by F. W. Farrar
CHAPTER X
_PRINCE BRITANNICUS._
‘We were, fair queen, Two lads that thought there was no more behind, But such a day to-morrow as to-day, And to be boy eternal.’
SHAKESPEARE, _The Winter’s Tale_, i. 2.
There were few youths in Rome more deserving of pity than theson of Claudius. Britannicus saw himself not only superseded, butdeliberately neglected and thrust into the background. The intriguesof his stepmother had succeeded, and he, the true heir to the Empire,was a cipher in the Palace of the Cæsars. The suite of apartmentsassigned to his use and that of his immediate attendants was in oneof the least frequented parts of the Palace. He often heard from thebanquet hall and reception rooms, as he passed by them unnoticed, thesounds of revelry, in which he was only allowed on rare occasions toparticipate. Agrippina, in her varying moods, treated him sometimeswith studied coolness and insulting patronage, sometimes with a sortof burning and maudlin affection, as though she were touched by thefuries of remorse. The latter mood was more intolerable to him thanthe former. Sometimes, when she strained him to her steely heart,he felt as if he could have thrust her from him with loathing, andhe made his relations with her more difficult because he was toolittle of an actor to conceal his dislike. Nero usually met him withsneering banter, but he, too, at times, seemed as though he wouldlike to be treated by him with at least the semblance of brotherlycordiality. He found his chief comfort in the society of Octavia. Shewas, nominally, the Empress, and Nero, though he shunned her to theutmost of his power, had not yet dared to rob her of the dignitieswhich surrounded her exalted rank. It was in the company of hissister that Britannicus spent his happiest hours. Octavia, as oftenas she dared, invited him to be present on festive occasions, and inher apartments he could find refuge for a time from the most detestedof the spies with whom his stepmother had surrounded him from hisearly boyhood.
There was but one person about him whom he really trusted and loved.It was the centurion Pudens, who, being one of the imperial guardcalled _excubitores_, was often stationed at one point or other ofthe Palace. So vast was the interior of that pile of architecture,so intricate its structure, owing to the numerous additions which hadbeen made to it by each succeeding Emperor, that for a boy bent, asBritannicus was, on occasionally eluding the intolerable watchfulnessof his nominal slaves, it was not difficult to conceal his movements.Happily, too, he had one boyish friend whom he loved, and who lovedhim, with entire affection. It was Titus, the elder son of Vespasian.Even as a boy he gave promise of the fine moral qualities by whichhe was afterwards distinguished. His father was a soldier who hadrisen by merit to high command, and had even been Consul; but hisgrandfather was only a humble provincial, and, as his family waspoor, he little dreamed that he too was destined to the purple ofwhich his friend had been deprived. He was only a month or two olderthan Britannicus. They shared the same studies and the same games,and there was something contagious in his healthy vigour andimperturbable good humour. It was at least some alleviation to thesorrows of the younger boy that this manly and virtuous lad, withhis short curly hair and athletic frame, was always ready to exerthimself to brighten his loneliness and divert his thoughts. Paintersmight have called the features of Titus plebeian, but in his eyes andmouth there was an expression of honesty and sweetness which endearedhim to the heart of the lonely prince, who admired him far more thanany of the boys in the noblest families.
The political insignificance of the Flavian family had been onereason why Agrippina had chosen Titus as a companion for the son ofClaudius, instead of some scion of the old aristocracy of Rome. Itwas well for Britannicus that his fellow-pupil came of a race purerand simpler than that of the youthful patricians.
