When his own turn came, he quitted his box and went on to the stage. While he was dressing before making his appearance, a strange piece of news spread through the theatre and went the round of the audience, to the effect that the bay-trees of Livia had withered up and that all the sacred chickens had died. Here is the explanation of how these trees had come to be planted and how the chickens had become sacred:

  At the time when Livia Drusilla, who by her marriage with Octavius received the name of Augusta, was betrothed to Caesar, she was sitting one day in her villa at Veii when an eagle let fall upon her knees from an immense height a white hen, which not only fell uninjured, but did not even appear to be frightened. Livia looked at the bird in astonishment and was caressing it, when she noticed that it held in its beak a sprig of laurel. Thereupon she consulted the soothsayers, who ordered the sprig of laurel to be planted so as to obtain offshoots from it, and the hen to be fed so that she might rear a brood. Livia carried out these instructions. One of Caesar’s county seats, situated on the Flaminian Way near the Tiber and nine miles from Rome, was selected for the experiment, which succeeded beyond expectation. So large a brood of chickens was hatched that the spot received the name of “ad Gallinas” (hens), and so large a number of off-shoots sprang up that the bay-tree soon became the centre of a forest. Well, the forest had now withered to the roots and every single one of the sacred fowls was dead.

  The Emperor presently appeared upon the stage, but all in vain did he advance humbly towards the orchestra as was his custom and make a respectful speech to the audience, telling them that he would do his best, but that the result depended on fortune; not a single cheer was given to encourage him. He began nevertheless, but in a nervous and trembling voice, and was listened to through half his piece in silence and without a single sign of appreciation. When, however, he came to the line: “Wife, father, mother, all demand my death!” applause and cheers broke out for the first time, and this time there was no mistaking their significance. Nero realised then the true meaning and quitted the stage abruptly; but as he went down the stairs his feet caught in his long robe, so that he fell and hurt his face and was picked up in a fainting condition.

  When he had got back to the Palatine and had recovered consciousness, he shut himself in his private apartment, filled with terror and indignation. Then he drew out his tablets and traced upon them strange schemes which required but his signature to convert them into sentences of death. These schemes consisted of allowing the Gauls to destroy the Roman forces, inviting the entire Senate to a banquet and there poisoning them, setting fire to the city and at the same time letting loose all the wild beasts, so that this ungrateful people who had refused to applaud him except by way of presaging his death might be unable to defend themselves from the ravages of the conflagration. Then, feeling once more reassured as to his power by the thought of the mischief he might still accomplish, he threw himself upon his bed, and the gods, as though wishing to send him fresh omens of disaster, allowed him to sleep.

  Then Nero, who as a rule never dreamed at all, dreamed that he was lost amid a tempest on a furious sea, and that the helm of the vessel that he was steering was torn out of his hands. Next, by one of the incoherent transitions so common in dreams, he suddenly found himself near the theatre of Pompey, and the fourteen statues executed by Coponius, and representing the tributary nations, descended from their pedestals, and while the one in front of him barred his passage, the others formed a circle which gradually contracted until he found himself enclosed within their marble arms. Having escaped with great difficulty from these phantoms of stones, he was running, pale, panting, and speechless, through the Campus Martius, when, in passing in front of the Mausoleum of Augustus, the doors of the tomb opened of their own accord and a voice within called him three times. This last dream broke his slumber and he awoke trembling, his hair erect and his brow streaming with perspiration. Then he called out and ordered Sporus to be brought to him, and the young man remained in his chamber for the rest of the night.

  With daybreak his nocturnal terror vanished; but he still remained haunted by a vague fear which every moment made him start and shudder. Presently he sent for the messenger who had brought the despatch announcing the death of Vindex. The man was a Batavian trooper, who had come from Germany with Virginius and had been present at the battle. Nero made him go over the details of the fight several times, especially the circumstances connected with the death of Vindex, nor was he satisfied until the soldier swore to him by Jupiter that he had with his own eyes seen the body pierced with wounds and ready for the grave. Then the Emperor had a sum of one hundred thousand sesterces counted out to the Batavian, and gave him in addition his own gold ring.

