arge.--The result of the attempt.--Narrow escape
of Agrippina.--Agrippina and Aceronia in the sea.--Agrippina
escapes.--Her message to Nero.--Nero's alarm on bearing of his
mother's escape.--Consultation with Seneca and Burrus.--Anicetus
undertakes to finish his work.--Anicetus goes to Agrippina's
villa.--Conversation.--Agrippina is murdered.--Nero is overwhelmed with
remorse and horror.--He becomes more calm.--The dead body.--Burning
of the body of Agrippina.

However it may have been with others, Agrippina herself was not
deceived by the false pretenses which Nero offered in explanation
of his brother's death. She understood the case too well, and the
event filled her mind with a tumult of conflicting emotions.
Notwithstanding the terrible quarrels which had disturbed her
intercourse with the emperor, he was still her son,--her first-born
son,--and she loved him as such, even in the midst of the resentment
and hostility which her disappointed ambition from time to time
awakened in her mind. Her ambition was now more bitterly
disappointed than ever. In the death of Britannicus the last link of
her power over Nero seemed to be forever sundered. The hand by which
he had fallen was still that of her son,--a son to whom she could
not but cling with maternal affection, while she felt deeply wounded
at what she considered his cruel ingratitude toward her, and vexed
and maddened at finding herself so hopelessly circumvented in all
her schemes.

As for Nero himself, he had no longer any hope or expectation of
being on good terms with his mother again. He saw clearly that her
schemes and plans were wholly incompatible with his, and that in
order to secure the prosperous accomplishment of his own designs he
must now finish the work that he had begun, and curtail and restrict
his mother's influence by every means in his power. Other persons he
attempted to conciliate. He made splendid presents to the leading
men of Rome, as bribes to prevent their instituting inquiries in
respect to the death of Britannicus. To some he gave landed estates,
to others sums of money, and others still he advanced to high
offices of civil or military command. Those whom he most feared he
removed from Rome, by giving them honorable and lucrative
appointments in distant provinces.

In the mean time Agrippina herself was not idle. As soon as she
recovered from the first shock which the death of Britannicus had
occasioned her, she began to think of