Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER XIX

  _OTHO’S SUPPER AND WHAT CAME OF IT_

  ‘Quoi cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella Et puella tenellulis delicatior hædis, Asservanda nigellulis diligentius uvis, Ludere hanc sinit, ut lubet.’

  CATULL. _Carm._ xvii. 14.

  We left Onesimus bound hand and foot in his cell, and expectingthe severest punishment. His crimes had been heinous, althoughthe thought of escaping detection by slaying Junia had only beena momentary impulse, such as could never have flashed across hismind if it had not been inflamed by the furies of the amphitheatre.As he looked back in his deep misery, he saw how fatally all hismisfortunes dated from the self-will with which he had resisted lightand knowledge. He might by this time have been good and honoured inthe house of Philemon, less a slave than a brother beloved. He mighthave been enfranchised, and in any case have enjoyed that happyfreedom of soul which he had so often witnessed in those whom Christhad made free indeed. And now his place was among the lowest of thelow. Nereus had of course reported to Pudens his attempt at theft.Pudens was sorry for the youth, for he had liked him, and saw in himthe germs of better things. But such a crime could not be passed overwith impunity. Onesimus was doomed to the scourge, as well as to atrinundine[47] of solitude on bread and water, while he remainedfettered in his cell.

  The imprisonment, the shame, the solitariness which was a cruel trialto one of his quick disposition, were very salutary to him. Theychecked him in a career which might have ended in speedy shipwreck.And while his heart was sore every kind influence was brought tobear upon him. Pudens visited him and tried to rouse him to penitenceand manliness. Nereus awoke in his mind once more the dying embersof his old faith. Above all, Junia came one day to the door of hisprison, and spoke a few words of courage and hope, which more thanall else made him determined to struggle back to better ways.

  His punishment ended, and he was forgiven. He resumed his duties, andtook a fresh start, in the hope of better things.

  Nero had returned to Rome, and drew still closer his bond of intimacywith Otho. Otho was his evil genius. In vain did Agrippina attempt tokeep her son in the paths of outward conformity with the requirementsof his position. In vain did Seneca and Burrus remind him of theresponsibilities of an Emperor of Rome. Otho became his model,and Otho represented to one half of the Roman population the idealwhich they themselves most desired and admired. All the voluptuousæstheticism, all the diseased craving in Nero’s mind for the bizarre,the monstrous, and the impossible; all the ‘_opéra bouffe_’ elementsof his character, with its perverted instincts as of a tenth-rateartist, were strengthened and stimulated by his intercourse with Otho.

  As a matter of course, the command of unlimited treasures followedthe possession of an unchallenged autocracy. Though there was atheoretical distinction between the public exchequer and the privypurse, there was no real limit between the two. This ‘deified gamin’had complete command of the resources of Italy and the provinces.Cost was never allowed to stand in the way of his grotesqueextravagance. A boy was the lord of the world--_a bad boy_--whodelighted in such monkey-tricks as taking his stand secretly onthe summit of the proscenium in the theatre, setting the actors andpantomimes by the ears, and flinging missiles at people’s heads.

  Shortly after his return to Rome he gave a banquet, and the chief newfeature of the entertainment was that the head of each guest had beensprinkled with precious perfumes. Otho determined that he would notbe outdone. He was laden with debts; but what did that matter whenhe might look forward some day to exhausting some rich province withrapine? He asked Nero to sup with him, and determined that he wouldset the fashion to imperial magnificence.

  The banqueters were nine in number: Otho and Nero; Petronius, as the‘arbiter of elegance’; Tigellinus, as the most pliable of parasites;the actor Paris, because of his wit, grace, and beauty; Vatinius,as the most unspeakable of buffoons; Clodius Pollio, an ex-prætor,Pedanius Secundus, the Præfect of the city, and Octavius Sagitta, atribune of the people, whom Nero liked for their dissolute manners.

