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

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER LXII

  _NERO IN GREECE_

  ‘Hæc opera atque hæ sunt generosi Principis artes Gaudentis fœdo peregrina ad pulpita cantu Prostitui, Graiæque apium meruisse coronæ.’

  JUV. _Sat._ viii. 224.

  Nero grew weary of Rome. While he was there he could not whollyexclude the voice of the conscience of mankind which awoke echoesin his own. With art, and æsthetics, and the race-course, and thetheatre, he tried to create around him the elements of a sham andshadowy world. It was a world filled with the ghosts of crime andweird with insensate projects and monstrous revellings. He hadattempted everything, abused everything, polluted everything, and‘the scoriac river of passion accursed,’ of which he drank so freely,did but consume and burn up his powers. He had become like a deadthing in a wilderness of dead capacities, inspired at once by‘insatiable desires and incurable disgusts.’ While he played thegod he sank lower than Christian eye can follow him, into the beast.With Domitian, Tiberius, Caligula, and Helagabalus--with Vitellius,Commodus, and Maximin--he was one of a group of Cæsars who have beenset forth last on the stage of history, a spectacle to angels andto men to show that human nature can sink into ‘half beast and halfdevil’ when there are no restraints to save men from all that is mostabject. They became, as St. Paul said, inventors of evil; not onlydoers of whatsoever things are vile, whatsoever things are infamous,whatsoever things are of ill report, but also delighters in thosethat do them.

  But at Rome, even in his beloved theatre, Nero was not safe frominsults. They scorched him as with the touch of flame, and yet wereso impalpable that he could not avenge them unless he put a wholepopulation to death. Opposite his Palace, or on the outer circus,were written, in chalk or coal, denunciations so stinging as toshow that if blank walls are the paper of fools they may also be theavengers of tyrants. One of these pasquinades hailed him as the truedescendant of Æneas, since Æneas ‘took off’ his father, Nero hismother. Another criticised the over-grown space of the Golden House,and bade the Quirites to emigrate to Veii, if the House did notforestall them by extending so far. Yet another reminded him thatthe Parthian could be an Apollo with his arrows no less than Nerowith his harp.

  He pretended indifference to these things, but he felt them, andlonged to find a fresh scene for display. At Rome he considered thathis musical talent, though he had exhibited it to the promiscuouspopulace, was yet a flower which blushed unseen. The astute andadulatory Greeks had sent him the crowns of all their citharœdiccontests. He was delighted, and asked their delegates to supper.When they begged him to give them a specimen of his powers, theywent into such ecstasies over his performance that he said theGreeks were the only connoisseurs who were worthy of his proficiency.

  To Greece, therefore, he set forth with a retinue which wouldhave sufficed for the conquest of India, only that they were moreconcerned with masks and robes and musical instruments than witharms. He was accompanied, too, by all his train of minions, as wellas by an army of _claqueurs_. When he appeared at Naples he wasso enchanted by the ‘Kentish fire’ of some Alexandrians who werepresent--a mode of applause which was new to him--that he took anumber of these Egyptians into his service. He had also trained aband of youths of equestrian rank, and more than five thousand ofthe lustiest plebeians to act together in bands and learn certainmodes of cheering, which were called ‘buzzings,’ ‘tiles,’ and ‘jars.’They were mostly boys, and were arrayed in fine dresses, with theirthick hair shining with perfumes, and with rings on their left hands.

  With such accompaniments he might feel tolerably secure of victory,yet when he appeared at a contest he always felt or pretended agirlish timidity. The Emperor of Rome might be seen on the stageof Greek towns bending his knee before the mob, humbly adoring themwith his hands, assuring the judges that he had done his little best,tremblingly solicitous to observe the slightest rules, and perspiringwith anxiety if he made the smallest mistake. Besides this, hedebased himself with all the pettiest intrigues of tenth-ratetheatrical life. He defamed his competitors, or bribed them not todo their best, or cajoled them to cede the victory to him. When anEpirot, with a fine voice, refused to cede the prize unless Nero paidhim ten talents, he was pushed against a column by Nero’s clique andstabbed to death. It required the power of the Emperor to secure therewards of the comedian.

  Without believing, or even alluding to, the deeds recorded of himby Dion Cassius, it is clear that his plunderings, and crimes, andsecret orgies continued unabated. From the Thespians he stole theCupid of Praxiteles in Pentelic marble; from the Pisatans of Olympiathe statue of Ulysses among the Greek chiefs drawing lots to answerthe challenge of Hector. Rich men were proscribed in consequence ofsecret delations, which often sprang from the greed of the detestableCalvia Crispinilla, who was now the keeper of the wardrobe of Sporus.They were struck down, unheard, and their possessions were divided.Rome had been left under the government of two ex-slaves, Helius andPolycletus, who were so rapacious that the people complained of beingunder two Neros instead of one.

