M 
 
 f', 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 m 
 

 m^ 
 
 'wwv/,,- ,>■ /iuKww;w,«yya*^w 
 
lyT^.-' 
 
 ,VvwV'v^;vi 
 
 i'tf^i^^m^^'^^^ 
 
 itgSBSii-Jj^j^^l^^^^^^^^SgMg; 
 
 VVw?»rv»||i|gvgy5i,^, 
 
 ■'^^^^!^^: 
 
 'p^mmm^^m^ 
 
 'y:x 
 
 ;Wv-V^VUVwWl 
 
 ^ ML u ^^^w.^wwyvuyMv-ui'uMif 
 
 i^KMWWW% 
 
 mMMm^ 
 
 
 Vy^y^VV^W^'^^^'S^ 
 
 
 
 "^««ii. 
 
 
 
 ..vi®5*'*^^6:vf 
 
a 
 
THE INSULT WAS TEEKIBLY AVENGED. />. ()8. 
 
PICTURES 
 
 FROM 
 
 t 
 
 ROMAN LIFE AND STORY 
 
 Rev. a. J. CHURCH, M. A. 
 
 Lately Professor of Latin in University College, London. 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ''STORIES FROM HOMER ", "STORIES FROM VIRGIL ", etc., cic. 
 
 WITH -ILL US TRA TIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 
 25 Paternoster Square 
 1892. 
 
PRINTED AT NIMEGIIEN (HOLLAND) 
 
 BY 11. C. A. THIEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) 
 
 AND 
 
 14 BII.LITER SQUARE BUILDINGS. 
 
 LONDON. E. C. 
 
 : .: :• 
 
 • • • •• 
 
 • • • • 
 
 • • • 
 
 • .*••• • • 
 • * • • • • • ' 
 » • •• * • • • 
 ' * • • • • • * 
 *•* • • < 
 
 • * * • 
 • •• • • • 
 
 * • • • 
 

 C N T E N T S. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. A CHILD OF FORTUNE 1 
 
 II. MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 10 
 
 •5^ III. A DAY WITH HORACE 22 
 
 la 
 
 ni IV. THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS 31 
 
 '-3 V. A MUTINY 41 
 
 CQ 
 
 CjJ VI. THE EMPRESS-MOTHER 53 
 
 VII. THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF GERMANICUS .... 60 
 
 VIII. THE RISE AND FALL OF SE JANUS 66 
 
 IX. TIBERIUS AT CAPRI . 72 
 
 X. THE MADMAN ON THE THRONE 77 
 
 XI. CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS 84 
 
 XII. THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS . , 90 
 
 XIII. THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER AGRIPPINA .... 95 
 
 XIV. A STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM * .... 102 
 
 .'554095 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XV. THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME 108 
 
 XVI. A GREAT CONSPIRACY . 117 
 
 XVII. THE LAST HOURS OF A PHILOSOPHER . , . . . 136 
 
 XVIII. THE DEATH OF NERO 141 
 
 XIX. A NOBLEMAN "OF THE OLD SCHOOL 148 
 
 XX. THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM AND THE DEATH OF OTHO. 159 
 
 XXI. AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON 169 
 
 XXII. THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL 183 
 
 XXIII A STUDENT 193 
 
 XXIV. A MAN OF BUSINESS 204 
 
 XXV. A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR 217 
 
 XXVI. THE STORY OF EPPONINA 227 
 
 XXVII. THE DARLING OF MANKIND 235 
 
 XXVIII. A GREAT CAPTAIN 243 
 
 XXIX. A ROMAN GENTLEMAN 253 
 
 XXX. A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS 265 
 
 XXXI. A FASHIONABLE POET 278 
 
 XXXII. A CRIMINAL LAWYER 290 
 
 XXXIII. A JUST EMPEROR 300 
 
 XXXIV. A GREAT SHOW 308 
 
 XXXV. A ROMAN AT ATHKNS 324 
 
 XXXVI. AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER 335 
 
PICTURES FROM ROMAN LIFE AND STORY. 
 
 I. 
 
 A CHILD OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Augustus. 
 
 IN the spring of 44 B. C, Augustus, or, to give 
 him his proper name, Caius Octavius, was half way 
 through his nineteenth year. His uncle Julius Caesar 
 had sent him to Apollonia, the head-quarters of the 
 army of Illyricum, to see something of the routine 
 of military duty, and to make acquaintance with 
 the soldiers, while at the same time he kept up the 
 studies fitted to his age. On March 15th. Caesar was 
 assassinated. The legions at once offered to follow 
 
 1 
 
Z A CHILD OF FORTUNE. 
 
 Augustus to Rome, and help him to avenge the great 
 Dictator's death. With that happy mixture of 
 caution and courage which was probably half the 
 secret of his good luck, he declined the offer, but 
 resolved to visit the capital in a private capacity. 
 
 Landing in Italy he heard that Caesar by his will 
 had adopted him as his son and made him his heir. 
 The troops at Brundisium, the port of disembarkation, 
 saluted him accordingly by the name of Caesar. Early 
 in May he arrived at Rome. * 
 
 I shall not follow in detail the events of the next 
 sixteen years. Throughout this period, under cir- 
 cumstances of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, 
 the young statesman conducted himself with unfailing- 
 tact, and was rewarded by almost unvarying success. 
 One after another his rivals made fatal mistakes of 
 which he promptly availed himself. Antony, a great 
 soldier^ whose very faults somehow endeared him 
 to the people, alienated their hearts by his mad pas- 
 sion for Cleopatra. To ordinary excesses they were 
 indifferent, but it was intolerable that the master of 
 Roman legions should exhibit himself in public as 
 the bond-slave of a foreign queen. And then at Actium, 
 when the crisis of his fate had come, and it was 
 yet possible for him to redeem his fortunes, he threw 
 
 * His proper name noAv Avas Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. 
 " Augustus " was a title conferred upon him some years af- 
 terwards, when the Empire was finally established. 
 
A CHILD OF FORTUNE. 3 
 
 away his last chance with a folly that seems absolutely 
 imbecile. Probably his excesses had utterly shattered 
 his nerves. Sextus, son of the great Pompey, was an- 
 other adversary who might have been formidable; if he 
 had been true to himself. So strong was he that at one 
 time Augustus was constrained to give him a share of 
 the Empire ; he had, too, a great party at his back, 
 for the adherents of the Republic would have rallied 
 to him ; but he gave away his chance by his indolent 
 inaction. All this time Augustus went on steadily 
 improving his position. He let nothing stand in his 
 way. He could be merciful to enemies, when mercy 
 suited his policy; he was relentless when it seemed 
 expedient to be severe. His action was never fet- 
 tered by conscience; but then he was never hurried 
 by passion into crime. 
 
 In B. C. 35 Sextus Pompeius was betrayed by his 
 freedman Menodorus ; four years afterwards, Antony 
 was defeated at Actium. In August, B. C. 29, Augus- 
 tus celebrated a triple triumph at Rome. He had closed 
 the temple of Janus, a token that undisturbed peace 
 reigned through the Roman world. Only twice before 
 had this been done, * and the people, worried with 
 the incessant bloodshed that had exhausted at least 
 three generations hailed the saviour of Society as nothing 
 
 * In the reign of tlie legendary Numa^ when it had remained 
 closed for thirty-seven years, and after the termination of the 
 Second Punic war. 
 
4 A CHILD OF FORTUNE. 
 
 less than a God. Augustus, on his part, was careful 
 not to oflfend their prejudices. His uncle the Dictator 
 had not scrupled to aim at kingly power, and had 
 taken no pains to conceal his designs. The nephew^ 
 not less resolved to be absolute master of the Empire, 
 was careful to play the part of a first citizen. All 
 the powers which he assumed were constitutional : 
 only these powers were combined and prolonged in a 
 waj^ that made the constitution a nullity. He was 
 Emperor (Imperator). The title was no new one. It 
 had been often given to a victorious general on the 
 field of battle by his own troops. Augustus held it, 
 by decree of the Senate, in perpetuity, and was thus 
 the permanent Commander-in-chief of the Roman 
 army. This, of course, was the back-bone of his power. 
 
 But he did not neglect the civil side of his 
 position. He was Princeps Senatiis, Chief of the 
 Senate, permanent proconsul, and consul whenever 
 he thought fit (he actually held the office thirteen 
 times). And he also held permanently an office which 
 made him perpetual leader of the Commons. The 
 plebeians from early times had regarded the Tribunes 
 as the champions of their rights, and Augustus, 
 taking skilful advantage of this feeling, held contin- 
 uously the power of the tribunate. * 
 
 This constitutional pretence, as it is no injustice 
 
 * This was not all done at once. The position of Augustus 
 may be regarded as finally settled in the year 28. 
 
A CHILD OF FOKTUNE. O 
 
 to call it, Augustus was very careful to maintain. 
 The Dictatorship was offered him, but he strenu- 
 ously refused it, absolutely throwing himself on his 
 knees in the earnestness of his entreaties. The 
 Dictatorship could not, by law, be held for more 
 than six months, and he was above all things anxious 
 not to break, or at least not to seem to break, the 
 law. The title of "dominus", not far removed, it 
 would seem from that of king {rex}^ always so hateful to 
 a Roman ear, he angrily repudiated. On one 
 occasion when a farce was being acted in his pre- 
 sence, the words, " good lord and just^^ occurred, and 
 the people springing from their seats shouted their 
 applause. Augustus checked the display of feeling, 
 and censured it in the strongest terms in an edict 
 which he published the next day. He would not 
 allow the word to be used even in jest in his private 
 circle. He would not permit the Senators to rise from 
 their seats either when he entered the chamber or 
 when he quitted it. He was accustomed to walk, 
 or to be carried in an open chair through the streets. 
 His salutations were as free and unceremonious as 
 the handshakings of an American President. Petitions 
 from suitors he received with the greatest courtesy. 
 To an applicant who was obviously shy he said, 
 ^ Why do you give me your paper as if you were giving 
 a coin to an elephant?" 
 
 At the annual elections of Magistrates, still kept 
 
6 A CHILD OF FORTUNE. 
 
 up with a certain show of freedom, he canvassed in the 
 usual way for the candidates whom he had nominated, 
 and tendered his own vote when the tribe to which 
 he belonged was called. When he nominated his 
 own grandsons for office he was careful to add, 
 " If they shall be found to deserve it. " 
 
 His own establishment was on a modest scale. For 
 some years a humble dwelling that could not com- 
 pare with the splendid dwellings of the great nobles 
 and capitalists of Home sufficed for him. This was 
 near the house of the orator Hortensius. At a later 
 period he found that something more like an imperial 
 palace had become a necessity. Accordingly he 
 bought some of the adjoining mansions, that of Catiline 
 among them, and built a handsome residence, declaring, 
 however, at the same time that he considered it to 
 be the property of the Roman people. One of the most 
 modest chambers he chose for his own, and occupied itfor 
 twenty-eight years. In the third year of our era, it was 
 burnt to the ground. A public subscription was imme- 
 diately set on foot for the purpose of rebuilding it. 
 A large sum was collected; but Augustus refused 
 to receive more than a single denarius * from each 
 subscriber. A new edifice was raised on the same 
 foundations, and, apparently, on the same plan as 
 the old, for Augustus occupied the same or a cor- 
 responding chamber for the remaining ten years of 
 
 * About nine pence in our money. 
 
A CHILD OF FOKTUNE. / 
 
 his life. Some of the furniture of his town and coun- 
 try residences remained down to the time of his 
 biographer Suetonius, and seemed to the costly tastes of 
 that generation scarcely elegant enough for a private 
 gentleman. No masterpieces of sculpture or paint- 
 ing were to be seen in his Roman palaces or his 
 country residences. If he had any expensive taste 
 it was for gardening. And he amused himself by 
 making collections of what we should call fossils and 
 prehistoric remains, but which in his time w^ere de- 
 scribed as "the huge limbs of monstrous creatures, 
 bones of the Giants and arms of the Heroes, as they 
 are called. " He seldom used any article of dress that 
 had not been woven by the women of his own family. 
 
 But he lavished upon the city the wealth that he 
 would not spend upon himself. " I found it of brick 
 and left it of marble, " was his well known boast, 
 and, as a whole, it was little more than the truth. At 
 the same time he did his best to protect it from the 
 dangers of fire and flood. Against the first he insti- 
 tuted a regular corps of watchmen; the second he 
 at least diminished by enlarging the bed and cleansing 
 the channel of the Tiber. 
 
 To the populace of Rome, already largely depen- 
 dant upon the public or private bounty, he was most 
 generous in his gifts. Besides a monthly distribution 
 of cheap corn he gave frequent presents of money. These 
 ranged from ^4 to ^2. 10s. of our money, being prob- 
 
O A CHILD OF FORTUNE. 
 
 ably more than equivalent to these sums in purchasing 
 power. All male children participated in them, though 
 it had never before been the custom to reckon any 
 younger than eleven. Still there was a limit to his 
 good-nature. When on one occasion loud complaints 
 were made in his presence of the high price of wine, 
 he pointed to the great aqueduct which Agrippa had 
 constructed; and reminded the dissatisfied that no 
 one had need be thirsty in Rome. 
 
 Cheap bread and plenty of amusement were, as 
 has been often said, the two great wants of Rome. 
 Augustus was as careful to provide for the second 
 as for the first. Never before had the public 
 shows been so numerous, so varied, or so splendid. 
 One of the most memorable of these exhibitions was 
 that of a sea-fight, which took place in an excava- 
 tion made near the Tiber. So popular was this 
 show that the city was almost emptied of its 
 inhabitants, and had to be guarded by soldiers. Any 
 curiosity that might be brought to Rome, he had 
 exhibited in some convenient place. We hear of a 
 serpent of seventy-five feet in length that was thus 
 shown in the Forum. 
 
 While he thus indulged his subjects, he tried to 
 bring them back to what he held to be the better 
 and simpler habits of former times. He was earnest 
 to reform the public morals, but probably found the 
 task beyond his powers; nor is it possible to forget 
 
A CHILD OF FOKTUNE. 9 
 
 that he might have been more successful, if his own 
 private life had been less open to reproach. He 
 passed laws of great severity, but had to relax them, 
 or to allow them to fall into disuse. 
 
 The external observances of religion were more easily 
 enforced. The temples were rebuilt, and the ceremonials 
 of worship regularly performed. Another matter on 
 which the Emperor's heart was set was to bring- 
 back the use of the old Roman dress, the toga. 
 " What ! " he is said to have exclaimed, seeing a 
 crowd of men wearing cloaks. " Are these 'Romans, 
 the lords of earth, a Nation of the gown'?" He 
 issued an edict that no one should be allowed in the 
 Forum or the Circus except wearing the toga. 
 
 If he had won power by crime— and of this he cannot 
 be wholly acquitted — yet he certainly strove to use it 
 well. He was singularly patient of adverse comment, 
 when once he had seated himself firmly on the 
 throne. Nor did he resent the admiration which some 
 still felt for the g^eat men of a regime which he 
 had finally destroyed. We are told that he found 
 one of his grandsons reading a book, which the lad 
 sought to hide in his robe. He took the volume, and 
 found it to be one of the treatises of Cicero. He 
 returned it with the words " He was a good man, 
 and a lover of his country." He must have remem- 
 bered with regret his own baseness in surrendering 
 the great orator and patriot to the vengeance of Antony. 
 
11. 
 
 MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 FOR fifteen years at least, that is from before the 
 Battle of Actium down to the year 16 B. C. 
 C. Cilnius Maecenas was the most powerful man in 
 Rome after Augustus. Perhaps we ought to except 
 Agrippa, especially after his marriage with the 
 Emperor's daughter Julia. But even then and indeed 
 up to the time when he lost his master's favour, 
 Maecenas was " the man behind the throne. " Indeed 
 he occupied a position that may be said to have 
 been peculiar to the new regime, and that marked 
 the change from liberty (such as it was in the latter 
 days of the Republic) to despotism. For Maecenas 
 held no office. To borrow a word from modern his- 
 tory he was " Vice-Emperor, " but the function which 
 he discharged cannot be described by any one word. 
 He was never Consul, Praetor, or even Tribune. Nor 
 was he Prefect of the city, an office that had its 
 
MAECENAS AND HIS FEIENDS. 11 
 
 beginning in Imperial days. He never even sat in 
 the Senate. At the very height of his honour he 
 firmly refused to be raised out of the Equestrian 
 rank into which he had been born. " Dear Knight 
 Maecenas " his friend Horace calls him. It was his 
 pride, and a very prudent pride it doubtless was, to 
 be content with this dignity. And yet it is difficult 
 to say what was the limit of his power when it 
 was at its highest. Both foreign affairs and domestic 
 came within it. And this position was, as has been 
 said, characteristic of the Imperial regime. The Ro- 
 mans had two words for power, potestas and potentia. 
 The first means the power of constitutional authority. 
 The magistrates of the Republic exercised it; even 
 when, as in the case of a Dictator, it became abso- 
 lute and uncontrolled, it still had this character. 
 And, nominally at least, this constitutional power was 
 continued under the Empire. Augustus and his suc- 
 cessors ruled under the old names. They were chiefs 
 of the Senate, commanders-in-chief, perpetual trib- 
 unes, and whenever they chose to assume the office, 
 Consuls. But underneath this show of legality there 
 grew up an illegal, irregular power, which was 
 described by the word potentia. This was what 
 Maecenas exercised. He had absolutely no position 
 in the country ; but he had the Emperor's ear. 
 
 We are not, however, primarily concerned in this 
 chapter with the political significance of Maecenas's 
 
12 MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 position. But I may point out how admirably suited it 
 was to the function in which he chiefly interests us, the 
 part of literary patron. The patronage of a dignified 
 official can scarcely fail to be burdensome to those 
 who receive it. It can hardly coexist with the unselfish 
 intimacy of friendship. These difficulties Maecenas, by 
 his judicious refusal of all the paraphernalia of power, 
 contrived to avoid. No one questioned his right to cul- 
 tivate such intimacies as he chose. He infringed 
 by them no dignity ; he compromised no position. But all 
 the revenues of the State were at his disposal. The Em- 
 peror actually entrusted him with his private seal, a 
 confidence that is only inadequately represented by 
 giving a blank cheque. He could do as he pleased, 
 and he could do it without responsibility. Such a 
 position, joined to liberality, a frank and generous 
 temper, and cultivated tastes made the very ideal of 
 a literary patron. 
 
 A brief description of the man himself and of his 
 ways and life will not be out of place. The qualities of 
 a soldier he probably did not possess, or, only in a mod- 
 erate degree. Probably, it might be better to say, 
 possibly, he accompanied Augustus on one or more 
 of his campaigns, but he certainly never held an 
 iiidependent command. But as a statesman and a 
 diplomatist he was consummately skilful. More than 
 once he played with supreme tact the part of a 
 mediator between Augustus and Antony, the two 
 
MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 13 
 
 masters of the Roman world. His bonhomie, his mod- 
 eration, his even temper made him an unrivalled medi- 
 ator in such difficult conjunctures. Called in to act 
 in the differences of less important persons, "accustom- 
 ed " as Horace puts it " to reconcile private friends, " 
 he brought to the task of appeasing the jealousies, 
 of soothing the susceptiblities, of the mighty mas- 
 ters of legions an unrivalled aptitude for the office 
 of peace-maker. His work as a statesman we are less 
 able to appreciate, but simply for want of informa- 
 tion. Indeed the merits and the demerits of the unrec- 
 ognized advisers of the powerful must always 
 remain in great obscurity. But that he was a moderat- 
 ing influence cannot be doubted. 
 
 One story remains that is highly to his credit. On 
 one occasion Augustus, carried away, as even prudent 
 rulers will sometimes be, by personal animosities, 
 was passing sentences of death with unusual 
 frequency — being on the whole a clement prince. 
 His minister, unable to approach the judgment seat, 
 or perhaps unwilling to make any parade of inter- 
 ference, tossed into his lap a billet with the words 
 " Surge, Carnifex ! "" " Rise, butcher ! " 
 
 The private tastes of Maecenas were those of the 
 highly artificial age in which he lived. He built 
 for himself a great mansion in a central position in 
 Rome. The place which he chose had been a squalid 
 and neglected cemetery for slaves and paupers ; 
 
14 MAECENAS AND HIS FEIENDS. 
 
 hideous, we are told, to look at, and dangerous to 
 health. He covered it to the depth of thirty feet 
 with pure earth, and converted it into a beautiful 
 garden in the midst of which he erected his villa. 
 The most conspicuous feature was a lofty tower, from 
 which he could command a view of the whole city. 
 Time has spared one room of this magnificent resi- 
 dence. At first it was supposed that this was a 
 chamber set apart for readings and recitations, and 
 it was said that in this very place the patron had 
 listened to a first reading of Horace's lyrics, or 
 Virgil's epic. This theory had to be abandoned. What 
 had been thought to be seats round the walls were 
 found to be stands for plants. The chamber in fact 
 was not a hall but a greenhouse. Beyond a greenhouse 
 indeed Maecenas's love of nature did not go. While 
 Horace was enjoying the mountain air of his Sabine 
 farm, the patron could not tear himself away from 
 the "smoke and roar" of Rome. His personal habits 
 were luxurious. Some of the peculiarities which his 
 contemporaries regarded with disfavour have little 
 significance for us, as that he allowed his tunic to 
 hang about his knees like a woman's petticoat, and 
 that he would cover his head with his cloak, when 
 he sat on the tribunal. These, it would appear, 
 were marks of effeminacy. He had a passion for 
 collecting gems and other jewels, and wore these 
 ornaments in a profusion that seemed undignified to 
 
MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 15 
 
 sterner tastes. His love for costly perfumes was notori- 
 ous. The Emperor himself condescended to satirize 
 his Minister's " unguent-dropping curls." He was said 
 to have been the first who used a warm swimming 
 bath, and the invention was not put down to his 
 credit. He had a great liking for the ballet and the 
 pantomime, amusements which he recommended to his 
 master as means of reconciling Rome to the loss of 
 its liberty. He was at least for the latter part of 
 his life an invalid with a strong tendency to hypo- 
 chondria. In his last days he was tormented with 
 sleeplessness, and deserted his favourite city mansion 
 for a villa at Tibur where he could be lulled to 
 repose by the distant sound of the falls of the Anio. 
 His sufferings did not prevent him from clinging even 
 passionately to life. One of the few fragments 
 which survive of his writings — for he was a voluminous 
 author — expresses this feeling with an undignified 
 frankness : 
 
 " Cripple hand and foot, and make 
 Back to swell, and teetli to shake ; 
 All that happens I can bear, 
 If my life alone you spare. 
 Not the cross itself can give 
 Pain past bearing, if I live." 
 
 Of Maecenas in his domestic relations there is 
 little to be said that is to his credit. He had a 
 
16 MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 wife of remarkable beauty, and passed his married 
 life in perpetual quarrels and reconciliations. "He 
 had one wife, but married her a thousand times," 
 is Seneca's sarcastic account of his relation to 
 Terentia. If there had been nothing worse in him than 
 this foolish fondness, he might have been excused ; 
 but he was not constant ; a bad example which his 
 wife followed. It was through her indeed that he 
 lost his position at court. 
 
 Of his relation to literature and literary men, we 
 can speak with unmixed praise. His patronage was 
 generous, and it was distributed with taste. The 
 Emperor indeed ridiculed the crowd of guests that 
 he gathered round his table ; and doubtless there were 
 some among them who had no genuine literary claims 
 to his favour ; but his friendship he reserved for 
 men of real genius. In the inner circle of authors 
 who shared his intimacy there was not one unworthy 
 name, and not a few that were conspicuously 
 great. Virgil probably owed his rescue from want, which 
 threatened him when his patrimony had been handed 
 over to one of the victorious soldiers of Augustus, * to 
 some other benefactor than Maecenas. It was Pollio 
 who gave him back his farm, and Gallus, who prob- 
 ably interfered on his behalf when it had been again 
 seized. But the Georgics are dedicated to Maecenas. He 
 is credited with having suggested the subject. The 
 * At that time still known as Octavius. 
 
MAECENAS AND HIS FEIENDS. 17 
 
 composition of this poem is probably to be placed 
 between the years 36 B. C. and 26 B. C. Some time 
 before this we find the poet on terms of intimacy 
 with his patron, accompanying him on a journey which 
 he was taking on state business. We know little of the 
 after relations of the two, but there is every reason 
 to suppose that they continued perfectly friendly 
 up to the time of Virgil's death in 19 B. C. 
 
 The poet had his town house on the Aquiline, and 
 so was the near neighbour of his patron. We may 
 guess that it was Maecenas who introduced him to 
 the Palace where he recited before the Emperor and 
 his sister Octavia his splendid elegy on Marcellus, 
 in whom the Emperor had lost a successor and 
 Octavia an only son. 
 
 Another member of the circle tells us much more 
 about it. Horace, the son of a poor man, but educated 
 with a care out of proportion to his humble birth, had 
 caught the republican enthusiasm whilst a student 
 at Athens, and had fought^ or at least appeared 
 in armour, on the fatal field of Philippi. He came 
 back to Rome, and contrived to purchase a clerk- 
 ship in the quaestor's office, an establishment that 
 had something to do with the public revenue. He 
 began to write verses — probably some of the 
 Epodes are to be attributed to this period — and the 
 verses got into hands that were capable of judging 
 of their merit. Virgil mentioned the young poet's 
 
 2 
 
18 MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 name to Maecenas, and Varius, another poet whose work, 
 highly esteemed by his contemporaries, has almost 
 wholly perished, seconded the recommendation. The 
 great man sent for him. He presented himself, 
 and managed to stammer out an account of himself 
 and his circumstances. Maecenas made a brief reply. 
 Months passed without any further communication ; 
 then came an invitation. Horace passed at once into 
 the circle of the Minister's intimate friends. Thus 
 began an affectionate intimacy, which was never 
 interrupted. Horace invites his august friend to his 
 Sabine farm, itself a present from his patron, but 
 tells him that if he wants a rare vintage and costly 
 perfumes he must bring them himself. He gently 
 satirizes his partiality for the artificial life of the city. 
 He rallies him on the uncertain temper of his 
 wife. He even remonstrates with him on his valetudi- 
 narian complaints and fears. Nor is any of the poems 
 addressed to him more affectionate than the birthday 
 congratulations, written when the patron had ceased 
 to be powerful, and so had nothing more to give ; 
 and the end of this friendship was in pathetic 
 harmony with its course. Years before Horace had 
 sung: 
 
 " Fate keeps for both one fatal day ; 
 I keep a loyal oath, nor stay 
 When thou shalt go, prepared to tread 
 With thee the pathway of the dead/ 
 
MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 19 
 
 Early in B. C. 8 Maecenas died, saying to the 
 Emperor with almost his latest breath " Remember 
 Horace as you remember me." Augustus gave the 
 promise but was never called on to fulfil it. Six 
 months afterwards the poet followed his patron to 
 the grave. 
 
 A third poet has also contributed something to 
 the fame of Maecenas. This was Sextus Propertius, a 
 native of Assisium in TJmbria, a town that, under its 
 modern name of Assisi, is celebrated as the birthplace 
 of St. Francis. He too had suffered from the 
 confiscation which had followed the civil wars, had 
 come to Rome to follow the profession of the law, 
 and had found verse-writing more attractive than 
 the courts. Of his introduction to Maecenas, we 
 know nothing. The great man's name is prefixed 
 to the first elegy in the second book, the poem is 
 a defence of the author's devotion to love-poetry, 
 and of his refusal to engage on more serious themes. 
 The date of this poem is probably about 28 B. C. 
 Another piece with the same dedication is, it may 
 be conjectured, about five years later. Neither of 
 them says much of the relations between the writer 
 and his patron, though the tone seems to indicate 
 a certain amount of intimacy. Propertius, like Virgil, 
 had a house in the Aquiline. That he was well 
 acquainted with the author of the Aeneid, and had 
 had a private sight or hearing of the great poem, 
 
20 MAECENAS AND HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 we can guess from a reference to it in one of his 
 elegies ; " Something greater than the Iliad is in 
 process of writing, '* he says. We are sorry to think 
 that with Horace his relations were not so friendly. 
 Propertius has no compliments for his lyric brother ; 
 Horace, there can be little doubt, satirizes the style 
 and the pretensions of the elegist. * 
 
 Some of Maecenas's literary friends are little more 
 than names tons, Varius and Tuceafor instance, Virgirs 
 literary executors, to whom we are indebted for the 
 preservation of the Aeneid^ which its author directed 
 to be destroyed, nor has any record been preserved of 
 the life which they shared. What would we not give for 
 a single volume of " Reminiscences " such as are now 
 showered upon us in almost overwhelming profusion 
 from the press ! We must be content with knowing 
 that the liberality, the good taste, and the tact of 
 Maecenas made his name proverbial as the model 
 of the patrons of literature ; and the patron, we must 
 remember, was a necessity till the public came into 
 existence. Even now, when the production of monu- 
 mental works for which no remunerative sale can be 
 expected is concerned, his function is not altogether 
 
 * The arguments on which this opinion is founded are set 
 forth by Professor Postgate in his edition of " Select Elegies of 
 Propertius" (Macmillan & Co.) The satirical reference is to be 
 found in 2 Epistles", 37 and 99. It has been thought that the 
 * bore " described of 1 Sat. IX is Propertius. 
 
MAECENAS AND HIS FKIENDS. 21 
 
 suspended. This chapter may be fitly concluded with 
 a few lines from Martial : 
 
 ''You ask me why, though Rome has grown 
 Nobler beneath a nobler sway, 
 Though glories of the older day 
 Pale by the lustre of our own ; 
 
 You ask me why no voice inspired 
 Still sings as Virgil sang of yore 
 Why wars that touch earth's furthest shore 
 
 No bard to fitting praise have fired : 
 
 My Flacius, hear a bard's reply : 
 
 A new Maecenas must be found ; 
 
 Give us but this, and barren ground 
 A crop of Virgils will supply." 
 
III. 
 
 A DAY WITH HOB ACE, 
 
 FROM Theotimus of Athens, to Meton, the 
 Philosopher, at his house, in the Garden of 
 Academus. 
 
 Written from Rome, in the third year of the one 
 hundred and eighty third Olympiad. * 
 
 Many thanks, most venerable and dear Meton, for 
 the letters of commendation, especially for that which 
 bore the superscription of Quintus Horatius Flaccus. 
 I chanced to find him at home, and though he was 
 busy (I saw a parchment, on which a slave had been 
 writing from his dictation), he welcomed me most 
 warmly, and constrained me to take up my abode 
 in his house. 
 
 That first day, we talked of men and things in 
 Athens, till the third watch of the night was nearly 
 spent. * * Never was any one more simple, more 
 
 * This would be, B. C. 22. 
 * * That is till between two and three o'clock, in the morning. 
 
A DAY WITH HORACE. 23 
 
 candid, more gay. You will remember, that you 
 warned me not to speak of his doings as a soldier, 
 yet by some inconceivable awkwardness — for which, 
 when the word was uttered, I could have bitten off 
 my tongae, — I stumbled upon that very subject. 
 Yet I need not have troubled myself: he certainly 
 was not disturbed. 
 
 " Ah " said he, " I should have done well to have 
 listened to the wise Meton. I was a foolish lad of 
 twenty, and they offered me a Tribune's commission — 
 surely they must have been in sore need of officers, 
 if they could not make a better choice. 
 
 "Well, I went to our dear friend. 'What madness!' 
 he cried. ' You have, for your years, a fair smattering 
 of philosophy and a very pretty talent for writing 
 verses, but as for being a leader of soldiers — 'tis 
 -the veriest folly. And are you sure,' he went on, 
 ' that }ou are on the right side ? I take it, that 
 your friends did a bad day's work when they killed 
 your Caesar. Depend upon it, you will go farther 
 and fare worse, if your friend Brutus, who really 
 thinks of nothing but himself, and Cassius who is a 
 pedanc, not a statesman, get the upper hand. But, 
 if you will gO; go as a private soldier, and risk no 
 life but your own.' 
 
 " Well, I did what other people do, who ask for 
 advice; I took my own way, and into a pretty slough 
 it led me. As for soldiering, I knew no more about 
 
24 A DAY WITH HORACE. 
 
 it than a babe. Happily I had two dry nurses, in 
 the shape of two veteran centurions, and I had no 
 chance of making any bad blunder. Indeed the whole 
 business lasted only a few months and my first battle 
 was my last. 
 
 " Did I run away ? you are too polite to ask mC; 
 but you would like to know. Well, I did. and I did 
 not. I stopped where I was, till it was practically 
 all over, and when my betters ran, I followed them. 
 As for my shield — well, your own Alcaeus lost his 
 shield, and he was as good a fighting man, according 
 to all accounts, as he was a poet. * 
 
 " But to tell the truth, I had a motive in talking 
 as I did about my share in the battle. You see, I 
 had to make friends with the conqueror, and what 
 was the good of making out that I had fought 
 desperately to the last ? That would have been no 
 recommendation. So I rather laughed at myself, and 
 if other people laugh at me, well. I can shrug my 
 shoulders and bear it. I shall not be unhappy if 
 they think I am a poor soldier, if they will allow 
 that I am something of a poet. " 
 
 But certainly if I try to write down even a tenth 
 of what this most delightful of talkers said to me, 
 I shall more than fill my letter, and you asked me 
 
 * The Lesbian poet Alcaeus, in a battle between his country- 
 men and the Athenians, lost his arms, which the conqueror 
 hung up, in the temple of Athens at Sigeum. 
 
A DAY WITH HORACE. 25 
 
 to describe one of my days at Rome. To that there- 
 fore let me tm^n without further delay. 
 
 Five days after my arrival, my host said to me. 
 " You can rise early, is it not so ? '^ and when I 
 assented, he went on. " We will go to-morrow, and 
 salute my dear friend Maecenas. At sunrise then, 
 we will start. "" I suppose that I looked somewhat 
 surprised, for he said, " We set about our business 
 betimes at Rome, and as for Maecenas, we cannot 
 be too early ; he sleeps so ill, that he cannot rise 
 too soon, and he likes his callers to do the same. "^ 
 
 At the appointed hour we went. It was a house 
 of the most magnificent proportions, with the very 
 highest tower in all Rome surmounting it, and within, 
 it was furnished with a splendour to which, there is, 
 I am told, nothing equal. As for the Emperor, he 
 lives very simply. The great man himself, I must 
 own, did not impress me very favourably. To speak 
 plainly, he was too much of a fop ; the scent of the 
 unguents with which he was, so to speak, drenched, 
 almost overpowered me, and I could barely see his 
 fingers, for the rings with which they were covered. 
 His face was pale; his eyes sunken and weary, yet 
 it was good to note how he lighted up at the sight 
 of the poet. 
 
 " You have brought something for me, I hope, " 
 he said, and when my host shook his head. " Nay, 
 but this is intolerable. There are, at least, " twenty 
 
26 A DAY WITH HORACE. 
 
 poets there, "^ and he pointed to the crowd of callers, 
 who half filled the hall, " and every one has his 
 pocket full of bad verses, and you, who really can 
 write, are as idle as a sea-calf. " 
 
 Then he greeted me most politely, and beckoned 
 to us, to sit beside him. 
 
 But how shall I describe what I saw and heard 
 that morning? Maecenas, you know, has the ear of 
 the emperor, and every one who wants anything, a 
 clerkship, a commission in the army, a pension, a 
 word to one of the judges, a lease of land, a free 
 pass for travelling abroad, comes to him, to make 
 his request. He had too a number of visitors of 
 his own. 
 
 His liberality to men of letters, is beyond belief. 
 Instead of twenty, he might have said fifty poets. 
 One man brought an Epic. It was as much as he 
 could hold in his hand. " It is twice as long as the 
 Iliad, " said the great man, without changing a muscle 
 on his face, and the silly creature thought he was 
 serious. 
 
 " He pays them all, " whispered my host to me, 
 and of course they go on writing. He has positively 
 raised the price of parchment in Rome, but 'tis a 
 fault on the right side, and I who have profited by 
 it, should be the last to blame. " And as he said 
 this, I saw the tears in his eyes. Horace has the 
 tenderest and most grateful heart in the world. 
 
A DAY WITH HOEACE. 27 
 
 Well the stream went on for two hours, and might 
 have been going on now, if the door had not been 
 shut. 
 
 Maecenas would have us stop, and share his morning 
 meal. " Share " I say, but as a matter of fact, the 
 great man took nothing, but a draught of wine cooled 
 with snow, and my host but a little salad and some 
 water. (You must understand, that he praises wine, 
 but for the most part drinks water.) As for myself, 
 I relished an omelette and some broiled fish, for I 
 cannot bring my stomach to their Roman fashion of 
 fasting till mid-day. 
 
 The meal over, we went to the Senate-House, 
 where a great cause was being tried. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the great man as we bade him farewell. 
 " Every day, I thank the Gods that I am but a simple 
 knight. If I had to go to the Senate, and hear the 
 trial of Fabius, life would not be worth having. " 
 
 To me, indeed, as a stranger, the thing was interes- 
 ting enough. Fabius had been governor of a province, 
 and was on his trial for extortion. We heard the 
 peroration of the prosecutor and the examination of 
 three or four witnesses. What a story it was that they 
 told ! If only a quarter were true, Fabius must have 
 been the most scandalous thief since Sisyphus. One 
 old man, a temple-servant, toJd the Senate how the 
 governor scraped the gold from off the gates, in fact 
 laid his hands on every thing that had the least 
 
28 A DAY WITH HORACE. 
 
 value. He described how the priest had hidden a 
 gold shield, an offering they said, by Alexander of 
 Macedon^ and hoAv Fabius had heard of it. " He 
 tortured me to make me tell him the secret" said 
 the man, and held up his hands, which were twisted 
 out of all shape. 
 
 The judges, who had seemed very careless till 
 then, were visibly moved : and the Emperor, who, I 
 should have said, was presiding, a singularly hand- 
 some man of about forty, flushed with anger. 
 
 Fabius himself sat as haughty and indifferent as 
 though he had no concern in the matter. "It will 
 go hard with him, " said my host, as we came out. 
 " Fabius seems to have thought he was living under 
 the Republic, when these things were winked at, but 
 the Emperor has different ways. He is not going 
 to sacrifice his provinces that the nobles may dine off 
 gold plate. Yes, it will want all, and more than all 
 PoUio's eloquence, to get off his client. " 
 
 From the Senate-house we went home, to the mid- 
 day meal. Horatius ate nothing but vegetables, drink- 
 ing a little wine, very much diluted, but his cook 
 had procured a piece of roast kid for me. 
 
 After the meal came a short siesta, and then we 
 went to what seems a common entertainment at 
 Rome, a literary reading. A young author was to 
 recite some of his poems to a circle of friends. 
 Horatius was one of those invited, he does not like 
 
A DAY WITH HOKACE. 29 
 
 these tilings, but he went nevertheless, for he is 
 good nature itself. It was but a poor business. The 
 audience was not large at the beginning, and it grew 
 smaller and smaller, till at last there were but a 
 score left. 
 
 ""Poor fellow," said my host, "I am afraid this 
 will cost him more than he will get. You see the 
 room was lent, but he had to pay for the benches 
 and other matters, and I suspect had to hire the 
 very fine rings which he wore on his fingers. It is 
 the etiquette for a reader to make himself very fine ; 
 why I know not, for the race are notoriously poor. " 
 
 After the reading, a stroll to the Field of Mars, 
 the Koman playground, was welcome. The sports 
 were very clumsy ; nothing could be more barbarous 
 than the bits which the riders use, great jagged things 
 which must tear the horse's mouth to pieces. The 
 Romans are not particularly fleet of foot, nor agile 
 jumpers, but their swimming is marvellously good. 
 I saw young lads cross the Tiber which was running 
 high, and pass, three or four times without resting. 
 
 It was a gay and brilliant scene. You must know 
 that the ladies who are allowed, or take, a liberty 
 which would seem strange to us, come to the Field, 
 and look on. 
 
 After the sports came dinner, a gorgeous enter- 
 tainment, to which with my whetted appetite, I did 
 justice. 
 
30 A DAY WITH HORACE. 
 
 Earth and sea were ransacked to furnish the feast. 
 There were turbots, fresh from the Black Sea, mullets 
 caught in Chary bdis itself, oysters from Britain, an 
 outlandish isle in the frozen sea, I am told, rare 
 birds from Africa, a wild boar from Gaul, hares and 
 coneys and I know not what besides ; one thing I 
 remember, a peacock, very splendid to look at, but 
 as tough and tasteless a meat as I ever ate. 
 
 Our host was a "nouveau riche," who wearied us 
 by telling us the cost of every dish, and every flagon 
 of wine. Of all tiresome entertainments, this was 
 the worst, and I was heartily glad, when, somewhere 
 about midnight, (our host and half his guests being- 
 no longer masters of themselves) to find myself in 
 the open air again. 
 
 I like our quiet Athens tenfold better than this 
 splendid Rome. Farewell. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 "" TTE died a natural death, " says Tacitus of some 
 XI great noble in the days of Tiberius, and adds, 
 " a very rare occurrence in so exalted a rank. " There 
 is no reason for doubting that this piece of good 
 fortune fell to the lot of Augustus, of him, indeed, 
 alone among the Julian Caesars. * Of course rumour 
 was busy with stories of his end. There was talk, 
 for instance, of a basket of poisoned figs which 
 Livia, his wife, had put in his way ; but Li via had 
 lived with him for forty years, and having secured 
 all her objects, had no motive for the crime. All 
 the circumstances point the other way. Augustus 
 was in his seventy-eighth year. He was travelling 
 at an unhealthy time of the year (August). He had 
 
 * Here is the gloomy catalogue : Tiberius, suffocated on his 
 death-bed ; Caligula, assassinated ; Claudius^ poisoned by his 
 wife; Nero committed suicide to escape execution. 
 
32 THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 exposed himself imprudently to the night-air, and 
 had contracted a dysentery. And all the other 
 particulars quite contradict the poison theory. He 
 had been ailing for some time, but did not take to 
 his bed till he came to Nola. Tiberius, who was 
 on his way to the east coast of the Adriatic (Augustus 
 had left Rome to accompany him) was recalled in 
 haste. The dying man had a long conversation with 
 his successor, * and then dismissed all the cares of 
 life, though he asked again and again in the course 
 of his last day, whether there were any signs of 
 disturbance (we shall see the significance of this 
 hereafter). Reassured on this point, he prepared for 
 his end. He had his hair arranged, and his " cheeks 
 that were falling in set right " (perplexing words 
 which no one has been able to interpret). Then he 
 turned to his friends, " Have I played my part decently 
 well in this farce of life ? " he asked, adding in a 
 low voice two Greek verses which may be thus 
 Englished : — 
 
 ** All has gone well, you say. Then clap your hands, 
 Nor grudge the player what his skill demands." 
 
 The room was then cleared, only Livia remaining. 
 She raised the dying man in her arms, and with 
 
 * According to one story, Tiberius was not in time to find 
 the Emperor alive, and Livia concealed the death till it was 
 safe to declare it. 
 
THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 33 
 
 the words, " Remember how we have lived together 
 in love. Farewell!" he passed away. This is a 
 peaceful scene enough, but there was a tragedy 
 behind it. 
 
 I have spoken in my first chapter of Augustus as 
 '^a child of fortune," and this, the last scene of 
 his life, is apparently keeping up this character to 
 the end. But there was a dark side to the brilJiant 
 picture. 
 
 In the first place, the Roman arms were not uni- 
 formly prosperous during his reign. In B. C. 16 Marcus 
 Lollius, who was in command of a corps cVarmee on 
 the frontier of Gaul encountered a body of Germans, who 
 had crossed the Rhine. Victorious in the fi.rst engage- 
 ment, he met with a severe defeat in the second, 
 losing the eagle of one of his legions. The news of 
 this disaster caused such alarm in Rome that the 
 Emperor hurried to the spot. The invaders did not 
 stop to meet him^ but recrossed the river. That 
 there had been more disgrace than damage was the 
 judgment passed on the incident when the first panic 
 had subsided, and subsequent successes of the Imperial 
 armies in the same and neighbouring regions more 
 than compensated for what had been lost. Still there 
 had been a check to the uniformly prosperous course 
 of the great Emperor's government. 
 
 Twenty-five years afterwards a much more serious 
 disaster occurred. The policy of Augustus had 
 
34 THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 not been, on the whole, a policy of conquest, nor 
 was he ambitious to advance the border of the Empire. 
 But now he made an exception. Drusus, the younger 
 of the two stepsons of the Emperor, had some time 
 before conquered the region between the Rhine and 
 the Weser, and it seemed expedient to convert this 
 into a regular Roman province. He appointed as its 
 first governor one Quintilius Varus. 
 
 The choice was not a happy one. Varus's expe- 
 rience of administration had been gained in Syria, 
 and he committed the mistake of supposing that the 
 methods successful with a people subdued by cen- 
 turies of slavery would be suitable to a brave and 
 spirited race which had only just lost its independ- 
 ence. A revolt was organised by some of the 
 German chiefs, their leader being a certain Arminius, 
 whose military experience had been acquired by 
 service with the Roman armies. Varus had marched 
 as far as the banks of the Weser, and had there 
 constructed a permanent camp. 
 
 All apparently was peaceful. The chiefs were 
 friendly, the people submissive. The Roman Governor 
 was thus put off his guard. He had a powerful 
 army, three legions with their usual complement of 
 auxiliaries, and a strong body of cavalry. 
 
 Altogether the force must have amounted to nearly 
 forty thousand. But he had weakened it by sending 
 off detachments in various directions. Tidings reached 
 
THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 35 
 
 him that a remote tribe had risen in rebellion, and 
 he set off to reduce them to submission. As he was 
 passing through a wooded valley, probably between 
 Osnabruck and Paderborn, he was attacked by the 
 Germans in overwhelming numbers. The army, encum- 
 bered with baggage and non-combatants, had great 
 difficulty in advancing. Still it contrived to make 
 its way to an open spot without much loss. For two 
 more days it marched and fought incessantly. By 
 the evening of the second day it had ceased to exist. 
 A few scattered fugitives escaped, but the mass of 
 the army was either slaughtered or captured. Varus 
 killed himself. 
 
 The effect of this blow on the aged Augustus — he 
 was now seventy-five — was crushing. For six months 
 he let his hair and beard grow, a sign in a Roman 
 of the very prostration of grief. In his agony he 
 dashed his head against the wall, crying in piteous 
 accents, "Varus, give me back my legions. '^ He could 
 not bear any longer to have about him the German 
 body-guards who had hitherto surrounded his person. 
 It is not too much to say that his last years were 
 continually clouded by the recollection of this disaster. 
 
 But he had long had in his own family a yet more 
 painful trouble. 
 
 For years a fierce struggle had been going on for 
 the succession to the throne. Livia had brought two 
 sons by her first husband into the Imperial house ; to 
 
36 THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 A.ugustus she had borne no child. She set her heart 
 on securing the crown for Tiberius, the elder of the 
 two. He was not unworthy, an able statesman and 
 soldier, and as yet unstained by the vices of his 
 later years. For a time all went well. Then came 
 a crisis, and it seemed as if his hopes were crushed. 
 He retired from Court into something like exile. 
 Then his fortunes rose again. Julia, the daughter of 
 Augustus, was disgraced. * Her first and second sons 
 (children by her first husband, Agrippa) died in rapid 
 succession. Her daughter, another Julia, brought a new 
 shame upon her family, wringing from her unhappy 
 grandfather, the bitter cry, "Would I had perished 
 childless and unwed ! " One son still remained, 
 Agrippa Postumus by name. But he was uncouth 
 and savage, with nothing princely about him^— no 
 trace even of gentle blood in person or bearing. 
 He could learn nothing, not even martial exercises. 
 Fishing, a sport which he pursued in sullen solitude^ 
 was his only taste. Furious at the sight of so degen- 
 erate a scion of his race, the Emperor procured 
 from the Senate a decree of perpetual exile against 
 the unhappy youth, and he was removed to Planasia, 
 a barren islet near Elba. The succession of Tiberius 
 seemed secure. 
 
 Then, in the last year of his life, the old. man 
 
 * She had married Tiberius as her second husband, and had 
 quarrelled with him. 
 
THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 37 
 
 seems to have turned again to his own flesh and^ 
 blood. He would see whether this grandson was 
 quite hopeless. Livia and Tiberius had their enemies, 
 and these built their hopes on the succession of the 
 banished Agrippa. One of them was the represent- 
 ative of perhaps the noblest house in Rome, the Fabii. 
 Augustus visited Planasia in his company. This part 
 of the story may seem doubtful. Could the aged 
 and infirm Augustus have taken such a journey, 
 for Planasia is forty miles from the mainland ? Could 
 he have come without the privity of Livia ? But he 
 may have sent Fabius and charged him to bring back 
 a report. 
 
 Nothing is known of what passed, but the result 
 was bitterly disappointing. And then, by the indis- 
 cretion of Fabius's wife, the story came to the ears 
 of Livia. She turned the wrath of the Emperor, 
 furious at having his newly-awakened affection thus 
 thrown back on himself, against the counsellor who 
 had advised the journey. Fabius went to pay his 
 customary homage to his master, and was met with 
 the salutation, not of greeting but of farewell. It 
 was a hint that the Emperor wished to see him no 
 more. That hint meant death. He left the imperial 
 presence, and killed himself. 
 
 Not many weeks after, Augustus died, and Tiberius 
 reigned in his stead. The unhappy Agrippa did not 
 long survive the accession of his rival. A centurion 
 
 .'554095 
 
38 THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 was sent to assassinate him, and he was slain, but, 
 though taken by surprise and unarmed, not till after 
 a desperate resistance. The responsibility for this 
 crime was bandied about in a not unusual fashion. 
 The centurion reported himself to Tiberius. The 
 Emperor denied that he had given any orders. 
 The orders doubtless had been given by Li\aa. but 
 it is difficult to believe that Tiberius had no know- 
 ledge of them. Xo one believed Livia's pretence that 
 Augustus had left directions that the deed should be 
 done. The old Emperor had never hardened his 
 heart, under the extremest provocation, to execute 
 any of his kindred. 
 
 A curious sequel to the story of Agrippa remains 
 to be told. One Clemens, who had been among his 
 attendants, on hearing of the death of Augustus, 
 conceived the idea of carrying the youth off to the 
 German army, and proclaiming him Emperor. He 
 made his way to Planasia, but the merchant-ship on 
 which he had taken his passage sailed slowly, and 
 he came too late. Clemens then resolved to person- 
 ate the dead man, to whom he bore a remarkable 
 resemblance. He stole the ashes — why it is difficult 
 to see — went into retirement till his hair and beard 
 were grown long, and then proclaimed himself to be 
 the grandson of iVugustus. 
 
 He was careful never to show himself in broad 
 daylight, or stop in the same place for long. Still he 
 
THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 39 
 
 found many to believe in him^ and Tiberius was not 
 a little perplexed. Should he take any notice of 
 the pretender or no ? Finally he had him kidnapped 
 and brought to Rome. " How did you make yourself 
 Agrippa?" he asked the man. "In just the same 
 way as you made yourself Emperor, " was the reply. 
 The pretender was secretly put to death, but Tiberius 
 found it convenient to make no enquiries as to who 
 had supported his claims. Among them were many 
 officers of his own establishment, and not a few 
 members of the Senate and of the great capitalists 
 of Rome. What would have happened if Clemens's 
 merchantman had sailed a little faster ? Agrippa had 
 evidently a powerful party behind him. 
 
V. 
 
 A MUTINY. 
 
 THE accession of Tiberius seems to have been 
 received, if not with enthusiasm, yet without 
 protest throughout the Empire. But it gave the 
 occasion to a dangerous movement among the armies 
 of the frontier provinces of Europe. Pannonia was 
 one of these. It reached along the course of the 
 Danube from Vienna to Bel2Tade, and extended 
 
A MUTINY. 41 
 
 southward and westward to no great distance from 
 the Adriatic. Its governor was always an officer of 
 consular rank, and he had three legions under his 
 control. These three (the eighth, the ninth, and 
 fifteenth) were at this time quartered together in a 
 summer camp, the general in command being Junius 
 Blaesus. 
 
