S8i 



those now administered in India, and I believe i:i the southern 

 parts of Europe. Numantina, the divorced wife of Plautius Syl- 

 vanus, a praetor of Rome, was accused of having distempered his 

 brain by drugs and magic spells. Syanus procured a poison to 

 destroy Drusus, which, operating as a slow corrosive, brought on 

 the symptoms of a natural disorder. Piso, and his wife Plancina, 

 were both accused of effecting the death of Germanicus by the 

 same means. Martina, the confidante of Plancina, was notorious 

 for her practices in this diabolical profession; and was sent for 

 from Syria to Rome, to be tried with her employers for the mur- 

 der of Germanicus. Claudia Pulchra, the friend of Agrippina, 

 the widow of Germanicus, was accused of an attempt to poison 

 Tiberius by spells and incantations; and Agrippina herself, urged 

 by the agents of Sejanus, to beware of poison at that emperor's 

 table, abstained from every thing set before her, and would not 

 even taste the fruit which he presented with his own hand; which 

 occasioned Tiberius to ask, "Should this woman be treated with 

 severity, will any body wonder, when she now imputes to me the 

 guilt of dealing in poison?" 



A case slill more in point with the modern Asiatic poisons, is 

 the conduct of the second Agrippina, the infamous mother of the 

 infamous Nero, both the unworthy offspring of the virtuous Ger- 

 manicus. This wicked woman, when her husband Claudius 

 went to Sinuessa for the recovery of his health, determined to- 

 execute the black design she had long harboured in her breast 

 of taking the emperor off by poison, the more speedily to accom- 

 plish her ambitious views in favour of Nero. Tacitus says, "in- 

 struments of guilt were ready at her beck, but the choice of the 



