[Illustration:  The death of Agrippina.]

Though some of these reforms were just, this new policy was also the cause of the final rupture with his mother.  Agrippina and Nero, to all intents and purposes, no longer saw each other, and Nero, on the few visits which he was obliged to pay her in order to save appearances, always arranged it so as never to be left alone in her presence.  In this manner the influence of Agrippina continued to decline, while the popularity of Nero steadily increased as the result of his youth, of these first reforms, and of the hopes to which his prodigality had given rise.  The public, whose memory is always brief, forgot what Agrippina had done and how she had brought back peace to the state, and began to expect all sorts of new benefits from Nero.  Poppaea, encouraged by the increasing popularity of the emperor, insisted more boldly that Nero, in order to make her his wife, should divorce Octavia.

But Agrippina was not the woman to yield thus easily, and she continued the struggle against her son, against his paramour, and against the growing coterie which was gathering about the emperor.  She opposed particularly the repudiation of Octavia, which, being merely the result of a pure caprice, would have caused serious scandal in Rome.  But Nero was even now hesitating and uncertain.  He still had too clearly before him the memory of the long authority of his mother; he feared her too much to dare step forth in open and complete revolt.  At last Poppaea understood that she could not become empress so long as the mother lived, and from that moment the doom of Agrippina was sealed.  Poppaea was goaded on by all the new friends of Nero, who wished to destroy forever the influence of Agrippina, and by her words and deeds she finally brought him to the point where he decided to kill his mother.

But to murder his mother was both an abominable and dangerous undertaking, for it meant killing the daughter of Germanicus—­killing that woman whom the people regarded with a semi-religious veneration as a portent of fortune; for she was the daughter of a man whom only a premature death had prevented from becoming the head of the empire, and she had been the sister, the wife, and the mother of emperors.  For this reason the manner of her taking-off had been long debated in order that it might remain secret; nor would Nero make his decision until a seemingly safe means had been discovered for bringing about the disappearance of Agrippina.

It was the freedman Anicetus, the commander of the fleet, who, in the spring of 59, made the proposal when Nero was with his court at Baiae, on the Bay of Naples.  They were to construct a vessel which, as Tacitus says, should open artfully on one side.  If Nero could induce his mother to embark upon that vessel, Anicetus would see to it that she and the secret of her murder would be buried in the depths of the sea.  Nero gave his consent to this abominable