CHAPTER XVII AMUSEMENTS OF AN EMPEROR

Οὐ παύσομαι τὰς Χάριτας
Μούσαις συγκαταμιγνύς.

Euripides .

‘Esclave! apporte-moi des roses,
Le parfum des roses est doux.’

Victor Hugo.

Among the pleasant distractions of the villa, the dilettantism of literature and art were not forgotten. Nero regarded it as one of his serious occupations to practice singing and harp-playing. Afterwards, when his friends gathered round him, they would write verses, or recite, or lounge on purple couches, listening to Epaphroditus as he read to them the last news from the teeming gossip of Rome. Satires and scandalous stories often created a flutter of excitement in the reception-rooms of the capital, and were keenly enjoyed by all, except those, often entirely innocent and worthy persons, who were perfectly defenceless against these calumnies, and felt them like sparks of fire, or poisoned arrows rankling in the flesh.

One morning, when the stay of the courtiers at the villa was drawing to a close, Epaphroditus announced to them that he had a sensation for them of the first magnitude. The trifle which he would read to them was perhaps a little broad in parts, but he was sure that Cæsar would excuse it. It was called, he said, by a curious name, Apokolokyntosis. This was in truth a clever invention of the librarian himself, for he did not venture to mention its real title, which was Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris.

‘Apokolokyntosis?’T3 asked Nero; ‘why, that means gourdification or pumpkinification! One has heard of deification, but what on earth does “gourdification” mean?’

‘Perhaps, Cæsar, in this instance it means the same thing,’ said Epaphroditus; ‘but have I your permission to read it?’

The guests—Lucan among them—settled themselves in easy positions and listened. The reader had not finished a dozen sentences before they found that they were hearing the most daring and brilliant satire which antiquity had as yet produced.

It was a satire on the death of Claudius, and it was not long before peal after peal of astonished laughter rang from all the group.

It began by a jesting refusal to quote any authority for the events the writer was going to relate. If any one wanted evidence he referred to the senator who had sworn that he had seen Drusilla mounting to heaven, and would be equally ready to swear that he had seen Claudius stalking thitherward with unequal steps along the Appian road, by which Augustus and Tiberius had also gone to heaven.

‘It was late autumn, verging on winter—it was, in fact, October 13. As for the hour, that was uncertain, but might be generally described as noontide, when Claudius was trying to die. Since he found it hard to die, Mercury, who had always admired his learning, began to abuse one of the Fates for keeping him alive for sixty-three years. Why could not she allow the astrologers to be right for once, who had been predicting his demise every month? Yet, no wonder! for how could they cast the horoscope of a man so imperfect that he could hardly be said to have ever been born? “I only meant,” pleads Clotho, “to keep him alive a little longer, till he had made all the rest of the world Roman citizens. But since you order it, he shall die.” Thereupon she opened a casket, and took out three spindles—one on which was wound the life-thread of Claudius, and on the other two those of the two idiots, Augurinus and Baba, both of whom, she said, should die about the same time, that Claudius might have fitting company.

‘She said, and broke short the royal period of stolid life.’ At this point the author bursts into poetry, and describes how Lachesis chooses a thread of gold instead of wool, and joyously weaves a web of surpassing loveliness. The life it represents is to surpass the years of Tithonus and of Nestor. Phœbus comes and cheers her on her task with heavenly song, bidding her weave on.

