The Emperor of Rome was intensely jealous of the fame of the great Roman to whom he had given an immense share of power, little indeed inferior to that formerly granted by the senate to Pompey the Great. He did not distrust the commander of whose probity he had received so many proofs; but the splendid career of Domitius Corbulo excited odious comparisons between the sovereign and his lieutenant. His dislike was well known to his confidants, and by them was communicated to Arrius Varus, a brave but unprincipled young man, who, thinking it afforded him an opportunity of pushing his own fortunes at Corbulo’s expense, secretly accused his commander of treason, in a letter addressed to the emperor himself. Nero did not believe the accusation, and he was undecided respecting the use to which he should put it; for he required the services of his lieutenant in the East, and had not quite made up his mind to kill the man whom Tiridates had styled “a most valuable slave.” He resolved to be guided by circumstances, and contented himself with writing to Domitius Corbulo a pressing invitation to visit his court at Corinth.[6] With the profound dissimulation in which Nero was an adept, he informed him of the accusation made by Varus, assuring him at the same time that he did not believe in its truth. The apparent frankness and generosity of his sovereign made the impression he had intended on the honourable mind of his general, who came to Corinth without the slightest suspicion of any sinister design entertained by Nero. He was accompanied by a few friends alone, and without a guard. Among those individuals who were honoured by his confidence was a military tribune or colonel, named Lucius Claudius, whose distant relationship to the emperor gave him some importance in the eyes of the Roman people; a cadet of a house associated by its greatness or guilt with every page of the republican and imperial history,—which had given to Rome more consuls, dictators, and censors than any other line,—which boasted Appius Cæcus, and Nero, the conqueror of Asdrubal,—and of which also had sprung Appius Claudius the decemvir, Clodius the demagogue, Tiberius the emperor, Drusus and Germanicus, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Lucius Claudius had apparently entered life under peculiarly fortunate circumstances; though the military tribune did not resemble in character his ambitious ancestral race. The men we have just cited of the proud Claudian line were before their times, while he was behind those in which he lived. His noble temper, frank, generous, fearless, and true, had been formed by his revered commander, by whom Lucius had been trained to arms; his life had been passed in the camp, far from the corruption of Nero’s court and capital. His father was no more, his brother Julius, one of Nero’s dissipated companions, was with the emperor at Corinth, and his sister Lucia Claudia was the youngest of the vestal priestesses, but he had not