Like his predecessors, Claudius is represented to us by ancient art in the shape of many statues and busts. The one chosen to illustrate these pages shows him to us in a flattering manner, as if he possessed the attributes of Jupiter. He is standing half-draped, with a wreath of oak leaves about his head, his left hand upraised to grasp the upper end of a long staff, and with an eagle at his right foot. The figure is not without some majesty, but there seems to be a look of anxiety and weariness upon his face. Surely, he had enough to make him anxious and weary in both his public and his private life. Unexpectedly called upon to be an emperor, he had wrought industriously in the public service; but he had not been equal to the moral strain of such a high position and had been the undiscerning dupe of iniquitous and malicious enemies. His worst foes had been those of his own household. CHAPTER V NERO, THE CRUEL [Illustration: NERO] Lucius Domitius Nero, the next Roman emperor, was, as we have seen, the stepson of Claudius and the grandson of the famous Germanicus, who was a brother of Claudius. His mother was Agrippina II, the sister of Caligula. This Agrippina became the last wife of Claudius; but Nero was her son by her former husband, Lucius Domitius. The Domitian gens, or family, had been a famous one for several generations and the particular branch of it to which Nero’s father belonged, namely, the Ahenobarbi, or brazen-beards, had long been prominent for its ability, its wealth, and its power. At the same time it had been noted for the faithlessness and ferocity shown by many of its representatives. Suetonius tells the story that the first Lucius Domitius, the founder of the line, was the man to whom Castor and Pollux announced the victory that had taken place at Lake Regillus, when they rode into Rome, and that his beard was then changed from black to red in token of that supernatural manifestation. The Ahenobarbi always inherited, it is said, the complexion as well as the name. When Nero was three years old his father died. His uncle, the emperor Caligula, managed to cheat him out of his inheritance, but afterward the emperor Claudius restored it to him, added to it other property, and bestowed upon him many honors. His mother sought to have him properly educated and to have his manners cultivated according to the best standards of the time. He is said, as a boy, to have been affectionate, with some aptness to learn, and fond of praise.