plan.  He pretended that he was anxious to become reconciled with his mother, and invited her to come from Antium, where she then was, to Baiae.  He showed her all regard and every courtesy, and when Agrippina, reassured by the kindness of her son, set out on her return to Antium, Nero accompanied her to the fatal vessel and tenderly embraced her.  It was a calm, starry night.  Agrippina stood talking with one of her freedwomen about the repentance of her son and the reconciliation which had taken place, when, after the vessel had drawn some distance away from the shore, the plotters tried to carry out their infernal plan.  What happened is not very clear.  The seemingly picturesque description of Tacitus is in reality vague and confusing.  It appears that the ship did not sink so rapidly as the plotters had hoped, and in the confusion which resulted on board, the emperor’s mother, ready and resolute, succeeded in making her escape by casting herself into the sea and swimming away, while the hired assassins on the ship killed her freedwoman, mistaking her for Agrippina.

In any case, it is certain that Agrippina arrived safely at one of her villas along the coast, with the help, it seems, of a vessel which she had encountered as she swam, and that she immediately sent one of her freedmen to apprise Nero of the danger from which she had escaped through the kindness of the gods and his good fortune!  Agrippina had guessed the truth, but for this one time she gave up the struggle and sent her messenger, that it might be understood, without her saying so, that she forgot and pardoned.  Indeed, what means were left her, a lonely woman, of coping with an emperor who dared raise his hand against his own mother?

However, fear prevented Nero from understanding.  No sooner had he learned that Agrippina had escaped than he lost his head.  In his imagination he saw her hastening to Rome and denouncing the horrible matricide to the soldiers and the senate; and beside himself with terror, he sent for Seneca and Burrhus in order to take counsel with them.  It is easy to imagine what the feelings of the two teachers of the youth must have been as they listened to the terrible story.  Even they failed to understand that Agrippina recognized and declared herself conquered.  They, too, feared that she would provoke the most frightful scandal which Rome had yet seen, and not knowing what advice to give, or rather seeing only a single way out, which was, however, too serious and horrible, they held their peace while Nero begged them to save him.  At last Seneca, the humanitarian philosopher, turned to Burrhus and asked him what would happen if the pretorians should be ordered to kill Agrippina.  Burrhus understood that Seneca, though he was the first to give the terrible advice, yet wished to leave to him the more serious responsibility of carrying it into execution; for Burrhus, as commander of the guards, would have had to give the order for the murder.