CHAP. LIX.

NERO'S GOLDEN HOUSE.

485

submissive, bequeathed to their descendants a memory of their wrongs which could never die, but, voiceless as it was, took deep root in their bosoms, and resulted at last in the greatest of all social and moral revolutions.

But Nero, still scarcely conscious of the real perils with which he was environed, returned to witness the restoration of Rome from the ruins of the great conflagration, expanded and beautified in the style of Greece rather than of Italy; and still more to rejoice in the completion of the enormous palace which he had caused to be constructed the Golden House, as it was vaingloriously denomi nated-decorated with the utmost profusion, and extending, with many long galleries, over a large portion of the old area of the city. It embraced, we must suppose, a succession of mansions on the principal heights-the Palatine, the Esquiline, and the Cælian-connected by bridges or corridors, and included in its vast enclosures gardens, lakes, baths, and pleasure-grounds. The Romans maliciously hinted that the emperor had purposely destroyed the ancient city to make way for the palace he destined to erect upon it for himself; he said, when he took possession of the gorgeous residence, that now at last he was lodged as a man should be. Such sayings were treasured up against him.

At the commencement of the year 68 the aspect of public affairs had already become serious. Plots for the subver-u.c.821. sion of the government were believed to be rife in the A.D. 68. armies of the West. The officers who held command in Gaul and Spain had become objects of suspicion. At the same time the upper classes of the city were gloomy and discontented; the temper of the populace, which had thus far been the firmest stay of Nero's tyranny, was uncertain. It was at the repeated instances of Helius, the freedman whom he had left as governor at Rome, that the emperor was at last persuaded to return from Greece; but he had been put in excellent spirits by the response of the oracle of Delphi. The god had warned him to beware of the seventy-third year, a warning which seemed to the youth of thirty to promise ample length of days. It was proved in the sequel to have another and a fatal signification. He entered Naples, Antium, and Rome in a succession of triumphs. But hardly had he reached the city and looked vaingloriously around him when the rumor met him of the impending revolt. In the winter of the year Galba, the governor of the Hither Spain, had been in communication with Vindex, in the Farther Gaul, with a view to a simultaneous rising. Galba, too, had had his favorable omens. As a child he had been introduced to the aged Augustus, who, it seems, had carelessly let fall the words, "You too shall some day taste of empire." Galba, it was remarked, was now in his seventy-third year. But the promise

was forgotten, the coincidence overlooked. It was upon Vindex that Nero first fixed his attention, and required the legions of Germania to attack him. The commander of this force was well inclined to side with him, but his soldiers carried out their orders, and cut the battalions of Vindex in pieces, upon which Vindex threw himself on his own sword. The victors, however, soon changed their minds, and, renouncing their obedience to the emperor at Rome, invited their own leader to assume the purple. From this decisive step Virginius shrank; but he did not hesitate to attach himself to the side of Galba, who was now preparing to march upon Rome at the head of the united forces of the two great provinces of the West.

But a period of some months elapsed before the legions of Spain and Gaul could be moved from their distant quarters into the heart of Italy. This period of suspense, and the uncertainty attending it, allowed the wretched emperor to show all the weakness of his character, and his utter inability to contend with the adverse fortune which had at last overtaken him. He passed with rapid alternations to either extremity of hopefulness and despair. The hasty preparations he made for defence were absurd and trifling, while he continued more and more to provoke the citizens by his vity. When at last the defection of Virginius and the combination of the two armies became assured, he displayed the most abject cowardice, tearing his robes and his hair, and giving vent to pusillanimous ejaculations. Meanwhile the senators and knights in the city became excited with the hopes of speedy deliverance. Nero was no longer safe in his capital. The people began to clamor against him; for there was a dearth of provisions, owing, as was fiercely declared, to the emperor's selfish inadvertence. The prætorians, the last resource of the Roman princes, were seduced from his side by their prefect Nymphidius-so easily was the power of the imperator shaken to pieces in his own capital. Abandoned by all, nothing was left him but suicide, and even the casket in which he had provided poison with the aid of Locusta was stolen from him. Not a guard or a gladiator was at hand to pierce his breast. "I have neither friend left me nor foe!" he exclaimed, petulantly; then, taking horse with one or two attendants, he fled by night from the city, and ensconced himself at daybreak in the villa of his freedman Phaon, four miles beyond the walls, in an unfrequented spot between the Nomentane and Salarian roads. Here he lingered for a few hours in utter prostration of spirit, sustained by a rust of bread and a drink of fetid water, when news arrived from me that the Senate had met on hearing of his departure, promed him a public enemy, and decreed his death "in the ancient shion." Asking what this phrase purported, he was told that the

CHAP. LIX.

'DEATH OF NERO.

