Claudia Acte Claudia Acte Claudia Acte was a freedwoman of ancient Rome who became a mistress of the emperor Nero. She came from Asia Minor and might have become a slave of the Emperor Claudius, following his expansion of the Roman Empire into Lycia and Pamphylia; or she might have been purchased later, by Octavia, Claudius' daughter. The Emperor Claudius, uncle of Nero's mother, Agrippina the Younger, married his niece in 49 AD and therefore became Nero's stepfather. Claudius' daughter, Octavia (by his wife Messalina), became Nero's stepsister at the same time. Nero and Octavia themselves married in 53 AD, and Nero
Agrippina the Younger called back from exile to be a tutor to Nero. Messalina considered Agrippina's son a threat to her son's position and sent assassins to strangle Lucius during his siesta. The assassins fled in terror when they saw a snake suddenly dart from beneath Lucius' pillow—but it was only a sloughed-off snake-skin in his bed, near his pillow. In 47, Crispus died, and at his funeral, the rumor spread around that Agrippina poisoned Crispus to gain his estate. After being widowed a second time, Agrippina was left very wealthy. Later that year at the Secular Games, at the performance of the