Nero, on receiving this decree of the Senate and seeing that every piece of his wickedness was regarded as a conspicuous merit, drove Octavia from him, alleging that she was barren, and then married Poppaea.The woman who had long been Nero's mistress and ruled him first as a paramour, then as her husband, instigated one of Octavia's servants to accuse her an intrigue with a slave.The man fixed on as the guilty lover was one by name Eucaerus, an Alexandrine by birth, skilled in singing to the flute.As a consequence, her slave-girls were examined under torture, and though some were forced by the intensity of agony into admitting falsehoods, most of them persisted in upholding the virtue of their mistress.One of them said, in answer to the furious menaces of Tigellinus, that Octavia's person was purer than his mouth.Octavia, however, was dismissed under the form of an ordinary divorce, and received possession of the house of Burrus and of the estates of Plautus, an ill-starred gift.She was soon afterwards banished to Campania under military surveillance.This led to incessant and outspoken remonstrances among the common people, who have less discretion and are exposed to fewer dangers than others from the insignificance of their position.Upon this Nero, though he did not repent of his outrage, restored to Octavia her position as wife.
Then people in their joy went up to the Capitol and, at last, gave thanks to the gods.They threw down the statues of Poppaea; they bore on their shoulders the images of Octavia, covering them with flowers, and setting them up in the forum and in the temples.There was even a burst of applause for the emperor, men hailing the recalled Octavia.And now they were pouring into the Palace in crowds, with loud shoutings, when some companies of soldiers rushed out and dispersed the tumultuous throng with blows, and at the point of the sword.Whatever changes had been made in the riot, were reversed, and Poppaea's honours restored.Ever relentless in her hatred, she was now enraged by the fear that either the violence of the mob would burst on her with yet fiercer fury, or that Nero would be swayed by the popular bias, and so, flinging herself at his knees, she exclaimed that she was not in the position of a rival fighting for marriage, though that was dearer to her than life, but that her very life was brought into jeopardy by the dependants and slaves of Octavia, who had assumed the name of the people, and dared in peace what could hardly happen in war."Those arms," she said, "have been taken up against the emperor; a leader only is wanting, and he will easily be found in a commotion.Only let her whose mere beck, though she is far away, stirs up tumult, quit Campania, and make her way in person to Rome.And, again, what is my sin? What offense have I caused any one? Is it that I am about to give to the house of the Caesars a lawful heir?
