nero was no longer “the young apollo” of his boyhood. unbridled dissipation and precocious crime had made their impress on body no less than on mind. he was a little above the average height, but his prematurely swollen paunch was poorly balanced on his slender and ungraceful limbs, and his skin was blotched and repellent. the dull grey eyes betrayed his unceasing indulgence, and the yellow hair, dressed in stages of short curls, framed a face that was certainly no longer handsome. his mind was in unmistakable disorder. our kindly age would invoke this mental trouble in extenuation of the brutal crimes he had committed and the stupendous folly he is about to perpetrate. were this a biography of the emperors, we might boldly essay to prove rather that the insanity followed the matricide, but that does not concern us. he was, as yet, only in his twenty-second year.
to this precocious monstrosity of vice and crime was mated one of the gentlest young matrons of the c?sarean house, octavia, the daughter of claudius and messalina. married at the very early age of thirteen to nero, her timid girlish nature was paralyzed by the coarse habits of her husband, and she merely hovers about the stage, like a dimly perceptible shadow, during the earlier part of nero’s reign. it must have been shortly after their marriage that nero disdained her for the beautiful greek slave, acte, to whom he was more constant than to any other living thing, and who, in return, paid the last tribute to his despised106 remains. at first one of nero’s associates screened the entanglement, but, as we saw, it became known in the palace, and agrippina made a fruitless effort to press the rights of his girl-wife. the injustice was, however, one that roman ladies were not unaccustomed to bear. nero soon fell into more disreputable ways. octavia would see him leave the palace after supper with his wild companions, and needed little effort of imagination to follow his course when he returned, in the early morning, with torn garments and flushed, if not bruised, features and, occasionally, the painted signs that he had wrenched from shop-doors, or the cups he had stolen in a raid upon some low tavern.
he had gathered about him a band of older youths, who encouraged him in the licentious use of his power, and endeared themselves to him by the fertility of their imaginations. chief among them was salvius otho, a young noble of etruscan descent, five years older than nero—the emperor otho of a later date. he had entered the palace in virtue of an amorous relation with one of agrippina’s ladies, and his wide knowledge of adolescent amusements won him the regard of nero, whom he led into the wildest adventures. they would wander at night through the streets, and revel in the taverns and brothels of the popular quarters of the city, the mysterious dim-lit valleys on which patrician maidens looked down from the mansions on the hills. in those centres of nightly disorder nero and his companions were the most daring mohocks, if we may use a phrase that belongs to later history. they violated women and boys, and played the most brutal pranks upon unarmed folk. one night nero was severely thrashed by a senator, whose wife he had insulted. the man learned afterwards that it was the emperor whom he had beaten, and went to the palace to apologize. nero forced him to atone with his life for the injury he had done to the imperial dignity. he withdrew the guards from the circus, in order that he might enjoy the fights of the rival factions, and from the milvian bridge, at night, so as to give complete liberty to vice in that nocturnal resort.
107 the chaste and trembling octavia, who was still only in her sixteenth year, shrank from his brutal disdain. it was enough for her to have the title of empress, he said to his mother, when she urged the rights of octavia. presently nero declared that he would divorce her, and marry the handsome greek girl, but seneca and burrus succeeded in preventing him. to check his disorders entirely they were quite powerless, and they seem to have thought it better to direct, than to resist, his vices. suddenly, however, in the year 58, nero transferred his passion to the daughter of popp?a sabina, and began the long, tragic struggle to secure her as his empress.
