While Nero was revolving these things in his mind, the occasion occurred for a great naval celebration at Baiæ, a beautiful bay south of Rome, near what is now the bay of Naples. Baiæ was celebrated in ancient times, as it is in fact now, for the beauty of its situation, and it was a place of great resort for the Roman nobility. There was a small, but well-built town at the head of the bay, and the hills and valleys in the vicinity, as well as every headland and promontory along the shore, were ornamented with villas and country-seats, which were occupied as summer residences by the wealthy people of the city. Baiæ was also a great naval station, and there was at this time a fleet stationed there,--or rather at the promontory of Misenum, a few miles beyond,--under the command of one of Nero's confidential servants, named Anicetus. The naval celebration was to take place in connection with this fleet. It was an annual festival, and was to continue five days. Anicetus had been a personal attendant upon Nero in his infancy, and had lived always in habits of great intimacy with him. For some reason or other, too, he was a great enemy to Agrippina, having been always accustomed, when Nero was a child, to take his part in the little contests which had arisen, from time to time, between him and his mother. Anicetus was of course prepared to sympathize very readily with Nero in the hatred which he now cherished toward Agrippina, and when he learned that Nero was desirous of devising some means of accomplishing her death, he formed a plan which he said would effect the purpose very safely. He proposed to invite Agrippina to Baiæ, and then, in the course of the ceremonies and manoeuvers connected with the naval spectacle, to take her out upon the bay in a barge or galley. He would have the barge so constructed, he said, that it should go to pieces at sea, making arrangements beforehand for saving the lives of the others, but leaving Agrippina to be drowned. Nero was greatly pleased with this device, and determined at once to adopt the plan. In order to open the way for carrying it into effect, he pretended, when the time for the festival drew nigh, that he desired to be reconciled to his mother, and that he was ready now to fall in with her wishes and plans. He begged her to forget all his past unkindness to her, and assuring her that his feelings toward her were now wholly changed, he lavished upon her expressions of the tenderest regard. A mother is always very easily deceived by such protestations on the part of a wayward son, and Agrippina believed all that Nero said to her. In a word, the reconciliation seemed to be complete.