Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

48 SENECAThe crisis over, the next object of the freedmenwas to provide a successor to the place andpower of Messahna. The candidate of Narcissuswas AeHa Petina, a former wife of Claudius,whom he had divorced for trivial reasons/ andthe mother of his daughterAntonia. Callistussupported the claims of Lollia Paullina, a beautifulwoman of immense wealth, who hadbeen married for a short time to Caligula.Pallas espoused the cause of Agrippina, thedaughter of Germanicus, the sister of Caligula,and the niece of the emperor. Claudius, theslave of habit and easily governed by thosewho had access to him, was exposed to the artsof Agrippina, whose relationship gave her opportunitiesnot enjoyed by her rivals of alluringher amorous uncle. This relationship, however,was in another way an obstacle to the alliance,for Roman public opinion regarded such marriagesas incestuous, and Claudius himself had recentlybeen prevailed upon by Agrippina— who wishedto clear the way for her son's marriage — to cancelthe betrothal of his daughter Octavia to LuciusSilanus by a false charge against that senatorof a criminal attachment to his sister. But thecourtier Vitellius, conspicuously servile even inan age of servility, who had been employed toconcoct the charge against Silanus, again placedhis services at the disposal of Agrippina, andeasily persuaded the Senate to implore theemperor, in the public interests, to contract thismarriage. At the same time such marriages1 'Ex levibus offensis ' (Suet., Claudius, 26).