The multitude meanwhile were roaming in wild excitement along the shore;
their torches were seen glimmering in evident commotion about the scene
of the calamity, where some were wading into the water in search of the
body, and others were shouting incoherent questions and replies. At the
rumour of Agrippina's escape they rushed off in a body to her villa to
express their congratulations, where they were dispersed by the soldiers
of Anicetus, who had already token possession of it. Scattering or
seizing the slaves who came in their way, and bursting their passage
from door to door, they found the Empress in a dimly-lighted chamber,
attended only by a single handmaid. "Dost thou too desert me?"
exclaimed the wretched woman to her servant, as she rose to slip away.
In silent determination the soldiers surrounded her couch, and Anicetus
was the first to strike her with a stick. "Strike my womb," she cried to
him faintly, as he drew his sword, "for it bore Nero." The blow of
Anicetus was the signal for her immediate destruction: she was
dispatched with many wounds, and was buried that night at Misenum on a
common couch and with a mean funeral.
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