 Blaesus, on hearing of the accession of a new 
 Emperor, had relaxed the customary discipline, 
 excusing some of the duties which formed the daily 
 routine of the soldiers' life. Though idleness is 
 notoriously the parent of mischief, this brief holiday 
 could hardly have done much harm, had not some 
 elements of disturbance been already at work. The 
 army had already begun to feel its strength, and to 
 know that the throne really rested upon its arms. 
 The Pannonian mutiny may be described as the first 
 mutterings of a storm which, in after years, was to 
 break out again and again. The time was coming 
 when every army would think itself entitled to set 
 up a candidate for the Empire; and the movement 
 which I am about to relate was the first sign of its 
 approach. 
 
 A spokesman of the general discontent was found 
 in a certain Percennius. Before enlisting he had 
 been the chief of a gang of claqueurs^ whose business 
 it was to lead the applause, or it might be, the 
 hissing at the theatres of Rome. He was a fluent 
 
42 A 3IUTINY. 
 
 and reckless man, and had caught in his theatrical 
 experience the trick of exciting a crowd. 
 
 There was some natural anxiety in the minds of 
 the troops as to what would be the conditions of 
 service under the new Emperor, and there were 
 undoubted grievances of which they had to complain. 
 On these Percennius enlarged, at the same time 
 reminding his hearers, that the time for demanding 
 redress was come. If they lost the opportunity 
 afforded by a ruler not yet firmly established 
 on his throne, they would be wholly to blame. 
 "Already,'^ he cried, "we have borne too much. 
 They make us serve thirty, nay forty campaigns, 
 and that though we have been maimed with wounds. 
 Even when we are discharged, as they call it, we 
 are not free; we are kept w^ith the standard, and 
 have to perform, under another name, the same 
 services. "^ If by any chance a man survives all the 
 dangers of a soldier's life, what is his reward? What 
 they call an allotment of land, some swamp, some 
 intractable hill. Do they tell us we can save out of 
 our pay? Soldiering is a service as unprofitable as it 
 
 * This must have been an exaggeration, to say the least. 
 The soldiers called vexillariL i. e. kept with the standard, 
 were supposed to be exempt from the ordinary duties of forti- 
 fying the camp etc. Possibly they might be called upon in an 
 emergency to do something of the kind, and Percennius would 
 have justified his statement by these exceptions. 
 
A MUTINY. 43 
 
 is hard. Our souls and bodies are valued at half a 
 denarius a day! Out of this we have to find our 
 clothing, our arms, our tents, and to purchase any 
 indulgence which the severity of our officers may 
 allow. We must demand nothing less than this — fixed 
 conditions of service, a full denarius a day, discharge 
 at the end of the sixteenth year, no further service 
 with the standard, and our discharge-money paid 
 us in coin and on the spot. Is the service of the 
 Praetorians, who receive two denarii a day, and who 
 can retire after sixteen years, more perilous than 
 ours? We do not disparage sentinel's duty in Rome; 
 but it is we who have to live among barbarians, 
 with the enemy in sight of our tents. '' 
 
 This speech was received with a roar of applause. 
 The soldiers pointed in confirmation of his words 
 . to their backs scarred by the lash, to their gray hairs, 
 to their ragged clothing. A proposal to amalgamate the 
 three legions, a deadly offence against military discipline, 
 was only defeated by the jealousy of the three corps. 
 
 But the eagles and standards were actually massed 
 in one place, and the soldiers set about building a 
 hustings of turf. Blaesus entreated them to desist, 
 imploring them to vent their rage on him rather 
 than rebel against the Emperor. He begged them 
 to remember that this was not the way to convey 
 their requests to the Emperor, requests for privileges 
 which had never before been asked for, either in 
 
44 A MUTINY. 
 
 Republican times, or in the days of Augustus. It 
 was scarcely the time, he said, to approach their 
 sovereign, distracted as he must be by the cares of 
 a new reign. Still if they were inclined to do so, 
 let them do it in regular form, appointing delegates 
 to express their wishes. The soldiers assented, 
 demanding that Blaesus himself should undertake 
 this duty. He was to ask for discharge after sixteen 
 years' service. This granted, they would put their 
 other demands into shape. 
 
 A brief interval of quiet followed, though the troops 
 were demoralized by the discovery that they were 
 more likely to obtain their demands by violence than 
 by good behaviour. But the disorder was renewed 
 on the return of a detachment which had been 
 employed in the making of roads and bridges in the 
 neighbourhood of Nauportus. * On hearing of what 
 had been going on in the camp, they mutinied, plun- 
 dered Nauportus, which was a flourishing place, and 
 maltreated their officers. Against the quarter-master 
 Rufus they had a special spite. He had risen from 
 the ranks and was inexorable in his discipline ; all the 
 more pitiless in his exactions, says Tacitus, because 
 he had himself gone through all that he demanded 
 from others. They loaded him with a heavy burden, 
 and asked him, as they drove him along in front of 
 
 * Now Ober-Laybach in Carniola. 
 
A MUTINY. 45 
 
 the line of march, how he liked carrying such a 
 weight for so many miles. 
 
 Blaesus now felt that he must act, for the soldiers 
 were plundering the country. He could still count 
 on the officers and the well disposed portion of the 
 troops, and he ordered that some of the most conspic- 
 uous offenders should be arrested, flogged, and thrown 
 into prison. The men thus singled out implored their 
 comrades to rescue them, "You see" they cried, 
 ^^ what will be your fate. What they are doing to us 
 to-day, you will have to put up with to-morrow." 
 
 The appeal was not made in vain. The men were 
 rescued. More than this, the prison was broken into, 
 and the criminals confined in it released. 
 
 And now came forward one of those "historical 
 liars" as they may be called, who from time to time 
 have made such a sensation in the world by the 
 audacity of their fictions. The General was standing 
 on the hustings, and the mutineers were eagerly 
 watching for his next move. The release of the 
 prisoners was a direct defiance of his authority. How 
 would he meet it? Vibulenus — this was the mean's 
 name — was lifted on to the shoulders of his neigh- 
 bours and thus addressed the crowd: 
 
 " You have given back light and liberty to these 
 innocent sufferers ; but who will give back life to 
 my brother, or my brother to me ? The army of 
 Germany sent him to take counsel with you about 
 
46 A MUTIN'Y. 
 
 our common interests, and last night this man, by 
 the hand of his gladiators, the creatures whom he 
 keeps to destroy you. murdered him. Tell me, 
 BlaesuS; " he went on, turning to the general, " tell 
 me where you have taken his corpse ? Even our 
 enemies do not grudge us burial. Tell me, and then, 
 when I have satisfied my grief with kisses and 
 tears, hand me also over to your murderers — only 
 let my comrades bury your victims, slain for no 
 other crime but taking counsel for the common 
 good." 
 
 The crowd was excited by this story to the high- 
 est pitch. The gladiators were seized, and with them 
 the general's other slaves ; a search party was told 
 off to look for the body. Blaesus's life was in dan- 
 ger, and might have been sacrificed but for the 
 opportune discovery that the whole of this pathetic 
 story was a lie. Xo corpse could be found, the 
 slaves, when tortured, stoutly denied that any such 
 person had been killed ; very soon it came out that 
 Yibulenus had never had a brother ! Still the wrath 
 of the soldiers demanded a victim. The general had 
 escaped ; but a centurion of the name of Lucilius 
 was killed. The man had earned the nickname of 
 " give me t'other^ " because after breaking one vine 
 stick, the common implement of punishment on a 
 soldier's back, he would call for another and another. 
 Other unpopular officers contrived to hide them- 
 
A MUTINY. 47 
 
 selves ; the tribune and the quarter-master were driven 
 out of the camp. Over one centurion the eighth and 
 the fifteenth legions nearly came to blows; the 
 men of the eighth were for killing him ; their 
 comrades of the fifteenth protected him. The quar- 
 rel was composed by the energetic interposition of 
 the ninth legion. 
 
 News of these troubles reached Rome, and com- 
 pelled Tiberius, so serious did they seem, to open 
 and speedy action. He sent his son Drusus with 
 an open commission to deal with the situation as he 
 thought best. Drusus was accompanied by some of 
 the most distinguished people in Rome, and had a 
 strong escort, consisting of two of the nine Prae- 
 torian cohorts, raised above their usual complements 
 by an addition of picked men from the other cohorts, 
 the Praetorian cavalry, and the Emperor's body- 
 guard. Aelius Sejanus, of whom we shall hear again, 
 was in military command, and had the young Prince 
 in his special charge. 
 
 The Legions went out to meet the Emperor's 
 representative, not in the full accoutrements which 
 would be commonly worn on such an occasion, but 
 with a studied appearance of squalor. Drusus entered 
 the camp with them ; but his escort was barred out. 
 He mounted the hustings and stood for a while, 
 beckoning in vain for silence. At last he contrived, 
 in an interval of quiet, to read a letter from his 
 
48 A MUTINY. 
 
 father. The Emperor was profoundly interested — so 
 ran this document — in the welfare of his brave legions, 
 sharers with him of so many arduous campaigns. 
 When his grief would allow him, he would 
 bring their demands before the Senate. Meanwhile 
 he had sent his son, who would make such 
 immediate concessions as were possible. The rest 
 must depend upon the decision of the Senate which 
 could not be deprived of the power to give or to 
 refuse. 
 
 The soldiers put forth a centurion, Clemens by 
 name, as their spokesman. He stated their demands — 
 discharge at the end of sixteen years, prompt payment 
 in money of the sum then due, pay at the rate of 
 a full denarius, and no detention of full-time soldiers 
 with the standards. Drusus declared that these were 
 points on which the Emperor and the Senate must 
 decide. An angry shout interrupted him. " Why 
 come," said the men, "when you can give us no relief, 
 and bestow no bounty? Tiberius used to mock our 
 demands by referring them to Augustus, you are 
 repeating the same device. As for the decision of 
 the Senate it is a novelty. Does the Emperor intend 
 to consult it on all matters that concern us or only 
 when we are asking for our rights ? " 
 
 A formidable tumult followed. One of the most 
 distinguished of the visitors from Rome had a narrow 
 escape of his life. Aware of his danger he endeavoured 
 
A MUTINY. 49 
 
 to leave the camp, and was attempting to do so 
 under the protection of the Prince's presence, when 
 the soldiers discovered his intention. They loudly 
 proclaimed their belief that he was on his way to 
 misrepresent their cause before the Senate or the 
 Emperor and made a furious attack upon him. He 
 had been felled to the earth by a blow from a stone^ 
 and would have soon perished, but for the interference 
 of the escort. 
 
 Things had now a very threatening aspect. It was 
 doubtful whether the Prince emissary himself would long 
 be safe from the violence of the mutineers. Suddenly 
 all was changed in a very curious manner. The night 
 that followed this day of uproar was marked by a 
 total eclipse of the moon. The soldiers regarded 
 this phenomenon with intense anxiety, taking it, we 
 are told, as an omen of their own fortunes. They 
 were ignorant, as all but the educated at that time 
 were ignorant, of its cause, and had no idea, it would 
 seem, that it was a regularly recurring event. Their 
 fancy suggested the notion that the satellite now 
 lost, now recovered its lustre; and they hoped and 
 feared accordingly for themselves and their demands. 
 Clashing their arms together, and sounding in concert on 
 trumpets and clarions they sought to help the " labour- 
 ing planet" in its conflict with an unknown enemy. 
 When its face was finally hidden from sight by 
 gathering clouds, they gave up all for lost. They 
 
 4 
 
50 A MUTINY. 
 
 could hope for no respite from their toils ; they had 
 given inexpiable offence to the powers of heaven. 
 Drusus and his advisers made prompt use of this 
 change in popular feeling, A few loyal officers who 
 had continued to keep their popularity with the soldiers 
 went round the camp, threatening and promising. 
 
 "Who," they asked the mutineers, "are to be your 
 leaders ? Percennius and Vibulenus ? Are these the 
 names that you are going to substitute for the Neros 
 and the Drusi ? " How much wiser, " they went on 
 to suggest first to one and then to another, " to 
 secure your own interests by a prompt return to 
 your duty ! Benefits that all will share must be dif- 
 ficult of attainment, but you may make certain of a 
 reward for yourself." 
 
 Of course these emissaries did not forget to show 
 that the interests of the recruits and the veterans 
 were not identical, and found it easy to sow the 
 seeds of dissension. 
 
 The next day Drusus called a general assembly 
 of the troops. He took a more commanding tone. 
 "Threats," he declared, " were useless ; but if the men 
 would return to their duty, he would not fail to 
 represent their case to his father." 
 
 It was agreed that a deputation should be sent to 
 Rome, charged with the duty of representing the 
 wishes of the troops. But this was little more than 
 a pretence. The movement had failed. 
 
A MUTINY. 51 
 
 Vibulenus and Percennius were summoned into the 
 Prince's tent, and cut down in his presence. Some- 
 thing like a massacre followed. The ringleaders of 
 the mutiny were slain by their officers or by the 
 Praetorians. Some were given up to justice by 
 their own comrades, anxious to secure their own 
 safety. 
 
 The eighth legion was the first to return to its 
 duty ; the fifteenth soon followed ; the ninth was 
 inclined to hold out, but felt that it could not stand 
 alone. Drusus left for the capital, not considering 
 it necessary to wait for the return of the deputation. 
 
 The eclipse of the moon mentioned in the narrative given 
 ahove is fixed by astronomers for the date, September 26th. 
 Augustus died August 19th. We have thus an interval of 
 thirty-eight days into which these events were crowded. We 
 do not know where the summer camp of the Pannonian legions 
 was situated ; but it could hardly have been less than seven 
 hundred miles from Rome. We have to allow for the carrying 
 of the news of the Emperor's death from Nola (some twenty 
 miles to the south of Rome) to the camp, for the taking back 
 of the intelligence of the mutiny, (which did not burst out till 
 after some days), and for the march of the military force that 
 accompanied Drusus. It must also have taken two or three 
 days to mobilize these troops. The march alone, at the rate 
 of twenty -five miles per diem, would have taken nearly a month. 
 
 The difficulties in the narrative are great, even if we 
 take for granted the excessive alarm displayed by the soldiers 
 at the appearance of phenomena- which, after all, they must 
 have witnessed several times. And yet there can be no serious 
 
52 A MUTINY. 
 
 question of its accuracy. AVliile it makes it certain that 
 communication was rapid in these times between the different 
 provinces of the Empire, it may also be fairly taken to suggest 
 that scepticism as to the genuineness or truth of other narratives 
 of a more important kind should be more cautious than it 
 ometimes seems inclined to be. 
 
VL 
 
 THE EMPBESS-MOTHEB. 
 
 LIVIA, Empress and Empress-Mother for nearly 
 seventy years, is one of the stateliest figures 
 in Roman historj^ By birth she belonged to the 
 great Claudian house, a race far more celebrated 
 indeed for the arts of peace than for triumphs in 
 war, but the proudest and most resolute of Roman 
 aristocrats. Adopted by one of the Livian family — hence 
 the name which she bore throughout her life — she 
 married into her own house, though not into her own 
 branch of it. 
 
 Her husband was a certain Tiberius Claudius Nero, 
 descended from the famous Nero, whose rapid march 
 northwards in the twelfth year of the Second Punic 
 war had assured, not indeed the safety of Rome, 
 which was no longer doubtful, but the speedy end 
 of a desolating war. * 
 
 * Nero was watching Hannibal in Apulia when he heard 
 that Hasdruhal had crossed the Alps, and was on his way to 
 reinforce the Carthaginian army. Instantly he picked his best 
 
54 THE EMPRESS-MOTHER. 
 
 Her husband took the wrong, or, at least, the 
 unsuccessful side in one of the struggles of the Civil 
 War, and had to fly for his life. Livia was with 
 him, and the pair had more than one hair-breadth 
 escape, once very nearly being discovered to their 
 pursuers by the crying of the infant which the young 
 wife was carrying with her, at another being almost 
 burnt alive by a forest fire. But a reconciliation 
 was brought about between Nero and Augustus now 
 acknowledged master of the Western world, and the 
 fugitives returned to Rome. Livia's beauty attracted 
 the notice of the Emperor. Her husband divorced 
 her, gave her away to her new spouse and 
 actually — so the story runs — sat as a guest at the 
 marriage feast. She was then but eighteen, the 
 mother of one child (afterwards the Emperor Tiberius), 
 and about to become the mother of another. * 
 
 It was not then in a very reputable way, that 
 Livia became the partner of the Imperial throne. 
 But we must not judge these things by modern 
 standards, and whatever we may think of Augustus, 
 
 troops, and marched with all haste to join his brother consul 
 (who was stationed in northern Italy). A few days afterwards 
 Hasdrubal was defeated and slain near the river Metaurus, and 
 Hannibal's last hope was gone. 
 
 * Drusus (afterwards known as the Elder, to distinguish him 
 from his nephew, the father of Germanicus) was born three 
 months after his mother's marriage to Augustus. 
 
THE EMPEESS-MOTHEE. 55 
 
 Nero and Li via are not much to blame. Resistance 
 to the supreme ruler of Rome was hardly to be 
 thought of, and no one certainly in those days 
 dreamt of being a martyr for the sanctity of the 
 marriage tie. Once seated on the throne she was a 
 model of all that a wife should be. Not even a 
 breath of slander tarnished her fair fame. She was 
 a matron of the old Roman type, the finest ever 
 seen outside the circle of christian womanhood. 
 I have spoken of Livia's ambition for her children. * 
 Whether she used any sinister means to clear the 
 way to the throne for Tiberius, the elder, is a matter 
 about which we know nothing for certain. That she 
 was suspected is clear, but then any woman in her 
 position and with her opportunities would have been 
 suspected. That when Tiberius gained the object of 
 her ambition she sought to secure him in power by 
 removing the unhappy youth f who had the fatal 
 distinction of being the grandson of Augustus, is 
 almost certainly true. Tacitus seems to apportion 
 the guilt of the murder between the mother and the 
 son. He tells us, however, that Tiberius disclaimed 
 all knowledge of the deed, and professed an intention 
 of bringing it under the notice of the Senate, an 
 intention from which he was turned only by a 
 representation that there were secrets of Empire 
 
 * See pp. 35, 36. 
 t Agrippa Postumus. 
 
56 THE EMPRESS-MOTHER. 
 
 which it would be highly dangerous to reveal, and 
 about which the Senate must not be permitted to 
 judge. The historian has a vehement prejudice 
 against Tiberius, and we may perhaps conclude that 
 the balance of probabilities inclines to the belief 
 that Livia rather than her son had the principal 
 share in the deed. 
 
 If Livia sinned for her children, she was grievously 
 punished through them. The younger of the two, 
 Drusus, a brilliant soldier, who carried the arms of 
 Rome into regions never visited by them before or 
 after his time, died at the age of thirty (A. D. 9). 
 This was sad enough, though it may well be that 
 he was happy in being taken away from the evil to 
 come and that his mother lived to feel it. She 
 suffered far more when the elder son, the one for 
 whom she had dared so much and suffered so much, 
 showed jealousy which was not long in growing 
 into something like hatred. 
 
 She seemed to him to claim an equal share in 
 the government, and this his sullen temper could 
 not brook. He had grown indeed so used to her 
 counsels that he found it hard to do without them; 
 but he deliberately estranged himself from her more 
 and more completely. It was especially annoying 
 for him to be styled, as he was in the proceedings 
 of the Senate, the son of Augustus and Livia. He 
 refused to allow the title of " Mother of the Country " 
 
THE EMPEESS-MOTIIER. 57 
 
 to be bestowed on her; he hmited as far as he 
 could the distinctions which her position seemed to 
 make natural. He went further than this; he tokl 
 her plainly that she was fcnd of meddling' with 
 affairs too great for her cr for any woman. His 
 jealousy descended sometimes to ludicrous meanness. 
 A fire broke out near ihe Temple of Vesta, the most 
 sacred spot in Rome, and the Empress, who must 
 have been then past her eightieth year, herself came 
 upon the scene, as she had more than once in the 
 lifetime of Augustus, and urged the populace and 
 the soldiers who were putting out the flames to do 
 their very best. Tiberius was most unreasonably angry 
 at her activity. At last the two came to an open feud. 
 Livia begged her son to bestow some honour on one 
 of her proteges. He refused and she repeated her 
 request. At last he said " Yes, I will do it, if you 
 will allow this entry to be made in the register; 
 ' This was extorted from me by my mother.' " Stung 
 to the quick, she produced an old memorandum in 
 the hand- writing of Augustus, complaining of the 
 morose and odious character of his stepson. Tiberius 
 was furious to find that such a document had been 
 kept so carefully and was now brought up against 
 him. This was said to be one of the causes that 
 drove him out of Rome, where, indeed, he never get 
 foot during the last eleven years of his life. His 
 mother lived three years after his departure. During 
 
0(5 THE EMPKESS-MOTHER. 
 
 that time he saw her but once only, and that but 
 for a few hours. She must have gone out of the 
 city to meet him. He did not attend her funeral; 
 neglected her last wishes as to the disposition of the 
 body ; and did not carry into effect the provisions of 
 her will. * 
 
 All her friends felt the weight of his displeasure. 
 He bore and showed a grudge even against those 
 whom she had entrusted with the conduct of her 
 funeral rites. Such was the end of all her guilty 
 scheming. There is no doubt that, up to time of 
 the rupture with her son Livia exercised a moderating 
 influence on his rule. Tacitus distinguishes five 
 periods in his character. There can be little doubt 
 indeed that the historian does him, on the whole, 
 less than justice; still we may accept the statement 
 that " as long as his mother lived he was partly 
 good and partly bad.'^ But the best side of Livia's 
 nature is one of which, but for an accident, we 
 should have known nothing. Among the remains of 
 antiquity which time has spared, is the chamber in 
 which the cinerary urns of Livia' s family f were 
 deposited. There are stored in almost endless 
 succession the urns of her personal attendants, her 
 robe-women and tire-women, and others who filled 
 
 " The legacies were paid nine years afterwards by Caligula. 
 t The word " family " is used in one of its classical senses, 
 as a household. 
 
THE EMPRESS-MOTHER. 59 
 
 posts in an establishment which must have been one 
 of truly imperial dimensions. Generations of such 
 servants passed away during her long life. There 
 must have been some tenderness, some capacity 
 of affection in the woman to whom they rendered 
 faithful service and who preserved the affectionate 
 memorial of them when they were gone. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF GERMANICUS. 
 
 TACITUS says of one of the Emperors that all 
 men would have thought him equal to Empire, 
 if he had never been Emperor. Perhaps it was well 
 for the fame of Germanicus * that his character was 
 never subjected to the test of power. As it is, we 
 know nothing but good of him. No prince of the 
 Julian House, few of any royal race, have been more 
 admired in life and more lamented in death. 
 
 One cannot wonder that Tiberius, who, without 
 being the monster that he appears in the pages of 
 Tacitus and Suetonius, was certainly morose and 
 suspicious, was jealous of the brilliant young man. 
 Augustus is said to have hesitated long whether he 
 should not bequeath to him the throne. He decided 
 in favour of his stepson, Tiberius ; nor can we believe 
 
 * Germanicus was the son of Drusus, the younger brother of 
 Tiberius. His wife was Agrippina^ daughter of Julia and 
 Agrippa, and so granddaughter of Augustus. 
 
THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF GERMANICUS. 61 
 
 that, while Livia was alive, any other choice would 
 have been possible to him. But he made it a condition 
 that Tiberius should adopt the prince whose claim 
 was thus postponed to him. Thus Germanicus, from 
 being a nephew, became a son, and a son whose 
 brilliant qualities quite threw into the shade his 
 adopting father s natural heir, the younger Drusus. 
 Tiberius had not been many days on the throne 
 when he found what a dangerous rival the young 
 man might be, if he were not loyal; and loyalty is 
 a virtue which such character as Tiberius find it 
 hard to believe in. The legions which guarded the 
 Rhine frontier of the empire revolted. Other legions 
 were disturbed, but the German armies were the 
 most determined, partly on account of their strength, * 
 partly because they hoped that Germanicus, their 
 general-in-chief, would claim the empire for himself. 
 The young commander brought them back to their 
 allegiance, " I know not, " says the historian, " whether 
 with more loyalty or courage.'' He then fought a 
 brilliant campaign against the German tribeS; penetrat- 
 ing to the spot where years before the legions of 
 Varus had been destroyed, and burying the remains 
 of the dead. When he returned to Rome, the people 
 crowded to meet him, coming as far as the twentieth 
 milestone from the city, and though his guard of 
 
 * They must have contained not far from a third of the 
 whole military force of the empire. 
 
62 THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF GERMANICUS. 
 
 honour, from the Praetorian Camp, was composed of 
 two cohorts only, the whole of the force went out 
 to escort him home. 
 
 There were not wanting prophets of evil. " The 
 favourites of the Roman people, " they said, " are 
 short-lived and unlucky. It loved Drusus, his father, 
 and he died in his prime ; it loved Marcellus, his 
 uncle, and he passed away in his youth." Within a 
 year these gloomy prognostications were fulfilled. 
 Germanicus lay dead at Antioch, and there were the 
 darkest rumours about the causes which had brought 
 him to his end. His body was livid; his lips were 
 covered with foam, so said those who had seen his 
 corpse. Stranger still, his heart had been found 
 unconsumed in the funeral pile ; and the heart of the 
 man who dies of poison, such was the common belief, 
 the flames cannot touch. 
 
 Was the Emperor guilty? everyone asked. The 
 suspicions against him chiefly arose from the strange 
 ^onduct of a Piso, who had been appointed to the 
 government of Syria at the same time when the 
 Emperor entrusted to Germanicus the general command 
 of the provinces east of the Mediterranean. Piso 
 seemed to have a mission to annoy and torment his 
 superior. Anyhow, he behaved to him in a way on 
 which he would scarcely have ventured, had he not 
 felt himself supported by the Emperor himself. He 
 seemed hour as it was expressed at the time, to 
 
THE DEATH AND BUEIAL OF GERMAXICUS. 63 
 
 be the enemy either of the father or of the son, of 
 Tiberius or Germanicus, and everyone believed that 
 he chose the second alternative. It may not be a 
 conclusive proof of his guilt, but when he returned 
 to Rome, he was nearly torn in pieces by the people, 
 and condemned to death by the Senate, on the 
 charge of having brought about the death of his 
 chief. Among the evidence brought against him was 
 the discovery in the house which he had occupied at 
 Antioch, of human remains, of papers inscribed with 
 charms and cures, leaden tablets, inscribed with the 
 name of the victim, and other articles belonging to 
 the magician's stock-in-trade. Magic may be an idle 
 fancy, but the story, nevertheless, may be true. That 
 the prince himself believed that he had been poisoned 
 by Piso and his wife is certain. 
 
 The corpse was exposed in the market-place of 
 Antioch before it was burnt. About the funeral there 
 was nothing remarkable, except for the crowd that 
 attended it. Agrippina* at once embarked with the 
 ashes, though the season was unfavourable for 
 travelling, and sailed to Brundisium, where a crowd 
 of friends and comrades of the dead man, and of 
 strangers, brought together by affection or curiosity — 
 some even by the notion that they were showing 
 their respect to the Emperor — had assembled. The 
 harbour and the shore, the walls and roofs of the 
 city — every point, in short, from which a view could 
 
64 THE DEATH AND BUKIAL OF GERMANICUS. 
 
 be obtained — were crowded with spectators as the 
 fleet drew near. All eyes were fixed upon the 
 unhappy woman, as with a child on either side, the 
 funeral urn in her hand, she stepped from the ship 
 on to the pier. A deep groan went up from the 
 whole assembly. Kinsmen and strangers, men and 
 women, abandoned themselves to the same passionate 
 grief. But the travellers had exhausted the violence 
 of their sorrow, and the loudest manifestations came 
 from the crowd on shore. 
 
 Two Praetorian cohorts had been sent to meet the 
 funeral cortege^ and the urn was borne on the shoulders 
 of the officers. With the standards furled, and the 
 axes reversed, the Praetorians marched along the 
 great Appian Road. In all the towns on the way, 
 the inhabitants, dressed in mourning, lined the streets, 
 where altars smoked with incense. Even from distant 
 places the people crowded in, eager to pay the same 
 honour to the dead. At Tarracina, about seventy 
 miles from Rome, the procession was met by the 
 Emperor's son, and Claudius, the brother of the de- 
 ceased. The new Consuls were there, for another year 
 had begun, with a vast crowd of all ranks from the 
 city, weeping with the true southern abandonment to 
 grief. But three conspicuous figures were absent — 
 the Emperor, and the Emperor's mother, and Antonia, 
 the dead man's mother. Tacitus believes that she 
 was not allowed to come. 
 
THE DEATH AND BUKIAL OF GERMANICUS. 65 
 
 The day on which the urn was carried to the 
 Mausoleum of Augustus was one of dismal silence, 
 broken now and then by some wild cry of grief. 
 The streets were crowded; the soldiers stood under 
 arms; the magistrates had laid aside the insignia of 
 office ; the people were ranged in their various tribes. 
 But the unprompted, genuine grief of the whole 
 nation was almost the only public honour paid to 
 the memory of Germanicus. Many remembered how 
 different had been the demeanour of Augustus, when 
 the corpse of Drusus * had been brought home. He 
 had come to meet it, though the weather was intensely 
 cold, and had not left it till it entered the city. The 
 images f of the great Claudian and Julian Houses had 
 been ranged round the bier. The funeral lament had 
 been raised in the Forum, and the panegyric on the 
 dead pronounced from the hustings. All these honours 
 were studiously withheld from the ceremony of German- 
 icus, whose funeral, but for the universal sorrow, might 
 have been that of the most undistinguished citizen. 
 
 It was not the Roman world only that wept for 
 him. The German tribes voluntarily offered a truce 
 when they heard of his death, and the Parthian 
 monarch, then as now styling himself King of Kings, § 
 neither followed the chase nor entertained his nobles. 
 
 * The father of Germanicus. 
 
 t Waxen masks representing former members of the families. 
 
 § Parthia roughly corresponds to the Persia of to-day. 
 
 5 
 
VIIL 
 
 THE RISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. 
 
 " fJlHE rise and fall of Sejanus," says Tacitus in 
 _!_ one of his most characteristic sentences, '' were 
 equally disastrous to the commonwealth of Rome." 
 The country was peaceful before the days of his 
 power; he desolated it with proscription and massacre. 
 The Imperial family was prosperous; he made it by 
 his intrigues like one of the doomed houses of tragedy. 
 And theU; when he was crushed by the master whom 
 he had deceived, and Rome was rejoicing to be rid 
 of him, she found herself the victim of a worse 
 tyranny than ever. When Sejanus had fallen, Tiberius, 
 perhaps because he had lost all faith in his fellow- 
 men, became more cruel, more abandoned than before. 
 Aelius * Sejanus was a Tuscan by birth. He 
 obtained in his youth a commission in the Praetorian 
 
 * He did not really belong to the Aelian House, which was 
 one of the oldest in Italy, claiming descent, curiously enough, 
 from Lamus, the old " Cannibal King " of the Laestrygons ; such 
 is the passion of men for the honour of a long descent. 
 
THE KISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. 67 
 
 Guard, and rose from post to post till he became 
 chief-in-command, first as his father's colleague and 
 then alone. It was he who made the Praetorians the 
 formidable force that many a time in after years 
 gave the Empire at its will. He collected its scattered 
 regiments into one corps ^ and gave it a camp outside 
 the walls. He spared no pains to make himself the 
 idol of the troops, not only in Rome, but in the 
 provinces, and he suqceeded so well, that his bust 
 was commonly placed beside the Emperor's at head- 
 quarters to be common objects of veneration. * 
 
 His ambition now began to soar higher, to an 
 alliance with the throne, even to the throne itself. The 
 alliance came within his grasp, and then was snatched 
 away again by what must have seemed a trick of 
 fortune. His daughter was betrothed to the young 
 son of Claudius, the Emperor's nephew. But the boy 
 met his death at Pompeii by a curious accident. 
 He was amusing himself by throwing a pear into 
 the air and catching it in his mouth. The fruit fixed 
 itself in his throat, and choked him. But this disap- 
 pointment was soon forgotten in the excitement of 
 greater schemes. Drusus, the Emperor's son, was a 
 personal enemy. There had been an open quarrel 
 
 * It is recorded as one of the very rare instances of largess 
 to the soldiers in the frugal Tiberius, that he made a distribution 
 of money to the legions of the East because they had not paid 
 any honours to the bust of Sejanus. 
 
68 THE RISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. 
 
 between them, and the young prince^ who was violent 
 in temper and somewhat brutal in manner, had struck 
 the powerful minister in the face. The insult was 
 terribly avenged. Sejanus won away the affections 
 of Livia, Drusus's wife, and then persuaded the 
 wretched woman to poison her husband. The crime 
 was committed, and for a time remained undiscovered. 
 One obstacle was rem.oved from the path of his 
 amibition. As soon as etiquette permitted he made 
 another step. He asked for the hand of the widow. 
 The Emperor's answer was vague, but, on the whole, 
 favourable. He pointed out the difficulties of the 
 case, but declared that there was nothing which the 
 high qualities and loyalty of Sejanus might not be 
 held to deserve. 
 
 One difficulty, the deposition of Agrippina, was 
 soon removed. Her temper, naturally haughty, had 
 been embittered by wrongs of the cruellest kind. 
 She gave mortal offence to the Emperor, on one 
 occasion, we are told, by showing that she feared 
 to be poisoned at his table. It was Sejanus who 
 had warned her of the danger. Not long afterwards 
 she was banished to an island, and her banishment 
 was soon followed by her death. Nero, her eldest 
 son, shared her fate; and Drusus, who was next to 
 him in age, was kept in close and rigorous confine- 
 ment at Rome. 
 
 Sejanus was now, so to speak, Vice-Emperor. 
 
THE KISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. 69 
 
 Tiberius had buried himself in his island retreat (of 
 which I shall say more in my next chapter) and his 
 Minister was the visible representative of power* 
 His ante-chambers were crowded from morning to 
 night. The acquaintance of his freedmen and his 
 doorkeepers was eagerly sought. The favour of the 
 great man himself was counted a sure passport to 
 power and wealth. 
 
 Then in a moment came the fall of this daring 
 ambition. Tiberius satisfied himself — he had been 
 first warned, it is said, by a letter from a kinswoman — 
 that the man whom he had trusted, on whom he 
 had heaped such honours as had never before been 
 bestowed upon a subject, was preparing to overthrow 
 him. The favourite was, or seemed to be, too powerful 
 to be openly attacked. Possibly, Tiberius found a 
 secret satisfaction in flattering and fooling him to 
 the last. Nor can we feel a grain of pity for the 
 man who was so basely ungrateful even to such a 
 benefactor as Tiberius. 
 
 The Emperor, who had for many years refused to 
 accept the dignity of the Consulship, * allowed him- 
 self to be nominated again, and he made Sejanus his 
 colleague. At the same time he gave him one of 
 the high priesthoods. But meanwhile he had secured 
 
 * The Emperor was often, but not always, Consul. The theory 
 of his power was that the power of yslyious constitutional of^ces 
 was accumulated in his hands. 
 
70 THE RISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. 
 
 an instrument of his vengeance in one Macro, who 
 held high command in the Praetorian Guard. He 
 sent a letter to the Senate, accusing the favourite 
 of treason. The reading of it was followed by a 
 burst of applause ; and Macro was at hand with his 
 soldiers to arrest the accused. His fall was absolute 
 and instantaneous. Not a voice, much less a hand, 
 was raised in his defence. Scarcely the mockery of 
 a trial was allowed him, before he was hurried off 
 to his death. His statues, which had been erected in 
 every quarter of the city, were thrown down from 
 their pedestals, and, such was the popular fury against 
 him, almost ground into powder. 
 
 Tiberius had schemes in reserve if his enemy should 
 be found to have any following. The young Drusus 
 was to be taken out of his dungeon, and shown to 
 the troops and the populace as their new chief. He 
 kept ships in readiness, in which to transport him- 
 self to some distant province, if his island retreat 
 should become unsafe. Notwithstanding these pre- 
 cautions, he waited for the issue in intense anxiety, 
 standing on the loftiest peak of the island, and 
 watching for the preconcerted signals from the main- 
 land, which were to show him what had happened. 
 And, after all was over, it was nine months before 
 he ventured to leave the house in which he had 
 concealed himself. 
 
 Meanwhile a reign of terror prevailed at Rome. 
 
THE RISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. 71 
 
 I dare not tell the piteous story of how even the 
 innocent children of the fallen man, a boy and a 
 girl, were carried off to the scaffold. That all who 
 were even distantly suspected of sharing his schemes 
 should be involved in his doom was to be expected, 
 but the crowd of flatterers who had courted him, 
 because he had the ear of Caesar, were in sore 
 perplexity. To acknowledge his acquaintance was 
 enough, and yet it seemed impossible to deny it. It 
 is a pleasure to read the courageous words in which 
 one of the accused defended himself. " Whatever 
 may happen, " he said, " I will confess that I had 
 the friendship of Sejanus, that I sought it, that I 
 was glad to win it. I and others saw that his friends 
 were the favourites of Caesar, that his enemies were 
 miserable and degraded. To us he was Sejanus no 
 longer; he was a kinsman of the Imperial House, 
 Caesar s colleague and friend, who made and unmade 
 men at his pleasure. Who were we that we should 
 go behind the Emperor's judgment and hesitate to 
 believe in the man whom he trusted ? Punish, Sire, his 
 accomplices in crime, but excuse his friends, as you 
 excuse yourself. " These bold words saved the speaker 
 and, we may hope, some of his friends. 
 
IX. 
 
 TIBEBIUS AT GAPBL 
 
 THE policy— or was it caprice ?— which made 
 Tiberius leave his capital, and spend the last 
 eleven years of his life in the rocky island of 
 Capreae, is one of the puzzles of history. Neither 
 those who, following Tacitus and Suetonius, hold him 
 to have been a monster of wickedness, nor those, 
 chiefly to be found among modern writers, who 
 regard him as a wise prince who has been cruelly 
 maligned, are able to account for it satisfactorily. 
 Among the causes suggested are, as has been already 
 mentioned, his impatience of the influence exercised 
 over him by his mother. Another is the influence 
 of Sejanus, who hoped thus to increase his own 
 power, but who could hardly have carried his point, 
 unless he had found the Emperor already well disposed 
 to the plan. Among the private motives which were 
 mentioned as actuating him was personal vanity, or, 
 rather the unwillingness to display to the eyes of 
 
TIBERIUS AT CAPRI. 73 
 
 the public a face that had been once handsome, but 
 was now disfigured with disease. In this there was 
 nothing worse than weakness; a darker motive that 
 has been attributed to him, was the desire to engage 
 in disgraceful pleasures in secret. Whatever the 
 cause of his retirement from Rome, he never returned 
 to it, though he sometimes visited the neighbourhood, 
 coming once as far as the Gardens of Caesar on the 
 right bank of the Tiber.* His mother's death did 
 not bring him back, nor did he return even when 
 he learnt from the conspiracy of Sejanus what a 
 danger he might incur by his protracted absence 
 from his capital. 
 
 The island, now a favourite resort of English 
 visitors to the south, was admirably suited to the 
 solitude which, for some reason or other, he affected. 
 It had only one landing place, and that so limited 
 in extent that no one could approach it without 
 being seen. The cliffs were high and inaccessible, 
 and the sea that surrounded it was deep. The 
 preparations made for fitting this island for his 
 residence were of the costly style which was customary 
 in Roman life. Twelve villas, named after the twelve 
 great gods and goddesses of the Roman pantheon, 
 crowned as many heights in the island. The largest 
 and the most defensible against attack — no slight 
 
 * The famous gardens " on the other side of Tiber, " which 
 Julius Caesar bequeathed by his will to the people of Rome. 
 
74 TIBERIUS AT CAPRI. 
 
 recommendation in the eyes of the jealous tyrant — seems 
 to have been the Villa of Jupiter. It was here that 
 he awaited the news of the cou]) d' etat by which 
 he struck down Sejanus; it was in this that he 
 remained shut up till he felt himself again safe on 
 his throne. Strange stories are told of the jealousy 
 with which he guarded the secrecy of this retreat 
 against even casual and perfectly harmless visitors. 
 A fisherman had contrived to elude the guards and 
 make his way to the house in which the Emperor 
 had taken up his abode in order to make him a 
 present of a mullet of unusual size which he had 
 caught. Tiberius ordered the man's face to be rubbed 
 with the fish. The poor wretch was overheard to 
 congratulate himself that he had not also offered a 
 very large lobster which he had also caught. The 
 lobster was brought, and set to mangle the man's 
 face with its claws. It was his practice, it was said, * 
 to have his victims thrown from the cliffs into the 
 sea. If any remains of life were found in them 
 there were boatmen in readiness below to dash out 
 their brains. To such a pitch of frantic rage and 
 fear did he come, after the fate of Sejanus, that on 
 one occasion he ordered an old friend from Rhodes, 
 whom he had himself sent for, to be seized and 
 tortured. When he discovered his mistake he silenced 
 
 * We must take these statements of hostile historians with 
 a certain reserve. 
 
TIBERIUS AT CAPRI. 75 
 
 the anticipated reproaches by ordering the man to 
 be put to death. 
 
 Of the companions of his retirement not the least 
 cherished were the astrologers^ in whose power to 
 foretell the future he placed a confidence which 
 seems hardly consistent with his powerful intellect. 
 One of these, Thrasyllus by name, had gained his 
 confidence in a very curious way. Tiberius, if he 
 had any reason to suspect false dealing in the 
 soothsayer whom he had consulted, used to give a 
 signal to an attendant, a man of remarkable strength, 
 that the prophet was to be thrown over the cliff 
 into the sea^ Thrasyllus on one occasion had drawn 
 his patron's horoscope, and the attendant was in 
 waiting for the signal of death. " What of your 
 own? " asked Tiberius. The man calculated it with 
 elaborate care, and then, with every sign of terror, 
 declared that his own last hour was close at hand. 
 The Prince was delighted at his foresight, and made 
 him thenceforward his most trusted adviser when 
 the secrets of the future were in question. * 
 
 It was not at Capreae, however, that the Emperor 
 breathed his last. He had gone from place to place 
 with the restlessness that often comes before the 
 end; and had settled down for a time in the country 
 house which the great soldier Lucullus had built near 
 the promontory of Misenum. Among his visitors 
 
 * The story is told of Tiberius's sojourn a Rhodes.'*^ 
 
76 
 
 TIBEKIUS AT CAPRI. 
 
 there was a skilful Greek physician, whose advice 
 he was accustomed to ask, though without putting 
 himself under his care. The man came to make his 
 farewell, took the Emperor's hand as if he would 
 have kissed it, and contrived to feel his pulse. 
 Tiberius perceived it, but made no sign — he was 
 accustomed to conceal his resentment. But he kept 
 his place at table longer than usual, and retained 
 his friend to share the festivity. But the man was 
 not deceived. He told the major-domo that the 
 Emperor could not last two days more. Despatches 
 were sent to the provinces, and other preparations 
 were made for a new reign. On the 16th of March 
 Tiberius became insensible. Every one believed him 
 to be dead, and Caligula; his successor^ came forth 
 to receive the congratulations of the little court. 
 Then, like a thunderbolt, came the news that the 
 Emperor had recovered sight and speech, and was 
 asking for food. A general panic followed ; the courtiers 
 dispersed, seeking to assume an expression of ignorance, 
 or of the decent grief that befitted the attendants of a 
 dying prince. Caligula, who, but a moment before, had 
 seemed to grasp the delights of power, was now sunk in 
 the depths of despair. Only Macro retained his presence 
 of mind. He ordered the attendants to pile rugs and 
 coverlets on the old man till he was suffocated. Tiberius 
 was in his seventy-seventh year of his life, and the 
 twenty-third of his reign. 
 
X. 
 
 THE MADMAN ON THE THE ONE, 
 
 Galigula. 
 
 IF it were a law of nature that a son inherits the 
 virtues of his parents, Rome would have had 
 the best of rulers in the young man who, in his 
 twenty-sixth year, succeeded to the throne of Tiberius. 
 Caligula* was the youngest son of Germanicus and 
 
 * His real name was Caius Julius Caesar. Caligula was a 
 nickname given him in his childhood from the little soldiers' 
 boots which he used to wear. He was a "child of the camp", 
 
78 THE MADMAN ON THE THEONE. 
 
 Agrippina. On Germanicus Suetonius bestows the 
 
 comprehensive praise that he had all bodily and 
 
 mental virtues, and these in such degree as no man 
 
 had ever possessed before or since. Agrippina, though 
 
 she lacked the gentler virtues of her husband, was 
 
 a Roman matron of the noblest type. Much was 
 
 hoped from the son of such parents, but never were 
 
 hopes more cruelly falsified. The old emperor, indeed, 
 
 with whom it was the young Caligula's misfortune 
 
 to live, saw deeper into his nature, and had no 
 
 illusions. " This lad, ^ he would often say, " will be 
 
 the death of me and many more.'' In fact he was 
 
 a madman, and had all a madman's cunning. In his 
 
 heart he hated the old emperor, * but he kept this 
 
 hatred a profound secret. So invariably respectful 
 
 and obedient was he, that it was well said of him, 
 
 " N ever was there a better slave or a worse master. " 
 
 For the first few months of his reign, he seemed to 
 
 be all that could be wished. The exiles of the late 
 
 though not, it would seem, born within its precincts. A child 
 could hardly have been dressed as a Roman soldier in miniature, 
 but the boots at least could be imitated, and the legions were 
 vastly pleased at the sight of them on the little Caius. 
 
 * Suetonius tells a strange story of his making way, dagger 
 in hand, into the chamber of Tiberius, bent on avenging the 
 death of his mother and brothers. The sight of the old man 
 sleeping, as he thought, touched him, and he threw the dagger 
 away. The emperor was really awake, and saw the whole, 
 but either dared not or would not ask any questions. 
 
THE MADMAN ON THE THRONE. 79 
 
 reign were recalled, and general amnesty proclaimed. 
 The trade of the informer was declared to be at an 
 end. Books proscribed by the jealous tyranny of Tiberius 
 were again permitted to be sold. In short the young 
 emperor seemed determined to ^^ crown the edifice of 
 liberty." "So far," says the historian of the Caesars, 
 "I have been speaking of a ruler; now I have to 
 speak of a monster." 
 
 In the front of his offences comes, curiously enough, 
 the insane desire, as a Roman thought it; to be a 
 crowned king. Some of the tributary monarchs, who 
 were protected by Rome, were visiting the city, and 
 he was jealous of their diadems, for was he not the 
 King of Kings? His courtiers prevailed upon him 
 to forego what would have been a fatal offence to 
 the people, always ready to be slaves, so that their 
 master was not a king. He was too great for a 
 crown, they told him; and he turned his thoughts 
 to claiming the honours of godhead. He took his 
 place as a third with the twin brethren Castor and 
 Pollux. He consecrated a temple to his own divinity, 
 founded a college of priests, and set up a statue of 
 gold, which was always covered with the same gar- 
 ments that he himself wore. With Jupiter he claimed 
 the equality of familiar intercourse. He held private 
 conferences with the great deity of the capitol, the 
 head of the Roman Pantheon, whispering in the ear 
 of the statue, and listening in his turn, and some- 
 
80 THE MADMAN ON THE THRONE. 
 
 times breaking into loud threats. " Slay me, or I 
 slay you/ he was once heard to say. 
 
 If gods fared thus at his hands, it may be imagined 
 that men did not escape. Aged senators, who had 
 filled the highest offices of State, were compelled to 
 run at his side for miles, or stand, napkin in hand, 
 while he dined. Rome seems to have been always 
 very tolerant of these indignities to the nobles. It 
 was a new and audacious experiment on its patience, 
 when he shut up the granaries, and brought all the 
 city to the verge of famine. In audacity, indeed, 
 he was never wanting. It seems to have been rather 
 by way of a practical witticism than of a measure 
 of precaution that he ordered a general massacre of 
 the exiles. " What were your thoughts while you 
 were in your island ? " "^ he asked of one who had 
 come back from exile after the death of Tiberius. 
 " I always prayed to the gods that Tiberius might 
 die, and you come to the throne." "That is exactly 
 what the exiles are doing now," he replied, and he 
 sent round the executioner. 
 
 After these atrocities, which^ indeed, are only a 
 few out of the dismal catalogue of Suetonius, it is 
 relief to turn to more harmless eccentricities. He 
 thought of destroying all the copies of Homer. 
 " Plato, " he said, " banished him from his common- 
 
 * The rocky islands in the ^Egean Sea were the place to 
 which the exiles were commonly banished. 
 
THE MADMAN ON THE THRONE. 81 
 
 wealth ; * why should not I do the same ? " Virgil 
 and Livy came under his censure, and he was very 
 nearly expelling their writings and their busts from 
 the libraries. Virgil he thought to be without genius 
 and learning; Livy was a crude and careless historian. 
 His one campaign, albeit it had the merit of being 
 bloodless, was one of his maddest acts. He marched 
 against Britain, which, since the day of Julius Csesar, 
 had been left to itself, winning a victory over the 
 Germans on his way. 
 
 The enemy indeed was a sham, a handful of 
 prisoners dressed up for the purpose, whom he was 
 summoned from his mid-day meal, with a great 
 show of alarm, to drive back from the camp. He 
 returned after routing a host which did not exist, 
 loaded his companions with honours, blamed the 
 cowardice of those who had stayed behind, and 
 censured in an angry despatch the carelessness of 
 those who were living at ease in Rome, while their 
 Emperor was imperilling his life. Britain he never 
 saw. But he drew up his army in array, and with 
 all the engines of war in their places, on the opposite 
 coast. No one could imagine what was his purpose, 
 when suddenly he bade the soldiers fill their helmets 
 and their pockets with shells. "Spoils of ocean," he 
 
 * Plato, in a well known passage of the BepubUc, proposes 
 to banish Homer from his ideal state as speaking of death in 
 a way which would discourage valour in the citizens. 
 
 6 
 
82 THE MADMAN ON THE THRONE. 
 
 called them, destined for the capitol and the palace. 
 It was possibly in a lucid moment that he ordered 
 a light-house to be built on the spot. 
 
 For such a prodigy of cruelty and folly it is hard 
 to feel anything but abhorrence. Yet it moves one's 
 pity to know that the creature was conscious of his 
 own frenzy, and sometimes thought of going into 
 retirement and submitting to some treatment. Of 
 course there is the common story of how his wife 
 Csesonia gave him a love-potion which made him 
 mad ; * but the historian's account of the matter is 
 sufficient. " He was chiefly troubled by a want of 
 sleep. He never rested for more than three hours 
 in the night. Even then his sleep was not undisturbed. 
 He was visited by terrible dreams. Accordingly he 
 was wont, w^earied as he was of lying so long awake, 
 sometimes to sit upon his bed, sometimes to wander 
 up and down the long corridors of the palace, praying 
 and longing for the dawn." 
 
 After all, it was not the public indignation but 
 private vengeance that brought him to his end. His 
 own household feared and hated him, and no one 
 more so than one Cassius Chserea, a tribune of tlu^ 
 Praetorian guard, whom he took every opportunity 
 of insulting. He had risen from his bed after noon- 
 day, for he was indisposed by the excesses of th(^ 
 previous day. He hesitated about leaving his chamber, 
 * Exactly the same tale is told of the poet Lucretius. 
 
CERONIA GAVE HIM A LOVE-POTION, p. 82. 
 
THE MADMAN ON THE THEONE. 83 
 
 but his attendants, who, doubtless, were in the plot, 
 urged him to go. He had to pass through an under- 
 ground chamber, where some boys were rehearsing 
 a spectacle that was in preparation. As he was 
 speaking to them, Chserea struck him on the neck 
 with his sword, crying, "Take this!" Another con- 
 spirator dealt him a blow on the breast. He fell on 
 the ground, and huddling his limbs together, tried to 
 shelter himself from the blows, crying out all the 
 time, I am alive, I am alive. Ninety wounds wxre 
 found afterwards on his corpse. When it was too 
 late, his German bodyguard hurried up. They could 
 •do nothing but kill some of the assassins. 
 
