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

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER XXVI

  _A BANQUET AND A CONVERSATION_

  ‘The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems, And tender foliage wildly wreathed around Of seeming ivy ... whate’er is known Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs, Neptunian Albion’s high testaceous food, And flavoured Chian wines with incense fumed, To slake patrician thirst.’

  DYER, _Ruins of Rome_.

  We are far more likely to underrate than to exaggerate the splendourof a great Cæsarean banquet. It differed wholly from the soft,luxurious, disreputable feast of voluptuous debauchees at whichwe have been present in the house of Otho. Nothing was allowed todisturb its magnificent decorum.

  Nero’s feast was arranged in the highest style of imperial grandeur.Many a gilded and ivory lectica, borne by African slaves in richliveries and surrounded by crowds of freedmen and clients, had beencarried down the Sacred Way and the Street of Apollo; and if anydistinguished nobles looked through the curtains the populace raiseda cheer. The guests were set down under the great arch of the stateentrance.

  The noblest senators were there, and the representatives of theoldest families of Rome, and not a few who were destined to wearhereafter the purple shroud of imperial power. Most of them camedressed in togas of dazzling whiteness, and there were few who didnot display the broad purple band of the senator, or at least thenarrower band of the Roman knight. The knights were conspicuous bytheir large gold rings, the senators by the crescent of silver or ofivory which they wore in the front of their shoes. Those who, likeOtho, were professional dandies were clothed in the most elaboratedresses, but nearly all the guests wore gay tunics under their whitetogas, which, during the banquet, they laid aside for the lighterand more elegant loose dress of green, violet, or other vernalcolours. Nero himself received them in a paludament bordered withgolden stars. Agrippina was dressed in robes of rich violet, and onher neck was a great opal from the spoils of Mithridates. Octavia hadarrayed herself in one of the most costly dresses from the imperialwardrobe, and her stola was of that amethystine tint the use of whichNero afterwards reserved for himself alone.

  But many of the other ladies were hardly less splendid in theirattire. The necklaces which reached to their breasts had often asmany as fifty fine rubies dependent from their links of gold. Some ofthem carried fans of peacocks’ feathers. Some were dressed in robesvariegated with soft and brilliantly coloured plumage; the mantles ofothers had broad bands of gold sewed across the folds at the breast;others wore robes of interchanging sheen, or of the favouritemallow-colour, or Coan dresses of fine linen, woven with gold thread.The whole atrium looked like a bed of flowers, and even the pavementflashed with the light of jewelled feet.

  When the guests entered the vast triclinium they were almost dazzledwith the display of splendour which greeted them. Beautiful statuesof youths stood round the room, holding in their hands lamps of gold,which filled the house with the fragrance of perfumed oil. Othercressets of fantastic workmanship hung by golden chains from thegilded fretwork of the roof, which was so constructed that its aspectand colouring could be altered between each course, and that scentedessences and little presents of flowers and ornaments could beshowered down upon the guests. The great triclinia and sigma-tablesof Mauretanian citron and ivory blazed with gold and silver. Thegoblets from which the guests drank were enriched with gems. Theoldest and richest wines of the Opimiam, Falernian, and Setinevintages stood cooling in vases full of snow, round which were twinedwreaths of ivy and of roses. In front of Nero’s seat was a superbcandelabrum of solid gold representing a tree with lamps hanging fromits boughs like golden fruit. It belonged to the Palatine Temple ofApollo, and had been one of the spoils taken by Alexander the Greatat the sack of Thebes.[58] Among the other ornaments of the tablewere a handled vase of white and purple, for which Nero had paid amillion sesterces, and the myrrhine goblet which alone Augustus hadreserved for himself from the treasures of Cleopatra. There werealso some of the _vasa diatreta_, curious triumphs of art in which areticulated shell-work of pale blue was fastened by threads of glassto the opalescent vase within. Even the sawdust which was scatteredover the polished floor was dyed with minium and breathed of saffron.Underneath the tables had been sprinkled a mixture of vervain andmaidenhair, which was believed to promote hilarity in the guests.[59]Vitellius, as he gloated on the veins of the thyine table at which hesat, and the glories with which it was laden, exclaimed, ‘If Jupiterand Nero were both to invite me to dinner, I should accept theinvitation of Nero.’[60]

  Even the ancients had a custom closely analogous to our ‘sayinggrace.’ Before the guests sat down, a number of boys, in white robesof byssus, placed upon the table figures of the lares, and carryinground a jar of wine, exclaimed, ‘May the gods be favourable!’

