‘To think,’ she said, raising her voice almost to a scream, as he sat before her in sullen silence--‘to think that the blood of the Domitii and of the Neros and of the Cæsars is in your veins! You an emperor! Yes; an emperor of pantomime! You have nothing of the Roman, much less of the ruler, nay, not even of the man, in you. Who made you Emperor? Who but I?’ ‘I wish you had left me alone, then,’ he answered, desperately. ‘It is no such pleasure to be Emperor with you to spy on me and domineer over me.’ ‘Spy on you? Domineer over you? Ungrateful! Infamous! You, who have made a slave-girl the rival of your mother! Let me tell you, Ahenobarbus, that I at least am the daughter of Germanicus, though you are wholly unworthy to be his grandson. Whence did you get your pale and feeble blood? Not from me, coward and weakling as you are; not from your father Domitius, who, if he was cruel, was at least a man! He would not have chosen such creatures as Otho and Senecio for his friends. He had a man’s taste and a man’s ambition. He would have blushed to be father of a singing and painting girl like you! But beware! You are an _agrippa_; you were born feet-foremost--a certain augury of future misery.’[36] Stung to the quick by these reproaches, trembling with impotent anger to hear his effeminate vanity--to which his comrades burnt daily incense--thus ruthlessly insulted, and angry, above all, that his mother dared to pour contempt on his cherished accomplishments, Nero’s timid nature at last turned in self-defence. ‘I am Emperor now, at any rate,’ he said; ‘and ere now the wives and sisters, if not the mothers, of the Cæsars have had to cool their rage on the rocks of Gyara or Pontia!’ ‘You dare to threaten me?’ she cried. ‘_You_ to threaten _me_; me, your mother; me, who have toiled and schemed, aye, and committed crimes for you, from a child; me, whose womb bare you, whose hand has often beaten you; me, to whom you owe it that you are not at this moment a disgraced and penniless boy!’ ‘You call me an actor. Are not you more than half an actress?’ he said, in a sneering tone. Agrippina sprang from her seat in a burst of passion. ‘Oh, if there be gods!’ she exclaimed, uplifting her hands, ‘let them hear me! Infernal Furies at least there are, for I have felt them! Oh! may they avenge on you my wrongs!’ Nero cared but little for the curse. He was not superstitious. He thought how Senecio and Petronius would laugh at the notion of there being real Furies or subterranean gods! ‘You know more of the Furies than I do, then,’ he said, in a mocking tone. ‘Besides, I have an amulet. Look at this!’