CHAPTER XXXVI SELF-AVENGED

‘Sua quemque fraus, suum facinus, suum scelus, sua audacia, de sanitate ac mente deturbat. Hæ sunt impiorum furiæ, hæ flammæ, hæ faces.’—Cic. In Pisonem, xx. 46.

Nero, in a mood of fearful restlessness, awaited news of the issue of his design. Long ere this he ought to have received the intelligence which would relieve his life of a great burden. Hardly for a moment did the enormity of the crime he was committing press upon a soul given up to shameful self-indulgence. He only yearned to be rid of a figure which frightened him, and checked the rushing chariot-wheels of his passions. Once free from his mother and her threats, he would marry Poppæa and give himself up to whatever his heart desired. Too uneasy to sleep, too much occupied with anxiety to follow his usual pleasures, he talked to Tigellinus, who alone was with him, pacing up and down the hall of his villa, tossing down goblet after goblet of wine, and trying to conjure before his imagination the scene which was being enacted. Surely it could not fail! And, if it succeeded, the dead tell no tales, and the sea-waves would keep the secret! Every one had seen the warmth of his attention to his mother, and the affectionate tenderness with which he had bidden her farewell. What remained but publicly to deplore with tears the sad bereavement which had been inflicted on his youth by the treachery of winds and waves, and then to decree to his mother’s memory the temples and the altars which would be ostentatious proofs of his filial regard?

But how was it that no news had reached him? Three or four hours had passed. By this time the deed must have been done. Something had happened—so much was certain; for though he dared not send out to inquire, as though he suspected that anything was wrong, yet from the balcony he saw the torches moving in hurried streams hither and thither, and he could hear the distant cries of excitement and alarm.

A messenger was announced.

‘Who is it?’ asked Nero anxiously.

‘The centurion Pudens,’ said the slave; ‘and he is accompanied by Titus Flavius.’

Nero started at the name, for it recalled the night of the murder of Britannicus.

‘What do they want?’

‘They have important tidings, which they will tell to Cæsar’s ears alone.’

‘Admit them. See that the guard is on duty close at hand.’

Pudens and the youth were ushered into Nero’s presence, and, in answer to his agitated inquiries, told him all that had occurred, and how they had helped to rescue the Empress as she was saving herself by swimming. They were dismissed, each with a handsome gift; and scarcely had they left the room when Nero, pale as death, and with a heart which throbbed with painful palpitations, flung himself on a couch and turned a terrified look on his accomplice.

‘The plan has been bungled,’ he said. ‘I am ruined. My mother has been wounded. She knows all.’

Tigellinus feared that in his terror he would swoon away, and sprinkled his face with water.

‘What will she do?’ asked Nero in a faint voice. ‘Will she arm her slaves to attack and murder me? Will she rouse the soldiers? Will she go to Rome and accuse me of matricide before the Senate and the people?’

The older and robuster villany of Tigellinus was not terrified by these alarms; but he too saw that the situation was serious, and did not know what to advise.

Nero, shaking with alarm, sent messengers in fiery haste for Burrus and Seneca, both of whom had come from Rome to Baiæ at his request to attend upon him during the Quinquatrus. They were roused from their beds at the dead of night, and hurried to Nero’s villa. He told them that, after his mother had left him, her vessel had been wrecked, and that she had swam to land with no worse hurt than a slight wound; but he added, ‘She suspects that I have attempted her life: and how am I to escape her vengeance?’

Burrus and Seneca stood silent and thunderstricken. They were innocent of the vile attempt. Dim rumours of some grave crime which was in contemplation had indeed reached them; and in Nero’s court everything seemed credible. The murder had been the design of the execrable Anicetus and the yet more execrable Tigellinus, and had only been revealed to kindred spirits such as Poppæa. But they at once saw through the story which Nero told them, in which he had indeed betrayed himself.

It was a moment of anguish and of degradation for them both. The blunt, honest soldier was thinking of his happier youth, in which virtue was not compelled to breathe so contaminated an atmosphere. He was secretly cursing the day on which ambition had led him to espouse the cause of Nero, and so to be dragged into loathed complicity with so many crimes.

And through the heart of Seneca there shot a pang of yet keener agony. He a philosopher; he a Stoic; he a writer of so many high-soaring moral truths; he so superior to the vile and vulgar standard of his age—to what had he now sunk! Was this corrupt fratricide—this would-be murderer of his mother—the timid boy who, little more than five years before, had been entrusted to his tutelage? And was he now called upon to advise the most feasible way in which a matricide could be accomplished? Was he, of all men, to be the Pylades to this viler Orestes? Was it to the edge of such a precipice that he had been led by the devious ways of a selfish ambition?

A nobler path was open to him had he desired it. Why should he not have urged Nero to visit his mother, to expostulate with her if need be, to be reconciled with her in reality? Might he not have told him that, if Agrippina were really conspiring, it would be better for him to run that risk than to stain his hands in a mother’s blood? Titus was not a professed philosopher like Seneca, yet Titus rose spontaneously to that height of virtue in later years. He knew that his brother Domitian was working in secret as his deadly enemy, yet he only took him gently aside, and entreated him to behave more worthily of a brother. And when he saw that his entreaty had failed, he did indeed weep as he sat at the games, but he would not shed his brother’s blood.

Alas! the conscience of Seneca did not suggest to him this means by which he could extricate himself. That Agrippina was, at such a crisis, preparing to rebel against her son he did not believe; but might she not—so whispered to him once more the demon of concession—might she not become dangerous hereafter? In other words, must he not help the Emperor to accomplish his fell purpose? The silence became intolerable.

At last Seneca turned his troubled eyes on Burrus, as though to inquire whether it would be safe to command the execution of Agrippina by the Prætorians.

