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14After he had become accustomed, then, to feast his fill on blood and carnage, he had recourse more readily to other kinds of murder. The imperial freedmen and Messalina were responsible for this; for whenever they desired to obtain any one’s death, they would terrify Claudius and as a result would be allowed to do everything they chose. 2Often, when in a moment of sudden alarm his immediate terror had led him to order some one’s death, he afterwards, when he recovered and came to his senses, would search for the man and on learning what had happened would be grieved and repentant. He began this series of murders with Gaius Appius Silanus. 3He had sent for this man, who was of very noble family, and governor of Spain at the time, pretending that he required a service of him, had married him to Messalina’s mother, and had for some time held him in honour among those nearest and dearest to him. Then he suddenly killed him. The reason was that Silanus had offended Messalina, the most abandoned and lustful of women, in refusing to lie with her, and by this slight shown to her had alienated Narcissus, the emperor’s freedman. 4As they had no true or even plausible charge to bring against him, Narcissus invented a dream in which he declared he had seen Claudius murdered by the hand of Silanus; then at early dawn, while the emperor was still in bed, trembling all over he related to him the dream, and Messalina, taking up the matter, exaggerated its significance.
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