listening to tales depreciatory of one another. The East swarmed with sorcerers and necromancers, and supple intriguers of all kinds used to the internecine feuds of the ladies who lived in the palaces of their princes. The most unfortunate result of the death of Germanicus was that it left Agrippina an embittered and vindictive woman. Even her husband had occasionally deprecated the violence of her temper. Time did nothing to cure her grievances, indeed the legend of her many sorrows seemed to grow steadily as the events receded into the distance, and she handed her quarrel on to her children with its vitality undiminished. One possible solution of the part played by Piso, and of the difficulty of reconciling it with his last protestation of innocence, is that Plancina was actually in the confidence of Livia, from whom she held such a commission as Livia could give her to make arrangements desired by her patroness. The Oriental princes had learned to rely on secret influence rather than on open negotiations with Tiberius and the Senate; the stern impartiality of the Emperor drove them to subterranean manœuvres, and Livia was by no means disinclined to let it be understood that her influence was paramount. Thus while Piso as Governor of Syria was the properly constituted representative of Tiberius, his wife was the accredited plenipotentiary of the power behind the throne. The charges against Plancina were really charges against Livia, and the case which was hushed up was the case which would have exposed the unauthorized political intrigues of the Empress Dowager. Tiberius could either allow his mother’s interference with State affairs to be a subject of public inquiry, or he could allow Plancina to be tried on the frivolous charge of poisoning with the certainty that she would escape conviction. He preferred the less heroic course, with the result that both he and his mother were credited with having been concerned in a criminal conspiracy against a near relative.