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

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER XXX

  _A PRIVATE TRIAL_

  ‘Tanto vogl’io che vi sia manifesto, Pur che mia coscïenza non mi garra, Che alla fortuna, come vuol, son presto.’

  DANTE, _Inf._ XV. 91-93.

  Pomponia had incidentally mentioned to Agrippina that she wasthreatened by a calamity, and it was indeed a serious one. It wasstrange that one so retired in her mode of life, and so entirely freefrom rancour and malice, should yet have been the butt of calumny.Yet such was the case. It was the tribute which vice paid to virtue.The base mob of Roman matrons avenged themselves on the chaste wifeof the conqueror of Britain for the involuntary shame which they feltas they contrasted her life with theirs. Her constancy; her silenceamid the universal buzz and roar of gossip and spite; her aloofnessfrom the cliques and coteries of a scandalous society; her love ofgood works; her discountenance of their loose talk and complicatedintrigues; her absence from the games and theatres; the simplicityof her dress, her home, her manners, her hospitality; the calmness ofher temper, and even the sort of sacred beauty on which time seemedto make no impression, made her an object of hatred to the CalviaCrispinillas and the Ælia Catellas of the capital. Her presence amongthem was like a perpetual reproach, and they determined, if possible,to get rid of her. They would have said of her what the wicked say ofthe righteous in the Book of Wisdom, that they would lie in wait forher, because she was ‘clean contrary to their doings, and objected totheir infamy.’

  But how was it to be done? Would it not be easy to set an informerto work? Pomponia was wealthy, and since an informer got a grantof a fourth part of the property of any one who was condemned onhis accusation, there were men who sat watching for their opportunitylike a crowd of obscene and greedy vultures. Aulus Plautius was aperson of distinction, and it might be dangerous to offend him; butif an informer of the front rank, like the eloquent Eprius Marcellus,could not be induced to undertake the risk, surely they might securethe services of a Veiento, a Messallinus, or a Regulus. And as forcorroborative evidence of any charge, they thought that it could beobtained with the utmost ease among the herd of dehumanised slaveswho thronged every considerable house. If they could not witnessto facts, they were first-rate hands at inventing fictions. If themasters were a terror to their slaves, a slave might any day becomea terror to an obnoxious master. It was personally disagreeableto tremble before beings who seemed so abject, but there was someconvenience in having such agents at hand for the ruin of an enemy.

  But what charge could be brought against a lady so blameless asPomponia? To accuse her of conspiracy, or poisoning, or magic, wouldsound too preposterous; and it would be impossible to find againsther the sort of evidence of evil manners which had amply sufficedin old and even in recent days to confound a lady who was disliked.The question was carefully discussed in a secret meeting of some ofthe worst beldames of social distinction, and as it was clear thatPomponia took no part in the public religious ceremonies, they agreedto get her charged with being guilty of ‘a foreign superstition.’

  The wretches whose business it was to work up a case of this kind,and who were largely bribed to enable them to carry out theirdesigns, began secretly to worm their way on various pretexts intothe household of Plautius. Their success was smaller than theirhopes. They found that there was some peculiar element in that_familia_. Many of the slaves and the few chief freedmen wereChristians, but the secret was faithfully kept. Danger made themvigilant, and they had been carefully selected for worth andcharacter. The female slaves, without exception, were devoted to amistress who never addressed to them an unkind word, and who madetheir lives a paradise of happiness when compared with those whoattended the toilettes of pagan ladies. The male slaves were noless faithful to the heads of a household in which they were treatedwith generosity and consideration. The spies of the informers couldscarcely find a slave in the whole family whom they could tempt todrunkenness and indiscreet babbling. All that they could learn fromthe gossip of the least worthy was that Pomponia did not burn incensein the Lararium, or attend the temples. The informers had to contentthemselves with these meagre facts, trusting to perjury and inventionto do the rest. Regulus undertook the case. The sound of his name wassufficient to strike a chill into an innocent and honest heart, andfeeling certain of success, or, at the worst, of impunity, he laidbefore the Emperor a public information that Pomponia Græcina was theguilty votary of a foreign superstition.

