in Greek and Latin Authors. 37 



Agrippina of getting rid of Claudius ; no fungus, no boletus, 

 is once mentioned or hinted at. I noticed above that Seneca, 

 in his lamentation over his deceased friend Anneus Serenus 

 (Ep. 63), says nothing of his death by a poisoned dish of 

 boleti, of which Pliny speaks. In both cases the absence of 

 any remarks about the cause of the death of Serenus and of 

 Claudius Caesar is natural • it is notorious that Seneca was 

 privy to Agrippina's design to poison the emperor, and so 

 he carefully avoided the use of the word boletus, fungus, or 

 suillus. 



The accounts which have come down to us generally agree 

 that the boletus was the vehicle in which the poison was 

 administered to the emperor, although at the time various 

 stories were told as to where and by whom poison was given. 

 Suetonius and Tacitus both speak of medicated boleti, poison 

 poured into a dish of boleti. The poison was believed by 

 some to have been put into the dish by Agrippina's own 

 hands. Tacitus says it was prepared by Locusta. Nero, the 

 successor of Claudius, was of course privy to the plot, and 

 even had the impudence to make no secret of the mode of 

 poisoning, for he used to commend in a Greek proverb boleti 

 as food of the gods (fipw/jLa Oecbv), sarcastically referring to 

 the apotheosis of Claudius. 



The boletus was such a relished dainty with the Emperor 

 Tiberius that, according to Suetonius, he presented a man of 

 the name of Asellius Sabinus with 200,000 sesterces for 

 composing a dialogue in which boleti, beccaficos, oysters, 

 and thrushes were supposed to contend for the honour of being- 

 considered the best food (Suet. Tib. cap. xlii.). Martial 

 (Ep. i. 21) represents a certain host, Caxilianus, inviting a 

 number of guests to dinner, and eating all the boleti 

 himself: — 



" Die mihi quis furor est ? turba spectante vocata, 

 Solus boletos, Cseciliane, voras. 

 Quid dignum tanto tibi ventre, gulaque precabor ? 

 Boletum, qualem Claudius edit, edas." 

 " What brutishness is this ? When friends you treat, 

 They looking on, alone you mushrooms eat. 

 "What on such gluttony shall I implore ? 

 May'st Claudius' mushroom eat, and ne'er eat more !" 



him by the neck and conducts him out of heaven down to the infernal 

 regions, where he is punished in a Sisyphian-like way. He has to throw 

 dice out of a perforated box, according to the sentence pronounced by 

 iEacus : — " Turn yEacus juhet ilium alea ludere pertuso fritillo ; et jam 

 cceperat fugientes semper tesseras quserere, et nihil prohcere. 

 " Sic cum jam summi tanguntur culmina montis 

 Irrita Sisyphio volvuntur pondera collo. 



