CHAPTER II AGRIPPINA AND NERO

‘Occidat dum imperet.’—Tac. Ann. xiv. 9.

A voice was heard in the corridor, the curtain was drawn aside, and a youth of sixteen, but who had nearly completed his seventeenth year, entered the room.

He was still in the bloom of his youthful beauty. His face was stamped with all the nobility of the Domitian race from which he sprang. It had not as yet a trace of that ferocity engendered in later years from an immense vanity clouded by a dim sense of mediocrity. It was perfectly smooth, and there was nothing to give promise of the famous brazen beards of his ancestors, unless it were the light hair, with its slight tinge of red, which was so greatly admired in antiquity, and which looked golden when it caught the sunlight. Round the forehead it was brushed back, but it covered his head with a mass of short and shining curls, and grew low down over the white neck. His face had not yet lost the rose of youth, though its softness spoke of a luxurious life. The eyes were of light grey, and the expression was not ungenial, though, owing to his short sight, his forehead often wore the appearance of a slight frown. He was of middle height, and of those fine proportions which made his flatterers compare him to the youthful God of Song.

‘Nero!’ exclaimed his mother: ‘I thought you were still in the banquet hall. If the Emperor awakes he may notice your absence.’

‘There is little fear of that,’ said Nero, laughing. ‘I left the Emperor snoring on his couch, and the other guests decorously trying to suppress the most portentous yawns. They, poor wretches, will have to stay on till midnight or later, unless Narcissus sets them free from the edifying spectacle of a semi-divinity quite intoxicated.’

‘Hush!’ said Agrippina, severely. ‘This levity is boyish and ill-timed. Jest at what you like, but never at the majesty of the Imperial power—not even in private, not even to me. And remember that palace walls have ears. Did you leave Octavia at the table?’

‘I did.’

‘Imprudent!’ said his mother. ‘You know what pains I have taken to keep her from seeing too much of her father except when we are present. Claudius sometimes sleeps off the fumes of wine, and after a doze he can talk as sensibly as he ever does. Was Britannicus in the Hall?’

‘Britannicus?’ said Nero. ‘Of course not. You have taken pains enough, mother, to keep him in the background. According to the antique fashion which the Emperor has revived of late, you saw him at the banquet, sitting at the end of the seat behind his father. But the boys have been dismissed with their pedagogues long ago, and, for all I know, Britannicus has been sent to bed.’

‘And for whose sake do I take these precautions?’ asked the Empress. ‘Is it not for your sake, ungrateful? Is it not that you may wear the purple, and tower over the world as the Imperator Romanus?’

‘For my sake,’ thought Nero, ‘and for her own sake, too.’ But he said nothing; and as he had not attained to the art of disguising his thoughts from that keenest of observers, he bent down, to conceal a smile, and kissed his mother’s cheek, with the murmured words, ‘Best of mothers!’

‘Best of mothers! Yes; but for how long?’ said Agrippina. ‘When once I have seated you on the throne—’ She broke off her sentence. She had never dared to tell her son the fearful augury which the Chaldeans had uttered of him: ‘He shall be Emperor, and shall kill his mother.’ He had never dreamed that she had returned the answer: ‘Let him slay me, so he be Emperor.’

‘Optima mater, now and always,’ he replied. ‘But I am angry with Britannicus—very angry!’ and he stamped his foot.

‘Why? The boy is harmless enough. I thought you had him completely under your power. You seem to be very good friends, and I have seen you sitting together, and training your magpies and jays to talk, quite amicably. Nay, though Britannicus hates me, I almost won his heart—for two minutes—by promising to give him my talking-thrush, which eyes us so curiously from its cage.’3

‘Give it to me, mother,’ said Nero. ‘A thrush that can talk as yours can is the greatest rarity in the world, and worth ten times over its weight in gold.’

‘No, Nero; Britannicus shall have it. I like to see him devoting himself to such trifles. I have other views for you. But what has the poor boy done to offend you?’

‘I met him in the Gelotian House,’ said Nero, ‘and how do you think he dared to address me? Me—by sacred adoption the son of Claudius, and, therefore, his elder brother?’

‘How?’

‘I said to him, quite civilly, “Good morning, Britannicus.” He had actually the audacity to reply, “Good morning, Ahenobarbus!” Ahenobarbus, indeed! I hate the name. I stand nearer to the divine Augustus than he does.4 What did he mean by it?’

Agrippina broke into a ripple of laughter. ‘The poor harmless lad!’ she said. ‘It merely was because his wits were wool-gathering, as his father’s always are. No doubt he dislikes you—he has good reason to do so; but he meant nothing by it.’

‘I doubt that,’ answered the youth. ‘I suspect that he was prompted to insult me by Narcissus, or Pudens, or the knight Julius Densus or some of the people who are still about him.’

‘Ah!’ said Agrippina, thoughtfully, ‘Narcissus is our most dangerous enemy. He is much too proud of his ivory rod and prætor’s insignia. But he is not unassailable. The Emperor was not pleased with the failure of the canal for draining Lake Fucinus, and perhaps I can get Domitius Afer or some one else, to accuse him of embezzling the funds. How else could he have amassed 400,000,000 sesterces? He has the gout very badly, and I will persuade him that it is necessary for him to go to Campania for the benefit of his health. When once he is out of the way—. But, Nero, I am expecting a visit from Pallas, with whom I have much important business. Go back to the hall, my boy, and keep your eyes open always as to what is going on.’

‘I will go back,’ said Nero; ‘but, mother, I sometimes wish that all this was over. I wish I had not been forced to marry Octavia. I shall never like her. I should like to have—’

He stopped, and blushed crimson, for his mother’s eagle eye was upon him, and he had almost let out the secret of his sudden and passionate love for Acte, the beautiful freedwoman of his wife.

‘Well?’ said Agrippina suspiciously, but not ill-pleased to see how her son quailed before her imperious glance. ‘Go on.’

‘I meant nothing particular,’ he stammered, his cheek still dyed with its deep blush, ‘but that I sometimes wish I were not going to be Emperor at all. Julius was murdered. Augustus, they say, was poisoned. Tiberius was suffocated. My uncle Gaius was stabbed with many wounds. The life is not a happy one, and the dagger-stab too often finds its way through the purple.’

‘Degenerate boy!’ said Agrippina; ‘I do not wonder that you blush. Is it such a nothing to be a Lord of the World? Have you forgotten that you are a grandson of Germanicus, and that the blood of the Cæsars as well as of the Domitii flows in your veins? One would think you were as ordinary a boy as Britannicus. For shame!’

‘Well, well, mother,’ he said, ‘you always get your own way with every one. Pallas is in the anteroom, and I must go.’

Nero kissed her, and took his leave. Immediately afterwards the slave announced that Pallas was awaiting the pleasure of the Empress.