That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what
Agrippina was not ashamed to write,--that he spared one whom it was
every one's interest and pleasure to malign,--that he regarded her
terrible fall as a sufficient claim to pity, as it was a sufficient
Nemesis upon her crimes,--is a trait in the character of the philosopher
which has hardly yet received the credit which it deserves.
CHAPTER X.
AGRIPPINA, THE MOTHER OF NERO.
Scarcely had the grave closed over Messalina when the court was plunged
into the most violent factions about the appointment of her successor.
There were three principal candidates for the honour of the aged
Emperor's hand. They were his former wife, Aelia Petina, who had only
been divorced in consequence of trivial disagreements, and who was
supported by Narcissus; Lollia Paulina, so celebrated in antiquity for
her beauty and splendour, and who for a short time had been the wife of
Caius; and Agrippina the younger, the daughter of the great Germanicus,
and the niece of Claudius himself. Claudius, indeed, who had been as
unlucky as Henry VIII.
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