popp?a, who will be the next figure in our gallery of roman empresses, and therefore may at once be introduced, was one of the prettiest, vainest, and most discussed ladies in rome. her mother, with whom we are already acquainted as one of messalina’s victims, had been the daughter of a very wealthy and illustrious provincial governor, popp?us sabinus. popp?a’s father, titus ollius, had been a friend of sejanus, and had been swept away in the flood of tiberius’s anger. she was, therefore, of mature years, but she had protected her charms so industriously that she still had the soft beauty and the fresh complexion of a girl. she had inherited also the wealth, the wit, and—it is said—the easy morals of her mother. the pretence of modesty which she made, by wearing a veil whenever she went abroad, was redeemed by the splendour of her establishment and the elaborate culture of her fair skin and pretty face. the mules which drew the litter of the veiled lady were shod with gold, and the traces of their harness were woven from gold thread. when she moved to her country house, or to bai?, five hundred she-asses ran in the train of her litter and cars, to provide the milk for her daily bath. if we may trust the busts to which her name is attached, she had a childish grace and delicacy of feature, instead of the tense face of the adventuress; and we know that108 her amber-coloured hair was so much admired that it set, or revived, a fashion in amber.
she had married a knight, rufus crispinus, by whom she had had a son. this marriage was ended by divorce, and she became the wife of nero’s favourite, salvius otho. it is suggested, and not difficult to believe, that she had married otho on account of his intimacy with the emperor. he was by no means handsome, though he covered his baldness with a wig, dressed sumptuously, and had wealth, wit, and taste for art. from him nero heard, over their cups, the piquant story of popp?a’s beauty and luxury, and it was not long before imperial messengers were sent to her mansion. they were not admitted, and even nero, when he sought entrance, was coyly reminded that popp?a was married, and was devoted to her husband. after a stormy siege she gracefully capitulated so far as to receive innocent visits from nero, and inflame him to madness with the display of her cultivated beauty. he spoke bitterly of his mother as an obstacle in the way of their marriage. popp?a twitted him with his dependence on her, and we have seen the outcome.
when agrippina had been removed, nero proposed at once to divorce octavia and wed popp?a. the silence of seneca at all these critical points in the degradation of nero is painful to every admirer of the distinguished moralist. it was the less courtly and less virtuous burrus who defended the young empress. if nero abandoned octavia, he brusquely said, he must also give up her dowry—the throne—and burrus was too generally respected to be flouted. octavia therefore remained in her lonely chamber at the palace, a helpless witness of the vices of her husband.
for a month or two after the murder of agrippina he behaved as one stricken with a wild and haunting remorse. he went feverishly from place to place, and gathered about him a band of magicians and charlatans. he feared to go to rome until he was assured that rome was rejoicing at his escape from his mother’s plot. few pages in the109 story of that degenerate city are sadder than that which records the reception, in the month of may, of the imperial matricide. the senators and their families, dressed in their gayest robes, hurried out along the appian way to meet him, and his route was lined deep with cheering crowds. he rewarded them royally. five or six theatres opened their doors, day after day, to the degraded citizens. new things—things that had never before been seen in the whole history of the city—were provided for their entertainment. men and women of the highest rank played the most lascivious parts of the mimes on the public stage, and drove their chariots in the public circus. nero was a champion of the “green” faction, and pitted his royal skill daily in the circus against the charioteers of the other factions. he sang in the theatre, and organized a band of five thousand handsome youths, in splendid costumes, to lead the applause, and shower upon him his favourite epithet of “apollo.” he even ventured to win praise in the amphitheatre, but the one young lion which he vanquished had been prudently gorged and stupefied before he encountered it. he announced that his skill might be hired for private banquets, and nobles paid him a million sesterces for his services. apollo, he reflected, had no beard in greek statuary, so he shaved his beard, and the handful of yellow hair was enclosed in a golden casket studded with pearls, and carried in solemn procession to the capitol. in the mighty rejoicing over this complete assimilation to apollo of the tun-bellied, lanky-legged, half-crazy youth, it is recorded that a noble dame in her eightieth year danced on the stage in the theatre. the descendants of the greatest roman families voluntarily entered the base ranks of the comedian and the charioteer.