487

culprit was stripped, his neck inserted in a forked stick, and his body smitten with rods till death. Terrified at this announcement, he took two daggers from his bosom, tried their edge, but again laid them down, alleging that the moment was not yet arrived. Again and again he tried to nerve himself to the last effort; but it was not till the sound of horses' hoofs was heard, and the messengers of death were plainly closing upon him, that he placed a weapon to his breast and bade his slave Epaphroditus drive it home. Another moment and it would have been too late. The centurion and his soldiers burst into the room just in time to receive his dying exclamations. The corpse was imperfectly consumed on the spot; the remains were left to the attendants, by some of whom they were eventually laid in the Domitian gardens on the Pincian. It is recorded as a striking circumstance that even such a monster as Nero found some unknown hands to strew flowers upon his urn. Nero perished on June 9, 68 (u.c. 821), at the age of thirty years and six months, in the fourteenth year of his principate. The child borne him by Poppea had died in infancy, and a subsequent marriage with Statilia had proved unfruitful. The stock of Julii, refreshed in vain by grafts from the Octavii, the Claudii, and the Domitii, had been reduced to a single branch, and with Nero the adoptive race of the great dictator was extinguished. The first of the Cæsars had married four times, the second thrice, the third twice, the fourth thrice also, the fifth six times, and the sixth thrice. Of these repeated unions a large number had borne offspring; yet no descendants of any survived. A few had lived to old age, many had reached maturity, some were cut off by early sickness, the end of others was premature and mysterious; but of the whole number a large proportion were undoubted victims of political jealousy. Such was the price paid by the usurper's family for their splendid inheritance; but the people accepted it in exchange for internal troubles and promiscuous bloodshed; and though many of the higher classes of eitizens had become the victims of Cæsarian tyranny, yet order and prosperity had reigned generally throughout the empire; the world had enjoyed a breathing-time of a hundred years before the next outbreak of civil discord which is now to be related. "The secret of the empire," namely, that a prince could be created elsewhere than at Rome, was now fatally discovered, and from this time the succession of the Roman princes was most commonly effected by the distant legions, and seldom without violence and slaughter.

CHAPTER LX.

Galba arrives at Rome and is accepted as emperor. He chooses Piso for his associate. The soldiers discontented at his parsimony.-Otho aspires to overthrow him.-The prætorians offer to support him.-Fall of Galba.— Otho becomes emperor.-Character of the Roman captains as exemplifica in Galba.-The legions on the Rhine nominate Vitellius emperor.-His officers Valens and Cæcina lead their forces into Italy.-Battle of Bedriacum and fall of Otho.-Vitellius advances and enters Rome.-Gluttony and indolence attributed to him.-The legions of Syria nominate Vespasian. He is supported by the prefect Mucianus.-His son Titus carries on operations against the rebellious Jews.-Antonius Primus leads Vespasian's forces into Italy, and offers terms to Vitellius, which he at first accepts, then attacks the adherents of Vespasian in the Capitol.-Burning of the Capitoline temple.-Primus forces his way into Rome.-Fall of Vitellius. (A.D. 68-70.)

The

SERVIUS SULPICIUS GALBA had been proclaimed imperator by the legions in Spain on April 13, almost two months before the actual fall of Nero. He was still engaged in making his preparations for joining the troops of Gaul, when the news of the emperor's condemnation and speedy death reached him. He advanced, and encountered at Narbo the envoys who were charged to convey to him the sanction of the consuls and the Senate to his claim. chiefs of the capital, though they allowed the people to assume the cap of liberty and make some parade of recovered freedom, did not pretend to restore the republic; they were urged, indeed, to throw the government into the hands of the most vigorous of their generals by the intrigues of Nymphidius, who was himself a candidate for the empire. But the claims of this upstart were ridiculed by the prætorians themselves, and he soon fell a victim to his audacity. Other competitors, indeed, were rising in various quarters, but none of them could make head against the fortunes U.0.822. of Galba, who could venture to assume the title of Cæsar, A.D. 69. and proclaim himself the accepted successor of the great Julius. He made some examples of the few rash opponents he encountered on his march, and entered Rome as a victorious general on January 1 in the following year.

Galba was a man of ancient family, and had served with merit through a long military career. He was strict in discipline, beyond the temper either of the soldiers or of the citizens, and he

CHAP. LX.

PISO AND OTHO.

489

possessed no graces of manner to persuade or force of genius to command. Nor was he unaware that the same power which had raised him to pre-eminence might arm rivals in other camps; and though some such movements in the nearer provinces had been easily put down, he could not but feel insecure of the obedience of the great proconsuls on the Rhine and the Euphrates. A few days after his arrival at Rome a mutiny of the soldiers in Upper Germania was announced. They demanded another emperor in the place of Galba, but professed to leave the choice to the Senate and people. Galba had, perhaps, anticipated such a demand. He had already contemplated the appointment of an associate, and now, with the aid of some of the chief citizens, he went through the form of an election. The choice fell upon Piso Licinianus, a noble of distinction, whose only fault, perhaps, was that he was too nearly of the same austere stamp as Galba himself, and might intensify rather than relieve his growing unpopularity. But whatever were the actual merits of the nomination, Galba spoiled its effect by the parsimony he exhibited to the soldiers, who expected a liberal donative on the occasion, and were grievously disappointed.

There was no man at Rome whose personal views were so directly thwarted by Piso's elevation as Otho; none felt himself so much aggrieved, and none was so bold and unscrupulous in seeking redress. This noble, whom Nero had removed to Lusitania when he took from him his wife Poppaa, had attached himself to Galba's enterprise, and had re-entered Rome with him. No doubt he meant to become the old man's successor, but his schemes were thus suddenly intercepted. An elegant debauchee in the capital, he had also acquired the art of ingratiating himself with the soldiers in his camp, and now, when his hopes had been excited to the utmost by the soothsayers with whom he had associated,. he set about corrupting the troops whom Galba had just led from Spain, with the firmest reliance on their fidelity. These he found, indeed, already discontented with their emperor, and shrinking from the prospect of being marched for his cause to the German frontier. The prætorians were still more disgusted at the exchange they had made, and as early as January 14, the fifth day after Piso's election, they were prepared to carry Otho to their camp at nightfall, and present him to the people as the choice of the soldiers in the morning.

But Otho acted with more deliberation. On the morning of the 15th Galba was sacrificing before the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, when the aruspex informed him that the signs were inauspicious and portended a foe to his household. Otho was standing by. He heard the words and accepted them as an omen.