Jacob Abbott

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Parents whose sons had been slain, and wives and children who had lost their husbands and fathers, were thus compelled to unite in the congratulations and expressions of joy which were everywhere addressed to the emperor. Processions were formed, addresses were made, sacrifices were offered, games, spectacles, and illuminations without number were celebrated, to testify to the general rejoicing; and thus the city presented all the outward appearances of universal gladness and joy, while, in truth, the hearts of men were everywhere overwhelmed with anxiety, grief, and fear. ”

“ Multitudes of men, though nearly exhausted with fatigue, were desperately toiling on, in hopeless endeavors to extinguish the flames, or to save some small remnant of their property,—and distracted mothers, wild and haggard from terror and despair, were roaming to and fro, seeking their children,—some moaning in anguish, and some piercing the air with loud and frantic outcries. Nero was entertained by the scene as if it had been a great dramatic spectacle. ”

“ Silius forms a scheme for making himself emperor. As might naturally have been expected, there were two very different emotions awakened in the mind of Silius by the situation in which he found himself placed with Messalina,—one was ambition, and the other was fear. Finding himself suddenly raised to the possession of so high a degree of consideration and influence, it was natural that he should look still higher, and begin to wish for actual and official power. ”

“ In order to open the way for carrying it into effect, he pretended, when the time for the festival drew nigh, that he desired to be reconciled to his mother, and that he was ready now to fall in with her wishes and plans. He begged her to forget all his past unkindness to her, and assuring her that his feelings toward her were now wholly changed, he lavished upon her expressions of the tenderest regard. A mother is always very easily deceived by such protestations on the part of a wayward son, and Agrippina believed all that Nero said to her. ”

“ It required great genius in the commanders to bring up the army to this position of ascendency and power; but once up, it sustained itself there, without the necessity of ability of any kind, or of any lofty qualities whatever, in those subsequently placed at the head. In fact, the reader of history has often occasion to be perfectly amazed at the lengths to which human endurance will go, when a governmental power of any kind is once established, in tolerating imbecility and folly in the individual representatives of it. ”

“ Nero becomes more depraved and abandoned than ever. As the excitement which had been produced by the discovery, real or pretended, of Piso's conspiracy, and by the innumerable executions which were attendant upon it, passed away, Nero returned to his usual mode of life, and in fact abandoned himself to the indulgence of his brutal propensities and passions more recklessly than ever. He spent his days in sloth, and his nights in rioting and carousals, and was rapidly becoming an object of general contempt and detestation. ”

“ He spoke with great moderation of Messalina, and also of Silius, as if his object were to appease rather than to inflame the anger of the emperor. He however admitted, he said, that it was absolutely necessary that something decisive should be done. "Your wife is taken from you," said he, "and Silius is master of her. The next thing will be that he will be master of the republic. He may even already have gained the Prætorian guards over to his side, in which case all is lost. It is absolutely necessary that some immediate and decisive action should be taken." ”

“ She collected money, so far as she had power to do so, from all the resources which remained to her, and she availed herself of every opportunity to cultivate the acquaintance, and court the favor, of all such officers of the army as were accessible to her influence. In a word, she seemed to be meditating some secret scheme for retrieving her fallen fortunes,—and Nero, who watched all her motions with a jealous and suspicious eye, began to be alarmed, not knowing to what desperate extremes her resentment and ambition might urge her. ”

“ Agrippina continued, therefore, to live at Rome, in high favor with the court, for several years,—her little son advancing all the time in age and in maturity, until at length he became twelve years old. At this time, another great change took place in his own and his mother's condition. Messalina became herself, by her wickedness and infatuation, the means of raising her rival into her own place as wife of the emperor. ”

“ The remedy which mankind is now beginning to discover and apply is equally simple. The millions who do the work are learning to keep the arms in their own hands, and to forbid the banding together of masses of troops for the purpose of exalting pride and cruelty to a position of absolute and irresponsible power.
In Nero's case, so great was the awe which the terrible power of the Roman legions inspired, that even the Senate bowed humbly before it, and joined in the general adulation of the hated tyrant. ”