mr. henderson is reluctant to admit, in his study of nero, that he was insane. it would, no doubt, puzzle the most penetrating psychologist to assign the respective portions of guilt and of irresponsible disorder in his conduct; but that there was mental disorder it is at once110 more natural and more charitable to assume. in any case, a year or so of this delirious life wore out his robust frame, and a serious illness suspended for a time the disgraceful performances. unfortunately, when he recovered, he lost the one man who had had some power to restrain him, and sufficient honesty to use it. burrus died in the year 62, and at the same time the slender influence of seneca was destroyed. this is no place to discuss the difficult and delicate problem of seneca’s conduct in his association with nero. enough to say that he was now accused of conspiracy, and, although he successfully defended himself, he ceased to have any power at the palace.
it was now possible for nero to rid himself of the pale young prude, who shrank in her apartments, and there were men enough to devise the procedure. salvius otho had already been sent to a remote part of the empire, and his place had been taken by a horse-dealer, named tigellinus, of little culture and even less character. with this new favourite popp?a entered into alliance, and the young empress presently found herself accused, with brutal levity, of adultery with eucer, an alexandrian slave and musician, and of covering her shame by the crime of abortion. tigellinus easily obtained witnesses, but most of octavia’s servants refused, even under torture, to belie the virtue of their gentle mistress. the coarseness of tigellinus had carried him too far, and public feeling was strongly aroused in her favour. nero fell back upon the ground of her childlessness, of which he could probably have furnished a simple explanation, and divorced her. in deference to the sentiment of rome, he at first gave her the house of burrus and the fortune of a noble whom he had executed. a little later, however, probably under pressure from popp?a, he banished her to campania. he had married popp?a a fortnight after the divorce of octavia.
but the flagrant outrage quickened the better feeling that rome had not yet entirely lost, and nero was forced to recall her. to the deep mortification of popp?a, the111 crowds invaded the outer court of the palace, crying the name of octavia. they removed the statues of the new empress from the temples and public places, and restored to their positions, and crowned with flowers, the discarded statues of octavia. popp?a angrily pressed nero to assert his power, and the resourceful anicetus, the murderer of agrippina, was summoned to rome. bolder even than tigellinus, he swore that he himself had had commerce with octavia, and, after a pretence of trial, she was banished to sardinia. popp?a was not yet content, and nero next announced that octavia had been detected in an attempt to corrupt the commander of the fleet. she was taken to the rock-island of pandateria that had already witnessed tragedies.
the good feeling of rome seems by this time to have been exhausted, and octavia was lazily surrendered to the brutal band who now surrounded nero. there is a peculiar melancholy in the closing of that frail and innocent career. rough soldiers seize the timid form, carry her to the bath, bind her limbs, and open her veins. timid and shrinking to the end, the young girl—even now she is only in her twentieth year—starts back with horror from the great darkness, and piteously implores them to spare her life. she faints, and the flow of her blood is arrested. the last pretence of pity is tossed aside, and she is stifled in the vapour-bath.
popp?a, tacitus says, sent for her head. it is difficult to decide whether the frequent repetition of this horrible detail in the chronicles increases or lessens its credulity. but we can have no hesitation in believing tacitus when he says that the senate ordered services of thanksgiving in the temples for this fresh preservation of the life of the emperor.
another empress had stepped in blood to the throne, and was in turn to stain it with her blood after a few years of imperial folly. we have seen what type of woman it was whom nero put in the place of octavia. wealthy, coquettish, and beautiful, popp?a saw in life only a sunny112 path for the pursuit of butterflies. when she is represented to us as licentious we must remember that no definite scandal attaches to her name, and that she is actually described as “pious” by no less an authority than the jewish historian josephus. in fact this circumstance, and a peculiar feature of the disposal of her body, which we will consider, gave birth to a speculation in early times that she had become a christian. serviez finds the story of her conversion by st. paul, and subsequent “return to her abominations,” too piquant to admit of doubt. but the conversion is even more disputable than the abominations. it is now much disputed among our leading divines whether st. paul ever visited rome, and there is a simpler explanation of the phrase used by josephus. the roman governor of jud?a—the biblical felix, a brother of agrippina’s favourite, pallas—had dealt harshly with the jews, and sent some of their priests in chains to rome. josephus and others went to intercede for them, and luckily met a jewish comedian who was in the favour of popp?a and nero. the historian was received with distinction at the palace, and was so successful in his suit that he might well ascribe piety to popp?a. we may agree that the incident probably argues some culture on her part. but we shall discover her later in conduct that makes it undesirable to count her as a disciple of st. paul.
