Before Jerusalem Fell

216 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
old skin. ”lw Weigall expands on this episode and notes Agrippina’s
(Nero’s mother) superstition in this regard:
One day when Nero was asleep, in his cot, an attempt to strangle him
was made by some men, apparendy in the pay of the Empress, who
had concealed themselves near by; but the approach of his mother
frightened them, and they decamped. It was then discovered that an
old snake-skin had been placed under the boy’s pillow, probably by
his nurse, as a magical protection against harm; and Agrippina was
superstitious enough to attribute his escape to the power of this
charm.
But a snake-skin had also another occult quality, according to the
folk-lore of the time – namely, that of bestowing upon its possessor
great honour through the medium of an elderly man, this fancy
having its origin in the belief that an old snake renewed its strength
and youth by shedding its skin.
Agrippina therdore took cotiort in the thought that her boy was
evidently going to be honoured in the future by the already rniddleaged
Claudius; and she caused the snake-skin to be made into a
bracelet which she obliged Nero always to wear. 105
Obviously the use of such a snake-charm by Nero was wellknown;
it appears in ancient history books dating more than a
half-century later. This Nero-serpent connection also occurs in the
Sibylline Oracles Book 5 (dated before A.D. 132) lW:
One who has fif~ as an initial will be commander, a terrible snake,
breathing out grievous war, who one day will lay hands on his own
family and slay them.107
Collins’s note on this Sibylline verse is of interest: “The fact that
[Nero] is called a snake maybe influenced by the story that a serpent
was found around his neck when he was an infant (Tacitus, Annals
11:11 ).’’1O8
Admittedly, the connection is not the strongest; it could never
serve alone as proof Nevertheless, here, at least, is a quite suggestive
correspondence in a most unusual detail of Nero’s life.
104. Roman Hist~ 61:2:4.
105. Weigsll, Nero, pp. 43-44.
106. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” OTP 1:390.
107. Sib@line Oro&s 5:28-30; OTP 1:393.
108. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” OTP 1:393,