New wants create new professions. In despotic governments, the lives of certain persons are often too prolonged in the opinion of others who have their own purposes to pursue, and there never have been lacking those who in such a juncture could make themselves extremely useful. In the time of Agrippina there lived a woman named Locusta, who, as Tacitus informs us, was a famous artist in the mixing of drugs. Her skill seems always to have had for its object, not the cure of patients who were confided to her care, but their judicious taking-off. The above-mentioned historian informs us that Agrippina allowed this woman to employ her art upon Claudius; and as no other writer approximate to that age seeks to purge the empress of this accusation, it must be reckoned to her account. "In fact," says Tacitus, "all the particulars of this transaction were soon afterward so thoroughly known, that the writers of those times are able to recount how the poison was poured into a dish of mushrooms, of which he was particularly fond; but whether it was that his senses were stupefied, or from the wine he had drunk, the effect of the poison was not immediately perceived." Agrippina therefore became dismayed; but as her life was at stake, she thought little of the odium of her present proceedings, and called in the aid of Xenophon the physician, whom she had already implicated in her guilty project. It is believed that he, as if he purposed to assist Claudius in his efforts to vomit, put down his throat a feather besmeared with deadly poison. After the death of Claudius, Agrippina discovered that the day was ill-omened, so that she hesitated to have her son proclaimed. The fact of the emperor's death was therefore kept a secret for some hours. The people were so far imposed upon that they believed that Claudius was approving and desired to be entertained. Buffoons were Produced, who played their antics and cracked their jokes in the presence of the corpse; the empress, in the meantime, feigning to be overcome with grief, was clasping the young Britannicus in her arms and declaring that he was the very image of his father. At noon, it being the thirteenth of October in the year 4, the death of Claudius was announced, and Nero was received by the soldiers with shouts of joy. The Senate confirmed his accession, and that night, when the tribune asked the new emperor for the watchword, he gave "the best of mothers."