  Pricelessness and refinement--as refinement was understood by themost effeminate of Roman exquisites--were to be the characteristicsof the feast. The dining-room was a model of the latest and mostfashionable art. It was not large, but its roof was upheld byalternate columns of the rare marbles of Synnada and Carystus--theformer with crimson streaks, the latter green-veined--while the twocolumns at the entrance showed the golden yellow of the quarriesof Numidia, and the fretted roof was richly gilded and variedwith arabesques of blue and crimson. The walls were inlaid withmother-of-pearl, alternated with slabs of ivory delicately flushedwith rose-colour. The chandeliers were of antique shapes, and furtherlight was given by candelabra of gold. In front of Nero was one ofexquisite workmanship, which represented Silenus lying on a rock,with his head leaning against a tree which overshadowed it. The tablewas of cedar wood, supported by pillars of ivory, and it sparkledwith goblets of gold and silver embossed by Mys and Mentor, amongwhich were scattered amber cups, and chrysendeta which were of silverrimmed with gold. The bowls in which the rare wines were mixed wereof pure crystal or the rubied glass of Alexandria. Although it waswinter, garlands of exotic roses were provided for every guest, andthese garlands were fastened to lappets of perfumed silk. None butthe most youthful and beautiful of Otho’s slaves--bright Greeks, anddark Egyptians, and fair-haired Germans, in sumptuous dresses, oneor two of whom Otho had purchased for no less than eight hundredpounds--were permitted to wait upon the guests.

  The supper was no supper of Trimalchio, with its coarse and heavygluttonies. Everything was delicate and _recherché_. The oysters werefrom Richborough; the lampreys from the fishponds of a senator whowas said to have flung into them more than one slave who had offendedhim; the mullet came from Tauromenos; the milk-cheeses from Sarsina;the fruits seemed to have been produced in defiance of the seasons,and the roses were as plentiful as though it were midsummer. Therewere two tiny dishes which represented the last and most extravagantdevices of Roman _gourmandise_, for one was composed of the tonguesof nightingales, the other of the brains of Samian peacocks andAfrican flamingoes, of which the iridescent and crimson feathersadorned the silver plates on which they lay. Sea and land had beenswept with mad prodigality to furnish every luxury which money couldprocure. The wines were of the rarest vintages; and whereas fourkinds of wine were thought an extravagance in the days of JuliusCæsar, Otho set eighty different sorts of wine before his guests,besides other kinds of delicate drinks. To relieve the plethora ofluxuries the guests sometimes alternated hot burning mushrooms withpieces of ice.

  But the most admired invention of extravagance was the one in whichOtho had specially designed to outdo the luxury of Cæsar. The Romanswere devoted to delicious odours. Nero had ordered perfumes to besprinkled on the hair of his guests; but after this had been done tothose who reclined at Otho’s banquet, the boys who stood behind themtook off their loose slippers and bathed their feet also in liquidessences--a device of which, up to this time, the luxury of anApicius had never dreamed. And while the guests were still admiringthis daring innovation, Otho made a sign with his jewelled hand toPolytimus, the chief favourite among his slaves, who immediatelyturned two taps of ivory and gold, and then, to the soft breathingof flutes, two fountains sprang into the air, from silver basins,and refreshed the banqueters with a fine dew of the most exquisitefragrance.

  To those frivolous spirits all this unbridled materialism seemed tobe the one thing which raised them nearest to the gods; and they felta thrill of delight when it was whispered that for that single supperOtho had expended a sum of four million sesterces.[48]

  The conversation during the meal was vapid and licentious. Beginningwith the weather, it proceeded to discuss the gladiators, actors,dancers, and charioteers. Then it repeated all the most recentpasquinades and coarse jokes which had been attached to the statuesin the Forum. Then it turned to scandal, and

  ‘Raged like a f
ire among the noblest names, Imputing and polluting,’

  until it might have seemed that in all Rome not one man was honest,nor one woman pure. To say such things of many of the leadingsenators and patricians would have been not far from the truth; butthe gossip became far more piquant when it dwelt on the immense usuryof Seneca, and gave vent to the worst innuendoes about his privatelife; or when it tried to blacken with its poisonous breath the fairfame of a Pætus Thrasea or a Helvidius Priscus. Yet another resourcewas boundless adulation of the Emperor and abuse of every otherauthority, particularly of the Senate, of which Nero, like Gaius, wasintensely jealous. It was on this occasion that Vatinius surpassedhimself by the celebrated remark, ‘I hate you, Cæsar, because you area senator.’ After a time, however, scandal and adulation palled, asdid the smart procacity of the young slaves, who were trained to saywitty and impudent things. And as by that time the drinking bout hadbegun, after the healths were finished the guests were amused by thestrains of the choraulæ and the dances of Andalusian girls.

