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70 they were ignorant of the deeds by which the Fabii, the Scipios, the Cornelii, or the Gracchi had raised themselves to the consulate and the senatorial bench. The latter, with the mean spirit of a mob in all times, rejoiced in the humiliation of men of rank, and saw in every illustrious victim a kind of sacrifice to their own envy. A Roman mob was always ready to cry, "A bas les aristocrats!" and a London or Parisian one is always ready to do the like. Among the earliest and certainly the most conspicuous victims struck down by Sejanus, was Drusus, the emperor's only son. But the direct heir to the purple was beyond the informer's shaft: and the prince-imperial was murdered by the aid of his young wife Livia, whom an adulterous connection had previously brought into the snares of the ambitious minister. It was against the widow of Germanicus, her sons, and their adherents, that he first let slip his bloodhounds. With Agrippina it was less difficult to deal. She was indeed far from friendless among the great: she was the darling of the Roman people: and the soldiers reverenced in her the relict of their deceased and beloved commander. But the great could gradually be mown down, by the aid of informers. The unarmed populace were helpless; and the victims of information were despatched with a secrecy that eluded the notice of the soldiers. Agrippina herself afforded opportunities to her foes. With all his admiration of her, as a sample of the woman of a bygone age, Tacitus does not conceal the infirmities of her temper. Her haughty demeanour, her unguarded tongue, her bursts of passion, were the source of many sorrows to herself, of her ultimate ruin, and of that of many of her friends and partisans. The last injunc-