  The friends and relatives of Pomponia had heard rumours that someattack of the kind was in contemplation; but in the days of theEmpire such rumours were rife, and they often came to nothing. Whenthe charge was published they were filled with consternation. Theyknew that it mattered very little whether it was true or false. Theresult would turn on the influences which had been brought to bear onNero. If Nero favoured the prosecution, Pomponia might be as innocentas a new-born child, yet it was certain that she would be condemned.One could commit no fault so slight but what Cæsar’s house might bemixed up with it. Had not Julius Græcinus been put to death underGaius simply because he was too honest a man? Were not the wretchedlittle islets of Gyara and Tremerus crowded with illustrious andinnocent exiles? If beauty and wealth and imperial blood had notsaved the two Julias, or the two Agrippinas, what should save a ladyso alien from the common interests of Roman society as the wife ofPlautius?

  One thing saved her.

  Nothing had been more remote from her mind than any thought ofself-interest when she visited Agrippina. She had gone to see herchiefly because she knew that the threshold, once thronged withsuitors and applicants, had now become so solitary, and becausean habitual sense of pity drew her to the side of the unfortunate.Her sole object had been, if possible, to bring a little peace andconsolation to a sister-woman, whose dejection and misery couldonly be measured by the height from which she had fallen. True thatAgrippina was guilty. True that every law of the moral world musthave been violated if impunity were granted her as the sequel ofso many and such various crimes. But there was nothing Pharisaicin Pomponia’s heart. Familiar with sorrow, she was sensitive tothe influence of compassion, and she had learnt from the lips ofChristian teachers that there may be recovery and forgiveness evenfor the most fallen. She had gone to the Empress with no desire butto speak gentle and healing words.

  Yet it was that little unnoticed impulse of natural kindness andChristian charity which saved her fortunes, perhaps even her life.

  For Regulus was rich, eloquent, unscrupulous, formidable; andNero was intensely timid and suspicious. The notion of a ‘foreignsuperstition’ was mixed up with that of magic; and magic was supposedto be chiefly practised for treasonable ends. If a panic were createdin Nero’s mind, it was certain that the feeble Senate would interposeno barrier to his suggestions of punishment.

  But at the moment of consternation in the heart of Pomponia’sfriends, Agrippina did one of the few good deeds of her unhappy life.Availing herself of the momentary resuscitation of her influence, sheno sooner heard of the information laid against Pomponia, than shewrote a letter to the Emperor strongly urging the innocence andgoodness of the wife of Plautius, and entreating him not to stainwith a deed of needless injustice the annals of his rule. Nero wasstruck with his mother’s letter, and with the fact that she shouldhave taken the trouble to intercede for one who had never pretendedto pay court to her, and whose character was the antithesis of herown. Octavia also ventured to say a few words of pleading earnestnessfor her friend. Nero had as yet no grudge, either against Pomponia,whose sombre robe was rarely visible in the Palace, or against herbrave, loyal, and simple-minded husband. On the other hand, he didnot like to check the activity of the informers. Domitian said inafter years, ‘The prince who does not check informers, encouragesthem.’ Nero did not dream of checking them. Seneca, who was a friendof Plautius, and who had been grieved by the news of this attackupon one whom he and the ladies of his family highly esteemed,suggested to Nero a way out of the difficulty. ‘Follow,’ he said,�
��the ancient custom, and permit Pomponia to be tried at home by herhusband, relatives, and friends.’

  The Emperor accepted the suggestion, and the meeting of the domestictribunal was fixed to take place on the next nundine. When Pomponiawas told of the Emperor’s decision, she felt that her prayers hadbeen heard, and that her pardon was secured, although it was notimpossible that the trial might elicit painful secrets, which, forthe sake of others, she thought it her duty to conceal.

  She asked Seneca himself to undertake her defence, and he gladlyassumed the task. Plautius sat in his own atrium, and had summonedonly those of his family whom he could trust. The evidence on whichthe informers and their patrons relied was slight and negative, andSeneca had no difficulty in tearing it to pieces. To the intenserelief and heartfelt gratitude of Pomponia, she was not definitelycharged with being a Christian. Indeed, that specific charge couldhardly be urged, because no proof was forthcoming. Regulus skilfullymade the most of old precedents. He told how, nearly a hundred yearsago, the Senate had decreed the destruction of the Temples of Isisand Serapis (B.C. 46), and how Æmilius Paulus had been the first toshatter the doors with an axe. He mentioned the stern dealings withthe Bacchanalians (B.C. 186). He told how (B.C. 139) the priestsof Sabazius had been driven from Rome. Referring to the days of theEmpire, he mentioned the edict of Claudius against the Jews, andreminded Aulus that Tiberius had banished four thousand Jews toSardinia. He appealed triumphantly to the old law of the TwelveTables, ‘Let no one separately worship foreign gods.’ When theaccusers had mentioned every unfavourable circumstance, and when,on the other hand, an abundance of testimony had been elicited toprove the habitual purity and blamelessness of Pomponia’s life,Seneca rose to argue for her honourable acquittal.