‘Let him whose thread you are weaving,’ he sings, ‘exceed the space of mortal life, for he is like me in countenance, like me in beauty, and not inferior in song or voice. He shall accord happy times to the weary, and shall burst the silence of the laws, like the rising of the morning or the evening star, or of rosy dawn at sunrise. Such a Cæsar is at hand, such a Nero shall Rome now behold! his bright countenance beams with attempered lustre, and his neck is lovely with its flowing locks!’ So sang Apollo, and Lachesis did even more than he required. Meanwhile, Claudius died while listening to the comedians. Then, after a touch of inconceivable coarseness, the writer adds, ‘What happened on earth I need not tell you, for we none of us forget our own felicity, but I will tell you what happened in heaven.’ Jupiter is informed that a being is approaching who is tall, grey-haired, and looks menacing, because he shakes his head and drags his right foot. He is asked to what country he belongs, and returns an entirely unintelligible answer in no distinguishable dialect. As Hercules is a travelled person, Jupiter sends him to enquire to what class of human beings the new-comer appertains. Hercules had never seen a portent like this, with a voice like that of a sea-monster, and thought that this must be his thirteenth labour; but, on looking, perceived that it was a sort of man, and addressed him in Greek. Claudius answers in Greek, and would have imposed on Hercules, had not Fever, who had accompanied Claudius, said, ‘He is not from Ilium; he is a genuine Gaul, born near Lyons, and, like a true Gaul, he took Rome.’ Claudius got into a rage at this, but no one could comprehend his jargon; he had made a signal that Fever should be decapitated, and one might have thought that all present were his freedmen, for no one cared for what he said. Hercules addresses him in severe tones, and Claudius says, ‘You of all the gods, Hercules, ought to know me and support me, for I sat all July and August listening to lawyers before your temple.’ A discussion follows, and then Jupiter asks the gods how they will vote. Janus thinks there are too many gods already. Godhead has become cheap of late. He votes that no more men shall be made gods. Claudius, however, since he is akin to the divine Augustus, and has himself made Livia a goddess, seems likely to gain the majority of votes; but Augustus rises and pleads against this strange candidate for godship with indignant eloquence. ‘This man,’ he pleads, ‘caused the death of my daughter and my grand-daughter, the two Julias, and my descendant, L. Silanus. Also he has condemned many unheard. Jupiter, who has reigned so many years, has only broken one leg—the leg of Vulcan—and has once hung Juno from heaven: but Claudius, inspired by female jealousies and the intrigues of a varletry of pampered freedmen, has killed his wife, Messalina, and a multitude of others. Who would believe that they were gods, if they made this portent a god? Rather let him be expelled from Olympus within three days.’

Accordingly, Mercury puts a rope round his neck, and drags him towards Tartarus. On the way they meet a vast crowd, who all rejoice except a few lawyers. It was, in fact, the funeral procession of Claudius himself, and he wants to stop and look at it; but Mercury covers him with a veil, that no one may recognize him, and drags him along. Narcissus had preceded him by a shorter route, and Mercury bids the freedman hurry on to announce the advent of Claudius to the shades. Narcissus speedily arrives among them, gouty though he was, since the descent is steep, and shouts in a loud voice, ‘Claudius Cæsar is coming.’ Immediately a crowd of shades shouts out, ‘We have found him; let us rejoice!’ They advance to meet him—among them Messalina and her lover, Mnester the pantomime, and numbers of his kinsmen whom he had put to death. ‘Why, all my friends are here!’ exclaims Claudius, quite pleased. ‘How did you all get here?’ ‘Do you ask us?’ said Pedo Pompeius; ‘you most cruel of men, who killed us all?’ Pedo drags him before the judgment-seat of Æacus, and accuses him on the Cornelian law of having put to death thirty senators, three hundred and fifteen Roman knights, and two hundred and twenty-one other persons. Claudius, terrified, looks round him for an advocate, but does not see one. Publius Petronius wants to plead for him, but is not allowed to do so. He is condemned. Deep silence falls on them all, as they wait to hear his punishment. It is to be as endless as that of Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion; it is to be a toil and a desire futile and frustrate and without end. He is to throw dice forever in a dice-box without a bottom!

No sooner said than done! Claudius began at once to seek the dice, which forever escaped him. Every time he attempted to throw them they slipped through, and the throw, though constantly attempted, could never be performed.

Then all of a sudden appears Caligula, and demands that Claudius should be recognised as his slave. He produces witnesses who swear that they have seen Caligula scourge him and slap him, and beat him. He is assigned to Caligula, who hands him over to his freedman, Menander, to be his legal assessor.

Such was this daring satire, of which we can hardly estimate the audacity and wit—written as it was within a year of events which the Roman Senate and Roman people professed to regard as profoundly solemn.

Nero was convulsed with laughter throughout, and was equally delighted by the insults upon his predecessor and the flattery of himself.

When the speaker’s voice ceased, a burst of applause came from the lips of the hearers; and Lucan turned to the gratified Nero and repeated the lines which described his radiant beauty, his song, and the brilliant prognostications of his coming reign.

