The very name is
a bitter satire. It imagines the Emperor transformed, not into a God,
but into a gourd--one of those "bloated gourds which sun their speckled
bellies before the doors of the Roman peasants." "The Senate decreed his
_divinity_; Seneca translated it into _pumpkinity_" (Merivale, _Rom.
Emp_. v. 601). The _Ludus_ begins by spattering mud on the memory of the
divine Claudius; it ends with a shower of poetic roses over the glory of
the diviner Nero!]
As has been the case not unfrequently in history, from the times of
Tarquinius Priscus to those of Charles II., the death was concealed
until everything had been prepared for the production of a successor.
The palace was carefully watched; no one was even admitted into it
except Agrippina's most trusty partisans. The body was propped up with
pillows; actors were sent for "by his own desire" to afford it some
amusement; and priests and consuls were bidden to offer up their vows
for the life of the dead. Giving out that the Emperor was getting
better, Agrippina took care to keep Britannicus and his two sisters,
Octavia and Antonia, under her own immediate eye.
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