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

by F. W. Farrar

There was one person, and one only, whom she wished to see. It was Pomponia Græcina. For her Poppæa had always felt an involuntary respect, and had been deeply impressed by her words and bearing when she came to plead for the Christians. If there were any one who could bring healing to her wounded soul, or suggest one moment’s peace to her tortured heart, it was the stainless wife of Aulus Plautius.

Pomponia had been sick nigh unto death. The prison fever which she had caught in ministering to the Christians had been a virulent typhoid, from which she would not have recovered but for her untroubled conscience, her pure and simple life. For herself she did not wish to live. Not only had her young Aulus been disgraced and murdered, but what she had witnessed of the treatment of the Christians, and what she had heard of their exterminating martyrdoms, had ploughed up the depths of her soul with horror. She almost longed that it could have been permitted her to share the fate of all those dear men and women whom she had known, and who had now passed with white robes and palms in their hands into the presence of their Saviour. But her husband was falling into deep melancholy, and for his sake she made every effort to recover. And because in all her troubles the peace of God was with her, her constitution triumphed over the ravages of the disease, and when she received a message that Poppæa was lying on her death-bed and longed to see her, she was daily regaining her strength in her villa at Tibur.

She did not hesitate;—for what purpose was there in life if it were not to do deeds of helpfulness and love? She was carried in her litter from Tibur to the Golden House, and conducted to the chamber of the Empress. She was spared the trial of meeting Nero, who that day was taking part in a contest of singing and harp-playing on the public stage at the quinquennial Neronia. To prevent that disgrace, the Senate had spontaneously offered him the crowns of eloquence and song. But the semblance of victory did not suit his vanity. He played at being a fair competitor. The theatre was crowded to suffocation, not only with Romans but with provincials, and several knights and burghers had been trodden to death in the opening rush to secure seats. And there stood Nero on the stage, harp in hand, bowing and scraping to the assembly, and trembling with sham nervousness before the adjudicators! It was an infinitely dreary entertainment, for the soldiers stood in every gangway with batons, beating those who did not applaud or who applauded in wrong places, and as no one was allowed to leave the theatre on pain of death, not a few were taken seriously ill, while some braved the risk of dropping down from the outside, and some pretended to faint or die that they might be carried out of the theatre. It was on this occasion that poor Vespasian fell into new disgrace. Harp-playing and singing, whether good or execrable, was not at all in his line, and, do what he would, he found it impossible to prevent himself from falling asleep, as he had already done in the villa at Subiaco. He was caught in the act by Phœbus, the freedman of Nero, who roughly shook him by the shoulder, and abused him without stint. He was very near being condemned to death, but so many persons of distinction interceded for him, that this time Nero spared him. He was, however, forbidden ever again to appear at Court, and received a strong hint that the more entirely he kept out of the way the safer it would be for him. ‘What am I to do?’ he asked Phœbus, ‘and whither am I to go?’ ‘Abi Morboniam! Go to the dogs!’ answered the insolent freedman. A few years later, when Vespasian wore the purple, the freedman implored his pardon for the insult. ‘Abi Morboniam! Go to the dogs!’ was the only answer of the good-humoured Emperor.

While Nero was fooling away his Empire in such scenes Pomponia entered the chamber of death. There lay Poppæa in the miserable wreck of her youth and loveliness. Wicked she had been, and crowned with every gift but that of virtue, yet Pomponia could not but pity one so young and so lost, childless, hopeless, unloved, bereaved—thrice wedded, though little more than girl, and now the victim of her husband’s brutality.

Poppæa turned her languid glance towards the opening door, but when she saw who her visitor was, the poor face, drawn and convulsed with pain, brightened for an instant. The ‘amber’ tresses which Nero had sung of had been cut off to relieve her feverish brows, and Pomponia’s experienced eye detected on her countenance the seal of death.

‘You think that there is no hope?’ whispered Poppæa as she saw the look of compassion deepen on Pomponia’s face. ‘Ah, tell me the truth as it is, and do not flatter me with false hopes as these slaves do.’

‘I fear that you will die, Augusta,’ answered Pomponia, solemnly yet tenderly.

‘Call me not by that vain title. Would that I had never borne it! Would that I had died in childhood, or in my first home! Had I done so, loving faces might have been looking on me now.’

‘Linger not in the thoughts of the past, Poppæa; it is irrevocable.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is irrevocable; and I cannot bear the faces which look upon me so reproachfully—the face of my murdered husband, Crispinus; of my drowned son; worst of all the sad face of Octavia.’ A shudder ran through all her frame. ‘At every moment,’ she said, ‘directly I close my eyes, her head is before me, as I saw it in all its ghastliness.’