  Among the amusements which Otho had provided was a ventriloquist, whotook off all the chief lawyers of the day in a fashion first set byMutus, in the reign of Tiberius. But the jaded, rose-crowned guestsfound that the evening was beginning to drag, and then they took togambling. Nero caught the epidemic of extravagance, and that nighthe bet four hundred sesterces, not on each cast only, but on each_point_ of the dice.

  It was understood that, though the supper and its concomitant orgieswere prolonged for hours, there was to be no deliberate drunkenness.Claudius had habitually indulged in a voracity which, on oneoccasion, had made him turn aside from his own judgment-seat tointrude himself as a guest at one of the celebrated banquets of theSalian priests, of which the appetising smell had reached him fromthe Temple of Mars. But by Otho and Petronius such forms of animalismwere condemned as betraying a want of æsthetic breeding, and theysought to stimulate the lassitude of satiety by other forms ofindulgence. That night they proposed to initiate Nero into a newsensation, by persuading him to join the roysterers who, like theMohawks in the reign of Queen Anne, went about the streets insultingsober citizens, breaking open shops, and doing all the damageand mischief in their power. It was this which made that eveningmemorable in Nero’s reign, because it was the first instance ofa folly which filled genuine Romans with anger and disdain.

  But before we touch on these adventures, another incident must bementioned, which produced a far deeper effect upon the annals ofthe world. It was on the evening of that supper that Nero first sawPoppæa Sabina.

  Poppæa Sabina, though before her marriage to Otho she had beenmarried to Rufius Crispinus, the Prætorian Præfect of Claudius,and had been the mother of a boy, still retained the youthful andenchanting loveliness which became an Empire’s curse. She was abride well suited in all respects to the effeminate and recklessOtho. If he paid priceless sums for the perruque which no one coulddistinguish from his natural hair, and used only the costliest silvermirrors, she equalled his absurdities by having her mules shod withgold, and by keeping five hundred she-asses to supply the milk inwhich she bathed her entire person, with the object of keeping herbeautiful complexion in all its softness of hue and contour. And,when she travelled, the hot sunbeams were never allowed to embrownher cheeks, which she entirely covered with a fine and fragrantunguent.

  Otho was sincerely attached to her. He was proud of possessing as hisbride the haughtiest, the most sumptuous, and the most entrancinglyfair of all the ladies in Rome. Before the death of Rufius Crispinushe had estranged her affections from her husband; and it was morethan suspected that her object in accepting Otho had not only beenher admiration for his luxurious prodigality, but also an ulteriordesign of casting her sorcery over the youthful Nero. Otho had oftenpraised her beauty to the Emperor, for it was a boastfulness fromwhich he could not refrain. But he did not wish that Nero should seeher. He knew too well the inflammable disposition of the youthfulCæsar, and the soaring ambition of his own unscrupulous consort.In this purpose he had been abetted secretly by Agrippina, who feltan instinctive dread of Poppæa, and who, if the day of her lawlessexercise of power had not been ended within two months of her son’saccession, would have made Poppæa undergo the fate which she hadalready inflicted on Lollia Paulina. By careful contrivance Otho hadmanaged to keep Poppæa at a distance from Nero. The task was easier,because Nero was short-sighted, and Poppæa, either in affectation ofmodesty, or from thinking that it became her, adopted the fashion ofEastern women, in covering the lower part of her face with a veilwhen she went forth in public.

  But that evening Nero, for the first time, saw her near at hand andface to face, and she had taken care that he should see her in thefull lustre of her charms.

