Notwithstanding some occasional difficulties and embarrassments of this kind, every thing went on for a time very prosperously, in accordance with Agrippina's wishes and plans. Nero was very young, and little disposed at first to thwart or to resist his mother's measures. He was, however, all the time growing older, and he soon began to grow restive under the domination which Agrippina exercised over him, and to form plans and determinations of his own. There followed, as might have been expected, a terrible conflict for the possession of power between him and his mother. The history and the termination of this struggle will form the subject of the two following chapters. CHAPTER VII. BRITANNICUS. A.D. 54-55 Britannicus and Acte.--Indignation of Agrippina.--Otho and Senecio.--Perplexity of Nero's ministers.--They determine to connive at Nero's new connection.--Agrippina is greatly enraged.--Her furious invectives.--She becomes calm again.--Agrippina changes her policy.--Nero rejects his mother's advances.--His treatment of her.--He makes her a present of jewelry.--Agrippina is enraged.--Nero resolves to subdue his mother.--His plan.--Pallas dismissed.--His withdrawal.--Agrippina's bitter reproaches.--Her threats.--She declares that she will cause Nero to be deposed.--Probable character and meaning of these threats.--The game of "who shall be king?"--Nero's orders to Britannicus.--The song which Britannicus sung.--Nero resolves to resort to poison.--Pollio and Locusta.--The plan at first fails.--A second attempt.--A second preparation.--Mode of administering the poison.--Britannicus dies.--Agrippina's agitation and distress.--Effect produced by the poison.--Remedy.--The interment of Britannicus.--The storm.--Nero's proclamation. The occasion which led to the first open outbreak between Agrippina and her son was the discovery on her part of a secret and guilty attachment which had been formed between Nero and a young girl of the palace whose name was Acte. Acte was originally a slave from Asia Minor, having been purchased there and sent to Rome, very probably on account of her personal beauty. She had been subsequently enfranchised, but she remained still in the palace, forming a part of the household of Agrippina. Nero had never felt any strong attachment for Octavia. His marriage he had always regarded as merely one of his mother's political manoeuvers, and he did not consider himself as really bound to his wife by any tie. He was, besides, still but a boy, though unusually precocious and mature; and he had always been accustomed to the most unlimited indulgence of the propensities and passions of youth.