Fever, who alone of all the Roman gods has accompanied Claudius to heaven, gives him the lie, and affirms him to be a Gaul. "And therefore, since as Gaul he could not omit it, he took Rome." [While I write down this sentence of the old Roman's here in Rome, and hear at the same moment Gallic trumpets blowing, its correctness becomes very plain to me.] Claudius immediately gives orders to cut off Fever's head. He prevails on Hercules to bring him into the assembly of the gods. But the god Janus proposes, that from this time forward none of those who "eat the fruits of the field" shall be deified; and Augustus reads his opinion from a written paper, recommending that Claudius should be made to quit Olympus within three days. The gods assent, and Mercury hereupon drags off the Emperor to the infernal regions. On the Via Sacra they fall in with the funeral procession of Claudius, which is thus described: "It was a magnificent funeral, and such expense had been lavished on it, that you could very well see a god was being buried. There were flute-players, horn-blowers, and such crowds of players on brazen instruments, and such a din, that even Claudius could hear it. Everybody was merry and pleased; the Populus Romanus was walking about as if it were a free people. Agatho only, and a few pleaders, wept, and that evidently with all their heart. The jurisconsults were emerging from their obscure retreats--pale, emaciated, gasping for breath, like persons newly recalled to life. One of these noticing how the pleaders laid their heads together and bewailed their misfortunes, came up to them and said: 'I told you your Saturnalia would not last always!'" When Claudius saw his own funeral, he perceived that he was dead; for, with great sound and fury, they were singing the anapæstic nænia:--