  Beyond all doubt she was not only dazzlingly beautiful, but alsopossessed that spell of brilliant and mobile expression, and theconsummate skill in swaying the minds of men, which in earlier dayshad enabled Cleopatra to kindle the love of Julius Cæsar, and to holdempery over the heart of Marcus Antonius. Her features were almostinfantile in their winning piquancy, and wore an expression of themost engaging innocence. Her long and gleaming tresses, which almostthe first among the ladies of Rome she sprinkled with gold, were nottortured and twisted into strange shapes, but parted in soft, naturalwaves over her forehead, and flowed with perfect grace over her whiteneck, setting off the exquisite shape of her head. She was dressedthat evening in robes which made up for their apparent simplicityby their priceless value. They were of the most delicate colours andthe most exquisite textures. The tunic was of that pale shining goldwhich the ancients described by the word ‘hyaline’; the stola wasof saffron colour. Her dress might have been described in terms likethose which the poet applies to his sea-nymph--

  ‘Her vesture showed the yellow samphire-pod, Her girdle the dove-coloured wave serene;’

  and, indeed, the sea-nymph’s robe had already been described by Ovid,speaking of the dress known as _undulata_--

  ‘Hic, undas imitatus, habet quoque nomen ab undis, Crediderim nymphas hac ego veste tegi.’

  She had divined the reasons which led Otho to prevent her frommeeting the Emperor; but she was ambitious of a throne, and, whileusing neither look nor word which awoke suspicion in her husband’smind, she smiled to think how vain would be his attempt to set aman’s clumsy diplomacy against a woman’s ready wit.

  ‘My Otho,’ she had said to him, ‘you are about to entertain theEmperor this evening at a supper such as Rome has not yet seen. Thefeast which Sestius Gallus gave to Tiberius, the supper which Agrippathe Elder gave to Gaius, and which helped him to a kingdom, were verywell in their way; but they were vulgar and incomplete in comparisonwith that of which your guests will partake to-night.’

  ‘I know it, Poppæa,’ he said; ‘and though my own taste sets thestandard in Rome, I know how much the arrangements of my banquet willowe to the suggestions of my beautiful wife.’

  ‘And ought not the wife, whom you are pleased to call beautiful, atleast to welcome into the house our imperial guest? Will it not be amarked rudeness if the matron of the house has no word wherewith togreet the Cæsar as he steps across her threshold? Will he be contentwith the croaking “_Salve, Cæsar!_” of the parrot whom you have hungin his gilded cage at the entrance of the atrium?’

  ‘Poppæa is lovely,’ said Otho, ‘and Nero is--what he is. Would youendanger the life of the last of the Salvii, merely for the pleasureof letting a short-sighted youth, perhaps a would-be lover, stare atyou a little more closely?’

  A pout settled on the delicate lips of Poppæa, as she turned awaywith the remark: ‘I thought, Otho, that I had been to you toofaithful a bride to find in you an unreasonable husband. Is thereany lady in Rome except myself who would be deemed unworthy to seethe Emperor when he sups in her house? Have I deserved that youshould cast this slur upon me as though I--I, whose piety is knownto all the Romans--were a Julia or an Agr-- I mean, a Messalina?’

  Otho tried to bring back her lips t
o their usual smile, but he didnot wish to give way unless he were absolutely obliged to do so. Hesaid:

  ‘You must not adopt these tragic tones, my sweet Poppæa. This isbut a bachelor’s party. You shall meet Nero some day in this housewhen all the noblest matrons of Rome are with you to sanction yourpresence, and you shall outshine them all. But there are guestscoming to-night whom I should not care for Poppæa to greet, thoughI have asked them as companions of Nero. Surely you would not demeanyourself by speaking to a Vatinius or a Paris, to say nothing of aTigellinus or a Sagitta.’

  ‘I need not see or speak to any of the others, Otho,’ said Poppæa;‘but surely I have a right to ask that when the slave sees the gildedletica with its purple awnings I may for one moment advance acrossthe hall, and tell Nero that Poppæa Sabina greets the friend of herlord, and thanks him for honouring their poor house with his augustpresence.’

