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The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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[49-54 A.D.]
The great object of Agrippina was to exclude Britannicus, and obtain the succession for her own son Nero Domitius, now a boy of twelve years of age. She therefore caused Octavia to be betrothed to him, and she had the philosopher Seneca recalled from Corsica, whither he had been exiled by the arts of Messallina, and committed to him the education of her son, that he might be fitted for empire. In the following year Claudius, yielding to her influence, adopted him.
Ruins of the Aqueduct of Claudius
In order to bring Nero forward, Agrippina caused him to assume the virile toga before the usual age, and the servile senate desired of Claudius that he might be consul at the age of twenty, and meantime be elect with proconsular power without the city. A donative was given to the soldiers, and a congiary (congiarium) to the people in his name. At the Circensian games, given to gain the people, Nero appeared in the triumphal habit; Britannicus in a simple prætexta. Every one who showed any attachment to this poor youth was removed on one pretence or another, and he was surrounded with the creatures of Agrippina. Finally, as the two commanders of the guards were supposed to be attached to the interests of the children of Messallina, she persuaded Claudius that their discipline would be much improved if they were placed under one commander. Accordingly those officers were removed, and the command was given to Burrus Afranius, a man of high character for probity and of great military reputation, and who knew to whom he was indebted for his elevation.
The pride and haughtiness of Agrippina far transcended anything that Rome had as yet witnessed in a woman. When the British prince Caractacus and his family, whom P. Ostorius had sent captives to the emperor, were led before him as he sat on his tribunal in the plain under the prætorian camp, with all the troops drawn out, Agrippina appeared seated on another tribunal, as the partner of his power. And again, when the letting off of the Fucine Lake was celebrated with a naval combat, she presided with him, habited in a military cloak of cloth of gold.
Agrippina at length grew weary of delay, or fearful of discovery. Narcissus, who saw at what she was aiming, appeared resolved to exert all his influence in favour of Britannicus; and Claudius himself, one day when he was drunk, was heard to say that it was his fate to bear with the infamy of his wives and then to punish it. He had also begun to show peculiar marks of affection for Britannicus. She therefore resolved to act without delay.e
TACITUS DESCRIBES THE MURDER OF CLAUDIUS
[54 A.D.]
Claudius was attacked with illness, and for the recovery of his health had recourse to the soft air and salubrious waters of Sinuessa. It was then that Agrippina, long since bent upon the impious deed, and eagerly seizing the present occasion, well furnished too as she was with wicked agents, deliberated upon the nature of the poison she would use: whether, if it were sudden and instantaneous in its operation, the desperate achievement would not be brought to light; if she chose materials slow and consuming in their operation, whether Claudius, when his end approached, and perhaps having discovered the treachery, would not resume his affection for his son. Something of a subtle nature was resolved upon, “such as would disorder his brain and require time to kill.” An experienced artist in such preparations was chosen, her name Locusta; lately condemned for poisoning, and long reserved as one of the instruments of ambition. By this woman’s skill the poison was prepared; to administer it was assigned to Halotus, one of the eunuchs, whose office it was to serve up the emperor’s repasts, and prove the viands by tasting them.
In fact, all the particulars of this transaction were soon afterwards so thoroughly known that the writers of those times are able to recount how the poison was poured into a dish of mushrooms, of which he was particularly fond; but whether it was that his senses were stupefied, or from the 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 ensure the reward they must be done effectually at once.
The senate was in the meantime 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.
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 Britannicus was, 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 there any hesitation in the several provinces. To Claudius were decreed divine honours, and his funeral obsequies were solemnised 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.d
THE CHARACTER OF CLAUDIUS
We meet with more than one instance in the imperial history of the parents suffering for the sins of their children. We have already seen how much reason there is to believe that the hatred of the Romans to Tiberius disposed them readily to accept any calumny against Livia. Tiberius himself was hated the more for the crimes of his successor Caius; and there is ground to surmise that much of the odium which has attached to Claudius is reflected from the horror with which Nero came afterwards to be regarded. Thus did the Romans avenge themselves on the authors of the principle of hereditary succession so long unknown to their polity, and known at last so disadvantageously.
Of Claudius, at least, a feeling of compassion, if not of justice, may incline us to pronounce with more indulgence than has usually been accorded to him. He was an imitator, as we have seen, of Augustus, but only as the silver age might parody the golden; for the manners he sought to revive, and the sentiments he pretended to regenerate, had not been blighted by the passing tempest of civil war, but were naturally decaying from the over-ripeness of age. Nevertheless, it was honourable to admire a noble model; there was some generosity even in the attempt to rival the third founder of the state. Nor, in fact, does any period of Roman history exhibit more outward signs of vigorous and successful administration: none was more fertile in victories or produced more gallant commanders or excellent soldiers; domestic affairs were prosperously conducted; the laborious industry of the emperor himself tired out all his ministers and assistants. The senate recovered some portion of its authority, and, with authority, of courage and energy.