by F. W. Farrar
CHAPTER XXIX
_AGRIPPINA AT BAY_
‘Caritas quæ est inter natos et parentes dirimi nisi detestabili scelere non potest.’--CIC. _Læl._ viii. § 28.
There were some who thought it an unparalleled tragedy thatBritannicus should not only have died so young, but also at abanquet, and so suddenly, and by the hand of a bitter enemy, andunder his very eyes. There were few in the Pagan world who realisedthe truth that he who needed their shuddering pity was not the boywho perished, but the youth who murdered him.
At first Nero was alarmed by what he had done. He thought that hewould be haunted by the manes of the wronged Britannicus. He shunnedOctavia, and if he met her was forced to avert his glance. He facedhis mother with shy moroseness. He never dared to sleep alone. Thesound of a shaken leaf terrified him. A thunderstorm, which happeneda few days later, drove him into a paroxysm of terror, during which,like Gaius before him, he hid himself under a bed, and sent for theskin of a seal as a fancied protection against the flame of heaven.
But it was not thus that he was to feel the wrath of God. The doomwas past, but the punishment deferred. The most terrible part of hisretribution was that he was let alone to fill to the brim the cupof his iniquity. Sin was to be to him the punishment of sin, and theavenging scourge was put into the hand of his own vices. The firstfearful crime which he had committed ought to have lit up his darkconscience with its fierce, unnatural, revealing glare. It did so fora moment, but only to leave him in deeper darkness. His moral sensewas hardened to a still deadlier callosity, until he developed intothe execration of mankind.
What helped him to this rapid obduracy was the vileness and hypocrisyof the world around him.
The death of Britannicus had to be announced to the Senate. The eyesof Nero had to weep crocodile tears, and the pen of Seneca to beemployed in venal falsities. No one could doubt the hand of Seneca inthe elegant pathos of the sentence which told the Conscript Fathersthat deaths so immature as that of Britannicus were subjects of suchbitter grief that his funeral had been hurried over in accordancewith the ancestral custom which forbade the protraction of anguishby public oration or funeral obsequies.
‘I have lost the aid of my brother,’ continued the specious orationwhich Nero learnt by heart; ‘no hopes are left to me save in thecommonwealth. A prince like myself, who is now the sole survivor ofa family born to the supremest dignity, needs all the love and allthe help of the Senate and the people.’
Even the semblance of sorrow was abandoned almost before the cypresshad been moved from the doors of the Palatine. Nero was anxious toimplicate others as far as possible in the frightful responsibilitywhich he had himself incurred. Britannicus had left a considerableheritage in houses, villas, and personal possessions, whichhad come to him from his father and mother. Nero, who as yethad not squandered a treasure which might well have been deemedinexhaustible, had no need of these things, and was eager to getrid of them. He therefore distributed them among leading senators,giving a pleasant villa to Seneca and a town house to Burrus. Hethought that gifts would serve as a sort of hush-money, and bothstatesmen felt with inward anguish that they were the price of blood.Seneca was specially humiliated. He knew what men thought and saidof him in secret, and his own conscience could not accept the facileexcuse that it would have been fatal to refuse a largesse which wasmeant to bind his destiny irrevocably with that of the guilty Emperor.He thanked Nero for his munificence, and acted as if nothing hadhappened. Yet the inward voice spoke to him with unmistakableclearness. He called himself a Stoic: he wrote grand eulogies ofvirtue and simplicity. Ought he to have entered the magic circle ofa court steeped in licentiousness and blood? Ought he to have yieldedto the avarice which made his usury so notorious? Would Pætus Thraseahave accepted gifts intended to screen complicity with murder? Wouldsuch gifts have been offered to the modest poverty of Cornutus orMusonius? or, if so, would they not have faced exile or death ratherthan accept them? Conscience worked so painfully that he could notinduce himself to visit the villa which had been presented to him onthe death of Britannicus. ‘Alas!’ he moaned sadly to himself in thewatches of the night, ‘it is a _viscosum beneficium_,--a kindnesssmeared with birdlime.’
