Baiæ in the springtide of A.D. 59 must have been as lovely a place as the world can show. Its blue sky, its soft air, its sparkling sea, its delightful shore, its dry hard yellow sands and rocks gleaming in the clear water, its green and wooded heights, combined with its healing waters and splendid buildings to make it a fairyland of beauty and enjoyment. Marius, Pompey, Cæsar, had built villas there, and the whole line of coast to Puteoli had gradually become crowded with the gay houses of the Roman aristocracy. Temples, and baths, and theatres, and palaces rose on every side, among groves enriched with grottoes and blooming like a garden of enchantment with fruits and flowers. Passing the promontory of Misenum, the traveller first arrived at the bright town of Baiæ itself, and then at the more quiet and exclusive Bauli, until he reached the lakes of Lucrine and Avernus, of which the former had been joined to the sea by a canal, and protected by the magnificent causeway of Agrippina’s grandfather Agrippa. Beyond these was Puteoli, with the stately and pillared fane of Serapis, the ruins of which still attest its former magnificence.
The festive splendour of the lovely and dissolute resort was heightened by the universal holiday of the Quinquatrus, or Feast of Minerva. It was kept almost like our Christmastide. All the boys had five days’ holiday, beginning on March 19, and were at home from their various schools, adding fresh mirth to the joyous watering-place. There were exhibitions of wild beasts, and plays, and poetic and oratorical contests; and on the fifth day of the festival, which was called the Tubilustrium, all the trumpets were blown, and the sacred implements of the temples lustrated.
By this time Nero had accustomed himself to the thought of getting rid of his mother by treacherous violence. His five years of empire had inspired him with audacity and confidence. His passion for Poppæa burned with ever fiercer flame. His hatred for Agrippina, as the main obstacle in the path of his desires, grew daily more sullen; and Poppæa had aroused his fears by persuading him that his mother was plotting against his life. Since poison had failed, and he shrank from using the dagger, he had determined to follow the deadly suggestion of Tigellinus, and to make it appear that the Augusta had perished in an accident at sea.
To prepare the way for his purpose, he began to express his determination to be reconciled with his mother. ‘The anger of parents,’ he said, ‘must be cheerfully borne. It is my duty as a son to soothe my mother’s irritation. I long to be on good terms with her once more.’ Again and again he repeated these sentiments to various persons, and he took care that they should reach the ears of his mother. Octavia herself, grateful for the efforts of Agrippina on her behalf, told the Augusta that Nero’s feelings seemed to be undergoing a change, and that perhaps he would restore to her, spontaneously, her former honours. The hope kindled by this intelligence fell on the last days of the Empress-mother like a ray of cruel sunshine out of the thunder-clouds which had so long been gathering around her. It was natural that in her misery she should be credulous of good tidings, and perhaps her heart was softened to her son by the fact that she was now living in the villa at Antium where she had given him birth, and in which nearly every room recalled the memories of his childish brightness, and the winning trustfulness of a heart as yet unstained, of a beauty as yet unshadowed by evil secrets and base desires. The villa was full of splendour. The Apollo Belvedere and the Fighting Gladiator were but two of the many statues which adorned it. But what was art, what was splendour to a mind diseased? She found more happiness in the tame birds which would settle on her finger, and the yellow brown-marbled lampreys which came to feed out of her hand.
On March 18, the day before the Feast of Minerva began, her heart throbbed with pleasure to receive a delightful letter from her son. Couched in the most loving terms, it conveyed to her a genial invitation to come to him at Baiæ, and there to spend, in due mirth and feast, the first day of the festival. ‘Fancy that I am a schoolboy once more,’ wrote Nero, ‘and that you, my loving mother, are welcoming me home for my holidays.’ How could Agrippina help indulging the hope that better days had at last begun to dawn? The next morning, gladder than she had ever been since her husband’s murder, she made her way through the grounds of her villa to the little haven where was moored the Liburnian galley which she used for excursions along the shore.
Agrippina thought that Nature had never looked lovelier as she glided over the flashing waves, and her stalwart rowers in gay liveries,
‘Bending to their oars with splash and strain,
Made white with foam the green and purple sea.’
They had hardly rounded Cape Misenum when they met the imperial yacht in which Nero had sailed to meet her. He came on board her galley, warmly embraced her, and accompanied her to the landing-stage of her villa at Bauli, where he bade her farewell, saying that they would meet again in the evening. ‘And look, mother,’ he said, ‘I have provided that you shall be conducted to Baiæ with proper splendour.’
He pointed to a yacht anchored under the trees of her villa, manned with the imperial marines, and superb with fluttering pennons and decorations of gilding and vermilion. It was more splendid than any to which she had been accustomed in the days when, as the sole Augusta and as all-powerful with Claudius, she wielded the resources of the Empire. This yacht, he told her, was to be rowed in front of her Liburnian, and to announce her arrival. There it lay, making a lovely show, and casting its bright broken reflection on the dancing sunlit waters. She was delighted, for she loved magnificence, both for its own sake and for the impression which it makes on the multitude; and she took this as an omen that Nero would restore to her the body-guard of Germans and the escort of Prætorians the withdrawal of which had cut her most deeply to the heart.