before the end of the year popp?a presented nero with a daughter, and a few weeks of wild rejoicing restored her to general favour, and obliterated the memory of octavia. the title of “augusta” was, in an excess of flattery, bestowed upon both the mother and the infant. senators raced each other to the imperial villa at antium, to express their joy at this substantial promise of a continuance of the c?sarean house which had dragged them in the mire. the whole of italy was lit up with rejoicing. popp?a felt that her position was at last secure. and then, by one of those dread changes which were almost as common in the life of rome as in the tragedies of greece, and made men assume that there was a stern and mighty fate behind113 their puny and indulgent gods, the storm broke over italy once more. the child withered and died, and nero’s mind fell once more into dark disorder. he glanced round with insane suspicion for possible aspirants to the throne, and popp?a’s remaining son was the first victim. one day he saw her boy (by her former husband) playing at being emperor in his games with the other children. in a few days popp?a heard that the boy had lost his life while fishing. many another execution was ordered with the same levity.
octavia
porphyry bust in the louvre
as before, these terrible deeds were mingled with the most splendid and the most licentious entertainments. noble dames of the highest rank wrestled and fought in the amphitheatre before the frivolous crowds; the city abounded in schools where the nobility learned to ape the emperor’s folly, and contribute to the gaiety of rome with the flute, the zither, or the dance. nero conceived a new idea, and pursued it with zeal. he would contest the crown with the artists of greece. popp?a saw him training in the palace, lying for hours with heavy plates of lead on his chest, restricting himself to a diet of leeks and oil. she saw him exhibit his skill in the theatre, lifting up his blotched and swollen body, in extraordinary contortions, on his thin legs, as he strained after the high notes. woe to the man who openly laughed, or who excelled him! one of his masters was put to death because nero perceived that he could not equal the man. at last his training was complete, and rome sighed with relief as the thousand carts, drawn by silver-shod mules, and the five thousand youths of the augustan band, set out for the coast. they gratified naples with a show as they passed through. for several days nero kept the amazed citizens in the theatre, and took his meals in the orchestra, so as to lose no time. then came the inevitable epilepsy; and it was announced that nero, perceiving the grief of his subjects at the prospect of his departure, had postponed the grecian tour.
on his return to comparative health, and to rome, he114 once more kept the citizens agog with alternate bursts of frantic dissipation and sanguinary melancholy. from the death of her child until her own violent end, two years later, popp?a appears very little in the chronicles; but, as we shall see that, willing or unwilling, she supported her husband in his bloody crimes, we may assume that she joined him in his less criminal orgies. one instance will suffice. he ordered that a banquet should be given on a raft, on the large sheet of water known as lake agrippa. when the citizens crowded to the shore on the appointed evening, they found the great raft towed by vessels plated with ivory and gold, manned by youths who had won distinction in infamy. round the shore taverns, brothels, and dining-rooms had been erected. and when the night fell, and the beautiful scene was lit by the light of innumerable torches, the public found that women of the highest rank were no less accessible to them than prostitutes in the houses by the lake, and the slave was at liberty to embrace his mistress under the eye of her husband. nero even outdistanced caligula in the imperial teaching of vice. in the garb of a bride, he went through the religious ceremony of marriage with a man of base character, named pythagoras. he had nude children fastened to stakes, and rushed upon them fittingly clad in the skin of a wild beast. and round the frontiers of that vast empire, which the strength and sobriety of his ancestors had created, the weary soldiers watched the barbarians who prepared to invade it.
