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[68 A.D.]

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 barefooted, 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!"

Presently a slave of Phaon's brought papers from Rome, which Nero snatched from him, and read that the senate had proclaimed him an enemy, and decreed his death, in the ancient fashion. He asked what that was; and was informed that the culprit was stripped, his head placed in a fork, and his body smitten with the stick till death. Terrified at this announcement, he took two daggers from his bosom, tried their edge one after the other, and again laid them down, alleging that the moment was not yet arrived. Then he called on Sporus to commence his funeral lamentations; then he implored some of the party to set him the example; once and again he reproached himself with his own timidity. "Fie! Nero, fie!" he muttered in Greek, "courage, man! come, rouse thee !" Suddenly was heard the trampling of horsemen, sent to seize the culprit alive. Then at last, with a verse of Homer hastily ejaculated, "Sound of swift-footed steeds strikes on my ears," he placed a weapon to his breast, and the slave Epaphroditus drove it home.

[68 A.D.] The blow was scarcely struck, when the centurion rushed in, and, thrusting his cloak against the wound, pretended he was come to help him. The dying wretch could only murmur, "Too late," and, "Is this your fidelity?" and expired with a horrid stare on his countenance. He had adjured his attendants to burn his body, and not let the foe bear off his head, and this was now allowed him; the corpse was consumed with haste and imperfectly, but at least without mutilation.

Nero perished on the 9th of June, 68 A.D., at the age of thirty years and six months, in the fourteenth year of his principate. The child borne him by Poppea had died in infancy, and a subsequent marriage with Statilia Messallina had proved unfruitful. The stock of the Julii, refreshed in vain by grafts from the Octavii, the Claudii, and the Domitii, had been reduced to his single person, and with Nero the adoptive race of the great dictator was extinguished. The first of the Cæsars had married four times, the second thrice, the third twice, the fourth thrice again, the fifth six times, and lastly, the sixth thrice also. Of these repeated unions, a large number had borne offspring, yet no descendants of them survived. A few had lived to old many reached maturity, some were cut off by early sickness, the end of others was premature and mysterious; but a large proportion were victims of domestic jealousy and politic assassination.

age,

With Nero we bid farewell to the Cæsars, at the same time we bid farewell to the state of things which the Cæsars created and maintained. We turn over a page in Roman history. On the verge of a new epoch we would treat with grave respect even the monster with whom the old epoch closes; we may think it well that the corpse even of Nero was unmutilated; that he was buried decently in the Domitian gardens on the Pincian; that though the people evinced a thoughtless triumph at his death, as if it promised them a freedom which they could neither use nor understand, some unknown hands were found to strew flowers on his sepulchre, and the rival king of Parthia adjured the senate to do honour to his memory.

Undoubtedly the Romans regarded with peculiar feeling the death of the last of the Cæsars. Nero was cut off in early youth; he perished in obscurity; he was entombed in a private sepulchre, with no manifestation of national concern, such as had thrown a gleam of interest over the least regretted of his predecessors. Yet these circumstances would not have sufficed to impart a deep mystery to the event, without the predisposition of the people to imagine that the dynasty which had ruled them for four generations could not suddenly pass away, finally and irrevocably. The idea that Nero still survived, and the expectation of his return to power, continued long to linger among them. More than one pretender arose to claim his empire, and twenty years later a false Nero was protected by the Parthians, among whom he had taken refuge, and only surrendered to the repeated and vehement demands of the Roman government. This popular anticipation was the foundation, perhaps, of the common persuasion of the Christians, that he should revisit the earth in the character of Antichrist; and possibly that Jerusalem itself would be the scene.e

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CHAPTER XXXV. GALBA, OTHO, VITELLIUS, AND THE

THREE FLAVIANS (68-96 A.D.)

GALBA (SERVIUS SULPICIUS GALBA), 68-69 A.D.