The two boys had been educated together for some years; and Titus,when he became Emperor, still retained a fond affection for thecompanion of his youth, to whom he erected an equestrian statue.There was a story, known to very few, which might have endangered thelife of Titus, had it been divulged. One day, when the two boys werelearning their lessons together, Narcissus had brought in one of theforeign physiognomists who were known as _metoposcopi_, to look atthem from behind a curtain. The man did not know who they were; heonly knew that they were in some way connected with the Palace. Aftercarefully studying their faces, he said that the elder of the two,Titus, should certainly become Emperor, but the younger as certainlyshould not. At that time Britannicus was heir to the throne.Narcissus was superstitious, and his heart misgave him; but hederived some comfort from the absurd improbability of a prophecythat a boy who had been born in so humble a house, and was only thedescendant of a Cisalpine haymaker, should ever wear the purple ofthe Cæsars. He was too kind-hearted to let the anecdote be generallyknown, for even as a boy Titus was liked by every one, if he was notyet ‘the darling of the human race.’
One day, as Titus went across the viridarium, or chief green courtof the Palace, he saw a little slave-boy struggling hard to represshis sobs. His kindly nature was touched by the sight. He had notbeen trained in the school of those haughty youths who thought it adegradation to speak to their slaves; his father, Vespasian, beinghimself of lowly origin, held, with Seneca, that slaves, after all,were men, and might become dear and faithful friends.
‘What is your name, and why do you weep, my little man?’ asked Titus.
‘They call me Epictetus,’ said the child; ‘and I am the slave ofEpaphroditus, the Emperor’s secretary. I fell and hurt my leg verybadly against the marble rim of the fountain. Don’t be angry with me.I will bear the pain.’[15]
‘A born Stoic!’ said Titus, smiling. ‘But what is the matter withyour leg?’
‘I will tell you, sir,’ answered Epictetus. ‘Being deformed anduseless, as you see, my master thought that he might turn me to someaccount by having me taught philosophy, and he made me _capsarius_[16]to his son, who attends the lectures of Musonius Rufus. Musonius, whois kind and good, let me sit in a corner and listen. I am not a Stoicyet, but I shall try to be one some day.’
‘But even now you have not told me how you came to be lame.’
The young slave blushed. ‘Eight weeks ago,’ he said, ‘I was walkingpast the door of the triclinium, when a slave came out with somecrystal vases on a tray. He ran against me, and one of the vases felland was broken. He charged me with having broken it, and Epaphroditusordered my leg to be twisted. It hurt me terribly, but Musonius hadtaught me to endure, and I only cried out, “If you go on, you willbreak my leg.” He went on, and broke it. I did not give way then,and I am ashamed that you saw me crying now.’
‘Poor lad! Come with me to Prince Britannicus and tell him thatstory. He is kind, and will pity you, and perhaps get the EmpressOctavia to do something for you.’
Epictetus limped after Titus, and Britannicus was pleased with theslave-boy’s quaint fortitude and the preternatural gravity of hisface. He often sat on the floor while the two friends talked orplayed at draughts, and would sometimes retail to them what he hadheard in the lectures of Musonius. They laughed at his _naïveté_, butsomething of the teaching stuck. The Stoicism of Titus had its germin those boyish days.
One other friend, strange to say, Britannicus had near at hand,though she could not openly have much conversation with him. Itwas the fair freedwoman Acte. Her situation in the Palace didnot argue in her a depraved mind. She had not been trained in anatmosphere which made her suppose that there was anything sinful inher relations with the Emperor. Brought from Asia in early youth, shewas practically no more than a slave, though she had been emancipatedby Claudius. The will of a master, even if that master was far belowan Emperor, was regarded as a necessary law.[17] But Acte had a goodheart, and so far from being puffed up by the ardent affection ofNero, her one desire was to use her influence for the benefit ofothers. For Britannicus she felt the deepest pity. She had evenaroused the anger of her lover by pleading in his behalf, and thoughit was impossible that she should do more than interchange with himan
occasional salutation, the boy gratefully recognised that Acte didher best to gain for him every indulgence and relaxation in her power.