  ‘Well, Poppæa,’ said Otho, ‘if it must be so it must. You know thatI can never resist your lightest petition, and I would rather give upthe banquet altogether than see tears in those soft eyes, and thatexpression of displeasure against Otho on your lips.’

  So, when Nero arrived, Poppæa met him, and, brief as was theinterview, she had thrown into it all the sorcery of a potentenchantress. A sweet and subtle odour seemed to wrap her round inits seductive atmosphere, and every word and look and gesture, whileit was meant to seem exquisitely simple, had been profoundly studiedwith a view to its effect. Poppæa was well aware that Nero wasaccustomed to effrontery, and that Acte had won his heart by hermaidenly reserve. Nothing, therefore, could have been more sweetlymodest than Poppæa’s greeting. Only for one moment had she unveiledher whole face and let the light of her violet eyes flow throughhis soul. There was one observer who fully understood the pantomime.It was Paris, who read the real motives of Poppæa and was lostin admiration at so superb a specimen of acting. His knowledge ofphysiognomy, his insight into human nature, his mastery of his art,enabled him to see the truth which Nero did not even suspect, thatthis lovely lady with the infantile features was ‘a fury with aGrace’s mask.’

  She saw that her glance had produced the whole effect which she hadintended. Nero was amazed, and for the moment confused. He had neverexperienced such witchery as this. Acte was modest and beautiful, butto compare Acte with Poppæa was to set a cygnet beside a swan. Poppæavanished the moment her greeting had been delivered, but Nero stoodsilent. Almost the first word he said to his host struck like adeath-knell on Otho’s heart.

  ‘Otho,’ he said, ‘how much luckier you are than I am! You have theloveliest and most charming wife in Rome; I have the coldest andleast attractive.’

  ‘Let not Cæsar disparage the sharer of his throne,’ said Otho,concealing under measured phrases his deep alarm. ‘The EmpressOctavia is as beautiful as she is noble.’

  But Nero could hardly arouse himself to admire and enjoy the bestbanquet of his reign, until he had called for his tablets, andwritten on them a message for Poppæa. ‘I am thanking your lovelylady for her entertainment,’ said the Emperor, as he handed histablets to his freedman Doryphorus, and told him to take them to thelady of the house. But what he had really written was a request thatPoppæa would deign to greet him for a moment during some pause in thelong feast.

  He made the requisite opportunity by saying that he would coolhimself in the viridarium, and again he found Poppæa a miracle ofreserve and sweetness. From that moment he determined, if it couldin any way be compassed, to take her from her husband.

  * * * * *

  But this, as we have said, was not the only adventure of the evening.When the revel was over, the guests, instead of going home in pompousretinue attended by their slaves, determined to enjoy a frolic in thestreets. ‘Flown with insolence and wine,’ they persuaded the Emperorto disguise himself in the dress of a simple burgher and to roam withthem along the Velabrum and the Subura and every street in which theywere likely to meet returning guests.

  They all accompanied him except Vatinius, who was too weak anddeformed to suit their purpose. The streets of Rome were darkat night. The expedient of public lamps, or even of lamps hungoutside each house, had never occurred to a people that revelled inexpensiveness. Hence it was dangerous for unprotected persons to goout at night, and the police had more than they could really do. Neroand his companions were able, with perfect impunity, to insult, annoyand injure group after group of sober or peaceful citizens, whomthe exigencies of duty or society had compelled to return to theirhomes after dark without a slave to bear a lantern or a torch. Theyenjoyed the novel sensation of terrifying timid women and of throwingharmless passengers into the gutters, indulging in every form ofrowdyism which could furnish a moment’s excitement.

  The custom of ‘tossing in a blanket’ is not modern but ancient; onlythat among the ancients a large _sagum_ or war-cloak was used, as ourschoolboys use a blanket.[49] That night the party of aristocraticMohawks caught several poor burghers, and amused themselves withterrifying them almost out of their wits by this boisterous amusement.It needed, however, a spice of cruelty to make it still more piquant;and when they had tossed one of their victims as high as they couldthey suddenly let go of the sagum, and suffered him to fall, bruised,and often stunned, to the ground, while they made good their escape.

