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This, in fact, would naturally be supposed to be the case, since it was Silius rather than Messalina who was their rival. Some of them appear to have hated Messalina on her own account, but with the others there was apparently no wish to harm the empress, if any other way could be found of reaching Silius.

She seemed to be the woman above all others destined to make the people forget Messalina and to reestablish among the masses respect for the family of Augustus, now seriously compromised by many scandals and dissensions. Furthermore, she did not seem to suffer too much by comparison with Livia.

But it was during the ascendency of both Messalina and Agrippina, that Claudius presided at the tribunals of justice with zeal and intelligence, that he interested himself in works of great public utility, and that he carried on successful war in Britain.

At length, however, she went one step too far, and brought upon herself in consequence of it a terrible destruction. It was about seven years after the accession of Claudius that the event occurred. The favorite of Messalina at this time was a young Roman senator named Caius Silius.

According to his story, from the first day of her marriage Agrippina attempted to make of her son, the future Emperor Nero, the successor of Claudius, thereby excluding Britannicus, the son of Messalina, from the throne. To obtain this end, she spared, he says, neither intrigues, fraud, nor deceit; she had Seneca recalled from exile and appointed tutor of her child.

Though Agrippina remained at Rome, she was isolated and reduced to a position of helplessness. Messalina alone, together with four or five intelligent and unscrupulous freedmen, hedged Claudius about, and there began the period of their common government a government of incredible waste and extortion.

The object of the confederates in thus wishing to get command of the guard was, perhaps, to make sure of the prompt and immediate execution of any sentence which they might succeed in inducing the emperor to pronounce upon Silius or Messalina, before he should have the opportunity of changing his mind.

He could not but be aware that lofty as his position was, it was the brink of a precipice that he stood upon. Still he shut his eyes in a great measure to his danger and went blindly on. The catastrophe, which came very suddenly at last, will form the subject of the next chapter. Silius forms a scheme for making himself emperor. He proposes his plan to Messalina. Messalina's reply. Her motives.

A quarter of an hour before she died, her brave Briton, yielding to the lascivious requests of this new Messalina, offered in my presence the last sacrifice, in spite of a large sore on her face which made her look hideous. This truly heroic action was known all over the town, and it was Murray himself who made it known, citing me as his witness.

"How," thought she, "could a virtuous woman write to that abandoned wretch who degrades the divine birthright of royalty by a dissolute life? How could Maria Theresa so humiliate herself as to ask succor of such a Messalina!" The entrance of a page interrupted the empress's meditations.