‘Domitia--and her slave concubine!’ said Agrippina. ‘Of him I deign no word; but she--what has she been doing all these years? While I was arranging the adoption of Nero, his marriage with Octavia, his promotion to the proconsular dignity, his nomination as a future Consul, all that led to his imperial elevation--what was _she_ doing? Improving her fishponds! And now she wants to rob me of my Nero, and for that purpose gets up a pantomime with her paramour and her dancer! Pray, is that all?’ ‘The sources of the information were Iturius and Calvisius.’ ‘Iturius and Calvisius!--ex-slaves, spendthrifts, debauchees, the scum of the earth, who want to repair their squalid bankruptcies by the gain of turning informers. They are nobodies; poor pieces on the draughts-board. Who moved them?’ ‘Junia Silana.’ ‘Junia Silana! Ah! now I understand it all--the whole vile plot from beginning to end! Silana--false wife, false friend, evil woman--what does she know of the sacredness of motherhood? Children cannot be got rid of by their mother so easily as lovers are by an adulteress. So! I am to be branded with the fictitious infamy of parricide, and Nero with its actual guilt, that two broken-down freedmen may repay their debts to the old woman their mistress? ‘And you, sirs,’ she said, raising herself to the full height of her stature, ‘ought you not to blush for the sorry part you have played? Instead of repaying me the gratitude which you owe to one who recalled you, Seneca, from your disgraceful exile, and raised you, Burrus, from the dust--instead of making the Emperor ashamed of attaching a feather’s-weight of importance to this paralytic comedy of pantomimes, scoundrels, and rancorous old women--you have encouraged him to try and humiliate me! I am ashamed of you,’ she cried, with the imperious gesture which had often made bold men tremble; ‘for as for these--gentlemen’--and she glanced at the freedmen--‘they, of course, must do as they are bid. And so, _such_ are my accusers! Who will bear witness that I have ever tampered with the city cohorts? who that I have intrigued in the provinces? who that I have bribed one slave or one freedman? They charge me with mourning for the death of Britannicus. Why, had Britannicus become emperor, whose head would have fallen sooner than that of his mother’s enemy and his own? And Rubellius Plautus--if he were emperor--would he be able for a single month to protect me from accusers who, alas! would be able to charge me, not with the incautious freedom of a mother’s indignant utterance, but with deeds from which I can be absolved by no one but that son for whose sake they were committed.’ For one moment her nature broke down under the rush of her emotion, and her glowing cheek was bathed in tears; but, recovering herself before she could dash the tears aside, she repudiated the awkward attempts at consolation offered by her judges, who themselves were deeply moved.