AH this served only to incite Poppæa to take the most desperate measures. She approached Nero with such artful insinuations in regard to the possibility of the people's revolting in favor of Octavia, and at the same time with a pretence of such meek submissiveness in regard to her own personal fortunes, that the emperor was induced both by fear and passion to take the course which she desired.
A method of getting rid of Octavia without incurring danger was not easy to devise; but Nero had at his court a man who was a genius in the art of removing formidable impediments. Anicetus had proved his ability upon Agrippina. He was not only resourceful, but absolutely without either honor or conscience. It was not alone necessary that Octavia should be destroyed, but her death must take on the semblance of a justified punishment. There was none who could or would testify aught against her. Nero summoned Anicetus and told him "that he alone had saved the life of his prince from the dark devices of his mother; now an opportunity for a service of no less magnitude presented itself, by relieving him from a wife who was his mortal enemy. There was no need of force or arms; he had only to admit of adultery with Octavia!" The dastardly freedman forthwith began to boast among his friends of the favors he received from the young empress. On being summoned to a council of the friends of Nero, he made a pretended confession. He was condemned to banishment to Sardinia, where he lived in great luxury until he died a natural death.
Nero published an edict in which he stated that Octavia had been discovered seeking, through the corruption of Anicetus, the admiral, to engage the fleet in a conspiracy, and that her infidelity was clearly proved. Octavia was sent to the island of Pandataria. Tacitus says: "Never was there any exile who touched the hearts of the beholders with deeper compassion. Some there were who still remembered to have seen Agrippina the Elder banished by Tiberius; the more recent sufferings of Julia were likewise recalled to mind--that Julia who had been confined there by Claudius. But they had experienced some happiness, and the recollection of their former splendor proved some alleviation of their present horrors." Everything in Octavia's life that promised pleasure had been turned to gall. Her home recalled the scenes of her father's poisoning and her brother's murder; her marriage rights had been first usurped by a handmaid and then by a woman known to be of infamous character; and now even her memory was to be stained with the imputation of a crime which was more intolerable to her than death itself. There is no sadder picture in all history than that of this girl,--she was only twenty,--after her short life of uninterrupted sorrow and unstained innocence, thrown among centurions and common soldiers, who dared not help her even if a feeling of pity entered their hearts. They commanded her to die; but she had not the strength or the courage of Antonia. She pleaded that she was now a widow, and that the emperor's object having been gained he had no cause to fear anything from her. She invoked the name of Agrippina, and said "that had she lived, her marriage would have been made no less wretched, but she would not have been doomed to destruction." When those in charge saw that it was hopeless to expect that she would take the unpleasant task off their hands, they bound her and opened her veins; but, the blood flowing too slowly, her death was accelerated by the vapor of a bath heated to the highest point. After life was extinct, they severed her head from her body and carried it to Poppaea, in order that she might see that the deed by which she was made Empress of Rome was surely accomplished.
The abject Senate, when they learned that the whole matter was thus concluded, decreed that offerings should be made at the temples, as a thanksgiving for the deliverance of the emperor from the dangers which had threatened him through the conspiracy of his wife. Tacitus declares that he records this circumstance "in order that all those who shall read the calamities of those times, as they are delivered by me or any other authors, may conclude, by anticipation, that as often as a banishment or a murder was perpetrated by the prince's orders, so often thanks were offered to the gods; and those acts which in former times were resorted to in order that prosperous occurrences might be distinguished, were now made the tokens of public disasters."
These were the days of the martyrs. During this reign, the burning bodies of Christians lighted the gardens of the malevolent tyrant, innocent women and tender girls were exposed to fierce beasts in the arena, and by their sufferings were made to contribute interest to a Roman holiday. These died for their faith. They died gladly, in the belief that their pains and faithfulness were to be rewarded with an unfading crown in a land beyond the skies. They cheered each other in the face of death, and they were comforted by those friends who were still at liberty with the promise of a meeting where no tyrant's hand could harm them. Octavia was not of this faith. It is probable that she knew nothing of the strange doctrines which were making converts among the Roman slaves. Yet there was no martyr more innocent than herself, none more worthy of canonization. There was none whose purity and whose fidelity to the principles which were cherished by high souls could present a better claim for the victor's palm and the martyr's crown than her own. Octavia knew nothing of the Christian hope of immortality; her religious faith at the best could teach her no more than the vague surmise that possibly in some dreary under world the shades of mortals retained a melancholy consciousness. Yet a consistent justice at the present day cannot do other than place side by side the persecuted girl from the imperial palace and the Christian slave maiden whose blood dripped from the jaws of the beasts of the arena, and believe that whatever consolation eternal fate provided for the one was equally shared in by the other.
