Nero | Page 2

of little constancy, and of a sullen temper. In despair of
his fortunes, he had recourse to poison, but was so terrified at the
thoughts of death, that, immediately repenting, he took a vomit to
throw it up again, and gave freedom to his physician for having, with
great prudence and wisdom, given him only a gentle dose of the poison.
When Cneius Pompey was consulting with his friends in what manner
he should conduct himself towards those who were neuter and took no
part in the contest, he was the only one who proposed that they should
be treated as enemies.
III. He left a son, who was, without doubt, the best of the family. By
the Pedian law, he was condemned, although innocent, amongst others
who were concerned in the death of Caesar [556]. Upon this, he went
over to Brutus and Cassius, his near relations; and, after their death, not
only kept together the fleet, the command of which had been given him
some time before, but even increased it. At last, when the party had
everywhere been defeated, he voluntarily surrendered it to (339) Mark
Antony; considering it as a piece of service for which the latter owed
him no small obligations. Of all those who were condemned by the law
above-mentioned, he was the only man who was restored to his country,
and filled the highest offices. When the civil war again broke out, he
was appointed lieutenant under the same Antony, and offered the chief
command by those who were ashamed of Cleopatra; but not daring, on
account of a sudden indisposition with which he was seized, either to
accept or refuse it, he went over to Augustus [557], and died a few days
after, not without an aspersion cast upon his memory. For Antony gave
out, that he was induced to change sides by his impatience to be with
his mistress, Servilia Nais. [558]
IV. This Cneius had a son, named Domitius, who was afterwards well

known as the nominal purchaser of the family property left by
Augustus's will [559]; and no less famous in his youth for his dexterity
in chariot- driving, than he was afterwards for the triumphal ornaments
which he obtained in the German war. But he was a man of great
arrogance, prodigality, and cruelty. When he was aedile, he obliged
Lucius Plancus, the censor, to give him the way; and in his praetorship,
and consulship, he made Roman knights and married women act on the
stage. He gave hunts of wild beasts, both in the Circus and in all the
wards of the city; as also a show of gladiators; but with such barbarity,
that Augustus, after privately reprimanding him, to no purpose, was
obliged to restrain him by a public edict.
V. By the elder Antonia he had Nero's father, a man of execrable
character in every part of his life. During his attendance upon Caius
Caesar in the East, he killed a freedman of his own, for refusing to
drink as much as he ordered him. Being dismissed for this from
Caesar's society, he did not mend his habits; for, in a village upon the
Appian road, he suddenly whipped his horses, and drove his chariot, on
purpose, (340) over a poor boy, crushing him to pieces. At Rome, he
struck out the eye of a Roman knight in the Forum, only for some free
language in a dispute between them. He was likewise so fraudulent,
that he not only cheated some silversmiths [560] of the price of goods
he had bought of them, but, during his praetorship, defrauded the
owners of chariots in the Circensian games of the prizes due to them for
their victory. His sister, jeering him for the complaints made by the
leaders of the several parties, he agreed to sanction a law, "That, for the
future, the prizes should be immediately paid." A little before the death
of Tiberius, he was prosecuted for treason, adulteries, and incest with
his sister Lepida, but escaped in the timely change of affairs, and died
of a dropsy, at Pyrgi [561]; leaving behind him his son, Nero, whom he
had by Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus.
VI. Nero was born at Antium, nine months after the death of Tiberius
[562], upon the eighteenth of the calends of January [15th December],
just as the sun rose, so that its beams touched him before they could
well reach the earth. While many fearful conjectures, in respect to his
future fortune, were formed by different persons, from the

circumstances of his nativity, a saying of his father, Domitius, was
regarded as an ill presage, who told his friends who were
congratulating him upon the occasion, "That nothing but what was
detestable, and pernicious to the public, could ever be produced