When he mounted the throne of the Cæsars, he gave promise of a benignant reign. His first speech to the Senate made a good impression, and his first acts were beneficent. But he ruled only through his mother, who aspired to play the empress, a woman who gave answers to ambassadors, and sent dispatches to foreign courts. Burrhus, the prefect of the imperial guard, and Seneca, tutor and minister, through whose aid the claims of Nero had been preferred over those of Britannicus, the son of the late emperor, opposed her usurpations, and attempted to counteract her influence.
New developments in the character of Nero.
The early promises of Nero were not fulfilled. He soon gave vent to every vice, which was disguised by his ministers. One of the first acts was to disgrace the freedman, Pallas,—the prime minister of Claudius,—and to destroy Britannicus by poison, which crimes were palliated, if not suggested, by Seneca.
His ministers.
The influence which Seneca and Burrhus had over the young emperor, who screened his vices from the eyes of the people and Senate, necessarily led to a division between Nero and Agrippina. He withdrew her guard of honor, and paid her only formal visits, which conduct led to the desertion of her friends, and the open hostility of her enemies. The wretched woman defended herself against the charges they brought, with spirit, and for a time she escaped. The influence of Seneca, at this period, was paramount, and was exerted for the good of the empire, so that the Senate acquiesced in the public measures of Nero, and no notice was [pg 592] taken of his private irregularities. The empress mother apparently yielded to the ascendency of the ministers, and provoked no further trial of strength.
Poppæa Sabina. Her vile character.
Thus five years passed, until Nero was twenty-two, when Poppæa Sabina, the fairest woman of her time, appeared upon the stage. Among the dissolute women of imperial Rome, she was pre-eminent. Introduced to the intimacy of Nero, she aspired to still higher elevation, and this was favored by the detestation with which Agrippina was generally viewed, and the continued decline of her influence, since she had ruled by fear rather than love. Poppæa was now found intriguing against her, and induced Nero to murder his own mother, to whose arts and wickedness he owed his own elevation. The murder was effected in her villa, on the Lucrine Lake, under circumstances of utter brutality. Nero came to examine her mangled body, and coolly praised the beauty of her form. Nor were her ashes even placed in the mausoleum of Augustus. This wicked Jezebel, who had poisoned her husband, and was accused of every crime revolting to our nature, paid the penalty of her varied infamies, and her name has descended to all subsequent ages as the worst woman of antiquity.
The infamies of Nero.
With the murder of Agrippina, the madness and atrocities of Nero gained new force. He now appears as a monster, and was only tolerated for the amusements with which he appeased the Roman people. He disgraced the imperial dignity by descending upon the stage, which was always infamous; he instituted demoralizing games; he was utterly insensible to national sentiments and feelings; he exceeded all his predecessors in extravagance and follies; he was suspected of poisoning Burrhus, by whom he was advanced to power; he executed men of the highest rank, whose crime was their riches; he destroyed the members of the imperial family; he murdered Doryphorus and Pallas, because they were averse to his marriage with Poppæa; he drove his chariot in the Circus Maximus, pleased with the acclamations of two hundred thousand spectators; [pg 593] he gave banquets in which the utmost excesses of bacchanalian debauchery were openly displayed; he is said to have kindled the conflagration of his own capital; he levied oppressive taxes to build his golden palace, and support his varied extravagance; he even destroyed his tutor and minister, Seneca, that he might be free from his expostulations, and take possession of the vast fortune which this philosopher had accumulated in his service; and he finally kicked his wife so savagely that she died from the violence he inflicted. If it were possible to add to his enormities, his persecution of the Christians swelled the measure of his infamies—the first to which they had been subjected in Rome, and in which Paul himself was a victim. But his government was supported by the cruelty and voluptuousness of the age, and which has never been painted in more vivid colors than by St. Paul himself. The corrupt morality of the age tolerated all these crimes, and excesses, and follies—an age which saw no great writers except Seneca, Lucan, Perseus, and Martial, two of whom were murdered by the emperor.
Conspiracies against him. Flight of Nero. Death of Nero.