[-18-] Meanwhile Messalina was exhibiting her own licentious tendencies and was forcing the other women of her circle to show themselves equally unchaste.  Many of them she caused to commit adultery in the very palace, while their husbands were present and observed what took place.  Such men she loved and cherished, and crowned with honors and offices:  but others, who would not submit to this humiliation, she hated and brought to destruction in every possible way.  These deeds, however, though of such a character and carried on so openly, for a long while never came to the notice of Claudius.  Messalina gave him some attractive housemaids for bedfellows and intercepted those who were able to afford him any information,—­some by kindness and some by punishments.  Thus, at this period, she succeeded in putting out of the way Catonius Justus, captain of the pretorian guard, before he could carry out his intention of telling the emperor something about these doings.  And becoming jealous of Julia, daughter of Drusus son of Tiberius, and later wife of Nero Germanicus, just as she had been of the other Julia, she compassed her death.—­It was about then, also, that one of the knights on the charge of having conspired against Claudius was hurled down, the Capitoline by the tribunes and the consuls.

[-19-] At the same time that these events were happening in the City Aulus Plautius, a senator of great renown, made a campaign against Britain.  The cause was that a certain Bericus, who had been ejected from the island during a revolution, had persuaded Claudius to send a body of troops there.  This Plautius after he was made general had difficulty in leading his army beyond Gaul.  The soldiers objected, on the ground that their operations were to take place outside the limits of the known world, and would not yield him obedience until the arrival of Narcissus, sent by Claudius, who mounted the tribunal of Plautius and tried to address them.  This made them more irritated than ever and they would not allow the newcomer to say a word, but all suddenly shouted together the well-known phrase:  “Ho!  Ho! the Saturnalia!” (For at the festival of Saturn slaves celebrate the occasion by donning their masters’ dress.) After this they at once followed Plautius voluntarily, but their delay had brought the expedition late in the season.  Three divisions were made, in order that they might not be hindered in advancing (as might happen to a single force), and some of them in their voyage across became discouraged because they were buffeted into a backward course, whereas others acquired confidence from the fact that a flash of light starting from the east shot across to the west, the direction in which they were sailing.  So they came to anchor on the shore of the island and found no one to oppose them.  The Britons as a result of their inquiries had not expected that they would come and had therefore not assembled beforehand.  Nor even at this time would they come into closer conflict with the invaders,