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Junius Silanus further stated that several persons had heard Cethegus say that three consuls and four praetors were to be slain; Piso, also, a person of consular dignity, testified other matters of like nature; and Caius Sulpicius, one of the praetors, being sent to Cethegus's house, found there a quantity of darts and of armor, and a still greater number of swords and daggers, all recently whetted.
The other, he said, smelt of an antidote, which he had taken to prevent his being poisoned by him; whereas Silanus was only afraid of being sea-sick, and the disagreeableness of a voyage; and Tiberius had merely taken a medicine for an habitual cough, which was continually growing worse. As for his successor Claudius, he only saved him for a laughing-stock.
He was not the father of Messalina, but a second husband of Messalina's mother; and, being young and attractive in person, Messalina at first loved him, and intended to make him one of her favorites and companions. Silanus, however, would not accede to her wishes, and her love for him was then changed into hatred and thirst for revenge.
Messalina, who was present with her husband at the time, listened to this story with well-feigned anxiety and agitation, and then declared, with a countenance of great mysteriousness and solemnity, that she had had precisely the same dream for two or three nights in succession, but that, not being willing to do Silanus an injury, or to raise any unjust suspicions against him, she had thus far forborne to speak of the subject to her husband.
Such were, as near as possible, the circumstances under which the Carthaginians were driven out of Spain, under the conduct and auspices of Publius Scipio, in the thirteenth year from the commencement of the war, and the fifth from the time that Publius Scipio received the province and the army. Not long after, Silanus returned to Tarraco to Scipio, with information that the war was at an end.
Just before the time which had been appointed for Silanus to appear, a certain officer of the household, named Narcissus, whom Messalina had engaged to assist her in her plot, came into the emperor's apartment, with an anxious countenance, and in a very hurried manner, and said to Claudius, whom he waked out of sleep by his coming, that he had had a very frightful dream one which he deemed it his duty to make known to his master without any delay.
After this, when it was now time to commence the battle, he ordered the Spaniards, who formed the centre, to advance at a slow pace; he himself sent a messenger from the right wing, for that he commanded, to Silanus and Marcius to extend the wing on the left in the same manner as they should see him extend that on the right, and engage the enemy with the light-armed of the horse and foot, before the two centres could meet.
Nor are they agreed even respecting the commanders, most say that Laelius commanded the fleet, but some say Marcus Junius Silanus. Valerius Antius says, that Arines commanded the Punic garrison, and was given up to the Romans; other writers say it was Mago.
Only let us all keep together until we are on safe ground; and let the man who lags behind or runs off, be condemned as a wrongdoer." Xenophon immediately put this question to the vote, and every hand was held up in its favor. There was no man more disconcerted with the vote than the prophet Silanus, who loudly exclaimed against the injustice of detaining any one desirous to depart.
Besides Claudius, she projected the death of L. Silanus, and she accomplished that of his brother, Junius Silanus, by means likewise of poison. She appears to have been richly endowed with the gifts of nature, but in her disposition intriguing, violent, imperious, and ready to sacrifice every principle of virtue, in the pursuit of supreme power or sensual gratification.
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