became more and more restless, and paced up and down the hall. In the tense silence his sighs sounded like sobs.

Suddenly there were shouts outside, a door was opened wide, and Nero stared at the entering messenger, who was Agrippina’s freedman Lucius Agerinus. The man threw himself at the Emperor’s feet, unable to speak clearly: “The Divine Agrippina, the Empress... There has been a sinking... The Gods’ protection... The Empress is safe... She swam to the coast... She has been taken to Bauli... The Empress sends you word not to be anxious for her; she only desires to rest.”

Nero dismissed the messenger. Then he turned to Anicetus, but was unable to speak.

“The coup has failed, that’s all,” murmured the freed­man. Anicetus plucked a few more roses, then he calmly said: “If you leave her time, she will run to Rome, denounce the attempted murder, arm her slaves, and maybe tomorrow she will raise the Legions. Even the Senate may rise against you. If you give her time.”

Nero turned to Burrus and Seneca, but he could only utter: “My friends...”

The two Ministers glanced at one another. It was a monstrous situation. Yet it admitted no choice. Agrippina was a thoroughly bad woman and Nero was revealing himself her worthy son. But, in the circumstances, what was the higher interest of Rome? The vile freedman had just said it: “Agrippina will raise the Legions.” The atrocious crime would raise a cry among the Legions and a revolt would mean butchery in Rome, maybe in all the cities of the Empire. Nero would be deposed, true, but who would be set up as the next Emperor? Should one risk a new era of massacres, bloodshed and proscriptions for the sake of a thoroughly bad woman?

Seneca, Prime Minister and philosopher, spoke first. Without looking at Nero, as though the Emperor’s presence did not count, he asked of Burrus, Commander of the Guards: “Can you order the troops to strike? ”

“They will not do it. They love the Emperor, but they revere the memory of Germanicus like a fetish. Not one will touch Germanicus’s daughter.” Then the General added contemptuously: “Anicetus has started this mess—let him finish it.”

Without a further word the two Ministers bowed to the Emperor, and left the room. Nero was now alone with the cynical Anicetus. The freedman threw away the plucked garland, rose lazily, and calmly he said: “Go to bed, O Caesar, and try to have happy dreams. I shall work for you.”

A few minutes later Anicetus was galloping towards Bauli, taking with him the triarius Hercules and a cen­turion of the Fleet named Oloarite.

The three forced Agrippina’s door. She received them standing, and fiercely asked: “Have you come to finish me?”

With the flat of his sword the triarius gave her a blow on the head. The centurion drew an ugly dagger.

Agrippina backed to the wall. With both hands she opened her dress and uncovered her beautiful bosom: “Strike at the stomach!” The blade went down to the hilt. Without a cry Agrippina fell to the ground.

All night Nero paced the room, watched by Seneca who, fearing a desperate deed, had returned to the distracted Emperor. And all the time Nero murmured: “The sun! When will the sun rise?” And now and then he uttered: “The world will understand... My love... Poppaea...” It was frightful and pitiful.

The horrible night ended at last, and the sun filled the room. The Emperor shrank from the paleness of the sea and the delicate mist of dawn, for he was seeing his mother’s ghost. But from all sides triumphant shouts filled the villa: “Rise, O Nero Caesar! Your faithful Centurions and Tribunes are coming to renew their oath and vow, and thank the Gods that you have been preserved to the Empire!”

It was Burrus speaking, Burrus standing at the door and looking at his Emperor with eyes full of disdain and yet putting upon Nero’s lips his very justification and his new role: The Gods had spared him... He had struck to avoid being struck.

To the chiefs of the Army, to the local Magistrates, to the representatives of the Campanian towns who all day came bringing their thanks and felicitations, the Emperor repeated his tale, with tears in his eyes. Later, he found the story quite plausible, and susceptible of improvement. Seneca helped to prepare a message to the Senate. For a few days the Emperor believed it him­self. Then he suggested that the Court should move to Naples. Baiae was too dull, the sight of the sea was monotonous, one could almost imagine that one heard cries in the night.

Nero did not tell anyone that he had nightmares. The men of the galleon had told strange stories, how the ship was supposed to have given in under the pressure of the water; but the machinery that should have crashed down upon the Empress had failed to work properly. Nero could no longer endure the atmosphere of Baiae. He imagined he heard the flutes of the funeral beyond the hills. In Naples one would meet more people, and delight in the popular rejoicing at the Emperor’s escape from the mother who had plotted against him.

In Rome the obliging Senate invented new flatteries and honours. Minerva, whose quadriennial Games Nero had gone to celebrate in Baiae, certainly deserved a statue in the Senate House, as an ex-voto for having spared the Emperor. Agrippina’s birthday was entered among the ill-omened days.

From Naples, Seneca advised amenities, pardons, the recall of political exiles. Everything was going well. Only, at night, the Emperor could not bear to look into a mirror. He had his mirrors covered. He moved restlessly from place to place, Sorrento, Salerno, Cuma, Herculaneum, Pompey, Capua... Every city put up triumphal arches to the Emperor. Before him marched the Praetorian Guards and the splendid Numidian Cavalry. A squadron of gigantic African lancers followed, dressed in white and red, marching with long dancing steps, eyes fixed, spears in the right hands, long bronze shields covering their left sides. The Imperial escort was dressed in gay silks, with diadems, necklaces and broad bangles glittering with gems. Surrounding Nero’s litter, beautiful young slaves, with the slender bodies of Tanagra statuettes, scattered roses. Upon the silken cushions, the Master of the World, tired, fatigued, angry with himself, his eyes heavy with sleeplessness and fright, his face made-up like an idol’s, passed amongst the applauding crowds.

The Court feared he might commit suicide. They begged him to return to Rome. They urged upon him that the people were anxiously waiting, that the Empire would wane if the Emperor would not hold it firm in his grasp.

The Emperor returned to Rome. It was an apotheosis—a God taking his place in the Roman Pantheon. From the City the people came out into the country to meet him. The whole route was like a huge amphitheatre, in which all the people of Rome applauded but one actor, who passed under arches of flowers amidst the notes of zithers, cetras and flutes. Everywhere petals of roses rained upon the Imperial procession. Nero glanced round through his monocle of polished emerald, languidly saluting the adoring crowds, with his hand laden with rings and holding a handkerchief of pink silk.

In his fantastic equipage he climbed to the Capitol and rendered thanks to his brother-god Jupiter. The Roman holiday was starting, never to end.