The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 14 [1]
A.D. 59-62
1. In the year of the consulship of Caius Vipstanus and Caius Fonteius, Nero
deferred no more a long meditated crime. Length of power had matured his daring,
and his passion for Poppaea daily grew more ardent. As the woman had no hope
of marriage for herself or of Octavia’s divorce while Agrippina lived, she would
reproach the emperor with incessant vituperation and sometimes call him in jest
a mere ward who was under the rule of others, and was so far from having empire
that he had not even his liberty. “Why,” she asked, “was her marriage put off?
Was it, forsooth, her beauty and her ancestors, with their triumphal honours,
that failed to please, or her being a mother, and her sincere heart? No; the
fear was that as a wife at least she would divulge the wrongs of the Senate,
and the wrath of the people at the arrogance and rapacity of his mother. If
the only daughter-in-law Agrippina could bear was one who wished evil to her
son, let her be restored to her union with Otho. She would go anywhere in the
world, where she might hear of the insults heaped on the emperor, rather than
witness them, and be also involved in his perils.” These and the like complaints,
rendered impressive by tears and by the cunning of an adulteress, no one checked,
as all longed to see the mother’s power broken, while not a person believed
that the son’s hatred would steel his heart to her murder.
2. Cluvius relates that Agrippina in her eagerness to retain her influence
went so far that more than once at midday, when Nero, even at that hour, was
flushed with wine and feasting, she presented herself attractively attired to
her half intoxicated son and offered him her person, and that when kinsfolk
observed wanton kisses and caresses, portending infamy, it was Seneca who sought
a female’s aid against a woman’s fascinations, and hurried in Acte, the freed-girl,
who alarmed at her own peril and at Nero’s disgrace, told him that the incest
was notorious, as his mother boasted of it, and that the soldiers would never
endure the rule of an impious sovereign. Fabius Rusticus tells us that it was
not Agrippina, but Nero, who lusted for the crime, and that it was frustrated
by the adroitness of that same freed-girl. Cluvius’s account, however, is also
that of all other authors, and popular belief inclines to it, whether it was
that Agrippina really conceived such a monstrous wickedness in her heart, or
perhaps because the thought of a strange passion seemed comparatively credible
in a woman, who in her girlish years had allowed herself to be seduced by Lepidus
in the hope of winning power, had stooped with a like ambition to the lust of
Pallas, and had trained herself for every infamy by her marriage with her uncle.
3. Nero accordingly avoided secret interviews with her, and when she withdrew
to her gardens or to her estates at Tusculum and Antium, he praised her for
courting repose. At last, convinced that she would be too formidable, wherever
she might dwell, he resolved to destroy her, merely deliberating whether it
was to be accomplished by poison, or by the sword, or by any other violent means.
Poison at first seemed best, but, were it to be administered at the imperial
table, the result could not be referred to chance after the recent circumstances
of the death of Britannicus. Again, to tamper with the servants of a woman who,
from her familiarity with crime, was on her guard against treachery, appeared
to be extremely difficult, and then, too, she had fortified her constitution
by the use of antidotes. How again the dagger and its work were to be kept secret,
no one could suggest, and it was feared too that whoever might be chosen to
execute such a crime would spurn the order. An ingenious suggestion was offered
by Anicetus, a freedman, commander of the fleet at Misenum, who had been tutor
to Nero in boyhood and had a hatred of Agrippina which she reciprocated. He
explained that a vessel could be constructed, from which a part might by a contrivance
be detached, when out at sea, so as to plunge her unawares into the water. “Nothing,”
he said, “allowed of accidents so much as the sea, and should she be overtaken
by shipwreck, who would be so unfair as to impute to crime an offence committed
by the winds and waves? The emperor would add the honour of a temple and of
shrines to the deceased lady, with every other display of filial affection.”
4. Nero liked the device, favoured as it also was by the particular time,
for he was celebrating Minerva’s five days’ festival at Baiae. Thither he enticed
his mother by repeated assurances that children ought to bear with the irritability
of parents and to soothe their tempers, wishing thus to spread a rumour of reconciliation
and to secure Agrippina’s acceptance through the feminine credulity, which easily
believes what joy. As she approached, he went to the shore to meet her (she
was coming from Antium), welcomed her with outstretched hand and embrace, and
conducted her to Bauli. This was the name of a country house, washed by a bay
of the sea, between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baiae. Here was
a vessel distinguished from others by its equipment, seemingly meant, among
other things, to do honour to his mother; for she had been accustomed to sail
in a trireme, with a crew of marines. And now she was invited to a banquet,
that night might serve to conceal the crime. It was well known that somebody
had been found to betray it, that Agrippina had heard of the plot, and in doubt
whether she was to believe it, was conveyed to Baiae in her litter. There some
soothing words allayed her fear; she was graciously received, and seated at
table above the emperor. Nero prolonged the banquet with various conversation,
passing from a youth’s playful familiarity to an air of constraint, which seemed
to indicate serious thought, and then, after protracted festivity, escorted
her on her departure, clinging with kisses to her eyes and bosom, either to
crown his hypocrisy or because the last sight of a mother on the even of destruction
caused a lingering even in that brutal heart.
5. A night of brilliant starlight with the calm of a tranquil sea was granted
by heaven, seemingly, to convict the crime. The vessel had not gone far, Agrippina
having with her two of her intimate attendants, one of whom, Crepereius Gallus,
stood near the helm, while Acerronia, reclining at Agrippina’s feet as she reposed
herself, spoke joyfully of her son’s repentance and of the recovery of the mother’s
influence, when at a given signal the ceiling of the place, which was loaded
with a quantity of lead, fell in, and Crepereius was crushed and instantly killed.
