Agrippina became like a woman obsessed. Unable to sleep, she neglected affairs of state, and spent most of her waking hours railing at Acte and her son’s ingratitude.
‘What am I to do, Parmenon?’ she cried.
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Domina,’ I fell on my knees before her, ‘Acte is not Narcissus, an enemy to be removed. Let your son have his way. Leave Rome for a while.’
It was the only time Agrippina ever struck me in anger. She refused to listen and instead ordered me from of her presence. I waited in the antechamber, hoping she would regret her actions. Suddenly the door to her chamber flew open and Agrippina swept out, her maids running behind her. She walked like a general down the galleries and corridors, to where Nero was drinking with a small party of friends. Bursting in, she openly confronted her son.
‘See,’ she shouted, pointing at Acte lying on a couch next to Nero, ‘what a spectacle my son offers to Rome! Nero the Emperor!’ she sneered. ‘Like a doting, old man lying at the feet of a former slave: a woman who can be bought to give a man an hour of pleasure!’
Agrippina stood in the doorway, as I and the other servants huddled behind her. She was beyond all reason.
‘Look at her!’ Agrippina shouted. ‘She’s nothing more than a painted whore but the Emperor of Rome has made her his official mistress. Is it for this that I made you Emperor, the legitimate heir of Claudius?’ She turned on Seneca who was lying on the couch to Nero’s left. ‘I thought I was choosing a tutor, the wisest man in the whole Empire, but in truth, I picked a fool. His student, my son, fornicates with a freedwoman whilst Octavia, his proper wife, is neglected and repelled and I, Germanicus’s daughter, am insulted and ignored!’
She stopped, shoulders heaving. She put a hand out and leaned against the lintel. Nero’s guests stared in disbelief, a frozen tableau in some play. Acte kept her head down, and Seneca looked astonished, his eyes screwed up in mock hurt. Nero had the measure of his mother. He picked up that emerald eye-glass and examined her closely.
‘Why, Mother? What is the matter? Have you been drinking? As you know, I invited you here this evening but you said you were unable to come.’ He shifted his gaze. ‘Is that you, Parmenon? Take my mother back to her apartments. She’s overcome with exertion.’ He let the eye-glass drop on its silver chain and waved his hand. ‘Now, leave!’
Agrippina withdrew. I tried to seize her by the arm, but she shook me off. Behind the closing doors I heard muffled conversation and the sound of laughter. Agrippina walked slowly back to her chamber. She dismissed the maids and spent the rest of that night pacing up and down, pondering her next move.
The following day Nero added insult to injury: he opened the storerooms of the palace where the jewels and ornaments were kept, and chose from the treasure an exquisite headdress and pendant which he sent as gifts to his mother. I was with Agrippina when they arrived. She had been trying to calm her rage by dictating letters to stewards and bailiffs on her estates outside Rome. When the servants presented the gifts, she knocked them out of their hands.
‘Tell my son,’ she hissed, ‘that everything he possesses actually belongs to me! He is only sending me what is already mine!’
I attempted to reason with Agrippina but she was possessed by anger. All she was conscious of was her waning influence over her son and the hated presence of Acte. Nero now decided to twist the cord a little tighter, telling her that in view of his love for Acte he might divorce Octavia and marry his new love, abdicate as Emperor and retire to Rhodes to live as a private citizen. The barbs struck home: he was rejecting Agrippina and everything she had worked for.
Agrippina brooded and refused to tell me what she was planning. Her next confrontation with Nero, during one of Nero’s eternal banquets, struck terror in my heart. Agrippina was given the place of honour, though Nero spent most of his time whispering to Acte, showing her every mark of public affection. The guests were all aware of Agrippina drinking a little too fast as she glared at her son: it was like waiting for a violent storm to strike on a beautiful summer’s day. Nero turned to fill his mother’s cup and she let it drop to the floor, the precious goblet smashing to smithereens.
‘Why, Mother,’ Nero drawled. ‘What is the matter?’
Agrippina swung her legs from the couch, got to her feet and stood over him. ‘Why, son, have you forgotten?’ She gestured down the hall to where Britannicus sat with his friends. ‘He is no longer a child,’ she snapped. ‘He is Claudius’s true son, the real heir to the throne.’ Her voice rose. ‘The throne that you stole with my help — your mother whom you now insult. All Rome shall learn of all this! The army will choose!’
It was ridiculous scene. After Agrippina withdrew, for the first time in my life I pushed her through the antechamber into her own private writing office, where she stood like a little girl ready to be chastised. I could not forget Nero’s face at that banquet, those popping blue eyes, the effeminate curls and pouting lips.
‘Domina,’ I shouted, ‘you’ve signed our death warrants and that of Britannicus. You’ve challenged your own son!’
Agrippina did not break down in tears. She sat on a stool clutching the fringes of her robes, staring at the wall. In that moment her greatest weakness was exposed: this wasn’t about the empire or power, about who controlled the court and army, this was a mother who truly believed her son had publicly spurned her. She’d lashed out, uttering the first thing that came into her mind. I sighed and knelt beside her.
‘Domina, listen!’ I urged. ‘Would it be so bad if your son abdicated and took you with him to Antium to live as private citizens. .?’
Her eyes crinkled in amusement.
‘Why, Parmenon, you are quite a philosopher. You are right: all my life I dreamt of being the Augusta, a new Livia, mistress of an empire. I have achieved that but now I’ve lost my son, haven’t I, Parmenon?’
‘It can be rectified, Domina.’
I’ve told many lies in my life, but that was my greatest. Nero was no longer her son. He was what the empire had made him: a monster. Or had his father been right? Was there something in the blood, some evil taint? Did Nero have the same penchant for wickedness as Caligula and Tiberius? Of course he did!
He did not dare touch Agrippina but, like a panther, he turned on Britannicus. The young man was invited to another banquet, where, hoping to make fun of him, Nero asked to hear one of his poems. Britannicus performed so brilliantly that even Nero’s claque, a group of professional hand-clappers who wore their hair bushy and went under the name of ‘The Bees’, were impressed. Nero took a vile revenge: he attacked Britannicus and buggered him, heaping humiliation upon him. Caligula’s ghost had returned.
Nero spent more time with his foppish courtiers, consulting Seneca or Burrus if he wanted advice, whilst Agrippina stayed in her own apartments, where most of her household, apart from Acerronia and Creperius, were Seneca’s spies. The hangers-on and time-servers soon sniffed the breeze and realised what was coming. Agrippina was still physically safe but Britannicus, a mere shadow of his former self, had to be dealt with. He started to suffer from epileptic seizures, during which his face would turn blue, his neck would swell convulsively and he’d froth at the mouth. Britannicus one could see was marked down for death. I pleaded with Agrippina and she tried to do what she could, sending antidotes for Britannicus, warning him to watch what he ate and drank. But Nero brought Locusta the poisoner back into the palace and put her under the direct charge of one of Burrus’s lieutenants, the tribune Julius Pollio. All the court suspected what was happening. A poison was given to Britannicus but the dosage was too small, and after stomach pains he soon recovered. Nero was so annoyed that he beat Locusta with his own hands until she promised something that ‘would act like lightning’. The poison she concocted was served to a pig and within seconds it had dropped down dead.