by F. W. Farrar
CHAPTER XXVIII
_THE LAST OF THE CLAUDII_
‘Tu quoque extinctus jaces Deflende nobis semper, infelix puer, Modo sidus orbis, columen Augustæ domus, Britannice.’
SENECA, _Octavia_.
The poor young prince was carried by the slaves to his cubiculum. Thepoison had been like a dagger-thrust; but he was not quite dead. Helay at first unconscious, his breast heaving with irregular spasmodicsighs. Acte stole into his chamber, wept over him, strove to revivehim, and, if possible, to assuage his pangs. It was too late. He didnot recognise her. The moment he could escape from the tricliniumTitus came, and found the slave-boy Epictetus sitting at the footof the couch, with his head covered. ‘He yet lives,’ said the boy,raising for one moment a cheek down which, in spite of every Stoiclesson, the tears chased each other fast. Titus sat down by hisfriend, called his name, clasped his hand, and wailed aloud withoutrestraint. One almost imperceptible pressure of the hand provedthat there was an instant recognition. A Christian slave hadsecretly brought Linus into the room, which was easy in so numerousa household; and bending over him Linus sprinkled his brow with purewater, raising up his eyes and his hands to heaven. None presentknew what it meant; but Britannicus knew. A lambent smile lit hisfeatures for a moment, like the last gleam of a fading sunset, forhe understood that he had been baptised.
It was the last conscious impression of his young life. The momentthat the banquet ended, Octavia, still in her splendid apparel,hurried wildly to the chamber. It was a chamber of death. Alreadythe incense was burning, already the cypress had been placed beforethe Propylæa of the Palatine. The boy lay there, silent, noble,beautiful, pale as a statue carved in alabaster; and Octaviadisburdened the long-pent agony of repression in such a storm ofweeping that her attendants tried to lead her away. But she toreoff her jewels, and flung her arms round the corpse of her brother,and laid her head upon his breast, and sobbed aloud. Father, mother,brother, her first young and noble lover, Silanus--all who had everloved and cared for her were gone. He was the last of all his race.The last male Claudius, whose line was derived through that long andsplendid ancestry of well-nigh seven hundred years, was lying beforeher on that lowly bed!
He was to be buried that very night, as though he had been a pauperand not the noblest boy of an imperial aristocracy. There wassomething fatally suspicious in the rapidity with which everypreparation was made.
The obolus for Charon was put under his tongue; the fair young bodywas arrayed in its finest robe, was laid on a bier, and was carriedto the vestibule with its feet towards the door; and as it lay thereTitus brought in his hand a wreath of lilies, which he had beggedfrom the keeper of the exotic flowers, and placed it on the innocentforehead of his friend. He turned away with the words, which couldscarcely make their way through sobs, ‘Farewell! forever farewell!’But he never forgot that boyish affection; and long years after, whenhe was Emperor, he placed in the Palace a statue of Britannicus ingold, and at solemn processions he had an equestrian statuette ofivory carried before him which represented the young prince whoselove to him had been far truer and closer than that of his ownbrother.
Only for one instant did Nero venture to look on his handiwork. Hecame into the vestibule in his festal robes, his eyes heavy, thegarland still on his dishevelled hair, accompanied by Tigellinusand Senecio.
‘I suppose he died in the fit?’ he said to one of the slaves.
‘He breathed his last,’ answered the man, ‘within an hour of beingcarried from the feast.’
Something disquieted Nero. Furtively pointing his finger towards thedead boy, he said something to Tigellinus.
‘A little chalk will set that right,’ whispered Tigellinus in reply,and he gave an order into the ear of his confidential slave. Leavethe corpse a moment,’ he said aloud to the attendants; ‘the Emperorwishes to take a last look at his brother.’
The slave of Tigellinus brought a piece of chalk; and Nero, with hisown hand, chalked over some livid patches on the dead boy’s face,which already betrayed the horrible virulence of the poison.
‘Why linger in the charnel-house?’ said Senecio affectedly. ‘Cæsar,may we not have some more wine to refresh our sorrow?’
They turned away, and, before they were outside the hall, a lightlaugh woke a shuddering echo along the fretted roof.
The bearers were on the point of lifting the bier when Agrippinaentered. The dullest of the spectators could see that there wasnothing feigned in her anguish as she wept and tore her hair. Shegrieved for Britannicus, whom she had so irreparably wronged, buthers was a wild and selfish grief, the grief of rage and frustratedpurposes. She had built upon this boy’s life to keep her son interror of her influence. She saw now of what crimes Nero had alreadybecome capable. He who in so brief a space had developed into afratricide, how long would it be ere he would spare the life of anobnoxious mother? She felt, even then, in a bitterness of soul whichcould not be expressed, that even-handed justice was commending theingredients of the poisoned chalice to her own lips.
The obsequies were not only disgracefully hurried, but disgracefullymean. Every ceremony which marked a great public funeral was omitted.There were no lictors dressed in black; no _siticines_ with mourningstrains; nor _præficæ_, or wailing women; no _lessus_, or funeraldirge. Happily too, as some thought, there were not the customarybuffoons, nor the _archimimus_ to imitate the words and actions ofthe deceased. Though he was the noblest of the noble, no liberatedslaves walked before his bier, nor men who wore the waxen imagesof his long line of ancestors. No relations followed him--men withveiled heads, women with unbound tresses. Many a freedman, even manya slave, had a longer funeral procession than the last of the Claudii.
They bore him to his funeral amid storms of rain, which seemed tobetoken the wrath of Heaven. The spectators were few, but those fewsaw by the struggling light of their lanterns that where the rain hadwashed off the chalk the pale face was marked with patches of black.They saw this, and pointed it out to one another in silence.
The last offices were paid in haste by the drenched andhalf-frightened attendants. The body was laid on the small roughpyre. Julius Densus was there, and Pudens, and Titus, and FlaviusClemens. Nero had not the grace to be present. With averted facePudens thrust in the torch. The rain had damped the wood, and atfirst it would not kindle, but they threw oil and resin into it. Atlast it blazed up; the body was consumed: the glowing embers werequenched with wine. A handful of white ashes in a silver urn, a sadmemory in a few loving hearts, were all that remained on earth ofthe poisoned son of an emperor of Rome.
But, when all were gone, a few Christians stole from under the denseshadow of the trees in that lonely spot, and bowed their heads inprayer, and sang a low hymn. And among them was he whose hand ofblessing had rested on the young prince’s head, and whose voice ofprophecy had foretold his doom.
And to Pomponia Græcina and her husband, and to Pudens, Claudia,Titus, Epictetus, and one or two faithful slaves, the world waspoorer than before; but in the heart of the hapless Octavia therewas a void which on earth could never be filled up. And her heartwould haply have broken altogether but for the consolations whichshe received from Pomponia, and from Tryphæna, her Christian slave.For Pomponia had received a letter from Ephesus, where, at that time,Paul of Tarsus was labouring; and the friend who wrote it told hersomething of Paul’s teaching respecting the resurrection of the dead.One passage in particular, which this friend quoted to her, rang inher memory: ‘It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption;it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown inweakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it israised a spiritual body.’ And so, as there remained for Octavia lessand less hope of any joy on earth, glimpses were opened to her moreand more of a hope beyond the grave. And one passage in particularfrom one of the old Jewish books, which Linus had pointed out toPomponia, seemed to her more lovely than any fragment of lyric song,and constantly woke
a sweet echo in her thoughts. It was--
‘Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall bring to life her shades.’