  When the ice had been broken by the usual commonplaces, there wasno lack of animated and even brilliant conversation among the mostpolished representatives of a society in which conversation was anart. Much of the talk, indeed, was trivial, and much was scandalous.This was the inevitable result of a tyranny which had driven evenliterature into such safe ineptitudes as the imaginary conversationsbetween a mushroom and a fig-pecker, which had earned an immensereward from the Emperor Tiberius. Seneca, Burrus, and Pætus Thrasea,who were present and sat at the same _sigma_, talked on the foreignaffairs of the Empire, canvassed the doings of Felix in Palestine andthe movements of Tiridates in Armenia. Lucan was eagerly discussingwith Otho the sources of the Nile. Not a few of the ladies werelistening to stories of magic and vampires and were-wolves told themby travelled youths from Athens or Ephesus, and gossip amply filledup the talk of others.

  Britannicus, with some of the youngest scions of noble families,sat, instead of reclining, at a lower table than the elder guests.Augustus had introduced, and Claudius had kept up, the custom ofyoung guests dining on these public occasions in less state, andbeing served with a less luxurious meal.

  The boy had no suspicion of danger, for Acte, though surprised not tohave heard from Onesimus, did not know that her purpose had failed inconsequence of the levity and folly of her foster-brother. The faceof the young prince was radiant, for his heart was full of peace.His whole soul seemed to be expanded by the larger horizons which hadopened before him since he had learnt about the truths and promisesof the new faith. The light of the dawn, which shone for him uponthe distant hills, seemed to shed its rays even upon the evil andtroubled world. He maintained a pleasant talk, broken by many a happyand innocent laugh. His peril had been mercifully hidden from him,and on the previous night he had had a dream so happy, and so unlikeanything which he had imagined as possible, that he hardly knew howto tell it to Titus and Clemens, who sat on either side of him.

  In his dream he had seemed to himself to be sinking to sleep amidstrains of melody more tender than any which he had ever heard. And,while his soul was thus lapped in Elysium, a winged youth, whose facelooked pure as the flowers of spring, and whose wings were colouredlike the rainbow, had come to him and offered him his choice betweenpurple with a diadem, and a white robe with a wreath of lilies.He had chosen the white robe, and with a radiant smile the Visiondropped on the ground the purple robe, and Britannicus saw that itwas rent with dagger-thrusts and stained with blood. Then the youthhad taken Britannicus by the hand and led him through a vale of fireunhurt into a pleasant land beyond. Bright hands had there clothedhim in the robe of shining white, and had placed the wreath of liliesround his hair. After that he looked up, and on every side of himwere clouds of light, full of glittering faces; and two other wingedyouths grasped him by the hands, and led him along a vista of lighttowards a throne, which looked like a sapphire; but, before hecould see who sat thereon, he awoke in such an ecstasy that he layquivering with joy till the music and the fragrance died away. Neverin all his life had he experienced such unutterable blessedness, andit seemed to him as if he could never be unhappy again.

  But while Britannicus was thus supremely happy the lord of th
ebanquet was miserable. How could he be happy? On one side of himreclined his mother, once so passionately fond of him, now bitter,furious, and sarcastic--a woman whose life was poisoned by thedisappointment of her ambition. On the other side of him reclined hiswife, Octavia, young, beautiful, not unaccomplished, but to him coldas death. He could buy the venal love of as many as he chose, but hecould command no love that was not either purchasable or shameful.The fires of Tartarus were burning on the altar of his Penates, andhis own heart was smouldering with secret crimes, which could only beshared with the most villainous or the most despicable of mankind.

  And of all the guests how few were even tolerably happy, except oneor two of the boys at the table of Britannicus! Under that thin filmof iridescence what abysses of misery filled the Stygian pool of thesociety which lay beneath!

