Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - The Roman Emperors in Marble - 5. Nero
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100 ROMAN DA YS.
a passionate tenderness, and by the best possible choice
of teachers, undoubtedly showed her desire to see him
grow up in moral strength. Neither did she omit, when the
emperor gave way to the seductions of those around him,
to add her word to the representations of his teachers,
which he still, boyish in many things, received with a
blush of shame and promises of amendment. But an
unbridled ambition was yet the mainspring of all her ac-
tions. Thus, the senators were summoned from the
curia to the imperial palace, that hidden behind a cur-
tain she might follow their deliberations. And not always
did she suffer a curtain between herself and affairs of
state. At a ceremonious audience Nero gave the Arme-
nian messengers, she stepped forward to share the throne
with the emperor. Those present stood rooted to the
ground with amazement ; but Seneca, the only one who
did not lose his presence of mind, begged the emperor to
hasten to meet his mother, and thereby—says Tacitus
—
prevented a disgraceful scene. When Nero, who had
always had a repugnance to his wife Octavia, fell in love
with Acte, a beautiful freed slave, and was said to wish
to raise her to the throne, and when Pallas, his mother’s
favorite, was dismissed from his office at court, and when
Nero’s friends, in whom she saw her most dangerous ad-
versaries, seemed continually to gain greater ascendancy
over him, Agrippina’s love turned suddenly to hate. Now
she neither admonished, nor prayed, nor flattered, longer.
Before her son’s eyes, she tore aside the veil from the
crime by which she had made way for him to power, and
threatened to do so in the presence of all. She threat-
ened to take Britannicus, rightful heir to the throne, by
the hand, go with him to the praetorian camp and beg
compassion for the repudiated son of the emperor.
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