The History of Nero

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Title: The History of Nero
Author: Jacob Abbott
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 1400611h.html
Language: English
Date first posted:  Feb 2014
Most recent update: Feb 2014

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The History of Nero

by Jacob AbbottJacob Abbott - Wikipedia

Jacob Abbott - Wikipedia

BOOK XV IN THE MAKERS OF HISTORY SERIES

First published by Harper & Brothers, New York & London, 1853

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네로는 로마 제국의 제5대 황제이자 율리우스-클라우디우스 왕조의 마지막 황제이다. 본래 이름은 루키우스 도미티우스 아헤노바르부스이며, 황제가 되어 네로 클라우디우스 카이사르 아우구스투스 게르마니쿠스로 칭하였다. 클라우디우스의 외종손이자 양자이며 칼리굴라의 외조카가 된다.

위키백과

Nero, Illuminated Title Page from 1st Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Chapter I. Nero's Mother
• Chapter II. The Assassination of Caligula
• Chapter III. The Accession of Claudius
• Chapter IV. The Fate of Messalina
• Chapter V. The Childhood of Nero
• Chapter VI. Nero an Emperor
• Chapter VII. Britannicus
• Chapter VIII. The Fate of Agrippina
• Chapter IX. Extreme Depravity
• Chapter X. Piso's Conspiracy
• Chapter XI. The Fate of the Conspirators
• Chapter XII. The Expedition into Greece
• Chapter XIII. Nero's End

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

• Illustration 1.
  Portait from a Bust of Nero
• Illustration 2.
  Map: Environs of Rome
• Illustration 3.
  Encampment of a Roman Legion
• Illustration 4.
  Cæsonia and Her Child
• Illustration 5.
  The Discovery of Claudius
• Illustration 6.
  Messalina in the Garden
• Illustration 7.
  The Poisoning of Claudius
• Illustration 8.
  The Jewelry
• Illustration 9.
  The Attempt of Anicetus
• Illustration 10.
  The Burning of Rome
• Illustration 11.
  The Knife
• Illustration 12.
  Bringing Epicharis to the Torture
• Illustration 13.
  Phaon at the Wall

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Portrait from a Bust of Nero

 

PREFACE

In writing the series of historical narratives to which the present work pertains, it has been the object of the author to furnish to the reading community of this country an accurate and faithful account of the lives and actions of the several personages that are made successively the subjects of the volumes, following precisely the story which has come down to us from ancient times. The writer has spared no pains to gain access in all cases to the original sources of information, and has confined himself strictly to them. The reader may, therefore, feel assured in perusing any one of these works, that the interest of it is in no degree indebted to the invention of the author. No incident, however trivial, is ever added to the original account, nor are any words even, in any case, attributed to a speaker without express authority. Whatever of interest, therefore, these stories may possess, is due solely to the facts themselves which are recorded in them, and to their being brought together in a plain, simple, and connected narrative.

 

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Environs of Rome

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I. — NERO'S MOTHER

A.D. 37

Roman country seats.—Antium.—Situation of the promontory of Antium.—Account of Nero's parentage.—Brazenbeard.—Nero's father.—Agrippina his mother.—Agrippina's brother Caligula.—Roman emperors.—Regulations in respect to the Roman armies.—Description of the Roman armies.—Encampments of the legions.—Their stations.—Useful functions of the Roman armies.—Effects produced.—Mode of producing them.—The civil authorities.—The progress of the military power.—Disposition of men to submit to established power.—Great capacity of the early emperors.—Roman armies.—Character of Caligula.—His desperate malignity.—Examples of his cruelty.—Feeding wild beasts with men.—Branding.—Agrippina is implicated in a conspiracy.—She is banished with her sister to Pontia.

IN ancient times, when the city of Rome was at the height of its power and splendor, it was the custom, as it is in fact now with the inhabitants of wealthy capitals, for the principal families to possess, in addition to their city residences, rural villas for summer retreats, which they built in picturesque situations, at a little distance from the city, sometimes in the interior of the country, and sometimes upon the sea-shore. There were many attractive places of resort of this nature in the neighborhood of Rome. Among them was Antium.

Antium was situated on the sea-coast about thirty miles south of the Tiber. A bold promontory here projects into the sea, affording from its declivities the most extended and magnificent views on every side. On the north, looking from the promontory of Antium, the eye follows the line of the coast away to the mouth of the Tiber; while, on the south, the view is terminated, at about the same distance, by the promontory of Circe, which is the second cape, or promontory, that marks the shore of Italy in going southward from Rome. Toward the interior, from Antium, there extends a broad and beautiful plain, bounded by wooded hills toward the shore, and by ranges of mountains in the distance beyond. On the southern side of the cape, and sheltered by it, was a small harbor where vessels from all the neighboring seas had been accustomed to bring in their cargoes, or to seek shelter in storms, from time immemorial. In fact, Antium, in point of antiquity, takes precedence, probably, even of Rome.

