She was one of the more well-known women of the Julio-Claudian family, and had direct connections to three Julio-Claudian emperors. Written by Emily Globe for CLAS 2501, Fall 2018, at Mount Allison University. Vols. She was suspected of poisoning her second husband, Passienus Crispus, in 49. She was the sister of the Emperor Caligula, a … Now you see them, now you don’t: the presences and absence of women in Roman art. 13.6, 13.14-15, 13.18, Suet. He wanted his wife, the teenage Octavia, and his mother to remain private and silent. Paulina was sent into exile in Italy on orders of Agrippina and was compelled to commit suicide. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. This illusion was shattered when, in October AD 54, Agrippina murdered her husband with a poisoned mushroom and declared her 16-year-old son, under the name Nero, as emperor in his place. He had fallen in love with an unsuitable woman named Poppaea, and wanted to be free to marry her. Tacitus easily is the most detailed when it comes to Agrippina’s personality and motives, with Dio a close second. The association of Imperial women with minor goddesses was a common tactic used in the Imperial period to promote the Imperial family as bringers of stability to the Roman people. Thus, she became the Roman lady after Livia Drusilla and Antonia Minor to receive such a title. Ann. Wood, S. E. (1999). To many who knew him, the child bride’s new husband was “despicable and dishonest.”, In 37 AD, Agrippina moved up in the world when her brother Caligula became Emperor of Rome after his uncle’s death.

first two years of college and save thousands off your degree. Madame de Pompadour was the alluring chief mistress of King Louis XV, but few people know her dark history—or the chilling secret shared by her and Louis. First, he tried to poison her on several occasions, but she always took an antidote each time. His rule was initially tumultuous and authoritarian, but became more peaceful after his marriage to his fourth wife: Agrippina. Let’s just say that the young girl did not take after her parents….

Guardianships existed due to the belief that women had weak judgement (infirmitas consilii), which meant they were unable to make rational or good decisions by themselves. She was in her villa when they found and murdered her. As with all things Caligula, this kindness may have had a dark side. Please let us know if a fact we’ve published is inaccurate (or even if you just suspect it’s inaccurate) by reaching out to us at contribute@factinate.com. She was 43 years old. Gnaeus died in January AD 41 due to edema at Pyrgi. Contemplating marriage for the fourth time, Claudius chose Agrippina, his niece, among the three candidates put forward by his advisors including Caligula’s third wife, Lollia Paulina. Her first husband and Nero’s biological father, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, died of edema. Regardless, Tacitus remains one of the most important sources for information about the life of the Julio-Claudian family. You have successfully linked your account! Ann. We’re told that when Agrippina’s assassins arrived, her last spiteful words were, “Smite my womb.” That’s right, she commanded them to stab her in her womb because it had borne her such an awful son. Meanwhile, Agrippina became mistress of eminent Greek freedman and secretary, Marcus Antonius Pallas. As a final humiliation, she was made to carry the ashes of the executed Lepidus with her. Later that year, Emperor Claudius was dead. 12.3). Caligula might have been one of the most fearsome Roman emperors, but he had nothing on his baby sister Agrippina. Daughter of Germanicus. She and they were exiled and executed in mysterious circumstances by the emperor Tiberius. He did not want his mother to be present at political events and, in order to make his point clear, he publicly humiliated her multiple times in front of foreign delegations and Roman officials. All the ruthless matriarch replied was, “Let him kill me, provided he becomes emperor.”. Then, even after Nero exiled Agrippina from his palace to a country estate, he still regularly sent people over just to annoy her. She allegedly poisoned him with a mushroom. 13.20, 14.3). Roman Imperial Coinage (Vol.

His reign is associated with cruelty and numerous executions. Her power gradually weakened, however, as Nero came to take charge of the government. Because Nero was only 16 when he succeeded Claudius, Agrippina at first attempted to play the role of regent. 13.1). Barrett, A. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. These included the rights of the Vestal Virgins and issuing coins portraying his images along with his sisters. The use of Diana, the goddess of marriage and childbirth, on the reverse of the denarius is likely a means of associating Agrippina with the Roman ideal of women as wives and nurturers. There is little mentioned in Dio’s writing that is not mentioned in Tacitus or Suetonius, and his framing of events is very similar to that of Tacitus. Factinate is a fact website that is dedicated to finding and sharing fun facts about science, history, animals, films, people, and much more. Livia – Augustus’s wife and Tiberius’s mother – had previously been the model of a Roman women. There were no more coup attempts from the armies, or significant violence in Rome. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. One of Agrippina’s first acts was to found a town at the place of her birth in Germany and name it after herself. 60.33). To maintain the power she still had, she left Rome and moved to an estate in southern Italy, where she continued as a major figure in Roman politics for the rest of her days. If ancient sources are to believed, this was only the first instance of Agrippina using her influence to advance her position.