  ‘What was meant,’ he asked, ‘by a “foreign superstition”? Was theworship of Isis a foreign superstition? Was the worship of thePessinuntian Cybele a foreign superstition? Was the worship ofIaô--if that were the secret name of the deity--by the Jews a foreignsuperstition? The State was entirely unconcerned with any of theseprivate beliefs. When, indeed, the votaries of any strange cultwere guilty of riotous, licentious, and dishonest conduct, they werejustly punished. Referring to the precedents quoted by Regulus, hesaid that the priests of Isis had deserved the vengeance which fellupon them for having betrayed the stupid credulity of a Roman lady.The Jews, who had been guilty of cheating and embezzlement in thematter of purple hangings for the Temple, were rightly punished.Claudius had been justified in driving all the Jews from Rome whenthey made tumults at the instigation of one Chrestus; but on theother hand, Julius Cæsar had always been favourable to the Jews, andAugustus had by public edict protected their Sabbath. The priestsof the Syrian goddess were for the most part worthless vagabonds,and no one was sorry when they were detected and executed for theirnefarious practices. The State took no cognisance of opinions,but only of evil practices. A Roman matron, by way of supposedpurification, had gone down to the wintry Tiber, had broken the ice,had plunged into the freezing waters, and had crawled across theCampus Martius with bleeding knees. In such acts we might see theworkings of a foreign superstition[*8]; but of no such act--of nosecret visit to the base temple of Serapis--of no dealings withthe mutilated priests of Cybele--of no lightings of lamps at Jewishfestivals, had Pomponia been guilty. And who, he asked, can allegeone immoral deed, one malefic practice against the noble wife of theconqueror of Britain? Is it to her discredit that she differs fromso many of the noble ladies in Rome? Do we blame her or rather admireher, that she has never betrayed a friend, or changed a husband, orexposed an infant, or plundered a province, or ruined a reputation?Is it to be her destruction that her life has ever been simple, andher words sincere? Or is she to be banished because, through longyears, she has continued to mourn for a friend, when so many forgettheir dearest relatives in less than a month? Cicero mourned thedeath of a slave, though he was half ashamed of his sensibility;Crassus wept for the death of a favourite lamprey. Is it a crime tocherish a beloved memory? What evidence is there against Pomponia?Have not her slaves, though Regulus has tampered with them, shownthemselves entirely faithful? And what wonder? Most of us treat ourslaves as though they were enemies--as though they could not claimthe rights of human beings. She has treated her slaves as men andwomen like ourselves; as sharers of her home; as heirs with her ofthe common slavery of life and death. She has asked their aid; shehas admitted them to festive tables; she has sought their love, andnot their fear. She has lived, as we should all live, like a memberof one great brotherhood, of which all are bound to mutual assistance.She has done good in secret. In the midst of wealth she has been asone who is poor. She has stretched her hand to the shipwrecked; shownhis path to the wanderer; divided her bread with the hungry; and hasbeen, as so few are, a friend to the distressed.

  ‘But she does not go to the theatre! Is that to be accounted a crime?Rather let us erect a statue to a virtue which can still blush forinfamies at which so many women dare to be spectators. Is the licenceof the Fescennines, and the grossness of the Atellan plays, acted byslaves whom the ancient laws branded with shame, a fit amusement forpure matrons? If these be deemed tolerable, what shall be said of thesofter luxury, the subtler indecency, the more fascinating corruptionof the modern mimes? Instead of blaming Pomponia for not patronisingsuch spectacles, let us commend her example!

