found in Narcissus almost as great an enemy as had Messalina, and even
the emperor was somewhat uncertain in his favor; on one occasion, he was
heard to mutter something to the effect that he seemed fated to suffer
the iniquities of his wives, and then to punish them.
Nero was now
seventeen years of age, and through the shrewd policy of his mother had
not only been named by the emperor as his successor, but had been
generally recognized as the heir-apparent by the people; it needed only
the death of Claudius to raise him to the imperial throne.
New wants create new professions. In despotic governments, the lives of
certain persons are often too prolonged in the opinion of others who
have their own purposes to pursue, and there never have been lacking
those who in such a juncture could make themselves extremely useful. In
the time of Agrippina there lived a woman named Locusta, who, as Tacitus
informs us, was a famous artist in the mixing of drugs.
Her skill seems
always to have had for its object, not the cure of patients who were
confided to her care, but their judicious taking-off.
The
above-mentioned historian informs us that Agrippina allowed this woman
to employ her art upon Claudius; and as no other writer approximate to
that age seeks to purge the empress of this accusation, it must be
reckoned to her account. "In fact," says Tacitus, "all the particulars
of this transaction were soon afterward so thoroughly known, that the
writers of those times are able to recount how the poison was poured
into a dish of mushrooms, of which he was particularly fond; but whether
it was that his senses were stupefied, or from the wine he had drunk,
the effect of the poison was not immediately perceived."
Agrippina
therefore became dismayed; but as her life was at stake, she thought
little of the odium of her present proceedings, and called in the aid of
Xenophon the physician, whom she had already implicated in her guilty
project. It is believed that he, as if he purposed to assist Claudius in
his efforts to vomit, put down his throat a feather besmeared with
deadly poison.
After the death of Claudius, Agrippina discovered that the day was
ill-omened, so that she hesitated to have her son proclaimed. The fact
of the emperor's death was therefore kept a secret for some hours. The
people were so far imposed upon that they believed that Claudius was
approving and desired to be entertained. Buffoons were Produced, who
played their antics and cracked their jokes in the presence of the
corpse; the empress, in the meantime, feigning to be overcome with
grief, was clasping the young Britannicus in her arms and declaring that
he was the very image of his father.
At noon, it being the thirteenth of October in the year 4, the death of
Claudius was announced, and Nero was received by the soldiers with
shouts of joy. The Senate confirmed his accession, and that night, when
the tribune asked the new emperor for the watchword, he gave "the best
of mothers."
Claudius, unless the Roman historians are to be considered entirely
unworthy of credence, had been murdered by his wife; but,
notwithstanding this fact and also that she had despised him while he
lived, she hastened to propose his apotheosis as soon as he was dead.
How much those divine honors which were decreed to deceased members of
the imperial family meant to the Romans may be gathered from the
fragments which have been preserved of a satire written by Seneca at
this time; the satire also indicates the contempt into which the ancient
religion had fallen. Seneca claims that from him who saw Drusilla, the
sister of Caligula, ascend into heaven, he derived his information as to
what happened in Olympus when "a respectable-looking old man, with
shaking head, lame foot, and some kind of threat upon his lips"
[Claudius] arrived thither. The Olympian Senate, notwithstanding the
labors of Hercules on his behalf, voted that Claudius was not to be
admitted.
After the inauguration of Nero's reign, there followed for the Empire
five years of what seemed to the people, so accustomed were they to the
worst horrors in the name of government, a wise and upright
administration. Nero was to a certain extent under the influence of
Seneca and Burrhus, men who perhaps were as good as any of their time.
Credit must be given Agrippina for having at least selected the best men
she could find to take charge of the education of her son. Nevertheless,
during those five years occurred her own murder and that of Britannicus.
After the death of the latter, Locusta--for whom Nero had found ample
employment--was permitted to retire to the enjoyment of the immense
wealth with which she had been rewarded for her services to those in
power; it was stipulated, however, that she should train other women in
the practice of her art.
Agrippina had done and suffered much to secure the Empire for her son;
but she never contemplated that he would reign alone while she lived.
She expected to occupy a throne by his side. Her officious dominance
soon became intolerable to the young emperor. He also fell under the
fascination of the beautiful but unprincipled Poppæa, who refused to
share his palace with so jealous and imperious a mother-in-law. Bitter
must have been the reflections of Agrippina when she found herself not
only disappointed of this part of her ambition, but also saw that her
son was impatiently awaiting her death. Indeed, he was devising means to
bring it to pass; but she who was herself so well practised in the
methods of assassination was not an easy victim. The sword was too open
a method, and she was believed to have prepared herself, by taking
antidotes, against all kinds of poisons. But there was a genius at the
court. Anicetus, an enfranchised slave, now commander of the fleet,
could construct a vessel that would fall to pieces at sea at any given
moment. Agrippina was invited to join her son at Baise.