‘Yes,’ said Otho; ‘that is true poetry—

‘“Such is our Cæsar; such, O happy Rome,

Thy radiant Nero gilds his Palace home;

His gentle looks with tempered splendour shine,

Round his fair neck his golden tresses twine.”’—

and, in the intimacy of friendship, he ventured to pass his hand over the soft golden hair which flowed over the neck of the proud and happy youth.

‘How witty it is, and how powerful!’ said Petronius. ‘Who could have written it?’

Lucan gave a meaning smile. He had not been dismissed from the Villa Castor with the other guests, because the Emperor, although jealous of him, could not help admiring his fiery, original, and declamatory genius.

‘You smile, Lucan,’ said Otho; ‘surely your uncle Seneca—that grave and stately philosopher—could not have written this sparkling farce?’

‘Seneca?’ said Vestinus; ‘what, he who grovelled at the feet of the freedman Polybius, and told him that the one supreme consolation to him for the loss of his wife would be the divine beneficence of the Pumpkinity whom here he paints as an imbecile slaverer?’

‘I think Seneca deserves to be brought up on a charge of treason, if he really wrote it,’ said Tigellinus.

‘Nonsense, Tigellinus,’ said Petronius; ‘you need not be so sanguinary. The thing is but a jest, after all. On the stage we allow the freest and broadest jokes against the twelve greater gods, and even the Capitoline Jupiter; why should not a wit jest harmlessly upon the deified Claudius, now that he has died of eating a mushroom?’

‘You are right,’ said Nero; ‘the author is too witty to be punished; and now I always call mushrooms “the food of the gods.” But was Seneca the writer?’ he asked, turning to Lucan.

‘I think I may say quite confidently that he was not,’ said Lucan, a little alarmed by the savage remark of Tigellinus. In point of fact, he believed that the brochure had been written by his own father, Marcus Annæus Mela, but he felt it desirable that the secret should be kept.

‘We all know that the Annæi are loyal,’ sneered Tigellinus.

‘As loyal, at any rate, as men who would sell their souls for an aureus,’ answered the Spaniard. He looked full at Tigellinus, who remembered the scene, and put it down in his note-book for the day of vengeance.

But Petronius loved elegance, and did not care for quarrels, and he tried to turn the conversation from unpleasant subjects. ‘Lucan,’ he asked, ‘have you written any verses about Nero? If so, pray let us have the pleasure of hearing them.’

Lucan was far from unwilling to show that he too could flatter, and he recited the lines of colossal adulation from the opening of the ‘Pharsalia.’ Even the civil wars, he sang, with all their slaughter, were not too heavy a price to pay for the blessing of having obtained a Nero; and he begs him to be careful what part of Olympus he chooses for his future residence, lest the burden of his greatness should disturb the equilibrium of the world!39

Nero had just heard the deification of Claudius torn to shreds with mortal sarcasm, but his own vanity was impervious to any wound, and he eagerly drank in the adulation which—with no more sincerity than that which had been addressed to his predecessor by the Senate and people of Rome—assured him of the honour of plenary divinity among the deities of heaven in whom, nevertheless, he scarcely even affected to believe.

He turned to Petronius and asked him to recite his poem on the Sack of Troy. Petronius did so, and the Emperor listened with eager interest. It was a subject which fascinated him.

‘Ah!’ he said, ‘to see a city in flames—that would be worth living for! I have tried to write something on that subject myself.’

All present, of course, pressed him to favour them with his poem, and after a little feminine show of reluctance, and many protestations of mock modesty, he read them, in an affected voice, some verses which were marked in every phrase by the falsetto of the age. It was evident that they had been painfully elaborated. Indeed, as they looked at the note-book from which the Emperor read they saw that the labor limæ had been by no means wanting. The book, which afterwards fell into the hands of Suetonius, was scratched and scrawled over in every direction, and it showed that many a turn of expression had been altered twenty times before it became tinkling enough and fantastic enough to suit Nero’s taste. It was clear from the tone in which he read them that the most bizarre lines were exactly those that pleased him best, and they were therefore the ones which his flatterers selected for their loudest applause.

‘“Filled the grim horns with Mimallonean buzz”’—

repeated Lucan. ‘How energetic! how picturesque!’

‘He is laughing at you in his sleeve, Cæsar,’ whispered Tigellinus; ‘and he thinks his own most impromptu line far superior.’

