dependent on my money as before. In practice, it was she who supervised the menagerie, ordered everything and arranged the performances in the amphitheater. She even appeared publicly to demonstrate her skill as a lion- tamer.
I think that Nero’s life began to become almost as intolerable as mine at this time. When he had banished his mother to Antium and openly taken Lollia Poppaea as his lover to Palatine, he had leaped from the frying pan into the fire. People did not like his brusque treatment of Octavia. Poppaea nagged and wept, demanding that he should legally separate from Octavia and frightening him with Agrippina’s secret intrigues, possibly with some justification. In any case, Nero was forced to banish Antonia’s husband, Faustus Sulla, to Massilia. Antonia naturally went with her husband and five years elapsed before I saw her again.
Seneca was definitely opposed to an Imperial divorce, and old Burrus said publicly that if Nero separated from Octavia, then he must also relinquish his. marriage portion or the Emperorship. And Lollia Poppaea had no particular desire to move to Rhodes and live there as the wife of a free artist.
Agrippina perhaps caused her own fate by her lust for power and her jealousy. Behind her she had a fortune she had inherited from her second husband and from Claudius, and in spite of Pallas’ banishment, her influence was still very great. Admittedly, she had no real friends left. But more than a political conspiracy, Nero feared that she would publish the memoirs she was writing herself in Antium, since she did not dare dictate them to even the most trustworthy slave. The knowledge of these memoirs she rashly allowed to spread all over Rome, so that many people who were in one way or another involved in her crimes sincerely wished her dead.
In my thoughts, I accused Agrippina of destroying my life when I was still young and open and in love with Claudia, and I blamed all the evil things that had happened to me on to her. Once I visited old Locusta at her little country place. The old woman smiled at me, inasmuch as a death mask can smile, and told me quite openly that I was not the first person to visit her on the same errand.
On principle, she had no objection to blending poisons for Agrippina too; it was simply a matter of price. But she shook her experienced old head and said she had already used up her ingredients. Agrippina was much too careful, cooking her own food and not even daring to pick fruit from her own trees, as it was so easy to poison. I came to the conclusion that Agrippina’s life was no pleasure to her, even if she was enjoying the revenge of writing her memoirs.
Nero achieved peace of mind and reconciliation with Poppaea the moment he made the final decision to murder his mother. For political reasons, Agrippina’s death became as essential to him as Britannicus’ had become. And Seneca was not heard to raise a murmur in opposition to this murder, although he himself naturally did not wish to be involved in it
Now it was only a question of how the murder could be arranged to appear to be an accident. Nero’s imagination began to work, demanding the maximum of drama, and he consulted eagerly with his closest friends.
Tigellinus, who had certain personal reasons for hating Agrippina, promised to kill her by running her down with his team, if she could be persuaded out onto the open road in Antium. I suggested wild animals, but there was no way of getting them into Agrippina’s carefully guarded garden on her country estate.
Nero thought that I was on his side out of sheer affection for him and Poppaea, and he did not know that I was driven by my own inflexible desire for revenge. Agrippina had earned her death a thousand times over by her crimes, and I thought it perfectly just that she should meet it at the hands of her own son. You too have wolf blood in your veins, Julius, my son, more genuine than mine. Try to keep it under better control than your father has been able to do.
It was through my wife, Sabina, that we eventually found a possible method. A Greek engineer had shown her a small ship which could hold wild animals and which, with the help of an ingenious system of levers, one man could at any time cause to disintegrate, thus releasing the animals.
Sabina had been very attracted by the idea of the newly built marine batde theatre, although finally, because of the cost, I had opposed all marine animals. But Sabina was victorious, and the new discovery aroused such curiosity beforehand that Anicetus came over from Misenum for the day of the performance in Rome.
As a climax to the marine performance, the boat disintegrated into pieces as planned. The crowd was delighted to see bison and lions fighting with sea monsters in the water, or swimming ashore to fall victim to courageous huntsmen. Nero applauded vigorously.
