Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/363

Rh NERO 349 defence. But Seneca s fears of what the consequences would be, should Nero s sleeping passions once be roused, were fully verified by the result, and he seems to have seen all along from what quarter danger was to be apprehended. Agrippina s imperious temper and insatiable love of power made it certain that she would not willingly abandon her ascendency over her son, and it was scarcely less certain that her efforts to retain it would bring her into collision with his ungovernable self-will. At the same time the success of Seneca s own management of Nero largely depended on his being able gradually to emancipate the emperor from his mother s control. During the first few months of Nero s reign the chances of such an emancipation seemed remote, for he not only treated his mother with elaborate respect, but consulted her on all affairs of state. In 55, however, Seneca found a powerful ally in Nero s passion for the beautiful freedwoman Acte, a passion which he deliber ately encouraged for his own purposes. Agrippina s in jured pride provoked her to angry remonstrances, which served only to irritate her wayward son, and the caresses by which she endeavoured to repair her mistake equally failed in their object. Furious at her discomfiture, she rashly tried intimidation, and threatened to espouse the cause of the injured Britannicus. But her threats only served to show that her son, if once his will was crossed, or his fears aroused, could be as unscrupulous and head strong as his mother. Britannicus was poisoned as he sat at table. Agrippina, however, still persisted. She attempted to win over Nero s neglected wife Octavia, and to form a party of her own within the court. Nero replied by dis missing her guards, and placing herself in a sort of honourable confinement. 1 This second defeat seems to have decided Agrippina to acquiesce in her deposition from the leading position she had filled since 49. During nearly three years she disappears from the history, and with her retirement things again for the time went smoothly. In 58, however, fresh cause for anxiety appeared. For the second time Nero was enslaved by the charms of a mistress. But Poppaea Sabina, the new favourite, was a woman of a very different stamp from her predecessor. High-born, wealthy, and accomplished, she had no mind to be merely the emperor s plaything. She was resolved to be his wife, and with consummate skill she set herself at once to remove the obstacles which stood in her way. Her first object was the final ruin of Agrippina. By taunts and caresses she drove her weak and passionate lover into a frenzy of fear and baulked desire. She taught him easily enough to hate and dislike his mother as an irksome check on his freedom of action, and as dangerous to his personal safety. To get rid of her, no matter how, became his one object, and the diabolical ingenuity of Anicetus, a freedman, and now prefect of the fleet at Misenum, devised a means of doing so without unnecessary scandal. Agrippina was invited to Baiae, and after an affectionate reception by her son, was conducted on board a vessel so constructed as, at a given signal, to fall to pieces and precipitate its passengers into the waters of the lake. But the manoeuvre failed. Agrippina saved herself by swimming to the shore, and at once wrote to her son, announcing hep escape, and affecting entire ignorance of the plot against her. The news filled Nero with conster nation, but once again Anicetus came to his rescue. A body of soldiers under his command surrounded Agrippina s villa, and murdered her in her own chamber. 2 The deed done, Nero was for the moment horrorstruck at the enormity of the crime, and terrified at its possible conse quences to himself. But a six months residence in Campania, and the congratulations which poured in upon c., Ann., xiii. 12-20. -Ibid., xiv. 1-13. him from the neighbouring towns, where the report had been officially spread that Agrippina had fallen a victim to her own treacherous designs upon the emperor s life, gradually restored his courage. In September 59 he re-entered Rome amid universal rejoicing, fully resolved upon enjoying his dearly bought freedom. A prolonged carnival followed, in which Nero revelled in the public gratification of the tastes which he had hitherto ventured to indulge only in comparative privacy. Chariot races, musical and dramatic exhibitions, games in the Greek fashion, rapidly succeeded each other. In all the emperor was a prominent figure, and the fashionable world of Rome, willingly or unwillingly, followed the imperial example. These revels, however, extravagant as they were, at least involved no bloodshed, and were humanizing and civilized compared with the orthodox Roman gladiatorial shows. A far more serious result of the death of Agrippina was the growing influence over Nero of Poppaea and her friends; and in 62 their influence was fatally strengthened by the removal of the trusty advisers who had hitherto stood by the emperor s side. Burrus died early in that year, it was said from the effects of poison, and his death was imme diately followed by the retirement of Seneca from a position which he felt to be no longer tenable. Their place was filled by Popprea, and by the infamous Tigellinus, whose sympathy with Nero s sensual tastes had gained him the command of the praetorian guards in succession to Burrus. The two now set themselves to attain a complete mastery over the emperor. The haunting fear of conspiracy, which had unnerved stronger Caesars before him, was skilfully used to direct Nero s fierce suspicions against possible opponents. Cornelius Sulla, who had been banished to Massilia in 58, was put to death on the ground that his residence in Gaul was likely to arouse disaffection in that province, and a similar charge proved fatal to Rubellius Plautus, who had for two years been living in retirement in Asia. s Nero s taste for blood thus whetted, a more illustrious victim was next found in the person of the unhappy Octavia. At the instigation of Poppsea she was first divorced and then banished to the island of Pandateria, where a few days later she was barbarously murdered. Poppaea s triumph was now complete. She was formally married to Nero ; her head appeared on the coins side by side with his ; and her statues were erected in the public places of Rome. This series of crimes, in spite of the unvarying applause which still greeted all Nero s acts, had excited gloomy forebodings of coming evil, and the general uneasiness was increased by the events which followed. In 63 the partial destruction of Pompeii by an earthquake, and the news of the evacuation of Armenia by the Roman legions, seemed to confirm the belief that the blessing of the gods was no longer with the emperor. A far deeper and more last ing impression was produced by the great fire in Rome, an event which more than almost any other has thrown a lurid light round Nero s reign. The fire broke out on the night of July 18, 64, among the wooden booths at the south-east end of the Circus Maximus. Thence in one direction it rapidly spread over the Palatine and Velia up to the low cliffs of the Esquiline, and in another it laid waste the Aventine, the Forum Boarium, and Velabrum till it reached the Tiber and the solid barrier of the Servian wall. After burning fiercely for six days, and when its fury seemed to have exhausted itself, it suddenly started afresh in the northern quarter of the city, and desolated the two regions of the Circus Flaminius and the Via Lata. By the time that it was finally quenched only four of the fourteen regiones remained untouched ; three had been 3 Tac., Ann., xiv. 59.