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

by F. W. Farrar

And one incident occurred which, not for him only, but for all that little company, was fraught with blessed consequences. Linus stood with Luke of Antioch in the undistinguished throng, but neither of them had been forgetful of the sorrowful sighing of those who were going into captivity. Linus had told to Paul the prisoner, in deep secrecy, the story of Octavia’s baptism, and the heart of the Apostle was sad at the thought of her sufferings. He had written her a brief letter of comfort, which Linus slid into the hand of Hermas amid the bustle of the embarkation. Nor was this all. Luke also had not been forgetful of the anguish of the last of the Claudian house. Filled with that deep sense of brotherhood which linked all ranks together in the Christian community, he had written out for the exiles some inestimably precious fragments of the materials which he had been collecting for his Gospel. He found means unobserved to give them to Tryphæna, when ceasing for a moment to lean on the arms of the two slaves who were supporting her feeble footsteps, she turned to bid farewell to her mother, Nympha.

The emotion of the spectators made it more easy for the watchful Christians to communicate with each other. For there were few dry eyes among them. Some of them were old enough to have seen Julia, the lovely daughter of Augustus, sail to the same sad bourne. They had seen her daughter, the younger Julia, banished by Claudius to the yet more distant island of Tremerus. They had wept tears almost as bitter when they saw the elder Agrippina driven to the same prison by the insatiable malice of Tiberius. But the case of Octavia was far sadder than that of her noble kinswomen. The elder Julia was steeped in shame, and had well-nigh broken the heart of her father. The younger Julia had also disgraced her high lineage. The wife of Germanicus had been a Roman matron of the purest stamp, yet her passionate haughtiness had diminished the sympathy which would otherwise have been felt with her in her calamities. And, further, these others had enjoyed their days of superb sunlight and prosperity. Ruin had not overtaken them till the happiness and beauty of their youth were past. Not so the pale and hapless girl who was now embarking. Octavia had known no joy. Her childhood had been darkened by the three murders of those whom she best loved. From the first her husband had hated her. His youthful love had been given, not to her, but to her freedwoman; and now, unprotected by her own white innocence, she had been smitten to the earth by a horribly false condemnation.She was still scarcely twenty years old![89] And she was being conducted amid centurions and soldiers to a barren rock, which was haunted by memories of death and anguish. She was as one dead, but without the peace of death:—so thought her pagan sympathisers, and were confirmed in their misgiving that either there are no gods or they care not for the affairs of men.

And Octavia did not deceive herself. She well knew that those islets of the Tyrrhene Sea were wet with the blood of noble exiles; and that Caligula, on being told by one who had been recalled from banishment that the exiles spent their time in praying for the death of the reigning Emperor, had sent soldiers round the islands to put all the prisoners to death. She knew her peril, but she clung to life with the tenacity of youth. Nero had no child. She thought that his excesses would precipitate his end, and that some virtuous man might be chosen by the Senate to succeed. After the death of Narcissus she had been told the anecdote of the physiognomist who had prophesied that Titus would one day be Emperor, and she thought that under her brother’s devoted friend there might be the dawn of brighter days. She therefore wrote a letter to Nero, before the trireme started, in which she said she would but live as his widow and his sister, with no thought of returning to the Palace. She even ventured to remind him that she had always experienced his mother’s protection, and that, as long as Agrippina lived, her marriage dignity had not been assailed.

All was now ready. The sailors drew up the anchor, and the assembled crowd watched the white sails of the trireme till they became rosy in the light of sunset, and the vessel dipped beneath the horizon.

Octavia awaited, in deep anxiety, the answer to her letter. There were points in it which might perhaps have touched the heart of Nero if Poppæa and Tigellinus had not been at his elbow as the evil genii of his degradation. But, when the tablets of Octavia came, Nero was sitting with the enchantress. Taking them out of his hands, she turned the letter into such ridicule, and laughed over it so sweetly and so immoderately, and mixed her silvery laughter with so many acts of fascination, that the fear of her ridicule—to which, like all vain persons, Nero was inordinately sensitive—quenched in his heart all thoughts of mercy. She also played upon his fears. ‘As long as Octavia lives,’ she said, ‘neither you nor I will be safe. You saw how the people rose in her behalf. You do not know what assassins she may have in her pay. All that the spirit of insurrection needs is a leader, and, while Octavia lives, conspirators have only to provide her with a husband, and she will bring him the Empire as her dower, as she did to you. The tomb is the only safe prison. The dead excite no tumult and tell no tales.’

