NERO INTERVIEWED ROME,A.D.64
It is fifteen years since I was last at Rome, and although I was prepared to find a change in everything, I had not expected this complete transformation. The Rome I knew, the Rome of the straggly narrow streets and rotting wooden houses, has disappeared, and in its place there is a kind of Corinth on a huge scale, marred of course by the usual want of taste of the Romans, but imposing nevertheless and extraordinarily gay and brilliant. The fault of the whole thing is that it is too big: the houses are too high, the streets too broad, everything is planned on too large a scale. From the artist’s point of view the effect is deplorable; from the point of view of the casual observer it is amusing in the highest degree. The broad streets—a blaze of coloured marble and fresh paint—are now crowded with brilliant shops where you see all that is new from Greece and the East, together withcuriosities from the North and the barbarian countries. Everybody seems to be spending money. The shops are crowded from morning till night. The display of gold trinkets, glass vases, carpets, rugs, silks, gold and silver tissues, embroideries, all glittering in the sunlight, dazzles the eye and imposes by the mass and glare of colour and gaudiness.
There is no doubt that the Emperor is extraordinarily popular, and whenever he shows himself in public he is greeted with frantic enthusiasm. Of course there are some mal-contents among the old-fashioned Liberals, but they have no influence whatever and count practically for nothing, for what are their grumblings and their eternal lamentations about the good old times and the Empire going to the dogs, in the scale with the hard solid fact that ever since Nero came to the throne the prosperity of the Empire has increased in every possible respect? For the first time for years the individual has been able to breathe freely, and owing to the splendid reforms which he has carried through in the matter of taxation, an intolerable load of oppression has been lifted from the shoulders of the poor, and I can assure you they are grateful.
A few nights ago I had dinner with Seneca, tomeet some of the leading literary lights. He is somewhat aged. Discussing various differences between our people and his, Seneca said that it is all very well for us to talk of our intellectual superiority, our artistic taste, our wit, our sense of proportion, but we had no idea either of liberty of trade on the one side, or liberty of thought on the other. “That kind of liberty,” said Seneca, “always fares better under a King or a Prince of some kind than under jealous democrats. We should never tolerate the religious tyranny of Athens.” I could not help pointing out that what struck me at Rome to-day was that whereas almost everybody had “literary” pretensions, and discussed nothing but eloquence, form, style, and “artistry,” nearly everybody wrote badly with the exception of Petronius Arbiter, whom the literary world does not recognize. The Romans talk a great deal of “art for art’s sake,” and language, instead of being the simple and perfect vesture of thought, is cultivated for its own sake. “This seems to us Greeks,” I said, “the cardinal principle of decadence, and the contrary of our ideal which is that everything should serve to adorn, but all that is dragged in merely for the sake of ornament is bad.” I think Seneca agreed, but theyounger literary men present smiled with pitying condescension on me and said patronizingly: “We’ve got beyond all that.”
After that dinner I made up my mind that I had seen enough of the literary set. Seneca was kind enough to get me an audience with the Emperor. I was received yesterday afternoon in the new gold palace which Nero has built for himself. It is a sumptuous building, to our taste vulgar, but not unimposing, and suits its purpose very well, though all hissuitecomplain of the insufficient accommodation and the discomfort of the arrangements. I was taken into a kind of ante-room where a number of Court officials, both civil and military, were waiting, and I was told that the Emperor would probably see me in about a quarter of an hour. They all talked for some time in subdued tones as if they were in a temple; as far as I could see there was no reason for this as the Emperor’s room was at the other end of a long passage, and the doors were shut. At the end of a quarter of an hour a young officer fetched me and ushered me into the Emperor’s presence.
