The Caesars

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> The Caesars

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It is singular, and shocking at the same time, to mention, that, for this
atrocity, Nero did absolutely receive solemn congratulations from all
orders of men. With such evidences of base servility in the public mind,
and of the utter corruption which they had sustained in their elementary
feelings, it is the less astonishing that he should have made other
experiments upon the public patience, which seem expressly designed to try
how much it would support. Whether he were really the author of the
desolating fire which consumed Rome for six [Footnote: But a memorial
stone, in its inscription, makes the time longer: "Quando urbs per novem
dies arsit Neronianis temporibus."] days and seven nights, and drove the
mass of the people into the tombs and sepulchres for shelter, is yet a
matter of some doubt. But one great presumption against it, founded on its
desperate imprudence, as attacking the people in their primary comforts,
is considerably weakened by the enormous servility of the Romans in the
case just stated: they who could volunteer congratulations to a son for
butchering his mother, (no matter on what pretended suspicions,) might
reasonably be supposed incapable of any resistance which required courage
even in a case of self-defence, or of just revenge. The direct reasons,
however, for implicating him in this affair, seem at present insufficient.
He was displeased, it seems, with the irregularity and unsightliness of
the antique buildings, and also with the streets, as too narrow and
winding, (_angustiis flexurisque vicorum_.) But in this he did but
express what was no doubt the common judgment of all his contemporaries,
who had seen the beautiful cities of Greece and Asia Minor. The Rome of
that time was in many parts built of wood; and there is much probability
that it must have been a _picturesque_ city, and in parts almost
grotesque. But it is remarkable, and a fact which we have nowhere seen
noticed, that the ancients, whether Greeks or Romans, had no eye for the
picturesque; nay, that it was a sense utterly unawakened amongst them; and
that the very conception of the picturesque, as of a thing distinct from
the beautiful, is not once alluded to through the whole course of ancient
literature, nor would it have been intelligible to any ancient critic; so
that, whatever attraction for the eye might exist in the Rome of that day,
there is little doubt that it was of a kind to be felt only by modern
spectators. Mere dissatisfaction with its external appearance, which must
have been a pretty general sentiment, argued, therefore, no necessary
purpose of destroying it. Certainly it would be a weightier ground of
suspicion, if it were really true, that some of his agents were detected
on the premises of different senators in the act of applying combustibles
to their mansions. But this story wears a very fabulous air. For why
resort to the private dwellings of great men, where any intruder was sure
of attracting notice, when the same effect, and with the same deadly
results, might have been attained quietly and secretly in so many of the
humble Roman _coenacula_?

The great loss on this memorable occasion was in the heraldic and
ancestral honors of the city. Historic Rome then went to wreck for ever.
Then perished the _domus priscorum ducum hostilibus adhuc spoliis
adornatae_; the "rostral" palace; the mansion of the Pompeys; the Blenheims
and the Strathfieldsays of the Scipios, the Marcelli, the Paulli, and the
Caesars; then perished the aged trophies from Carthage and from Gaul; and,
in short, as the historian sums up the lamentable desolation, "_quidquid
visendum atque memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat_." And this of itself
might lead one to suspect the emperor's hand as the original agent; for by
no one act was it possible so entirely and so suddenly to wean the people
from their old republican recollections, and in one week to obliterate the
memorials of their popular forces, and the trophies of many ages. The old
people of Rome were gone; their characteristic dress even was gone; for
already in the time of Augustus they had laid aside the _toga_, and
assumed the cheaper and scantier _paenula_, so that the eye sought in vain
for Virgil's

"Romanes rerum dominos gentemque _togatam_."