Burrus understood his look and bluntly replied that such a thing was not to be thought of. The Prætorians would never lift a hand against the daughter of Germanicus. The same thought had been in his mind as in that of Seneca, though he had blushed to give it utterance. But now that he saw the drift of his colleague’s purpose, he gulped down his scruples, and said with sullen brevity, ‘Let Anicetus complete what he has begun.’

Anicetus had been on board the deceitful vessel, and, on the failure of the device, had made his way with all speed in a rowing boat to the Emperor’s villa. He entered at the moment when Burrus spoke. Nero turned on him a look of rage, and, walking up to him, stammered into his ear the threat that his life should pay the penalty of his clumsy failure.

‘Be calm, Cæsar,’ he replied in a whisper; ‘your wish shall still be accomplished. Only give me your authority to end the business.’

Anicetus hated Agrippina for private reasons, and he knew that, if she were not put to death, she would demand vengeance upon him, since the treachery on board the vessel could not have been effected without his cognizance. ‘Leave it in my hands,’ he said. ‘If Seneca and Burrus are too timid to strike a blow for their Emperor, at least Anicetus will not shrink.’

‘Thanks, Anicetus,’ said Nero, changing his mood. ‘To-day, for the first time, I feel secure. Now I begin to recognise that I am indeed Emperor. And a freedman is the author of the boon!’

He frowned at his two ministers to reprove their backwardness in murder, and effusively grasped the hand of the admiral. Burrus, as he looked at his scowling countenance, felt a fresh pang of remorse that he had ever deserted the cause of Britannicus. Seneca said to his agonised conscience, ‘If one would be the friend of a tyrant, one must not only wink at crimes, but commit them without a moment’s hesitation, however heinous they may be.’

While Anicetus was hastily suggesting the steps to be taken, the announcement came that one of Agrippina’s attendants—Lucius Agerinus—was waiting outside with a verbal message from the Augusta. Before he was admitted Nero whispered something to Anicetus. ‘Yes, yes,’ said the admiral, ‘the plan is excellent.’

Both Seneca and Burrus were amazed and shocked at the stupid and shameless comedy which was then enacted before their eyes. Agerinus had hardly begun to deliver his message when Nero, stepping up to him, dropped a sword at his feet. It fell with a clang on the white and purple mosaic, and instantly Nero and Anicetus began to clamour, ‘Murder! treason! murder! he has been sent by Agrippina to stab the Emperor!’

At this shout the body-guard came running in, and Agerinus was loaded with chains. Anicetus now had the excuse he needed. He summoned a band of soldiers and marines, and, accompanied by Herculeius, one of his naval captains, and Obaritus, an officer of the marines, he made his way to the villa at Bauli, giving out that he was ordered to execute Agrippina, who had just been detected in an attempt to assassinate her son.

They found the precincts of the villa thronged by a curious crowd. These they drove away, and surrounded the grounds with guards. The slaves dispersed in all directions. Agrippina was still in her dimly lighted room, growing momently more alarmed because Agerinus did not return and she received no message from Nero. Nearer and nearer came the tread of feet till they heard the soldiers enter the atrium. There followed a brief altercation as the murderers scattered the few faithful attendants who would still have guarded the door of the chamber. The slave-girl rose to fly.

‘Dost thou also desert me?’ said the Empress bitterly.

But the girl’s figure had scarcely disappeared when the door was rudely burst open, and she saw the cruel face of her enemy Anicetus, who held his drawn sword in his hand.

For a moment they stopped before her imperious gesture.

‘If you have come from my son to inquire after my health,’ she said, ‘tell him that I am better. If you have come to commit a crime, I will not believe that you have his authority.’

‘We have his authority,’ said Anicetus. ‘Behold his signet-ring!’

They advanced upon her. She sprang from her couch and stood erect. Then the brutal Herculeius struck her a blow on the head with his baton, and Anicetus aimed his sword at her breast. She avoided the stroke, and, rending her tunic, ‘Strike here,’ she said, pointing to her womb; ‘it bore a monster!’

She fell, stricken down, and thrust through with many deadly wounds.

Thus ended that career of wickedness and splendour. Almost from the day which consummated her many crimes she heard behind her the fatal footstep of the avenger. Her murder of Claudius had placed the diadem upon the brow of her own murderer. For that young murderer she had felt the frantic love of a tigress for the cub which she licks and fondles. And now the tiger-whelp had shown the nature which it inherited.

When Nero received the news that his mother was dead, he would not trust to any testimony. With wild haste and utmost secrecy he went to the villa at Bauli. With trembling hand he drew the winding-sheet from the face, and gazed on the corpse. The colour fled from his cheeks; but after a moment or two he grew bolder. The matricide was still the æsthete. ‘I did not know,’ he said, ‘that I had so beautiful a mother.’ Then he hurried back.

That same night they carried her corpse to the funeral pyre. It was laid upon a couch from her banquet-hall, for lack of a regular bier. Hurried and scant and humble were her obsequies. Her ashes were laid in a mean grave near the road to Misenum, where the villa of the dictator Cæsar crowned an eminence which commanded a wide view of the gulf.

During the remaining ten years of her son’s reign, the site of her sepulchre was left unhonoured and no mound was raised above her ashes. But the spot was not forgotten, and to this day the peasant points to the Sepolcro d’ Agrippina. One instance of faithfulness gave a yet more pathetic interest to the spot where so many lofty hopes were quenched in blood. Before the pyre was kindled, Mnester, her loyal freedman, stabbed himself over her corpse. He would not survive a mistress who, whatever had been her crimes, had been kind to him, and whom he loved.

What pathos is there in the fact that even the worst and most criminal of human souls have rarely died entirely unloved! Even a Marat, even a Robespierre, even a Borgia, even an Agrippina, found at least one to mourn when they were dead.