Agrippina

Agrippina was the mother of Nero

Agrippina or Agrippina the Younger (AD16-AD59) was the daughter of Claudius' heroic brother Germanicus and his wife, Agrippina the Elder who was the step-daughter of Tiberius. It is clear that she came from a powerful and well connected family so she would have been part of the Claudian-Julian circle.

There were rumors that this embarked on an incestuous relationship with her brother Caligula Gossips suggested that he often had sex with Drusilla and occasionally with his other sisters. These rumors would follow her throughout her life and it is hinted that she made sexual overtones to her son, the Emperor Nero. Whether this is true and whether the advances were accepted one can never know. See Caligula - Sex and Sexual Perversions for more discussion

Her first marriage at the age of thirteen was arranged marriage to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and they bore a son; the future Emperor Nero. Ominously, Lucius is quoted to have said. I don't think anything produced by me and Agrippina could possibly be good for the state or the people.

After her sister, Drusilla's death and Caligula's increasing madness, she was exiled after being implicated in plot to overthrow Caligula called the Plot of the three daggers. Livilia and Agrippina were accused of a lesbian relationship and exiled to Pontine Islands. At this point it looked like here life was on the same trajectory as her mother's who had similarly being exiled during Tiberius' reign, was beaten and tortured and eventually starved herself to death. However, Caligula was satisfied just to get them out of his sight and after his death they were rehabilitated back in to the emperor's circle. Initially she tried to woo the married and future emperor Galba. However he was too devoted to his wife (or man servant) to be attracted to Agrippina. Nevertheless, she is said to have kept a low profile during Messalina's ascendancy and it is known that the two were less than close.

After the execution of Messalina, Claudius had vowed never to remarry, but less than a year later he was ensnared by Agrippina. As she had been part of the Emperor's circle she had access to both Claudius and powerful clique that ran the Empire. She began with an affair with freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas. She used her influence to get Pallas to persuade the senators to back a marriage between herself and Claudius, even though the law considered incestuous for an uncle to marry his niece.

There are two views you can take on the reasons for the marriage between Claudius and Agrippina. On the one hand you can look for a political reason. The marriage would have ended the fued between the Claudian and Julian wings on the family. Alternatively, you can take a tabloid approach and assume that a seductress was easily able to ensnare a weak emperor and use that marriage to ensure that her son Nero would become emperor ahead of Claudius' first born son Britannicus.

Suetonios assumes the latter. [Agrippina] took advantage of the kisses and endearments which their near relationship admitted, to inflame his desires, he got some one to propose at the next meeting of the senate, that they should oblige the emperor to marry Agrippina, as a measure highly conducive to the public interest .

The queasy feeling of marrying one's young niece was not lost on Claudius when he said of Agrippina "My daughter, my nursling, born and brought up upon my lap." .

What Claudius wanted from this marriage will never be known. Stability of his reign?, affection and companionship or just to be left alone to get on with his writings. What ever it was, Suetonius suggests he began to have second thoughts.

he gave some manifest indications that he repented of his marriage with Agrippina. "It has been my misfortune to have wives who have been unfaithful to my bed; but they did not escape punishment."

Agrippina playes on Claudius' fears of being owerthrown by agreeing to adopt Nero and make his heir apparent ahead of his own son Britannicus even though he was just two years older. She used her affair with Pallas to urge him to persuade Claudius that the Emperor would be strenghened by adopting a grandson of Germanicus as well as protect the younger Britannicus.

Claudius also would do well to strengthen himself with a young prince who could share his cares with him.

Agrippina futher strenghtened her power by demanding that Claudius execute or banish Britannicus' closest teachers on the pretext that Britannicus has greeted Nero under his old pre-adoption name of Domitius and that his advisors may be posioning his mind. Subsequenting education of Britannicus became the responsibility of Agrippina.

Claudius may have wised up to the fact that he had been taken for a fool and a cuckold all his married life but it was too late.Tacitus implies that Agrippina may have been in ear-shot when an intoxicated Claudius blurted out that his adulterous wives often would push the envelope too far and, given enough rope would hang themselves! Wasting no time she set about her final objective of getting Nero on the throne. The poison of choice was mushrooms but she deliberated long and hard on the dose. Should she give a massive and painful overdose that caused instant death and risk that she would be fingered as the perpetrator. Or should she provide a smaller dose that would cause a slow lingering death but which might give enough time for Claudius to declare Brittanicus again as his heir. She hit upon a middle course

She decided on some rare compound which might derange his mind and delay death. A person skilled in such matters was selected, Locusta by name, who had lately been condemned for poisoning

Mushrooms, a favorite of Caludius was chosen as the method of delivery.

Some authors say that it was given him as he was feasting with the priests in the Capitol, by the eunuch Halotus, his taster. Others say by Agrippina, at his own table, in mushrooms, a dish of which he was very fond .

Needless to say poisioning was an inexact science and a combination of diarrhea and vomiting may have expurgated the worst of the posion as he lay in his sick bed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained she knew that she would have to follow through with her crime and had her doctor administer a further dose in the guise of medicine.

for he knew that the greatest crimes are perilous in their inception, but well rewarded after their consummation.