Why, then, after all the constituents of Roman grandeur had passed away,
should their historical trophies survive, recalling to them the scenes of
departed heroism, in which they had no personal property, and suggesting
to them vain hopes, which for them were never to be other than chimeras?
Even in that sense, therefore, and as a great depository of heart-stirring
historical remembrances, Rome was profitably destroyed; and in any other
sense, whether for health or for the conveniences of polished life, or for
architectural magnificence, there never was a doubt that the Roman people
gained infinitely by this conflagration. For, like London, it arose from
its ashes with a splendor proportioned to its vast expansion of wealth and
population; and marble took the place of wood. For the moment, however,
this event must have been felt by the people as an overwhelming calamity.
And it serves to illustrate the passive endurance and timidity of the
popular temper, and to what extent it might be provoked with impunity,
that in this state of general irritation and effervescence, Nero
absolutely forbade them to meddle with the ruins of their own dwellings--
taking that charge upon himself, with a view to the vast wealth which he
anticipated from sifting the rubbish. And, as if that mode of plunder were
not sufficient, he exacted compulsory contributions to the rebuilding of
the city so indiscriminately, as to press heavily upon all men's finances;
and thus, in the public account which universally imputed the fire to him,
he was viewed as a twofold robber, who sought to heal one calamity by the
infliction of another and a greater.

The monotony of wickedness and outrage becomes at length fatiguing to the
coarsest and most callous senses; and the historian, even, who caters
professedly for the taste which feeds upon the monstrous and the
hyperbolical, is glad at length to escape from the long evolution of his
insane atrocities, to the striking and truly scenical catastrophe of
retribution which overtook them, and avenged the wrongs of an insulted
world. Perhaps history contains no more impressive scenes than those in
which the justice of Providence at length arrested the monstrous career of
Nero.

It was at Naples, and, by a remarkable fatality, on the very anniversary
of his mother's murder, that he received the first intelligence of the
revolt in Gaul under the Propraetor Vindex. This news for about a week he
treated with levity; and, like Henry VII. of England, who was nettled, not
so much at being proclaimed a rebel, as because he was described under the
slighting denomination of "one Henry Tidder or Tudor," he complained
bitterly that Vindex had mentioned him by his family name of AEnobarbus,
rather than his assumed one of Nero. But much more keenly he resented the
insulting description of himself as a "miserable harper," appealing to all
about him whether they had ever known a better, and offering to stake the
truth of all the other charges against himself upon the accuracy of this
in particular. So little even in this instance was he alive to the true
point of the insult; not thinking it any disgrace that a Roman emperor
should be chiefly known to the world in the character of a harper, but
only if he should happen to be a bad one. Even in those days, however,
imperfect as were the means of travelling, rebellion moved somewhat too
rapidly to allow any long interval of security so light-minded as this.
One courier followed upon the heels of another, until he felt the
necessity for leaving Naples; and he returned to Rome, as the historian
says, _praetrepidus_; by which word, however, according to its genuine
classical acceptation, we apprehend is not meant that he was highly
alarmed, but only that he was in a great hurry. That he was not yet under
any real alarm (for he trusted in certain prophecies, which, like those
made to the Scottish tyrant "kept the promise to the ear, but broke it to
the sense,") is pretty evident, from his conduct on reaching the capitol.
For, without any appeal to the senate or the people, but sending out a few
summonses to some men of rank, he held a hasty council, which he speedily
dismissed, and occupied the rest of the day with experiments on certain
musical instruments of recent invention, in which the keys were moved by
hydraulic contrivances. He had come to Rome, it appeared, merely from a
sense of decorum.

