The affair with Acte harmed no one—but it sent Agrippina into a rage. She regarded it as a betrayal by her son and a challenge to her authority. “A handmaid for a daughter-in-law!” she exclaimed to her partisans, and demanded of Nero that he end the liaison. “I made you emperor,” she reminded him, implying that she might undo what she had done. Nero had had enough. His mother’s carping and bullying had annoyed him before, so much that he had threatened to abdicate and run off to Rhodes, far from her influence. Now he was ready to risk a true breach, and he turned to his best natural ally,
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