“Do you go and marry without asking my permission?”
“Yes, why not?”
“You are certainly droll, Messalina! And I pardon you. Go, my children, and amuse yourselves. Narcissus will play with me.”
When the Emperor was left alone with Narcissus, his expression changed.
“Follow them, Narcissus!” he hissed. “Take Locusta with you, and give them the poison. Then I shall marry Agrippina.”
But when Silius and the Empress had gone without, Silius asked innocently: “Have you yourself prepared the mushrooms which he will eat this evening?”
“I have not done it myself, but Locusta has, and she understands her business.”
The name of the third head of the Wild Beast was Nero. He was Agrippina’s worthy son, had poisoned his half-brother Britannicus, murdered his mother, kicked his wife to death, and committed unnatural crime. He falsified the coinage and plundered the temples. He made an artistic tour to Greece, where he first appeared as a public singer and brought eight hundred wreaths home, then as a charioteer, in which capacity he upset everything, but received the prize because nobody dared to refuse it to him.
To such a depth had Rome and Greece sunk. Claudius was an angel compared to this monster; but he also received apotheosis.