 Such a story only wants one horror to complete 
 it. The body was hurriedly placed on the funeral 
 pile, and buried when half-burnt in the gardens of 
 the Lamiae. The keepers of the place were disturbed 
 by the spirit of the dead (so Suetonius tells us, as 
 if it were a well-known fact), till his sisters, whom 
 he had banished, returned and paid the last honour 
 to his remains in a more seemly fashion. And in 
 his palace, too, till it was burnt to the ground, not 
 a night passed without some terrible sight. 
 
XL 
 
 CABACTACUS BEFOBE CLAUDIUS. 
 
 Claudius. 
 
 THE scenes which I have been lately presenting 
 to my readers have been scenes of tragedy. 
 The Greek drama itself, which found its favourite 
 subjects in the story of families doomed by fate to 
 an inevitable ruin, never pictured anything more full 
 of terror and gloom than the House of the Julian 
 
CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS. 00 
 
 Caesars. * It will be a relief to turn, at least for 
 once, to a less gloomy topic. 
 
 Caractacus f was the King of the Silures^ a tribe 
 of Western Britain, inhabiting the region now known 
 as Monmouthshire and South Wales. It was his hard 
 fate to see the revival of the schemes of conquest 
 which, for nearly a century, Rome had been content 
 to lay aside. Julius had conceived the idea of adding 
 Britain to the Empire, but had found, after the 
 attempt, that Gaul gave his troops employment enough. 
 The action of Augustus was to contract rather than 
 enlarge the Empire, and Tiberius imitated him with 
 scrupulous care. Caligula's campaign against Britain 
 was only a burlesque, but it showed which way 
 Roman thought was setting. Claudius, his successor, 
 
 * Without giving the somewhat intricate pedigree of the 
 family, I may state the relationship of the six Emperors who 
 are known hy this name. Augustus was the nephew (sister's 
 son) and adopted son of Julius Ccesar ; Tiberius was the 
 adopted son of Augustus; Caligula, great-grandson of Augustus ; 
 Claudius, nephew of Tiberius, and uncle of Caligula; iV^ro, 
 nephew of Caligula. The twelve Caesars are the twelve Emperors 
 whose lives are given in Suetonius' " Lives of the Caesars." 
 Three of these (Galba, Otho, and Yitellius) succeeded and 
 perished in the course of a single year (a.d. 69). The number 
 is made up by the three Flavian Emperors, Vespasian, and his 
 sons, Titus and Domitian. Their family name was Flavius. 
 
 t The name is probably the Latinized form of Caradoc, and 
 would be more correctly spelt 'Caratacus.' 
 
86 CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS. 
 
 undertook a regular conquest of the island, and 
 commanded in person the army first sent over. 
 Britain was now the last witness for freedom in 
 Western Europe, and it fell to the lot of Caractacus, 
 who had a certain predominance among the British 
 chiefs, to be her champion in the unequal strugo'Ie. 
 The south and east of the island had been subjugated 
 in the course of nine campaigns, and Caractacus was 
 driven to fight for his own home. The locality of 
 the last conflict is uncertain, but the historian describes 
 the position as having been chosen with consummate 
 skill. The British camp was on a hill-side; the 
 approaches to it were steep in the extreme, except 
 in one place, and here a stone rampart had been built. 
 In front was a scarcely fordable stream. Attack 
 svas difficult, and retreat dangerous. The King him- 
 self could be seen everywhere encouraging his 
 countrymen to repel the invader, and he was received 
 with the greatest enthusiasm by the army. The 
 Roman general was fairly terrified by the strength 
 of the position and the numbers of the enemy, and 
 would have postponed the battle. The soldiers 
 insisted on fighting at once, and they were right. 
 The discipline and arms of civilization triumphed 
 over barbarian valour. The Romans suffered much 
 while they were mounting the ascent under a shower 
 of missiles. When they came to close quarters, their 
 victory was won. The Britons had neither helmets 
 
CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS. 87 
 
 nor breast-plates, and it is probable that some, at 
 least, of their weapons were of bronze. 
 
 The wife, the daughter, and the brothers of Caractacus 
 were taken prisoners, and though the king himself 
 escaped, it was only to be betrayed by the friend 
 with whom he had taken refuge, Cartismandua, Queen 
 of the Brigantes. "^^ He was handed over to the 
 Roman general, and by him sent in chains to Rome. 
 
 The man who had for nine years continued to 
 make head against the forces of the Empire was no 
 common person, and public curiosity was greatly 
 excited about him. The Emperor had not forgotten 
 that his one military achievement had been a victory 
 in Britain, f and he wished to take this opportunity 
 of reviving his fame as a soldier, which indeed it 
 was never quite safe for an Emperor to allow to 
 be forgotten. A great spectacle was prepared in the 
 Field of Mars, and all Rome thronged out to witness 
 it. The Praetorian troops, fully accoutred, were 
 drawn up in front of their camp. Claudius sat on 
 what may be called a platform, but was really a 
 mound of earth. Not far from him sat the Empress, 
 Agrippina the Younger. The standards of the Praetor- 
 
 * The Brigantes inhabited the greater part of Yorkshire, 
 and the whole of Lancashire, Durham, Westmoreland, and 
 Cumberland. 
 
 t Suetonius says that there was no fighting, but there are 
 reasons for suspecting the truth of this statement. 
 
88 CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS. 
 
 ians were grouped about them both. Men were not 
 Avanting there who were shocked at the spectacle of 
 a woman thus arrogating to herself, as it seemed, 
 the command over Roman troops. But then Agrippina 
 thought herself entitled to at least an equal share in 
 a power which her ancestors had won. The spoils 
 of war passed in a brilliant procession before the 
 Imperial seats. Then came the family of Caractacus, 
 and last of all, the captive king himself. While his 
 companions in misfortune descended to prayers for 
 mercy, he preserved a dignified bearing. Claudius 
 bade him speak if he had anything to say for him- 
 self. What follows is the substance of what he said, 
 or, at least, of what the historian puts in his mouth. 
 •' If my prudence had been equal to the glories of 
 my position and my greatness, you would be treating 
 me to-day, not as a prisoner, but as an ally. I had 
 horses and men, I had wealth and arms with which 
 to defend it. It is no wonder that I was unwilling 
 to lose them. It does not follow that, because you 
 Romans desire to dominate all mankind, all mankind 
 should bow their necks to your yoke. As for myself, 
 you can kill me, if you will. Then this day will be 
 forgotten. Save my life, and your clemency will be 
 remembered for ever." 
 
 Such clemency was almost unknown to a Roman 
 conqueror. Jugurtha had been left to die of hunger 
 in his prison; Vercingetorix, the last of the Gauls. 
 
CARACTACUS BEFORE CLAUDIUS. 89 
 
 had been put to death by the very man who describes 
 so sympathetically his valour and his skill. Claudius 
 was of a different temper, and, perhaps, the times 
 had altered since that for the better. Anyhow the 
 British king and his family were spared. Policy, 
 however, did not allow them to return to their native 
 country, and they spent the remainder of their days 
 in Italy. The daughter is said to have married a 
 Roman gentleman. 
 
 One saying is recorded of the captive, when, after 
 his audience before the Emperor, he was taken to 
 see the sights of Rome. "And you," he said, "who 
 had this magnificent city of your own, envied us 
 our poor huts ! " With this remark the British chief 
 vanishes into obscurity. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. 
 
 CLAUDIUS, the fourth of the Julian Caesars, was 
 one of those unhappy men who, through no 
 fault of their own, miss their vocation. Nature made 
 him for a scholar, and fortune made him an emperor. 
 He had some learning, and was genuinely fond of 
 literature ; but in person and manner he was singularly 
 awkward and ungainly. His mother had the greatest 
 aversion to him. "A greater fool than my son Claudius," 
 was the most unfavourable judgment that she could 
 pass on any one. Augustus thought him unfit to 
 hold any public office of importance; Tiberius annulled 
 certain complimentary resolutions which the senate 
 had passed concerning him. Caligula made him his 
 butt. If he came a minute too late to dinner, he found 
 his place filled up. If he fell asleep after the meal, 
 which he commonly did, the emperor and his guests 
 pelted him with the stones of olives and dates, or 
 woke him up with a stroke from a cane or a whip. 
 
THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. 91 
 
 In the Senate he was the last of the ex-consuls to 
 be asked his opinion. The solitary honour bestowed 
 on him was his nomination to a priesthood, and for 
 this he had to pay so extravagant a sum * that he 
 was reduced to poverty. 
 
 Then came a sudden change of fortune. He was 
 in attendance at court when Caligula was assassinated. 
 In his terror he sought to conceal himself under some 
 curtains, but a soldier saw his legs sticking out from 
 his hiding place, and from mere curiosity dragged 
 him out. The poor wretch fell at his captor's knees, 
 and was astonished to find himself saluted as emperor. 
 Other soldiers gathered round, put him into a litter, 
 and carried him through the streets to the camp. 
 All who saw him thought that he was being carried 
 off to execution ; and, indeed, for some time his fate 
 was doubtful. The Senate, supported by a few cohorts 
 of the city soldiers, thought of re-establishing the 
 Republic. But there was no energy, no harmony in 
 their action, and the populace was unmistakably in 
 favour of a despotism. Claudius had the claim of 
 birth, and he was acknowledged without further 
 opposition, but not till he had purchased the Praetorians 
 with the enormous bribe of J120 per man. 
 
 I have not to tell the story of his reign. It was 
 a dismal time for Rome, not because the Emperor 
 
 * £640,000. 
 
92 THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. 
 
 was bad, but because he fell into bad hands. He 
 was a glutton and a voluptuary, but he was not 
 blood-thirsty. And yet, such was his weakness under 
 the control of designing advisers and counsellors, he 
 shed more innocent blood than rulers w^ho were ten 
 times more cruel. At last the end came. His wife, 
 the younger Agrippina, had induced him to set aside 
 his own offspring, Britannicus, in favour of her son 
 Nero. But he showed signs of repenting of the act. 
 " He that gave the wound can heal, " he said one 
 day to the lad. Shortly afterwards he was poisoned, 
 according to common report, by a dish of mushrooms, 
 handed to him by his wife. 
 
 This wretched creature, who scarcely deserved to 
 be called a man, was added to the number of the 
 Roman gods. The satire with which Seneca resented 
 this foolish act of adulation is one of the most 
 curious remains of Roman literature. 
 
 Claudius, in obedience to the decree which had 
 made him a god, presents himself at the gate of 
 heaven and demands entrance. The report of the 
 door-keeper is that he is tall, lame of one leg, and 
 always shaking his head, that it was impossible to 
 tell of what race he was, especially whether he was 
 a Greek * or a Roman. Hercules, as the great 
 traveller among the dwellers in heaven, is deputed 
 
 * Claudius prided himself on his Greek scholarship. 
 
THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. 93 
 
 to question the stranger, recognises him, and is much 
 impressed by his claims. 
 
 A high debate follows among the gods as to whether 
 the new claimant is to be admitted. Janus, who opens 
 it, roundly asserts that, in his opinion, the honour had 
 been made too common, and that, in future, no mortal 
 should be admitted to it. Hercules pleads in his favour. 
 Other gods take sides for or against him. Finally the 
 motion is formally proposed: "Seeing that Claudius 
 is of the kin of Augustus, let him be made a god, 
 and let the thing be added to the Metamorphoses of 
 Ovid. " * Hercules is very urgent in recommending 
 him to his fellow-immortals. He canvasses them all, 
 and beseeches them to vote for him as a personal 
 favour. He would do the same for them on another 
 occasion. "Scratch me, and Til scratch you." Then 
 Augustus rises. " He had never, " he said, "addressed 
 them before, but had always been content to mind 
 his own business, but this was a thing that he could 
 not pass over. He must speak, seeing that the fellow 
 was a kinsman of his own. He has filled the world 
 with massacre," he went on, "but of this I will not 
 speak for the present; I will dwell only on the 
 murders with which he has polluted his own house. 
 He slew the two Julias, one of them his niece, and 
 
 * The joke, of course, is that the changing of Claudius into 
 a god was as strange a metamorphosis as any that Ovid had 
 related. 
 
94 THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. 
 
 one his cousin ; * and he slew them unheard and 
 uncondemned. This may be the custom upon earth, 
 but it is not our fashion in heaven. He slew a w^hole 
 crowd of kinsmen, one of them so foolish that he 
 might have been Emperor himself. Look at him. 
 What a figure he is ! Scarcely human, much less divine I 
 Hear him speak. Can he utter three consecutive 
 words? Who will worship such a god as this? If 
 this be the sort of creature that you deify, man will 
 refuse to believe that you are gods yourselves. I 
 propose this motion: 'Seeing that this Claudius slew 
 so many of his kindred and his wife, it is hereby 
 commanded that he quit heaven w^ithin thirty days.' " 
 The Senate of the gods divided on the question, and 
 the motion of Augustus was carried. Thereupon 
 Hermes, the conductor of souls, was called in. He 
 carried off the banished man to the region below, 
 going by way of Rome. As he approached the city, 
 Claudius saw his own funeral, and heard, with great 
 delight, his own praises. So at last it dawned upon 
 his slow intellect that he was really dead. As he 
 came near to the gates of the City of the Dead, 
 there went up a great shout, Claudms is coming! 
 And straightway a crowd of his victims went forth 
 to meet him. His kinsmen were there and his wafe, 
 
 * (1) The daughter of Germanicus; (2) the daughter of the 
 younger Drusus. 
 
THE DEIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. 95 
 
 and nobles and freedmen, thirty senators among them, 
 and three hundred and fifteen knights, and a crowd 
 of common folk like the sand on the sea-shore for 
 multitude. Claudius stood astonished at the sight. 
 " Why, the whole place is full of them ! " he cried ; 
 and then, stolidly unconscious of his having had 
 anything to do with their presence, "And pray how 
 did you come here ? " He is carried off to be tried 
 by ^acus, judge of the dead. iEacus hears the charge 
 against him, declines to listen to his defence (a 
 proceeding that astonishes the audience, but is pro- 
 nounced to be but paying him in his own coin), and 
 finds him guilty. Then his sentence is debated. 
 Should he take the place of one of the old offend- 
 ers? Sisyphus or Tantalus might well give place 
 to him. But no. If they were released, Claudius 
 might himself hope for some future remission of his 
 punishment, and that is not to be thought of. Finally 
 ^Eacus condemns him to throw dice for ever out of 
 a dice-box without a bottom. And so we leave him. 
 It points the story to know that Claudius had actually 
 a temple and a priesthood dedicated to him in the 
 British colony of Camalodunum, and that this was 
 made one of the means of oppression and extortion 
 which exhausted the patience of the natives and led 
 to the bloody revolt of the Iceni under Boadicea. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE YOUXGEB AGRIPPIXA. 
 
 THE domestic tragedy which we have seen in the 
 family of the first of the Caesars repeated itself 
 with this last, but with an added horror. Livia had 
 cleared the way to the throne for her own son, and 
 had found herself repaid with jealousy and ingratitude. 
 The younger Agrippina set before herself exactly the 
 same aim, and was equally successful in attaining it. 
 What was the return she met with, it is the object 
 of the present paper to show. 
 
 She persuaded her half-imbecile husband, Claudius, 
 to set aside his child. Britannicus, in favour of her 
 own son^ Nero. Before Xero had been two years 
 on the throne, Britannicus was dead, poisoned by 
 the young monster who had been put into his place. 
 Agrippina had no hand in this crime. On the contrary, 
 it struck her with dismay. As long as the lad was 
 alive, she could hold his rights in terroretn over the 
 head of her son, and keep the unruly youth in 
 
THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER AGRIPPINA. 97 
 
 subjection to herself. When he was dead, she felt, 
 says the historian, that her main-stay was gone, and 
 that, as he adds with sinister significance, this was 
 but the first kindred blood that the young despot 
 would shed. 
 
 The quarrel between the two soon grew furious. 
 The mother tried to make a party for herself; the 
 son stripped her of all the honours which had been 
 bestowed upon her. The breach indeed was not open. 
 They still met; there were the common displays of 
 affection, the kiss given and received ; but Agrippina 
 would have stripped her son of the power he owed 
 to her, if she could ; and Nero was only waiting his 
 opportunity to rid himself at once of her obligation 
 and his danger. 
 
 Poison was first tried. Three times it was ad- 
 ministered, and each time it failed. She had fortified 
 herself, it is said, against its action by antidotes. 
 The same story is told of more than one distinguished 
 personage of antiquity ; but I fancy this science does 
 not know of the possibility of any such safe-guarding 
 against deadly drugs. Whatever the cause, the poison 
 failed, and Nero had recourse to another method. 
 He invited his mother to his house on the Campanian 
 coast, the Brighton of Rome, at the same time ex- 
 pressing his regret if there had been anything unfilial 
 in his conduct. He met her as she landed — she came 
 by sea — embraced her affectionately, and invited her 
 
 7 
 
98 THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER AGEIPPINA. 
 
 to dine with him. A vessel, very handsomely equipped, 
 was at hand. Would she embark, he asked, and go 
 by water to his palace? She declined — for reasons 
 we shall soon be able to understand — preferring to 
 be conveyed by a litter along the shore. Nero was 
 most courteous and affectionate. He gave his mother 
 the seat of honour ; he talked long with her on sub- 
 jects grave and gay. When she bade him farewell 
 for the night, he kissed her more warmly than usual, 
 " so deep was his dissimulation, " says Tacitus, " or 
 perhaps," he adds, one can hardly think seriously, 
 " even his savage heart was touched by the thought 
 that he should not see his mother again. Anyhow, 
 his victim's suspicions were thoroughly lulled. She 
 accepted the offer which she had refused before, and 
 embarked. 
 
 The night was calm and starlit — " heaven would 
 have it so," says the historian, "that the crime 
 might not es cape detection ! " Agrippina lay on 
 cushions in the stern ; a favourite freed-woman 
 was with her, and a trusted attendant steered. 
 Suddenly the canopy fell. It had been weighted with 
 lead, and the steersman was killed by the blow. 
 The two women escaped, saved by the lofty side of 
 the sofa on which they lay. Then the signal was 
 given to remove the bolts which kept the vessel 
 together (it had been so constructed as to come to 
 pieces when these were withdrawn), but the machinery 
 
THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER AGRIPPINA. 99 
 
 did not work. Then the rowers tried to upset the 
 ship by throwing their whole weight on to one side. 
 But all were not in the secret. Some resisted the 
 movement. The vessel was upset indeed, but this was 
 done so gradually that the passengers were lowered 
 into the water without being hurt. The freed- woman, 
 thinking to get the speedier help, cried out " I am 
 the Emperor's mother," and was immediately des- 
 patched by blows from boat-hooks and oars. Agrippina 
 made no sign and swam to shore, escaping with but 
 one blow on the shoulder. 
 
 Agrippina now knew perfectly well what had been 
 intended, but her only hope of safety was in not 
 seeming to know it. She sent a message to her 
 son. " She had escaped," she said, " a terrible danger. 
 Of course he would be very anxious about her, 
 but he must not come to see her, for she wanted 
 rest." The affectionate son was indeed anxious, but 
 it was the escape, not the danger, that troubled him. 
 He pictured to himself the furious woman, whose 
 courage he well knew, appealing to the protection of 
 the soldiers, or making her way into the streets and 
 reproaching him with her w^ound, and with the death 
 of her friends. Could Seneca and Burrhus, once his 
 tutors, now his counsellors, help him? He sent for 
 them and asked their advice. Seneca was a philo- 
 sopher who has left the world some admirable moral- 
 ity; Burrhus was a rough, honest soldier. One would 
 
100 THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER AGRIPPINA. 
 
 like to hear that they rebuked the murderer to his 
 face. But civic courage had degenerated at Rome 
 under a century of despotism. Tacitus even doubts 
 whether they had not been privy to the attempt. 
 Anyhow they stood silent. They knew that they could 
 not dissuade the wretch from his purpose. Possibly 
 they knew that either the mother or the son must 
 perish. At last the philosopher turned to his soldier 
 colleague, and asked him whether the troops could 
 be trusted to do the deed. Burrhus replied that they 
 could not: the memory of Germanicus lived among 
 them, and they would not raise a hand against his 
 daughter. Let those who had failed with their poison 
 and their ship find some surer way. 
 
 The advice was taken. The freedman who had been 
 Nero's agent in the matter hurried with a band of assas- 
 sins to Agrippina's villa. The shore was crowded with a 
 curious and anxious multitude. The news had spread 
 that the Empress-mother had been in peril of her life, but 
 now was safe; and friends and acquaintances hurried 
 to congratulate her, torch in hand, for it was now 
 the dead of night. They fled at the sight of the 
 armed men. The freedman and his followers burst 
 into the villa, and made their way to the dimly 
 lighted chamber, where the unhappy woman sat with 
 a single maid. "Do you leave me too?" she cried, 
 as her solitary attendant rushed from the room. In 
 another minute the deed was done. Years before she 
 
THE DEATH OF THE YOUNGER AGRIPPINA. 101 
 
 had been warned — so the story ran — that this would 
 be her end. She had consulted the astrologers, and 
 they had told her that her son would be Emperor, 
 and would slay his mother. "Let him slay," she 
 cried, "if only he reign." 
 
XIV. 
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 IT was a common practice for wealthy testators 
 under the empire to leave a part of their property 
 to the Emperor, and so to purchase his forbearance 
 for the rest. "^ Prasutagus, the King of the Iceni, (a 
 tribe inhabiting what is now Norfolk and Suffolk) 
 had thus endeavoured to save a part of his wealth 
 for his family. The bribe was given in vain. The 
 agents of the Emperor, possibly under the pretence 
 of making a valuation, ransacked the palace, and 
 treated the widowed queen and his daughters with 
 the cruellest indignities. 
 
 This act was the signal for the outburst of a 
 hatred which had long been gathering strength. The 
 head-quarters of the Roman power in Eastern Britain 
 
 * Thus Agricola left a third of his wealth to Domitian. The 
 tyrant regarded it as a compliment, not knowing, as Agricola's 
 biographer significantly remarks, that it is only a bad Emperor 
 to whom a good father makes such a bequest. 
 
A STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 103 
 
 was the Colony of Camalodunum (Colchester). A 
 Roman colonist was, in theory, a veteran soldier 
 turned into a farmer, still wearing his sword, so to 
 speak, while following the plough. As a matter of 
 fact; he often lived in insolent idleness and profligacy 
 on the labours of the native cultivator of the soil. 
 Camalodunum seems to have had many of these 
 absentee landlords, who were as useless as they 
 were mischievous. They had even neglected the 
 commonest precautions of defence. Walls make a 
 town less agreeable as a place of residence, and so 
 walls had been dispensed with. The only place 
 resembling a fortress was the temple of the deified 
 Claudius. This had itself been made a curious engine 
 of tyranny. It was served by a college of priests, 
 and the honours of this priesthood were forced on 
 wealthy Britons. An enormous fee was demanded from 
 them for admission, they had to support an expensive 
 ritual, and to give extravagant banquets. 
 
 The strange portents, of which Roman history is 
 so full, and which it is so difficult either to 
 believe or to disbelieve, were not wanting. The 
 statue of Victory fell, apparently without any cause, 
 and fell in such a way as to seem in the act of 
 flight. A sound of wailing was heard in the streets. 
 There were terrible sights in the sky and the sea. 
 A more reasonable cause of fear was the defenceless 
 state of the colony and the absence of available 
 
104 ' A STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 help. The main body of the legions was in the 
 extreme west of the island, where Suetonius, the 
 governor, was attacking Mona (Angiesea) the great 
 stronghold of the Druid superstition. This was, of 
 course, the opportunity for which the British chiefs 
 had been waiting. The colonists begged for help. 
 The civil governor sent them two hundred half-armed 
 soldiers. They took refuge in the temple of Clau- 
 dius. It might have been successfully defended 
 against an unskilful enemy, if proper precautions had 
 been taken. But the place was crowded with non- 
 combatants, who ought to have been sent away long 
 before. For this some excuse might be urged ; but 
 the failure to provide the outer defence of a ditch 
 and rampart was absolute folly. The temple held 
 out for two days only. It was then taken by storm 
 and burnt to the ground. The ninth legion was 
 hurrying up to the relief of the colony when it was 
 met by the victorious Britons. Probably the officer 
 in command had expected that his countrymen would 
 make a more obstinate resistance, and was taken by 
 surprise. Anyhow the result of the engagement was 
 disastrous. The cavalry, indeed, escaped to the near- 
 est camp, but the infantry was cut to pieces. 
 
 By this time Suetonius had returned from the 
 west. He had hurried on in advance of his main 
 body, and was not strong enough to fight. And yet 
 to fight was necessary, if London was to be saved. 
 
A STKUGGLE FOE FREEDOM. 105 
 
 It was a difficult situation, for London was the most 
 populous and the wealthiest city in Britain. The 
 instincts of the soldier prevailed. The Roman power 
 must be saved from further disaster, even at the 
 sacrifice of the town. Resisting the entreaties of the 
 inhabitants, he evacuated the place. It fell, without 
 resistance, into the hands of the Britons. Verulamium 
 (St. Albans) shared the same fate. As many as seventy 
 thousand Romans and friendly Britons were mas- 
 sacred in the two towns, for there was no thought 
 either of giving quarter or taking prisoners. When 
 Suetonius found that he could muster as many as 
 ten thousand troops, he resolved to fight. His position 
 was skilfully chosen, with hills on either side and a 
 forest in the rear. The heavy-armed infantry, in 
 close ranks, occupied the centre, the skirmishers and 
 the cavalry were on the wings. The Britons, who 
 had collected an army more numerous than had ever 
 before been seen in the island, crowded the level 
 ground in front of the Roman position. On two rows 
 of waggons, in the rear, stood the wives and daughters 
 of the combatants, placed there at once to witness 
 their valour and to encourage it. 
 
 Tacitus records the speeches with which, as he 
 tells us, the rival commanders raised the courage of 
 their followers. The words which he attributes to 
 Boadicea are just what she might have uttered — 
 more than can be said of the learned oration which 
 
106 A STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 a later historian (Dio Cassius) puts into her mouth. 
 She reminded them of the wrongs that she and her 
 children — they rode beside her in the royal chariot — 
 and they themselves had suffered. The day of ven- 
 geance was at hand. One legion had been already 
 cut to pieces; the others would share their fate. So 
 tremendous were the odds that the enemy would not 
 endure the mere noise of their onset, much less their 
 active attack. "At the worst," so she concluded, 
 "we must conquer or fall. Men may live to be 
 slaves; but this is what a woman has resolved." 
 Suetonius's harangue it is needless to give. He appealed 
 to the memory of victory after victory won over the 
 same enemy, and appealed, it will be seen, with a 
 confidence that was only too well grounded. 
 
 With the steady patience that has decided so many 
 battles, the Romans held their ground till the first 
 force of the British attack was over, and their stores 
 of missiles fell short. Then there was a simiultaneous 
 advance along the whole line. Heavy armed, light 
 armed, and cavalry charged together. The really 
 active portion of the British host was small, and 
 oven these could not resist the well armed, highly 
 disciplined legionaries. As for the rest of the mul- 
 titude, it fell an easy, almost unresisting prey to the 
 swords of the Romans. The array of waggons made 
 flight impossible, and the slaughter was fearful. As 
 many as eighty thousand are said to have fallen. 
 
A STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. 107 
 
 while the Roman loss was but four hundred, and as 
 many wounded. Boadicea poisoned herself, and the 
 most hopeful effort that Britain had ever made to 
 shake off the yoke of the conqueror ended in utter 
 failure. 
 
XV 
 
 THE GEE AT FIRE OF ROME. 
 
 Nero, 
 
 IN A.D. 64, when Nero had been about ten years 
 on the throne, Rome was visited by a calamity 
 which surpassed, by common consent, all previous 
 disasters, the capture and destruction of the city by 
 the Gauls alone excepted. A fire broke out on the 
 night of the 20th of July, the very day, as the 
 curious in such matters noted, on which, about four 
 centuries and a half before, the Gauls had entered 
 
THE GKEAT FIRE OF ROME. 109 
 
 the city. It lasted five days, not reckoning a smaller 
 and less fatal conflagration which followed shortly 
 afterwards, and before any attempts at rebuilding 
 had been made."^ 
 
 The fire began in the shops which had grown up 
 round the south-eastern end of the great Circus, in 
 the low ground which there divided the Caelian and 
 the Aventine Hills. Tacitus says that these shops 
 contained " goods by which flames are fed," a dignified 
 periphrasis, the commentators tell us, for oil, pitch, 
 resin, sulphur, and the like. There was a strong 
 wind blowing at the time, and in a few minutes the 
 whole length of the Circus was in flames. It was a 
 neighbourhood entirely consisting of poor houses, and 
 the conflagration swept over it like a storm. If 
 there had been a temple in the way, or even a 
 solidly built stone house, the progress of the fire 
 would have been arrested for a time. As it was, it 
 rushed on without a pause, and before anything could 
 
 * Tacitus says that it was extinguished "on the sixth day." 
 This means, according to the Roman reckoning, that, beginning 
 some time in the evening of July 20th, it lasted four whole 
 days, and was put out some time in the course of July 25th. 
 But it broke out again, he tells us. Suetonius' words are : 
 " It raged for six days and seven nights. " The great fire of 
 London began on September 2nd^ 1666, burnt during the whole 
 of the next three days, and was extinguished in the course of 
 September 6th. 
 
110 THE GEEAT FIRE OF ROME. 
 
 be done to check it, had reached proportions with 
 which it was impossible to grapple. 
 
 Tacitus does not tell us what direction the flames 
 took: but we may gather that, at least at first, it was 
 northw^esterly. But he tells us how much of the city was 
 destroyed. Something less than a third (four out of 
 the fourteen districts) was uninjured: somewhat more 
 than a fifth (three districts) w^as utterly destroyed; 
 in the remaining seven, something, but not much 
 was left. Tacitus mentions some of the buildings that 
 were destroyed. The list, both from what it gives 
 and what it omits, helps us in a certain degree to 
 find out what perished and what escaped. Old Rome 
 was destroyed, the Rome, that is, of the kings, and 
 the legendary period that went before the kings. The 
 Temple of Vesta and the glories of the Forum perished. 
 On the other hand, we may infer, as no mention is 
 made of it, that the Capitol escaped. The Palatine 
 Hill was swept bare by the flames. This, apparently, 
 was one of the last regions to be devastated. Nero 
 was at Antium when the fire broke out, and did not 
 return till he heard that his own palace was in danger. 
 Nothing, it would seem, could be done to save it. 
 But the conflagration had now almost exhausted itself. 
 The Villa of Maecenas, which had been, in a way, 
 taken into the Imperial residence, was burnt. This 
 was on the Esquiline Hill. But it was at the foot 
 of this hill, probably the foot on the opposite side 
 
THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME. Ill 
 
 to the Palatine, that the fire was finally checked. 
 A vast number of houses were pulled down, and the 
 rest of the city, including parts of the Viminal and 
 Quirinal Hills, was thus saved. 
 
 The distress caused by this calamity was wide- 
 spread and deep. The suddenness of the outbreak 
 paralysed not only all efforts to arrest the flames, but, 
 often, the energy to escape. There was barely time 
 for the able-bodied to rescue the w^eak, the helpless, 
 the sick. The narrow and winding streets, built up, 
 as we know they often were, to an enormous height, 
 made it very difficult to save property or even life. 
 Sometimes the fugitives would seek refuge in a locality 
 that they fondly imagined to be safe, and would find 
 themselves overtaken a second time. Not a few, in 
 a despair at having lost their all, or broken-hearted 
 at not having been able to rescue children or parents, 
 made no efforts to escape from the flames, and actually 
 perished where they sat. 
 
 Nero was not wanting in his duties as a ruler. 
 The buildings in the Field of Mars, especially the 
 splendid structures erected by Agrippa, the son-in-law 
 of Augustus, his colonnades, baths, and terraced 
 gardens, were thrown open to the homeless and desti- 
 tute multitude. Temporary buildings were erected 
 for the same purpose of sheltering the victims of 
 the fire in the Emperor's own gardens. Provisions 
 were brought in abundance from Ostia, the port of 
 
112 THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME. 
 
 Rome, and from the neighbouring towns. A public 
 edict lowered the price of wheat to sixpence the 
 peck, the Government^ it is to be supposed, reim- 
 bursing the dealers for the difference between this 
 and the market price. "^ 
 
 The people received his bounty with but little 
 thankfulness. The fact was that dark suspicions were 
 abroad about the origin of the fire. The Emperor 
 himself, so it was whispered, had commanded it. 
 He wanted to have the glory of building a new 
 Rome, that was to be constructed on his plans, and 
 of which he was to be the Second Founder. Suetonius, 
 who was not born till some seven or eight years 
 after the event, speaks Vv^ith confidence on the point. 
 He writes: — "Displeased, it would seem, at the 
 unsightliness of the old buildings, and the narrow, 
 winding streets, he set the city on fire. This was 
 so notorious, that when some of his personal attend- 
 ants were found with torches and lighted tow in 
 houses that belonged to him, their captors, though 
 men of the highest rank, did not apprehend them. 
 Certain houses that surrounded his Golden House, 
 the site of which he particularly desired to secure, 
 were actually battered with large engines — they were 
 built with stone walls — and then burnt." Dion Cassius, 
 
 * This, it must be understood, had nothing to do with the 
 gratuitous distribution of corn. It was meant to relieve a sudden 
 pressure on the independent poor. 
 
THE GEE AT FIRE OF ROME. 113 
 
 who was a century later, is equally positive as to 
 the Emperor's guilt, but ascribes a different motive, 
 which; indeed, Suetonius also mentions. This was a 
 frantic desire to destroy the city and the Empire 
 itself. "Happy Priam! " he was wont to exclaim, 
 " who saw Troy and his own dominion perishing 
 together ! " Dion tells us of emissaries sent to kindle 
 fires in various places, and gives us a graphic story 
 of the perplexity of the inhabitants, who did not 
 know where the trouble with which they had to 
 contend began or ended. " The flames were every- 
 where,'' he says, "like the fires in a camp." Tacitus 
 speaks distinctly of men who threatened violence 
 against all who attempted to extinguish the flames, 
 and of others who were seen throwing about lighted 
 brands, and who cried out that they had been told 
 to do so. " Either, " he goes on, " they wanted larger 
 opportunities for plunder, or they were acting by 
 order." Dion expressly charges the soldiers and 
 watchmen with not only neglecting to extinguish, 
 but actually spreading the fire, " for plunder's sake, " 
 he adds. 
 
 There is another matter in which Suetonius and 
 Dion agree in making a positive assertion, while 
 Tacitus, who, it must be remembered, had all the 
 hatred of an aristocrat for the imperial system, 
 speaks cautiously of " report." "Nero," says Suetonius, 
 " looked at the conflagration from the tower of the 
 
 8 
 
114 THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME. 
 
 villa of Maecenas. The magnificence of the flames 
 so delighted him, to use his own words, that he put 
 on his theatrical robes, and sang to the harp 'The 
 Burning of Troy.' " Tacitus contents himself with 
 saying that the Emperor's munificence was but little 
 appreciated because of the rumour about the singing. 
 He says nothing of the tower, but mentions the stage 
 in the Palace, from which, of course, there could 
 have been no view of the burning city. It is as well 
 to imitate the caution of the contemporary historian. 
 Nero had such a passion for the monstrous "^ that he 
 was capable of anything, but there is no necessity 
 for supposing his guilt. In a city so circumstanced, 
 a great fire was only too possible. And wherever 
 any such catastrophe has occurred, the popular belief 
 always turns to some particular culprit. The great 
 fire of London was long attributed to the machinations 
 of the Romanists. An inscription on the monument 
 which was erected to commemorate it expressly charged 
 them with the crime. Others said that the Dutch, 
 then our chief rivals in commerce and for the supremacy 
 of the seas, were the incendiaries. 
 
 Nero certainly availed himself of the opportunity, 
 however obtained, of building a new city. The most 
 splendid erection was the new Palace ; but even this 
 was less marvellous than the gardens and park which 
 surrounded it, and this, it must be remembered, in 
 
 * Tacitus's significant phrase is, " incredibilium cupitor/ 
 
THE GKEAT FIKE OF KOME. 115 
 
 the very centre of Eome. " It was not the jewels 
 and the gold, long familiar objects," says Tacitus, 
 " quite vulgarised by our extravagance, that were so 
 wonderful ; it was rather the fields and lakes, with 
 woods on one side to resemble a wilderness, and, on 
 the other, open spaces and extensive views. ^' 
 
 The rest of the city, " whatever was not occupied 
 by his mansion," says the historian significantly, was 
 rebuilt on the most improved plan; not as it had 
 been after the burning by the Grauls, without any regu- 
 larity or in any fashion, but with rows of streets built 
 according to measurement, with broad thoroughfares, 
 and with a restriction on the height of the houses, with 
 open spaces, and the further addition of colonnades. 
 
 The Emperor spared no expense in making every- 
 thing as perfect as he could. But the money that he 
 spent came, after all, out of the pockets of the people, 
 and the dissatisfaction, if not loudly expressed (for 
 the time for open rebellion had not yet come) was 
 strong and deep. To direct the popular hatred from 
 himself, he had recourse to a strange device. *" All 
 the lavish gifts of the Emperor, " writes Tacitus , *" all 
 the propitiations of the gods did not banish the sinister 
 belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. 
 Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened 
 the guilt, and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on 
 a class hated for their odious crimes, to whom the 
 populace gave the name of Christians. Christus, from 
 
116 THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME. 
 
 whom the name had its origin, suifered the penalty 
 of death during the reign of Tiberius, at the hands 
 of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most 
 mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, 
 again broke out not only in Judea, the first source 
 of the evil, but even in Rome, where, indeed, all 
 things hideous and shameful from every part of the 
 world find their centre and become popular. Accord- 
 ingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded 
 guilty ; then, upon their information, an immense 
 multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime 
 of setting fire to the city, as of hatred against 
 mankind. Mockery of every cause was added to 
 their deaths. They were covered with the skins of 
 beasts, and in this guise torn to pieces by dogs, or 
 they were nailed to crosses, or finally burnt, serving 
 as a nightly illumination when daylight failed. "^ 
 
 In this strange fashion began the long contest that 
 for nearly three centuries was waged between the 
 Empire and the Church. Nero found in the professors 
 of the New Faith nothing but a set of obscure fanatics, 
 and Tacitus echoes faithfully enough the common 
 prejudice of his day. The most important point in 
 what he says is his testimony to the vast numbers 
 of those who were touched by the " new superstition. " 
 Paul was still alive, and already a " vast multitude " 
 was convicted of the " crime " of believing in the 
 Master whom he preached. 
 
XVL 
 
 A GEE AT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 BY the time that Nero had been eight years upon 
 the throne his follies and cruelties had made, as 
 we may readily believe, many enemies. The Roman 
 populace, indeed, viewed his excesses, almost to the 
 end of his reign, with a sympathetic indulgence; but 
 the upper classes regarded him with an almost un- 
 animous hatred and contempt. Some had a genuine 
 abhorrence of his vices and crimes; others felt a 
 special disgust at the silly pranks, the acting and 
 harp-playing, by which he lowered the dignity of 
 the ruler of Rome; many had received those per- 
 sonal affronts which supply even more cogent motives 
 than the indignation of the moralist or the pride of 
 the patriot. And as the Emperor fell more and more 
 into disfavour with all that was best and noblest in 
 Rome, all eyes were turned on a man who seemed 
 to be not unworthy to occupy the throne which he 
 had disgraced. 
 
118 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 Caius Calpurnius Piso was one of the most popular 
 men in Rome, and, though not of a character 
 that wholly approved itself to sterner judges, not 
 wholly unworthy of his popularity. He did not be- 
 long to the highest nobility, the class still represented 
 by the Fabii and the Scipios, but his family, origin- 
 ally plebeian, had long been distinguished in the 
 State. A Piso had served with some credit in the 
 Second Punic War ; the head of the house in the next 
 generation had attained the dignity of the Consul- 
 ship. For the two centuries and a half that followed, 
 the family had produced an abundance of soldiers and 
 statesmen. The name occurs fourteen times in the 
 list of Consuls. A daughter of the house was the 
 famous Calpurnia who became the second wife of the 
 Dictator Julius ; the brother of this lady filled the 
 office of Prefect of the City during twenty years of 
 the reign of Tiberius, and died in extreme old age 
 without either forfeiting the favour of his suspicious 
 master or the good-will of his countrymen. Cal- 
 purnius Piso had a handsome face and a command- 
 ing presence; he was a wealthy man who knew 
 how to give away; his courtesy was unfailing. He 
 had a great gift of eloquence, and was careful to 
 exercise it, not in conducting prosecutions, an occupa- 
 tion to which a certain stigma was attached, but 
 in defending the accused. And he was not so strict 
 in his habits of life as to rouse the shame or the 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 119 
 
 suspicion of a generation devoted to pleasure. He 
 loved splendour and display; he could on occasion 
 be frivolous ; his code of morals was lax. No one 
 needed to dread that with Piso on the throne, a 
 life of rigorous virtue would become the fashion at 
 court. 
 
 Piso had no reason to love the Caesars. Caligula, 
 invited to his wedding feast, had robbed him of his 
 wife, and then sent him into exile. But the idea of 
 conspiracy had never occurred to him. He was not 
 ambitious; he was even indolent, though certainly 
 not wanting in courage. But when the succession 
 to the throne was offered to him, he did not refuse ; 
 thenceforward he became the head, though, it is true, 
 only the nominal head, of the movement. 
 
 One of the leading members of the conspiracy was 
 Plautius Lateranus, probably a kinsman of the distin- 
 guished soldier who had conquered Southern Britain 
 for Claudius, a man of high character, free from 
 self-seeking aims, and solely anxious to rid his country 
 of a tyrant who was humiliating and ruining it. 
 Another was Faenius Rufus, one of the joint prefects 
 of the Praetorian Guard, a man of honorable life, 
 who had gained some distinction as a soldier, but 
 now found his position endangered by the arts 
 and calumnies of Nero's odious favorite Sophro- 
 nius Tigellinus. The Prefect was ably seconded 
 by some of his subordinate officers among whom 
 
120 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 may be mentioned Subrius, who held the rank of 
 Tribune, about equivalent to that of Colonel, and 
 Aspers a centurion or captain. A more distinguished 
 name is that of the poet Lucan. Tacitus tells us that 
 his motive was revenge. The Emperor, himself a 
 versifier of some skill, was jealous of the superior 
 reputation of the poet of the Pharsalia, and had 
 forbidden him to recite in public. This was the wrong 
 for which he sought retaliation. That he had no 
 very exalted motive we are inclined to believe, when 
 we find that while the Emperor was still friendly, 
 the poet thought no flattery too fulsome for him, 
 and when we hear the deplorable story of his cowardice 
 in the hour of trial. The plot was already formed in 
 the summer of 64, the year of the Great Fire of Rome. 
 One of the most energetic of the conspirators, 
 the Tribune Subrius, proposed to kill the Emperor 
 with his own hand. One opportunity offered itself 
 when Nero, availing himself of the lurid background 
 supplied by the conflagration, was singing to his 
 own music in one of the chambers of the Palace 
 ^^The Sack of Troy," another shortly afterwards, 
 when the Palace itself had caught fire, and Nero, 
 in the confusion of the scene, had become sepa- 
 rated from his bodyguard. The attempt was post- 
 poned, whether by Subrius' own desire, or by the 
 wish of his comrades, we cannot say. Tacitus makes 
 on the occasion the profound remark that it is the 
 
EPICHARI8 HAD SOMEHOW BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE SCHEME, /y. 121. 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 121 
 
 anxiety for personal safety that makes these attempts 
 against the powerful so often fail. 
 
 No further step was taken for several months. The 
 conspiracy continued to extend, and the secret was 
 kept with wonderful success. A Greek freedwoman 
 of the name of Epicharis had somehow become ac- 
 quainted with the scheme, and had thrown herself into 
 it with energy. There is something mysterious about 
 the intervention of this woman. The historian says 
 he does not know how she became privy to the plot. 
 He was equally ignorant of her motives, simply 
 saying that up to that time she had shown no thought 
 or care for higher things. "^ 
 
 Epicharis became impatient of the procrastination 
 of her fellow conspirators. After urging them in 
 vain to speedy action, she determined to take the 
 matter into her own hands. Looking about for a 
 place where she might commence operations, she 
 thought that she had found one in the naval station 
 at Misenum. Among the captains of the ships of 
 war that formed the squadron of the Lower or Tuscan 
 Sea was one Volusius Proculus — he had been an 
 accomplice of the Emperor in the murder of his 
 mother Agrippina, probably as one of the subordinate 
 
 * I have suggested elsewhere that Epicharis may have been 
 a freed- woman of Octavia, the unhappy wife whom Nero did to 
 death so cruelly, and that her action in this matter was suggested 
 by the desire of vengeance. 
 
122 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 officers of the yacht in which she made her last 
 voyage. * 
 
 He had received, it would seem, promotion, but not 
 so rapid or so great as his services seemed to him to 
 demand. Epicharis made the acquaintance of this 
 Proculus, or, it may be, renewed an intimacy that had 
 existed at some time. The man enlarged on his services 
 to the Emperor, complained of Nero's ingratitude, and 
 hinted, not obscurely, at a cherished purpose of revenge. 
 He boasted of his influence among his colleagues ; 
 many, he declared, would join him if he gave the 
 word ; and it would be easy to dispose of the Emper- 
 or, who was fond of making boat excursions in the 
 neighbourhood, and was therefore often without any 
 body-guard. Talk so openly treasonable encouraged 
 Epicharis to speak plainly. She enlarged on the 
 enormities of Nero, who had degraded the Senate and 
 ruined the people. The time of his punishment was 
 come, she continued, and there were hands prepared 
 to inflict it. If Proculus was ready to exert himself 
 in the cause, and to commend it to the most ener- 
 getic of his comrades, he might certainly look for a 
 fitting reward. All this indicated^ not obscurely, that 
 a conspiracy against Nero was on foot. Epicharis, 
 however, had the prudence not to mention any 
 names. 
 
 She had mistaken her man. In fact the past of 
 
 * See p. 98. 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 123 
 
 Proculus had been such that he had everything to 
 fear and nothing to hope from a new regime, A man 
 who had taken part in the murder of Agrippina could 
 not escape the punishment which was to fall on the 
 chief mover in that crime. He must have seen this 
 himself, for he went straight to Nero, and told him 
 the whole story. Epicharis was arrested, and con- 
 fronted with the informer. But her prudence in 
 concealing the names of the conspirators stood her 
 in* good stead. Proculus could give no details, and 
 she met his story with a flat denial. As nothing had 
 been proved, no further steps were taken. But Nero's 
 suspicions were roused. The accusation had not in- 
 deed been proved but it might be true nevertheless. 
 He ordered Epicharis to be kept in custody. 
 
 The news of what had happened convinced the con- 
 spirators of the necessity for immediate action. A 
 meeting was held, and it was proposed to assassin- 
 ate the Emperor at Baiae, a well-known watering 
 place which he was in the habit of frequenting. His 
 favorite residence in this place was a villa belonging 
 to Piso. Here it was his custom to throw off the 
 cumbersome trappings of state, dispensing in partic- 
 ular with the presence of his body-guard, when he 
 went to the bath or sat down to dinner. But Piso 
 refused to countenance the scheme. He refused to 
 allow, as he put it, such a profanation of the rights 
 of hospitality, such an insult to the gods of the home. 
 
124 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 " What we do, " he cried, " we do for the sake of 
 our country; let us slay the tyrant in the palace 
 which he has reared out of the spoils of his coun- 
 trymen, * or in the streets of Rome." Piso^s real 
 reason for refusing his consent to this hopeful scheme 
 was quite different. He was afraid of a powerful 
 rival in the succession to the throne in the person 
 of Lucius Silanus, a man whose claims, he could not 
 but feel, were superior to his own. He was a direct 
 descendant of Augustus f and a man of the highest 
 character. 
 
 It was not improbable that if he (Piso) should be 
 discredited by an act which seemed to savour of im- 
 piety, the choice of those who stood outside the con- 
 spiracy might fall to a claimant so distinguished. 
 Another suggestion, leading practically to the same 
 result, was that Piso dreaded the republican procli- 
 vities of Vestinus, one of the consuls of the year. 
 Vestinus was a man of energy, and he might be able 
 to bring about a restoration of the old constitution, 
 under which he would himself in virtue of his office, 
 
 * It has been observed that this could not have been actu- 
 ally said by Piso, the new palace which Nero took the oppor- 
 tunity of building in the space cleared by the Great Fire of 
 Rome having been at this time not more than begun. 
 
 t He was the grandson of Aemilia Lepida, herself the grand- 
 daughter of Julia the Younger, a grand-daughter of Augustus. 
 He and Nero were the last of the direct descendants of Augustus- 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 125 
 
 be called to play a distinguished part. Vestinus, it 
 should be observed, was not privy to the plot, and 
 would not therefore be bound by any agreement 
 to which the conspirators might have come. 
 
 The resolution ultimately taken was to assassinate the 
 Emperor during the festivities of the Games of Ceres. * 
 The Emperor did not often leave his palace but he 
 would be sure to visit the circus on one or other of 
 the two days on which the Games were held in that 
 place, and it would be easy to approach him in the 
 midst of the general gaiety of the show. It was 
 arranged that Lateranus should seek an audience for 
 the purpose of petitioning for a grant of money from 
 the Emperor's purse towards relieving his embarrass- 
 ments. He was to fall on his knees, and by a seeming 
 accident throw the Emperor to the ground. His huge 
 strength and stature would make it easy for him to 
 prevent the victim rising again. The military members 
 of the conspiracy, and any others who might feel their 
 courage equal to the occasion, were then to run up 
 and finish the work. Piso was to be in waiting mean- 
 
 * These were celebrated on the six days between April 
 12th. and 19th. On the first and last of these days the games 
 were held in the Circus. It may be observed that if the con- 
 spiracy was first formed before the Great Fire, which began on 
 the 19th. of July, it must have been kept a secret for about 
 nine months, a very remarkable thing, considering the number 
 of persons engaged in it. 
 
126 A GKEAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 while at the temple of Ceres, which was in the near 
 neighbourhood of the Circus. As soon as the deed 
 had been perpetrated, Faenius, the Prefect of the 
 Praetorians, with his officers, was to carry him to" 
 the camp, and claim from the troops a recognition 
 of the new Emperor. According to some accounts 
 it was arranged that Antonia, the sole survivor of 
 the children of Claudius, should accompany him. * 
 
 Among the conspirators was a certain Flavins 
 Scaevinus described by the historian as an indolent 
 debauchee, whose complicity in a dangerous enter- 
 prise, so alien was it to all his habits of life, sur- 
 prised everyone that knew him. Scaevinus demanded 
 that he should have the honour and privilege of 
 striking the first blow against the tyrant, and for 
 some reason of which we have no knowledge, except 
 that he had the rank of a senator, the demand was 
 conceded. On this he commenced a series of almost 
 incredibly foolish acts. He took down from the walls 
 
 * Tacitus doubts whether Antonia would have been willing 
 to embark on so doubtful and dangerous an enterprise, and 
 whether Piso would have given his consent. The presence of 
 Antonia on such an occasion would have meant that Piso was 
 to marry her^ first, of course, divorcing his wife in order to 
 strengthen his position by a marriage with a princess of the 
 Imperial house. •* It may be," Tacitus goes on, " that the passion 
 for power is stronger than all other emotions." It is certain 
 that Antonia was put to death by Nero on a charge of having 
 meddled in revolutionary schemes. 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 127 
 
 of the Temple of Fortune at Ferentinum * with which 
 his family had probably some connection, a dagger 
 presented, it may be, by an ancestor as a votive 
 offering. This he ostentatiously carried about with 
 him, hinting that it was destined for some great 
 achievement. On the day before that on which the 
 deed was to be done, he handed the weapon to a 
 freedman of the name of Milichus with an injunction 
 that it should be sharpened. Before doing this he 
 had executed a new will. This done, he sat down 
 to a meal of more than usual magnificence, and the 
 meal ended, sent for his favorite slaves, enfranchised 
 some, and made handsome presents of money to 
 others. His manner was sad and depressed; and 
 though he made an effort to talk gaily, it was evident 
 he had some very serious matter on his mind. His 
 next proceeding was to order the freedman to prepare 
 bandages for wounds, and the appliances by which 
 blood is staunched. These strange proceedings roused 
 the suspicions of Milichus, though it is possible the 
 man had already some knowledge of the plot. Anyhow 
 he now began to speculate on the gain he might make 
 out of the affair. A handsome price in wealth or 
 influence might be made out of the information which 
 he had at his command. In comparison with this his 
 patron's life and his own debt of gratitude for the 
 
 * Probably the Etrurian town of that name, now Ferento near 
 Viterbo. 
 
