to Agrippina's peace of mind.
The legality of her crimes was so absolute that the mere ownership of
an enviable object was a cause for death. A senator had a villa which
pleased her; he was invited to die. Another had a pair of those odorous
murrhine vases, which Pompey had found in Armenia, and which on their
first appearance set Rome wild; he, too, was invited to die.

But, though Agrippina dealt in death, she dealt in seductions too.
Rome, that had adored Caligula, promptly fell under his sister's sway.
There was a splendor in her eyes, which so many crimes had lit; in her
carriage there was such majesty, the pomp with which she surrounded
herself was so magnificent, that Rome, enthralled, applauded. Beyond,
on the Rhine, a city which is today Cologne, rose in honor of her
sovereignty. To her wishes the senate was subservient, to her
indiscretions blind. Claud, who meanwhile had been wholly sightless,
suddenly showed signs of discernment. A woman, charged with illicit
commerce, was brought to his tribunal. He condemned her, of course. "In
my case," he explained, "matrimony has not been successful, but the
fate that destined me to marry impure women destined me also to punish
them." It was then that Agrippina ordered of Locusta that famous stew
of poison and mushrooms, which Nero, in allusion to Claud's apotheosis,
called the food of the gods. The fate that destined Claud to marry
Agrippina destined her to kill him.

It was under her care, between a barber and a ballerine, amid the
shamelessness of his stepfather's palace, where any day he could have
seen his mother beckon indolently to a centurion and pointing to some
lover who had ceased to please, make the gesture which signified Death,
that the young Enobarbus--Nero, as he subsequently called himself--was
trained for the throne.

He had entered the world like a tiger cub, feet first; a circumstance
which is said to have disturbed his mother, and well it might. During
his adolescence that lady made herself feared. He was but seventeen
when the pretorians called upon him to rule the world; and at the time
an ingenuous lad, one who blushed like Lalage, very readily,
particularly at the title of Father of the Country, which the senate
was anxious to give him; endowed with excellent instincts, which he had
got no one knew whence; a trifle petit maitre, perhaps, perfuming the
soles of his feet, and careful about the arrangement of his yellow
curls, but withal generou