The guards at the gates of Agrippina's villa made some resistance to the entrance of the soldiers, but they were soon knocked down and overpowered; the gates were burst open, and Anicetus entered at the head of his party of marines. Agrippina, who was upon her bed in an inner chamber at the time, heard the noise and tumult, and was greatly alarmed. A number of friends who were with her, hearing the footsteps of the armed men on the stairs, fled from the chamber in dismay, by a private door, leaving Agrippina alone with her maid. The maid, after a moment's pause, fled too, Agrippina saying to her as she disappeared, "Are you, too, going to forsake me?" At the same moment, Anicetus forced open the door of entrance, and came in accompanied by two of his officers. The three armed men, with an expression of fierce and relentless determination upon their countenances, advanced to Agrippina's bedside. Agrippina was greatly terrified, but she preserved some degree of outward composure, and raising herself in her bed, she looked steadily upon her assassins. "Do you come from my son?" said she. They did not answer. "If you came to inquire how I am," said she, "tell him that I am better, and shall soon be entirely well. I can not believe that he can possibly have sent you to do me any violence or harm." At this instant one of the assassins struck at the wretched mother with his club. The arm, however, of the most hardened and unrelenting monster, usually falters somewhat at the beginning, in doing such work as this, and the blow gave Agrippina only an inconsiderable wound. She saw at once, however, that all was lost--that the bitter moment of death had come,--but instead of yielding to the emotions of terror and despair which might have been expected to overwhelm the heart of a woman in such a scene, her fierce and indomitable spirit aroused itself to new life and vigor in the terrible emergency. As the assassins approached her with their swords brandished in the air, preparing to strike her, she threw the bed-clothes off, so as to uncover her person, and called upon her murderers to strike her in the womb. "It is there," said she, "that the stab should be given when a mother is to be murdered by her son." She was instantly thrust through with a multitude of wounds in every part of her body, and died weltering in the blood that flowed out upon the couch on which she lay.