what crime had she committed? Whom had she offended? Was it because she was about to give a genuine offspring to the family of the Cæsars, that the Roman people chose that the spawn of an Egyptian flute-player should be palmed upon the imperial eminence? To sum up all, if that step was essential to the public weal, he should call home his mistress voluntarily rather than by compulsion, or consult his safety by a righteous retribution. The first commotion had subsided under moderate applications, but if they should despair of Octavia’s being the wife of Nero, they would give her another husband.” This artfully compound speech, adapted to excite fear and rage, at once produced the desired effect, and terrified while it inflamed the imperial hearer; but a suspicion resting only on the evidence of a slave, and neutralised by the asseverations of the tortured maids, was not strong enough for this purpose. It was therefore resolved that some person should be found who would confess the guilty commerce, and who might also be plausibly charged with the crime of rebellion. Anicetus was judged a fitting instrument for this purpose; the same who had accomplished the murder of his mother, and, as I have related, commanded the fleet at Misenum; whom the emperor, after that horrid service, held in light esteem, but afterwards in extraordinary detestation; for the ministers of nefarious deeds seem in the eyes of their employers as living reproaches of their iniquity. Him therefore Nero summoned; and told him that he alone had saved the life of the prince from the dark devices of his mother; an opportunity for a service of no less magnitude now presented itself by relieving him from a wife who was his mortal enemy, nor was there need of force or arms; he had only to admit adultery with Octavia. He promised rewards, which he said must indeed be kept a secret for the present, but of great value, and also a delightful retreat; but threatened him with death, if he declined the task. Anicetus, from an inherent perversity of principle, and a facility in crime produced by the horrible transactions in which he had been already engaged, even exceeded his orders in lying, and made confession of the adultery to the friends of the prince, whom he had summoned as a council. He was then banished to Sardinia, where he lived in exile, but not in poverty, and where he died a natural death.