“Can you build me a boat like that,” he cried to Anicetus, “but larger and finer and ornamental enough for the Imperial mother to sail in?”
I promised that Anicetus should see the Greek engineer’s secret drawings, but it occurred to me that such a theatrical arrangement demantled the cooperation of far too many people to be kept a secret
As a reward, Nero invited me to the feast at Baiae in March, where I would be able to see with my own eyes the special performance he had planned. In company, and in the Senate too, Nero had begun to act the part of the repentant son longing for reconciliation with his mother. Disputes and outbreaks of bad temper, he explained, could be overcome if there were sufficient good will on both sides.
Agrippina’s informers naturally immediately took this information back to Antium, so Agrippina was not noticeably surprised or suspicious when she received a beautifully composed letter from Nero containing an invitation to the feast of Minerva in Baiae. The feast was in itself an indication, for Minerva is the goddess of all schoolboys, and a reconciliation far from Rome and the quarrelsome Poppaea seemed quite natural.
Minerva’s day is a day of peace and no blood may be shed and no weapons may be visible. Nero was at first going to send the new pleasure yacht, manned by sailors, to fetch Agrippina from Antium, to show that he intended to return her former rights to his mother. But with the help of a water clock, we calculated that in that case the boat would have to be sunk in daylight, and in addition, Agrippina was so known to be suspicious that she might well refuse the honor and travel overland.
In the end she arrived at the naval base in Misenum in a trireme manned by her own trusted slaves. Nero went to meet her with the whole of his suite and had insisted on Seneca and Burrus being there as well, to emphasize the political significance of the reconciliation.
I could only admire Nero’s extraordinary talent for acting as, moved to tears, he hurried to meet his mother, embraced her and greeted her as the most excellent of all mothers. Agrippina had also done her best to dress well and beautify herself, so that she looked like a slim and, because of the thick layer of paint, quite expressionless goddess.
On Minerva’s day there is an atmosphere of spring gaiety, so the people, who do not understand much of State affairs, greeted Agrippina with jubilant applause as she was carried to her country estate in Bauli, by Lake Locrinus. At the jetties on the lake shore lay a group of beflagged warships, among them the handsomely decorated pleasure yacht. On Nero’s orders, Anicetus placed it at Agrippina’s disposal. But after staying overnight at Bauli, she preferred to be taken back to Baiae, as it is not far and she wished to enjoy the acclaim of the people along the road.
At the official ceremonies in honor of Minerva in Baiae, Nero allowed Agrippina to appear in the foreground and held himself to one side like a shy schoolboy. The city authorities’ midday banquet, with its many speeches and the siesta afterwards, extended the ceremonies so that it was already dark when Nero’s evening banquet began. Seneca and Burrus were also there and Agrippina lay in the place of honor, with Nero sitting at her feet and conversing brightly with her. A great deal of wine was drunk, and when Agrippina noticed it was getting late, Nero’s expression grew serious, and lowering his voice, he began consulting her on State matters.
As far as I could make out, they discussed Lollia Poppaea’s future position. Agrippina was as hard as flint. Taken in by Nero’s humble attitude, she said that all she demantled was that Nero should send Poppaea to Lusitania, back to Otho. After that, Nero could once again rely on Agrippina’s support and mother’s love, for she wished for nothing but good for her son.
Nero managed to produce a few tears of anger but let it be known that his mother was more beloved to him than any other woman in the world, and he even read out a few poems he had written in her honor.
Agrippina was drunk with the wine and her success, for people like to believe what they hope is true. But I noticed that she was still careful not to touch her goblet if Nero had not first drunk from it, and also not to eat any food which Nero or her own friend Acerronia had not tasted from the same dish. I do not think this was suspicion at the time, but a deep-rooted habit which Agrippina had formed over the years.
Anicetus also turned out to be a talented actor, as he anxiously came in to say that the warships used in the display had accidentally collided with Agrippina’s trireme and damaged it to such an extent that it could not return
