Locusta
or, more correctly, LUCUSTA (see Heinrich, ad Juv. vol. ii. p. 62), a woman celebrated for her skill in concocting poisons. She was employed by Agrippina in poisoning the emperor Claudius, and by Nero for despatching Britannicus. (Tac. Ann. 12.66, 13.15; Suet. Nero 33; D. C. 60.34; Juv. 1.71, with Schol.) Suetonius says (Nero, 33) that the poison which she administered being too slow, Nero impatiently struck her with his own hand, and forced her to prepare a stronger draught in his presence, which killed Britannicus instantaneously. She was rewarded by Nero with ample estates; but under the emperor Galba she was executed with other malefactors of Nero's reign. (D. C. 64.3.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.