The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 05: Claudius by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
page 36 of 58 (62%)
page 36 of 58 (62%)
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which, another museum was founded at Alexandria, in addition to the old
one, and called after his name; and it was ordered, that, upon certain days in every year, his Tuscan history should be read over in one of these, and his Carthaginian in the other, as in a school; each history being read through by persons who took it in turn. XLIII. Towards the close of his life, he gave some manifest indications that he repented of his marriage with Agrippina, and his adoption of Nero. For some of his freedmen noticing with approbation his having condemned, the day before, a woman accused of adultery, he remarked, "It has been my misfortune to have wives who have been unfaithful to my bed; but they did not escape punishment." Often, when he happened to meet Britannicus, he would embrace him tenderly, and express a desire "that he might grow apace," and receive from him an account of all his actions: using the Greek phrase, "o trosas kai iasetai,--He who has wounded will also heal." And intending to give him the manly habit, while he was yet under age and a tender youth, because his stature would allow of it, he added, "I do so, that the Roman people may at last have a real Caesar." [545] XLIV. Soon afterwards he made his will, and had it signed by all the magistrates as witnesses. But he was prevented from proceeding further by Agrippina, accused by her own guilty conscience, as well as by informers, of a variety of crimes. It is agreed that he was taken off by poison; but where, and by whom administered, remains in uncertainty. Some authors say that it was given him as he was feasting with the priests in the Capitol, by the eunuch Halotus, his taster. Others say (331) by Agrippina, at his own table, in mushrooms, a dish of which he was very fond [546]. The accounts of what followed likewise differ. Some relate that he instantly became speechless, was racked with pain |
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