Such language, uttered with violent gestures and
furious imprecations, might well excite the alarm of the timid Nero. And
that alarm was increased by a recent circumstance, which showed that all
the ancestral spirit was not dead in the breast of Britannicus. During
the festivities of the Saturnalia, which were kept by the ancients with
all the hilarity of the modern Christmas, Nero had been elected by lot
as "governor of the feast," and, in that capacity, was entitled to issue
his orders to the guests. To the others he issued trivial mandates which
would not make them blush; but Britannicus in violation of every
principle of Roman decorum, was ordered to stand up in the middle and
sing a song. The boy, inexperienced as yet even in sober banquets, and
wholly unaccustomed to drunken convivialities, might well have faltered;
but he at once rose, and with a steady voice began a strain--probably
the magnificent wail of Andromache over the fall of Troy, which has been
preserved to us from a lost play of Ennius--in which he indicated his
own disgraceful ejection from his hereditary rights.
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