  * * * * *

  Among the guests that night was the young king Herod Agrippa II. Hesat in a conspicuous position at the highest table. As a boy he hadbeen at Rome, but this was the first time that he had been presentat any public gathering for many years. He had only just arrived on amission from Palestine. He had inherited Chalcis, the little kingdomof his uncle Herod, but he was anxious to add to this domain the cityof Tiberias and part of Galilee, where Herod Antipas had ruled, andthis year the Emperor granted his wish. Nero had entrusted him tothe care of Gallio, with whom he was eagerly conversing in Greek,and whom he overwhelmed with multitudes of questions. They spoke low,and, as they reclined at the banquet side by side, there was littlechance of their being overheard, though their conversation was oftenof that kind which was the more interesting from its being somewhatdangerous.

  ‘How gay Cæsar’s guests must be,’ said Agrippa; ‘they are all smiles!’

  ‘It is with many of them the fixed smile of a mask,’ said Gallio.‘They smile to hide their misery.’

  It was necessary for the success of Agrippa’s mission that he shouldstand well at Rome, and know something about the chief members ofRoman society. He therefore asked Gallio the names and history ofsome of the guests. We will follow his pointed fingers, and perhapsthe answers of Gallio may enable us to realise something more of thecondition of things in pagan Rome. For Gallio did not spare a singlereputation. He did not require to invent. Malignity had no need tosearch with candles. She only had to tell the truth, and there werefew guests there whose reputation did not wither at her breath.

  Agrippa first wanted to know something about the ladies who werepresent, and Gallio drew caustic sketches of Poppæa, on whom Nero’seyes were constantly fastened, and of Calvia Crispinilla. Agrippa’sattention was next attracted by Domitia Lepida, whose _tutulus_, orconical head-dress, it was the exclusive task of a slave-maiden toadorn.

  ‘That lady,’ said Gallio, ‘is the Emperor’s aunt. She used to neglecthim, but now that he is Emperor she worships the very ground on whichhe treads.’

  ‘And who is that lady in the sea-green Coan dress whose hair seems tobe powdered with gold dust?’

  ‘That is Junia Silana, nominally a bosom friend of Agrippina, reallyher deadliest enemy. Observe that lady near her, whose grey hairsare so elaborately dyed, and her cheeks so thickly rouged, and who isdressed with such juvenility. She is Ælia Catella. Would you believethat, though she is nearly eighty, she still dances?’

  ‘O tempora! O mores!’ said Agrippa. ‘That exclamation sufficed forCicero a hundred years ago; but he would want stronger expletivesnow.’

  ‘I will give you Horace for your Cicero. Did he not sing--

  ‘“What has not cankering Time made worse? Viler than grandsires, sires beget Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse The world with offspring baser yet.”’

  ‘Is there _no_ honest and virtuous woman here?’ asked the young king.

  Gallio pointed a little mockingly to the king’s sister, the beautifulBerenice, who had come with him to Rome. She was now twenty-six,but had lost none of her voluptuous loveliness. In her ears wereearrings, each formed of three orient pearls, and the famous diamondon her finger--a gem of priceless value, her brother’s gift--blazedconspicuously at every movement of her hand.

  Agrippa blushed and bit his lips; and Gallio always courteous, addedwith seriousness, ‘There are some, but not many. My brother, Seneca,is not complimentary to the ladies. He speaks of them as “animalimpudens, ferum, cupiditatum incontinens,”[61] which is, to say theleast, ungrateful of him, for our mother, Helvia, was perfect; andour aunt, Marcia, gained him his earliest honours; and his own wife,Paulina--she sits there--is one of the Roman matrons who almostdeserve the obsolete epitaph, “She stayed at home; she spun wool.”I think, however, that Seneca exaggerates the number of the ladies,who, he says, count the years not by the consuls, but by the numberof their divorced husbands.’[62]

  ‘Point me to another such lady as Paulina,’ said Agrippa.