Lucan did not overhear the remark, and he proceeded to quote and praise the three lines on the river Tigris, which

‘“Deserts the Persian realms he loved to lave,

And to non-seekers shows his sought-for wave.”

Now those lines I feel sure will live.’

‘Of course they will,’ said Tigellinus, ‘long after your poems are forgotten.’

The young poet only shrugged his shoulders, and turned on the adventurer a glance of disdain. Petronius, however, who disliked and despised Tigellinus, was now thoroughly disgusted by his malignity, and did not hesitate to express his contempt. ‘Tigellinus,’ he said. ‘if you are so rude I shall ask Cæsar to dismiss you. What nonsense on your part to pretend to know anything about poetry! You know even less than Calvisius Sabinus, who confounds Achilles with Ulysses, and has bought ten slaves who know all the poets by heart to prompt him when he makes a mistake.’40

Tigellinus reddened with anger, but he did not venture to reply.

‘For my part,’ said Senecio, ‘I prefer the line

‘“Thou who didst chine the long-ribb’d Apennine,”

not to speak of the fine effect of the spondaic, there is the daring image.’

‘There is something finer than both,’ said Petronius, and he quoted a line of real beauty which Seneca has preserved for us in his ‘Natural Questions,’ and in which Nero describes the ruffled iridescence of a dove’s neck:

‘Fair Cytherea’s startled doves illume

With sheeny lustre every glancing plume.’41

‘Many,’ said the polished courtier, ‘have seen the mingled amethyst and emerald on the necks of doves and peacocks, but it has been reserved for Cæsar to describe it.’

Somehow or other, in spite of all they said, Nero was not satisfied. He had an uneasy misgiving that all of them except Petronius—whom he knew to be genuinely good-natured—were only fooling him to the top of his bent. Not that this misgiving at all disturbed his conceit. He was convinced that he was a first-rate poet, as well as a first-rate singer and lyrist, and indeed a first-rate artist in all respects. It was the thing of which he was most proud, and if these people were only pretending to recognise his enormous merits, that was simply the result of their jealousy.

‘Thank you, friends,’ he said. ‘What you say of me, Lucan, is very kind, but’—he felt it necessary to show his superiority by a little criticism—‘I should not recommend you to publish your poem just yet. It is crude in parts. It is too Spanish and provincial. It wants a great deal of polishing before it can reach the æsthetic standard.’

Lucan bowed, and bit his lip. He felt that among these poetasters he was like a Triton among minnows, and his sense of mortification was so bitter that he could not trust himself to speak, lest he should risk his head by insulting Nero to his face.

The group broke up. Only Petronius, Paris, and Tigellinus remained.

‘Petronius,’ said Nero, ‘you are a genuine poet. What do you think of Persius and Lucan as poets?’

‘Lucan is more of a rhetorician than a poet,’ said Petronius, ‘and Persius more of a Stoic pedagogue. Both have merits, but neither of them can say anything simply and naturally. They are laboured, artificial, declamatory, monotonous, and more or less unoriginal. Their “honeyed globules of words” are only a sign of decadence.’42

‘And what do you think of my poetry?’ asked the Emperor, sorely thirsting for a compliment.

‘A Cæsar must be supreme in all he does,’ said Petronius, with one of his enigmatical smiles.

He rose, and bowed as he left the room, leaving Nero puzzled and dissatisfied.

‘Oh, Paris!’ exclaimed Nero, flinging his arm round the actor’s neck, ‘you alone are to be envied. You are a supreme artist. No one is jealous of you. When I see you on the stage, moving the people at your will to tears or to laughter, or kindling them to the most delicious emotions—when I hear the roar of applause which greets you as you stand forth in all your grace, and make the huge theatre ring with your fine penetrating voice, I often wish we could change our parts, and I be the actor, and you the Emperor.’

‘You mock a poor mummer, Cæsar,’ said Paris; ‘but if I am to amuse you after the banquet to-night you must let me go and arrange something with Aliturus.’

Nero was left alone with Tigellinus. He yawned wearily. ‘How tedious all life is!’ he said. ‘Well, never mind, there is the banquet of the night to look forward to.’

‘Yes,’ said Tigellinus, ‘and when we are heated with wine we will wander out into the grounds; and in the caves and winding pathways Petronius and Crispinilla have invented a new amusement for you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Do not ask me, Cæsar, and you will all the more enjoy its novelty.’

