t is certain that trials, scandals, and suicide
became much less frequent under her rule. During the six years that
Claudius lived after his marriage with Agrippina, scandalous tragedies
became so rare that Tacitus, being deprived of his favorite materials,
set down the story of these six years in a single book. In other
words, Agrippina encountered virtually no opposition, while Tiberius
and even Augustus, when they wished to govern according to the
traditions of the ancient nobility, had to combat the party of the new
aristocracy, with its modern and oriental tendencies. This party no
longer seemed to exist when Agrippina urged Claudius to continue
resolutely in the policy of his ancestors, for one party only, that of
the old nobility, seemed with Agrippina to control the state. This
must have been the result partly of the disgust for the scandals of the
previous decade, which had made every one realize the need of restoring
more serious discipline in the government, and partly of the exhaustion
which had come upon both parties as the result of so many struggles,
reprisals, suits, and scandals. The force of the opposition in the two
factions gradually diminished. A greater gentleness induced all to
accept the direction of the government without resistance, and the
authority of the emperor and his counselors acquired greater importance
in proportion as the strength of the opposition in the aristocracy and
the senate became gradually weaker.

[Illustration: Agrippina the Younger, sister of Caligula and mother of
Nero.]

In any case, the empire was no longer to have forced upon it the
ridiculous and scandalous spectacle of such weaknesses and
incongruities as had seriously compromised the prestige of the highest
authority in the first period of the reign of Claudius. But Agrippina
was not content with merely making provision as best she could for the
present; she also looked forward to the future. She had had a son by
her first husband, and at the time of her marriage with Claudius this
youth was about eleven years old. It is in connection with her plans
for this son that Tacitus brings his most serious charges against
Agrippina. According to his story, from the first day of her marriage
Agrippina attempted to make of her son, the future Emperor Nero, the
successor of Claudius, thereby excluding Britannicus, the son of
Messalina, from the throne.

To obtain this end, she spared, he says, neither intrigues, f