really was, we must also remember that Nero was four years older than
Britannicus, and that, therefore, in the year 50, when Nero was
adopted, Britannicus was a mere lad of nine. As Claudius was already
sixty, it would have been most imprudent to designate a nine-year-old
lad as his only possible successor, when Nero, who was four years his
senior, would have been better prepared than Britannicus to take up the
reign. There is a further proof that Agrippina had no thought of
destroying the race of Claudius and Messalina, for before his adoption
she had married Nero to Octavia, the daughter of the imperial pair.
Octavia was a woman possessed of all the virtues which the ancient
Roman nobility had cherished. She was chaste, modest, patient, gentle,
and unselfish, and she would be able to assist in strengthening the
power of her house. Agrippina had therefore, in the ancient manner,
affianced the young pair at an early age, and hoped that she might make
a couple which would serve as an example to the families of the
aristocracy.

In short, Agrippina, far from seeking to weaken the imperial house by
destroying the descendants of Messalina, was attempting to bring her
son into the family precisely for the purpose of giving it strength.
And, sensible woman that she was, she could hardly have acted
otherwise. She had seen the family of Augustus, once so prosperous,
reduced to a state of exhaustion and virtually destroyed by the fatal
discord between her mother and Tiberius and the quarrels between her
brothers. The state had suffered greatly through the madness of
Caligula and the reckless hatred of the first Agrippina, and the
present empress, her daughter, who was not merely fond of her son, but
endowed in addition with the gift of reflection, sought as far as
possible to make amends for the evils which had unconsciously been
wrought. The hopes of the future were henceforth to abide in
Britannicus and in Nero. In Agrippina there reappeared the wisdom of
her greatest predecessors, and the people were so well satisfied that
they conferred upon her the very highest honor, such as in her time
even Livia herself had not received. She was given the title Augusta;
she was allowed to ride into the precincts of the Capitol in a gilded
coach (carpentum), though this was an honor which in old time had been
conceded only to priests and to the images of the gods. This last
descendant of Livia and Drusus, in whom the virtues o