later; Suetonius’s version came a few years after that; 
and Dio Cassius told the story again almost two centuries 
after the event. These three secondary sources differ 
among themselves in details, which gives to their agree- 
ment on essentials a stamp of verisimilitude. Inthe main 
they were not copying each other, and they probably 
had the important facts right. 
Claudius was exceedingly fond of the mushrooms 
known to the Romans as o/et?; indeed a plausible tra- 
dition has it that his favorite kind was what we know 
today as Amanita caesarea. (In antiquity bolet?i meant 
what mycologists since Linnaeus’ day have called the 
amanitas.) he dish of mushrooms that he ate on the 
fateful day consisted of poisoned, not poisonous mush- 
rooms. On this all three of the ancient historians agree, 
in different words. None identifies the poison that was 
used, but they are abundantly clear that poison was added 
to the Emperor's favorite dish. Here is Tacitus, Book 
NII, Chap. Ixvii of the Annals in the Loeb edition: 
Adeoque cuncta mox pernotuere, ut temporum illorum scriptores 
prodiderint infusum delectabili cibo boleto venenum. 
So notorious, later, were the whole proceedings that authors of 
the period have recorded that the poison was sprinkled on an 
exceptionally fine mushroom. 
Suetonius gives two versions, in Book V, Chap. xliv, in 
the Loeb edition: 
Et veneno quidem occisum convenit; ubi autem et per quem dato, 
discrepat. Quidam tradunt epulanti in arce cum sacerdotibus per 
Halotum spadonem praegustatorem; alii domestico convivio per 
ipsam Agrippinam, quae boletum medicatum avidissimo ciborum 
talium optulerat. 
That Claudius was poisoned is the general belief, but when it was 
done and by whom is disputed. Some say that it was his taster, 
the eunuch Halotus, as he was banqueting on the Citadel with 
the priests; others that at a family dinner Agrippina served the 
drug to him with her own hand in mushrooms, a dish of which 
he was extravagantly fond. 
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