Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by Henryk Sienkiewicz (good ebook reader txt) 📖

frequently foolish, and fell now into terror, now into childish delight, but above all he complained.

On a time a long and fruitless consultation was held in the house of Tiberius, which had survived the fire. Petronius thought it best to leave troubles, go to Greece, thence to Egypt and Asia Minor. The journey had been planned long before; why defer it, when in Rome were sadness and danger?

Cæsar accepted the counsel with eagerness; but Seneca when he had thought awhile, said,—

“It is easy to go, but it would be more difficult to return.”

“By Heracles!” replied Petronius, “we may return at the head of Asiatic legions.”

“This will I do!” exclaimed Nero.

But Tigellinus opposed. He could discover nothing himself, and if the arbiter’s idea had come to his own head he would beyond doubt have declared it the saving one; but with him the question was that Petronius might not be a second time the only man who in difficult moments could rescue all and every one.

“Hear me, divinity,” said he, “this advice is destructive! Before thou art at Ostia a civil war will break out; who knows but one of the surviving collateral descendants of the divine Augustus will declare himself Cæsar, and what shall we do if the legions take his side?”

“We shall try,” answered Nero, “that there be no descendants of Augustus. There are not many now; hence it is easy to rid ourselves of them.”

“It is possible to do so, but is it a question of them alone? No longer ago than yesterday my people heard in the crowd that a man like Thrasea should be Cæsar.”

Nero bit his lips. After a while he raised his eyes and said: “Insatiable and thankless. They have grain enough, and they have coal on which to bake cakes; what more do they want?”

“Vengeance!” replied Tigellinus.

Silence followed. Cæsar rose on a sudden, extended his hand, and began to declaim,—

“Hearts call for vengeance, and vengeance wants a victim.” Then, forgetting everything, he said, with radiant face: “Give me the tablet and stilus to write this line. Never could Lucan have composed the like. Have ye noticed that I found it in a twinkle?”

“O incomparable!” exclaimed a number of voices. Nero wrote down the line, and said,—

“Yes, vengeance wants a victim.” Then he cast a glance on those around him. “But if we spread the report that Vatinius gave command to burn the city, and devote him to the anger of the people?”

“O divinity! Who am I?” exclaimed Vatmius.

“True! One more important than thou is demanded. Is it Vitelius?”

Vitelius grew pale, but began to laugh.

“My fat,” answered he, “might start the fire again.”

But Nero had something else on his mind; in his soul he was looking for a victim who might really satisfy the people’s anger, and he found him.

“Tigellinus,” said he after a while, “it was thou who didst burn Rome!” A shiver ran through those present. They understood that Cæsar had ceased to jest this time, and that a moment had come which was pregnant with events.

The face of Tigellinus was wrinkled, like the lips of a dog about to bite.

“I burnt Rome at thy command!” said he.

And the two glared at each other like a pair of devils. Such silence followed that the buzzing of flies was heard as they flew through the atrium.

“Tigellinus,” said Nero, “dost thou love me?”

“Thou knowest, lord.”

“Sacrifice thyself for me.”

“O divine Cæsar,” answered Tigellinus, “why present the sweet cup which I may not raise to my lips? The people are muttering and rising; dost thou wish the pretorians also to rise?”

A feeling of terror pressed the hearts of those present. Tigellinus was pretorian prefect, and his words had the direct meaning of a threat. Nero himself understood this, and his face became pallid.

At that moment Epaphroditus, Cæsar’s freedman, entered, announcing that the divine Augusta wished to see Tigellinus, as there were people in her apartments whom the prefect ought to hear.

Tigellinus bowed to Cæsar, and went out with a face calm and contemptuous. Now, when they had wished to strike him, he had shown his teeth; he had made them understand who he was, and, knowing Nero’s cowardice, he was confident that that ruler of the world would never dare to raise a hand against him.

Nero sat in silence for a moment; then, seeing that those present expected some answer, he said,—

“I have reared a serpent in my bosom.”

Petronius shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that it was not difficult to pluck the head from such a serpent.

“What wilt thou say? Speak, advise!” exclaimed Nero, noticing this motion. “I trust in thee alone, for thou hast more sense than all of them, and thou lovest me.”

Petronius had the following on his lips: “Make me pretorian prefect, I will deliver Tigellinus to the people, and pacify the city in a day.” But his innate slothfulness prevailed. To be prefect meant to bear on his shoulder’s Cæsar’s person and also thousands of public affairs. And why should he perform that labor? Was it not better to read poetry in his splendid library, look at vases and statues, or hold to his breast the divine body of Eunice, twining her golden hair through his fingers, and inclining his lips to her coral mouth? Hence he said,—

“I advise the journey to Achæa.”

“Ah!” answered Nero, “I looked for something more from thee. The Senate hates me. If I depart, who will guarantee that it will not revolt and proclaim some one else Cæsar? The people have been faithful to me so far, but now they will follow the Senate. By Hades! if that Senate and that people had one head!—”

“Permit me to say, O divinity, that if thou desire to save Rome, there is need to save even a few Romans,” remarked Petronius, with a smile.

“What care I for Rome and Romans?” complained Nero. “I should be obeyed in Achæa. Here only treason surrounds me. All desert me, and ye are making ready for treason. I know it, I know it. Ye do not even imagine what future ages will say of you if ye desert such an artist as I am.”

Here he tapped his forehead on a sudden, and cried,—

“True! Amid these cares even I forget who I am.”

Then he turned to Petronius with a radiant face.

“Petronius,” said he, “the people murmur; but if I take my lute and go to