Nero

Nero bids his mother an affectionate farewell.

It was observed that Nero exhibited an extreme degree of tender regard for his mother in bidding her farewell on this occasion. He hung upon her neck a long time, and kissed her again and again, detaining her by these endearments on the shore, as if reluctant to let her go. After Agrippina's death this scene was remembered by those who witnessed it, but in reflecting upon it they could not decide whether these tokens of affection were all assumed, as belonging to the part which he was so hypocritically acting, or whether he really felt at the last moment some filial relentings, which led him to detain his mother for a time on the brink of the pit which he had been preparing for her destruction. From all, however, that we now know in respect to the personal character which Nero had formed at this period, it is probable that the former is the correct supposition.

Agrippina and her attendant on board the barge.

The plot, dextrous as the contrivance of it had been, was not destined to succeed. The vessel moved gently from the shore, rowed by the mariners. It was a clear starlight night. The sea was smooth, and the air was calm. Agrippina took her place upon a couch which had been arranged for her, under a sort of canopy or awning, the frame-work of which, above, had been secretly loaded with lead. She was attended here by one of her ladies named Aceronia Polla, who lay at her mistress's feet, and entertained her with conversation as the boat glided along on its way. They talked of Nero – of the kind attentions which he had been paying to Agrippina, and of the various advantages which were to follow from the reconciliation which had been so happily effected. In this manner the hours passed away, and the barge went on until it reached the place which had been determined upon for breaking it down and casting Agrippina into the sea. The spot which had been chosen was so near the land as to allow of the escape of the mariners by swimming, but yet remote enough, as was supposed, to make Agrippina's destruction sure. A few of the mariners were in the secret, and were in some degree prepared for what was to come. Others knew nothing, and were expected to save themselves as they best could, when they should find themselves cast into the sea.

The result of the attempt.

Narrow escape of Agrippina.

At a given signal the fastenings of the canopy were loosened, and the loaded structure came down suddenly with a heavy crash, carrying away with it other parts of the vessel. One man was crushed under the weight of the falling ruins, and instantly killed. Agrippina and the lady in waiting upon her were saved by the posts of the bed or couch on which Agrippina was reclining, which happened to be in such a position that they held up the impending mass sufficiently to allow the ladies to creep out from beneath it. The breaking down, too, of the deck and bulwarks of the barge was less extensive than had been intended, so that Agrippina not only escaped being crushed by the ruins but she also saved herself at first from being thrown into the sea. The men then who were in the secret of the plot immediately raised a great cry and confusion, and attempted to upset the barge by climbing up upon one side of it – while the others, who did not understand the case, did all they could to save it. In the mean time the noise of the outcries reached the shore, and fishermen's boats began to put off with a view of coming to the rescue of the distressed vessel. Before they arrived, however, the boat had been overturned, Agrippina and Aceronia had been thrown into the sea, and the men who were in the secret of the plot, taking advantage of the darkness and confusion, were endeavoring to seal the fate of their victims, by beating them down with poles and oars as they struggled in the water.

Agrippina and Aceronia in the sea.

Agrippina escapes.

These efforts succeeded in the case of Aceronia, for she uttered loud and continual outcries in her terror, and thus drew upon herself the blows of the assassins. Agrippina, on the other hand, had the presence of mind to keep silence. She received one heavy blow upon the shoulder, which inflicted a serious wound. In other respects she escaped uninjured, and succeeded, partly through the buoyancy of her dress, and partly by the efforts that she made to swim, in keeping herself afloat until she was taken up by the fishermen and conveyed to the shore. She was taken to a villa belonging to her, which was situated not far from the place where the disaster had occurred.

Her message to Nero.

As soon as Agrippina had recovered a little from the terror and excitement of this scene, and had time to reflect upon the circumstances of it, she was convinced that what had occurred was no accident, but the result of a deep-laid design to destroy her life. She, however, thought it most prudent to dissemble her opinion for a time. As soon therefore as she had safely reached her villa, and her wound had been dressed, she dispatched a messenger to Baiæ to inform Nero of what had occurred. The vessel in which she had embarked had been wrecked at sea, she said, and she had narrowly escaped destruction. She had received a severe hurt, by some falling spar, but had at length safely reached her home at Antium. She begged, however, that her son would not come to see her, as what she needed most was repose. She had sent the messenger, she said, to inform him of what had occurred only that he might rejoice with her in the signal interposition of divine providence by which she had been rescued from so imminent a danger.

Nero's alarm on bearing of his mother's escape.

In the mean time Nero was waiting impatiently and anxiously in his palace at Baiæ, for the arrival of a messenger from Anicetus to inform him that his plot had been successful, and that his mother was drowned. Instead of this a rumor of her escape reached him some time before Agrippina's messenger arrived, and threw him into consternation. People came from the coast and informed him that the barge in which his mother had sailed had been wrecked, and that Agrippina had narrowly escaped with her life. The particulars were not fully given to him, but he presumed that Agrippina must have learned that the occurrence was the result of a deliberate attempt to destroy her, and he was consequently very much alarmed. He dreaded the desperate spirit of resentment and revenge which he presumed had been aroused in his mother's mind.

