White with fear, weak with dissipation, and tormented by the furies of a guilty conscience, the wretched youth looked from one to another of his aged ministers.

A long and painful pause ensued.

If they dissuaded him in vain from the crime which he meditated their lives would have been in danger; and perhaps they sincerely thought that things had gone so far that, unless Agrippina were anticipated, Nero would be destroyed.

Seneca was the first to break that silence of anguish by inquiring of Burrus whether the soldiery could be entrusted to put her to death.

His reply was that the praetorians would do nothing against a daughter of Germanicus and that Anicetus should accomplish what he had promised.