ordered. The head was brought to her at the Palace. Agrippinilla took it by the hair and, holding it up to a window, opened the mouth. `Yes, that's Lollia's head, all right,' she said complacently to me as I came into the room. `Here are those gold teeth that she had put in by an Alexandrian dentist to fill out her sunken left cheek. What coarse hair she had, like a pony's mane. Slave, take this thing away. And the mat too: have the bloodstains scrubbed out.'
Agrippinilla also removed her sister-in-law Domitia Lepida, Messalina's mother. Domitia Lepida was very attentive to Nero now and used to invite him frequently to her house, where she caressed and flattered him, and gave him a good time and reminded him of all that she had done for him when he was a penniless orphan. It was true that she had occasionally taken charge of him when her sister Domitia went out of town and could not be bothered to take the child with her. Agrippinilla, finding that her own maternal authority, which was based on sternness, was being threatened by Domitia Lepida's auntish indulgences, had her accused of publicly cursing my marriage-bed and also of failing to restrain the slaves on her estate in Calabria from dangerous rioting: a magistrate and two of his staff who attempted to restore order there had been set on and beaten, and Domitia Lepida had locked herself up in the house and done nothing. I allowed her to be sentenced to death on these two charges (the first of which was probably a fabrication) because I was now aware of the assistance she had given Messalina in the Appius Silanus affair and other deceptions practised on me.
One act only of Agrippinilla's I found it hard to take philosophically. When I heard of it I confess that tears came into my eyes. But it would have been foolish for old King Log to have gone back on his resolution at this point, and roused himself and taken vengeance. Vengeance cannot recall the dead to life again. It was 1 the murder of my poor Caipurnia. and her friend Cleopatra that made me weep. Someone set fire to their house one night and the two were trapped in their beds and burned to death. It was, made to look like an accident; but it was clearly murder. Pallas, who told me about it, had the insolence to suggest that it was done by some friend of Messalina's who knew the part that Calpurnia had played in bringing her to justice. I had been most neglectful of Calpurnia. I had not visited her once since that terrible afternoon. At my private order a handsome marble tomb was erected for her on the ruins of the burned villa, and on it I put a Greek epigram. It was the only one that I have ever composed except as a school exercise: but I felt that I had to do something out of the ordinary to express my great grief for her death and my gratitude for the ; love and, devotion she had always shown me. I wrote:
`A harlot's love, a harlot's lie'
Cast that ancient proverb by.
CALPURNIA's heart was cleaner far,
Roman matrons, than yours are.
Last year, the year of Nero's marriage, was marked by a world failure of crops that all but exhausted our granaries. This year, though the harbour of Ostia was now completed, a, strong northeast wind blowing for .weeks on end prevented the Egyptian and African corn fleets from making our shores. The. Italian harvest promised well, but was not yet ready to cut, and at one time there was only a fortnight's corn supply left in the public granaries, though I had done everything possible to fill them. I was obliged to reduce corn rations to the lowest possible level. Then, as though I was not doing and had not always done everything possible to keep my fellow citizens well fed (building the harbour, for instance, in the face of general discouragement, and organizing the daily supply of fresh vegetables), I suddenly found myself regarded as a public enemy. I was accused of purposely starving the City. The crowd groaned and howled at me almost whenever I showed myself in public, and once or twice pelted me with stones and mud and mouldy crusts. On one occasion I narrowly escaped serious injury in the Market Place: my yeomen were set upon by a mob of 200 or 300 persons and had their rods of office broken over their own backs. I only just managed to get safely into the Palace by a postern gate not far off, from which a small party of armed Guardsmen dashed out to my rescue. In the old days I would have taken this greatly to heart. Now I just smiled to myself. `Frogs,' I thought, `you are getting very frisky.'