Britannicus had inherited some of his father’s fondness for history.He was never happier than when Titus told him some of the storieswhich he had heard from Vespasian about his campaigns in Britain.He had even persuaded Pudens to go with him to visit the old Britishchief, Caractacus--or, to give him his right name, Caradoc--whohad kept the Romans at bay for nine years, until he was betrayedto them by the treacherous Queen Cartismandua. And much had come ofthis visit; for there Pudens saw for the first time the daughter ofCaradoc, the yellow-haired British princess Claudia, and had fallendeeply in love with her. The grey King of the Silures, whose manlyeloquence had moved the admiration of Claudius on the day when hehad been led along in triumph, was eating away his heart in a strangeland. He rejoiced to see the son of the Emperor who had spared hislife, and he delighted the boy’s imagination with many a tale of theDruids, and Mona, and the wild Silurian hills and the vast rushingrivers, and the hunting of the wolf and the wild-boar in the marshesand forests of Caer Leon and Caer Went. While Caractacus was tellingthese stories there was ample opportunity for Pudens to improve hisacquaintance with the fair Claudia, who talked to him with a yearningheart of her home on the silver Severn, which Pudens had once visitedas a very young soldier.
These interviews made Britannicus eager to form the acquaintanceof Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of the southern part of that farisland. Plautius stood well at Court, and had been greatly honouredby Claudius, who had condescended to walk by his side in the ovationwhich rewarded the successful campaigns of four years. Britannicusgained easy permission to visit the old general, and at his househe met his wife, Pomponia Græcina.
This lady was regarded at Rome as a paragon of faithful friendship.She had been deeply attached in early youth to her royal kinswomanJulia, the granddaughter of Tiberius. Julia had been one of thevictims of the cruelty of Messalina, and from the day of herexecution, for forty years, Pomponia never appeared but in mourninggarments, and it was said, though without truth, that she neverwore a smile upon her face.
But though she smiled but rarely, the beauty of Pomponia wasexquisite from her look of serenity and contentment. She was unlikethe other ladies of Roman society. She never tinged her face withwalnut juice, or painted it with rouge and cerussa, or reared hertresses into an elaborate edifice of curls, or sprinkled them withgold dust, or breathed of Assyrian odours. Her life and her dresswere exquisitely simple. She wore no ornaments, or few. She rarelyappeared at any banquet, and then only with her husband at the housesof the graver and more virtuous senators. Vice was involuntarilyabashed at her presence. The talk which Roman matrons sometimesdid not blush to hear was felt to be impossible where Pomponia waspresent, nor would any one have dreamed of introducing loose gymnastsor Gaditanian dancers as the amusement of any guests of whom she wasone. Hence she was more and more neglected by the jewelled dandiesand divorced ladies, who fluttered amid the follies of a heartlessaristocracy, and gradually the gossiping pleasure-hunters ofRome came to hate her because her whole life was a rebuke ofthe degradation of a corrupt society.
Hatred soon took the form of whispered accusations. The suspicionwas first broached by Calvia Crispinilla, a lady whose notoriouslyevil character elevated her high in the confidence of Nero, and who,in spite of her rank, was afterwards proud of the infamy of beingappointed keeper of the wardrobe of his favourite Sporus.
Talking one day to Ælia Petina, a divorced wife of Claudius andmother of his daughter Antonia, she expressed her dislike ofPomponia, and said, ‘It is impossible that any worshipper of ourgods should live a life so austere as Pomponia’s. Hark, in your ears,Petina. She must be’--and sinking her voice to a tragic whisper shesaid--‘she must be a secret Christian.’
‘Well,’ said Petina, ‘what does it matter? Nero himself worships theSyrian goddess, and they say that the lovely Poppæa Sabina, the wifeof Otho, is a Jewess.’