Suddenly, however, arrived news, which fell upon him with the force of a
thunderbolt, that the revolt had extended to the Spanish provinces, and
was headed by Galba. He fainted upon hearing this; and falling to the
ground, lay for a long time lifeless, as it seemed, and speechless. Upon
coming to himself again, he tore his robe, struck his forehead, and
exclaimed aloud--that for him all was over. In this agony of mind, it
strikes across the utter darkness of the scene with the sense of a sudden
and cheering flash, recalling to us the possible goodness and fidelity of
human nature--when we read that one humble creature adhered to him, and,
according to her slender means, gave him consolation during these trying
moments; this was the woman who had tended his infant years; and she now
recalled to his remembrance such instances of former princes in adversity,
as appeared fitted to sustain his drooping spirits. It seems, however,
that, according to the general course of violent emotions, the rebound of
high spirits was in proportion to his first despondency. He omitted
nothing of his usual luxury or self-indulgence, and he even found spirits
for going _incognito_ to the theatre, where he took sufficient interest in
the public performances, to send a message to a favorite actor. At times,
even in this hopeless situation, his native ferocity returned upon him,
and he was believed to have framed plans for removing all his enemies at
once--the leaders of the rebellion, by appointing successors to their
offices, and secretly sending assassins to dispatch their persons; the
senate, by poison at a great banquet; the Gaulish provinces, by delivering
them up for pillage to the army; the city, by again setting it on fire,
whilst, at the same time, a vast number of wild beasts was to have been
turned loose upon the unarmed populace--for the double purpose of
destroying them, and of distracting their attention from the fire. But, as
the mood of his frenzy changed, these sanguinary schemes were abandoned,
(not, however, under any feelings of remorse, but from mere despair of
effecting them,) and on the same day, but after a luxurious dinner, the
imperial monster grew bland and pathetic in his ideas; he would proceed to
the rebellious army; he would present himself unarmed to their view; and
would recall them to their duty by the mere spectacle of his tears. Upon
the pathos with which he would weep he was resolved to rely entirely. And
having received the guilty to his mercy without distinction, upon the
following day he would unite _his_ joy with _their_ joy, and would chant
hymns of victory (_epinicia_)--"which by the way," said he, suddenly,
breaking off to his favorite pursuits, "it is necessary that I should
immediately compose." This caprice vanished like the rest; and he made an
effort to enlist the slaves and citizens into his service, and to raise by
extortion a large military chest. But in the midst of these vascillating
purposes fresh tidings surprised him--other armies had revolted, and the
rebellion was spreading contagiously. This consummation of his alarms
reached him at dinner; and the expressions of his angry fears took even a
scenical air; he tore the dispatches, upset the table, and dashed to
pieces upon the ground two crystal beakers--which had a high value as
works of art, even in the _Aurea Domus_, from the sculptures which adorned
them.

He now prepared for flight; and, sending forward commissioners to prepare
the fleet at Ostia for his reception, he tampered with such officers of
the army as were at hand, to prevail upon them to accompany his retreat.
But all showed themselves indisposed to such schemes, and some flatly
refused. Upon which he turned to other counsels; sometimes meditating a
flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw himself on the mercy of
Galba; sometimes inclining rather to the plan of venturing into the forum
in mourning apparel, begging pardon for his past offences, and, as a last
resource, entreating that he might receive the appointment of Egyptian
prefect. This plan, however, he hesitated to adopt, from some apprehension
that he should be torn to pieces in his road to the forum; and, at all
events, he concluded to postpone it to the following day. Meantime events
were now hurrying to their catastrophe, which for ever anticipated that
intention. His hours were numbered, and the closing scene was at hand.

In the middle of the night he was aroused from slumber with the
intelligence that the military guard, who did duty at the palace, had all
quited their posts. Upon this the unhappy prince leaped from his couch,
never again to taste the luxury of sleep, and dispatched messengers to his
friends. No answers were returned; and upon that he went personally with a
small retinue to their hotels. But he found their doors every where
closed; and all his importunities could not avail to extort an answer.
Sadly and slowly he returned to his own bedchamber; but there again he
found fresh instances of desertion, which had occurred during his short
absence; the pages of his bedchamber had fled, carrying with them the
coverlids of the imperial bed, which were probably inwrought with gold,
and even a golden box, in which Nero had on the preceding day deposited
poison prepared against the last extremity. Wounded to the heart by this
general desertion, and perhaps by some special case of ingratitude, such
as would probably enough be signalized in the flight of his personal
favorites, he called for a gladiator of the household to come and dispatch
him. But none appearing,--"What!" said he, "have I neither friend nor
foe?" And so saying, he ran towards the Tiber, with the purpose of
drowning himself. But that paroxysm, like all the rest, proved transient;
and he expressed a wish for some hiding-place, or momentary asylum, in
which he might collect his unsettled spirits, and fortify his wandering
resolution. Such a retreat was offered to him by his _libertus_ Phaon, in
his own rural villa, about four miles distant from Rome. The offer was
accepted; and the emperor, without further preparation than that of
throwing over his person a short mantle of a dusky hue, and enveloping his
head and face in a handkerchief, mounted his horse, and left Rome with
four attendants. It was still night, but probably verging towards the
early dawn; and even at that hour the imperial party met some travellers
on their way to Rome (coming up, no doubt, [Footnote: At this early hour,
witnesses, sureties, &c., and all concerned in the law courts, came up to
Rome from villas, country towns, &c. But no ordinary call existed to
summon travellers in the opposite direction; which accounts for the
comment of the travellers on the errand of Nero and his attendants.] on
law business)--who said, as they passed, "These men are certainly in chase
of Nero." Two other incidents, of an interesting nature, are recorded of
this short but memorable ride; at one point of the road, the shouts of the
soldiery assailed their ears from the neighboring encampment of Galba.
They were probably then getting under arms for their final march to take
possession of the palace. At another point, an accident occurred of a more
unfortunate kind, but so natural and so well circumstantiated, that it
serves to verify the whole narrative; a dead body was lying on the road,
at which the emperor's horse started so violently as nearly to dismount
his rider, and under the difficulty of the moment compelled him to
withdraw the hand which held up the handkerchief, and suddenly to expose
his features. Precisely at this critical moment it happened that an old
half-pay officer passed, recognised the emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps
it was with some purpose of applying a remedy to this unfortunate
rencontre, that the party dismounted at a point where several roads met,
and turned their horses adrift to graze at will amongst the furze and
brambles. Their own purpose was, to make their way to the back of the
villa; but, to accomplish that, it was necessary that they should first
cross a plantation of reeds, from the peculiar state of which they found
themselves obliged to cover successively each space upon which they trode
with parts of their dress, in order to gain any supportable footing. In
this way, and contending with such hardships, they reached at length the
postern side of the villa. Here we must suppose that there was no regular
ingress; for, after waiting until an entrance was pierced, it seems that
the emperor could avail himself of it in no more dignified posture, than
by creeping through the hole on his hands and feet, (_quadrupes per
angustias receptus_.)

