f a venerated past
seemed to reappear, was surrounded by a semi-religious adoration. This
is an evidence of sincere and profound respect, for though the Romans
often showered marks of human adulation upon their potentates, it was
not often that they bestowed honors of so sacred a character.

The unforeseen death of Claudius suddenly cut short the work which
Agrippina had well under way. Claudius was sixty-four years old, and
one night in the month of October of the year 54 he succumbed to some
mysterious malady after a supper of which, as usual, he had partaken
inordinately. Tacitus pretends to know that Agrippina had secretly
administered poison to Claudius in a plate of mushrooms. During the
night, however, fearing lest Claudius would survive, she had called
Claudius's physician, Xenophon, who was a friend of hers. The latter,
while pretending to induce vomiting, had painted his throat with a
feather dipped in a deadly poison, and had killed him. This version is
so strange and improbable that Tacitus himself does not dare affirm it,
but says that "many believe" that it was in this manner that Claudius
met his death. But if there are still people credulous enough to
believe that the head of a great state can be poisoned in the twinkling
of an eye by a doctor who brushes his throat with a feather, it is more
difficult to understand what grounds Agrippina could have had for
poisoning her husband. According to Tacitus, it was because she was
disturbed by the fact that Claudius had for some time shown that he
preferred Britannicus to Nero; but even if the fact were true, as a
motive it would be ridiculous. Augustus was much fonder of Germanicus
than he was of Tiberius; and yet at his death the senate chose
Tiberius, and not Germanicus, because at that moment the situation
clearly called for the former as head of the empire. When Claudius
died, Britannicus was thirteen and Nero seventeen years old. They were
both, therefore, mere lads, and it was most probable that if the
imperial seat fell vacant, the senate would choose neither, since they
were both too young and inexperienced. This is so true that other
historians have supposed, on the contrary, that Agrippina had fallen
out with some one of the more powerful freedmen of Claudius, and seeing
Claudius waver, had despatched him in order that she herself should not
end like Messalina. But this hypothesis also is absurd. An empress
was virtually invulnerable.