  But they were not allowed to have it all their own way. As they werenear the Milvian Bridge it happened that Pudens met them. He wasaccompanied by Onesimus, who carried a lantern of bronze and horn,and by Nereus and Junia, who followed at a little distance. They hadbeen, in considerable secrecy, to a Christian gathering, and wereon their way homewards when they met these roving sons of Belial,two of whom also carried lanterns. The stalwart form of Pudens lookedsufficiently formidable in the circle of dim light to prevent themfrom annoying him; but when they caught sight of the veiled figure ofJunia they thought that her father Nereus, who was evidently only aslave, would be unable to protect her from their rude familiarities.

  ‘Ha, maiden!’ exclaimed Otho. ‘What, veiled though it is night? Doyou need protection from Cotytto? Come, bring me the lantern here;let us look at a face which will be presumably pretty.’

  Junia shrank back, and Otho seized, and was attempting by force touplift her veil when a blow from the oaken cudgel of Nereus benumbedhis arm. But the Emperor, secure in the numbers of his companions,came up to the trembling slave-girl, who little dreamed whose was thehand laid upon her robe.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘when slave-girls are so modest there is nothingso effective for their education as the _sagatio_. What say you,comrades? It will be a novel excitement to toss a girl.’

  ‘Brutes!’ said Pudens, ‘whoever you are--brutes and not Romans! Wouldyou insult and injure a modest maiden, slave though she be? Standback at your peril.’

  But Nero, excited with wine, and closely followed by Pollio andSagitta, was still endeavouring to drag away Junia, who clungconvulsively to her father, when a blow from the strong hand ofPudens sent him staggering to the wall. He stumbled over a stonein the street, the mask slipped down from his face, and Pudenssaw who it was. The sense of the peril in which he and his slaveswere involved, at once flashed upon his mind. There was at least achance that Nero had not recognised him in the darkness. He hastilywhispered to Onesimus to put out his lantern and, if possible,those of their assailants also. The Phrygian rose to the occasion.Springing upon Petronius, he dashed the lantern out of his grasp bythe suddenness of his assault, and, whirling his staff into the air,struck with all his force at the hand of Paris, who held the otherlantern. The lights were extinguished by the fall of the lanterns,and covering his own under his tunic he called on Pudens and Nereusto follow him closely, and seized Junia by the hand. The by-ways ofthe streets had become familiar to him, and while the revellers werediscomfited, and were absorbed in paying attention to Nero, whoseface was bleeding, they all four made their escape, and got home bya more circuitous route.

  ‘The bucket-men are coming, Emperor,’ said
Paris.

  None of the party wanted the police to recognise them, or to have thetrouble of an explanation which was sure to get talked of to theirgeneral discredit, and feeling a little crestfallen, they all hurriedoff, to a secret entrance of the Palatine.

  This was a rough beginning for Nero in his career of a practicaljoker. But the delights of such adventures were too keen to beforegone. He had not recognised Pudens, who took care not to look tooclosely at the bruise on Nero’s cheek when he went next morning tothe Palace. In general he was safe in attacking small, and feebleparties of citizens; but not long afterwards he received anotherrebuff from the senator Julius Montanus, whose wife he insulted asthey were returning from supper at a friend’s house. Montanus, likePudens, had recognised the Emperor, but he had not the prudence toconceal his knowledge. Alarmed that he should have struck and woundedthe sacrosanct person of a Cæsar, he was unwise enough to apologise.The consequence was natural. Had he held his tongue he might haveescaped. Nero did not care to be detected in his escapades, and heordered Montanus to commit suicide.

  Having, however, been hurt more than once in these nocturnalencounters by men who had some courage, he made assurance doubly sureby taking with him some gladiators who were always to be within callif required. He was thus able to continue his pranks with impunityuntil they, too, lost their novelty, and began to pall upon a mindin which every spark of virility was dead, and which was rapidlydegenerating into a mass of sensuous egotism.