Part 3 (1/2)

For a short time he bore up bravely, and was filled with the wish to benefit and bless. One of his first acts was to recall Julia and Agrippina from exile, they having been sent away in a fit of jealous anger by their brother, the infamous Caligula.

Julia was beautiful and intellectual, and she had a high regard for Seneca.

Agrippina was beautiful and infamous, and pretended that she loved Claudius.

Both men were undone. Seneca's friends.h.i.+p for Julia, as far as we know, was of a kind that did honor to both, but they made a too conspicuous pair of intellects. The fear and jealousy of Claudius was aroused by his young and beautiful wife, who showed him that Seneca, the courtly, was plotting for the throne, and in this ambition Julia was a party. A charge of undue intimacy with Julia, the beloved niece and ward of the Emperor, was brought against Seneca, and he was exiled to Corsica.

Imagine Edmund Burke sent to Saint Helena, or John Hay to the Dry Tortugas, and you get the idea.

The sensitive nature of Seneca did not bear up under exile as we would have wished. Unlike Victor Hugo at Guernsey, he was alone, and surrounded by savages. Yet even Victor Hugo lifted up his voice in bitter complaint. Seneca failed to antic.i.p.ate that, in spite of the barrenness of Corsica, it would some day produce a man who would jostle his Roman Caesar for first place on history's page.

At Corsica, Seneca produced some of his loftiest and best literature.

Exile and imprisonment are such favorable conditions for letters, having done so much for authors.h.i.+p, that the wonder is the expedient has fallen into practical disuse. Banishment gave Seneca an opportunity to put into execution some of the ideas he had so long expressed concerning the simple life, and certain it is that the experience was not without its benefits, and at times the grim humor of it all came to him.

Read the history of Greek ostracism, and one can almost imagine that it was devised by the man's friends--a sort of heroic treatment prescribed by a great spiritual physician. Personality repels as well as attracts: the people grow tired of hearing Aristides called the Just--he is exiled. For a few days there is a glad relief; then his friends begin to chant his praises--he is missed. People tell of all the n.o.ble, generous things he would do if he were only here.

If he were only here!

Pet.i.tions are circulated for his return.

The law's delay ensues, and this but increases desire. Hate for the man has turned to pity, and pity turns to love, as starch turns to gluten.

The man comes back, and is greeted with boughs and bays, with love and laurel. His homecoming is that of a conquering hero. If the Supreme Court were to issue an injunction requiring all husbands to separate themselves by at least a hundred miles from their wives, for several months in every year, it would cut down divorces ninety-five per cent, add greatly to domestic peace, render race-suicide impossible, and generally liberate millions of love vibrations that would otherwise lie dormant.

As an example of female depravity, Valeria Messalina was sister in crime to Jezebel, Bernice, Drusilla, Salome and Herodias.

d.a.m.ned by a dower of beauty, with men at her feet whenever she so ordered, her ambition knew no limit. This type of dictatorial womanhood starts out by making conquests of individual men, but the conquests of pretty women are rarely genuine. Women hold no monopoly on duplicity, and there is a deep vein of hypocrisy in men that prompts their playing a part, and letting the woman use them. When the time is ripe, they toss her away as they do any other plaything, as Omar suggests the potter tosses the luckless pots to h.e.l.l.

When Julia and Agrippina were recalled, the act was done without consulting Messalina; and we can imagine her rage when these two women, as beautiful as herself, came back without her permission. Messalina had never found favor in the eyes of Seneca--he treated her with patronizing patience, as though she were a spoilt child.

Now that Julia was back, Messalina hatched the plot that struck them both. Messalina insisted that the wealth of Seneca should be confiscated. Claudius at this rebelled.

History is replete with instances of great men ruled by their barbers and coachmen. Claudius left the affairs of state to Narcissus, his private secretary; Polybius, his literary helper; and Pallas, his accountant. These men were all of lowly birth, and had all risen in the ranks from menial positions, and one of them at least had been sold as a slave, and afterward purchased his freedom. Then there was Felix, the ex-slave, another protege of Claudius, who trembled when Paul of Tarsus told him a little wholesome truth. These men were all immensely rich, and once, when Claudius complained of poverty, a bystander said, ”You should go into partners.h.i.+p with a couple of your freedmen, and then your finances would be all right.” The fact that Narcissus, Pallas and Polybius const.i.tuted the real government is nothing against them, any more than it is to the discredit of certain Irish refugees that they manage the munic.i.p.al machinery of New York City--it merely proves the impotence of the men who have allowed the power to slip from their grasp, and ride as pa.s.sengers when they should be at the throttle.

Messalina managed her husband by alternate cajolings and threats. He was proud of her saucy beauty, and it was pleasing to an old man's vanity to think that other people thought she loved him. She bore him two sons--by name, Brittanicus and Germanicus. A local wit of the day said, ”It was kind of Messalina to present her husband with these boys, otherwise he would never have had any claim on them.”

But the lines were tightening around Messalina, and she herself was drawing the cords. She had put favorites in high places, banished enemies, and ordered the execution of certain people she did not like.

Narcissus and Pallas gave her her own way, because they knew Claudius must find her out for himself. They let her believe that she was the real power behind the throne. Her ambitions grew--she herself would be ruler--she gave it out that Claudius was insane. Finally she decided that the time was right for a ”coup de grace.” Claudius was absent from Rome, and Messalina wedded at high noon with young Silius, her lover.

She was led to believe that the army would back her up, and proclaim her son, Brittanicus, Emperor, in which case, she herself and Silius would be the actual rulers. The wedding festivities were at their height, when the cry went up that Claudius had returned, and was approaching to demand vengeance. Narcissus, the wily, took up the shout, and panic-stricken, Messalina fled for safety in one way and Silius in another.

Narcissus followed the woman, adding to her drunken fright by telling her that Claudius was close behind, and suggested that she kill herself before the wronged man should appear. A dagger was handed her, and she stabbed herself ineffectually in hysteric haste. The kind secretary then, with one plunge of his sword, completed the work so well begun.

A truthful account of Messalina's death was told to Claudius while he was at dinner. He finished the meal without saying a word, gave a present to the messenger, and went about his business, asking no questions, and never again mentioned the matter.

The fact is worthy of note that the name of Messalina is never once mentioned by Seneca. He pitied her vileness and villainy so much he could not hate her. He saw, with prophetic vision, what her end would be; and when her pa.s.sing occurred, he was too great and lofty in spirit to manifest satisfaction.

Scarcely had the funeral of Messalina occurred, when there was a pretty scramble among the eligible to see who should solace the stricken widower. Among other matrimonial candidates was Agrippina, a beautiful widow, twenty-nine in June, rich in her own right, and with only a small enc.u.mbrance in the way of a ten-year-old boy, Nero by name.