Now, then, after such anxiety, alarm, and hardship, Nero had reached a
quiet rural asylum. But for the unfortunate concurrence of his horse's
alarm with the passing of the soldier, he might perhaps have counted on a
respite of a day or two in this noiseless and obscure abode. But what a
habitation for him who was yet ruler of the world in the eye of law, and
even _de facto_ was so, had any fatal accident befallen his aged
competitor! The room in which (as the one most removed from notice and
suspicion) he had secreted himself, was a cella, or little sleeping closet
of a slave, furnished only with a miserable pallet and a coarse rug. Here
lay the founder and possessor of the Golden House, too happy if he might
hope for the peaceable possession even of this miserable crypt. But that,
he knew too well, was impossible. A rival pretender to the empire was like
the plague of fire--as dangerous in the shape of a single spark left
unextinguished, as in that of a prosperous conflagration. But a few brief
sands yet remained to run in the emperor's hour-glass; much variety of
degradation or suffering seemed scarcely within the possibilities of his
situation, or within the compass of the time. Yet, as though Providence
had decreed that his humiliation should pass through every shape, and
speak by every expression which came home to his understanding, or was
intelligible to his senses, even in these few moments he was attacked by
hunger and thirst. No other bread could be obtained (or, perhaps, if the
emperor's presence were concealed from the household, it was not safe to
raise suspicion by calling for better) than that which was ordinarily
given to slaves, coarse, black, and, to a palate so luxurious, doubtless
disgusting. This accordingly he rejected; but a little tepid water he
drank. After which, with the haste of one who fears that he may be
prematurely interrupted, but otherwise, with all the reluctance which we
may imagine, and which his streaming tears proclaimed, he addressed
himself to the last labor in which he supposed himself to have any
interest on this earth--that of digging a grave. Measuring a space
adjusted to the proportions of his person, he inquired anxiously for any
loose fragments of marble, such as might suffice to line it. He requested
also to be furnished with wood and water, as the materials for the last
sepulchral rites. And these labors were accompanied, or continually
interrupted by tears and lamentations, or by passionate ejaculations on
the blindness of fortune, in suffering so divine an artist to be thus
violently snatched away, and on the calamitous fate of musical science,
which then stood on the brink of so dire an eclipse. In these moments he
was most truly in an _agony_, according to the original meaning of
that word; for the conflict was great between two master principles of his
nature: on the one hand, he clung with the weakness of a girl to life,
even in that miserable shape to which it had now sunk; and like the poor
malefactor, with whose last struggles Prior has so atrociously amused
himself, "he often took leave, but was loath to depart." Yet, on the other
hand, to resign his life very speedily, seemed his only chance for
escaping the contumelies, perhaps the tortures, of his enemies; and, above
all other considerations, for making sure of a burial, and possibly of
burial rites; to want which, in the judgment of the ancients, was the last
consummation of misery. Thus occupied, and thus distracted--sternly
attracted to the grave by his creed, hideously repelled by infirmity of
nature--he was suddenly interrupted by a courier with letters for the
master of the house; letters, and from Rome! What was their import? That
was soon told--briefly that Nero was adjudged to be a public enemy by the
senate, and that official orders were issued for apprehending him, in
order that he might be brought to condign punishment according to the
method of ancient precedent. Ancient precedent! _more majorum!_ And
how was that? eagerly demanded the emperor. He was answered--that the
state criminal in such cases was first stripped naked, then impaled as it
were between the prongs of a pitchfork, and in that condition scourged to
death. Horror-struck with this account, he drew forth two poniards, or
short swords, tried their edges, and then, in utter imbecility of purpose,
returned them to their scabbards, alleging that the destined moment had
not yet arrived. Then he called upon Sporus, the infamous partner in his
former excesses, to commence the funeral anthem. Others, again, he
besought to lead the way in dying, and to sustain him by the spectacle of
their example. But this purpose also he dismissed in the very moment of
utterance; and turning away despairingly, he apostrophized himself in
words reproachful or animating, now taxing his nature with infirmity of
purpose, now calling on himself by name, with adjurations to remember his
dignity, and to act worthy of his supreme station: _ou prepei Neroni_,
cried he, _ou prepeu naephein dei en tois toidaetois ale, eleire seauton_--
i.e. "Fie, fie, then Nero! such a season calls for perfect self-
possession. Up, then, and rouse thyself to action."

