During the brief period when Lucia Claudia engrossed his affections, the patriotism that formed so striking a feature in the character of Adonijah slept; but when all hope perished, when to think of her became a crime, when her very remembrance recalled the cruel fanaticism that had degraded his moral dignity, and abased him beneath the vilest, the fate of Judea again swallowed up in its absorbing vortex his whole being. The revolt of Vindex—the voice whose deep unearthly tones were heard calling Nero by name from the sepulchre of his ancestors, as if to summon him to share their repose—filled the Romans with awe and expectation, and the Hebrew with lively hope. The emperor, forsaken by his flatterers, found his vast palace a gloomy and insupportable solitude. Tigellinus, Helius, and Nymphidius, the guilty instruments of his crimes, abandoned him at this critical juncture. Galba, called upon by the army, the people, and by Julius Vindex, the virtuous Gaul, opposed the caution of age to the call of patriotism and the voice of ambition. A breathless pause intervened before the overflowing torrent of popular feeling found a channel, till a battle, founded on a fatal mistake, was fought between Virginius, the emperor’s general, and Julius Vindex, in which the noble Gaul was defeated, who rashly threw himself upon his own sword, gave a turn to Nero’s affairs, whose spirits rose from deep dejection to a pitch of extravagance, as seizing his harp he celebrated the triumph of his arms with more skill than good feeling. His favourites, his flatterers, returned, and sumptuous shows and splendid games obliterated the memory of his past danger. Pomps and pageants, however prized by the vulgar in times of plenty, excite their utmost indignation in times of dearth. Rome was threatened with famine, and the ship expected to bring corn from Alexandria was laden with sand from the banks of the Nile to smooth the arena. The popular feeling blazed, and symptoms of a general revolt appeared in the gloomy countenances of the people. To save himself from the certain fall of Nero, and to ingratiate himself with a new emperor, induced Tigellinus, then with Nymphidius joint Præfect of the Prætorian camp, to seduce the soldiers he commanded to revolt from Nero. His colleague was actuated by a different motive, though outwardly avowing the same intentions. To him the name of the hoary Galba was but a phantom, a shadow to terrify and destroy the man who then occupied the throne of the Cæsars. He, the son of Caius Cæsar, would then assert his rights and assume the imperial purple. The machinations of this iniquitous pair succeeded with regard to Nero. The camp, the senate, the people, united in one act of justice, and he fled from the palace to fall by his own unwilling hand.
During the space that intervened between the revolt of Vindex and the death of the Emperor Nero, Julius had retreated to his villa at Tusculum, following the suggestions of his own timidity and selfish love of ease. Voluptuous, vain, ungrateful, and cruel, the luxurious favourite, who used to flatter the follies and vices of his lord while in prosperity, was the first to sneer, deride, and forsake him in the hour of adversity. True, on his hearing the victory of Virginius Rufus he made preparations for his return, till, warned by a message from Nymphidius, he countermanded his orders and continued where he was. The death of Antonia his wife, whom he buried in a sumptuous manner, afforded a plausible pretext for keeping himself very private at this critical juncture, and he amused himself with embellishing his house and grounds, or in dictating verses to Adonijah, who filled the post of amanuensis to his master as well as preceptor to his only son, a beautiful boy of five years. This last employment was entirely gratuitous, for in the noble child the slave traced the features of his uncle Lucius, softened into the feminine beauty of his aunt. In the culture of the rapidly developing powers of the infant Lucius, and in the contemplation of those affairs that would most probably engross the whole energies of the Roman people and permit his own countrymen to shake off their yoke, Adonijah passed his time not unhappily in this agreeable retreat.
Rome in the mean while was plunged into fresh commotions. Nymphidius, in the name of Galba, seized the reins of government, and, excluding his colleague Tigellinus from the præfecture and consulship, resolved to reign either as the minister of Galba or in his own right. Finding through his spies that the new emperor had other ambitious favourites, he resolved to possess himself of the purple without a rival. He called upon his friends and confederates, who applauded his resolution, and agreed to accompany him that evening to the Prætorian camp. Claudius Celsus alone warned him that the Roman people, arrogant as in the days of their virtue, would never accept for Cæsar the son of the bondwoman Nymphidia. The son of that bondwoman was resolute, bold, and ambitious; his career had never been retarded by a fear, or deterred by a scruple, and everything had hitherto succeeded to his wish.
An unusual movement in the Prætorian camp brought his fate to a crisis; his intentions were already known there. The venal soldiers were prepared to receive him as their future emperor, when a tribune named Antonius Honoratus suddenly turned the tide flowing in the favour of Nymphidius against him, by a speech whose truth was only equalled by its eloquence.
The noise of the shouts those fickle soldiers gave reached the ears of the deceived Nymphidius, who suddenly resolved to throw himself among them without waiting for the presence of the other conspirators. At this important crisis his thoughts suddenly reverted to his wife: an undefined foreboding of coming evil entered his breast; he had never experienced the sensation before. He must see her, must bid her farewell; perhaps he might never return. He entered her apartment and found her seated beside a small table perusing some vellum scrolls, a silver lamp burning before her cast a sort of glory round her exquisitely moulded head and waving ringlets, a white robe fell round a form whose living beauty sculpture would vainly imitate. The holy peace, the deep repose of innocence and purity rested on her lovely features as she bent over the inspired writings with rapt attention, undisturbed even by the step of the ambitious aspirant of empire. He looked earnestly and intently upon his Christian wife, a momentary calm stole over his senses, he uttered her name, but the tones died away unheard. The distant shouts from the camp excited a fresh fever in his brain. “Lucia Claudia!” cried he, and his voice, no longer indistinct, sounded deep as from out of the earth. She started in surprise and terror as she rose to meet him. The muscles of his throat were swollen, a fearful energy sat on his brow, his eyes were fixed and glaring, but gradually softened as they encountered hers. Some terrible determination was struggling within his soul; she almost imagined he intended to do her harm. Suddenly Nymphidius caught her in his arms and passionately and repeatedly embraced her, then flung her from him, then caressed her again. She endured this without returning his caresses or resenting his violence. “You do not love me!” he exclaimed,—“you hate me, and yet I am risking my life to make you the greatest lady in Rome; but, mark me, Lucia Claudia, I will neither live nor die without you. The partner of my throne or of my grave, no power shall divide your fate from mine. If I fall, you shall never wed another man; for if I thought so, I would——” he laid his hand on his sword with a terrible look that gave full meaning to the unfinished sentence.
Lucia’s countenance expressed apprehension, she trembled, she endeavoured to speak. He drew her to him, pressed a kiss on her brow, and disappeared; she heard him speaking to his freedman, and then his footsteps echoed on the marble pavement of the court beneath. He went alone to the camp, and perished there.
| [14] | See Appendix, [Note VII.] |