The Poisoning of Claudius

Translation

And so everything soon became well known, to such an extent that the writers of those times recorded that poison was poured into a delicious mushroom, nor was the effect of the drug immediately understood, whether through carelessness or Claudius's drunkenness; at the same time a loosening of the bowels seemed to have come to his aid. Therefore Agrippina, terrified and, since the worst was feared, disregarding the resentment of those present, calls upon the complicity of the doctor Xenophon, already secured for herself. He, as if helping the efforts of one vomiting, is believed to have pushed a feather smeared with swift poison down his throat, well aware that the greatest crimes are begun with danger but completed with reward.