Nero put on his manly-gown, in the year after his adoption by me. I allowed the Senate to vote him the privilege of becoming Consul at the age of twenty, so at sixteen he was Consul-Elect. I awarded him honorary triumphal dress and appointed him Leader of Cadets, as Augustus had appointed his grandsons, Gaius and Lucius. In the Latin holidays, too; when the Consuls and other magistrates were out of the City, I made him City Warden as Augustus had also done with his grandsons, to give them a' first taste of magistracy. It was customary to bring no important cases before the City Warden, but to wait for the return of the proper magistrates. Nero, however, managed a whole series of complicated cases which would have tested the judgement of the most experienced legal officers in the City, and gave remarkably shrewd decisions. This gained him popular admiration, but it was perfectly clear to me, as soon as I heard about it, that the whole affair had been stage-managed by Seneca. I do not mean that the cases were not genuine, but Seneca had reviewed them carefully before hand and arranged with the lawyers as to just what points they should bring out, in their speeches, and had then coached Nero in, his cross-examination of witnesses and his summing-up and judgement. Britannicus had not yet come of age. I kept him from the society of boys of his own age and rank as much as possible: he only met them under the eye of his tutors. I did not wish him to catch the Imperial infection to which I was purposely subjecting Nero. I let it go about that he, was an epileptic. Public flattery was all, concentrated now on Nero. Agrippinilla was delighted. She thought that I hated Britannicus for his mother's sake.
There was a big riot about the sale of bread. It was a quite unnecessary riot, though, and according to Narcissus, who loathed Agrippinilla (and found to his surprise that I encouraged him: in this), it was instigated by her. It happened when I was suffering from a chill, and Agrippinilla came to my room and suggested that I should issue an edict to reassure and quiet the populace, She wanted me to say that I was not seriously ill and that, even if my illness took a serious turn and I died, Nero was now capable of conducting public affairs under her guidance. I laughed in her face. `You are asking me to sign my own death warrant, my dear? Come on, then, give me the pen. I'll sign it. When's the funeral to be?'
'If you don't wish to sign it, don't, she said. `I'm not forcing you.' `Very well, then, I won't,' I said. 'I'll inquire into that bread riot and see who really started it.'
She walked angrily out. I called her back. `I was only joking. Of course I'll sign ! By the way, has Seneca taught Nero his funeral oration yet? Or not yet? I'd like to hear it first, if none of you mind.'
Vitellius died of a paralytic stroke. A senator who was either drunk or crazy, I can't say which, had suddenly accused him before the House of aiming at the monarchy. The charge appears to have been directed at Agrippinilla, but naturally no one dared to support it, much as Agrippinilla was, hated, so the accuser was himself outlawed. However, Vitellius took the matter to heart and the stroke followed soon after. I visitedhim as
he lay dying. He was unable to move a finger but talked quite good sense. I asked him the question that I had always meant to, ask: `Vitellius, in a better age you would have been one of the most virtuous men alive: how was it, then, that your upright nature acquired a sort of permanent stoop from playing the courtier?'
He said `It was inevitable under a monarchy, however benevolent the monarch. The old virtues disappear. Independence and frankness are at a discount. Complacent anticipation of the monarch's wishes is then the greatest of all virtues. One must either be a good monarch like yourself, or a good courtier like myself either an Emperor or an idiot.'
I said: 'You mean that people who continue virtuous in an old-fashioned way must inevitably suffer in times like these?'
'Phaemon's dog was right.' That was the last thing he said before he lapsed into a coma from which he never recovered.
I could not be content until I had hunted down the reference in the library. It appears that Phaemon the philosopher had a little dog whom he had trained to go to the butcher every day and bring back a lump of meat in a basket. This virtuous creature, who would never dare to touch a scrap until Phaemon gave it permission, was one day set upon by a pack of mongrels who snatched the basket from its mouth and began to tear the meat to pieces and bolt it greedily down. Phaemon, watching from an upper window saw the dog deliberate for a moment just what to do. It was clearly no use trying to rescue the meat from the other dogs: they would kill it for its pains. So it rushed in among them and itself ate as much of the meat as it could get hold of. In fact, it ate more than any of the other dogs, because it was both braver and cleverer.
The Senate honoured Vitellius with a public funeral and statue in the Market Place. The inscription that is carved on it reads:
LUCIUS VITELLIUS, TWICE CONSUL, ONCE CENSOR. HE ALSO GOVERNED SYRIA. UNSWERVINGLY LOYAL TO HIS EMPEROR
I must tell about the Fucine Lake. I had lost all real interest in it by now, but one day Narcissus, who was in
