The Historians' History of the World 06

This obsequious body, however, sought to avert the disgrace of the lord of the Roman world appearing on the stage at the approaching Quinquennial games, by offering him the victory of song and the crown of eloquence. But Nero said that there needed not the power nor the influence of the senate, that he feared not his rivals, and relied on the equity of the judges. He therefore sang on the stage, and when the people pressed him to display all his acquirements, he came forth in the theatre, strictly conforming to all the rules of his art, not sitting down when weary, wiping his face in his robe, neither spitting nor blowing his nose, and finally with bended knee and moving his hand, waited in counterfeit terror for the sentence of the judges.

At the end of the games, he in a fit of anger gave Poppæa, who was pregnant, a kick in the stomach, which caused her death. Instead of burning her body, as was now the general custom, he had it embalmed with the most costly spices and deposited in the monument of the Julian family. He himself pronounced the funeral oration, in which he praised her for her beauty, and for being the mother of a divine infant.

The remainder of the year was marked by the death or exile of several illustrious persons, and by a pestilence which carried off great numbers of all ranks and ages. “Of the knights and senators,” observes Tacitus, “the deaths were less to be lamented; they anticipated, as it were, by the common fate the cruelty of the prince.”

[66 A.D.]

The first deaths of the succeeding year (66) were those of P. Anteius, whose crime was his wealth and the friendship of Agrippina; Ostorius Scapula, who had distinguished himself in Britain; Annæus Mella, the father of Lucan; Anicius Cerealis, Rufius Crispinus, and others. They all died in the same manner, by opening their veins. The most remarkable death was that of C. Petronius, a man whose elegance and taste in luxury had recommended him to the special favour of Nero, who regarding him as his “arbiter of elegance,” valued only that of which Petronius approved. The envy of Tigellinus being thus excited, he bribed one of Petronius’ slaves to charge his master with being the friend of Scevinus. His death followed, of course; the mode of it however was peculiar. He caused his veins to be opened, then closed, then opened again, and so on. He meantime went on conversing with his friends, not, like a Socrates or a Seneca, on the immortality of the soul or the opinions of the wise, but listening to light and wanton verses. He rewarded some of his slaves, he had others flogged, he dined, he slept; he made, in short, his compulsive death as like a natural one as possible. He did not, like others, pay court to Nero or Tigellinus or the men in power, in his will, but he wrote an account of the vices and crimes of the prince and court under the names of flagitious men and women, and sent it sealed up to the emperor. He broke his seal-ring, lest it might be used to the destruction of innocent persons.

“After the slaughter of so many illustrious men,” says Tacitus, “Nero at length sought to destroy virtue itself by killing Thraseas Pætus and Bareas Soranus.” The former, a man of primitive Roman virtue, was hated by him not merely for his worth, but because he had on various occasions given public proof of his disapproval of his acts. Such were his going out of the senate house when the decrees were made on account of the murder of Agrippina, and his absence from the deification and funeral of Poppæa. Further than his virtue, we know of no cause of enmity that Nero could have against Soranus.

The accusers of Thraseas were Capito Cossutianus, whom he had made his enemy by supporting the Cilician deputies who came to accuse him of extortion, and Marcellus Eprius, a profligate man of eloquence. A Roman knight named Ostorius Sabinus appeared as the accuser of Soranus. The time selected for the destruction of these eminent men was that of the arrival of the Parthian prince Tiridates, who was coming to Rome to receive the diadem of Armenia, either in hopes that the domestic crime would be shrouded by the foreign glory, or, more probably, to give the Oriental an idea of the imperial power. Thraseas received an order not to appear among those who went to meet the king; he wrote to Nero, requiring to know with what he was charged, and asserting his ability to clear himself if he got an opportunity. Nero in reply said that he would convoke the senate. Thraseas then consulted with his friends, whether he would go to the senate house, or expect his doom at home. Opinions were as usual divided; he however did not go to the senate.