The conduct of a woman named Epicharis also deserves mention. She had been included in the conspiracy and all its details had been trusted to her without reserve; yet she revealed none of these though often tortured in all the ways that the skill of Tigillinus could devise. And why should one enumerate the sums given to the Pretorians on the occasion of this conspiracy or the excessive honors voted to Nero and his friends? Let me say only that it led to the banishment of Rufus Musonius, the philosopher. Sabina also perished at this time through an act of Nero's. Either accidentally or intentionally he had given her a violent kick while she was pregnant.
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The extremes of luxury indulged in by this Sabina I will indicate in the briefest possible terms. She had gilded girths put upon the mules that carried her and caused five hundred asses that had recently foaled to be milked each day that she might bathe in their milk. She devoted great thought to making her person appear youthful and lustrously beautiful,--and with brilliant results; and this is why, not fancying her appearance in a mirror one day, she prayed that she might die before she passed her prime. Nero missed her so that [after her death, at first, on learning that there was a woman resembling her he sent for and kept this female: later] because a boy of the
liberti
class, named Sporus, resembled Sabina, he had him castrated and used him in every way like a woman; and in due time he formally married him though he [Nero] was already married to a freedman Pythagoras. He assigned the boy a regular dowry according to contract, and Romans as well as others held a public celebration of their wedding.
While Nero had Sporus the eunuch as a wife, one of his associates in Rome, who had made a specialty of philosophy, on being asked whether the marriage and cohabitation in question met with his approval replied: "You do well, Caesar, to seek the company of such wives. If only your father had had the same ambition and had dwelt with a similar consort!"--indicating that if this had been the case, Nero would not have been born, and the government would have been relieved of great evils.
This was, however, later. At the time with which we are immediately concerned many, as I stated, were put to death and many who purchased their preservation with Tigillinus with a great price were released.
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