When Claudius was dead Agrippina put the climax upon her crafty management by keeping the announcement from the public until everything was ready. She even gave out word that her husband was better and took care to retain Britannicus and his sisters under her close surveillance. To those in the palace who knew that Claudius was dead she pretended the greatest grief until noon of the next day. Then, when Burrus the Prefect walked across the courtyard to present the successor to the throne to the prætorian guard, it was not Britannicus but Nero that walked by his side. Some, indeed, ventured to express the murmur: “Where is Britannicus?” But there was no one to champion his cause; and so the son of Agrippina was saluted as the emperor. It is also related that on the first evening of his imperial power, when a sentinel of the palace came to ask him for the watchword for the night, he, knowing well to whom he was indebted for his throne, returned the words, “Optima Mater,”--“The Best of Mothers.” To what extent this feeling of gratitude was maintained by him in later years we shall see. Seneca, poet and philosopher, is said to have written a satire on the death of the emperor Claudius. The Senate, following foolish precedents, had declared that he had become a god. This satire represented him as having become a gourd. The Senate had ascribed to him divinity. The satire spoke jocosely of his pumpkinity. Some eulogists of the philosopher are loth to believe the identity, but many writers contend that this satire was substantially the same as the well-known ancient writing called the “Play Upon the Death of Nero” that has come down to us, which bears many of the marks of Seneca’s style and which describes in a burlesque manner the reception and disgrace of Claudius among the gods. It is overflowing with contempt for the emperor, in strange contrast with the almost abject flattery that Seneca had written of him when he was anxious to win his favor and so get back from exile. Altogether, it is difficult to relieve Seneca from the charge of time-serving and hypocrisy. It is so much easier to write noble sentiments in regard to disinterestedness than it is to practice them in days of temptation! From ridicule of the dead emperor the satire goes on to welcome the new one in flowery language. It says: “As when the bright sun gazes on the world and starts his chariot on his daily race; so Cæsar breaks upon the earth. Such is the Nero whom Rome now beholds!”