ell. If your
intents are murderous, you are not sent by my son. The guilt of
parricide is foreign to his heart."

Her words were checked by a blow on the head with a club. A sword-thrust
followed, and she expired under a number of mortal wounds. Thus died the
niece, the wife, and the mother of an emperor, the daughter of the
celebrated soldier Germanicus, herself so stained with vice that none
can pity her fate, particularly as she had committed the further
unconscious crime of giving birth to the monster named Nero.

_BOADICEA, THE HEROINE OF BRITAIN._

Prasutagus, the king of the Icenians, a tribe of the ancient Britons,
had amassed much wealth in the course of a long reign. On his death, in
order to secure the favor of the Romans, now masters of the island, he
left half his wealth by will to the emperor and half to his two
daughters. This well-judged action of the barbarian king did not have
the intended effect. No sooner was he dead than the Romans in the
vicinity claimed the whole estate as theirs, ruthlessly pillaged his
house, and seized all his effects.

This base brigandage roused Boadicea, the widowed queen, to a vigorous
protest, but with the sole result of bringing a worse calamity upon her
head. She was seized and cruelly scourged by the ruthless Romans, her
two daughters were vilely maltreated, and the noblest of the Icenians
were robbed of their possessions by the plunderers, who went so far as
to reduce to slavery the near relatives of the deceased king.

Roused to madness by this inhuman treatment, the Icenians broke into
open revolt. They were joined by a neighboring state, while the
surrounding Britons, not yet inured to bondage, secretly resolved to
join the cause of liberty. There had lately been planted a colony of
Roman veterans at Camalodunum (Colchester), who had treated the Britons
cruelly, driven them from their houses, and insulted them with the names
of slaves and captives; while the common soldiers, a licentious and
greedy crew, still further degraded and robbed the owners of the land.

The invaders went too far for British endurance, and brought a terrible
retribution upon themselves. Paulinus Suetonius, an able officer, who
then commanded in Britain, was absent on an expedition to conquer the
island of Mona. Of this expedition the historian Tacitus gives a vivid
account. As the boats of the Romans approached the island they beheld on
the shore the Britons prepared to receive