wine he had drunk, the effect of the poison was not immediately perceived:" at the same time a relaxation of the intestines seemed to have been of service to him; Agrippina therefore became dismayed; but as her life was at stake, she thought little of the odium of her present proceedings, and called in the aid of Xenophon the physician, whom she had already implicated in her guilty purposes. It is believed that he, as if he purposed to assist Claudius in his efforts to vomit, put down his throat a feather besmeared with deadly poison; not unaware that in desperate villainies the attempt without the deed is perilous, while to insure the reward they must be done effectually at once. 68. The senate was in the mean time assembled, and the consuls and pontiffs were offering vows for the recovery of the emperor, when, already dead, he was covered with clothes, and warm applications, to hide it till matters were arranged for securing the empire to Nero. First there was Agrippina, who feigning to be overpowered with grief, and anxiously seeking for consolation, clasped Britannicus in her arms, called him "the very model of his father," and by various artifices withheld him from leaving the chamber: she likewise detained Antonia and Octavia, his sisters; and had closely guarded all the approaches to the palace: from time to time too she gave out that the prince was on the mend; that the soldiery might entertain hopes till the auspicious moment, predicted by the calculations of the astrologers, should arrive. 69. At last, on the thirteenth day of October, at noon, the gates of the palace were suddenly thrown open, and Nero, accompanied by Burrus, went forth to the cohort, which, according to the custom of the army, was keeping watch. There, upon a signal made by the præfect, he was received with shouts of joy, and instantly put into a litter. It was reported, that there were some who hesitated, looking back anxiously, and frequently asking, where was Britannicus? but as no one came forward to oppose it, they embraced the choice which was offered them. Thus Nero was borne to the camp, where, after a speech suitable to the exigency, and the promise of a largess equal to that of the late emperor his father, he was saluted emperor. The voice of the soldiers was followed by the decrees of the senate; nor was c. 69.] NERO SUCCEEDS TO THE EMPIRE. 313 there any hesitation in the several provinces. To Claudius were decreed divine honors, and his funeral obsequies were solemnized with the same pomp as those of the deified Augustus; Agrippina emulating the magnificence of her great grandmother Livia. His will, however, was not rehearsed, lest the preference of the son of his wife to his own son might excite the minds of the people by its injustice and baseness. BOOK XIII. 1. THE first death under the new prince was that of Junius Silanus,' proconsul of Asia; it was brought about by the stratagems of Agrippina, without the privity of Nero: it was not that he had provoked his fate by turbulence of spirit, having lived in such a state of indolence, and even contempt, during the late reigns, that Caligula was wont to call him the golden sheep. But Agrippina feared that he might avenge the murder of his brother Lucius Silanus, at her hands: a rumor being current that as "Nero had scarcely arrived at manhood, and had acquired the empire by iniquity, a man like Silanus, of staid and mature age, of unblemished character, of illustrious descent, and (what was then much looked to) of the lineage of the Cæsars, was to be preferred to him." For Silanus was also the great grandson of the deified Augustus. Such was the cause of his doom: the instruments were Publius Celer, a Roman knight, and Helius, a freedman; both employed to manage the emperor's domestic revenue in Asia. By them poison was administered to the proconsul at a banquet, so openly, that they could not escape detection. With no less precipitation Narcissus, the late emperor's freedman, whose vituperations of Agrippina I have related,2 was driven to put an end to his existence, by rigorous imprisonment and the extremity of destitution. This proceeding took place in opposition to the wishes of the prince, 1 This was Marcus Junius Silanus, the son of Junius Silanus and Emilia Lepida, the grand-daughter of Augustus. * See Annals, xii. 57, 65. VOL. I.-O whose vices, as yet undeveloped, were marvelously assimilated to the avarice and prodigality which marked the character of Narcissus. 2. And they were proceeding to more deeds of blood, had not Afranius Burrus and Annæus Seneca presented an obstacle to it. They were the tutors of the emperor's youth; lived in harmony with each other; which is rarely the case with associates in power; and possessed an equal influence, arising from accomplishments of a different kind. Burrus was distinguished for his assiduous attention to military affairs, and strictness of moral discipline; Seneca for his lessons in eloquence, and the elegant propriety of his manners: each assisting the other, that they might the more easily restrain the prince, at his perilous time of life, within the limits of unforbidden pleasures, should he be disinclined to virtuous pursuits. One constant struggle they had both to maintain against the fierce spirit of Agrippina, who, burning with every lust of lawless dominion, was supported in her designs by Pallas; at whose instance Claudius, by an incestuous marriage and a disastrous adoption, had worked his own ruin. But Nero's temper was not to be controlled by slaves; and Pallas having exceeded the limits of a freedman's license, had by his insufferable arrogance moved the disgust of Nero. Upon Agrippina, however, in public, he accumulated all kinds of honors; and to a tribune who, according to military practice, desired the watchword, gave "The best of mothers;" by the senate, also, two lictors were decreed her, with the office of priestess to Claudius. At the same time a censorial funeral was decreed to Claudius, and soon afterward deification. 