  ‘Or is it a sign of moroseness and alienation from the customs of hercountry, that she is never to be seen among the multitudes of everyrank and age who gaze with frenzied delight at the gladiatorialshows? Nay, she is to be applauded for shunning scenes so fatal totrue morality! It is shocking enough to see noble beasts ruthlesslymangled, and once, at least, a cry of compassion has risen fromthe dense throngs when they saw that frightful combat between fivehundred Gætulians and twenty elephants. But their compassion wasfor the elephants![66] How much deeper is the compassion due to theunhappy human beings whose carcases encrimson the white sands of theamphitheatre! Augustus tried to check and limit this savagery. Tosee men torn by wild beasts in the morning, and hacking each otherto pieces in the afternoon--and that as a mere amusement, to killthe time--is simply degrading, however much custom may sanctionit. It is true that Cicero invented an excuse for his brutalityof pleasure, this delirium of homicide, by the absurd plea that itstimulated courage. The courage of the tiger, which leaps with barebreast on the hunter’s steel, exists in the lowest of the human race,without the need for this bloody stimulus. Man should be to man asacred thing; the only result of gazing at such scenes is to destroythis generous sense of a common humanity. It may be said that thegladiators, or those who fight the wild beasts, are often criminals.Be it so; but are _we_ criminals also? If not, why should we condemnourselves to the shame of gloating over the supreme agony and mysteryof death?

  ‘But Pomponia is charged with speaking as though there were but oneGod. Well, do we not read even in the sacred poems of Orpheus--

  ‘“One God, one Hades, one Sun, and one Dionysus?”

  Does not Varro, one of the most honoured of Roman writers,distinguish carefully between the mythology of poets, the religionof the commonwealth, and the beliefs of philosophers? It is truethat he deprecated the revelation of these truths to the multitude,because there is no way to keep them in order but by illusions.Yet scarcely an old woman or beardless boy in Rome really believesin these fables; and it is a good thing that they do not. If theyattached genuine credence to the supposed deeds of this rabble ofgods, they would have patrons and examples of every lust and ofevery crime. But they are dimly aware that Stator, Liber, Hercules,Mercury, are but names or manifestations of one Divine Existence.The mysteries are divulged; the oracles are dumb; and as the wailingspirits cried to Epitherses thirty years ago as he sailed past thepromontory of Paludes, “Great Pan is dead.”[67]

  ‘A person, then, who can regard it as criminal to reject the popularbelief must be ignorant of all philosophy and all literature. Is anyone bound to suppose that there really is such a god as Panic; o
rsuch goddesses as Muta, Febris, and Strenia? Are the Greek poetsto be condemned who have repeatedly spoken of one God? God iseverywhere. He is that without which nothing is. He comes to men;He comes into men. No one is good without God. Pomponia’s characteralone is sufficient to prove that there is nothing harmful in herbelief. To the God who is near us, to the sacred Spirit who dwellswith us, the observer and guardian of all our evil and our good, shehas been supremely true. The image of the gods cannot be formed withgold and silver, or such materials, but with the beauty and dignityof human souls. God is best worshipped, not by sacrifices of bulls,but by innocence and rectitude.

  ‘And you, O Aulus, you know what a wife Pomponia has been to you,how chaste, how gentle, how faithful! How often have you found herquietly spinning wool among her modest maidens, when other matronsare sitting at riotous banquets, or gazing at dishonourable scenes!How wisely and quietly has she managed your fortunes, and governedyour family! How true and tender she was as a mother to the littleboy whose immature death you wept, whose ashes are inurned in thetomb of your house! How purely has she trained your youthful Aulus!To whom save to her does he owe that beautiful mixture of manlycourage and virginal modesty which distinguishes him among the youthof Rome? And will you, at the word of a vile informer actuated bybase greed, and set on by female rancour--will you desecrate theshrine of your own household gods? Will you dishonour the fame ofyour ancestors? Will you sever a union which has been to you sofruitful of blessings? Remember how she smiled on you on the daythat you walked in proud ovation with Cæsar by your side! Rememberhow she shared the toils, the hardships, the anxieties of yourcampaigns in that far-off Thule, which was subdued by your valour!Remember how by her sympathy she has diminished all your troubles,and intensified all your joys! And will you hand over such a wife,and such a mother--so gentle, so pure, so noble--to the fury of theexecutioner? Will you see the sword flash down upon a head which hasoften rested on your breast? Or will you coldly and sternly dismissyour innocent and well-loved wife to end her days on some drearyisland-rock, amid the storms of Adria or the Tyrrhene Sea? Yours,O Aulus, yours and not hers, will be the infamy; yours, not hers,will be the loss! Not hers the shame--for no informer, and nounjust condemnation can fix a stain upon the guiltless; not hersthe misery--for wherever she goes she will carry the God within her,since in each one of us, as our great poet says,

  ‘“Some god is dwelling, though we know not who.”