it was about this time that the great fire occurred which turned the laughter of nero’s subjects into resentment. for six days and seven nights the flames ate their way through the blocks of tall tenements, divided only by narrow streets, in the parching heat of july. nero was in the provinces at the time, and from the conflicting accounts it is impossible to pass an opinion on the rumour that he had ordered the burning of rome. dio gives us the familiar picture of nero twanging his zither, and chanting the “fall of troy” from the summit of a high115 tower on the hill. others declare, however, that he at once ordered the most expedient methods for checking the conflagration. but it was angrily whispered among the camps of the homeless that men had been seen throwing torches upon their houses, and that they were acting under orders from the palace. nor were the citizens appeased when he threw the blame on the obscure and unpopular devotees who went by the name of christians, and afforded them the brutal spectacle of driving round the circus to the light of burning men and women, whose living bodies had been wrapped in tow and soaked in wax and tar. few believed in their guilt. even seneca at length broke his casuistic or diplomatic reserve, and retired in disgust from rome. nero went down in great dejection to bai?, leaving orders that, in the restoration of the city, a new palace should be built for him that should transcend anything within the memory of rome or of history.
this “golden house,” which nero raised round the more modest palaces of his predecessors, gave a fresh grievance to discontent. the great and unselfish octavian had been satisfied with a small patrician mansion; tiberius had built a palace; caligula had enlarged it; nero flung out its wings over a vast space. it seemed that emperors squandered the money of the state in proportion to their uselessness. the colossal edifice and its wonderful park stretched from the palatine to the esquiline, across the intervening valley, and was surrounded by a triple colonnade in marble. citizens huddled in the crowded blocks of the subura and the velabrum, while nero created a miniature world within his marble girdle. there was a great lake, filled with salt water from ostia, with a small town on its shore; there were vineyards, cornfields, groves in which wild beasts ran loose, fountains, and gardens. the palace itself was of such proportions that a statue of nero one hundred and twenty feet high could be conveniently lodged in its porch. some of the rooms were plated with gold and adorned with precious stones. the supper-room had a ceiling of ivory, with openings through116 which flowers and costly perfumes might be shed upon the guests. the egyptian roses whose beauty withered in one banquet in this chamber had a value of ￡35,000 in our coinage.
there now dawned on rome some consciousness of the price that the empire was paying for the stupendous folly it had so long applauded. while the treasury was being exhausted in entertainments that all could enjoy, the murmuring was confined to the sober few. from the moment when this colossal symbol of nero’s selfishness towered above the city, the murmurs became audible and were multiplied. nero, alarmed at the sullen looks and the vague reports of plots, went down angrily to the coast. then a slave brought a definite accusation of conspiracy against his master, and the stream of blood began to flow.
it is an unhappy fact, and one that confirms the darker view of popp?a’s character, that almost the only detail related of her in the chronicles, after the death of her child, is that she was one of the council of three who directed this horrible series of executions. nero would not trust the ordinary procedure of roman justice. with popp?a and tigellinus as associate-judges, he himself examined, or endorsed, every charge that cupidity or malignity brought to the palace. rome was reddened for weeks with torture, murder, and suicide. students of the decay of rome have, perhaps, not sufficiently appreciated the effect of this periodic effusion of the best blood in the city. in the earlier wars, both civil and foreign, the good and the base alike had fallen. in these inquisitions for conspiracy, which fill rome with mourning time after time from the death of octavian to the accession of trajan, it is chiefly the men and women of honour who suffer. they constitute a natural selection of the cowardly and the sycophantic.
the city “teemed with funerals,” in the terse phrase of tacitus, and the gatherings of its citizens were black with mourning. large numbers of officers and patricians were executed or driven to suicide, and their children were117 scourged or banished to the provinces. seneca paid the penalty of his tardy outspokenness, and his admirable end sustains our trust that his character may, in spite of our unconquerable hesitations, have been not inconsistent with his high creed. he and his wife, who nobly asked permission to quit the world with him, had their veins opened, and seneca passed into the silence with quiet dignity; his wife was, to her regret, recalled to life by the soldiers.
