revenge. Within the limits
and restrictions which the suspicion and vigilance of Nero imposed
upon her, she formed a small circle of friends and adherents, and
sought out, diligently, though secretly, all whom she supposed to be
disaffected to the government of Nero. She attached herself
particularly to Octavia, who, being the daughter of Claudius,
succeeded now, on the death of Britannicus, to whatever hereditary
rights had been vested in him. She collected money, so far as she
had power to do so, from all the resources which remained to her,
and she availed herself of every opportunity to cultivate the
acquaintance, and court the favor, of all such officers of the army
as were accessible to her influence. In a word, she seemed to be
meditating some secret scheme for retrieving her fallen
fortunes,--and Nero, who watched all her motions with a jealous and
suspicious eye, began to be alarmed, not knowing to what desperate
extremes her resentment and ambition might urge her.

Up to this time Agrippina had lived in the imperial palace with
Nero, forming, with her retinue, a part of his household, and
sharing of course, in some sense, the official honors paid to him.
Nero now concluded, however, that he would remove her from this
position and give her a separate establishment of her own,--making
it correspond in its appointments with the secondary and subordinate
station to which he intended thenceforth to confine her. He
accordingly assigned to her a certain mansion in the city which had
formerly been occupied by some branch of the imperial family, and
removed her to it, with all her attendants. He dismissed, however,
from her service, under various pretexts, such officers and
adherents as he supposed were most devoted to her interests and most
disposed to join with her in plots and conspiracies against him. The
places of those whom he thus superseded were supplied by men on whom
he could rely for subserviency to him. He diminished too the number
of Agrippina's attendants and guards; he withdrew the sentinels that
had been accustomed to guard the gates of her apartments, and
dismissed a certain corps of German soldiers that had hitherto
served under her command, as a sort of life-guard. In a word he
removed her from the scenes of imperial pomp and splendor in which
she had been accustomed to move, and established her instead in the
position of a private Roman lady.

The unhappy Agrippina soon found that this change in