The beauty and the salubrity of Antium made it a very attractive place of summer resort for the people of Rome; and in process of time, when the city attained to an advanced stage of opulence and luxury, the Roman noblemen built villas there, choosing situations, in some instances, upon the natural terraces and esplanades of the promontory, which looked off over the sea, and in others cool and secluded retreats in the valleys, on the land. It was in one of these villas that Nero was born.

Nero's father belonged to a family which had enjoyed for several generations a considerable degree of distinction among the Roman nobility, though known by a somewhat whimsical name. The family name was Brazenbeard, or, to speak more exactly, it was Ahenobarbus, which is the Latin equivalent for that word. It is a question somewhat difficult to decide, whether in speaking of Nero's father at the present time, and in the English tongue, we should make use of the actual Latin name, or translate the word and employ the English representative of it; that is, whether we shall call him Ahenobarbus or Brazenbeard. The former seems to be more in harmony with our ideas of the dignity of Roman history; while the latter, though less elegant, conveys probably to our minds a more exact idea of the import and expression of the name as it sounded in the ears of the Roman community. The name certainly was not an attractive one, though the family had contrived to dignify it some degree by assigning to it a preternatural origin. There was a tradition that in ancient times a prophet appeared to one of the ancestors of the line, and after foretelling certain extraordinary events which were to occur at some future period, stroked down the beard of his auditor with his hand, and changed it to the color of brass, in miraculous attestation of the divine authority of the message. The man received the name of Brazenbeard in consequence, and he and his descendants ever afterward retained it.

The family of the Brazenbeards was one of high rank and distinction, though at the time of Nero's birth it was, like most of the other prominent Roman families, extremely profligate and corrupt. Nero's father, especially, was a very bad man. He was accused of the very worst of crimes, and he led a life of constant remorse and terror. His wife, Agrippina, Nero's mother, was as wicked as he; and it is said that when the messenger came to him to announce the birth of his child, the hero of this narrative, he uttered some exclamation of ill-humor and contempt, and said that whatever came from him and Agrippina could not but be fraught with ruin to Rome.

로마 사회에서 아그리피나의 지위와 지위는 남편보다 훨씬 높았습니다. 그녀는 황제의 여동생이었다. 그녀의 형제 인 황제의 이름은 칼리굴라였습니다. 그는 로마 황제 시리즈 중 세 번째였으며, 율리우스 카이사르의 후계자인 아우구스투스 카이사르가 첫 번째였습니다. 그러나 황제라는 용어는 당시의 의미와는 매우 다른 의미를 가지고 있었습니다. 그것은 이제 주권 통치자를 나타내는 것 같으며, 그는 공식적으로 국가의 전체 정부에 걸쳐 확장되는 일반 관할권을 행사합니다. 로마 시대에는 적어도 이론상으로는 군사 명령만 포함되었습니다. 그 단어는 명령관을 의미하는 명령이었습니다. 그리고 그것이 나타내는 역은 단순히 공화국의 군대를 관장하는 총사령관의 역이었습니다.

로마 역사의 초기에, 군사력을 행정관과 법의 권위에 매우 엄격하게 종속시키는 상태로 유지하기 위해 가능한 모든 예방 조치가 취해졌다. 이 목적을 확보하기 위해 매우 엄격한 규정이 채택되었습니다. 성벽 안의 질서를 유지하는 데 필요한 작은 분리를 제외하고는 군대의 어떤 부분도 도시에 접근하는 것이 허용되지 않았습니다. 위대한 지휘관들은 승리의 원정에서 돌아오면서 성문에서 어느 정도 떨어진 곳에 멈춰 서서 진을 치고 그곳에서 로마 원로원의 명령을 기다려야 했습니다. 이론적으로 상원은 정치 권력의 위대한 저장소였습니다. 그러나 이 원로원은 현대에 그 단어가 가리키는 것처럼 보이는 것처럼 잘 정의되고 조밀한 입법자 단체가 아니라 오히려 매우 많고 태곳적의 사용에서 권력을 얻는 세습 귀족 계급, 그리고 인류 대중이 항상 기성 대중을 우러러보는 이상하고 설명할 수 없는 존경과 경외감에서, 특히 고대의 귀족. 원로원은 정해진 시간에 소집하는 데 익숙했으며, 때로는 적절한 수준의 형식과 질서로 진행되었으며 때로는 다른 한편으로는 큰 소란과 혼란의 장면을 보여주었습니다. 그러나 그들의 힘은 규칙적이든 비정기적으로 행사되든 최고였습니다. 그들은 칙령을 내리고, 법을 제정하고, 속주를 할당하고, 평화를 이루고, 전쟁을 선포했습니다. 군대와 그들을 지휘하는 장군들은 그들의 명령을 수행하기 위해 고용된 대리인이었습니다.