NERO was no longer “the young Apollo” of his boyhood. Unbridled dissipation and precocious crime had made their impress on body no less than on mind. He was a little above the average height, but his prematurely swollen paunch was poorly balanced on his slender and ungraceful limbs, and his skin was blotched and repellent. The dull grey eyes betrayed his unceasing indulgence, and the yellow hair, dressed in stages of short curls, framed a face that was certainly no longer handsome. His mind was in unmistakable disorder. Our kindly age would invoke this mental trouble in extenuation of the brutal crimes he had committed and the stupendous folly he is about to perpetrate. Were this a biography of the Emperors, we might boldly essay to prove rather that the insanity followed the matricide, but that does not concern us. He was, as yet, only in his twenty-second year.  
To this precocious monstrosity of vice and crime was mated one of the gentlest young matrons of the C?sarean house, Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina. Married at the very early age of thirteen to Nero, her timid girlish nature was paralyzed by the coarse habits of her husband, and she merely hovers about the stage, like a dimly perceptible shadow, during the earlier part of Nero’s reign. It must have been shortly after their marriage that Nero disdained her for the beautiful Greek slave, Acte, to whom he was more constant than to any other living thing, and who, in return, paid the last tribute to his despised106 remains. At first one of Nero’s associates screened the entanglement, but, as we saw, it became known in the palace, and Agrippina made a fruitless effort to press the rights of his girl-wife. The injustice was, however, one that Roman ladies were not unaccustomed to bear. Nero soon fell into more disreputable ways. Octavia would see him leave the palace after supper with his wild companions, and needed little effort of imagination to follow his course when he returned, in the early morning, with torn garments and flushed, if not bruised, features and, occasionally, the painted signs that he had wrenched from shop-doors, or the cups he had stolen in a raid upon some low tavern.
He had gathered about him a band of older youths, who encouraged him in the licentious use of his power, and endeared themselves to him by the fertility of their imaginations. Chief among them was Salvius Otho, a young noble of Etruscan descent, five years older than Nero—the Emperor Otho of a later date. He had entered the palace in virtue of an amorous relation with one of Agrippina’s ladies, and his wide knowledge of adolescent amusements won him the regard of Nero, whom he led into the wildest adventures. They would wander at night through the streets, and revel in the taverns and brothels of the popular quarters of the city, the mysterious dim-lit valleys on which patrician maidens looked down from the mansions on the hills. In those centres of nightly disorder Nero and his companions were the most daring Mohocks, if we may use a phrase that belongs to later history. They violated women and boys, and played the most brutal pranks upon unarmed folk. One night Nero was severely thrashed by a Senator, whose wife he had insulted. The man learned afterwards that it was the Emperor whom he had beaten, and went to the palace to apologize. Nero forced him to atone with his life for the injury he had done to the Imperial dignity. He withdrew the guards from the Circus, in order that he might enjoy the fights of the rival factions, and from the Milvian Bridge, at night, so as to give complete liberty to vice in that nocturnal resort.
107 The chaste and trembling Octavia, who was still only in her sixteenth year, shrank from his brutal disdain. It was enough for her to have the title of Empress, he said to his mother, when she urged the rights of Octavia. Presently Nero declared that he would divorce her, and marry the handsome Greek girl, but Seneca and Burrus succeeded in preventing him. To check his disorders entirely they were quite powerless, and they seem to have thought it better to direct, than to resist, his vices. Suddenly, however, in the year 58, Nero transferred his passion to the daughter of Popp?a Sabina, and began the long, tragic struggle to secure her as his Empress.
Popp?a, who will be the next figure in our gallery of Roman Empresses, and therefore may at once be introduced, was one of the prettiest, vainest, and most discussed ladies in Rome. Her mother, with whom we are already acquainted as one of Messalina’s victims, had been the daughter of a very wealthy and illustrious provincial governor, Popp?us Sabinus. Popp?a’s father, Titus Ollius, had been a friend of Sejanus, and had been swept away in the flood of Tiberius’s anger. She was, therefore, of mature years, but she had protected her charms so industriously that she still had the soft beauty and the fresh complexion of a girl. She had inherited also the wealth, the wit, and—it is said—the easy morals of her mother. The pretence of modesty which she made, by wearing a veil whenever she went abroad, was redeemed by the splendour of her establishment and the elaborate culture of her fair skin and pretty face. The mules which drew the litter of the veiled lady were shod with gold, and the traces of their harness were woven from gold thread. When she moved to her country house, or to Bai?, five hundred she-asses ran in the train of her litter and cars, to provide the milk for her daily bath. If we may trust the busts to which her name is attached, she had a childish grace and delicacy of feature, instead of the tense face of the adventuress; and we know that108 her amber-coloured hair was so much admired that it set, or revived, a fashion in amber.