popp?a did not live to share the punishment which these crimes brought upon nero. her end came more swiftly and in more terrible form. the carnage had been interrupted by a fresh outburst of rejoicing. a man declared to nero that he knew where the fabulous treasures of the carthaginian queen dido, which vergil had so recently sung in the “?neid,” were buried. a fleet was sent to africa to recover them, and from his sombre brooding nero passed into a new fit of prodigal entertaining. he emptied the last depths of his treasury in spectacles and donations. when the fleet returned at length without a single cup or coin, his anger stormed with ungovernable fury, and one day, when popp?a expostulated with him, he kicked her in the abdomen. the outrage proved fatal, as she was pregnant, and nero’s light mind turned from rage to the most extravagant lamentation. her body was not burned, as was usual at rome, but embalmed, and vast quantities of rare perfumes were sacrificed on the funeral pile. this peculiarity of her funeral has been thought to strengthen the interesting legend of her conversion to christianity. it was more probably due to nero’s frenzied desire to give a unique burial to so unique a goddess, as the senate declared her to be. it is unthinkable that nero should make such a concession to christian ideas, even if she had shared them in any measure, and her life does not dispose us to claim that honour for her. the legend has no foundation in history, and the early church may easily be relieved of the stain of having counted popp?a among its adherents.
it is not our place to pursue the insanity of the emperor118 through all the forms it assumed after the death of popp?a, but he took a third wife, whom mr. baring-gould seems to have overlooked, and we must briefly relate the story of her experience. immediately after the death of popp?a nero took a consort whom the pen almost shrinks from describing. it seemed to him that he discovered a resemblance to his beloved popp?a in one of his freedmen, sporus. the man was entrusted to the surgeons for a loathsome operation, and then solemnly married to the emperor. dressed in the empress’s robes and jewels, he travelled in nero’s litter, and was publicly kissed and caressed by him.
this abominable comedy soon lost its interest, and nero decided to marry octavia’s sister, antonia. recollecting the recent fate of her sister, she boldly refused, and she was put to death on a charge of aspiring to the throne. nero then chose statilia messalina, the granddaughter of a distinguished and wealthy senator who had been driven to take his own life under agrippina. the last part of the “annals” of tacitus, which would cover this date, is missing, and if we are to believe the less reputable chroniclers, messalina had already been familiar with nero, and had married, as her third husband, one of his close companions in debauch, atticus vestinus. she is described as beautiful, witty, wealthy, and lax; but the description is applied to so large a proportion of the ladies of the time that it gives little aid to the imagination. from some later details we shall conclude that she had more culture, and probably more character, than most of the courtly ladies of nero’s time. one is disposed to think that she married nero on the maxim, literally interpreted, that it is better to be married than burned. her husband was one night entertaining his friends when soldiers from the palace entered the room. they took him to his bath, opened his veins, and let him bleed to death; and statilia messalina became the tenth empress of rome.
popp?a
bust in the capitoline museum, rome
there is every reason to believe that she shrank, with prudence, from the executions and entertainments which119 again proceeded with ghastly alternation. her five predecessors had been murdered; the preceding lady of nero’s choice had been murdered; and she had herself been divorced by murder. messalina seems to have concentrated her resources upon remaining alive, until a last and most just murder should release her from her odious connexion. men were wearying even of nero’s ridiculous performances, and were stung by his cruelty. he put soldiers amongst his audience, to note the absent and detect the scoffer, so that his festivals became an affliction. men were driven to the subterfuge of shamming death, and being borne out by their slaves, to avoid the exacting part of admiring spectators. nero swore that he would exterminate the whole senatorial order; it is the most honourable mention we find of them in the chronicles for many decades. to their relief he now announced that he would proceed with his greek tour. the silver-shod mules and the gay regiment of the augustans were set in motion, nero’s hair was permitted to attain an artistic length and negligence, and the comedy was transferred for a time to the land of aristophanes. how he won every prize for which he competed, how he plundered the temples and the mansions of the greeks, how his retinue passed like a flight of locusts over the helpless province, must be read elsewhere. after some eighteen months he was recalled to italy by grave tidings.