‘Yes, but our time here is rapidly drawing to a close, and then comes Rome again, and all the boredom of the Senate, and of hearing causes, and entertaining dull people of consequence. And there I must more or less play at propriety.’

‘Why must you, Cæsar? Cannot you do exactly as you like? Who is there to question you?’

‘My mother, Agrippina, if no one else.’

‘You have only one reason to fear the Augusta.’

‘What is that?’

‘Because, Cæsar, as I have already warned you, she is making much of Britannicus. I have reason to believe that she is also plotting to secure the elevation of Rubellius Plautus or Sulla. She is not at all too old to marry either of them, and both of them have imperial blood in their veins.’

‘Rubellius Plautus?’ asked Nero; ‘why, he is a peaceful pedant. And that miserable creature Sulla cares for nothing but his dinner.’

‘We shall see in time,’ said Tigellinus; ‘but meanwhile, so long as Britannicus lives—’

‘Finish your sentence.’

‘So long as Britannicus lives, Nero is not safe.’

Nero sank into a gloomy reverie. He had not suspected that the dark-eyed adventurer had designs as deep as those of Sejanus himself. That guilty and intriguing minister of Tiberius was only a Roman knight, and the whole family of Germanicus, as well as the son and the grandson of Drusus, stood in the direct line of descent as heirs to the throne. Yet he had for years worked on with the deliberate intention of clearing every one of them from his path, and climbing to that throne himself.

Why should not Tigellinus follow a similarT4 course? He had persuaded Nero that he knew something about soldiership. He had made himself popular among the Prætorian guards. Burrus might be got rid of, and Tigellinus, by pandering to Nero’s worst instincts, encouraging his alarms, and awakening his jealousies, might come to be accepted as an indispensable guardian of his interests, and so be made the Prætorian Præfect. Once let him gain that position, and he might achieve almost anything. Octavia would evidently be childless. Nero was the last of his race. It would be just as well to get rid, beforehand, of all possible rivals to his ambitious designs. Plautus and Sulla might wait, but nothing could be done till Britannicus was put out of the way. It would then be more easy to deal with Agrippina and with Octavia.

So he devised; and the spirits of evil laughed, knowing that he was but paving the road for his own headlong destruction.

But that night no one was gayer and more smiling than he at the soft Ionian festival, where they were waited on by boys robed in white and crowned with roses. It had been spread in the viridarium, a green garden surrounded by trees cut and twisted into quaint shapes of birds and beasts by the ars topiaria. The larger dishes were spread on the marble rim of a fountain, while the smaller ones floated among the water-lilies in vessels made in the shape of birds or fish. By one novel and horrible refinement of luxury, a fish was caught and boiled alive during the feast in a transparent vase, that the guests might watch its dying gleams of ruby and emerald. When the drinking was finished they went into the groves and gardens of the villa, and the surprise which had been prepared for Nero was a loose sylvan pageant. Every grove and cavern and winding walk had been illuminated at twilight by lamps which hung from tree to tree. In the open spaces naiads were bathing in the lake, and leaving trails of light in the water, and uplifting their white arms, which glittered like gold in the moonlight; and youths with torches sprang out of the lurking-places dressed like fauns or satyrs, and danced with maidens in the guise of hamadryads, and crowned the guests with flowers, and led them to new dances and new orgies and new revelries, while their cries and songs woke innumerable echoes, which mocked the insulted majesty of the night.

And in those very caves, four hundred years later, there came and lived a boy a little younger than Nero was, and amid the pleasances of the villas, which had fallen to ruin, and in the lonely caverns high up among the hills, he made his solitary home. He had deserted the world, disgusted and disillusioned with the wickedness of Rome. And once, when the passions of the flesh seemed to threaten him, he rushed out of his cave and rolled his naked body on the thorns where now the roses grow. And multitudes were struck by his holiness and self-devotion, and monasteries rose on every crag, and the scene, once desecrated by the enchantments of the sorceress Sense, was purified by the feet of saintly men, and the cavern where young slaves had lurked in the guise of the demons of the Gentiles is now called the Holy Cave.

That boy of fourteen was Benedict. The name of Nero has rotted for more than eighteen centuries, but to this day the memory of St. Benedict is fragrant as his own roses; for

‘Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.’