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

by F. W. Farrar

Very few ladies were invited. It was necessary, indeed, that one or two should accompany Octavia; and Nero, for his own reasons, wished Junia Silana and Calvia Crispinilla to be of the party. These were ladies with whom a young matron like Octavia could scarcely exchange a word, but happily for her, Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian, was asked to accompany the Empress. Vespasian, who had just returned from his proconsulate, had been summoned to have an interview with Nero on the state of affairs in Africa, and to stay for some days. Acte was in the train of Nero, but, though she rarely saw Octavia, the unfortunate Empress little knew that the presence of Domitilla, the only lady to whom she could speak without a shudder, was really due to the private suggestion of the lovely and kind-hearted freedwoman. Flavia Domitilla was of the humblest origin, and her father had occupied no higher office than that of a quæstor’s clerk. That no nobler companion had been sought for her would have been regarded as an insult by any lady of haughty character; but Octavia preferred the society of the honest matron to that of a thousand Crispinillas.

Seneca and Burrus were invited for a brief visit only, and as Nero liked to give a flavour of intellectuality to the society which he gathered round him, Lucan was asked, as the rising poet of the day; and Silius Italicus, as a sort of established poet laureate; and Persius, the young Etrurian knight, who, though but twenty-one years old, was so warmly eulogised by his tutor, Cornutus, that great things were expected of him. None of his satires had yet seen the light, but his head would hardly have been safe if Nero could have read some of the lines locked up in his writing-desk. With these had been also invited C. Plinius Secundus, a wealthy knight, thirty-four years of age, in whose encyclopædic range of knowledge it was hoped that the guests might find an endless fund of amusement and anecdote in their more serious moments.

But while Nero liked to keep up the credit of dabbling in literary pursuits, the choice spirits to whom he looked for his real delight were very different from these graver personages. The fashionable elegance of Otho and the luxurious cynicism of Petronius were indispensable for his amusement. Tigellinus was too intimate to be excluded; and with these came Vatinius, the witty buffoon and cobbler of Beneventum, an informer of the lowest class. This cobbler’s chief recommendations were personal deformity, an outrageous tongue, and an abnormally prominent nose. He avenged himself on society for the wrongs inflicted on him by nature. He rejoiced in the immortality of having given his name to a drinking-cup with a long nozzle, which has preserved his memory in the verse of Juvenal and Martial.

Here Nero enjoyed life to his heart’s content. The happy accident that the villa really consisted of two edifices, separated by the bridge across the glen, enabled him to keep his least welcome guests in the Villa Castor, and his chosen companions in the Villa Pollux.

In the grounds of the Villa Castor, Seneca and Burrus had rooms in which they could transact with their secretaries their ministerial and military business. Pliny could bury himself among the rarer treasures of the library, or amuse his leisure by seeing what further he could learn about the habits of the flamingoes and other foreign birds, which were carefully kept in cages and fed from the hands of the visitors. For Britannicus and Titus, who often asked Persius to be their companion, there was the resource of the tennis-court, the gymnastic room, and rowing, bathing, and fishing in the lakes; and Persius, who had heard all about Epictetus from his young patron, sometimes let the little slave sit at his feet while he read choice passages of old Roman poems in works which had been found for him by the clever librarian.

The meals were held separately in the two villas, though sometimes all the guests were invited to Nero’s table. He varied his amusements in every possible way. Sometimes he would take a long swim in the cold lake; sometimes he would fish with a purple line and a golden hook, though he caught fewer fish in a morning than Britannicus would catch in an hour. He delighted to spend hours at a time with the harpist Terpnos or the singer Diodorus, who trained him how to use what it had become the fashion to describe as his celestial voice.

He soon got tired of the small restraint upon his amusements which resulted from the presence of the graver guests across the bridge. But they helped to form an audience for him in the room which had been fitted up as a theatre. One evening he had been displaying his accomplishments to all the guests at both villas, and had been received by the listening slaves and courtiers with tumults of applause. The others were obliged, or felt themselves obliged, to join in the clapping; but Nero could read in their faces that they were unwilling listeners. Seneca blushed, and his smooth tongue stumbled, as he attempted to express his gratification. Burrus looked on with profound disapproval. A look of involuntary scorn stole over the grave features of Persius, whom Nero already hated, because the young man’s virginal modesty formed such a contrast to his own shamelessness. But, worst of all, the blunt soldier, Vespasian, to the intense amusement of Titus and Britannicus, had first of all begun to nod, and then had fallen asleep with his mouth wide open, and had snored—had actually and audibly snored, so that all the audience heard it, while Nero was chanting his own divine verses with the most bewitching trills of his own divine voice!

Nero, in his rage, half thought of having him arrested on the charge of high treason—an accusation of which the meshes were equally adapted to entangle the most daring criminals and the most trivial offenders. But when he poured out his wrath to Petronius, his elegant friend laughed immoderately, and pacified Nero’s offended vanity by dwelling on Vespasian’s somnolence as a proof of his vulgarity.

‘I suppose, then,’ said Nero, ‘I must say with Horace, “solvuntur risu tabulæ”?’

‘Yes,’ said Petronius, ‘and you may add “tu missus abibis.” Why not make a clean sweep of these dreadful old fogies in the Villa Castor? Pliny has told us all we care to know about flamingoes and lampreys. Seneca’s pomposities grow stale. We have been sufficiently amused for the present by the blushes of Persius, and the good Silius Italicus is as tedious as his own epic. Give them a respectful farewell. Send for Paris the actor, and Aliturus the pantomime, and some of your fairest slaves to wait on us at our choicest banquets. Let us dismiss this humbug of respectability and pluck the blossom of the days.’