For our knowledge of those times we are indebted largely to the “Annals” of Tacitus. Some questions arise as to the reliability of his accounts. Josephus, who, as a foreigner, may have been more impartial, says that different historians of Nero’s reign were swayed by opposite prejudices; yet he believed in the poisoning of Britannicus and in other cruel murders by Nero now to be related. Poppæa Sabina, one of the fairest but wickedest women in Rome, aspired to supplant Octavia, the emperor’s wife, and concentrated her fascinations upon him. Nero sent her husband to a distant province and she suffered him to depart without a sigh. Nero’s mother, Agrippina, was of course much in the way of Poppæa’s designs, so Poppæa laid her plan most diligently to get rid of the older woman. She taunted the emperor with being afraid of his mother and put before him all the movements of Agrippina in the darkest light, until Nero was persuaded. His regard for his mother was already changed to hatred. With the aid of Anicetus, the commander of the fleet at Misenum,--who had a spite against Agrippina,--a plan was formed by which she was induced to embark on a barge, which, at a given signal, was to break in pieces. The plan was not successful. The mechanism failed to work. Yet the sailors managed to tip the ship so that Agrippina and her companions were thrown into the water. She succeeded by the aid of some fishermen in reaching the shore in safety. Seeing that her only chance lay in dissimulation, she sent one of her freedmen to tell her son that by the mercy of heaven she had escaped from a terrible accident, but that he need not be alarmed and must not come to her, as she greatly needed rest and quiet. When Nero received the account he was thrown into the greatest anxiety, knowing that now his mother had discovered his plot against her and would certainly seek revenge. In great agitation of mind he sent for Burrus and Seneca to come to him instantly. Laying before them the situation, he looked from one to the other in suspense for their advice. There was a long and painful silence. At last Seneca asked Burrus if the soldiers could be trusted to put her to death. When the reply was given that the prætorians would do nothing to injure a daughter of Germanicus and that Anicetus should complete the work he had begun, Anicetus showed himself willing to do so. He trumped up another charge against Agrippina and hurried off to her villa at Bauli. There he and his minions found her in a dimly lighted chamber, attended by a single hand-maid, who immediately rose to steal away. “Dost thou, too, desert me?” said the wretched Agrippina. [Illustration: AGRIPPINA II AND NERO] The armed men surrounded her couch. Anicetus was the first to strike. The rest immediately followed his example, and she was dispatched with many blows. Almost with her last breath she cried out against the perfidy of her ungrateful son.