But the great mass of the Roman world, lying as it did in wickedness,was pleased rather than otherwise to hear of the death--whichthey all knew to have been the murder--of the son of Claudius. Thehorrors of the civil wars were still vivid in many recollections, andknowing that rival princes rarely lived in concord, they hailed withsatisfaction the bold iniquity which had succeeded in ridding themof a nightmare of the future. The story of the murder of a young andinnocent prince, the only son of their late deified Emperor, soundedrather ugly, no doubt; but did not nine-tenths of them expose theirown superfluous children? Had not Claudius himself exposed the infantof his wife Petina? And what was death? Was it not a dreamless sleep,which anyone might be glad to exchange for the present state ofthings, and which many of them would probably seek by suicide?
And why should Nero trouble himself any more about a death whichscarcely caused so much as a ripple on the bitter and stagnant poolof Roman society? On the contrary he and all Rome felt a glow ofconscious virtue when, a few days later, an order was given toexecute a knight, named Antonius, as a poisoner, and publicly to burnhis poisons. When Locusta heard that fact she smiled grimly. But whathad she to fear?
There was one breast in which the earthquake of excitement, causedby the murder of Britannicus, did not soon subside. Octavia, inthe depth of her anguish, had known where to find something ofconsolation. Not so Agrippina. To her also Nero had offered presents,which she refused with disdainful sullenness. Her soul was full ofmadness. Was she to be totally defeated by the slight, contemptibleson on whom she had built all her hopes?
Not without a struggle would she abandon the power which it had beenthe object of her life to attain, and the fabric of which she hadwith her own hand shattered to the dust.
Suddenly as the Nemesis had come upon her, she would not yet admitherself to be defeated. She was rich; she would be yet richer. Shehad friends, and she held many a secret interview with them. Octaviamight still become in her hands an engine for political purposes,and Agrippina constantly embraced and consoled her. Every tribuneand centurion who attended her levées was received with extremegraciousness. She paid her court to all the nobles of high birth andpromising ability. She thought that even now it was not too late tocreate a conspiracy, and put a fitting leader at the head of it.
But all her efforts were broken like foam on the rock of theEmperor’s deified autocracy and the unscrupulous wickedness of thefavourites by whom he was surrounded. At the suggestion of Otho andTigellinus, Nero dealt blow after blow at the dignity of his mother.One day she no longer saw the two lictors who attended her litter,and was told that they had been discharged by the Emperor. Soonafterwards she missed the accustomed escort of soldiers who guardedher chambers, and heard with sinking heart that they had beenremoved. Worst of all, she was suddenly deprived of the body-guardof tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired Germans, to whom she had grownattached, and who were the most splendid outward sign of her imperialstation. And, as though all this were not enough, at last the finalthunderbolt was launched. She received a message from her son that hehad assigned to her, as her residence, the house of his grandmotherAntonia. She was dismissed from the Palace in which so many of heryears had been spent in order that the courtiers who thronged theaudience-hall of the Emperor might have no excuse for paying theirrespects at the same time to her.
Her feelings, as she left the chambers of the Palatine for a privateresidence, must be imagined rather than described. Her heart was toodry for tears. She felt humiliated to the very dust, and tasted thebitterness of a thousand deaths. All hope of re-establishing herempire over the heart of her son was gone. Thenceforth he scarcelysaw her. If he came to visit her, he came, as though to evidence hisdistrust, amid a throng of soldiers and centurions, did not speakto her in private, and departed after a
cold, hurried, and formalinterview.
She felt how poisonous was the fruit of ambition by which she hadbeen allured. Her power had never been more than the pale reflectionof the imperial despotism, and after her breach with Nero it crumbledto ashes.
