Born: 6 November AD 15, Germany
Died: 23 March AD 59
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: Julia Agrippina
Julia Agrippina was a powerful Roman empress and one of the most prominent and effective women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Ancient sources describe Agrippina as ruthless, ambitious, violent and domineering, as well as beautiful.
She was a major figure in succession intrigues and served as a behind-the-scenes advisor in affairs of state, as the sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, and ally of statesmen Seneca the Younger and Sextus Afranius Burrus. She maneuvered Nero, her son by a previous marriage, into the line of succession. Her husband Claudius became aware of her plotting, but died in 54 (possibly poisoned by Agrippina, as she was accused by ancient historians), and Nero took the throne. Agrippina exerted a commanding influence in the early years of his reign, but in 59 he had her killed, ending skillful machinations and her political influence once and for all.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
AGRIPPINA, JULIA, Great-granddaughter of Augustus, and daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina, was born amidst the excitement of war, in a Roman camp, on the shores of the Rhine, and reared under the laurels of her father’s conquests, and the halo of her mother’s grandeur. Her father’s death occurring at a very early period of her life, her first perception of the career opened to her might have been derived from the sympathy and respect accorded by the Roman people to her family, even in the presence of her father’s murderers.
Some historians have attributed to her a spirit of vengeance, which, though the accusation is not well substantiated, might indeed have been fostered by the trials of her life, commencing with her early estrangement from her glorious mother, which was followed by her persecution, first by the infamous Sejanus, and after the death of her husband Domitius, by her brother Caligula—who accused her before the senate, of participation in a conspiracy, forced them to condemn her, and had her driven into exile, where she remarried in constant fear of a violent death.
On the death of Caligula, Agrippina, recalled from exile, was married to the consul Crispinus, whose sudden death was ascribed by her enemies to poison administered by his wife. Five years after this, Pallas proposed her to Claudius, as the successor of Messalina; and after the interval of a year, during which Agrippina had much to contend with from rivalry and intrigue, the obstacle opposed to this marriage by the ties of consanguinity was relieved by a special law, and the daughter of Germanicus ascended the throne of Augustus, and ruled the empire from that moment, in the name of her imbecile husband. Under her brilliant and vigorous administration, faction was controlled, order re-established, and that system of espionage abolished which had filled Rome with informers and their victims. The reserve and dignity of her deportment produced a reform in the manners of the imperial palace, and her influence over her husband was of a most salutary nature.
Tacitus has loaded the memory of Agrippina with the imputation of inordinate ambition, and, though there is probably considerable calumny in these charges, it may be supposed that a temperament like hers, did not shrink from the arbitrary and cruel acts which might be thought necessary to her safety or advancement. Still, the woman must be judged by the circumstances under which she lived, and with reference to the morality of her contemporaries; and, so judged, she rises immeasurably superior to the greatest men associated with her history.
Agrippina was the first woman who acquired the privilege of entering the capitol in the vehicle assigned to the priests in religious ceremonies, and on all public occasions she took an elevated seat reserved for her near the emperor.
On the occasion of the adoption of her son to the exclusion of the emperor’s own child by Messalina, the infant Britannicus, she received the cognomen of Augusta; and to the prophetic augur who bade her “beware, lest the son she had so elevated might prove her ruin,” she replied, “Let me perish, but let Nero reign.” In this answer we have the secret of her great actions, and the motive for all her imputed crimes. Amidst all her lofty aspirations, her indomitable pride, her keen sense of injuries inflicted, her consciousness of power acquired, there was one deep and redeeming affection; this brilliant despot, the astute politician of her age, was still, above all and in all—a mother!
The marriage of her son to Octavia, the emperor’s daughter, consummated the hopes and views of Agrippina, and relieving her from maternal anxiety, allowed her to give up her mind entirely to the affairs of state; and owing to her vigorous guidance of the reins of government, the last years of the reign of Claudius were years of almost unequalled prosperity in every respect—and this indolent and imbecile emperor died while the genius and vigour of his wife were giving such illustrations to his reign.
Agrippina has been accused of poisoning her husband, but on no sufficient grounds—his own gluttony was probably the cause of his death. But that Agrippina’s arts seated her sou on the throne of the Cæsars, there can be no doubt.
In all this great historical drama, who was the manager, and moat efficient actor? woman or man? Whose was the superior mind? who was the intellectual agent? Was it the wily Seneca? the ductile Burrhus? the sordid army? the servile senate? the excitable people? or the consistent, concentrated Agrippina; who, actuated by one all-absorbing feeling, in the pursuit of one great object, put them all in motion? that feeling was maternal love; that object the empire of the world!
