Henry Francis Colby

“ Surrounded by flatterers and schemers and depraved caterers to immorality, Nero early imbibed evil principles and adopted corrupt practices. He was inflated with conceit and bred to foolish ostentation. The wickedness of his own mother must have gone far to destroy in him all sentiments of virtue. What could be expected of an impulsive young man with such an heredity and such an environment?
While he was put forward to be the public advocate of measures that were popular, Agrippina reserved for Britannicus nothing but neglect. ”

“ When Augustus died Jesus was about eighteen years old. In a time of such infrequent communication between distant places a quiet town in Galilee, like Nazareth, would have slight relations with any higher authority than Herod. Yet Jesus must have often seen in his boyhood Roman military standards and groups of soldiers. He must have gazed with eager interest and curiosity upon their strong armor and shining weapons and watched with wonder their well-ordered movements. Roman coins must have been familiar objects to him, with their medal and superscriptions of the reigning monarch. ”

“ How startling to the former and how welcome to the latter must have been the great forerunner’s cry echoing in the wilderness of Judea: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord and make his paths straight!” Among the people who went out to hear John were some of the soldiers of Tiberius, who were then stationed in Palestine.
“What shall we do?” they asked.
“Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages,” was his reply.
Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, had been the tetrarch or ruler of Galilee under the Roman emperor since the death of his father. ”

“ A few may turn aside from the busy streets of Rome to contemplate in the Vatican gallery this cold semblance of the unworthy man who petulantly ruled the world when the cruel cross was erected outside the walls of Jerusalem and when the yearning arms of Love Incarnate were stretched out in pain upon it. ”

“ At the hour of intermission and rest he allowed most of his guard to go up into the palace by the open way, while he entered through the cryptoporticus,—a long tunnel-like passageway under the building, the same one through the shadows of which the modern visitor to the Palatine Hill now generally passes. Hither Cassius Chærea, a tribune of the Guard, whom Caligula had insulted by mockingly imitating his squeaky voice, followed him, with others, and arresting his steps, suddenly struck him upon the head with a sword. Blow followed blow till life was extinct. ”

“ Many of his associates followed his example and erected costly edifices, ornamented with columns and statues in marble and bronze. It was his boast that he had found Rome built of brick and would leave it made of marble. He patronized the arts and the sciences. He gathered around him men of brilliant talents,—statesmen, orators, philosophers, historians, painters, sculptors and poets. Vipsanius Agrippa, his prime minister, Mæcenas, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, besides many lesser lights, distinguished his reign and adorned his court. ”

“ A massive castle of the crusaders frowns down from a great height, but in the valley only wrecks of man’s ambitious structures make a pathetic contrast with the beauties of nature. It was in that region, probably, on one of the foothills of Mount Hermon, that the Transfiguration took place.
If we turn to consider the family life of the Emperor Augustus, we learn that after one or two betrothals in his early youth, which engagements were not followed up, he married a lady of high rank named Scribonia, by whom he had one child, a daughter, named Julia. ”

“ While a few men such as Seneca were beginning to reach after higher things, the reign of Tiberius was, on the whole, a period of dark skepticism, of degraded morals, of manifold intrigues. Thoughtful persons had lost faith in the old mythology, the conventional paganism. Many were longing for something better. Many had settled into the worst pessimism. Various dreadful tragedies went on in high life at Rome. There was a great deal of contention, and much confusion among all orders of citizens. ”

“ Seneca wrote:
All things are full of iniquity and vice; more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint. We struggle in a huge contest of criminality. Daily the passion for sin is greater. The shame in committing it is less.
From these quotations, and many others that might be collected, we see that society in Rome at that time presented a picture at once repellent and most pathetic. It had developed enormous moral and spiritual needs, which no human wisdom nor power could satisfy. ”

“ This is the reason for presenting here some sketches of the careers of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, and for asking what relics can still be10 found of their times and of their work. To contemplate some material object that they respectively touched or planned or builded,—some hoary ruin or crumbling fragment of temple, palace, aqueduct, or sepulcher,—seems to bring us into closer relation with them and to make more real to us those great dramatic figures, which would otherwise be but dim shadows of the past. ”

“ She was frightfully immoral. Her name, indeed, has become a byword for female depravity. She took bribes from others and wheedled presents from her husband.
After the accession of Claudius, the philosopher Seneca had emerged from the obscurity into which the jealousy of Caligula had forced him. It would have been well for his own peace of mind if he had continued to pursue his reflections in private. It has been well said that all Seneca gained for himself from his career of ambition at court was to be suspected by one emperor, banished by a second, and murdered by a third. ”

“ Galba then felt that he must be more than ever an object of hatred to Nero’s cruelty, and that he might as well proceed in an attempt to restore prosperity to the empire. He harangued the soldiers. They saluted him as emperor, but he would not as yet receive any title but that of Legate of the Senate and Roman people. He, however, enlisted more young men and prepared for a campaign. When the Roman general, Virginius Rufus of lower Germany, entered into communication with him, the news spread far and wide that Nero’s fall was sure. ”

