WITHOUT pausing in her winter voyage Agrippina arrived at the
island of Corcyra, facing the shores of Calabria. There she spent a few days to compose her
mind, for she was wild with grief and knew not how to endure. Meanwhile on
hearing of her arrival, all her intimate friends and several officers, every
one indeed who had served under Germanicus, many strangers too from the
neighbouring towns, some thinking it respectful to the emperor, and still
more following their example, thronged eagerly to Brundisium, the nearest and safest landing place for a
voyager.
As soon as the fleet was seen on the horizon, not only the
harbour and the adjacent shores, but the city walls too and the roofs and
every place which commanded the most distant prospect were filled with
crowds of mourners, who incessantly asked one another, whether, when she
landed, they were to receive her in silence or with some utterance of
emotion. They were not agreed on what befitted the occasion when the fleet
slowly approached, its crew, not joyous as is usual, but wearing all a
studied expression of grief. When Agrippina descended from the vessel with
her two children, clasping the funeral urn, with eyes rivetted to the earth,
there was one universal groan. You could not distinguish kinsfolk from
strangers, or the laments of men from those of women; only the attendants of
Agrippina, worn out as they were by long sorrow, were surpassed by the
mourners who now met them, fresh in their grief.