So the messenger was sent back without an answer, and Octavia knew that she had only to prepare for her fate. No day dawned that might not be her last; no sail shone on the horizon which might not be bringing her executioners from Rome—nay, the orders might even now be in possession of her military guard, and the tramp of the changing sentries each morning and evening might be to her the echoing foot-fall of death. No situation in the world is more harrowing or more terrific than this. We can confront death when we know that we stand face to face with him; but to have his sword dangling over our necks by a thread of gossamer, and not to know at what moment it will fall; to know that somewhere near us he lies in wait, but not to know where or how he will leap out upon us—this adds a nameless dread to the king of terrors, and it has been sufficient to break down the iron nerves even of trained soldiers who have ridden fearlessly to many a bloody fight.

There was not a person on the little island who was not aware that Octavia was thus standing on the edge of the awful precipice. Great, therefore, was the astonishment of all, and especially of the Roman soldiers, at the strange placidity, the sweet fortitude which she displayed. None else could laugh during those sad days; but she could laugh—laugh more gaily than she had ever done in the gorgeous chambers of the Palatine. As escape was impossible, she was left free, and she loved to sit on the rocks in the evening sunlight and enjoy the cooler breeze. Unfamiliar with the sea-shore, it was a pleasure to her to watch the black-headed sea-mews rising and falling on the gentle swell of the tideless waters, or waving over it their immaculate white wings, or suddenly dashing down on some fish, and breaking the surface into concentric rings of rippled gold. She found pleasure in the shells, and sea-weeds, and purple medusæ, and laughed again and again as she noticed for the first time the curious motion of the hippocampi as they gambolled in the shallow waves. It was strange, too, to the few islanders to see her gathering garlands of their wild flowers, and having them placed in her bare, half-furnished rooms. She had never cared for splendour. It wearied a soul which had never seen it dissociated from guilt. The simplicity of her new life had a charm for her, and if Nero would but relent she could gladly live here, reading and doing her little acts of kindness and musing on the high thoughts which had recently become so radiant to her—sustained by the hope that better days would come on earth, or that, if not, there was a heaven beyond.

There were three of her household who knew the secret of the calm and resignation which struck her Prætorian custodians with astonishment. One of the officers, a rough youth named Vulfenius, had been heard saying to his comrade that the Empress must have been getting private lessons from the Stoics or Cynics;—‘only,’ he said, ‘a hundred of those philosophers are not worth a cracked farthing—arrant humbugs nearly all of them. But this girl—she smiles death in the face!—Or is it that she does not know?’

Yes, she knew; but the source of her cheerful courage lay in those scrolls which had been handed to her attendants by Linus and by Luke. Ever since the lustral dews of baptism had touched her brow, she had felt a change in her whole being, but her deep peace was confirmed by what was now read to her daily by Onesimus, or Hermas, or Tryphæna.

It was with strange feelings that when she broke the silken thread of the small waxen tablets of Linus, she had read the salutation in which Paulus, the prisoner, wished grace, mercy, and peace to Octavia, Empress, and now beloved in Christ. But as she eagerly read the few lines which he had engraved with his trembling stylus—for he had written this message in large letters with his own hand—she felt his words thrill into her soul with strange power. He rejoiced and thanked God that He had called her out of darkness into His marvellous light, and told her that this was a boon more precious than all the kingdoms of the world. He comforted her under all the affliction with which she was afflicted, with the comfort wherewith he too was comforted of God. He told her that she was a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, and that the sufferings of this present time were not worthy to be compared with that glory which shall be revealed in us. He exhorted her to look, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.