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The Childhood of Nero
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THE CHILDHOOD OF NERO
[105] DURING the time that Agrippina had been passing through the
strange and eventful vicissitudes of her history, described
in the preceding chapters, young Nero himself, as we shall
henceforth call him, had been growing up an active and
intelligent, but an indulged and ungoverned boy. His own
father died when he was about three years old. This,
however, was an advantage probably, rather than a loss to
the boy, as Brazenbeard was an extremely coarse, cruel, and
unprincipled man. He once killed one of his slaves for not
drinking as much as he ordered him. Riding one day in his
chariot through a village, he drove wantonly and purposely
over a boy, and killed him on the spot. He defrauded all who
dealt with him, and was repeatedly prosecuted for the worst
of crimes. He treated his wife with great brutality. As has
already been said, he received the announcement of the birth
of his
[106] son with derision, saying that nothing but what was
detestable could come from him and Agrippina; and when they
asked him what name they should give the child, he
recommended to them to name him Claudius. This was said in
contempt, for Claudius was at that time despised by every
one, as a deformed and stupid idiot, though he was
subsequently made emperor in the manner that has been
already explained. The manifestation of such a spirit, at
such a time, on the part of her husband, pained Agrippina
exceedingly,—but the more it pained her, the more
Brazenbeard was gratified and amused. The death of such a
father could, of course, be no calamity.
When Agrippina, Nero's mother, was banished from Rome by the
order of Caligula, Nero himself did not accompany her, but
remained behind under the care of his aunt Lepida, with whom
he lived for a time in comparative neglect and obscurity.
Though he belonged to one of the most aristocratic families
of Rome, his mother being a descendant and heir of the
Cæsars, he spent some years in a situation of poverty and
disgrace. His education was neglected, as he received
[107] no instruction at this time except from a dancing-master and
a barber, who were his only tutors. Of course, the formation
of his moral character was wholly neglected,—nor, in fact,
considering the character of those by whom he was
surrounded, would it have been possible that any favorable
influence should have been exerted upon him, if the attempt
had been made.
At length when Caligula died and Agrippina was recalled from
her banishment by Claudius, and reinstated in her former
position at Rome, Nero emerged from his obscurity, and
thenceforth lived with his mother in luxury and splendor in
the capital. Nero was a handsome boy, and he soon became an
object of great popular favor and regard. He often appeared
in public at entertainments and celebrations, and when he
did so he was always specially noticed and caressed. His
companion, and in some respects his rival and competitor, at
such times, was Britannicus, the son of Claudius and
Messalina. Britannicus was two or three years younger than
Nero, and being the son of the emperor was of course a very
prominent and conspicuous object of attention whenever he
appeared.
[108] But the rank of Nero was scarcely less high, since his
mother was descended directly from the imperial family,
while in age and personal appearance and bearing he was
superior to his cousin.
One instance is specially noticed by the historians of those
days, in which young Nero was honored with an extraordinary
degree of public attention and regard. It was on the
occasion of celebrating what might be called the centennial
games. These games were generally supposed to be celebrated
at each recurrence of a certain astronomical period, of
about one hundred years' duration, called an age; but in
reality it was at irregular though very distant intervals
that they were observed. Claudius instituted a celebration
of them early in his reign. There had been a celebration of
them in the reign of Augustus, not many years before,—but
Claudius, wishing to signalize his own reign by some great
entertainment and display, pretended that Augustus had made
a miscalculation, and had observed the festival at the wrong
time; and he ordained, accordingly, that the celebration
should take place again.
The games and shows connected with this
[109] festival extended through three successive days. They
consisted of sacrifices and other religious rites, dramatic
spectacles, athletic games, and military and gladiatorial
shows. In the course of these diversions there was
celebrated on one of the days what was called the Trojan
game, in which young boys of leading and distinguished
families appeared on horseback in a circus or ring, where
they performed certain evolutions and feats of horsemanship,
and mock conflicts, in the midst of the tens of thousands of
spectators who thronged the seats around. Of course
Britannicus and Nero were the most prominent and conspicuous
of the boys on this occasion. Nero, however, in the
estimation of the populace, bore off the palm. He was
received with the loudest acclamations by the whole
assembly, while Britannicus attracted far less attention.
