Читать книгу The Empresses of Rome онлайн

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The year 42 was marked by a conspiracy that unhappily disposed Claudius more than ever to confide in Messalina and the freedmen. The troops in Dalmatia were to be employed in the dethronement of Claudius. At the last moment, however, the soldiers were startled by so many and such undeniable signs of the anger of the gods that they returned to their loyalty and slew their officers. The standards could not be dragged out of the ground—a not unnatural event, one would think, in a Dalmatian winter—and the wreaths had fallen from the eagles.

The plot was reported to the palace, and Messalina and the freedmen drew up long lists of men whom it was desirable to remove or despoil. Wealthier men redeemed their lives by paying considerable sums; others were put to the torture, or were consigned to prison or the grave. A story is told in the record of this persecution which should guard us from admitting the common fallacy that the older spirit of Rome was quite extinct. A distinguished patrician heard that his name was on the list of the condemned. His wife urged him to escape the ignominy of a public execution by ending his own life, and, when he hesitated, she buried the dagger in her own bosom, and then handed it to him with the words, worthy of a Corneille: “It does not hurt.” Another victim was Appius Silanus, who had married Messalina’s mother, Domitia Lepida. The chroniclers say that his crime was to have rejected the advances which Messalina made to him. Whatever the motive was, she induced the freedman Narcissus to tell Claudius that he saw, in a dream, Silanus thrusting a dagger into the Emperor’s heart. Claudius nervously consulted his wife, who confessed, with artistic horror, that the same dream had frequently tormented her. They had meantime summoned Silanus to the palace, and, as he entered at that moment, the Emperor ordered him to be executed at once.