All this time Britannicus was kept shut up in the private apartments of the palace with nurses and children. The tutors and attendants whom Messalina his mother provided for him were one by one removed, and their places supplied by others whom Agrippina selected for the purpose, and whom she could rely upon to second her views. When inquired of in respect to Britannicus by those who had known him before, during his mother's lifetime, she replied that he was a weak and feeble child, subject to fits, and thus necessarily kept secluded from society. Sometimes, indeed, on great public occasions, both Nero and Britannicus appeared together, but even in these cases the arrangements were so made as to impress the public mind more forcibly than ever with an idea of the vast superiority of Nero, in respect to rank and position. On one such occasion, while Britannicus was carried about clothed in the dress of a child, and with attendants characteristic of the nursery, Nero rode on horseback, richly appareled in the triumphal robes of a general returning from a foreign campaign. Agrippina was one day made very angry with Britannicus, for what might seem a very trifling cause. It seems that Britannicus, though young, was a very intelligent boy, and that he understood perfectly the policy which his step-mother was pursuing toward him, and was very unwilling to submit to be thus supplanted. One day, when he and Nero were both abroad, attending some public spectacle or celebration, they met, and Nero accosted his cousin, calling him Britannicus. Britannicus, in returning the salutation, addressed Nero familiarly by the name Domitius;--Domitius Ahenobarbus having been his name before he was adopted by Claudius. Agrippina was very indignant when she heard of this. She considered the using of this name by Britannicus, as denoting, on his part, a refusal to acknowledge his cousin as the adopted son of his father. She immediately went to Claudius with earnest and angry complainings. "Your own edict," said she, "sanctioned and confirmed by the Senate, is disavowed and annulled, and my son is subjected to public insult by the impertinence of this child." Agrippina farther represented to Claudius, that Britannicus never would have thought of addressing her son in such a manner, of his own accord. His doing it must have arisen from the influence of some of the persons around him who were hostile to her; and she made use of the occasion to induce Claudius to give her authority to remove all that remained of the child's instructors and governors, who could be suspected of a friendly interest in his cause, and to subject him to new and more rigorous restrictions than ever.