Even in taking this step she did not forget her ambitious views; for she knew that Seneca cherished a secret indignation against Claudius, and that Nero could have no more wise adviser in taking steps to secure the fruition of his imperial hopes.

It might perhaps have been better for Seneca's happiness if he had never left Corsica, or set his foot again in that Circean and bloodstained court.

Let it, however, be added in his exculpation, that another man of undoubted and scrupulous honesty,--Afranius Burrus--a man of the old, blunt, faithful type of Roman manliness, whom Agrippina had raised to the Prefectship of the Praetorian cohorts, was willing to share his danger and his responsibilities.

Yet he must have lived from the first in the very atmosphere of base and criminal intrigues.

He must have formed an important member of Agrippina's party, which was in daily and deadly enmity against the party of Narcissus.