The insistency of Helius, and the alarming reports which reached Nero from all quarters, roused him at last from his intoxication of frivolous vanity and compelled him to cut short the ‘ignoble masquerade with which he had soiled Greece.’ But he would not reveal the least consciousness of alarm, and, indeed, in the madness of the moment, he did not realise it. What did it matter if he was deposed? ‘All the world,’ he used to say, ‘supports art,’ and he could easily gain his living as a favourite harpist or singer on the public stage. The glory of the actor, won by his own talents, should be more dazzling than the diadem of the Emperor, which was but the heritage of his race!
He first entered Naples, because there he had made his first stage appearance. He entered it as a hieronices, riding in a chariot drawn by four milk-white steeds, through a breach made in the walls. He made the same magnificent entry into Antium, dear to him as the place of his birth, and into Alba, the city where the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris was venerated by the entire Latin race. But he reserved for Rome the fullest magnificence of a triumph heretofore undreamed of, and such as might well cause every true Roman to blush for shame. He degraded to his ignoble purpose the chariot in which Augustus had triumphed after the battle of Actium. His robe was of purple; over it flowed a chlamys gleaming with golden stars; on his brow he wore the olive wreath of the Olympic victors; in his right hand he carried the laurel crown of Pythia. Seated in the chariot by his side was no brave soldier or noble statesman, but Diodorus the harpist! Before him went a long procession of heralds, each carrying some garland of victory, with tablets on which were inscribed the names of those whom he had conquered, and the songs or tragedies in which he had gained the prize. Thousands of the trained applauders whom he called Augustiani, followed his chariot proclaiming themselves the soldiers and comrades of his successes. An arch of the Circus Maximus had been broken down for him, and through it he made his way along the Velabrum and the Forum, not to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, or to that of Mars the Avenger, but to the Palace and the temple of his patron Apollo. The Senate had gone forth in festal robes to meet and greet him.As the champing steeds tossed their white manes and bore him slowly along, every door and window and roof and lattice was crowded with spectators, and the air was rent with shouts of ‘Hail, Olympic, hail, Pythic victor! Hail, sole periodonices![119] Augustus, Augustus! Hail, Nero-Hercules! Nero-Apollo! Hail, sacred voice! Happy are they who hear it!’ In street after street victims were immolated as he passed; showers of fragrant saffron were sprinkled down; the air was rich with the perfume of incense burning on hundreds of altars; birds and little ornaments, and jewels and flowers were scattered over him. It rained roses from the balconies full of matrons and maidens. Of his eighteen hundred and eight crowns he arranged the choicest in his own bedchamber and around his bed. The rest he sent in masses to adorn the great Egyptian obelisk which Augustus had reared to be the goal of the Circus Maximus.
Such men as the consuls of the year—the dull poet Silius Italicus and the orator Trachalus—might estimate highly the successes of a comedian, but the indignant shade of Thrasea might have rejoiced in its Elysian fields to have been spared the sight of such a triumph!
But so far from being ashamed, Nero henceforth made his celestial voice his chief concern. As it was too precious to be wasted in addressing crass Prætorians, he contented himself with sending messages to them, or having his addresses read aloud in his presence. What he had to say to the Senate was similarly read by one of the consuls. An attendant whom he called a phonascus stood constantly at his side to warn him to be careful of his throat, and to keep a handkerchief before his mouth. Whoever extolled his wretched voice was his friend; whoever praised it insufficiently was his enemy.
It is part of the subtle irony of history that the zenith of apparent prosperity is often the culminating moment of misfortune, and the scene of most splendid exaltation is that in which the fingers of a man’s hand steal forth and write on the palace-wall the flashing messages of doom. The triumph of the sole periodonices whom the world had ever seen was the last hour of his sham glory. The patience of God and man was exhausted, and ‘down rushed the thunderbolt.’
Romans might be too deeply abased to avenge the degradation of their name by the latest of those triumphs which seemed to cover with ridiculous parody the three hundred which had preceded it. But there was yet a Gaul brave enough to arouse the Empire from its fatal apathy.
His name was Julius Vindex, and he was the Proprætor of Gaul. He was rich, and he was a senator, as his father had been before him, for Claudius had granted this distinction to the descendant of the ancient kings of Aquitania. Nero envied his wealth, but Vindex, in order to make the greedy parasites of the Court think that he would soon die and leave them his possessions, drank cumin-water and made himself artificially pale. In Gaul he received constant news of Nero’s villanies both paltry and heinous, and his soul burned within him. He sounded the legionaries to discover whether they were as much ashamed and weary as himself of the tyranny of a comedian and a monster. He found them ripe for rebellion. He had no personal objects. He knew that a Gaul could hardly be Emperor, and he secretly offered the Empire to Galba. On March 16, A.D. 68, he gave, a little too prematurely, the signal of revolt. Nero had gone to Naples to refresh himself and to rest his precious voice, and there he received the news of the insurrection on March 19, the anniversary of the murder of his mother.
The idiotic frivolity with which he acted upon such serious intelligence astonished even his courtiers. He only laughed, and pretended to rejoice at the opportunity which would thus be afforded him of spoiling the wealthiest of the provinces. He went into the gymnasium, and watched with affected transport the contests of the athletes. At supper still more perilous tidings reached him, but he contented himself with saying, ‘Woe to the rebels!’ Meanwhile the walls of Rome were scrawled over with satirical inscriptions. Yet for eight days he took no step whatever, answered no letters, gave no orders, attempted to get over the peril by calmly ignoring it. His long impunity had made him a fatalist. Had not Britain been lost and recovered? Had not Armenia been lost and recovered? Whatever happened, was he not promised an Eastern kingdom, or could he not support himself by his voice and lyre?
A few days later came an edict of Vindex, in which he spoke of Nero as Ahenobarbus, which angered Nero as much as it angered Henry VII. to be described by Richard III. as ‘one Henry Tidder or Tudor.’ Vindex also described Nero as a wretched twangler on the harp. Now indeed he was furious. To call him a wretched twangler! Did any of his friends know of a better harpist than himself? Was not such a criticism a proof of ignorance and bad taste? Let the Senate rouse itself to avenge him! He would come in person, but that he felt a certain weakness in his throat.
Messenger after messenger came spurring to Naples, and Nero was compelled to hurry back in alarm to Rome. Vindex was by this time at the head of a hundred thousand men, yet Nero quite recovered his spirits when, on his road to Rome, he saw the statue of a Gaulish soldier subdued and dragged by the hair by a Roman knight. At the sight of it he leapt up for joy, and adored heaven. When he reached Rome, instead of summoning an assembly of the Senate and the people to meet him, he only invited a few leading men to the Palace, and after a brief consultation, spent the afternoon in showing them new kinds of hydraulic organs. ‘I intend to display them all on the stage,’ he said—with the affected afterthought ‘if Vindex will let me.’