Burial and Prophecy

Translation

These accounts are recorded with general agreement. Whether Nero looked at his lifeless mother and praised the beauty of her body, some have related it, others deny it. She was cremated that same night on a dining couch and with cheap funeral rites; nor, as long as Nero was in charge of affairs, was earth piled up or closed upon her. Some time later, thanks to the attention of her servants, she received a light mound near the road to Misenum and the villa of the dictator Caesar which, being very high up, looked out over the bays lying beneath. When the funeral pyre had been lit, her freedman with the family name Mnester stabbed himself with a sword; it is not clear whether this was out of affection for his patron or in fear of death. Many years before, Agrippina had believed this would be her end and had made light of it. For when she was consulting them about Nero, Chaldaean soothsayers answered her that he would be emperor and kill his mother; and she said, 'Let him kill, as long as he becomes emperor.'