From that moment she felt that the coloured bubble of her life hadburst. Never had she been so wretched. Her exile at Pandataria hadbeen but brief, and she was then young, and she had many schemeson hand, and might hope for immeasurable success. But now her lastarrow had sped from the string, and had fallen useless to the ground.The cold shadow of her son’s displeasure blighted her whole being.She--in whose honour coins had been struck; in whose name decreeshad run; under whose auspices colonies had been founded; to whomkings and governors had once made their appeal, and for whoseambition kingdoms had been too small--suddenly found she was nothingand nobody. Even such a creature as Calvia Crispinilla had moreinfluence, and was more sought after than she. The house of Antonia,in which she lived, was shunned like a lazar-house by all who wishedto stand well with Nero. No one visited her, no one consoled her, noone helped to dissipate her weariness. The only exceptions were a fewladies whom she knew too well to trust. They did not come to see herout of affection, but because they hated her, and liked to annoy herwith the cold curiosity of an insulting pity. Among these was JuniaSilana. In old days she had been a bosom-friend of the Augusta, butthe ostensible friendship gave ample opportunity for feline amenitieson both sides. Junia had been the wife of the handsome Silius, whohad fallen a victim to the love of Messalina. In her early widowhoodshe had been sought in marriage by Sextius Africanus, but Agrippina,not wishing to see him made too powerful by the ample wealth of thechildless Silana, had confidentially dissuaded him from the marriage,by telling him that Silana was a woman of dissolute character, andwas now getting on in years. The secret had reached the ears ofSilana, and while openly she continued to speak of her ‘sweetest anddearest Agrippina,’ she vowed an exemplary revenge.
And now that the time seemed ripe, she matured her plans.
It would be useless to trump up the old charges that Agrippinamourned the murder of Britannicus, or spread abroad the wrongs ofOctavia. She determined to devise something entirely new, and tocharge Agrippina with the design of marrying and forming a conspiracywith Rubellius Plautus, who, like Nero, was, on the mother’s side, agreat-great-grandson of the deified Augustus. Silana sent two of herfreedmen, Iturius and Calvisius, with this intelligence to Atimetus,a freedman of Domitia, Nero’s aunt. Atimetus had once been afellow-slave with Paris. He went to his old friend, and urged himto go at once to Nero, and to denounce the supposed plot with allhis consummate vehemence and skill.
The actor was not naturally a villain, but he had been trained in anabominable school, and had erased the words ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’from his vocabulary as completely as most of his contemporaries.That night, at a late hour, he hurried to the Emperor, not in theglittering dress which usually set off his perfect beauty, but indark and disordered array. His familiarity with Nero procured himat all times a ready entrance into the Palace. He found the Emperorstill carousing amid his favourites, and he was received with a burstof welcome by the flushed and full-fed guests.
‘Now this is good of you, Paris,’ said Nero. ‘You alone were wantingto our mirth. Come, brim this crystal vase with our best Falernian,and then let us see a spectacle which would thrill the Muses and theGraces even if Apollo were with them. But--can this be Paris?--ourbright, gay, lovely Paris? Why, what is the matter?’
‘Matter enough,’ said Paris, in such accents of woe, and with sucha flood of tears, that the guests could not help weeping with him.‘Dare I speak, Cæsar?’
‘Tell us all,’ said Nero, raising himself on his elbow in agitation.‘What has happened? Have the legions revolted? Is the prætorium in anuproar?’
‘Not yet,’ said Paris; ‘but--Agrippina--’
‘Ha!’ said Nero. ‘Go on’--for the actor’s voice seemed to bespeechless with emotion.
‘Agrippina--and--Rubellius Plautus--’
Nero was listening with painful interest; and, pretending to recoverhimself with a great effort, Paris told them the fictitious plot,and succeeded in rousing the Emperor to such a pitch of terror thathe started from his couch and tore his hair.
‘Agrippina shall die!’ he exclaimed; ‘and Rubellius Plautus shalldie. Here, give me my tablets. Despatch instant orders for theirarrest and execution. And send for Burrus--no! he is the creature ofmy mother; she made him Prætorian Præfect. My foster-brother CæcinaTuscus shall command the Prætorians, and Burrus shall die. Quick,quick, send for Seneca; not a moment is to be lost!’
Late as was the hour, one of the centurions on guard was despatchedto the Palace of Seneca. He was reading the ‘Republic’ of Plato tohis wife, Paulina, and his friend Fabius Rusticus, after a frugalsupper in a modestly furnished room. When the slave announced thathe was summoned by soldiers from the Palace, Paulina and Rusticusgrew deadly pale; and Seneca, though he strove to conceal his emotion,trembled in every limb. He ordered the centurion to be admitted, and,striving to conceal the agitation of his voice, asked if he knew whythe Emperor desired his presence at so late an hour. The centuriondid not know, but said that the Emperor seemed to be alarmed aboutsomething, and needed the advice of his minister. Seneca demandedhis toga, and hastened to the Palace. Nero told him what Paris haddisclosed. He did not believe in the reality of the plot, but inthose days anything was possible. He, however, pledged his own lifeon the fidelity of Burrus, and urged the Emperor to summon him intohis presence. Burrus came, and listened gravely.