He was seated at a large table covered with documents and parchments of every description, and had evidently been dictating to his secretary,who left the room on the other side as I entered. He is very like his pictures, which, however, do not give one any idea of his short-sighted, dreamy eyes, nor of his intensely good-humoured and humorous expression. He has a kind of way of looking up at one in a half-appealing fashion, as much as to say “For Heaven’s sake don’t think that I take all this business seriously.” His movements are quick but not jerky. He held in his hand a chain of amber beads which he kept on absent-mindedly fingering during the whole interview. His fingers are short, square, and rather fat. He spoke Greek, which he speaks very purely indeed and without any Latin accent. Indeed, he speaks it too well. He asked me whether I was enjoying my visit to Rome, how long it was since I had been here, what I thought of the improvements, and if I had been to the new theatre. I said I had not been to the theatre, but that I was told the games in the Circus were extremely well worth seeing. The Emperor laughed and shrugged his shoulders, and said that it was very civil of me to say so, since I knew quite well that those spectacles, although hugely enjoyed by the ignorant rabble, were singularly tedious to people of taste and education like myself. I bowed as he made this compliment. As for himself,he continued, the games frankly bored him to death, but, of course, it was a State duty for him to attend them. “It is part of my profession,” he said, “but if I had my own way I should witness nothing but Greek plays acted by my own company in my own house.” He asked after several of my relatives whom he had met in Greece, remembering their exact names and occupations. He asked me if I had been writing anything lately, and when I said that I was sick of books and intended henceforth to devote all my leisure to seeing people and studying them, he laughed. “Nothing is so discouraging,” he said, “as trying to improve the literary taste in this city. We are an admirable people; we do a great many things much better than other people—I do not mean only our colonization”—he said smiling—“and our foreign trade, but our portrait painting and our popular farce. But as a general rule directly we touch Art we seem to go altogether wrong, and the result is nauseous. Therefore, if you want to find a Roman who will be thoroughly sympathetic, capable, and intelligent, and decent, choose one who knows nothing about Art and does not want to. With you it is different,” he added, “Athens is a city of artists.” He then changed the subject and referredto the rather bitter criticisms published at Athens about his policy with regard to the Jews, especially that new sect among them who called themselves Christians.
“Of course,” he said, “your sense of proportion is shocked when any extreme measures are adopted, but, believe me, in this case it is necessary. The Jews are everywhere, and everywhere they claim the rights of citizenship. But they do not live as citizens: they retain their peculiar status; they claim the rights of the citizen and exceptional privileges of their own—in fact, their own laws. They wish to have the advantages of nationality without being a nation, without taking part in the functions of the State. We cannot tolerate this. The whole matter has been brought to the fore by the attitude of these so-called Christians, who are, I am obliged to say, extremely difficult to deal with: In the first place because they adopt the policy of passive resistance, against which it is so difficult to act, and in the second place because they are getting the women on their side—and you know what that means. I have no personal objection either to Jews or Christians. What one can’t tolerate is a secret society within the State which advocates and preaches neglect of thecitizen’s duty to the State, the worthlessness of patriotism, and the utter non-existence of citizenship.”
I said I quite understood this, but did not his Majesty agree with me in thinking that penal oppressions were rarely successful, and frequently defeated their own object.
The Emperor replied that there was a great deal in what I said, but that he did not consider he was dealing with a national or universal movement, which had any element of duration in it, but with a particular fad which would soon pass out of fashion, as the majority of all sensible people were opposed to it.
“The unfortunate part is,” he said, “the women have got it into their heads that it is a fine thing, and of course the more they see it is opposed to the wishes of all sensible men the more obstinate they will be in sticking to it. The whole matter has been grossly exaggerated both as regards the nature of the movement and the nature of the measures taken against it; but that one cannot help. They have represented me as gloating over the sufferings of innocent victims. That is all stuff and nonsense. Great care has been taken to investigate all the cases which have arisen, so that the innocent should not sufferwith the guilty. Besides which, any Jew or Christian who is willing to make a purely formal acknowledgement of the state authorities is entirely exempt from any possibility of persecution. But this is precisely what they often obstinately refuse to do—why, I cannot conceive. There is also a great deal of hysteria in the matter, and a large amount of self-advertisement, but one cannot get over the fact that the movement is a revolutionary one in itself, and can only be dealt with as such. I doubt whether in any country a revolutionary movement which has taken so uncompromising an attitude has ever been dealt with in so merciful a manner. So you see,” the Emperor concluded, “how grossly unfair is the manner in which I have been treated in this matter. However, I suppose I can’t complain: whatever one does it is sure to be wrong.”
He then rose from his table and said that the Empress wished to see me before I went away, and he led me into her apartment, which was next door.
The Empress Sabina Poppaea is the perfection of grace; she is more like a Greek than a Roman, and speaks Greek better than the Emperor, using the language not only with purity but with elegance.All the stories we were told of her extravagance in dress and of how she powdered her head with gold, are of course absurd. She was dressed with the utmost simplicity and did not wear a single ornament. She was absolutely natural, put one at one’s ease, talking continuously herself on various topics without ever dwelling long on one, till she had said all she had got to say, and then by a gesture delicately shadowed, she gave me the sign that it was time for me to go.
The Emperor said that the Empress Mother would have seen me only she was suffering from one of her bad attacks of indigestion. He told me to be sure to let him know should I visit Rome again, that he hoped himself to be able to spend some months in Greece next year, but he did not think the pressure of affairs would allow him to. Farewell.
P.S.—Later. The gossips say that the Empress Mother is being poisoned.