ons.

Claudius was kind to the people in the distant provinces. He gave the
Jews a king again, Herod Agrippa, the grandson of the first Herod, who
was much loved by them, but died suddenly after a few years at Caesarea,
after the meeting with the Tyrians, when he let them greet him as a god.
There were a great many Jews living at Rome, but those from Jerusalem
quarrelled with those from Alexandria; and one year, when there was a
great scarcity of corn, Claudius banished them all from Rome.

[Illustration: CLAUDIUS.]

Claudius was very unhappy in his wives. Two he divorced, and then
married a third named Messalina, who was given up to all kinds of
wickedness which he never guessed at, while she used all manner of arts
to keep up her beauty and to deceive him. At last she actually married a
young man while Claudius was absent from Rome; but when this came to his
knowledge, he had her put to death. His last wife was, however, the
worst of all. She was the daughter of the good Germanicus, and bore her
mother's name of Agrippina. She had been previously married to Lucius
Domitius AEnobarbus, by whom she had a son, whom Claudius adopted when he
married her, though he had a child of his own called Britannicus, son to
Messalina. Romans had never married their nieces before, but the power
of the Emperors was leading them to trample down all law and custom, and
it was for the misfortune of Claudius that he did so in this case, for
Agrippina's purpose was to put every one out of the way of her own son,
who, taking all the Claudian and Julian names in addition to his own, is
commonly known as Nero. She married him to Claudius' daughter Octavia,
and then, after much tormenting the Emperor, she poisoned him with a
dish of mushrooms, and bribed his physician to take care that he did not
recover. He died A.D. 54, and, honest and true-hearted as he
had been, the Romans were glad to be rid of him, and told mocking
stories of him. Indeed, they were very bad in all ways themselves, and
many of the ladies were poisoners like Agrippina, so that the city
almost deserved the tyrant who came after Claudius. Nero, the son of
Agrippina by her first marriage, and Britannicus, the son of Claudius
and Messalina, were to reign together; but Nero was the elder, and as
soon as his poor young cousin came to manhood, Agrippina had a dose of
poison ready for him.

Nero, however, began well. He had been well brought up by Seneca, an
excellent student o