He was all
affection and again seemed willing to commit himself to her influence.
A magnificent vessel was provided to convey her to and from the villa
where he had provided an entertainment. As she was returning over the
smooth waters, lighted by the brilliant stars, the roof of the cabin,
which had been weighted with lead, suddenly fell in, killing a man who
belonged to her train. Agrippina and Aceronia, her woman attendant,
escaped from this part of the prearranged accident; but the boat then
upsetting, they were thrown into the sea. Aceronia, in order that she
might be rescued, cried out that she was the emperor's mother, and she
was immediately killed by oars and boathooks in the hands of the crew.
Her mistress, however, suspecting at once the real nature of what had
taken place, remained quiet, and swam until she was picked up by passing
boats and conveyed to her own villa.
At the prospect of his mother's death, Nero exclaimed:
"At last I shall
reign"; but when the news reached him that the cunningly contrived
shipwreck had proved a failure, his fury knew no bounds.
At that
juncture, a messenger arrived from Agrippina to say that his mistress
had been preserved--she deemed it prudent to appear to take it for
granted that her son was not implicated in the attempt upon her life.
While the messenger was speaking, Anicetus picked up a dagger from the
floor and pretended that the man had dropped it; it was then declared
that Agrippina must have sent him to assassinate her son. A party of men
were at once sent to her villa. They broke into her bedchamber. "If you
are come for murderous purposes," she cried, "I will not believe that it
is by the order of my son." She was quickly despatched with many wounds.
In the busts and medal portraits of Agrippina that have been preserved
we see a face remarkably suggestive of refinement of character. Looking
at that face and remembering the accusations which have been laid
against her, one is naturally inclined to take up a brief in her
defence. It does not seem possible that she could have been guilty of
these crimes; nor, indeed, in other times and circumstances would it
have been possible. It was not a depraved will like that of Messalina
that led Agrippina to the adoption of evil courses. The causes were
several. She was proud; she had an insatiate craving for power; above
all, her unyielding will was wholly bent on the project of placing her
son upon the imperial throne. Had she lived at a time when violent
measures were not permissible, her methods would probably have been more
humane; but her ambition would doubtless have been as great and her
determination as tenacious. In her age, murder was a common expedient
for clearing the way to a prize. In her time, female modesty was a
quality almost impossible to be retained, and but little valued in those
few by whom it was preserved. To acquit Agrippina of murder and
unchastity would be not only to fault history but to impute to the
empress an innocence which in the nature of the case it was impossible
she should possess.
X
THE WOMEN OF DECADENT ROME
At the period with which we are now engaged, the vast majority of the
people of Rome were giving their attention to one all-absorbing
occupation--that of amusing themselves. The wealthy had little else to
do; the chief industries of the poor contributed to this end. Never in
the history of the world has a nation been so completely given over to
pleasure. Production was almost entirely limited to such occupations as
had for their object the extravagant supply of the luxuries of art and
entertainment; common necessaries, such as wheat, were extorted from the
provinces. Agriculture had become almost unknown in Italy. The rich men
no longer, like the great republican patricians, prided themselves on
their skill in tilling the soil; it better suited their tastes, and was
more lucrative, to farm taxes. "We have abandoned the care of our ground
to the lowest of our slaves," said Columelia, "and they treat it like
barbarians. We have schools of rhetoricians, geometers, and musicians. I
have even seen where they teach the lowest trades, such as the art of
cooking, or of dressing the hair; but nowhere have I found for
agriculture a teacher or a pupil. Meanwhile, even in Latium, that we may
avoid famine, we must bring our corn from foreign countries and our
wine from the Cyclades, Boetica, and Gaul." The land had come to be held
almost wholly by the few who were exceedingly rich.
Their interests were
in Rome. For the country they cared nothing, except as it provided them
with luxurious retreats where they might, for a short space, renew their
enervated faculties after the dissipations of the city.
Their land they
gave up to pasture and cattle raising, as being more profitable and
requiring less care than tilling the soil. Thus there was no employment
or means of subsistence for poor freedmen in the country; and so they
flocked to the cities, crowding the wretched _insulæ_, or tenements, and
depending mainly upon the free distributions of corn for their living.
The mass of the people, however, were drawn to Rome and the other great
Italian cities as much by their desire to participate in the feverish
life of the times as they were driven thither by lack of employment in
the country. These were the people who amused Nero by fighting for
places in the Great Circus; these were the people who howled for bread
and for games, and rewarded an ample supply of the same by supporting
tyrants in their monstrous excesses. When it is remembered that all
domestic labor, as well as all work belonging to many other branches of
industry, was performed by slaves, we are necessarily left to suppose
that the proletariat of Rome had little with which to occupy itself
beyond the public exhibitions and the pothouses, of which there existed
an enormous number; great numbers of men were, however, required for the
immense armies which garrisoned the provinces.
