A violent colic
ensued, and it was feared that this, with a quantity of wine which he
had drunk, would render the poison innocuous. But Agrippina had gone too
far for retreat, and Xenophon, who knew that great crimes if frustrated
are perilous, if successful are rewarded, came to her assistance. Under
pretence of causing him to vomit, he tickled the throat of the Emperor
with a feather smeared with a swift and deadly poison. It did its work,
and before morning the Caesar was a corpse.[34]
[Footnote 34: There is usually found among the writings of Seneca a most
remarkable burlesque called _Ludus de Morte Caesaris_. As to its
authorship opinions will always vary, but it is a work of such undoubted
genius, so interesting, and so unique in its character, that I have
thought it necessary to give in an Appendix a brief sketch of its
argument. We may at least _hope_ that this satire, which overflows with
the deadliest contempt of Claudius, is not from the same pen which wrote
for Nero his funeral oration. It has, however, been supposed (without
sufficient grounds) to be the lost [Greek: Apokolokuntoois] which Seneca
is said to have written on the apotheosis of Claudius.
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