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Entrusting the secret to Halotus, the Emperor's praegustator the slave whose office it was to protect him from poison by tasting every dish before him and to his physician, Xenophon of Cos, she consulted Locusta, the Mrs. Turner of the period of this classical King James, as to the poison best suited to her purpose.
Nay, when the Roman people were very clamorous for the punishment of Halotus and Tigellinus, two of the most mischievous amongst all the emissaries of Nero, he protected them, and even bestowed on Halotus one of the best procurations in his disposal. And as to Tigellinus, he even reprimanded the people for their cruelty by a proclamation.
But he was prevented from proceeding further by Agrippina, accused by her own guilty conscience, as well as by informers, of a variety of crimes. It is agreed that he was taken off by poison; but where, and by whom administered, remains in uncertainty. Some authors say that it was given him as he was feasting with the priests in the Capitol, by the eunuch Halotus, his taster.
Whether the mixture that Locusta had prepared was not sufficiently powerful, or whether Halotus in his extreme anxiety not to get any of the poisonous ingredients himself failed to administer them effectually to his intended victim, the emperor seemed to continue afterward much as he had been before, still sick, but without any new or more dangerous symptoms.
Agrippina then went to Halotus, the servant who waited upon the emperor and gave him his food, and contrived some means to induce him to administer the dose. Halotus was the emperor's "taster," as it was termed: that is, it was his duty to taste first, himself, every article of food or drink which he offered to his master, for the express purpose of making it sure that nothing was poisoned.
It is obvious, however, that many ways might be devised for evading such a precaution as this, and Halotus and Agrippina arranged it, that the poison, in this case, should be put upon a dish of mushrooms, and served to the emperor at his supper. The taster was to avoid, by means of some dextrous management, the taking of any portion of the fatal ingredients himself.
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