The Doom Of Nero

We have perhaps paid too much attention to the enormities of Caligula

and Nero. Yet the mad freakishness of the one and the cowardly

dissimulation of the other give to their stories a dramatic interest

which seems to render them worth repeating. Nero, one of the basest and

cruelest of the Roman emperors, is one of the best known to readers, and

the interest felt in him is not alone due to the story of his life, but

as ell to that of his death, which we therefore here give.



A conspiracy against him among some of the noblest citizens of Rome was

discovered and punished with revengeful fury. It was followed, a few

years afterwards, by a revolt of the armies in Gaul and Spain. This was

in its turn quelled, and Nero triumphed in imagination over all his

enemies. But he had lost favor alike with the army and the people, and

an event now happened that threw the whole city into a ferment of anger

against him.



Food was scarce, and the arrival of a ship from Alexandria, supposed to

be loaded with corn, filled the people with joy. It proved instead to be

loaded with sand for the arena. In their disappointment the people broke

at first into scurrilous jests against Nero, and then into rage and

fury. A wild clamor filled the streets. On all sides rose the demand to

be delivered from a monster. Even the Praetorian guards, who had hitherto

supported the emperor, began to show signs of disaffection, and were

wrought to a spirit of revolt by two of the choice companions of Nero's

iniquities, who now deserted him as rats desert a sinking ship. The

senate was approached and told that Nero was no longer supported by his

friends, and that they might now regain the power of which they had been

deprived.



Some whisper of what was afloat reached Nero's ears. Filled with craven

fury, he resolved to massacre the senate, to set fire again to the city,

and to let loose his whole collection of wild beasts. He proposed to fly

to Egypt during the consternation that would prevail. A trusted servant,

to whom he told this design, revealed it to the senate. It filled them

with fear and rage. Yet even in so dire a contingency they could not be

prevailed upon to act with vigor, and all might have been lost by their

procrastination and timidity but for the two men who had organized the

revolt.



These men, Nymphidius and Tigellinus by name, went to the palace, and

with a show of deep affliction informed Nero of his danger. "All is

lost," they said: "the people call aloud for vengeance; the Praetorian

guards have abandoned your cause; the senate is ready to pronounce a

dreadful judgment. Only one hope remains to you, to fly for your life,

and seek a retreat in Egypt."



It was as they said; revolt was everywhere in the air, and affected the

armies near and far. Nero sought assistance, but sought it in vain. The

palace, lately swarming with life, was now deserted. Nero wandered

through its empty chambers, and found only solitude and gloom.

Conscience awoke in his seared heart, and he was filled with horror and

remorse. Of all his late crowd of courtiers only three friends now

remained with him,--Sporus, a servant; Phaon, a freedman; and

Epaphroditus, his secretary.



"'My wife, my father, and my mother doom me dead!'" he bitterly cried,

quoting a line from a Greek tragedy.



With a last hope he bade the soldiers on duty to hasten to Ostia and

prepare a ship, on which he might embark for Egypt. The men refused.



"'Is it, then, so wretched a thing to die?'" said one of them, quoting

from Virgil.



This refusal threw Nero into despair. He hurried to the Servilian

gardens, with a vial of deadly poison, which, on getting there, he had

not the courage to take. He returned to the palace and threw himself on

his bed. Then, too agitated to lie, he sprang up and called for some

friendly hand to end his wretched life. No one consented, and in his

wild despair he called out, in doleful accents, "My friends desert me,

and I cannot find an enemy."



The world had suddenly fallen away from the despicable Nero. A week

before he had ordered it at his will, now "none so poor to do him

reverence." His craven terror would have been pitiable in any one to

whom the word pity could apply. In frantic dread he rushed from the

palace, as if with intent to fling himself into the Tiber. Then as

hastily he returned, saying that he would fly to Spain, and yield

himself to the mercy of Galba, who commanded the revolted army. But no

ship was to be had for either Spain or Egypt, and this plan was

abandoned as quickly as formed.