“ We are members of one great body.—Let him who hath conferred a favor hold his tongue about it.
Man’s best gifts lie beyond the power of man either to give or to take away. The Universe, the grandest and loveliest work of nature, and the intellect, which was created to observe and admire, are our special and eternal possessions. ”

“ Messalina, the granddaughter of Mark Antony, was married to Claudius when he had no prospect of coming to the throne. She is said to have been at that time only fifteen years old. She became an intensely ambitious woman, of no moral principle. She was particularly jealous of Julia and Agrippina, the two nieces of the emperor, who, like herself, were brilliant but wicked women. She had no respect for her husband, and when he became emperor used her position to gain her personal ends. ”

“ Meanwhile Seneca and Burrus, the young emperor’s principal advisers, did all they could to make his government a good one and so establish its authority. Their chief difficulties were to control his headstrong nature and to prevent his mother from exercising too much influence over him. She, who had supplanted Messalina and had murdered Claudius, was not going to let her power go, if she could help it. She leagued herself with Pallas, the wealthy and unprincipled freedman at court, and it soon became evident that she was making trouble. ”

“ Lucius Domitius Nero, the next Roman emperor, was, as we have seen, the stepson of Claudius and the grandson of the famous Germanicus, who was a brother of Claudius. His mother was Agrippina II, the sister of Caligula. This Agrippina became the last wife of Claudius; but Nero was her son by her former husband, Lucius Domitius. The Domitian gens, or family, had been a famous one for several generations and the particular branch of it to which Nero’s father belonged, namely, the Ahenobarbi, or brazen-beards, had long been prominent for its ability, its wealth, and its power. ”

“ He is said, as a boy, to have been affectionate, with some aptness to learn, and fond of praise.
As the niece of Claudius, Agrippina had been allowed to occupy a place in the imperial palace next to the empress Messalina herself. When Messalina’s dissolute character became manifest to all, Agrippina, as we have related, took advantage of it to increase her own favor with the emperor and the interests of her son as a possible successor to the throne. It was an audacious dream, because he would be thus put in the place of Britannicus, the emperor’s son by Messalina. ”

“ There was no telling how he would shock the public next.”
“This prince,” said Seneca, “only lived to show what the greatest vices could do in the circumstances of the highest fortune.”
It may be asked: Where was the Roman Senate? Had it no power in the time of such public distress? The senators had more power than they had courage to exercise. They were weak and vacillating, each man fearing for his own life. They were often struck dumb by his imperious and remorseless demands, but the next day they would meet and pay servile court to him.
It was fortunate that Caligula’s reign was not long. ”

“ Having reached this stage of success, Octavian began to plan the securing of the humiliation of Brutus and Cassius, who had taken part in the assassination of Julius Cæsar, and who, with their comrades, called themselves “liberators,” in view of their opposition to the concentration of power in one man. To rid himself of annoyance by them, Octavian needed all the help he could get. ”

“ It was surely a miserable place for a man to be found who put forth, as did Seneca, exalted apothegms of moral philosophy. Using opportunities for the investment of inherited wealth, he became extremely rich and, although he was one of the most enlightened men of his age, he had allowed himself to be placed in a most contaminating environment. Perhaps it was his detestation of the conduct of the empress that made him a partisan of her rivals, so that Messalina could find a pretext for accusing him of an intrigue with Julia. Julia was exiled and then put to death. ”

“ On one public occasion Augustus made a long speech in which he cited Livia as a model for29 the ladies of Rome. He set forth minutely the details of her household management,—what she did, how she dressed, at what expense, how she amused herself, and what amusements she deemed suitable for a person of her position. The Romans regarded her as the perfect type of an aristocratic lady. She seems to have been dignified and handsome in person, and thoughtful in spirit. Her two sons,—Tiberius and Drusus, the stepsons of Augustus,—were also very popular. ”

“ Claudius was born at Lugdunum, or Lyons, in Gaul, August first, in the year 9, or 10, before Christ. From his childhood he seems to have been weak in body and retiring in spirit. He had been neglected, if not despised, by the great Augustus. His own parents had been ashamed of him as a feeble invalid. He had not been thought of as worthy to fill any high office at the imperial court. He had once asked the emperor Tiberius for larger responsibilities, but had received scarcely more than empty honors. ”

“ He entered upon his imperial career with a good degree of physical health and strength.
From his very accession Nero felt uneasy on account of the jealousy of Britannicus. He knew that the sense of right would assert itself in the breasts of many in behalf of Britannicus and might become dangerous to his reign. He therefore proceeded with caution. He pronounced a funeral oration over Claudius, which Seneca is believed to have composed for him. In it he made many conciliatory promises. There were not any of the nobles who had courage to call in question his claims. ”

“ After wearying both himself and his hearers with this prodigious folly he distributed money among them and invited them to a banquet. At nightfall the bridge and the ships were illuminated with torches and at the signal the whole curving line of the coast shone forth, as in a theater, with innumerable lights. ”