r they would join her or throw in their lot with the
emperor. So doubtful seemed the issue of this struggle between the
weak husband and the energetic, audacious, and unscrupulous wife! They
allowed Messalina and Silius to enlist friends and partisans in every
part of Roman society, to come to an understanding with the prefect of
the guards, to obtain the divorce from Claudius, even to celebrate
their marriage, without opening the eyes of the emperor. Claudius
would probably have been destroyed if at the last moment Narcissus had
not decided to rush to the emperor, who was at Ostia, and, by
terrifying him in some unspeakable way, had not induced him to stamp
out the conspiracy with a bold and unexpected stroke. There followed
one of those periods of judicial murder which for more than thirty
years had been costing much Roman blood, and in this slaughter
Messalina, too, was overthrown.

After the discovery of the conspiracy, Claudius made a harangue to the
soldiers, in which he told them that as he had not been very successful
in his marriages he did not intend to take another wife. The proposal
was wise, but difficult of execution, for there were many reasons why
the emperor needed to have a woman at his side. We very soon find
Claudius consulting his freedmen on the choice of a new wife. There
was much discussion and uncertainty, but the choice finally fell upon
Agrippina. That choice was significant. Agrippina was the niece of
Claudius, and marriages between uncle and niece, if not exactly
prohibited, were looked upon by the Romans with a profound revulsion of
feeling. Claudius and his freedmen could not have decided to face this
repugnance except for serious and important reasons. Among these the
most serious was probably that after the experience with Messalina, it
seemed best not to go outside the family. An empress belonging to the
family would not be so likely to plot against the descendants of
Augustus as had been this strange woman, who belonged to one of those
aristocratic families who deeply hated the imperial house. Agrippina,
furthermore, was the daughter of Germanicus. This was a powerful
recommendation with the people, the pretorian cohorts, and the legions.
In addition, she was intelligent, cultured, simple, and economical; she
had grown up in the midst of political affairs, she knew how the empire
was governed, and up to this point she had lived a life above reproach.
She seemed to be the