In my thoughts, I accused Agrippina of destroying my life when I was still young and open and in love with Claudia, and I blamed all the evil things that had happened to me on to her. Once I visited old Locusta at her little country place. The old woman smiled at me, inasmuch as a death mask can smile, and told me quite openly that I was not the first person to visit her on the same errand.

On principle, she had no objection to blending poisons for Agrippina too; it was simply a matter of price. But she shook her experienced old head and said she had already used up her ingredients. Agrippina was much too careful, cooking her own food and not even daring to pick fruit from her own trees, as it was so easy to poison. I came to the conclusion that Agrippina’s life was no pleasure to her, even if she was enjoying the revenge of writing her memoirs.

Nero achieved peace of mind and reconciliation with Poppaea the moment he made the final decision to murder his mother. For political reasons, Agrippina’s death became as essential to him as Britannicus’ had become. And Seneca was not heard to raise a murmur in opposition to this murder, although he himself naturally did not wish to be involved in it.

Now it was only a question of how the murder could be arranged to appear to be an accident. Nero’s imagination began to work, demanding the maximum of drama, and he consulted eagerly with his closest friends.

Tigellinus, who had certain personal reasons for hating Agrippina, promised to kill her by running her down with his team, if she could be persuaded out onto the open road in Antium. I suggested wild animals, but there was no way of getting them into Agrippina’s carefully guarded garden on her country estate.

Nero thought that I was on his side out of sheer affection for him and Poppaea, and he did not know that I was driven by my own inflexible desire for revenge. Agrippina had earned her death a thousand times over by her crimes, and I thought it perfectly just that she should meet it at the hands of her own son. You too have wolf blood in your veins, Julius, my son, more genuine than mine. Try to keep it under better control than your father has been able to do.

It was through my wife, Sabina, that we eventually found a possible method. A Greek engineer had shown her a small ship which could hold wild animals and which, with the help of an ingenious system of levers, one man could at any time cause to disintegrate, thus releasing the animals.

Sabina had been very attracted by the idea of the newly built marine batde theatre, although finally, because of the cost, I had opposed all marine animals. But Sabina was victorious, and the new discovery aroused such curiosity beforehand that Anicetus came over from Misenum for the day of the performance in Rome.

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As a climax to the marine performance, the boat disintegrated into pieces as planned. The crowd was delighted to see bison and lions fighting with sea monsters in the water, or swimming ashore to fall victim to courageous huntsmen. Nero applauded vigorously.

“Can you build me a boat like that,” he cried to Anicetus, “but larger and finer and ornamental enough for the Imperial mother to sail in?”

I promised that Anicetus should see the Greek engineer’s secret drawings, but it occurred to me that such a theatrical arrangement demantled the cooperation of far too many people to be kept a secret.

As a reward, Nero invited me to the feast at Baiae in March, where I would be able to see with my own eyes the special performance he had planned. In company, and in the Senate too, Nero had begun to act the part of the repentant son longing for reconciliation with his mother. Disputes and outbreaks of bad temper, he explained, could be overcome if there were sufficient good will on both sides.

Agrippina’s informers naturally immediately took this information back to Antium, so Agrippina was not noticeably surprised or suspicious when she received a beautifully composed letter from Nero containing an invitation to the feast of Minerva in Baiae. The feast was in itself an indication, for Minerva is the goddess of all schoolboys, and a reconciliation far from Rome and the quarrelsome Poppaea seemed quite natural.

Minerva’s day is a day of peace and no blood may be shed and no weapons may be visible. Nero was at first going to send the new pleasure yacht, manned by sailors, to fetch Agrippina from Antium, to show that he intended to return her former rights to his mother. But with the help of a water clock, we calculated that in that case the boat would have to be sunk in daylight, and in addition, Agrippina was so known to be suspicious that she might well refuse the honor and travel overland.

In the end she arrived at the naval base in Misenum in a trireme manned by her own trusted slaves. Nero went to meet her with the whole of his suite and had insisted on Seneca and Burrus being there as well, to emphasize the political significance of the reconciliation.

I could only admire Nero’s extraordinary talent for acting as, moved to tears, he hurried to meet his mother, embraced her and greeted her as the most excellent of all mothers. Agrippina had also done her best to dress well and beautify herself, so that she looked like a slim and, because of the thick layer of paint, quite expressionless goddess.

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