‘It is a serious matter,’ he said, ‘to order the execution of anyonewithout allowing an opportunity for defence. It would be still moreserious to execute without a trial an Augusta, and your own mother.’
‘Think again,’ said Nero. ‘Rubellius Plautus has the blood of theCæsars in his veins, and my mother is capable of anything to getpower.’
‘I need not think again,’ answered Burrus, bluntly. ‘When once I havemade up my mind, I do not alter it.’
Nero frowned, but Burrus only added: ‘There are no accusers. You arerelying on the sole voice of Paris, a freedman of a hostile family,and you have only heard his story late at night during a drinkingbout. Surely the life of even a common citizen ought not to be swornaway so cheaply, much less the life of an Empress.’
Nero, sobered by the gravity of these considerations, still kept asullen silence; but Burrus would not yield.
‘Cæsar, we will examine her at earliest dawn. If we find her guiltyshe shall die.’
By this time the Emperor’s terror had exhausted itself, and he wasweary. Agrippina’s residence was surrounded with a guard, and atdaylight Seneca and Burrus went together to question her. They wereaccompanied by a number of Nero’s most trusted freedmen, who were toreport the trial, and to act as spies both on the ministers and theAugusta.
To be summoned from her sleep into such a presence--to see her housesurrounded with soldiers--to be aware that some unknown crisis ofthe utmost gravity was at hand, might well have shaken the strongestnerves. But, in spite of the horror of this unknown mystery, theindomitable woman swept into the presence of the two statesmen with ademeanour not only undaunted, but conspicuously haughty. The soldierand the philosopher rose at her entrance, and the freedmen bowed low.The freedmen she did not deign to notice, but slightly inclined herhead as she motioned the two ministers to be seated, and herself satdown on a stately chair covered with purple cushions.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘as this seems to be a solemn audience, Iam informed that the Emperor has sent you two, and these other--persons’--glancing at the freedmen--‘to speak with me. What may bemy son’s pleasure?’
‘Augusta,’ said Burrus in his sternest tones, ‘this is, as you havesaid, a serious occasion; you are accused of nothing short of hightreason.’
The charge in days like those was awful enough to have forced backthe blood into her heart, and for one instant s
he felt as if thesolid earth were about to yawn beneath her feet. But in that instantshe rallied all the forces of her nature. She looked, indeed, pale asa statue, but not the faintest tremor was perceptible in her accentsas she exclaimed in a tone of the most freezing irony,--
‘Indeed? _I_ am accused? and of high treason?’
‘You are accused,’ said Burrus, ‘of desiring to form a party amongthe legionaries to raise Rubellius Plautus to the throne and then tomarry him.’
Agrippina’s only answer was a scornful laugh.
‘Poor Rubellius Plautus! the “golden sheep” of my brother Gaius!’
‘You will find it no matter for laughter. The Emperor is seriouslyalarmed,’ said Burrus.
‘I have no other answer to an accusation so ridiculous.’
‘The Augusta has not been so careful as she might have been,’ saidSeneca, in his mildest manner. ‘Those frequent secret meetings withher friends; that courting of senators of influence; those attentionsto military personages; those open complaints about the children ofClaudius, have aroused suspicion.’
Agrippina turned upon the speaker her flashing glance, and he quailedbeneath it. ‘Is this your philosophic gratitude?’ she said. ‘But forme, you might have been dying of malaria in Corsica; and you, Burrus,might have remained a tenth-rate tribune.’
‘We are but obeying the Emperor’s behests,’ said Burrus, in a lessthreatening tone.
‘And, pray, who are my accusers?’
‘Late last night this charge was laid before the Emperor by Paris--’
‘By Paris!’ said Agrippina, in tones of crushing scorn. ‘Paris isan actor, a buffoon, a pantomime, a thing of infamy whom I scarcelybrook to name. Pray, go on.’
‘He had been sent by Atimetus, the freedman of Domitia.’
