During the night the poison took effect and he passed away, without having been able to say or hear a word.  It was the thirteenth of October, and he had lived sixty-three years, two months, and thirteen days, having been emperor thirteen years, eight months and twenty days.  Agrippina’s rapid vengeance had been aided by the fact that before her attempt she had despatched Narcissus to Campania, feigning that he needed to take the waters there for his gout.  Had he been present, she would never have done the deed, such extreme care did he take of his master.  His death followed hard upon that of Claudius, and he left behind him a reputation for power unequaled by any man of that age.  His property amounted to more than ten thousand myriads, and cities and kings were dependent upon him.  Even when he was on the point of being slain, he managed to execute a brilliant coup.  He had charge of the correspondence of Claudius and had in his possession letters containing secret information against Agrippina and others:  all of these he burned before his death.

  And he was slain beside the tomb of Messalina,—­a coincidence
  manifestly intended by chance, to satisfy her vengeance.

[-35-] In such fashion did Claudius meet his end.  It seemed that indications of this event were given in advance by the comet star, which was seen over a wide expanse of territory, by the shower of blood, by the bolt that descended upon the standards of the Pretorians, by the opening of its own accord of the temple of Jupiter Victor, by the swarming of bees in the camp, and by the fact that one representative of each political office died.  The emperor received the state burial and all the other honors obtained by Augustus.  Agrippina and Nero feigned sorrow for the man whom they had killed, and elevated to heaven him whom they had carried out in a state of collapse from the banquet.  On this point Lucius Junius Gallic, brother of Seneca, was the author of a most witty saying.  Seneca himself had composed a work that he called Gourdification,—­a word made on the analogy of “deification”; and his brother is credited with expressing a great deal in one short sentence.  For whereas the public executioners were accustomed to drag the bodies of those killed in prison to the Forum with large hooks, and thence hauled them to the river, he said that Claudius must have been raised to heaven with a hook.  Nero has also left us a remark not unworthy of record.  He declared mushrooms to be the food of the gods, because Claudius by means of a mushroom had become a god.

[Footnote:1 A reference to Book Forty-four, chapter 26 (the Return of the “Party of the Peiraeus").]

[Footnote 2:  Adopting Canter’s emendation. [Greek:  eithismenou] for the unintelligible [Greek:  ois men oute] of the MSS.]

[Footnote 3:  The drinking of warm water ranked among the ancients as a luxurious practice. (Compare the end of chapter 14, Book Fifty-seven, and the end of chapter 11, Book Fifty-nine.)]