These and other projects passed in succession through his distracted

brain. One of the most absurd of them was to go in a mourning garb to

the Forum, and by his powers of eloquence seek to win back the favor of

the people. If they would not have him as emperor, he might by

persuasive oratory obtain from them the government of Egypt.



Full of hope in this new project, he was about to put it into effect,

when a fresh reflection filled his soul with horror. What if the

populace should, without waiting to hear his harmonious accents and

unequalled oratory, break out in sudden rage and rend him limb from

limb? Might they not assail him in the palace? Might not a seditious mob

be already on its way thither, bent on bloody work? Whither should he

fly? Where find refuge?



Turning in despair to his companions, he asked them, wildly, "Is there

no hiding-place, no safe retreat, where I may have leisure to consider

what is to be done?"



Phaon, his freedman, told him that he owned an obscure villa, at a

distance of about four miles from Rome, where he might remain for a time

in concealment.



This suggestion, in Nero's state of distraction, was eagerly

embraced,--in such haste, indeed, that he left the palace without an

instant's preparation, his feet destitute of shoes, and no garment but

his close tunic, his outer garments and imperial robe having been

discarded in his distraction. The utmost he did was to snatch up an old

rusty robe as a disguise, covering his head with it, and holding a

handkerchief before his face. Thus attired, he mounted his horse and

fled in frantic fear, attended only by the three men we have mentioned,

and a fourth named Neophytus.



Meanwhile, the revolt in the city was growing more and more decided.

When the coming day showed its first faint rays, the Praetorian guards,

who had been on duty in the palace, left their post and marched to the

camp. Here, under the influence of Nymphidius, Galba was nominated

emperor. This was an important innovation in the government of Rome.

Hitherto the imperial dignity had remained in the family of Caesar,

descending by hereditary transmission. Nero was the last of that family

to wear the crown. Henceforth the army and its generals controlled the

destinies of the empire. The nomination of Galba by the Praetorian guard

signalized the new state of things, in which the emperors would largely

be chosen by that guard or by some army in the field.



The action of the Praetorian guard was supported by the senate. That

body, awaking from its late timidity, determined to mark the day with a

decree worthy of its past history. With unanimous decision they

pronounced Nero a tyrant who had trampled on all laws, human and divine,

and condemned him to suffer death with all the rigor of the ancient

laws.



While this revolution was taking place in the city the terror-stricken

Nero was still in frantic flight. He passed the Praetorian camp near

enough to hear loud acclamations, among which the name of Galba reached

his ear. As the small cavalcade hastened by a man early at work in the

fields, he looked up and said, "These people must be hot in pursuit of

Nero." A short distance farther another hailed them, asking, "What do

they say of Nero in the city?"



A more alarming event occurred soon. As they drew near Phaon's house the

horse of Nero started at a dead carcass beside the road, shaking down

the handkerchief by which he had concealed his face. The movement

revealed him to a veteran soldier, then on his way to Rome, and ignorant

of what was taking place in the city. He recognized and saluted the

emperor by name.



This incident increased Nero's fear. His route of flight would now be

known. He pressed his horse to the utmost speed until Phaon's house was

close at hand. They now halted and Nero dismounted, it being thought

unsafe for him to enter the house publicly. He crossed a field overgrown

with reeds, and, being tortured with thirst, scooped up some water from

a muddy ditch and drank it, saying, dolefully, "Is this the beverage

which Nero has been used to drink?"



Phaon advised him to conceal himself in a neighboring sand-pit, from

which could be opened for him a subterraneous passage to the house, but

Nero refused, saying that he did not care to be buried alive. His

companions then made an opening in the wall on one side of the house,

through which Nero crept on his hands and knees. Entering a wretched

chamber, he threw himself on a mean bed, which was covered with a

tattered coverlet, and asked for some refreshment.



