nglish tongue, we should make use
of the actual Latin name, or translate the word and employ the
English representative of it; that is, whether we shall call him
Ahenobarbus or Brazenbeard. The former seems to be more in harmony
with our ideas of the dignity of Roman history; while the latter,
though less elegant, conveys probably to our minds a more exact idea
of the import and expression of the name as it sounded in the ears
of the Roman community. The name certainly was not an attractive
one, though the family had contrived to dignify it some degree by
assigning to it a preternatural origin. There was a tradition that
in ancient times a prophet appeared to one of the ancestors of the
line, and after foretelling certain extraordinary events which were
to occur at some future period, stroked down the beard of his
auditor with his hand, and changed it to the color of brass, in
miraculous attestation of the divine authority of the message. The
man received the name of Brazenbeard in consequence, and he and his
descendants ever afterward retained it.

The family of the Brazenbeards was one of high rank and distinction,
though at the time of Nero's birth it was, like most of the other
prominent Roman families, extremely profligate and corrupt. Nero's
father, especially, was a very bad man. He was accused of the very
worst of crimes, and he led a life of constant remorse and terror.
His wife, Agrippina, Nero's mother, was as wicked as he; and it is
said that when the messenger came to him to announce the birth of
his child, the hero of this narrative, he uttered some exclamation
of ill-humor and contempt, and said that whatever came from him and
Agrippina could not but be fraught with ruin to Rome.

The rank and station of Agrippina in Roman society was even higher
than that of her husband. She was the sister of the emperor. The
name of the emperor, her brother, was Caligula. He was the third in
the series of Roman emperors, Augustus Caesar, the successor of
Julius Caesar, having been the first. The term emperor, however, had
a very different meaning in those days, from its present import. It
seems to denote now a sovereign ruler, who exercises officially a
general jurisdiction which extends over the whole government of the
state. In the days of the Romans it included, in theory at least,
only _military_ command. The word was _imperator_, which meant
_commander_; and the station which it denoted was simply that of
genera