Among the other officers of the fleet was a certain Proculus, who was one of the first with whom Epicharis communicated. Proculus was one of the men who had been employed by Nero in his attempts to assassinate Agrippina his mother, and for his services on that occasion had been promoted to the command of a certain number of ships, a number containing in all one thousand men. This promotion, however, as Epicharis found when she came to converse with him, Proculus did not consider as great a reward as his services had deserved. The perpetration of so horrible a crime as the murder of the emperor's mother, merited, in his opinion, as he said to Epicharis, a much higher recompense than the command of a thousand men. Epicharis thought so too. She talked with Proculus about his wrongs, and the injuries which he suffered from Nero's ingratitude and neglect, until she fancied that he was in a state of mind which would prepare him to join in the plans of the conspirators, and then she cautiously unfolded them to him. Proculus listened with great apparent interest to Epicharis's communication, and pretended to enter very cordially into the plan of the conspiracy; but as soon as the interview was ended he immediately left Misenum, and proceeded immediately to Rome, where he divulged the whole design to Nero. Nero was exceedingly alarmed, and sent officers off at once to seize Epicharis and bring her before him. Epicharis, when questioned and confronted with Proculus, resolutely denied that she had ever held any such conversation with Proculus as he alledged, and feigned the utmost astonishment at what she termed the impudence of his accusation. She called for witnesses and proofs. Proculus of course could produce none, for Epicharis had taken care that there should be no third person present at their interviews. Proculus could not even give the names of any of the conspirators at Rome. He could only persist in his declaration that Epicharis had really disclosed to him the existence of the conspiracy, and had proposed to him to join in it; while she on the contrary as strenuously and positively denied it. Nero was perplexed. He found it impossible to determine what to believe. He finally dismissed Proculus, and sent Epicharis to prison, intending that she should remain there until he could make a more full examination into the case, and determine what to do. In the mean time the conspirators became considerably alarmed when they heard of the arrest of Epicharis, and though they knew that thus far she had revealed nothing, they could not tell how soon her fidelity and firmness might yield under the tortures to which she was every day liable to be subjected; and as there appeared to be now no prospect that Flavius would ever undertake to execute his plan, they began to devise some other means of attaining the end.