Roman Method of Attack from above
Such was the march of disaffection, the first anticipations of which had been revealed to Helius before the end of 66, and had induced him to urge the emperor, first by letter and afterwards in person, to hasten home. Nero, as we have seen, could not be persuaded to regard them seriously, or postpone to their consideration his paltry gratifications and amusements. After his return to Rome he had again quitted it for Naples in March, 68, and it was on the 19th of that month, the anniversary of Agrippina’s murder, while presiding at a gymnastic exhibition, that he received the news of the revolt of Vindex. Still he treated the announcement with contempt, and even expressed satisfaction at the prospect of new confiscations. He witnessed the contests with unabated interest, and retired from them to a banquet. Interrupted by fresh and more alarming despatches, he resented them with petulant ill-humour; for eight days he would neither issue orders nor be spoken to on the subject. Finally arrived a manifesto from Vindex himself, which moved him to send a message to the senate, requiring it to denounce the rebel as a public enemy; but he excused himself from appearing in person, alleging a cold or sore throat, which he must nurse for the conservation of his voice. Nothing so much incensed him as Vindex calling him Ahenobarbus instead of Nero, and disparaging his skill in singing. “Had they ever heard a better performer?” he asked peevishly of all around him. He now hurried trembling to Rome; but he was reassured, we are told, on the way by noticing a sculpture which represented a Gallic soldier dragged headlong by a Roman knight. Accordingly, with his usual levity, instead of consulting in full senate, or haranguing on the state of affairs in the Forum, he held a hasty conversation with a few only of his nobles, and passed the day in explaining to them a new water-organ, on which he proposed, he said, “with Vindex’s good leave,” to perform in public. He completed and dedicated a temple to Poppæa: once more he celebrated the games of the circus, once more he played and sang, and drove the chariot. But it was for the last time. Vindex had fallen, but Galba, it was now announced, had raised the standard of revolt. The rebel’s property in Rome was immediately confiscated, to which he replied by selling under the spear the emperor’s estates in Spain. The hour of retribution, long delayed, was now swiftly advancing; courier after courier was dashing through the gates, bringing news of the defection of generals and legions. The revolt of Virginius was no longer doubtful. At this intelligence the puny tyrant fainted; coming to himself he tore his robes and smote his head, with pusillanimous wailings. To the consolations of his nurse he replied, with the cries of an infant, “never was such ill-fortune as his; other Cæsars had fallen by the sword, he alone must lose the empire still living.” At last he recollected himself sufficiently to summon troops from Illyricum for the defence of Italy; but these, it was found, were in correspondence with the enemy. Another resource, which served only to show to what straits he was driven, was to land sailors from the fleet at Ostia, and form them into a legion. Then he invoked the pampered populace to arise in his behalf, and dressed up courtesans and dancers as Amazons to attend his march; next moment he exclaimed that he would take ship for Alexandria, and there earn subsistence by singing in the streets. Again he launched into invectives against the magistrates abroad, threatening to recall and disgrace them throughout his dominions; the provinces he would give up to pillage, he would slay every Gaul in the city, he would massacre the senate, he would let loose the lions on the populace, he would lay Rome in ashes. Finally, the tyrant’s vein exhausted, he proposed in woman’s mood to meet the rebels unarmed, trusting in his beauty, his tears, and the persuasive tones of his voice, to win them to obedience.
A Centurion Officer
Meanwhile the excitement among the knights and senators at the prospect of deliverance kept pace with the progress of revolt abroad. Portents were occurring at their doors. Blood rained on the Alban Mount; the gates of the Julian sepulchre burst open of their own accord. The Hundred Days of Nero were drawing rapidly to a close. He had landed in Italy about the end of February, and now at the beginning of June his cause had already become hopeless. Galba, though steadfast in his resolution, had not yet set his troops in motion; nevertheless, Nero was no longer safe in the city. The people, at first indifferent, were now clamouring against him; for there was a dearth of provisions, and a vessel, just arrived from Alexandria, was found, to their disgust, to bear not grain, but fine sand for the wrestlers in the amphitheatre. The prætorians had been seduced by their prefect Nymphidius, to whom the camp was abandoned by the flight of Tigellinus. Nero was left without advisers; the senators stood aloof; of Helius, lately so powerful and energetic, we hear nothing. Terrified by dreams, stung by ridicule or desertion, when his last hope of succour was announced to have deceived him the wretched tyrant started from his couch at supper, upset the tables, and dashed his choicest vessels to the ground; then taking poison from Locusta and placing it in a golden casket, he crossed from the palace to the Servilian gardens, and sent his trustiest freedmen to secure a galley at Ostia. He conjured some tribunes and centurions, with a handful of guards, to join his flight; but all refused, and one blunter than the rest exclaimed tauntingly, “Is it then so hard to die?”
THE DEATH OF NERO
At last at midnight, finding that even the sentinels had left their posts, he sent or rushed himself to assemble his attendants. Every door was closed; he knocked, but no answer came. Returning to his chamber, he found the slaves fled, the furniture pillaged, the case of poison removed. Not a guard, not a gladiator, was at hand, to pierce his throat. “I have neither friend nor foe,” he exclaimed. He would have thrown himself into the Tiber, but his courage failed him. He must have time, he said, and repose to collect his spirits for suicide, and his freedman Phaon at last offered him his villa in the suburbs, four miles from the city. In undress and bare-footed, throwing a rough cloak over his shoulders, and a kerchief across his face, he glided through the doors, mounted a horse, and, attended by Sporus and three others, passed the city gates with the dawn of the summer morning. The Nomentane road led him beneath the wall of the prætorians, whom he might hear uttering curses against him, and pledging vows to Galba; and the early travellers from the country asked him, as they met, “What news of Nero?” or remarked to one another, “These men are pursuing the tyrant.” Thunder and lightning, and a shock of earthquake, added horror to the moment. Nero’s horse started at a dead body on the roadside, the kerchief fell from his face, and a prætorian passing by recognised and saluted him.
At the fourth milestone the party quitted the highway, alighted from their horses, and scrambled on foot through a cane-brake, laying their own cloaks to tread on, to the rear of the promised villa. Phaon now desired Nero to crouch in a sand-pit hard by, while he contrived to open the drain from the bathroom, and so admit him unperceived; but he vowed he would not go alive, as he said, underground, and remained trembling beneath the wall. Taking water from a puddle in his hand, “This,” he said, “is the famous Drink of Nero.” At last a hole was made, through which he crept on all fours into a narrow chamber of the house, and there threw himself on a pallet. The coarse bread that was offered him he could not eat, but swallowed a little tepid water. Still he lingered, his companions urging him to seek refuge, without delay, from the insults about to be heaped on him. He ordered them to dig a grave, and lay down himself to give the measure; he desired them to collect bits of marble to decorate his sepulchre, and prepare water to cleanse and wood to burn his corpse, sighing meanwhile, and muttering, “What an artist to perish!”