THE fall of Nero and the accession of Galba form an important epoch in the history of the Roman Empire; for to the misfortune of a form of government, on which everything depended on the ruler, his court, and the bodyguard and guard of the emperor, a fresh evil was now added, namely that the army became accustomed to mutiny, and obtained a decisive influence on the choice of the emperor. Certainly Galba did not accept the title of emperor, until it was legally assigned to him by a deputation of the senate; but the example of mutiny had been given, the army had in reality, and the senate, only in form, decided as to who should occupy the throne, and the fate of the empire was from henceforth made more and more dependent on the troops and their leaders.

At first however it appeared fortunate, that after the weak-minded libertines, who for some time had been at the head of the states, the government should fall into the hands of a veteran warrior who possessed the love and confidence of his soldiers, and hated every kind of indulgence and excess; but any advantages which might have arisen from this were outweighed by the great age of the emperor and the weakness consequent on it. Galba's weakness was first perceived when he, who at the time of Nero's death was still in Gaul, had returned to Rome; he was awaited with real eagerness.

Before the arrival of Galba, Nymphidius, who had accelerated the fall of Nero, acted as absolute ruler. He prevented Tigellinus from participating in the command of the prætorians, tried in every way to gain over the people, saw the entire senate in his antechamber, and mixed himself up with all the dealings of the latter with Galba. It then occurred to him that he might trace his descent from Cæsar and thereby establish his claim to the throne. But to his terror, he heard, from a messenger whom he had. sent to Galba, that Titus Vinius, one of Galba's legates, held absolute sway over the emperor, that he had named Cornelius Laco prefect of the prætorians, instead of him, and that his rule would therefore be at an end as soon as Galba entered Rome. He therefore resolved to venture to extremes and to make the prætorians proclaim him emperor; they were turned against him by one of his officers, and killed him as soon as he appeared in their camp. As soon as Galba arrived in Rome, he had all the friends of Nymphidius put to death. These and a few other executions, added to Galba's dependence on Vinius, prepossessed no one in favour of the new ruler. It was

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[68-69 A.D.] still more unfortunate that he had to refuse the guard sums of money promised in his name by Nymphidius, and that on his entry into Rome he saw himself obliged to have another troop of soldiers cut down, who had gone against him and made violent demands. Galba was determined to adopt a new course of government; but in this he overlooked the fact, that an utterly corrupt people cannot be transformed at once, or lost morality recalled by commands. With exaggerated severity and with a parsimony which would have been despicable even in a private individual, he attempted to reduce a town accustomed to imperial prodigality to its former simplicity, discipline, and order, and thereby not only embittered the feelings of all, but also made himself ridiculous.

He was indolent and enfeebled by age [he was over seventy-two years old] and depended on three favourites, who committed all sorts of severities in his name and tried to make money by selling privileges and favours. These favourites were Vinius, Laco, and Galba's freedman, Icelus. For this reason, from the beginning, everything pointed to a short duration of his rulership, and dissatisfaction not only seized hold of the great mass in Rome, who, as everywhere, loved pleasure and amusement more than virtue or their country, but also of the different armies of the kingdom. A few months after his accession the legions rose in upper Germany, and demanded from the senate the appointment of a younger and more vigorous emperor. Galba tried to stay the storm by immediately naming a young man of good family and irreproachable character, Piso Licinianus, as his coregent and successor. Unfortunately, when presenting Piso to the troops, he omitted, out of economy, to give presents to the soldiers, as had been the custom on such occasions since the accession of Claudius; and in his speech to the assembled army he publicly avowed that the troops in Germany had refused him obediThis made the soldiers dissatisfied, and he thereby robbed himself of the advantages that Piso's nomination might otherwise have brought him.

ence.

OTHO (M. SALVIUS OTHO), 69 A.D.