She had married a knight, Rufus Crispinus, by whom she had had a son. This marriage was ended by divorce, and she became the wife of Nero’s favourite, Salvius Otho. It is suggested, and not difficult to believe, that she had married Otho on account of his intimacy with the Emperor. He was by no means handsome, though he covered his baldness with a wig, dressed sumptuously, and had wealth, wit, and taste for art. From him Nero heard, over their cups, the piquant story of Popp?a’s beauty and luxury, and it was not long before Imperial messengers were sent to her mansion. They were not admitted, and even Nero, when he sought entrance, was coyly reminded that Popp?a was married, and was devoted to her husband. After a stormy siege she gracefully capitulated so far as to receive innocent visits from Nero, and inflame him to madness with the display of her cultivated beauty. He spoke bitterly of his mother as an obstacle in the way of their marriage. Popp?a twitted him with his dependence on her, and we have seen the outcome.
When Agrippina had been removed, Nero proposed at once to divorce Octavia and wed Popp?a. The silence of Seneca at all these critical points in the degradation of Nero is painful to every admirer of the distinguished moralist. It was the less courtly and less virtuous Burrus who defended the young Empress. If Nero abandoned Octavia, he brusquely said, he must also give up her dowry—the throne—and Burrus was too generally respected to be flouted. Octavia therefore remained in her lonely chamber at the palace, a helpless witness of the vices of her husband.
For a month or two after the murder of Agrippina he behaved as one stricken with a wild and haunting remorse. He went feverishly from place to place, and gathered about him a band of magicians and charlatans. He feared to go to Rome until he was assured that Rome was rejoicing at his escape from his mother’s plot. Few pages in the109 story of that degenerate city are sadder than that which records the reception, in the month of May, of the Imperial matricide. The Senators and their families, dressed in their gayest robes, hurried out along the Appian Way to meet him, and his route was lined deep with cheering crowds. He rewarded them royally. Five or six theatres opened their doors, day after day, to the degraded citizens. New things—things that had never before been seen in the whole history of the city—were provided for their entertainment. Men and women of the highest rank played the most lascivious parts of the mimes on the public stage, and drove their chariots in the public circus. Nero was a champion of the “green” faction, and pitted his royal skill daily in the circus against the charioteers of the other factions. He sang in the theatre, and organized a band of five thousand handsome youths, in splendid costumes, to lead the applause, and shower upon him his favourite epithet of “Apollo.” He even ventured to win praise in the amphitheatre, but the one young lion which he vanquished had been prudently gorged and stupefied before he encountered it. He announced that his skill might be hired for private banquets, and nobles paid him a million sesterces for his services. Apollo, he reflected, had no beard in Greek statuary, so he shaved his beard, and the handful of yellow hair was enclosed in a golden casket studded with pearls, and carried in solemn procession to the Capitol. In the mighty rejoicing over this complete assimilation to Apollo of the tun-bellied, lanky-legged, half-crazy youth, it is recorded that a noble dame in her eightieth year danced on the stage in the theatre. The descendants of the greatest Roman families voluntarily entered the base ranks of the comedian and the charioteer.
Mr. Henderson is reluctant to admit, in his study of Nero, that he was insane. It would, no doubt, puzzle the most penetrating psychologist to assign the respective portions of guilt and of irresponsible disorder in his conduct; but that there was mental disorder it is at once110 more natural and more charitable to assume. In any case, a year or so of this delirious life wore out his robust frame, and a serious illness suspended for a time the disgraceful performances. Unfortunately, when he recovered, he lost the one man who had had some power to restrain him, and sufficient honesty to use it. Burrus died in the year 62, and at the same time the slender influence of Seneca was destroyed. This is no place to discuss the difficult and delicate problem of Seneca’s conduct in his association with Nero. Enough to say that he was now accused of conspiracy, and, although he successfully defended himself, he ceased to have any power at the palace.
It was now possible for Nero to rid himself of the pale young prude, who shrank in her apartments, and there were men enough to devise the procedure. Salvius Otho had already been sent to a remote part of the Empire, and his place had been taken by a horse-dealer, named Tigellinus, of little culture and even less character. With this new favourite Popp?a entered into alliance, and the young Empress presently found herself accused, with brutal levity, of adultery with Eucer, an Alexandrian slave and musician, and of covering her shame by the crime of abortion. Tigellinus easily obtained witnesses, but most of Octavia’s servants refused, even under torture, to belie the virtue of their gentle mistress. The coarseness of Tigellinus had carried him too far, and public feeling was strongly aroused in her favour. Nero fell back upon the ground of her childlessness, of which he could probably have furnished a simple explanation, and divorced her. In deference to the sentiment of Rome, he at first gave her the house of Burrus and the fortune of a noble whom he had executed. A little later, however, probably under pressure from Popp?a, he banished her to Campania. He had married Popp?a a fortnight after the divorce of Octavia.