Nero was but eighteen years old when he ascended the throne; and, grateful to her whose genius had placed him there, he resigned the administration of affairs into her hands, and evinced an extraordinary tenderness and submission to his august mother. The senate vied with him in demonstrations of deference to her, and raised her to the priesthood, an assignment at once of power and respect.
The conscript fathers yielded to all her wishes; the Roman people had already been accustomed to seeing her on the imperial tribunal; and Seneca, Burrhus and Pallas became but the agents of her will. In reference to the repose and prosperity of the empire under her sway, Trajan, in after years, was wont to compare the first five years of Nero’s reign with those of Rome’s best emperors,
Agrippina must have early discovered Nero’s deficiency in that physical sensibility, and those finer sympathies which raise man above the tiger and vulture. She is reported to have said, “The reign of Nero has begun as that of Augustus ended; but when I am gone, it will end as that of Augustus began:”—the awful prophecy was soon accomplished. The profound policy by which she endeavoured to prolong her own government, and her watchfulness over the young Britannicus, are sufficient evidences that the son so loved in the perversity of maternal instinct must have eventually laid bare the inherent egotism and cruelty of his nature.
When, on the occasion of a public reception given to an embassy from the East, Agrippina moved forward to take her usual place beside Nero, he, with officious courtesy and ironical respect, sprang forward and prevented the accomplishment of her intention. After this public insult, Agrippina lost all self-control, and uttered passionate and impolitic words that were soon conveyed to the emperor, and by awakening his fears, let loose his worst passions. After murdering Britannicus to frustrate her designs, imprisoning her in her own palace, and attempting to poison her, a reconciliation took place between Nero and Agrippina, of which the mother was the only dupe, for the world understood the hollowness of her son’s professions of affection, and all abandoned her.
Nero was now resolved on the death of his mother, and took great pains in arranging an artful scheme to accomplish it—which was frustrated by Aceronia, who voluntarily received the blow intended for her mistress. Agrippina escaped then, but was soon afterwards murdered by Anicetus, who, commissioned by her son, entered her chamber with a band of soldiers, and put an end to her life, after a glorious reign of ten years; during which she was distinguished for her personal and intellectual endowments, and gave peace and prosperity to the empire she governed. Her faults belonged to the bad men and bad age in which she lived—the worst on record: her virtues and her genius were her own. She inherited them from Agrippa, the friend and counsellor of Augustus, and from Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus.
The mind of this extraordinary woman was not wholly engrossed by the arts of intrigue or the cares of government; she found time to write her own Memoirs or Commentaries on the events of her time, of which Tacitus availed himself for his historical works. Pliny also quotes from her writings.
The following is excerpted from Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World, designed and Arranged by William C. King, published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.
Agrippina II, Mother of Nero, 16 -32 A.D.
Nero was a monster of inequity. His reign was a carnival of crime. Who and what was the mother of this man? She was born in a Roman camp on the shores of the Rhine. Her fiery and ambitious spirit was probably stimulated by her father’s conquests. After the death of her father she was driven into exile by her brother, Caligula, who accused her of conspiracy.
After some years, Agrippina married, for her second husband, her uncle Claudius, who had become emperor. She ruled him absolutely, and when she thought he had lived long enough caused him to be poisoned in order that she might obtain the throne for her son Nero. Claudius had a son, Britannicus, by his first wife, Messalina, who was therefore the rightful heir of the throne. He was put out of the way his father had been, by whose hand we cannot say.
Agrippina was inordinately ambitious for her son Nero. She was in many respects a woman of ability in affairs of state. Her ambition was at last gratified in seeing her son proclaimed as emperor. But she could not readily relinquish her power, and so there arose jealousy between mother and son. She was warned of the danger, but explained, “Let me perish, but let Nero reign!”
The son who had reached the throne by his mother’s crimes, turned against her and plotted her death. He caused a boat to be constructed that it would easily fall to pieces in a slight storm. This occurred as Agrippina was crossing the gulf of Baiæ. Instead of drowning she swam ashore, and later was brutally murdered. Her unscrupulous ambition for her son had its grim recompense.
For ten years she was the virtual ruler, that is, for the last five years of her Claudius’ life and the first five years of Nero’s occupation on the throne, and her reign, though marked by domestic crimes, was a prosperous one for the state.