This triumph filled Agrippina's heart with pride and
pleasure, while it occasioned to Messalina the greatest
vexation and chagrin. It made Agrippina more than ever
before the object of Messalina's hatred and hostility, and
the empress would very probably before long have found some
means of destroying her rival had she not soon after this
become
in- [110] volved herself in the difficulties arising out of her
connection with Silius, which resulted so soon in her own
destruction.
The people, however, were filled with admiration of Nero,
and they applauded his performance with the utmost
enthusiasm. He was for a time a subject of conversation in
every circle throughout the city, and many tales were told
of his history and his doings. Among other things which were
related of him, the story was circulated that Messalina
became so excited against him in her jealousy and envy, that
she sent two assassins to murder him in his sleep; and that
the assassins, coming to him in a garden where he was lying
asleep upon a pillow, were just putting their cruel orders
into execution when they were driven away by a serpent that
appeared miraculously at the moment to defend the
child—darting out at the assassins from beneath the pillow.
Others said that it was in his infancy that this occurrence
took place, and that there were two serpents instead of one,
and that they guarded the life of their charge lying with
him in his cradle. One of the historians of the time states
that neither of these stories was really true, but that they
[111] both originated in the fact that Nero was accustomed to
wear, when a boy, a bracelet made of a serpent's skin, small
and of beautiful colors,—and fastened, as they said, around
the wearer's wrist with a clasp of gold.
However the fact may be in respect to Messalina's allowing
her jealousy of Agrippina to carry her so far as to make
direct attempts upon his life, there is no doubt that she
lived in continual fear of the influence both of Nero and of
his mother, on the mind of the emperor; and Agrippina was
consequently compelled to submit to many indignities which
the position and the power of Messalina enabled her to
impose upon her enemies and rivals. At length, however, the
fall of Messalina, and the entire revolution in the
situation and prospects of Agrippina which was consequent
upon it, changed altogether the position of Nero. It might
have been expected, it is true, even after the marriage of
Claudius with Agrippina, that Britannicus would have still
maintained altogether the highest place in the emperor's
regard, since Britannicus was his own son, while Nero was
only the son of his wife. But Agrippina was artful enough to
manage her indolent and stupid husband
[112] just as she pleased; and she soon found means to displace
Britannicus, and to raise Nero in his stead, to the highest
place, in precedence and honor. She persuaded Claudius to
adopt Nero as his own son, as was stated in the last
chapter. She obtained a decree of the Senate, approving and
confirming this act. She then removed Britannicus from the
court and shut him up in seclusion, in a nursery, under
pretense of tender regard for his health and safety. In a
word, she treated Britannicus in all respects like a little
child, and kept him wholly in the background; while she
brought her own son, though he was but little older than the
other, very prominently forward, as a young man.
In those ancient days as now, there was an appropriate dress
for youth, which was changed for that of a man when the
subject arrived at maturity. The garment which was most
distinctively characteristic of adult age among the Romans
was called the toga; and it was assumed by the Roman youth,
not as the dress of a man is by young persons now, in a
private and informal manner, according as the convenience or
fancy of the individual may dictate,—but publicly and with
much
[113] ceremony, and always at the time when the party arrived at
the period of legal majority; so that assuming the toga
marked always a very important era of life. This distinction
Agrippina caused to be conferred upon Nero by a special
edict when he was only fourteen years of age, which was at a
very much earlier period than usual. On the occasion of thus
advancing him to the dress and to the legal capabilities of
manhood, Agrippina brought him out in a special manner
before the people of Rome at a great public celebration, and
the more effectually to call public attention to him as a
young prince of the highest distinction in the imperial
family, she induced Claudius to bestow a largess upon the
people, and a donative upon the army, that is a public
distribution of money, to the citizens and to the soldiers,
in Nero's name.
All this time Britannicus was kept shut up in the private
apartments of the palace with nurses and children. The
tutors and attendants whom Messalina his mother provided for
him were one by one removed, and their places supplied by
others whom Agrippina selected for the purpose, and whom she
could rely upon to second her views. When
[114] inquired of in respect to Britannicus by those who had known
him before, during his mother's lifetime, she replied that
he was a weak and feeble child, subject to fits, and thus
necessarily kept secluded from society.