‘A Jewess! oh, that is comparatively respectable,’ said Crispinilla.‘Why, Berenice, the charming sister--ahem! the very deeply attachedsister--of Agrippa, you know, is a Jewess; and what diamonds thatwoman has! But a Christian! Why, the very word has a taint ofvulgarity about it, and leaves a bad flavour in the mouth! None butunspeakable slaves and cobblers and Phrygian runaways belong to thoseworshippers of the god Onokoites and the head of an ass.’[18]
What malice had invented as a calumny happened in this instance tobe a truth. Pomponia was indeed a secret Christian. The wind blowethwhere it listeth, and none can tell whence it cometh or whitherit goeth. She had accompanied her husband when he had been sentto subdue Britain, and had known the agonies of long and intenselyanxious separation from him, and during those periods of trial shehad been compelled to be much alone, and part of the time she hadspent in Gaul. Persis, her confidential handmaid, had met one ofthe early missionaries of the faith, had heard his message, had beenconverted. Accident had revealed the fact to the noble Roman lady;and as she talked with Persis in many a long and lonely hour, herheart too had been touched by grace, and a life always pure had nowbecome the life of a saint of God.
Plautius was glad to notice the manly interest taken by Britannicusin the country from which his name had been derived, and in martialachievements rather than in the debasing effeminacies of the Romannobles. He always welcomed the boy’s presence, and introduced himto the kind hospitalities of his wife. Both parents were glad thata scion of the Cæsars who seemed to show the old Roman virtues ofmodesty and manliness should be a frequent companion of their ownson, the young Aulus. To Pomponia the son of Claudius felt stronglydrawn. She was wholly unlike any type of woman he had ever seen;she seemed to be separated by whole worlds of difference from suchladies as his own mother, Messalina, or his stepmother, Agrippina;and though she only dressed in simple and sombre garments, yet thepeace and sweetness which breathed from her countenance made her morelovely in his eyes than the great wives of Consuls and senators whomhe had so often seen sweeping through gilded chambers on the Palatinein their gleaming and gold-embroidered robes. He noticed, too, thathis sister, the Empress Octavia, never visited her without cominghome in a happier and more contented mood.
One day, being more than ever filled with admiration for hergoodness, he had spoken to her freely of all his bitter trials, ofall his terrible misgivings. She had impressed on him the duties ofresignation and forgiveness; and had tried to show him that in a mindconscious of integrity he might have a possession better and moreabiding than if he sat amid numberless temptations to baseness on anuneasy throne.
‘You speak,’ he said, ‘like Musonius Rufus; for the young Phrygianslave, Epictetus, whom Titus took compassion on and sometimes bringsto our rooms, has told me much about his Stoic lectures. But there issomething--I know not what--in your advice which is higher and morecheerful than in his.’
Pomponia smiled. ‘Much that Musonius teaches is true and beautiful,’she said; ‘but there is a diviner truth in the world than his.’
Britannicus was silent for a moment, and then, hesitatingly and withreluctance, he said, ‘Will you forgive me, noble Pomponia, if I askyou a question?’
The pale countenance of the lady grew a shade paler, and she replied,‘You might ask me what I should not think it right to answer.’
‘You know,’ said the boy, ‘that at banquets and other gatherings Icannot help hearing the gossip and scandal which they talk all theday long. And all the worst ladies--persons like Crispinilla andPetina and Silana--seem to hate you, I know not why; and they saidthat you would be accused some day of holding a foreign superstition.’
Pomponia clasped her hands, and uttered a few words which Britannicuscould not hear. Then, turning to him, she said, ‘Perhaps Musonius hasquoted those lines of Cleanthes, “Lead me, O Father of the world. Iwill follow thee, even though I weep.”[19] We can never prevent thewicked from accusing us, but we can always give the lie to theiraccusations by innocent lives.’
‘What they said besides, _must_ have been an absurd and wicked lie,’continued Britannicus. ‘They said’--and here he made the sign ofaverting an evil omen which has been prevalent in Italy from theearliest days--‘that--you--were--dare I speak the vulgar word?--aChristian.’
‘And what do you know about the Christians, Britannicus?’
‘In truth I know very little, for I am not allowed to go about much;but Titus, who hears more than I do, tells me that they meet atnight, and kill a babe, and drink its blood; and bind themselves byhorrid oaths; and tie dogs to the lamp-stands, and hark them on tothrow over the lamps, and are afterwards guilty of dreadful orgies.And they worship an ass’s head.’
