CHAPTER V THE MOCKERY OF DEATH

‘Esse aliquos Manes et subterranea regna

Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur,

Sed tu vera puta.’—Juv. Sat. ii. 149-153.

Agrippina had long contrived to secure the absolute devotion of her slaves, clients, and freedmen. In that vast household of at least sixteen hundred persons, all courteously treated and liberally paid, there were many who were ready to go any lengths in support of their patroness. Among them was the freedman Mnester, who knew but little of her crimes, but was enthusiastic in her interests. She made constant use of him on that eventful day.

Among her slaves were some of the Chaldæai and casters of horoscopes, so common in those times, in whom she placed a superstitious confidence. Her first care was to consult them, and she determined to take no overt step until they should announce that the auspicious hour had come. She then hastened to the chamber where Xenophon still kept his watch beside the man whom he had murdered. He kept that watch with perfect indifference. His was a soul entirely cynical and atheistic; greedy of gain only, case-hardened by crime. The bargain between him and the Empress was perfectly understood between them. Enormous wealth would be the price of his silence and success; death would punish his failure.

There was nothing to be seen but the dead form covered from head to foot by a purple coverlet.

She pointed to it. ‘He must still be supposed to be alive,’ she said. ‘The Chaldæans say that the omens are still inauspicious. How are we to keep the secret for some hours longer?’

‘Asclepiades teaches,’ answered the physician, with the scarcely veiled sneer which marked his tone of voice, ‘how good it is that the pains of dying men should be dissipated by comedy and song. The Empress can order some comedians to play in the adjoining chamber. If they cannot avail the divine Claudius, they will at least serve to amuse my humble self, and I have now been in this room for many hours.’

‘Does any one suspect that he is dead?’

‘No, Augusta,’ he answered. ‘To dissipate the too suspicious silence, I have occasionally made curious sounds, at which I am an adept. They will delude any chance listener into the belief that my patient is still alive.’

For a moment her soul was shocked by the suggestion of sending for the mummers. But she saw that it would help to prevent the truth from leaking out. For one instant she lifted the purple robe and looked on the old man of sixty-four, who had thus ended his reign of fourteen years. She dropped it over the features, which, in the majesty of death, had lost all their coarseness and imbecility, and showed the fine lineaments of his ancestors. The moment afterwards she was sorry that she had done it. That dead face haunted all her after life.

Leaving the chamber without a word, she gave orders that, as the Emperor was now awake, and had asked for something to amuse him, some skilled actors of comedy should be sent for to play to him from the adjoining room. They came and did their best, little knowing that their coarse jests and riotous fun did but insult the sacred majesty of death. After an hour or two Xenophon, who had been laughing uproariously, came out, thanked them in the Emperor’s name, and dismissed them.

But Agrippina had hastened to one of the audience rooms, in which the Palace abounded, and sent for Britannicus and Octavia, and for their half-sister Antonia. She embraced them with effusive fondness. It was her special object to detain Britannicus in her presence, lest if but one faithful friend discovered that Claudius was dead, he might summon the adherents of the young prince, and present him to the people as the true heir to the throne. With pretext after pretext she detained him by her side, telling him of the pride and comfort which she felt in his resemblance to the Emperor, calling him a true Cæsar, a true Claudius. Again and again she drew him to her knee; she held him by the hand; she passed her jewelled fingers through his hair; she amused him with the pretence of constant messages to the sick-room of his father. And all the while her soul was half-sick with anxiety, for the Chaldæans still sent to say that the hour was inauspicious, and she did not fail to observe that the boy, as much as he dared to show his feelings, saw through her hypocrisy, resented her caresses. He burned to visit the bedside of his father, and was bitterly conscious that something was going on of which he and his sisters were the special victims. For he was a noble and gifted boy. Something he had of the high bearing of his race, something, too, of the soft beauty of his mother. His tutor, the grammarian Sosibius, had done for him all that had been permitted, and though Britannicus had purposely been kept in the background by the wiles of his stepmother, the teacher had managed to inspire him with liberal culture, and to enrich his memory with some grand passages of verse. Nero was more than three years his senior, and in superficial qualities and graces outshone him; but keen observers whispered that though Britannicus could not sing or paint or drive a chariot like his stepbrother, and was less fascinating in manner and appearance, he would far surpass Nero in all manly and Roman virtues. The heart of Octavia was full of unspeakable misgivings. Motherless, unloved, neglected, she had known no aspect of life except its tragedy, and none had as yet taught her any possible region in which to look for comfort under the burden of the intolerable mystery.

The morning hours passed heavily, and Agrippina was almost worn out by the strain put upon her. In vain she tried to interest Britannicus in the talking-thrush, which had greatly amused him on previous occasions. She went so far as to give him her white nightingale, which was regarded as one of the greatest curiosities in Rome. It had been bought for a large sum of money, and presented to her. Pliny, among his researches in natural history, had never heard of another.5 At another time Britannicus would have been enraptured by so interesting and valuable a gift; but now he saw that it was the object of the Empress simply to detain him and his friends from any interference with her own designs. He thanked her coldly, and declined to rob her of a possession which all Rome desired to see.

At last he grew beyond measure impatient. ‘I am certain,’ he said, ‘that my father is very ill, and that he would wish to see me. Augusta, must I be kept in this room like a child among women? Let me go to the Emperor.’

‘Wait,’ she said, ‘for a little longer, dear Britannicus. You surely would not waken the Emperor from the sleep which may prove to be the saving of his life? It is getting towards noon; you must be hungry. The slaves shall bring us our prandium here.’

It was said to save time, but Britannicus saw that it would be vain to escape. The door was beset with soldiers and with the slaves and freedmen of the Empress. Some great event was evidently at hand. The halls and corridors were full of hurrying footsteps. Outside they heard the clang of armed men, who marched down the Vicus Apollinis, and stopped at the vestibule of the Palace.

Then Pallas entered, and, with a deep obeisance, said, ‘Augusta, I grieve to be the bearer of evil tidings. The Emperor is dead.’

Octavia burst into a storm of weeping at the terrible intelligence, for she had been partially deceived by the protestations of Agrippina. Britannicus sat down and covered his face with his hands. He had always assumed that he would at least share the throne with the youth whom Claudius, at the wearying importunities of his mother, had needlessly adopted, and had repented of having adopted. But he loved his father, who had always been kind to him, and at that dreadful moment no selfish thought intruded on his anguish. After the first burst of sorrow, he got up from his seat, and tenderly clasped the hand of his sister.

‘Octavia,’ he said, ‘we are orphans now—fatherless, motherless, the last of our race. We will be true to each other. Take courage. Be comforted. Antonia,’ he added, gently taking his half-sister by the hand, ‘I will be a loyal brother to you both.’