Nero

Nero called desperately to his servants to send for a gladiator to thrust him through with a sword, but no one would go. "Alas!" he exclaimed, "has it come to this? Am I so utterly abandoned that I have not even enemies left who are willing to kill me?"

Phaon proposes a place of retreat.

After a little time he began to be a little more composed, and expressed a wish that he knew of some place in the environs of the city where he could go and conceal himself for a little time until he could determine what to do. One of the servants of his household named Phaon, told him that he had a country-house near the city, where, perhaps, Nero might hide. Nero immediately resolved to go there. The better to conceal his flight he disguised himself in mean apparel, and tied a handkerchief about his face; and then, mounting on horseback in company with two or three attendants, he proceeded out of the city. As he went, it thundered and lightened from time to time, and Nero was greatly terrified. He supposed that the commotion of the elements was occasioned by the spirits of those whom he had murdered coming now to persecute and torment him in the hour of his extremity.

Nero's flight from the city.

Incidents.

He passed, during his ride, a station of the guard which happened to be on his way, and heard the soldiers cursing him as he went by, and expressing joy at his downfall. Soon after this he overheard a passenger whom his party met on the road, say to his companion, when he saw Nero and his attendants riding by, "These men no doubt are going in pursuit of the emperor." Another man whom they met on the way stopped them to ask what news there was in town about the emperor. In these occurrences, though they of course tended to increase the agitation and excitement of Nero's mind, there was nothing particularly alarming; but at length an incident happened which frightened the fugitive extremely. He was passing a place where a carcass lay by the side of the road. Some soldiers of the guard were standing near. The horse that Nero rode was startled at the sight of the carcass, and springing suddenly shook down the handkerchief from Nero's face. One of the soldiers by this means obtained a view of his countenance, and exclaimed that that was the emperor. Nero was so much alarmed at this that he hastened on, and as soon as he was out of the view of the men who had seen him, he leaped from his horse, and calling upon his attendants to dismount too and follow him, he ran into an adjoining thicket, among bushes and briers, and thence the whole party made their way circuitously round to the rear of Phaon's grounds. Here they stopped and hid themselves till they could contrive some way to get through or over the wall.

He refuses to be buried before he is dead.

There was a pit near by, which had been made by digging for sand. Phaon proposed that Nero should hide in this pit until an opening could be made in the wall. But Nero refused to do this, saying that he would not be buried before he was dead. So he remained hid in the thickets while Phaon went to work to make an opening in the wall.

The wall was not of a very substantial character; if it had been, it would not have been possible for Phaon, with the means at his command, to have effected a passage. As it was, he succeeded, though with difficulty, in loosening some of the stones, so as gradually to make an opening.

Nero was engaged, while this work was going on, in pulling the briers out of his clothes and flesh, and being thirsty, he went down to a ditch that was near, and drank, taking up the water in his hands. As he drank, he groaned out, "Oh, can it be that I have come to this!"

He gets through the wall.

He is concealed.

In the mean time, Phaon went on with his work, and soon succeeded in making a hole in the wall sufficient for his purpose, and then the men dragged Nero through. They brought him into the house, and shut him up in a small and secret apartment there.

Phaon counsels Nero to kill himself.

Nero now felt relieved from the extreme terror which he had suffered during his flight; but the feelings of terror subsided in his mind, only to give place to the still more dreadful pangs of remorse and horror. He moaned continually in his anguish, and incessantly repeated the words, "My father, my mother, and my wife doom me to destruction." These were indeed the words of one of the tragedies which he had been accustomed to act upon the stage, but they expressed the remorse and anguish of his mind so truly, that they recurred continually to his lips. Phaon and the men who had brought him to the house, finding it impossible to calm him, and seeing no hope of his final escape from death, and perhaps, moreover, wishing to relieve themselves of what was now fast becoming a serious burthen to them, recommended to him to kill himself, – and thus, as they said, since he must die, die like a man. Finally, Nero seemed to yield to their urgings. He said that he would kill himself as they desired. They might go out and dig a grave for him, and prepare wood and water for washing the body. While giving these orders he moaned and groaned continually, as if in a state of delirium.

Nero is condemned by the Senate.