‘What makes you believe that slanderous nonsense?’
‘Why, Titus is fond of scratching his name on the wall, and when wewere going out of the pædagogium in the House of Gelotius, which,you know, is now used as a training school for the pages, he scrawled_Titus Flavius Vespasianus leaves the pædagogium_, and then drew alittle sketch of a donkey, and underneath it _Toil, little ass, as Ihave done, and it will do you good_. I laughed at him for scribblingon the wall, and to make fun of him I wrote underneath--
‘“I wonder, oh wall, that your stones do not fall, Bescribbled all o’er with the nonsense of all.”
And I told him that I should put up a notice like that at the PortusPortuensis, which begs boys and idlers not to scarify (_scarificare_)the walls. But while I was writing the lines, I caught sight of anodd picture which some one had scratched there. It was a figure withan ass’s head on a cross, and underneath it “Alexamenos adores God.”I asked Titus what it meant, and suggested that it was a satire onthe worship of the Egyptian Anubis. But Titus said, “No! that isintended to annoy the Christians.”’[20]
‘Well, Britannicus,’ said Pomponia, ‘I know something more aboutthese poor Christians than that. All these are lies. I dare say youhave read, or Sosibius has read to you, some of the writings ofSeneca?’
‘No,’ said Britannicus, reddening. ‘Seneca is my brother Nero’stutor. It is he, and Agrippina, and Pallas, who have done away withthe will of my father, Claudius. I don’t care to hear anything hesays. He is not a true philosopher, like Musonius or Cornutus. Heonly writes fine things which he does not believe.’
‘A man may write very true things, Prince,’ said Pomponia, ‘yet notlive up to them. I have here some of his letters, which his friendLucilius has shown me. Let me read you a few passages.’
She took down the scroll of purple vellum, on which she had copiedsome of the letters, and, unrolling it, read a sentence here andthere:--
‘“_God is near you, is with you, is within you. A sacred spiritdwells within us, the observer and guardian of all our evil and ourgood; there is no good man without God._”
‘“_What advantage is it that anything is hidden from man? Nothing isclosed to God._”
‘“_Even from a corner it is possible to spring up into heaven. Rise,therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of God._”
‘“_Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be virtuous; to honourthem it is enough to imitate them._”
‘“_You must live for another, if you wish to live for yourself._”
‘“_In every good man, God dwells._”[21]
‘I could read you many more thoughts like these from Seneca’sletters. Are they not true and beautiful?’
‘I wish his own acts were as true and beautiful,’ answeredBritannicus. ‘But what has this to do with the Christians?’
‘This: every one of those thoughts, and many much deeper, arecommonplaces among Christians; but the difference between them andthe worshippers of the gods is that they possess other truths whichmake these _real_. They alone are innocent.’
‘And they do not worship an ass’s head? Well, at any rate, Christusor Chrestus, whom they do worship, was crucified in Palestine byPontius Pilatus.’
‘And does suffering prevent a man from being divine? All Romansworship Hercules, yet they believe, or profess to believe, that hewas burnt alive on ?'ta.’
Britannicus was silent, for he had always thought it a colossalinsanity on the part of the Christians to worship one who had beencrucified like a slave.
‘Tell me,’ said Pomponia, ‘when Epictetus reads you his notes of thelectures of Musonius, does not the name of Socrates sometimes occurin them?’
‘Yes,’ said the young prince; ‘it occurs constantly. Musonius talkedof Socrates as a perfect pattern, and all but divine.’
‘And how did Socrates die?’
‘He was poisoned by the Athenians with hemlock in their commonprison.’
‘As a malefactor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it, then, prove him to be worthless that he, too, died thedeath of a felon? And are all philosophers fools for extending somuch reverence to a poisoned criminal?’
‘I never thought of that,’ said Britannicus.
‘And are all the other stories about these Christians lies?’ he askedafter a pause.
‘They are,’ said Pomponia. ‘Some day, perhaps, you shall judge foryour own self.’