  The hour for the banquet arrived and the imperial guests assembled at the Palatine. Before the meal, Nero, according to his custom, made them pass through the bathing-hall, and after the bath the slaves presented them with white robes and garlands of flowers. Nero was awaiting them in the banqueting-room, dressed, like his guests, in white, with a wreath on his head, and they took their places on the couches to the strains of delightful music.

  The dinner was served, not merely with all the refinement, but with all the luxury of Roman feasts. At the feet of each guest lay a slave ready to anticipate his slightest whim; a parasite of each guest dined at a small separate table consecrated to his exclusive use, while at the end of the apartment on a kind of dais were Gaditanian dancers, who by their graceful and active motions resembled the divinities of the spring-time who accompany Flora and Zephyrus when visiting their kingdom in the month of May.

  As the dinner proceeded and the guests warmed up, the spectacle changed its character and, from being voluptuous, became lascivious. The dancing-girls were succeeded by rope-dancers, and then began those disgraceful games, re-introduced, it is said, during the French Regency, and which had been invented to revive the worn-out passions of the aged Tiberius. At the same time Nero seized a lyre and began to recite verses in which Vindex was overwhelmed with ridicule; these verses he accompanied with comic gestures, both verses and gestures being frantically applauded by the guests. At this moment a fresh messenger arrived, bringing letters from Spain. These letters announced both the revolt and the proclamation of Galba as Emperor.

  Nero read these letters more than once, growing paler each time; presently, snatching up two vases which he specially valued, and which he called “Homeric,” because on them were depicted subjects taken from the Iliad, he dashed them to pieces as if they had been of common clay. Then, falling upon the ground, he tore his clothes and struck his head violently against the banqueting couches, declaring that his loss of the sovereignty in music was causing him unspeakable distress.

  On hearing his cries, his old nurse Eulogé entered, took him like a child into her arms, and tried to comfort him; but as often happens with children, his grief was only increased by the attempts made to console him, and presently grief was succeeded by anger. He now called for pen and paper that he might write to the chief of the praetorian guard. Having written and signed his order, he looked for his ring in order to seal it; but, as has been already mentioned, he had given it that morning to the Batavian messenger. He therefore asked Sporus for a seal, and the latter handed him his own; Nero pressed it on the wax without looking at it, but on raising it he observed that the ring represented the descent of Proserpine into Hades. This last omen, and at such a moment, seemed to him more terrible than all the others, and whether he thought that Sporus had handed him this ring designedly, or whether in the madness by which he was possessed he was incapable of recognising his dearest friends, when Sporus approached him to inquire the cause of this fresh outburst, he struck him full in the face with his fist, and the young man fell bleeding and unconscious amid the remains of the banquet.

  The Emperor, without taking leave of his guests, went up at once to his chamber and ordered Locusta to be sent for.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THIS time it was with a view to his own death and not that of others that Nero sought the advice and skill of his friend Locusta. They spent the whole night together in consultation, and in his presence the sorceress compounded a subtle poison which she had discovered three days previously, and of which she had made proof the evening before. Nero enclosed it in a golden casket and concealed it in a cabinet which had been given him by Sporus, the secret of opening which was known only to the eunuch and himself.

  The report of Galba’s revolt had spread with extraordinary rapidity. This time it was no distant menace, no desperate enterprise like that of Vindex; it was “a powerful and direct attack from a patrician, whose family, always popular in Rome, was both illustrious and ancient, and who bore on his statues the title of grandson of Quintus Catulus Capitolinus, that is to say; of the magistrate who by his courage and virtue had been reckoned the foremost man of his day.