128 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 freedom received at his hands went for little. For 
 a while, however, he hesitated; for a freedman to 
 betray his patron was regarded as an atrocious crime. 
 The advice of his wife, however, determined him. 
 *" Other freedmen and slaves, " she said, " were present 
 and saw all that you saw. It will be no good to 
 Scaevinus for you to keep silence. Anticipate all 
 other informers, and you will secure your reward." 
 The day had dawned before the freedman had over- 
 come his scruples. Then he hurried, accompanied 
 by his wife, who was unwilling, it would seem, to let 
 him out of her sight, to the Servilian Gardens, where 
 Nero was then residing. At first he was refused 
 admittance; but, finally, on his urgent representation 
 that he was the bearer of information of the last 
 importance, was taken to Epaphroditus, one of the 
 Emperor's favorite freedmen. To him he told his 
 story, and the freedman, recognising its im.portance, 
 introduced him to Nero. By way of giving some proof 
 of the truth of his tale, he produced the actual dagger 
 which he had been ordered, he said, to sharpen. 
 Scaevinus was promptly arrested, brought into Nero's 
 presence and confronted with his accuser. He was 
 prepared with a reply. "The dagger," he said, "is 
 a weapon which has been long regarded in my family 
 with great veneration. I have been accustomed to 
 keep it in my bed-chamber. The freedman has fraudu- 
 lently taken it away, and has now invented this 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 129 
 
 story about it. As for the will it is not the first 
 by any means I have made. I do it just as the idea 
 occurs to me. I have often given presents of money 
 to some of my slaves, and set others free; if I did 
 so yesterday on a larger scale than usual, it was on 
 account of the embarrassments in which I find myself. 
 My means are greatly reduced; my creditors are 
 pressing me, and I greatly fear that my will might 
 not be held good in respect either of the emancipations 
 or the legacies. My meal was, I confess, on a somewhat 
 extravagant scale: but this is my way; I enjoy myself 
 in a fashion that stern moralists do not quite approve. 
 As for the bandages for wounds that is a mere fiction, 
 invented because Milichus, after playing the part of an 
 informer was also to perform that of a witness." 
 
 This was Scaevinus' tale, and he told it with such 
 firmness that it gained general credit. When he turned 
 on his accuser, inveighing against him as a wicked and 
 unscrupulous fellow who would not hesitate to invent 
 a false charge, he carried his hearers with him. Mili- 
 chus was confounded, but his wife came to his rescue. 
 ^' Ask Scaevinus, " she suggested, " what was the sub- 
 ject discussed at his frequent interviews with Antonius 
 Natalis, and whether both he and his friends are not 
 on intimate terms with Piso ? " Natalis, well-known 
 to be Piso's most trusted agent, was promptly sent for. 
 He and Scaevinus were separately examined ; as their 
 accounts did not tally, they were formally arrested 
 
 9 
 
130 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 and threatened with torture, torture being legal when 
 the accused was charged with compassing the death 
 of the Emperor. Their fortitude gave way. Natalis 
 was the first to turn informer. He was deeper in the 
 secrets of the conspiracy than his companion, and 
 better able to ply the infamous trade. He named 
 Piso first and then Seneca, either because he had 
 actually carried messages from Piso to him, or because 
 he knew that Nero would gladly hear any evidence 
 that might involve the guilt of his old tutor. When 
 Scaevinus heard that Natalis had confessed, he made 
 haste to secure his own safety, and gave the names 
 of the other accomplices. Among these were the poet 
 Lucan, and Senecio, who had long enjoyed the Emperor's 
 intimate friendship. At first they strenuously denied 
 the charge. But a promise of pardon broke down 
 their firmness. Each with disgraceful weakness gave 
 up the names of their dearest friends, Lucan actually 
 informing against his own mother. 
 
 Then Nero remembered the charge which Proculus 
 had brought against Epicharis. The woman was brought 
 into court, and tortured. But the cruellest pains 
 could not wring a word from her lips. She met all 
 questions with an obstinate denial. As she was being- 
 brought from her dungeon on the following day, she 
 contrived to fasten a bandage round her neck, and 
 then, suddenly springing from the chair in which 
 she was being carried, to strangle herself. Her frame 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 131 
 
 was doubtless already enfeebled by the severity of 
 the sufferings which she had already undergone. The 
 historian bitterly contrasts the noble courage of the 
 freedwoman with the weakness and cowardice of 
 the high-born Senators who had not scrupled to 
 betray their nearest and dearest. She, under the 
 pressure of the fiercest torments, had done her best 
 to save men who were, for the most part, utter 
 strangers to her. They, before they had felt a touch of 
 the rack, had hurried to give up to death kinsfolk 
 and friends. 
 
 Nero terrified at the multitude of the names 
 which he heard from the informers, doubled his 
 guards. Rome was in a state of siege. The walls 
 were guarded by troops ; the port of Ostia and the 
 river were strictly watched. The suburbs and the 
 neighbouring towns were continually visited by soldiers, 
 especially Germans, for the Emperor was more dis- 
 posed to trust barbarians than his own countrymen. 
 Whole troops of chained prisoners were dragged 
 through the streets of the city, and kept in waiting 
 outside the Emperor's residence. ¥/hen they attempted 
 to defend themselves, they found that the very 
 slightest evidence was sufficient to condemn them. 
 If they had been seen to smile when they saw a 
 conspirator, if they had uttered a chance word which 
 could be twisted into a suspicious meaning, if they 
 had dined with a guilty person, or sat by his side 
 
132 
 
 A GREAT COXSPIRACY. 
 
 the cros--t-x^ 
 
 ;i vet me: 
 
 T'erai- 
 
 a::v 
 
 an attempt. Evrii l: 
 sadden attack "^ 
 only Tigellinu^ .u: ; : 
 find me^uos to resist 
 
 while you sit still 
 eil jiT. As for hoping 
 
 enough to prove the charge. 
 
 /r>:rr Tigellinus conducted 
 
 - savage persistence, 
 
 " : : :: Faenius. himself, 
 :::::::: couspirator. Xo 
 ::t ". " > ;:amf . and in the des- 
 . ::t ::r--v "::- : v:;:e^asso- 
 .T--i;::s. Tnt^ iriounf Subrius 
 :: :/. and with a significant 
 T should not cut down the 
 -. e nt-seat. This ener- 
 ;> ;-:::l ::: ±r hUt of his 
 :::-:-". ::.. ::::pulse. 
 : :: " " ren lost. The news 
 - : : canied without 
 
 T^ : luetic among 
 
 : : .: - they said, 
 
 ■ : — : T T-r. or to the 
 : : : r ii rs. V^V will 
 i-^ - :; : " ur example. 
 :: '"^ half accom- 
 O gainst such 
 lelmedbya 
 h thai s:agc-player. with 
 r: "/'-rart- timn to back him, 
 T -> at seem impossible 
 ieved by the mere 
 iia: V. . ^ vo in the 
 
A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 133 
 
 plot the secret will be kept, it is absurd. The threats 
 of torture, the promise of reward, will break down 
 all resolves. In a few hours Nero's creatures will be 
 here. They will bind you ; they will put you to a 
 shameful death. How much more noble to stand or 
 fall with your country, to perish as the champion of 
 freedom. The soldiers may fail you, the populace 
 may desert; but you will at least make posterity 
 respect you. " All this fell upon deaf ears. Piso re- 
 tired to his house, and prepared to meet his fate with 
 courage. The executioners soon came. Nero unable 
 to trust the veterans with whom Piso, he knew, was 
 popular, had sent some recruits to do the bloody 
 deed. The victim was permitted to put an end to 
 his life by opening the veins in his arms. Lateranus 
 was punished next. He was hurried off from his 
 home without being allowed to bid farewell to his 
 family. The tribune who slew him was actually one 
 of the conspirators ; but Lateranus met his fate in 
 dignified silence without a word of reproach to his 
 executioner. 
 
 Seneca perished the same day. I have described his 
 last hours in the next chapter. The Prefect Faenius 
 did not long escape detection. Scaevinus turned upon 
 him with the words : " No one knows the truth bet- 
 ter than you. Surely you ought to confess your guilt 
 to so kind a prince." The Prefect could hardly 
 stammer out a few words of defiance. Other wit- 
 
134 A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 
 
 nesses were found to corroborate Scaevinus, and he 
 was promptly seized and before long executed. 
 
 The Tribune Subrius was the next victim. At first 
 he denied the charge: "Am I likely/ he cried, "to 
 have cast in my lot with such a set of cowards ? " 
 When the evidence against him proved to be too 
 strong, he confessed his share in the conspiracy, and 
 gloried in what he had done. Nero asked him why 
 he had broken his soldier's oath of fidelity. " Because 
 I hated you. No one among your soldiers could 
 have been more loyal to you while you deserved 
 regard. But I began to hate you when you murdered 
 your mother and your wife, when you exhibited yourself 
 as a chariot-driver, an actor, an incendiary. " Nero was 
 confounded by this freedom of speech ; ready to com- 
 mit crime, he had never been used to hear it prop- 
 erly characterised. A fellow tribune was ordered 
 to administer the death-stroke. The grave that 
 was to receive his corpse had already been dug. " It 
 is too shallow and too narrow, " he cried, " even this 
 you could not do properly." The executioner bade 
 him hold out his head bravely. " I only hope," said 
 the dauntless soldier, " that you will strike as 
 bravely as I shall submit." 
 
 Lucan who had been permitted to open his veins, 
 breathed his last repeating some of his own verses, 
 in which he had described a soldier bleeding to 
 death. 
 
A GREAT OONSPIRAGY. 135 
 
 The Great Conspiracy was crushed. If the ener- 
 getic Subrius had been in the place of the indolent 
 Piso it would almost as certainly have succeeded, 
 and possibly would have spared the world the year 
 of bloodshed which followed, four years later, the 
 fall of Nero. 
 
XVIL 
 
 THE LAST HOURS OF A PHILOSOPHEB. 
 
 I HAVE called Seneca (for it is of him that I am 
 writing), a philosopher, but it has often been doubted 
 whether he is entitled to the name. In his early 
 manhood he was banished to Sardinia, and he showed 
 a deplorable want of fortitude in bearing the depriva- 
 tions of exile. He contrived somehow to amass 
 enormous wealth, and he has been accused by one 
 historian, who, however, is obviously unfair, of amassing 
 it by exactions which roused a province to revolt. 
 It is unjust, of course, to judge a tutor by the crimes 
 which his pupil may commit, especially if that pupil 
 comes of a race tainted by madness and crime, and 
 is subjected to the awful temptations of despotic 
 power. Still we have seen Seneca, as Nero's accom- 
 plice in crime, do what a good man would sooner 
 have perished than be privy to. On the other hand, 
 there is much that might be argued, did time and 
 
THE LAST HOURS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 137 
 
 space allow, in Seneca's favour. Anyhow, he died 
 with courage and dignity. It may be said indeed 
 that this was an occasion to which a Roman, whatever 
 his character, was seldom unequal. Still there was 
 something more than mere stolidity or bravado in 
 the way in which Seneca bore himself. 
 
 A formidable conspiracy against Nero, described 
 in the last chapter, had been detected and crushed. 
 Among the accused was Seneca. Probably he knew 
 of the conspiracy, but he had carefully abstained from 
 taking any part in it. The only thing even alleged 
 against him was the statement of one of the informers 
 that Piso had sent him (the informer) to Seneca with 
 a complaint that he was not allowed to see him, 
 and that Seneca had replied that frequent interviews 
 would not be for the benefit of either of them, adding 
 that his own life depended on the safety of Piso. 
 An officer was sent to interrogate the accused man, 
 who had that day returned from one of his seats in 
 Campania to a villa in the suburbs. The house was 
 surrounded with troops, and the philosopher, who was 
 dining with his wife and two friends, was examined. 
 He allowed that the informer's account was true to 
 a certain extent. Piso had complained of not being 
 allowed to see him, and he had pleaded in excuse 
 his feeble health and his love of quiet. The other 
 remark he did not acknowledge. The officer carried 
 back this answer to his employers. Asked whether 
 
138 THE LAST HOURS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Seneca seemed to be thinking of suicide — the common 
 death of the accused in these days of terror — he 
 replied that he had seen nothing to make him think 
 so. The accused was perfectly cheerful and calm. 
 The officer was sent back with the fatal order: 
 Seneca must either kill himself or be killed. The 
 man, who was himself one of the conspirators, made 
 an effort to save the victim. He went to his general — 
 he was a tribune of the Praetorians — and asked him 
 whether he should execute the order. (It should be 
 explained that there was a party for offering the 
 throne to Seneca.) The general, another conspirator, 
 hoped to save himself, and told him to obey. He 
 went, but had the grace to stay outside and delegate 
 his task to a centurion. 
 
 Seneca heard the message without dismay, and 
 called for his will. The centurion said that he must 
 not have it. The philosopher turned to his friends 
 and said, " I am forbidden to recognise your services 
 by a legacy; but I can at least leave you the example 
 of my life." They burst into tears. He rebuked 
 them. "Why," he asked, "have we been studying 
 the maxims of philosophers for so many years, except 
 to help us in a crisis like this? Who did not know 
 the savagery of Nero ? He has murdered his mother 
 and his brother. It was only left to him to murder 
 his tutor." 
 
 Then he spoke to his wife, bidding her to be of 
 
THE LAST HOURS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 139 
 
 good courage and find consolation in the memory of 
 the days that they had spent happily and virtuously 
 together. She declared that she would die with him. 
 " I have tried, "" he said, " to reconcile you to life ; 
 but if you prefer death, let it be so. I will not 
 grudge it, though yours will be the more illustrious 
 end.^ 
 
 With one blow the two cut the veins in their 
 arms. Seneca was old and feeble, and the blood 
 flowed slowly. So great were his sufferings that he 
 persuaded his wife to leave him, lest his own courage 
 should fail. When she was gone, he called his secre- 
 taries and dictated what we may call his farewell to 
 the world. Tacitus says that he will not repeat 
 what was so well known to his readers. Unhappily 
 it is now lost. * His agony was still protracted, and 
 he begged his physician, who was also a kinsman, 
 to give him a dose of hemlock, the poison with which 
 Socrates had been put to death by his countrymen. 
 The dose was administered, but in vain. He then 
 was placed in a warm bath. Playfully scattering 
 the water on the slaves who stood by^ " This is a 
 libation, "" he cried, " to Jupiter the Deliverer. " At 
 last he managed to find release from his pain in the 
 suffocating heat of the calidarimn (the hot chamber). 
 
 * The wife did not die with her husband. Nero gave orders 
 that his wife should be saved. Even he dreaded the odium of 
 this double suicide. 
 
140 THE LAST HOURS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 His funeral was conducted with the utmost simplicity. 
 For this he had provided by a will made at the very 
 height of his wealth and power. Whatever may be 
 thought of Seneca's life, his death was the death of 
 a philosopher. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF NERO, 
 
 IT was not by his crimes but by his follies tha^^ 
 Nero wore out the patience of his people. They 
 endured him when he poisoned his half-brother Bri- 
 tannicus, when he murdered his innocent wife and 
 the mother who had sold her very soul to purchase 
 the throne for him, when he slew or compelled to 
 suicide the best and noblest of Rome — Corbulo, the 
 great general who had saved the Eastern provinces 
 from Parthia, Lucan the rival of V^irgil, and Seneca, 
 the most eloquent of philosophers. Even when he 
 set Rome on fire to build on its ruins a city more 
 to his liking, they bore with him. But when he 
 displayed himself as a player and singer, and that 
 not only before his countrymen, which was bad enough, 
 but before the foreigner, his subjects would endure 
 him no longer. 
 
 As the end approached he had the curious warnings 
 
142 THE DEATH OF NERO. 
 
 which fail to warn, and only mock the man who is 
 doomed to ruin with useless fears. He would lose 
 his throne, one soothsayer told him. " Then my art 
 shall support me," he replied, and he applied him- 
 self with more diligence than ever to his singing and 
 harp-playing. He consulted the oracle at Delphi, 
 which still professed to foretell the future, and it 
 bade him beware of " the seventy-third year." 
 
 Naturally he thought that it was his own seventy- 
 third year that was meant, and, as he was then barely 
 thirty, he saw a large vista of life before him. He 
 became incredibly confident. Some valuables belonging 
 to him were lost about this time at sea. "" The fish 
 will bring them back, " he said. But a deep discontent 
 was stirring in the provinces. Gaul rose against him 
 under its pro-consul Vindex. He was at Naples when 
 the news reached him. At first he did nothing. For 
 eight days he would give no orders, but seemed simply 
 trying to forget the whole matter. Then he sent a 
 letter to the Senate begging it to avenge him; but 
 the wrong which seemed to touch him most; was a 
 reflection on him as a musician. " Did you ever 
 know a better?" he asked everyone. The news 
 from the provinces grew worse, and he returned in 
 hot haste to Rome. Then what was really the crush- 
 ing blow fell upon him. Gaul was nearly helpless, 
 for it was overpowered by the huge armies that 
 guarded the frontier of the Rhine. Vindex actually 
 
THE DEATH OF NERO. 143 
 
 perished before the prince against whom he had 
 risen. But when Spain under its governor Galba, 
 one of the old Roman nobility, declared against the 
 tyrant, his fate was sealed. This he seemed to know. 
 When he heard that Galba was in arms, he fell speechless 
 to the ground. (It was Galba who fulfilled the pro- 
 phecy of the " seventy- third year. " That was exactly 
 his age.) All attempt at comfort failed. In vain 
 he was reminded that there had been revolts against 
 other emperors. He saw no hope. "I shall lose my 
 throne,'' he cried, "and live to see it." Then he 
 ordered the wildest schemes of revenge. To put to 
 death all the provincial governors, to massacre all 
 the exiles and every native of Graul that was in the 
 city, to invite the senators to a banquet and poison 
 them in a mass, to set the city on fire and let loose 
 at the same time the wild beasts that were kept 
 for the shows — such were some of his plans. 
 
 But he determined on action. He deposed the two 
 consuls, and appointed himself in their place, and began 
 to prepare to take the field. He equipped companies 
 of women like Amazons, and levied a scarcely more 
 trustworthy force of slaves. Of course baggage-waggons 
 to convey the stage furniture for his performances 
 were not forgotten. His terror awoke the conscience 
 that had been slumbering within him. His sleep had 
 hitherto been dreamless. Now it was disturbed by 
 hideous sights. Now he seemed to be steering a 
 
14-4 THE DEATH OF NERO. 
 
 ship, and his mother wrenched the rudder out of his 
 hand; at another time his murdered wife Octavia 
 drew him into some misty darkness, nor was he able 
 to resist. 
 
 Within a few days there was not an army that 
 had not revolted. His thoughts now wavered between 
 suicide and escape. He sent to Locusta, the hag 
 who had supplied him with poisons, and obtained 
 from her a deadly drug which he put away in a 
 box of gold. Then he sought to discover whether 
 any of the officers of his Praetorian Guard would 
 accompany him in the flight to some unknown region 
 which he meditated. Some were silent; some openly 
 refused ; one even cried, " Is death then so terrible ? " 
 To fly to the Parthian king; to throw himself at 
 Galba's feet, to address the people and ask pardon 
 for his misdeeds, begging to have the Empire restored 
 to him, or, at least, to be made Governor of Egypt, 
 were plans that suggested themselves to him. He 
 actually prepared his speech, but never delivered it, 
 fearing to be torn in pieces on his way to the forum. 
 
 He put off his decision to the next day and retired 
 to his chamber. Waking about midnight, he found 
 his body-guard had left him. He sent messages to 
 some of his courtiers, which no one answered; he 
 went himself to their houses, but the doors were 
 fast closed against him. He returned to his cham- 
 ber. His attendants had pillaged it, taking even the 
 
THE DEATH OF NERO. 145 
 
 golden poison-box. He resolved to die, but could 
 not even JBnd a gladiator to deal the fatal blow. 
 " Have I then neither a friend nor an enemy ? " he 
 cried in his despair. Then again the love of life 
 returned, and he thought of escape. A freedman 
 suggested his villa in the suburbs, and Nero started 
 for it on horseback. He was barefooted, with a 
 faded cloak thrown over his shirt, and his head 
 wrapped about with a napkin. The shock of an 
 earthquake and a thunderstorm added a horror to 
 the night, and more terrible than either were the 
 shouts of the Praetorians invoking curses upon Nero 
 and blessings upon Galba. His horse started at a 
 corpse in the way; the napkin fell from his face, 
 and a soldier recognised and saluted him. 
 
 While w^aiting to get into the villa he drank from 
 a puddle in the road. " So this is Nero's beverage ! " 
 he cried. At last he crept into a wretched little 
 chamber, and lay down to rest on a palliasse of straw. 
 He was hungry and thirsty, but could not eat the 
 coarse bread that was offered to him. A little tepid 
 water he swallowed. 
 
 His companions did not forget what was due to 
 a Roman's sense of dignity, and implored him to put 
 an end to his life, and so escape the insults which 
 would be showered upon him. He consented so far 
 as to order a trench to be dug for his grave, and 
 other preparations to be made. Again and again, as 
 
 10 
 
146 THE DEATH OF NEEO. 
 
 the dismal work went on, he exclaimed : " What an 
 artist the world is losing! " 
 
 At last he was stung into action. The freedman 
 who was giving him this miserable hospitality received 
 a letter from the city. Questioned as to its con- 
 tents, he replied: " The Senate has declared you a 
 public enemy, and decreed that you should be punished 
 in the ancient fashion." "What is that?" asked 
 Nero. He was told that the criminal was stripped, 
 with his head thrust into a fork, and flogged to death. 
 The prospect terrified him. He caught up two dag- 
 gers, which he had brought with him, and tried their 
 edge. But his courage failed. " The time is not come, " 
 he said. First he bade a companion begin the funeral 
 lamentation; then, again, begged some one to set 
 him the example of dying with courage ; finally, he 
 tried to brace himself to the deed. " It is base to 
 live;" "This ill beseems Nero;" " Nero, rouse your- 
 self." More powerful than anything was the sound 
 of a horse's hoof. A trooper had been sent to take 
 him alive. He hurriedly murmured a verse from 
 Homer — 
 
 "I hear the sound of some swift-footed steed," 
 
 and thrust a poniard into his throat, a freedman help- 
 ing to drive home the blow. He was dying when 
 the officer sent to arrest him rushed into the room, 
 and endeavoured to staunch the blood. " Too late ! " 
 
THE DEATH OF NEKO. 147 
 
 he cried ; " and this is your fidelity ! "" With these 
 words he breathed his last, his eyes stiffening with 
 so horrible a look that all who saw it were struck 
 wdth terror. 
 
 And yet this monster was regretted ! The Roman 
 populace, when they wanted to compliment a favour- 
 ite, greeted him as another Nero ; and more than 
 once the security of the Empire was disturbed by 
 the rumour that Nero had returned to claim his throne. 
 
XIX. 
 
 A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 Galba. 
 
 SUETONIUS tells a strange story about the extinc- 
 tion of the house of the Julian Caesars. It runs thus : 
 Livia, the wife of Augustus shortly after her mar- 
 riage to that prince, paid a visit to one of the country 
 residences of her family at Veii. While she was 
 there an eagle that was flying over her head dropped 
 into her lap a white hen that had a sprig of laurel 
 in its mouth. Livia had the hen carefully tended, 
 
A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 149 
 
 and planted the sprig of laurel. The bird became 
 the mother of a numerous family; the sprig grew 
 into a shrubbery so large that the Emperor and his 
 successors always gathered from it the laurel crown 
 which they wore on the occasion of a triumph. The 
 sprigs then used were afterwards planted, and it was 
 observed — so the story runs — that the cutting which 
 each Emperor put into the ground began to wither 
 away when his end approached, while the original 
 shrubbery still flourished. In the last year of Nero's 
 reign this too perished entirely, while the whole brood 
 of fowls descended from Livia's hen also died. 
 
 If the fall of the dynasty of Augustus was thus 
 foretold, it was also the case, if the same authorities 
 may be believed, that the future greatness of its 
 successor was indicated long beforehand. The stories 
 are difficult to believe ; and| yet it is not easy to 
 suppose that they were all fictitious. 
 
 The young Galba, paying his court, in company 
 with a number of lads of the same age, to the aged 
 Augustus, * received from the old man a curious 
 response. He playfully pinched the lad's cheek, and 
 said: " And you too, my boy, shall have a taste of 
 my power." "This is an established fact," writes 
 Suetonius, when he relates the anecdote. Tiberius 
 who was very fond of dabbling in the secrets of the 
 
 * Galba was born 3 B.C. ; Augustus died aged seventy in 
 A.D. 12. 
 
150 A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 future, was told by the astrologer that Galba would 
 certainly be Emperor, but not before old age. " Then 
 the matter does not concern me," he said, remembering 
 that he was nearly forty years older than his destined 
 successor. A tradition to the same effect was preserved 
 in Galba' s family. On one occasion his grandfather, 
 a man who prudently confined his ambition to literature, 
 was performing the expiations commonly offered when 
 a tree had been struck by lightning. An eagle 
 swooped down on the victim, snapped the entrails 
 out of the sacrificer's hands, and carried them to the 
 top of an oak. Galba asks the soothsayers what this 
 incident portended. " It means," they answered, " that 
 one of your house will be the first man in Rome, 
 but not till late in his life." "That will happen," 
 said the incredulous Galba, " when a mule has a 
 foal." This very unusual birth took place when the 
 grandson was thinking of rising against Nero. To 
 everybody else it seemed a disastrous portent, but 
 Galba welcomed it as an omen of success. 
 
 He was indeed on both sides of most distinguished 
 descent. His father was a Sulpicius, the scion of one 
 of the very few old patrician families which had 
 survived into the days of the Empire. A Sulpicius 
 had been raised to the Consulship nine years after 
 the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the honours of 
 the family had been continued by a long line of sol- 
 diers and statesmen. Anion o; his maternal ancestors 
 
A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 151 
 
 he numbered Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth, and 
 Catulus, who shared with Marius — in what proportion 
 was a matter of angry and lasting controversy — the 
 honour of having delivered Rome from the pressing 
 danger of a great barbarian invasion. * Indeed he 
 traced up his ancestry to a far more remote anti- 
 quity. The family tree which when he mounted the 
 throne he caused to be hung up in the palace exhibited 
 Jupiter at the head of the paternal, and Minos of 
 Crete of the maternal line. 
 
 The young Galba naturally became a considerable 
 personage in Rome, and all the more so because he 
 
 * The Cimbri, a G-erman tribe with probably a considerable 
 Celtic admixture, crossed the Alps in 113. B.C. They defeated 
 a Roman army under the consul Q. Papirius Carbo in that year. 
 In 109. M. Junius Silanus shared the same fate. In 105. two 
 Roman armies were annihilated at Arausio (Orange) on the left 
 bank of the Rhone. Shortly after this success the invaders 
 were joined by their kinsmen the Teutones. The two nations, 
 however, divided their forces but with a common purpose of 
 acting against Rome. The Teutones were cut to pieces by 
 Marius at Aquae Sextise (Aix-les-Bains) in B.C. 102., and in the 
 following year the Cimbri were destroyed by the united forces 
 of Marius and Catulus at Vercellse (Vercelli). It was claimed 
 for Catulus, who was a noble of high rank, that he had broken 
 the Cimbrian centre, and captured thirty-two standards, while 
 his colleague had captured only two ; but the popular voice gave 
 the chief honours of the day to Marius. "" His high-born colleague 
 takes the second place," says Juvenal speaking of the services 
 of the plebeian Marius. 
 
152 A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 was a childless widower. His first wife was a Le- 
 pida, and had he wished to marry again he might 
 have espoused the mother of the future Emperor 
 Nero. Agrippina indeed showed such a preference 
 for him, even before he was free, that Lepida's mo- 
 ther reproached and even struck her at a ladies' 
 party. He was a close attendant on the Empress- 
 mother Livia, who left him the magnificent legacy of 
 <£500,000. This was cut down by Tiberius, the re- 
 siduary legatee, to ^£5,000 on the ground that the 
 sum was expressed not in words but in figures. ^ 
 Even this the legatee did not receive. 
 
 The high offices of state were opened to him be- 
 fore the usual age. He was praetor probably in his 
 thirty-fifth year, and certainly consul in his thirty- 
 seventh. Persons curious in such matters afterwards 
 observed it as a remarkable coincidence, that his 
 predecessor in the Consulship was the father of Nero, 
 and his successor the father of Otho. Nothing else 
 that was notable occurred except it be that in the 
 Games which it was his duty as Praetor to exhibit he 
 introduced a new spectacle — elephants walking on 
 the tight-rope. 
 
 His consulship was followed by a military command 
 
 * The words would be quingenties sestertius, as against quiv- 
 genta sestertia ; the figures HS. 10 as against HS. 10, the diffe- 
 rence being that the line is drawn in the larger sum over both 
 the number and the denomination. 
 
A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 153 
 
 in Gaul. His predecessor was a certain Lentulus 
 surnamed Gaetulicus whose easy rule hat somewhat 
 weakened the bonds of military discipline. Gralba was 
 as conservative in this as in other respects. The 
 day after he took over the command the soldiers 
 applauded the performances of a spectacle exhibited in 
 the camp. This was against rule, and the new general 
 signified his displeasure by giving that night as 
 the watchwords " Hands under cloaks ! '' The next 
 day everybody in the camp was singing a line which 
 may be Englished thus: 
 
 Soldiers! learn to be soldierly: 
 
 Gaetulicus dead, 
 
 Galba rules in his stead: 
 Soldiers! learn to be soldierly. 
 
 All. the men, veterans as well as recruits, were 
 kept hard at work, while the new commander prac- 
 tised what he preached, if indeed it is true that on one 
 occasion he ran for twenty miles by the side of the 
 Emperor's chariot. 
 
 The death of Caligula gave him the opportunity 
 of which he availed himself twenty-seven years later. 
 The various influential people urged him to declare 
 himself Emperor. He declined the offer. Claudius 
 felt his forbearance so strongly as always to show 
 him the greatest consideration. Among other honours 
 he was specially chosen to take charge of the pro- 
 vince of Africa, then much disturbed by internal 
 
154 A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 commotions and by the attacks of barbarous neigh- 
 bours. Galba acquired a great reputation as a justly 
 severe ruler. Some of his recorded decisions have 
 a very oriental aspect. A soldier who was convicted 
 of having sold a peck of flour for a large sum of 
 money * when his comrades were almost starving, he 
 ordered to be starved to death. In a case of the 
 disputed ownership of a horse he directed that the 
 animal should be taken with its head covered to 
 the place where it was accustomed to drink, and be 
 allowed to find its way home. 
 
 For his services in Germany and Africa he received 
 the distinctions which had been substituted for 
 the honour of a triumph, by this time reserved for 
 the Emperor, and three priestly offices. The next 
 fifteen years he spent in profound retirement. In A.D. 
 GO. he was appointed to the Governorship of Eastern 
 Spain, t Here the old prognostics of power followed 
 him. The hair of the acolyte at a sacrifice at 
 which he was assisting suddenly changed in colour 
 from black to white. The wise men declared that 
 this indicated an approaching change in the govern- 
 ment of the world. A young man was to be 
 succeeded by an old. Not less significant was the 
 discovery of twelve axes which seemed to have fallen 
 
 * A hundred denarii = to something more than £3. 
 t Called Hispania Citerior or Tarraconensis from Tarraco 
 (Tarragona) its capital. 
 
A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 155 
 
 from the sky at a place which had been struck by 
 lightning. Whatever the cause, Galba found it 
 expedient to change his line of conduct. He began by 
 showing his old severity. He cut off the hands of 
 a fraudulent money-changer, and crucified a guardian 
 who had poisoned his ward, a lad to whose inherit- 
 ance he stood next in succession. The man pro- 
 tested that he was a Roman citizen. Galba directed 
 that the cross should be white-washed by way of 
 distinction, and made much loftier than those of the 
 criminals who suffered with him. But such energy 
 he felt to be dangerous. In the later years of his 
 government he did as little as he could. "One has 
 not to render an account for doing nothing, " he was 
 wont to say. 
 
 After all he was compelled to act in self-preserva- 
 tion. Vindex, who had risen against Nero in 
 Gaul, sent him a letter imploring him to deliver the 
 human race from an intolerable tyranny. This entreaty 
 he might have disregarded ; but the prayer was 
 enforced by the discovery that Nero had sent orders 
 for his assassination to the imperial agents. This 
 decided him. He held what we may call an assembly 
 of notables, the chief civil and military authorities of 
 the province. He exhibited as many portraits of the 
 victims of Nero as he could collect, and denounced 
 the tyrant. Saluted Emperor, he preferred to call 
 himself the " Lieutenant of the Senate and People of 
 
156 A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 Rome.'' His position however was precarious. He 
 had but a small military power : a single legion, two 
 squadrons of cavalry, and some auxiliary infantry. 
 Even these could not be relied upon. He had besides 
 a narrow escape from assassination, and when the 
 news of the death of Vindex arrived he felt his 
 prospects to be so gloomy that he meditated suicide. 
 Then came the news that Nero was dead, and that 
 the armies of the Empire had accepted him. On this 
 he dropped the title of Lieutenant and assumed the 
 style of Caesar. 
 
 Unfortunately he was no longer the man that he 
 had been. Avarice in particular had grown upon 
 him until it had become a master passion. Ludicrous 
 stories of his meanness were circulated. The people 
 of Tarraco offered him a crown of gold from the 
 Temple of Jupiter. Its reputed weight was fifteen 
 pounds. Three ounces were found to be wanting, and he 
 ordered the town to make it good. A musician per- 
 formed very much to his satisfaction, and he made 
 the man a present of something less than five shil- 
 lings. True or false, these stories showed what 
 people thought of him. 
 
 Even when he meant well he was not judicious. 
 It had become a regular custom for the troops to 
 have some bounty bestowed upon them by a new 
 Emperor. Galba refused to conform to it. " I choose 
 my soldiers I do not buy them." he answered. It 
 
A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 157 
 
 was a noble sentiment; but was not suited to the 
 times. It was idle to deny that the armies were the 
 ultimate repository of power. Doubtless it was de- 
 plorable that they should be so, that the old free- 
 dom of Rome should have given place to a despotism 
 essentially military, but the fact had to be recognised 
 and reckoned with. 
 
 " It is certain, " says Tacitus, " that the troops 
 might have been won over by even the smallest 
 bounty from the parsimonious old man; " and it 
 was the duty of a really statesmanlike ruler to 
 acknowledge the necessity. The old maxim ran : " It 
 is not well to rear a lion in the city, but, once rear- 
 ed, you must humour him." The lion in the Roman 
 Empire was the Army.* "And then," adds Tacitus, 
 " the rest of his actions were not after this model. 
 The primitive virtue which he affected in his dealings 
 with the troops was conspicuously absent in his 
 other actions. The consciousness of weakness drove 
 him into cruelty. Officers who were popular, or 
 were supposed to be popular, with the troops were 
 put to death on the slightest grounds. A legion which 
 Nero had levied from the fleet, a service which he 
 always favored, was sent back to the ships. It mur- 
 mured at the change and the new Emperor ordered 
 his cavalry to charge it, and afterwards selected 
 every tenth man for execution. The real power of 
 * The saying was originally applied to Alcibiades of Athens. 
 
158 A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 the Empire was in the hands of three men, all of them 
 unworthy of the charge. One of them was ViniuS; who 
 had been his lieutenant in Spain, a man of insatiable 
 cupidity; another was Laco, prefect of the Praetorians, 
 notorious for his indolence and arrogance ; the third w^as 
 a Greek freedman of the name of Icelus. There was 
 nothing which these unprincipled favorites did not sell, 
 all the while their master was affecting, doubtless in 
 sincerity, a primitive strictness and frugality. 
 
 The act that proved immediately fatal to Galba 
 was probably, by a curious irony of fate, one of the 
 very best of his reign. He soon perceived that he must 
 have a younger colleague in the cares of he Empire. 
 Had he chosen Otho, a favorite with the populace 
 who saw in him another Nero, a strange but a genuine 
 title to their affections, and popular with the troops, 
 he would probably have ended his days in peace. He 
 was too high principled to make such a compromise. 
 It would, he thought, have been useless to deliver 
 Rome from a Nero, if he was to hand her over to 
 an Otho. Accordingly he chose for his adopted son 
 and successor Piso Licinianus, a man of the highest 
 character, but suspected, I may say, of virtues which 
 were highly unpopular. The end came almost imme- 
 diately. "Two common soldiers," says Tacitus. 
 " undertook to transfer the Empire of Rome, and 
 actually transferred it. " Not a sword was drawn to 
 protect the Prince who seven months before had been 
 
A NOBLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 159 
 
 unanimously accepted by the armies of Rome. We 
 cannot say that he deserved his fate, for he meant 
 well. But we cannot be surprised at it. He failed 
 absolutely under the test of power. "As long as he 
 was a subject, he seemed beyond a subject's measure ; 
 and all men would have agreed that he was equal to 
 Empire, had he never been Emperor," is Tacitus 's 
 epigrammatic verdict on this " Nobleman of the Old 
 School." 
 
XX. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM AND THE 
 DEATH OF OTHO. 
 
 Otho. 
 
 A SINGLE year, which the historian justly describes 
 as " great and terrible, " saw the rise and fall of 
 three Emperors. Galba was murdered on January, 
 15th. 69; Otho perished by his own hand, exactly 
 three months afterwards ; Vitellius was slain on the 
 23rd. of December in the same year. The fates of 
 the second and the third of these temporary occupants 
 
THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. * 161 
 
 of the throne were decided at nearly the same spot, 
 a village called Bedriacum, probably to be identified 
 with Ustiano, on the left bank of the Oglio, a river 
 which runs into the Po a few miles S.S.E. of Mantua. 
 The locality may be more generally described as part 
 of the great Lombard plain, always one of the battle- 
 fields of Europe. 
 
 Otho left Rome on the 14th. of March, moving 
 northwards to encounter the armies of Vitellius, 
 which had already crossed the Alps. His prospects 
 were fairly hopeful. His own forces were indeed 
 scarcely a match for the armies of the Rhine which 
 had descended almost en masse into Italy; but the 
 legions from the provinces east of the Adriatic were 
 on their march to join him, and his fleet commanded 
 the sea. 
 
 The opening operations of the campaign were 
 decided in his favour. Placentia was defended with 
 brilliant success by Spurinna, * and Caecina, one 
 of the hostile generals, suffered a severe check, which 
 might have been turned, but for the inaction of 
 Otho's lieutenant, into a disastrous defeat. But 
 after this everything went wrong. Otho had the 
 best military skill in the Empire at his disposal, but 
 he refused to avail himself of it. Suetonius Paulinus, 
 who had won by his British campaigns a reputation 
 
 *See chapter XXV. 
 
 11 
 
162 * THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. 
 
 superior to that of any of his contemporaries, was 
 strongly against giving battle. He represented to 
 Otho that the forces then at his disposal were inferior 
 to the invaders', but that every day would add to 
 his strength and diminish that of his opponent. The 
 latter had brought their whole forces into the field. 
 They had no reserves with which to make good any 
 losses in battle or by sickness. From the latter 
 cause they would without doubt suffer severely. 
 Levies from the north would inevitably be decimated 
 by the heat of the Italian plains as the summer 
 advanced. He advised the Emperor to await his 
 enemy behind the walls of the great fortified towns 
 of Italy. Otho was too impatient to listen to these 
 counsels. He could not bear the suspense of a 
 protracted campaign, and so resolved to put his 
 fortune to the touch at once. Even then the struggle 
 might have ended in his favour, but for the fatal 
 advice which his incompetent advisers, his brother 
 being foremost among them, urged upon him, that 
 he should retire to a safe distance from the scene 
 of the action. Paulinus and his colleagues saw the 
 folly of this proceeding, but did not venture to 
 oppose it, fearing to be accused of risking the 
 Emperor's life. 
 
 Otho accordingly retired to Brixellum. Two disas- 
 trous results followed. The army was weakened, for 
 a strong force, including some of the best troops in 
 
THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. 163 
 
 the army, was detached to serve as an escort to the 
 Emperor. The disparity in numbers thus became 
 more marked than ever. What was far worse was 
 the fact that the men lost their enthusiasm and 
 spirit. Otho, strange to say, considering how little 
 he showed of the soldierly temper and habit of life, 
 was highly popular with the men, who would have 
 fought under his eagle with an energy which they 
 were not likely to exhibit under any other com- 
 mander. 
 
 The details of the battle, as given by Tacitus, 
 enable us to form but little idea of what actually took 
 place. That the struggle began with a repulse of 
 the Vitellianist cavalry we know ; after that we find 
 little that is definite, only a strong general impression, 
 that the army of Otho was very badly commanded. 
 We read too of one of those strange misunderstandings 
 which have sometimes contributed to, if they have not 
 decided, the issue of battles.* A rumour went about the 
 Othonianist legions that their adversaries had capitu- 
 lated. They greeted the opposing lines with a friendly 
 salutation and only found out their mistake from 
 the angry response with which they were met. So 
 far not much harm would have followed; but the 
 
 * We may compare the mistake at the Battle of Barnet wlien 
 the Earl of Warwick's troops mistook the device worn by their 
 friends, the followers of the Earl of Oxford, a star with ^ve 
 rays for the sun which was the cognizance of the Yorkists. 
 
164 THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. 
 
 proceeding suggested treachery to their own side 
 whom the report had not reached, and could only 
 suppose that their comrades were fraternising with 
 the enemy. The battle raged most fiercely on the 
 causeway of one of the great roads that ran across 
 the Lombard plain, and on the open space between 
 this and the Po, where a desperate conflict is recorded 
 as having taken place between the Twenty-first 
 Legion, a veteran corps of high reputation which 
 had come from the camp of the Upper Rhine, and 
 a newly levied force, the First Marine Legion, which 
 had never yet fought in a pitched battle. In the 
 first conflict the veterans lost their eagle; infuriatiad 
 by this disgrace they returned to the charge, and 
 drove their opponents headlong before them. Another 
 legion from the German frontier, the Fifth, routed 
 the Thirteenth; a portion of the Fourteenth was 
 surrounded by superior numbers, and apparently was 
 compelled to surrender. The Praetorians, the best 
 troops in Otho's army, seem to have held their own, 
 refusing afterwards to allow that they had been 
 defeated. 
 
 Otho, meanwhile, was awaiting calmly at Brixellum 
 the news of the result, calmly because he had made 
 up his mind how he should act. i If the victory 
 was his, well ; if not, he was determined not to fight 
 again. He had risked everything on the issue of the 
 day, and he was resolved to abide by it. Suetonius^ 
 
THE BATTLE OF EEDRIACUM. 165 
 
 the historian of the Caesars, gives us an interesting 
 reminiscence which he had heard from his own father, 
 an officer in one of the defeated legions. Otho had 
 always felt the greatest horror of civil war; if his 
 own conduct towards Galba seemed inconsistent, he 
 excused it by having his own convictions partly jus- 
 tified by the result, that in this case the transference 
 of power could be effected without a struggle. 
 The troops seem to have been aware of the Emper- 
 or's reluctance to continue the struggle. Anyhow 
 they at once set themselves to at once combat the 
 resolve. They implored him not to give up hope ; 
 he had, they said, great forces still at his disposal. 
 The Praetorians were substantially unbroken, and the 
 legions from Moesia and from the trans- Adriatic 
 provinces were near at hand. Indeed they had sent 
 messengers in advance to announce their approach. 
 These representations were undoubtedly correct. The 
 war was not yet over, if Otho had chosen to carry 
 it on. He had the means of prolonging the struggle, 
 and it might have ended in his favor. But to prolong 
 it was exactly what he had resolved not to do. 
 
 The speech in which he announced this determination 
 is finely expressed, though how much is the historian's, 
 how much Otho's we cannot determine. "I do not 
 put so much value on my life, as to make me will- 
 ing to expose to further danger a spirit so noble, 
 a courage so dauntless as yours. The greater the 
 
166 THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. 
 
 hope you hold out to me, the more meritorious 
 will be m y death. Vitellius began this civil strife ; 
 I will at least have the credit of limiting it to a 
 single battle. Others will have held power longer 
 than I have done, but no one shall have left it with 
 more distinction. I am determined that the best youth 
 of Rome, the bravest armies of the Empire shall not 
 be lost to it. I am content to know that you were 
 willing to die for me." He then took farewell of his 
 friends, and gave them such facilities as he could for 
 leaving the place; he destroyed all documents and 
 letters that were likely to compromise their writers. 
 He had originally intended to kill himself that same 
 evening, but changed his mind, playfully saying to 
 his attendants : " I may as well live one night more. " 
 He had already discharged, as he thought, all the 
 duties of life, leaving nothing but the preparation 
 for death, when he was roused by a disturbance among 
 the infuriated soldiery. They took it ill that any of the 
 Emperor's friends should leave him and threatened with 
 violence all who attempted to quit the town. 
 
 Verginius, a distinguished officer, who had himself 
 refused the throne when it was offered him by the 
 legions, was in imminent danger, the troops having 
 besieged him in his house. Otho quieted the tumult, and 
 waited till all who wished to go had departed in safety. 
 At sunset, after quenching his thirst with a draught 
 of cold water, he retired to rest, having first put a 
 
THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. 167 
 
 dagger under his pillow. Two had been brought to 
 him, and he had chosen the one which had the keenest 
 edge. 
 
 The night passed quietly. It was believed that 
 he slept. At early dawn the freedmen who were in 
 attendance, and who were watching for every sound, 
 heard him groan. They hurried into his chamber, 
 Plotius Funius, the Prefect of the Praetorians, being 
 with them. They found Otho dead. One blow, which 
 must have been delivered with no common firmness, 
 had been sufficient. The last rites were hastily 
 performed. He had been urgent in his entreaties 
 that his remains should be at once placed on the 
 funeral pile, dreading that his head might be cut off 
 and made the object of insult by the conquerors. 
 The Praetorians carried his corpse to the place where 
 it was to be consumed, covering his hands and his 
 wounded breast with kisses as they went. Those who 
 could not reach the body for the crowd, showed their 
 grief and their affection by their gestures. Soldiers 
 who had been deputed to light the funeral pile killed 
 themselves after they had discharged this mournful 
 office. The number of those who committed suicide 
 either then or shortly afterwards was surprisingly 
 great. There was something in the man which 
 attracted affection in a remarkable way. He had 
 not, so far as we can make out, a single virtue beyond 
 courage ; he was vicious, unscrupulous, a foolish 
 
168 THE BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. 
 
 profligate and fop ; and yet a passionate devotion, 
 which men infinitely better than he could not raise, 
 was lavished upon him. The cause was doubtless 
 some personal charm which defied description. 
 
XXL 
 
 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 Vitelliiis. 
 
 IT was a curious chance that set Vitellius, the 
 ninth of the twelve Csesars, on the Imperial 
 throne. His father, indeed^ had been a man of no 
 small distinction. He had done considerable services 
 to the State both at home and abroad. When he 
 held the government of the province of Syria, an 
 office which carried with it the charge of the relations 
 between the Empire and the Parthian King, he 
 
170 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 had induced that jealous monarch to do homage to 
 the Roman Standards. He had been Consul three 
 times, had been the colleague of the Emperor in the 
 Censorship, and had been his vice-gerent during the 
 British expedition. Less creditable to him was the 
 extraordinary genius for flattery which he developed. 
 When he came back from Syria he found Caligula 
 on the throne. It was one of that mad prince's 
 caprices to fancy himself a god; Vitellius fooled 
 him to the top of his bent. He did not venture 
 to approach so radiant a being except with a veil 
 over his face, and in a prostrate attitude. 
 
 Claudius' weakness was a foolish fondness for a 
 profligate wife and for worthless freedmen. Vitellius 
 promptly accommodated himself to it. He begged 
 as a special favour from the Emperor that he might 
 be allowed to unfasten the Empress's shoes ; and he 
 was wont to carry one of her slippers between his 
 gown and his tunic and might be seen frequently 
 kissing it. He must have been between sixty and 
 seventy when he acted this degrading part, for he 
 had the satisfaction about this time of seeing his 
 two sons raised to the consulship in the same 
 year. 
 
 The Emperor's freedmen he complimented by putting 
 their busts, executed in gold, among his household 
 gods. He surpassed himself, when, congratulating 
 Claudius on the occasion of the Secular Games, 
 
AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 171 
 
 (exhibited once only in a hundred years), he wished 
 him "many happy returns of the day." And yet 
 he had good qualities. Suetonius describes him as 
 a man of energy who never injured others, and 
 Tacitus declares that though many things were said^ 
 and not untruly said against him, he showed the 
 high qualities belonging to better times. 
 
 Aulus, the elder of his two sons, had no such 
 good qualities. He showed something of his father's 
 talent for flattery. He ingratiated himself with 
 Caligula by assisting in his favorite pursuit of 
 chariot driving; played dice with Claudius; and 
 delighted Nero, who, anxious publicly to exhibit his 
 skill on the harp, was still ashamed to do it, by 
 conveying to him what he represented as the unani- 
 mous wish of the people for the performance. Such 
 services had of course to be rewarded. Offices, 
 sacred and secular, were heaped upon him ; he was 
 sent to govern Africa, a duty which he performed, 
 strange to say, with singular integrity, though in 
 Rome he had been accused of pilfering ornaments 
 from the temples, and exchanging the gold and 
 silver for baser metals. 
 
 Then came the honour which was to prove the 
 occasion of his elevation and of his downfall. He was 
 appointed to the command of the army of Lower 
 Germany. The choice — it was made by Galba — 
 astonished everyone. It was the most important 
 
172 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 command in the Empire, for nowhere had the frontier to 
 be so diligently guarded, and Vitellius, who had never 
 seen any military service, was confessedly incompe- 
 tent. 
 
 Some found the reason of this strange promotion 
 in the influence of Vinius. Vinius and Vitellius had 
 been associated as partisans of the " Blues, '^ one of 
 the factions of the Circus, * amply sufficient reason, 
 it was thought, in the eyes of a notoriously unprin- 
 cipled favourite. Others declared that the choice 
 was Galba's own, and was due to his jealousy of 
 any ability in his subordinates. " There is no reason 
 to be afraid of men who think of nothing but eating, " 
 he is reported to have said. " As for Vitellius even 
 his boundless appetite will be satisfied with what he 
 finds in a province, and no one will suppose that 
 I chose him for any other reason but my con- 
 tempt. ^ 
 
 The new general was so miserably poor — his means 
 having been wasted by extravagant living — that he 
 was without money for his travelling expenses. He 
 had to let his town mansion, putting his wife and 
 children into hired lodgings, while he pledged a costly 
 pearl ear-ring which his mother was accustomed to 
 wear. Even then he had the greatest difficulty in 
 escaping a swarm of importunate creditors, the most 
 
 * See note at the end of the chapter. 
 
AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 173 
 
 troublesome among them being the inhabitants of two 
 Italian towns, the revenues of which he had embezzled. 
 He contrived to get away by threatening them with 
 an action for defamation of character. One unfortunate 
 man who demanded his due somewhat energetically 
 he accused of personal violence, and actually recovered 
 from him a handsome sum of money. 
 
 The army received him with open arms. It had 
 been greatly irritated by the treatment it had received 
 from the Emperor. Verginius, its commander, a very 
 able soldier, and popular with his troops, was kept 
 in attendance at court, not because Galba liked him, 
 but because he suspected him. The army had in- 
 deed offered him the Empire, and felt that it was 
 regarded with dislike. Accordingly, it was ready for 
 change. The men were strongly prepossessed in 
 favour of Vitellius. He was the son of a distinguished 
 father ; he had a commanding presence ; he was open- 
 handed and good-natured. His absolute want of cour- 
 age and ability was still unknown. His arrival was 
 preceded by golden reports of his affability. He was 
 said to greet even common soldiers with a kiss, and 
 to mix with grooms and casual travellers on terms 
 of even vulgar familiarity. Once established in head- 
 quarters his easy and indulgent temper showed itself. 
 No one had to proffer a petition in vain; soldiers 
 degraded for misconduct were restored to their rank ; 
 condemned criminals were pardoned. Scarcely a 
 
174 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 month had passed before the legions saluted him 
 Emperor. He accepted this dignity, and was carried 
 round the camp, holding in his hand a sword that 
 had belonged to the great Julius. Some one had 
 taken it down from the wall of the Temple of Mars, * 
 and presented it to him. He made no oration to the 
 soldiers, but the few words that he said indicated 
 some readiness and presence of mind. A room in 
 the head-quarters had caught fire, and there was 
 general consternation, not without a feeling that the 
 incident was an evil omen for the future. " Cheer 
 up, my men!" cried the Prince, "there is a light 
 on the path." 
 
 The story of his march to Rome need not be told 
 here. The victory was won for him by his lieutenants. 
 He made — indeed he was called upon to make — no 
 effort. After the victory at Bedriacum he disbanded 
 the whole Praetorian Guard for having fought for his 
 rival. Among Otho's papers he found a hundred and 
 twenty memorials from persons who declared that 
 they had had a share in the death of Galba. He 
 ordered all these claimants to be put to death. 
 Suetonius loudly praises the act as giving the highest 
 hopes of what a ruler he might have been. After 
 all it must have been dictated only by an instinct 
 of self-preservation. No ruler feels that the mur- 
 
 * Probably a building within the precincts of the camp. 
 
AN IMPEEIAL GLUTTON. 175 
 
 der of a predecessor is a thing to be rewarded, 
 however much he may himself have profited by the 
 act. 
 
 It was not long before the man's temper began 
 to show itself in its true light. He indulged in the 
 most extravagant luxury as he marched southwards. 
 Nothing was too costly for his travelling equipment, 
 nothing too recherche for his banquets. His easy 
 temper, too, was not inconsistent with much brutality. 
 He visited the field of battle at Bedriacum, when the 
 ground was still covered with the unburied corpses 
 of the slain. His suite complained of the intolerable 
 stench. "To me," said Vitellius, "there is nothing 
 sweeter than the smell of a dead enemy, especially 
 if he is a countryman." He was not unwilling however 
 to refresh himself and his companions with copious 
 draughts of unmixed wine. He jeered at the modest 
 stone which covered the remains of Otho, and ordered 
 the dagger with which his rival had slain himself to 
 be hung up in the temple of Mars in the Colonia 
 Agrippinensis. "^ 
 
 The man's recklessness and folly, when he felt 
 himself firmly seated on the throne, exceeded all 
 bounds. He rode into Rome clad in his military 
 cloak and with his sword at his side, to the sound 
 of martial music, while his escort followed fully 
 
 * So called from Agrippina, the wife of Germaniciis. It is 
 now Cologne. 
 
176 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 armed. It was the immemorial custom that a soldier , 
 returning from service must put on the garb of 
 peace before he could pass the Gates, unless indeed 
 the honour of a triumph had been conferred upon 
 him. All Rome Avas shocked when he published an 
 edict on a day * marked as unlucky in the public 
 calendar as having been that on which the disasters 
 of Cremera and Allia f had happened. The respect- 
 able classes were not less horrified when he caused 
 a solemn funeral service to be performed in the 
 Field of Mars to the memory of Nero. This was 
 the model he seemed to propose to himself for imita- 
 tion. As to the business of government, he allowed 
 it to be conducted by the actors and jockeys with 
 whom he delighted to surround himself. It was on 
 the pleasures of the table that he spent his whole 
 energy. A Roman was commonly content with two 
 meals a day; Vitellius had always three, and some- 
 times four. He prepared himself for these by the 
 constant use of emetics. His courtiers were com- 
 monly directed to supply these entertainments. It 
 was understood that a meal must never cost less 
 than «#4000. But the most sumptuous entertain- 
 ment of his reign, which happily did not extend 
 
 *July, 18tli. 
 
 t At Cremera (B.C. 477) the whole of the Fabii had 'perish- 
 ed; at Allia (B.C. 390) the Romans had suffered a disastrous 
 defeat from the Gauls under Brennus. 
 
AN IMPEKIAL GLUTTON. 177 
 
 beyond six months, was that given to him by his 
 brother on his arrival in Rome. At this, two thou- 
 sand choice fishes and seven thousand choice birds 
 are said to have been served. His own most con- 
 spicuous achievement in this line was the manufacture 
 of an enormous dish — so vast in size he called it 
 the shield of " Minerva the city-keeper. "" * This was 
 filled with the livers of a rare kind of fish, (Possibly 
 the " corasse, " but not certainly known) the brains of 
 pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes — 
 Apicius was credited with the discovery that the 
 tongues of flamingoes had a special delicacy of fla- 
 vour — and the small intestines of another fish, 
 equally rare with the first, and, equally difficult 
 to identify. These dainties had been collected by 
 specially commissioned persons from the eastern 
 borders of the Empire to the Pillars of Hercules. 
 But Vitellius' appetite did not restrict itself to these 
 costly viands. It was enormous, and its demands 
 were incessant. Even at a sacrifice he could not 
 keep his hands off the flesh and the salted meal; 
 and he could relish even the coarse food that could 
 be bought in the common cook-shops. 
 
 From the torpor into which his perpetual excesses 
 plunged him, he seems never to have roused him- 
 self except to commit some fresh act of cruelty. 
 
 * In allusion to a colossal statue of the goddess at Athens, 
 
 12 
 
178 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 He would make much of old friends, sharing with 
 them, it might be said, everything but the imperial 
 power itself, and then suddenly turn upon them, 
 and put them to death. To one who was suffering 
 from fever he paid what seemed to be a friendly 
 visit, and mixed poison in the cup of cold water he 
 handed to the sick man. His old creditors were 
 made to suffer for the annoyance which they had 
 given him. Scarcely one was allowed to escape. 
 On one occasion he was supposed to have pardoned 
 the offender, for after ordering him to execution, he 
 recalled him. "What a clement prince!" exclaimed 
 the courtiers. But the " clement prince " had done 
 it only to "feast his eyes," as he put it, with the 
 sight of the poor wretches death. One wealthy man 
 cried out as he was being carried off by the execu- 
 tioner, " Sire, you are my heir. " Vitellius called 
 for the man's will, and finding he shared the inherit- 
 ance with a freedman, ordered the testator and 
 his CO- legatee to be put to death. His victims 
 were taken even from the lowest classes; it was 
 enough if a man was heard to wish bad luck to 
 the "Blues." That was thought to be treason to 
 the Emperor. The one memorable event of his 
 reign is related in the next chapter. It only 
 remains to tell the story of his end. When the 
 troops of Vespasian's lieutenants had found their 
 way into the city, the wretched man was paralysed 
 
AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 179 
 
 by fear. His first idea was to make his way to 
 his private house, hide himself there or elsewhere 
 for the day, and fly on the morrow to Tarracona, 
 where his brother still had some troops. Then, to 
 follow the words of Tacitus, "with characteristic 
 weakness, and following the instincts of fear, which 
 dreading everything, shrinks most from what is 
 immediately before it, he retraced his steps to the 
 desolate and forsaken palace, whence even the 
 meanest slaves had fled or where they avoided 
 his presence. The solitude and silence of the place 
 scared him; he tried the closed doors, he shuddered 
 in the empty chambers, till, wearied out with his 
 miserable wanderings, he concealed himself in some 
 wretched hiding-place, from which he was dragged 
 by the tribune Julius Placidus. His hands were 
 bound behind his back; and he was led along with 
 tattered robes, a revolting spectacle, amid the 
 execrations of many, the tears of none. The degrad- 
 ation of his end had extinguished all pity. 
 
 One of the German soldiers met the party, he aimed 
 a deadly blow at VitelliuS; perhaps in anger, perhaps 
 wishing to put him out of his misery. Possibly the 
 blow was meant for the Tribune. Anyhow it cut off 
 that officer's ear, and the soldier was immediately 
 despatched. The fallen Emperor, compelled by 
 threatening swords, first to raise his face and offer 
 it to insulting blows, then to behold his own statues 
 
180 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 falling round him, and more than once to look at 
 the hustings and the spot where Galba was slain, 
 was then driven along till they reached the Gemo- 
 niae, the place where the corpse of Flavins Sabinus 
 had lain. One speech only was heard from him 
 shewing a spirit not utterly degraded, when to the 
 insults of a Tribune he answered, "Yet I was your 
 Emperor." Then he fell under a shower of blows, 
 the mob reviling him when he was dead as heart- 
 lessly as they had flattered him when he was alive. 
 
 Note on the Factions of the Circus. 
 
 The " factions " of the Circus were, in the time of the Empire, 
 companies of contractors who supplied all the requisites for the 
 chariot races which were one of the chief amusements of the 
 Circus. Gibhon notes the difference between the Greek and 
 Roman ways of thinking on this matter. In Greece princes 
 and nobles thought it a privilege to compete in the chariot 
 races of Olympia and an almost unequalled distinction to suc- 
 ceed in them. In Homer we have the kings and chiefs driving 
 their own chariots in the race ; and doubtless in historical times 
 it was always open to the owner of the chariot and team 
 to do so. Probably, however, he was commonly represented 
 by some one else, as was Hiero, King of Syracuse, when he 
 secured the victories celebrated by Pindar, or Alcibiades when 
 he entered no less than seven chariots at once. But the driver 
 had certainly to be a Greek of pure descent and unblemished 
 character. At Rome the charioteer was commonly a slave, 
 supplied by the factio. It is true that the fascination of the 
 sport was such that young nobles and sometimes Emperors of 
 the less worthy sort engaged in it, but this conduct was 
 
AN IMPEKIAL GLUTTON. 181 
 
 condemned by the public opinion of the reputable classes. 
 These, it is clear, looked askance even on a man driving his 
 own horses, when no race was concerned. They seemed to 
 regard it much as an Oriental regards dancing, astonished to 
 see any person of position do what he can hire persons to do 
 for him. Apparently then, whatever might happen in exceptional 
 cases, the factions supplied chariots, horses and drivers being 
 paid for their trouble and expenses by the giver of the 
 entertainment. Each association was distinguished by a peculiar 
 colour which was worn by all its emjjlot/es. In the early days 
 of the Empire there were two associations only and two colours, 
 red and white (rosata and albata). Before the end of the 
 reign of Augustus a third, blue (veneta) was added, and not 
 long afterwards a fourth, green (prasina). Domitian added two 
 others purple and gold. But these additions do not seem to 
 have established themselves. In fact the blue and green 
 factions seem ultimately to have absorbed their rivals. Much 
 partisanship was shown by the spectators in respect to these 
 associations, and large sums of money were wagered on the 
 success of one or the other. The rivalry often ended in actual 
 conflict; and the "faction fights" of the Circus became a cause 
 of serious disturbance at times when the government of Rome 
 was in weak hands. We hear of these disgraceful incidents 
 from time to time down to the extinction of the Western 
 Empire; after its fall we find Theodoris ordering a judicial 
 inquiry into an uproar which had resulted in the death of a " green. " 
 At Constantinople^, when the seat of Empire was transferred 
 to that city, the disorder broke out in a more aggravated 
 form. It was complicated with religious differences. The 
 Emperor Anastatius I. (490 — 518) while a follower of the 
 heresy of Eutychus was a partisan of the "green" faction. 
 In his reign the "greens" are said to have murdered three 
 thousand of their "blue" adversaries. Justinian who ascended 
 
182 AN IMPERIAL GLUTTON. 
 
 the throne in 527 was orthodox and a favourer of the " blues," 
 and under his patronage they had an ample revenge. The reader 
 may consult Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 
 IV. 302—309 (Bohn's Edition) for a full account of the terrible 
 riots which took place in the reign of Justinian. 
 
XXII. 
 
 THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. 
 
 THE last month of the tragical " year of the three 
 Emperors" had begun, and the throne of Vitellius, 
 the last of the three, was tottering to its fall. About 
 seven weeks before, Bedriacum, the battle-field on 
 which Otho's fortunes had received a fatal blow, 
 had witnessed the discomfiture of the army of his 
 successor. 
 
 At first Vitellius had refused to credit the news of 
 this disaster; an officer sent by himself to examine 
 the state of affairs found his report refused belief 
 and himself charged with having been bribed to 
 exaggerate the defeat. 
 
 "You want a proof;" he exclaimed, "as my 
 life or death can be of no further use to you, I 
 will give you one that you can trust, " and leaving 
 the imperial presence he put an end to his own 
 life. Then only the supine Vitellius was roused 
 
184 THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. 
 
 to action. He sent a strong force to occupy the 
 passes of the Apennines, and even summoned 
 up resolution to leave Rome, and show himself in 
 the camp. Even this vigorous action might have at 
 least postponed the end, if it could not change the 
 issue of the campaign. But Vitellius had no faithful 
 friends, and had lost all his energies in excess. He 
 returned hastily to Rome and not long afterwards 
 the army which he had deserted surrendered to the 
 generals of Vespasian. 
 
 There was still a possibility, even a probability 
 of a final struggle for the possession of Rome, and 
 this the conquerors were anxious to avoid. They 
 offered terms to Vitellius. His life should be spared; 
 his property should remain intact, and he might 
 choose any retreat that he pleased for the remainder 
 of his days, if only he would quietly abdicate power. 
 The terms of an agreement were actually discussed 
 between the Emperor and Flavins Sabinus, the elder 
 brother of Vespasian, and at that time Grovernor of 
 the city. The two had several meetings, the last 
 being held in the famous library of the Palatine 
 Apollo * in the presence of Cluvius Rufus a governor 
 of Spain, and Silius Italicus, one of the consuls, the 
 author of the Ptmica, a still extant poem of which 
 every scholar knows the name, but which has 
 
 * Built and furnished with books by Augustus, B.C. 37. 
 
THE BUKNING OF THE CAPITOL. 185 
 
 very seldom been read, so portentous is its dulness. 
 
 Vitellius was ready enough to abdicate. His spirit 
 was completely crushed. It was a more creditable 
 motive that he hoped to secure the safety of his 
 family by a speedy submission. His followers were 
 otherwise disposed. 
 
 "Vespasian/' they told him, "cannot afford to 
 spare you. Whatever promises he may now make 
 you of a peaceful life in some luxurious retreat, 
 be sure that he will not keep them. Neither 
 his friends nor yours will allow him to do so, for 
 peace would never be assured while there was an 
 ex-Emperor alive. Caesar could not let Pompey live, 
 nor Augustus Antony; possibly Vespasian may be 
 more magnanimous, Vespasian who used to wait on 
 a Vitellius when he was the Emperor's colleague. * 
 Anyhow a man who has had so many honours of 
 his own, and inherited so many from his father is 
 bound not to fall without a struggle." 
 
 All this made little or no impression on the Emperor. 
 He had at least the merit of being resigned to his 
 fate, and he was above all things anxious to bespeak 
 the favour of the conqueror for his wife and 
 children. 
 
 On the 18th of December he heard of the defection 
 
 * In the consulship, [the Emperor, of course, being Claudius. 
 It does not appear that Vitellius was ever consul in the same 
 year with Claudius; his father was so in A. D. 47. 
 
186 THE BUKNING OF THE CAPITOL. 
 
 of the force which was garrisoning the Apennine passes, 
 and proceeded to carry out his intention of abdicating. 
 He left the Palace at the head of a procession of 
 freedmen and slaves which bore all the melancholy 
 aspect of a funeral, and walked to the Forum. Such 
 a sight, the historian tells us, had never before been 
 witnessed in Rome. Other Emperors had fallen ; the 
 great Julius had been struck down in the Senate 
 House; Caligula had been slain in the retirement of 
 his palace ; Nero had perished, but it was where there 
 had been none to see it; Galba had fallen, it might 
 be said, on the battle-field. Here was a man, who but 
 the day before had been the master of the world, 
 voluntarily giving up his throne in an assembly called 
 by himself, and before soldiers who had sworn alle- 
 giance to him. 
 
 After a brief speech in which he announced 
 his resignation, and an earnest entreaty to all 
 who were present that they would protect his 
 son — the child was present — Vitellius unfastened the 
 dagger which he carried at his side and which was 
 the emblem of his power of life and death, and would 
 have given it up to the consul. The consul refused 
 to receive it, and there was a general shout of protest. 
 Vitellius then turned away, intending to deposit the 
 emblem of imperial power in the Temple of Concord, 
 and to take up his abode in his brother's house. 
 His partisans refused to allow him to enter a private 
 
THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. 187 
 
 mansion, and blocked up every road but that which 
 led to the Palace. Thither accordingly he returned. 
 
 Flavins Sabinus had heard of this resolve to abdicate, 
 and had taken measures accordingly, especially writing 
 to the Tribunes of the Praetorians to confine their 
 soldiers to their quarters. He was in fact preparing 
 to act as his brother's vice-gerent, when he and his 
 friends were startled by the report that the intention 
 of Vitellius had been baffled. Sabinus had now gone 
 too far to retreat. He was advised to take up arms; 
 but some who gave this counsel declined to share 
 the risk. A collision took place between his party 
 and the adherents of Vitellius, and Sabinus found it 
 his safest course to occupy the Capitoline Hill with 
 such a force as he had at his disposal, a miscella- 
 neous company of troops with a few senators and 
 knights. Some ladies unwilling to leave brothers, 
 children, or husbands, went with him. One, Verulana 
 Gratilla * by name, had no motive but the sheer love 
 of adventure. 
 
 The troops of Vitellius blockaded the Capitol, but 
 kept so indifferent a watch that Sabinus was able 
 
 *We know nothing more of this lady than that she is 
 mentioned by Pliny as one of the patriotic party, as it may be 
 called (See c. XXXII). Probably she had hailed the prospect of 
 a better state of things under Vespasian, and was enthusiastic 
 in his cause. Tacitus evidently does not admire her masculine 
 energy. 
 
188 THE BUKNING OF THE CAPITOL. 
 
 at dead of night to bring his own children and his 
 nephew Domitian into the Capitol, and to send a 
 message to the generals, commanding the advancing 
 force, begging for speedy relief. He had no means, 
 he informed them, of standing a long siege. He 
 might have escaped, so negligent were the besiegers, 
 but for some reason preferred to remain. 
 
 Early the next morning he despatched a praetorian 
 officer to Vitellius. The envoy was the bearer of a 
 strong remonstrance. " Was the abdication, " Sabinus 
 asked, " a mere pretence intended to delude a number 
 of distinguished men ? If you were bent on resigning, 
 why not go quietly to your wife's house on the 
 Aventine, where no one would have seen you. Your 
 brother's mansion, overlooking the Forum as it does, 
 was most dangerously public. I was still faithful to 
 you, though province after province, army after army 
 had left you. Brother as I am to Vespasian, I did 
 nothing in his interest, till you yourself invited me 
 to treat. What good will it do you to slay an old 
 man and a boy? If you want to fight for your 
 throne, go and meet the armies of your rival in the 
 field." 
 
 Vitellius had nothing to reply, except that he was 
 not his own master; the troops had taken the law 
 into their own hands, and he could not hold them 
 back. He could not even protect the person of the 
 envoy, and advised him to leave the Palace unob- 
 
THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. 189 
 
 served, if he would escape death at the hands of the 
 soldiers. 
 
 The officer had scarcely regained the Capitol when 
 a furious onslaught was made on the place by the 
 besieging force on the position of Sabinus. The 
 Capitoline Hill had two summits, the Citadel (Arx) on 
 the North east, the Capitol proper on the South- 
 west. * Between them was a depression known as 
 the Asylum. There were two approaches: one ac- 
 cessible by vehicles, called the slope (clivus) ; another 
 for pedestrians only, the hundred steps. The assailants 
 first attempted the former. It was flanked on the 
 right by a colonnade, and the besieged mounting the 
 roof of this building showered down stones and tiles 
 on the attacking party. These were armed with 
 swords only. To send for regular siege artillery 
 meant long delay; they replied by hurling lighted 
 torches on to the colonnade. The building caught fire 
 and the conflagration spread to the doors which, at 
 the top of the ascent, closed the entrance to the 
 Capitol itself. These were partially burnt through, 
 and would have given way but for an extemporised 
 wall built up behind them out of the statues, many of 
 them works of great antiquity and interest, with which 
 the place was ornamented. An assault was now 
 
 * Tacitus says that Sabinus occupied the Citadel of the Capi- 
 tol (arcem Capitolinam), but he seems to mean the whole of 
 the hill. 
 
190 THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. 
 
 delivered in two fresh directions, one by the hundred 
 steps, the other by the Asylum. It was the second 
 of these attacks which seemed the more formidable. 
 The fact was that the Capitol had ceased to be a 
 fortress. During a long period of peace, buildings 
 had been allowed to grow up in the valleys between 
 the two hills, the roofs of which were on a level with 
 the higher ground on either side. The besiegers 
 climbed on to these roofs, and superior as they were 
 both in numbers and courage, could not be dislodged. 
 And now occurred the fatal catastrophe which made 
 the day one of the most disastrous in the history of 
 Rome. Whether the besieged tried to drive back the 
 attacking party by using fire-brands against them, or 
 whether the latter tried again the tactics that they 
 had employed successfully before is not certain. 
 Tacitus is inclined to the former theory of the cause 
 of the conflagration. The result was that the flames 
 caught first the colonnades round the three temples, * 
 and then the great beams (called eagles) which sup- 
 ported the roofs. In a few moments the Capitol was 
 in flames. 
 
 This deplorable event, which Tacitus does not 
 scruple to describe as the greatest humiliation that 
 Rome had ever endured, had the immediate effect of 
 paralysing the defence. The troops, mostly unknown 
 
 * Jupitus (Capitolinus), Juno, and Minerva. 
 
THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. 191 
 
 to each other and unaccustomed to act together, were 
 struck with panic ; Sabinus lost his presence of mind 
 altogether. He seemed unable either to speak plainly 
 or to hear what was said to him. It is doubtful 
 whether anyone could have saved the place ; with 
 Sabinus it was hopeless. Very soon the assailants 
 were inside the walls, and though a few officers 
 preferred to die sword in hand, there was a general 
 rush to escape. 
 
 In this many succeeded. Some disguised themselves 
 as slaves, some were protected by humble friends, 
 others, again, contrived to pick up the watchword 
 of the assailants and so made their way out unhurt. 
 Domitian hid himself in the house of a temple- 
 servant. 
 
 A freedman conceived the ingenious idea of dressing 
 him up in the white linen vestment worn by the 
 attendants of Isis. He thus escaped detection for 
 the time, and found shelter afterwards in the house 
 of a humble friend of the family. During his father's 
 reign he showed his gratitude by building a chapel 
 on the site of the temple-servant's house, and erecting 
 an altar adorned with the story of his escape represented 
 in marble; when he became Emperor he erected a 
 magnificent temple in memory of the incident. Sabinus 
 was murdered by the populace, against the wishes 
 of Vitellius, who would gladly have preserved his 
 life. One of the consuls, who was captured with 
 
192 THE BUKNING OF THE CAPITOL. 
 
 him, escaped by taking upon himself the blame of 
 the conflagration. He acknowledged, or rather pre- 
 tended, that he had fired the Capitol with his own 
 hand. 
 
XXIIL 
 
 A STUDENT. 
 
 THE first century of our era was a period of great 
 literary activity at Rome, but of little creative 
 power. We must allow, indeed, one conspicuous 
 exception in Tacitus — but then Tacitus was a repub- 
 lican born out of due time. Perhaps we must allow 
 a second in Juvenal, only that the genius of the 
 satirist is, so to speak, generated by the very cor- 
 ruption of the age in which he lives. 
 
 No one is more representative of this literary activity 
 than the writer who, to distinguish him from his nephew 
 and adopted son, is spoken of as the Elder Pliny. Caius 
 Plinius Secundus was a native of Gallia Transpadana, 
 Verona (in Venetia), and Como (in Lombardy), con- 
 tended for the honour of having been his birth-place. 
 The balance of probability inclines to the former. 
 His family connections were certainly with this town. 
 His family was respectable and wealthy, but not 
 
194 A STUDENT. 
 
 distinguished. He was the first of this name known 
 to history. He seems to have been educated at 
 Rome. In his twenty-third year he entered the army, 
 receiving what we may call a commission in a troop 
 of auxiliary horse. (A young Roman gentleman 
 entered the army either as a centurion in the infantry 
 or a prefect in the cavalry. He was " dry-nursed " 
 by an experienced officer who had risen from the 
 ranks.) Here his literary tastes found their first 
 employment. The young captain wrote a treatise on 
 the art of using the javelins which a trooper carried 
 in a quiver on his back, and began a more serious 
 work, which he afterwards completed, on the "Cam- 
 paigns of Rome in Germany. " He used to say that 
 this was suggested by a dream. Drusus, the younger 
 brother of Tiberius, who had formed a plan of 
 reducing Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe into a 
 province, but died before it could be executed, seemed 
 to implore him not to allow his achievements to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 His time in the army completed, he returned to 
 Rome, and wrote a treatise in three books^ each so 
 large that it had to be divided into three books, on 
 the Training of the Orator. At the same time he 
 engaged in actual practice in the courts. Employment 
 in Spain as collector of imperial revenues followed. 
 Still the book-making went on; but as the times 
 were perilous (Nero was on the throne), and neutral 
 
A STUDENT. 195 
 
 subjects were safest, he wrote a treatise in eight 
 books on ^^ Doubtful Points in Style and Grammar." 
 
 Under Vespasian and Titus he still had high official 
 employment. What this was we do not know, except 
 that at the time of his death (of which more here- 
 after) he was admiral of the fleet at Misenum. His 
 pen was still busy. To this period, including the 
 last ten years of his life, belong the History of Rome 
 in twenty-one books, taking up the subject where 
 Aufidius Bassus left it off, probably at the beginning 
 of the reign of Claudius, and the voluminous work 
 by which alone he is known to us, the Natural 
 History in thirty-seven books. 
 
 This somewhat dry catalogue of his official and 
 literary employments is illustrated in a very interest- 
 ing way by the account which his nephew has given 
 (Epp. iii. 5) of his habits as a student and a man of 
 business. In both capacities he seems to have been 
 absolutely indefatigable. 
 
 He rose very early; in summer, before dawn; 
 in winter, never later than six o'clock, and 
 sometimes as early as half-past four. This very 
 short allowance of sleep he could make up in the 
 course of the day; sometimes he would take 
 a nap over his books. When he was at Rome, 
 his first hours were given to business. Vespasian 
 was as early a riser as himself, and used to give him 
 audience before it was light. His instructions from 
 
196 A STUDENT. 
 
 the Emperor received, he proceeded to transact the 
 business put into his hands. This finished, the rest 
 of the day was his own, and was given to study or 
 composition. First came a light breakfast, bread 
 dipped in wine, or, perhaps, eaten with honey; 
 sometimes, it may be, figs or a little cheese. This 
 would bring him to about nine o'clock in the morning. 
 After breakfast, if the weather was fine, he basked 
 awhile in the sun, listening, however, to the reading 
 of some book, and taking notes and extracts. It was 
 one of his sayings that no book was so bad but 
 that some part of it might be made use of. Then 
 came a cold bath; after this, luncheon and a brief 
 siesta. This brings him on, it will be seen, to noon. 
 The siesta ended, another day of study began. 
 
 Neither the bath nor dinner was allowed to interrupt 
 it. While he was actually in the water, the reader had 
 to stop, but when the student was either scraping 
 himself down (using, i.e., the strigil, a very rough 
 flesh-brush, but made of horn or metal) or drying 
 himself, he would either listen or dictate. At dinner 
 the reading went on, as it goes on in a monastic 
 refectory. He was so parsimonious of his time 
 that, when a guest on one occasion corrected a 
 mistake of pronunciation, he reproved him. " Did 
 you not understand him?" he asked. The guest 
 allowed that he had understood. " Then why did 
 you make him go over it all again ? You have made 
 
A STUDENT. 197 
 
 me lose ten lines of reading." He rose from table 
 in summer before it was dark (Spurinna, it will be 
 remembered, prolonged the repast till far into the 
 night), in winter before six o'clock. (The hours, I may 
 remind my readers, are very indefinite.) In vacation 
 time, i.e. J when he had no official duties, the whole 
 day was given to study. Even the time that had to 
 be spent on journeying to and from Rome was not 
 lost. A short-hand writer always sat by his side in 
 the carriage ; in winter the man wore gloves lest the 
 cold should hinder him from writing. As it was 
 impossible to read, listen, dictate, or write while 
 walking, he never used to walk. In the country he 
 used a carriage, in town a litter. His nephew incurred 
 Ms reproof for indulging in an exercise so wasteful 
 of time. "You have lost all these hours,'' he said; 
 for all time not given to study was, he thought, lost. 
 The fruits of this prodigious industry were very 
 great. Besides the works mentioned above, he left 
 at his death— and he died in his fifty-sixth year — a 
 hundred and sixty " commonplace books," filled on 
 both sides of the page, (a very uncommon practice) 
 and in a very small hand-writing, with the extracts 
 that he had been making all his life from books. For 
 these volumes he was offered between three and four 
 thousand pounds, and this was when he was in Spain, 
 and the number was considerably less than it after- 
 wards became. "It amuses me," writes his nephew. 
 
198 A STUDENT. 
 
 " to hear people speak of me as a student. In com- 
 parison with him I am an absolute idler." 
 
 The story of Pliny's last days is a curious illus- 
 tration of many of the characteristics here ascribed 
 to him, while it supplies others of a very creditable 
 kind. He was at Misenum, in command, as has been 
 said, of the fleet, had had his cold bath and luncheon, 
 and was busy with his books. (It was about one 
 o'clock p.m. on the 25th. of August.) His sister (the 
 younger Pliny's mother) told him of a strange cloud 
 that was visible on the summit of Mt. Vesuvius. He 
 took a look at it, and resolved to make a nearer 
 investigation. He invited his nephew (who tells the 
 story) to join him. The young man excused himself, 
 pleading a task which his uncle had given him to do. 
 Just as he left the house news reached him which 
 changed his scientific curiosity into an eager anxiety 
 to give any help he could in what he guessed to be 
 some terrible convulsion of nature. A number of ships 
 were launched, and steered, by his command, straight 
 to the scene of danger. All the while, he was taking* 
 and recording observations of phenomena. Ashes had 
 begun to fall upon the ships, growing hotter and 
 thicker as they approached the shore. Now came a 
 shower of stones. Then the water grew suddenly 
 shallow. It was suggested that they should turn back. 
 "No," said the philosopher, "Fortune favours the bold. 
 Make for Pomponianus's house." This was at Stabiae 
 
A STUDENT. 199 
 
 (four miles south of Pompeii). Pomponianus had put 
 all his goods on shipboard, and was waiting till the 
 wind, which was blowing strongly on shore, should 
 subside. Pliny cheered him up, said that he should 
 like to have a bath, and then sat down to dinner. 
 He was cheerful, or what, says his nephew, was 
 equally courageous, feigned to be so. 
 
 The flames from the crater of Vesuvius were now 
 visible in the darkness. Pliny thought, or pretended 
 to think, that they came from houses that had been 
 left and had caught fire. Then he went to bed and 
 slept soundly, being heard to snore loudly (he was 
 very stout, says his nephew, and we do not wonder 
 after what we have heard of his aversion to exercise). 
 His host and the rest of the party were too much 
 alarmed to sleep. Meanwhile the open court in the 
 house was becoming choked with cinders. The philo- 
 sopher was roused: if he slept longer, it would be 
 impossible for him to leave his chamber. As the 
 inmates of the house were now assembled, they con- 
 sulted as to what had best be done. To stay within 
 doors was dangerous, for the house might fall at any 
 moment, so severe were the shocks of earthquake. 
 The danger would be scarcely less if they went out. 
 Large masses of pumice stone were perpetually falling, 
 and these, though not heavy, might be fatal to life. 
 Still, the latter course seemed, on the whole, the safer. 
 All put cushions on their heads, and so sallied forth. 
 
200 A STUDENT. 
 
 It was now day, but still as dark as night. The 
 party made their way down to the shore, wishing to 
 see whether they could embark. All looked gloomy 
 and forbidding, and the wind still blew strongly from 
 the sea. Pliny then lay down on a sailcloth, which 
 had been spread for him, and asked twice for a draught 
 of cold water. A strong smell of sulphur was then 
 observed. The rest of the party fled in terror, but 
 his curiosity was excited. He lifted himself from the 
 ground by the help of two slave boys, and almost 
 instantly fell. The rest of the party seem to have 
 fled for their lives and to have escaped ; how, we are 
 not told. Some days afterwards the body of the 
 philosopher was found, without any marks of external 
 injury, and with the calm look of a sleeper. This 
 makes one think that he could not have been suffocated 
 by the sulphurous vapours, as his nephew thinks, but 
 that he died from heart-disease, or other similar cause. 
 
 It must be confessed that the anxiety to personally 
 investigate remarkable natural phcenomena is not char- 
 acteristic of the Natural History^ the great work — for 
 it is great in some respects — on which rests Pliny's 
 claim to the character of a man of science. He was 
 an arm-chair philosopher. His industry, as we might 
 expect, was boundless. In his list of authorities — this 
 and his table of contents are features almost peculiar 
 to him among the writers of antiquity — he enumerates 
 his authorities. These amount to a hundred ; a won- 
 
A STUDENT. 201 
 
 derful total when we consider how small was the 
 whole literature of the world as compared to what 
 it is now. As a matter of fact, he quotes from more 
 than four times as many writers, but most of these 
 he did not rank as authorities. But he was a collector, 
 not an investigator ; he does not verify or criticise, 
 but heaps up astonishing masses of facts or fictions 
 more or less marvellous. He writes on zoology, botany, 
 mineralogy, astronomy, perhaps I ought to add, 
 anthropology, without having any pretension to be 
 really acquainted with any of these sciences. Some- 
 times he makes mistakes that are really inexcusable, 
 as when he overstates the length . of the year of the 
 planet Venus by more than a half (348 days instead 
 of 225). He seems to have transferred the contents 
 of his note-books, which were probably labelled with 
 the names of various branches of knowledge, with 
 little thought either of where he was putting them or 
 whether they were worth putting anywhere. 
 
 Sometimes he may have corrected his authorities ; 
 the story that I have told of his end shows him in the 
 character of an enquirer, but the whole tenor of his 
 life was that of a man who sought the ultimate 
 sources of knowledge in books. In this he contrasts 
 remarkably with his great predecessor Aristotle, who 
 set the highest value on the specimens which his 
 pupil Alexander collected for him. Aristotle had a 
 museum, but Pliny had nothing but a library. His 
 
202 A STUDENT. 
 
 book is vastly entertaining ; he preserves a number 
 of facts which we should not have known without 
 his help. And when he mentions geographical or 
 historical facts, he sometimes fills up gaps that could 
 hardly be supplied anywhere else. And he is not 
 incapable of vigorous thought. Commonly, indeed, 
 he somewhat reminds us of the man of whom, when 
 commended on the score of wisdom, Robert Hall 
 is reported to have said, " He has put so many books 
 on the top of his head that his brains cannot move. "* 
 Yet sometimes he can express himself with force, and 
 rises to a really lofty and philosophical plane of thought. 
 
 Thus, for instance, in his Second Book, really the 
 Introduction to his work, he says : " It is a proof of 
 human weakness to try to imagine the form and 
 likeness of God. Whoever He be, wheresoever He be, 
 He is all feeling, all sight, all hearing, the fulness 
 of life, of Spirit, of Himself. To believe in gods 
 without number, fashioned even of the vices and 
 virtues of men, is only double dulness. Our frail 
 and troublesome mortality has made all these parti- 
 tions, remembering its own infirmity, that each might 
 worship piecemeal as his need required.'' * 
 
 Pliny was, in fact, something of a Pantheist. Perhaps 
 this habit of thought disposed him to accept the mar- 
 vellous. "My view of the operations of nature has 
 
 * I have borrowed the vigorous rendering of Mr. W. H. Simcox, 
 History of Latin Lite7^ature, ii. 140. 
 
A STUDENT. 203 
 
 convinced me, " he says in one place, " to think nothing 
 that is told concerning her incredible. '' It may have 
 also taught him something of his low opinion of man, 
 "the most miserable, but the most arrogant of 
 creatures, " as he calls him. 
 
 Perhaps it is an unlucky fate which has preserved 
 as an example of Pliny's work just that which the 
 modern world has most outgrown. Possibly any natural 
 history, however carefully put together, would seem 
 somewhat grotesque after the lapse of eighteen cen- 
 turies. We can value the author quite apart from 
 the merits or demerits of his book. There have been 
 many men of greater genius in literature and in 
 science, but never a more single-minded and inde- 
 fatigable student. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 A MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 Vespasian. 
 
 WE might say that Vespasian, the tenth of the 
 Caesars, was the first to be chosen on his 
 merits. The great Julius seized the supreme power 
 by sheer force of commanding ability and resolute 
 will ; the five princes that followed owed their posi- 
 tion in the first place to their connection either 
 by blood or marriage alliance to his house. Augustus 
 was a not unworthy successor; possibly the same 
 
A MAN OF BUSINESS. 205" 
 
 may be said of Tiberius, though his real character 
 is one of the most doubtful of historical questions. 
 As for Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, no one would 
 have dreamt of committing the Imperial power to 
 them, had it not been for the fascination, and, it is 
 only right to add the undoubted utility of the hered- 
 itary principle. Gralba owed his elevation in no 
 small degree to a distinguished descent, which made 
 him one of the first personages of the Empire outside 
 the Imperial house; Otho and Vitellius to the 
 caprice and discontent of the army. Vespasian had 
 no claims but what he had created for himself. His 
 birth, on the father's side, was undistinguished. His 
 grandfather, T. Flavins Petro, fought at Pharsalia 
 on the vanquished side, and obtaining pardon and 
 his discharge, found employment as a bank-clerk in 
 Rome; his father was a collector of customs and 
 afterwards a money-lender in the country now 
 called Switzerland. He left a wife, Vespasia Polla 
 by name, and two sons. The fate of the elder has 
 already been related ; * the younger became Em- 
 peror. Polla was superior to her husband in social 
 position. Her father was a soldier and rose to a 
 rank which corresponded approximately to that 
 of colonel in our own army ; her brother was elected 
 Praetor, and in right of his office became a Senator. 
 
 * See chapter XXL 
 
206 A MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 Suetonius tells us that many monuments of the 
 family of the Vespasii were still to be seen in his 
 time at a village called Vespasia between Nursia 
 and Spoletum and therefore in the Sabine country. 
 
 The younger Flavins was born on Nov. 17th. in 
 the year 9 A.D. and was brought up by his father's 
 mother. So kindly were his after-recollections of 
 the old lady^s care of him that when he ascended 
 the throne he frequently visited the place, which 
 he was careful to keep absolutely unchanged, and 
 that on high days he used to drink from a little 
 silver cup which she had been accustomed to use. 
 When the time came for him to choose his profes- 
 sion he showed a strong aversion to public life, an 
 aversion with difficulty overcome by his mother's 
 reproaches. 
 
 His first real distinctions were won in Britain. 
 There he fought thirty battles, and added various 
 territories, among which was Vectis (the Isle of 
 Wight), to the Roman dominions. The honour of 
 the consulship followed, and this again was succeed- 
 ed by the appointment to the Governorship of 
 Africa. His integrity as an administrator was 
 proved, it was thought, by the fact that he came 
 back a poorer man than he went. So great indeed 
 was his straits that he had to mortgage all his 
 estates to his elder brother, and to add to his income 
 by dealing in slaves, horses, etc. 
 
A MAN OF BUSINESS. 207 
 
 Nero took him in his train on the Greek tour* 
 which he made not long before his fall. Vespasian 
 got into great disgrace by his uncourtier-like beha- 
 viour. Whatever the Greeks might think or profess 
 to think about the Emperor's performance^ he could 
 not help showing his own want of appreciation. 
 Frequently he left the theatre before the entertain- 
 ment was concluded; sometimes he fell asleep while 
 it was going on. The offended Prince discharged 
 him from further attendance, and even banished him 
 from court. Vespasian, in no little fear of his life, 
 retired to some out of the way place. Hither, much 
 to his astonishment, he was followed by the offer 
 of a provincial government and the command of an 
 army. The great Jewish rebellion, which was not 
 crushed till Jerusalem had fallen, had broken out; 
 and Nero put aside his private dislike to entrust 
 the care of the war to the ablest soldier that he 
 could find. 
 
 The usual prognostics of his elevation had not 
 been wanting, or did not fail to be forthcoming 
 after the event. We have a curious story of an 
 oak, growing in the garden of Vespasian's father, 
 from the stem of which three boughs suddenly shot 
 
 * In A.D. 66. Nero made what we may call a professional 
 tour in Greece. His object was to exhibit his skill in music 
 and singing to a nation which had the reputation of being 
 excellent judges in such matters. 
 
208 A MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 forth before the birth of his three children. The 
 first was very small and soon withered away. This 
 indicated the birth of a daughter. The second was 
 a large and luxuriant growth; the third had the 
 proportions of a tree. The father consulted a sooth- 
 sayer as to the meaning of this prodigy, and was 
 so elated by his answer, that he announced to his 
 mother that her youngest grandson would some day 
 be Emperor. The old lady only laughed, remarking 
 that it was very strange that her son should be in 
 his dotage while she was still in full possession of 
 her faculties. 
 
 Appearances equally significant were^ it is said, 
 observed after the fall of Nero and during the 
 struggle which ended in Vespasian's elevation. A 
 statue of the Great Julius at Rome was found to 
 have turned to the east during the night; before 
 the first battle of Bedriacum, when the armies were 
 just about to engage two eagles were seen to fight; 
 when one had vanquished the other, a third from 
 the east came and conquered the victor. Suetonius 
 tells us that Josephus, whom Vespasian had taken 
 prisoner at Jotopata, predicted to his captor the 
 Imperial dignity; and Josephus himself gives a full 
 account of the incident. Modern habits of thought 
 incline us to put more weight on the expression 
 which Tacitus uses in speaking of the campaign of 
 Claudius in Britain, "Tribes were conquered, kings 
 
A MAN OF BUSINESS. 209 
 
 made prisoners, and destiny learnt to know its 
 favorite/ or, it may be, "destiny made its favorite 
 known to the world." It is certain there was a wide 
 feeling in favor of Vespasian. • The Empire was 
 offered to him not only by his own legions but by 
 the armies of Moesia. 
 
 After his accession he justified and more than 
 justified the choice. " Alone of all the Emperors 
 before him * he was changed for the better by 
 power." He did the work of Empire thoroughly, 
 and, on the whole, did it well. He was conspicuous 
 for his early habits even among a nation of early 
 risers. He began business before it was light, read 
 the despatches which had arrived, and went through the 
 summaries of affairs which his secretaries submitted 
 to him. He put on his own shoes and dressed himself, 
 receiving morning calls while he was so occupied. 
 This done he fulfilled any casual engagements until 
 it was time for his ride or walk and after that for 
 his siesta. 
 
 It was in the matter of finance that he chiefly 
 showed his ability as a ruler. He found the treasury 
 empty, as indeed was to be expected after the 
 extravagant reign of Nero, followed by a year of 
 civil war. According to his own estimate not less 
 a sum than forty million pounds sterling was wanted 
 
 * I quote exactly. The phrase may be paralleled by Milton's 
 "fairest of her daughters, Eve/^ 
 
 14 
 
210 A MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 to restore the finances of the Empire to a sound 
 condition — a formidable sum without doubt, in days 
 to which the gigantic monetary transactions of modern 
 times were unknown. * This state of things he set 
 himself to remedy, and doubtless incurred process. 
 Some of his measures were obviously right. It is 
 specially mentioned that he revoked the remission of 
 taxes made by Galba. It was impossible that Galba, 
 who occupied the throne only for a few troubled 
 months, could have taken a just view of the financial 
 position of the Empire. And some of the stories told 
 about Vespasian's avarice and rapacity were doubtless 
 false or exaggerated. There is certainly a formidable 
 catalogue of them. " He openly carried on operations 
 of which even a subject would have been ashamed" 
 says Suetonius, happily ignorant of our modern system 
 of 'corners', "buying up some articles only that he might 
 sell them again at a higher price. " He did not hesitate 
 to sell offices to candidates and verdicts of acquittal 
 to persons accused, whether innocent or guilty. He 
 
 * We have unfortunately no means of comparing this deficit 
 with the amount of the ordinary revenue of the state. This 
 latter cannot be even approximately estimated. The only definite 
 statement that bears upon the subject is Plutarch's remark 
 that the revenues of the state were about two millions annually 
 before Pompey conquered Mithridates. If we make a guess that 
 this amount had increased fivefold, we should have the result 
 that there was a "floating debt", as we should call it, (national 
 debt was unknown) of four years' revenue. 
 
A MAN OF BUSINESS. 211 
 
 IS even believed to have deliberately promoted the 
 most unscrupulous of the Imperial agents to most 
 important posts, only that he might find them more 
 wealthy when he brought them to an account. " They 
 are my sponges, " he was wont to say, " I soak them 
 when they are dry, and squeeze them out when they are 
 full." Suetonius goes on to say that the Emperor's 
 greed of money was his only fault ; but he adds that, 
 in his own opinion, the harsh measures which he 
 adopted were a matter of sheer necessity. The machine 
 of government could not, in fact, be worked without 
 recourse to extraordinary means of supplying the 
 deficit in the revenue. 
 
 It is not unlikely that the habit of exacting grew 
 upon him, and that he persisted in his oppressive 
 finance after the necessity had passed away. This 
 is strictly in accordance with our experience of human 
 nature, and would reconcile the different estimates 
 of the Emperor's character. We can hardly be said 
 to possess Tacitus' opinion on the subject, unless it 
 be that when he is describing the rebuilding of 
 Cremona after its destruction by the troops of 
 Antonius Primus he means a sarcasm by the 
 words " the temples and squares were restored by 
 the munificence of the burghers, and Vespasian gave 
 his exhortations." * 
 
 *''Et Yespasianus hortabatur." It is quite possible that 
 nothing of the kind may be intended. 
 
212 A MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 That he had to deal with a state of things in 
 which it was taken for granted that the treasury- 
 was a legitimate object for plunder, is certain. Some 
 of the stories of his way of paying unscrupulous 
 persons in their own coin are amusing. 
 
 One of his attendants asked that a stewardship 
 might be given to his brother. The Emperor put 
 him off for the time, and sent for the candidate. 
 " How much did you agree to give to So and So 
 for his recommendation?" The man named the 
 sum. " Pay it me," said the Emperor, " and you shall 
 have the place." The original petitioner brought 
 up the subject again. " Ah ! " said the Emporor, 
 " you must look for another brother. The man you 
 recommended was, I found, not your brother but 
 mine." His coachman, on one occasion, stopped the 
 conveyance to get the mules shod. The Emperor 
 suspected that it was done to give a litigant, who 
 appeared on the spot with suspicious promptitude 
 an opportunity of urging his suit. "What did you 
 get for having the mules shod?" he asked, and 
 insisted on receiving half the bribe. But the grim- 
 mest joke of all was not his own. It was made 
 upon him amidst the strange license of his funeral. 
 A clown, wearing, according to the curious custom 
 of the time, a mask that resembled the dead man's 
 features and imitating his ways to the life, asked 
 the Imperial agents: "How much will this funeral 
 
A MAN OF BUSINESS. 213 
 
 €ost? "" " One hundred thousand pounds ! " they replied. 
 "^ What ! "" cried the sham Vespasian, " One hundred 
 thousand pounds ! Give me a thousand and you 
 may throw me into the Tiber ! " 
 
 That he was certainly not wanting in liberality 
 is abundantly proved by the stories related of him. 
 He made up the incomes of impoverished Senators 
 who had passed the office of Consul to the legal 
 qualification. * To towns throughout the Empire 
 that suffered from earthquakes or conflagrations he 
 was very liberal, often rebuilding them with great 
 
 * Augustus fixed the property qualification of a Senator at a 
 million sesterces. This taken at five per cent (the standard 
 rate of interest then as now), would give an income of i^'500 
 a year. Suetonius, however, says that the Emperor's bounty 
 to these ex-consuls was as much as ^5000 per annum. This 
 seems too much, while if we take sestertiis to mean sestertii, 
 not sestertia, the sum is too small (there is an embarrassing 
 ambiguity between the two words when the cases happen to 
 have the same termination as in the passage referred to). A 
 sestertium or thousand sesterces is equivalent to ilO, while a 
 sestertius to something near 2d., and in the second supposition 
 we should have £5 per annum. If we might conjecture quinquage- 
 nis instead of quingenis everything would be explained. The 
 annual subvention would in that case be £500, exactly the 
 income that would accrue from the qualifying amount of capital. 
 Vespasian might not care to make a present to the needy 
 Senator of the necessary capital, which in the case of his death 
 would go to his heirs, but would supply him as long as he 
 lived with the necessary income. 
 
214 A MAX OF BUSINESS. 
 
 magnificence. Literature and the arts were gener- 
 ously treated by him. 
 
 Various poets received his bounty. Especially we 
 hear of his giving his thousand pounds to Saleius 
 Bassus, an epic poet highly praised by his con- 
 temporaries, of whose merits we have no means 
 of judging. He pensioned with the handsome sum 
 of ^1000 various Greek and Latin teachers of 
 declamation, and handsomely rewarded an artist who 
 had cleverly restored the great picture of Apel- 
 les, the Venus of Cos. and cinother who repaired 
 the splendid Colossus of Khodes. An engineer who 
 undertook to carry some large columns to the Capitol "^ 
 was handsomely rewarded for his ingenuity. The 
 Emperor, however, declined to make use of his 
 invention. ** I want to give employment to my poor 
 people ** he said. A tragic actor received a fee of 
 ^4000 fi'om him and two great singers half as 
 much each. His presents to such performers varied 
 from a thousand to four thousand pounds, with the 
 complimentary addition of crowns of gold. Xot being 
 a political economist, he encouraged trade by giving 
 splendid entertainments. Gentlemen who were his 
 guests always had presents to carry home at the 
 Safurncflia. f and ladies on the first of March. 
 
 * Doubtless for the rebuilding of the temples destroyed by 
 the conflagration mentioned in chapter XXII. 
 
 t The Saturnctlia were held on Dec. 17th. — 21st. Probably 
 
A MAN OF BUSINESS. ^15 
 
 On the whole we get the idea of a vigorous man 
 with some petty weaknesses, possessed with a strong 
 sense of public duty, but without refinement or 
 elevation of character. 
 
 If we are to look about for a parallel in modern 
 times, we might, perhaps, find it in President 
 Lincoln. One thing is certainly common to the 
 two men: a gift of rough and somewhat boisterous 
 humour. 
 
 Such was his jest to Titus, his son and suc- 
 cessor when the latter remonstrated with him on 
 his making a gain from a somewhat unsavory source. 
 He handed Titus a coin and asked him : " Has it a 
 bad smell?" "No," said Titus. "Yet it comes from 
 there." 
 