Sometimes, indeed, on great public occasions, both Nero and
Britannicus appeared together, but even in these cases the
arrangements were so made as to impress the public mind more
forcibly than ever with an idea of the vast superiority of
Nero, in respect to rank and position. On one such
occasion, while Britannicus was carried about clothed in the
dress of a child, and with attendants characteristic of the
nursery, Nero rode on horseback, richly appareled in the
triumphal robes of a general returning from a foreign
campaign.
Agrippina was one day made very angry with Britannicus, for
what might seem a very trifling cause. It seems that
Britannicus, though young, was a very intelligent boy, and
that he understood perfectly the policy which his
step-mother was pursuing toward him, and was very unwilling
to submit to be thus supplanted. One day, when he and Nero
were both abroad, attending some
pub- [115] lic spectacle or celebration, they met, and Nero accosted his
cousin, calling him Britannicus. Britannicus, in returning
the salutation, addressed Nero familiarly by the name
Domitius;—Domitius Ahenobarbus having been his name before
he was adopted by Claudius. Agrippina was very indignant
when she heard of this. She considered the using of this
name by Britannicus, as denoting, on his part, a refusal to
acknowledge his cousin as the adopted son of his father. She
immediately went to Claudius with earnest and angry
complainings. "Your own edict," said she, "sanctioned and
confirmed by the Senate, is disavowed and annulled, and my
son is subjected to public insult by the impertinence of
this child." Agrippina farther represented to Claudius,
that Britannicus never would have thought of addressing her
son in such a manner, of his own accord. His doing it must
have arisen from the influence of some of the persons around
him who were hostile to her; and she made use of the
occasion to induce Claudius to give her authority to remove
all that remained of the child's instructors and governors,
who could be suspected of a friendly interest in his cause,
and
[116] to subject him to new and more rigorous restrictions than
ever.
One of the most imposing of all the spectacles and
celebrations which Claudius instituted during his reign, was
the one which signalized the opening of the canal by which
the Fucine lake was drained. The Fucine lake was a large but
shallow body of water, at the foot of the Appenines, near
the sources of the Tiber.
It was subject to periodic inundations, by which the
surrounding lands were submerged. An engineer had offered to
drain the lake, in consideration of receiving for his pay
the lands which would be laid dry by the operation. But
Claudius, who seemed to have quite a taste for such
undertakings, preferred to accomplish the work himself. The
canal by which the water should be conveyed away, was to be
formed in part by a deep cut, and partly by a tunnel through
a mountain; and inasmuch as in those days the power now
chiefly relied upon for making such excavations, namely, the
explosive force of gunpowder, was not known, any extensive
working in solid rock was an operation of immense labor.
When the canal
[117] was finished, Claudius determined to institute a grand
celebration to signalize the opening of it for drawing off
the water; and as he could not safely rely on the hydraulic
interest of the spectacle for drawing such a concourse to
the spot as he wished to see there, he concluded to add to
the entertainment a show more suited to the taste and habits
of the times. He made arrangements accordingly for having a
naval battle fought upon the lake, for the amusement of the
spectators, just before the opening of the canal, which was
to draw off the water. Thus the battle was to be the closing
scene, in which the history and existence of the lake were
to be terminated forever.
Ships were accordingly built, and an immense number of men
were designated and set apart for fighting the battle. These
men consisted of convicts and prisoners of war—men whom it
was, in those days, considered perfectly just and right to
employ in killing one another for the amusement of the
emperor and his guests. A sort of bulwark was built all
around the shore, and the emperor's guards were stationed
upon it, to prevent the escape of the combatants, and to
turn them
[118] back to their duty if any of them should attempt, when
pressed hard in the battle, to escape to the land. The fleet
of galleys was divided into two antagonistic portions, and
the men in each were armed completely, as in a case of
actual war. At the appointed time, hundreds of thousands of
people assembled from all the surrounding country to see the
sight. They lined the shores on every side, and crowned all
the neighboring heights. The contest, of course, might be
waged with all the fury and fatal effect of a real battle
without endangering the spectators at all, as there were in
those days no flying bullets, or other swift-winged
missiles, like those which in modern times take so wide a
range beyond the limits of the battle. The deadly effect of
all that was done in an ancient combat was confined of
course to those immediately engaged. Then there was,
besides, nothing to intercept the vision. No smoke was
raised to obscure the view, but the atmosphere above and
around the combatants remained as pure and transparent at
the end of the combat as at the beginning.