But the flagrant outrage quickened the better feeling that Rome had not yet entirely lost, and Nero was forced to recall her. To the deep mortification of Popp?a, the111 crowds invaded the outer court of the palace, crying the name of Octavia. They removed the statues of the new Empress from the temples and public places, and restored to their positions, and crowned with flowers, the discarded statues of Octavia. Popp?a angrily pressed Nero to assert his power, and the resourceful Anicetus, the murderer of Agrippina, was summoned to Rome. Bolder even than Tigellinus, he swore that he himself had had commerce with Octavia, and, after a pretence of trial, she was banished to Sardinia. Popp?a was not yet content, and Nero next announced that Octavia had been detected in an attempt to corrupt the commander of the fleet. She was taken to the rock-island of Pandateria that had already witnessed tragedies.
The good feeling of Rome seems by this time to have been exhausted, and Octavia was lazily surrendered to the brutal band who now surrounded Nero. There is a peculiar melancholy in the closing of that frail and innocent career. Rough soldiers seize the timid form, carry her to the bath, bind her limbs, and open her veins. Timid and shrinking to the end, the young girl—even now she is only in her twentieth year—starts back with horror from the great darkness, and piteously implores them to spare her life. She faints, and the flow of her blood is arrested. The last pretence of pity is tossed aside, and she is stifled in the vapour-bath.
Popp?a, Tacitus says, sent for her head. It is difficult to decide whether the frequent repetition of this horrible detail in the chronicles increases or lessens its credulity. But we can have no hesitation in believing Tacitus when he says that the Senate ordered services of thanksgiving in the temples for this fresh preservation of the life of the Emperor.
Another Empress had stepped in blood to the throne, and was in turn to stain it with her blood after a few years of imperial folly. We have seen what type of woman it was whom Nero put in the place of Octavia. Wealthy, coquettish, and beautiful, Popp?a saw in life only a sunny112 path for the pursuit of butterflies. When she is represented to us as licentious we must remember that no definite scandal attaches to her name, and that she is actually described as “pious” by no less an authority than the Jewish historian Josephus. In fact this circumstance, and a peculiar feature of the disposal of her body, which we will consider, gave birth to a speculation in early times that she had become a Christian. Serviez finds the story of her conversion by St. Paul, and subsequent “return to her abominations,” too piquant to admit of doubt. But the conversion is even more disputable than the abominations. It is now much disputed among our leading divines whether St. Paul ever visited Rome, and there is a simpler explanation of the phrase used by Josephus. The Roman governor of Jud?a—the biblical Felix, a brother of Agrippina’s favourite, Pallas—had dealt harshly with the Jews, and sent some of their priests in chains to Rome. Josephus and others went to intercede for them, and luckily met a Jewish comedian who was in the favour of Popp?a and Nero. The historian was received with distinction at the palace, and was so successful in his suit that he might well ascribe piety to Popp?a. We may agree that the incident probably argues some culture on her part. But we shall discover her later in conduct that makes it undesirable to count her as a disciple of St. Paul.
Before the end of the year Popp?a presented Nero with a daughter, and a few weeks of wild rejoicing restored her to general favour, and obliterated the memory of Octavia. The title of “Augusta” was, in an excess of flattery, bestowed upon both the mother and the infant. Senators raced each other to the Imperial villa at Antium, to express their joy at this substantial promise of a continuance of the C?sarean house which had dragged them in the mire. The whole of Italy was lit up with rejoicing. Popp?a felt that her position was at last secure. And then, by one of those dread changes which were almost as common in the life of Rome as in the tragedies of Greece, and made men assume that there was a stern and mighty fate behind113 their puny and indulgent gods, the storm broke over Italy once more. The child withered and died, and Nero’s mind fell once more into dark disorder. He glanced round with insane suspicion for possible aspirants to the throne, and Popp?a’s remaining son was the first victim. One day he saw her boy (by her former husband) playing at being emperor in his games with the other children. In a few days Popp?a heard that the boy had lost his life while fishing. Many another execution was ordered with the same levity.
 
OCTAVIA
PORPHYRY BUST IN THE LOUVRE
As before, these terrible deeds were mingled with the most splendid and the most licentious entertainments. Noble dames of the highest rank wrestled and fought in the amphitheatre before the frivolous crowds; the city abounded in schools where the nobility learned to ape the Emperor’s folly, and contribute to the gaiety of Rome with the flute, the zither, or the dance. Nero conceived a new idea, and pursued it with zeal. He would contest the crown with the artists of Greece. Popp?a saw him training in the palace, lying for hours with heavy plates of lead on his chest, restricting himself to a diet of leeks and oil. She saw him exhibit his skill in the theatre, lifting up his blotched and swollen body, in extraordinary contortions, on his thin legs, as ............