And hiding his head on the arm of a Syrian bacchanal, he burst into
tears. "What is a future life! Achilles was right,--better be a slave
in the world beneath the sun than a king in Cimmerian regions. And
still the question whether there are any gods--since it is unbelief--is
destroying the youth."

Lucan meanwhile had blown all the gold powder from Nigidia's hair, and
she being drunk had fallen asleep. Next he took wreaths of ivy from the
vase before him, put them on the sleeping woman, and when he had
finished looked at those present with a delighted and inquiring glance.
He arrayed himself in ivy too, repeating, in a voice of deep conviction,
"I am not a man at all, but a faun."

Petronius was not drunk; but Nero, who drank little at first, out of
regard for his "heavenly" voice, emptied goblet after goblet toward the
end, and was drunk. He wanted even to sing more of his verses,--this
time in Greek,--but he had forgotten them, and by mistake sang an ode of
Anacreon. Pythagoras, Diodorus, and Terpnos accompanied him; but
failing to keep time, they stopped. Nero as a judge and an æsthete was
enchanted with the beauty of Pythagoras, and fell to kissing his hands
in ecstasy. "Such beautiful hands I have seen only once, and whose were
they?" Then placing his palm on his moist forehead, he tried to
remember. After a while terror was reflected on his face.

Ah! His mother's--Agrippina's!

And a gloomy vision seized him forthwith.

"They say," said he, "that she wanders by moonlight on the sea around
Baiæ and Bauli. She merely walks,--walks as if seeking for something.