A real battle was accordingly regarded by the Romans as the
most sublime and imposing
[119] of spectacles, and hundreds of thousands of spectators
flocked to witness the one which Claudius arranged for them
on the Fucine lake. He himself presided, dressed in a coat
of mail; and Agrippina sat by his side, clothed in a
magnificent robe, which the historian states was woven from
threads of gold, without the admixture of any other
material. The signal was given, and the battle was
commenced. There was some difficulty experienced, as usual
in such cases, in getting the men to engage, but they became
sufficiently ferocious at last to satisfy all the
spectators, and thousands were slain. At length the emperor
gave orders that the battle should cease, and the survivors
were informed that their lives were spared.
It was fortunate, on the whole, for Claudius, that he did
not rely wholly on the simple drawing off of the water from
the lake for the amusement of the immense assemblage that he
had convened, for it was found, when, after the close of the
battle, the canal was opened, that the water would not run.
The engineers had made some mistake in their measurements or
their calculations, and had left the bed of the canal in
some part of its
[120] course too high, so that the water, when the sluices were
opened, instead of flowing off into the river to which the
canal was intended to conduct it, remained quietly in the
lake as before.
The assembly dispersed, and the work on the canal was
resumed with a view of making it deeper. In the course of a
year the excavation was completed, and all was made ready
for a new trial. Claudius summoned a new assembly to witness
the operation, and at this time, instead of a naval
conflict, he made provision for a great combat of
gladiators, to be fought on immense floating platforms which
were built upon the lake near the outlet which the engineers
had made. In the end, however, the second attempt to make
the water flow, proved more unfortunate than the first. The
channel had been made very deep and wide, so that the water
was inclined to move, when once put in motion, with the
utmost impetuosity and force; and it so happened, that in
some way or other, the means which the engineer had relied
upon for controlling it were insufficient, and when the
gates were opened every thing suddenly gave way. The water
rushed out in an
overwhelm- [121] ing torrent, as in an inundation—and undermined and carried away
the platforms and stagings which had been erected for the
seats of the spectators. A scene of indescribable tumult and
confusion ensued. The emperor and empress, with the guests
and spectators, fled precipitously together, and all
narrowly escaped being carried down into the canal.
It is by no means difficult to imagine what sort of a
character a boy must necessarily form, brought up under such
influences and surrounded by such scenes as those which thus
prevailed at the court of Claudius. It proved in the end
that Nero experienced the full effect of them. He became
proud, vain, self-willed, cruel, and accustomed to yield
himself without restraint to all those wicked propensities
and passions which, under such circumstances, always gain
dominion over the human soul.
Besides Britannicus, it will be recollected that Messalina
had left another child,—a daughter named Octavia, who was
two or three years younger than her brother, and of course
about five years younger than Nero. Agrippina did not pursue
the same course of
[122] opposition and hostility toward her which she had adopted in
regard to Britannicus. She determined, at the outset, upon a
very different plan. Britannicus was necessarily a rival and
competitor for Nero; and every step in advance which he
should make, could not operate otherwise than as an
impediment and obstacle to Nero's success. But Octavia, as
Agrippina thought, might be employed to further and aid her
designs, by being betrothed, and in due time married, to her
son.
The advantages of such a scheme were very obvious,—so
obvious in fact that the design was formed by Agrippina at
the very beginning,—even before her own marriage with the
emperor was fully effected. There was one serious obstacle
in the way, and that was that Octavia was already betrothed
to a very distinguished young nobleman named Lucius Silanus.
Agrippina, after having, by various skillful manuvers,
succeeded in enlisting the public officers who would act as
judges in his case, caused Silanus to be accused of infamous
crimes. The historians say that the evidence which was
adduced against him was of the most trivial character. Still
he was condemned. He seems to have understood
[123] the nature and the cause of the hostility which had suddenly
developed itself against him, and to have felt at once all
the hopelessness of his condition. He killed himself in his
despair on the very night of the marriage of Claudius with
Agrippina.
The empress found afterward no serious difficulty in
accomplishing her design. She obtained the emperor's consent
to a betrothal of Nero to Octavia; but as they were yet too
young to be married, the ceremony was postponed for a short
time. At length in about five years after the marriage of
Agrippina herself, Nero and Octavia were married. Nero was
at that time about sixteen years of age. His bride of course
was only eleven.
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