  ‘There is one,’ answered Gallio, bending his head towards the EmpressOctavia; ‘and there is another.’ He pointed to a lady dressed simplyin a white stola beneath a light-blue palla, who wore no jewelsexcept the cameos which fastened the loops of her sleeve. It wasAntistia, the wife of Antistius Verus, the daughter of RubelliusPlautus. ‘Antistia,’ said Gallio[*7] ‘is as pure and devoted a ladyas you could find anywhere. There, too, sits Servilia, daughter ofBarea Soranus; and yonder is Arria, wife of Pætus Thrasea. PomponiaGræcina, wife of Aulus Plautius, is the sweetest and noblest matronin Rome; but she avoids Court society, and she is not here. Nor isClaudia, the fairest of maidens, the daughter of King Caractacus.’

  ‘And who is that handsome and venerable old man at the second table?’

  ‘The handsome and venerable old man--his name is Domitius Afer--is,I am sorry to say, a handsome and venerable old scoundrel. He is, orrather was, the greatest orator of his day--as the Emperor Tiberiussaid, a born orator, _suo jure disertus_. But he has been neithermore nor less than an informer, and one of bad character. Hewould have lost his head under Caligula, but he pretended to be sothunderstruck and overwhelmed by the mad Emperor’s eloquence thathe not only saved his life but rose into high favour. But it is timefor him to leave off making speeches. Whenever he attempts a greatoration now, half his hearers laugh and the other half blush.’

  ‘And the young man near him?’

  ‘King,’ said Gallio, ‘I shall begin to think that you are aphysiognomist, and are picking out some of the worst persons present.That is another informer; his name is M. Aquillius Regulus. He isa fortune-hunter as well as an informer. He has earned by infamy afortune of sixty million sesterces. I had better tell you at oncethat there are several of them nearly as bad. That brazen-faced manis Suilius Nerulinus, who helped Messalina to ruin Valerius Asiaticus.He was convicted of taking bribes as a judge even in the reign ofTiberius. And, worst of the whole company, there is Eprius Marcellus,a splendid orator, but a man, as you see, of savage countenance,whose eyes flash their fiercest flame, and whose voice rolls itsloudest thunder, when he is denouncing any person of special virtue.’

  ‘Well,’ said Agrippa, ‘unless I am tiring your courtesy I will turnto another table. Who is that extremely stout personage with a redface, bushy eyebrows, and apoplectic neck, who is devouring hisdainties with such brutal voracity?’

  ‘He is a very distinguished person named Vitellius, chieflydistinguished, however, for eating and drinking. He is descendedfrom a cobbler and a cook. He began his childhood with Tiberius atCapreæ. His father set up golden statues of the freedmen Narcissusand Pallas among his household gods, by which merit he won a statueon the rostra. Our friend then turned charioteer to please Gaius,gambler to please Claudius, and has now curried favour with Nero byurging him to sing. His domestic history is not amiable. He had byhis first wife a son named Petronianus, to whom she left her wealth.Vitellius made him drink a cup of poison, which he says that theyouth had prepared for _him_.’

  ‘I shall begin to believe,’ said Agrippa, ‘that the Greek sage wasright when he said, “Most men are bad.” Why
, Berytus would not showmore dubious characters--nor even Jerusalem.’

  ‘But there are some honest men,’ said Gallio, ‘as well as virtuouswomen. Burrus is fairly honest; Fenius Rufus is indifferentlyhonest; Pætus Thrasea is honest, though in these days even he has todissemble; Helvidius Priscus, Barea Soranus, and Arulenus Rusticus,friends of Thrasea, are as honest as the day. So is that old manLucius Saturninus, who, strange to say, in spite of his worth, hasreached the age of ninety-three without being either killed orbanished.’

  ‘I will only ask you one more name. Who is the man to whom DomitiusAfer is talking?’

  ‘His name is Fabricius Veiento. At present he is only known as theeditor of a book called “_Codicilli_,” which is immensely popular andis bringing him in a fortune. It is composed of the spiciest libelsagainst every senator of note whom he ventures to attack. He hasfound that one secret of getting rich is to pander to the appetitefor scandal, and half the people who are talking so fast around usare whispering stories which he has discovered or invented for them.’

  At this moment their conversation was rudely interrupted.