  In addition to this prejudice in favour of Galba, there existed fresh grievances against Nero. Entirely preoccupied with his various amusements and his musical performances, he had altogether neglected to make the usual arrangements for which, in his capacity of prefect of the corn supplies, he was responsible, the result being that the fleet which was to convey the wheat from Sicily and Alexandria had only just started at the moment when it ought to have arrived. Consequently the price of corn had in a few days risen enormously, and then had followed famine, and the whole of Rome, perishing from hunger and with longing eyes turned towards the South, would rush like one man to the banks of the Tiber every time a vessel came up the river from the port of Ostia. Well, on the morning after the night Nero had spent with Locusta, being the day following that on which the news of Galba’s insurrection had arrived, the people had gathered in the Forum, hungry and clamorous, when a vessel was signalled. Thereupon the whole multitude rushed down to the Portus Aelius, in the belief that this vessel was the vanguard of the provision fleet, and jumped aboard with shouts of joy, only to find that the cargo of the ship was sand from Alexandria for the use of the court wrestlers. The disappointment was followed by a loud outburst of murmurs and curses.

  Noticeable among the malcontents was one of Galba’s freedman, named Icelus. The man had been arrested on the previous evening; but during the night a band of some hundred armed men had attacked the prison and rescued him. Consequently he reappeared among the people as a sort of hero owing to his temporary punishment, and, taking advantage of this feeling summoned the bystanders to organise an open rising. The latter, however, still hesitated, through that remnant of obedience to existing authority which is often not taken into account, but which ordinary minds find it difficult to shake off. At this moment a young man, whose features were concealed beneath a cloak, passed close to Icelus and handed him a leaf torn from a tablet. Icelus took the ivory plate smeared with wax which had been given to him, and saw with delight that fortune had come to his help by affording him another proof of Nero’s villainy. The leaf of the tablet contained the scheme formed by the Emperor, on the night when Sporus had stayed in his room, of setting fire for the second time to this Rome which was growing weary of his musical performances, and of letting loose the wild beasts during the conflagration, so that the Romans might be unable to extinguish the flames. Icelus read in a loud voice the lines written on the tablet, and yet, so mad did this scheme of vengeance appear, that people hesitated to believe its truth. Some even asserted that the order just read by Icelus was a fictitious one, when Nymphidius Sabinus took the tablet from the freedman’s hands and declared that he recognised perfectly not only the Emperor’s handwriting, but also his manner of erasing, blotting out, and inserting words. To this there could be no reply, since Nymphidius Sabinus, as chief of the praetorium, was in the constant habit of receiving autograph letters from Nero.

  At this moment several Senators passed by, in disordered robes and without their cloaks, making for the Capitol, whither they had been summoned in consequence of the leader of the Senate having seen that very-morning a tablet similar to the one which had been handed to Icelus, on which was written in detail the scheme of inviting all the Senators to a grand banquet and poisoning them at one blow. The crowd followed these Senators and surged into the Forum like the hurrying waves of the tide pouring into a harbour-mouth. Then while waiting until the Senate should have come to some decision, they fell upon the statues of Nero, since they dared not yet to lay hands upon the Emperor himself. From the height of the terrace on the Palatine the Emperor witnessed the insults to which his statues were exposed; presently, he dressed himself in black, intending to go down to the people and present himself to them as a suppliant. But just as he was about to start, the shouts of the mob had assumed such an expression of rage and menace that he retreated precipitately, and opening a door at the back of the Palace, fled into the gardens of Servilius. Once secure within that retreat, which none except his most intimate confidants knew that he had chosen, he despatched Phaon to the commander of the praetorians.

  But Caesar’s messenger had been preceded to the camp by the agent of Galba. Nymphidius Sabinus had just promised in the name of the new Emperor seven thousand five hundred drachmas to every praetorian, and to each soldier quartered in the provinces twelve hundred and fifty drachmas. The commander of the praetorians therefore answered Phaon that all that he could do was to give the preference to Nero in case he was willing to offer a similar amount. This answer Phaon brought back to the Emperor; the sum demanded, however, totalled up to more than eleven million pounds sterling, and the treasury had been so depleted by the Emperor’s foolish extravagance, that he did not possess the twentieth part of this sum. Nero, however, did not despair; night was approaching, and he thought that with the help of some of his old friends whose aid, thanks to the darkness, he could implore without being seen, he might perhaps succeed in raising the amount required.

