Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
That she should have persuaded Claudius to adopt her son does not mean, therefore, that she wished to set Britannicus aside and give the advantage to Nero.
So that we can but believe that, if he had not been paralyzed as he was by the prejudices of his epoch, if he had come in contact less frequently with the classic cramp-fish, he would not have failed to introduce Locuste in his drama between Narcisse and Neron, and above all things would not have relegated to the wings the admirable scene of the banquet at which Seneca's pupil poisons Britannicus in the cup of reconciliation.
Noon came; the palace doors were suddenly thrown open: and Nero with Burrus at his side went out to the Praetorian cohort which was on guard. By the order of their commandant, they received him with cheers. A few only hesitated, looking round them and asking "Where was Britannicus?" Since, however, he was not to be seen, and no one stirred in his favour, they followed the multitude.
Upon which he had summoned to his presence the woman employed in the affair, and compelling her by threats to mingle a more powerful potion in his own presence, had tried it successively upon different animals, until he was satisfied with its effects; after which, immediately inviting Britannicus to a banquet, he had finally dispatched him.
He must have formed an important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly enmity against the party of Narcissus. He must have watched the incessant artifices by which Agrippina secured the adoption of her son Nero by an Emperor whose own son Britannicus was but three years his junior.
The modern light comedy, even when it treats of the vital subjects of the day, seems less in its place in those old walls. I quite understand one couldn't see Britannicus, Mithridate, nor the Cid every evening. I remember so well our cousin Arthur's description of his holidays spent at his grandmother's château. Every evening they read aloud some classical piece.
He had before this slain his wife Messalina, out of jealousy, by whom he had his children Britannicus and Octavia; their eldest sister was Antonia, whom he had by Pelina his first wife. He also married Octavia to Nero; for that was the name that Caesar gave him afterward, upon his adopting him for his son.
The writer made his point clear when he declared that his story was of equal value with anything that "Britannicus" ever wrote. The importance of these indications may be overestimated. But they do mean that there were those bold enough to make fun. A decade or two later ridicule became a two-edged knife, cutting superstition right and left.
Those whom he most feared he removed from Rome, by giving them honorable and lucrative appointments in distant provinces. In the mean time Agrippina herself was not idle. As soon as she recovered from the first shock which the death of Britannicus had occasioned her, she began to think of revenge.
It is said there is more of them go to a suit of clothes than to a Britannicus; in this polygamy the clothes breed and cannot determine whose issue is lawfully begotten. And here I think it were not amiss to take a particular how he is accoutred, and so do by him as he in his Siquis for the wall-eyed mare, or the crop flea-bitten, give you the marks of the beast.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking