In order to bring Nero forward, Agrippina caused him to assume the virile toga before the usual age, and the servile senate desired of Claudius that he might be consul at the age of twenty, and meantime be elect with proconsular power without the city. A donative was given to the soldiers, and a congiary (congiarium) to the people in his name. At the Circensian games, given to gain the people, Nero appeared in the triumphal habit; Britannicus in a simple _prætexta_. Every one who showed any attachment to this poor youth was removed on one pretence or another, and he was surrounded with the creatures of Agrippina. Finally, as the two commanders of the guards were supposed to be attached to the interests of the children of Messallina, she persuaded Claudius that their discipline would be much improved if they were placed under one commander. Accordingly those officers were removed, and the command was given to Burrus Afranius, a man of high character for probity and of great military reputation, and who knew to whom he was indebted for his elevation. The pride and haughtiness of Agrippina far transcended anything that Rome had as yet witnessed in a woman. When the British prince Caractacus and his family, whom P. Ostorius had sent captives to the emperor, were led before him as he sat on his tribunal in the plain under the prætorian camp, with all the troops drawn out, Agrippina appeared seated on another tribunal, as the partner of his power. And again, when the letting off of the Fucine Lake was celebrated with a naval combat, she presided with him, habited in a military cloak of cloth of gold. Agrippina at length grew weary of delay, or fearful of discovery. Narcissus, who saw at what she was aiming, appeared resolved to exert all his influence in favour of Britannicus; and Claudius himself, one day when he was drunk, was heard to say that it was his fate to bear with the infamy of his wives and then to punish it. He had also begun to show peculiar marks of affection for Britannicus. She therefore resolved to act without delay.[e] TACITUS DESCRIBES THE MURDER OF CLAUDIUS [Sidenote: [54 A.D.]]