“ The Roman armies consisted of vast bodies of men which, when not in actual service, were established in permanent encampments in various parts of the empire, wherever it was deemed necessary that troops should be stationed. These great bodies of troops were the celebrated Roman legions, and they were renowned throughout the world for their discipline, their admirable organization, the celerity of their movements, and for the indomitable courage and energy of the men. Each legion constituted, in fact, a separate and independent community. ”

“ It was a crime of the highest possible atrocity. To open the way to an adulterous marriage by the deliberate and cruel murder of a mother, and then to seal and secure it by murdering an innocent wife,—blackening her memory at the same time with an ignominy [Pg 214] wholly undeserved, constitute a crime which for unnatural and monstrous enormity must be considered as standing at the head of all that human depravity has ever achieved.
Nero recovers from his remorse. ”

“ He congratulated himself and his friends on the escape from the perils that had surrounded them, which they had so happily accomplished. Narcissus and the others began to tremble lest after all Messalina should be spared; and they knew full well that if she should be allowed to live, she would soon, by her artful management, regain her ascendency over the emperor's mind, and that in that case she would give herself no rest until she had destroyed all those who had taken any part in effecting the destruction of Silius. They began to be greatly alarmed therefore for their own safety. ”

“ It requires genius and statesmanship to instate it, but, once instated, no degree of stupidity, folly or crime in those who wield it, seems sufficient to exhaust the spirit of submission with which man always bows to established power—a spirit of submission which is so universal, and so patient and enduring, and which so transcends all the bounds of expediency and of reason, as to seem like a blind instinct implanted in the [Pg 28] very soul of man by the Author of his being—a constituent and essential part of his nature as a gregarious animal. ”

“ She had been subsequently enfranchised, but she remained still in the palace, forming a part of the household of Agrippina. Nero had never felt any strong attachment for Octavia. His marriage he had always regarded as merely one of his mother's political manœuvers, and he did not consider himself as really bound to his wife by any tie. He was, besides, still but a boy, though unusually precocious and mature; and he had always been accustomed to the most unlimited indulgence of the propensities and passions of youth. ”

“ With these motives, if these indeed were his motives, there was doubtless mingled a feeling of malicious gratification at any thing that would terrify and torment the miserable subjects of his power. When he came to Rome from Antium at the time that the conflagration was at its height, he found the whole city a scene of indescribable terror and distress. Thousands of the people had been burned to death or crushed beneath the ruins of the fallen houses. ”

“ As soon as the party arrived in the city Narcissus conducted the emperor to the house of Silius, and entering it he showed to the emperor there a great number of proofs of the guilty favoritism which the owner of it had enjoyed with Messalina. The house was filled with valuable presents, the tokens of Messalina's love, consisting, many of them, of costly household treasures which had descended to Claudius in the imperial line, and which were of such a character that the alienation of them by Messalina, in such a way, was calculated to fill the heart of Claudius with indignation and anger. ”

“ We have yet no proofs. An informer [Pg 179] has come to you at dead of night with this wild and improbable story, and if we take it for granted at once that it is true, and allow ourselves to act under the influence of excitement and alarm, we should afterward regret our rashness when the consequences could not be retrieved. Besides, Agrippina is your mother; and as it is the right of the humblest person in the commonwealth, when accused of crime, to be heard in answer to the accusation, it would be an atrocious crime to deprive the mother of the emperor of that privilege. ”

“ Of course the connection of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, with such a sovereign as this, while it gave her a very high social position in the Roman community, could not contribute much to her happiness. In fact all who were connected with Caligula in any way lived in continual terror, for so wanton and capricious was his cruelty, that all who were liable to come under his notice at all were in constant danger. Agrippina herself at one time incurred her brother's displeasure, though she was fortunate enough to escape with her life. ”

“ Of course every wild and dissolute young man in Rome was fired with an ambition to imitate the example set him by so exalted an authority. Midnight riots became the fashion. As the parties grew larger, the brawls which occurred in the streets became more and more serious, until at last Nero was accustomed to take with him a gang of soldiers and gladiators in disguise, who were instructed to follow him within call, so as to be ready to come up instantly to his aid whenever he should require their assistance.
Agrippina lives in seclusion. ”