cruelty. Under pretence of her
being engaged in a plot against him, he put to death Antonia, Claudius's
daughter, who refused to marry him after the death of Poppaea. In the
same way, he destroyed all who were allied to him either by blood or
marriage; amongst whom was young Aulus Plautinus. He first compelled him
to submit to his unnatural lust, and then ordered him to be executed,
crying out, "Let my mother bestow her kisses on my successor thus
defiled;" pretending that he had been his mothers paramour, and by her
encouraged to aspire to the empire. His step-son, Rufinus Crispinus,
Poppaea's son, though a minor, he ordered to be drowned in the sea, while
he was fishing, by his own slaves, because he was reported to act
frequently amongst his play-fellows the part of a general or an emperor.
He banished Tuscus, his nurse's son, for presuming, when he was procurator
of Egypt, to wash in the baths which had been constructed in expectation
of his own coming. Seneca, his preceptor, he forced to kill himself
[609], though, upon his desiring leave to retire, and offering to
surrender his estate, he solemnly swore, "that there was no foundation for
his suspicions, and that he would perish himself sooner than hurt him."
Having promised Burrhus, the pretorian prefect, a remedy for a swelling in
his throat, he sent him poison. Some old rich freedmen of Claudius, who
had formerly not only promoted (366) his adoption, but were also
instrumental to his advancement to the empire, and had been his governors,
he took off by poison given them in their meat or drink.

XXXVI. Nor did he proceed with less cruelty against those who were not
of his family. A blazing star, which is vulgarly supposed to portend
destruction to kings and princes, appeared above the horizon several
nights successively [610]. He felt great anxiety on account of this
phenomenon, and being informed by one Babilus, an astrologer, that
princes were used to expiate such omens by the sacrifice of illustrious
persons, and so avert the danger foreboded to their own persons, by
bringing it on the heads of their chief men, he resolved on the
destruction of the principal nobility in Rome. He was the more
encouraged to this, because he had some plausible pretence for carrying
it into execution, from the discovery of two conspiracies against him;
the former and more dangerous of which was that formed by Piso [611], and
discovered at Rome; the other was that of Vini