Consultation with Seneca and Burrus.

He forthwith sent for Burrus and Seneca, and revealed to them all the circumstances of the case. He made the most bitter accusations against his mother, in justification of his attempt to destroy her. He had long been convinced, he said, that there could be no peace or safety for him as long as she lived, and now, at all events, since he had undertaken the work of destroying her and made the attempt, no alternative was left to him but to go on and finish what he had begun. "She must die now," said he, "or she will most assuredly contrive some means to destroy me."

Seneca and Burrus were silent. They knew not what to say. They saw very clearly that a crisis had arrived, the end of which would be, that one or the other must perish, and consequently the only question for them to decide was, whether the victim should be the mother or the son. At length, after a long and solemn pause, Seneca looked to Burrus, and inquired whether the soldiers under his command could be relied upon to execute death upon Agrippina. Burrus shook his head. The soldiers, he said, felt such a veneration for the family of Germanicus, which was the family from which Agrippina had sprung, that they would perform no such bloody work upon any representative of it. "Besides," said he, "Anicetus has undertaken this duty. It devolves on him to finish what he has begun."

Anicetus undertakes to finish his work.

Anicetus readily undertook the task. He had, in fact, a personal interest in it, for, after what had passed, he knew well that there could be no safety for him while Agrippina lived. Nero seemed overjoyed at finding Anicetus so ready to meet his wishes. "Be prompt," said he, "in doing what you have to do. Take with you whom you please to assist you. If you accomplish the work, I shall consider that I owe my empire to your fidelity."

Anicetus goes to Agrippina's villa.

Anicetus, having thus received his commission, ordered a small detachment from the fleet to accompany him, and proceeded to the villa where Agrippina had taken refuge. He found a crowd of country people assembled around the gates of the villa. They had been drawn thither by the tidings of the disaster which had happened to Agrippina, curious to learn all the particulars of the occurrence, or desirous, perhaps, to congratulate Agrippina on her escape. When these peasantry saw the armed band of Anicetus approaching, they know not what it meant, but were greatly alarmed, and fled in all directions.

The guards at the gates of Agrippina's villa made some resistance to the entrance of the soldiers, but they were soon knocked down and overpowered; the gates were burst open, and Anicetus entered at the head of his party of marines. Agrippina, who was upon her bed in an inner chamber at the time, heard the noise and tumult, and was greatly alarmed. A number of friends who were with her, hearing the footsteps of the armed men on the stairs, fled from the chamber in dismay, by a private door, leaving Agrippina alone with her maid. The maid, after a moment's pause, fled too, Agrippina saying to her as she disappeared, "Are you, too, going to forsake me?" At the same moment, Anicetus forced open the door of entrance, and came in accompanied by two of his officers. The three armed men, with an expression of fierce and relentless determination upon their countenances, advanced to Agrippina's bedside.

Agrippina was greatly terrified, but she preserved some degree of outward composure, and raising herself in her bed, she looked steadily upon her assassins.

"Do you come from my son?" said she.

They did not answer.

Conversation.

"If you came to inquire how I am," said she, "tell him that I am better, and shall soon be entirely well. I can not believe that he can possibly have sent you to do me any violence or harm."

Agrippina is murdered.

At this instant one of the assassins struck at the wretched mother with his club. The arm, however, of the most hardened and unrelenting monster, usually falters somewhat at the beginning, in doing such work as this, and the blow gave Agrippina only an inconsiderable wound. She saw at once, however, that all was lost – that the bitter moment of death had come, – but instead of yielding to the emotions of terror and despair which might have been expected to overwhelm the heart of a woman in such a scene, her fierce and indomitable spirit aroused itself to new life and vigor in the terrible emergency. As the assassins approached her with their swords brandished in the air, preparing to strike her, she threw the bed-clothes off, so as to uncover her person, and called upon her murderers to strike her in the womb. "It is there," said she, "that the stab should be given when a mother is to be murdered by her son." She was instantly thrust through with a multitude of wounds in every part of her body, and died weltering in the blood that flowed out upon the couch on which she lay.

Nero is overwhelmed with remorse and horror.

Anicetus and his comrades, when the deed was done, gazed for a moment on the lifeless body, and then gathering together again the soldiers that they had left at the gates, they went back to Baiæ with the tidings. The first emotion which Nero experienced, on hearing that all was over, was that of relief. He soon found, however, that monster as he was, his conscience was not yet so stupefied, that he could perpetrate such a deed as this without bringing out her scourge. As soon as he began to reflect upon what he had done, his soul was overwhelmed with remorse and horror. He passed the remainder of the night in dreadful agony, sometimes sitting silent and motionless – gazing into vacancy, as if his faculties were bewildered and lost, and then suddenly starting up, amazed and trembling, and staring wildly about, as if seized with a sudden frenzy. His wild and ghastly looks, his convulsive gesticulations, and his incoherent ravings and groans, indicated the horror that he endured, and were so frightful that his officers and attendants shrunk away from his presence, and knew not what to do.