Agrippina and Acerronia were protected by the projecting sides of the couch,
which happened to be too strong to yield under the weight. But this was not
followed by the breaking up of the vessel; for all were bewildered, and those
too, who were in the plot, were hindered by the unconscious majority. The crew
then thought it best to throw the vessel on one side and so sink it, but they
could not themselves promptly unite to face the emergency, and others, by counteracting
the attempt, gave an opportunity of a gentler fall into the sea. Acerronia,
however, thoughtlessly exclaiming that she was Agrippina, and imploring help
for the emperor’s mother, was despatched with poles and oars, and such naval
implements as chance offered. Agrippina was silent and was thus the less recognized;
still, she received a wound in her shoulder. She swam, then met with some small
boats which conveyed her to the Lucrine lake, and so entered her house.
6. There she reflected how for this very purpose she had been invited by
a lying letter and treated with conspicuous honour, how also it was near the
shore, not from being driven by winds or dashed on rocks, that the vessel had
in its upper part collapsed, like a mechanism anything but nautical. She pondered
too the death of Acerronia; she looked at her own wound, and saw that her only
safeguard against treachery was to ignore it. Then she sent her freedman Agerinus
to tell her son how by heaven’s favour and his good fortune she had escaped
a terrible disaster; that she begged him, alarmed, as he might be, by his mother’s
peril, to put off the duty of a visit, as for the present she needed repose.
Meanwhile, pretending that she felt secure, she applied remedies to her wound,
and fomentations to her person. She then ordered search to be made for the will
of Acerronia, and her property to be sealed, in this alone throwing off disguise.
7. Nero, meantime, as he waited for tidings of the consummation of the deed,
received information that she had escaped with the injury of a slight wound,
after having so far encountered the peril that there could be no question as
to its author. Then, paralysed with terror and protesting that she would show
herself the next moment eager for vengeance, either arming the slaves or stirring
up the soldiery, or hastening to the Senate and the people, to charge him with
the wreck, with her wound, and with the destruction of her friends, he asked
what resource he had against all this, unless something could be at once devised
by Burrus and Seneca. He had instantly summoned both of them, and possibly they
were already in the secret. There was a long silence on their part; they feared
they might remonstrate in vain, or believed the crisis to be such that Nero
must perish, unless Agrippina were at once crushed. Thereupon Seneca was so
far the more prompt as to glance back on Burrus, as if to ask him whether the
bloody deed must be required of the soldiers. Burrus replied “that the praetorians
were attached to the whole family of the Caesars, and remembering Germanicus
would not dare a savage deed on his offspring. It was for Anicetus to accomplish
his promise.” Anicetus, without a pause, claimed for himself the consummation
of the crime. At those words, Nero declared that that day gave him empire, and
that a freedman was the author of this mighty boon. “Go,” he said, “with all
speed and take with you the men readiest to execute your orders.” He himself,
when he had heard of the arrival of Agrippina’s messenger, Agerinus, contrived
a theatrical mode of accusation, and, while the man was repeating his message,
threw down a sword at his feet, then ordered him to be put in irons, as a detected
criminal, so that he might invent a story how his mother had plotted the emperor’s
destruction and in the shame of discovered guilt had by her own choice sought
death.
8. Meantime, Agrippina’s peril being universally known and taken to be an
accidental occurrence, everybody, the moment he heard of it, hurried down to
the beach. Some climbed projecting piers; some the nearest vessels; others,
as far as their stature allowed, went into the sea; some, again, stood with
outstretched arms, while the whole shore rung with wailings, with prayers and
cries, as different questions were asked and uncertain answers given. A vast
multitude streamed to the spot with torches, and as soon as all knew that she
was safe, they at once prepared to wish her joy, till the sight of an armed
and threatening force scared them away. Anicetus then surrounded the house with
a guard, and having burst open the gates, dragged off the slaves who met him,
till he came to the door of her chamber, where a few still stood, after the
rest had fled in terror at the attack. A small lamp was in the room, and one
slave-girl with Agrippina, who grew more and more anxious, as no messenger came
from her son, not even Agerinus, while the appearance of the shore was changed,
a solitude one moment, then sudden bustle and tokens of the worst catastrophe.
As the girl rose to depart, she exclaimed, “Do you too forsake me?” and looking
round saw Anicetus, who had with him the captain of the trireme, Herculeius,
and Obaritus, a centurion of marines. “If,” said she, “you have come to see
me, take back word that I have recovered, but if you are here to do a crime,
I believe nothing about my son; he has not ordered his mother’s murder.” The
assassins closed in round her couch, and the captain of the trireme first struck
her head violently with a club. Then, as the centurion bared his sword for the
fatal deed, presenting her person, she exclaimed, “Smite my womb,” and with
many wounds she was slain.
9. So far our accounts agree. That Nero gazed on his mother after her death
and praised her beauty, some have related, while others deny it. Her body was
burnt that same night on a dining couch, with a mean funeral; nor, as long as
Nero was in power, was the earth raised into a mound, or even decently closed.
Subsequently, she received from the solicitude of her domestics, a humble sepulchre
on the road to Misenum, near the country house of Caesar the Dictator, which
from a great height commands a view of the bay beneath. As soon as the funeral
pile was lighted, one of her freedmen, surnamed Mnester, ran himself through
with a sword, either from love of his mistress or from the fear of destruction.
Many years before Agrippina had anticipated this end for herself and had spurned
the thought. For when she consulted the astrologers about Nero, they replied
that he would be emperor and kill his mother. “Let him kill her,” she said,
“provided he is emperor.”
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