  Darkness descended upon the city seething with excitement; wherever there were open spaces or cross roads there might be seen groups of people standing in the light of blazing torches. Among this multitude, animated by such diverse feelings, the wildest and most contradictory rumours circulated, as though an eagle were shaking them from its wings, and every one of these rumours, no matter how silly and incoherent, obtained credence. As each successive report spread, there were such wavings of torches in the air and such shouting that from a distance one might have thought it was a volcano in eruption and the roaring of wild beasts. In the middle of all this tumult the praetorians left their barracks and went to encamp outside the city. Wherever they passed, the crowd became silent, for none knew on whose side they had declared themselves; but no sooner had they passed out of sight than the crowd began to wave their torches once more and utter confused and menacing cries.

  In spite, however, of all this disturbance in the city, Nero ventured to come down, disguised in workman’s clothes, from the gardens of Servilius, where, as we have said, he had been all day in hiding. His motive for running this risk lay in the hope of finding help, if not from the arms, at least from the purses of the former companions of his revels. But in vain did the unhappy man drag himself from house to house and kneel as a suppliant at every door, imploring, as a mendicant solicits alms, that help which alone could save his life. In vain were all his appeals and groans; all hearts were deaf and all doors shut fast against him. Then, as the mob, weary of the delay in the deliberations of the Senate, began to grow more clamorous, Nero realised that there was not a moment to be lost, and, instead of returning to the gardens of Servilius, hurried off to the Palatine to secure some gold and valuable jewels. On reaching the fountain of Jupiter, he slipped behind the temple of Vesta, and keeping within the shadow thrown by the walls of the Palace of Tiberius and Caligula reached the gate which had been opened for his triumphal progress on his arrival from Corinth, crossed the splendid gardens which he would presently be forced to exchange for the deserted strand of some lonely isle of exile, and entering the Golden House made his way through dark and secret corridors to his chamber.

  On entering the chamber he uttered a cry of surprise. During his absence the guards of the Palatine had fled, taking with them whatever they could lay hands on — Eastern hangings, silver vases, costly furniture. Nero ran to the little cabinet in which he had placed Locusta’s poison and opened the drawer, but the gold box had disappeared and with it his last resource against the shame of a public and disgraceful death. Then the man who but the day before had been master of the world, overcome by weakness in the hour of peril, abandoned or betrayed by everybody, threw himself face downwards on the floor and wallowed there, uttering frenzied cries for help. Three men rushed in; they were Sporus, Epaphroditus, his secretary, and Phaon, his freedman. On seeing them, Nero rose on his knees and looked anxiously at them; then, perceiving from their sad and dejected countenances that there was no hope left, he bade Epaphroditus go and fetch the gladiator Spiculus, or any other who would be willing to kill him. Next he ordered Sporus and Phaon to chant the dirges sung at funerals by the hired female mourners, and they had not finished doing this when Epaphroditus returned to say that neither Spiculus nor any one else would come. Then Nero, summoning up all his strength, and seeing that this last method of securing a speedy death was cut off from him, dropped his arms and exclaimed: “Alas! alas! then I have neither friend nor enemy;” next he wanted to leave the Palatine and run to the Tiber and throw himself in, but Phaon checked his purpose by offering him his country-house, which was situated about four miles from Rome, between the Salarian and Nomentane ways. Nero, clinging to this last hope, accepts the offer. Five horses are got ready; the Emperor mounts one of them, muffles his face, and, followed by Sporus, who sticks to him like his shadow, while Phaon remains at the Palatine to send him news, passes through the entire city, leaving it by the Nomentane Gate, and follows the road on which we met him at the moment when the salute given by the soldier who had recognised him had put the coping-stone to his terror.

 

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