Why should not Tigellinus follow a similar[*4] course? He had persuaded Nero that he knew something about soldiership. He had made himself popular among the Prætorian guards. Burrus might be got rid of, and Tigellinus, by pandering to Nero’s worst instincts, encouraging his alarms, and awakening his jealousies, might come to be accepted as an indispensable guardian of his interests, and so be made the Prætorian Præfect. Once let him gain that position, and he might achieve almost anything. Octavia would evidently be childless. Nero was the last of his race. It would be just as well to get rid, beforehand, of all possible rivals to his ambitious designs. Plautus and Sulla might wait, but nothing could be done till Britannicus was put out of the way. It would then be more easy to deal with Agrippina and with Octavia. So he devised; and the spirits of evil laughed, knowing that he was but paving the road for his own headlong destruction. But that night no one was gayer and more smiling than he at the soft Ionian festival, where they were waited on by boys robed in white and crowned with roses. It had been spread in the _viridarium_, a green garden surrounded by trees cut and twisted into quaint shapes of birds and beasts by the _ars topiaria_. The larger dishes were spread on the marble rim of a fountain, while the smaller ones floated among the water-lilies in vessels made in the shape of birds or fish. By one novel and horrible refinement of luxury, a fish was caught and boiled alive during the feast in a transparent vase, that the guests might watch its dying gleams of ruby and emerald. When the drinking was finished they went into the groves and gardens of the villa, and the surprise which had been prepared for Nero was a loose sylvan pageant. Every grove and cavern and winding walk had been illuminated at twilight by lamps which hung from tree to tree. In the open spaces naiads were bathing in the lake, and leaving trails of light in the water, and uplifting their white arms, which glittered like gold in the moonlight; and youths with torches sprang out of the lurking-places dressed like fauns or satyrs, and danced with maidens in the guise of hamadryads, and crowned the guests with flowers, and led them to new dances and new orgies and new revelries, while their cries and songs woke innumerable echoes, which mocked the insulted majesty of the night. * * * * *