Nero | Page 3

of him
and Agrippina." Another manifest prognostic of his future infelicity
occurred upon his lustration day [563]. For Caius Caesar being
requested by his sister to give the child what name he thought
proper--looking at his uncle, Claudius, who (341) afterwards, when
emperor, adopted Nero, he gave his: and this not seriously, but only in
jest; Agrippina treating it with contempt, because Claudius at that time
was a mere laughing-stock at the palace. He lost his father when he was
three years old, being left heir to a third part of his estate; of which he
never got possession, the whole being seized by his co-heir, Caius. His
mother being soon after banished, he lived with his aunt Lepida, in a
very necessitous condition, under the care of two tutors, a
dancing-master and a barber. After Claudius came to the empire, he not
only recovered his father's estate, but was enriched with the additional
inheritance of that of his step-father, Crispus Passienus. Upon his
mother's recall from banishment, he was advanced to such favour,
through Nero's powerful interest with the emperor, that it was reported,
assassins were employed by Messalina, Claudius's wife, to strangle him,
as Britannicus's rival, whilst he was taking his noon-day repose. In
addition to the story, it was said that they were frightened by a serpent,
which crept from under his cushion, and ran away. The tale was
occasioned by finding on his couch, near the pillow, the skin of a snake,
which, by his mother's order, he wore for some time upon his right arm,
inclosed in a bracelet of gold. This amulet, at last, he laid aside, from
aversion to her memory; but he sought for it again, in vain, in the time
of his extremity.
VII. When he was yet a mere boy, before he arrived at the age of
puberty, during the celebration of the Circensian games [564], he
performed his part in the Trojan play with a degree of firmness which
gained him great applause. In the eleventh year of his age, he was
adopted by Claudius, and placed under the tuition of Annaeus Seneca
[565], who had been made a senator. It is said, that Seneca dreamt the
night after, that he was giving a lesson to Caius Caesar [566]. Nero

soon verified his dream, betraying the cruelty of his disposition in
every way he could. For he attempted to persuade his father that his
brother, Britannicus, was nothing but a changeling, because the latter
had (342) saluted him, notwithstanding his adoption, by the name of
Aenobarbus, as usual. When his aunt, Lepida, was brought to trial, he
appeared in court as a witness against her, to gratify his mother, who
persecuted the accused. On his introduction into the Forum, at the age
of manhood, he gave a largess to the people and a donative to the
soldiers: for the pretorian cohorts, he appointed a solemn procession
under arms, and marched at the head of them with a shield in his hand;
after which he went to return thanks to his father in the senate. Before
Claudius, likewise, at the time he was consul, he made a speech for the
Bolognese, in Latin, and for the Rhodians and people of Ilium, in
Greek. He had the jurisdiction of praefect of the city, for the first time,
during the Latin festival; during which the most celebrated advocates
brought before him, not short and trifling causes, as is usual in that case,
but trials of importance, notwithstanding they had instructions from
Claudius himself to the contrary. Soon afterwards, he married Octavia,
and exhibited the Circensian games, and hunting of wild beasts, in
honour of Claudius.
VIII. He was seventeen years of age at the death of that prince [567],
and as soon as that event was made public, he went out to the cohort on
guard between the hours of six and seven; for the omens were so
disastrous, that no earlier time of the day was judged proper. On the
steps before the palace gate, he was unanimously saluted by the
soldiers as their emperor, and then carried in a litter to the camp; thence,
after making a short speech to the troops, into the senate-house, where
he continued until the evening; of all the immense honours which were
heaped upon him, refusing none but the title of FATHER OF HIS
COUNTRY, on account of his youth,
IX. He began his reign with an ostentation of dutiful regard to the
memory of Claudius, whom he buried with the utmost pomp and
magnificence, pronouncing the funeral oration himself, and then had
him enrolled amongst the gods. He paid likewise the highest honours to
the memory of his father Domitius. He left the management of affairs,

both public and private, to his mother. The word