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Tigellinus, who, like Rufus, was by AD 64 a middle-aged man. A senator of lowly birth, Tigellinus had been banished from Rome by Caligula in AD 39 for having an affair with Nero’s mother, Agrippina. Once Claudius came to the throne and Agrippina became his wife, Tigellinus was allowed to return to Rome. Early in Nero’s reign, he had been appointed prefect of the Cohortes Vigiles, or the Night Watch. He had soon wormed his way into Nero’s favor by encouraging and participating in the young emperor’s worst vices, particularly his night revels around the taverns, brothels, and back streets of Rome. Tigellinus, who was famous for personally keeping a veritable harem of concubines, had gone on to become Nero’s procurer; whatever Nero wanted, Tigellinus would organize.
     
    It was Tigellinus’ “inveterate shamelessness and infamy,” according to Tacitus, that put him, and kept him, in Nero’s most intimate circle of friends. 2 In return, Nero had heaped money, property, and favors on Tigellinus. On one occasion, when Tigellinus’ son-in-law was banned from the Senate by a vote of the House for an undisclosed crime, Tigellinus, with Nero’s support, had the ban overturned.
     
    Tigellinus’ co-prefect Rufus, once appointed to head the Praetorians, “enjoyed the favor of the people and the soldiers.” 3 Tigellinus, meanwhile, began office universally despised and devoid of respect at all levels of society. Rufus’ popularity meant that Nero dare not antagonize the men of the Praetorian Cohorts by removing him, so Tigellinus set to work to undermine his fellow prefect. After Seneca had retired from the post of chief secretary in AD 62, within months of the death of Burrus, Tigellinus launched his campaign. He began by discreetly reminding people that Rufus had been a favorite of the emperor’s mother. Officially, Agrippina’s name had been mud ever since her murder, on Nero’s orders in AD 59, with the Senate declaring Agrippina guilty of conspiring to kill her son. Still, association with the disgraced Agrippina alone was not enough to destroy Rufus’ reputation or his popularity. Tigellinus had more work to do to increase his power at his colleague’s expense.
     
    Tigellinus progressed to hatching plots against leading men of Rome. According to Tacitus, Tigellinus thought that “wicked scheming” was all he needed to bring him power and that his schemes would be all the more successful if he “could secure the emperor’s complicity in guilt.” 4 To do this, Tigellinus would, at dinner with the emperor or while out carousing with him, delve into the young man’s most secret fears. And fears he had aplenty. Having grown up in a Palatium rent by intrigues and sullied by murder, Nero was, not surprisingly, insecure.
     
    Like many an emperor before and after him, Nero above all feared being overthrown. Seneca, while serving as his chief secretary, had counseled him not to live in fear, for he could never execute his successor; it did not matter how many men he executed, someone would take his place. But with Seneca out of the picture, no such wise counsel existed, and Tigellinus was able to play on his employer’s insecurities.
     
    Crafty Tigellinus identified the two men whom Nero dreaded most. Rubellius Blandus Plautus had several marks against him. Plautus’ mother was, like Nero, a member of the Julian family, making Plautus distantly related to the emperor. And Plautus had married a granddaughter of the emperor Tiberius. So, Plautus could claim imperial credentials on both scores. And to add to his illustrious name, Plautus, young, charismatic and rich, was capable of charming the people and buying allegiance, should he set his sights on the throne.
     
    Nero had originally been alerted to a potential threat from Plautus a year after he took the throne in AD 54. One of his mother’s female friends had accused Agrippina of planning to marry Plautus, her cousin, and then take the throne from Nero