ifficult to imagine what sort of a character a
boy must necessarily form, brought up under such influences and
surrounded by such scenes as those which thus prevailed at the court
of Claudius. It proved in the end that Nero experienced the full
effect of them. He became proud, vain, self-willed, cruel, and
accustomed to yield himself without restraint to all those wicked
propensities and passions which, under such circumstances, always
gain dominion over the human soul.

* * * * *

Besides Britannicus, it will be recollected that Messalina had left
another child,--a daughter named Octavia, who was two or three years
younger than her brother, and of course about five years younger
than Nero. Agrippina did not pursue the same course of opposition
and hostility toward her which she had adopted in regard to
Britannicus. She determined, at the outset, upon a very different
plan. Britannicus was necessarily a rival and competitor for Nero;
and every step in advance which he should make, could not operate
otherwise than as an impediment and obstacle to Nero's success. But
Octavia, as Agrippina thought, might be employed to further and aid
her designs, by being betrothed, and in due time married, to her
son.

The advantages of such a scheme were very obvious,--so obvious in
fact that the design was formed by Agrippina at the very
beginning,--even before her own marriage with the emperor was fully
effected. There was one serious obstacle in the way, and that was
that Octavia was already betrothed to a very distinguished young
nobleman named Lucius Silanus. Agrippina, after having, by various
skillful manoeuvers, succeeded in enlisting the public officers
who would act as judges in his case, caused Silanus to be accused of
infamous crimes. The historians say that the evidence which was
adduced against him was of the most trivial character. Still he was
condemned. He seems to have understood the nature and the cause of
the hostility which had suddenly developed itself against him, and
to have felt at once all the hopelessness of his condition. He
killed himself in his despair on the very night of the marriage of
Claudius with Agrippina.

The empress found afterward no serious difficulty in accomplishing
her design. She obtained the emperor's consent to a betrothal of
Nero to Octavia; but as they were yet too young to be married, the
ceremony was postponed for a short time. At length in about fi