20. In the beginning of his reign Clau'dius gave the highest hopes of
a happy continuance; but he soon began to lessen his care for the
public, and to commit to his favourites all the concerns of the
empire. This prince, weak from his infancy, was little able, when
called to govern, to act but under the direction of others. 21. One of
his chief instructors was his wife Messa'lina: whose name is become a
common appellation for women of abandoned character. By her was
Clau'dius urged on to commit cruelties, which he considered only as
wholesome severities; while her crimes became every day more
notorious, and exceeded what had ever been in Rome. For her crimes and
enormities, however, she, together with her accomplice Cai'us Sil'ius,
suffered that death they both had so justly deserved.
22. Clau'dius afterwards married Agrippi'na, the daughter of his
brother German'icus, a woman of a cruel and ambitious spirit, whose
only aim being to procure the succession of Nero, her son by a former
marriage, she treated Claudius with such haughtiness, that he was
heard to declare, when heated with wine, that it was his fate to smart
under the disorders of his wives, and to be their executioner.
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