 When his last illness came on, he remarked with 
 a grim allusion to the Roman practice of deifying 
 deceased Emperors, " Dear me ! I fancy that I am 
 becoming a god." * Almost at the last moment he 
 bade his attendants to help him up from his chair. 
 "An Emperor should die standing," he said. A 
 moment afterwards he breathed his last. The day 
 
 our own Christmas festivities are, m a sense, a continuation of 
 them. The first of March was the festival of Juno, as the 
 goddess of marriage. 
 
 * This honour was not conterred indiscriminately. It was given 
 to five out of the twelve Caesars, viz., Julius, Augustus, Claudius, 
 Vespasian, and Titus, The title was ^^Divus." 
 
216 • A MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 of his death was the 24th. June, A. D. 79. He was 
 in his sixty-ninth year. * 
 
 * This would make the total duration of his reign ten years 
 wanting six days, as he was first proclaimed Emperor at 
 Alexandria on July 1st., 69. It may be worth while to men- 
 tion an interesting little fact connected with these dates. The 
 recently discovered manuscript of Aristotle's treatise on the 
 ConstitfUion of Athens is written on the wrong side (verso) of a 
 papyrus, the right side of which is occupied with a farm-bailiff's 
 accounts. These accounts bear the date of the " eleventh year 
 of Vespasian." The apparent contradiction may be thus accounted 
 for. Vespasian was proclaimed, as has been said, on July 1st., 
 69. From that day to his birthday, Nov. 17th., would be 
 reckoned as the first year of his reign. Then would follow 
 nine years always reckoned from birthday to birthday. So 
 calculated the tenth year of his reign would terminate on Nov. 
 17th., 78. A. D. and the eleventh year would be running when 
 he died a few days before the tenth anniversary of his accession. 
 
XXV. 
 
 A SOLDIEB AND SCHOLAR. 
 
 ^ T DO not know," says Pliny, writing to his intimate 
 X friend, Calvisius, '' that I have ever spent a 
 more delightful time than I lately enjoyed when I 
 was on a visit to Spurinna." 
 
 The date of the letter is uncertain, but it can 
 hardly be later than the first year of the second 
 century of our era. Before I go on to Pliny's 
 charming description of his host, I may say what 
 is known of him. 
 
 He came into notice in that dreadful year during 
 which, amidst convulsions that shook the whole of 
 the Western world, the Imperial throne was thrice 
 handed to a new occupant. Whether he was in 
 command of a legion, a rank about equivalent to 
 that of a general of division, or an officer of the 
 Praetorians, the " Guards " of the Roman army^ we 
 cannot say. We find him in independent command 
 
218 A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 
 
 of a force which numbered something over four 
 thousand men, three thousand of them being Praeto- 
 rians. 
 
 Some ten months before Servius Galba, Proconsul 
 of Southern Spain, helped by the anxiety and hatred 
 that the cruelties and follies of Nero had excited, 
 had seized the Imperial power. After an uneasy 
 tenure of seven months, he had fallen before what 
 may be called a reaction in favour of the old regime. 
 Salvius Otho, a discarded courtier of Nero, was raised 
 by the Praetorians to the throne. But, as Tacitus 
 puts it, that secret of Empire, that Emperors could 
 be made elsewhere than at Rome, had been divulged. 
 The seven legions that guarded the frontier of the 
 Rhine felt that they had a better title to do what 
 had been done by a single legion in Spain. They 
 saluted their general, Vitellius, by the Imperial title, 
 and marched upon Italy. Caecina, with Vitellius's, first 
 corps d'armee had crossed the Alps. The broad and 
 rapid stream of the Po was the second barrier of the 
 capital, and Spurinna was one of the generals sent 
 to guard it. Here again the defenders were too late, 
 or the line was too extended for their forces. A 
 contingent from the Island of the Batavians * crossed 
 the river, apparently by swimming, an art in which 
 they were remarkably skilful. Spurinna threw himself 
 
 * A region roughly equivalent to the Netherlands. 
 
A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 219 
 
 into Placentia (Piacenza), a colony originally planted 
 to keep the Gauls in check, and a strongly fortified 
 place. His troops were dissatisfied with his caution^ 
 and came dangerously near to a mutiny. They 
 insisted upon marching out against the enemy, and 
 threatened their general's life when he refused to 
 give the order to march. He appeared to yield, 
 accompanied the insubordinate troops, and waited 
 till better counsels should prevail. Happily he had 
 not to wait long. The labour of constructing a 
 temporary camp, new as it was to the Praetorians, * 
 brought the men to their senses, and they were 
 glad enough to get back within the shelter of the 
 walls. 
 
 Spurinna occupied the breathing space that was 
 given him in strengthening the fortifications. He 
 needed all the aid that they could afford him, for 
 in a few days Caecina, with more than thirty thousand 
 men, was before the walls. The defence was brilliantly 
 successful. The first attack, made, it would seem, 
 almost immediately after the arrival of the army, 
 and without any preparation, was easily repulsed. 
 
 Caecina's troops fancied that they could take the 
 place at a rush, and found themselves terribly mis- 
 taken. The assault was renewed the next day, this 
 time with the help of such siege works as could be 
 
 * They occupied a permanent camp near Home, and had 
 never been sent on foreign service. 
 
220 A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 
 
 got ready in the night. The fortifications, too, had 
 been reconnoitred, and the weak places discovered. 
 While the skirmishers strove to clear the walls by 
 showers of arrows and stones, the heavy armed sol- 
 diers, sheltered by mantlets and penthouses, came 
 up close and endeavoured to undermine them. Others 
 did their best to break down the fortress. Spurinna 
 had a large circuit of fortifications to defend with 
 an insufficient force, but he was equal to the occasion. 
 His skilful dispositions, the contagion of his example, 
 and the enthusiasm of confidence which he inspired, 
 saved Placentia. The issue of the war was not affected, 
 but the town escaped the fate which a few months 
 afterwards, when Vitellius in turn had to defend his 
 throne against Vespasian^ overtook its neighbour 
 Cremona. 
 
 Spurinna must then have been about forty-six. For 
 more than twenty years he disappears from history, 
 but we know that he must have been consul at some 
 time during that period, though his name does not 
 appear in the Fasti. * In A.D. 100 he was sent to 
 restore the dethroned king of a German tribe, the 
 Bructeri. The history of the affair is obscure ; but 
 we know that the Bructeri were almost destroyed 
 by two neighbouring tribes, greatly to the delight 
 
 * The Fasti Consulares, or List of the Consuls from the 
 expulsion of the kings (510 B.C.) down to the year 474 of the 
 Christian era. 
 
THE OLD MAN RETURNED TO THE RETIREMENT OF HIS COUNTRY HOUSE, p. 221^ 
 
A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 221 
 
 of the Romans. "Heaven keep alive among them," 
 says Tacitus, " not so much the love of us as the 
 hatred of each other!" 
 
 The shattered remnant seems to have appealed 
 to the protection of Rome. Hence this interference 
 with their domestic affairs, an interference to " which 
 they submitted without a contest." Pliny makes 
 the most of Spurinna's achievement. "He had only 
 to show his strength; the mere terror of his arms 
 vanquished them; and this is the finest kind of 
 victory." Possibly Trajan, who was now Emperor, 
 would not have appointed the old man — he was 
 now seventy-six — to command the expedition, if it 
 had been likely to be anything more than what 
 Professor Mayor calls it, " a military promenade. " 
 
 It was treated, however, as a serious victory. Under 
 the Empire no one but the Emperor himself was 
 allowed the honour of a formal triumph. All the 
 generals were his lieutenants. But " triumphal dis- 
 tinctions " were granted to successful commanders. 
 These, a statue among them, were voted by the 
 Senate to Spurinna on his return, on the motion of 
 Trajan himself. The honour of a second Consulship 
 was added, with the Emperor for his colleague. At 
 the end of his time of office — probably lasting but 
 a few weeks, for again it is not recorded in the 
 Fasti — the old man returned to the retirement of his 
 country house. It was there that Pliny paid him 
 
222 A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 
 
 the visit of which he has preserved so delightful a 
 record. 
 
 "I never saw an old man," he goes on, "whom I 
 should be better pleased to be like, if only I am 
 permitted to reach old age. Nothing can be more 
 methodical than this mode of life. I must confess 
 that I delight in an orderly arrangement of a man's 
 life, especially in the old, just as I delight in the 
 orderly movements of the heavenly bodies. In the 
 young a little confusion, a little disorder, is not unbe- 
 coming; with the old, everything should be peace and 
 order; the time of business is over for them, and 
 they have nothing to do with ambition." 
 
 After this prelude comes the description of the old 
 soldier's daily routine. He began his day betimes 
 probably at six o'clock, and gave up the first hours 
 to study, "keeping to his sofa," says his guest. At 
 eight o'clock he called for his shoes, and took his 
 first walk, keeping, we may guess, within the grounds 
 of his villa, for if he had not a friend with whom 
 he could converse, a slave or freedman would read 
 a book. 
 
 "So," says his guest, "he exercises at once his 
 body and his mind." The walk was always the 
 same length, neither more nor less than three miles. 
 The walk ended, he sat down awhile, amusing him- 
 self with more reading or mxOre talk, the latter by 
 preference, if a friend was at hand. The next thing 
 
A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 223 
 
 in the programme was a carriage drive. Sometimes 
 Ms wife was his companion, sometimes a guest. It was 
 a special privilege to be invited to share the drive, for 
 the old man was then most communicative. 
 
 " What great deeds, what mighty men you hear 
 about," says Pliny. 
 
 And indeed it was a chequered past of which the 
 veteran had to tell ! Of the " twelve Caesars, " he had 
 «een nine, might even have caught a glimpse of a tenth, 
 for he must have been twelve years old when Tiberius 
 died. He had survived the first emperor of another 
 series, and was high in favour with the second. The 
 carriage drive was always of the same length — seven 
 miles. The seven completed^ he alighted from his 
 carriage^ and walked another mile. 
 
 Returning home, he either rested or wrote. For 
 Spurinna was a poet, composing both in Latin and 
 Greek. "His odes are most scholarly," his guest 
 tells us. Unhappily, they are lost. 
 
 An ingenious German in the seventeenth century 
 (Caspar Barth) published some seventy lines which 
 he professed to have found in an old manuscript 
 in the library at Marburg. Critics are commonly 
 agreed that they are spuriouS; bad enough, thinks 
 Orelli, to be the work of Barth himself ; so we must 
 be content with Pliny's praise of them : " They are 
 marvellously sweet, and tender, and easy, and the charm 
 is enhanced by the blameless character of the writer." 
 
224 A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 
 
 After the labours of composition came the relaxation 
 of the bath. Here it is curious to observe that 
 the exact regularity of life is put out by the want 
 of clocks. " The time of the bath is the ninth 
 hour in winter, the eighth in summer. " The Roman 
 hour was a variable measure of time, a normal hour 
 only at the equinoxes, and varying from seventy- 
 five minutes at mid-summer to forty-five at mid- 
 winter. (The day, whatever its length, was divided 
 into twelve hours). 
 
 To calculate the matter nicely, Spurinna had his 
 bath at the summer solstice at 1.15 p.m., at the 
 winter at 1.29. He did his best; it will be seen, 
 to be punctual, but circumstances were too strong 
 for him. The first bath was an air-bath, taken 
 in the sunshine, as the great physician Celsus had 
 recommended, but only if the day was calm. The 
 air-bath was succeeded by a game which, for want 
 of a better term, we may call tennis. Almost 
 all that we know of it is that it was played in a 
 closed court. Pliny had such a court in his own 
 villa. " He plays at ball for a long time, and with 
 much energy: by the help of this kind of exercise 
 lie fights against old age." After the game followed 
 the regular bath, and after this some light and 
 entertaining reading. Then, we may guess about 
 six or seven o'clock, came dinner. This was a very 
 late hour for a Roman, and it is curious that here, 
 
A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 225 
 
 for the first time, we have any mention of a meal. 
 "Dinner," says Pliny, "is as elegant as it is frugal. 
 It is served on plate, old but plain. A service of 
 Corinthian bronze is sometimes used. Spurinna has 
 a taste for these things, but nothing like a passion. " 
 
 Dinner was frequently enlivened by recitations, and 
 what with this kind of entertainment, and the host's 
 pleasant talk, was commonly prolonged till somewhat 
 late into the night. " But no guest ever finds it 
 tedious." "By this way of living Spurinna has 
 preserved his senses entire, and his body in such 
 vigour and activity that, though he has reached his 
 seventy-eighth year, he shows no sign of old age 
 except wisdom." 
 
 Like most of the Roman nobles of the time, Spu- 
 rinna was childless. We hear of a son, whom he lost 
 during his absence in Germany, and to whom a tri- 
 umphal statue was erected, an unusual honour for a 
 young man, and granted, it would seem, partly out 
 of compliment to the father. But probably this was 
 a step-son, whom he had adopted. The young man is 
 spoken of as Cottius, and Spurinna's wife was a Cottia. 
 
 So far as it goes, the portrait that Pliny has drawn 
 for us is one that we can admire. If it were a pict- 
 ure of a Christian old age, we should want something 
 more — piety, benevolence, philanthropy. But Roman 
 religion was ceremonial, which had little earnestness 
 in it except so far as it promised to be the means of 
 
226 ^ A SOLDIER AND SCHOLAR. 
 
 averting some threatened evil. The care for others 
 as an habitual temper of the mind was being slowly 
 taught to the world by a religion of which Spurinna, 
 it is probable, had never heard. Yet we may look 
 wdth true pleasure on this old man, cultured, brave, 
 loyal, temperate, enjoying the repose well earned by 
 a life of duty, and may believe that he too was not 
 wholly outside the grace of the Heavenly Father 
 whom he did not know. 
 
XXVI. 
 
 THE STORY OF EPPONINA, 
 
 yESPASIAN, as has been said, was proclaimed 
 Emperor by the legions of the East on July 
 1st. 69, A. D. A little more than fourteen months 
 afterwards, (Sept. 8th. 70) Jerusalem was taken, and 
 the peace of the East was assured for some years 
 to come. Meanwhile Rome had triumphed over a 
 more formidable enemy in the west, for the disaffec- 
 tion of the Jews, however troublesome it might have 
 been, could never have endangered the stability of 
 the Empire. It was otherwise with the movement 
 commonly called the revolt of Civilis. At one time 
 it seemed as if this might end in the establishment 
 of a Northern Empire. 
 
 The march of Vitellius on Italy drained the camps 
 on the Rhine frontier of their best troops. The 
 forces of Upper and Lower Germany consisted of 
 seven legions. All of these contributed to make up 
 the armies which Vitellius and his two lieutenants, 
 
228 THE STORY OF EPPONINA. 
 
 Caecina and Valens, led across the Alps. Tacitus 
 tells us that Caecina had thirty thousand and Valens 
 forty thousand troops, and that Vitellius himself had 
 a still larger force under his command. The three 
 legions from Britain furnished, we know, consider- 
 able contingents, and doubtless various local forces 
 swelled the numbers of this vast host. But it is 
 clear and indeed we are expressly told, that the 
 frontier garrisons were brought to a condition of 
 the utmost weakness, and that they were hastily 
 supplemented by levies made on the spot. 
 
 Of this fact Civilis, a chieftain of the Batavi, who 
 inhabited the region now known as Holland, was not 
 slow to avail himself. He had private reasons for 
 hating Rome. His brother had been put to death 
 on a charge of treason, and he had been himself in 
 imminent peril of his life. And his ambition was 
 stirred by what seemed to him a great opportunity 
 of establishing a kingdom that should be independent 
 of Rome. The Batavi were a warlike tribe who 
 were indeed nominally subject to Rome, but whose 
 dependence did not go beyond the liability to supply 
 a military contingent to the Imperial armies. Their 
 adherence he secured, for his personal prestige was 
 great, while his family was the most distinguished 
 in the whole nation. He found allies in those 
 German tribes which were nearest the Roman 
 frontier, tribes which had been attacked by Rome 
 
THE STORY OF EPPONINA. 229 
 
 more than once, and which were always afraid of 
 losing their independence. And he looked also to 
 Gaul for help. Much of this country was indeed 
 by this time thoroughly Romanized, but there were 
 tribes, especially in the North and East, which still 
 cherished the traditions of independence. To these 
 Civilis appealed. He flattered their national vanity 
 by talking of a Gallic Empire, which was to be 
 built on the ruins of the Roman power, though he 
 was perfectly well aware that any new Empire, 
 should any such be established, would be not Gallic 
 but Batavian or German. And he met with some 
 success. The Lingones inhabiting the northern part 
 of the range of the Vosges, and the Treveri, a half 
 German tribe, who occupied the valleys of the Mosel 
 and the Saar, joined him almost en masse, and he 
 found adherents among other tribes of the North-east. 
 It is not my purpose to tell the story of this 
 struggle, but only to give the narrative of one 
 pathetic episode in it. The Lingon chief that took 
 the chief part in bringing his tribe over to the side 
 of Civilis was a certain Julius Sabinus. He prided 
 himself upon his descent from the great Julius. One 
 would have thought it in any case a strange subject 
 for pride, for he did not assert that it was legitimate, 
 while it seems the very weakest of claims to be set 
 up by a pretender to a national empire of Gaul. 
 We may presume he made the boast in days when 
 
230 THE STORY OF EPPONINA. 
 
 the idea of independence had not yet presented itself^ 
 and that he sought to utilize it as a distinction 
 appealing in some sort to the popular imagination 
 when the scheme of a Gallic Empire had taken 
 shape. 
 
 It was doubtless to the general advantage of the 
 country, that the man's rashness and incompetency 
 brought this scheme, which, indeed, could never have 
 been successfully carried out, to a speedy end. Early 
 in 70 A. D., anxious, it would seem to anticipate all 
 other possible claimants to the new throne, he called 
 his tribe to arms. His first care was to destroy all 
 the public records of the alliance between the state 
 of the Lingones and Rome. The pillars and obelisks 
 on which these were inscribed were thrown to the 
 ground. Having thus proclaimed the independence 
 of the Lingones, he directed his followers to salute 
 him as Emperor. He seems to have been of a weak 
 and foolish nature, and his movement was, as will 
 be seen, almost immediately crushed. Still his name 
 may be remembered as the first of many pretenders 
 who claimed an Empire independent of Rome. 
 
 Sabinus' first and last effort to assert his power was 
 directed against his neighbours the Sequani, a Keltic 
 people who occupied the country between the Jura range 
 and the Saone. This tribe he attacked with a hastily 
 levied force of his tribesmen. The fortune of the day went 
 against him, and he fled from the field of battle with 
 
THE STORY OF EPPONINA. 231 
 
 a cowardice equal to the rashness with which he had 
 ventured on it. And now begins the romance connected 
 with his name. " Wishing to spread a report that 
 he had perished," writes Tacitus, "he burnt the 
 country-house in which he had taken refuge, and was 
 then supposed to have put an end to his own life. 
 I shall relate at the proper opportunity, " he goes on 
 to say, " by what contrivances and in what hiding- 
 places he prolonged his life for the nine following 
 years, and describe at the same time the fidelity 
 of his friends and the conspicuous courage of his 
 wife Epponina." Unhappily this part of the historian's 
 narrative has been lost. Plutarch, however, tells the 
 story, which he heard, it would seem, from the lips 
 of one of Sabinus' sons. 
 
 Sabinus, thanks, it may be, to his precipitate flight 
 from the field of battle, might, it seems, have easily 
 made his escape to some place which then was^ at 
 least, beyond the reach of the Roman arms. But he 
 found it impossible to take with him his wife, to whom 
 he was tenderly attached, and, on the other hand, 
 he could not make up his mind to leave her. The 
 plan that occurred to him was to disappear so com- 
 pletely as to make everyone believe that he was 
 dead, and then, waiting awhile till the affair had more 
 or less been forgotten, to escape with his wife. 
 For the present she as well as the rest of the world 
 was to be deceived. He made his way to one of 
 
232 THE STORY OF EPPONINA. 
 
 his country-houses, and dismissed the slaves that 
 belonged to the establishment, after telling them that 
 he meant to commit suicide. This done, he set fire 
 to the house. What he really did was to retire to 
 some subterranean storehouses, the secret of which 
 was known to none but himself and two freedmen. 
 One of these freedmen he sent to his wife charged 
 with a message of farewell. The man was to tell her that 
 her husband had taken poison. Her grief he calculated 
 would give additional credit to the tale of his death. 
 
 The plan threatened to succeed only too well. 
 Epponina, on hearing these dismal tidings, abandoned 
 herself to grief. Throwing herself on the ground, 
 she remained for three days and nights without taking 
 any food. Sabinus, informed of what was going on, 
 became fearful for her life, and, as a last resource, 
 sent the freedman again with a message that he was 
 not really dead but in hiding. At the same time he 
 begged her to continue her mourning. Epponina, 
 accordingly, continued to act the part of the disconsolate 
 widow, while she found opportunities of visiting her 
 husband, unknown to all but the two faithful freedmen. 
 
 After the expiration of seven months, when Vespa- 
 sian was firmly seated on the throne, she conceived 
 the bold design of taking her husband to Rome and 
 petitioning for his pardon. Her friends encouraged 
 her to hope that this might be obtained. She made 
 him assume a disguise, probably that of a slave, and 
 
THE STOEY OF EPPONINA. 233 
 
 contrived that he should escape recognition. The 
 journey however proved to be fruitless. The Emperor 
 could not be approached. Epponina and Sabinus 
 returned to their place of concealment. He of course 
 never emerged from it; but she lived a double life, 
 spending part of her time with her husband, and part 
 in society, paying even occasional visits to Rome. 
 
 For several years this went on, the secret never 
 being discovered, even though twice during this 
 period Epponina became a mother. Just before the 
 end of Vespasian's reign husband and wife were 
 arrested — we are not told how this happened — and 
 were brought into the Imperial presence. She made 
 an appeal for mercy which brought tears to the 
 eyes of all who were present, even affecting the 
 Emperor himself, " See, " she cried pointing to her 
 two children, "these boys, I brought them forth, 
 reared them in the tomb, that there might be more 
 of us to beg for your mercy. " 
 
 But Vespasian, though, as has been said, not 
 unmoved, refused to pardon her husband. Then, 
 it seems, the infuriated woman broke forth into 
 invectives. "" Better," she said, "to live in dark- 
 ness, than to see such a Prince on the throne." 
 It is melancholy to read that she shared the fate 
 of her husband. Both were put to death by the 
 Emperor's order. His temper had been soured, it 
 would seem, by the discovery of plots on the part 
 
234 THE STORY OF EPPONINA. 
 
 of trusted and favoured friends. Possibly, he could 
 not forget that Sabinus had assumed the Imperial 
 title, and had claimed descent from the first of the 
 Caesars. The meanness of Vespasian's own origin 
 may have made him sensitive on this point. It is 
 difficult, however, to reconcile what we know of 
 the character of Vespasian with the execution of 
 Epponina. 
 
 Plutarch, or rather the character in the dialogue 
 "About Lovers" who tells the story, adds, "Caesar 
 slew her, and paid the penalty for the bloody deed, 
 for before long his whole race utterly perished. In 
 the whole of his reign no darker deed than this, none 
 more odious in the sight of heaven, was committed.'^ 
 
XXVII. 
 
 THE DABLING OF MANKIND. 
 
 Titus. 
 
 rpHE early death of Titus, the elder son of Ves- 
 JL pasian, was taken as another proof of the truth 
 of the gloomy saying already quoted, that " the 
 darlings of the Roman People were short lived and 
 unlucky." He reigned two years two months and 
 twenty days, and during that time neither said nor 
 did anything that could be blamed. Of course there 
 were sceptical observers who rem arked that such 
 
236 THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 
 
 virtue could not have stood the test of time and of 
 a prolonged reign. "Augustus," they said, "would 
 not have been beloved if he had not lived to old 
 age, nor Titus if he had not died in his prime." 
 
 Of Augustus, doubtless, this was true. It was only 
 when he was firmly seated on his throne that he 
 felt himself able to be merciful and forbearing; the 
 passions too, of his youth and manhood were moderated 
 by advancing years, and he died at seventy-seven 
 with a reputation for wisdom, moderation and clem- 
 ency which at fifty he had certainly not earned. 
 What Titus might have become it is impossible to 
 say; and power, we know only too well, has a 
 corrupting influence. Still he was of mature age 
 when he came to the throne, and he certainly found 
 in the possession of power exactly the reverse of 
 what others have found in it, a reason for discon- 
 tinuing, not for increasing, the indulgences which as 
 a subject he had allowed himself. On the whole, we 
 may be allowed to believe that if a longer life had 
 been allowed him, he would not have been false to 
 his better reputation. 
 
 The young Titus was educated along with Britan- 
 nicus, the unhappy youth whom Agrippina robbed 
 of his succession to the throne, and Nero of his 
 life. One of the soothsayers who professed to read 
 the fortune of a child by inspecting his forehead 
 was brought to see the young Prince by one of his 
 
THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 237 
 
 father's freedmen, and declared that he never would 
 be Emperor, " but this lad " he went on, pointing at 
 Titus, "certainly will be." He had, however, a 
 narrow escape from perishing along with his compa- 
 nion, for he drank of the same poisoned cup, and 
 had a severe illness in consequence. When the 
 prophecy was fulfilled, Titus did not forget the friend 
 of his boyhood, but set up a gilded statue of him in 
 the hall of the Imperial palace. 
 
 As a lad the future Emperor showed singular 
 promise. His memory was remarkably retentive. 
 He was an excellent speaker and a skilful verse 
 writer, and as much at home in Greek as in his 
 native tongue. So great was his facility in composi- 
 tion that it amounted to a gift of extemporising. 
 He was a skilful singer and musician, so rapid a 
 writer that he could vanquish his own amanuenses, 
 and so clever in imitating handwritings that he 
 should have made, he was wont to say, the best of 
 forgers. In all martial exercises he was remarkably 
 proficient. Though not tall he was very handsome. 
 
 He began life as usual as a soldier, serving in 
 Germany and Britain. He seems to have been pop- 
 ular, but his military reputation was won in the 
 East. Vespasian was busy with the Jewish war, 
 when he was called to the throne, and he left Titus 
 behind to bring it to a close. The young man — he 
 was barely thirty — conducted the siege of Jerusalem 
 
238 -THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 
 
 with the greatest skill, while shewing at the same 
 time the greatest personal courage. So popular was 
 he with the troops that when he was leaving the 
 province for Italy the legions besought him, even 
 adding threats to their entreaties, that he would 
 either stay or take them with him. There were not 
 wanting, of course, foolish or malignant reports that 
 he intended to trade on this popularity and to revolt 
 from his father. That he had been seen to put 
 a crown on his head when he was consecrating 
 the bull Apis at Memphis — a curious instance, by 
 the way, of Roman toleration — was supposed to 
 give confirmation to the slander. Titus felt the 
 imputation acutely. He took the quickest passage 
 to Italy that he could, hurried to Rome, and burst 
 in unexpectedly upon his father with the exclamation : 
 " I have come, father, I have come ! " 
 
 From that time to his father's death he was asso- 
 ciated in all the cares of Empire. More than once he felt 
 himself compelled to act with an energy that seemed to 
 savour of a tyrannical temper. The most conspicuous 
 instance was that of an ex-consul, Aulus Caecina. Csecina 
 had been one of the trusted lieutenants of Vitellius, 
 and had betrayed his master. He now meditated 
 a new treason. Titus invited him to supper, and 
 caused him to be struck down as he was leaving the 
 dining-room; but then he had come into possession 
 of a copy of the speech which Csecina intended to 
 
THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 239 
 
 address to the troops. In his private life too Titus 
 had incurred no little censure. The Roman public 
 was not by any means strict in its moral judgements ; 
 but there were some things which it condemned, not 
 so much because they were criminal, as because 
 they were unpatriotic. Such was the young Prince's 
 passion for the Jewish Queen Berenice. She might 
 well, it was thought, be another Cleopatra, and her 
 presence in Rome was regarded with the most un- 
 favorable eyes. Some of these adverse critics went 
 so far as to say that the death of Vespasian would 
 put another Nero on the throne. 
 
 When the dreaded change came to pass all these 
 sinister predictions were found to be false. Berenice 
 was sent away from Rome, though the Emperor did 
 not conceal his grief at parting from her. All 
 unworthy favorites were dismissed. Luxury was 
 discountenanced. The Imperial entertainments were 
 pleasant but were not profuse. The justice of the 
 new Emperor's rule was conspicuous. No kind of 
 extortion was practised or allowed. Even customary 
 demands were not made. At the same time there 
 was a liberal expenditure, especially in the matter 
 so dear to the Roman heart, the public shows, and 
 in what was scarcely less important, the public 
 baths. At the opening of a new amphitheatre there 
 was an exhibition on the most munificent scale. This 
 was followed by a sham sea-fight, and a show in 
 
240 • THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 
 
 which no less than five thousand wild beasts were 
 exhibited. 
 
 Personally Titus was generous even to a fault. No 
 petitioner went away dissatisfied. When his minis- 
 ters reminded him that he was promising more than 
 lay within his ability, or, it may be, his duty to 
 perform, he answered that no one ought to leave 
 the presence of an Emperor disappointed. " I have 
 lost a day " was his exclamation when at night he 
 could not recall any act of kindness that he had 
 done. 
 
 The informers who had been the curse of Rome 
 under his predecessors met with no favour from 
 him. He had them publicly flogged, and then either 
 sold them into slavery, or banished them to the 
 most barren islands of the ^gean. Capital punish- 
 ment he never inflicted. When he assumed the 
 dignity of Chief Pontiff — always held by the Em- 
 perors — ^he said: "I take this office that I may keep 
 my hands from blood." From that day he never 
 put anyone to death, or acquiesced in others doing 
 it. Sometimes his own safety seemed to require it, 
 but on this point his resolve was inflexible. " I 
 would sooner die than kill," he said. Two Roman 
 nobles conspired against him ; he did nothing but 
 bid them desist. " It is only the Fates that can 
 give the Empire," he said to them; "ask me for 
 anything else and you shall have it." The mother 
 
THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 241 
 
 of one of the conspirators was living far from Rome. 
 She knew that her son was in danger. The Emperor 
 sent his own courier to assure her of his safety. 
 He invited both to dine at his own table, and at a 
 show of gladiators, exhibited the next day, handed 
 to them for their inspection the weapons of the 
 combatants, which had according to custom been pre- 
 sented to him. 
 
 His worst enemy was his brother, yet he never 
 wavered in his affection for him, or went beyond 
 the entreaty that he would return the love which 
 he himself felt. 
 
 His short reign was marked by two fearful dis- 
 asters; the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
 and a fire which consumed a large portion of Rome. 
 He employed all his resources in repairing the losses 
 of those who suffered by these calamities. 
 
 The cause of his death is involved in mystery. 
 Domitian was commonly accused of having at least 
 hastened it. There is nothing in his character that 
 would make us disbelieve in the charge; but in 
 default of absolute proof he may be allowed the 
 benefit of the doubt. Equally mysterious was the 
 dying Emperor's utterance : ^^ I have not deserved 
 to die so young; I have only one thing to repent 
 of.'' What this one thing was is not known. Some 
 said that it was that he had not anticipated the 
 malignant design of his brother, a solution w^hich 
 
 16 
 
242 THE DARLING OF MANKIND. 
 
 in view of Titus' benificent temper one is unwilling 
 to accept. One thing is certain. There have been 
 few rulers indeed, about whom such a question could 
 not be easily answered, even if it could be asked 
 at all. Well might the historian of the Caesar write, 
 " He was cut off by death, not so much to his own 
 loss as to the loss of mankind." 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 A GREAT CAPTAIN, 
 
 IT is not improbable that the family of Cnaeus Julius 
 Agricola was one of the many which, in both 
 Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, assumed the name 
 of the Great Dictator.* Cnaeus, whom I shall henceforth 
 speak of by his surname of Agricola, was born A.D. 37 
 
 * It is notable that three of the leaders in the great rebellion 
 of Civilis, a movement which included a considerable part of 
 Gaul, bore the family name of Julius. 
 
244 A GREAT CAPTAIN. 
 
 at Forum Julii, now Frejjs in Provence. The oc- 
 cupation followed by his family was what, for want 
 of a precise Roman equivalent, I shall call la haute 
 finance. The capitalists of the Empire were mostly 
 found among the order of Knights. Their most 
 important, and probably most profitable, function was 
 the farming of the public revenues; and it was a 
 special distinction among them to have the charge 
 of that part of the taxes, customs, etc., which came 
 into the Emperor's private treasury. * This distinction 
 was enjoyed by both Agricola's grandfathers. His 
 father, a man of the highest character and, it would 
 seem, of some culture^ f raised the family rank, 
 becoming a member of the Senate. The promotion 
 was unfortunate, for it brought him under the notice 
 of the Emperor Caligula. The tyrant ordered him to 
 conduct the prosecution of Marcus Silanus. He refused, 
 and was put to death. We do not know the precise 
 year; probably it was about 40 A.D. 
 
 The young Agricola, thus left fatherless almost in 
 infancy, was brought up by his mother at Marseilles, 
 a place where, says his biographer, Greek elegance 
 and the frugal habits of provincial life were happily 
 
 * There were two treasuries — the aerarliim, into which funds 
 belonging to the State were paid, and the fisciis or private 
 purse of the Emperor. We have hints that the Emperor really 
 controlled both. 
 
 t The elder Pliny praises his book on vineyards. 
 
A GKEAT CAPTAIN. 245 
 
 combined — something, one may venture to say, like 
 St. Andrews here, only with the commercial element 
 more prominent. He was an ardent student; so ardent, 
 indeed, that he had thoughts of renouncing the public 
 career which was open to him in favour of the life 
 of a philosopher. Such appears, indeed, to be the 
 meaning of his own confession, made in after years 
 to his son-in-law and biographer, that in his early 
 youth, but for the moderating influence of his mother, 
 he should have pursued philosophical studies with 
 more energy than befitted a Senator and a Roman — 
 an expression curiously characteristic of the practical 
 Roman temper. 
 
 He began life, as it was the almost universal practice 
 to begin it, as a soldier, serving in A.D. 60 as aide-de- 
 camp to Suetonius Paulinus, who was then in com- 
 mand in Britain. Never was there a better time for 
 a young man to learn his duties and show his mettle. 
 The Roman dominion in the land was passing through 
 the worst crisis that it ever endured. While Paulinus 
 was attacking the stronghold of Mona (Anglesey), 
 the head-quarters of the Druid superstition, the British 
 tribes of the east coast were in rebellion. The colony 
 of Camalodunum (Colchester) was destroyed. Paulinus 
 hurried back, but was not in time to save London, 
 even then a populous and flourishing town. The 
 revolt was suppressed, but not before the young 
 Agricola had had some exciting and instructive 
 
246 A GREAT CAPTAIN. 
 
 experiences. These seem finally to have determined 
 him in favour of a military career. Before he could 
 enter on this, a routine of civil office was necessary. 
 His first promotion was a Qusestorship. The Quaestors 
 were financial secretaries, who assisted the provincial 
 governors, to whom they were assigned by the process of 
 balloting. Agricola happened to be attached to Salvius 
 Otho, Proconsul of Asia. ^ His superior was profligate 
 and rapacious, and the province dangerously full of 
 temptations. The young Quaestor was untouched by 
 these sinister influences. The office of Tribune followed 
 in due time, and was succeeded by that of Praetor. 
 Agricola continued to bear himself with a judicious 
 discretion. He was living in peculiar days when 
 inaction was wisdom. 
 
 Meanwhile he had married. His wife is described 
 as being of illustrious family. As her name was 
 Domitia, it is possible that she was connected with 
 Nero t himself. The terrible year which witnessed 
 the fall of three pretenders to the throne brought a 
 grievous trouble to Agricola, in the death of his 
 mother, who was murdered by a party belonging to 
 Otho's fleet at her country-house at Albintemelium 
 (Vintimiglia), not far from Genoa. A second service 
 in Britain followed the next year (A.D. 70), this time 
 
 * The western part of Lesser Asia. 
 
 t Nero's father was a Domitius, but bearing the surname of 
 Ahenobarbus, while that of Doinitia's father was Decidianus. 
 
A GREAT CAPTAIN. 247 
 
 under Cerialis, a brilliant but somewhat reckless 
 officer, who had had a great share in suppressing 
 the revolt of Civilis and North-eastern Gaul. 
 
 The next promotion was one of great importance. 
 It was nothing less than the Government of Aqui- 
 tania, a province reaching from the Pyrenees to the 
 Loire. This office he held for somewhat less than 
 three years (74-77). Tacitus is emphatic in praise 
 of his administrative powers, dwelling on his acute- 
 ness as a judge, his courtesy, modesty, and disinter- 
 estedness, his happy combination of dignity and 
 courtesy. No one, he says, presumed on his kindness, 
 and no one resented his severity. " As to his 
 imegrity and blameless life," he goes on, "it would 
 be an insult to such a man even to speak of them. " 
 He returned to Rome in A.D. 77, and for the second 
 half of this year was Consul. In the following year 
 he gave his daughter to Tacitus, the historian, a 
 happy choice, which seems to have turned out well 
 for all concerned in it, and for the world^ which 
 probably owes to it one of the most admirable of 
 biographies. His period of office completed, Agricola 
 received the command in Britain, and held it for 
 eight years. 
 
 It is unnecessary to describe in detail his civil and 
 military administration. He at once justified his 
 appointment by striking a successful blow at a rebel- 
 lious tribe (the Ordovices) in North Wales. His next 
 
248 ' A GREAT CAPTAIN. 
 
 exploit was to renew his acquaintance with Mona, 
 from which, eighteen years before, Suetonius had 
 been recalled ere he could complete his conquest. 
 The island was surrendered to Agricola without his 
 having to strike a blow. The next five years were 
 occupied in extending the Roman dominions on the 
 north of the island. One cannot read without regret 
 the story of the unsuccessful struggles which tlie 
 gallant tribes of Caledonia made in resisting the 
 invader; nor can we wholly acquit Agricola himsBlf 
 of ambition and the lust of conquest; indeed, Ms 
 biographer expressly states, and without a hint of 
 blame, that he found in war a remedy for the private 
 sorrow of losing his only son. Still we know from 
 our own national experience that frontier wars are 
 the inevitable result of a widely extended empire, 
 and that Agricola did not do much more than meet 
 the necessities of his position. The principal achieve- 
 ment of these campaigns was the establishment of 
 a line of forts between the estuaries of the Forth 
 and the Clyde, and the final victory of the Romans 
 over the forces of Calgacus at the foot of the Gram- 
 pian hills. 
 
 I cannot agree with the patriotic historians who 
 have attempted to read into Tacitus's account of 
 this battle a confession of defeat. It is impossible 
 to doubt that the valour of the tribes was over- 
 powered by the superior discipline and more effective 
 
A GREAT CAPTAIN. 249 
 
 arms of the legions, guided as they were by the 
 consummate genius of one of the greatest of Roman 
 captains. 
 
 If we wanted a proof of the reality of the victory, 
 we should find it in the undisguised jealousy of the 
 Emperor. Domitian had tried his own skill as a 
 general with but little success, and he viewed with 
 alarm, not wholly unfounded, seeing that the Imperial 
 power rested ultimately on the army, the great victo- 
 ries of his lieutenant in Britain. Agricola was recalled. 
 So fearful was the Emperor that he might refuse 
 to surrender his power, that he sent a special 
 agent with instructions to offer him, should he have 
 remained in Britain after his recall, the province of 
 Syria, and with it the command^ of the legions of the 
 East. The agent in crossing the channel met Agric- 
 ola on his homeward way, and returned without 
 having an interview with him. ^ 
 
 Agricola reported himself to the Emperor imme- 
 diately on his return, visiting the palace (so careful 
 was he to avoid offence) at night. Domitian received 
 him with an " official kiss, " but without a word of 
 welcome or thanks. 
 
 For nine years Agricola lived in Rome. It was 
 
 a time of restlessness at home and disaster abroad. 
 
 Army after army had been defeated or destroyed; 
 
 there was no longer any question of extending the 
 
 * Tacitus relates this story with a certain reserve. 
 
250 ' A GREAT CAPTAIN. 
 
 limits of the empire; it was doubtful whether Rome 
 couid hold her own, whether the frontier legions 
 would not have to abandon their quarters. All eyes 
 were turned on Agricola. He w^as the one man who 
 could restore supremacy to the Roman arms. The 
 jealousy of Domitian grew more and more frantic as 
 time went on. He offered the great soldier the 
 Government of Asia, and, though it was not one 
 where he could display his military genius, used all 
 his influence to make him decline the appointment. 
 
 In 93 A. D. the end came. Tacitus expresses him- 
 self in guarded language, which I shall translate as 
 closely as I can. " There was a persistent rumour 
 that he was poisoned. Of this I have no certain 
 knowledge, and so will make no assertion. 
 
 " Still, during the whole course of his illness, the Em- 
 peror's principal freedmen and most confidential physi- 
 cians came with a frequency quite unusual with the Em- 
 peror, who commonly made such enquiries by ordinary 
 messengers. This may have been affection, or it may 
 have been curiosity. It is known that on the last 
 day of Agricola's life, the particulars of his dying 
 hours were carried to the Emperor by a regular 
 service of messengers; and no one believed that the 
 news which he made such haste to learn was unwel- 
 come. Still, he made a display of grief in spirit and 
 look. His hatred troubled him no more ; and it was 
 easier to conceal joy than fear." 
 
A GEE AT CAPTAIN. 251 
 
 The sketch which Tacitus gives of the great 
 soldier's outward appearance is brief and unsatisfying. 
 "He was well made, but not tall; a gracious look 
 was his predominant expression. It was easy to 
 believe him a good man; pleasant to believe him 
 great. " 
 
 Agricola was barely fifty-four when he died ; happy, 
 says his biographer, in being taken away from the 
 evil to come, the dark days of Domitian's reign of 
 terror, a period from the guilt and shame of which 
 Tacitus does not feel himself to be wholly free. He 
 had been an eye-witness of these fearful deeds even a 
 passive participator in them. The last chapter of the 
 " Agricola, " in which he confesses his own weakness 
 and pays his last tribute to the dead, is a piece of 
 noble eloquence. 
 
 One passage I must quote: "If," he says, "there 
 is a dwelling-place for the souls of the just; if, as 
 the wise believe, great spirits do not perish with the 
 body, rest thou in peace, and recall us thy kindred 
 from weak regrets and womanish laments to the 
 contemplation of thy virtues, virtues for which we 
 may not wail or beat the breast. Let us honour 
 thee with admiration, ay, and if our strength suffice, 
 with imitation, rather than with transitory praises. 
 This will be true respect; this the dutiful affection 
 of thy dearest and nearest. This injunction I would 
 lay on wife, on daughter, to honour the memory 
 
252 A GREAT CAPTAIN. 
 
 of husband, of father, by dwelling on all his great 
 deeds and words, and by cherishing the glorious 
 greatness of his soul rather than of his body. It 
 is not that I object to the likenesses that are 
 wrought in marble or bronze ; but as the features 
 of men are frail and mortal, so are the things that 
 picture them : the fashion of the soul is enduring. 
 This we can realize and represent, not by foreign 
 substances, however skilfully wrought, but by the 
 moulding of our own characters. Whatever we 
 loved in Agricola, whatever we admired, abides 
 and will abide in the souls of men, in the endless 
 march of the ages, in the fame that waits on 
 noble deeds." 
 
XXIX. 
 
 A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 TO the younger Pliny — for it is in him that I see 
 the type of a *" Roman Gentleman" — my readers, 
 were introduced in an earlier chapter. He was then 
 living with his uncle and adopting father, learning 
 from him, and helping in his literary work. Of his 
 earlier history — ^he was then in his eighteenth year — 
 there is little to be told. He was a native of Comum, 
 where his family, a branch of the Caecilii, had been 
 long settled. * His father died in early manhood^ 
 leaving him to the guardianship of Verginius Rufus^ 
 a distinguished soldier and statesman, who afterwards 
 twice refused the imperial throne. 
 
 Verginius was at the time absent in command of the 
 legions which guarded the frontier of the Upper Rhine. 
 Opportunely enough, his mother's brother, the elder 
 
 * More than a century before we find Catullus inviting a 
 Caecilius of Comum, whom he addresses as a brother poet, ta 
 visit him at Verona. 
 
254 ' A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Pliny, left Rome at this time to reside at Comum. With 
 him the widow and her two sons (for there was an elder 
 boy who seems to have survived his father for but 
 a short time) went to live. The arrangement lasted 
 till A.D. 72, when the elder Pliny was summoned 
 to Rome by the Emperor Vespasian. Plinia and her 
 son, who by this time had been adopted by his uncle, 
 accompanied him, and remained with him for the 
 rest of his life. A year after his uncle's death 
 Pliny made his first appearance as an advocate in 
 the " Court of the Hundred, " which had a jurisdic- 
 tion in what we call equity. He was not yet nine- 
 teen. Very soon afterwards he was made a subor- 
 dinate magistrate. Some period of military service 
 was obligatory, and we find him in the following 
 year (A.D. 81) holding an honorary commission as 
 tribune in Syria. He saw no active service, being- 
 employed in the finance department of the provincial 
 government. Most of his leisure was spent in the 
 learned and philosophical society of Antioch. 
 
 Returning to Rome, probably as soon as the obli- 
 gatory term of six months was completed, he practised 
 with diligence and success as an advocate. In 
 89 he was Quaestor; in 91 Tribune; in 93 Praetor. 
 His praetorship w^as marked by the discharge of an 
 important duty. He undertook, in company with 
 a friend, the prosecution of Baebius Massa, late 
 Procurator of Baetica (Portugal) at the instance ol 
 
A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 255 
 
 the province, and obtained a verdict against him. 
 
 Perilous times followed. A reign of terror made 
 the name of Domitian as infamous as that of Nero 
 had been before him. Informers plied their trade 
 with such zeal and success that no man's life was 
 safe. Pliny's name had been already inscribed on 
 the fatal list (his old enemy, Massa, was now in 
 high favour) when Domitian fell by the hand of an 
 assassin^ and Rome began to breathe again. The 
 new regime brought to Pliny new honours and em- 
 ployments. In A.D. 100 he was made consul, and 
 about eleven years afterwards received, by a special 
 arrangement between the Senate and the Emperor, 
 the governorship of Bithynia. * After this we hear 
 no more of him. 
 
 The last sixteen years of Pliny's life are covered 
 by a series of letters, which he began to publish in 
 A.D. 97. There are ten books, the last of which 
 contains a correspondence which refers for the most 
 part to the governorship of Bithynia. These letters 
 furnish, as may be supposed, abundant material for 
 my picture. 
 
 It is curious to see within what narrow limits the 
 activities of a Roman gentleman who aspired to take 
 a part in public life were confined. In Pliny's case 
 
 * Bithynia was commonly among the provinces to which the 
 Senate appointed, hut in this instance, as the administration 
 had fallen into confusion, the Emperor (Trajan) nominated. 
 
256 A KOMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 they are almost limited, till he went to take up the 
 government of his province, to what we should call 
 State trials. As Quaestor and Tribune he had 
 practically nothing to do; his duties as Praetor were 
 apparently confined to the management of the public 
 shows and games. But when he was holding this 
 last office, he prosecuted, as has been already said, 
 a corrupt official, and after the fall of the tyrant, 
 he became more active in this direction. Immediately 
 after the accession of Nerva, he impeached one 
 Certus, who had been a particularly noxious informer, 
 and though the Emperor vetoed the proceedings, 
 succeeded in stopping the guilty man's career. 
 
 Two years afterwards he undertook, this time in 
 concert with his intimate friend, the historian Tacitus, 
 the prosecution of Marius Prisons, who had been 
 scandalously venal in his government of Northern 
 Africa, and pleaded for his old friends of Baetica 
 against the representatives of their late Governor, 
 Classicus. His subsequent appearances in cases of 
 this kind were for the defence. Political life proper 
 hardly existed under the Empire. Still more remark- 
 able is the complete control which we find the 
 Emperor exercising over the proceedings of the Pro- 
 vincial Governor. It is simply astonishing to find 
 how matters of detail, which a Town Council would 
 now dispose of without any hesitation, are referred 
 by a Governor, specially appointed, it should be 
 
A KOMAN GENTLEMAN. 257 
 
 remembered, for his efficiency, to the decision of the 
 Emperor. 
 
 The people of Nicaea * had been building a new 
 gymnasium in place of one that had been burnt down. 
 The new structure was very ill-arranged, and a 
 second architect, who had been called in to advise, 
 declared that the walls were not properly cemented. 
 Pliny wants to know what was to be done. Nico- 
 media had been half burnt down, while the people 
 looked on without offering help. Would the Emperor 
 sanction the enrolment of a volunteer fire-brigade? 
 Trajan answers with a decided negative. Volunteer 
 associations were apt to become political clubs. At 
 Amastria the river had been turned by sewage into 
 a huge drain — one might be reading of a modern 
 town — would the Emperor sanction the expense of 
 covering it over ? After a while Trajan remonstrates, 
 when, for instance, he is asked to send an architect 
 from Rome to superintend some local works. But^ 
 on the whole^ the system, which implies a quite 
 amazing amount of centralization, approved itself to 
 him. That high officials under it were nothing more 
 than clerks, is perfectly evident. 
 
 One can easily understand, therefore, that literature 
 offered more of a career than politics. It is in lite- 
 rature that Pliny's chief interests centre. He was 
 
 * Afterwards famous as the meeting-place of the First 
 General Council. 
 
 17 
 
258 A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 an author himself, though of a somewhat dilettante 
 sort. 
 
 He liked to publish any important speech that 
 he made in the Courts or before the Senate. The 
 letters from which I quote were a new experiment 
 in literature. Cicero's letters had, indeed, been 
 published after his death by his freedman and secret- 
 ary, Tiro. But the publication was meant as a 
 contribution to history. Pliny published his corres- 
 pondence, book by book, with a distinctly literary 
 purpose. Then he was something of a poet, though 
 he does not seem to have aimed at anything higher 
 than writing " society verses." But his interest in 
 the literary activity of others was great and genuine. 
 When the opportunity occurred, he played with great 
 zest the part of the kindly critic or the liberal patron. 
 
 He makes a handsome present to Martial, the epi- 
 grammatist, when he leaves Rome for his native 
 Spain, and laments the poet's death four years after- 
 wards in a sympathetic letter. The Greek Utterateiirs 
 and rhetoricians, against whom Juvenal pours out 
 such unmeasured wrath, found in him a warm friend, 
 ready to help them with his purse, and with what 
 some patrons find it harder to give than money, his 
 personal presence and encouragement. 
 
 This he was ready to lend to all aspirants after 
 literary fame. Nothing, indeed, shows the good- 
 nature of the man more than the way in which he 
 
A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 259 
 
 speaks of the recitations or public readings by which 
 it was the common practice for writers at Rome to 
 introduce their works to the notice of a larger circle 
 than that of their immediate friends. There is reason 
 to believe that these readings had become a bore 
 of the first magnitude at Rome in Pliny's time. 
 Horace complains of the " troublesome reader, " and 
 Juvenal includes among the terrors of city life " the 
 poet who recited from the first day of August till 
 the last." 
 
 Pliny seems to have attended these performances 
 with unwearied diligence. He mentions in one of 
 his letters that the year had produced a quite amaz- 
 ing crop of poets, there having been, in parti- 
 cular, scarcely a day in April on which some one 
 did not give a reading. He gravely blames people 
 who were Jess enthusiastic or patient than himself. 
 There were many who lounged outside as long as 
 they possibly could, and only entered the lecture- 
 room when they were assured that the reader had 
 got through a considerable part of his manuscript. 
 Coming late, they also went away early, some 
 creeping out by stealth, some boldly leaving the 
 room without any attempt at concealment. Pliny 
 will have none of this indifference and half-hearted- 
 ness. He has not failed, he tells his correspondent, 
 a single reader. He had stopped in town to hear 
 his friends, and even some who were not his friends, 
 
260 A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 recite. Now he was going to enjoy the leisure that 
 would enable him to write something himself, " some- 
 thing, " he adds, " which 1 shall not read, '^ He would 
 not have it thought that he had been doing a service 
 which he looked to have repaid. 
 
