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But these independent Irish myths go back to the fall of the Tower of Babel, and they have there an ancestor, grandson of Japhet, named Fenius Farsa, and they ascribe to him the invention of the alphabet. They took their ancient name of Feine, the modern Fenian, from him.
"Cæsar is childless," said he, "and all see his successor in Piso. Doubtless, too, every man would help him with whole soul to gain power. Fenius Rufus loves him; the relatives of Annæus are devoted to him altogether. Plautius Lateranus and Tullius Senecio would spring into fire for him; as would Natalis, and Subrius Flavius, and Sulpicius Asper, and Afranius Quinetianus, and even Vestinius."
In the mean time while Lateranus and his associates were perpetrating this deed in the circus where the games were to be exhibited, Piso was to station himself in a certain temple not far distant, to await the result; while Fenius, the officer of the guard, who has already been mentioned as the chief military reliance of the conspirators, was to be posted in another part of the city, with a military cavalcade in array, ready to proceed through the streets and bring Piso forth to be proclaimed emperor as soon as he should receive the tidings that Nero had been slain.
Piso paid for the conspiracy with his head; after him followed Seneca, and Lucan, Fenius Rufus, and Plautius Lateranus, and Flavius Scevinus, and Afranius Quinetianus, and the dissolute companion of Cæsar's madnesses, Tullius Senecio, and Proculus, and Araricus, and Tugurinus, and Gratus, and Silanus, and Proximus, once devoted with his whole soul to Nero, and Sulpicius Asper.
His death was regretted, not only from the memory of his virtues, but also from the fact that Nero appointed two men as his successors, of whom the one, Fenius Rufus, was honorable but indolent; the other and more powerful, Sofonius Tigellinus had won for himself among cruel and shameful associates a pre-eminence of hatred and of shame.
The false charge which had been brought against Seneca, and in which the name of Piso had been involved, tended to urge that nobleman and his friends into a real and formidable conspiracy. Many men of influence and distinction joined in it, and among others Annaeus Lucanus, the celebrated poet-nephew of Seneca, and Fenius Rufus the colleague of Tigellinus in the command of the imperial guards.
He said that even Augustians were dissatisfied; that Fenius Rufus, second prefect of the pretorians, endured with the greatest effort the vile orders of Tigellinus; and that all Seneca's relatives were driven to extremes by Cæsar's conduct as well toward his old master as toward Lucan.
Fabius Rusticus writes, "that the tribune did not return by the road he went, but turning off went to Fenius, captain of the guards, and stating to him the emperor's orders, asked whether he should obey him; and was by him admonished to execute them"; thus displaying that want of spirit which by some fatality prevailed universally; for Silvanus too was one of the conspirators, and yet was contributing to multiply the atrocities he had conspired to avenge.
Origin and nature of Piso's conspiracy. Lucan, the Latin poet. His quarrel with Nero. Lateranus. Celebrity of his name. The church of St. John Lateran. Fenius Rufus. A woman in the secret. Plans and arrangements of the conspirators. Bold proposals of Flavius. The palace to be set on fire. Epicharis impatient. She goes to the fleet. She communicates with Proculus at Misenum.
It happened singularly enough that among those whom Nero summoned to serve on the tribunal for the trial of the prisoners were two of the principal conspirators, who had not yet been accused. These were Subrius Flavius and Fenius Rufus, whom the reader will perhaps recollect as prominent members of the plot.
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