it has been impossible to refrain from speaking in accents of disdain of the way in which rome had silently witnessed, or joyously acclaimed, the successive follies of nero, but, as i have previously noticed, it was in a peculiarly difficult situation. the pr?torian guards were an army of twenty thousand disciplined soldiers, and were paid for personal service to the ruling house, and blind to any other interest than their own. they kept an irresistible check upon every impulse to rebel. that there were such impulses, and probably some attempt to seduce the guards, the unfailing stream of blood at rome justifies us in believing. the hope of the empire was in the more sober and120 more industrious provinces, and it was here that the revolt began. the leader of the troops in gaul, vindex, entered into correspondence with the troops in spain. the spanish commander, servius sulpicius galba, was a roman of illustrious family, venerable age, and stern character. nero had heard that the purple had been offered to galba, and that the legions of gaul and spain were preparing to advance on italy.
on his return to italy, however, nero hears that the german legions are advancing against those of gaul, and that galba is hesitating. he gaily resumes his follies, and is deaf to political exhortations. at last a manifesto is put into his hands, in which vindex refers to him as a “miserable player,” and the insult to his art cuts deeply. he writes to the senate to demand redress, and sets out for rome. nothing in the whole of his extraordinary career is so tragi-comic as this penultimate scene. clothed in a mantle of purple embroidered with gold stars, wearing the olympian chaplet on his head, he enters rome as the god of art. servants bear before him the 1,800 crowns or chaplets he has won in greece; the five thousand augustans march behind his chariot. a sacrifice is made to apollo, and the games resume their familiar course. then nero is told that, though vindex has committed suicide, the german and other legions have joined galba, and the fire of revolt is spreading round the empire. he announces that he will advance on gaul. the ladies of his harem, who form a fair regiment, have their hair cut short, and, with toy shields and other theatrical properties, masquerade as amazons.
the last scene is brief and inevitable. galba is marching on rome, the pr?torian guards have been won for him, the nobles find it safe to desert nero. the nerveless brute whimpers and weeps in his helplessness. he will fly to alexandria, and earn his living as a musician. the great “golden house” is silent and deserted. rome is openly deriding him. his servants have fled; one has even stolen the box in which he121 kept poison for such an emergency. the faithful acte, sporus, and a very few of those who fed on his folly, remain with him. messalina has deserted him, and will appear later as the friend of one of his successors.
in the great silent house, with its walls of gold and its ceilings of ivory, he puts off the purple robes and clothes himself in an old shirt and a ragged cloak. on a miserable horse he rides with them across the vast deserted park, and makes for the house of one of his dependents, a few miles from rome. there they admit him by a hole they have made in the wall, give him black bread and water, and cover him with a blanket. they discuss the situation, and conclude by offering him a dagger. he shrinks, like julia, like messalina, from the horrible darkness, and vainly strains his eyes for a ray of hope. at last they hear the clatter of cavalry on the road, and nero feebly points the dagger at his breast, for a servant to drive home. and when the customary cremation is over, there are none but acte and a faithful old nurse to lay the degraded ashes in the tomb.
so the tenth empress of rome laid down her brief dignity. statilia messalina had had little reason to follow nero in his humiliation. whether the charge of laxity that is brought against her be true or no, she was a woman of exceptional intelligence and culture, and had probably only married nero out of fear. we meet her again, at a later stage, in the chronicles. after galba’s short hour of supremacy we shall find an equally short reign of salvius otho, the man who once pillaged taverns with nero in the subura. provincial government had sobered him, and he wrote affectionate letters to messalina. he would, no doubt, have made her empress once more if he had lived, but the throne was wrested from him, and messalina retired to the calmer world of letters and rhetoric. our last glimpse of her discovers her delivering orations of great eloquence and learning among the intellectual ladies of rome.