Otho, who had gone to Rome with Galba, seized the opportunity of Galba's mistake to place himself on the throne. He had long solicited the favour of the soldiers and people, had given away entire estates to individuals, had, when Galba dined with him, given money to the emperor's escort, and Galba had overlooked all this, because one of his favourites, Vinius, whose daughter Otho wished to marry, had come to a secret understanding with the latter. Otho instituted a formal conspiracy, corrupted the soldiers by gifts and promises, and had himself proclaimed emperor in a camp of the prætorians, a few days after Piso's appointment. He left the camp at the head of the soldiers who had chosen him, entered the town, killed Galba and his co-regent, and was acknowledged emperor by the people and senate. This took place on the 15th of January of the year 69, when Galba had only reigned seven months and a few days.

The new emperor only maintained his rule for three months. All the provinces and armies swore allegiance to him after Galba's death, only the legions of the Rhine and Upper Germany denied him obedience. They had already rebelled against Galba, and proclaimed the leader of the troops on the lower Rhine, Aulus Vitellius, emperor, as they had not been recompensed by Galba for the support they had given him against Nero. This rival, although other legions declared for him, would not in himself have

[69 A.D.]

been dangerous to Otho, as he had become so enervated by self-indulgence that he was wanting in activity and energy as well as in decision; but in Fabius Valens and Aulus Cæcina, he possessed two able generals, who placed themselves at the head of the legions in his stead.

With the rebellious troops they crossed the Alps into upper Italy and fell upon Otho, who had hastily collected as many soldiers as possible and led them against the enemy. At first the generals of Vitellius were the losers in a few small engagements, as mutual jealousy induced them to act separately, but as soon as they concentrated themselves they were far superior to their adversaries. Otho ought, therefore, to have done everything to delay the crisis until the reinforcements which he was expecting from the provinces of the Danube had arrived. He nevertheless did the reverse, and throughout the entire war showed himself a worthy comrade of Nero.

He had been the husband of the notorious Poppæa Sabina; had formerly participated with his imperial friend in all kinds of pleasures, and had indulged in so much dissipation that he had not only fallen deeply into debt, but had also become enervated and incapable of any exertion. This had already become apparent in the rebellion against Galba; for he had lost all courage at the moment of action, and would have given the whole thing up had not his fellow-conspirators compelled him to persist in his designs. Besides he was no general. His troops, which for the greater part consisted of prætorians and soldiers of Nero, clung to him with devotion, and were eager to fight, but they did not trust their officers and would no longer take orders from them. This determined him to bring the fight to a speedy end, as he felt that at any moment he might be deserted by his own people. In spite of this, as he had not been present in the earlier smaller fights, so now he took no personal share in the great battle which was to decide his own fate.

In the vicinity of Cremona, Cæcina and Valens fell on Otho's army. It was beaten, suffered considerable loss, and then the greater part went over to the enemy. Otho's cause was, nevertheless, by no means lost; for the prætorians adhered steadfastly to him, the legions of the provinces of the Danube were already on the march, and the entire East as well as Africa was open to him. Only he was too indolent and effeminate to be able to face continuous exertions and hardships, and from the example of his beaten army he saw how ephemeral the devotion of his soldiers had been. So he lost courage, and decided, in spite of the remonstrances and requests of his friends, to put an end to his life. He stabbed himself to the heart with a firmness rarely found in a voluptuary, and by this action won for himself the reputation with posterity of having purchased the peace of his country with his own life.

Historians have therefore praised him above his deserts, and placed words in his mouth which stand in opposition to his life and principles. For instance, he is reported to have said to his friends and relatives who wished to restrain him from suicide: "Others have gained fame by governing well; my fame, on the contrary, is to consist in my giving up the government of the empire, rather than ruin it by my ambition." Those who recall the fact that Otho throughout his life lived and acted according to the maxims of a Nero, will know how to divest this story of all that gives his death the appearance of a grand and noble act; for although it cannot be denied that Otho thereby put an end to the civil war, and died in peace and quietness, nevertheless he was not guided by courage or love of country, but by indolence and despair.

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