Julia Agrippina is best remembered now as the tyrannical mother of mad emperor Nero, or as the overbearing and murderous wife of the emperor Claudius. “I don’t think anything produced by me and Agrippina could possibly be good for the state or the people,” he said. This way, Tacitus could write about the history of the Julio-Claudians but avoid placing blame for failures on imperial men, including the emperor himself. 1. Spoiler: He was not wrong. The denarius at one point featured jugate busts of Claudius and Agrippina on the obverse, with a representation of the goddess Diana on the reverse (RIC I, 54), and the aureus featured a solo bust of Agrippina on the reverse (RIC 1, 53). Supplementary Volumes. Threatened by Agrippina’s son Nero and his rivalry with her own son Britannicus, Messalina even once hired assassins to kill Nero—they failed. The sources almost unanimously paint her as a tyrant, desperate to cling to power and terrified of her stepson Britannicus being promoted above Nero.
Agrippina the Younger, Fire is dominant in your natal chart and endows you with intuition, energy, courage, self-confidence, and enthusiasm! Rather, it is more likely that he chooses to focus more directly on the Julio-Claudian Emperors themselves, rather than tell the narrative of the family as a whole, like Tacitus. During her exile, Agrippina’s husband died of dropsy and her brother died of a sword to the throat. This last fear may well have been true. Create your account, Already registered? To them, Agrippina was only doing her best to lead Rome while her ineffective, easily influenced husband Claudius plowed it into ruin. Following Messalina’s mock marriage with Roman senator Gaius Silius and knowledge of their plot to assassinate Claudius, the latter ordered their execution in AD 48. Agrippina returned to Rome after his death in 41 C.E., and her freedman Pallas convinced the new Emperor Claudius to marry her (Tac. Not only Paulina, Agrippina had many others executed who she regarded as a potential threat to her and Nero’s position. For a society that lusted for the blood of gladiators and executed empresses on the regular, Romans had a kind of fussy taboo about uncles marrying their nieces. Another example is from 54 C.E., when Nero prepared to speak with a group of Armenians, and Agrippina had to be stopped from joining him (Tac.

Agrippina appears on eight coins during the reign of her son Nero, all of which date from the first year of Nero’s reign (RIC 9-16). Despite widespread disapproval at their relationship, Claudius married Agrippina in 49 CE. Agrippina and Claudius betrothed Nero to Claudius’ daughter, Claudia Octavia, and the marriage took place on June 9, AD 53. © Copyright 2020 by Factinate.com. 14.8), as if she wanted to punish her womb for giving birth to Nero. Agrippina : mother of Nero. Earn Transferable Credit & Get your Degree. What followed was something so excessively violent, it’s hard to say whether it belongs in a Looney Tunes sketch or a Quentin Tarantino film. Agrippina taught her son well. Thanks! Vols. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. Being around all these powerful people had its benefits, and Agrippina learned quickly how to manipulate people to get what she wanted. However, the legal and cultural taboos against women in politics and the military never weakened. One key player in this drama was Julia Agrippina, more often remembered as Agrippina the Younger (15-59 CE). Before Agrippina was 20, though, both her parents were dead and it was widely believed that Tiberius had murdered them both. Do you question the accuracy of a fact you just read? Sources from the time describe him becoming mad with power, although much of this could have been propaganda meant to smear his reputation. Agrippina the Younger, therefore, was heir to some of the most prominent families in Rome and part of Rome's first imperial dynasty, which we call the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/agrippina-the-younger-34895.php, Reign Of Claudius, Agrippina S Second Marriage, Reign Of Nero, Agrippina S Power Struggle & Death. Politician Gaius Passienus divorced his wife just so he could marry her. flashcard sets, {{courseNav.course.topics.length}} chapters | Gnaeus was the only son of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 16 BC) and Antonia Major, niece of Augustus thus making him the great-nephew of Augustus. Ann. Agrippina is said to be behind Claudius’ untimely death, poisoning him at the dinner table so that Nero could become emperor (Tac. These years were notably more peaceful, stable and successful than the eight years of his reign prior to their marriage. Agrippina the Elder, her mother, was great-granddaughter of Augustus, the first Roman Empire. Her three elder brothers were Nero Caesar, Drusus Caesar and Caligula of whom the latter became Roman emperor. Agrippina also had her first son at this time, a boy named Lucius. 12.25, Suet. 1-9. She was soon honored with the extremely venerated title of Augusta, something usually reserved for empresses who held great power after their husbands had died. In AD 50, Claudius adopted Nero, then known as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. If one purpose of including imperial women and their domestic associations on coinage was to inspire the female populace to emulate that domesticity, then the proliferation of Agrippina’s image on coinage indicates that she held some influence with the Roman public.

For whatever reason, Agrippina, along with her sister and cousin, became involved in a plot to assassinate the emperor. You are inclined to be passionate, you assert your willpower, you move forward, and come hell or high water, you achieve your dreams and your goals. Agrippina’s only child. Born in what is now Cologne, Germany, but raised in Rome, Agrippina rose quickly into imperial politics. “Portrait Statues as Models for Gender Roles in Roman Society.”  Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome.


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