Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1913-04-09
NERO WAS ToUaH OLD BmD
Was Both Actor and Poet, and Incl.
dentaIly Heal IadySKiIler.

ruled In >Rome-and there were some
mighty tough one there at n time
or another-the worst was the EN-
peror Nero, says the Kansas City
Star He was an incendiary, an
actor, a poet and a lady-killer. caus-
ing his mother, two. wives and a girl
who turned him down to be put to
death. He was also an undesirable
citizen and a malefactor of great
wealth.
When he first came into the world
his mother, who was no better than,
she should have been IL what the
neighbors said was true, christened,
or rather paganed him L. Domitius
Ahenbarbus.
But Mrs. Ahenbarbus was a social
climber, N after her first husband
died-some said she put rough on
rats in his coffee, but there is no
uncle, sClaudius.
Now, Uncle Claudius, as you prob
ably do not remember, was Emperor
of the unholy Roman Empire at that
time, and was old enough to have
known better. He had a son old
enough to be in high school and had
been married three times to some of
the swiftest members of the Roman
smart set. But he fell for Agrippina
and made her Empress. Also he took
her rowdy son, n instead Of send
ing him to a reform school or get
ting him a job in a packing house he
adopted him and changed his name
to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Ger
manicus. Nero was sent to school to
a wise old tutor named Seneca, who
regarded him as a most promising
pupil. The boy learned rapidly, never
put lacks in Seneca's chair and made
himself generally agreeable. He even
pretended to be interested in philos-
ophy, which won the old mans heart
completely. y
Well, in the course of time the EN-
peror Claudius died. He went the
poison route, and Agrippina's was the
hand that slipped him the knockout
drops. She wanted to see her son on
the throne, and the ~Praetorian
Guards, a gang of militia whose
principal business was disturbing the
peace and mixing in affairs which
were none OF their business, made
Nero Emperor, thrusting aside Clau-
dfns' son, B~ritanninus. Nero, as has
been said before, Was an apt pupil,
and Seneca was not the only person
from whom he learned. He had seen
Agripptna slipped her husbands off
after she was through with them and
how easy it was to hush up the grand
jury afterward.
This cyanide game,' said he to
himself, sis one / can play ;ust as
well as mamma; better perhaps"
and he winked at himself in the
glass, for he was Unfortunately vain.
Then he sent around a package of
poisoned chocolates to young Britain
nicus, WHO ought to have been Empe-
ror, and would have been If the Prae-
torian Guards hadn't horned in. Bril-
tannicus died. The prone said it
was heart failure, or ~infantile paraly-
sis, he wasn't sure which. Shortly
thereafter this coroner resigned and
set to work building a large steam
heated villa in the suburbs of Rome.
For a yea or two Nero did pretty
well as Emperor. At least people
thought so when they compared that
time with what came afterward. Then
he fell into the tolls of an affinity
whose name was Poppaea Sabina.
She was married to a man with whom
Nero used to come home from the
club, but that made no difference.
The Emperor divorced his wife, Octa-
via, but some trouble arising over
the question Of ailmony, ne sen a
Praetorian Guard around to assassin
ate her a year or two later.
Now Nero, in addition to his other
unlovely qualities, was very proud Of
his achievements in a literary way.
He wrote poems and plays, and then
he acted the plays himself, while the
courtiers sat around and told him
that Aristophanes, Aeschylus and
Euripides would have TO be retired to
the ten-twenty-three houses when the
managers got q squint at his manu-
scripts.
"As for Shakespeare" they said
you make him look like a ham"