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.