[51] Tacitus affirms that Messalina was actually married with the most formal ceremonies to her lover, Caius Silius, during the lifetime of Claudius, her lawful husband. [52] Britannicus. [53] Sextus, son of Tarquinius committed an outrage upon Lucretia who, after informing her husband Collatinus and father Lucretius, stabbed herself. The people then arose and drove out the Tarquins. [54] Tullia, wife of Tarquinius, urged her husband to the murder of her father. She drove her chariot over the mangled body and her father’s blood spurted over her and her carriage. [55] Nero attempted to shipwreck his mother on her return from Baiae to Bauli, but the empress was picked up by boats from the shore and carried to Lucrine villa. Nero immediately sent Amicetus with a band of soldiers to complete the crime. As she lay dying from her many wounds, she exclaimed, “Strike the womb which bore a monster.” [56] L. Annaeus Seneca was a senator and philosopher in the reign of Caligula. Incurring the displeasure of Messalina, the wife of Claudius, he was banished in 41 A.D. to Corsica. He was recalled in 48 by Agrippina to be the tutor of Nero. After the accession of his pupil to the throne, Seneca was for a long time the ruling power, but being implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy, he was driven to suicide 65 A.D. [57] Eight weary years of waiting were relieved by study and authorship. He is said to have written his extant tragedies during his exile. [58] When Jupiter ordered the flood to come, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha alone found refuge on Mt. Parnassus. They were ordered by the oracle to cast behind them the bones of their mother which they interpreted to be the stones of the earth. As they threw the stones, those thrown by Deucalion became men and those by Pyrrha became women. [59] Saturn was the father of all the gods. His reign was the Golden age, the age of innocence and happiness. [60] Second was the Silver Age when good Saturn was banished from above and Jove reigned. “To this came next in course the Brazen Age; A warlike offering prompt to bloody rage; Not impious yet! Hard steel succeeded then; And stubborn as the metal were the men.” Ovid’s Metam--Book I Dryden’s Translation. [61] Evidently something omitted. [62] Astraea was goddess of purity and innocence and daughter of Justice. After she was driven from earth, she was placed among the stars where she became the constellation Virgo. [63] Nero Claudius Caesar, the sixth of the Roman emperors, born 37 A.D. was the son of Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus. He was originally named Lucius Domitius. After the death of Ahenobarbus and a second husband, Crispus Passienus, Agrippina married Claudius who gave his daughter Octavia to Nero in marriage and subsequently adopted him with the formal sanction of the senate.