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Page 45
Agrippina, however, was an energetic woman, not easily discouraged, and
she continued the struggle. Consequently for two years longer, even in
the midst of strife, intrigues, and suspicions, she preserved a
considerable influence, and was able to check the progress of the
government in its new direction. This was either because Nero, though
no longer exactly obedient to his mother's will, was still too weak,
too undecided, and too deeply involved in the ideas of his earlier
education to attempt an open revolt against her, or it was because
Seneca and Burrhus wisely sought to conciliate the ultra-conservative
ideas of the mother with the newer tendencies of the son.
The definitive break with his mother and with her political
ideas,--that is, with the ideas which had been professed by her
ancestors,--came in 58, when Nero forgot Acte for Poppaea Sabina. The
latter belonged to one of those great Roman families into which the new
spirit and the new customs had most deeply penetrated. Rich,
beautiful, avaricious of luxuries and pleasures, possessed of an
unbridled personal ambition, she had attracted Nero to herself, and, in
order to become empress, gave the uncertain youth the decisive impulse
which was to transform the disciple of Agrippina and the grandson of
Germanicus into the prodigal and dissolute emperor of history. She
encouraged in him his desire to please the populace, and certainly
never checked his love for Greece and the Orient, which resulted
finally in his mania of everywhere imitating the example of Asia and of
taking up again, though to be sure less wildly, the policies of
Caligula. Tacitus tells us that she continually reproved Nero for his
simple customs, his inelegant manners, and his rude tastes. She held
up to him, both as an example and as a reproach, the elegance and
luxury of her husband, who was indeed one of the most refined and
pompous members of the degenerate Roman nobility. Poppaea, in short,
gave herself up to the task of reshaping the education of Nero and of
destroying the results of Agrippina's patient labor. Nor was this all.
She even became, with her restricted intelligence, his adviser in
politics. She persuaded him that the policy of authority and economy
which his mother had desired was rendering him unpopular, and she
suggested the idea of a policy of liberality toward the people which
would win him the affection of the masses. After he had fallen in love
with Poppaea Sabina, Nero, who up to that time had shown no
considerable initiative in affairs of state, elaborated and proposed to
the senate many revolutionary projects for favoring the populace. He
finally proposed that they abolish all the _vectigalia_ of the empire;
that is, all indirect taxes, all tolls and duties of whatever sort.
The measure would certainly have been most popular, and there was much
discussion about it in the senate; but the conservatives showed that
the finances of the empire would be ruined and persuaded Nero not to
insist. Nero, however, wished to bring about some reform which would
help the masses, and he gave orders in an edict that the rates of all
the _vectigalia_ be published; that at Rome the pretor, and in the
provinces the propretor and proconsul, should summarily decide all
suits against the tax-farmers and that the soldiers should be exempt
from these same _vectigalia_.
[Illustration: The death of Agrippina.]
Though some of these reforms were just, this new policy was also the
cause of the final rupture with his mother. Agrippina and Nero, to all
intents and purposes, no longer saw each other, and Nero, on the few
visits which he was obliged to pay her in order to save appearances,
always arranged it so as never to be left alone in her presence. In
this manner the influence of Agrippina continued to decline, while the
popularity of Nero steadily increased as the result of his youth, of
these first reforms, and of the hopes to which his prodigality had
given rise. The public, whose memory is always brief, forgot what
Agrippina had done and how she had brought back peace to the state, and
began to expect all sorts of new benefits from Nero. Poppaea,
encouraged by the increasing popularity of the emperor, insisted more
boldly that Nero, in order to make her his wife, should divorce Octavia.
But Agrippina was not the woman to yield thus easily, and she continued
the struggle against her son, against his paramour, and against the
growing coterie which was gathering about the emperor. She opposed
particularly the repudiation of Octavia, which, being merely the result
of a pure caprice, would have caused serious scandal in Rome. But Nero
was even now hesitating and uncertain. He still had too clearly before
him the memory of the long authority of his mother; he feared her too
much to dare step forth in open and complete revolt. At last Poppaea
understood that she could not become empress so long as the mother
lived, and from that moment the doom of Agrippina was sealed. Poppaea
was goaded on by all the new friends of Nero, who wished to destroy
forever the influence of Agrippina, and by her words and deeds she
finally brought him to the point where he decided to kill his mother.
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