  Amid such crimes little was thought of the fate of Paris. The poorpantomime, whose beauty, grace, and skill had been the delight ofRome, had excited the jealousy of Nero because he could not teachhim how to dance. Paris, like Aliturus, had been no better than aslave, and we cannot blame him too severely if, in such an age andsuch surroundings, he had been stained by the vices in the midstof which he lived, and his nature, not originally ignoble, had been

  ‘subdued To what it wrought in, like the dyer’s hand.’

  But his death, like that of Roscius, ‘eclipsed the gaiety ofnations,’ and gave one warning more--had it been needed--to Aliturus,that the friendship of tyrants means death.

  But the worst of these Grecian enormities--many of which cannot benarrated--involved the acme of treachery and ingratitude. No man hadshed a purer lustre over the age of Nero than the brave and honestCorbulo. His life had been devoted to the service of the Empire. Tohim had been due those splendid victories which kept the Parthians incheck, and induced Tiridates to put the colophon on Nero’s glory bycoming to receive at his hands before the Roman people the diademof Armenia. Well might the Arsacid tell Nero that in Corbulo he hada good slave. The great victorious general had spent his life inforeign service. He had never come near the Court; had received nocivil honours; had never returned to enjoy a triumph or an ovation.He had been content to keep himself away from those scenes of gildedslavery and miserable splendour, and perhaps anticipated the solereward which tyrants can give to true greatness. Now, however, thatNero was in Greece, he wrote to Corbulo a letter of almost filialreverence, and invited him to come and receive proofs of hisgratitude. To refuse would have been tantamount to rebellion, andCorbulo had always been stainlessly loyal to his worthless master.But good men invariably have their slanderers, and one of hisofficers, Arrius Varus, had been whispering suspicions about himinto the Emperor’s ear. He was not granted so much as an audience.No sooner had he landed at Cenchreæ than Nero sent him the commandto die. Corbulo wasted no words on execration or complaint. For amoment, perhaps, it flashed across him that he would have been wiserto listen to the voice of Rome and of the East, which had invited himto be their liberator. But it was too late to repent of the fault ofputting trust in a monster. He drew his sword and stabbed himselfwith the single word ‘Deserved!’[118]

  We cannot wonder that Nero did not visit Sparta, because everytradition of Sparta would have cried shame on his histrioniceffeminacy. He did not visit Athens, because Athens did not deignto invite him, and because he shrank from eliciting a keenness ofwit which had not spared the bloodstained Sylla. But his chief reasonfor avoiding ‘the Eye of Greece’ was because he dreaded the Templeof the Furies, who had avenged the less guilty and more expiablematricide of Orestes. Nor did he dare to visit Eleusis, becausethe voice of the herald forbade the profane to be initiated intoits mysteries. He did not even venture to present himself to thehi
erophants of the little mysteries of Agra on the banks of theIlissus. Visits opened to the humblest, and mysteries revealed tothe simplest of the pure, were barred to him.

  And before his journey was over, amid his sham triumphs, he began tobe disturbed by disquieting rumours.

  Judæa was in a state of violent revolt, and the presence of an ablegeneral was urgently needed. Nero therefore appointed Vespasian tothe command. The old general was expiating in seclusion and obscuritythe crime of having snored while Nero sang. One day an Imperialmessenger was announced at his humble home. His blood ran cold, forhe made sure that the soldier brought him an order to die. Insteadof that he brought a nomination to the government of Judæa and thecommand of the army. To these high offices Nero appointed him becausea man of valour and military ability was wanted. Nero overlooked whathe called his want of taste because, though eminent as a soldier, hewas a man of such humble name and origin that he could not possiblybe regarded as dangerous. But the revolt of the Jews, though it wasa serious matter, was far less alarming than the other news which nowreached Nero.

  Helius wrote to say that affairs in the city urgently required hispresence. ‘You summon me back,’ he wrote in reply; ‘your wish oughtrather to be that I should return worthy of Nero.’ But the menace ofdisaster was too grave to admit of its being neglected for a verbalpomposity, and Helius hurried to Corinth in person to rouse theEmperor from his insensate frivolity. The weather was so stormythat his enemies fondly hoped for his shipwreck if he sailed. Delay,however, was impossible. His day of doom was close at hand.