He becomes more calm.

At length they sent in one after another to attempt to calm and console him. Their efforts, however, were attended with little success. When the morning came, it brought with it some degree of composure; but the dreadful burden of guilt which pressed upon Nero's mind made him still unutterably wretched. He said that he could not endure any longer to remain on the spot, as every thing that he saw, the villas, the ships, the sea, the shore, and all the other objects around him, were so associated in his mind with the thought of his mother, and with the remembrance of his dreadful crime, that he could not endure them.

The dead body.

In the mean time, as soon as the servants and attendants at Agrippina's villa found that Anicetus and his troop had gone, they returned to the chamber of their mistress and gazed upon the spectacle which awaited them there, with inexpressible horror. Anicetus had left some of his men behind to attend to the disposal of the body, as it was important that it should be removed from sight without delay, since it might be expected that all who should look upon it would be excited to a high pitch of indignation against the perpetrators of such a crime. The countenance, in the condition of repose which it assumed after death, appeared extremely beautiful, and seemed to address a mute but touching appeal to the commiseration of every beholder. It was necessary, therefore, to hurry it away. Besides, the soldiers themselves were impatient. They wished to get through with their horrid work and be gone.

Burning of the body of Agrippina.

They accordingly built a funeral pile in the garden of the villa, – using such materials for the purpose as came most readily to hand – and then took up the body of Agrippina on the bed upon which it lay, and placed all together upon the pile. The fires were lighted. The soldiers watched by the side of it until the pile was nearly consumed, and then went away, leaving the heart-broken domestics of Agrippina around the smoldering embers.

Chapter IX

Extreme Depravity

A.D. 62-64

The atrocity of Nero's crime in murdering Agrippina.

There was nothing in the attendant circumstances that were connected with the act of Nero in murdering his mother, which could palliate or extenuate the deed in the slightest degree. It was not an act of self-defense. Agrippina was not doing him, or intending to do him any injury. It was not an act of hasty violence, prompted by sudden passion. It was not required by any political necessity as a means for accomplishing some great and desirable public end. It was a cool, deliberate, and well-considered crime, performed solely for the purpose of removing from the path of the perpetrator of it an obstacle to the commission of another crime. Nero murdered his mother in cool blood, simply because she was in the way of his plans for divorcing his innocent wife, and marrying adulterously another woman.

Nero's messages to the senate.

Action of the senate.

For some time after the commission of this great crime, the mind of Nero was haunted by dreadful fears, and he suffered continually, by day and by night, all the pangs of remorse and horror. He did not dare to return to Rome, not knowing to what height the popular indignation, that would be naturally excited by so atrocious a deed, might rise; or what might be the consequences to him if he were to appear in the city. He accordingly remained for a time on the coast at Neapolis, the town to which he had retired from Baiæ. From this place he sent various communications to the Roman Senate, explaining and justifying what he called the execution of his mother. He pretended that he had found her guilty of treasonable conspiracies against him and against the state, and that her death had been imperiously demanded, as the only means of securing the public safety. The senators hated Nero and abhorred his crimes; but they were overawed by the terrible power which he exercised over them through the army, which they knew was entirely subservient to his will, and by their dread of his ruthless and desperate character. They passed resolves approving of what he had done. His officers and favorites at Rome sent him word that the memory of Agrippina was abhorred at the capital, and that in destroying her, he was considered as having rendered a great service to the state. These representations in some measure reassured his mind, and at length he returned to the city.

Nero divorces Octavia and marries Poppæa.

In due time he divorced Octavia, and married Poppæa. Octavia, however, still remained at Rome, residing in apartments assigned her in one of the imperial palaces. Her high birth and distinguished position, and, more than all, the sympathy that was felt for her in her misfortunes, made her an object of great attention. The people put garlands upon her statues in the public places in the city, and pulled down those which were placed at Nero's command upon those of Poppæa. These and other indications of the popular feeling, inflamed Poppæa's hatred and jealousy to such a degree, that she suborned one of Octavia's domestics to accuse her mistress of an ignominious crime. When thus accused, other women in Octavia's service were put to the rack to compel them to testify against her. They, however, persevered, in the midst of their tortures, in asserting her innocence. Poppæa, nevertheless, insisted that she should be condemned, and at last, by way of compromising the case, Nero consented to banish her from the city.

Octavia banished from Rome.

Anicetus.

She was sent to a villa on the sea-coast, in the neighborhood of the place where Anicetus was stationed with his fleet. But Poppæa would not allow her to live in peace even as an exile. She soon brought a charge against her of having formed a conspiracy against the government of Nero, and of having corrupted Anicetus, with a view of obtaining the co-operation of the fleet in the execution of treasonable designs. Anicetus himself testified to the truth of this charge. He said that Octavia had formed such a plan, and that she had given herself up, in person, wholly to him, in order to induce him to join in it. Octavia was accordingly condemned to die.