CHAPTER IX.
“Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,
And stars to set—but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death.”
Hemans.
During the absence of the emperor Rome groaned under more frightful tyranny even than his own. The low-born upstarts to whom he had resigned the reins of government, Helius, Polycletus, Nymphidius, and Tigellinus, were more wicked, more odious than himself. The citizens could better brook the despotism of the descendant of the Cæsars than the rapacity and insolence of Helius and his colleagues, who sprang from the very dregs of the people. Their dissatisfaction became alarming, and Helius set sail for Greece to persuade Nero to return to Rome. That vain prince was, however, in no haste to quit the theatre of his follies: the Greeks, in his eyes, were better judges of his merits, and appeared to value his talents more, than his Roman subjects. Scarcely could Helius make him sensible of the danger of the empire, and then he contented himself with writing letters to the Senate, of which Julius Claudius was the bearer, still delaying from day to day the unwelcome one of his return.
Some hints that Lucius Claudius was engaged in a secret conspiracy against the life and government of Nero were thrown out to Julius by Nymphidius, who did not wish the brother of the woman he loved to become a victim to Nero’s proscriptions, because the jealousy of that prince was seldom satisfied with one victim, and not only Lucia Claudia, but himself, if allied to her, might fall with her family. Julius, much alarmed, hastened to his brother’s house to reason with him respecting the imprudence of his conduct. The interview was short and unfriendly, and when they parted the slaves caught some expressions of contempt on the part of Lucius, and noticed that Julius appeared displeased and agitated.
As soon as Julius quitted his brother’s presence he hastened to Nymphidius, and related the ill-success that had attended his remonstrances; and then that bold bad man unfolded a dark plan that involved the destruction of Lucius Claudius. The advantages to be gained by the death of his brother were temptations too mighty to be resisted by a corrupt mind like that of Julius. Hitherto he had possessed the princely fortune, the villas, and farms of Lucius, as if they had been his own. His extravagance had nearly dissipated his own inheritance, as well as the portion of Antonia, his wife, whom he had married for her riches, and not for love. He dreaded, too, that Nero’s jealousy would not spare him if his brother’s conspiracy should be discovered, and agreed finally to the wicked plot Nymphidius proposed. The præfect demanded the hand of his vestal sister as his reward, whose vows he affirmed he would find means to annul; to which Julius readily assented. The infamous Locusta was to provide a poison, whose slow operation would assume the appearance of natural disease, and not only relieve Julius from his fears, but make him the wealthiest subject in Rome.
The victim of this dark conspiracy had just despatched Sabinus into Gaul, to Julius Vindex, who was then about to fling off the yoke of Nero, and heroically appear as the champion of virtue and independence, and, like too many other patriots, fall a martyr to the cause of liberty. Lucius hoped soon to call upon the Senate and people to aid the virtuous Gaul, and punish the monster of whom the whole world was weary. In the midst of his brightest hopes, and in the very beginning of a career whose glory might yet have eclipsed that which shed an imperishable light round the heads of his ancestors, he suddenly felt a mortal malady stealing upon him. So insidious were its approaches, that he never suspected its nature, nor even when the hour of death drew nigh imagined that he owed his destruction to the avarice of a brother. One person alone suspected poison, and that was Tigranes, a Parthian slave, who loved Lucius Claudius, and was possessed of some skill in medicine. This man had been absent during the first days of his master’s illness, and he had the hardihood to express his opinion to Julius himself. “In that case the whole household shall be put to the torture, yourself among the rest,” remarked the murderer coldly; hastening himself to his dying brother to acquaint him of the suspicion, and the posthumous revenge he meditated.
“I have injured no one,” was the magnanimous reply of the dying Roman; “and even if the fact be as you suspect, I will never punish the innocent with the guilty: God will avenge my death.” He then dictated his last will, and ordered his sister to be sent for, to receive his farewell.
About to enter “the valley and shadow of death,” in the prime of manhood and glory of his strength, the new-born rays of revelation brightened the last hours of him who had believed in God, and forsaken the errors and darkness of atheism; but, oh, how gladly would he even now have received that better light, that “day-spring from on high,” which, in the incarnation of a Saviour, gave light unto the Gentiles! But as it was, even the knowledge of the immortality of the soul, and its future reunion with the body, cheered the last hours of the proselyte to Judaism. Drawing his weeping sister to his bosom, and directing her attention to Adonijah, he said, “The God of Adonijah is my God,”—and more he would have added, but his words were inaudible, and the commencement of the sentence alone met her ear. He expired, leaving it incomplete, and her not only inconsolable, but in an agony of despair. None of those hopes that had softened the pains of the dying Lucius Claudius consoled his sister; she wept as one who could not be comforted. All was dark and cheerless in her mind as the grave; for her only friend appeared lost to her for ever. Adonijah mourned his benefactor with manly sorrow, not with hopeless grief, and he longed to claim a brother’s privilege in the maid, and to tell her that her Lucius would not remain the prisoner of the grave for ever. He saw her borne from the chamber of death in a state of insensibility, cold and motionless as him she mourned, and, turning himself to the dead, wept like a woman.
The obsequies of Lucius Claudius were performed with unwonted magnificence; the usual games were continued many days; and his murderer, with every appearance of fraternal love, pronounced the funeral oration, and placed the urn containing the ashes of the virtuous Roman in the mausoleum of the Claudii, which distinguished family enjoyed the privilege of burial within the walls of the city.
By his last will Lucius Claudius provided for the future emancipation of Adonijah, which was to take place at the conclusion of the Jewish war. He was in the interim to be exonerated from all servile labour, as he had been during his master’s life. Nor when restored to freedom was he to depart without receiving a sum adequate to his future wants. The testator gave his large estates to his brother and sister, assigning to the former the larger portion, as the head of his house. Nor did he forget the Roman people, nor his own slaves. The name of the emperor did not appear in the instrument, but the justice and generosity of the deceased Roman was displayed even in his last testament.