In the mean time the morning had come, and at Rome all was excitement and commotion. The Senate came together and proclaimed Galba emperor. They also passed a decree pronouncing Nero an enemy to the state, and sentencing him to be punished as such in the ancient manner. When this news transpired, a friend of Phaon wrote a letter to him, giving an account of what the Senate had done, and sent it off with the utmost haste by a trusty messenger. The messenger arrived at Phaon's house, and brought the letter in. Nero seized it from Phaon's hands, and read it. "What is the ancient manner?" he asked, in a tone of great anxiety and terror. They told him that it was to be stripped naked, and then to be secured by having his head fastened in a pillory, and in that position to be whipped to death. At hearing this, Nero broke forth in fresh groans and lamentations. He could not endure such a death as that, he said, and he would kill himself, therefore, at once, if they would give him a dagger.

The daggers.

There were daggers at hand. Nero took them, examined the points of them with a trembling touch, seemed undecided, and finally put them away again, saying that his hour was not yet quite come. Presently he took one of the daggers again, and made a new attempt to awaken in himself sufficient resolution to strike the blow, but his courage failed him. He moaned and raved all this time in the most incoherent and distracted manner. He even begged that one of the attendants who were with him would take the dagger and kill himself first, in order to encourage Nero by letting him see that it was not after all so dreadful a thing to die. But no one of the attendants seemed sufficiently devoted to his master to be willing to render him such a service as this.

Armed men come to arrest Nero at Phaon's home.

In the midst of this perplexity and delay a noise was heard as of horsemen riding up to the door. Nero was terrified anew at the sound. They were coming, he said, to seize him. He immediately drew one of the daggers, and putting it to his throat, attempted desperately to nerve himself to the work of driving it home. But he could not do it. The noise at the door in the mean time increased. Nero then gave the dagger to one of the men standing by, and begged that he would kill him. The man took the dagger with great reluctance, but presently gave the fatal stab, and Nero sank down upon the ground mortally wounded.

The soldiers attempt to save Nero.

He dies.

At this moment the door was suddenly opened, and the soldiers that had just arrived came in. They had been sent by the Senate to search for the fugitive and bring him back to Rome. The centurion who commanded these men, advanced into the room, and looked at the fallen emperor, as he lay upon the floor, weltering in his blood. He had been commanded to bring the prisoner to the city, if possible, alive; and he accordingly ordered the soldiers to come to the dying man and endeavor to stanch his wounds and save him. But it was too late. Nero stared at them as they advanced to take hold of him, with a wild and frightful expression of countenance, which shocked all who saw him, and in the midst of this agony of terror, he sank down and died.

The news of the tyrant's death spread with the utmost rapidity in all directions. A courier immediately set off for the north to carry tidings of the event to Galba. People flocked from all quarters to the house of Phaon to gaze on the lifeless body, and to exult in the monster's death. The people of the city gave themselves up to the wildest and most extravagant joy. They put on caps such as were worn by manumitted slaves when first obtaining their freedom, and roamed about the city expressing in every possible way the exultation they felt at their deliverance, and breaking down and destroying the statues of Nero wherever they could find them.

Galba's march to Rome.

Seventy-three.

In the mean time Galba was steadily advancing on the way to Rome. In due time he made his entry into the city, and embassadors came to him there from all parts of the Roman world to acknowledge him as the reigning emperor. At this time he was seventy-three years old. So that the number seventy-three of which the oracle had warned Nero to beware, denoted the age of his rival and enemy, – not his own.

The End

notes

1

See map (#Frontispiece). Frontispiece.

2

By some it has been thought that the song which Britannicus sung on this occasion was one which he had learned before – one perhaps which he had accidentally seen or heard, and which had attracted his attention on account of its adaptedness to his own case; and there is a song of Ennius, an ancient writer, which is sometimes cited as the one he sang on this occasion. Others say that the performance was original and extemporaneous; that the young prince, excited by his wrongs, and by the peculiar circumstances of the occasion, gave utterance to his own feelings in words which suggested themselves to him on the spot. To do this would require, of course great intellectual readiness and ability, – but the difficulty of such a performance would be somewhat diminished by the fact, that the ancient poetry was wholly different from that of modern times, being marked only by a measured cadence, unconnected with rhyme.

3

See map (#Frontispiece). Frontispiece.

4

It seems to have been considered by public men in those days, that to resolve on self-destruction was a much more honorable course to pursue in an extreme emergency like this, than to wait to be condemned and executed by the officers of the law. The attempt to frighten a man into the act of killing himself was accordingly one of the various modes which a tyrant might resort to, to remove those who were obnoxious to him.