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

by F. W. Farrar

Mingled his royalty with capering fools,

Had his great name profaned with their scorns.’

1. Henry IV. iii. 2.

Nero tried to persuade himself that he cared little for such scenes as that which we have witnessed; but in reality they troubled him. It required a strong effort to shake off their effects, and they left his small pleasure-loving nature in a state of tremor and disgust. He longed to escape from them to some complete retirement, where, away from all pomp, he could give himself up, heart and soul, to selfish æstheticism and voluptuous delight.

He had villas at Antium and at Baiæ, but even they were more public than he desired, and he determined to escape from the noise and heat and worry of Rome to an enchanting lodge which had been designed by the architects, Severus and Celer, in one of the wildest gorges of the Simbruine ridge of the Apennines, a little above the modern town of Subiaco. Through this gorge the icy stream of the Anio forces its way, leaping down into the valley beneath in tumultuous cataracts. By damming the river the architects had with consummate taste and skill, caused it to spread into three mountain lakes, three hundred feet above the valley. On either side of the gorge they had built a hunting-lodge half hidden amid the dense foliage, and the two villas—for such they practically were—had been united by a bridge which spanned the abyss with a graceful arch at a stupendous height above the valley. Nature and art combined to make the scene supremely beautiful. The grounds and gardens of the villas spread down to the smiling vale beneath, by walks under overhanging rocks, tapestried with the luxuriant growth of creepers and wild flowers. Underfoot the moss of softest emerald was now variegated with the red autumnal leaves. Where the pure runnels trickled down little gullies of the rocks they were brightened with maidenhair and arborescent ferns. The artificial sheets of water, in which many water-fowl swam undisturbed, were overshadowed by beeches and oaks and golden platanes which late autumn had touched with her fiery finger.

It was an enchanting spot. Gay shallops were always ready on the artificial lakes if any guest cared to row or to plunge in the cool bright water. On the smooth lawn the ‘gemmy peacocks,’ as the Latin poets called them, strutted and displayed their Indian glories, mingled with tame pheasants and partridges. Kids leaped and sported about the rocky slopes. The cushat-doves cooed from the groves, and white pigeons from the dove-cotes would come crowding round for maize-grain at the slightest call. The Rhodian hens clucked contentedly about the farmyard, which was crowded also with geese and guinea-fowls. The long-haired young town-slaves, full of frolic, worked in the garden in mock obedience to the orders of the country bailiff; but the gardener did not attach much importance to their labours, for they were far more intent on pilfering the best fruit they could find in the granaries than on cultivating the soil; and the rustics knew that to offend them was as much as their place was worth.

The lodges themselves made no pretence to the Cæsarean magnificence of the Palace at Rome. But their simplicity did not exclude the exercise of luxurious taste in their construction and adornment. All the rooms were brightened with lovely frescoes painted by the most famous rhyparographists. On the walls of the richer apartments there were orbs of porphyry and lapis lazuli. The impluvium, into which fell the ceaseless plash of a musical fountain, was a basin of Thasian stone, once a rarity even in temples, and the stop which regulated the play of the water was formed into the winged figure of a child moulded in silver. In the centre of the hall, which was tessellated with small pieces of blue and white marble, there was an exquisite copy of the doves of Scopas. Statues by such masters as Myron and Praxiteles stood between the pillars of the peristyle. The windows were filled with glass, and between them were abaci of peacock-marble, supported on the gilded wings of Cupids, and of griffins which looked in opposite directions. On these slabs of marble stood some of the gold and silver plate which Augustus had ordered to be made out of the statuettes of precious metals which had been erected to him by too-adulatory provincials. On other tables of ivory and fragrant woods lay engraved gems and cameos, or curiosities, brought from all lands. The walls of the small but precious library were covered, in imitation of the famous library of Apollo, with medallions of the most famous Greek and Roman authors in repoussé work of gold and silver, or moulded of Corinthian bronze. Poets, historians, jurists, orators were grouped together, and between the groups were framed specimens of the most exquisite palæography.

Nero was going for the first time to take possession of this enchanting retreat, the loveliness of which had kindled the surprise and admiration of the few who had seen it. He started from Rome with a splendid retinue. He himself rode in a light car, inlaid with ivory and silver, and was followed by an army of a thousand slaves and retainers. One of the earliest lessons which he learnt was that his resources were practically boundless, so that from the first he broke out into unheard-of extravagance. His mules were shod with silver. The muleteers were dressed in liveries of Canusian wool, dyed scarlet. The runners in front of his chariot, and the swarthy cohort of outriders from Mazaca in Numidia, selected for their skill in horsemanship, were adorned with bracelets and trappings of gold. The more delicate slaves had their faces covered with masks, or tinged with cosmetics, lest their complexions should suffer from the sunlight. Many of the slaves had no other office than to carry, with due care, the lyres and other musical instruments which were required for the theatrical entertainments.

Agrippina, devoured with chagrin and resentment, had indeed been asked to accompany him, but in a way so insultingly ungracious, that she declined. She dreaded to share with him a place so retired, in which she knew that almost every hour would fill her with disgust and anger. She had chosen instead to go alone to her stately villa at Bauli, on the Campanian shore. There, if she had little else to occupy her time, she could continue her own memoirs, or amuse herself with the lampreys and mullets, which were so tame that they would come at her call, and feed out of her hand. Her husband’s mother, Antonia, had attached earrings to one pet lamprey, so that people used to visit the villa to see it. Agrippina followed her example.

Octavia followed Nero. She had not been suffered to possess any villa which she could call her own, and much as Nero would have liked to leave her behind, he was compelled by public opinion to observe a certain conventional respect for his Empress, the daughter of Claudius. The sedan in which she travelled was carried by eight stalwart Bithynian porters, but she was not honoured with any splendour or observance, and had only a modest retinue out of her six hundred nominal attendants. Still humbler was the following of Britannicus. He had been bidden to come partly because it would have seemed shameful to leave him alone in Rome during an unhealthy season, when even persons of low position were driven into the country by the month in which Libitina claimed her most numerous victims; and also because Nero was glad to keep him in sight. He was happy enough, for Titus was with him, and Pudens was one of the escort; and as Epaphroditus necessarily attended his master, Nero, it was not difficult to get leave for Epictetus to come in his train. The two kind-hearted boys thought that the pale face of the slave-child might gain a touch of rose from the fresh winds of the Apennines.