Of the domestic life of the common people of Rome we have only the most
meagre information. We know that they inhabited huge tenements, in which
small apartments were rented at excessive rates.
Housekeeping in these
tenements must have been conducted on a very simple scale, as one of the
comic writers pictures a poor family moving to other quarters and
carrying all their effects in their hands at one journey. Yet the men
who issued thence wore the _toga_ of the Roman citizen, tattered though
it might be and having no other significance than the mere fact that its
wearers were not slaves. For these men there was little occupation
except wandering about the city in search of amusement and the
opportunity to make a little gain by any means that came to hand. Of
course, there were trades and commerce, the workshop and the store; but
slavery made it impossible for a large proportion of the impecunious
citizens of Rome to make an honorable living by means of their own
labor. There was a larger army of the unemployed than our modern cities
can show. Yet the Roman government, laying tribute as it did upon the
whole civilized world, could keep the citizens of Rome from starving.
For the women, beyond their simple domestic duties, the field of honest
industry was yet more limited. They were employed as professional
mourners to sing songs of lamentation at funerals; they could work at
some few mechanical trades, such as cloth weaving; they could keep a
shop. Occasionally, there was a woman of exceptional talent who made
large profits by means of decorative art; among the wall pictures of
Pompeii there is one which represents a female artist engaged in
painting upon canvas a figure of Bacchus from a statue which serves her
for a model. We read of Iaia, who, though a Greek, lived in Rome and of
whom Pliny says that she was very successful in painting portraits, and
especially in engraving female figures upon ivory. One matron found a
unique occupation; she made large sums yearly by fattening and selling
thrushes for the tables of epicures. But the majority of women who were
able to make a living did so by virtue of their personal attractions and
by ministering to the voluptuousness of the wealthy, as harp players,
dancers, and in other avocations still more questionable.
During the reign of Nero, there were no wars of any great moment. The
old Roman passion for territorial expansion was in abeyance. The
government was concentrated in the person of a man whose ambitions were
histrionic rather than military. Nero was part actor, part clown, wholly
debased; what could be expected from the associates of such a man, or
from the people who tolerated him? If it be true that every nation has
the government of which it is deserving, then the officers and people of
the Roman Empire in Nero's time must be accounted as subordinates and
supernumeraries in a fatuous burlesque which frequently deepened into
mad tragedy. The way to the emperor's favor was not through victorious
conflicts with the enemies of the State, but by means of the lavishment
of fulsome applause of his own imbecile performances in the theatre and
the circus. Nero never entered Rome in military triumph, as had his
predecessors, followed by wagons filled with plunder and a train of
captives who had been formidable to the State; he was content to win
crowns from a debased people who hypocritically admired his voice and
his acting, and to triumphantly enter Rome as conqueror in the Grecian
games. "He made his entry into the city riding in the same chariot in
which Augustus had triumphed. For the occasion he wore a purple tunic
and a cloak embroidered with golden stars, having on his head the crown
won at Olympia, and in his right hand that which was given him at the
Parthian games; the rest were carried in a procession before him, with
inscriptions denoting the places where they had been won, from whom, and
in what plays or performances. A train followed him with loud
acclamations, crying out that they were the emperor's attendants, and
the soldiers of his triumph. He suspended the sacred crowns in his
chambers, about his beds, and caused statues of himself to be erected,
in the attire of a harper, and had his likeness stamped upon coins, in
the same dress. He offered his friendship or avowed open enmity to many,
according as they were lavish or sparing in giving him their applause."
Thus the Roman historian describes the order of that day, and from this
we may judge of the environment of the principal women of Rome in those
times.
Virtue and womanly dignity were inconsiderable qualities in the days of
Nero. The ladies of the court could only attain and hold their positions
by means of their personal attractions and by taking part in excesses
from which every vestige of virtue was eradicated.
Prostitution had now
become fashionable. It is possible to give Messalina the benefit of a
doubt as to whether or not she were a mere freak of nature. Agrippina
was monstrously ambitious and as merciless as a tigress whose young are
threatened; but she adopted the only means which her times afforded. In
Poppæa, however, we see the typical woman of decadent Rome--of ordinary
intellect, intensely voluptuous, and devoid of natural affection.
Poppæa was the daughter of that beautiful but wanton lady of the same
name whom Messalina had forced to seek death by her own hand. In this
instance, heredity claimed its vindication; to the daughter descended
the loveliness of person and also the lax principles which characterized
the mother. "This woman," says Tacitus, "possessed everything but an
honest mind. Her wealth was equal to the dignity of her birth; she had a
fascinating conversation, and was not deficient in wit.