Thus, and in similar efforts to master the weakness of his reluctant
nature--weakness which would extort pity from the severest minds, were it
not from the odious connection which in him it had with cruelty the most
merciless--did this unhappy prince, _jam non salutis spem sed exitii
solatium quaerens_, consume the flying moments, until at length his ears
caught the fatal sounds or echoes from a body of horsemen riding up to the
villa. These were the officers charged with his arrest; and if he should
fall into their hands alive, he knew that his last chance was over for
liberating himself, by a Roman death, from the burthen of ignominious
life, and from a lingering torture. He paused from his restless motions,
listened attentively, then repeated a line from Homer--

Ippon m' ochupodon amphi chtupos ouata ballei

(The resounding tread of swift-footed horses reverberates upon my ears);--
then under some momentary impulse of courage, gained perhaps by figuring
to himself the bloody populace rioting upon his mangled body, yet even
then needing the auxiliary hand and vicarious courage of his private
secretary, the feeble-hearted prince stabbed himself in the throat. The
wound, however, was not such as to cause instant death. He was still
breathing, and not quite speechless, when the centurion who commanded the
party entered the closet; and to this officer, who uttered a few hollow
words of encouragement, he was still able to make a brief reply. But in
the very effort of speaking he expired, and with an expression of horror
impressed upon his stiffened features, which communicated a sympathetic
horror to all beholders.

Such was the too memorable tragedy which closed for ever the brilliant
line of the Julian family, and translated the august title of Caesar from
its original purpose as a proper name to that of an official designation.
It is the most striking instance upon record of a dramatic and extreme
vengeance overtaking extreme guilt; for, as Nero had exhausted the utmost
possibilities of crime, so it may be affirmed that he drank off the cup of
suffering to the very extremity of what his peculiar nature allowed. And
in no life of so short a duration, have there ever been crowded equal
extremities of gorgeous prosperity and abject infamy. It may be added, as
another striking illustration of the rapid mutability and revolutionary
excesses which belonged to what has been properly called the Roman
_stratocracy_ then disposing of the world, that within no very great
succession of weeks that same victorious rebel, the Emperor Galba, at
whose feet Nero had been self-immolated, was laid a murdered corpse in the
same identical cell which had witnessed the lingering agonies of his
unhappy victim. This was the act of an emancipated slave, anxious, by a
vindictive insult to the remains of one prince, to place on record his
gratitude to another. "So runs the world away!" And in this striking way
is retribution sometimes dispensed.

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