But all this had no
effect on Plautus. Either he saw no resource before him, an unarmed exile as
he was, or he was weary of an uncertain hope, or was swayed by his love of
his wife and of his children, to whom he thought the emperor, if harassed by
no anxiety, would be more merciful. Some say that another message came to
him from his father-in-law, representing that no dreadful peril hung over
him, and that two teachers of philosophy, Cœranus from
Greece and Musonius from
Etruria, advised him to await death with firmness rather
than lead a precarious and anxious life. At all events, he was surprised at
midday, when stripped for exercise. In that state the centurion slew him in
the presence of Pelago, an eunuch, whom Nero had set over the centurion and
his company, like a despot's minister over his satellites.
The head of
the murdered man was brought to
Rome. At its sight
the emperor exclaimed (I give his very words), "Why would you have been a
Nero?" Then casting off all fear he prepared to hurry on his marriage with
Poppæa, hitherto deferred because of such alarms as I have described,
and to divorce his wife Octavia, notwithstanding her virtuous life, because
her father's name and the people's affection for her made her an offence to
him. He wrote, however, a letter to the Senate, confessing nothing about the
murders of Sulla and Plautus, but merely hinting that both
NERO DIVORCES OCTAVIA, MARRIES POPPÆA |
had a restless
temper, and that he gave the most anxious thought to the safety of the
State. On this pretext a thanksgiving was decreed, and also the expulsion
from the Senate of Sulla and Plautus, more grievous, however, as a farce
than as an actual calamity.