Poppæa Sabina, one of the fairest but wickedest women in Rome, aspired to supplant Octavia, the emperor’s wife, and concentrated her fascinations upon him. Nero sent her husband to a distant province and she suffered him to depart without a sigh. Nero’s mother, Agrippina, was of course much in the way of Poppæa’s designs, so Poppæa laid her plan most diligently to get rid of the older woman. She taunted the emperor with being afraid of his mother and put before him all the movements of Agrippina in the darkest light, until Nero was persuaded. His regard for his mother was already changed to hatred.
With the aid of Anicetus, the commander of the fleet at Misenum,—who had a spite against Agrippina,—a plan was formed by which she was induced to embark on a barge, which, at a given signal, was to break in pieces. The plan was not successful. The mechanism failed to work. Yet the sailors managed to tip the ship so that Agrippina and her companions were thrown into the water. She succeeded by the aid of some fishermen in reaching the shore in safety. Seeing that her only chance lay in dissimulation, she sent one of her freedmen to tell her son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible accident, but that he need not be alarmed and must not come to her, as she greatly needed rest and quiet.
When Nero received the account he was thrown into the greatest anxiety, knowing that now his mother had discovered his plot against her and would certainly seek revenge. In great agitation of mind he sent for Burrus and Seneca to come to him instantly. Laying before them the situation, he looked from one to the other in suspense for their advice. There was a long and painful silence. At last Seneca asked Burrus if the soldiers could be trusted to put her to death. When the reply was given that the prætorians would do nothing to injure a daughter of Germanicus and that Anicetus should complete the work he had begun, Anicetus showed himself willing to do so. He trumped up another charge against Agrippina and hurried off to her villa at Bauli. There he and his minions found her in a dimly lighted chamber, attended by a single hand-maid, who immediately rose to steal away.
“Dost thou, too, desert me?” said the wretched Agrippina.
AGRIPPINA II AND NERO
The armed men surrounded her couch. Anicetus was the first to strike. The rest immediately followed his example, and she was dispatched with many blows. Almost with her last breath she cried out against the perfidy of her ungrateful son.
If we are to believe many writers, Nero never ceased after this murder of his mother to be troubled with a guilty conscience. Yet he wrote at the time a letter to the Senate from Naples declaring that his mother had conspired against his life and that in the confusion caused by her detection she had miserably perished by her own hand. The disaster of the ship he declared to have been purely accidental. It is painful to record the altogether probable fact that the real author of this shameful document was Seneca, who thus put the emperor’s message into words for him. It affirmed that the death of the imperious woman should be regarded as a public benefit. But such declarations from such a source gave little satisfaction. So widely was Nero believed to be guilty of Agrippina’s murder that at Rome the sack, the instrument of death for parricides, was secretly hung about his statues and the names of the triad of conspicuous matricides, Nero, Orestes, and Alcmæon, were found posted by night upon the walls. Yet the nobles were servile enough to welcome him back with honor, and the populace was diverted and gratified by the new and extravagant shows that he provided for all. The multitude even cheered him as he threw aside all his dignity as an emperor and went himself upon the stage as an actor or drove recklessly in the Circus Maximus as a charioteer. He delighted in everything sensational and spectacular; in noise and show and speed—what pleasure he would have taken in locomotives and automobiles had they existed in his day. It could not be said that the laws were not respected or that the citizens, as a body, were not at peace. But there were wild extravagances and follies to startle and distress the people. And that was not all. There were so much dissipation and licentiousness in high places that all the best people in the empire were scandalized and it was evident that the moral strength of the nation was undermined.
Nero was sowing to the wind and he was sure to reap the whirlwind. Satirical voices began to make themselves heard. Then Burrus, the strong soldier and wise counselor, died; and Nero divided his command between Fenius Rufus, a timid and subservient man, and Tigellinus, one of his own infamous associates.
The influence of Seneca, which in many respects had tended to wisdom and moderation, was thus undermined and broken. He had gained nothing by his temporizing with evil, his policy of compromise and mildness. Perhaps Nero himself had become disgusted with him for saying one thing in his philosophic maxims and pursuing the opposite course in his practice. He no longer treated Seneca with veneration. Chagrined and broken-hearted the latter withdrew to a less conspicuous life. Rubellius Plautus and Sulla, two prominent men, of whom Nero was jealous, were put to death by the emperor’s order, and at the instigation of Tigellinus. The assassinations were accomplished by messengers sent from the imperial court to the provinces where they lived. Nero pretended to be delivered thus from two dangerous adversaries and required the Senate to congratulate him. He even declared to friends that he was now free to celebrate his marriage with Poppæa, without fear of any rival who might profit by the public commiseration for his wife Octavia. This woman, who was the daughter of Claudius and whose life at court had been one of constant distress, was ruthlessly condemned and seized, upon some arrogant pretext, and her veins were opened with a knife. Her head was severed from her body and carried to her enemy, the cruel Poppæa. After this all restraints of decency and self-respect were thrown off and wild orgies went on in the imperial palaces.