 This was no affectation in Pliny. Sometimes, 
 doubtless, his presence was chiefly due to a kindly 
 courtesy ; but it commonly expressed a genuine inter- 
 est in literature. In fact this was the most import- 
 ant thing in life to him. His words, when he is 
 speaking on this subject, have an unmistakable ring 
 of true feeling. "I find," he says, " my joy and 
 solace in literature. There is no gladness that this 
 cannot increase, no grief that this cannot lighten. 
 The ill-health of my wife, the grievous sickness, and 
 sometimes, alas! the death of my friends troubles 
 me, but I fly to my books as the alleviation of my 
 fears." The words may seem cold to us who have 
 had the opportunity of learning what Pliny never 
 knew ; but they at least show us a man who disdained 
 an ignoble refuge from the ills of life. 
 
 Education is closely akin to literature, and in 
 education Pliny showed the liveliest and most practical 
 interest. His native town was without a school. 
 He had himself found an efficient instructor in his 
 uncle, but less fortunate lads had to go for their 
 education to Milan. Accordingly he promised the 
 people of Como that he would add such a sum 
 
A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 261 
 
 to what they themselves should raise, that his con- 
 tribution should bear the proportion of one third of 
 the whole. He would have been glad to give all, 
 but that his experience told him that such endow- 
 ments were often jobbed away. People, to be careful, 
 must feel that it was their own money that they 
 were spending. With^ equal sagacity he determined 
 to put the appointment of the teacher into the hands 
 of the townspeople themselves. Pliny seems to have 
 given this money in his lifetime, for it does not 
 appear among his legacies. Indeed his language 
 implies as much. An inscription to a schoolmaster, 
 discovered at Como, the modern representative of 
 Pliny's birth-place, seems to show that the school was 
 actually founded. 
 
 The love of a country life was a prominent feature 
 in Pliny's character. He had abundant opportunities 
 of gratifying it when the time came for leaving 
 Eome. He gives us to understand that he was not 
 in the first rank of wealthy men ; nevertheless he 
 seems to have possessed a quite amazing number of 
 country-houses. Two — his winter residence, some 
 twenty miles south of Rome, on the coast of what 
 is now the Campagna, and his summer retreat in 
 Etruria, at the foot of the Apennines — are described 
 at great length. It is not easy to realize their plan 
 and appearance from what their owner tells us about 
 them, but it is quite clear that they were fine houses, 
 
262 A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 with tennis-courts, handsome baths, places for horse 
 exercise, and spacious gardens. He had seats also, 
 which he does nothing more than mention, at the 
 favourite summer resorts of wealthy Romans, as 
 Tusculum, Tibur, and Praeneste. And he had several 
 villas on the lake of Como (then commonly known as 
 the Lacus Larius) of which two were his favourites^ 
 called respectively. Tragedy and Comedy, from the 
 sombre character of the one, and the cheerful appear- 
 ance of the other. 
 
 We generally connect the idea of sport with a 
 country life. Pliny was not wholly without the taste 
 for such amusements, but he seems to have followed 
 them in a half-hearted sort of way. He would go 
 out boar-hunting when he was at his Tuscan country- 
 house, but contented himself with sitting by the 
 nets, equipped at once with a hunting spear and a 
 pen. If no game happened to come his way, he 
 was perfectly content to spend the time in jotting 
 down something on his tablets. If the hunting 
 goddess, as he puts it, did not favour him, he might 
 be more fortunate with the goddess of letters. Of 
 angling he makes a slight mention. It was an at- 
 traction in one of his Como villas that he could 
 fish in the lake from out of the windows. 
 
 The glimpses that Pliny gives us of his home life 
 are very pleasing. His first wife he lost in his early 
 manhood ; we know nothing about her, not even her 
 
A EOMAN GENTLEMAN. 263 
 
 name. The second was a Calpurnia, and a native 
 of the same town as her husband. To her he was 
 most tenderly attached. His letters are the letters 
 of a lover. "I am glad," he writes in one, ^^ that 
 you miss me. For my part, I read and re-read your 
 letters, taking them up again and agp.in, as if they 
 were newly come. But all this only stirs in me a 
 keener longing. Write as often as you can, though 
 this tortures me as much as it delights." In another 
 we read, " I spend a great part of the night awake 
 and dwelling on your image; by day, when the hour 
 returns at which I was wont to visit you, my feet 
 take me, without my knowledge, to your chamber. 
 The only time that is free from these torments 
 is when I am worn out by business. Judge what 
 my life must be when I find my repose in toil and 
 my relief in anxiety! " Writing to an aunt of his 
 wife, another Calpurnia, he is loud in her praise. 
 He dwells on her intelligence, her frugality, her 
 keen interest in his pursuits. It specially charmed 
 him that she set to the harp and sang his verses, 
 taught, he says, " by love, who is the best of masters." 
 He seems to have had no children. This, indeed, 
 was the greatest disappointment of his life. Of his 
 freedmen and slaves, he always speaks in the kindest 
 way. We find him sending a consumptive freedman 
 to Egypt, and afterwards, when a relapse had come 
 on, to Frejus in the Riviera. The death of his slaves 
 
264 A ROMAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 troubled him, he writes to a friend, greatly, not 
 because they were property, but because they were 
 men. He was always glad to make them free. 
 They had his leave to make wills, with this restric- 
 tion only that they were not to leave away their 
 property outside the family. Altogether, we may 
 believe, Pliny's slaves had a fortunate lot. 
 
 Pliny's friends were numerous. He numbered great 
 soldiers, eminent patriots and famous men of letters 
 among them. He can write to them in very varied 
 moods. He is sportive and serious by turns, and 
 he is especially happy when he seeks to console in 
 trouble. 
 
 We may allow that his aims were not very lofty. 
 Perhaps a nobler temper would have been less con- 
 tent with the world in which he lived. We miss 
 entirely the note of spiritual feeling. But he lived 
 we may believe, up to his light, a cultured, blameless 
 man, who did his best to make others happy. 
 
XXX. 
 
 A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 
 
 THE " Opposition " under the regime of the Roman 
 Empire was an aristocratic party; of ijopular 
 revolt against the despotism founded by Julius and 
 consolidated by Augustus and his successor we 
 scarcely hear. That despotism was indeed essentiall}^ 
 democratic in its aim and temper. It courted the 
 people, gave them peace and plenty, and even con- 
 descended to listen to their voices when they fancied 
 themselves aggrieved. 
 
 But it found a bitter enemy in the worthier part of the 
 nobility. When I say " worthier part. " I pronounce no 
 opinion on the respective merits of the Roman despots and 
 the Roman oligarchs. It may well be doubted whether 
 the world would have been benefited by the overthrow 
 of the Empire in favour of the aristocratic con- 
 spirators who from time to time plotted against it. 
 Still it is a fact that the nobles who hated the 
 Empire were worthier than the nobles who accepted 
 
266 A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 
 
 it. They were not satisfied with the safe and ignoble 
 enjoyment of their large possessions. They looked 
 back to the days when their ancestors had ruled 
 the world, and they aspired to restore them. And 
 it is possible to have respect for their aspirations. 
 There are parties which are the better for living 
 in the " cold shade of opposition," and the disaf- 
 fected aristocrats of the Empire were vastly superior 
 to the faction so foolish, so blind, so incapable, 
 which represented the same class in the last century 
 of the Republic. The subject of this chapter is a 
 family that belonged to this class. 
 
 ARRIA. 
 
 In the second year of Claudius (A.D.42) an effort 
 was made to change, if not the system of govern- 
 ment, at least the person of the governor. The 
 officer in command of the armies of Dalmatia bore 
 one of the very noblest of Roman names, and claimed 
 descent from the Camillus who had saved Rome 
 from the Gauls. He 'sent a letter to the Emperor, 
 bidding him abdicate his throne, and proclaimed the 
 Republic in his camp. For five days the soldiers 
 acquiesced, but the idea created no enthusiasm. At 
 the end of that time the army was in revolt against 
 their general, and either killed him or forced him 
 to commit suicide; for the accounts differ. Among 
 
A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 267 
 
 his officers was one Csecina Paetus. We know 
 nothing about him except that he had been Consul, 
 that he was implicated in his superior's guilt, and 
 was deemed of sufficient importance to be sent for 
 to Rome and brought to trial before the Senate. But 
 his wife was a remarkable woman. She was with 
 her husband in the camp, and had doubtless shared 
 his schemes. When he was being taken to Rome, 
 she begged permission to accompany him. The officer 
 in command refused. She urged her request. "A 
 man of his rank," she said, "will of course have 
 his attendants to wait upon him at table and dress 
 him. You can save the expense; I will do every- 
 thing myself. 
 
 Still meeting with refusal, she hired a fishing 
 boat, and followed the ship in which her husband 
 was being conveyed to Italy. The wife of Camillus 
 turned "King's evidence," and testified against the 
 accused. Arria turned fiercely upon her. "You! " 
 she cried, " shall I listen to you who saw your hus- 
 band killed in your arms, and yet endure to live?" 
 The trial, of course, ended in condemnation. Paetus 
 was allowed to put an end to his own life. He 
 shrank from the pain. Arria snatched up a dagger 
 and inflicted on herself a formidable wound. " My 
 Paetus," she said, "it does not hurt." She was 
 resolved not to survive her husband. Her son-in- 
 law strove in vain to change her purpose. " If I 
 
268 A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 
 
 had to die," he asked, "would you have your daugh- 
 ter die with me?" "Yes," she answered, ^^if she 
 has lived as happily with you as I have with 
 Paetus." 
 
 After this she was closely watched. " It is useless," 
 she told her family, " you may make my death 
 painful ; but you cannot prevent it. " As she said 
 it she jumped up from her chair, and dashed her 
 head violently against the opposite wall. Brought 
 back to life, she said, "You see I was right; I shall 
 find some way to die, however hard it may be, if 
 you refuse me an easy one." It is a relief to turn 
 to the picture of a devotion for which we can feel 
 a less qualified sympathy. Some years before, her 
 husband and her son had been dangerously ill. The 
 son, a boy of singular promise, died; the physicians 
 told her that her husband must not know it. She 
 took all the charge of the funeral without his having 
 a suspicion of the truth; answered his questions 
 about the boy with a cheerful air — " He has slept 
 well ; he has taken his food with relish. " When the 
 tears that she was keeping back were too strong for 
 her, she would leave the room and weep, and then 
 come back again composed and calm, "as if," says 
 Pliny, who tells the story, ^^ she had left her bereave- 
 ment outside the chamber door." 
 
A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 269 
 
 THRASEA AND THE YOUNGER ARRIA. 
 
 Paetiis and Arria seem to have left one daughter, 
 another Arria. Little is said of her, except that she 
 was thoroughly loyal to the great traditions of her 
 name. She had found a worthy husband in the 
 Thrasea who has been mentioned in the preceding 
 section. Lucius Fannius * Thrasea Paetus was born 
 at Patavium (Padua) about A.D. 15. Wealthy and 
 noble, he naturally came to Rome to seek such a 
 career as the Imperial system still left open to men 
 of ability. 
 
 Of his early life we know no details. That he 
 held the usual offices we may infer from the fact 
 that in A.D. 47 we find him a member of the Senate. 
 In that year he undertook the cause of the Cilician 
 provinces against their infamous governor Capito, 
 and conducted it with such energy and success 
 that the accused was condemned. It was a great 
 triumph for Thrasea, but Capito bided his time for 
 vengeance. It was soon evident to shrewd observers 
 that he would not have to wait long. Thrasea began 
 to show in the Senate the independent temper which 
 was certain sooner or later to bring him into collision 
 with the ruling powers. He resisted a motion brought 
 forward by authority. It was but a trifling mat- 
 
 * The " family name " of Thrasea is uncertain, but it was 
 probably Fannius. 
 
270 A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 
 
 ter, * but the courtiers angrily resented his interference. 
 Thrasea avowed to his friends that his assertion of 
 independence in small matters was to pave the waj^ 
 to a similar course in ajffairs of importance. A small 
 Opposition was gathering about him. Outside the Senate 
 his home became the centre of a " liberal " circle. 
 
 One of its most distinguished members was the young 
 Helvidius Prisons, an ardent disciple of the Stoic 
 school of thought, who lived so faithfully up to his 
 belief that Thrasea and Arria fixed upon him as a 
 fit husband for their only child, their daughter Fannia. 
 
 Topics more dangerous than philosophy were dis- 
 cussed at these gatherings. The politics of the circle 
 were distinctly republican. The birthdays of famous 
 champions of liberty, of the elder Brutus who drove 
 out the Tarquins, of the younger Brutus who slew 
 the Dictator Julius, and of his associate Cassius, were 
 kept with high festivity. No vintage was too precious 
 for the cups in which their memory was toasted. 
 " Wine," says Juvenal, when he would describe the 
 very costliest kind, " such as Thrasea and Helvidius 
 used to drink in high state on the birthdays of the 
 Bruti and of Cassius." 
 
 * It was proposed that the town of Syracuse should be 
 exempted for the occasion from the sumptuary law of Augustus, 
 restraining the expense of gladiatorial shows in the provinces. 
 These were not to be exhibited more than twice in the year, 
 and not more than sixty pairs of gladiators were to contend. 
 
A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 271 
 
 In 59 A.D., came the serious occasion which was 
 sure to occur sooner or later. Nero had reached the 
 climax of wickedness by the murder of his mother. 
 The Senators vied with each other in offering shame- 
 ful flatteries to the criminal and insults to the 
 dead. This was more than Thrasea could bear: 
 before his turn came to speak he left the Senate- 
 house. Nero took no notice at the time, but he did 
 not forget it. 
 
 By his action in the matter of Agrippina, Thrasea, 
 says Tacitus, "imperilled himself without teaching 
 courage to his colleagues," yet his example was not 
 wholly fruitless. In A.D. 62, a certain Antistius was 
 convicted of having recited at a banquet some scur- 
 rilous verses about Nero. The penalty of death was 
 proposed, but Thrasea carried the Senate with him 
 when he moved as an amendment that the milder 
 punishment of exile should be substituted. 
 
 In the following year he had a warning of Nero's 
 hatred. The Empress Poppsea had given birth to a 
 daughter, and the Senate went in a body to congrat- 
 ulate the Emperor on the event. Thrasea was for- 
 bidden to enter the palace. After this he retired as 
 much as possible from public life, but he could not 
 escape his fate. Indeed he gave great offence to the 
 Emperor by absenting himself from the funeral of 
 Poppaea. He was not one of those who suffered 
 after Piso's conspiracy, but the end was not long 
 
272 A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 
 
 delayed. No definite charge was made. His acts of 
 independence, his marked absence from the Senate, 
 were the offences brought up against him. The circle 
 of friends debated whether the accused should or 
 should not present himself in the Senate to hear 
 and answer the accusations brought against him. 
 The result was not doubtful ; the only question was 
 whether he should better consult his own dignity 
 and the interests of liberty by his presence or 
 absence. 
 
 The more fiery spirits among his friends advised 
 him to go and defy his enemies. One of them 
 even offered to veto the proceedings in his capacity 
 of tribune. This last offer Thrasea refused. " He 
 had lived his life," he said; "his younger friends 
 had theirs before them." The question itself he 
 left for further deliberation. As a matter of fact, 
 he did not go. Probably he would not have been 
 permitted to enter the house, which on the day of 
 trial was beleaguered with troops. Of course the verdict 
 of guilty was returned. Thrasea was condemned to 
 death, but allowed to execute his sentence with his 
 own hand. Helvidius was banished. The officers 
 who brought him the news of his condemnation 
 found him in his gardens, surrounded by a numerous 
 company of friends. He received the message with 
 philosophic calm, even expressing some satisfaction 
 that his son-in-law's life had been spared. His 
 
A FAMILY OF PATKIOTS. 273 
 
 friends he recommended to leave him at once, lest 
 the society of a condemned man should endanger 
 their lives. To his wife, who was eager to follow 
 the example of her mother and die with her hus- 
 band, he counselled life. " Do not rob our daughter, '' 
 he said, "of your help and comfort." 
 
 His son-in-law and his intimate friend, the Stoic 
 philosopher Demetrius, with whom he had been 
 discussing the doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul, were kept to be with him to the last. 
 
 Retiring to his chamber, he severed the veins 
 in both arms. As the blood flowed forth, he took 
 some on his hand, and sprinkled it on the ground 
 as a libation, with the words, " To Jupiter, who sets 
 me free." 
 
 After a few more words, from which we only 
 learn that his death was tedious and painful, the 
 narrative of Tacitus breaks off. 
 
 HELVIDIUS. 
 
 Helvidius returned from his banishment, which he 
 seems to have spent with his wife Fannia at 
 ApoUonia in Macedonia, after the death of Nero. 
 
 His first act was to indict Marcellus, the man who 
 had been the instrument of Nero's vengeance on 
 Thrasea. But the accused was too powerful to be 
 overthrown. The establishment of Vespasian on the 
 
 18 
 
274 A FAMILY OF PATEIOTS. 
 
 throne did not please him. A vigorous Emperor 
 put the prospect of a republic into a remote distance. 
 All that he could do now was to assert his independ- 
 ence, and this he did, with a boldness that certainly 
 bordered on rashness. Tacitus cannot praise him 
 too highly ; but Suetonius, who was of another temper 
 from the republican historian^ speaks of his violent 
 language. When the new Emperor came to Rome, 
 Helvidius, alone among the Senators, saluted him 
 by the name which he had borne before his eleva- 
 tion to the throne. This attitude he continued to 
 maintain. At last Vespasian was provoked into 
 forbidding him to enter the Senate. Helvidius answer- 
 ed him with characteristic courage. 
 
 The dialogue between them is thus given by 
 Epictetus : — 
 
 Helvidius. " You can expel me from the Senate ; 
 but while I am yet a member, I must attend its 
 meetings." 
 
 Vespasian. "Attend, then, but be silent." 
 Helvidius. " Do not then ask me for my opinion.* * 
 Vespasian. " But I am bound to ask you." 
 Helvidius. " Then I am bound to say what seems 
 to me right." 
 
 Vespasian. ^^If you say it, I will kill you." 
 Helvidius. "Have I ever claimed to be immortal? 
 
 * The president of the Senate asked each member in turn for 
 his opinion. 
 
A FAMILY OF PATEIOTS. ^/O 
 
 Do your part, and I will do mine. Your part is to 
 kill, mine is to die without fear. Yours is to send 
 me into exile, mine to go into exile without grief." 
 And Vespasian did first send him into exile and 
 then kill him. When it was too late, the fatal 
 order was recalled. The second messengers were 
 met by the false report of the victim's death, and 
 did not prosecute their journey. Had they done so, 
 his life would have been spared. Vespasian never 
 ceased to regret his act. 
 
 FANNIA. 
 
 The wife of Helvidius had accompanied him in 
 his second exile. After his death she was permitted 
 to return to Rome. But it was not long before a 
 third period of exile followed. One of the little 
 band of liberal thinkers had written the biography 
 of Helvidius. He was brought to trial for the offence, 
 and pleaded that he had been requested to write by 
 Fannia, the widow. She was summoned before the 
 Senate. "Did you ask him to write?" thundered 
 the prosecutor. " I did, " said the dauntless woman. 
 " Did you give him the diaries of Helvidius ? " "I 
 did." "Did your mother know of it?" "She did 
 not." She was banished for her share in the mat- 
 ter, and the books were burnt by the public execu- 
 tioner. But Fannia contrived to save some copies, 
 
276 A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 
 
 and carried them with her to her place of banish- 
 ment. 
 
 After the death of Domitian, she and her mother 
 returned. Pliny took up their case in the Senate, 
 and endeavoured to obtain the punishment of those 
 who had driven them into exile. In this he did not 
 succeed, but the rest of their lives was at least spent 
 in safety and honour. The last glimpse that we get . 
 of Pannia shows a side of her character that we 
 might, perhaps, not otherwise have realised. We see 
 her the tender, affectionate woman. 
 
 " I am grievously troubled, " Pliny writes, " by the 
 ill-health of Pannia. She fell into this while nursing 
 Junia^ The Vestal Virgins, when so seriously ill 
 that they are compelled to leave the Hall of Vesta, 
 are committed to the care and guardianship of matrons. 
 It was while diligently discharging this duty that 
 Pannia imperilled her own life. She suffers from 
 continual fever, from a harassing cough, and the 
 greatest weakness. Her spirit only is unbroken — a 
 spirit absolutely worthy of Thrasea, her father, and 
 Helvidius, her husband. A purer, holier, nobler, 
 braver woman never was ! And at the same time, 
 how delightful she is, how courteous! — how she com- 
 bines in herself, a thing that is given only to a few 
 to do, all that is venerable and all that is sweet! 
 Another thing that troubles me, is that, in- her I 
 seem about to lose again her mother; she recalls 
 
A FAMILY OF PATRIOTS. 277 
 
 that noble woman to us so perfectly, that were we 
 to lose her, it would open that old wound afresh 
 and inflict a new. I honoured both, I loved both; 
 which I honoured and loved most I cannot say, and 
 they would not have me distinguish." 
 
 Whether Fannia lived or died we do not know^ 
 but Pliny speaks as if he had little hope. 
 
 My story has been a sad one, but it at least shows 
 that there were noble men and women even in the 
 worst days of Rome. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 A FASHIONABLE POET. 
 
 MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS TO M. ULPIUS 
 OF HISPALIS, GREETING. 
 
 KNOW, most friendly and upright of booksellers^ 
 that the Nereid, which sailed from Ostia for 
 Gades on the kalends of this month of April carries 
 for you a parcel of books. Dispose of them, if the 
 citizens of Hispalis are not by this time weary of 
 me, to your advantage and to mine. But let me 
 first explain to you candidly — for it would be shame- 
 ful not to deal honestly with an honest man — how 
 it has come to pass that they are sent. 
 
 Three years ago I published a book of Epigrams, 
 being the tenth in number of the volumes, which I have 
 sent out since my coming to this city. The thing was 
 done in haste, and, as is usual with things so done, in 
 slovenly fashion. [But I was in great straits. Money^ 
 which as you know is never abundant with me, was 
 
A FASHIONABLE POET. 279 
 
 scarce beyond tho common. One or two private 
 patrons whose liberality I had been accustomed to 
 enjoy were newly dead; another was absent from 
 Rome; another had taken offence at something that 
 I had written. 
 
 The Emperor.^was in an ill-humour, and not with- 
 out cause. He was returned newly from his campaign 
 against the Sarmatians, from which he had gathered, 
 to say the least, but a scanty crop of laurels. As 
 for me I did not know whether to be silent about 
 his exploits or to write. I tried both ways, but 
 pleased him with neither. He frowned upon a poem 
 in which I made no mention of warlike matters, he 
 frowned still more upon verses, somewhat flattering, 
 it must be allowed, in which I extolled his martial 
 exploits. In the end I could not get a single dena- 
 rius from him; and indeed the treasury was well 
 nigh empty. 
 
 So, for sheer lack of money, I was compelled 
 to publish. The book was ill- written, copied as 
 it was by almost illiterate slaves, and altogether 
 ill got-up. As for the poems, the bad things were 
 in an even greater majority than usual. * But what 
 would you have? I had to fill a certain space and 
 was compelled to use the sweepings of my desk. 
 But enough of the past. The present is very dif- 
 
 * " Some good, some moderate, more bad " is Martial's own 
 estimate of his Epigrams. 
 
280 A FASHIONABLE POET. 
 
 ferent. We have a new Emperor, whom at least 
 it is possible to praise without telling lies. Rome 
 is more prosperous, and my patrons, in consequence 
 more liberal. My own vein has been richer of late, 
 and I have written verses which are not unequal to 
 my best, if that is any commendation. Accordingly, 
 my good friend Trypho, whom doubtless you know 
 to follow your own trade, and whom I have found 
 an honest man, though somewhat sparing of his 
 coin, proposes to me to publish this same tenth 
 book of Epigrams anew. 
 
 "What of the old stock?" I ask, for there 
 are some hundreds of copies still unsold. " We 
 will sell them at half-price " he replies. " Here 
 in Rome?" I ask again. "Why not?" says he. 
 " Nay " I answer, " for there are some who prefer 
 a bad thing for one denarius to a good thing for 
 two. Let us rather send them elsewhere." 
 
 Hence the cargo which the Nereid is carrying from 
 Ostia to Gades. Are you offended, my excellent 
 Ulpius, thinking that what is not good enough for 
 Rome is good enough for Hispalis? Then I must 
 throw myself on your mercy. You indeed are worthy 
 of the best. But your townsmen ? Are they devoted 
 to letters? Do you find bookselling a lucrative 
 business? Not so, unless you have complained 
 without cause. But this book, believe me, is not 
 altogether bad; and it is cheap. The price is little 
 
A FASHIONABLE POET. 281 
 
 more than the cost of the paper. I trust to your 
 kindness to do your best for it and for me. 
 
 One word more concerning business. The volumes 
 are of two kinds ; the more ornamented might be sold 
 for three denarii^ the plainer for one and a half. 
 But this I leave to your judgment. And now for 
 other matters. 
 
 You ask me in your last letter how I have pros- 
 pered. Do not think that I am a Crassus when I 
 tell you that I have both a country house and a 
 town mansion. As to the country house, it has at 
 least the distinction of being the smallest in the 
 suburbs of Rome. There is a best bed-chamber, in 
 which I cannot lie at length; another, in which I 
 might lodge a friend, if only the friend were a pigmy, 
 a,nd a third, larger indeed, but with a hole in the 
 roof; there is a dining-room which compels me to 
 make my guests less numerous than the Graces,* 
 and a kitchen which would scarcely hold a peacock 
 if I could afford to buy one. The garden is scarcely 
 as big as what many dwellers in the town cultivate 
 in their windows. A cucumber cannot lie at full 
 length in it; a single mole does all mj^ digging; 
 and one field-mouse will lay it all as waste as ^tolia 
 was by the Great Boar of Galydon. Seriously^ it is 
 
 * " Not more than the Muses, not fewer than the Graces " 
 was the rule which a Roman was supposed to follow in deciding 
 the number of his guests. 
 
282 A FASHIONABLE POET. 
 
 over small, but it suits my means, and I do not 
 trouble it much save when the autumn heats and 
 fevers drive me from Rome. 
 
 Of my town mansion — a grand name if there is 
 nothing else that is grand about it — what need to 
 speak? It is better at least than the lodgings with 
 which I was content when I saw you. I am independ- 
 ent. I have no neighbours below me and above me 
 to drive me mad with their flute-playing or their 
 convivial uproar. Above all, I am not in danger of 
 being burnt to ashes with all my belongings through 
 other people's carelessness. 
 
 That was what had nearly happened to me in 
 my last abode. The whole block of buildings caught 
 fire through a drunken freak of some young fellow 
 on the first floor— I, you may remember, lodged 
 on the third. By the favour of the Muses — if 
 indeed the Muses know or care anything about 
 me — I had gone down to my little villa for a 
 breath of fresh air and so escaped. But my luckless 
 neighbours on either side of my apartment were 
 burnt to death; or, rather, one was burnt, the 
 other dashed out his brains by leaping from his 
 window into the street. 
 
 While I was looking for another abode, Regulus 
 the advocate, in return for an epigram in which 
 I had compared him to Cicero, presented me with 
 a little house which he did not think it worth 
 
A FASHIONABLE POET. 283 
 
 while to repair. However, a friendly builder^ whom 
 I had helped to get a good contract, did what 
 was wanted at a moderate cost — only double his 
 own outlay — and I am perfectly content. 
 
 The neighbourhood is a doubtful one — it is near the 
 Temple of Flora; it is cold in winter and hot in 
 summer, and damp all the year round. Still it is 
 my own. 
 
 But most of my days I spend at the club — for 
 we poets have a club. There are thirty members; 
 and we might have three hundred, if it seemed good 
 to us, for it is incredible how many men write 
 verses nowadays. We have had a chamber assigned 
 to us opening out on the Colonnade of Octavia. It 
 has a fair library^ no Roman author of repute, and 
 few of the Greeks, being wanting, and some good 
 casts of the ancient masterpieces in sculpture — orig- 
 inals, of course, are only possible for wealthy 
 publicans and slave dealers. 
 
 We do not boast curtains of Tyrian purple, nor 
 fine pavements; and the wine we drink is Sabine or 
 Alban, except some rich patron spares us a cask of 
 Setine or Palernian. But the place is comfortable 
 and clean, and, but for the drawback that we have 
 to listen to each other s verses, would be altogether 
 desirable. 
 
 But after all, the time that I have to myself, 
 whether at home or at the Club is very small, and 
 
284 A FASHIONABLE POET. 
 
 if my business demanded of me anything more serious 
 than the trifles which I can compose and write down 
 almost anyhow, I should have to seek some other 
 place than Rome to do it in. Before day-break I 
 have to pay my morning calls, the first, and, I 
 am bound to say, the most odious of the day's 
 duties. 
 
 These rich men, fellows who have got rich by' 
 countless rogueries, or worse — for an informer is 
 worse than a cheat, as a murderer is worse than a 
 thief— often do not condescend to take any notice 
 of one's greeting. Their favour is reserved for those 
 who minister to their pleasures, among which hearing 
 or reading verses, either good or bad, is certainly 
 not to be reckoned. This done I have, as often as 
 not, to witness a friend's will, or his marriage con- 
 tract, or his manumission of a slave, or any one of 
 the hundred things with which the lawyers hedge 
 in our lives. This done, and a hasty meal snatched 
 at home or wherever else I can find it, I have to 
 show myself in the Consul's court or the Praetor's. 
 Show myself, do I say? I have to sit the whole 
 business out, for when the great man rises, of course 
 I must be among the crowd that escorts him to his 
 home. But I am not sure whether the Consul's court 
 is not a more interesting place than a poet's recita- 
 tion hall. Anyhow it is sooner over. The Consul 
 cuts it as short as he can, whereas the poet — but 
 
A FASHIONABLE POET. 285 
 
 you know what poets are. The whole day is hardly 
 enough for some of them. The Diomedeid in thirty 
 books ; for instance ; that was the last horror that I had 
 to endure. Nor are my duties as a listener completed 
 by hearing the poets only. Some noble friend is going 
 to plead a cause; I must form one of the gallery, 
 and applaud his eloquence. If I fail, no more pres- 
 ents, no more dinners for me. Then an orator is going 
 to improvise, or a professor to lecture. Do you think 
 I can excuse myself? Not so: I want Mr. Orator and 
 Mr. Professor to come to my readings, and of course 
 I must go to theirs. It is " scratch me, and I will 
 scratch you" at Rome. It is four o'clock before I 
 can get to the bath, pretty well tired out by that 
 time, you may be sure — and then comes pay-time. 
 I get the wages for my day's work, just enough to 
 pay for my bath, and if I am very frugal indeed 
 for my dinner. * 
 
 I must allow that I do not often have to dine at 
 my own expense. All sorts of people ask me. You 
 see, though I say it myself, I am fashionable. A 
 new man finds a certain distinction in having me at 
 his table. Proculus, a young lawyer, who fits himself 
 out with handsome rings, a cloak of real Tyrian purple, 
 a litter carried by eight tall Bithynians — all, you 
 
 *A hundred farthings. As a farthing was the fourth part of 
 an as, and the as was worth a halfpenny, the pay could not 
 have been more than a shilling. 
 
286 A FASHIONABLE POET. 
 
 must understand, on borrowed money — ^is not satisfied 
 till he gets me to dine with him. "You will meet 
 Martial," he says in his airy way to the rich con- 
 tractor whom he invites in the hope of getting employ- 
 ment from him. 
 
 Then the men who have made their fortune 
 ask me. I am by way of being a passport to 
 good society. And there are a few real gentlemen 
 of the old Maecenas type. It is true that they some- 
 times write bad verses of their own to which we have 
 to listen — Maecenas, you remember, did the same — 
 but they do appreciate anything that is good, and are 
 civil to me, not because it is the fashion, but because 
 I really please them. 
 
 But oh ! what a place this Rome is ! What follies, 
 what shame, what foolishness of fashions, what silly 
 aping of the rich by the poor, what miserable pre- 
 tences of being poor by the rich ! This very day I 
 saw an acquaintance — Mamurra I will call him — posing 
 as a millionaire, though to my certain knowledge, he 
 has not a dozen denarii in the world. First he had 
 a look at the slaves, not the common things that you 
 and 1 see, but delicate creatures that you could not 
 buy under a hundred sestertia * at the least. " Excel- 
 lent" he said, when he had priced some half dozen, 
 "but when I come to think of it my household is 
 absolutely filled up." 
 
 * £1,000. 
 
A FASHIONABLE POET. 287 
 
 Then he strolled off to the upholsterer's. There 
 was a splendid tortoise-shell sofa. Out he brings 
 his pocket measure, and measures it — actually four 
 times if you will believe me — and at last comes 
 out with, " Dear me ! it is not quite large enough 
 for my citron wood table. Only half a foot more 
 and it would have been a perfect match. If one 
 just a little larger should come in your way," he 
 said to the shopman, "give me the refusal." — "It 
 is the biggest in Rome, Sir," said the man. — "You 
 don't say so," replied Mamurra. "I thought the 
 Eniperor's was larger, but one can't measure your host's 
 furniture " — just as if he had ever dined at the Palace ! 
 
 Next came the turn of the statues. He smelt 
 them ; " Hardly true Corinthian " he muttered. " And 
 this " he went on, " seems a little too much fore- 
 shortened." — ^^It is a genuine Polycletus," said the 
 shopman. — "You don't say so" answered my friend, 
 ^ hardly up to his best mark. " The crystal cups did 
 not please his lordship ; they were a little speckled. 
 " I must be content with porcelain, " he said. " Put 
 these ten aside for me. " The man stared ; they were 
 worth about a hundred sestertia apiece, and it is a 
 distinction to have even a pair. However I shall 
 weary you with his follies. Only near the end, just 
 as the shops were going to shut, he bought a couple 
 of earthenware mugs for a penny, and carried them 
 home himself. 
 
200 A FASHIONABLE POET. 
 
 • To tell you the truth, my dear Ulpius, I am heartily 
 sick of the place. I shall leave it and go back 
 to my own country. You smile: I hear you say : 
 " This is the old story. I have heard it every six 
 months for the last twenty years. He is always 
 coming ; he never comes. " You are right to laugh 
 at me and to be incredulous. But, nevertheless, 
 this time I mean it. I do love the country at the 
 bottom of my heart, the fields, the vineyards, the 
 woods, and mean to end my days among them. In 
 truth I am too old for Rome. I say to myself as 
 Diomed said to Nestor, "Old man, the younger war- 
 riors press thee sore." If I can still hold my own^ 
 it costs me more labour than it did ; and I am 
 beginning to loathe it all, the posturing, the pretences, 
 the flattery, the lying. There is another thing that 
 will drive me home, my losses, not of money, which, 
 for the best of all reasons I cannot lose, but of 
 those whom I love. My last loss was of dear little 
 Erotion, the gayest, sweetest creature that ever lived. 
 Here are a few lines that I have written about 
 her: 
 
 " Dear parents, lend your kindly aid 
 
 To sweet Erotion's tender shade; 
 Let not her kindly spirit dread 
 
 The gloomy paths of death to tread; 
 Six winters o'er her head had passed, 
 
 Six and no more, and to the last 
 
A FASHIONABLE POET. 289 
 
 Six days were wanting. Let her cheer 
 Your reyerend age with sportive game, 
 
 And while she plays, be pleased to hear 
 Her lisping tongue repeat my name." 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Martial did leave Rome finally about a year after 
 the accession of Trajan. 
 
 19 
 
XXXII. 
 
 A CRIMINAL LAWYEB. 
 
 AMONG those who profited by the crimes and cruel- 
 ties of Nero's later days was a certain Aquilius 
 Regulus. If he belonged to the house whose name 
 he bore, ^ he must have been of good family, for 
 the Aquilii could boast of a high antiquity. 
 
 He had undoubtedly, as we shall find, respectable 
 connections. But he was miserably poor. All his father's 
 property had been seized for the benefit of creditors ; 
 the father himself had been banished. But the young 
 Regulus had the gifts and qualities which help men 
 to prosper in evil times. He had ready speech and 
 courage, and he was not hampered by principle. He 
 became, as we should phrase it, a barrister in the 
 criminal courts. The profession had two branches 
 held in very different esteem. A counsel who pro- 
 
 * This, of course, is uncertain. A freedman took the family 
 name of his patron. So the name of Cornelius, once one of the 
 noblest of the Rome, became vulgarised by the vast number of 
 persons emancipated by the Dictator, Cornelius Sulla. 
 
A CEIMINAL LAWYER. 291 
 
 secuted was looked upon askance ; a counsel who 
 defended was respected. Regulus chose the more 
 profitable and less reputable. His victims were 
 numerous, and his profits large. He accumulated in 
 the course of two or three years a fortune of 
 ^70,000. His Imperial patron, to whom he is said 
 to have given the cynical advice to include the 
 whole Senate under one indictment, bestowed on him 
 the honour of one of the great priesthoods. 
 
 Nero fell, and the position of the man who had been 
 the instrument of his cruelty became precarious. When 
 Galba, Nero's successor, adopted as his own heir 
 a Piso, belonging to a family which Regulus had 
 greatly injured, the ex-informer saw that he was 
 in danger. 
 
 Three days afterwards, Piso was murdered along 
 with his adopting father; Regulus is said to have 
 made a present to the soldier who dealt the fatal 
 blow, and even to have indulged in the brutality 
 of fastening his teeth in the head of his mur- 
 dered enemy. Before many months he was called 
 to account for these misdeeds. Otho, who super- 
 seded Galba, and Vitellius, who superseded Otho, 
 perished in the course of a few months. With 
 Vespasian a better order of things was established. 
 
 The punishment of those who had made a profit out 
 of the reign of terror was loudly demanded, and 
 Regulus was one of the impeached. He found a 
 
292 A CRIMINAL LAWYER. 
 
 defender in his half-brother Vipsanius Messalla, a 
 gallant young soldier of the highest character, who 
 had taken a distinguished part in the campaign which 
 had put the new dynasty on the throne. Thanks 
 partly to the eloquence of his advocate, partly to 
 the fact that men too powerful to be overthrown 
 were equally guilty with himself, he escaped. 
 
 For a time he devoted himself to the lawful exercise of 
 his profession. The younger Pliny, who hated him, bears 
 a not very willing testimony to his merits as an advocate. 
 "I can't say that I regret him," he writes, some little 
 time after Regulus's death, " but I certainly miss him. " 
 The reason was that Regulus took his profession 
 seriously. He was really anxious about the cases 
 he undertook ; he laboured at them even to the extent 
 of injuring his health ; he did not grudge the trouble 
 of writing out his speeches and this though his 
 memory was so bad that he could not learn them by 
 heart. He never failed to consult the soothsayer 
 about any important cause. "A superstitious prac- 
 tice, doubtless," remarks his critic, " but showing 
 that he was intensely interested in his work." 
 
 Other instances that Pliny gives of the pains that 
 the man took about his work are hard for us to 
 understand. That an advocate would use — even hire, 
 if there was need — fine rings or fashionable clothes 
 to make an impression on his judges, we can under- 
 stand. But why he should paint one eye, his right, if 
 
A CRIMINAL LAWYER. 293 
 
 he was engaged for the plaintiflf, his left, if he was 
 pleading for the defendant, it is hard even to guess. 
 If he had painted both^ we might suppose that 
 he meant to give additional expression to them. 
 Equally perplexing is the white patch which he would 
 transfer, according to the side on which he was 
 engaged, to the right eyebrow or the left. Possibly it 
 was a superstitious fancy. Whatever was the motive, 
 such care showed his interest in his profession, an 
 interest, which, Pliny complains, had decreased since 
 his death. 
 
 It was customary for an advocate to ask the 
 court for as much time * as he thought he might 
 want for his speech. At the time at which he 
 was writing it was common for an advocate to 
 be content with little more than half an hour, some- 
 times with less than ten minutes. Regulus, on the 
 contrary, had always asked for a very large allow- 
 ance of time, with the result, of course, that a 
 proportionate amount was granted to his opponents. 
 It had also been his practice to take the greatest 
 pains to bring together a good audience, f ^^ It was 
 
 * Literally as many clepsydrae or water-clocks. A very large 
 water-clock ran for something less than twenty minutes. Pliny 
 tells us that in a great case he had twelve granted to him 
 and that four more were afterwards added, and that he spoke 
 for nearly ^Ye hours. 
 
 t Advocates used all kinds of ways from bribery downwards, 
 to collect hearers for their speeches. 
 
294 A CRIMINAL LAWYER. 
 
 pleasant," says Pliny, who had been often opposed 
 to him, ^' to speak as long as you like without 
 anyone being able to complain, and to address an 
 audience that someone else had collected for you. 
 Still, "* he goes on, '' Regulus did well to die ; only 
 he would have done better still to die sooner." 
 
 The fact is that under Domitian there had been a reign 
 of terror, scarcely less frightful than that under Nero, 
 and that Regulus had gone back to his old practices, 
 and had done more mischief than before, though not 
 so openly. Pliny tells an anecdote which shows 
 what pitfalls were in the paths of honest men in 
 those days. He was acting as counsel for a lady of 
 the name of Arionilla, and had occasion to quote a 
 dictum of one Metius Modestus, an eminent lawyer 
 who had been banished by Domitian. " What is 
 your opinion of Modestus?" interposed Regulus. It 
 was an awkward dilemma for Pliny. It would have 
 been base to censure and dangerous to praise his 
 friend. "I will tell you when the question comes 
 before the court," he replied; an answer so judicious 
 that afterwards he could only attribute it to inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 The question was repeated. " It is against the 
 accused not the condemned that witnesses are called," 
 was the second reply. Unwilling to be baffled, 
 Regulus put the question a third time in a some- 
 what diff'erent form. " Well, what do you think 
 
A CRIMINAL LAWYER. 295 
 
 about the loyalty of Modestus ? '' But Pliny was 
 equal to it. " For my part, "" he said, ^^ I do not think 
 it right even to put questions about convicted per- 
 sons ! " 
 
 After the death of Domitian Regulus felt himself 
 again to be in danger. Again he escaped. What 
 had helped him before, helped him again. And he 
 was wealthier than ever. One of his ways of enrich- 
 ing himself is curiously unlike anything in modern 
 manners. Regulus was a notorious legacy hunter. 
 The impudence he displayed in following this second 
 profession^ as it may be called, was sublime. His 
 relations with Piso have been mentioned; yet when 
 Piso's widow was dangerously ill, he forced him- 
 self into her presence, and got a hearing from her 
 by pretending a knowledge of astrology. He asked 
 her on what day and at what hour she had been 
 born; she told him; after going through a show of 
 elaborate calculation, he gravely assured her, "You 
 are at a critical * time ; but you will escape ; still 
 for your satisfaction I will put the matter before 
 a soothsayer whom I am in the habit of con- 
 sulting." 
 
 A day or two afterwards he informed her that he had 
 done so, and that the aspect of the sacrifice altogether 
 
 * Literally "Climacteric." The age of sixty -three (9X7) is 
 called the grand climacteric. 
 
296 A CRIMINAL LAWYER. 
 
 confirmed his prognostication. So comforting an assur- 
 ance demanded reward, and Verania, who seems, 
 by the way, to have been a very silly woman, put 
 his name in her will for a legacy. She grew worse 
 however, and her last words were a bitter complaint 
 of the cheat; made all the worse by the fact that 
 the lying rascal had sworn by the life of his son. 
 Of course he was not always so successful. All 
 Rome was amused to find that a rich m^an in whose 
 last hours he had shewn an indecent interest had 
 left him nothing. The millionaire had made a new 
 will. Till it was signed, Regulus had been urgent 
 with the doctors to do their very best to prolong 
 their patient's life. After it had been executed he chang- 
 ed his note. " Why do you prolong the poor crea- 
 ture's torture?'^ was his cry. The testator might 
 have been thought to have heard him, for he left 
 him nothing. 
 
 But the man's crowning achievement in the legacy- 
 hunting line was his conduct to his own son. Juvenal 
 might be thought to have indulged in an exagger- 
 ation past all belief when he speaks of a totter- 
 ing father paying court to his own soldier son in 
 the hope of being made his heir, yet what Pliny 
 tells us about Regulus and his son makes it credible. 
 This was what Regulus did. The boy's mother, who 
 had an independent fortune, was afraid to make 
 him her heir as Ions: as he was in his father's 
 
A CKIMINAL LAWYER. 297 
 
 power. * To do so might precipitate both her 
 death and his. Regulus therefore emancipated him. 
 The son inherited. And the father used the most 
 unworthy arts to secure his affection and his for- 
 tune ! 
 
 In the end the boy died. The father made a pre- 
 posterous parade of his sorrow. The lad had kept 
 several of the little horses from Gaul that were 
 fashionable at the time, a number of dogs, small 
 and great, and aviaries full of nightingales, parrots, 
 and blackbirds. All these creatures Regulus caused 
 to be destroyed at the funeral pile. 
 
 He had the idea of imitating the customs of the 
 heroic age, possibly the slaughter of the Trojan captives 
 at the burning of the body of Patroclus. He gave com- 
 missions for numerous statues and portraits of the 
 deceased. Paintings in colour, masks in wax, stat- 
 uettes in gold, silver, bronze, iron and marble were 
 to be seen in every studio in the city. He wrote 
 a biography — actually a biography of a boy, says 
 Pliny, to whom such a thing was an absolute no- 
 velty — and read it aloud to a vast audience which 
 his wealth enabled him to collect. He had a thou- 
 sand copies made, and scattered them broadcast 
 through Italy with a request to the local authorities 
 
 * A son, till emancipated by his father, had no independent 
 position, and could not hold property of his own. 
 
298 A CRIMINAL LAWYER. 
 
 of the towns and villages that the best reader among 
 them would recite the memoir. 
 
 So much for what Pliny has to say of our " criminal 
 lawyer. " It is curious to see what a very different 
 picture the court-poet Martial gives of him. In his verse 
 the great advocate has every virtue and every talent. 
 If he wants to express his conviction of the guilt 
 of a criminal, he cannot think of a more forcible 
 way of stating it than this — could Cicero be called 
 back from the dead or Regulus retained among the 
 living, the eloquence of neither could avail. He was 
 the wisest, the most devoted to duty, and the ablest 
 of men, and beyond all question the special care of 
 heaven, this last being proved, the poet thinks, by 
 the fact that the colonnade of his great house in the 
 suburbs had fallen in without doing him any harm. 
 His carriage it seems had just passed out before the 
 catastrophe took place. 
 
 But Martial is enthusiastic in his praise of the 
 tyrant Domitian, a creature whom the most zealous 
 " whitewasher " of misunderstood characters in his- 
 tory has not attempted to rehabilitate: we are 
 inclined to take his good opinion, not given, it 
 is probable, without a consideration, as of very 
 little worth, and to accept in preference the estimate 
 of another contemporary, Herennius Senecio, him- 
 self one of the victims of Domitian. "Regulus,'' 
 said Senecio, suggests to us a new definition of an 
 
A CEIMINAL LAWYEK. 299 
 
 orator. * A bad man who does not know how to 
 speak. " 
 
 * The point of the joke is the parody of a well known saying 
 attributed to the Elder Cato. "An orator is a good man who 
 knows how to speak," 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 A JUST EMPEROR. 
 
 Trajan. 
 
 '^ /^ REGORY, " says his biographer, John the Deacon, 
 V^ " walking through the Forum of Trajan, a place 
 which that Prince had adorned with very noble 
 buildings, recollected how this Trajan had, by his 
 just dealing, comforted the soul of a certain widow. 
 As he was hastening with all speed to the war — so 
 the story runs — a widow cried out to him with tears, 
 * My innocent son has been murdered, and that since 
 
A JUST EMPEKOK. 301 
 
 you came to be Emperor. I beseech you, seeing 
 that you cannot bring him to life^ to avenge his 
 death.' 'I will do so to the utmost/ said he, 'if I 
 return safe from the war.' 'But,' said the widow, 
 ' if you should fall in battle who will do me justice ? ' 
 He answered, 'My successor.' Said the widow, 'what 
 will it profit thee if another do this good deed?' 
 'Verily nothing,' he answered. 'Then,' said she, 'is 
 it not better for thee, thyself; to do me justice and 
 gain thy reward, therefore, than to pass this on to 
 another?' Thereupon Trajan dismounted; nor did 
 he depart till he had tried the cause of the widow, 
 and done full justice therein. Gregory, therefore, 
 remembering how righteous this said Trajan had 
 been, came to the great Church of St. Peter, and 
 there wept so sore for the errors of this most mer- 
 ciful prince that, on the following night, there came 
 to him this answer : " Thou hast been heard for 
 Trajan, but take care that thou pray not for any 
 other pagan soul. " 
 
 The good John is somewhat troubled in mind by 
 this story. Did not Gregory himself say that the 
 children of God may not pray for unbelievers and 
 wicked men that have departed this life ? His doubts 
 drive him into sophistry. Gregory, he says, did not 
 pray but wept only, and we know that God hears 
 the unspoken desire of his servants. Nor is it said 
 that Trajan's soul was removed to Paradise. That, 
 
302 A JUST EMPEROR. 
 
 he thinks, would be incredible. It may have remained 
 in hell, but so as not to feel the torments thereof. 
 So far John the Deacon. Dante is not so disturbed 
 by the story. He boldly places the Emperor in the 
 sixth heaven among the spirits of the just made 
 perfect. 
 
 My readers will agree with me that such specu- 
 lations do not concern us : for us the interest of the 
 story lies in its testimony to the lasting impression 
 made by Trajan's government on his own and suc- 
 ceeding generations. He was regarded as emphatic- 
 ally the just Emperor. 
 
 M. Ulpius Trajanus came from an Italian family, 
 which had been settled some time in Spain. His 
 father had been Consul and Governor of the Province 
 of Asia ; * he himself was a successful soldier, who 
 had been rewarded with the Consulship, with the 
 government of a province in Spain, and subsequently 
 with the command of the legions that guarded the 
 frontier of the Lower Rhine. He was discharging 
 the duties of this post when he received the news 
 that Nerva, who two years before had been raised 
 to the throne, vacated by the assassination of Domi- 
 tian, had associated him in the Empire. He made 
 no haste to enter on his new power. He remained 
 on the frontier for a year, completing its defence 
 by establishing colonies and military posts, and com- 
 
 * The north-western portion of Asia-Minor. 
 
A JUST EMPEROR. 303 
 
 mencing the gigantic work which is still known as 
 "Trajan's Wall." 
 
 Towards the latter end of 98 he returned to Rome. 
 The modesty with which he bore himself made the 
 most favourable impression on his new subjects. 
 Nerva had been now dead several months, and Trajan 
 was therefore sole ruler, but his self-restraint and 
 moderation were admirable. The Senate desired to 
 greet him with the flattering title of " Father of the 
 Country," borne by previous Emperors. He declined 
 to receive it till it had been deserved. He entered 
 the city on foot, and without an escort, conspicuous 
 only, says the younger Pliny, * by his stately height. 
 All Rome rushed out to see the new ruler. The build- 
 ings were crowded, almost to danger, with spectators ; 
 not a place where even the most precarious foot- 
 hold could be gained was empty. The streets were 
 so full that only the narrowest track was left for 
 the Emperor. And as all came to see, so all were 
 charmed with what they saw. The Senators were 
 greeted with the kiss of an equal. The knights were 
 astonished and delighted by the wonderful memory 
 which, without the usual help, f could recall their 
 
 * It is from this writer that we get most of our facts about 
 the earlier years of Trajan's reign. 
 
 t Commonly, a great man had a nomenclator by his side 
 whose duty it was to whisper into his master's ear the names 
 of persons who greeted him. 
 