3. On the day of the funeral, the encomium of the prince was pronounced by Nero; and while he recorded the antiquity of his lineage, the consulships, the triumphs of his ancestors, he spoke with fervor, and the whole assembly listened with deep emotion; the mention also of his liberal accomplishments, and the observation that during his reign no calamity from foreigners had befallen the state, met with a ready response in the minds of the auditory. But when once he deviated into a commemoration of his wisdom and foresight, not a soul could refrain from laughter; though the speech, which was the composition of Seneca, exhibited c. 4.] NERO'S SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 315 many indications of a cultivated taste, for the genius of that distinguished man was graceful and agreeable, and suited to the ears of the age in which he lived. Old men, who make it their recreation to compare the present and the past, took notice, that Nero was the first Roman emperor who required the aid of another's eloquence: for Cæsar the dictator rivaled the most distinguished orators; and the eloquence of Augustus was prompt and flowing, as became a prince: Tiberius also possessed the art, so far as nicely balancing his words; his meaning, too, was forcibly expressed when he did not study to be ambiguous: even the disordered mind of Caligula impaired not his power of speaking: nor in Claudius would you desiderate elegance whenever his speech was premeditated: Nero, from his early childhood, turned his vivid intellect to other pursuits, carving, painting, singing, and the manege; sometimes too, in the composition of poems, he showed that he was initiated in the elements of literature. 4. To proceed: having finished these mockeries of sorrow, he repaired to the senate, where, after referring to the authority of the fathers, and the concurrence of the soldiery, he set forth the counsels and models by following which he hoped to administer the affairs of empire in the best manner; his youth, he said, had not been mixed up with civil dissensions or domestic broils: he brought with him no animosities, no sense of injuries received, no desire of revenge. He then laid down his future plan of government; pointedly repudiating those practices, the odium of which was still fresh and vehement; "for," he said, "he would not be the judge in all affairs, in order that, the accusers and the accused being shut up in one house,1 the influence of a few favorites might bear down every thing. In his house there should be nothing venal; nothing pervious to the arts of ambition; that his family concerns and the affairs of the state should be kept distinct. The senate should retain its ancient functions: that Italy, and the provinces of the people, should address themselves to the tribunals of the consuls, and they should give them access to the senate. He would himself provide for the provinces and the armies committed to the prince."2 1 See the trial of Valerius Asiaticus in the apartment of Claudius, Annals, xi. 2. 2 This speech gave universal satisfaction. It was, probably, written 5. Nor did he fail in his professions; many regulations were made by the independent authority of the senate; such as, that no advocate should defend a cause for fee or reward; that the quæstors-elect even should be no longer obliged to exhibit gladiatorial spectacles.1 All which was opposed by Agrippina, as rescinding the acts of Claudius; but was carried by the fathers, who were designedly assembled in the palace, that she might take her stand by a door which was covered on the back with tapestry, separated from them by a curtain which intercepted the sight, but did not prevent her hearing. Nay, when the embassadors from Armenia were pleading before Nero the cause of their nation, she was proceeding to ascend the imperial tribunal, and to preside jointly with the emperor, if Seneca, while the rest fixed their eyes immovably upon the earth through fear, had not suggested to him "to meet his mother." Thus, under the guise of filial reverence, this indignity was prevented. 6. At the close of the year, alarming reports reached the city, “that the Parthians having broke out into fresh hostilities, were seizing Armenia, having expelled Rhadamistus," who, having often made himself master of that kingdom, and as often been compelled to abandon it, had now, too, quitted the field. At Rome, therefore, where the people are so eager to gossip, they began to inquire, "how a prince scarce past his seventeenth year, could undertake so heavy a charge; how ward off the menaced danger? what dependence could the state repose in one governed by a woman? could battles, too, be fought, towns stormed, and all the other operations of war be conducted by means of his tutors ?" Others, on the contrary, maintained "that it was better thus than if Claudius, under all the defects of old age and a naturally inactive spirit, had been summoned to the cares and fatigues of a campaign, subject as he would have been to the commands of slaves. Burrus and Seneca were known for men of consummate experience in affairs; and to the emby Seneca. While it promised a reign of moderation, it served to give the young prince a lesson on the true and popular arts of government. Dio tells us, that the senate ordered it to be engraved on a pillar of solid silver, and to be publicly read every year at the time when the consuls entered on their magistracy. Dio, lib. lxi. This corrupt practice, which was nothing less than open bribery, was established by law in the reign of Claudius. Annals, xi. 22. |