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20 DARKNESS AND DAWN
Good,' answered Agrippina.
'
You may depart.
We have
'
business to transact with him, and will await his wakening.
Give me the lamp. Acerronia will remain without.'
The slave handed her a golden lamp richly chased, and left
the chamber. There on a couch of citron-wood lay the Emperor,
overcome, as was generally the case in the evening,
with the quantities of strong wine he had drunk. His
breathing was deep and stertorous ;
his thin grey hairs
were dishevelled; his purple robe stained, crumpled, and
disordered. His mouth was open, his face flushed ;
the
laurel wreath had fallen awry over his forehead, and, in the
imbecile expression of intoxication, every trace of dignity and
nobleness was obliterated from his features.
They stood and looked at him under the lamp which
Agrippina uplifted so that the light might stream upon his
face.
'Sot and dotard!' she exclaimed, in low tones, but full of
scorn and hatred. Did not his own mother, Antonia, call
'
him " a portent of a man " ? I am not surprised that my
brother Gaius once ordered him to be flung into the Rhone ;
or that he and his rude guests used to slap him on the face,
and pelt him with olives and date-stones when he fell
asleep
at the table. I have often seen them smear him with grape
juice, and draw his stockings over his hands, that he might
rub his face with them when he awoke ! To think that such
a man should be lord of the world, when my radiant Nero, so
young, so beautiful, so gifted, might be seated on his throne
'
for all the world to admire and love !
'The Emperor has learning,' said Pallas, looking on him
'
with pity. His natural impulses are all good. He has been
a very kind and indulgent master.'
'He ought never to have been Emperor at all,' she answered,
vehemently. That he is so is the merest accident.
'
We owe no thanks to the Praetorian Gratus, who found him
hidden behind a curtain on the day that my brother Gaius
was murdered, and pulled him out by the legs: still less
thanks to that supple intriguing Jew, Herod Agrippa, who
persuaded the wavering senate to salute him Emperor. Why,
all his life long he has been a mere joke. Augustus
him " called
a poor little wretch," and as a boy he used to be beaten
bv a common groom.'