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

by F. W. Farrar

Onesimus promised; and, in truth, the need for watchfulness was very pressing; for, on the day which followed the evening of the Saturnalitian games, Nero, fretting with jealousy and alarm, summoned Julius Pollio, the tribune on whom had been bestowed the post which Pudens had occupied, and sent him with a message to Locusta. She was allowed to move about the Palace, but was under the nominal charge of the guardsmen.

It might well seem amazing that a youth whose disposition was not innately cruel, and who a few years before had been a timid, blushing boy, caring mainly for art and amusement, should have developed, in so brief a space of time, into the murderer of his brother. But the effects produced by the vertigo of autocracy on a mean disposition are rapid as well as terrible. He had soon discovered that it was in his power to do exactly what he liked; and when he had learnt to regard himself as a god on earth, to whose wishes every law, divine and human, must give way, there was no vice of which he did not rapidly become capable. What was the life of a young boy, who stood in his way, to one who had unchallenged power over the life and death of millions of subjects over all the civilised world?

And yet the fate of his predecessors showed him that the pinnacle of absolute power was a place of constant peril. The loss of empire would mean inevitably the loss also of life. Was this peevish lad to be a source of constant danger to the darling of the soldiers, of the mob, and of the world?

He had no reason to approach Julius Pollio with any of the circumspection with which Shakespeare represents King John as opening his designs to Hubert. When, at the suggestion of Tigellinus, he had appointed Pollio to supersede Pudens, he knew the sort of man whom he would have at his beck. He simply said to the tribune—

‘I want some poison. Locusta is under your charge. Tell her to prepare some for me.’ He did not trouble himself to mention the person for whom the poison was intended.

Locusta was too familiar with her trade to hesitate. Had she not taught many a guilty wife, in spite of rumour, in spite of the populace, to bury undetected the blackening body of her husband? Her fiendish nature rejoiced at the consciousness of secret power. She supplied Pollio with a poison which was, she assured him, of tried efficacy, and she again received a large sum of money in reward for her services. Nero knew that among the wretches by whom his mother had surrounded Britannicus, and not all of whom had been removed, it would be easy to find some one who would administer the poison. He decided that the deed should be done at some private meal, and by the hands of one of the boy’s tutors, who never thought of shrinking from the infamy. In that midnight and decadence of a dying Paganism the crime of ordinary murder was too cheap to excite remorse.

But it was impossible that all this should pass unobserved. Acte had been brought under Christian influences, and was anxious by all means in her power to atone for the unintended wrong which her beauty had inflicted upon Octavia. Nero was no longer her lover, though she still lived in the Palace, and held a high position as one for whom the Emperor had once conceived so strong an infatuation. She had her own slaves assigned to her, and of these some were Christians. In her self-imposed task of watching over the life of Britannicus she asked them to obtain information of any circumstance that seemed to threaten him with danger. From them she learnt that Nero had been closeted with Julius Pollio; that Pollio had paid a visit to Locusta; and that, when Locusta had sent a small vial to Nero, the Emperor had summoned to his presence the tutor of Britannicus, who had been observed to carry away the vial in his closed hand. Her spies further told her that, by watching and listening, they had ascertained that the poison was to be given to the son of Claudius, not at supper but at the light midday meal which he took with Titus. After they had been enjoying vigorous exercise in the morning the boys usually showed an excellent appetite.

More than this they could not discover; but this much Acte confided to Onesimus, and implored him to keep watch, and if possible, devise some means by which to forewarn Britannicus of his imminent peril.

At first the quick Phrygian youth, who was understood to be under the patronage of Acte, had been a favourite in the household, and he found little difficulty in making friends with the cooks and other slaves who superintended the meals of the imperial family. By a visit to the kitchen—in which he flattered the cook and his young assistants by the lively curiosity which he expressed about the various dishes, and the enthusiasm with which he admired their skill—he learnt that, as a special treat, a beccafico was to be sent in for the prandium of Britannicus, and he conjectured that it would be poisoned. That the cook was innocent of any evil design he was sure, and he guessed that the fig-pecker would be poisoned by some slave of higher office about the young prince’s person. But he knew not how to forewarn the unsuspecting boy. The time was short. It was not easy to find an excuse by which he—whose duty lay in a different part of the Palace—could find access to the apartments of Britannicus. And whom could he warn? There was scarcely an instance known in which any one had dared to interfere between an emperor and his victims. In the general paralysis of servility, in the terror inspired by the little despicable human god, in the indifference to bloodshed caused by the games of the amphitheatre, why should any one be troubled by one death the more?

But Onesimus, less familiar with a world so plague-stricken with torpid corruption, felt in his heart a spring of pity for the doomed boy. After rejecting plan after plan as impossible, it flashed upon him that he might get a message conveyed to Titus. He had but a few minutes left, and Titus could not be found until he and the prince, still warm and glowing from their game of ball, entered the parlour. Onesimus grew desperate, and, boldly summoning a young slave, sent him to Titus with the extemporised message that the centurion Pudens urgently desired to speak with him.