He wanted even to sing more of his verses,--this time in Greek,--but he had forgotten them, and by mistake sang an ode of Anacreon.

Pythagoras, Diodorus, and Terpnos accompanied him; but failing to keep time, they stopped.

Nero as a judge and an aesthete was enchanted with the beauty of Pythagoras, and fell to kissing his hands in ecstasy.
"Such beautiful hands I have seen only once, and whose were they ?" Then placing his palm on his moist forehead, he tried to remember.

After a while terror was reflected on his face.
Ah! His mother's--Agrippina's! And a gloomy vision seized him forthwith.
"They say," said he, "that she wanders by moonlight on the sea around Baiae and Bauli.

She merely walks,--walks as if seeking for something.
When she comes near a boat, she looks at it and goes away; but the fisherman on whom she has fixed her eye dies." "Not a bad theme," said Petronius.
But Vestinius, stretching his neck like a stork, whispered mysteriously,--"I do not believe in the gods; but I believe in spirits--Oi!" Nero paid no attention to their words, and continued,--"I celebrated the Lemuria, and have no wish to see her.