‘Domitia--and her slave concubine!’ said Agrippina. ‘Of him I deignno word; but she--what has she been doing all these years? While Iwas arranging the adoption of Nero, his marriage with Octavia, hispromotion to the proconsular dignity, his nomination as a futureConsul, all that led to his imperial elevation--what was _she_ doing?Improving her fishponds! And now she wants to rob me of my Nero,and for that purpose gets up a pantomime with her paramour and herdancer! Pray, is that all?’
‘The sources of the information were Iturius and Calvisius.’
‘Iturius and Calvisius!--ex-slaves, spendthrifts, debauchees, thescum of the earth, who want to repair their squalid bankruptcies bythe gain of turning informers. They are nobodies; poor pieces on thedraughts-board. Who moved them?’
‘Junia Silana.’
‘Junia Silana! Ah! now I understand it all--the whole vile plot frombeginning to end! Silana--false wife, false friend, evil woman--whatdoes she know of the sacredness of motherhood? Children cannot be gotrid of by their mother so easily as lovers are by an adulteress. So!I am to be branded with the fictitious infamy of parricide, and Nerowith its actual guilt, that two broken-down freedmen may repay theirdebts to the old woman their mistress?
‘And you, sirs,’ she said, raising herself to the full height of herstature, ‘ought you not to blush for the sorry part you have played?Instead of repaying me the gratitude which you owe to one whorecalled you, Seneca, from your disgraceful exile, and raisedyou, Burrus, from the dust--instead of making the Emperor ashamedof attaching a feather’s-weight of importance to this paralyticcomedy of pantomimes, scoundrels, and rancorous old women--you haveencouraged him to try and humiliate me! I am ashamed of you,’ shecried, with the imperious gesture which had often made bold mentremble; ‘for as for these--gentlemen’--and she glanced at thefreedmen--‘they, of course, must do as they are bid. And so, _such_are my accusers! Who will bear witness that I have ever tamperedwith the city cohorts? who that I have intrigued in the provinces?who that I have bribed one slave or one freedman? They charge mewith mourning for the death of Britannicus. Why, had Britannicusbecome emperor, whose head would have fallen sooner than that ofhis mother’s enemy and his own? And Rubellius Plautus--if he wereemperor--would he be able for a single month to protect me fromaccusers who, alas! would be able to charge me, not with theincautious freedom of a mother’s indignant utterance, but with deedsfrom which I can be absolved by no one but that son for whose sakethey were committed.’
For one moment her nature broke down under the rush of her emotion,and her glowing cheek was bathed in tears; but, recovering herselfbefore she could dash the tears aside, she repudiated the awkwardattempts at consolation offered by her judges, who themselves weredeeply moved.
‘Enough!’ she said. ‘Sirs, I have done with you. By the claims ofthe innocent and the calumniated, if not by the rights of a mother, Idemand an interview with my son this very day--this very hour.’
While yet the two ministers, and even the freedmen--in spite of theopen scorn which she had manifested towards them--were under thespell of her powerful ascendency, they declared to Nero her completeinnocence of the charges laid against her. Relieved from his alarm,Nero came to her. Receiving him with calm dignity, she said not aword about her innocence, which she chose to assume as a matter ofcourse; not a word about the gratitude which he owed to her, lestshe should seem to be casting it in his teeth. She only beggedfor rewards for her friends, and the punishment of her defeatedadversaries. Nero was unable to resist her demands. Silana wasbanished from Italy; Calvisius and Iturius were expelled from Rome;Atimetus was executed. Paris alone was spared, because he was toodear to the Emperor to permit of his being punished. The men forwhom Agrippina asked favours were men of honour. Fænius Rufus wasmade commissioner of the corn market; Arruntius Stella was madesuperintendent of the games which Nero was preparing to exhibit;the learned Balbillus was made governor of Egypt. Nero was intenselyjealous of Rubellius Plautus, but his hour had not yet come.
It was the last flash of Agrippina’s dying power, and it encouraged afew to visit her once more. One or two independent senators, pityingher misfortunes, came to salute her, and some of the Roman matrons.Yet among these women there was not one whom she could either respector trust. She had sinned so deeply in her days of power that womenlike the younger Arria, wife of Pætus Thrasea, and Servilia, thedaughter of Barea Soranus, and Sextia, the mother of Antistius Vetus,held aloof from her. Paulina, the wife of Seneca, cordially dislikedher, and the Vestal Virgins had never lent her the countenance oftheir private friendship.