All they could offer him was a little coarse bread, so black that the

sight of it sickened his dainty taste, and some warm and foul water,

which thirst forced him to drink. His friends meanwhile were in little

less desperation than himself. They saw that no hope was left and that

his place of concealment would soon be known, and entreated him to avoid

a disgraceful death by taking his own life.



Nero promised to do so, but still sought reasons for delay. His funeral

must be prepared for, he said, and bade them to dig a grave, to prepare

wood for a funeral pile, and bring marble to cover his remains.

Meanwhile he piteously bewailed his unhappy lot; sighed and shed tears

copiously; and said, with a last impulse of vanity, "What a musician the

world will lose!"



While he thus in cowardly procrastination delayed the inevitable end, a

messenger, whom Phaon had ordered to bring news from Rome, arrived with

papers. These Nero eagerly seized and read. He found himself dethroned,

declared a public enemy, and condemned to suffer death with the rigor of

ancient usage. Such was the decree of the senate, which hitherto had

been his subservient slave.



"Ancient usage?" he asked. "What do they mean? What kind of death is

that?"



"It is this," they told him. "Every traitor, by the law of the old

republic, with his head fastened between two stakes, and his body

stripped naked, was slowly flogged to death by the lictors' rods."



Dread of this terrible and ignominious punishment roused the trembling

wretch to some semblance of courage. He produced two daggers, which he

had brought with him, and tried their points. Then he replaced them in

their scabbards, saying, "The fatal moment is not yet come."



Turning to Sporus, he said, "Sing the melancholy dirge, and offer the

last obsequies to your friend." Then, rolling his eyes wildly around, he

exclaimed, "Why will not some one of you kill himself, and teach me how

to die?"



He paused a moment. No one seemed inclined to adopt his suggestion. A

flood of tears burst from his eyes. Starting up, he cried, in a tone of

wild despair, "Nero, this is infamy; you linger in disgrace; this is no

time for dejected passions; this moment calls for manly fortitude."



These words were hardly spoken when the sound of horses was heard

advancing rapidly towards the house. Theatrical to the end, he repeated

a line from Homer which the noise of hoofs recalled to his mind. At

length, driven to desperation, he seized his dagger and stabbed himself

in the throat,--but cowardice made the stroke too feeble. Epaphroditus

now lent his aid, and the next thrust was a mortal one.



It was time. The horses were those of pursuers. The senate, informed of

his probable place of refuge, had sent soldiers in haste to bring him

back to Rome, there to suffer the punishment decreed. In a minute

afterwards a centurion entered the room, and, seeing Nero prostrate and

bleeding, ran to his aid, saying that he would bind the wound and save

his life.



Nero looked up languidly, and said, in faint tones, "You come too late.

Is this your fidelity?" In a moment more he expired.



In the words of Tacitus, "The ferocity of his nature was still visible

in his countenance. His eyes fixed and glaring, and every feature

swelled with warring passions, he looked more stern, more grim, more

terrible than ever."



Nero was in his thirty-second year. He had reigned nearly fourteen

years. Tacitus says of him, "The race of Caesars ended with Nero; he was

the last, and perhaps the worst, of that illustrious house."



The tidings of his death filled Rome with joy. Men ran wildly about the

streets, their heads covered with liberty caps. Acclamations of gladness

resounded in the Forum. Icelus, Galba's freedman and agent in Rome, whom

Nero had thrown into prison, was released and took control of affairs.

He ordered that Nero's body should be burned where he had died, and this

was done so quickly and secretly that many would not believe that he was

dead. The report got abroad that he had escaped to Asia or Egypt, and

from time to time impostors appeared claiming to be Nero. The Parthians

were deluded by one of these impostors and offered to defend his cause.

Another made trouble in the Greek islands. Nero's profligate companions

in Rome, who alone mourned his death, while affecting to believe him

still alive raised a tomb to his memory, which for several years they

annually dressed with the flowers of spring and summer. But the world at

large rejoiced in its delivery from the rule of a monster of iniquity.