“Ay; she was to have danced at Pompey’s Theatre,” explained Nero.
“Did he run away with her?” asked Drusus.
“Nay; she is in prison,” said Nero.
“What has she done?” inquired Agrippina.
“No one can say. Where is Caligula?” asked Nero.
“He is at his studies,” replied the mother.
“He asked for a copy of Cicero’s orations,” said Nero. “I have brought him this. What ho! Caligula!” he shouted, as he went to the stairs. “But stay! I am coming up,” he added, when he heard the light patter of Caligula’s sandals on the stairs. As he met Caligula, Agrippina and Drusus heard him say, “Master the language of that great man, my brother, and thou wilt become the best orator in Rome.”
“How happy thy brother is!” said Agrippina to Drusus, rising from her couch. As she walked towards the stairs, she added: “Cultivate a happy nature, my son. ’Twill help thee overcome burdensome grief.”
“Verily, I will try, O best of mothers,” he said as she disappeared.
Left alone, Drusus threw himself on his mother’s couch. The thought of the disappearance of his favorite charioteer was uppermost in his mind. Many times he had sat on the pulvinar before the palace of Augustus, and had watched the horse-races in the Circus Maximus. With youthful enthusiasm he had regarded Gyges as a hero. He had even entered the stables and talked with him. “What will the green faction do without him?” he thought. But his meditations were checked by the entrance of Sejanus.