She ensured that the funeral of Claudius was to be of the same scale that Livia gave to Augustus. The irony of Livia's rumoured poisoning of Augustus was probably not lost on those in the inner circle

Divine honours were decreed to Claudius, and his funeral rites were solemnized on the same scale as those of Augustus; for Agrippina strove to emulate the magnificence of her great-grandmother, Livia.

The Death of Agrippina

It all started so well. It is said that the first watch word Nero gave his Praetorian Guard was Optima Mater or "Best of Mothers". She had her image etched on to coins alongside her son. She was the power behind the throne and at first Nero most likely went along with her direction. Why would a seventeen year old get bored with the tedious affairs of state when he can concentrate on exercising power in a flamboyant almost ceremonial role. Later on as he matured and looked for a wife did he want to draw the reigns of power back to himself and his inner circle? According to Tacitus she was forewarned by sages of her death at the hands of her son but hubristically retorted let him kill me but let him rule

Many of the accounts of the death of Agrippina were from writers who looked upon Nero unfavorably although that should not discount the accounts that we have from Tacitus, Suetonius and others. Apparently, there was bad blood between them and they had both separately concluded that the other should die or risk dying at the other's hands. In time Nero believed there was a conspiracy to murder him concocted by Agrippina who was to send Agerinus to dispatch him. The coup failed and Nero made plans to get rid of her before she had another opportunity to depose him. Alexis Dawson in her article What Ever Happened to Lady Agrippina accuses Tacitus of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story. It's true that it is a fascinating story, twisting and turning upon every fate.

To summarize,it goes something like this. After Agrippina's failed coup attempt, Nero throws a party for her (The feast of Minerva) and sends her on her way in the evening on a booby-trapped boat. The ceiling in her cabin is designed to cave in and being lined with lead it will, it is hoped, crush her and sink the boat. However, the falling ceiling fails to crush her as the couch breaks its fall. Some of the crew are in on the ruse and proceed to scupper the boat. Agrippina manages to swim out of the boat and then too safety on her island retreat at Bauli suffering only a shoulder wound. Various people on the shore then come to her rescue but she tells them to tell Nero not to worry and not to send help. Agrippina is not dull and she has figured out who is behind the plot. Despite her entreaties, Nero dispatches Anicetus and some soldiers who turn up at her house and kill her. "Smite my womb" is her ripost' but it is 22 years too late.

Of this account Dawson asserts that from beginning to end [they] are a farrago of lies and absurdities and she accuses Tacitus of moving around events to suit his narrative and create a compelling motive. The way that Tacitus tells it, Nero's mistress Poppaea Sabina (and Otho's wife) was begging him to marry her but Agrippina stood in the way. The concept here is that Poppaea talked Nero into murdering Agrippina, marry her and produce an heir. This indeed did happen but it was in AD62, three years after Agrippina's death. Unfortunately the baby survived only a few months. Suetonius, she believes, is a little more believable by setting the action in her country estate but finds the method of murder, a collapsing roof, risible. It is also thought unlikely that Poppaea would have been so forward with her plans when she was still married to Otho. However, once Otho is out the way governing Lusitania this plan take on a lot more credence

Alternatively, it was possible that she was traveling to the festival and conspiring with Otho to depose Nero when her shipped was accidentally rammed. As a back up plan Agerinus was sent to stab Nero but failed. She swam back to her estate and hearing news of the botched assassination attempt she took her own life before she could be arrested.

Although there are holes in Tacitus' account especially the role of Poppaea and the collapsing roof does sound like dramatic license, it is still possible that the events did take place but were a little more prosaic. Perhaps Nero was planning to murder her and was using the festival as cover. Perhaps her boat was accidentally rammed and she swam back to shore. And perhaps, upon Nero hearing intelligence of the event, hastily devised plan B and had Anicetus kill her whilst there was still confusion over the chronology of events.

Conclusions

Was Agrippina a power hungry, Livia wannabe or just a strong woman who has been unfairly vilified misogynistic male historians?

She had suffered at the hands of her brother Caligula, legitimately or otherwise we cannot know for sure. She rehabilitated herself after his death and then, against all odds, adeptly wormed her way in to Claudius' affections. Was this her attempt to ensure she kept her hand on the levers of power even after the death of Claudius by promoting her son as his heir, or just a pragmatic maneuver is ensure the continued pre-eminence of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

She could have retired in to gentle obscurity one thinks once Nero had established himself as a powerful ruler of Rome, but is retirement ever an option when you have acquired inevitably so many enemies down the years. Opting out is not an option.

The ignominy of her slow fall from power and the silence surrounding her death meant that it was easy to sweep her out of history. The men who wrote this histories of Rome were happy to pretend that a woman had never ruled them. But for almost ten years, Agrippina unofficially ruled the Roman empire as partner to her husband and son. She was hailed as Augusta and was empress in all but name. She fought against and transgressed the limits of her sex more than any other woman of the Roman imperial world

See this webpage for a comparison between Tacitus ans Suetonius accounts of her death: http://www.johndclare.net/AncientHistory/Agrippina_Sources10.html

• http://etc.ancient.eu/education/agrippina-the-younger/
• https://unbound.com/books/agrippina