She observed an
outward decorum, but in her heart was wanton; she rarely appeared in
public, and when she did she wore a veil, either because she did not
want to glut people's eyes with her beauty, or because she thought a
veil became her." It is said of her that she employed all the recipes at
that time known--and they were very numerous--to prevent the inroads
which age will make. She covered her face with a mask when out of doors,
in order to shield it from the sun; and when at last her mirror informed
her that the charms of that face were beginning to wane, she cried: "Let
me die rather than lose my beauty!"--a wish by no means unnatural, for
in the game which she so desperately played her beauty was her only
stake. Nero married her solely for her loveliness of person. The
conjugal fidelity which stands the test of changing years was not then
common; and the law did not enforce it upon the unwilling. Juvenal
doubtless truly pictures the contretemps which women like Poppsea had to
fear:
"Sertorius what I say disproves, For though his Bibula is poor, he loves.
True! but examine him; and on my life, You'll find he loves the beauty, not the wife.
Let but a wrinkle on her forehead rise, And time obscure the lustre of her eyes; Let but the moisture leave her flaccid skin, And her teeth blacken, and her cheeks grow thin; And you shall hear the insulting freedman say:
'Pack up your trumpery, madam, and away!
Nay, bustle, bustle; here you give offence, With snivelling night and day;--take your nose hence!'"
We have no very trustworthy representation of Poppæa's appearance. There
are in existence medals showing her reputed portrait, especially a Greek
coin with the head of Nero on one side and that of his wife on the
other; but as the former is certainly not a good likeness, it is
Reasonable to suppose that the other is no better. Her face, as it is
here portrayed, is of the ideal Greek type--straight brows, and nose
almost in a line with the forehead. There is also a bust in existence,
which, according to archaeological students, may be held to represent
either the mythical Clytie or the famous wife of Nero.
Her hair is said
to have been remarkably beautiful. It was very abundant and of a golden
amber color. Nero composed verses upon it.
There were serious obstacles between Poppæa and the imperial throne
which she speedily manifested an ambition to share--
obstacles which, in
more virtuous days, or among women possessing the slightest degree of
modesty, would have been absolutely insurmountable; but with the rulers
of Rome in those times nothing was impossible except self-control for
the sake of honor. Nero was married to Octavia, the daughter of
Messalina and Claudius. Poppæa was also married. She had been divorced
from Rufus Crispinus, a Roman knight, to whom she had borne a son, and
was now joined in matrimony to Otho, the profligate confidant of the
young emperor. There are indications that Otho was fond of his
unprincipled wife. She was the choicest treasure in his magnificently
furnished house. He boasted of her beauty to Nero, and excited the young
ruler's pride as well as his passion by telling him that though he were
the emperor he could not vie with his subject in the possession of such
an example of female loveliness. He even permitted Nero to visit his
wife, but, in his self-esteem, did not count upon the result. Otho
maintained Poppæa in inordinate splendor; but he was not the emperor. He
could give her incalculable riches; but he could not make her the
mistress of the world. Poppæa saw her opportunity. She lavished upon
Nero all the powers of her coquetry; she intimated that she was smitten
with regard for him; she allowed him to flatter himself that he had won
her. But she would hear of nothing but marriage. Nero was at her feet;
but, having so far attained her end, she would listen to no
protestations until he removed all hindrances to their union. She would
be empress or nothing. With her beauty for a bait, she led Nero on to
the committal of the most heinous crimes. Agrippina was murdered because
Poppæa taunted Nero with being under the care of a governess. "Why did
he delay to marry her?" Tacitus represents her as asking. "Had he
objections to her person or her ancestry? Or was he dissatisfied because
she had given proof of her fertility? Did he doubt the sincerity of her
affection? No; the truth must be that he was afraid that if she were his
wife she would expose the insolence and the rapaciousness of his mother.
But if Agrippina would bear no daughter-in-law who was not virulently
opposed to her son, she desired to be sent to Otho. She was ready to
withdraw to any quarter of the earth, rather than behold the emperor's
degradation." Otho, in order that he might be out of the way, had been
appointed Governor of Lusitania.
It was some time after the death of Agrippina before Octavia was
removed, first by repudiation and then by death. We shall have occasion
to notice the character of this estimable woman in a later chapter. In
the meantime, the emperor did not have to wait wholly unrewarded by the
favors of Poppæa. He was entirely under her influence; but the memory of
the remorse which had seized him after the murder of his mother
restrained him, for a while, from adding to that crime another of equal
atrocity. Again, however, Poppæa cunningly worked upon his fears,
insinuating that unless he reinstated Octavia, whom he hated, as
empress, the people would give her another husband, whom they would make