NARCISSUS

died AD 54 freedman who used his position as correspondence secretary (ab epistulis) to the Roman emperor Claudius (ruled 4154) to become, in effect, a minister of state. Narcissus exercised great influence over Claudius and accumulated immense wealth. At first he allied himself with Claudius' third wife, Messalina Valeria, but fear that she and her lover, Gaius Silius, were conspiring to seize power made him join with others to have her executed (48). By failing to support Claudius' subsequent marriage to Agrippina the Younger, Narcissus lost influence in the government. The finance secretary, Pallas, who had favoured the match, became Claudius' favourite. Narcissus' power was further undermined when he backed Britannicus, son of Claudius and Messalina, for the succession even after Agrippina had persuaded Claudius to designate as his successor her own son (by a previous marriage), Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. In 54 Claudius died, perhaps poisoned by Agrippina. Domitius took power as the emperor Nero and immediately had Narcissus arrested. Shortly afterward the freedman committed suicide. in Greek mythology, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Leiriope; he was distinguished for his beauty. His mother was told that he would have a long life, provided he never looked upon his own features. His rejection, however, of the love of the nymph Echo or of his lover Ameinias drew upon him the vengeance of the gods. He fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring and pined away (or killed himself); the flower that bears his name sprang up where he died. According to another source, Narcissus, to console himself for the death of his beloved twin sister, his exact counterpart, sat gazing into the spring to recall her features. The story may have derived from the ancient Greek superstition that it was unlucky or even fatal to see one's own reflection. In psychiatry and especially psychoanalysis, the term narcissism denotes an excessive degree of self-esteem or self-involvement, a condition that is usually a form of emotional immaturity.