But one noble lady came to her, who had never paid her the leastcourt in the days of her splendour. It was Pomponia Græcina. Shecame on the evening of that memorable trial, and found the Empressprostrate with the reaction which followed the tumultuous passionof the scenes through which she had passed. She lay on her couchan object for even her enemies to pity. The strong, imperial,ambitious princess was utterly broken down in her--only the weeping,broken-hearted woman remained. In spite of her apparent victory, herlife, and all its aims, and all it held dear, lay in ruins aroundher. Even hope was gone. What remained for her but remorse, andanguish, and the cup of humiliation, and the agonising recollectionof a brilliant past which she had herself destroyed? There were noloyal friends around her. No children’s faces smiled upon her. Therewas no brother, or sister, or daughter to comfort her. Those to whomshe had been a benefactress either felt no gratitude, or did not dareto show it, or deemed that she had forfeited it by crimes. Homeless,desolate, unloved, left like a stranded wreck by the ebbing tide upona naked shore, she lay there weeping like a child. Oh! that she hadbeen innocent, like her own mother--like one or two whom she hadknown;--but, alas! she could only look back upon a life of guilt,flecked here and there with blood which nothing could wash out. Andnow the Retribution which she had doubted and defied--the Retributionwhich had been stealing with silent footstep behind her--had brokenupon her crowned with fire, and had smitten her into the dust with ablow from which she never could uprise.
And while her head burned and throbbed, and her veins seemed to befull of liquid flame, and ghosts of those who had perished by hermachinations glimmered upon her haunted imaginat
ion in the deepeninggloom, her lady in waiting, Acerronia, came to announce a visitor.
‘Did I not say that I would see no one else to-day?’ said Agrippina,wearily. ‘I am worn out, and fain would sleep.’
‘It is Pomponia Græcina. She told the janitor that though you mightnot see others who belong to the Court, perhaps you would see her.’
‘Yes; I will see _her_. She is not like the rest of them. She issincere, and her presence is like balm.’
Pomponia entered, and could scarcely believe that the lady who laythere, with her dress disregarded, her face haggard and stricken, hereyes dim, her cheeks stained with tears, her hair dishevelled, and,as Pomponia thought, of a perceptibly greyer tinge than when shehad seen her last--was indeed the once magnificent and all-powerfulAugusta.
An impulse of pity overcame her, and she knelt down by the couch ofthe unhappy Empress, who pressed her fevered lips to her cheeks, andthen wept uncontrollably with her head on Pomponia’s shoulder.
The two ladies presented a strange contrast, not only in theirdress, but in their entire aspect. Agrippina was still arrayed inthe magnificent robes in which she had received her son, and which,irksome as they were, she had been too weary to lay aside. Pomponiawas in the dark mourning dress which she had worn for so manyyears since the death of the friend of her childhood, Julia, thegrand-daughter of Tiberius and mother of Rubellius Plautus. Thetresses of Agrippina, though disarranged, showed the elaboratecare of the ornatrix. Pomponia wore her dark hair, now beginning tosilver, in the simplest bands, and without an ornament. But the chiefdifference was in their faces. Pride and cruel determination, as wellas calamity, had left their marks on the noble lineaments of thedaughter of Germanicus; over the calm face of the wife of Plautius itwas evident that the shadows of many a sorrow had been cast, but thesorrow was irradiated by hope and gladness, and in her eyes was thesweet light of the Peace of God.
‘Augusta,’ she said, ‘I have come to congratulate you on the defeatof a nefarious conspiracy. I thought I should find you happier aftermany trials. Pardon me if I have thrust myself too presumptuouslyupon your sorrow.’
‘Not so,’ said Agrippina. ‘You are always welcome; and more so nowthan ever. You sought me not in my hour of prosperity. No one wouldcome to me in my hour of ruin who did not wish me well.’
‘It is not, I trust, an hour of ruin. The plot against you has beenignominiously defeated. You may have many happy days in store.’
‘Nay, Pomponia; happiness can never be linked again with the nameof Agrippina. It is a dream. I did not find it in the days of mysplendour; it is little likely that I should find it when all desertme and I am brought low. I know no one who is happy. We are theslaves and playthings of a horrible destiny, which is blind andpitiless and irresistible. Are you happy?’
