But, though an enthusiastic conspirator, Epicharis proved herself an unwary recruiting agent. She especially applied herself to an old acquaintance named Proculus, who confided to her the fact that he had been one of the party concerned in the assassination of the emperor's mother, and that he was dissatisfied with the reward he had received for such eminent service, he being only a minor officer in the fleet. He added that it was his settled purpose to be revenged, should a fitting opportunity present itself. Epicharis did not wait to consider the unwisdom of incontinently intrusting the knowledge of the whole plot to a man of insufficient principle to prevent him from looking upon the murder of a defenceless woman as an exploit to be liberally rewarded. Moreover, it is likely that she inadvertently had dropped some hint of what was in her mind, and Proculus lured her on by suggesting the possibility of himself as a convert. Epicharis first gave him the whole plot, and then set about persuading him to join it. She recounted all the atrocities of the emperor; and concluded with the remark "that Nero had stripped the Senate of all its powers; but," she added, "measures had been taken to punish him for overturning the constitution; and Proculus had only to address himself manfully to the work and bring over to their side the most energetic of the troops, and he might depend upon receiving suitable rewards." One indiscretion she did not commit: she did not divulge the names of the conspirators. So, when Proculus laid information before the emperor--thinking doubtless that this was a readier path to reward than any plot of assassination of which a woman would be cognizant--his evidence was of little avail; but Nero considered it best to detain Epicharis in prison, in anticipation of anything that might occur. The conspirators at last concluded to perpetrate their design at the Cirensian games. Lateranus, a man of determined spirit and gigantic strength, was to approach the emperor as a suppliant and, apparently by accident, throw him down. Scævinus was to perform the principal part with a dagger he had procured from the temple of Fortune for the purpose. Piso was to wait at the temple of Ceres until he was summoned to the camp, which he was to enter attended by Antonia, the daughter of Claudius Cæsar,--a woman of an entirely opposite character to that of her grandmother, after whom she was named,--and who, it was hoped, would conciliate the favor of the people. How deeply Antonia was involved in this plot it is impossible to say. It appears improbable, as Tacitus remarks, that she should have lent her name and hazarded her life in a project from which she had nothing to hope.