of public malcontent, had somewhat withdrawn from her. Nero, who was sullen, cynical, and lazy, feared his mother too much to have the courage to oppose her openly, but he did not fear her enough to mend his ways. The mother, on her side, was set to do her duty to the end. Like all situations without an issue, this one was suddenly solved by an unexpected event.
Insisting on wanting to make a Roman of this young debauché, Agrippina made him into a murderer. Nero, progressing from one caprice to another, finally imagined a great folly: to divorce Octavia and to raise to her place a beautiful freed-woman called Acte. According to one of the fundamental laws of the State, the great law of Augustus on marriage, which forbade marriages between senators and freedwomen, the union of Nero and Acte could be only a concubinage. Agrippina wanted to avoid this scandal; and, as Nero persisted in his idea, it seems that she actually thought of having him deposed and of securing the choice of Britannicus, a very serious young man, as his successor. A true Roman, Agrippina was ready to sacrifice her son for the sake of the Republic.
The threat was, or appeared to be, so serious to Nero, that it made him step over the threshold
