door, but to portray her as a noble Roman matron! 
[t would be surprising if at this late date fresh evidence 
shedding light on Claudius’s death were discovered, and 
yet this is what we think we have done. We rely solely 
on the same worn texts, and we entrust our fate to the 
verdict of scholars far more learned than we. Those old 
texts have a message to deliver to us that can be dis- 
sected only by one who is a lover of mushrooms, and 
above all an amateur of venomy—amateur in the sense 
of a critical but passive observer of those who have prac- 
ticed that subtle art. 
Let us recall the background of the crime. Claudius 
succeeded Caligula as emperor in the year 41, at the age 
of 51. By his third wife, Messalina, he had had a son, 
Britannicus, born the year before his accession. After 
executing Messalina for adultery, he married his niece 
Agrippina, who by a previous marriage had a son of her 
own, three years senior to Brittanicus; and her son was 
destined to worldly immortality as the Emperor Nero. 
Indeed, Agrippina’s motive in murdering her husband 
was to assure the succession to Nero, in which endeavor 
success crowned her efforts. Claudius at the time of his 
death was said to be favoring Britannicus, and it was 
even bruited that he had bequeathed the Empire to 
Britannicus in a will that Agrippina destroyed. 
From A.D. 50 the youth to be known to posterity as 
Nero had as his tutor Seneca the Elder, and at the time 
of the crime Seneca was an intimate of the imperial 
circle, probably privy to all that took place at Court. 
He could have left us the inside story of what happened, 
but instead he veils his remarks in satire—the prudent 
evasion of one who undoubtedly knew too much. Three 
of the ancient historians have given us accounts of the 
event. Tacitus, who was born probably in the year after 
Claudius’s death, wrote his narrative about sixty years 
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