As we have said, the first woman to attract the affections of Nero, which were never turned toward Octavia, was Acte. She had probably been brought as a slave from Asia. How old she was when Nero first knew her it is impossible for us to conjecture, but it is likely that she was somewhat older than the youthful emperor; it frequently happens that a boy's first love is aroused by a woman his superior in age. Then, too, Acte was at this time a freedwoman. Liberty was often gained by female slaves by means of the charms of their persons; but this result was not likely to be secured before those charms were fully matured. So profound was Nero's passion for Acte that, had he not been with difficulty restrained, he would have divorced Octavia forthwith and married the Greek. He is said to have induced men of consular rank to swear that she was of royal descent. It is by no means impossible that such an assertion should be true; for the slave markets which supplied Rome were to a large extent recruited by kidnapped children, picked up wherever they might be found. It is remarkable that not a word that is detrimental to the character of Acte is recorded in history. Indeed, we know but very little about her, though she has always been regarded with a sort of poetical approbation. There is no evidence of her having used her power with the emperor for the injury of an enemy. She seems to have been modest and unassuming, and it is certain that her love for Nero was sincere; for it not only outlasted his, but remained true to the latest hour of his life. When all others had forsaken the fallen prince whom they had fawned upon, it was Acte who tenderly cared for his remains.
Tacitus represents her as warning Nero from his early evil extravagances. She remained queen of his affections for four years,--the best four years of his reign,--and it is said that when he turned from her to Poppaea she sank into a profound melancholy. Upon all this has been founded the surmise that Acte was a Christian; but it is nothing more than conjecture. Whatever may have been the facts in regard to this, in the little glimpses we obtain of her presence in the awful tragedies of her age we catch the outline of one whom we are assured must have been a good woman--a woman innately pure, but forced into contact with vice by circumstances over which she had no control.
There are numerous examples from history to prove that in the dissolute reign of Nero feminine goodness was not a rarity; but there are no pictures of pure light-heartedness and gladsome simplicity such as were known in the older days. Everything was sombre; death was in the air; the only gayety was that found in the scenes of reckless profligacy. It was an age of extremes; on the one side, unrestrained profligacy; on the other, fear and sorrow occasioned by a tyrant's cruel caprice. It was an age in which all the experiences of life were intensified. Human life of the period can only be pictured in high lights and deep shadows; everything must be shown in strong relief. The fortune of nearly all the good women of this time whose names we know was to suffer patiently and die heroically.
Like Acte, the noble matron Pomponia Græcina has been credited by tradition with having found consolation for the sorrows of the times in that new faith which was undermining old Rome, both literally in the catacombs and figuratively in the rapidity with which it was making converts; but we know not with certainty. It would be unjust to paganism and untrue to history to claim every instance of moral superiority for the modern faith. Still, Græcina was accused of yielding to foreign superstitions. This may have been owing to the peculiarities of her manner. She had been the close friend of that Julia, daughter of Drusus, whom Messalina had forced to kill herself. From this time on, for the space of forty years, Græcina wore nothing but mourning, and was never seen to smile. Sienkiewicz founds the plot of his Neronian novel on the idea that Græcina was a Christian; but there are no facts by which this supposition can be verified. When the charge of entertaining foreign superstitions was laid against her, she was, in accordance with the ancient law, consigned to the adjudication of her husband. Plautius assembled her kindred, and, in compliance with the institutions of early times, having in their presence made solemn inquisition into the character and conduct of his wife, adjudged her innocent. She survived to a great age and was always held in high estimation by the people, but she never recovered from her melancholy.
When the noble Thrasea had been condemned to death by Nero, the officer who brought the tidings found him walking in the portico of his house. He had already opened his veins, and as he stretched out his arms the blood began to flow. Calling the quæstor to him, and sprinkling the blood upon the floor, he said: "Let us make a libation to Jove the Deliverer. Behold, young man, and may the gods avert the omen, but you are fallen upon such times that it may be useful to fortify your mind by examples of unflinching firmness." Arria, his wife, wished to share her husband's fate, but he bade her live for their daughter's sake.