The soldiers who were guarding the door of the apartment heard without understanding.
“Certainly,” said the slave, “if any good is to be achieved.”
“You shall have ten gold pieces for your trouble.”
“Nay, this is a thing which I would sooner do without payment. That is not only more honourable, but also more safe.”
“I cannot write it, indeed, there is no need; all that is needed can be said in a few words. Go to Caius Piso, and say to him, ‘All is discovered; act.’ And mind�not a word of this to any one else. Let not wild horses wring it out of you. That would be fatal to both you and me.”
The slave smiled. “They might as well try to wring words out of a stump or a stone. For, indeed, what else is a slave? When my old master kicked me and broke my leg�” and he held out as he spoke the maimed limb�“I said, ‘Why do you damage your own property?’ So I should say to them. If they choose to kill me, that is their own lookout; all that concerns me, for a slave has something of a man about him after all, as Aristotle says, is that I don’t dishonour myself.”
When Sc?vinus was recalled into the Emperor’s [255] audience-chamber, Epictetus lost no time in making his way to Piso’s house. Some of the prominent persons connected with the conspiracy were assembled, and were busy making their final arrangements for the proceedings of the day.
Epictetus, as soon as he was safe within the doors, wrote down on a tablet the following words: “The bearer of a message from Sc?vinus asks for admission.” He was brought up without loss of time into an ante-chamber, where Piso saw him alone. He delivered his message, and immediately departed.
Piso rejoined his assembled friends, and told them what had happened. Subrius, with characteristic promptitude, rose to the occasion.
“Piso,” he said, “the task before us is different from that which we had planned,�different and possibly more difficult, but certainly not hopeless. We shall not proclaim you Emperor after Nero is dead; we shall have to proclaim you while he is yet alive. And I must own that the affair is now more to my taste than it was. I was ready, as you know, to play the assassin, when it was a question of delivering the human race from a tyrant; but I would sooner play the soldier, and meet him in the field. That, Piso, is what we must do. Let us go to the Forum, and appeal to the people, or, as I would rather advise, to the camp, and appeal to the soldiers. In both places, among both audiences, we shall have friends. They will shout their applause, and others, who at present [256] know nothing of the matter, will join in. That is a line of action for which, depend upon it, Nero is not prepared. Even brave men are sometimes confounded by so sudden an attack; how will a stage-playing Emperor and his miserable minion encounter it? Don’t think for a moment that we can escape; there are too many in the secret. Some one will be sure to sell his honour for money, or find his courage ooze away in the presence of the rack. Indeed, we know that the treachery has begun. Let us act, and at once, for even while I am urging you on, opportunities are passing away.”
These spirited words made no impression on Piso’s somewhat sluggish and inactive nature. He was one of those men who are slow to move from their course, and have an inexhaustible supply of passive endurance. He shrugged his shoulders.
“The Empire,” he said, “does not approve itself to me if it is to be won in a street broil.”
“I understand,” said the soldier. “It would be more seemly, I acknowledge, if the Senate, headed by the Magistrates, and the Prefects, and Tribunes of the Pr?torians, with the Vestal Virgins in the front of the whole procession, were to come and salute you as Emperor. But that is not the question. The question is this: You have two alternatives; think which suits your dignity, your name, your ancestors, the better. One is to put your fortune to the trial, if things go well, to be the successor of Augustus; if [257] the fates will otherwise, to die, sword in hand. The other is to wait here till Nero’s myrmidons come to chain you, to drag you off to the place of execution; or, if the tyrant strains his prerogative of mercy to the utmost, to suffer you to fall on your own sword, or open your own veins.”
Piso heard unmoved. His courage was of the passive kind. He could meet death when it came with an undaunted face, but he could not go, so to speak, to seek it.
“The gods have declared against us, and I shall not resist their will. I thank you for your good-will and your counsel; but you must permit a Piso to judge for himself what best suits his own dignity and the glory of his ancestors. I am determined to await my fate.”
The bold spirit of the Tribune was not crushed, nor his resources exhausted by this failure. There was still a possible claimant to the throne in Lateranus. He had not, it is true, the pretensions of Piso, neither his personal popularity nor his noble birth. Still, he had courage, favour with some classes of the people, and a commanding presence. Here another disappointment awaited him. Lateranus had been arrested. Apparently, Nero had had the same thought that had occurred to the Pr?torian, that the Consul-elect was among the dangerous characters of Rome. The house was in the utmost confusion; indeed, the soldiers had only just left it. Subrius’ inquiries were [258] answered by the Chamberlain. He, poor man, came wringing his hands and weeping, overwhelmed, it was evident, by terror and grief. “Ah! my poor master,” he said; “we shall never see him again. They hurried him off without a moment’s notice.”
“Who?” asked the soldier.
“Statius the Tribune,” replied the Chamberlain, “who had some twenty men with him. He would not give him time even to say good by to his children. And when my poor master said, ‘If I must die, let me die by my own hand,’ even that was refused him. ‘We allow nothing to traitors,’ the brute answered. They bound him hand and foot and dragged him off.”
“We allow nothing to traitors, indeed,” murmured Subrius to himself. “What, I wonder, does Statius call himself? I hope that he, anyhow, will get his deserts.”
Statius, it should be said, had been one of the most active promoters of the conspiracy.
Again the Tribune’s hopes were dashed to the ground. Still he refused to think that all was lost. A last chance remained. The conspiracy had spread widely among his brother officers of the Pr?torians; and they, at least, he hoped, would make a struggle for their lives. Civilians might be content to fold their arms and bare their necks to the sword of the executioner, but soldiers would die, if die they must, with arms in their hands. And then, if they wanted [259] a great name to catch the popular ear, was there not Seneca? I don’t think much of philosophers,” Subrius thought to himself, “but perhaps I may be wrong. Anyhow, the men of the world have failed us. They are as weak as water. Perhaps there may be sterner stuff in the man of books.”
Obviously there was no time to be lost. He must hurry to the Pr?torian camp at once, and urge F?nius Rufus, who was one of the joint Prefects, and, as we know, was involved in the conspiracy, to act.
Calling to the driver of a car which was plying for hire, he proceeded at the utmost speed to which the horse could be put, to the camp. Just outside the gate he met the officer of whom he was in search.
Rufus, who was on horseback, and was followed by an escort of ten troopers, signed to his brother officer to halt. “Well met, Subrius!” he cried. “I am on my way to the palace, and I want you to come with me. Give the Tribune your horse,” he went on, turning to the orderly who was riding behind him; “go back and get a fresh mount for yourself, and come on after us.”
The man dismounted and held the horse while the Tribune jumped into the saddle.
“Not a word,” whispered the Prefect to his companion, as they rode along; “not a word; we must brave it out, and all may yet be well. But leave it to me.
[260] The Tribune had no choice but to obey. His superior officer’s conduct was unintelligible, even astounding. Still he could do nothing. It would have been sheer madness for him, a simple Tribune, to stand up in the camp and bid the Pr?torians abandon the Emperor. If such a movement was to begin at all it must begin with the Prefect. Meanwhile, he could only obey orders and possess his soul in patience.