At last, at
noon on the 13th of October, the gates of the palace were suddenly thrown
open, and Nero, accompanied by Burrus, went forth to the cohort which was on
guard after military custom. There, at the suggestion of the commanding
officer, he was hailed with joyful shouts, and set on a litter. Some, it is
said, hesitated, and looked round and asked where Britannicus was; then,
when there was no one to lead a resistance, they yielded to what was offered
them. Nero was conveyed into the camp, and having first spoken suitably to
the occasion and promised a donative after the example of his father's
bounty, he was unanimously greeted as emperor. The decrees of the Senate
followed the voice of the soldiers, and there was no hesitation in the
provinces. Divine honours were decreed to Claudius, and his funeral rites
were solemnized on the same scale as those of Augustus; for Agrippina strove
to emulate the magnificence of her great-grandmother, Livia. But his will
was not publicly read, as the preference of the stepson to the son might
provoke a sense of wrong and angry feeling in the popular
mind.