304 A JUST EMPEROR. 
 
 names. The commonalty were allowed to throng 
 about him as closely as they would. When he en- 
 tered the palace he did so with as little pretension 
 as a private citizen who goes into his own house. 
 The general satisfaction was complete when it was 
 seen that the new ruler's wife was as humble as 
 himself. There had been Empresses who had been 
 more haughty than their husbands. Such had been 
 the Agrippina, who domineered over the feeble Clau- 
 dius. Plotina was evidently not one of these. At 
 the head of the staircase in the palace Trajan turned 
 to the multitude of spectators and cried : " I enter 
 this house with the same equanimity with which I 
 hope to quit it, should fate so demand." The nobles 
 who had felt so cruelly the suspicious rage of Domi- 
 tian were reassured by Trajan's oath that he would 
 respect the life of a senator. The turbulent soldiery 
 of the capital were overawed by his firmness. 
 
 New emperors had been accustomed to buy their 
 favour by a handsome present. Trajan did not abol- 
 ish the custom; but he reduced the gift by a half, 
 and the Praetorians received his bounty without a 
 murmur. Yet he was content to demand their loyalty 
 for only so long as he should deserve it. The Pre- 
 fect of the camp was accustomed to wear a poignard, 
 which he received from the emperor, as a symbol of his 
 power. As Trajan handed it to him, he said. " Use this 
 for me while I do well; use it against me if I do ill. " 
 
A JUST EMFEROK. 305 
 
 The new Emperor was keenly alive to the wants 
 of his people. Italy, nominally the mistress of the 
 world, had been growing weaker and weaker, its 
 population diminishing, its land going out of culti- 
 vation. Trajan tried to grapple with both evils. 
 Both, it is true, were of a kind with which it was 
 difficult to deal. But the latter may have been in 
 some degree touched by the improvement and exten- 
 sion of communications to which the emperor devoted 
 much care and expenditure And if he could not 
 altogether remedy it, he could at least provide against 
 its most dangerous effects. A long spell of adverse 
 winds might bring a population which depended for 
 its food on the corn-fields of Egypt and Mauretania 
 to the verge of famine. Trajan built large granaries 
 which were to contain not less than seven years' 
 supply of corn. The growth of population he sought 
 to encourage by establishing foundations for the 
 nurture of poor and orphan children. The poverty 
 of the Italian population, among whom free labour 
 was largely displaced by that of slaves, had encour- 
 aged a hideous system of infanticide. Trajan sought 
 to put it down by what may be called a 'bounty' 
 on children, and probably met with some success, 
 as his foundation continued to exist for more than 
 a century, when it was confiscated by Pertinax. 
 
 While the poor were thus assisted, the owners 
 of property obtained some relief in the matter of 
 
 20 
 
306 A JUST EMPEROR. 
 
 taxation. An impost which seems to have been 
 regarded as especially onerous was the vicesima or 
 twentieth, a tax on succession of five per cent. To 
 us indeed, accustomed to a legacy duty of double 
 the amount, when property descends to a stranger, 
 this impost does not seem remarkably grievous, but 
 Trajan gained great credit by the remission which 
 he made in this direction. All persons succeeding 
 to an inheritance were relieved altogether if they 
 were related, within sufficiently near degrees, to 
 the testator. Where the property left was small, 
 it was in all cases exempt. 
 
 The zeal with which Trajan provided for the 
 amusements of his subjects aroused their gratitude, 
 we may believe, still more than his wise provision 
 for their welfare. To us they do not seem so admir- 
 able. It is with nothing less than horror that we 
 read how in the great shows which he exhibited after 
 his Dacian triumph, five thousand pairs of gladiators 
 fought in the arena. On the same occasion the farces 
 which, probably on account of their license, he had 
 suppressed at the beginning of his reign, were again 
 permitted. The extraordinary industry with which 
 Trajan carried on the administration of public affairs is 
 sufficiently illustrated by his correspondence with 
 Pliny, of which specimens have been given. If the 
 Emperor did as much for other provinces as he did 
 for Bithynia, performing the functions of a Minister 
 
A JUST EMPEROK. 307 
 
 of Justice, a Home Secretary, and a President of 
 Board of Works, and we know not of what officials 
 besides, his capacity for business must have been 
 almost supernatural. We wonder whether he still 
 carried it on when he was absent with the army, as 
 he was for a considerable part of his reign. Anyhow 
 the sound sense which he invariably displays in his 
 answers, is worthy of all admiration. 
 
 But it is as a judge that Trajan chiefly interests 
 us. We wish that we knew more of his work in 
 this capacity. That the general impression of his 
 justice was strong enough to give rise to a legend 
 that is without a fellow in Christian literature, has 
 been already said. For the rest we must be content 
 with the picture that Pliny has given us of the 
 way in which the Emperor administered justice at 
 his sea-side residence of Centum Cellge, now Civita 
 Vecchia, "I have lately," he writes, "derived the 
 greatest pleasure from having been summoned by 
 our Emperor to act as his assessor at Centum Cellae. 
 What, indeed, could be more delightful than to have 
 that close view, for which retirement gives an oppor- 
 tunity, of the justice, the dignity, the courtesy of 
 our prince. There were many causes tried, and they 
 were such as to give by their variety an admirable 
 proof of the excellence of the judge." 
 
 A wealthy Ephesian was attacked by the profes- 
 sional informers, probably on some charge of treason. 
 
308 A JUST EMPEROR. 
 
 He was promptly acquitted. An offending wife was 
 next tried. She was found guilty, though her husband 
 had condoned her offence, and was mulcted of the third 
 part of her dowry and banished to an island. Another 
 case was a somewhat complicated affair of a will 
 which was said to be partly forged. One of the 
 Emperor's freedmen was involved in it, and some 
 of the plaintiffs were disposed, on that account, to 
 let the case fall through. Trajan would suffer nothing 
 of the kind. " He is no Polycletus, " he said, " and 
 I no Nero." * On this the plaintiffs were perempto- 
 rily ordered to proceed. 
 
 Of the merits and the issue of the case we 
 know nothing. " You see, " says Pliny, after giving 
 some details about the causes tried, " how honour- 
 able, how strict, was the employment of our days. 
 The relaxation that followed them was most de- 
 lightful. We were daily invited to dinner. The 
 entertainment was most modest, considering that 
 it was an Emperor's table. Sometimes we heard 
 recitations, and sometimes the night was spent in 
 most delightful discourse. On the last day, when we 
 w^ere leaving, Caesar, so careful is his kindness, sent 
 us all presents." 
 
 There is, I know, a dark side to Trajan's character. 
 Perhaps we may set aside the grievous charges which 
 
 * The infamous exactions of Polycletus had been excused and 
 screened by his master. 
 
A JUST EMPEROK. 309 
 
 Dio Cassius, a pessimistic writer, brings against his 
 morality. Pliny speaks most emphatically of the 
 purity of his life, and Pliny, though a courtier, would 
 not, I think, have condescended to lie. But that 
 Trajan was a persecutor cannot be doubted. Nero 
 had made the Christians the screen of his own crimes, 
 and Domitian, when his frantic jealousy drove him 
 to destroy his cousin. Flavins Clemens, had made the 
 accused man's religion his pretext. But Trajan, the 
 vigorous, justice-loving Emperor, was the first to 
 institute a formal persecution of the Christian faith. 
 It was always so ; the vigorous Emperors showed 
 themselves actively hostile to what the weak and 
 the profligate indolently tolerated. They saw, and 
 rightly saw, that the Empire and this new doctrine 
 could not stand together; and we can hardly blame 
 them if they chose the side to which all their con- 
 victions inclined them. Trajan, whatever his ignorance, 
 and, it may be, his faults, remains a noble figure, a 
 strong ruler, whose aim was justice. It was the 
 significant formula, repeated after his time, to every 
 new successor to the throne of the Caesars: "May 
 you be more fortunate than Augustus, and better 
 than Trajan!" 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 A.D., 105. 
 
 HIPPONAX OF COLONUS, IN ROME, TO HIS COUSIN AND 
 FELLOW-TOWNSMAN CALLIAS, — GREETING. 
 
 I HAVE been greatly at a loss, my dearest Callias, 
 ever since I came to this city, whether I should 
 rather admire or loathe these Romans. It must be 
 confessed that at this moment, when I recall to my 
 mind the things of which I was yesterday a spec- 
 tator, I incline rather to hatred than love. How 
 brutal they are! — how cruel! — how they delight in 
 unmeaning show and extravagance! — with what a 
 thirst for blood are they possessed, keener than 
 that of the most savage wild beasts, keener, I say, 
 for beasts are content when their hunger is appeased, 
 but the appetite of these barbarians (for barbarians 
 they are, notwithstanding all their wealth and luxury) 
 can never be satisfied. 
 
 Yet when I see with what unwearying diligence, 
 
A GREAT SHOW. 311 
 
 with what infinite labour, they prepare even their 
 pleasures, I am beyond measure astonished. For yester- 
 day's entertainment they had ransacked the whole 
 earth ; nor could a spectator, however hostile, forget 
 that though they are vulgar in taste and savage in 
 temper, they have conquered the world. But let me 
 relate to you in order the things that I saw. 
 
 Trajan the Emperor — who, by the way, both in 
 his virtues and vices is a Roman of the Romans — 
 having added seven new provinces to the Empire, 
 resolved to exhibit to the people such a show as 
 had never been before seen in Rome; and it is 
 confessed by all that he has attained his ambition. 
 The day before yesterday, my host, whose office 
 imposes upon him part of the care of these matters, 
 took me to the public supper at which the gladiators 
 who were to fight on the morrow took leave of 
 their friends and kinsfolk. The tables were spread 
 in the circus itself; and there were present, I should 
 suppose, not less than two hundred guests (so many 
 gladiators being about to fight on the morrow) for 
 whom most bountiful provision of the richest food 
 and the most generous wines had been made. They 
 were of all nations ; but chiefly, as I was told, from 
 Gaul and Thrace. From Greece it rejoices me to 
 say, there were but very few, and most of these 
 Arcadians, who, now that the Romans have established 
 peace over all the world, are compelled to hire out 
 
312 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 their swords, not for honorable warfare, but for 
 baser strifes. 
 
 Most of the guests, were, I thought, intent only 
 on indulging in as much pleasure as the time per- 
 mitted, and ate and drank ravenously. These, 1 
 observed, boasted loudly of what they would do on 
 the morrow; the few that were more moderate in 
 their enjoyment were also more modest. 
 
 There were not wanting sights that touched the 
 heart. One such I noticed the more particularly 
 because my host was in a way concerned in it. 
 For the most part the gladiators are slaves; but it 
 sometimes happens that a citizen will bind himself 
 for a term of years to the master of the "school", 
 for this is the name by which they call these estab- 
 lishments, receiving in return a considerable sum of 
 money. Such a gladiator may have slaves of his 
 own, if he is able to purchase them — a thing not 
 impossible, seeing that successful athletes often receive 
 no inconsiderable gifts from the young nobles and 
 others who win money by wagering on their suc- 
 cess. As we were walking among the tables, a certain 
 Tubero plucked my host by the gown, and begged 
 him to stay awhile. 
 
 "Ha! comrade," said my host— I should have told 
 you he is a Fabius and belongs therefore to one of 
 the very noblest families of Rome---" What can I do 
 for you? I hope that all is prosperous with you." 
 
A GREAT SHOW. 313 
 
 The gladiator, I could see, was profoundly grati- 
 fied by my host's kindly salutation. He had served 
 under Fabius in Britain, but hardly expected to be 
 so remembered, for a citizen who thus sells his free- 
 dom is held to have somewhat demeaned himself. 
 
 " I had no reason to complain, most noble Fabius," 
 he replied. " To-morrow I fight for the last time ; if 
 Fortune favours me, I shall be entitled to my dis- 
 charge. But who can tell what may happen? A slip 
 in the sand and it will be all over with me. I would 
 therefore, while I have time, discharge a duty which 
 it would trouble me much to leave undone. You 
 see, noble sir, this worthy man here ? " 
 
 He pointed to a man of about sixty years, a Syrian, 
 I should judge, from his complexion and eyes, who 
 was standing by weeping unrestrainedly. 
 
 " Will you then condescend to be a witness while 
 I set this man free ? " 
 
 At these words the Syrian broke forth into tears 
 more vehemently than ever. "I will not suffer it," 
 he cried. " 'Tis of the very worst omen that a 
 gladiator should do such a thing. He might as well 
 order the pinewood, the oil and the spices for his 
 funeral. " 
 
 " Be silent," said the gladiator with a certain not 
 unkindly imperiousness. " Shall I not do as I will 
 with mine own? If to-morrow — " 
 
 At this the Syrian clapped his hand on the speak- 
 
314 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 er's mouth with a cry, " good words, good words, 
 master. " 
 
 " Well ! " said Tubero, smiling, " If anything should 
 happen to me to morrow, how will yoa fare, being 
 still a slave? Say, if I had not bought you, three 
 years since, when your old master of the cookshop 
 sold you as being quite worn-out, would you not 
 have starved? 'Tis not everyone, my masters, " he 
 went on, turning to us, " that knows this Dromio. 
 He is the most faithful of men, cares more for his 
 master's interests than his own, and makes, withal, 
 the most incomparable sausage-rolls ! Nay, Dromio, 
 you shall be free, whether you will or not. If all 
 goes well, you shall not leave me — no, no, for I like 
 your rolls too well — if otherwise, then there is a 
 legacy of fifty thousand sestercii, with which you can 
 set up a cookshop of your own." 
 
 So you see there is humanity even in a Roman, 
 and that Roman a gladiator. You will be glad to be 
 told that Tubero escaped unhurt; he came to pay 
 his respects to Fabius at the morning levee on the 
 day after the show. 
 
 And now, lest my letter be of so great a length 
 as even to tire your friendly patience, I must pass 
 on without further delay to speak of the show 
 itself. 
 
 Happily the day was fine, for though the awn- 
 ings which are stretched over the amphitheatre suffice 
 
A GREAT SHOW. 315 
 
 to keep the sunshine off the spectators, they are but 
 an indifferent shelter against rain, if it be more than 
 a passing shower. Heavy rain on the day of the 
 Show is indeed a serious calamity, and to none more 
 so than to the unfortunate men who are compelled to 
 exhibit themselves for the amusement of the people. 
 For this same people is on such occasions greatly 
 out of humour, and it goes hard with any performer 
 who may seem to bear himself with any lack of 
 skill or courage. 
 
 The day began with an exhibition of wild beasts. 
 In the magnitude of his preparations for this part of 
 the entertainment the Emperor has surpassed, I am 
 told, all his predecessors. My host told me last 
 night that when Titus opened the new amphitheatre 
 which he had built, five thousand wild animals and 
 nearly as many tame were slain, but that Trajan 
 had prepared nearly half as many again, of which, 
 it is probable, but few will remain alive when the 
 Show shall be at last brought to an end. 
 
 For a time I saw nothing that was distasteful, 
 and much that was curious and interesting. Strange 
 creatures, of which I had read only in the pages of 
 Aristotle, and which I did not suppose could be seen 
 out of their native deserts, were brought into the 
 arena, and, wonderful to say did not seem unknown 
 to the spectators. A beast that they call the camel- 
 opard was one of these — it is something the shape 
 
316 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 of a camel with the spots of a leopard, only that 
 the neck is longer, and the back without a hump, 
 which, indeed, so does it slope from the forelegs to 
 the hinder, would certainly be convenient for any 
 that desired to ride it. I saw also a monstrous 
 creature that they call a river-horse, why I know 
 not, for it is the clumsiest of all animals, when seen 
 on land at least, for it is its nature to dwell mostly 
 in the water. Of strange birds there was one that 
 I noticed particularly as overtopping a man in stat- 
 ure. It is by nature white, but these Romans, who 
 are, indeed, somewhat wanting in taste, had colour- 
 ed it, in part, with vermilion. Pheasants from the 
 land of the Golden Fleece — and some of them seemed 
 to shine with this metal — and flamingoes, of a most 
 brilliant crimson, were also much to be admired. 
 The tameness of many of these creatures was indeed 
 wonderful. We saw not indeed those performing 
 elephants of which I was told stories that seemed 
 past belief, how, for instance, four would walk up 
 ropes carrying between them a litter in which reposed 
 a fifth figuring to be a sick comrade. But I saw many 
 curious sights, such as a great ape that behaved 
 itself marvellously like a man, now dancing in ar- 
 mour, now fencing with its master, lions that pur- 
 sued and caught hares without harming them, dogs 
 that imitated the movements of a company of sol- 
 diers, and other things which it would weary you 
 
A GREAT SHOW. 317 
 
 to read of, for it is only in the sight that these things 
 are really interesting. 
 
 So far then, as I have said, I was delighted with 
 what I beheld, and marvelled much at the pains that 
 had been bestowed on the training and teaching of 
 these creatures. That which followed was to me less 
 pleasing, but to the greater part of the spectators 
 far more so. For now began the combats between 
 men and the more savage and strong of the wild 
 creatures that had been thus gathered together. If 
 a man of his own free will risks his life against some 
 beast in the forest, I find no fault with him ; nay 
 I acknowledge that there is a pleasure in such en- 
 counters, and that the young may be profitably trained 
 thereby to do battle with the enemies of their country. 
 
 Do you not remember, my dear Callias^ an ad- 
 venture with that wild boar in the forest of Tegea, 
 and that it was made far more delightful than our 
 customary pursuit of hares and the like, by the 
 admixture of a certain spice of danger? But that the 
 two should be brought together against nature, the 
 wild beast taken from his haunts, and losing thereby, 
 I doubt not, something of his proper strength and 
 cunning, the man, not moved by the spirit of adven- 
 ture and the love of sport, but bought by moneys 
 this seemed to me to be a thing not at all to be 
 admired. Yet I will confess, there is a certain fas- 
 cination in the fight, for it was not possible not to 
 
318 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 admire the grace and strength of these creatures of 
 the woods and mountains, and the boldness and 
 dexterity of the men that contended with them. But 
 when the conflicts were ended, resulting, for the most 
 part, in the victory of the human combatants, there 
 followed a spectacle which was to me most revolting, 
 for now unarmed men were exposed to the fury of 
 bears, lions and tigers. It was true that, as my 
 neighbours informed me, these men deserved to die, 
 for they were murderers, robbers, forgers of wills 
 and the like (of the guilt of some I doubted, for they 
 had not committed, so far as I could learn, any worse 
 offence than running away from cruel masters — and 
 how cruel a Roman master may be, you, my Callias, 
 can hardly know). But to see them die in this fashion 
 was something horrible. 
 
 As for the spectators they were moved by the love 
 of blood rather than by the love of justice. From 
 this spectacle, which indeed lasted but for a short 
 time, the number of the criminals that were so to 
 die being small, I turned away, hiding my face with 
 my hands. When there was a great silence on the 
 assembly, coming after a great shouting and yelling, 
 I looked up and saw a most marvellous thing. The 
 whole arena was empty, save for a single animal, a 
 bear, that was sitting not far, as it chanced, from 
 the place where I myself was situated. Then, at a 
 signal from the Emperor, there was opened a door. 
 
A GEEAT SHOW. 319 
 
 from which issued an old man, of singularly venerable 
 aspect, who walked towards the creature, showing 
 no sign of fear in his gait or countenance, for he 
 was so near that I could observe him closely. " Who 
 is he?" I enquired of-^my neighbour. "Is he also a 
 criminal?" "Yes," said the man, and of the very 
 worst kind. " " Then, " cried I, " do his looks most 
 strangely belie his nature, for a face more benevolent 
 and virtuous I have never seen. " " I say not. " 
 replied my neighbour " that he has done murder or 
 theft ; but he is a Christian. " " A Christian ? " said 
 I, "what is that?" "One," my neighbour answered, 
 " that will not worship the gods, believing only in one 
 Christus, whom Pilate the Procurator crucified some 
 seventy years since, but whom those who call 
 themselves by his name affirm to be alive." 
 
 This was not a little perplexing to me. " I see not 
 the heinous guilt of so affirming, " I said, " but tell me, 
 is this all that is alleged against this man? " " Many 
 things are alleged," answered my informant, ^^but 
 nothing is proved. Yet he deserves to die, if only 
 for his incredible and intolerable obstinacy. Can you 
 believe that this fellow is willing to be destroyed by 
 the bear yonder, rather than burn a grain of incense 
 in honour of our gracious Emperor? Yet such is 
 the truth ; a man may believe what folly he pleases but 
 he must obey; and verily a rebel that is of blame- 
 less life may do more harm than a hundred male- 
 
320 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 factors." But now happened the marvel of the thing. 
 The bear rose from its place, and approached the 
 man, but when we looked to see it tear him, it hurt 
 him not, but fawned upon him, rubbing itself against 
 his legs, as though it were some great cat. When 
 this had lasted some time, the people growing im- 
 patient, the master of the Show cried out, " Let go 
 the lion ! " Hereupon the door of a cage that was 
 under the Emperor's seat was thrown open, and a 
 great lion rushed forth. He bounded up to the 
 old man with great strides, but when he reached 
 him seemed to drop all his fierceness. 
 
 On this there was a great shout of " Pardon ! Pardon ! " 
 and the Emperor, who likes not to refuse any request 
 of the people on these occasions, except for the very 
 gravest reasons, gave the signal that the man should 
 be led away. What think you of this, my Callias ? 
 According to your philosophy, which is taken, I 
 know, from the sages of the Garden of Epicurus, 
 the gods exist indeed, but take no care in human 
 affairs. Yet how was this man protected when none 
 other escaped ? You will say, the beasts were well 
 satisfied with food already. Nay, but it was not so, for 
 on this point I made enquiry. Possibly it was some 
 magical power that the man had. I will not fail to 
 see him, for he has been released, I am told, and I 
 will ask him. 
 
 This part of the entertainment being finished, the 
 
A GREAT SHOW. 321 
 
 bodies of the slain animals being dragged away, and 
 fresh sand being strewn over the whole place, there 
 fell upon the whole assembly a hush which was yet 
 full, as it seemed to me, of an intense expectation; 
 for now was to come the sight that goes to the 
 inmost heart of these savages— men fighting with 
 men. 
 
 It is not to be denied that it was a splendid sight 
 when a hundred of the gladiators who were to play 
 the " first act, " so to speak (they were a mere frac- 
 tion of all the performers to be exhibited), came 
 marching in two by two. They were armed mostly 
 as soldiers but with more of ornament and with 
 greater splendor. Their helmets were of various 
 shapes, bat each had a broad brim and a visor con- 
 sisting of four plates, the upper two being pierced 
 to allow the wearer to see through them. On the 
 top also there was what one might liken to the comb 
 of a cock, and fastened to this, a plume of horse- 
 hair dyed crimson or of crimson feathers. 
 
 Some were called " Samnites " (the name of an Italian 
 tribe that once nearly brought Rome to her knees). 
 These carried a short sword and large oblong shield. 
 Others, were armed as Thracians, or as Greeks. Others, 
 again, were distinguished by the symbol of a fish 
 upon their helmets. But the most curious of all 
 were those called "net-men," who were equipped 
 with a net with which to entangle an antagonist ; 
 
 21 
 
322 A GREAT SHOW. 
 
 having so disabled him, the "net-man" stabs him 
 with a three-pronged harpoon. These have no hel- 
 mets, and are equipped as lightly as possible, for if 
 they miss their cast they have no hope of safety 
 but in their fleetness of foot. 
 
 You will not think the worse of me, my dear Callias, 
 if I acknowledge that I cannot describe this part of the 
 spectacle. The truth is that after a certain dreadful fas- 
 cination, which held me, while the first strokes were 
 given, I turned away my eyes. Indeed had I continued 
 to look, undoubtedly I should have fainted. But I could 
 but observe that the young Fabia, my host's daugh- 
 ter, a girl of about seventeen, had no such qualms, 
 for she gazed steadfastly into the arena the whole 
 time, and her face (for I looked at her more than 
 once) was flushed, and her eyes sparkled with a 
 most inhuman light. 
 
 Till yesterday I had thought her the fairest maiden 
 I had seen; but now the very girdle of Aphrodite 
 could not make her beautiful in my eyes. Can you 
 believe, my Callias, that this young girl, who a week 
 ago was weeping inconsolably over a dead sparrow, 
 cried aloud, "he has it!" when some poor wretch 
 received the decisive blow ; aye, and when, not being 
 wounded mortally, he appealed for mercy, that she 
 made the sign of death holding forth her hand as if 
 in the act to strike? Verily they have the wolfs 
 blood in their veins, these Romans, both men and 
 
A GEEAT SHOW. 323 
 
 women! But what will you say when I relate to 
 you my last experiences? 
 
 Hearing my neighbour say the spectacle was 
 over for the day, I ventured to look up; and 
 what think you did I see ? — Some sixty bodies lay 
 on the sand, and there came out the figure of 
 one dressed as Charon, the ferryman of Styx, who 
 examined the prostrate forms to try if there was 
 life in them. Finding that none were alive, he 
 returned to the place whence he came^, and there 
 followed him presently another person, this one 
 habited as Hermes, bearing in his hand the rod 
 wherewith the messenger of the gods is said to 
 marshal the spirits of the dead when they go down 
 to the shades. At his bidding some attendants 
 removed the poor victims. This done, fresh sand 
 was strewn over such places as showed of conflict, 
 and thus was finished the first day of the Great 
 Show, wherewith Trajan is to please the gods and 
 the Roman people. 
 
 It will be continued for many days; how many, I 
 neither know nor care, for I go not again. Next year 
 I hope to see among the palms and olives of Olym- 
 pia the bloodless sports which please a kindlier, 
 gentler race of gods and men. Farewell. 
 
XXXV. 
 
 A ROMAN AT ATHENS, 
 
 MARCUS TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS, GREETING. * 
 
 COULD I transport you, my dearest Quintus, to this 
 place, and introduce you to even a part of the 
 delights which it ministers to those who frequent it, 
 you would certainly repent that you have chosen 
 to stay in Rome, and have preferred the Forum and 
 the Court of the Hundred f to the Areopagus and 
 the Schools of the Philosophers. 
 
 Doubtless when I shall return, my studies finished, 
 
 * This would be the customary form of a letter from one 
 brother to another. It is to be seen in the letters from Cicero 
 to his younger brother Quintus. So an English lad writing to 
 his brother would address him by his Christian name only, and 
 very probably, sign himself in the same way. The full name 
 of the writer may be supposed to be Marcus Aufidius Fronto, 
 grandson of the celebrated orator Fronto, and himself Consul, 
 A. D. 199. The date of the letter may be taken as 175 A. D. 
 
 t A Court of Justice in Rome, possessing jurisdiction in civi' 
 matters that concerned property. 
 
A KOMAN AT ATHENS. 325 
 
 I shall find that you have outstripped me in the 
 race for wealth and honour, yet I would not exchange 
 for these advantages the manifold goods both of mind 
 and body with which Athens supplies her adopted 
 children. It must be confessed indeed that, for the 
 most part, our countrymen are of your opinion. 
 There are but few Romans or Italians in the city, 
 scarcely more than might be counted on the fingers 
 of one hand. I suppose that it is our national tem- 
 per to desire the shortest way towards the things 
 that seem desirable, and that such a way is not 
 furnished by philosophy is manifest. But enough of 
 this matter, which we have already discussed suf- 
 ficiently at other times. 
 
 Let me recount some of the things which I have 
 seen or heard. Know then, in the first place, that 
 I reached this place on the Kalends of October, hav- 
 ing had a more prosperous voyage than I could 
 have expected considering the lateness of the season. 
 I was almost the last comer of those who intended 
 to study during the year then about to begin. (Here, 
 I should say, the year for civil matters commences 
 with the autumn equinox, and for matters academi- 
 cal some ten days later, or, according to our reckon- 
 ing, on the Nones of October, or thereabouts, for 
 the day is not absolutely fixed). The time between 
 the day of my arrival and this same commencement 
 was fully occupied with various preparations. 
 
326 A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 
 
 First T provided myself with a convenient lodging in 
 the house of a certain Meniscus, a worthy man who 
 makes his livelihood by copying books and by giving 
 instruction to youths that are backward in their 
 studies. I pay him 500 sesterces by the month and 
 have no reason to complain of the liberality of his 
 table. My wine I purchase for myself, not having 
 a taste for the thin vintage which, according to our 
 bargain, he supplies. It comes, he tells me^ from 
 Hymettus, but that mountain must keep, I think, 
 all its sweetness for its honey. 
 
 I had to purchase a gown, for all that are devoted to 
 study wear a peculiar dress. This gown is white, and 
 of a shape not unlike to our own toga. Not many years 
 ago the colour was black, but a certain Herodes, of 
 whom I shall have more to say hereafter, caused that 
 it should be changed, providing a sum of money for 
 that purpose. I myself am a sharer in this liber- 
 ality, for thanks to the endowment furnished by him 
 I bought a handsome white gown of fine material 
 at the same price that was formerly paid for one 
 both black and coarse. The purchase of books I 
 postponed for the time, till I should have for my 
 guidance in this matter. the recommendations of my 
 teachers, but I furnished myself with a store of 
 paper and parchment for notes and copies, with other 
 literary material. 
 
 On the Nones of October, (here the name of the 
 
A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 327 
 
 month is Pyanepsias or the 'month of pulse cooking') 
 we that were new students paraded at the Town 
 Hall. A motley crew we were, so far as country 
 was concerned, Europe, Asia, and Africa being re- 
 presented in our ranks. Of all towns none sent 
 more than Marseilles, a place which combines in a 
 high degree wealth and culture. From Rome there 
 was but one, myself; from the rest of Italy two. 
 
 The birthplaces of the others I need not enumerate, 
 nor indeed did I learn them all; but I noticed two 
 youths from Britain, with whom indeed I have since 
 made acquaintance. They are two brothers, and 
 both of excellent ability. We took an oath that we 
 would observe the laws of the city, that we would 
 study diligently, that we would avoid all idle and 
 loose ways, and that we would be dutiful to the 
 Governor of the students. This done we inscribed 
 our names upon a roll, from which they will be 
 transferred, if we pass the year without discredit, 
 to a marble slab. 
 
 We did not omit to pay certain fees, among 
 which were 500 sesterces for the purchase of books, 
 and 3000 sesterces to be divided among various 
 teachers whose lectures we shall have the duty 
 and privilege of attending. The question was put 
 to us one by one to which school of philosophy 
 we belonged or desired to frequent. In this matter 
 a choice is given to us, but only so far as the 
 
328 A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 
 
 Stoics or the various sects which have followed more 
 or less the teaching of Plato are concerned. A stud- 
 ent of the first year is not permitted to attend the 
 teaching of the Epicureans. Afterwards, ifhebeofthe 
 number of those who prolong their stay for the purposes 
 of study beyond the year, he may follow his own inclina- 
 tions. I, having the example of our most noble and wise 
 Emperor * before me, chose the Stoics as my instructors. 
 If I can only learn from them to emulate his 
 virtues, I shall indeed have visited this ancient abode 
 of philosophy to most excellent purpose. I must, 
 however, confess that it is not in the Porch, where, as 
 you knoW; the successors of Zeno f still teach, that I 
 have found the most fruitful and suggestive instruction. 
 
 I do not desire to disparage the knowledge and 
 ability of the Stoical teacher — and indeed who am 
 I that I should presume, to criticise so celebrated 
 a man? Yet, I say that I have myself gained more 
 profit, as far as I can estimate it, from the teaching 
 of a certain Demonax. 
 
 This philosopher professes to be a follower of the 
 Cynic Diogenes. I fancy that you smile as you read these 
 words. " What, " you say, " is it possible that anyone 
 
 * Marcus Aurelius was now on the throne. 
 
 t Zeno, the first of the Stoics, taught in a place called the 
 Painted Porch (or Colonnade) from its being adorned with 
 paintings by Polygnatus, and his successors in the chair of 
 Stoical philosophers, as it may be called, continued to frequent it. 
 
A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 329 
 
 willingly calls himself by the name of that madman ? 
 Or is there indeed any Cynical philosophy other than 
 a contempt, often itself truly contemptible, for all 
 that men admire and value?" I do not deny that it 
 is not any excellence of system that attracts me in 
 this same Demonax. System he has none, as indeed 
 Diogenes had none. But he gives for all that a 
 a singular charm and attraction to his teaching; for 
 every word that he says seems to come from his heart; 
 as we listen we say to ourselves, " this is a good 
 man and honest, the things that he recommends must 
 be desirable." 
 
 He is a man of the most venerable age, having 
 already passed his ninetieth year, and of an aspect 
 that corresponds, though he is still erect and vigorous. 
 As to the people here, they could not honour him 
 more were he a god. 'Tis pretty to see the children 
 run to offer him fruit and flowers, and as for the market 
 people, there is nothing that pleases them better than 
 that he should accept the best things that they have 
 on their stalls. And yet, so I am told, there was a 
 time when he went in danger of his life from his 
 boldness of speech. 
 
 After he had been settled here for some years, 
 there was a loud outcry against him because he had 
 never been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. 
 No good man, they said, would have refused to have 
 become a partaker of the highest truth. "My friends," 
 
330 A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 
 
 was his answer, " I have avoided the knowledge of 
 these secret things for this reason. Had I found them 
 bad, then I must, for conscience sake, have warned 
 all men against them; had I found them good, then 
 I must, also for conscience sake, have made all men 
 partakers of them to the best of my ability. " 
 
 And it must be confessed that he has more than once 
 shown such sharpness of tongue that Diogenes himself 
 whom he professes to follow could not have excelled it. 
 To a fat and pursy citizen who practised fencing at 
 a dummy figure, and asked him, " Do I use my weapon 
 well, think you?" he answered, "Admirably, so long 
 as your enemy is of wood." An indifferent pleader 
 he advised to practice much in private if he would 
 improve. "Yes, so I do," answered the man. "I go 
 over all my speeches to myself, not once but many 
 times." "Is it so?" said Demonax, "then you must 
 get another audience." 
 
 A soothsayer he thus reproved, "Do you take 
 pay for the exercise of your art?" he asked. The 
 man owned that he did. "Tell me how much," said 
 the philosopher; and when the man named the sum, 
 he answered, "Tis either too little or too much; 
 too little if you can change at all the decrees of 
 fate ; for such a power no recompense would suffice ; 
 but if these decrees cannot be changed, what profits 
 your soothsaying?" 
 
 To me the philosopher has been most friendly. 
 
A KOMAN AT ATHENS. 331 
 
 He singled me out from his audience when I first 
 heard him, perceiving that I was a Roman, and asked 
 me many questions about our studies at Rome, and 
 also about our Emperor, of whom he said smiling, 
 that there had never been so good a philosopher 
 wasted on such unprofitable things as commanding 
 armies and the like. Since then I have often supped 
 with him. 
 
 A more pleasant and more courteous host could 
 not be, and though he himself practises the se- 
 verest abstinence, contenting himself with a dish of 
 vegetables and a draught of water, he provides 
 his friends with good cake and generous wine, an 
 entertainment ample but not luxurious. He is, I 
 should have said, and has always been, a single man, 
 though much importuned by his friends in former 
 days to change his condition. Among these, Epicte- 
 tus the philosopher was specially urgent. Demonax 
 made as if he had yielded to his persuasion. "You 
 are right, " said he, " I will marry, if only you will 
 give me one of your daughters to wife." Now 
 Epictetus, who was then an old man, had himself 
 lived single all his life. 
 
 Not many days ago, Demonax took me to see 
 that same Herodes of whom I have already made 
 mention. He was for a long time the most notable 
 man in Athens, both as a great benefactor of the 
 City and as a professor of rhetoric, an art in which 
 
o32 A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 
 
 no one within the memory of man has equalled him. 
 A race course of white marble, and a theatre roofed 
 with cedar are among the benefactions which he 
 bestowed on Athens. For the benefit of learning he 
 has furnished endowments for more than one Pro- 
 fessor's chair. Yet the people have been little 
 grateful to him, bearing him a grudge for something 
 that he did in the matter of his father's will. * 
 
 More than once he has been accused to the Em- 
 peror, but has always been honorably acquitted. 
 These things have so disturbed him that he has 
 ceased to frequent the city, living always at his 
 villa that overlooks the plain of Marathon. Here it 
 was that I saw him, being entertained for two days 
 most hospitably. He fills his house indeed through- 
 out the year with guests, whom he chooses for 
 their love of study. 
 
 He took me to see the famous plain, and described 
 to me most minutely the scene of the battle. As he was 
 speaking I found it easy to believe that he had been 
 accounted the most eloquent man of his generation. 
 With Demonax he is on the most friendly terms, though 
 
 * It is said that liis father left a charge on the property 
 bequeathed to his son of a yearly payment of a mina (£4) to 
 each Athenian citizen. Atticus compounded with the citizens 
 for an immediate payment of five minas to each individual ; 
 hut when he came to pay, deducted from the amount certain 
 sums for which the recipients were indebted to his father. 
 
A KOMAN AT ATHENS. 333 
 
 he too has felt the sharpness of the philosopher's 
 tongue, as you will see from what I am about to relate. 
 
 Some year's ago Atticus lost his son, Pollux by name^ 
 a youth of much promise, and mourned for him so 
 inconsolably, as to excite the displeasure of Demo- 
 nax, who thinks that men should not allow them- 
 selves to be vanquished either by pleasure or by 
 grief. Hear then how the wise man reproved him. 
 Herodes would have the young man's chariot harness- 
 ed day by day as though he might use it, and a 
 meal prepared for him as though he might sit down 
 to it. Demonax noting this, said, " You feign to 
 yourself that he is yet alive ? " " Yes ; " replied the 
 father, " feeling that I cannot live without him." 
 ^ Is it so ? " the other made answer, and departed. 
 The next day he returned, saying " I have a letter 
 for you from Pollux. " " What says he ? " cried the 
 father, '^ He complains, " returned the other, " that 
 5^ou are so tardy in coming to him." At another 
 time he said: "Know that I have discovered a speJl 
 by which I can call up the spirit of your son, but 
 before I can use it you must find three men that 
 have never suffered bereavement. " 
 
 My host invited me to visit him again when I 
 might find time, and especially he said when the 
 students, according to custom, came to pay the an- 
 nual honours at the grave of those who fell at Ma- 
 rathon. You must know that this day is one of the 
 
334 A ROMAN AT ATHENS. 
 
 chief festivals of the year with us. Another is the 
 anniversary of Salamis, which we honour with boat 
 races on the bay and other sports. 
 
 Speaking of these things reminds me to tell you 
 that we are not less careful of the body than of the 
 mind. Athletic exercises are duly practised, and 
 twice or thrice a month we are roused up at night, 
 and arming ourselves in haste, hurry to the frontier, 
 as if to repel the attack of an invader. 
 
 To complete the list of my studies I must tell 
 you that I hear Aristides lecture every other day on 
 logic, that every third day Callias discourses on 
 Homer, while not a day passes, except it be devoted 
 to some great festival of the gods, but that I am 
 present at a lecture from one or other of the teachers 
 of philosophy. 
 
 From all these I hope to gain much profit. Yet, 
 if they were absent, to live in this place where every 
 stone, so to speak, is eloquent of the great and 
 wise, is in itself a liberal education. Why should I 
 repeat these names to you who know^ them as well 
 as I? One thing I may tell you which pleased me 
 as a Roman, as without doubt it will please you. 
 Yesterday, as I was walking in one of the streets 
 of the city, my companion said to me, " See, that 
 dwelling yonder is the house where your poet Horatius 
 lived when he studied in this place. " Rome therefore 
 has its share amons: the sflories of Athens. 
 
XXXVI. 
 
 AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER, 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS AUGUSTUS. 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS, like his predecessor Trajan, 
 belonged to a family of Italian origin that had 
 been for some time settled in Spain. Losing his 
 father in childhood, he was adopted by his paternal 
 grandfather, Annius Verus, who was then (A.D. 126) 
 Consul for the third time. The little Verus (for 
 that was then his name) attracted the notice of the 
 Emperor Hadrian, who made him a knight when he 
 was but six years old, and a Priest of Mars two 
 years afterwards. 
 
 Among the qualities which excited the admira- 
 tion of Hadrian was the lad's transparent honesty 
 and truthfulness. Verissimus^ he would playfully 
 call him, making an appropriate superlative of his 
 name. When he was twelve he assumed the charac- 
 teristic dress of the philosopher, a thick woollen 
 cloak, worn also by soldiers on active service, and 
 
336 AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 probably intended as a protest against the ornate 
 and luxurious dress of civil life. Luxury, indeed, 
 had no charms for the young Verus. On the con- 
 trary, he was strongly inclined to the asceticism 
 which was at this time gaining a strong hold on the 
 Christian community. He adopted the practice of 
 sleeping on the ground, and could hardly be induced 
 by the persuasions of his servants to use a couch 
 covered with lion skins. As it was, his health 
 was affected by his devotion to study. " This," says his 
 biographer, " was the only point on which the life of 
 the boy was open to censure." 
 
 We are reminded of what another of the noblest sons 
 of Rome, Agricola, said about himself,^ that there 
 was a time in his early youth " when he would have 
 imbibed a keener love of philosophy than became a 
 Roman and a senator, had not his mother's good sense 
 checked his excited and ardent spirit." Meanwhile great 
 prospects were opening out before the youth. Hadrian 
 had adopted one Ceionius Commodus, and Verus was 
 betrothed to his daughter, probably with a view to 
 the succession. The new Prince died but a little 
 more than a year after his adoption. 
 
 The Emperor now made a much happier choice in 
 the person of Arrius Antoninus. At the same time he 
 imposed the condition that the newly adopted son should 
 
 * Reported by his biographer and son-in-law. 
 
AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 337 
 
 himself adopt the youthful Verus and a son of the 
 deceased Ceionius Commodus. Hadrian died in 138, and 
 Arrius Antoninus succeeded him on the throne. The 
 surname of Pius was given him, it is commonly 
 supposed, in recognition of his dutiful conduct in 
 procuring the usual honours of deification for his 
 adopting father, the Senate being disposed to refuse 
 them on account of the cruelties of Hadrian's later 
 years. 
 
 In 147, Antoninus Pius shared the Imperial honour 
 with Aurelius (this was the name which Verus had 
 assumed on his adoption). For fourteen years the 
 two acted together with perfect harmony, and this 
 was beyond doubt the happiest period in the life of 
 Aurelius. The Empire enjoyed a repose such as had 
 never fallen to its lot before, and was never realised 
 again; and in his own home the troubles which dis- 
 turbed his later years had not begun, or, at least, 
 did not press. 
 
 In 161 Antoninus died, committing the Empire 
 to Aurelius with his last breath, and making no 
 mention, it would seem, of the son of Commodus. 
 The first act of Aurelius was to associate his 
 brother by adoption in the Empire. It was certainly 
 a disinterested act, and it would have been a wise 
 one, had the new colleague been really worthy 
 his promotion. At the time, indeed, he seemed to 
 be so. He was young, active, and vigorous, fit to 
 
 22 
 
338 AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 fight the battles of the Empire, while Aurelius would 
 manage civil affairs. Possibly promotion spoilt him. 
 He took command, indeed, of the armies which were 
 sent to operate against the Parthians^ but the com- 
 mand was only nominal. Great victories were won, 
 but they were won by his lieutenants. Verus him- 
 self, for that was the name by which he was known, 
 spent his time in dissolute excesses. He died of 
 apoplexy in 169, and Aurelius was thenceforward 
 sole Emperor. 
 
 It was a heavy burden that he had to bear, and 
 he bore it with a courage and a constancy that are 
 beyond all praise. A scholar and a student, he 
 had to spend his life in the camp. This uncongenial 
 task he performed with extraordinary success. The 
 exhaustion of the empire by famine and pestilence 
 compelled him to fill up the ranks of his legions 
 with gladiators and slaves. Yet the armies thus 
 recruited won signal victories under his leadership. 
 A formidable confederacy of the northern tribes 
 threatened the Empire with the ruin which actually 
 overtook it three centuries later. The imperial philo- 
 sopher crushed it, as if he had been a Marius or a 
 Csesar. 
 
 The Marcomanni were defeated in 170, the Quadi 
 in 174. Scarcely had the latter victory been won 
 when the intrigues of the Empress Faustina led 
 to troubles in the East. This woman, always the 
 
AN IMPEEIAL PHILOSOPHER. 339 
 
 plague and disgrace of her husband, now went 
 dangerously near to a treasonable conspiracy against 
 him. The health of the Emperor was weak ; his heir 
 was a vicious lad only just in his teens. Faustina 
 feared lest, if Aurelius should die, the legions might 
 choose another Prince, and wrote to Avidius Cassius, 
 who commanded the armies of the East, bidding him 
 hold himself in readiness to seize the reins of power. 
 Her own hand and the throne were to be his reward. 
 
 A rumour reached the East that the Emperor was 
 dead, and Cassius immediately had himself proclaimed. 
 When a contradiction followed, he believed that he 
 had offended beyond all pardon, and persisted in his 
 rebellion. With the greatest reluctance Aurelius 
 marched against him. Nothing, he told his soldiers, 
 was so hateful to him as civil war, and nothing 
 would please him better than to be able to forgive. 
 What he most feared was that Cassius' own shame 
 and despair or the hand of some loyal subject should 
 anticipate his purposes of clemency. The latter 
 anticipation was fulfilled. A little more than three 
 months after his assumption of the purple, Cassius 
 was assassinated by two of his officers. The murderers 
 brought his bloody head to Aurelius, but he turned 
 away in disgust. 
 
 The Emperor would have accorded his forbear- 
 ance to all concerned in the unhappy affair. The 
 papers of Cassius he destroyed unread. Of those 
 
340 AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 who had notoriously taken part with the usurper 
 not one suffered death. The wretched Empress died 
 while he was on his way eastward. Her son lived 
 to succeed his father, and to be, perhaps, the vilest 
 ruler that ever disgraced a throne. It was a lamentable 
 weakness in the philosophic Emperor to shut his eyes 
 to a wickedness of which he could not have been 
 ignorant. The principle of adoption had had the 
 happiest results. Nerva, chosen by the Senate, had 
 adopted Trajan, Trajan Hadrian, Hadrian Antoninus, 
 and Antoninus Aurelius. The last of the good Emperors 
 reverted to the principle of inheritance, and the 
 golden age of Rome was at an end. Aurelius died 
 in his fifty-ninth year (A.D. 180.) 
 
 Aurelius was a Stoic, but a Stoic with a difference. 
 He modified the paradoxical tenets of the school with 
 the sobriety of thought that characterised the Roman 
 mind. Suicide, in particular, to which the Stoic 
 teachers had been accustomed to give a hearty approval, 
 did not commend itself to him. It may be truly said 
 that this act is an expression of consummate egotism. 
 The man who, at the bidding of his conscience or 
 his pride, puts an end to his own life, puts himself 
 above nature, or the Ruler of nature. But Aurelius 
 was not an egotist. On the contrary, he develops 
 in his philosophical thought what is notoriously absent 
 from all non-Christian philosophy — humility. The 
 sentence which he quotes with approval from Epictetus 
 
AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 341 
 
 — "Thou art a little soul, bearing about a corpse," 
 — was not one which would have commended itself 
 to a Cato. And, if you change Nature to God, there 
 is a Christian ring in the following: — "To Nature, 
 that giveth all and taketh all away, he that is 
 instructed and modest says, 'Grive what thou wilt — 
 take what thou wilt away.' And this he says in a 
 spirit not of pride but of subordination and loyalty." 
 It is interesting, indeed, to see how much the philo- 
 sopher is penetrated, all unconsciously, we cannot 
 but think, with the Christian spirit. He counsels, for 
 instance, self-examination. He tells us, almost in the 
 Master's words, that it is not the things without, but 
 the things within, that disturb the man. On the 
 subject of prayer^ too, he has some noble utterances. 
 " If the gods can grant anything, why not pray to 
 them to grant that thou mayest not be afraid of 
 anything, or lust after or repine at anything, rather 
 than that anything may or may not come to pass." 
 Many Christians have less exalted conceptions than this. 
 But if we admire the man, we must also pity 
 him. He was not happy. A.bout the other life he could 
 only doubt. He speaks of dim eternities stretching 
 on either side of us; but whether we have or have 
 not any part in them he could not say. " If the 
 gods," he says in one place, " have ordered all things 
 well, can it be that the men who by holy deeds have 
 become most familiar with the Divine, when once 
 
342 AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 they die, cease to be ? " All that he can suggest as 
 an answer is this: "If this be so, be sure, that if it 
 ought to have been otherwise, they would have so 
 ordered it. . . . Because it is not so, if in fact 
 it is not so, be certainly assured that it ought not 
 to have been so." 
 
 And if the prospect of another life was dim, if 
 not actually closed to him, he found his philosophy, 
 as all have found it, a poor protection against the ills 
 and disappointments of this. His home was wretched : 
 among counsellors and friends he could hardly find 
 one in whom he could trust. Where was he to look 
 for help or comfort? "Come quick," he cries in one 
 place, "lest, perchance, I too should forget myself ! " 
 
 But he left a memory so dear and so reverenced 
 as the memory of few rulers has been. " In life and 
 in death," says his biographer, "he was close akin 
 to the lords in heaven. " A foolish and blasphemous 
 adulation was wont to give divine rank to the Impe- 
 rial throne. It was a pure and tender gratitude 
 that cherished the memory of Aurelius. He had 
 preserved an unblemished sanctity of life among the 
 temptations of a throne, and he had spent himself 
 unsparingly for the good of his people; and he was 
 not forgotten ; for centuries afterwards the likenesses 
 of the philosopher Emperor were among the most 
 cherished possessions of families which kept alive 
 the tradition of his i^oodness. 
 
AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 343 
 
 And yet, he was a persecutor of the Christian 
 Church. * Perhaps his Stoic teachers, who had begun 
 to hate this formidable rival, had turned his heart 
 against it. Perhaps he saw the irreconcilable hos- 
 tility between the Empire and the new society. The 
 fact remains : Justin at Rome, Polycarp at Smyrna, 
 
 * Christians of succeeding times, when the pressure of per- 
 secution had passed away, felt a desire to claim so admirable 
 a prince as at least a favourer of the faith, and showed this 
 feeling in a not unusual way. An edict enjoining toleration was 
 attributed to him. This is unquestionably spurious. He is also 
 said to have addressed a letter to the Senate, declaring that in 
 the war with the Marcomanni his army had been saved from 
 perishing by thirst through the intercession of a Christian legion 
 in his army. The letter went on, it was said, to exempt the 
 Christians from persecution, and to bestow on this particular 
 legion the title of Fulmhiatrix. All the particulars about the 
 legion are manifestly fictitious. There could not have been a 
 " Christian Legion " in the army of Aurelius. The title Fiilmmatrix 
 (more commonly Fulminata) had been the title of the Tenth 
 legion for nearly two centuries. But some remarkable event of 
 the kind undoubtedly happened. It is still to be seen represented 
 in the sculptures of the Antonine column. The Roman soldiers 
 are holding up their shields to catch the rain, while the enemy 
 are struck by lightning. Dion Cassius tells the story; so does 
 Claudius Apollinaris, a contemporary and a native of the country 
 where the event is said to have taken place. It is not too 
 much to believe that there were Christian soldiers in the army 
 that they prayed for help, and that the help came in the shape of 
 timely showers. But Aurelius' hostile attitude towards Christianity 
 is not affected. 
 
344 AN IMPERIAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Blandina and Potheinos at Lyons, suffered by his per- 
 secution, it may even be said by his command. 
 What are we to say ? Nothing, except it be to give 
 an application which the sufferers themselves would 
 not, we may believe, have refused to give, to the 
 dying words of Stephen, "Lord, forgive him, for he 
 knew not what he did." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 I'KINrKI) AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) BY H. C. A. THIKME OF NIMEGUEN 
 (HOLLAND) AND 14 BILLITER SQUARE BUILDINGS, LONDON, E. C. 
 
0«nriui:iiiTl Uif r 
 
 •m^:..:i 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DTJE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 
 
 mmmm 
 
 ;WVW^VWVs 
 
 
 ^^i0mm 
 
 'VwVvyyOvyyVV^^W^ 
 
 
3 1158 00480 0917 
 
 'P] 
 
 .^"Oisi