‘Yes, Augusta, I am happy, though hardly, perhaps, in the sense youmean. To me, as to all of us, life has brought bitter trials. Thesedark robes tell of the loss of one whom I loved as my own soul, andeven at this moment I am threatened with terrible calamity--perhapswith exile, perhaps with death. On all sides, there are terrors andanxieties, and the state of society seems to portend catastrophe andthe vengeance of heaven, for wickedness can hardly go to any greaterlengths than now. Yet I am happy.’
‘Oh, that you would give me your secret!’ said the Empress. ‘I canread character; I can detect the accents of sincerity. These words ofyours are no pompous and hollow Stoic paradox.’
Pomponia hesitated. The woman before her was, as she well knew,steeped in crime from her childhood. Of what avail would it be,without any of the evangelic preparation, to tell her of Jesus andthe Resurrection? Could there be the remotest possibility of excitingin her mind anything but contempt by telling her at that moment ofthe Cross which was to the Romans something between a horror and ajest?
‘Agrippina,’ she answered, ‘the day may come when I may tell you moreof the strange secret. It is not mine only; it is meant for all theworld. But it cannot be attained, it cannot be approached, withouthumility and repentance for wrong-doing, and the love of virtue, andof something higher than virtue, and the lifting to heaven of holyhands.’
‘Alas!’ said Agrippina; ‘you speak to me in a strange language. TheGreek tragedians are always telling us that when blood has fallen tothe ground it has fallen for ever. Can wrong be atoned for? Can guiltbe washed away?’
‘It can,’ said Pomponia, gently; and she longed to speak the wordswhich lingered in her memory from the letter of Peter of Bethsaida--‘Redeemed ... with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish andwithout spot, even the blood of Christ.’ But to Agrippina they wouldat that time have been simply meaningless.
‘I have heard of the mysteries,’ said the Empress, ‘and of thetaurobolies. Would it be of any avail if I too were to crouch in ahollow, and let the blood of a bull which has been sacrificed to thegods drop over me?’
‘It would not,’ said Pomponia. ‘God does not require of us things sorevolting, nor any mere external ceremonies and superstitions. Whatthat sacred and supreme Majesty requires of us is innocence alone.[64]Can you not pray to Him, Augusta? You have read Homer, and you knowhow the old poet sings about _Atè_, and the _Litai_, the Prayerswhich follow in her path.’
‘Atè? Ah! I know that fearful deity,’ groaned Agrippina. ‘She is theFury Megæra. I have seen her petrifying face turned towards me. Sheis the Harpy Celæno. I have often heard her in the banquet-halls ofthe Palatine, and thought of Phineus and his polluted feasts. Butthe Prayers--will you not repeat me the lines, Pomponia?’
Pomponia repeated the famous lines of the old bard of Chios:--
‘The gods (the only great and only wise) Are mov’d by offerings, vows, and sacrifice; Offending man their high commission wins, And daily prayers atone for daily sins. Prayers are Jove’s daughters of celestial race, Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face; With humble mien, and with dejected eyes Constant they follow, where Injustice flies. Who hears these daughters of almighty Jove, For him they mediate to the throne above; When man rejects the humble suit they make The Sire revenges for the daughters’ sake.’[65]
‘Alas! they have been strangers to me, those Prayers,’ saidAgrippina; ‘and though you have spoken truth to me, I see thatyou have not told me all.’
‘There are times for all things,’ said Pomponia, as she rose toleave; ‘and perhaps, if you will think of what we have said, the daymay come when you will be able to bear more. Farewell, Augusta; youneed rest and quiet. Pardon me if I have wearied you.’
‘Farewell, Pomponia,’ said the Empress; ‘you are good and true. Yourwords have been to me as soft and pure as the falling snow. I knownot whether the Litai of whom Homer speaks may plead for us throughanother.’
‘They may.’
‘Then will you ask them to say something which may avert the furyof Atè from one who, to you, is not ashamed to confess that she iswretched above all women?’
‘May you find peace!’ murmured the noble lady, as the Empress oncemore kissed her, and pressed her to her heart. ‘All may find it whoseek it rightly from the Heavenly Powers.’