  You may banish her to Pontia or Pandataria, but everywhere shewill see the sunlight and the stars, and will feel that she is notabandoned. When we enter a dense forest, we are struck with aweat its huge tree-trunks, its spreading boughs, its dark shade, andwe feel that the Divine is there; when we enter some cavern in thehills, we feel the presence of a Deity: but we feel it much morewhen we see a brave and pure soul rising superior to the menaces ofcalamity. Look at her, Aulus, where she sits. In her calmness, inher fortitude, in the serene and tranquil beauty of a countenance onwhich no vice has set its mark, see the living proof of her freedomfrom all blame! Proclaim to Cæsar, to Regulus, to the society ofRome, to all the world, that Pomponia has done or thought nothingunworthy of the immortal gods, nothing unworthy of her ancestors,of her husband, and of her home!’

  Many a cry of applause had greeted Seneca, as he thus ventured topour forth, in the secrecy of a domestic tribunal, the thoughtswhich he had often uttered to his friends, and even published in hiswritings. He sat down amid a murmur of admiration, during which not afew of the noblest of his auditors pressed round him with expressionsof warmest congratulation, and Amplias, the Christian freedman ofPomponia, in a burst of enthusiasm, bent down and kissed his hand.He was deeply gratified by the impression he had made, for when therewas nothing to arouse his fear or imperil his ambition, he felt agenuine happiness in doing deeds of kindness. But he raised his handsfor silence while the assembly awaited the decision of those whomPlautius had asked to be his assessors in the judgment.

  They consulted together for a few moments, and then, amid the deepestsilence, Plautius rose. He was almost too much moved to speak. Itrequired all his Roman firmness and dignity to force back the tearswhich were brimming in his eyes, and to control into steadiness thevoice which seemed ready to break; but he succeeded. Rising withdignity, he said:

  ‘Friends and kinsmen, I have consulted with those who have sharedwith me the responsibility of judgment. We are agreed. The evidenceis altogether worthless. Pomponia is innocent of anything hostile toreligion, or forbidden by the laws of Rome. Friends and kinsmen, Ithank you for your presence and your counsel, and I thank you most ofall, illustrious Seneca. I thank the Emperor, that he has spared usthe pain and anxiety of a public trial, and I shall announce to him,and to all Rome, that Aulus Plautius will thank the gods, even tilldeath, that they have given him a wife so innocent, so noble, and sochaste.’

  Pomponia raised her eyes and her clasped hands to heaven in atransport of gratitude, and as she did so a sudden burst of sunshinestreamed through the window, and glorified her face. The lambentflame played over her hair, and lit up her features, and gave toher calm beauty a heavenly radiance. This was regarded as a completejustification of the sentence of acquittal, and a visible proof ofthe divine favour. The hall resounded with acclamations, and Claudia,who had been among the witnesses of the scene, flung herself into thearms of Pomponia, who tenderly folded the fair British maiden to herheart, while Pudens looked on with a happy smile.

  And when Pomponia retired to her own room, she knelt down, and withbowed head, and clasped hands, and outstretched arms, poured out herthanks to Him who had been her protector in this most painful trialof her life. She was a confessor and a martyr, in will if not indeed; for though she had not been called upon to declare herself aChristian, she had been prepared to do so if the question had beenput to her. When Plautius entered he found her praying, and as sherose at his entrance he saw upon her features a beauty even brighterthan that which she had caught from the sunbeam which had shone uponher in the hall.

  ‘My wife,’ he said to her very tenderly, as he kissed her. ‘I knownot what to think of thy beliefs. Thou hast not concealed from _me_that thou art of this new sect. I know that men call it despicableand execrated; but if it makes its votaries such as thou art, it ismore blessed and more potent than the worship of the gods of Rome.’

  ‘My Aulus,’ she answered, ‘I know well that as yet thou canst notthink with me. Yet thou, too, art dear to God, for thou hast feltafter Him if happily thou mightest find Him. Our teachers say that Heis no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that seekethHim and doeth righteousness, as thou dost, is accepted of Him. Fearnot, my husband; in the next world, as in this, we shall be united,for thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven.’