I, a consul,
know better. Videant consules! Thirty legions are guarding our pax
romana!"

Here he put his fists to his temples and shouted, in a voice heard
throughout the triclinium,--"Thirty legions! thirty legions! from
Britain to the Parthian boundaries!" But he stopped on a sudden, and,
putting a finger to his forehead, said,--"As I live, I think there are
thirty-two." He rolled under the table, and began soon to send forth
flamingo tongues, roast and chilled mushrooms, locusts in honey, fish,
meat, and everything which he had eaten or drunk.

But the number of the legions guarding Roman peace did not pacify
Domitius.

No, no! Rome must perish; for faith in the gods was lost, and so were
strict habits! Rome must perish; and it was a pity, for still life was
pleasant there. Caesar was gracious, wine was good! Oh, what a pity!

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 aesthete 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
Baiae and Bauli. She merely walks,--walks as if seeking for something.
When she come